August 10, 2009
you're mucking with a G here, pal
8/10/09
at the "town meeting" in Hudson, NY last Saturday
We seem to be entering some pretty dangerous times in America - not from Muslim extremists, Russian submarines, or semi-disposable Swedish furniture, but from our fellow Americans. While we've spent the last decade concentrating on Iraq and North Korea, the most dangerous threat to our national stability is coming from a group of people who eat at Wendy's, watch "The Mentalist" and love baseball.
These motherfuckers go by several names: "birthers", "tea-baggers", even "deathers", but they're functionally the exact same set of Americans: predominantly white, middle-class "conservatives" over 35 who are dead-set against anything Obama is trying to do. I put "conservatives" in quotes, because they have almost nothing in common with classic conservatism - instead, these people have the following characteristics:
- they are virulent racists who know they can't be racists anymore, and thus choose to couch their bigotry in such canards as the "Obama isn't an actual American" horseshit
- they view the federal government as evil by definition, even though they live almost exclusively through the largesse offered them by the federal government
- they have a violent reaction to the government making any decisions about their health care, instead opting for huge insurance companies to make those decisions instead
- they don't want to pay for anything, have no inherent ability to feel pain for anybody outside their immediate family, have a narcissistic selfishness that is only outweighed by their propensity towards confrontation and anger, and appear to be completely impervious to facts.
This subset of Angry Americans has been percolating for a long time, but two things have given them legitimacy: the rise of a certain "news" network that feeds on their hatred like a heroin dealer, and the utterly shameful Presidential campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin. Most normal people got their first glimpses of these wingnuts during the coverage of Palin's anti-Obama rallies, when shouts of "terrorist!" and "kill him!" were met with a tacit wink and nod.
A lot of people have lumped them together as "angry Southern white males", but that's accurate in neither geography nor gender. Sure, their numbers are highly concentrated in the South, but they can be found traumatizing town meetings pretty much anywhere (see pic above), and a shitload of them are women. Besides, I have a knee-jerk reaction to Americans from other regions denigrating the South like they've got it figured out. I'd prefer we stick to the states that deserve it, like Kentucky and Georgia.
Regardless of their place and relatively small numbers, I admit to being a little scared of what these people are capable of. I would not put it past them to put little militias together - they've already made a HUGE run on guns since Obama's election - and take things into their own hands. I would also not put it past them to attempt the unthinkable, and all of you know what I'm talking about.
What is a pansy liberal like me to think? I emulate the meditating Buddhist as much as I can, but part of me always thinks of David Mamet's lines in "The Untouchables": They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. *That's* the *Chicago* way! Since these fuckers are well past any kind of sound reasoning, so far removed from logic, can't be swayed by statistics, and consider a respectful debate to be profane, I'd like to know what us progressives should be ready for, if these nutters take it to the next level.
I shouldn't call them names? Why not? What does it matter anyway? Would they change their minds if we were nicer about it?
Every time I write something like this, I get emails from people telling me I'm overreacting and there's no boogeyman, etc... which is fine, I'm more than happy for this dead-ender movement to fizzle out, if that's what will happen. But we just elected our first black President, and these fuckjobs have nothing to lose. History has shown us, time and again, that violent pushback occurs directly after the status quo is ruptured. I just hope these twits dissolve into their own obesity before they get their gun rack unlocked.
"Their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very simple, 'Go for broke'... [they're] literally leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying 'The first person who wants to use this, GO AHEAD'"
Ian, as always, I simply ask that you be fair:
Yes, there are some kooks within the conservative world, but it doesn't mean that conservatives are all kooky. For example, according to one poll, a larger percentage of liberals believe that Bush had prior knowledge of the specific details of 9/11 than there are conservatives who believe that Obama isn't a citizen. Does this mean all liberals are kooks? Nope.
If Bush had wanted to totally revamp 1/6 of the national economy and his Congressional allies admitted that they hadn't read the proposed bill, you would have gone apeshit.
If Bush had asked his allies to report the identities of dissenters of the War on Terror to his administration, you would have gone apeshit.
