The delusional, fantasy world of the Kool-aid Cult.

[Cleita]

The cult of the Kool-aid drinking conservative didn’t spring out of the ground fully grown. There is a set of events that occured first, which caused them to accept the cup of Kool-aid, drink it, and make it their Holy Grail.

The very first thing that happens to anyone when they start to think for themselves is a pre-event that causes them to look at their world and question why things are the way they are. They try to make sense of it. This is familiar to all of us when we first realize that our world is a far cry from Disneyland. Liberals apply critical thinking to the circumstances and then formulate ideas of how things could be made better.

Conservatives, instead, pull back in to a fictional version of how life should be. They imagine their utopian world from the influences that surround them, television, movies, family and church. From this the conservative creates a fantasy world that he believes in, that he should inhabit, and he blames everyone but himself for the actual world he does inhabit.

To begin with there is a strong distrust of people that are not like him. For many, it’s a strong and unashamed racism that has been passed down from generation to generation. Before the civil rights movement of the sixties, there was no attempt to hide it, or act to end it. People of different races and ethnicities, lived in separate neighborhoods, they attended separate schools, separate churches. People of color were denied many jobs except for the menial ones.

This is the order in the universe that conservatives like. It’s the idea of the Country Club, a place that most of them are also locked out of as well, but that they can aspire to. If they jump throught the right hoops, and make the best decisions to impress the holders of the membership, they might be accepted.

This is what the nostalgia about the fifties is about. In the fifties because of unions, and the GI bill, working class, white men could own homes and cars, go to college and in general achieve the middle class status they desired. It was their children who aspired to the Country Club. It wasn’t that easy for people of color who were still segregated, by law in the south, and by custom in the rest of the country.

Today, the move to gated communities and sending children to private schools so they can be insulated from the outside world is an outcome of this. The excuses of course are to keep out crime and make neighborhoods safe. Nevermind that the best cat burglar in Beverly Hills in the 1980’s was a young white man who strolled the neighborhoods in a tuxedo in broad daylight while he burglarized the homes of the rich and famous.

Nobody took any notice of him including the police and the numerous private security companies that patrolled the neighborhoods. Nevermind that if poor neighborhoods had the same police protection and security that the affluent ones have, they too would have a lower crime rate, maybe even lower than the the affluent ones.

After the civil rights movement of the sixties and seventies, things started to get messier. Professional white people found themselves working next to or, even for a person of color. Ethnic minorities and people of color were buying homes in formerly all white neighborhoods. Eateries and stores brought ethnic food and goods into these neighborhoods. Liberal white people embraced the diversity. They loved the differences.

Conservatives, on the other hand, moved further and further away from the cities and into their gated, suburban communities so they wouldn’t have to mingle. They still had to go to work though and quietly, and then not so quietly, grumbled about the promotion they should have gotten that went to a black man. Or a woman! They grumbled about the signs on the store fronts in languages that weren’t English. They grumbled about the different languages they heard spoken at the workplace and tried to make English only rules effected

Those uppity women of the feminist movement didn’t help. Nostalgic for the cookie baking, stay at home mom in “Ozzie and Harriet”, “Life With Father”, “Leave It To Beaver” and “The Donna Reed Show”, they blamed working women for the rise in juvenile deliquency, teenage pregnancy and dirty homes.

Women were blamed for collecting welfare so they could stay home and raise their kids when there was no job or wage earner in the home. The conservatives saw no reason to support a child that wasn’t their own. Here, blame the victim was born. Here the myth of the welfare queen was born.

Now along comes Rush Limbaugh and he stirs the pot of all these discontents that are stewing in the formerly privileged communities. He tells his listeners what they want to hear. He tells them that they can have that fantasy land that they so desire if only they get rid of those liberals, who made these problems.

They can have that neighborhood with the elm trees and picket fences, where children ride their bicycles and they won’t be stolen when they leave them in the front yard. They can have the job with the benefits, to pay for all this, if the corporations can have fewer regulations on them, so they can make more money to pay them a better salary.

