Tuesday, September 21, 2010

How Perry Mason Ruined America


And no, not just because Raymond Burr crapped up the original "Godzilla", or because "Perry Mason" became a fetish with the Neocon Grand Vizier Leo Strauss, whose unholy spawn eventually went on to capture the Conservative Movement and destroy America.

But rather because it suckered too many people -- myself included -- into the civic fantasy that the factual and/or logical irrefutability of a proposition has anything whatsoever to do with whether people -- especially people who belong to the Confederate rump battalion that the American Conservative movement has degenerated into -- believe it or not.

Quite the opposite.

As the Conservative Movement has rocketed along its trajectory towards full-on, crazyfuck, Heaven's Gate cult-status at geometrically accelerating speed, more and more of Teh Internets (and my mailbox) has filled up with infuriated, "J'accuse!"-type questions challenging one aspect of the Right's overall psychosis or another, with varying degrees of mental and verbal dexterity.

"How can they say...?"

"How can they believe...?"

"Have you heard the latest...?"

"How can someone who say this and then turn right around and say that?"

These days I just shrug. Shrug at the mutants who think that simply screaming EVER LOUDER will get us to notice that they these are the same useful wingnut idiots who never gave a shit about any of their suddenly-dearly held beliefs as the Bush Administration serially and brutally savaged them.

And then a Negro put his hand on the Bible.

Deep inside the dark and seemingly bottomless nightmare of the Age of Bush when the chips were down -- when it fucking well mattered -- when these fair weather patriots weren't slagging the Left for being traitors, they were nowhere to be found.

And then a Negro put his hand on the Bible.

Now, of course, these broken, brainwashed clowns want the world to believe that they were all righteously outraged...in secret! As millions of Liberals were marching past their front door, they were apparently in the basement bellowing bravely into their pillows. As millions of Liberals demanded accountability from a provably reckless and depraved Conservative Republican Administration, these heroes were too busy handing out stern and learned lectures on macroeconomics to whoever was passed out on the bar stool next to them.

For eight long and catastrophic years they somehow never found their Outside Voices.

Until that Negro put his hand on the Bible.

And then, as predictable as the sunrise...

3...2...1...

I Want My Country Back!!!

The same well-financed masterminds who trained these sock puppets to sit up on their hind legs and howl over the imaginary horrors of Bill Clinton's Democratic Administration...and who taught them to roll over and play dead during the actual, daily horrors of George Bush's Republican Administration...have simply returned the outrage chip in their little heads to its factory default pre-Bush Administration setting.

Of course, their conditioning is such that the Right never notices their own enormous and flagrant hypocrisies, because they are no longer capable of noticing such things. Which is why I don't doubt their sincerity, any more than I doubt the sincerity of a waterhead drunk begging for a bottle.

Any more than I doubt the sincerity of the mob in "1984" howling out its carefully-programmed hatred at imaginary enemies.

Lunatics are very sincere people, and this knowledge -- that on the Right, any connection between passion and logic has been irrevocably severed -- is what permits their leaders and politician to look the camera in the eye and just lie, lie, lie about things that are plain and self-evident

and get away with it.

The obvious fact that they are lying -- that shameless and continually lying about big, important stuff has now become nothing more than an everyday tactic among Conservatives -- is certainly a fact, but also completely misses the point.

The Teabaggers are the loyal Outer Party members of the Right, who had always, always, always, been at war with with Eastasia.

Then a Negro put his hand on the Bible...

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wasnt it a few weeks back, you reminded us that the joke about Dick Cheney eating babies on the white house lawn and the first words out of Cokie Robert's mouth would be how baby eating would in the long term lower taxes....had lost any meaning?
Now we have a senate candidate who says she dabbled in witchcraft and her first date was in the pretense of an alter with blood on it! ..and Malkin is on the teevee defending Sarah Lite's youthful indiscretions.
The republican party is now officially a living breathing Onion column....and their followers have reached full tilt "zombification".

Anonymous said...

Babies: They're not just for baggers anymore!

Anonymous said...

Well done driftglass. The right appears to be largely comprised of people who are just uninformed and happy that way, those who due to their limited sources of information (e.g., Fox, etc.) believe they are well informed and those who know what's going on and are leading these sheeple. Trying to combat this ignorance, irrationality and greed with facts and rational explanations clearly doesn't work. Until a more effective way is found to address this reality there seems to be little hope. How do you compete with a party that is willing to pander to the worst in people as a means a gaining power. It's worked throughout the ages and the right is gaining traction like never before seen in this country. The increasing support on the right for dogmatic dopes is truly difficult to understand except in the context of their likely ability to be manipulated by those pulling the strings. Maybe delving into tin hat territory here but other explanations elude me.

