By Manifesto Joe
I honestly don't take much pleasure in demonizing conservatives. In an intended democratic republic such as this one, the system needs liberals for vision, conservatives for grounding. In history we have seen examples of both sides producing great statespeople.
Why, then, do contemporary American "conservatives" act like such psychos?
I suppose that one could argue that it's their turn. Within my lifetime, I can recall cases of delusional left-wing behavior. Jane Fonda's infamous antics in Hanoi around 1972 come immediately to mind. But that era ended quickly. By the end of the 1970s, Jane was very much back at work as an actress and had been very much replaced in the public eye by the likes of Phyllis Schlafly. And in thirtysomething years, we've gotten no break from the likes of that.
I remember the Jim Crow South using devices such as skewed literacy tests to disenfranchise potential black voters. For similar reasons, we'll never see a mental health test for voting, not even a fair one, because clearly the group that would suffer most from such a barrier would be Republicans.
There was a time when Republicans, in large part, were the necessary grounding for a democratic republic in the U.S. That was back when the party had a fair number of "moderates" in it, and they usually determined who the actual nominated candidates were. Now, genuine conservatives like Richard Lugar of Indiana can't even be seen in a photo with a Democrat without having a far less qualified Tea Party challenger knock them off in the GOP primary.
The latest evidence that the Republican Party has been effectively taken over by kooks comes from Louisiana (no big surprise there). When they polled rank-and-file Republican voters there, 29 percent said Barack Obama was to blame for the poor federal response to damage from Hurricane Katrina. That's right, 29 percent.
If you don't believe me, here's a link to a news story on the subject.
I shouldn't have to point out that Katrina ravaged New Orleans and surrounding areas back in 2005, when Obama was an obscure first-year member of the U.S. Senate. Il Doofus (Bush 43) was president then.
This, mind you, represents more than 2 out of 7 Republicans in Louisiana. The only pleas for saying a thing like this would be (1) ignorance, (2) mental illness, or (3) both. I'm inclined to think (3) is the answer.
It's taken the American people a long time, but after the last election it appears that just over 50 percent understand that Republicans are no longer responsible conservatives, but are instead under the spell of the lunatic right wing. These pathetic escapees from straitjackets are so desperate to blame a Democrat for anything, they are in large part blaming Obama for something that happened over three years before he took office. It would be like blaming the Vietnam War on Jimmy Carter, and not even the kooks of 1980 were rabid enough to try that.
The basic problem: America now has, for its two-party system, one group of right-wing crazies, and a group of centrists (Democrats) who are themselves so beholden to rich campaign contributors and giant corporations that they can't be depended on to enact genuine reform or to supply any real vision. We have a radical right and a marshmallow center, and that's just about it. With that kind of refuse to govern us, I don't think it will be long before we can kiss our "democratic republic" goodbye and say hello to raging anarchy.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Showing posts with label right-wing kooks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label right-wing kooks. Show all posts
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Thursday, March 25, 2010
If You Needed Any More Proof That Many Republicans Are Contemptable Goons ...
By Manifesto Joe
I confess that I own a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook (1971). It's an interesting curiosity of the time. There's even a section on hand-to-hand combat that offers good tips for anyone who might find himself/herself facing a younger, stronger opponent.
But I own a copy of that book, as I said, mainly just as a curiosity of the period. I have firm moral convictions against the needless taking of life.
It appears that many of our "friends" on the political right wing, right now, do not share such convictions. The thugs and kooks who comprise much of the grassroots support for the Republican Party have responded to the passage of watered-down health care reform by smashing windows, making death threats, sending envelopes with white powder in them, making the ugliest phone calls imaginable, etc., etc.
Here's a rundown of what's been happening since the passage of health care "reform," with focus on a facedown between bellowing Fox "News" telegoon Bill O'Reilly and Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.
