I don't think it will work quite so well this time round. After all, if anyone spoke truth to power it was the Kings. If Dubya had a brain, he might have had a clue this was coming.
The more they rip this, the less able they will be to claim to represent ALL Americans in the elections in November.
I hope.
Posted by majkia at February 8, 2006 06:23 AMWe've got to be resolute in this and stand up and say, "If not now at the memorial of an activist of justice - our activist - then the critics simply have no intrest in ever hearing the truth to power."
Put simply, these people that can't handle the confrontations & want the civil rights icons safely neutered and placed on a nice shelf in the study. From there, they can look adoringly at least once a year at Martin's visage and think about how good it was that they decided to give black folk a break.
Unfortunately, I expect the limp noodle brigade to crumble (or is it dissolve?) before Washingoton's lunch hours.
Posted by idiosynchronic at February 8, 2006 06:37 AMon Tweety's show Kate O"Beirne was beside herself with righteous indignation and fury / she almost popped right there / i must say i rather enjoyed it / smile / and talk radio on Denver's clear channel both host and callers were orgasmic with the sort of glee one feels when one gets to bash the opposition with senseless rage / Bush looked like he was trying to put a good face (heh) on the situation with Laura's help, i imagine
Posted by Katherine Hunter at February 8, 2006 06:39 AMChris Matthews was basing Clinton et all yesterday on softball
Posted by at February 8, 2006 06:39 AMWe need to re-run that picture of Laura scowling and Dubya figeting over and over and over.
That picture tells a 1000 words.
Posted by idiosynchronic at February 8, 2006 06:44 AMTweety kept referring to "OUR" president last night when recounting what happened at the funeral. He usually says "THE" president. There was no doubt that he was pissed at the treatment flightsuit boy received yesterday.
Posted by Susan S at February 8, 2006 06:45 AMI hope that the GOP keeps it up. They are digging their own grave. The idiots don't realize that Jr. is not well liked. He acted like a petulant child on top of it all. I guess he wet the bed last night.
Posted by Ga6thDem at February 8, 2006 06:47 AMThe difference between Wellstone and Mrs. King is that the majority of people know who King was, and after the neglect of the people in NOLA, I don't think the wurlitzer will have that much affect on the non-Kool-Aid drinkers. Here's hoping anyway.
Posted by Sharon at February 8, 2006 06:47 AMSharon,
It's pretty much set in with the public that Jr. is an idiot. So he and his supporters wet the bed when some one points it out. LOL!
GHW Bush got up and said that as an Episcopalian, he had never seen a funeral like that. The crowd seemed to take it as an honest statement of fact.
Bill Clinton got a huge ovation before even saying a word and he is a magnificent public speaker.
I give GW Bush credit just for daring to show his face in such august company. The disparity in abilities is so glaring, there is really no way to ignore it.
Posted by citizen Able at February 8, 2006 07:04 AMFor once, I laughed at Stephanie Miller on AAR, who said that the look on Laura's face in the picture below is the same look her high school boyfriend saw in the windshield just before she T-boned him at the stop sign.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 07:11 AMAgain, comments and posts here are stated as "wishing it were so" as compared to reality. The reality comes later and the blame game begins.
Posted by jj at February 8, 2006 07:17 AMCitizen Able, Bush doesn't deserve any credit; he was told to go, and he went, thinking that he'd be honored because he's the pretzeldent. He's too stupid to realize he was unwanted.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 07:29 AMI thought the really big surprise at the CSK funeral was the fact that Bush was not heckled outright. Of course, the restraint was an indication of the audience's respect for CSK, not for Bush.
Posted by Danton at February 8, 2006 07:36 AMUntil the right attends a traditional Black funeral I think they all should STFU. We consider funerals celebrations. Our loved one is going home, no more suffering, crying, or living among earthly troubles. We celebrate the life of the person and what they stood for. We do this at EVERY funeral. So, White America got a true taste of a black funeral, and they can't handle it. They can't handle that in celebrating Coretta Scott King's life, their HFIC (Head fcuk in charge) got ripped. Mrs. King stood for peace and equality for all. Her funeral celebrated it. Too bad everyone understood that but HFIC and the right wing folks who usurped the title of Christian. A true Christian was laid to rest the other day. Think on that.
