And second, all the Handmaid's Tale trad-wives who publicly celebrate their ability to pop out kids for the Fatherland like Pez dispensers and cheer every time one of their basic civil rights is stripped from them by the Dear Leader's minions, while in the privacy of their own minds they crave the strange and forbidden...
Like fucking a -- gasp! -- Socialist.
And screaming at the tops of their lungs without any fear that the HOA will report them to ICE.
* [Prologue: If you have never read Jonathan Swift's excellent 1729 satire
"A Modest Proposal"
please understand that this missive of mine is delivered in that spirit.
Onward.]
Sure, abolishing gay marriage may sound "controversial:, but hear me out.
The one thing the Centrist Big Brains and Never Trumpers with media platforms
all seem to agree on is that Democrats lost because something something
"culture". They're all very careful never to explain exactly what
"culture" means, but they are all very clear that Democrats must dump the
words and the people and who make "Americans" feel icky.
Example.
This is Bill Galston, nearly 80, completely out of touch reality and very hard
to listen to since literally every third word out of his mouth is "y'know" on
the Never Trump Beg to Differ podcast:
...the [Democratic] party is going to have to go through a hard process of
dumping overboard the ballast that threatened to sink the ship.
This is Sam Harris, smug contrarian asshole who has been driven right 'round
the bend by trans stuff, on the Never Trump Bulwark podcast.
The Democratic party is a... is a this very rigged, uh, Rube
Goldberg device of death. Which is just, y'know, rigged
to destroy, to... to cancel the reputation
of anyone who touches the wrong gear or lever. And,
uh, we have to... we have to tear it down to the studs. I mean it's just
like this... is there... Actually has to be a purge of
the activist class in Democratic politics. Otherwise, y'know, this... no
one we put forward will be electable.
All lines on the pundit electoral map converge here: Democrats have to
go all-in on peeling off some of the cow-dumb mouthbreathers who make up the
margins in these very close elections. The goofs who have no idea how anything
works, what anyone stands for, who pay zero attention to the news and who
broke late for Trump this year by a wide margin.
You know, the clueless mopes Jay Leno used to interview during his
"Jaywalking"
bit.
The cast of Idiocracy.
The Kallikaks.
America's ambulatory, unprocessed Soylent Green.
We who remember All in The Family need to stop mentally shaking
our heads ruefully at the millions of Archie Bunkers who now control this
country, and instead bend every oar in the service of convincing at least some
of those racist dum-dums to vote Democratic.
Because, for you Robocop fans out there, the Great Wad (as my friend, the late
Harlan Ellison used to call them) does not admire the bespectacled kid working
a night shift at a filling station while studying plane geometry:
They Great Wad hates that guy. Instead, they admire the asshole
on the motorcycle who mocks the idea of being a "college boy" and takes what
he wants by force.
Those are the ones we need to somehow bamboozle into the Big Tent. And
believe me, I understand how uncomfortable this might make some of you. In
fact, way back five minutes ago I wrote a lot about madness of credulous
Liberals, who had been right all along, to allow themselves to be shoved into
a corner (again) and control over the public conversation about what the hell had happened to the GOP ceded to the likes of recently-former Republicans like
Rick Wilson and Charlie Sykes and Matthew Dowd and Joe
Scarborough.
Ceded without the slightest hint of genuine confession or repentance or atonement. Ceded without any acknowledgment that we Liberals even
existed, except as wild-eyed straw men impeding the fortunes of this new
"Pro-Democracy Alliance" the Never Trumpers were somehow now in charge
of. As this tiny handful of recently-former Republicans began to
completely colonize the print and teevee media, I was told, repeatedly and in
no uncertain terms, to sit down and shut up.
For God's Sake, driftglass, don't you realize that the
Fate of American Democracy was at stake!
[Fun Fact: Turns out that handing whatever was left of the "Liberal" media
over to a bunch of recently-former Republicans accomplished nothing. And
yet there they still are. Still useless, still wrong, and still telling
us what to do.]
So believe me when I tell you that I well understand your revulsion at the
idea of pandering to meatheads for votes, but for God's Sake, don't you
realize that the Fate of American Democracy is at stake!
