This is one of the reasons I’ve been shaking with fury for the past 5 days. They honestly don’t give a flying fuck, but they’re so good at their manipulation techniques that they have half the country believing they do.
My husband and I were out to dinner on Saturday night and there was a gay couple sitting at the table next to us. They seemed so content and happy together. Perhaps that’s because we’re in a Blue state and they know that at least they had our support here. I, on the other hand, literally (and no, I don’t mean that figuratively, I really do mean it, literally) began to cry, for all that I enjoy as a married person, that they’ll never be able to know the joy and security of. I’m heartsick.
I’m sick to fucking death of reading how we “just don’t get them,” when nothing could be further from the truth. We “get” them just fine. The problem is, we’ll never “get” them to change their hateful minds, so long as the Repulican manchine continues to pander to their fears and prejudices. Take a look at this side-by-side comparison of the U.S. as it voted in this election vs. the make-up of the U.S. before the Civil War.
A bunch of scheming, fear-mongering, Big Business-loving, bigotted bullies are now running our country. And those of us who are being persecuted (in the 21st century!!) and being put at greater actual physical risk from terrorism, are being pointed at and laughed at by their supporters. It’s sick and disgusting.
I wish that I, like you, gobear, and perhaps the couple at dinner the other night, could find solace in being in a Blue state. It’s just not giving me comfort, none-the-less.
I agree that we were attacked because we are America, but it seems to me that Bush has dug us a deeper hole by alienating much of the planet by going into a war that no one wanted. He’s pissed off a lot more people than the Taliban. Do you think it has occurred to him that since the Iraqi insurgents don’t want us there, that this will be a never-ending battle?
Did we go to war to find WMDs or to make the country a democracy, whether they like it or not)?
The Iraqis hated us enough as it was, now we’ve stepped on a hornet’s nest.
This is why, if the Democratic leadership grew a pair (or cerebral hemispheres), they would give GWB all the tax cuts he wants… so long as they are paid for by cutting the federal subsidy programs on which the red states are disproportionately dependent. Let the local (mostly Republican) politicians deal with deficits, tax hikes, and/or infrastructure decay.
No, not really. My opinions have been colored by several years of observing (and admiring) gobear’s generally thoughtful posts and measured opinions. It’s not often that one see’s him lashing out impulsively. Most frquently, when gobear does lash out, his objective is entirely deserving of his scorn and the attack is directly on point. In this case, however, it’s not so. The attack is too broad; it’s too dismissive; it smacks of childish elitism. In short, gobear comes across churlish and boorish. And this, I know very well , he is not. Thus, the thread and it’s sentiments are, in my estimation, beneath him.
I’m truly sorry you’re feeling so frustrated and betrayed by your fellow Americans, gobear. But truly, all of middle-America (geographically speaking, as this is where the red states are centered - kind of) is not as you describe; nor do we have the feelings you would attribute to us.
Ya know what? I’m an asshole; one of the large and gaping variety. I wasn’t trying to judge you, gobear, or put myself above you. But it certainly looks that way, don’t it? Wasn’t my intention. In any case, if it feels good to you have a rant - about anything at all - then by all means have at it. I’m nobody and ain’t entitled to say a single goddamned judgmental word (intentional or not) about anything anyone here says or does; pay me no mind.
Please accept my sincere apologies for the unseemly intrusion into your affairs, my friend. My respect for you is undiminished (as if that matters anyway).
Duly noted, though perhaps I am unfairly surprised that you and I agree his snarkiness is normally spot on. It probably would have been better if I had posted that link because, as you know from years of dismissing my posts as the folderol they are, broad, dismissive, childishly elitist, churlish, and boorish all vie for the honor of being my middle name.
Said with the class this board (note that I said the board, not you, Unc! Remember: I always sell you short. ) has been sadly lacking in recent months. Maybe there is some hope for gobear’s dream of a bipartisan utopia.
More than anything or anyone else, blame can be fixed on the corporations who with their palpable and unapologetic greed have run roughshod over the third world to bring unprecedented luxury to American consumers, which is to say, the corporations to which George Bush and those like him have sold their souls. You don’t think it was an accident that bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center, the ultimate symbol of multinational corporate avarice, twice, do you?
The whole point of the left’s agony over this election is how obvious it is that the American government is becoming little more than a functional wing of the multinational corporation, serving its interests and pursuing its objectives. George Bush is a corporate candidate, sold with corporate sloganeering (“drink this beer and get laid, vote Bush or your children will die”), manipulated with demographic cynicism (e.g., marshalling the evangelical troops who will lay down in the road for their man just for being thrown an occasional reactionary bone, even though the corporations don’t really give a shit about abortion or gay marriage one way or the other), and manacled to corporate pursuits (slashing environmental regulations, removing obstacles to media consolidation, etc.).
This attempted redirect to Clinton is an exercise in irrelevance, despite its depressingly predictable deployment.
I never said that I would give up the snark or that I’d be purely bipartisan. I’m all for bitching about things that need changing now, but whining about events one cannot alter, like the election, is a waste of breath. If Bush appoints moderate conservatives to the SC, for example, he will earn my applause; if he nominates Ashcroft, I’m putting my congresscritters on speed-dial.
