Sunday, April 19, 2009
Remember when a "tea party" meant getting stoned?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I do. Maybe not what was said, but yes, I do rememer tea parties. Not the hokey cowboy-hatted shit-kicking "tea parties" on April 15th; no. Tea parties were times to get dopey (yeah, OK, it's a pun), laugh, listen music, and try to get laid. Nobody was ranting about someone's supposed phony birth certificate, or the communist/socialist/liberal/Jewish/Chinese Communist/fascist conspiracy (did I leave out any Straw Men?) they saw taking over the country. Nor did pot-bellied cigar-chomping dry drunks proclaim what a great country this is. Maybe they did while getting sonted in Muskogee, but I don't know about that.
Well, we're in a time of major social earthquake-ing; people's savings have been wiped out by shoddy financial scams, a war is bleeding our economy to death, and there's got to be somebody to blame, right? Can't be my fault! I followed the rules, mostly! I always said the Pledge of Allegiance, went to church when it was convenient, gave my sons crew-cuts, bought the biggest car I could almost-afford, and knew when to shift the blame and pass the buck. How come I got screwed? Must be somebody's fault!
Hey, it worked for Hitler.
And Goebbels said the bigger the lie the easier it was to get the masses to believe in it. That was an incredible political truth. A lot more meaningful than something like "all men are created equal," or almost equal or kind of equal, as long as...they were men, white, owned property, spent money quickly,and didn't ask too many questions, knew how to follow orders, and so on and so forth.
So, times are tough and we need to find scapegoats. I'm sad to say it, but most people are pretty dumb and pretty shallow. Below average. Politics, I used to think, depended on intelligence; the more educated you were, the more liberal. No, it ain't true. The more fuckedup people are, the more reactionary they are. There seems to be a lot of fuckedup people out there.
Well, we're in a time of major social earthquake-ing; people's savings have been wiped out by shoddy financial scams, a war is bleeding our economy to death, and there's got to be somebody to blame, right? Can't be my fault! I followed the rules, mostly! I always said the Pledge of Allegiance, went to church when it was convenient, gave my sons crew-cuts, bought the biggest car I could almost-afford, and knew when to shift the blame and pass the buck. How come I got screwed? Must be somebody's fault!
Hey, it worked for Hitler.
And Goebbels said the bigger the lie the easier it was to get the masses to believe in it. That was an incredible political truth. A lot more meaningful than something like "all men are created equal," or almost equal or kind of equal, as long as...they were men, white, owned property, spent money quickly,and didn't ask too many questions, knew how to follow orders, and so on and so forth.
So, times are tough and we need to find scapegoats. I'm sad to say it, but most people are pretty dumb and pretty shallow. Below average. Politics, I used to think, depended on intelligence; the more educated you were, the more liberal. No, it ain't true. The more fuckedup people are, the more reactionary they are. There seems to be a lot of fuckedup people out there.