And keep in mind that the attitudes of the bigots and imbeciles are set in
concrete, so you can forget about changing them or persuading them with
"facts". They're completely immune to that. Instead, just like
Republicans, we need to focus on a few their odious prejudices and deranged
conspiracy theories and pretend like hell that, A) we agree with them, B) they
are
very
smart for believing what they believe, and C) we promise to make whatever
they're mad at go away.
Also keep in mind, they have the memory of a mayfly, so it doesn't matter if
we actually deliver on those promises. This is a great big hammer that
foolish Democrats keep leaving in the tool box. In the New Politics, it
only matters that the meatbags think you delivered on your
promises. Donald Trump built a couple of shitty miles of his stupid
wall, Mexico laughed at the thought that they were going to pay for any of it,
and yet the meatbags think it was a huge success.
After all, if God hadn't wanted them to be greased, fleeced and decreased, She
would not have made them chumps. Seen that way,
not scamming them may even be sacrilegious.
We'd be doing it to Save American Democracy. And is there a nobler cause to be found in this broken old world?
But we have a lot of catching up to do, since Republicans have already picked
the Hate shelves nearly clean, which is no surprise since they've been at it
for so long that Hate has become the sole binding force that keeps their volatile coalition
of bigots, imbeciles, gun nuts, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists,
christopaths and grifters together.
Consider that, with Barack Obama, Democrats offered the Right a compassionate,
polymath, scandal-free constitutional law professor. A family man with
family values. With a strong, beautiful wife and amazing kids. A
man who wanted to roll up his sleeves and help America get back on it's
feet. And who obsessively tacked to the ever-shifting Fake Center in
hopes of finding partners in fixing America's real problems on the other side.
What the hell were we thinking!? And a woman of color?
That's twice as bad!
This is not what Republicans want in a black person.
They do not want someone they have to look up to. Who is
in charge of things. Or funny. Or smart. Or competent.
Or articulate. No, no, no. Republican want a black man who
knows his fucking place. Republicans don't want black folks gone; they want them servile and
deferential. Bowing low to white power like they did back in the good
old days.
And that's what they got in men like Michael Steele who happily groveled for
Rush Limbaugh's approval because Mikey Mike knew his fucking place. Like
grinnin', clappin' Tim Scott who went so far as to marry his "Canadian
girlfriend" for a shot at the highest office in the land, running in a party
that never had any intention of giving it to him. And now they have Byron
Donalds right out front, smiling and lying and happily eating all of Donald
Trump's shit and asking for seconds, and getting absolutely nothing in
return.
No way we can match that.
Republicans have also already stripped women of their basic civil rights, and
most of the white ladies didn't care. Didn't care that Trump was a
rapist. Didn't care that he was besties with Jeffrey Epstein.
Instead, what they know for damn sure and certain is that Obummer was a Kenyan
mooslim, Hillary drinks baby's blood and had Vince Foster murdered, and Kalama
Harris is tranny loving commie furriner just like her father!
So we can't compete with them for the incels, the bro-vote, or the self-loathing
women. And unless we run Tony Montana next time --
-- the male Latino voters who bailed this time -- because a woman's place is
either decorative arm-candy or in the kitchen making dinner and in the bedroom
making babies -- are unlikely to return.
This election proved we can't compete with Republicans in demonizing Haitians
or Puerto Ricans either.
Republicans in Michigan and Pennsylvania showed they could run anti-semitic
ads in one state, and anti-Muslim ads in another, and cash in on both, so they
pretty much own hating both of those groups.
And no matter how frantically our Never Trumper and Centrist "allies" insist
that it's not too late to get in on that slagging transexuals action,
Republicans -- led by Failed Botox-and-taxidermy experiment, Nancy Mace -- own
that now too.
So who is left out there in the land of the free for us to target? Some
group that the bigots and imbeciles already hate enough for at least some of
them to consider hooking up with the Dems next time? The Irish?
Italians? Canadians?
Nope. Sorry, but none of those get the blood boiling enough or fire
enough berserk lightening into the amygdala to get the meatheads off their
asses and to the polls for Democrats.
C'mon people, the answer is right there in front of us. Who do
the meatheads both hate and about whom (and this is the
important part) do they feel they're being cruelly oppressed by the Woke Mob
and prevented from blabbing their hatred in public?
