Let's examine this Laura. What she got from us:
"Domestic violence workshops."
What she got from the church: food, a job, and people that said they loved her. The church gave her something to do, a narrative to organize her life around. Someone to tell her what to do.
Are we prepared to do that? To make her a bowl of soup… and sit there and hold her hand while she eats it… and pretend to love her… and force our narrative on her--to own her? To tell her what to think?
I think probably not. Because we're liberals. We believe in teaching her skills, in getting her a job, giving her a loan, maybe lecturing her. But she doesn't want to learn skills, she's weak and tired and afraid. She doesn't want to think.
And most people would rather be preached at by a preacher than a social worker.
We have this idealized image of our fellow humans: that human nature is perfectible, that people go for what's best for them, that given the opportunity, people want to be happy and free. We're liberals. We believe that, given equal access to information and resources, people will work toward happiness. That they will act for the best for themselves, their family, their community, their country and eventually, the world.
We're wrong.
And Elsie? She's just a willfully ignorant asshole. Who votes. And there's millions just like her. They want to take what we give them and then go to the polls and vote so that those things are gone forever. For everyone. I say, "hey, dumbass, you don't see your Medicare, your social security, your safe food and medicine, your right to vote and own property, all these rights and safeties liberals fought and died for. You hate liberalism because Sean Hannity told you to? Fine--give it all up--lose all your rights, your safety and comfort. Great. But don't drag us down with you." Why should I lose my rights because all the Elsies in the world go vote their hatred and delusion at their pastor Karl Rove's bidding?
We can read Mark Ames'
The Spite Vote , we can read Franks'
What's the Matter With Kansas? We can think and discuss and argue and get angry with each other for various sins of political incorrectness all day long. And in the end, we're left facing the fact that more people than we thought possible are just plain assholes. They're mean. They're weak. They're cowardly.
They're hateful. And they're fucking stupid.
They just voted in their president. And they're marching us toward a
fascist state .
(And it doesn't matter if the election was Diebolded and robocalled and thwarted at the polls, either: it should never have been close enough to steal.)
These people never vote for good government; they don't even believe in government. They're spoiled little toddlers who freak out when they're expected to share. They don't think they have to pay for anything that they take. And they're right--they don't.
Who do you think a good, righteous, Bush-voting fundy hates more, Osama Bin Laden or a New York City liberal?
The corporate media right away dusted off the old canard that Democrats need to reach out more to the "heartland." Reach out? Forget that these folks blindly ignored all objective reality -- and their own best economic and national-security interests -- and voted for Bush. Look what they did at the Senate level.
In Kentucky, they refused to use even basic sanity as a litmus test, and reelected a guy with late-stage dementia; in Oklahoma, they tapped a fellow who wants to execute doctors who perform abortions, who was sued for sterilizing a woman against her will, who pled guilty to Medicaid fraud, and who largely opposes federal subsidies, even for his own state; in Louisiana, they embraced a man who has made back-door deals with David Duke and who was revealed to have had a long-running affair with a prostitute; in South Carolina, they went with a guy who thinks all gay teachers should be fired; and in Alaska, they reelected a woman who was appointed by her father to the job after a spectacularly undistinguished career as an obscure state senator.
And compared with the rest of the GOP Class of '04, she's the fucking prize. These are the wonderful elected officials that the "heartland" has foisted on the rest of us.
"Reach out" to these voters? Yeah. Then pull back a bloody stump. We had the largest turnout of voters ever. All sorts of people who used to vote Republican came out for Kerry. Bush was exposed in the debates as the crooked psycho fraud with-an-unexplained-object-on-his-back that he is. The youth vote did turn out, 5 million more. The senate isn't all white anymore.
But still, we lost. And now we're mega-fucked. Big time.
Bushco are not politicians. They do not make policy. They are crooks, robber barons. They've pulled an inside job. They create failed states and terrorism so they can loot and pillage and not pay taxes and never be subject to regulations. They will kill our planet and they'll make us like it.
Let's face it, all right? Enough politeness. They
allowed 9/11 to
happen and they profit from it. They allowed all those munitions in Iraq to be looted, and they'll profit from it. Endless war and chaos is good for them. They've been fostering failed states for a long time: Sudan, Congo, Afghanistan--any place where there are tons of natural resources and no central government to impose pesky taxes or regulations. They are not interested in, or concerned about, the well-being of any nation. They are global supervillians, stateless CEOs of multinational corporations who benefit from war, from failed states, from terrorism, from stupidity, greed, and craven fear. You think the
Carlyle Group
doesn't benefit from the USA needing to buy more tanks, because ours keep getting blown up? Halliburton's making, in so many ways, a killing.
"A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey--workers and consumers. The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now--Cheney is the capitalist arm and Bush is the religious arm. They know no boundaries or rules. They are predatory and resentful, amoral, avaricious, and arrogant. Lots of Americans like and admire them because lots of Americans, even those who don't share those same qualities, don't know which end is up. Can the Democrats appeal to such voters? Do they want to? The Republicans have sold their souls for power. Must everyone?"