Posted by anthony at February 8, 2006 07:44 AMI had a dream when I heard that Dubya would attend the funeral. I thought it would be so delightful if someone in the audience had just opened up a newspaper and started reading when il Deuce began speaking. I bet it would have stopped him cold. Then we could really hear wingnut heads exploding. Do you think the SS would have arrested him?
Posted by DeminNewJ at February 8, 2006 07:44 AMYep, it's a real shame that the CSK funeral could not be scripted into the duplicitous photo-op our Glorious Leader has come to expect wherever he goes, and that braying right wingers apparently think he has a divine "right" to.
The ingratitude! And after all Nero Jr has done for civil rights and opportunity for Black Americans! Surely, it's been one of his many "priorities". With so many accomplishments, too numerous even to mention.
To deny him his photo op solely because his methods and policies have been viciously hostile to everything the deceased fought for and stood for---those Lib'ruls are just monstrous!
This will be a test of our beloved "independents"---can they think straight, or will they be lead once again by the KKKarl and Rush Wurlitzer Team?
Posted by euzoius at February 8, 2006 08:22 AM
Amazing what happens when KKKarl can't script the event! The HORROR!!
Even McCain gets into the damage control act, lashing out at Obama! And little Tweety smiling all the way with him!!
Posted by bbtb at February 8, 2006 08:31 AMDear Editor:
I have always been a life-long progressive liberal democrat, but hearing about how King's funeral was taken over by irrational Bush haters is more than I can take. Not since the Wellstone memorial, when that awful man Rick Kahn got up and asked everyone to continue the good works of Paul Wellstone, have I been so ashamed of my own party.
I was proud to see the press, as well as many democrats, pounce on the totally unfortunate and regretable recantations of Wellstone's life's work by supposed "mourners," and I'm heartened to see the liberal media isn't going to let traitors like Jimmy Carter and the Reverend Lowery get away with defiling the King funeral by imposing their minority views on poverty and war in so inappropriate a venue. I felt sorry for poor president Bush to have to sit through that. Have they no decency? No decorum?
What I don't understand, however, is why so few democrats are denouncing the very same truly unbefitting actions that occurred at the King funeral as they were so quick to deplore after the horribly irresponsible Wellstone memorial? There is no difference!
Four years ago I had no trouble finding an eager chorus of fellow democrats willing to point out how senseless and short-sighted turning a memorial into a tribute was. Four years ago when I said that a funeral was no place for politics I could count on dozens of my fellow travelers patting me on the back and saying "Hear, hear" and "Right on" and "They should have known better" and "We deserve to lose after that." But where are these democrats today?
That is the real question I’d like to know the answer to.
Posted by Thumb at February 8, 2006 08:45 AMMcCain, what a prissy little girl! That letter of his was hilarious.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 08:46 AMYou know what, Thumb, fuck you. Fuck everyone like you. You are the reason Bush is in power in the first place. We got the fucking president killing black people in NOLA on national television and you whine about propriety? You got criminals running the house and senate, and you want people to whisper? You got fucking theocrats choosing who should be on the SCOTUS, and we should be polite? You've got a president wiping his ass with the constitution, and you think we shouldn't applaud people who fought and died for the civil rights Bush is bound and determined to take away. You do what you goddam want at your own funeral, shithead, which, if bush has his way will be sooner than you expect, and let others do the same!
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 08:53 AMBush the victim. Get used to this son of privledge being portrayed this way. As the election gets closer and the GOP has less and less to run on, they'll try for the sympathy vote, coupled with the usual fear mongering.
Posted by rlp at February 8, 2006 08:54 AMThumb:
If you're writing satire, go read Swift and learn how it's done.
