(I'd appreciate DUers critiquing facts, etc. below, as my head is about to explode and I had to write this and vent; I'll read before sending, but am posting here for input. Please note this isn't promoting democrats..that would fall on deaf ears...I have to get them to get away from the right-wing bullshit first.
The vitriolic hatred seen at Palin rallies is going to be fueled even more through hate radio, and I'm writing this to those who listen to this bullshit)I know you dislike the whole "liberal elite" -- I dislike that label myself, even though I don't quite know what it means. I have a feeling you don't either. Still, your dislike of this "liberal elite" has allowed you to be led by the nose by the Limbaugh-O'Reilly-Hannity and now Palin crowd, so much so that you are now PROUD to be ignorant and uninformed. Think about it: you are actively participating in the dumbing down of America, and they have convinced you to be proud of this.
Meanwhile, they are making hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of your willful "follower" mentality and arrogant deafness/blindness. And, in the case of Limbaugh, your moral/cultural/political compass, he has had multiple marriages, an arrest on felony prescription drug charges, and spews such garbage that his hypocrisy is truly astounding. But, his garbage is easy-to-understand garbage; it's sound bite garbage; it's YOUR kind of garbage, and it's garbage that makes you feel better about yourself if you are white, Christian, and heterosexual.
On the other hand, if you really want me to, I'll compile a nice, neat list of the hypocrites who have espoused this whole Moral Majority standpoint over the last two decades. This is the province of the right, making "morals" part of their political platform. True conservative Republicans are appalled at the influence of these hypocrites, both the hypocrites who truly believe the religious/moral supremacy dogma (Palin), as well as those who simply have pandered TO them (Bush, McCain).
The vast majority of the time, those who preach the loudest against a "sin" (be it prostitution, homosexuality, substance abuse, adultery, pedophilia) are the worst "sinners." The hypocrisy is astonishing and, again, since the Moral Majority co-opted the Republican Party, the Republican Party stands out as a true testament to moral hypocrisy.
Is that why you guys don't like McCain? Because of the failure of his first marriage, or is it the fact that he adopted a daughter from Bangladesh who looks black? He doesn't fit the Moral Majority mold, nor did he claim to be morally superior prior to this election. Yeah, no wonder you guys don't think he's your kind of Republican.
Democrats are hypocrites, too, but rarely about cultural/moral things (Edwards is the recent exception; Clinton didn't claim sexual morality as part of his political platform, but he lied and that's that.). If you are reduced to evaluating environmental, carbon footprint issues versus someone saying homosexuality is a sin and campaigning against it and then getting caught with their pants down in the bathroom soliciting gay sex, well, I have a lovely road to nowhere in Alaska for you.
Ooops, my bad. I forgot that Bush and thus Bush supporters prefer to sell American property to Middle Eastern countries, even though the "entertainers" (Limbaugh et al) say "they" are all terrorists and we should be wary of anyone with a funny name and a different skin color. Especially THAT ONE.
How do you square those two things? Seriously.
On one hand, the easy sound bites the Limbaugh and Fox News crowd provides to make your lives easier so you don't have to think is a beautiful thing to continue the ignorance-is-bliss mentality; but when you hear tidbits about the Bush-Saudi Royal Family and how close they have always been, and how the Bush Administration tried to sell port security, post 9/11 to Dubai, doesn't your head want to explode? Just a tiny bit? Not to mention the whole Halliburton, Enron-type stuff that is neverending.
Ah, you gotta love those oil guys, Bush and Cheney. They really did make things better for this country economically and served our best interests, made us much safer - and we have cheap gas to boot!
Right. *cough, cough*
Shit, as of last week they essentially handed victory to Bin Laden on a silver platter with this market disaster. That's what he wanted – the Towers were symbolic. They let him get away and told us to go shopping. They had a Republican majority in Congress for six of the last eight years, with unprecedented and utilized executive powers via The Patriot Act, yet we are in far worse shape today than we were in 2000.
Without a doubt, there is a lot of blame to go around, going back DECADES. But have the balls to take accountability for your vote and for the people you voted FOR. They have been instrumental in destroying the things true patriotic Americans hold dear.
We'll build it back up, no doubt about it, but they must be held accountable, and you need to WAKE UP. Our children need you to WAKE UP and quit completely focusing on the image of welfare queens you've been fed, when our government – both sides – have sold out to CORPORATIONS. There are individuals out there, including the same minority, low-income citizen you have in your head (and I'm talking LEGAL citizens), who take advantage of the system, costing taxpayers money. The system is corrupt and needs to be fixed, and I don't condone anyone stealing or manipulating the system, committing crimes. Yet this type of behavior doesn't even come CLOSE to the corporate thievery that has been going on for years, costing US money!
You FINALLY witnessed the Corporate Welfare I've been shouting about for a decade!!! Wake the fuck up, people! Is it simply easier to picture that black welfare queen with six kids taking money out of your pocket than it is corporate executives (white dudes, in most cases)?
