To the Rank-and-File wingnut, every screwed over, unemployed fellow citizen looks like Tom Waits from "The Fisher King".
And it scares them so badly that they will crawl begging on all fours right onto capitalism's killing floor and pay anyone in a suit with a microphone any price they ask to assure them that the fate of the beggar will never, ever befall them.
That the poor and the dispossessed are lazy, genetically inferior or morally defective.
That even though the blood trails from the ruin and catastrophe they see all around them lead directly to Wall Street, Fox News, Hate Radio and the GOP...their real enemies are the same people they have already been trained to hate and blame for everything anyway -- a shadowy cabal of imaginary hippies, scary brown people and uppity women led by secretive plotters with Commie/Jew-y names like "Soros" and "Alinsky".
The minute the first sign went up and the first sleeping bag was unzipped on Wall Street, you knew this would be the immediate, lockstep and hysterical reaction from the Right --
Alinsky Rules Return For Obama-- and you knew it because, to anyone whose higher cognitive functions haven't been completely flattened by a constant barrage of Conservative propaganda, the last three years have proven three facts beyond any doubt:
Posted 10/04/2011 06:58 PM ET
Politics: The hippie horde attempting to mob and "occupy" Wall Street this week has a method to its madness. It's all about getting President Obama re-elected by employing classic Alinskyite tactics.
At first glance, the latest protests staged by left-wing rent-a-mobs in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere don't look terribly different from the World Trade Organization and global debt-amnesty spectaculars of a decade ago. Radicals swarm against some hated totem, chant, break a few Starbucks windows and leave scads of garbage for someone else to clean up.
But the "Occupy Wall Street" mob that shut down the Brooklyn Bridge last weekend and drew 700 arrests bears all the earmarks of a professional political machine effort to keep Obama in the White House.
This time, banks were the target, as mobs bore down on Wall Street and posted demands on their Twitter feed to tax and arrest bankers. They knew a soft spot when they saw one.
Polls show the public continues to blame banks instead of administration policies for the economic downturn and widespread joblessness. Singling out banks is a tactic torn right from the playbook of Obama's political mentor, Chicago community organizer Saul Alinsky.
"The goal," wrote David Horowitz's DiscoverTheNetworks.com of Alinsky, "is to foment enough public discontent, moral confusion and outright chaos to spark the social upheaval that Marx, Engels and Lenin predicted — a revolution whose foot soldiers view the status quo as fatally flawed and unworthy of salvation."
"The key to radical social change," wrote Stanley Kurtz in his Alinsky biography "Radical-in-Chief," "was to turn the wrath of America's middle class against large corporations."
To some, it may be a stretch to see the hand of the Obama political machine in what is claimed to be a grass-roots effort. But the facts on the ground point to it.
For one thing, the organizers of these protests are the same ones who got Obama elected in 2008.
Last Aug. 11, former Obama "green czar" and community organizer Van Jones sent out an email to supporters calling for a new plan to "Rebuild the Dream." It called for infrastructure jobs to "rebuild our crumbling bridges" — exactly the line Obama presented in subsequent speeches.
In the same email, Jones — a self-described communist...
- Above all else, the Right's corporate Brain Caste wants absolute, unchecked power, even if that means reducing America to a debt-peonage dung heap for them to squat atop;
- Above all else, the Right's rank-and-file wants to be insulated from the nation-killing shitstorm their Brain Caste is trying to unleash, while being endlessly flattered about their superior morality and exceptional patriotism;
- For a shot at being the House Negroes for the Future Lords of Dung Mountain, the Right's rank-and-file will sell this country out to its enemies in a fucking New York minute.
It's that they have sold their souls to evil men.
And pacts with the agents of the Infernal One are notoriously hard to back out of.
Fundraiser is on and the dough goes here!
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3 comments:
One of the things I love about Gilliam at his best is these little seemingly throwaway scenes that are such perfect self-contained vignettes or character sketches. (He loves tiny details in the background.) In this case, it's one that really plays off the main storyline well. Sadly, it's also one that resonates with most people these days struggling to get or keep a job, any job.
(Aside: When I was first teaching acting, I cobbled together speeches and monologues from a number of films to show and discuss, but I specifically chose many bits like this – great character bits that many viewers forget.)
While Mississippi Burning is a flawed film, there's a story Gene Hackman's character tells about his dad in the first twenty minutes that is very much on point with this, too, muh more so for the conservative faithful – they need to feel they're better than someone else. They will always demand a scapegoat, whether it be a hippie, a Goldstein, a black man, or someone else. They are eager dupes because their self-esteem demands it; rage blots out the shame for a few, fleeting glorious moments, maybe even a few hours... and then they look for their next fix. (And thus Rush, expert at providing the Two-Minute Hate, is a very rich man.)
@botacchio,
100% +1 comment!
And Drifty, another masterpiece to mark for future enjoyment and widespread sharing. You, sir, are our own H.L. Mencken. Thanks!
RP
Perfect.
As usual.
I've been saying the same for the last decade and trying to explain to naysayers that I'm not being mean or overspeaking.
Just telling the truth which is more and more evident every day.
S
It's that they have sold their souls to evil men.
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