OK, so looking at some pictures of Glenn Beck's "9/12 Project" protest I have come to a sobering and terrifying conclusion: the Republicans have gone fucking mental.
How I wish things could be the way they were! Sure the cynical, calculating evil of Cheney and Bush wasn't great, and the unabashed ignorance of the Palin-era incarnation of the GOP was pretty horrible too but this.... Jesus Christ.
Beck's '9/12 Project' in many ways typifies the kind of ideology these people espouse. His list of nine principles and 12 values, including steadfast belief in the nuclear family and God (presumably the Christian God). He makes a point of stressing that criticising the government is not un-American, although this kind of rights-conscious approach to political critique wasn't really in evidence when the Republicans and Fox were whining about people being mean to Bush as he was leaving office, or accusing people who said Palin was an idiot of misogyny. You only have to watch this promo video for it to see how ridiculous it is, Lord of the Rings music and all.
The popularity of the Project shows that a worryingly large proportion of the American people think he's got the right idea. And they just lap up his bullshit - from the whole ludicrous "birther" movement all the way through to the idea that recreating the Boston Tea Party is somehow relevant in 21st Century America. Worst of all is the belief - so overt in these protests - that America is under attack, that their rights are being trampled on, that the President is sitting in some ivory tower of anti-white racism and liberal superiority ignoring the will of the masses.
Well you know what Republicans? He isn't ignoring you. You just happen to be the most obnoxious and loudest people in politics right now. You lost the election. What that means for you is this: suck it up. By all means criticise and debate his policies but what happened to co-operation eh? Shouting him down in Congress, unscrupulously encouraging the spread of unfounded rumours about his birth and blocking him at every turn is not appropriate political engagement. All you're doing is alternately pulling faces and blowing raspberries, and throwing all your toys out of your pram in a series of ever-escalating hissy fits. Oh sure there are conservatives out there willing to act like grown-ups but these days they seem curiously quiet.
They're quite happy for their party to come across this way but I suspect had the roles been reversed and the Republicans were in power things would have been different. The Governor of California probably wouldn't have gotten away with threatening to secede from the fucking Union, and there's no chance in hell that a Democratic senator heckling the President in Congress would have been received with the same kind of calm rationality as Joe Wilson. There would have been calls for impeachments, resignations and a foot-stomping Hulk-out from Fox News. To be fair, it's not something particularly desirable. I like the way Obama has conducted himself with dignity in the face of tbe Republican's fuming ignorance and impotent rage, but it does give the nutters room to spread out and multiply. The '9/12 Project' is a clear manifestation of this growing lunacy in the American political system. It's as much a circle-jerk over the ol' days of living in fear and America The Conquerer dishing out righteous jugdement as it is any kind of protest agains the new president. To quote blogger Pareene on Gawker:
It does worry me though, that the people protesting against Obama this week are now the mainstream of their party; the opposition party of the most powerful nation on Earth. These racist, thick as pigshit, monstrously ignorant nutters represent a serious challenge for the presidency in 2012. They're undoubtedly stupid or at least, that's what I hope. When I see a picture like this, I have to believe that she's stupid, because the alternative is accepting that she thinks that advocating selling her black president as a slave is a funny concept.
The thing is, these protesters and Beckites have this idea that just because it's their opinion, it's valid. It's the same kind of thinking that goes with devout religious belief, but this time coupled with an amazing ability to absorb criticism in one ear and funnel it out the other, without it ever touching grey matter. It doesn't matter how many times you slap down their representatives on TV or point out where they're just empirically, factually wrong, they will go on thinking that Obama isn't naturalised, or that the NHS has death panels. They genuinely fear that they're going to be enslaved, that socialism is going to destroy the USA and that Obama is a Muslim.