If your intentions are not satircal, I suspect you're not the "life-long progressive liberal democrat" you claim to be.
Regardless, did you think Bush showed up to the funeral without any political motives?
Posted by Danton at February 8, 2006 08:59 AMI think Obama should just make a simple reference to "The Keating Five" and watch the grin go away from McCain's face!
I can hear McCain, "Damn, you uppity Negro, I was taking dirty money before you were 30 years old"!
If you're writing satire, go read Swift and learn how it's done.
If you can't tell it's satire (and I tried my best to include a lot of pretty obvious clues) then I think I did a pretty good job of it, if even for an out-of-practice amateur. (Sad though, that I’ve been gone so long that nobody recognizes me any longer. Um, Hi Paradox!)
I'm not the reason Bush is in power, it's the whimpering faux Dems that are so quick to agree with GOP talking points and respond in their frames that are killing us. It's the battered-spouse "But maybe they have a point - can't we just all get along" Dems that are killing us.
Maybe I’m still pissed at the Wellstone hijacking and the namby-pamby response at the time of too many Dems that should have known better, and this is my way of calling them out on it now that the same tactic has returned.
I was just pointing out, in my own admittedly lame Swiftian effort, that if progressives had stuck together during the Wellstone hijacking and pushed back, that maybe, just maybe, the Reich-wing and their media sycophants wouldn't be so quick to think they can go back to this same stupid play.
The good news is that we appear to be learning. I think.
Peace.
Sadly, Thumb, I did remember you and had to wonder who had gelded you. Perhaps you haven't witnessed the overrunning of trolls - one that calls itself a dem - saying exactly the kinds of things you've said. Satire is dead because by the time you write it, it's reality. Besides, satire doesn't work on a country that thinks American Idol is the biggest voting event since the Apprentice piece of shit. In case you haven't noticed, people are stoopid!
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 09:39 AMI was going to ask if Steve could confirm your IP, Thumb.
Sometimes writers write too straight. Your piece is more Candide than Swift but without enough shifty little ideas; you need to pack it with more inobvious idiocies so that they just suddenly tumble onto the reader like a wave of, "Oh, DUH!"
Not that I'm a great one to say jack about good writing.
Posted by idiosynchronic at February 8, 2006 09:58 AMPerhaps you haven't witnessed the overrunning of trolls
For two years at Atrios' all I did was walk around the comments with the holster open and the safety off. It was constant troll watch. Some things never change.
On a positive note, I cross-posted this same bit at Kos' earlier today, and while four years ago there were actually a large number Dems, on dKos no less, defending the RW's attacks against the memorial as "having a point," today my piece is being pounced on like the last donut at a freeper rally.
I don't want to look progress in the eye and question it, but I do wonder why the significant difference this time around? Is the Left actually learning ["Is our children learning?"]? Is this a similar process to building up anti-bodies to viruses and it just takes exposure and time? Or is there something different because of whose funeral it was? I don't know, but progress is progress. I'll take it.
Posted by Thumb at February 8, 2006 10:01 AMThumb, could be the folks at Kos just love to have pie fights about nuthin' at all. But that could be just my impression since it only happens at least once a day!
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 10:09 AMThumb:
Satire ought to be obvious as such to any thoughtful reader. But I don't exactly see where you were "clever" with your "cues."
Posted by Danton at February 8, 2006 10:18 AMThumb, could be the folks at Kos just love to have pie fights about nuthin' at all.
If you think Kos commenters are bad, take a look at Think Progress or Huffington Post. There are so many trolls, you can't follow the threads.
Posted by ann at February 8, 2006 10:34 AMSatire ought to be obvious as such to any thoughtful reader. But I don't exactly see where you were "clever" with your "cues."
"I have always been a life-long progressive liberal democrat, but . . . " should always be a tip off that the person writing is not who they say. And just in case that didn't do it I thought for sure "Not since . . . when that awful man Rick Kahn got up and asked everyone to continue the good works of Paul Wellstone, have I been so ashamed of my own party" would have screamed PARODY ALERT!