If Bush had called someone "stupid" from the Presidential podium although admitting in the previous sentence that he didn't know all the facts, you would have gone apeshit.
If Bush never made a speech without reading it from a teleprompter, you would have sworn he was a boob.
If Bush had named SIXTEEN different czars to oversee various sectors of society, you would have sworn that he was subverting the system of checks & balances established by the Constitution.
If the Bush administration had dmismissed all charges against a racist organization AFTER a Judge had already ruled that they did indeed violate voters' civil rights on Election Day, you would have gone apeshit. But, Obama's group did exactly that against those swell guys from the Black Panthers carrying nightsticks.
If Bush (or a Republican Speaker of the House) had publicly declared that Democrats that protest are "un-American", you would have gone apeshit. But, Pelosi did it in USA Today this week.
If a Republican Congress ordered $550M in fancy new jets although it had been decided that less than half that amount of money was needed, you'd have sworn that Halyburton must be involved somehow. [To be fair, Pelosi has now scrapped this plan because of the backlash].
If the Bush administration issued Talking Points declaring that all healthcare townhall participants were manufacturing their anger, being bussed in, and were "Astroturf", you'd say thathe was out of touch with the pulse of America or some liberals would say that he was racist for accusing ACORN, Black Panthers, et al for doing such things.
If Bush's polling had gone down 17 points (Rasmussen) since being sworn is as President, you'd crow that the country was seeing the light.
If Bush's White House had released memoes that routinely contained spelling errors (look it up), you'd have crowed that Bush has difficulty spelling when writing with his crayon.
If Bush various Cabinet nominees had failed or refused to pay taxes, you'd have gone crazy.
If Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court had said, on several occasions something like "I would certainly hope that my experience as a white male would lend me a certain wisdom that a Latina woman would not have", the world would have burst.
There are boobs all over the political spectrum. Just be fair.
Dean
Dean, just wanted to say I agree 100%. I'm continually disappointed by each side's inability to see this.
Dean, Ben, did you actually read this? Listen to the clip? No one said "conservatives." The rants are against this lunatic fringe. In fact, Ian even said that they are not real "conservatives." For heaven's sake, this was not about Bush. Bush seems positively benign and wise compared to .. well, compared to Glen Beck and Sarah Palin and the town hall screamers. Ian didn't mention Bush. Bush is yesterday's news, and what is happening now feels like the rumblings of national catastrophe.
These hatemongers... not just the appalling shouters and gun-stashers, but the likes of Fox News and Sarah Palin are a real danger to our country and to our safety. Palin ranting about "death panels" is completely unconscionable. And shouting down the debate is anti-American. Fox News, especially Beck, Limbaugh, and the other formenters, are just flat out reprehensible. Read and listen again to the post, you guys. You are as guilty of mis-stating and completely missingn what has been written and said.
I mourn, I long, I hope and pray for sanity to return. And I'll just say it... most of the anti-Obama nonsense is racist at its heart. And Sarah Palin is a pathetic loser who will do anything for attention. And the birthers, deathers, shouters, will NOT listen to reason. You guys are smarter than that. Read the piece again.
There's so much hate out there. I'm honestly scared.
Mom, I may concede that my post did not address the heart of Ian's rant. My post, I suppose, addresses the larger issue that both sides have nuttiness. Ian likes to look across the aisle and say that there are so many kooks on our side. The fact is that there are kooks on both sides and to paint one side with such a broad brush isn't fair.
My comment wasn't about Bush per se. My comment merely used Bush as an illustration of how BOTH sides look through their own rose-colored glasses. Again, if Republicans or conservatives had done the items I listed above, you would be making your same comment as you did above: that you are scared. But, because Obama and the liberals are doing it, you are not scared of it?
Ben,
You lost me when you used Rasmussen as your gauge of Obama "popularity". His "polls" are designed to feed the right.
HKK, I didn't use Rasmussen.
Mom, I didn't say Dean's comment was referring to Ian's post. I'm agreeing with the substance of what he wrote. I'm *probably* far more of a liberal than most people who read this blog, but it really bothers me when people don't see or seem concerned with the problems with their own side.
