Pacific Views

While I Was Out...

I have so much to blog about that I know I'm going to forget something. But I'd better not forget to thank Mary for posting so much good stuff in the interim.

My internet connection was finally fixed last night, but it was left untouched in the certain knowledge that I'd be up till 1AM with no studying done. But since I've been offline, the Valerie Plame story has broken all over the place, Rush Limbaugh is getting dogged, and Bush's poll numbers are taking a header. Maybe people should pay me to take the periodic blogging hiatus ;) But until then, here's a random recap.

Before moving into a house with no cable (I'm seeing how long I can go without), I heard a couple wacky things on the news. Considering how disturbed I was by them (it's been like, two weeks, and I'm still creeped out), maybe it's a good thing that I've been out of the loop. Like Bush the First, only moreso.

For one, this person was on the news saying in public that Howard Dean won't be able to tack to the center during the general election because he draws all his support from "gays and Marxists." Either my boyfriend is going to be really, really let down, or I must be a Marxist. But like, nobody told me, and dammit, where's my card?

But seriously... do these people still believe in Marxists as a relevant political force? There probably aren't even any left in Russia anymore, and China has long since given up on Mao. Also, the mainstream public has pretty much quit caring whether or not people are gay. There are even gay Republicans, and I think those folks would be pretty ticked to hear that they're being lumped in with Marxists. What gives?

Then on another show, Frank Luntz was talking to someone about why he thought the Republicans had a chance at winning California in the recall. In the course of reminding the viewing audience that there really is an infestation of Republicans in the state, he mentioned that it was the home of the John Birch Society. Looking beyond the choking horror that this was something he mentioned as though he were proud of it, that should tell you just about everything you need to know about the Republican party.

But if you don't believe me, here's an excerpt from their media fact sheet:

...The John Birch Society has been a leader in detailing the existence and operation of the international terrorist network. Articles show how seemingly irrational and counterproductive acts are part of a larger plan to weaken and destroy non-communist governments. The section also gives an understanding of how dictatorial laws for controlling terrorism are really nothing more than a move towards the new world order. ...

That explains it all. The Afghan mujahideen and Bin Laden were REALLY fighting Russia all those years in order to score some inscrutably clever goal for international communism. It must have been a secret plot to get America to trust them and give them money so that we'd be lulled into complacency by seeing a large communist government fold, leaving ourselves wide open to an ironically self-funded attack by communists who pretend to hate communism. Or something like that.

And maybe the Republican party is really just a secret front group for the John Birch society's tireless fight against the evil spectre of international communism. And that would very definitely explain a lot, including the bizarre statements by Ms. 'Right and Wrong'. Of course, I'm getting wacky here, but what do you expect considering that those TV news soundbites have been rattling around for two whole weeks.

(Plus, I think I'm having an anxiety attack over the 100+ unread emails sitting in my inbox. And not junk emails, mind. But ones that people who know me are going to actually expect me to read and/or respond to. So my thinking is clearly fuzzy, and the last couple paragraphs should be disregarded.)

Then, on the radio, I heard a clip from Schwarzenegger's 'apology', that really just kind of tied it all together:

..."I have done things that were not right, which I thought were playful, but now I recognize that I have offended people," Schwarzenegger said. "To those people that I have offended, I want to say to them, 'I am deeply sorry about that, and I apologize.' "...

No, you no-platform-having, one-liner-slinging, great-swinging... uncivilized throwback of a person, the problem isn't that you 'offended' people. While I realize that it's standard conservative fare to consider all crimes on the basis of whether or not they offended the sensibilities of people whose opinions they care about, that doesn't really apply here. The problem is that non-consensual liberties are wrong, wrong, wrong.

It's wrong to grab people who don't want to be grabbed, which is why rape and sexual harassment are crimes, and adultery (though unwise) is not. It's why it's illegal to take a hammer to your neighbor's Hummer, but not to your own (unless you want someone else to pay to fix it). It's why you can fire missiles at your own deserts for the sake of seeing the bright, pretty explosion, but why you sodding well aren't supposed to fire them at other people's. None of those activities are wrong because an unspecified number of nameless onlookers might be offended by them.

And Republicans (at least the ones who make it to positions of power and punditry) don't seem to get this because, and this is just me guessing here, they've got bad cases of Chosenitis. They really believe that everything they survey is rightfully theirs, and if it isn't, it's only because some undeserving, unChosen lunkhead is inconsiderately sitting on it. Because they're special, and Chosen by God.

They were Chosen to own the political process, and therefore, other participants are inherently illegitimate. (Possibly Marxists, because a convenient explanation for why you don't own everything is that those wily buggers have secretly got a hand in it.) They were Chosen to own California, and no election will stand in their way.

And Arnold, apparently, was Chosen to own the posteriors of all the women he happens to be in the mood to fondle. So I suppose he'll have no trouble fitting in, unless he tries to grab Coulter. In which case he might be the first wanna-be politician ever to have a non-consensual lobotomy by spike heel. Which would be the perfect capper to a year which holds out the dreamy prospect of Karl Rove bunking down in a federal penitentiary for violation of a felony statute enacted during the Reagan administration.

Posted by natasha at October 3, 2003 09:40 PM | TrackBack