Liberal is a Lonely Word

Remember the Bush years? Those were scary times to live through. On an almost daily basis, Bush 43 and his special-ed Jedis worked on stomping individual freedoms while planning future disasters they mistook for ingenious ideas. It was like being in the back of some giant station wagon being driven by stoners. And most of the 'Merican kids in the back had caught passive highs and were just as dumb-f*cked as the driver. But there was always hope even then. There were always solid, unequivocal voices of opposition to defy the madness.

In the early aughts, the liberals presented an alternative agenda of sanity and there was always a chance that the stubbornly deluded public would listen. One day, they might be made to see sense if we just kept trying... Maybe America would make the wagon pull over and hand the keys to the folks who kept patiently pointing out how god-awfully wrong the Republicans were about everything. Cue: 2008.

But Obama sold us a giant lemon and scuttled off quickly to stage right leaving a trail of abandoned campaign promises in his wake... (No. I'm not going to go on again about what a disappointment Obama has been. I'm over that stage in the grieving process. You can take that as read.) I'll just say I'm feeling pretty damn lonely these days and under-represented. Who the hell is speaking for me?

For a time, there was hope in Wisconsin. There was a very real possibility that Scott Walker and the Koch suckers had met their class war Little Big Horn. But no. That hope seems to have evaporated leaving behind only a greasy miasma of animus directed at teachers and other hard-working, productive members of society. The battle seems lost. We seem to have surrendered and just layed down in a self-hating fug to wait for the GOP/corporatist juggernaut to roll over us... Where are the voices to remind us that we should get up and fight for our own interests? Where are the people with power and patience enough to get us to stand up? Where'd they go???

Yes. It's been a bad week for liberals.

All the smug little conservative Quislings have delighted in reminding us that America is not a democracy, it's a republic, so we should quit bitching and let Scott Walker can do whatever he likes. But where are the big guns on our side? Why isn't every voice on the """liberal""" media speaking up? Do we still have Liberal advocates for the people? No. Only mute a**holes it seems.

Like...

Obama announces that the Bush-era dungeons will stay open for business and, with a big pinch of Stalinesque logic, tells us that the guys in Gitmo with no evidence against them will have to stay forever because they can't be tried in court. Fine. If 'terrorist' has become the new 'witch' and if Gitmo is the new Salem... throw that Muslim in the river! If he drowns, he's innocent. If he floats, he must be a terrorist! Barack Obama: Liberal advocate for the people? No. Such a giant a**hole even Fox News are 'morally outraged'.

And then...

NPR execs get Acorned by James O'Keefe (it's like being tea-bagged only nastier). But where are the grown-ups? Who's speaking out for the liberals and for common f*cking sense? I'm sorry, NPR, but if you're so lame, so amateur and so powerless you can be brought down by O'Keefe's pathetic sting op, you deserve to be defunded. NPR: Liberal advocates for the people? No. Giant supine a**holes.

And and then...

Carl Kruger, gay Democrat state senator from Brooklyn, and his live-in bottom get busted for bribery. Ironically, it's the same Carl Kruger who fought so valiantly against civil rights for gay folks by helping bring down same-sex marriage in New York. Carl Kruger: Liberal advocate for the people? No. A giant hypocritical a**hole.

OK... I've had enough. I'm sure even more supposed liberal advocates for the people have shriveled like old party balloons this week and helped grease the wheels for the corporatist juggernaut. But I'm too frigging depressed to think about it any more.

It's the early aughts all over again: let's just shut up, inhale and let the stoned driver get on with driving the station wagon into the nearest brick wall.

Let's Play The Race Card...

I like those off-beat surveys that pop up and make you wonder "who wants to know this sh*t and why?" But this one, surely says more than it knows:

Oprah Winfrey, Glenn Beck, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin, comprised the list that LifeWay Research presented to Protestant pastors along with the question, “Which, if any, of the following people do you believe are Christians?”

Bush and Palin topped the list with most Protestant pastors checking them off as Christians while Beck's Mormonism put him low with only 27% (Mormon, Shmormon...). But Oprah and Obama? Only 41% thought Obama was a Christian and a staggering 81% thought Oprah wasn't. Hmm... could I play the race card here black folks? I think I might have a flush...

A Protestant pastor would have to be f*cknuts insane to think two American public figures of Oprah and Obama's stature would not self-identify as Christian. The only way they could possibly assume differently is if the words 'white', 'male', 'conservative' and 'Christian' were interchangeable and/or synonymous in Protestant circles. Tell me it ain't so?

Credit Where Credit's Due

I wouldn't go that far but...

Mark Potok of The Southern Poverty Law Center has been talking about a recent SPLC report on how anti-Muslim hate crimes have spiked as Islamophobic hysteria metastasizes into the mainstream. Potok places the blame not only on the fringe wackjobs themselves but fairly and squarely on a Republican establishment that obsequiously refuses to condemn bigotry because they're too busy pandering to the hate vote.

It's pretty disgusting watching c*nts like Boehner, for example, downplay Terry Jones' Koran burning by equating it with the Park 51 Islamic Center 'controversy'. And it's pitiful to see Newt Gingrich cashing in on hate by releasing DVDs and scoring lucrative speaking gigs warning us about the 'evils of Islam'. They are a disgrace to America and the concept of civilization itself.

But one Republican who does deserve praise, albeit retroactively, is George W. Bush. As the SPLC points out, Bush worked hard to stop us turning against Muslim Americans and Islam in general after 9-11. Whether it was all motivated by his ulterior motive of keeping the oil-rich sultans he had business dealings with happy, who can say. But the truth stands: current Republican attitudes to Islam would not have been tolerated under Bush. As Potok says:

One of the more interesting things [the report] shows is not only this massive spike in 2001, a 1,700 percent spike up, but then subsequently, a very rapid decline by about two-thirds the following year, just three and a half months later. I would attribute that very largely to the speeches that were given by President Bush at the time which called very proactively for people not to regard our enemies as Muslims or as Arabs, but as a very specific terrorist network al Qaida.

So there you have it. I never thought I'd live to see the day I almost miss Bush. It may be relative... kinda like missing the pain in your balls when someone stops kicking you there and starts punching you in the face instead... but it's there all the same.

Today's GOP Hissy Fit

Paul McCartney accepts the Gershwin prize in DC

Said The Washington Post:

"In a few short years, they changed the way we heard music," Obama said of the Beatles before presenting McCartney with the prize. He added that he was "grateful that a young Englishman shared his dreams with us."

But then it all went awry for the wingnuts...

During his acceptance speech, McCartney joked “after the last eight years, it’s great to have a President who knows what a library is," c*ntservatives went into fake outrage mode as usual.

John Boehner said "I hope he'll apologize to the American people for his conduct". Wha..?

As usual, Republicans pretend it's the American people, not them, who are offended whenever anyone pricks their notoriously thin skin. Talk about presumption verging on psychological projection.

How f*cking dare John Boehner equate the mores of his tawdry minority cult with the majority values of the American people. How f*cking dare he imply bad-mouthing Bush somehow oversteps the line of community decency and offends Americans in general.

Maybe one day we can declare a ban on pols using the term 'American people' in every statement as shorthand for 'this is my dumb opinion but I'm trying to make you think everyone agrees with me'?

Random Picture of the Day Too...

Reagan Bush were obviously too fiscally conservative to bother making pins for the various minorities who weren't going to vote for them and so opted for this totally inoffensive catch-all. For those guys, this constitutes a stroke of genius.