That's all...
-Ben
"...the most dangerous threat to our national stability is coming from a group of people who eat at Wendy's, watch "The Mentalist" and love baseball."
First, I occasionally watch the mentalist and enjoy watching my hometown world champion Philadelphia Phillies beat up on the Mets, so at least two of those three characteristics are ill-founded. I won't eat fast food, that shit is poison.That said, I am currently watching the coverage of Arlen Specter's townhall meeting in Lebanon, PA - part of the "red T" of the state that James Carville described as Alabama wedged between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh - and these people are not only irrationally angry, but apparently willfully ignorant of the facts of the healthcare issue. It appears to be a growing trend amongst so-called conservatives to blabber on about whatever nonsense Fox News and Rush Limbaugh spew their programs. "Wahhh, bureaucrats will make healthcare decisions!" So I suppose that unaccountable, private industry bureaucrats is acceptable, but bureaucrats who work for the government, for us...well, doG forbid!
Pardon my language, but fuck these people. I welcome the Dickensian nightmare that these people wish for with their pure laizzez-faire capitalist system. If nothing else, my hope would be that it would thin the herd of stupidity that is currently on display.
Ian, well stated as awlays.
I agree in that this fringe scares me and that it seems that they are being drummed up by a few TV personalities/networks that simply crave ratings. IMHO, the two best days in Limbaugh's career were the days Clinton and Obama took office. He knew he had at least 4 more years of viewers.
So what's a solution here? Keep pointing out the fringe? Calling them fringe? Calling out the media beating the drums?
When I'm a rich old white guy, I hope I have the good sense to think outside my diapers or shut up and sit down.
I'm finding it hard to believe that there are enough people out there that still have insurance, they want to fight for. I'm surprised that this economy hasn't inspired an actual socialist party.
In the Georgia you speak of, I know of illegal aliens that had to go back to Mexico. The red necks came back for their jobs. That's important for two reasons. It means the economy is hurting and it means that newly constructed homes are going to have empty cigarette packs and beer cans between the walls instead of insulation.
I'm with you on this, Ian. Getting even more liberal in my old age, and completely appalled/astonished at the craziness. Yes, I would say that of either "side," but right now it's the ticked-off loser right-wingers who are making my head hurt.
Slightly off-topic, but a great rant nonetheless, from the scary bogeyman of lib-rull blogs, Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/11/764602/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Tuesday
Salem: What you wrote. Also:
"I'm surprised that this economy hasn't inspired an actual socialist party."
Our 17 yo son proudly labels himself "very liberal/soc ialist" on Facebook and everywhere else. He goes to a Catholic school, is totally into social justice and against hypocrisy and greed, and is mad as hell about the Darwinian lunacy he sees in our individualist-at-all-costs society. I love him!
It is hard to read through exactly what Ian is proposing but it appears, at least in reading between the lines, that he is proposing that the liberal/rational side in this country come to the conclusion that many on the opposite side have advocated for years. Arming ourselves and being prepared to fight....physically fight, for what we believe in. Has a match been struck?
I think you nailed this movement. The one thing I think (hope) you're wrong about is that this movement is legitimated thanks to Fox and McCain/Palin. There's a chart out there on the interwebs showing a correlation between the health of Fox News' ratings and the low public opinion of the GOP. If you buy that, then Fox may be an agent of Republican marginalization.
As for McCain/Palin, the fact that they couldn't gin up enough aggrieved whites to beat a black presidential candidate suggests that the old Phillips/Nixon/Wallace/Furnifold Simmons playbook is finally done for. And it's hard to see how Republicans cobble together a winning national coalition going forward. (Although living in a Southern state, as I do, could be an alienating experience for decades to come.)
But if McCain/Palin is a last gasp for the hopes of the populist right on the national level, it's still certainly true that there are more than enough nuts out there for BO to think about spending some considerable time in the Cheney bunker going forward.
