It used to be that the right wing pretended to have a moral compass. Pretended, in fact, to have the only true moral compass. It wasn't that they hated women and want to pay us less, take away our reproductive rights, etc.; it's that they love us so much they can't possibly leave us to our own silly devices. It isn't that they hate gay people and want to take away their rights to marry, hold a job and even exist; it's just that they love them so much they can't help but shower them in the sort of Christian compassion that will isolate, impoverish and even kill them. It's not that they hate the poor and want them to starve to death or die of treatable illness, but that they love them so much that they can't possibly do them the disservice of feeding, clothing or healing them (because, really, what sort of sick bastard would foster dependency like that? Other than Jesus, I mean). Liberals were intent on filling bellies but emptying souls, whereas conservatives focused on tending souls (and it's not for nothing that this is a task that produces no measurable results, in a scenario where suffering is actually considered beneficial and character building).
My point is, even at their most depraved, even as they embraced all sorts of demonstrably harmful and hideous things, conservatives pretended that they were doing it because it was the right thing to do. They have, apparently, decided not to bother anymore. And what was the catalyst for this sudden change?
Liberals expressing concern over hundreds of kidnapped schoolgirls. Not just kidnapped girls, but girls kidnapped by a militant Islamist group. And not just any militant Islamist group, but one apparently forcibly converting Christian girls to Islam. Forget Benghazi, the right's latest political viagra; this is the sort of story that, in any other situation, would get a rise out of Republicans that would last years. It's got all the makings of the ideal right-wing fantasy: bad Muslims. Innocent children. Persecuted Christians. Obama not declaring war on someone, somewhere, to prove that we carry the biggest stick. (And, while it's never necessary, this one even happens to be true).
So what happened? This happened.
Michelle Obama, expressing solidarity with the parents of these kidnapped children. Michelle Obama expressing concern over hundreds of children captured for sexual exploitation by a bunch of adult religious fanatics.
Now, concern over a child being kidnapped and raped -- much less, hundreds of children -- might seem like a no-brainer. It might seem like the province of any remotely decent human being, the sort of thing that even the most shriveled and stunted soul could agree with: it's terrible when children are abused, much less in such a hideous fashion.
And I think you'd be right to suppose so. But there are plenty of people eager to demonstrate just how warped their moral compasses are, to illustrate that they've long abandoned any lonely lingering shreds of humanity.
Because, in their world, it's fun to mock kidnapped and endangered children, to use them as a prop to throw a political jab at an ideological opponent.
It's entertaining to mock raising awareness of the situation (which has actually exerted pressure, by shining light on the situation, on the Nigerian government, which was previously content to do nothing).
Michelle Obama's participation really just demonstrates American powerlessness, after all. And isn't President Obama to blame?
I want to ask you, what message does this send? And then I want to ask you, is the United States really this powerless? And then if you answer yes, we are really this powerless, then isnât Obama to blame?
And when you think about it, doesn't it all seem just
a little too convenient anyway?
Remember the movie with Robert Deniro and Dustin Hoffman called "Wag the Dog?" Funny thing, that film was released just before the Clinton-Lewinsky kabuki dance and the infamous pharmaceutical factory bombing in Sudan by President Clinton (and by the way, Monica is back in the limelight thanks to an article in Vanity Fair â but I digress â or maybe not).
Are we witnessing an Obama "Wag the Dog" moment with Boko Haram in Nigeria? I say yes.
Consider all the scandals facing the Obama administration, especially Benghazi and the Select Committee, which Rep. Nancy Pelosi referred to as a "political stunt."
Bet you didn't see it getting back to Benghazi. But boy would you be wrong. Tens of thousands of
likes and shares seem to indicate that you should never waste a good opportunity to mention BENGHAZI. To hell with kidnapped kids.
But don't think Benghazi is
the only way to politicize matters.
It's really not. And, come on, what's
not to laugh about? (Or so the almost million people who liked, and over 150K users who shared, apparently believed):
Because, really, this is all just "cheap". It's the equivalent of making an easy payoff by rehashing decades old presidential sex scandals: cheap, cheap, cheap.
It's astonishing to think that someone, much less so many someones, would turn the kidnapping and sale of young girls into a political issue, and worse yet a source of amusement. Even though it shouldn't be, based on the course the right has been following lately. And yet it still is. Since when is the kidnap and sale, the sexual exploitation and forced conversion, of children a laughing matter? Since when is concern over that kidnapping, sale and exploitation a cause for political pettiness?
I'm afraid it's official, my friends. When the plight of kidnapped children is a cause for conservative amusement, any semblance of decency has truly died. The right's moral compass is so skewed that mocking kidnap & rape victims is now okay. And that is beyond effed up.
Originally posted at Rachel's Hobbit Hole.
