Look inside almost any rage-drunk goon who jabs his finger in your chest and calls you "Traitor!" for questioning the infinite wisdom of President George W. Bush one minute...
...and the next minute is swearing he never even heard of George W. Bush while he jabs his finger in your chest and calls you "Traitor!" for supporting President Kenyan Usuper...
...and this sad, little man is what you find.
Functionally incapable of reconciling what he believes with all his heart with what he sees right in front of his eyes, he curls up into a Limbaugh-coma and lashes out hysterically at anyone who tries to drag him out of it.
In earnest, I would feel nothing but compassion for these people if they weren't working so damned hard to destroy my country.
But since they are...
"You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war [...] I want peace, and believe it can only be reached through union and war, and I will ever conduct war with a view to perfect and early success. But, my dear sirs, when peace does come, you may call on me for anything. Then will I share with you the last cracker, and watch with you to shield your homes and families against danger from every quarter."
-- William Tecumseh Sherman
5 comments:
In a recent post..or maybe podcast, you made reference to a politician or pundit, spouting some outrageously backward epithet, that would have, in the past (when this video was made) relegated them to laughing stock status in the media at large...
I would like to submit that this temporal conundrum, is perhaps in actuality, the central problem of our time.so to speak.
What banal sitcom, spewed forth by the sea of ipads in hollowwood today, could produce a more cogent, sincere, heartfelt dialogue..and have it actually air??
Having been a teen when "All In the Family" and other shows like it, were the staple of popular culture, and the natural order of things seemed to be progress, I just have to ask: What moment did things turn so badly backwards? What societal event, turned us from a civilization moving forward, in to the anti-human culture of today?
Just wondering...
Ronald Reagan's ascent on the back of the hostages who weren't released (but had well-paid handlers) until his day of swearing in.
And then the real swearing started.
And the nation was lost.
There were foundations being laid - fundamentalist evangelical organizations/megachurches, southern Strategy, beginnings of deregulation, Friedman economics - for the conservative ascendancy going back to the 70s and even late 60s. That said, I look back and more and more think that the tipping point was Reagan (FSM forgive me, I was Repub and voted twice for that asshole).
The explosion of lobbyists, neutering the Fairness doctrine, the beginning of serious deregulation, framing government as "the problem" rather than a solution, ridiculing energy conservation. And perhaps most important, dropping the top income tax rate from 70% down to 28%, while going in the red and using the SS surplus plus massive borrowing to keep things going.
The massive income inequality really took off under Reagan, particularly for the millionaires/billionaires. In the 80s a Koch brother was worth a billion or two, but was a political asterisk - a little known Libertarian candidate, from a family that published Bircher magazines. Now they are worth $25B each and can swing elections on a national level.
I also trace it back to St. Ronnie.
Even Richard Nixon knew, somewhere in his gut, that he was doing something "bad" or "wrong", or he wouldn't have kept denying it, even going on TV to assure us that he was not a crook (though, of course, he was).
But Reagan is the one who told us that the correct moral philosophy is "I got mine, and fuck you!" Or, as Mario Cuomo put it more eloquently:
"Reagan made a virtue of denying compassion to those most in need of it."
And, it is as true as the day is long: as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
"framing govt as the problem not the solution"
yep
right there, that was the fuel
It feeds the fundamentalist's appetite for always needing an enemy conspiring against them.....see Martin Marty and his concept of intentionally outrageous.
Cohesion in fundamentalist communities depends on being engaged in some epic struggle against something or someone. And when no yellow or brown folk are up to the task, you turn your guns on the govt.
We've arrived at PRECISELY the point we predicted we'd arrive when Reagan started that bullshit.
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