Sometimes I do feel sorry for them, much as I feel sorry for the readership of the Daily Mail. It must be hard being pumped so full of hatred, paranoia and terror all the time. If they really do believe the kind of thing that O'Reilly, Beck et al are screaming about 24/7 then they must genuinely feel under siege. Fucking hell, if it's got to the point that children are harking back to the good ol' days of McCarthyism then how can you feel anything other than pity? To quote a wiser man than I:
Save your rage instead for Glenn Beck and his friends over in the Fox News Fortress of Evil. They are unapologetically fanning the flames of these hysterical idiots with misleading interpretations, backwards views on morality and and flat-out lies. I happen to believe that Beck at least - if not the entire Fox News crew - do wholeheartedly buy into the bullshit they spout, but there has to be someone somewhere making the decision to whip up the lunatics on the borders of American politics into such a frenzy. It stands to reason that you couldn't run a company with the kind of mindset that makes you filter out the truth and replace it with your own little fantasy world (at least, I hope that's the case). Somehow having the whole show run by cynical, money-minded hypocrites abusing the stupidity of their audience is more reassuring than the idea that Fox and the conservative media are basically passengers on a runaway train destined to hurtle over the cliff into anarchy and madness - and taking us with them.
But what can they do now they've put the lunatic, teflon-coated ultra-conservatives in the centre of the American political stage? You can't put them back in their box! Glenn Beck et al created this rabid, raving mob of ignorant prats, crazed with fear and loaded up on guns. I don't even live in the USA but I'm still terrified. I am really really scared - in the pit of my stomach - that someone is going to shoot Obama, that one of these things is going to spill over into violence, that democracy and politics in America is going to be irreparably damaged by people who can't grasp the concept of a birth certificate, or that if you lose an election that's not the same as tyranny. It's fucking scary. They're all psychopaths and there's nothing we can do over this side of the pond but watch the whole self-destructive scene play out. We can only hope it's a passing phase and that the mature, intelligent Republicans are just waiting for the mob to thrash itself to exhaustion so they can sweep it back into the dirty corners of American politics where it belongs. Then maybe there'll be a serious debate about healthcare reform and financial relief.
How I wish things could be the way they were! Sure the cynical, calculating evil of Cheney and Bush wasn't great, and the unabashed ignorance of the Palin-era incarnation of the GOP was pretty horrible too but this.... Jesus Christ.
Beck's '9/12 Project' in many ways typifies the kind of ideology these people espouse. His list of nine principles and 12 values, including steadfast belief in the nuclear family and God (presumably the Christian God). He makes a point of stressing that criticising the government is not un-American, although this kind of rights-conscious approach to political critique wasn't really in evidence when the Republicans and Fox were whining about people being mean to Bush as he was leaving office, or accusing people who said Palin was an idiot of misogyny. You only have to watch this promo video for it to see how ridiculous it is, Lord of the Rings music and all.
The popularity of the Project shows that a worryingly large proportion of the American people think he's got the right idea. And they just lap up his bullshit - from the whole ludicrous "birther" movement all the way through to the idea that recreating the Boston Tea Party is somehow relevant in 21st Century America. Worst of all is the belief - so overt in these protests - that America is under attack, that their rights are being trampled on, that the President is sitting in some ivory tower of anti-white racism and liberal superiority ignoring the will of the masses.
Well you know what Republicans? He isn't ignoring you. You just happen to be the most obnoxious and loudest people in politics right now. You lost the election. What that means for you is this: suck it up. By all means criticise and debate his policies but what happened to co-operation eh? Shouting him down in Congress, unscrupulously encouraging the spread of unfounded rumours about his birth and blocking him at every turn is not appropriate political engagement. All you're doing is alternately pulling faces and blowing raspberries, and throwing all your toys out of your pram in a series of ever-escalating hissy fits. Oh sure there are conservatives out there willing to act like grown-ups but these days they seem curiously quiet.
