Friday, November 12, 2004
High Times for Wingnuts
This is a great time to be a wingnut, because even batshit loonballs like Bob Jones are being taken somewhat seriously. And not just Jones, but James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, and whoever is reponsible for this. We haven't seen this kind of preaching in public since Billy Sunday left for his dirt nap.
It seems possible, however, that the wingnuts' words and actions might be their own wooden stakes and garlic. It's in our interest to publicize these theocratic outbursts far and wide whenever possible--such "Shi'ite Republicans (as Molly Ivins has called them for years) speak for only a fraction of Bush's 59-million vote majority, and the extremism they express might be one of the best weapons we have to make some of those 59 million see how wrong their vote was.
Over at the Guardian today, Sidney Blumenthal offers his perspective on the rise of the right, and pulls out a quote from Thomas Jefferson worth remembering as the mullahs step up and demand what they see as their due:
Speaking of framing, Dave Pell at Electablog, responding to yesterday's Frank Rich column about the ascendance of blue-state culture, notes that the election wasn't about values as much as it was "framing morality as a set of issues and then selling that message." There's nothing absolute about those values, and you need look no further than Fox for evidence.
This is a great time to be a wingnut, because even batshit loonballs like Bob Jones are being taken somewhat seriously. And not just Jones, but James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, and whoever is reponsible for this. We haven't seen this kind of preaching in public since Billy Sunday left for his dirt nap.
It seems possible, however, that the wingnuts' words and actions might be their own wooden stakes and garlic. It's in our interest to publicize these theocratic outbursts far and wide whenever possible--such "Shi'ite Republicans (as Molly Ivins has called them for years) speak for only a fraction of Bush's 59-million vote majority, and the extremism they express might be one of the best weapons we have to make some of those 59 million see how wrong their vote was.
Over at the Guardian today, Sidney Blumenthal offers his perspective on the rise of the right, and pulls out a quote from Thomas Jefferson worth remembering as the mullahs step up and demand what they see as their due:
History furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.Josh Marshall suggests we start calling Jones, Dobson, Falwell, et. al., "radical clerics," as we do with Muqtada el-Sadr and others in the Middle East, which some people might consider name-calling. Not me--I'd like to think of it as framing. (If the election did nothing else, it made all of us disciples of George Lakoff.)
Speaking of framing, Dave Pell at Electablog, responding to yesterday's Frank Rich column about the ascendance of blue-state culture, notes that the election wasn't about values as much as it was "framing morality as a set of issues and then selling that message." There's nothing absolute about those values, and you need look no further than Fox for evidence.
[W]e all know that Fox sells one set of values on their news channel, but strips that message down, rubs it with oil and gives it a rocking pair of fake tits before selling it on their entertainment channel. And both channels are doing pretty damn well.Recommended Reading: After a somewhat slow start after its debut earlier this year, the Gadflyer's Fly Trap blog is pretty hot right now. Yesterday it featured some great posts, including Paul Waldman on red-state/blue-state attitudes toward spanking and a post-election analysis from the only member of the Gadflyer team to closely call the Electoral College result in advance, Michael Coblenz. (He says he's sorry.) He predicts that the Repugs will soon be split by divisions between the Shi'ites and the moderates, and that Democrats have an opportunity to bounce back, provided we present ourselves as something other than not-Republicans.