Of course what’s unsaid but implied is that these are white, Christian neighborhoods. The only people of color allowed in are the maids and gardeners and they’d better be out of the neighborhood before sundown. At first it was a blame the liberals game, but no one had yet advocated imprisoning them or poisoning them like they are today.

In the decades that followed, the Churches, seeing a chance for more money from the collection plates started pandering to these prejudices in their congregations, couching the bigotry in terms of morality and immorality. By this time the more openly visible gay community was pushing for more civil rights and the churches zeroed right into a demography they could attack and demonize without much objection from the mainstream straight community.

Soon, all the Rush Limbaugh wannabes arrived on the scene, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage for starters spouting the same bigotry blaming everyone else for the fact that their fantasy land wasn’t achievable until we got rid of the liberals. When these people arrived on the air waves, it was the Kool-aid that they offered that the conservatives drank from. It created the Kool-aid Cult and then there was no going back.

They were able to impeach and harrass then President Clinton for being immoral. They were able to push a cretin like George Bush in front of the electorate because the Kool-aid Cult believed them when they were told he was an honorable Christian and a common speaking guy just like them.

The Kool-aid Cult believed him when he told them they would get tax cuts. Then when 9-11 happened they were able to convince the Kool-aid Cult that the terrorists came from a country that they didn’t come from. They still managed to convince the Kool-aid Cult to trust George Bush to keep the American people safe, a safety valve didn’t seem to apply to those Americans who were shipped to war a half a world away.

When atrocity after atrocity is revealed about the Bush administration, they were told by the Kool-aid Cult chorus, Rush, Sean, Bill and Michael, that it was all good if George did it because he keeps you safe, so torture is fine if George says so. Invading a sovereign nation and murdering it’s civilians is fine if George says so. Letting African-American people fend for themselves and die after a hurricane, because they have more AIDS, is fine because George said so, and they were stupid because they didn’t leave when they were told to. Never mind that many of them couldn’t!

So I really just have a question. When will the members of this cult stop drinking the Kool-aid? Or will they have to keep drinking it because to stop cold-turkey and gain sobriety would make them face up to the truth that they approved of the crimes committed by the Bush administration in their names?

What will it take to make them sober up and face up to reality? The fantasy world they want never did exist nor will it ever. Until we start treating our fellow human beings as we want to be treated, no matter how different they are from us, we won’t be able form a truly egalitarian and peaceful society. Jesus and Buddha and other great philosphers in the world have said the same.

So conservatives what will it take to sober you up and help the rest of us to get our country back before the cretins in the White House bring us nuclear war? What’s it going to take, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, ABC, CBS? What’s it going to take to get you to stop your greedy grab for profits and to start reporting the whole truth about what is going on before these cretins lead us into nuclear war?

What’s it going to take to not have a nuclear war?

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Other than Jesus himself coming down here and setting them straight

honestly, I dunno. :(

Great rant, btw! :hug:

[Cleita]

2. Thanks!

:loveya:

[KnaveRupe]

10. GPV, you are totally wrong.

If the skies over Washington opened up and Jesus hisself floated down onto the white house lawn on a cloud criticizing this President and Congress for their crimes, He would be arrested and gitmo-ized almost instantly.

Then O'Reillimbaughnitty would start swiftboating Jesus on Fox.

[Cleita]

12. Good analysis. I'm almost certain that is what would happen.

They wouldn't even recognize whom they were persecuting because the real Jesus would look like a Middle Eastern man.

[mrcheerful]

3. Great rant except for one fact you stated

It was the religious right that came first not Rush. The religious born agains started a breeding program after the 1928 Scopes monkey trial. Btw also for most of those, they were raised on bigotry and hate of anyone unlike them. And to them it was liberals who disgraced them back in 1928, they are like their muslim bothers, they never forget a slight against their beliefs and they have been at trying to get a foot hold in politics since Jefferson's days. The born again haters have been a part of america for over 200 years and only now are they being recognized.