They're quite happy for their party to come across this way but I suspect had the roles been reversed and the Republicans were in power things would have been different. The Governor of California probably wouldn't have gotten away with threatening to secede from the fucking Union, and there's no chance in hell that a Democratic senator heckling the President in Congress would have been received with the same kind of calm rationality as Joe Wilson. There would have been calls for impeachments, resignations and a foot-stomping Hulk-out from Fox News. To be fair, it's not something particularly desirable. I like the way Obama has conducted himself with dignity in the face of tbe Republican's fuming ignorance and impotent rage, but it does give the nutters room to spread out and multiply. The '9/12 Project' is a clear manifestation of this growing lunacy in the American political system. It's as much a circle-jerk over the ol' days of living in fear and America The Conquerer dishing out righteous jugdement as it is any kind of protest agains the new president. To quote blogger Pareene on Gawker:
On 9/12, people in New York (and DC) did not feel as ‘great' as Glenn Beck, they just felt like shit. They felt scared and confused and depressed. Many of them were drunk. And only an idiot or an actual terrorist would want to always feel like it was 9/12/01... Eight years later, normal people, with brains and souls, have decided that some emotional distance from that disaster is healthier and wiser than trying to recapture the dread.
It does worry me though, that the people protesting against Obama this week are now the mainstream of their party; the opposition party of the most powerful nation on Earth. These racist, thick as pigshit, monstrously ignorant nutters represent a serious challenge for the presidency in 2012. They're undoubtedly stupid or at least, that's what I hope. When I see a picture like this, I have to believe that she's stupid, because the alternative is accepting that she thinks that advocating selling her black president as a slave is a funny concept.
The thing is, these protesters and Beckites have this idea that just because it's their opinion, it's valid. It's the same kind of thinking that goes with devout religious belief, but this time coupled with an amazing ability to absorb criticism in one ear and funnel it out the other, without it ever touching grey matter. It doesn't matter how many times you slap down their representatives on TV or point out where they're just empirically, factually wrong, they will go on thinking that Obama isn't naturalised, or that the NHS has death panels. They genuinely fear that they're going to be enslaved, that socialism is going to destroy the USA and that Obama is a Muslim.
Sometimes I do feel sorry for them, much as I feel sorry for the readership of the Daily Mail. It must be hard being pumped so full of hatred, paranoia and terror all the time. If they really do believe the kind of thing that O'Reilly, Beck et al are screaming about 24/7 then they must genuinely feel under siege. Fucking hell, if it's got to the point that children are harking back to the good ol' days of McCarthyism then how can you feel anything other than pity? To quote a wiser man than I:
You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.
Save your rage instead for Glenn Beck and his friends over in the Fox News Fortress of Evil. They are unapologetically fanning the flames of these hysterical idiots with misleading interpretations, backwards views on morality and and flat-out lies. I happen to believe that Beck at least - if not the entire Fox News crew - do wholeheartedly buy into the bullshit they spout, but there has to be someone somewhere making the decision to whip up the lunatics on the borders of American politics into such a frenzy. It stands to reason that you couldn't run a company with the kind of mindset that makes you filter out the truth and replace it with your own little fantasy world (at least, I hope that's the case). Somehow having the whole show run by cynical, money-minded hypocrites abusing the stupidity of their audience is more reassuring than the idea that Fox and the conservative media are basically passengers on a runaway train destined to hurtle over the cliff into anarchy and madness - and taking us with them.
But what can they do now they've put the lunatic, teflon-coated ultra-conservatives in the centre of the American political stage? You can't put them back in their box! Glenn Beck et al created this rabid, raving mob of ignorant prats, crazed with fear and loaded up on guns. I don't even live in the USA but I'm still terrified. I am really really scared - in the pit of my stomach - that someone is going to shoot Obama, that one of these things is going to spill over into violence, that democracy and politics in America is going to be irreparably damaged by people who can't grasp the concept of a birth certificate, or that if you lose an election that's not the same as tyranny. It's fucking scary. They're all psychopaths and there's nothing we can do over this side of the pond but watch the whole self-destructive scene play out. We can only hope it's a passing phase and that the mature, intelligent Republicans are just waiting for the mob to thrash itself to exhaustion so they can sweep it back into the dirty corners of American politics where it belongs. Then maybe there'll be a serious debate about healthcare reform and financial relief.
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