Liberals, members of the reality-based community, cannot understand why right-wingers cannot see the self-serving nature of those in charge and make much of the blind religious faith of evangelical fundamentalists who support Bush. Again: Bushco doesn't want policies. They want power. The power to empty the Treasury, to enrich their golfing buddies, the power to enforce social, intellectual and cultural conformity at the expense of independent thinking. How else will they get enough of the populace to vote against their own best interests?
Here's the thing: right-wing voters can see it. They like it. Jane Smiley's wrong. They know perfectly well which end is up; they're bullies and, at heart, monarchists/theocrats, and they want to be associated with brute force. They know it'll cause pain to people they hate, so they like it.
--they can buy gold-plated tractors while we close down firehouses. They like a big ugly immoral war against another state. The weaker the state, the better. Then our lizardroid corporate overlords can loot all the resources. Actual terrorism is good for them. It may prove to be an even better issue than abortion to keep the sheep in line. Why should they fight terrorism?
And their million and millions of loyal followers are fucking stupid.
They choose to be. You don't like me calling them stupid? You're afraid it might not "win them over?" First of all, I'm not trying to win them over. I'm trying to disassociate myself from evil. Secondly, you're wrong--it probably will win them over. Because they like it. They respect the boot in the face, rudeness, a show of force, a raised voice.
They're the ones who voted for an overprivileged fratboy deserter who makes speeches dressed in military garb; who demands loyalty oaths from all who would be in his presence; who descends from the sky in a military helicopter amid raving crowds and fireworks displays; and who ignores the real threat of stateless terrorism in favor of invading and occupying a country that was no threat to anyone.
They're the ones who voted for Abu Ghraib.
Or you don't like me calling them stupid because it's unkind and illiberal, and oh, how can I be so elitist? Cry me a river: they are stupid. They believe that Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for September 11, 2001. They think corn syrup is food. They believe that there's no such thing as stateless terrorism. They believe that "the left" is responsible for the revolting cesspool of popular culture. They don't believe in evolution.
They think Bush is a godly man. They never wonder why the Republicans never meet their promises to them. They don't believe in global warming. They do believe in the "Flypaper Strategy." They believe in one paragraph out of Leviticus, but they ignore the rest of the
Bible . They let themselves get scammed over and over by robber barons and religious hucksters. And apparently, although I find this hard to conceive of, they believe that the media is liberal. They're fucking stupid. They've been calling me an elitist snob for many years now. Fine. I'm an elitist snob, fuck you very much, you mouth-breathing bloodthirsty fucktard bigot. I work to educate myself. I spend an inordinate amount of time, energy and money to get a more or less accurate idea of what's going on around me.
But I've been wrong. I was wrong--I believed that, given equal access to information and resources, people will work toward their own best interests. I was wrong. Right-wingers will happily cause themselves suffering, as long as it means they can cause someone else a little bit more suffering. They're happy to see their children mangled horribly in the immoral meatgrinder of the war on Iraq. It makes them happy. Because as long as Uncle Sam is slaughtering brown people somewhere, with lots of shock and awe, it's a good day.
As long as they can make those nasty, dirty war protesters with their silly papier-mache puppets feel scared and angry and powerless, it's a job well done.
And before you all start tut-tutting kindly and rushing to my side with cups of tea and handfuls of Prozac and loving advice about therapy, vitamins and exercise, hear me out. OK?
You're good people. You're educated. You don't watch Fox News. You don't listen to talk radio. You, simply put, haven't the faintest idea what we're up against.
This is Ann
"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building" Coulter, whose books are huge best-sellers. Read a few of her
columns and then come back and tell me I'm over reacting.
This is Rush
"Feminism was established to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream" Limbaugh , who has an adoring audience of many many millions.
Who intoned in his nice baritone about the US policy of torture at Abu Ghraib:
"I'm sorry, folks. I'm sorry. Somebody has to provide a little levity here. This is not as serious as everybody is making it out to be… This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You [ever] heard of need to blow some steam off?"
How about Sean
Hannity , on whose show a young woman caller, to much acclaim, pronounced that she was voting for Bush
"because President Bush likes war. Kerry doesn't like war. So I'm voting for Bush."
Who said, apparently with a straight face:
"[After 9-11], liberal Democrats at first showed little interest in the investigation of the roots of this massive intelligence failure...[Bush and his team] made it clear that determining the causes of America's security failures and finding and remedying its weak points would be central to their mission."
Michael "Savage"
Weiner , who, while voicing his contempt for San Francisco's homeless and the efforts to help them, Savage, a long time Bay Area radio personality, said that female students who come from a Marin County private school to feed and provide services to the homeless
"can go in and get raped by them because they seem to like the excitement of it..." These and other comments suggesting sexual activity between homeless people and minor students were peppered throughout the three-hour broadcast.