(BTW, it's those same corporations feeding you the bullshit through Limbaugh, etc., etc. The corporations prefer entertainers spewing one-sided arguments rather than discussion or, heaven forbid, investigative journalism, as their interests would be jeopardized and they would lose control of the message if we had a free press and investigative journalism once again.)
I know, as soon as I typed "let him get away" above (referring to Bin Laden) your brain went to Clinton, didn't it? It always does. You never want to "look back" unless it's to avoid accountability for your own dear leaders and your party. Shit, you guys would blame Clinton for WWI and II if you could; I blame him for a lot, too, but I'm unusual in that I am demanding accountability and I'm not partisan about it.
Funny thing how partisanship has become the new "patriotism." I believe being loyal to one's country and is more important than being loyal to a party.
I feel for you all. You need the world to be black and white (I know, I know...you much prefer pure white), because gray is just too difficult to comprehend and it takes too much effort to work through all those pesky facts that can get in the way of your "world view."
Oh, back to the muslim thing. If you're one of those who is totally fine with "nuking the Middle East and making it a parking lot," please quit calling yourself pro-life. If you excuse wars of choice or advocate the death penalty, etc., you're not pro-life, you're pro-birth.
Also, please don't call yourself a patriot if you don't defend the interests of our men and women in uniform. And, you are not defending them if you allow lies to put them in harm's way and say "that's in the past, it doesn't matter how we got there." It matters. It matters because you need to fuckin' pay attention and not allow it to happen again.
Everyone you listen to who has created this "world view" of liberals being pussies and military haters, while they are all chicken hawks, each and every one. Did you know that?
I know you love Bush and all, but if you can just peruse this list at www.awolbush.com, (don't look elsewhere on this site, as they don't like Bush so it'll get you upset and you'll once again, conveniently, be missing out on some facts that could help you and help this country), it stunned me to see how there is a glaring lack of service from those who are so vocal about war. I'm specifically talking about people who were of age to serve during the Vietnam War, and those who were cheerleaders for other wars. The vast majority of them NEVER SERVED. Limbaugh had a pilonidal cyst, for crying out loud.
Why do you follow those who encourage violence and military action yet won't enlist to defend their own country during times of war?
Until you have served, or your children have served, if you are not going to be a responsible citizen and pay attention rather than being fed information from ENTERTAINERS, please quit calling yourself a patriot. And don't you dare call anyone who is an INFORMED CITIZEN unpatriotic when they criticize the mission, NOT the troops. I don't want my child or yours or anyone else's in harm's way for Halliburton's benefit.
It's OUR job as informed citizens to watch our soldiers' backs and make sure they are not put in harm's way based on lies or inadequate reasoning/information. It's OUR job. If you fall down on that job because you choose not to think for yourself because it's too hard and too uncomfortable, just keep your mouth shut and don't make it worse for the troops by calling real patriotic citizens un-American. Watch the videos at www.votevets.org or read some of the letters in the military papers, from family as well as soldiers. You'll see there is an equal number of those who are not blindly agreeing to this mission, and they're begging us to speak up and exercise our rights as citizens. Some are unwavering supporters of Bush and Company just as you are, but there are many who are not. There ARE independent thinkers in America -- it's not an elitist thing to be, it's the PATRIOTIC thing to be. Our country was founded on this ideal. Go figure...
Quite a few of our newest politicians in Congress are Iraq War (I and II) veterans, and they are running on the Democratic ticket. The military is NOT synonymous with Republican; they are representative of our civilian citizenry as far as belief systems and ideals. I will always listen to THEM over a chicken hawk any day.
If there were an example of blatant propagandist hypocrisy on the left to compare to Limbaugh et al, I'd call them out. There is stupid on the left, certainly, but they don't have the audience the right-wing hate radio has. That's probably due to one of two things: 1) there simply isn't an audience for such sound bite simplicity on the left; 2) the important issues of the day CAN'T be reduced to sound bite simplicity and thus any serious left radio must deal in journalism and discussion and reasoning. Either way, it leads the corporations to not want to advertise or sponsor such shows.
Either way, we have lost the free press in this country and it's up to us to demand journalistic integrity to return; otherwise, you have to be a geek like me who takes the time to research the heck out of all sides of an issue before reaching and opinion because I can't swallow propagandist sound bites, from any direction.
That's a lot of work though, so I envy those of you who have taken the path of "ignorance is bliss." It truly is much easier path, albeit dangerous to all of us.
So please quit calling yourself patriotic and please quit calling yourself a Christian. You're giving The United States of America and Jesus a bad name.
And if you're going to get your panties in a wad about the references to racism above, let it go for now and try to absorb my overriding points. As for racism, I've got a separate rant about that. It's on the way…
http://www.awolbush.com/index.html www.votevets.org
EDIT: Sorry, due to the bugs, this has been posted several times and I just realized it, and the post has been edited since this original; I think the above reflects the edits.
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