Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, a longtime friend of Crib From This, recently found himself at one of his local watering holes, engaged in a political conversation with his
good friend who also happens to be rightist ideologue, who claimed that there was a provision in the Congressional/Obama Health Care reform proposal that allows for abortions of people up to fifteen years old. Whew!Whew, indeed! But that's the kind of dissembling that is so incomprehensible that even the person who believes he believes it can't actually, at the end of the day, believe it.
I mean... Cause, how would that work, exactly? Kind of difficult to picture... That's what happens, Republicans, when you simply memorize talking points without actually thinking through what (or, for that matter, whether) they mean!!
But wait: It gets better! I give you, the Crib From This community, courtesy of Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, the Deranged Dixiecrat Right in its full glory:
Also, we were at a bar and a random drunk dude came to our table and my friend and he struck up a conversation and he happened to also be a rightist ideologue who predicted (with my friend) that Obama was leading the United States into the worst depression in history AND that we would have another Civil War within the next two years. Whew!Yes, you read correctly. This man thinks that there's going to be another CIVIL WAR within the NEXT TWO YEARS! To which our correspondent, Gypsy Sun and Rainbows, responded, in the heroic moment to which our title refers:
When the guy brought up the Civil War thing, I said: "Yeah, if it happens, it will because of people like YOU."YYYYEEEEESSSSS!!! And Gypsy Sun knocks one clean out of the park!!!
I think that I am not the only one for whom the Rightist rhetoric is increasingly alarming/disconcerting: Where does this venom and hatred come from? Why are so many people making themselves impossible to talk to? What's behind all this? Just incoherent hatred of taxes?
(Incoherent because Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security combined are currently by far the biggest national expense, and we are borrowing trillions of dollars from China to pay for it, instead of just taxing the Viagra-addled dicks off of those crusty old bastards!!! ["Greatest Generation," MY ASS!!!!?])
Just racism? Just propaganda about "socialism" and whatever? What the hell is behind this out-of-control turn that Rightist rhetoric has taken?
A few Right-wing apologists say: "These health care protests are no worse than the Left-wing protests during the lead up to the Iraq War!"
But that's a bit of a stretch, don't you think?
Why is it a stretch? Because nobody took those war protesters seriously. Tell me I'm crazy, but that seems fairly obvious to me.... Was there any moment during the run-up to Iraq upon which you recall thinking: "Maybe we're not really going to go to war??!!!"
No. The Iraq War was a done deal, long before it was even mentioned to the American People, and we all knew that at the time. The Right-wing anti-health care astroturf campaign, by contrast, threatens to derail the entire debate.
But, I repeat: What the hell is behind the disturbing militarization of Rightist rhetoric?
Gypsy Sun and Rainbows weighs in:
Yeah, kind of brings us back to our Sarah Palin debate. Since this health care stuff began, I think I am beginning to understand your concern [about the Right's increasingly ominous and irresponsible rhetoric]. Death Panels? It's been debunked, but people still believe it. Same with Obama's birth certificate thing.Right. What I personally find alarming is the sheer number of people who seem to be obsessed fanatically with these kinds of bizarre things.
Now, admittedly, I've never exactly met these people, but from what you and some others have said, it seems like a lot of the people saying this type of thing are people of whom you'd expect different -- more sober and less hysterical -- behavior.
Fortunately, unlike the health care nut jobs, I gather that the "birthers," as people seem to be calling them, are not exactly ever going to have the numbers to make anybody have to care about their bullshit, which I think makes it unquestionably a GOOD thing for the Democrats and for Obama: Even though all of the rhetoric and posturing is extremely unsettling, it definitely helps keep the Republican't Party* submerged in its present untrustworthy/uneducated/fanatic/non-mainstream cesspool.
By the way, although by no means do I wish to legitimize these so-called 'birthers', I would like to point out that there is so much evidence out there at present of Obama's having been born in Hawaii that it is almost unbelievable that anyone -- even mentally unbalanced people -- could actually continue to harbor doubts about this.
