Ignorance Is Not Virtue

The culture wars continue, with now-well-known idiot (and Arizona Republican State Senator) Sylvia Allen exhibiting her vast knowledge of both geology and cosmology. That such a display of ignorance is essentially required to win a primary as a member of the GOP is a sad commentary upon the state of both the party and our nation.

In my dark hours, I fear that we are truly in a cosmic war, one that will determine whether mankind continues forward toward a true planetary civilization or sinks back into the darkness of its past, withering to eventual extinction. It is a fight between those of us who can embrace modernity and those who cling to callowness, superstition and prejudice.

In this fight, the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ali Khamenei are allied with the Sam Brownbacks and Pat Robertsons and James Inhofes of the world, each of them trying to stamp out rational thought in the name of his own version of fundamentalist purity, each of them certain that he is the true servant of the one true god, each ready to murder any and all who don't see the world as he does.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If it wishes to survive, humanity had better hope that my side wins.

Second-Guessing Everyone But Themselves

For the last week, we've had the opportunity to listen to the idea-deprived right wing bash President Obama for "not standing up to terrorists." Which, apparently, pirates who are in it entirely for the money qualify as, if you really, really want to paint a Democrat in a bad light. (Seriously, who pays attention to actual definitions of words?)

Then came this weekend's rescue, approved by the President himself, should it become necessary. Former hostage Captain Richard Phillips is fine now... and the vapid Fox News chicken-hawks are just as impotent and empty-headed as ever, even if there is slightly more egg upon their faces.

Do you think they'll actually say anything about it, fully admit how wrong they were? Or will they just move on to nit-picking about the next manufactured pseudo-scandal, such as whether or not the Obamas' new dog actually qualifies as a rescue animal?

I'm betting on the latter.

The Language Of Irrationalism

Lately, I've been trying to gain some sort of understanding of just what it is that drives those of the right-wing stripe. It seems as though there are two mutually unintelligible political languages being spoken in this nation, as though there is an unbridgeable chasm between the far right and the rest of us.

Certainly, there are aspects of modern conservatism of which I have at least some comprehension: The affluent being in favor of policies that further enrich them is easily understandable; The pro-life movement I have some sympathy for, though I feel that they are being led down the primrose path by the G.O.P.; Right-wing racism, nativism, xenophobia and homophobia, though I find them to be reprehensible, are readily grasped.

But just what is it that drives an otherwise normal working-class person to act consistently against his or her own self-interest (and, as it turns out, the interests of the nation as a whole)?

This quest led, in the past week, to a rather interesting exchange with a conservative co-worker, the impetus being a bumper-sticker that read, "Obama: Keep the change. I'll keep my guns, my money and my freedom." It led me to muse aloud why so many people, despite the Administration's policy proposals, were so eager to believe the Republican Party's implication that Barack Obama wants to, in essence, disarm them, take their hard-earned money and give it to a bunch of shiftless Negroes.

My co-worker's ever-so-eloquent reply? "Because we're not liberal commies." I laughed, then ironically thanked him for being so helpful. His rejoinder: "It may be blunt, but it's true."

At this point, I realized that he was not attempting to amuse, in the manner that I might when jokingly calling him a fascist. Instead, he was dead serious; his mindless, and ultimately meaningless, iteration of hate-radio talking points was, in his own mind, a decisive bon mot.

I proceeded to ask him numerous questions about his beliefs. He refused to answer questions about actual public policy, instead preferring to engage in ad hominem attacks against the President; he repeatedly regurgitated the right-wing talking point concerning Obama's use of a teleprompter. Apparently not realizing that Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 had also extensively used such devices, he was only too ready to embrace the notion that a black man, as he put it, "can't speak well without his teleprompter."

In addition, he blamed the President for numerous perceived misdeeds that had, in fact, been perpetrated by others (or that were simply the product of the right-wing imagination). It became increasingly clear that he had no affirmative beliefs. His focus was only upon what he hated; Barack Obama was symbolic for him, a convenient focal point for his copious and otherwise-incoherent rage. He had been fed by the likes of Rush and Sean and Billo, for the entirety of his life, a simple explanation for every problem that he faced, for every injustice that he discerned in the world: blame the evil libruls.

It saddened me that this was all there was to it, that there was not some greater, overarching philosophical basis for my co-worker's beliefs. But, in the end, that is what conservatism is: an appeal to our baser instincts, to the lesser angels of our natures, to anger, to hatred, to irrationalism.

And that is the chasm that separates us, in our nation and in the world: The thoughtful versus the superstitious, the modern versus the medieval, the rational versus the irrational.

And God help humanity if my side loses this battle.

Why So Angry?

I get the feeling that I may be the only person in the U.S. that is not freaking out about the AIG bonuses, considering the near-universal pseudo-populist outcry currently facing our friends in the credit default swap market. But that may be because I've actually been paying attention for the last thirty years.

This Wall Street attitude of entitlement is unsurprisingly pro forma. It is nothing new; it is part and parcel of the "Greed Is Good," "the market is God" mentality that has dominated conservative economic "thought" since the Reagan Era. The basic premise of that ideology is that the market's "invisible hand" will always lead individual actors in the direction of the collective good, and that government can serve only as an impediment to the betterment of mankind.