It's the Gays, stupid.
You think these assholes have evolved on that subject in the 20 years since
Matthew Dowd and Karl Rove used it to help get Dubya re-elected in 2004?
Are you high? Once again, wake the fuck up: these mopes still haven't
gotten over Appomattox Court House, April 9, 1865.
President Bush said today he supported a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage, declaring that such a measure was the only way to
protect the status of marriage between man and woman, which he called "the
most fundamental institution of civilization."
In an announcement fraught with social, legal and political implications,
Mr. Bush urged Congress to act on the amendment quickly and send it on to
the state legislatures. Quick action is essential, he said, to bring
clarity to the law and protect husband-and-wife marriages from a few
"activist judges."
"The voice of the people must be heard," Mr. Bush said in a brief White
House speech that Senator John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, the front-runner
for the Democratic presidential nomination, called an attempt to find "a
wedge issue to divide the American people."...
Of course it was "a wedge issue to divide the American people." In the New Politics, there are nothing but wedge issues,
because the meatheads we need to win elections do not give one tiny shit about
anything else.
I tell you, out here in the Real World where I live, the meatheads are dying
to go back being able to openly mock the "queers" and "fairies" and the
"dykes". Go back to telling "fag" jokes in public without fear o censure or side-eyes from their fellow church goers,
which is why Democrats must go after the Sodomites with as much zeal as we
speak about climate change.
And it'll be so easy. Targeting gay school teachers. Railing
against Hollywood's Gay Agenda ruining America. And you know it's
The Gays who are driving housing prices out of reach of real Americans.
And for gosh sakes, my kids can even enjoy watching Saw III without
seeing commercials for gay couples doing laundry and pickout out
furniture! What about a spirited campaign to have
Anita Bryant, Robert Mugabe and Phyllis Schlafly put on American postage
stamps? All the old triggers and stereotypes are still there, lurking
just below the surface of oppressive Woke-enforced civility, and for once
maybe we can beat the GOP at their own game.
And the first step is the abolition of gay marriage. And we need to go
all-in on this. Some of us can get away with merely writing
pseudo-scholarly contrarian articles in respected journals aladegenerate gambler Bill Bennett and
high-class bigot William Buckley
explaining how The Gays sap the moral strength of the nation. This will
not be a problem: if the Times will publish Tom Cotton, they'll publish
any filth as long as it draws flies.
Others will need to take a lower road: maybe going full Westboro Baptist
Church -- waving the Bible and screaming about Leviticus -- if that's what it
takes. But we all need to get behind this thing and push.
Or don't you care about Saving American Democracy?
Maybe we can even lure some of the Log Cabin Republicans into our Big
Tent -- they certainly seem self-loathing enough to go for it.
Now I am not blind to the hardship this will impose on The Gays (Note to self I:
commission a focus group the find out if beating up on blind people would win
us any votes in Pennsylvania. Or hating handicapped people generally. Note to self II: Especially people with mental disabilities -- the meatheads are nearly as thirsty to reintroduce "retard" into the MAGA out-'n-proud lexicon as they are "fag".)
nor am I unsympathetic, but sacrifices must be made. Remember, people,
to impress the meatheads and get enough of 'em on our side to swing elections,
purges must be done. Ballast must be
jettisoned.
I understand that coming out loudly against gay marriage may disorient some
people. I, for one, will be saddened to see the marriages of prominent
gays and lesbians like Pete Buttigieg, Tim Miller and Sara Longwell legally
annulled and their children taken away, but what choice do we
have?
Personally, I enjoyed seeing Mayor Pete on Fox running rings around the hosts,
and I'm sure that Miller and Longwell meant well when they insisted that the
path to victory was for Dems to climb into bed with Liz Cheney, but let's look
at the cold, hard facts.
Sending Mayor Pete to Fox News accomplished exactly nothing except impressing
some liberals who were going to vote Democratic anyway. And let's face
it, the Never Trump "movement" has also accomplished exactly nothing except
salvaging the careers and bank accounts of a handful of elite misfits who were
run out of their own party gby the monster they created.