Specifically, in addition to all of the other evidence, there are numerous clippings from different Hawaii newspapers announcing Obama's birth!
Click here to see one of them. Ha ha ha!! Are there people who actually see stuff like this and STILL BELIEVE that he wasn't born in Hawaii??
___________________
* I just thought this up as I typed it. I'm sure I can't be the first. It's just too obvious.
Posts
6 comments:
My comment about them starting the Civil War was the only thing I could say. Otherwise, I could not figure out what to say in the face of their brand of rehearsed talking points. It seemed like they where researching this shit twenty four hours a day (of course researched from narrowly selected sources) and I must confess to not keep up with these issues as much as I could. I am generally in favor of health care reform that does not say that those who happen to be the victors in the pecuniary race are of more value than the rest, and that they deserve better healthcare. So, anyway, I did not have enough ammunition to comfortably engage very much in the debate. In fact, I was paying more attention to the ball game on TV than to listen to the propanda. I mean, if I wanted to watch FOXNEWS, I would have stayed home.
So, before you declare me a hero, I must say that I was more interested in baseball than engaging a blood pressure raising debate with people who seemingly made up their minds about most political issues at the time of their births.
And that's what makes you a hero.
I understand what you mean.
Honestly, I personally am finding this whole supposed "discussion" tiresome at this point. I too have lost my enthusiasm for ranting about it for the forseeable future.
Honestly, I am genuinely confused about what the hell Obama's strategy is on this one. I just seems totally hamfisted. I hope this is another one of those times that I'm proven wrong, but I'm honestly not seeing it right now.
First the administration lets the Right walk all over the very idea of healthcare reform while healthcare supporters don't even have a concrete enough idea of what the bill is to fight back. It's hard to be passionate about a plan that you don't know anything about.
And then, it is revealed that the Obama administration cut an obscene deal with the pharmaceutical industry whereby it appears that outrageous pharmaceutical prices are unlikely to drop as significantly as they need to. So the Left starts wondering: "WTF?"
THEN, yesterday (Sunday) Obama & Kathleen Sibelius, etc., start talking about how a public insurance option "isn't that important to reform," and that something called "co-ops" might be better, which naturally infuriates the Left and furthermore leaves cooler heads/moderates completely confused, simply because nobody knows what the hell these "co-ops" are...
At the moment, I have to say that I just don't see what the hell the administration's logic is. Why weren't they, for instance, arming supporters early on with the obvious retorts to the "socialism" bullshit?: the biggest one being Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security. A huge percentage of the people talking about "socialism" are themselves recipients of Medicare/Social Security, the two most expensive socialist projects in American life!
The only thing I can think of is that they're really putting the spotlight on how ugly some of this Right-wing rhetoric has become, waiting it out until suburbanites who voted for him in the Gen. Election become increasingly disgusted.
For example: -- and I'm not kidding about this -- in Arizona there were apparently Right-wing demonstrators nearby a Presidential Town Hall who were flaunting LOADED SEMI-AUTOMATICS and at least one RIFLE!!! And in Arizona, it's legal to do this! Obviously, the Secret Service isn't at all worried about it compromising its ability to protect the President, but that's the kind of shit that's just REALLY FREAKY. It makes big talk about death panels and civil war just sound like nothing!
I did see that gun thing! It was right there on the yahoo! homepage. Man, one can only hope that all this extreme shit backfires. I use yahoo for my email, along with millions, and they show the news "headlines" of the day, and today they had that gun thing, and in the recent past they had a headline story revealing the untruth of the death panels. This may be a test case for my theory about "reasonable American citizens". Are they getting pissed? If they are getting pissed, will that do anything? Where do these symbolic (for now) antics of the right end?
I hope West Allis
does not become the new Dallas.