On the right, there have been specious comparisons of these extreme reactions to those on the far left during the Vietnam War era. I'm old enough to remember the differences. The far left of 40 years ago was considered, and treated as, a lunatic fringe. Not so with Tea Partiers -- the Republicans have courted and encouraged them. Now, "suddenly," they're a problem, and the so-called mainstream of the GOP isn't sure what to do with them.
But they're still trying to spin the incidents to their advantage. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the second-ranking House Republican, accused Democrats of trotting out the various threats and vandalism to their political advantage -- "fanning the flames" was how he put it.
Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of such pigshit. Who the hell has been "fanning the flames" of the Tea Party bozos since they got started?
Keep it up, Republicans. We real, working Americans might even be able to get a public option soon if you do.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
I confess that I own a copy of The Anarchist Cookbook (1971). It's an interesting curiosity of the time. There's even a section on hand-to-hand combat that offers good tips for anyone who might find himself/herself facing a younger, stronger opponent.
But I own a copy of that book, as I said, mainly just as a curiosity of the period. I have firm moral convictions against the needless taking of life.
It appears that many of our "friends" on the political right wing, right now, do not share such convictions. The thugs and kooks who comprise much of the grassroots support for the Republican Party have responded to the passage of watered-down health care reform by smashing windows, making death threats, sending envelopes with white powder in them, making the ugliest phone calls imaginable, etc., etc.
Here's a rundown of what's been happening since the passage of health care "reform," with focus on a facedown between bellowing Fox "News" telegoon Bill O'Reilly and Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.
On the right, there have been specious comparisons of these extreme reactions to those on the far left during the Vietnam War era. I'm old enough to remember the differences. The far left of 40 years ago was considered, and treated as, a lunatic fringe. Not so with Tea Partiers -- the Republicans have courted and encouraged them. Now, "suddenly," they're a problem, and the so-called mainstream of the GOP isn't sure what to do with them.
But they're still trying to spin the incidents to their advantage. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., the second-ranking House Republican, accused Democrats of trotting out the various threats and vandalism to their political advantage -- "fanning the flames" was how he put it.
Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of such pigshit. Who the hell has been "fanning the flames" of the Tea Party bozos since they got started?
Keep it up, Republicans. We real, working Americans might even be able to get a public option soon if you do.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Monday, September 7, 2009
Furor Over Obama Speech To Schoolchildren Is Epitome Of Right-Wing Lunacy
By Manifesto Joe
Reagan did it, in 1988. So did Bush I, in 1991. So, why is it controversial for President Barack Obama to address schoolchildren tomorrow about working hard to become good scholars?
Today the White House released a Web page with Obama's address. Here's the link.
Now, here's a video of President Ronald Reagan's address of Nov. 14, 1988. If this wasn't at least a generically political speech ... well, compare it with Obama's personal, rather than ideological, tone.
My first impression about the White House releasing Obama's speech a day early is that perhaps the intention was to embarrass the right-wing goons who have stirred so much feces about this. But you can't embarrass insane people.
And when insane people -- at least, the right-wing brand -- become vocal enough, authority figures listen. School districts around the country have been opting out of carrying Obama's speech in their classrooms.
Among these are a number in my home state of Texas. A bunch are in Tarrant County (Fort Worth, Arlington and suburbs), which, unlike neighboring Dallas County, was carried by McCain-Palin in 2008. Here's some of what the chairman of the Tarrant County Democratic Party, Steve Maxwell, had to say in a recent e-mail:
As you may have heard, President Obama is planning to deliver an address to the young people of our nation, on Tuesday, September 7. The message he will deliver is one of hope, of encouragement and of importance. President Obama is a shining example of what can be accomplished in this country by anyone willing to dedicate themselves getting an education, and has the willingness to pursue his or her dreams. This is the message he wants to deliver to the school children On Tuesday, the President will encourage students to care about their education, to apply themselves, to stay in school and to graduate. I believe this is a message our kids cannot hear enough.
There can be no more effective promoter of such a message than the President of the United States.