It's all very sad, but sacrifices to the bigotry of the meatheads must be
made. Tribute to the paranoia of the meatheads must be paid. After
all, in this Kobayashi Maru moment, the
Salvation of American Democracy hangs in the balance. And
how selfish and self-destructive it would be to value the civil rights of the
few over the Salvation of American Democracy for the many.
Look, we probably won't actually have to do most of this. Remember the
thing about the MAGA memory being Etch-a-Sketch sketchy. We'll just need
to promise to do it, then publicly emmiserate the families of a few
prominent gays, then declare victory over the Gay Agenda. Republican voter are morons. They'll forget.
And if it should come to pass, after years of winning elections and
successfully fundraising off of this stuff, that we must actually deliver on
it, well, this Supreme Court is clearly ready and willing to ignore
stare decisis, eradicate decades of precedent and strip away the civil
rights of certain groups of American citizens. And if that's not enough.
that same Supreme Court has granted the office of the president godlike powers
and immunity from everything, so we'd have that in our back pocket too.
As I said, this would all be very sad, but surely a small price to pay to
Save American Democracy.
Update: For the record, the graphic at the top of this post is not a parody. It's an actual relic from a Conservative ad from 2005.
The ad was produced by USA Next, a conservative group that supports creating personal accounts within Social Security and has aggressively criticized the AARP, which disagrees about the Social Security reform.
In February 2005, USA Next hired the advertising agency behind the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth campaign that attacked 2004 presidential candidate John F. Kerry. The group gained instant notoriety late in that month when they placed an advertisement on several conservative web sites and blogs. This advertisement depicted a large red 'x' over a picture of a soldier and a large green check mark over a picture of a just-married homosexual couple.
And anyone who had been paying any attention at all, could
clearly see the monstrous trajectory the GOP had already been on for decades, how far
gone the GOP already was.
From American's Most Ubiquitous Conservative Public Intellectual today:
The world seems full of sexual predators these days. But I don’t think good men wake up one morning and suddenly start thrusting their tongue down the throats of women they barely know. You’ve got to walk through a certain number of doors before you’re capable of that kind of behavior... We’ll call this the room of love... In this regime, sex is special... So a lot of men cross the threshold and enter another room, the room of the prospector... In this room sex is a gold nugget, a pleasure, like any other pleasure, except maybe it’s better and the desire for it is stronger...
Then the obligatory glob of Both Siderist lube, without which Mr. Brooks would not be able to finish this exercise in autoidiotic asphyxiation:
In the political world, for example, partisans of left and right rationalize their support for Bill Clinton or Donald Trump...
Then, this creepy exercise hits its 800 word limits and draws to a merciful close:
Finally, one core problem is the collapse of the first room, the room of love...
Shorter David Brooks: Casual sex (translation: The 1960s and the Dirty Hippies) puts you a hop-skip-and-jump away from sexual predation.
Aaaaaand we're done.
Next up: Can I manage a Silkwood shower while at the same time drinking everything that's left in the liquor cabinet.
When Senator Lindsay Graham (R-Closet As Deep As The Ausable Chasm) says shit like this --
...
“The people who are attacking us and attacking France are motivated by religious teachings that say there’s no place on the planet for anybody that disagrees with them,” Graham said on Fox News Thursday morning, adding that Obama is “undercutting” other foreign leaders by not acknowledging that it is a religious war. “I think he believes that strength is offensive, that he doesn’t want to be bold because he may offend somebody — it’s not offensive to say that these are religious fanatics that don’t represent Islam, that have to be dealt with, they have to be killed or captured.”…
“When he left Iraq, he did so on a campaign promise. He’s trying to close Gitmo based on a campaign promise. His campaign promises are getting a lot of people killed. Our intelligence-gathering abilities have been compromised. The only way you can stop these attacks is to find out about them before they occur. We’re reducing our military spending at a time when we need it the most. These policies driven by President Obama of being soft and weak and indecisive are coming home to haunt us.”
-- he is perfectly sincere.
Not in the sense that what he is saying is true, of course -- Graham is a coward and a liar of the first order whose kink appears to be finding new ways to make other people's children die in whatever war Bill Kristol cooks up next.
