Sunday, May 04, 2008
"If you don't like it here..."
So there's a comment on yesterday's entry from someone who's named "Anonymous," that maybe I'd be happier up in Canada. Years ago I remember John Birch/redneck/KKK types telling me I should move to Russia because it would be more to my liking. No more USSR, so now the evil place is Canada. Canada? Give me a break!
The right-wingnuts aren't too hip about politics, nope. Maybe about brands of beer or bible verses or what Rush said last night, but they don't know shit about political systems. If someone criticizes the US then that person is disloyal—subversive, say, in the good ol' Tailgunner Joe McCarthy sense of the word. These days, according to some wingnut spokespeople, that means "lynchable." Because they know that anyone who says anything other than what Bill-O or Rush or Ann says is...er, "a commie." My grandfather used to curse out "Dirty atheistic red commie bastards both black and white and the white are worse than the black because they choose to be with the blacks." Honest, that's how he put it. That really isn't too different, though, than the language we can hear on talk radio or Fox News. "Secularists" has replace "atheists," and "red commies" has been replaced by "socialists," but it's the same ol' same ol'.
The sociologists say the neander-mentalists crop up when society is in change, and modernity is powerful. That's like the "debate" over evolution, or the fear of sexuality in teenagers, or Support Our Troops (let them be in hopeless war scenes, but support them by keeping them under fire).
Forty or fifty years ago, there were plenty of places where we could suggest the wingnuts go hang out: Paraguay, Argentina, South Africa, Rhodesia, Nicaragua, the P.I., Spain, Portugal—you know, our allies. They were dictatorships, sure, but they were on our side. Birds of a feather, maybe? I don't know what countries to suggest to the neo-paranoid-conservatives anymore. Israel, I guess, but even though it supports ethnic cleansing and a permanent state of siege, it has some domestic policies more liberal than here. Hmm. I guess for starters they could pull their own heads out of their asses, and then check out a good world almanac...
The right-wingnuts aren't too hip about politics, nope. Maybe about brands of beer or bible verses or what Rush said last night, but they don't know shit about political systems. If someone criticizes the US then that person is disloyal—subversive, say, in the good ol' Tailgunner Joe McCarthy sense of the word. These days, according to some wingnut spokespeople, that means "lynchable." Because they know that anyone who says anything other than what Bill-O or Rush or Ann says is...er, "a commie." My grandfather used to curse out "Dirty atheistic red commie bastards both black and white and the white are worse than the black because they choose to be with the blacks." Honest, that's how he put it. That really isn't too different, though, than the language we can hear on talk radio or Fox News. "Secularists" has replace "atheists," and "red commies" has been replaced by "socialists," but it's the same ol' same ol'.
The sociologists say the neander-mentalists crop up when society is in change, and modernity is powerful. That's like the "debate" over evolution, or the fear of sexuality in teenagers, or Support Our Troops (let them be in hopeless war scenes, but support them by keeping them under fire).
Forty or fifty years ago, there were plenty of places where we could suggest the wingnuts go hang out: Paraguay, Argentina, South Africa, Rhodesia, Nicaragua, the P.I., Spain, Portugal—you know, our allies. They were dictatorships, sure, but they were on our side. Birds of a feather, maybe? I don't know what countries to suggest to the neo-paranoid-conservatives anymore. Israel, I guess, but even though it supports ethnic cleansing and a permanent state of siege, it has some domestic policies more liberal than here. Hmm. I guess for starters they could pull their own heads out of their asses, and then check out a good world almanac...