As I said, earlier, I’ll support the GOP if I think they’re right and oppose 'em if I think they’re wrong.
And no worries, Uncle Beer, I’ll be calm and reasonable again; I just needed to rant. Thank you for understanding that.
Thank you for the info on the pay raise, Loach, our servicepeople deserve it and more besides.
You need to do more toiling, apparently, because the GSP of blue states outpaces the red.
I think that when reds call the blues ‘elitist’, though sometimes they are on the mark, they more often are glorifying anti-intellectual attitudes.
If you have a museum in your home town that doesn’t feature the ‘guns that won the west’, you must be elitist. If you know a merlot from a cabernet, you must be an elitist, maybe even an elitist fag, which is the worst type of elitist there is. I’m horrified by the prevalence of anti-intellectual attitudes. You don’t need to convince me that they exist and are in the majority, but I’m still horrified.
Meh, I’m . . . um. . . I’m. . er. . .* commenting*, yeah, that’s the ticket. I was commenting on the election with the head of the local Democratic committee, Morgan Fairchild, who I’m married to.
I just needed to get that out of my system so I can get on with life. However, I’m not going to rehash the election over and over and over until it’s time for nominating conventions in 2008.
[Sarcastic]Toil in the hinterlands? As in hacking through the wilderness? Don’t think so. We Librul l33ts have to work too; we aren’t all born wealthy. We don’t get fedrul subsidies to not grow stuff, and we don’t get damn near free use of fedrul land to graze our cattle on neither. Nor do most of us get to use illegal ayleeyuns for cheap labor, doing the dirty work so we won’t have to get our own hands dirty. None of you “housed” me, I had to use my own money for housing. We don’t get big pork barrel contracts to do nothing. We don’t get shitloads of “terror” money to protect Wyoming sheep. [/Sarcastic]
Very very few people in the hinterlands are toiling in the fields. They just like the image for some reason, just like a drugstore cowboy likes big hats. Don’t come off like you’re making any superhuman sacrifice for our benefit, or that you’re suffering for it because you aren’t.
It isn’t our “attitude” that is the problem, it is some deep seated resentment y’all have for who knows what, some sense that you are better than anyone else and more moral. Nobody gives a shit what you do in your own state, but when y’all try to push yer bible thumpin fundie fire n brimstone on us, we push back. We aren’t trying to push our preacher’s personal hypocrisies on you, but you sure as shootin’ are pushin’ them on us. Yes I said that, get over it.
We aren’t all trying to push progressive views on you, we just don’t want your views pushed on us the way they are being pushed. Get it??
As for the “red staters” protecting us, well shit. Plenty of “blues” are in the military too. So don’t act like yer some sort of Great Defender, all on yer lonesome. It was a Big Blue City that got hammered on 9/11, not some dairy farm in East Jesus NM or Dead Dog Dakota.
The “attitude” I’ve been seeing mostly is:
The Presuhdent talks to Gawd and anyone who doesn’t blindly follow any brainfart he has that morning is a unChristian pinko Commie traitor cheese eating faggot who should get out of the country.
Anyone who catches him in his own flipflops and questions them (WMD/no WMD/freedom liberty - changing alibis for war) is again a unChristian pinko Commie traitor cheese eating faggot who should get out of the country.
Anyone who has a “problem” with his oh so convenient “discovery of Gawd” after an amazingly useless life, just in time to go into politics is a a unChristian pinko Commie traitor cheese eating faggot who should get out of the country.
Anyone who doesn’t go for “that ole time religion” is a unChristian pinko Commie traitor cheese eating faggot who should get out of the country.
Well, at least I don’t live in Jesusland anymore. I did live there, years ago when there was still a live and let live feeling for the most part.
I got out in time.
One other thing -
We’ve had the Silent Majority, the Moral Majority, and now the Red Staters. Each was the same lump of shit, just reheated. It was the ones who want to dictate what people are supposed to think and say, and how to act and how to vote etc. It’s the ones who say “anyone who is not exactly like us is shit”. Who the hell were they? It sure as shit wasn’t the so-called librul leets was it? If anyone has a shit attitude and needs to shut the hell up it is those self appointed “guardians of all that is good and right”. Maybe, just maybe, it’s the “Blues” who are sick to death of the “better than you” or “holier than thou” fucking attitudes. Even better just crawl back in your damn cave and shut up.
Could you please tell me more about the quote from your “insider friend”? Where did it come from? I would be very interested in reading more.
The other day I was asking myself why on earth millions of people would vote against their own economic self interest, and the answer that came to me was very frightening. It’s done the very same way the terrorists are induced to strap on explosives or fly planes into buildings. They end up dead, but in return they are annointed with “moral superiority.”
Can I have her when you’re done with her? Or we could share her–you go shopping at Old Navy with her then I’ll take her home at night. The perfect relationship!
) has been sadly lacking in recent months. Maybe there is some hope for gobear’s dream of a bipartisan utopia.
The perfect relationship!