"It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth--brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody can do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character (Joseph Heller, Catch 22, p. 336)."
I am currently in the US … for those that do not know (that is everyone outside of my kosability comrades), I have meniere’s syndrome which has made flying extremely complicated as I get vertigo attacks and the pressurisation in planes causes problems. Well, my uncle (whom I love very much) is 90 and in poor health. So, I underwent an experimental treatment to try and stabilise the vertigo so that I could get on an airplane to come and visit him before it was too late. All I needed was 6 months so that I could travel on a long-haul flight … I got 3 and a half months, but I was coming to visit him come hell or high water … so for the people of dkos, whose existence I am incredibly grateful for, I present a visit to my relatives with music
Holidays in the Sun (sex pistols)
Now, the problem was not only the vertigo. For quite some time I had been convinced that my family (his children and my first cousins) were teapartiers … there was a good probability of this as I had got a racist and right-wing e-mail from the partner of my cousin (whom I replied to by calling him a racist both due to his comments about immigration and Obama and told him that if he wanted to talk economics that he needed to understand more than Fox news sound-bites); I knew that they were Repugs, but I wasn’t certain of the tea-party … Jewish tea-partiers?! Who would think that this was possible … hahahaha! Jewish fascists certainly, those I had encountered several times in my life in run-ins with the JDL and the JDO, but those people were tied into right-wing Jewish nationalism and defence of Israel … this is not the situation here, these are literally straight-out fascists.
Anyhow, I packed lots of headache pills (thank you National Health Service) and we braved the plane and this is what I got for my efforts …
Before I begin the family nightmare, just a shout-out … if a Brit is in the US at this time there is a reason!
God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols)
The visit started off ridiculously (as it deliberately coincided with avoiding the royal wedding … my momma did not raise a stupid daughter) … from the moment we landed in Tampa, every single person that we encountered asked why we weren’t at the royal wedding (given that we went to visit my uncle at a nursing home, we got this question several times from the same person). My response was “well, although I am on a first name basis with two members of the House of Lords, we didn’t get an invitation.” My husband kept on insisting that the invite must have gotten lost in the mail.
Dinner with the “family”:
I knew we were in trouble when the second comment out of the mouth of the partner of my cousin after we arrived was a snide comment about my response to his racist diatribe about Obama … this was after my cousin thanked me for the tacky royal wedding tea that we brought as a present for all and the Tylenol with codeine (OTC in the UK) that I brought for him (on the offhand chance that his charming personality and complete and utter sexism may be helped by codeine) and he told me (I have a doctorate in economics) that I was only a theoretical economist and that he (who worked in business) knew more about economics than me (which led me to reach for the nearest beer and my pack of cigarettes). When I said, I need a fag; his comment was, “no fags here!” … couldn’t resist (bad, xpat, bad) and said “you do know that those that are incredibly homophobic are very often closeted homosexuals.” It is amazing how quickly he turned this pasty white colour (I’ve always associated that colour with seasickness).
The family was trading lovely barbed comments with me until the big cheese (the only male grandchild) who made a nice bit of change showed up and that is when things began in earnest.
We sat down to eat and he starts off with “isn’t it wonderful what a great job Donald Trump did in making Obama release his birth certificate.” They are all smiling and agreeing and I say “well, great, so Donald Trump not only demonstrated he is an arse and a sexist, but he also proved he was a racist … isn’t that charming.” To which the male cousin replied, “the release of the birth certificate was incredibly important; how do we know that he is eligible to be president?” My response “what racist horseshite, no one asked McCain, Bush, Clinton, et al for their birth certificate, what, he is black, so he must be a foreigner? What racist dribble!”
