Yonder stands your orphan with his gun
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
Crying like a fire in the sun
Look out the saints are comin' through
And it's all over now, Baby Blue.
At what point do I give up and admit it's all over? The anti-Obama hate cult permeates every waking hour of my day, from technical seminars between engineers about packet radio networks interrupted by someone handing out disreputable Republican figures showing what a spendthrift radical socialist Obama is, from e-mails and phone calls asking me to participate in tax protests from people who won't have to pay taxes at all this year to the constant snide comments about Obama not saluting to this or apologizing for that. There are e-mailed clips of Gingrich preaching about the "most radical president" e-mailed jokes about him firing "cattle guards" and just about every captious hoax you'll find at Fact Check.org or Snopes.com or UrbanLegends.about.com. The mad blood is pumping like it's 1861, and US Rte 1 as it runs through my county, sports shiny new billboards for gun shops and firearms training.
"But these are real numbers" said a friend I should have thought would question any estimates published by the RNC about what "Obamacare" will cost.
"Real from the same people who predicted the Iraq war would cost nothing?" I replied? He looked puzzled. One doesn't suggest any doubt concerning the Party of God in these parts. One doesn't mention that 47% of American families won't owe any Federal income tax this year to a sign waving teabagger or that Iraq has cost us as much as WWII and isn't nearly over yet, not unless you want to invite hate mail and stuff thrown on your lawn, put your job at risk and have no friends at all. Want to know how Dr. Mudd felt? Just suggest that George W. Bush had anything to do with the policies that allowed Enron to ruin so many people, precipitated the bubble and credit crunch, started the most expensive war we've ever had on false pretenses. I spent years being called a traitor for suggesting that what has come to pass would come to pass, but exoneration is going to have to wait for the second coming.
Local papers have become unreadable and dripping with foamy saliva in their raving about Obama's religious agenda, secular and Islamic and I suspect that like many papers today, the owners thereof are writing some of them to use the power of insane hate to boost circulation.
One doesn't mention that Fox News, the fair and balanced network that is run entirely by and for Republicans, doesn't employ a single Democrat and not only slants stories, it invents them and remains silent when their hoaxes are revealed by every other outlet on earth. The Acorn Hoax, the Climategate hoax, the "Two Planeloads of Democrat Lawyers descend on Wasilla" hoax. People think you're crazy, or worse yet a Liberal -- you know, one of those black clad bearded guys who carry bombs and hate America. No one here will even listen for fear of being branded a liberal and people who call themselves skeptics can't imagine the Republican version of anything might be biased. No one will accept that Obama was elected because of the failure of a long Republican administration and Republican controlled congress.
The fact is that Dwight Eisenhower took equal flack for implementing integration to the horror of people who called him a radical, FDR took worse for Social Security, Johnson for his war on poverty and support of civil rights legislation and of course Medicare. Jefferson was called a tax and spend radical, because in America you can't just be wrong, you have to be the Devil, even the irrefutable facts can be the devil or the work of his hand.
What's the use of opposing it? Could any amount of truth or blather have stopped the civil war or done away with the institution of Slavery? Can anyone save America from the metastatic madness?
I often feel that we are facing overwhelming odds. But, we must continue to have dialog, one person at a time, to try to hold onto a sane democracy.
ReplyDeleteWe also need leaders who are willing to buy their own mega communications outlet and return the truth. There are some individual shows that help, but we need a complete media outlet owned outright by people who care about people.
I'm in awe Capt., wonderfully said!
ReplyDeleteThe other day on Hardball Debbie Wassermann Schultz said she got standing ovations before and after her town hall, she said the majority of the people there were supportive of the HC bill and welcomed her explainations to questions, but what did the media show?? Videotapes of the mobster crazies from the teabagger gangs spewing rabid hate and stupidity because it was videotaped by a rightie! We have to believe and start trusting the American people, we can't act defeated when we are not defeated! The majority of this country stands behind Obama and the democrats, we just never hear about it because its toooooo positive to report on!