I suppose a combination of my weak satirical skills, and an increasing inability for any of us to distinguish parody from modern Reich-wing reality, is going to make it that much more difficult to pull off.
So, I suppose a sorry and a thank you are in order.
I recognzied you immediately, Thumb, you're quite unforgetable, and I was and am very glad to see you.
I said nothing--I saw the post right away--becuase I didn't want to put down your obvious satire, and I did not want to put down a reader who did not see it. I often miss satire.
So not wanting to hurt or offend anyone I just shut up. It was good satire, and it's easy to miss, coyote, I've missed it many times.
Don't leave town. Thank you, truly, for showing up, it's our honor, totally.
Posted by paradox at February 8, 2006 10:56 AMthumb, i grokked you were being satirical
Posted by Katherine Hunter at February 8, 2006 11:09 AMThumb:
Satire would read like this:
"Except for those years when Roosevelt was president, I have always been a life-long progressive liberal Democrat."
Posted by Danton at February 8, 2006 11:21 AMThanks Paradox. I saw your cross-post as kos' and figured as long as I'm home sick this week I'd come by and stir up the pot. Heh.
Too many of the really good ranters seem to have left dKos. Is this your new home?
About my piece, I didn't want to ruin the fun by closing with a /snark tag. Thanks for letting it play out. I was encouraged to see it treated like the mechanical rabbit at a dog race. I swear, modern Republicans make parody so difficult these days. I just can't be over-the-top enough anymore.
Don't leave town.
Nope. Ton's of lurking, but my writing muscles are a little weak from inactivity. I think I was suffering shell shock after the dKos Fraudster Wars of '04 and let myself limp off and disappear into my real-life work (I became a local b-list celebrity last year – an unexpected, splashy new hit in my “Spinal Tap” world was a nice distraction). I am, though, going to try and get back into the pool this year. I really miss writing, and I miss the interaction.
Consider yourself bookmarked.
Call me an idealist, but maybe in the future when we have a cultural mindset that values satire, wit and even classical music, it will be easier to appericate Thumb's efforts. O.K., I'll climb back in my effete eastern ivory tower now.
Posted by rlp at February 8, 2006 12:05 PMI was encouraged to see it treated like the mechanical rabbit at a dog race.
I for one, am quite pleased to have been used for your amusement. Because what can be more fun than making people on your supposed "side" feel like idiots? What better way to make friends and influence people than to try to get a laugh with a politically and emotionally volatile subject of the Wellstone Memorial? /snark
As I'd said, we have several trolls that pretend to be former dems, so this wasn't satire, this was basically a mean-spirited experiment. How amusing for you. The rest of us, not so much.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 12:19 PMI've been here for years, Thumb, and I always cross-post at the Daily Kos.
I can't rant like I used to, or at least not as consistently. And like every old-timer at Kos's place I'm sort of confused by the extreme rush of change at the place. No one knows me there anyomre, seems like. I still try to be a part of that community.
I'd like to make the 3.0 rec list too, but it seems like I never will--I dunno what happened. It's time to put away that extremnly foolish little goal but I can't help it.
Anyway, I am here and there, both places, hombre.
Posted by paradox at February 8, 2006 12:42 PMQuick spot analysis. I think I know why my piece didn't quite work and came off as too "real" in spite of my over-the-top efforts at satire. I'm still holding too much of a hostility toward those dems (like Lieberman today AAARG!) who validated the RW's spin on the Wellstone memorial (much more than I realised untill re-reading my piece later - Paul was my senator - God I miss him). My mistake was to allow that undercurrent of unrealized anger to create an undertone that would have easily made it seem much more "real" to many.
Anger, real anger, doesn't work so well for satire. Good parody, like revenge, is probably also best served cold. The people who took my piece as serious were most likely "thin slicing"* their immediate assumption of real/faux troll on that underlying hostility.
