Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Hey Look!


Another documentary about how Hate Radio/Fox News has helped turned the Right into an army of bilious, ignorant, skull-fucked zombies.

I got half-way through writing this post before I realized I was wrong and reversed myself.

Here was my initial take --
I'm sure it is a fine film -- the trailer looks good and I'm sure once the Underground smuggles a copy into God's Country, I'll watch it with great satisfaction.  In someone's basement.  With the blackout shades pulled.  And Full Metal Jacket playing loudly on the teevee upstairs.  Just to be safe.

That being said, I have no idea who the target audience is for this sort of film.  I mean, sure, Liberals will watch it, but we're already members of the choir.  Already on the team.  And if that is the only group of people you want to reach, then way to go.  Nothing wrong with making a sorta Liberal political/art-house film for the discerning few.

But I would assume that, as a Liberal, the goal would be to make it as accessible as possible to a wider audience than just those people who already agree with you completely

Which is why I wonder what Chomsky is doing on the screen.  Now if for some ultra-complex reason I cannot pretend to understand, the filmmaker's strategy is to make sure that no one outside the already small circle of Liberals -- my circle -- pays any heed to this film whatsoever, except to ignore it and deride it, then I can think of no better person to put on-screen than Noam Chomsky (unless you have access to the reanimated corpse of Saul Alinsky.)

I'm sure I'll agree with almost everything Mr. Chomsky will say.  I'm sure I will nod my head.  I might even mutter a "Hell, yeah!" if the spirit moves me, but if the intended audience is anyone other than me, then I am baffled by the decision to include someone to whose presence -- unfairly or not -- signifies to anyone not in our club that they need not bother to pay any attention to anything they are about to see...
But you know what?

Screw it.

We live in an age where any documentary, essay, white paper or humble blog post that even hints that the Right has been bred into an army of bilious, ignorant, skull-fucked zombies is going to be ignored by the multitudes and dismissed and sneered at by the Beltway and the Right anyway, so have at it!


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here is the thing, given what you wrote concerning the reversal of your original thoughts about the documentary, I believe you should write a book about David Fucking Brooks. Look, you’ve done the background work, the rest…wait for it…should be easy. The world needs this shit documented in hardcover. It would be a book I would gladly buy so I could give it to anyone I know who ever says anything like: “Brooks makes a good point”.
I know it’s a lot to ask. Just give it a thought if you haven’t already.
Also, don’t stop beating on that bastard. Some commenter’s occasionally disparage your continuing commentary about him, but it needs to be said every fucking time that pencil dick opens his yap or types one goddamn syllable (my apologies to all the pencils in the known universe).
I now return to my lurking status.

Guest said...

Some one is feeling ballsy after two days of not posting. I like it!

casimir said...

The thing to do would be to feature Chomsky, but not identify him. At least 72% of the population would concur in anything he said.

Anonymous said...

The raging right gets away with calculated, extremist rhetoric because Democrats are too cautious and courteous to call them BS-propaganda-slinging hacks to their faces. We need to hear more people say:

I don’t respect climate change deniers, and I refuse to pretend that I do. They don’t pretend to respect us.

I don’t respect evolution underminers, and I refuse to pretend that I do.

I don’t respect Wall St. crooks, and I refuse to pretend that I do.

I don’t respect reproductive rights dismantlers, and I refuse to pretend that I do.

I don’t respect those who commit crimes against humanity, and I refuse to pretend that I do.

Cinesias said...

For a lot of things to occur, there has to be a critical mass first.

Whether it is another piece of evidence documenting the right's insanity and sedition, or someone like Bill Nye going out and being visibly critical of stupid ideas, at first the majority of the population won't really pay attention.

I'll just leave this here:

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.


DG: You're also fighting the good fight. Most people in Illinois, nevermind the US or the universe, have never heard of you or read your work. But that doesn't matter. You're still documenting the right's utter bullshittery and keeping it from going into the memory hole.

Thanks again.

steeve said...

This is why balls-out ridicule is the only proper response to these people. No one will publicly say "i don't want to be a dumbass laughingstock anymore", but they'll sure as hell privately say it, and the only indication we'll have is that there aren't as many conservatives as there used to be, despite no one having witnessed an actual mind change.

Polite debate is designed for public conversions. Since those don't exist, start twisting the knife.

Monster from the Id said...

Anon from 3:47 and Steeve are forgetting something.

"Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness's sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."

The Christopaths, to use Drifty's term, will simply assume their being ridiculed by the Anons and Steeves of this world means they are being "persecuted for righteousness's sake", and will wear that "persecution" as a badge of honor.

Neither the mightiest empire of antiquity, nor the Communist regimes with legally unlimited brute force at their disposal, could destroy Christianity.

Even the warped, cruel, authoritarian perversion of Christianity preached by the Christopaths has that adamant resilience--as does its cousin faith Islam, which is why the Empire of Capital will never subjugate the Middle East entirely.

And yet those two naifs think they can destroy even Christopathic pseudo-Christianity with mere ridicule?

To quote one of my favorite comic-book villain lines, "You do not dream small dreams".

Selah.