The amount of believed misinformation is astonishing and bewildering, given the plethora of sources to check via the internet.
ReplyDeleteFor whatever reason, most people are too busy and, unfortunately, too apathetic to perform any rigorous scrutiny of the outlandish claims making their way into inboxes or blogs. If the claim fits their beliefs then, by all means, it must be true.
We are in an age where political henchmen fund "grassroots" efforts (e.g. Tea-Baggers) and are lock step with faux news outlets (e.g. Fox News). You could make the case that many right-wing blogs are included in this mix, given the extremely similar (and equally sophomoric) websites that exist.
This is another great post Captain, but there is yet one other group of Obama haters that you may have missed and those are the progressives. Not all of them, hopefully not even most of them, but there is a significant number that hate the president for reasons that include health care reform to the Afghanistan war. They are disappointed that his HCR didn't go far enough, and disappointed that he remains committed to the fight. I don't fault these folk necessarily, although I have warned them that their open hate supports the Tea-Baggers and only serves to damage the party. For the most part I think my offerings fall on deaf ears.
ReplyDelete"we need a complete media outlet owned outright by people who care about people."
ReplyDeleteThe fact that we don't, and that almost all the outlets seem to be copy each other is, IMO, another example of how the myth that competition by itself maintains a free market. It doesn't very often and when it does, it often does a great deal of damage to people in the process.
"we just never hear about it because its toooooo positive to report on!"
And isn't it ironic that Fabulous Fox used to complain until very recently that it was the Liberals (which means anyone not of their faith) always focused on the negative? Negative things like the spending and spending and borrowing and warmongering. Good news doesn't sell.
"The amount of believed misinformation is astonishing and bewildering, given the plethora of sources to check via the internet."
Indeed, the information age has brought us ten lies for every truth. They don't need Goebbels, every man is his own propagandist.
"there is a significant number that hate the president for reasons that include health care reform to the Afghanistan war."
I'm not sure what a progressive is -- or a liberal for that matter, but you're right, there are plenty who did think he could transform us into a nation of peaceable vegans, ban the bomb and all that other naive 60's stuff.
Jeez, all I hoped for was someone smarter than Bush who wasn't trying to screw us all and I resent the persistent nonsense that we all worship Obama as a messiah and particularly after they worshiped Bush as a messiah.
I do live in perhaps the most boneheaded county on earth and I'm hoping I'm more of a pessimist than I should be, but people here simply can't imagine that someone without horns and cloven hooves could possibly not be a Republican.
Living in the overwhelmingly Republican/Tea Bagger South can be trying on one's nerves.
ReplyDeleteI belong to a business networking group that meets once a week.
Last couple of meetings, those who had speaking parts seemed compelled to throw in barbs at the administration and the new healthcare legislation.
Pissed me off because if I wanted to belong to a political discussion group, that's what I would have joined.
I must not be the only liberal/progressive in the group since their attempts to engage in this type of dialog was met with silence and so quickly fizzled out.
If this continues though, I plan on asking that guidelines be established regarding politics and religion. Neither topic belongs in this type of group.
Awesome post Capt and excellent points.
ReplyDeleteI too can recall the neocon’s remarks about the “sniveling liberals” making noise about their misdeeds, the absolute lies about WMDs in Iraq and when none were found, it instantly joined the ranks of the “war on terror. It’s frightening to see how many people don’t take the time to seek the truth, but then that’s what they want isn’t it.
" IMO, another example of how the myth that competition by itself maintains a free market. It doesn't very often and when it does, it often does a great deal of damage to people in the process"
When money is the goal of competition, a free market will not only provide a means to succeed, it'll provide a means for the successful to steamroll the poor/weak into oblivion.
Humans simply aren't considerate of one another enough to leave it at success. Greed will rule the market. A perfect example is the long-lost community markets in favor of goliath Wally Mart type supermarkets. Their successes, IMHO, is a major contributor to the downfall of community life. No more bakeries, meat markets, vegetable markets, barbershops, etc. for people to gather and socialize.
