Huckleberry Finn: Confederate Hero!
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter - and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn.
I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now.
But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking - thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell.
THE END
The agonizing moral reversal of Huck's initial decision to betray Jim at what he genuinely believes is the peril of his immortal soul is arguably the single most famous moment in American literature, and what makes "Huckleberry Finn" the great American novel (despite the problems of the final chapter.)
It is also exactly the kind of vital context that a depraved Conservative fraud like Andrew Breitbart would amputate without a backwards glance if doing so would advance his hateful, deranged political agenda a few inches.
Long ago I began saving myself untold ergs of mental energy by simply presuming that if a Conservative is in front of a camera, behind a microphone or by-lining an editorial about anything to do with culture or politics, I assuming they are lying. Because to remain a Conservative these days you have to lie to yourself pretty much 24/7, and if you are a Conservative media thug you have to keep that lie-based consensual political hallucination going by broadcasting outright bullshit 'round the clock.
Lying well or poorly. Lying smoothly or awkwardly. Lying out of stupidity or fear or racism or venality or just because they're fucking nuts. Lying by omission. Lying by false equivalence. Lying by beating statistics until they bled.
But lying.
But for years now I have always, always, always presumed that somehow, some way the Conservative who is opining about the state of the nation is in some crucial way just fucking lying his ass off.
Sadly, after all this time, it has proved to be a presumption that has rarely failed me.
Which leaves us with the same question we always seem to return to after the White House gets head-faked and humiliated by the Right yet again: How the fuck is it that insignificant Liberals like me can figure this shit out with one frontal lobe tied behind our backs, while the Most Gifted Democratic Politician in a Generation keeps proving himself over and over and over again to be clueless, callow and jejune?
Mr. President, if you would like to know what the people who put you in the fucking White House are thinking about Brietbartgate, it is just this simple: No matter how many times you finally figure out that you were wrong and we were right, how is it that your loyal Liberal supporters still get the back of Rahm Emanuel's hand every time we ask for something like, say, Single Payer health care, while your entire Administration jumps like trained seals every time a Right wing scumbag like Breitbart snaps his fingers?
PS. "Thanks You" notes for several kind and generous people are still pending. I have not forgotten. I am just a terrible person.
14 comments:
'cause he's being bipartisan, or post-partisan, or some such. Or he just loooves Lucy snatching the football away over and over again.
Thanks so much for this post, I tried to my hand at venting in some poor bastards comment section but you did it so well it allowed me to fight the vomit back down. Don't grocery shop when your hungry and don't leave comments when enraged.
chrisanthemama,
Finding right action is always hard.
Capt. Bat Guano,
All part of the service.
I dunno'. When ya' look at how many millions of rubes buy the bullshit, and then consider what percentage of the rubes do you believe know Breitbart's name, let alone know who and what he is, I think you have to conclude that we aren't likely to win this.
The whack job noise machine turns all into misologists. And we continue to apply the tactic of reason to a problem totally resistant to rational thought.
The problem isn't the whack jobs. The problem is us.
I was listening to your podcast and thinking about your theory that the right has figured out how to govern without actually having to be in power...and then this story came up.
It really gives insight into the mind set of the white house at this point: whenever the barking bigots of the right sound off..it is no longer a question of the elected majority jumping...but just how high. I am really beginning to believe that Obama the cool, the unflappable, Mr. Spock..just didn't really have a clue as to the just how nasty the right was. At least when I put myself in his position, I would not only be thinking seriously about not doing a second term..but if it was the right move to even run for a first. This country is literally becoming too stupid to be legitimately governed.
"This country is literally becoming too stupid to be legitimately governed."
By Christer, why can't I think of such simple but powerful words?
You got it in a nutshell.
I would add:
"Too stupid to be governed, but dumd enought to be fleeced blind."
How do you tell if a conservative is lying? Just check to see if they're beathing
This was a lynching plain and simple. Breitbart made the original false accusation, then FOX “news” instigated the mob, the main stream media whipped up the crowd and to prove to his white masters he was loyal barrack put the noose around her neck. Now the right wing has its (progressive) NIGGER hanging from a tree.
Amen!
To everything.
I loves you, baby.
You are the rockingest blogger alive.
Huck lives!
S
______________
As somebody somewhere else pointed out: We should have seen this kind of thing coming after ACORN. But all of those lies made page six when they were exposed, and the new black panthers are nothing but nine pissed off black dudes, and the neo-nazi tea bagger patrolling the border couldn't be a racist could he?
After listening to a few intense hours of head scratching and shock!! shock I tell you this morning..(and a whole lot of missed elephant in the room) by what passes for a media these days I can say this: I will have some respect for CNN or MSNBC when they start treating Fox like what it is: The venal evil tool, of a venal evil man, with a venal evil ideology, and not in any way shape or form a journalistic entity.
"...how is it that your loyal Liberal supporters still get the back of Rahm Emanuel's hand every time we ask for something like, say, Single Payer health care, while your entire Administration jumps like trained seals every time a Right wing scumbag like Breitbart snaps his fingers?"
SASQ: because the only difference between the ReThugs and the Dems is that the Dems will use a little lube when fu*king you over. What the bipartisan consensus building up to gut Social Security.
Beats the fuck out of me why anybody's still listening to Breitbart after they got well and truly punk'd by him on the ACORN thing.
Gee, notorious political propagandist and faker of videos suddenly shows up with another incriminating video and you fall for it?! How fucking stupid are you?!
I mean, isn't it about time that Breitbart and everyone who acts like him starts getting laughed out of every fucking room they ever try to get into?
(My word verification word is "scrood." Yes, I believe we are.)
How the fuck is it that insignificant Liberals like me can figure this shit out with one frontal lobe tied behind our backs, while the Most Gifted Democratic Politician in a Generation keeps proving himself over and over and over again to be clueless, callow and jejune?
Word, D.
Damn, well done. Re-writing Huckleberry Finn would sorta go naturally with his entire, whiny Big Hollywood site. ("Capitalism is great! Except when it produces movies we don't like! Such as, um, anything that doesn't serve as conservative propaganda!") It also fits with what actually happened. Breitbart, or someone else, saw Sherrod's speech, which is pretty thoughtful, moving and even inspirational. And that person or persons decided to paint Shirley Sherrod, of all people, as a racist. That takes a particularly craven type of evil, and a sick, shriveled, twisted soul.
I need to re-read Huckleberry Finn, and might do that for Banned Books Week this year. (Actually, I wrote an education essay years back on Huck Finn and that Greek guy, what's-his-name, Socrates.)
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