[Cleita]

4. Thank you for the correction and the history that I didn't know.

We need to get this in front, the accuracy of how we came to this place.

[ingabingabunga]

5. Keep trying to break through to them! It worked for me!

I was a repub once. Just about two years back. My whole family still is.

For me it took a personal crisis to wake up and see the world around me. Then the real world started flowing in and my eyes opened wide. It was quite an enlightening experience for me.

I rushed to share my breakthrough with several close family and friends. The looked at me as though I was crazy. They even told me that my personal crisis was making me feel this way and that I would be back to "normal" when everything was settled down.

That is the very moment it hit me.

I had been raised into that way of thinking over the course of my life. All my family members were raised in a similar fashion. It was never openly discussed. No explanations were ever provided. It was just the way it was. You end up that way without even consciously knowing it. Sure there are times when you question some topics, but when you turn to your left or right the people you point it out to are also so indoctrinated in that way that they give some reasonably plausible explanation (the kind you have already been programed to hear) and you chalk it up as nothing and move on.

It is extremely tough to break through to this type of person. They lived this their whole life and no nothing different. For them to allow progressive ideas in their minds thoughts and words is to challenge their whole world as they no it. It was like this for me.

I followed the party line. I voted the party ticket. I was just out of high school and happy to vote. I had no idea who or what I was voting for. In college it was still the same. I though those liberal professors were nuts. I went on through law school and found out about the federalist society. I will admit the meetings and topics were much more hardcore than ever before. I found myself talking and thinking just like them.

You don't even realize your doing it.

On to local politics. I was interested. I talked to others. They had meetings at home on how to propel the repub party to the top. We were tossing out ideas and strategies.

Here is where it gets real hardcore.

The local repub groups have leaders. Everything is laid out and each person gets their turn in elected offices based on the decisions of the group. It is all planned ahead of time. Sure you get some hothead who wants to push some minor point through so he runs. He never makes it through the primary. Deals are made. It happens.

Yes, they even plot to control the opposing party. They casually toss out ideas such as registering for the opposing parties groups. They suggest changing parties to give votes to weaker challengers. To disrupt the other sides party and keep it from organizing. Even this past November this small group I was previously associated with maneuvered to get one of their own top people signed up on the opposing ticket. It worked. He took the place of someone who dropped. He almost got back in on votes from the very people who opposed him in the last general election. (Locally the dem party is so unorganized that a vast majority don't even bother to show up.)

I would write on and on about what I have seen and done. Thats not the point.

The point is that you cannot just hope that people will wake up on their own. I was catapulted through my conversion by a very progressive set of coworkers who shared the progressive world to me for the first time.

Repubs who would switch don't know about places like this. Education must be continuous and must be active and visible. You can wear them down and you can get through to them with facts and figures. The one great thing I love about DU is that all the information is sourced. The other side doesn't use sourcing. It just makes it up as it goes and rationalizes it.

This might seem a bot of a stretch but as my therapist and I were discussing addiction patterns I started to see something similar in the repub way of life. You do get so hooked on it that you think you need it to survive and you would do anything to keep things that way. Just like an addict, you find you can rationalize and justify just about anything. The truth is that if you did't do that you would jeopardize your whole world. So you just keep propelling the myth.

The problem is the repub pushers needs addicts.

Maybe its time for dems to become the pushers. I don't know. I'm not sure what to do. Right now I am deciding how much or where my resources can be best allocated push the progressive agenda forward.

It's tough to convert people. I know. I have been trying for almost two years and haven't made any progress with most people. I think my dad is starting to come around. He is asking the right kind of questions which shows me he is thinking a bit differently.(Or he always thought that way but suppressed it because of his environment and upbringing as well.)

[Cleita]

6. OMG. Thank you for sharing your experience!

Yes, you are right that we have to appeal to the humanity in everyone, even those we feel are lost. Welcome to DU!

