Like I Said, Wingnut Bloggers

by 8:12 pm. It has 219 Comments.

Many of you are aware that, for years, I traveled in conservative circles. As such, I am still on a number of what are considered conservative email lists. I still get the emails, and I still read them. In fact, I am glad I do, because one of the things that got me out of the current wingnuttosphere is that when I was a Republican, I listened to and read a lot of Democrats. I read the Daily Kos every day, I read Kevin Drum, I read Matt Yglesias, I embraced the Huffington Post. I think diversity of opinion is an important thing, and I like to come to my own conclusions, however addled and foolish I may be.

At any rate, I received the following email on one of my “conservative” email lists the other day:

Today on my way to lunch I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read “Vote Obama, I need the money.” I laughed.

Once in the restaurant my server had on a “Obama 08” tie, again I laughed as he had given away his political preference–just imagine the coincidence.

When the bill came I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Obama redistribution of wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need–the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight.

I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I ‘ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful.

At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient needed money more.

I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

In and of itself, no big deal. The kind of thing that passes as conservative humor, and something that I am sure has ricocheted around right-wing blogs and email lists everywhere. However, listen to Nicole Wallace, one of the chief McCain flaks, today on NPR. Start paying attention at around 3:35 in the interview:

Listen, you go into a restaurant and instead of leaving a tip, you stiff the waitress and give it to the homeless person outside, it is a noble thing to do, it is spreading money earned by that waitress and giving it someone outside.

Sound familiar?

Look- the intellectual wing of the Republican party is dead. What is left are brain-dead acolytes spreading meaningless and simplistic anecdotes, trite stories, and distilled nonsense passed on that has a more fitting home in AM radio. The McCain campaign, once again, is just a symptom of the real problem- an intellectually incurious and lazy movement in the final ugly spasms of death. The McCain campaign is now, in their interviews with the press, spreading what we can all recognize as wingnut email chains.

RIP, Republicans.

*** Update ***

Via the comments, here the same story is in the letters to the editor at the Chicago Tribune:

On my way to lunch recently, I passed a homeless guy with a sign that read “Vote Obama; I need the money.” I laughed. In a restaurant my server had on an “Obama 08” tie. Again I laughed. Just imagine the coincidence. When the bill came, I decided not to tip the server and explained to him that I was exploring the Barack-Obama-redistribution-of-wealth concept. He stood there in disbelief while I told him that I was going to redistribute his tip to someone who I deemed more in need—the homeless guy outside. The server angrily stormed from my sight. I went outside, gave the homeless guy $10 and told him to thank the server inside as I’ve decided he could use the money more. The homeless guy was grateful. At the end of my rather unscientific redistribution experiment, I realized the homeless guy was grateful for the money he did not earn, but the waiter was pretty angry that I gave away the money he did earn even though the actual recipient deserved money more. I guess redistribution of wealth is an easier thing to swallow in concept than in practical application.

—A. Hart, Forest Park

Nicole Wallace, lead McCain surrogate, with nothing to offer but astroturf. This was once a proud movement.

*** Update #2 ***

Sam Adams Hefeweizen is so bad it should be a felony. If Obama does usher in the NEW WORLD ORDER, first on the chopping block are these jackasses for their crimes against the reinheitsgebot. Christ, this is ten pounds of suck in a sixteen ounce bottle. Thank God I have three UFO’s left. This Sam Adams is borderline flat, has no body, a bland to nonexistent aftertaste, and almost a fake sweet quality like it fell into a vat of shitty honey brown. If this was the last beer I was to drink before my impending execution, I would just ask them to give me a piss-jar of Corona or shoot me without having a beer.

This Sam Adams crap was the hefeweizen equivalent of having sex while wearing eight condoms. If someone offers you one, give them the finger.





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The Apocalypse Is Soon

by 7:20 pm. It has 71 Comments.

For whatever reason-maybe I was slightly peevish, maybe I was feeling slightly cantankerous, maybe I was just ready for this election to be over- I went out and had a liquid dinner. Well, not actually, but I did have a bottle of red with my meal.

And, as I was sitting there enjoying my meal, a plan was hatched. As I speak, mom is digging up pictures of me in Halloween costumes past, and hopefully dad will scan some by tomorrow.

Why? Because I love you. Consider this your open thread, and consider this your opportunity to send in pictures of yourself in embarrassing Halloween costumes (MAKE SURE YOU NAME YOUR PICTURE WITH YOUR COMMENTING HANDLE). My favorite from grad school was me as John Daly’s Caddy, when all I did was wear a caddy uniform with a golf bag full of empty tequila and beer bottles and a sign on my back like a caddy wears that said “Daly, BAC .28” instead of a number.