No he is perfectly sincere in that he is a grown man who knows exactly what he is doing -- exactly what kind of degenerates and Dixie whistling Confederate dead-enders to whom his political fortunes are hostage.
Graham knows that at every day at the Roger Ailes Freakshow, the usual bigots and con men ritually round up the Usual Suspects to advance the usual agenda:
Fox Captures the Culprit for the Paris Attacks: Bill de Blasio, With an Assist From Obama
And he knows that as lightly camouflaged homosexual at the heart of the Party of Bigots and Lunatics in the heart of the Old Confederacy, if he doesn't want to end up on the fucking menu he'd damn well better sound off more brazenly blood-drunk and viciously insane than the next ten rednecks at the trough combined,
...I'll bet 90 percent of [BuzzFeed's] readers never even notice their bylines.
And I'm pretty certain the folks at BuzzFeed know this perfectly well. They do everything they can to make advertising look staff-written, including in tone, style, and format, but leave themselves an out by putting corporate bylines on the ads and pretending that everyone will notice them. Hey, it says Sony Entertainment Network at the top! What more do you want?
I imagine this is a glimpse of our future. You have been warned.
Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representatives:
...
Why is it, then, that discontent now so extensively prevails, and the Union of the States, which is the source of all these blessings, is threatened with destruction?
The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographical parties have been formed.
I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union (as others have been) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.
But let us take warning in time and remove the cause of danger. It can not be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, "to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war." This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.
How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.
Upon their good sense and patriotic forbearance I confess I still greatly rely. Without their aid it is beyond the power of any President, no matter what may be his own political proclivities, to restore peace and harmony among the States. Wisely limited and restrained as is his power under our Constitution and laws, he alone can accomplish but little for good or for evil on such a momentous question.
And this brings me to observe that the election of any one of our fellow-citizens to the office of President does not of itself afford just cause for dissolving the Union. This is more especially true if his election has been effected by a mere plurality, and not a majority of the people, and has resulted from transient and temporary causes, which may probably never again occur. In order to justify a resort to revolutionary resistance, the Federal Government must be guilty of "a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise" of powers not granted by the Constitution.
The late Presidential election, however, has been held in strict conformity with its express provisions. How, then, can the result justify a revolution to destroy this very Constitution? Reason, justice, a regard for the Constitution, all require that we shall wait for some overt and dangerous act on the part of the President elect before resorting to such a remedy. It is said, however, that the antecedents of the President-elect have been sufficient to justify the fears of the South that he will attempt to invade their constitutional rights. But are such apprehensions of contingent danger in the future sufficient to justify the immediate destruction of the noblest system of government ever devised by mortals? From the very nature of his office and its high responsibilities he must necessarily be conservative. The stern duty of administering the vast and complicated concerns of this Government affords in itself a guaranty that he will not attempt any violation of a clear constitutional right.
After all, he is no more than the chief executive officer of the Government. His province is not to make but to execute the laws. And it is a remarkable fact in our history that, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of the antislavery party, no single act has ever passed Congress, unless we may possibly except the Missouri compromise, impairing in the slightest degree the rights of the South to their property in slaves; and it may also be observed, judging from present indications, that no probability exists of the passage of such an act by a majority of both Houses, either in the present or the next Congress. Surely under these circumstances we ought to be restrained from present action by the precept of Him who spake as man never spoke, that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." The day of evil may never come unless we shall rashly bring it upon ourselves.
...
How very little the mating call of the Counterfeit Centrist has changed in the century and a half since President Buchanan addressed the Congress for the fourth and last time.
When faced with a clear, moral choice, the
Counterfeit Centrist -- being a natural coward and terrified at the thought of having to pick a fucking side in anything that is not 100% safe and risk-free -- will instead predictablyattack the shrillness of the Dirty Hippies who disturbed his establishmentarian somnolence by blowing the whistle on the Establishment's gross failings and hypocrisies in the first place.
"The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. "
The Counterfeit Centrist will then predictably attack vituperative, foul-mouthed Dirty Hippie bloggers...
"In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, 'to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war.'"
...the terrible bias of the Dirty Hippie Liberal Press...
"This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures."
...and the terribly partisanship of the Dirty Hippies' Congressional supporters:
"The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union."
