Just recently, DNA watched Real Time with Bill Maher. Bill is funny, but sometimes forces the comedy a little too much. DNA has never cared for the delivery, particularly at the end of jokes Bill knows are cheap.
Anyway, Bill made a good point the other day. When Bush was President, there were conspiracy nuts galore talking about the right as neo-fascists. Since Obama became President, there are conspiracy nuts galore talking about the left as neo-socialists.
Obama clearly stands for death panels, government regulation, removal of rights to protect illegal aliens, secret handshakes with South American leftists, and not-so-secret black power fist bumps with his wife, using healthcare for slavery reparations, taking our guns, and the blatant obvious fact that he is not a U.S. citizen, and stole the Presidency in flagrant contempt for the Constitution. Or so "they" say.
Bush, the other "they" contend, lied to get us into a war, let his Vice-President and Secretary of Defense lead us down a path in which we saw the erosion of the Bill of Rights, secret prisons, and illegal wiretaps, spent the greatest swing of money from surplus to deficit in human history, used the Justice Department on witch-hunts against political enemies, let his advisors influence decisions to fire appointed judges for ideological reasons, completely fabricated some kind of link between al-qaeda and Iraq, and bungled Katrina because he hates black people.
The only difference is that the right wing nutjobs have made up every "conspiracy" that they have "uncovered," while the left wing nutjobs actually discovered systematic abuses to cede more control and authority to our central government than ever before.
DNA has chosen not to write about this until now, because the right sounds so fucking stupid it seemed self-evident that their positions are ludicrous. But, at the back of DNA's mind is the fear that while ignorant baseless statements like "healthcare is about reparations," (Fox News) the Birther movement, and so many other statements that are so off the right they are in another time zone, that eventually enough of the herd will sense fear, and then wheel and turn in the direction that the cattle drivers with the whips want them to go.
So, fear about Obama taking your guns was not enough (since it hasn't happened...but don't let the absence of the fact of it happening keep you from being afraid he is just waiting until you're not looking...);
Fear created by linking him with radicals who hate America was not enough(like a preacher who speaks hatefully...no republican has ever done that);
Fear created by implicating that Obama somehow lied about his birth and covered up his citizenship was not enough(completely fabricated, and yet, Bush, who probably did cover up his lack of National Guard Service, succeeded in humiliating Dan Rather);
Fear that Obama is using the healthcare debate to socialize this country and give reparations to blacks was not enough(there is no analogue in the Bush White house, because this idea is so fucking out to lunch...well, wait...the Prescription Drug Plan by Bush has cost us billions and made drug companies even richer, exactly what opponents of Obama claim will happen now);
Fear that Obama must have engineered this huge debt and "bailout" to pay for the communist "greening" of this country, and turning it into a "different" America was not enough (the next white skuzzy crackhead bitch who limps up to a microphone and says, "I want my America back," please right wingers, tell DNA, what America is this? Is it the ones in which "colored" people have their very own drinking fountains, and only whores got divorced, and only protestants go to heaven?);
Fear that Obama is the most insidious kind of black person, you know, the kind that sounds white, but uses that fuck our women, was not enough (but it has been enough to have parents actually threaten to keep their kids from going to school on a day in which a school broadcast from Obama about staying in school is to be aired, because "you just can't trust Obama");
By themselves, these things are not enough, but together, they accomplish their purpose. Fuck. Listen to DNA. Who is "they?" Whose purpose is being achieved? Who is this conspiracy? Is DNA buying into the whole consipracy mindset? If so, he is as guilty of everyone else on the right for slinging this conspiracy bullshit.
There is no conspiracy. The people who idealistically want less government, who you could actually have a good debate with, happen to be in front of a pretty big crowd of real shits who want less government so that they can continue to make money on the backs of people hand over fist. What oil company exec would EVER agree to cap and trade, or willingly cut pollution if it costs them more in the short run? If we only believe that an unfettered free market ultimately is the best option in a free society, how did our free market bring the world to the brink of total global depression which would have made the Great Depression look like a hiccup? Because people aren't incentivized to help each other. Grandma can't afford health care? Fuck her. She should have planned ahead. She's old anyway. People look out for their own interest.
But as shitty as that is, it is only marginally shittier than a runaway government on the left. Those on the left who want bigger government for social protections stand in front of a pretty big group of shits who are getting fat off of doing nothing, while joes like you and DNA work hard and won't get shit for it.
The right doesn't need to concoct bullshit to weaken the agenda of the left, and vice versa. They each should rationally debate the issues. However, that takes a lot of work. Fear is an easier tool to wield, and for whatever reason, it is a weapon the right uses pretty much exclusively. DNA guesses this is the Jeopardy answer to the blog post title (The Difference Between The Left And The Right---Alex, what is "Using fear to achieve your ends?"). The right used fear when Bush was in office (if we don't strike Iraq the terrorists will win) and is using fear now (see all the above examples). To turn the tide, all the right has to do is get the herd to wheel, which it is doing. DNA applauds Obama for attempting to fight fear with reason. However, he will lose, he will lose this fight, and he will lose the next election becasue of this. Fear beats reason, almost every single time. What we need in a President is cunning. Intelligence and cunning will beat fear and deviousness. But if intelligence and cunning does win, will we be any better off? Won't the left really be doing the same thing as the right?
When DNA looks at the right, he is afraid for our society, because in that direction lies fascism, anti-science, religiosity, fanaticism, and the destruction of our most cherished ideals in the name of Christianity and morality. When DNA looks at the left, he is afraid for our society, because in that direction, bloated governments will shepherd us along for our own safety, create a welfare state, use speech codes in the name of protecting diversity to limit free expression, tax us to the breaking point, will bleed out invention and innovation of companies by restrictive policies, will force us to adapt to rules for the greater good, without being able to question "whose good?" and will allow short-term scientific analyses to provide the "reason" for ill-fated social policies.
On one side, jack-booted thugs who jail you for disagreeing with your president. On the other, hemp-bootied hippies who want to teach you to share for your own good. What can we do?
Move to New Zealand.
Except they don't want American assholes.
Every single time he sees this, DNA wonders for just a second what kind of a world it would be if the lead singer from the 1970's and 80's punk band The Plasmatics, Wendy O. Williams, had a show on BET. This is in spite of the fact that DNA has thought this same thought maybe 40 or 50 separate times as he has scrolled by the show listing, and in spite of the fact that Wendy died in 1998. Every time, he still chuckles to himself. He imagines an ageing Wendy, wearing a clear plastic shirt over a G-string, with two electrical taped "X's" over her nipples, saying something like, "Okay, my next guest is 50 Cent, who I'm gonna fuck right here onstage tonight!"
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