Holy Shit! You rock man. That was god damn comedy gold. 
Why don’t they spend this time and energy on doing something actually productive to their cause? Because they don’t have a cause other than protest. They have no ideas of their own.
Those little fuckers have an advanced bioweapons program!
The link seems down now, but if it ever comes back I heartily recommend CSPAN2’s coverage of the A.N.S.W.E.R. rally. Brutus, I was totally thinking of you while watching it. If you constructed a parody of protests as a piece of performance art, it would be indistinguishable from these guys’ actual protest.
Sometimes I set out to make fun of you guys, and am stunned by the prospect. How do you exaggerate the Himalalyas?
It’s like an episode of Drear Eye for the Lefty Guy. Our sartorial elegance is lacking! Woe! Woe! Whoa! For examplars, you could offer Anne of Green Goebbels Coulter, so svelte, so tidy, who bubbles hatred and lies from her every pore, from her Chanel graced shoulders to her Feminique-enhanced cloaca. You guys sure make a fetish out of smells! How desperate you are not to smell like people, but rather a plastic concoction of monosodium malignate, calcium carcinomate, and biphosphate of tumorol.
And Brutus’ fear and loathing of the dreaded bongo seems to have taken root, like the pandemic spread of Cognitive Dissonance (Number One Threat to the Republic!). At least it offers the amusement of trying to imagine an ergot-poisoned Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, suddenly siezed with a primordial rythym, banging away with the legendary white-boy sense of rythym, perhaps with their necktie wrapped around thier vacuous crania. They might do all right, I suppose, so long as the music is confined to the works of John Phillip Sousa, but if the cadence grows more complex than a waltz… I leave you to imagine. The beat goes off.
If only you looked and acted like us, you snivel, perhaps we might listen! Frankly, I doubt it. Mark Shields maintains a rumpled elegance, speaks common sense and hardly ever scratches his nuts onscreen, and so what? Who the hell wants to look and act like you? Are there not enough people shopping at Middle Management Suckups R’ Us? You sneer with derision at a beaded hipster while tying your tie, and the irony whooshes right past you. Not a clue.
And no, Lib, we havent lost our values, its only that the situation forces us on the defensive, while otherwise sane people blindly defend policies that shrivel the soul of our nation into a lump of coal. Tell me, which of these bongo-thrashing weirdos should be held to account for Abu Ghraib? Which of those puppet-toting strangelings are urging a return to the sacred values of plutocracy, as urged by Our Savior in his Motivational Lecture on the Mount? Back to the days of Know Your Place and Keep Your Distance? Which of them signed the orders launching an aggressive war to free us of the dreadful threat of nuclear-anthrax armed Invisible Pink Unicorns?
Yes, you guys dress better. That’s nice. If only you could think…
Thinking is as thinking does. If dressing better wins elections, then you’re not thinking.
And if winning is all that matters, dig a hole and jump in. You’re already dead, the meat continues to lumber about, but the light has gone out, gone to the place the candle flame goes when you blow it out.
I hold democracy as near to holy as anything, and that includes the right of the people to be wrong. I prefer to be ruled by an egalitarian collection of fools than an elite cadre of fools. If you have to lie to win, I’d rather lose, I need the mirror to shave, and I don’t want to have to stop and puke.
In the late 1980’s I saw a bumper sticker on a Toyota pickup once that said:
“But I DO buy American -
AMERICAN GUNS
Leave my car alone!”
Actually, I’m not sure what it was protesting. You could take it a couple different ways…
Way to go. I think you managed to completely miss the point on that one. Good job for you. :dubious: I know it’s easier to jerk knees rather than fire up the old cranial glop, but try to pay attention. I’ll even put aside most of my weak attempts at humor.
John Carrado said it best.
Whether you like it or not, people judge you and your ideas and opinions based partially on looks and attitude. I know it ain’t fair, but thems the breaks.
If I may throw up a lousy analogy, think of this. A new doper joins up and starts a thread about something really deep and intelligent-like. He is pretty smart and makes great points, but he has an unfortunate type impediment. He can’t seem to avoid using that lame video game 1337 5p33k. Fairly safe to say his views would be outright dismissed, regardless of post content.
Same sorta thing with the protesters. They come across as complete freaks. That makes it really easy to dismiss their views. That’s just they way it is. If they really want to get their message across, they need to clean up their act. That doesn’t mean some sort of Queer Eye makeover. It means dressing relatively normally, leaving the bongos at home, and not making circus sideshow props for a protest.
Oh, and Liberal dear? You only get piled on when you inject the left into threads where they were not. Don’t make it sound like you are being persecuted. :dubious:
A bit late but, Lacktavism?
Nope. Dio still has it with slacktavisim.
Bullshit, she wasn’t harsh enough. I’m sick of these softball question love fests. They should have raked Condi over the coals!
