Saturday, September 27, 2014

More Shit You Will Never Read About



In any of those 144-point font emails you get from Crazy Uncle Liberty.

This chart via Mother Jones:


And the reason you will never hear about this on the Right is because it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that the liquidation of the American Middle Class and the plight of the American poor is due to anything but their laziness and moral deficiency (via K-Thug):
Liberals talk about circumstances; conservatives talk about character.

This intellectual divide is most obvious when the subject is the persistence of poverty in a wealthy nation. Liberals focus on the stagnation of real wages and the disappearance of jobs offering middle-class incomes, as well as the constant insecurity that comes with not having reliable jobs or assets. For conservatives, however, it’s all about not trying hard enough. The House speaker, John Boehner, says that people have gotten the idea that they “really don’t have to work.” Mitt Romney chides lower-income Americans as being unwilling to “take personal responsibility.” Even as he declares that he really does care about the poor, Representative Paul Ryan attributes persistent poverty to lack of “productive habits.”...
Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that racism still exists and is used to grease the gears of their movement.

Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that climate change is real.

Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that widespread voter suppression is key to their hold on power

Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that history began before January 2009.

Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that they cheered for people like this -- 
"And a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush." -- Richard Perle, 2003

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."  -- Dick Cheney, 2003

"I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America, that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni."  -- Bill Kristol, 2003
-- and called anyone who questioned them a traitor.

Just as it is ideologically and psychologically impossible for Conservatives to admit that this list barely scratches the surface of their vast and utter failure as competent citizens.

We will never be rid of Conservatism, but like carbon in the atmosphere, if we act aggressively, we can still mitigate the worst of their long term damage.

The first, important step in that direction is to admit that Conservatism really exists and is really a problem.

Which means the second important step in that direction is to drive from the public stage people who make a living pretending that Conservatism isn't really a serious problem (denialism), or who "teach the controversy" by pretending that it is no worse than Liberalism (Both Sides!).

Because without the active assistance of courtier media Deniers and the Both Siders, Conservatism could not control our public agenda with anything like the power and reach they exercise today, which is why people like this 



must go.

12 comments:

Kathleen said...

Hope this isn't too OT, but Tommy Christopher at the Daily Banter reported on White House "Press Corps" reaction to positive news about the ACA at Friday's press briefing:

http://thedailybanter.com/2014/09/white-house-press-reacts-blockbuster-obamacare-news/

Cliff Notes version: They didn't give a rat's posterior. See our collective "shocked" faces!

Anonymous said...

Thanks Drift. Just a magisterial rundown of conservatism. Some additional rhetoric for my quiver.

dinthebeast said...

So Perle's grand square turned out to be a latrine, because, you know, indoor plumbing is overrated.
Or, as an elderly black gentleman in Berkeley in 2003 patiently explained to a younger black gentleman who had intruded into his conversation over a game of checkers at the corner store:
"You need to shut your mouth and listen for a while, because as it stands, you don't know Bush about the subject".

-Doug in Oakland

JHB said...

Even worse, the forgettery is so pervasive that the young'uns don't realize just how radically some things have shifter:

http://i612.photobucket.com/albums/tt204/emperorkalan/DU%20Pics/MCFJ_brackets_1942-2013-8i_zps34bd6021.png

starskeptic said...

I like how Barbara O'Brien put it on her Mahablog: "Democrats think in terms of a decent and secure standard of living; Republicans want to get rich. And what’s happening is that the more modest “dream,” which might be achievable for most people, is being sacrificed for the sake of the fantasy one."

e.a.f. said...

and here all this time I thought poverty was caused by a lack of money, because even if I work 24/7 at $7 an hr. I'm still living in poverty.

even if I have a Ph.d and there are no jobs, you can't get hired. so that is what causes poverty: No jobs, no money, no health care.

Yes the lack of health care can lead to poverty, because if you have to spend all your money on health care you wind up living in poverty.

You gotta love those conservatives. Perhaps some of them would like to try this little experiment: you get dropped in a very low income neighbourhood, with $10 in your pocket and you get by for a month on what the state/social agencies give you. It was tried twice in British Columbia, Canada, by sitting provincial politician, about 25 yrs apart. Both men found it incredibly difficult, and both men lost about 25 pounds. Oh and both guys had good educations, spoke well, looked "normal", etc.

Now lets see which of these "conservative" American politicians wants to try it, come on boys we know you can do it, you keep telling others they can do it. now come on, oh, no takers.....

Horace Boothroyd III said...

@Kathleen

I don't put much stock in the Daily Banter. They have way too much fun beating on cripples and laughing over dead hippies.

Anonymous said...

Oh Kathleen, Bob Cesca over at The Daily Banter is emblematic of what is wrong with supposed "pragmatic" lefties. He's never met a PBO decision, policy, or rhetorical device he couldn't spin to be just gosh darn special. He was once an aggressive commenter on what was wrong with the right but as soon as PBO came to power all those principles went out the window. He's a shill. Nothing more and nothing less. And he's got the Greenwald disease even worse than our lovely host Mr. Driftglass. Tommy Christopher is pretty good on most things but since joining the ranks of TDB he's begun to adopt some of the same insane excuses Cesca uses to excuse the neo-liberal leanings of PBO. They've erected the most glorious unicorn. It's simply breathtaking.

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Gloating over your inflexible principles is the paraphrasable semantic equivalent of a stopped clock being right twice a day. @Anon probably fellates DeadHead on a regular basis over at the Daily Kos, where purity of belief is accepted as an all encompassing excuse for gross incompetence in tactics.

Anonymous said...

Tee hee someone said fellate. Inflexible, flexible. Semantics, schemantics. Nothing matters to the surly ignorant nit wits who prefer only social progress and ignore economic injustice and inequality (see all economic appointments by PBO and all investigations by Holder). One precedes the other but you've got it all backwards so we're all good. Clintonista and Obots alike prefer their gays free and poor, their minorities equal and impoverished and their ladies independent and broke. Economic power is political power. Too bad for you and me that you've chosen to be so inflexible and incompetent in the things that can really make one hope for change.

Pinkamena said...

Translation of Anonymous Panty-pisser's comments: "Yeah, The Goddamn Negro has done a lot for Queers, Negroes, and Bitches, but where's the stuff that matters to MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE?!?!?!"

Even money says Anonypisser is white, male, and twenty-something, and probably about one bout of legal trouble away from being a Neofeudalist.

Kathleen said...

@Horace @ 1:16PM

Remember, Horace, our workout is his warmup. We are not worthy to stand at the start line. Mea culpa.