:hug:

[dorktv]

7. You know...part of that description sounds like Democratic Machines

but ours never more then just have things planned out and organized. There may have been scattered cases of people who ran as republicans but generally they did the picking of candidates and would not bother with the Republican primaries.


They also were into helping the local community out.

[marions ghost]

14. interesting post

I think this mentality does amount to an addiction. You broke out of it though, so maybe there's hope for others, maybe your Dad can gradually kick it too.

Whenever a person has an addiction it seems they need some substitute for this drive or substance if they are going to get past it. People like you might be able to help figure out what that could be. It's hard for lifelong liberals to understand the neo-con mindset--easier for those who've actually been there to get into the head. If substantial numbers of kool-aid drinkers got off the bandwagon, I think it would make a real difference in this country.

I'm hoping the economic disasters of the current administration will start to make the kool-aid taste sour. Have u (or anybody else here) got any feel for that?

[kiteinthewind]

15. OMG, then there is hope?

My sister is a brainwashed radical fundamentalist. We were raised Christians and Democrats. The kind of Christian that follows Jesus, not the minister. But my sister got sucked into the cult about 8 or 9 years ago. Right before the 2004 elections, at a family get together, she picked a fight and started ranting about the immorality of liberals, blah, blah, blah. Then she told us (the rest of the family) that we were NOT Christians, that we were going to hell, and said horrible things to our parents (So much for that silly 'honor thy mother and father' commandment!). All this because we were voting for Kerry. She hasn't been to a family function since. We're 'dead' to her. It is some pretty scary stuff. Even her husband, my brother-in-law, who 'secretly' speaks to my parents, tries to spend time away from her. Her kids pretend to be good little boys and girls, but dad says she is making everyone miserable. My nephew just turned 18 and I am sure he will be movin' on as soon as he graduates. I really don't know how else to explain it except "Brainwashed" and full of anger and hate. So sad... :cry:

[Dunvegan]

8. When over half of the hard core 30% are hard, hard hit by the economy

When they must choose between heating, eating or driving.

When even group health care is pared down to nothing to save money by corporations.

When they or their spouse becomes ill.

When gasoline is $5 a gallon.

When they are laid off so their corporation can "downsize" people and "upsize" profits.

When they are not hired again anywhere after being fired.

When their homes are devalued and their 2nd and 3rd morgages both come due at once.

When they find no relief in bankruptcy, and lose thier home and are still buried in bills.

When all the databases converge and deny them any options.

When a natural disaster strikes their area, and no help from all their years of tax money is offered to rehabilitate them.

When a draft is instituted.

When Social Security is decimated, and working until death is the only way to eat.

Maybe...maybe then. If they can bear to admit their true state.

But if these are "magical thinkers" that want to believe in a fantasy world...even after all this the prognosis does not bode well.

[raccoon]

11. Great post, Dunvegan! nt

[atommom]

9. Great rant, and I share your despair.

I'm still hoping and working for change, though.

[raccoon]

13. Great post, Cleita! to me this is an essay, not a rant.

When people complain about "liberals," what they mean, most of the time, is:

--members of minority groups and women having equal rights and opportunities to those of white men. This includes, but is not limited to, minorities and women have a shot at "good" jobs, that formerly they wouldn't have been considered for and women being able to get out of miserable marriages, instead of putting up with crap year after year because they have no alternative. To them, better for a woman to stay in a marriage with a husband who beats her up whenever he feels like it, if only "for the sake of the children" (yeah, right), than to get a divorce and possibly end up on welfare or at least Medicaid.

Most of the time, when people whine/bitch/rant about "liberals" and "liberalism," this is what they really mean. They'd like to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear when women and minorities stayed in their places and gays stayed in the closet (Another source of miserable marriages, when gays of both sexes married heterosexual spouses.)

[kiteinthewind]

16. Absolutely right, on all counts!

:kick:

[chat_noir]

17. seven boobs