And now, as during the Great Depression, that economic religiosity has been shown to be utterly lacking.

That doesn't stop Republicans from claiming be appalled by the greed of AIG. But let me say this loud and clear: THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME BEHAVIOR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LAUDING FOR THE PAST 28 YEARS! This is its logical consequence, and if you are incapable of recognizing that reality, you have absolutely no place in the current public-policy debate. You are part of the problem, so stop pretending that your empty talking points are solutions.

It is time for conservatives to repent their sins or face political exile. There can be no in-between.

Wingnuts On Parade

Yesterday was a red-letter day: this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, convened in Washington, D.C. Billed as "the Largest Annual Gathering of Conservative Students, Activists and Policymakers," it is the right's lunatic fringe on full, proud and open display.

By all accounts, it's pretty much the nonsense you'd expect: Conservatives are the real Americans, Obama is taking us to hell in a handcart, science and rationalism are naughty, victimizing the powerless=Good, empowering the powerless=Evil, that sort of thing.

But one bit of reportage really caught my eye, this from Christopher Beam of slate.com:

...the next speaker, John Bolton... recalls the time during the campaign when Obama said Iran was just a "tiny" threat. "Is the loss of one American city picked at random—Chicago—is that a 'tiny' threat?" He delivers this line like Kevin Nealon's Subliminal Man. This brings the house down.

Let's, for the moment, disregard the fact that Bolton has misquoted President Obama on the "tiny threat" reference, and let's also disregard the apparent glee that "real Americans" feel at the thought of Chicago being destroyed, Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style. Instead, because it's been sticking in my craw for a while, let's focus upon the current right-wing monomania concerning Iran.

To the heart of the matter: Even assuming that Iran possessed both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of reliably delivering them to any given city in the U.S., why in the world would they launch said attack? It is a certainty that any such attack would result in the total annihilation of Iran, its reduction to a charred radioactive cinder, the deaths of a huge percentage of its populace. I find it hard to believe that this is what the leadership of Iran desires, and I am supremely confident that they are capable of "doing the math," so to speak.

"But, Wade," you say, "their President, Ahmadinejad, is a crazy fundamentalist and says terrible things about destroying Israel!" True enough... and he has about as much power in Iran as does John Bolton in the United States. The Presidency of Iran exists only to provide a certain amount of "democratic" sheen to what is a de facto dictatorship.

No, the real power in Iran resides in the person of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The military, the press and the judiciary all answer to Khamenei and are dependent upon him for their positions. And, though he is a despot, he is also a rational actor who wishes to retain his power, just as did the many Soviet Premiers who did not launch nuclear attacks upon the U.S. -- and for the same reason: their assured destruction, should they do so.

Though Iran is, indeed, a major regional power -- one that has been further empowered by the ill-advised U.S. invasion of Iraq -- and poses a direct threat to certain aspects of American policy in the Middle East, it is not about to start a nuclear war with the world's sole superpower. Either the right-wing wackos are too stupid to recognize this reality, or they are baselessly fear-mongering concerning Iran.

In either case, why would anyone listen to them?

So Darn Cute!

Conservatives are just so precious! As Art Linkletter might put it, right-wingers say the darnedest things.

Their reaction to then-President-elect Obama's stimulus package proposal? Pure comedy gold! During their years in power, Republicans never met a spending bill they didn't adore. Expand government's scope drastically? Sure, why not? Squander our budget surplus upon giveaways for the ultra-wealthy, rather than paying down the national debt? Absolutely! An unnecessary and unfinanced war? What could be better?!

But now, with Democrats having been placed firmly in charge by the American people, righties have suddenly found religion on the subject of fiscal responsibility. After years of proclaiming (as Dick Cheney put it) that "deficits don't matter," Republicans are now awfully worried about all that darn money we collectively owe.

They essentially seem to be positing the notion that, during good economic times, government should spend like a drunken sailor, but, when the economy is performing badly, the Federal belt must be drastically tightened. See if you can get an economist to buy into that load of horse hockey.

*****

As of yesterday, the four-year right-wing whine concerning Barack Obama's Presidency began simultaneously with said Presidency, in the form of incredulity that any money would be spent on his inaugural gala. (The comical cognitive dissonance involved in decrying this expenditure after having embraced similar expenditures in 2001 and 2005 seems to have been lost on them.) And thus, presumably, begins the pattern that will dominate conservative "thought" for the next four years: "Whatever it is, I'm against it." (Thank you, Marx Brothers.)

*****

Today, I listened to the radio rantings of drug-addled Rush Limbaugh for a while. It was hilarious -- though unintentionally so. He spent well over an hour telling us, "his friends," that the end is near, that American democracy is doomed -- right up to the edge of warning us that the black helicopters were on their way.

And then he accused Democrats and their evil media conspirators of being purveyors of negativity!

I laughed so hard that I nearly wet myself.

*****

But, hey, no matter what may come, the next four years should be interesting, if only to watch the insulated and privileged on the right wallow in their own imagined victimhood, to listen to the endless whining.

Good times!