Hopefully mom will find the picture I am looking for, and it will be pretty damned funny.





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Profiles In Douchebaggery

by 4:12 pm. It has 67 Comments.

Michael Goldfarb, lead McCain Report blogger on loan from the Weekly Standard:

Joe Klein is not impressed:

Here we have the McCain campaign’s execrable Michael Goldfarb slinging around accusations of anti-semitism–a favorite pastime, as we’ve seen this year, among Jewish neoconservatives.

Nor is Sullivan:

Michael Goldfarb, McCain spokesman, accuses Barack Obama of hanging around with anti-Semites – plural – on CNN. Asked to name one other anti-Semite other than his allegation about Rashid Khalidi, he can’t. He won’t. But he leaves it hanging, refusing to disown or retract the charge. This is pure McCarthyism. And it is the rotten core of McCain.

I know this is getting old, hearing me say it over and over again, but when I said that the McCain campaign was being run by wingnut bloggers, I was not engaging in hyperbole. I was simply describing who is running the McCain campaign- wingnut bloggers.

The GOP just needs to be destroyed.





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And The Lambs Lie Down on Broad Street

by 3:32 pm. It has 65 Comments.

And all the people brake off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them unto Aaron.

And he received them at their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf: and they said, These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.

And when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made proclamation, and said, To morrow is a feast to the LORD. Exodus, Chapter 32.

***

CBN:

For these and other reasons Cindy is calling for a Day of Prayer for the World’s Economies on Wednesday, October 29, 2008. They are calling for prayer for the stock markets, banks, and financial institutions of the world on the date the stock market crashed in 1929. They are meeting at the New York Stock Exchange, the Federal Reserve Bank, and its 12 principal branches around the US that day.

“We are going to intercede at the site of the statue of the bull on Wall Street to ask God to begin a shift from the bull and bear markets to what we feel will be the ‘Lion’s Market,’ or God’s control over the economic systems,” she said. “While we do not have the full revelation of all this will entail, we do know that without intercession, economies will crumble.”

I guess we can add the bible to biology, chemistry, and the rest of the book learnin’ our modern Christians have no use for these days.





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Post Recommendation

by 11:37 am. It has 90 Comments.

Just finished reading this DailyKos recommended diary, Inauguration Ball 2009, and actually got goosebumps.

Update: I am as lily white as you can get. I grew up in a small town in eastern Canada (Clarenville, Newfoundland – 2200+ people) until I was 16. I never knew a black person in all the time I lived there. I moved to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 1986, and there I only ever knew one black kid. He was a member of a performing arts group I was involved with. Wonderful kid. The only reason I noticed he was black was because it was a novelty to me. I had never known a black person.

In 1998, I moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a year to do my Master’s degree. Halifax has a large black minority. Again, very little racial tension – at least none that I noticed. I studied and partied with a few black people while I was there. It never occurred to me that there was any difference between us except the color of our skin.

In 1999, I moved to Atlanta and all that changed. I could not believe how racial politcs was. I have never in my life had to walk on eggshells in conversations. It really never occurred to me that there could be such thing as racial tensions. I never knew that growing up. But moving to Atlanta really gave me an education that I did not want to get, because I never had any need for it. The politics of division was something I had never known.

I must admit, part of the reason I support Barack Obama is because he is black. But only part. I did not support Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton – not because they were black, but because I believed neither had the competence for high office. I also believed the only reason they were running was because of race.

In Barack Obama, we have pure, 100% competence. That he is black is a sidebar. But it’s a sidebar that I cannot wait to celebrate late in the evening on November 4th. We’re not only going to elect the most competent president of this decade. We’re going to make history by electing the first black president in this nation’s history.

I am tired of racial politics. Sick of it. I hope, with every fiber of my being, that Barack Obama is as competent as he seems. I want the Neanderthals to see a Black Man run this country well. I want them to eat Jim Crow. I want every decent white person in America to look at their racist friends and say “Look. He’s terrific. What were you thinking all these years you stupid fucktard?” I will be happy to have Obama in office – mostly because I think he is a smart, competent manager. But I admit, the prospect of a black man in office is the chocolate frosting on a very delicious cake.

In one of my first posts on this site (I can’t find it) I said that I didn’t have a racist bone in my body. I was mocked for that – as if to say every white person has at least a little racism running through him. Hopefully, from what I have written above, you can understand why. I just didn’t have those experiences growing up – and I am truly grateful that I did not.

Update: When I say “walk on eggshells” I don’t mean while talking with African Americans – implying that I would be saying racist things. I mean with white people who grew up here and have been subjected to racial politics all their lives.





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