Have you noticed? They're starting already. As soon as the election was called Tuesday night, strange pieces started to appear characterizing the incoming administration as an evil cabal of nefarious evildoers hell-bent on destroying the world as a whole, but starting with the USA. It's the same as 1992. Before all the votes were counted, the Republican noise machine began to hammer away at what a monster Bill Clinton was. Oh, for Christ's sake. How long do we have to toil to defend reasonable people trying to do right against zombie pinheads?
A couple of days ago, I did a little gentle ribbing of a good friend of mine, a genial, gun-toting, trigger-happy, neo-fascist Republican. He was bemoaning Obama's election as the end of times and rebuking the nation as a whole for having erred so in choosing a President. He is one of the people I cited as delusional and detached from reality. He seems rational, and he's an affable guy, but when it comes to politics, or any issue impacted by politics (e.g., universal health care), he's a complete nut job. Nothing he says on those topics makes any sense at all. He typifies the knee-jerk reactionary. Yet, on any other topic he's lucid and insightful. We have a lot of good discussions about the stock market and regularly exchange investment tips. He's made money in real estate and knows how to accumulate wealth. He runs a profitable business. But, when politics comes up, he loses his mind and goes psycho.
The kidding I spoke of was to do that thing from MoveOn.org where they insert someone's name and the resulting web page looks like a news story about the person being blamed for losing the election for Obama. His response was to send me this thing. Outlaw Journalism » Barack Obama's Zombie Followers and The Hell That Awaits America It wasn't a link, but the whole web page in e-mail. I don't know if he read it all, because it isn't any more critical of Democrats than of Republicans. Evidently, he just liked the characterization of Obama supporters as zombies. My friend's analytical skills are light; he never digs very deep.
So, this is what we have to look forward to, a new onslaught of crap from the Republican noise machine. The block below is most of what I commented on the piece. The guy who runs the site fancies himself a superior intellect who is taking a brave stand against evil. What a blatant hypocrite and fatuous poseur. He's a sniveling jackal with nothing constructive to say. Barack hasn't taken the oath of office and I already find myself defending him against hysterical jackasses like this.
Not, bad André. You’ve succeeded in dispelling the heady, euphoric haze that I’ve been gliding on for almost a week now since death knell that has been dealt to the Republican hegemony. I’m seriously concerned now about the foreign policy direction to be taken by the new administration.
I’m concerned, and watchful, but I’m not afraid. I’ve railed against brain-dead zombies foaming at the mouth, just as you have, but I don’t fear them. You see, I’m a bleeding-heart liberal and all I want to do is show them the error of their ways and gently lead them toward the promised land. Yes, I am a Utopian of sorts. I attended a couple of universities and I hold an advanced degree. So what?
I noticed a tinge of anti-intellectualism in your articles; you deride the "elite". Why are you convinced that smart people, such as Obama with his snooty law degree from Harvard, will lead us to destruction? Do a little soul-searching and come to grips with your paranoia. What do you propose we do about it?
What’s the worst that can happen differently by nature of Obama’s victory than if McCain had won? Are we doomed to having health care as a fundamental human right? Will the obscene payoffs to crony capitalist war profiteers be diverted to maintaining and improving the social infrastructure? Will we get out of Iraq in a year or two rather than a hundred? Will we pay some warlord to do a real hit on Osama bin Laden and show a video on al-Jazira of someone waving his severed head around? Would you rather the President did that, or continue to shield and ignore the "naughty", younger half-brother of George H.W. Bush’s business partner, Selim bin Laden. (You know him, the guy Poppy Bush was sitting with at the Carlyle Group board meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel on September 11, 2001.) Oh, the horror!
Everyone should have mixed feelings about a new administration. Continue to hold their feet to the fire about foreign policy. Exhort them to do the right thing when they do not. Sway public opinion toward a better outcome. But, for Christ’s sake, don’t base your world view on a meager bit of anecdotal evidence, such as your interview of the chowder head with the Obama T-shirt. If it had been me you had encountered and deigned to engage in conversation, I would have acquitted myself much better than he did in defending Obama. I think that Chuck [another commenter] would have done better, too, and he’s most likely a Republican!
Stop being such a crybaby and suck it up. Tell me and all the other ill-informed people who read your blog what we can do to make things better! Like me, you won’t have the execrable Bush regime to lambaste any more. We will both have to find another target for our vitriol.
Yet Another Poll
People who write on DailyKos often take it upon themselves to defend their positions and values against what I refer to as pinheads, those who express ideas that are so patently wrong that they become ludicrous. I, for one, talk to people in person in much the same way I write, which means that I do my best to rip them to shreds with all the verbal skill I can muster. I attempt to crush their souls and leave them weeping in despair. I have pissed off a lot of people. When you, the DailyKos readers, deal with pinheads in person, how do you go about it? Please help me to acquire some modicum of social skill. Perhaps, one day, I may be reintroduced to polite society.