So anyway, on the theme of Replace Your Anger With Cold Steam, let me just share a closing line I just used on a favorite un-moderated board where I sometimes go to beat on freepers to unwind:
"But run with [the King Funeral "scandal"] anyway. What it doesn't do to expose your real agenda of an all powerful central government with an unimpeded view into, and control over, every aspect of our private lives it does to show what a marginalized faux-republican fringe movement you really are."
Ahhh, that feels good.
* Can anyone tell I've been into my new read; Blink?
Posted by Thumb at February 8, 2006 12:45 PMI got the satire.
But I agree with your self-analysis. I sense much anger in you young Thumb.
Posted by snark at February 8, 2006 12:54 PMcoyote, Now that your on that subject: When I first posted I used my real name. Then the nom de plume. I know I don't write well or is educated as most folks but I try. I always felt that from our own side there is some snobbery about being in the know or not.
You my friend and pessimist have changed that for me.
One person's opinion.
When I first posted I used my real name. Then the nom de plume.
He he!
Is this a confessional now?
Posted by snark at February 8, 2006 12:57 PMI sense much anger in you young Thumb.
I was devastated when Sam Kinison died, too.
That renowned American philosopher, Lily Tomlin, said, "No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up."
Preach on, sister!
Posted by diogenes at February 8, 2006 01:19 PMbbtb, I'm guilty of snobbery myself sometimes; I know it. I can't abide wilfull stupidity; you know, like when the trolls lap up whatever the rove machine vomits out. But the left's snobbery can get insufferable to the point of turning people to vote for the other side; during the election, that was one of the biggest complaints people in the GOTV effort heard about - and the left ignored with upturned noses: lefties make people feel stupid with their inside joke mentality. The whole liberal elite meme is built around that reality, and you know what, it works.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 01:40 PMAnthony, your description of a Black funeral being a celebration reminds me of what Bernie Mac wrote in his book "Maybe You Never Cry Again": Black folks of limited means may not get health insurance but make damn sure they have good life insurance so they can have a great funeral when their time comes. That was a really good book but then I love Bernie Mac (though my sister said it may be going off the air, worse luck.)
And he also wrote that at his grandpa's funeral, he got up and made people laugh...and then was getting requests to do other funerals! Yep, I've never seen anything like that at all the White folks' funerals I've attended.
Yep, I've never seen anything like that at all the White folks' funerals I've attended.
Us white folk don't die well. Just another thing we're not real good at. :)
Posted by snark at February 8, 2006 02:15 PMSharon, I grew up in NOLA, and we saw the jazz funerals all the time, that's how I thought they were supposed to be. Then I moved north and found a whole pasty-white population actually seemed embarrassed by death; they want it done antiseptically, somber and without fuss. I think that's why more people aren't demanding to see the flag draped coffins or want to look at the toles cartoon; they want to forget the death and maiming and ugly things, they only want shiny and clean. Ours is a sick country, they can't handle death, sex, violence, nothing.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 02:18 PMBut the left's snobbery can get insufferable to the point of turning people to vote for the other side;
Coyote makes an interesting point, which I'll take the long way around to address.
Just as I mentioned reading Blink above, I'm reading today where it talks about a large case study of newly married couples and making snap assessments as to which couples will be divorced in 15 years. The couples were filmed 15 years prior so the people conducting the test were able to know exactly which 50% were still together and which 50% had split.
It's just a bunch of three minute clips of young couples talking about how they met, their pets, whatever. Normal, happy, young couples. And while the clips were shown to hundreds of marriage councilors and professional psychologists who couldn't predict any better than 54% who did what, this doctor was able to predict to 95% accuracy which couples were those to divorce. With only 15 seconds of those three minute clips he was accurate to 90%.
He studies 20 different emotions from both husband and wife, but to cut this down, I'll jump to his shorthand observational triggers for what's important. The "killer" emotions were defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, and contempt. Of these, contempt was the leading and most reliable indicator that the relationship wouldn't last.
