We've come a long way baby

35 years ago, this was comedic exaggeration, now it's pretty much par for the course on any cable news program and is restrained compared to the rhetoric on the blogosphere or at Tea Party rallies.



crossposted from the Woodshed -- now ensconced in our home on native land back in Canada at last!

well played, douche bag, well played

You have to hand it to the Republicans, they know how to play the press and work the rubes.
Obama gives a major speech to Congress in which he lays out what he want to see in a health care bill and how important it is that U.S. fix its health care system right now - important stuff, no doubt about it, and it was a stirring speech full of appeals to America's lofty ideals and all that kind of inspirational speechifying for which Obama is rightfully known. But what are the press, and therefore the rest of us, going to be talking about for the next week or two?

It won't be health care.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted out "You lie" when Obama said that the new health care program wouldn't cover illegal aliens, so for the next two weeks all the talk on cable news and Sunday political chat shows will be about the "incivility" of politics and how both sides are rude, crude and obnoxious, how it is unheard of for congressmen to heckle the president when he is making a speech, how this shows that Obama doesn't rattle in the face of hecklers, how this shows the Republicans are losing their cool, how it shows that Obama doesn't command the respect that he should as president, how angry the right is, how angry Americans are about illegal aliens, how much influence Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have, whether this shows that Obama will win on health care, whether it shows that the Republicans will win on health care -- in other words, the mainstream public discourse will be about everything but healthcare.

Just like the public discourse for the last two months has been about the angry shouting crazy people showing up to the town hall meetings with guns and pictures of Obama as Hitler. Did we spend the summer talking about health care? No, not really, most of the coverage of the issue was about how terrible it was to call Obama a Nazi and what is socialism really? And who are these angry shouting people who say crazy shit like "keep the government away from my medicare" --- simply put, the angry, shouting, crazy gun-wavers suck up all the attention and the actual issues go unexamined.

Yes, intelligent and thoughtful people see through this misdirection and look at the issue of health care reform, but as history shows, the electorate is not entirely made up of intelligent and thoughtful people. A large proportion of the electorate are ignorant rubes who will now be saying to themselves "gee, maybe Obama is a liar" or "Wow, Joe Wilson's a douchebag for heckling the president, but its just because so many people are angry about all the free stuff we give to illegal immigrants."

Yes, people will be calling Joe Wilson a douche bag for a few days and his name will now be followed with the phrase "that guy who heckled Obama" for the rest of his political career. So what? He's a Republican congressman from South Carolina -- did anyone think he wasn't a douchebag before he opened his mouth? He heckled Obama -- that will definitely hurt his chances of getting elected in the northeast and California, but in South Carolina,where the people who are going to vote for a white Republican douche bag already think that Obama is a Kenyan Islamofascist hippie communist blackamoor who wants to ban NASCAR and the Bible and take away everybody's guns, it's pure gold.

Well played Republicans, well played Joe Wilson. But you're still a bunch of douche bags

updatery: Wilson's various websites are still down, I suspect from before the speech even started, in anticipation of the backlash.
Meanwhile, the good folk at Whisky Fire are entirely correct when they say of Joe Wilson: I Think You're an Asshole, And I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Act Like an Asshole, But You're Still an Asshole, Asshole


crossposted from the Woodshed

A parliament of potty mouths

And they're back with pledges of renewed civility in the House.

"I agree that decorum has gone down somewhat,"admitted Speaker of the House Peter Millikin, in what must be described as an underunderstatement.

"We want to be very serious," pledged Jay Hill, the new Conservative House leader who took over the position from Peter Van Loan, famous, along with his compatriot Pierre Poilievre, for his fondness for using sign language in the House.

Gone will be the parliamentary practise of responding to the opposing party's arguments by making an L on one's forehead with thumb and forefinger. Never again will Con MP Royal Galipeau, himself a contender for Speaker of the House up till a couple of hours ago, storm the Liberal backbenches to grapple with Lib MP David McGuinty.

Personally I think this proposed civility thing is a big mistake.

Arm the buggers, I say! Break out the parliamentary catapaults! Build a moat in the aisle and fill it with green jello. I don't wanna talk to you no more, you empty headed animal food trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

FETCHEZ LA VACHE!

.