Why do you guys care so much? So much hand-wringing and deep avuncular concern, that somehow the message of the left will be lost. Isn’t this the very same message you claim is spewed relentlessly from dat ol’ debbil, Liberal Tedia? From such wild-eyed hysterics as Mark Shields and Paul Krugman? Try not to worry about it.
Thank you for your concern. Mind your own beeswax.
The loony protestors have always been with us, they are our cross to bear, not yours. Your loonies wear ties, shine their wing tips, and foster policies that lead to folly, cruelty, and slaughter. We really don’t need lectures from you on propriety, thanks anyway. Unless, of course, you wish to put forward the proposition that roughly half of the electorate is made up of purple haired bongo mashers?
You may be comforted by focusing with such exclusive attention to the colorful loonies of the left, and it would be churlish of me to deny you your moment of anal retentive joy. Freak freely, my tight ass brothers!
Damn 'Luci, you seem to be right on the money lately.
I think you are way off base. I don’t see what’s the big deal about wearing black or blanking out your website for a day. I would wager most people that do those things do them because they are upset about the outcome of the election, and it’s just a form of expression. It has more to do with solidarity and publicly saying “I Don’t Support This” than they think it will get Bush out of office (or something.) I don’t think it’s an entirely inappropriate gesture. Certainly it’s a harmless one. I’m not willing to take down my own sites for a day, for anything. I lose money and traffic for downtime. So clearly, shutting down your site for a day can have value to some people. It just doesn’t to you.
As for the Not a Dime people, I was listening to some of it being discussed on the radio; I think their issue is that the only thing that influences this administration seems to be its own economic interests, so (to them) the only way to have their message heard is in economic terms. Whether or not that’s true, or a valid form of protest, is subjective, but I don’t think it’s as stupid as some people are making it out to be. They do have a cause to protest. They are demonstrating their opposition to the current administration. Maybe there are some people out there that like to just protest things for the sake of protesting, but I haven’t met any of them.
And I ask you, what “productive” things can you do to further your cause? Many of the people participating in Not a Damn Dime day (or other forms of protest) are the same ones that go out and try to register voters, volunteer at polling places, raise campaign funds, etc. Most of the places I’ve seen info on that posted were the same places people were working their butts off to get out the Dem & third-party vote the last election. So it’s not valid to assume that’s ALL they do. And in a lot of ways, short of militant revolt, there’s not much else you can do anyway. It feels to an awful lot of people, and for good reason I think, that unless you have gobs of cash to make huge campaign contributions, you’ve pretty much got no voice. So you feel helpless. What else can you do? Maybe you can do something like wear black, so you can see others doing same, and at least know you aren’t totally alone. In that way it helps create hope from despair.
I have no idea where you come up with the notion that just because someone engages in this kind of protest it means they have no ideas of their own, except maybe wishful thinking on your part.
Why do you care so much? I already gave my reason: Amusement. It makes me laugh HAHAHAHA when I see those spacey little bongoteers having at. Why does this topic seem to hit so close to home for you? I don’t see you going into bouts of handwringing when a bit of fun is had at Baptist fundies sake. Heck, you yourself go on about ‘tightey righteys’, so it isn’t like you are above the fray or anything.
What does the simple bongo do for you to inspire such fervent and relentless loyalty?
I’d say you’re more loyal to them then us, they’re your one trick pony, not ours.
Oh and it’s tEh sUxxorz.
Tell you what, buckaroo. Lets make a bet, over the past couple years, all threads, all forums. You’re first to mention “bongo”, you give me $5, I’m first, I give you $50.
I got my eye on this bottle of real expensive single malt…
You will see in the next election! I will be bongoing up a righteous storm and I got new material.
Check it out: bump twapa thump thump twapa bump bump twapa…
With this bongo, I will CHANGE THE WORLD!!!
Damn, Luc. One more notch on the drama meter, and your head will explode. Winning isn’t all that matters, but if all it takes to win is dressing nicely — then put on a fucking suit. At least you pegged the left correctly. It is indeed an elite cadre of fools. Incidentally, you lie all the time. I know this because you’re human. So be careful with that razor.
jinwicked : Certainly not everyone who protests has no ideas of their own–that was just pit-perbole. But you sort of made my point for me:
I agree completely with your analysis and your judgement of it not being inappropriate or harmful. As long as these people understand that it is a catharsis for them rather than a meaningful “educate the public” campaign" I suppose the time isn’t wasted. Most of these cute little protests are more like single’s protests for liberals to find like-minded mates rather than any real bid for change. Well intentioned? Yes. Cathartic? Check. But they shouldn’t be surprised if nothing changes.
There is so much liberals could do to affect real change. I don’t want to get into them here, but they include attempting to understand WHY they lost rather than just righting off Bush voters as stupid fanatic mid-westerners and dropping Michael Moore as their champion.