The Counterfeit Centrist gives his deeply authoritarian biases away by the lengths which he will go to in order to avoid getting tricked into debating the actual merits of the Dirty Abolitionist Hippies' positions. Instead, the Counterfeit Centrist refuses to acknowledge any reality outside of a debate over process:
How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible and have no more right to interfere than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.
The Counterfeit Centrist loves process debates, because sooner or later, the Counterfeit Centrist will insist that the deciding factor in any such debate is not matter of right and wrong, but of deference to the will of Authority, no matter how pernicious or corrupt that Authority may be (once again from President James Buchanan's Third Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union)
I cordially congratulate you upon the final settlement by the Supreme Court of the United States of the question of slavery in the Territories, which had presented an aspect so truly formidable at the commencement of my Administration. The right has been established of every citizen to take his property of any kind, including slaves, into the common Territories belonging equally to all the States of the Confederacy, and to have it protected there under the Federal Constitution.
Neither Congress nor a Territorial legislature nor any human power has any authority to annul or impair this vested right. The supreme judicial tribunal of the country, which is a coordinate branch of the Government, has sanctioned and affirmed these principles of constitutional law, so manifestly just in themselves and so well calculated to promote peace and harmony among the States. It is a striking proof of the sense of justice which is inherent in our people that the property in slaves has never been disturbed, to my knowledge, in any of the Territories.
Also, if the going gets too tough, the Counterfeit Centrist will simply resort to making shit up -- falsifying or deliberately misreading statistics, imputing fictional, defamatory positions to the shrill challengers of corrupt Authority, lying about history or conjuring out of thin air sweeping generalizations which are absolutely unsupported by the facts -- in order to keep the scales artificially "balanced" and the sides synthetically "equally wrong". Here is President James Buchanan's during his Third Annual Message to Congress on the State of the Union, arguing against re-opening the African slave trade by explaining what a sweet deal our domestic slaves really have (emphasis added) --
Reopen the trade and it would be difficult to determine whether the effect would be more deleterious on the interests of the master or on those of the native-born slave. Of the evils to the master, the one most to be dreaded would be the introduction of wild, heathen, and ignorant barbarians among the sober, orderly, and quiet slaves whose ancestors have been on the soil for several generations. This might tend to barbarize, demoralize, and exasperate the whole mass and produce most deplorable consequences.
The effect upon the existing slave would, if possible, be still more deplorable. At present he is treated with kindness and humanity. He is well fed, well clothed, and not overworked. His condition is incomparably better than that of the coolies which modern nations of high civilization have employed as a substitute for African slaves. Both the philanthropy and the self-interest of the master have combined to produce this humane result. But let this trade be reopened and what will be the effect?<
The same to a considerable extent as on a neighboring island, the only spot now on earth where the African slave trade is openly tolerated, and this in defiance of solemn treaties with a power abundantly able at any moment to enforce their execution. There the master, intent upon present gain, extorts from the slave as much labor as his physical powers are capable of enduring, knowing that when death comes to his relief his place can be supplied at a price reduced to the lowest point by the competition of rival African slave traders. Should this ever be the case in our country, which I do not deem possible, the present useful character of the domestic institution, wherein those too old and too young to work are provided for with care and humanity and those capable of labor are not overtasked, would undergo an unfortunate change. The feeling of reciprocal dependence and attachment which now exists between master and slave would be converted into mutual distrust and hostility.
-- and thus sparing himself the agony of having to side against established authority on the basis that the status quo was wrong and evil.
All of which would merely be an interesting discursion down one of history's little byways were it not for the fact that, 150 years later, as our country is being kicked to pieces by Conservative goons, everywhere you look you can find the same cowardly, cloying, dishonest, career-insulating goo being spackled over our very real problems.
Ripped from today's headlines, a few of the dozens of examples you can find on any given day sloshing around the America media, clogging up our civic arteries with whiny, self-deluded, Centrist bullshit:
The only time candidates care about independents is when they’re running for office
By LINDA KILLIAN
...
Independent voters also think the parties care more about winning elections than about solving the nation’s problems.
Politicians seek the votes of independents and woo them with attention in November. But once they have their victory, independents are forgotten as both Republicans and Democrats worry about keeping their base supporters, donors and party leaders happy.