@rockync – I grew up in Oklahoma, a very conservative place and feel your discomfort.
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=33:djfyxzlrldae
ReplyDeleteSo who is Baby Blue? Well, like most of Dylan's subjects, the character is probably an amalgam of personalities in his orbit. But some speculation places the focus sharply on a heavily Dylan-influenced singer/songwriter named David Blue, who pops up, Zelig-like, in name or visage in a variety of pop music moments. He was a friend or possibly just a hanger-on of Dylan's (and Leonard Cohen's as well) from the early days in New York's Greenwich Village folk scene, and is pictured in the cover photo of Dylan and the Band's Basement Tapes (in the trench coat), appears in the Dylan film Renaldo and Clara (1978), and is speculated to have been the subject of Joni Mitchell's "Blue." Another person mentioned when fans discuss "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" is Paul Clayton, a folksinger who had a fair amount of influence on Dylan. Of course, there may be a good amount of Bob Dylan himself in Baby Blue, the singer certainly undergoing great artistic and personal change in the mid-'60s. On Bringing It All Back Home (1965) alone, half of the songs feature -- for the first time -- a band of accompanying musicians and the album is a roughly half electric/half acoustic affair. These forays into rock & roll and pop music alienated a vocal segment of his fan base. Perhaps the singer sees himself moving on from them. It is very likely that they were the target. There is much evidence to support this theory, particularly Dylan's choice to play "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" as his last song -- acoustically -- at the infamous Newport Folk Festival, after having his electric set met with boos. Coming back to kiss off the crowd with the number, the singer seems to relish such lines as "look out the saints are coming through." One can only guess what he must have thought of the crowd finally cheering him. Those who have seen the D.A. Pennebaker documentary of the 1965 British tour, Don't Look Back (1967), will recall the songwriter listening with feigned polite attention to Dylan wanna-be Donovan playing Dylan one of his new songs, only to have Bob blow away Donovan and all those in the room with his "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." The timing of such instances suggests spite, vitriol, and a supreme sense of confidence and self-righteousness.
Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) is a bubble. If it were an Intrade stock, I would short it. Key demographics are going to receive the benefits of the bill by November, and the teabaggery has worn out its welcome even among the tea party movement.
ReplyDeleteThat's right: watch my video again, and you'll notice the organizers have cleaned up the imagery and signage. There are still plenty of stupid and racist ideas being propagated, but they have been subsumed in a historical narrative straight out of Dr. Strangelove.
I don't worry that it will fade away, I worry about what follows on its heels, since idiot rage never dies.
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to live in florida. Although on the surface people seem friendly, George Wallace carried every county in 1972 with a reactionary right wing white supremacy, states rights, police state platform supported by hideous hate groups - yet with his support for medicare and social security, he'd be called a Communist by today's generation of haters. He won my county handily and he didn't even have Fox News to demonize his detractors.
Who comes next? The names change but the hate never dies.
The park next door to my building is hosting an immigration reform rally today. Sponsored by local churches, labor (SEIU), and community organizations there are hundreds of folks milling about listening to speeches, cheering and chanting. Plus they have decent music and food carts. Not bad.
ReplyDeleteCouple of months back the same park hosted a tea party and about seventy-five pissed-off folks stood around with grammatically challenged placards listening to angry speakers make no sense at all.
Spending time on the internets it's easy to forget just how big and diverse this country really is.
Today is a reminder.
I grew up in liberal upper middle class suburbs for the most part and Florida has been a shock even though the income level is higher here. It's also lower, depending on which side of the tracks you're on.
ReplyDeleteThese really-really rich people are 100% Republican and have voted Republican at least since the Dixiecrats turned coat and became Republicans. The crackers, the working class, the middle class -- all republicans no matter what; to the point where Mark Foley had a good chance to win even after the scandal and people still have warm feelings for George Wallace.
Talk about culture shock! It makes my physically ill sometimes. It's so easy to despair.