"Sometimes it feels to me as if this campaign - with its entrenched support for both sides so dominant and the space for actual persuasion so minimal - is less a campaign than a cold civil war. Almost exactly along the same regional and racial lines as the real one."
-- Andrew Sullivan, August 23, 2012 discussing Judge John Head's loony, "Take up arms, citizens, cuz the Kenyan Usurper's gonna sell us all out to the U.N.!" comments.
"This campaign"?
Mr. Sullivan, meet Senator Jesse Helms.
"Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He'd better have a bodyguard."
-- Senator Jesse Helms, November 1994.
Mr. Sullivan, meet Governor George Wallace:
The children of the Traitor Confederacy have been this way forever, Mr. Sullivan, and they have been on the march since before you were in long pants.
You'd think this blindingly obvious and incredibly salient feature of American culture and history would be one of those "fact" thingies that someone whose job description is "Public Political Intellectualizing" and whose specialization is "American Conservatism" would have picked up on before going gray in the service of these thugs.
7 comments:
Ugh, Helms.
In high school, I had to sit through that old bigot rattle on for 45 minutes when he visited Charlotte.
And now I have the pleasure of teaching at the college he allegedly once referred to as "the University of Negroes and Communists", UNC.
Helms is weak sauce compared to the goons in charge of the GOP now. Public officials are openly discussing their crackpot theories about the United Nations literally invading our country and subjugating the good, bible-beating people of shitholes like Lubbock, Texas.
And that county judge (Judge Head?) actually said, "I'm not just talking riots here and there. I'm talking Lexington, Concord, take up arms, get rid of the dictator."
This kind of willful stupidity is worn like a badge of honor in today's Republican party. Science doesn't matter, knowledge is frowned upon and, in some cases, actually scorned by the GOP faithful and their political leaders.
And if they had their way, no one's mom or sister would be safe from their red-white-and-blue transvaginal ultrasound wands.
The cognitive dissonance meter has crashed through the fucking floor. There truly is no hope for these mindless douche-cannons when they can simultaneously scream for the government to get out of everyone's lives yet want to police every single pregnancy that occurs within the U.S. and its territories.
And there is certainly little hope for our political system as long as these obnoxiously rich, violently ignorant scumbags are taken seriously and their views are treated as legitimate by the media.
Is the fact that hard-nosed objective reporting has all but disappeared from the now-blasted landscape of American journalism:
1) The last gasps of a bankrupt political ideology, twisting and thrashing in it's death-throes, throwing out poison as it sinks into it's own pit of filth and darkness?
-OR-
2)A sign of American decline, signalling that we are not, as a society, going to go gently into that good night?
Trying to decide which it is, or which possible combination of the two, has cost me sleep. I love my country dearly, and that's why I am angry so much of the time.
Someone needs to send Sullivan gift copies of "Mind of the South" and "Albion's Seed".
I have read Diftglass and Blue Gal on a daily basis for several years, listen and relisten to the podcasts and forward copies of many of their articles to friends for their edification. Now I think it's time for Drifty to back away from his all- to - frequent lambastings of Andy Sullivan. They have become pointless. Loyal Reader and Infrequent Supporter, Byron
The actual Republican candidate in the last gubernatorial race here (yes, the guy running for highest office in the state) said that Denver's bike sharing program was somethingsomething U.N. black helicopters something. It was among the reasons that he was royally trounced in the election. Colorado has a fairly well educated electorate despite some evidence to the contrary. But Dan Maes would probably have been elected in some of the southern states.
Years ago I knew someone who lived in SC who was a Democrat (and later Green) activist. Mentioning Helms around him would make him spit venom like no other subject, and he swore he heard Helms respond to a constituent at a rally with, "You *have* to vote for me because Democrats will give your jobs to n*ggers and sp*cs!".
As for the cognitive dissonance, I'm starting to think that the unwashed, uneducated, willfully pig-ignorant masses view "cognitive dissonance" as "intellectual sophistication". I honestly think they believe holding contrary views makes them smart.
Also, it's not always contrary. Progressives forget that fundamental framing makes a difference. Being pro-life and pro-capital punishment is *not* a contraction. Punishment is fundamental to morality. People are inherently bad, and the badness must be driven out. The death penalty must be preserved because that is the ultimate punishment. Also, pregnancies must go to term because that is the punishment for women thinking their vaginae can go free-range rather than under their husband's care. Restricting either is restricting punishment and therefore promoting immorality and evil.
The social safety net is bad because you are not punishing failure. That failure is either the will of G~d or personal sloth. The person who is a failure must have the failure punished out of him so he can succeed.
The whole "small government" thing is small government for THEM. *They* get small government because they are good and Christian people (who they think G~d and Jesus made America for) and therefore do not need "big gubbmint" running their lives. However, big tyrannical gubbmint for THEM. Because *they* are bad people who need the force of government to punish them into behaving like good (white, straight, protestant, uneducated) Christian people. They want government *just* big enough to bully people they think are oogie, but small enough to be powerless against themselves.
Basically, they're children who want mom and dad to punish their siblings but spend all gift money on themselves.
Mike.K.
Agreed, Mike.
If you look at it like that, hell, it really isn't cognitive dissonance.
They're just fucking psychopaths.
One more reason to keep them away from the levers of power, by any means necessary.
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