The book has also been talking about how it is that nobody ever sues a doctor they like for malpractice. And that people don’t sue their doctors for mistakes (not directly), they sue them for not listening to them and/or not making them feel they’re a part of the discussion. [DLC, listening?]
So it doesn’t strike me as odd that people’s perception of the "left’s snobbery" would be interpreted as contempt or that that would be enough to make people feel the need to cut of their noses to spite their faces by supporting the GOP. But just the same, I feel nothing but contempt every time I listen to Dem campaign consultants (though that one probably goes both ways) and I don’t ever feel like supporting the Republicans because of it.
It’s like something Sam Kinison (as long as I’m talking about him too) said when he addressed some wingnut's point about how being gay was a choice. He said, "What, like I’m going to go through a break-up so horrible, sooo terrible, that the sight of a harry . . . sweaty . . . ass . . . is going to turn me on?" [it was funnier of course when he said it]
Even knowing what I know now about the power of contempt, I still feel this way about people who could say that they are too hurt by Dems and are now going to vote Republican.
I suppose giving people this story during GOTV won’t help though.
Thumbulina,
I really think what is satrical is that you don't understand what satire is.
What you spoke in your piece was in fact truth. The Democrats, especially the lefty looneys not only embarrassed themselves, they potentially helped lose that particular seat to Coleman and help cement America's evolving opinion that you guys are absolute nuts.
What you don't seem to understand is that we Trolls and the Republican party LOVE it when you behave so disrespectfully. We love the protests, the hate speech, the appeasment marches, these nutty ways you guys express your deep seated hatred helps us to show the middle forty percent of American voters that you are so far from being main stream that you are drowning in shallows of your own ignorance. (BTW: those were metaphors)
The Wellstone Memorial or whatever you called it, was IRONIC, in that it was designed to ignite the masses to help continue the beliefs of Paul Wellstone. (A very nice, but mentally unstable man.) What occurred was just the opposite, so the irony of the event was that you got exactly the opposite reaction that your action wanted.
Again, I'm just sitting back watching what I consider to be a full time parody of ignorance. I think that the stupidity and ignorance and vile comments that come from this list has to be satire, because I can't imagine anyone so damn stupid to really believe this stuff. Then again, I was in New York at the convention, so I've seen you guys in real life and I know you really do exist....and thats sort of scary. ...
So please ignore my advise, and keep encourging this type of vile behavoir. You keep screaming and spewing your venom out for all to see at every opportunity you can, and we Republicans will take a few more Governorships, congressional seats, and keep the White House in 2008.
Posted by carpediem at February 8, 2006 02:43 PMIt's alive!!
Posted by bbtb at February 8, 2006 02:55 PMBut the left's snobbery can get insufferable to the point of turning people to vote for the other side
It used to be the left. Now it's the right. The right thinks that they know better than anyone else. Telling the Kings how to conduct their funeral is no different than Bush and the GOP telling the Schiavo family what to about Teri. Bush is constantly reminding us that he "knows best" and we shouldn't worry our little heads about such silly things as "civil liberties." If you like being talked down to, then Bush is your guy. Hey, some people like being told what to do. Especially bedwetting conservatives.
Posted by Ga6thDem at February 8, 2006 02:58 PMWelcome Thumb, remember you from your guest blogging days over at Atrios...glad you're here, hope you stay awhile.
Isn't is grand,I already see carpeKoolaid has "christened" you by giving you some free (lawyerly) advice....ahhh, the mind and ego of a winger it truly boggles.
Anyway, glad paradox's post delurked you...please stay awhile.
Posted by emal at February 8, 2006 03:04 PMBushco's new rebuilding program for coyote's prepubescent stomping grounds: "Just say no to NO".
Not one Wurlitzer Whimp has the balls to critize CSK for giving Chimpy the "finger" from inside the box.
Thank you for the honor of posting on the "Thumb Thread", sorry it could not have been LONGER.
