Time and again I watch us bend over backwards on this site to prove to the wingnuts that we don't wish death on Dick Cheney and we feel for Tony Snow's cancer.
We do this to prove we're better than the rage fueled xenophobic racists that drive the republican swamp and fuel the Drudge-driven fear machine.
And I agree with this. We aren't the hate spewers we see time and again validated by the gatekeepers on the right. Those frothing, rage filled keyboard warriors who start wars and hate Mexicans, Arabs and non-Christians with spittle flying passion.
But why do I have to pretend I'm "praying" for Tony Snow?
Let me be crystal clear about this, because I don't want anyone to mistake this sentiment.
I am NOT glad that Tony Snow has cancer. Cancer is a horrible thing. My father is suffering through a terrible bout of cancer right now. I do not wish cancer on anyone. It is a tragic disease that no one should suffer from.
That being said, why I do have to pretend I care about Tony Snow? That I'm "praying" for him? That I send out my thoughts to his family?
I don't.
I don't care about Tony Snow. At all. And I'm not going to pretend I do just so I can prove a larger point to the wingnut base of racists and hate-mongers.
So no, I'm not going to pray for Tony Snow. I'm sorry to hear he has cancer, and that's about it. Other than that, I'm not going to give that lying scumbag another thought.
There are lots of people in this world with cancer. There are people dying in Iraq right now because Tony Snow has helped enable this ridiculous "surge" and spends every day lying to people that we need to give this plan "more time."
This doesn't mean I'm happy Tony Snow has cancer. I'm not. I'm just not praying for him.
No thank you.
I'll save my praying for people who don't spend every waking hour on this earth enabling more destruction, pain and death.
I'll pray for those with cancer who are fighting against this war. I'll pray for those with cancer who don't lie every day in the national press because it pays well and they get to hit the cocktail circuit at night and hobnob with Chris Matthews over expensive cheese.
Let me be clear, I am not saying people wishing Tony Snow well aren't sincere in their efforts. They undoubtedly are.
But why must we proudly feature a diary at the top of Daily Kos announcing this is how we feel? Is this because we care about Tony Snow? Or are we making it clear to the Drudge-driven propagandists that they can't troll through our blogs to find one or two anecdotes and use them to misrepresent us as they did with the Dick Cheney near-assassination in Afghanistan?
And that's a well meaning strategy. But it won't work.
Because the cesspool of right wing media doesn't care what we really think.
They will distort, lie, cherry-pick and isolate whatever they can to fill their false narratives, funnel it to Drudge-compatriot liars like Breitbart and Politico, and watch it bubble up into the spineless jerkoff Fred Haitts and Joe Kleins.
So does it matter what we really think?
Not to those clowns.
So I support anyone who genuinely cares enough to wish Tony Snow well. I don't join you in that effort, I'll save my energy for those who I do care about. But I understand and support the emotion. Cancer is horrible, no matter who suffers from it.
But for those who think posting a "we are empathetic people, please don't lie about us on Little Green Footballs" journals, I have this to say: It won't work.
Theirs is an irrational movement driven by one underlying root cause and one cause only: Hatred of the mythical "liberal." They don't even know what a "liberal" is anymore. It's anyone they want it to be. It can be Colin Powell. It can be John McCain. It can be the New York Times. It can be Adolf Hitler or Cindy Sheehan or Al Gore or Ron Paul. In the mind of the koolaid drinking wingut, the word "liberal" simply means "Other." It is a trigger word. Like the Manchurian Candidate seeing the "Queen" card. Invoke the word and they froth with the rage that only twenty years of media propaganda can train them. They are pavlovian dogs, trained to attack at the ring of a bell.
This is nothing new in history.
From The Protocols of Zion to the Turkish massacre of the Kurds in the 1910s, from Japanese internment camps to Nazi broadcasts on Jewish conspiracy, from Father Coughlin to Rush Limbaugh, hatred for a mythical "other" at work, destroying a country from within is as old as history itself.
Nothing any of us can say with words can change the Pavlovian wingnut mind once it's been fixed on its axis by the Limbaugh/Drudge Ludovico technique.
So back to Tony Snow.
If you want to wish him well, I undertand. I don't find him worthy of any empathy on my part other than to simply acknolwedge that cancer is horrible and no one deserves to suffer from it.
But as for starting diaries on Kos to prove to the wingnuts we care? It's wasted effort. I'm tired of trying to prove anything to those nut-jobs. They're going to hate us no matter what we do. They blame us for their failed war. Their former leader in the House of Representatives compares us to Hitler just last week. Diseased pimples like Ann Coulter use words like "faggot." Well financed propagandist clowns like Michael Savage say we have a "mental disease." And Scaife funded "book-club" author hacks like Goldberg blame us for everything from earthquakes to the medieval plague.
For God's sake, Limbaugh just smeared John Edwards after his wife announced her cancer return.
Are we better than they are? Of course we are. Theirs' is a movement so morally bankrupt that they'll send more American troops to die in a civil war because they can't even admit to themselves they made a mistake.
On that most profound issue, life and death itself, they don't care. If you think we can somehow convince them that we're not who their propaganda empire tells them we are, you're wrong.
So again, let me be crystal clear about this. I am not happy Tony Snow has cancer. I'm just not praying for him.
He's not in my "thoughts." I have no empathy for him. He has been an accomplice and an apologist for a failed political movement that has unleashed tremendous pain and upheaval on this planet.
I will save my emotions for those who deserve it.
And for those of us who think we can somehow show the other side our humanity, know this: They don't care. That have been trained to hate you no matter what you say or do. Their media empire smears us at every turn. They are literally the Terminator of politics. They will not stop until we are dead.
There is no logic in their universe. No empathy. No consideration of the facts. Just raging, irrational hatred for the mythical "liberal," defined and redefined at will, Eurasia, Eastasia, whomever the media nattering heads tell them it is.
I'm not going to bend over and try to woo them with my "humanity" when one of their propagandists gets cancer. I'm not going to pretend I care either way about Tony Snow. He lived a vile life. He doesn't deserve cancer, but nor does he deserve one ounce of my empathy. I'll save that for the people dying in Iraq because of his lies.