This has left independents feeling disconnected and disillusioned with a government they do not believe truly represents them.
Independent voters feel ignored, fed up and shut out of the system.
They are tired of being taken for granted. They’re tired of partisan wrangling, which all too often results in either gridlock and a lack of action on the most important issues the nation faces, or unsatisfactory legislative outcomes, pushed through by one political party with little input from the other.
Independent voters have determined the outcome and sought change in each of the last three national elections, but they haven’t yet seen the change they are looking for.
Politicians are moving to the edges. Americans are moving to the center. When will anyone speak for the overlooked middle?
Both sides are “not building anything around the commonality of issues,” and “there is an overabundance of hate,” New York Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman said at a panel discussion sponsored by Bloomberg Businessweek.
The two parties have “become completely intolerant of the other side,” he said. No longer are fights over “good and bad” legislation. “It’s the fight between good and evil,” he said. Lawmakers “can compromise between bad and worse and terrible, but you can’t compromise between good and evil.”
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Fox and MSNBC
News Corp.
(NWSA) (NWSA)’s Fox News Network carries Republican commentators such as political consultant Karl Rove, and MSNBC features pro-Democratic hosts such as Rachel Maddow and Ed Schultz.
“People tend to listen to what they agree with,” said Conrad. Members of Congress “are probably the only ones who watch both Fox and MSNBC,” Ackerman said...
The position of the activist left is to abandon any sort of effective or bipartisan action on the drivers of the deficit — specifically entitlement spending and tax policy — in favor of across-the-board cuts that fall primarily on our soldiers and dramatically increase the burden of the already-dysfunctional and counterproductive tax code.
The other choice is to pursue a renewed effort based on a bipartisan and relatively-balanced approach, as set forth in Simpson-Bowles and expanded on by the various working groups in the Senate.
...
Sit down with the average, "independent" voter and, once you cut through all the snuffling over how aw-aw-awful everyone is, you will get down to their real, core problem.
They're terrified.
They're terrified that they might actually be forced to take a side. Might actually have to tell a neighbor they're full of shit. Might actually have to tell Grandpa to shut the fuck up already about scary Negroes and uppity women and "illegals" and all the rest of the bogey men that Hate Radio and Fox News and wingnut email pumps into his skull around the clock.
And since Grandpa is obviously never going to shut the fuck up, the only way Mr. and Mrs. Independent Voter can reconcile the awful realities that besiege them on every side with their deep desire to never get involved or take a side on any subject of any importance is to believe with all their hearts the Big Centrist Lie that the Dirty Hippies are always just as crazy and just as wrong as Grandpa.
They need to invent elaborate fantasies about imaginary Liberals so that they can look at something like this (from Ezra Klein) --
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This process led, eventually, to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—better known as Obamacare—which also included an individual mandate. But, as that bill came closer to passing, Republicans began coalescing around the mandate, which polling showed to be one of the legislation’s least popular elements. In December, 2009, in a vote on the bill, every Senate Republican voted to call the individual mandate “unconstitutional.”
This shift—Democrats lining up behind the Republican-crafted mandate, and Republicans declaring it not just inappropriate policy but contrary to the wishes of the Founders—shocked Wyden. “I would characterize the Washington, D.C., relationship with the individual mandate as truly schizophrenic,” he said.
It was not an isolated case. In 2007, both Newt Gingrich and John McCain wanted a cap-and-trade program in order to reduce carbon emissions. Today, neither they nor any other leading Republicans support cap-and-trade. In 2008, the Bush Administration proposed, pushed, and signed the Economic Stimulus Act, a deficit-financed tax cut designed to boost the flagging economy. Today, few Republicans admit that a deficit-financed stimulus can work. Indeed, with the exception of raising taxes on the rich, virtually every major policy currently associated with the Obama Administration was, within the past decade, a Republican idea in good standin
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What is notable about the conservative response to the individual mandate is not only the speed with which a legal argument that was considered fringe in 2010 had become mainstream by 2012; it’s the implication that the Republicans spent two decades pushing legislation that was in clear violation of the nation’s founding document. Political parties do go through occasional, painful cleansings, in which they emerge with different leaders who hold different positions. This was true of Democrats in the nineteen-nineties, when Bill Clinton passed free trade, deficit reduction, and welfare reform, despite the furious objections of liberals. But in this case the mandate’s supporters simply became its opponents.