Have you ever been in a room and called people racists and no one tried to deny it and even more so these people were proud?! Welcome to my family …
Alas and alack, the nightmare continued (remember, I had to travel overseas for this pleasure) … as if being birthers and racists is not sufficient:
The next discussion was the price of gasoline … I point out that the price of gas and oil is so high due to speculation on the markets, that we pay £1.38/liter (multiply by 4 and than again by 1.56 to find out the equivalent for the US) and that quite honestly that they could try driving smaller cars, have a public transport system … the response: the US cannot have a public transportation system (no explanation offered as to why this was impossible), that they had the right to drive whatever they wanted to, and the obvious solution was increased drilling in the Gulf (they still have not learned their lesson obviously) …
Then the budget deficit:
The filth (my male cousin) actually pulled up the division of the government debt on his blackberry to demonstrate to me how awful the situation was (like I have no idea what the situation is, stupid female that I am)… he thought he was talking about the deficit. Given that he is an accountant, you would think he knew the difference between the debt and the deficit … but …
The Clash "Career Opportunities"
One would think that someone who insists on talking about social security would know that the social security system is a “pay as you go” system and that it has no impact on the federal deficit. Now, federal pensions certainly are relevant (but there has been no increase in those for the past 3 years) in this discussion, but he probably has forgotten about this in his rush to send the elderly into the gutter. He sat there insisting that the social security system was increasing the deficit (and all the idjits are nodding their heads in agreement … it reminded me of those fake dogs that people had in their cars in the 60s with their heads on a spring so the dogs’ heads constantly moved up and down) … I told him that social security was in surplus, that the federal government had borrowed funds from it which they needed to pay back and that was why it was part of government debt but not the deficit ... blank faces and crickets greet me … he then switches course and says that social security will be running out of money, that people can not retire at 62 and 65 and that we need to privatise it … I reminded him that this has nothing to do with the budget deficit and asked, how about we raise the cap, wouldn’t that cover things? I also reminded him that if we had privatised SS as GW suggested, there wouldn’t be pensions for anyone following the market crash … again crickets …
The fascist partner of my cousin chimes in with the death tax nonsense; I do not use this term loosely, I am certain that he has a hood and sheet in his closet (what I am wondering is whether he is also an anti-Semite as somehow being a racist, xenophobe, sexist and homophobe cannot be sufficient). My husband finally had enough with the garbage and their incredible sexism (at least they hadn’t tried to pat me on my head as I would have assaulted him with my cane) and pulls out William Godwin’s argument (giggle) and says “fine, if you want a completely capitalist system, the obvious solution is an 100% death tax so that everyone can start from the same level and using their ingenuity and talents earn their own money. Inheritance is a feudal remnant, should we all be serfs, or should we go for the capitalist solution and tax all inheritance.” There are moments when you remember why you fell in love with someone, this was one of those moments for me (hubby got a lot of points for that one). That shut up that fool …
“kill the poor” The Dead Kennedys
This, of course, leads to the next obvious “problem” entitlement programmes (as, clearly, in this creep’s version of reality, SS is an entitlement programme) … “we need to cut them, nay eliminate them” … my obvious point that the poor and elderly are human beings that have rights and what are you going to do thrown them out onto the street was deemed to be irrelevant … I guess I should be grateful that at least he didn’t advocate killing the poor and elderly (probably because he thought that was the job of the health system in this country) …
His response was typical and I should have expected it: He said “nybe, I guess I am not as socialist as you.” To which I laughed hysterically and said “certainly not, as I am a socialist!” When red-baiting is the mildest thing that can happen in an evening, you know that it has been a fabulous night … being called a socialist by this schmuck who is trying to insult me was wonderful … since I had been advocating nothing but reformist arguments, I actually almost spat my coke zero all over him when I laughed hysterically (not being able to drink more than 1 beer due to the diabetes definitely has its drawbacks, argh!!!); he accidentally called me exactly the thing I am ... when he did not get the response he was expecting, he got all huffy and left soon afterwards.
Midnight Oil, "Beds Are Burning"
The next day before we were able to flee the Tamp/St. Pete area we went for a brunch with my female cousins and their husband and partners and just to end everything on a perfect note, I found out they were climate change deniers … perfect … just perfect … I cannot think of a single right-wing meme that we managed to miss in that 36 hour period from hell!
We escaped to the east coast of Florida where my relatives vote democrat (thank all the gods)! But honestly, the following song sums up all my feelings at the moment:
The Clash: “I’m so bored with the USA”