Unfortunately, some local radio hosts and Conservative activists have interpreted this as an attempt to indoctrinate students. Predictably, schools have received numerous complaints. As a result Arlington ISD, Aledo ISD, Mansfield ISD, Eagle -Mountain Saginaw ISD and Grapevine Colleyville ISD are all declining to show the speech live.
And then, there are those parents who have declared that they are simply going to keep their children home tomorrow so that they don't hear the simple story of an African-American who, against great odds, became a law professor, a U.S. senator and finally the leader of the "free world."
It's been said that it's often better to laugh at, rather than weep over, a sad and grotesque situation. So I'll leave you with a bit of morbid humor gleaned from YouTube:
Here's one of the comments this comedy video got:
Tell me something then, WHY does Obama need to address the CHILDREN?!? WHY??? Their own parents and teachers can't tell them to try hard and be good little communist fascists? Hitler did the same fucking thing. Ever heard of the HJ? The Hitler Jugend or Hitler Youth.
That's coming next. Obama has already laid out his plans for MANDATORY civil service or community service. Either you are too stupid to see it or you approve of BIG BROTHER OBAMA telling our CHILDREN what to do and think.
Sigh ...
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
2009: A Right-Wing Odyssey Of Spaced-Out Idiocy
By Manifesto Joe
The right wing seems to have gone completely into orbit this year, outdoing itself at every turn. The galaxy of Goonville stars is lit up with names old and new.
Pat Buchanan: This mainstay of the kook right is often good for laughs, albeit pretty dark-hued ones. I have to confess that in 1996, with Clinton up for re-election and nothing interesting going on in the Texas Democratic Party, I actually held my nose and cast a disingenuous protest vote for Patsy in hopes that a good showing from him would help shake things up in The Party of Satan. ("I'm going to vote NAZI this time!" I exclaimed gleefully to one of my very few Republican friends. That comment didn't make us any friendlier.)
I was doing the same thing, in reverse, that a lot of nasty little Republicans have been doing here in Texas for many decades. If there's no pressing reason for them to vote in their own primary, they cross over and pollute the waters in ours. The idea is to vote for the candidates you figure are the most likely losers in the pack, or who would cause the most organizational trouble.
By the way, I gave up on that kind of subversive cross-voting, in large part because of all the Republican junk mail I would get in the ensuing months. (You know, polls from the local Congressfool that feature questions like: "Do you think that baby-murdering Supreme Court justices should be impeached? Yes/No)
I had to hold my nose to vote for Patsy, but I admit that I was actually (and pleasantly) shocked when I read parts of his book The Great Betrayal. Although the motives behind his economic nationalism were suspect back then, I was astounded by the opening chapter. It read like it could have been written by Jesse Jackson.
Unfortunately, Patsy didn't really, truly change his stripes. He's still a 1940 edition America Firster. He's not a neocon, because he's not even that evolved. He's a neolith.
The newest hardback offering from Patsy is a Nazi apologist treatise that was explained in shorter form in a recent column. Here's an Air America review of all this. I always smelled 1930s anti-Semitism behind Patsy's "thinking," sort of like the notion that the problem with World War II was that "we fought the wrong people." I actually heard a ranking editor at a newspaper I once worked for say exactly that. He noticed that I was looking at him funny, and he explained that "Hitler was the more pressing problem, but" look at all the horrors and atrocities of Stalinist Russia and other communist regimes.
This is not to minimize the enormities committed by the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot, and from all evidence, Mao Tse-tung as well. But to slough off the clearly murderous and insane Adolf Hitler as merely "the more pressing problem" is itself insanity. And, tragically, there are millions of Americans who would agree with that assessment.
Michele Bachmann: It will be a curiosity for the ages as to how a person this imbecilic ever got elected to Congress, and especially in a state like Minnesota that has produced the likes of Hubert Humphrey, the Farmer-Labor Party, Paul Wellstone and Al Franken. One thing I have noticed about Minnesotans is that there aren't many moderates from there, at least none that I've met. I love and admire the progressives from there (even you, Jack Jodell!); but, in contrast, one of the most demented and intractable religious-right fanatics I've ever known was from the Minneapolis area. And this is a state that actually elected Jesse Ventura governor. It's a place given to some extremes.