P.S. (I'm on the warpath this morning! LOL) -- Thanks for the Rachel Maddow link. That is a powerful interview and one I am going to bookmark. The guy doesn't mince words: people who label our moderate-liberal president a "Nazi" and agitate for our government NOT to succeed don't qualify as patriots by any stretch of the word.
"gin up enough aggrieved-white sentiment," I meant.
the president said the police acted stupidly.
Dean wrote:
"If Bush had wanted to totally revamp 1/6 of the national economy and his Congressional allies admitted that they hadn't read the proposed bill, you would have gone apeshit."
This strains credulity. And factually wrong: hardly any Republican had read the Patriot Act, and we DID go apeshit, to no avail.
"If Bush had asked his allies to report the identities of dissenters of the War on Terror to his administration, you would have gone apeshit."
Both of these things happened! Dean, where were you from 2002-2006?
"If Bush had called someone 'stupid' from the Presidential podium although admitting in the previous sentence that he didn't know all the facts, you would have gone apeshit."
Obama said the police "acted stupidly", which is a different sentence with different meaning. And let's not get into the things Bush said. The man set English comprehension back two centuries.
"If Bush never made a speech without reading it from a teleprompter, you would have sworn he was a boob."
This teleprompter thing has got to be the lamest right-wing talking point of the season.
"If Bush had named SIXTEEN different czars to oversee various sectors of society, you would have sworn that he was subverting the system of checks & balances established by the Constitution."
Again, let's not get into what Bush ACTUALLY DID to the Constitution. And yes, we went apeshit.
"If the Bush administration had dmismissed all charges against a racist organization AFTER a Judge had already ruled that they did indeed violate voters' civil rights on Election Day, you would have gone apeshit. But, Obama's group did exactly that against those swell guys from the Black Panthers carrying nightsticks."
Oh my god. Dean, are you seriously writing this?
"If Bush (or a Republican Speaker of the House) had publicly declared that Democrats that protest are 'un-American', you would have gone apeshit. But, Pelosi did it in USA Today this week."
She's damn right it's un-American. To go to town meetings SPECIFICALLY to squelch debate and create fear is the DEFINITION of "un-American".
"If the Bush administration issued Talking Points declaring that all healthcare townhall participants were manufacturing their anger, being bussed in, and were "Astroturf", you'd say thathe was out of touch with the pulse of America or some liberals would say that he was racist for accusing ACORN, Black Panthers, et al for doing such things."
The far-right's involvement in these townhall disruptions has been exhaustively reported, so I won't waste time here repeating it. Liberals have trouble getting three other liberals to agree on ANYTHING, so that's a hilarious comparison.
"If Bush's White House had released memoes that routinely contained spelling errors (look it up), you'd have crowed that Bush has difficulty spelling when writing with his crayon."
This is the first I've heard of this, and I keep my ear to the ground. But fine, I guess you're right.
"If Bush various Cabinet nominees had failed or refused to pay taxes, you'd have gone crazy."
I did go crazy. That shit makes me insane.
"If Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court had said, on several occasions something like 'I would certainly hope that my experience as a white male would lend me a certain wisdom that a Latina woman would not have', the world would have burst."
Dean, this is the prime example of the conservative mindset's FALSE EQUIVALENCY. If you don't see how being a female Hispanic in this country is a fundamentally different experience than being a white male, then I'm truly at a loss. People who have been constantly marginalized have seen things that the dominant paradigm can't see, period. I'm tired of everyone dancing around this issue, when it's so goddamn obvious. The way these rich, white Republican Senators went after Sotomayor as if THEY were somehow the offended party... god, if this were a Disney movie, they'd all be forced to clean someone else's house for 27 years, and then everyone would learn a little something about themselves as the soundtrack swelled.
Amen Ian. Amen.
""If Bush's White House had released memoes that routinely contained spelling errors..."
Ha ha. Favorite self-referential, shoot-self-in-foot comment of the day.
You say memoes, I say memos (and so does Webster's).
