Driving through a nearby town, I passed a house where the owner frequently expresses his opinions on signs in his front yard. Today he had a sign that read "Impeach Obama". I'm not that knowledgeable about legal stuff, but I was pretty sure that one had to break a law before they could be impeached.
This reminds me a little of when Clinton was elected president. Conservative critics always insisted that they weren't conspiring against him, but they never explained why there were "Impeach Clinton" bumper-stickers everywhere even before Clinton had taken the oath of office. Had they had a premonition of future perjury?
I think some folks view presidential policy decisions that they disagree with as illegal acts, and right now some conservative pundits are doing their best to convince their fans that the presidential policies are disagreeable, even if they have to stretch the truth to the breaking point to accomplish it.
If more of the American people would (or is it could?) learn that being told what they want to believe isn't the same as getting the facts, then they might start focusing their outrage on reality, and actually accomplish something. Then the guy with signs in his front yard could go back to protesting the local egg farm.
Showing posts with label Conservative Pundits. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservative Pundits. Show all posts
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Ignorance on Parade
The Tea Party Express arrived in DC to protest government spending, rising taxes, destruction of the constitution, communism, fascism, and the eminent end of the world as we know it. As I've mentioned before, alluding to the Boston Tea Party when protesting taxes is already a mark of how misinformed the group is. The Boston Tea Party was to stop low priced surplus tea from being brought from England, thereby destroying the local tea business. If the people in Washington were protesting business monopolies, the tea party would be an appropriate symbol. As it is, perhaps it's an appropriate symbol for a large group that doesn't know what it's talking about, but nonetheless is sure it's correct.
The first thing I notice about these people is that they have amnesia of all things that occurred before Obama's inauguration. They don't remember that the recession and the bail-outs started during the Bush administration. They don't remember that there was a budget surplus when Bush came into office and a trillion dollar deficit when he left. They don't remember (or think is relevant) the unconstitutional acts of the previous administration, and they don't remember that, for most of them, they got poorer while their boss got richer. In fact, it's worth noting that while the "Tea-baggers" filled DC with anti-Obama signs and T-shirts, people were actually thrown in jail for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts at Bush's appearances.
The Atlantic just had an article about the economic legacy of the Bush administration, based on US Census statistics, which reinforces the bumper-sticker slogan; If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. These protesters seem not to be paying attention to anything (except, maybe, the delusional rants of Glen Beck) and it's evident in their signs: Obama, depicted as Hitler, is turning the US to communism, government should keep it's hands off Medicare and Social Security, Obama's turning a Xian nation into an Islamic nation, and, if Obama's plans worked, everything should be fixed by now.
If these people really want to make this a better nation, they need to spend less time walking around with stupid signs, turn off the TV at home, stay home from the bible study meetings, and start reading some non-fiction for a change. When they learn that the spoutings of Glen Beck, Rush Limbo, and their anti-education fundy preachers are actually fiction, then, we can begin to have rational conversations about fixing problems and improving lives. Or, they can continue to parrot messages of ignorance and hate until we're all so angry and polarized that we annihilate each other. They have the freedom to chose.
The first thing I notice about these people is that they have amnesia of all things that occurred before Obama's inauguration. They don't remember that the recession and the bail-outs started during the Bush administration. They don't remember that there was a budget surplus when Bush came into office and a trillion dollar deficit when he left. They don't remember (or think is relevant) the unconstitutional acts of the previous administration, and they don't remember that, for most of them, they got poorer while their boss got richer. In fact, it's worth noting that while the "Tea-baggers" filled DC with anti-Obama signs and T-shirts, people were actually thrown in jail for wearing anti-Bush T-shirts at Bush's appearances.
The Atlantic just had an article about the economic legacy of the Bush administration, based on US Census statistics, which reinforces the bumper-sticker slogan; If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention. These protesters seem not to be paying attention to anything (except, maybe, the delusional rants of Glen Beck) and it's evident in their signs: Obama, depicted as Hitler, is turning the US to communism, government should keep it's hands off Medicare and Social Security, Obama's turning a Xian nation into an Islamic nation, and, if Obama's plans worked, everything should be fixed by now.
If these people really want to make this a better nation, they need to spend less time walking around with stupid signs, turn off the TV at home, stay home from the bible study meetings, and start reading some non-fiction for a change. When they learn that the spoutings of Glen Beck, Rush Limbo, and their anti-education fundy preachers are actually fiction, then, we can begin to have rational conversations about fixing problems and improving lives. Or, they can continue to parrot messages of ignorance and hate until we're all so angry and polarized that we annihilate each other. They have the freedom to chose.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
The Aftermath of the Scary Speech
Obama's speech to the students of the US has come and gone and there are no reported fatalities. Of course, this could just the lull before the storm. When our guard is down, Nancy Pelosi might broadcast the trigger word that was implanted during the speech, then all the children will become ultra-liberal zombies who ravage the country with taxing, spending and creating social programs. Oh! The horror!
Now, Karl Rove has tipped us all off to what really happened; Pres. Obama was going to deliver a speech that would indoctrinate America's children into becoming communist-fascist, Islamic-atheist, terrorist-sissies. Thank goodness the outrage by the Real Americans forced the Antichrist administration to change their evil plan at the last minute, and, thank goodness we have the honesty and integrity of Karl Rove to thank for making that clear. Next, we need to demand to see the real speech as well as the real birth certificate.