Posted by TIKI AL at February 8, 2006 03:24 PMWhat you don't seem to understand is that we Trolls and the Republican party LOVE it when you behave so disrespectfully.
Or so you'd like us to believe.
I can see now, after reading your post, why my parody was so quickly received as a real post. Parody is indeed dead. And the barely repressed hostility? Spot on, man. Just hidden behind the use of a [not so] clever nickname and constant use of the personally assertive act of poking someone in the chest from the safety of, what, your parent's basement? Wow. I can't top you no matter how fantastical of an unlikely character I try and create [Are you sure you're not a parody yourself? You know, just to make the Reich-wing look even dumber. Kind of similar to how I tried, but much more effectively.].
But there is one slight difference. My anger is simple. If someone said to my face what you typed I would end up arrested. That's simple anger (and a small fine for first time offense - depending on witnesses). I'm pissed. Somebody . . . make my day. Your underlying hostility, however, isn't because you're pissed; it's because you're afraid.
It affects a lot of people on the Reich these days.
And fear makes people do stupid, crazy things that are often even more dangerous than what they're afraid of. But I digress. You wouldn’t get it anyway.
What were we on? Oh yea, the King funeral "scandal." Guess what, FascistCockBreath [Can I call you FascistCockBreath? I know we haven't known each other for very long, but I already feel I know you. Besides, I know it's not as clever as "Thumbulina," but I try and use visual cues to remember names, and that's all that comes to mind when I read your post.] your attempted spin isn't going to work this time around.
You cons fooled people the first time with your FAINTING spells after the Wellstone memorial ["And when that AWFUL man Rick Kahn got up and asked everyone to CONTINUE the good works of Paul Wellstone, well, I have NEVER been so ashamed to be an American . . . all this talk of politics, for a SENATOR'S memorial!?!? I, I think I have the VAPORS!"] but then you guys started exposing yourselves when it was decided to first put the government into Shivao's private family/doctor decisions, and then as you guys bizarrely started recently saying it's okay for the president to spy on Americans without legal warrant, and people started catching on to how you GoOPers are all hot to stick your noses into other people's private affairs through use of the federal government. [A real Republican, if one could be found outside of a museum, would slap you]
And now your pathetic, whimpering cries of "Ohhhh, but they're talking about a deceased's life as a civil rights activist. *whine* They CAN'T DO that. *more whining* I get to say what's appropriate for OTHER peoples’ memorials *pouts* I DO! I DO! I DO! I DO!!! *stomps feet/whines/pouts*" are falling on deaf, and indignant, ears. The public is beginning to think it's about time for republicans to take nappy-nap.
But hey, run with it anyway. What it doesn't do to expose your real agenda of an all powerful central government with an unimpeded view into, and control over, every aspect of our private lives it does to show what a marginalized faux-republican fringe movement you really are.
Now you'll have to excuse me if I ignore you from this point. One encounter and I'm already bored with you.
these nutty ways you guys express your deep seated hatred helps us to show the middle forty percent of American voters that you are so far from being main stream that you are drowning in shallows of your own ignorance.
"We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are."
- Anis Nin
(BTW: That's a shoe. I'll bet if you try it on . . .)
It's like riding a bike. ;)
Posted by Thumb at February 8, 2006 04:57 PMNow you understand, Thumb, what I have to face before my morning coffee. It's like abuse, I tell you. You hit me at just the wrong time. Damn fine takedown of crappy, btw.
Even knowing what I know now about the power of contempt, I still feel this way about people who could say that they are too hurt by Dems and are now going to vote Republican.
The people I was talking about were moderates with no affiliation, not dems to begin with. I obviously wasn't clear about that. I meant people without much interest in politics; people that want to be left alone to watch them some fear factor and oprah that said they were more apt to lean to the 'pukes because some lefties embody the smarty pants image the right has portrayed them as being. Try to give a person like that details about what's really happening and you end up looking like the smarty pants type our culture has taught them to hate. Bushco has capitalized on that, and you see the results in people like crappy, champion of the dumb.