Picture ripped off from Ottawonk

Cross-posted at Creekside

In which we slap a smiley face on...

Actually Rev, while I questioned the purpose, I agreed it was a simple task, easily accomplished. So, yes, we're playing in all nine innings. Speaking of innings.

All will kindly observe the sign on the bar at O'Neill's Irish Pub. That applies not just to scribblers who live with blogger, but to comments as well.

Keep in mind that, even though there has been nothing but the sound of crickets from the Stephen Taylor consortium on this... well, just sayin'.

So, have fun! But keep it clean.

You fight dirty? We fight dirty.

I think I still have a Zippo lighter with that motto engraved on it somewhere.

If I had my way, I would put all fights behind me and never have to fight again. I've had my fill of fighting, both in the organized military sense and the less organized, but perhaps more critical, defence against political/legal/corporate assaults on human rights and freedom.

The latter fight, I remind myself, (and others), is not something that can be set aside. The rights and freedoms I enjoy today came as a result of many before me who were willing to continue the fight, sometimes against overwhelming odds. Defending those rights and freedoms is not optional. Without fighting to defend them someone, attempting to advance some warped agenda, will try to remove them.

Without fighting, the inequality which still exists today would not be redressed. Because those who would prevent the advancement of human rights, freedom and equality, usually founded in some corrupted religious belief, will use any tactic they deem fit to achieve their goal of dominion over others. Such tactics include lying, obfuscating, physically harassing and killing their opponents. And that list is hardly exhaustive.

And now, there is a feeble plea that this side of the fight, my side, engage the other side with some "civility". We should not "offend" those who are forwarding an agenda of oppression.

Well, let me put it to the dominionists, the regressionists, the religious proselytizers and, particularly, the anti-woman crowd (since that tends to be all of those afore mentioned groups) in the most succinct way possible:

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

You want civility? NO. It's not even up for negotiation. You don't like the term "Fetus Fetishist", or any of the other terms used here and elsewere? Tough. Fucking. Bananas.

Do you find the terms offensive? Good. I'm not inclined in the slightest to be civil to the freaks who would subjugate women or any other group of people they would choose to make targets for discrimination. I'm not going to change their minds, but I'm not going to cast them in some light which suggests they are "civil". And the suggestion by some, anyone, that we all find middle ground so as to "discuss" issues is little more than an attempt to have the side which is not bent on human subjugation give ground to those who are - as some gesture of reduced enmity.

That would be disingenuous.

I don't like the people who would impose their superstition-driven false morality on others. I find them repulsive. I am not going to make nice with them.

To suggest that I, or more appropriately we, achieve nothing through the use of inflammatory language and the occasional use of vulgarity is to ignore the gross obscenity of those we target. If the worst I do is provide a literary kick in the nuts to some warped zealots out to impose their will on others, I haven't come close to the abominable behaviour they are willing allow themselves in the name of their self-described righteousness.

If you supposedly find yourself in the middle I would suggest you take a closer look. The anti-choicers, anti-abortionists, fetus fetishists, whatever you want to call them, employ tactics and language far more odious than anything you will ever read here.

When I see you taking them on, and I mean really taking them on, I might be inclined to listen to the "civility" plea. But don't count on it. To put it bluntly, I don't intend to surrender one fucking inch of ground - ever.

The fetus fetishists don't simply oppose legal, safe abortions. They oppose anything to do with giving women dominion over their own bodies. The arguments they put forth are camouflage. The same foundation groups opposing a woman's right to choose to remain pregnant or not are also opposed to a woman's right to prevent pregnancy through contraception.

And it's not just them. Anyone who believes they have the right to limit human freedom based on cultural, religious, racial or sexual differences is the same kind of repugnant asshole.

I have no intention of trying to find middle-ground with them. There is no reason to compromise or negotiate. There is, however, a good reason to keep fighting. And if they don't like that people actually fight back, tough. Let them howl.

And the next time someone suggests that we "kiss and make-up" with a bunch of flaming anti-choice lunatics, I would offer that you should get them to do it first. When they're done, tell them to wipe the shit off their lips.

Update: Mattt tosses the scabbard and bares the blade.

Note: The original post which served as the catalyst for this post is not linked. There are sufficient links to that post through others in this post.