If anyone knows God doesn't exist, it's Republicans.
Nor, do any rules apply.
Nor, is history relevant.
Nor, does science matter.
You see, the Republicans (and generally the right) could officially now give a flying fuck about most of the previously-agreed-upon principles and concepts used in the governing of a modern civilized nation.
Because what the right has figured out is that they can literally rewrite reality as it fits their newly effectuated agenda. Using every traditional sociopolitical and/or cultural opportunity as a canary in a coal mine of their breakthrough design, they are seeing firsthand the efficacy of practical, empirical analysis born of the formerly terrifying exploration of new ideas.
And the rest of us can only gaze in stupefaction as they outstrip all that has defined civic discourse for millennia (or at least in the 200-plus years of our national zeitgeist) with sheer -- I don't know -- cheekiness? Anarchy? Balls?
Because we -- that is, the rest of us who continue to base their lives on tried-and-true ideas and ideals culled from the sometimes painful, often magnificent fundamentals wrought from the countless lives and events that precede every moment up to and including the present one, are using tools that have become instantaneously obsolete. We might as well be lecturing the "LOL-OMFG" generation on the beauty and expressive depth of cursive penmanship and the deceptive poetry of the gerund (granted, I may be pushing that last notion. I have to keep looking up "gerund" myself. In fact, please don't ask me what it means after you finish this).
The right's brazen discarding of those fundamentals has created a New Genesis. They have ceased fearing God and, in essence and execution, become Him: lords of a Neo-Eden in which many of their stances formerly regarded with repugnance, from overt racism to insidious religious fundamentalism, from the demonization of political saviors such as FDR to the lauding of traitors to democracy like Joe McCarthy, have been rechristened, reconstituted and distributed with smiles and parades.
And the voices of obvious opposition and outrage are raised but their echoes, in this newly designed dystopia, are swallowed up and muffled, effectively rendered immaterial both literally and figuratively.
So what care the right about the reissuing of blatant bullshit by W in his mocked-up memoirs; why should they do anything except continue their relentless contempt of Obama, so transparently like every white cop who humiliated a black man on a well-trafficked street, no one daring to intervene despite the obvious villainy; why blanch with shame as their collective intellect is watered down to spit with every inanity uttered by their recently anointed representatives, the Palins and the Limbaughs and the entire army of swollen egos and swelling wallets, tramping through decency with all the subtlety of jackbooted drones through a diverse, functional, productive citizenry?
And why worry about their noise machine mocking any definition of fairness and balance, why bother with the implementation of a fairness doctrine, why lose sleep over the insanity of deregulating corporations whose sole purpose is to increase profits at any and all costs?
The right is all rogue, all the time (but that's only if one subscribes to the concept that the right is the aberration; by their auto-retrofitted interpretation, it's the rest of the world that comprises the deviant elements).
And, unless the rest of us go Democracy 2.0 really fast, the world as we knew it will be as relevant as, well, reality.
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheStevenWeber
The problem, in my humble opinion, with today's News Media, is that there are too many Journalists who no longer apply the long held "gold standard" of Journalism; Who, what, where, when and why? This used to be a requirement. Anyone who failed to sufficiently pursue those questions quickly found themselves in another line of work. Anyone who tried to "dodge" those questions, or tried to "talk around" them, found themselves in disfavor with the reporter and the public, because the public understood that the answers to those questions were the essence of what they needed to know.
Today, not only are there very few who know to ask these questions, there are even less who demand that they be answered. On all sides of the story, today's Journos allow Politicians, Pundits, and J.Q. Public to "dance around" an answer, as if the question was not even asked.
Which brings me to the tie in to Steven's article:
There is, again in my opinion, a "noise machine", that not only doesn't require their personnel to pursue the "5 W's", they actually encourage them not to. They cite the "who" as "some people", the "what" as "are saying", the "when" as "anytime really", the "where" as "somewhere out there" and the "why" as "because we just reported it". They not only don't ask these questions, they don't even blink when the person they ask a question to uses the question as a launch pad to promote some "talking point" or "sound bite". They don't provide context or content necessary to understand what the "truth" is, because they have no interest in the truth.
They sometimes report "facts", often out of context, sometimes without any evidence. Fact that informs nothing and enlightens no one, but these facts are disconnected from the "truth" that they are supposed to be pursuing.
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to who I'm talking about?
"We might as well be lecturing the "LOL-OMFG" generation on the beauty and expressive depth of cursive penmanship and the deceptive poetry of the gerund (granted, I may be pushing that last notion. I have to keep looking up "gerund" myself. In fact, please don't ask me what it means after you finish this)."
We might as well.
(1) The Republicans do not recognize "most of the previously-agreed-upon principles and concepts used in the governing of a modern civilized nation;"
(2) Rather, the Republicans resort to racism, religious fundamentalism and character assassination; and
(3) The voices of opposition to the Republicans are being drown out, and need to speak louder.
Do you think for a minute that people believe you to be more intelligent when you drown your three sentence message in layer upon layer of multi-syllabic drivel?
Best to leave some people out of the conversation because they are not interested in being in an actual conversation.
Don't take the bait, folks
On Thanksgiving Day I'm thanking Great Spirit for you!
Your words are salve to the savaged soul of those who cannot disbelieve our lying eyes.
Thank you for testifyin' to the Truth, from those who still give a flying f*****uck [firetruck]!
Got plenty of practice sifting through bs.
And why worry about their noise machine...why lose sleep over the insanity of deregulating corporations whose sole purpose is to increase profits at any and all costs?
----
We liberals must savor those fleeting moments when wisps of reason pass over the lips of a Republican who can answer such questions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRVlIT__w6A
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/rep-inglis-gop-party-demagogues-and-extremi
Of course his embrace of reason was grounds for dismissal by today's Republican party faithful. Listen. Do you hear it? It's the death rattle of a once decent political party--Abraham Lincoln's party.
- Tom
I stopped reading your posts for awhile because I didn't want to wade through her/his crap.
I
Maestro...
lol
WE are the corporate shareholders, the consumers, the inheritors of basic educations ranked below some third-world countries. It's not shocking that the New Lords can find rubes to crowd the wheels of their medicine wagons and beg to buy their snake oil. The shocking thing is the NUMBERS of Rubes these days.
Certainly, part of the problem is the size of the medicine wagons. So here's a link to complain about such enormous wagons like ClearChannel and Premier Radio Network and their equally bloated salesmen like Rushbo http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm
There will ALWAYS be some too proudly stupid to benefit from any real knowledge about their world. It's a sad, but true fact. There IS "a seeker born every minute". That doesn't mean the rest of us are to join them in their willful ignorance.