Up till now, the tactics of the right on healthcare appear to be winning them the issue. The exaggerated indignation and shows of "organic" unity are defining the debate. I can see the difficulty for Obama to change the tenor on his terms. Maybe the strategy is to let the right strangle themselves as people get sick of seeing these fatasses on TV. And yes, I have seen the concessions you mention.
The medicare/medicaid/soc. security is a good gotcha argument and makes perfect logical sense(and if I find myself in another conversation with rightist automatons at Point East, I will bring it up) but for the White House to successfully mention it would put Obama's considerable rhetorical skills to the test. He may have to make the argument without saying the word "socialism" as the word itself is obviously a hand grenade to some people. As I write this, I feel like puking. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!
Who am I, George flippin' Stephanopolis?
I will understand if you give no reply
...for the White House to successfully mention it would put Obama's considerable rhetorical skills to the test. He may have to make the argument without saying the word "socialism" as the word itself is obviously a hand grenade to some people. As I write this, I feel like puking. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!
Who am I, George flippin' Stephanopolis?
Hah haha. I think it's so funny that that guy is a television personality/quasi-news-anchor now. Do you remember when he was Bill Clinton's first "press spokesman," or whatever it's called? He looked and sounded like he was about 21 years old.
And he still kind of does...
Anyway, part of the reason I'm saying there seems to be more behind what the White House is thinking than meets the eye is because whenever I find myself at the level of confusion & exasperation displayed in my last email, I'm then immediately reminded: They KNOW how muddled the discussion looks right now. They've got to have some kind of motive for letting this state of affairs come about.
This isn't to say that they've "planned" everything. I guess I'm just returning to that thought that I have every time Obama reaches this kind of impasse, which is: These guys aren't stupid. They know, for instance, how perplexed & deflated their "Left-wing base" is becoming, and they know how out of control the Right's antics have become.
It does appear that Obama's waiting for SOME-one to hang himself with his own noose... Question is, when will this logic become clear to me? Like I said, I'm just not seeing it right now. At the moment it's impossible not to feel like their "message"-discipline has come undone...
What's gnawing at me is that every time I've said this in the past, I end up in retrospect realizing that I was missing some crucial element....
I guess one thing that always characterizes Obama's approach is that his strategies or calculations NEVER make sense to the chattering classes. It always, without fail, goes way over their heads and is something that doesn't make sense until the media have moved way past a particular issue and are obsessed with something totally unrelated.
Then, in retrospect, his thinking seems to make sense...
I just hope that this is one of those situations and not just a total meltdown....
Last addendum (& by the way, I meant "post" above, not "email,"):
One thing that this sort of situation always accomplishes is pulling people into the issues emotionally. One key to Obama's "grassroots"/community-organizer way of thinking is -- I think -- that getting involved with politics in a way that can change things is pretty much ALWAYS an emotional thing, not an intellectual thing.
Now, that's a big claim that I don't have time @ the moment to explicate fully, but at the core of this way of galvanizing political energy is a basic cognizance of the public mood & the ways in which emotions and passions become animated. So, maybe they indeed recognize that the energy of the Right protest shit is going to dissipate, will become scattered and disconnected, will increasingly outrage moderates & suburbanites that recently broke with the GOP to vote Obama in, & will leave a serious stain on the GOP at some time in the future.
It certainly does nothing to change its image from the "party of no."
The thing making me anxious, however, apart from how gross the Big Pharma deal is substantively (and maybe the "co-ops" idea if they turn out to be horrible/bogus, although at present I don't have any reason to hate them), is that the Dems are seriously in danger of hemorrhaging their "Populist" appeal.
I mean: on the banking crisis front, that's already a problem: the Dems are letting themselves become "Wall Street's Lapdog." And now the Pharma deal and sounding ready to sell out a public insurance option, that stuff doesn't only piss off the so-called "Left-base," it also risks pissing off Populist-minded Midwestern voters in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, etc.
Post a Comment