Posted by iamcoyote at February 8, 2006 05:22 PMYou are right, shortly after the funeral was over, the Right was on the attack defending King George.
I find it amusing how the Right wing can be LOUD, crude and immature and it's OK, even "normal" somehow. Yet, if anyone Center to Left in this country respectfully criticizes any Right wing politician, it is not just wrong, but outright evil!
The lesson I learn is whoever controls the media, controls the minds of many. It is a lesson the Rightwing establishment has learned well.
Posted by Bill Johnson at February 9, 2006 04:42 AMWhat the King funeral and the resulting RNC media fury boiled down to is racism. They are rascist bastards. It's obvious they have never been to a funeral for an African American, and even more obvious they have never been to a white-trash funeral. If they had, they would have known what was going to happen.
The reason this is rascism is because of the Monday Morning quarterbacking of their perceived ideas about propriety at funerals. What they are really saying is "I don't know any black people, although many of them are my friends, I wouldn't mind a black person living in my neighborhood...if they had a job, paid their bills and their kids were clean." They are rascist bastards, and their comments about the King funeral proves the point.
The only good thing is that their mighty media machine shot itself in the ass with 99.9% of blacks in America. Idiots.
Neo-con = America 2nd, Me 1st.
Posted by phidipides at February 9, 2006 07:11 AMThe people I was talking about were moderates with no affiliation, not dems to begin with. I obviously wasn't clear about that. I meant people without much interest in politics; people that want to be left alone to watch them some fear factor and oprah that said they were more apt to lean to the 'pukes because some lefties embody the smarty pants image the right has portrayed them as being. Try to give a person like that details about what's really happening and you end up looking like the smarty pants type our culture has taught them to hate.
And that brings us to the word of the day: Contempt.
Building on what I was saying earlier, the right is very much aware of the corrosive effects of the use of the "contempt" triggers. It not only comes out when they throw around themes like "snob" and "elite," but it's what they're trying to convey with their fake outrage over the King service. Without using the word they're trying to show that what happened was somehow a sign of contempt for a ‘50’s Father Knows Best norm that simply doesn’t exist.
So what to do when working on independents who bring up "those smarty pants?" Change the frame from one of contempt to that of youthful exuberance. "They're just kids, and you know how kids get excited, don't you?" Ahhh. kids and puppies and America, ain’t it grand?
The best part is that you don't need details if you can change the frame (and that's something the Dems need to learn, pardon my contempt), and if you don't change the frame, no amount of details will make any difference (as you experienced).
As I've been trying to do on a few boards now, what we need to be doing is showing how this fake outrage is actually a form of contempt (it's okay to use The Word) for individual expression, a contempt for contrary views, and a contempt for the attention shown for people and ideas they stand diametrically opposed to.
It's a short trip from there to continue the frame to expose their contempt for liberty, their contempt for the constitution, their contempt for the rule of law, their contempt for everything conservatism used to stand for before they sold their souls for an updated Fascism 4.0.
Thumb, if only the dems had a mechanism and the will to frame things properly; they don't even have a much-needed narrative about what they stand for. Although the netroots are growing, the left side is still a loose band of semi-likeminded folk, instead of the wurlitzer-type machine the righties have been building up for 20 years.
I like your ideas about the contempt issue; it is indeed contempt to try to tell us how to live and die, or who should live and die. The pearl-clutching talking heads drip contempt anytime they talk about we the people, even regular people that agree with them. It's funny, my son and I were just talking about how the Dems should run on a kittens and ice cream platform, that'd be a sure winner!
Posted by iamcoyote at February 9, 2006 12:46 PMDid that disgusting, racist bag of waste matter Limbaugh really say what I think he said after the funeral? How that piece of shit is still on the air is completely beyond me.
Posted by jondee at February 9, 2006 02:53 PMIt is interesting that both Fox & CNN have edited their video clips to exclude the audience reaction. I expect this from the Soviet Fox News because they have dome this before.