"what progressives should be ready for"...I'm not sure but I'll share this with you: My dad and my wife are two of the biggest right-wingers I know, both giving me shit over the weekend for not being a concealed weapons carrier. Both of them work with pretty much the only class of people you're talking about- Dad, a state prison doc who had a rural practice for over twenty years (took the job when forced out by the hospital system that bought his practice AND the cost of all the various sorts of insurance!), and wife, social worker for hospice with over half the salary coming from medicare and who complains daily about the entitled-feeling and dysfunctional families of the class of people you hate, AND the wealthy people you know (the dying patients really don't give a rat's ass). They are completely involved in the system we're talking about and they are armed and talk continuous amounts of shit about the people they're trying to help.
My personal take: Anyone is a saint for even trying to propose a system that is universal. I don't think it will work (whatever it is, doesn't really matter), it will be way too expensive and it will force open decisions on people that will only incite them further, like, for decades. These decisions are already continuously made ("deathers"? sorry, happens every day between private doctors, VA doctors, Medicare, etc. I'll say it again: already happens, right now, every day. I know this for a fact).
Since I'm not a saint I'll say this: forget about it Obama. Try to clean up our wars, muddle through our economy, open up some constructive dialogue with other nations, have a good vacation on the Vineyard and let these miserable fucks go armed against their neighbors, insurance executives, elected representatives. If you give them a system, they will only become more difficult and entitled. As for you Ian, I don't think these armed yelling freaks will get much further than their small zone of existence, and you don't hang out in those zones-
I'm not scared of them. I think it's just great.
The more they scream and rant and froth at the mouth and scream some more, the better a job I know the Democrats are doing.
The more they make spectacles of themselves, the more voters will flee the Republican party in disgust, turning to the Libertarians, Constitution Party or Independent if they don't like the Democrats either. And the fewer elections they will win.
The higher the old white guys drive their blood pressure, the fewer of them there will be and the sooner the younger generations, who increasingly vote Democrat, will take over.
The stupider the Republican base gets, the less effective they will be.
The crazier the South gets, the fewer members of the majority party will be in Congress from there, chairing committees and causing trouble as blue dogs.
They're out of power and show every indication of being incapable of getting back there. Schadenfreude pie tastes better when topped with the desperation of one's loser enemies.
Agree with Piglet.
So are you ready for me to tell you why you and Tessa should own, and learn how to use, a gun? Or do you still not want to hear it?
Your free-market Socialist / staunchly "liberal-tarian" friend,
Summer
I have always had guns. I really like guns.
For my business deposits, I've had a carrying permit for years. Last year I sold my guns. I really hated to sell my Glocks, but I have kids and they have a great resale value.
My point is this. When I sold those guns, as I drove home I felt strangely liberated. It was an unexpected sense of relief and calm. I think non-sporting guns shackle our minds to an irrational collection of fears and the charade of thinking we can control all of our circumstances.
O.K. My real point is.......
Don't buy a gun. Gun-think sucks.
I keep thinking of the poor Dixie Chicks who got death threats for a very innocent little comment about Bush at one of their concerts. Somehow that was un-American and horrible but this stuff is okay?
I really don't care what people yell or say but what I do care about is that they are totally warping the health care plan details to scare people. Death panels?? WTF?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/6/1/737793/-Insurance-Cos.-cause-doctor-to-quit
Hey - I just discovered I made Daily Kos! Check it out..
Neva: Yay for you! I spent a little time on Daily Kos yesterday and ended up posting a link to Bill's rant on my Facebook and causing friends of mine from different points on the political spectrum to get in an online shouting match about health care, abortion, yadda yadda.
Note to self: Keep politics off Facebook page. (As if I'll be able to restrain myself.)
What do you have against baseball? I'm thinking the nutjobs are more WWE people, no? Or NASCAR? And I enjoy a Frosty once in a while. Haven't seen The Mentalist.
I'm fine with the rest.
Alack, I think I was misread - I was using Wendy's, baseball and "The Mentalist" as shorthand for "what pretty much everyone in America does, even liberals."
I love a good Frosty, and I think the fries at Wendy's can be better than McDonald's (although I know that's not always a popular opinion). And I'm an Orioles fan.