Onward to Michelle: She has repeatedly argued that while diversity sounds like a good thing, not all cultures are created equal. Some are apparently anointed by God His Own Self, and others just aren't. Here's one of her statements. And then, here's a link to the World of Health Care According to Michele, again courtesy of Air America.
The odyssey continues. The idiocy, too. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
The right wing seems to have gone completely into orbit this year, outdoing itself at every turn. The galaxy of Goonville stars is lit up with names old and new.
Pat Buchanan: This mainstay of the kook right is often good for laughs, albeit pretty dark-hued ones. I have to confess that in 1996, with Clinton up for re-election and nothing interesting going on in the Texas Democratic Party, I actually held my nose and cast a disingenuous protest vote for Patsy in hopes that a good showing from him would help shake things up in The Party of Satan. ("I'm going to vote NAZI this time!" I exclaimed gleefully to one of my very few Republican friends. That comment didn't make us any friendlier.)
I was doing the same thing, in reverse, that a lot of nasty little Republicans have been doing here in Texas for many decades. If there's no pressing reason for them to vote in their own primary, they cross over and pollute the waters in ours. The idea is to vote for the candidates you figure are the most likely losers in the pack, or who would cause the most organizational trouble.
By the way, I gave up on that kind of subversive cross-voting, in large part because of all the Republican junk mail I would get in the ensuing months. (You know, polls from the local Congressfool that feature questions like: "Do you think that baby-murdering Supreme Court justices should be impeached? Yes/No)
I had to hold my nose to vote for Patsy, but I admit that I was actually (and pleasantly) shocked when I read parts of his book The Great Betrayal. Although the motives behind his economic nationalism were suspect back then, I was astounded by the opening chapter. It read like it could have been written by Jesse Jackson.
Unfortunately, Patsy didn't really, truly change his stripes. He's still a 1940 edition America Firster. He's not a neocon, because he's not even that evolved. He's a neolith.
The newest hardback offering from Patsy is a Nazi apologist treatise that was explained in shorter form in a recent column. Here's an Air America review of all this. I always smelled 1930s anti-Semitism behind Patsy's "thinking," sort of like the notion that the problem with World War II was that "we fought the wrong people." I actually heard a ranking editor at a newspaper I once worked for say exactly that. He noticed that I was looking at him funny, and he explained that "Hitler was the more pressing problem, but" look at all the horrors and atrocities of Stalinist Russia and other communist regimes.
This is not to minimize the enormities committed by the likes of Stalin, Pol Pot, and from all evidence, Mao Tse-tung as well. But to slough off the clearly murderous and insane Adolf Hitler as merely "the more pressing problem" is itself insanity. And, tragically, there are millions of Americans who would agree with that assessment.
Michele Bachmann: It will be a curiosity for the ages as to how a person this imbecilic ever got elected to Congress, and especially in a state like Minnesota that has produced the likes of Hubert Humphrey, the Farmer-Labor Party, Paul Wellstone and Al Franken. One thing I have noticed about Minnesotans is that there aren't many moderates from there, at least none that I've met. I love and admire the progressives from there (even you, Jack Jodell!); but, in contrast, one of the most demented and intractable religious-right fanatics I've ever known was from the Minneapolis area. And this is a state that actually elected Jesse Ventura governor. It's a place given to some extremes.
Onward to Michelle: She has repeatedly argued that while diversity sounds like a good thing, not all cultures are created equal. Some are apparently anointed by God His Own Self, and others just aren't. Here's one of her statements. And then, here's a link to the World of Health Care According to Michele, again courtesy of Air America.
The odyssey continues. The idiocy, too. Stay tuned.
Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.
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