In February, 2012, Stuart Butler, the author of the Heritage Foundation brief that first proposed the mandate, wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he recanted that support. “I’ve altered my views on many things,” he wrote. “The individual mandate in health care is one of them.” Senator Orrin Hatch, who had been a co-sponsor of the Chafee bill, emerged as one of the mandate’s most implacable opponents in 2010, writing in The Hill that to come to “any other conclusion” than that the mandate is unconstitutional “requires treating the Constitution as the servant, rather than the master, of Congress.” Mitt Romney, who had both passed an individual mandate as governor and supported Wyden-Bennett, now calls Obama’s law an “unconstitutional power grab from the states,” and has promised, if elected, to begin repealing the law “on Day One." ...
-- and not see the frightening reality of the raving madness of American Conservatism and the GOP staring back at them.
They need to believe both sides are equally wrong in equal amounts about everything because if this is not so, then history will not record their continued, obsessive neutrality as wise or thoughtful, but instead mark them forever as dupes and cowards: lazy, gutless AWOLers who stood by and did nothing but bitch about Both Sides while their country was torn to bits by fascists and maniacs.
Which is quite a pathetic epitaph for any American citizen.
("Synthesizing the Narrative of a Generation!") I have found it almost impossible to even thumb through the great, sloppy midden pile of nipple slips, diet tips, tabloid sleaze, purloined excellence, occasional articles of genuine interest and, generally, the murmur of the New Age hipster end of the Davos wading pool talking to itself that HuffPo has become.
Arianna's House of Games was, is, and ever shall be an exercise in raw capitalist scammery dressed up in the best fair-market cotton Che tee-shirt money can buy, and once I had satisfied my morbid curiosity -- once I learned exactly how the simple, mechanical aggregation magic trick worked by doing it for a couple of weeks and once I had sussed out the 25 or so words which are in constant, Batman-Splat!-Pow!-Zowie! rotation inside the headline extruding algorithm -- I lost interest.
But every now and then I drop back over just to see
Today, for example, I stopped by.
First thing I noticed was that Rupert Murdoch's trophy wife -- Wendi Deng Murdoch -- had been given a choice piece of real estate atop the front page to promote her first movie.
The word "lao tong," once holding a historic meaning, now had a modern and relevant definition for me. In fact, even before we launched the production process, I found my amazing family of lao tongs rallying around me. These connections kept me feeling brave. The wonderful writer Amy Tan introduced me to Lisa See's novel. Without Amy's friendship, I would never have been inspired to start this project. My great friend Florence Sloan joined as my supportive and strong producing partner and together we found ourselves lucky enough to...
Something something Wayne Wang. Something something impressive figures from Silicon Valley. Something something the mayor of San Francisco. Something something my good friend Willow Bay. Something something actress Bing Bing Li. Something something Lisa See. Something something Diane von Furstenberg. Something something Nicole Kidman. Something something Diana Taylor. Something something Ivanka Trump. Something something Ben Kingsley. Something something Deb Lee Jackman. Something something Senator Chris Dodd.
In the past, I have repeatedly written of the Teabaggers that they:
... seem to be little more than Republicans who are fleeing the scene of their crime, but at the same time still desperately want believe in the inerrant wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. They are completely incapable of facing the horrifying reality that they have gotten every single major political opinion and decision of their adult lives completely wrong, so instead they double-down on their hatred of women and/or gays and/or brown people and/or Liberals, and blame them for the miserable fuckpit their leaders and their policies have made of their live and futures.
Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enoughto burn their uniforms. ...
Tea Party Republican dresses up like Nazi Waffen SS!
If you Google "candidate wears Nazi uniform," you would probably guess it would be a Tea Party favorite, a Republican, and someone once called "a rising star in the GOP.” If you did guess this, you would be right!
We refer, of course, to Rich Lott, the Republican nominee for a congressional seat in Ohio, a Tea Party darling and a fellow who gets his jollies dressing up as a Nazi SS officer! Where do they find these guys? ...