Seriously, people like Karl Rove know that the most conservative, most fundamental Xians are very afraid of change and very easily swayed by religious talk, and are therefore easy to manipulate. That is, after all, what Rove did for a living when he worked for George W. Bush. He and other conservative pundits are intentionally tapping into this vulnerability to create a fictitious environment of fear that they know will scare the bejeesus out of a bunch of folks that don't have the rational tools to deal with it objectively.
There are people who were literally afraid to expose their children to a back to school speech. In an interview I read over the weekend, a woman said she didn't want her kids exposed to the President's speech, saying she was an American, the kids are Americans and she is very frightened right now. Does that seem rational to you?
The implication, of course, is that the President of the United States is not an American, that his plans do not consider the best interests of the US's people, and that something really, really, bad is this administration's real goal. They want to avoid their kids' exposure to our President in the same knee-jerk way that they would "protect them" from atheism, evolution and homosexuals. They're scared of the President in a similar way to how I'm scared of knee-jerk reactionaries who are armed with firearms but not with fully functional brains.
Now, Karl Rove has tipped us all off to what really happened; Pres. Obama was going to deliver a speech that would indoctrinate America's children into becoming communist-fascist, Islamic-atheist, terrorist-sissies. Thank goodness the outrage by the Real Americans forced the Antichrist administration to change their evil plan at the last minute, and, thank goodness we have the honesty and integrity of Karl Rove to thank for making that clear. Next, we need to demand to see the real speech as well as the real birth certificate.
Seriously, people like Karl Rove know that the most conservative, most fundamental Xians are very afraid of change and very easily swayed by religious talk, and are therefore easy to manipulate. That is, after all, what Rove did for a living when he worked for George W. Bush. He and other conservative pundits are intentionally tapping into this vulnerability to create a fictitious environment of fear that they know will scare the bejeesus out of a bunch of folks that don't have the rational tools to deal with it objectively.
There are people who were literally afraid to expose their children to a back to school speech. In an interview I read over the weekend, a woman said she didn't want her kids exposed to the President's speech, saying she was an American, the kids are Americans and she is very frightened right now. Does that seem rational to you?
The implication, of course, is that the President of the United States is not an American, that his plans do not consider the best interests of the US's people, and that something really, really, bad is this administration's real goal. They want to avoid their kids' exposure to our President in the same knee-jerk way that they would "protect them" from atheism, evolution and homosexuals. They're scared of the President in a similar way to how I'm scared of knee-jerk reactionaries who are armed with firearms but not with fully functional brains.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Beware: Dangerous Stupid People
Barack Obama has received an unprecedented number of death threats since winning the election. Some of these, as expected, come from racists, but there are a bunch of other crazies lining up as well. Some of the biblical end-times people have decided that Obama is the Anti-Christ, which they aim to prove by selectively cherry-picking the book of Revelations and to further back up with infinitely misinterpretable (and nonbiblical) quatrains of Nostradamus. Then there are the people who think Obama is a socialist and think that socialist and Stalinist are synonymous terms. Next are the ultra-conservatives who think that any Democrat, or just about anyone else who disagrees with them, is a blight on the land and should be eradicated. There are a bunch of other types I could list, but the scariest ones are just dangerous stupid people.
Dangerous stupid people listen to pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly, who say everyone should be scared of Barack Obama because there’s no telling what he might do. Dangerous stupid people don’t stop and think that pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly are self-serving egomaniacs who only care about high Nielson Ratings and don’t give a damn whether their inane blather is misinterpreted as suggesting that that the President-elect of the US is a threat to the American way of life.
Pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly don’t care if their inflammatory, hate-filled rhetoric incites dangerous stupid people to kill a man who could prove to be a great President, just because the pundits’ job is to criticize Democrats, but they have nothing to criticize yet (because Bush is still the President!). Instead, pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly choose to play on the fears of dangerous stupid people who haven’t the mental capacity to differentiate between the verbal masturbatory spew of pompous sociopathic blowhards and genuine warnings of impending disaster. So if anything bad happens to the President-elect, the pundits need to be imprisoned as accessories to murder.
Dangerous stupid people listen to pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly, who say everyone should be scared of Barack Obama because there’s no telling what he might do. Dangerous stupid people don’t stop and think that pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly are self-serving egomaniacs who only care about high Nielson Ratings and don’t give a damn whether their inane blather is misinterpreted as suggesting that that the President-elect of the US is a threat to the American way of life.
Pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly don’t care if their inflammatory, hate-filled rhetoric incites dangerous stupid people to kill a man who could prove to be a great President, just because the pundits’ job is to criticize Democrats, but they have nothing to criticize yet (because Bush is still the President!). Instead, pundits like Shawn Hanity or Bill O’Reilly choose to play on the fears of dangerous stupid people who haven’t the mental capacity to differentiate between the verbal masturbatory spew of pompous sociopathic blowhards and genuine warnings of impending disaster. So if anything bad happens to the President-elect, the pundits need to be imprisoned as accessories to murder.
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