Anonymous said...

I dunno, in some cases the "fair-weather patriots" may indeed be genuine, recent converts - drunkenness being an insulating condition.

Unknown said...

What's to understand? A teabagger candidate can get in front of a podium during one of their demonstrations and eat a fetus, but as long as he or she waves a sign of Obama with a Hitler mustache, all will be forgiven. I disagree that these idiots even care about ideology anymore. They don't even understand the meaning of the signs they carry sometimes. "Keep your governemt hands off my Social Security!" Please. As long as you hate the "Kenyan" (code for "N" word) in the White House, you're their candidate. Hate of the Kenyan is their ideology. Waving signs about ObamaCare, Socialism, taxes is just cover. "I want my country back (to having a White House, not a Black House) is what they're really all about.

jim said...

True Believers on any side of an issue will always be able to find evidence to support their pet theory. Rest assured that if the Midwest is turning into a desert in ten years, the usual suspects will find an oasis in Montana that "refutes" the corrupt social-engineering scientific cabal out to execute the commands of their NWO overlords.

Exceptionalism is a big part of the problem - unfortunately, that dogma is so prevalent in American culture that much of it goes unnoticed because it's so ubiquitous, & its long-term effects are increasingly toxic.

It's the Dunning-Kruger effect writ large: it can't be America's fault if it declines, EVER, because America can do no wrong by definition ... so the information needed to slow or halt the decline will never sink in, guaranteeing that the decline will continue. Sadly, there's no correpsonding guarantee of insight dawning upon the rubes once times get bad enough: 5th-century goat-herders living in the ruins of the Roman Empire knew deep down that they were only seeing a temporary setback, & that in a few more years the Caesars would return to rule the world again.

Esteev said...

I watched that Leo Strauss video and I have to admit, I'm a bit confused.

According to Prof. Harvey Mansfield, Strauss believed that Liberalism eventually disintegrates into Nihilism. Right there I have to call "bullshit."

The main reason why I am a liberal is because I care. I care about the weak and the downtrodden, the poor and sick, and those we keep bombing.

Maybe someone can explain that to me but it makes no sense...

But, I do enjoy the fact that Strauss didn't appear on TV or radio or give interviews or write papers. Now we know where the current crop of Conservative politicians get it.

Anonymous said...

It's difficult to observe any aspect of the the lily white repub and tea parties and not conclude that racism of varying degrees runs through these organizations. However having lived through the Clinton years I'm convinced that the crazy on the right has less to do with a "Negro" putting his hand on the bible than a Democrat. It doesn't seem likely that the political climate on the right would be substantially different had any other democratic candidate won.

Anonymous said...

Agree with anonymous on the racism. Racists are the smallest group of the three who are Tea Partiers. Way more of them are liars or morons (although most are some combination of the three).
Berto

Kathy said...

Remembering the sheer loathing Repugs had for Clinton, I kind-of agree with the 2 above Anons.

But I think there is an element of, oh, call it Racist Classism?
Where, tho the white people may acknowledge the racial equality of African Americans, s/he still feels vastly superior in a Class Sense. He's the Aristocrat, or he thinks he will be one day. Blacks are still "the Help", nowadays allowed to teach, and be doctors or Insurance Adjustors, and Blockbuster Actors; but still not really Top Drawer.

Or am I blathering? 15mgs of Vicodin, you know.

Distributorcap said...

a guide for the Rightwing Morons - Joey Bishop plays to a tee what the right does - deny any semblance of reality

annamissed said...

In a word, the teabag crowd are essentially icon polishers.

Anonymous said...

Great. As usual, the best part of my day.

Fiddlin Bill said...

As simply an example of your general point:

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2010/09/21/no-time-to-pet-the-pearl/

Ms O'Donnell seems to be incapable of any self-consciousness or self-awareness, and it's been a problem in her life for at least a decade. Now, remarkably, she's actually a Senatorial Candidate on the GOTP ticket, with a chance of winning! It's more amazin' than Palin, because in this case there's no apparent Daddy Warbucks (McCain) giving her a hand up.

StringonaStick said...

In politics, the party in power when the economy sucks is who gets the blame, even if it wasn't their policies that brought it about. Polls currently show that people still blame the current suckfest on Bush, but that won't stop them from voting for the demogogue who best pushes their 'Murikans Deserve Better" buttons (and of course who do so with no intention of following through).

The economic ship is slow to turn, and BushCo knew exactly what they were doing when they aimed it straight for the rocks just as they were leaving town.

Unknown said...

And Vice Versa for democrats shamefully on summary execution by the president, drone wars, Hillary and Kerry war mongers of libya and Syria. Snowden, surveillance. Democrats and Republicans are equally yucky