We all know that something about Barack Obama brings out the crazy on the right, but let’s not forget that people were equally insane about Bill Clinton. I’ll let driftglass do the talking here for a moment, as he waxes nostalgic for 1990’s gems like TravelGate, WhiteWater, TrooperGate, the Vince Foster murder/cover up, the Mena airport cocaine smuggling operation, and so on:
It was a warped, hysterical campaign funded by wealthy Right Wing thugs like Richard Mellon Scaife and propagated by wealthy Right Wing thugs like Rupert Murdoch who made sure the lies were jack-hammered into the headlines day after day, year after year.
And judging by its objectives, it was also a very successful campaign: it legitimized and metastasized Hate Radio; killed the credibility of the “objective” media once and for all; made the overt mass-slander of political opposition by the Right acceptable; moved radicals, militia nuts, bigots, Creationists and Limbaugh zombies to the center of the Republican Party; accelerated the exodus of reasonable moderates the hell out of the Republican Party; destroyed the possibility of public discourse; and kicked the door open to the use of Congressional hearings as instruments of political vendetta.
I think that is well said, don’t you? And there’s plenty one could add. Let’s not forget the way the “objective” media worshipped at the feet of Matt Drudge’s shitty website for well over a decade. There’s a price to be paid for pretending people like Dan Burton are normal, sane public servants with a rational point of view. And there’s a price for letting reclusive or foreign billionaires poison our discourse by buying up our newspapers and radio stations and creating a 24-hour cable news station and then spewing a firehose of lies into the eyes and ears of unsuspecting citizens. We were mean and stupid before that all began, and we’re meaner and more stupid every day.
Also, too, I think Sarah Palin’s mere existence and the need to rationalize it acted like the vinegar to the right-wing’s Stupid baking soda. Which also might explain why the right no longer has any grasp of the role of carbon dioxide in climate change.
Don’t worry…no matter how much money the evil Koch brothers contribute to mean and stupid Republicans, about one-half of the country receives a government check…about the same half of Americans that PAY NO INCOME TAX…the Democrats will always be competitive, because you have the lazy parasite vote locked up! Citizens United can’t change that.
1 – Those who receive a government check aren’t necessarily those who pay no federal income tax.
2 – Those who pay no federal income tax pay other taxes—including state and local income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, excise taxes, etc.
3 – Even the poorest 20% of American pay, on average, about 17% of their income in taxes. (The wealthiest 20% pay, on average, about 30% of their income in taxes.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-taxes-americans-really-pay-in-two-graphs/201
2/04/16/gIQA6o4yLT_blog.html
Now, whether it’s appropriate to call the elderly, the disabled, and low-income workers the “lazy parasite vote” is another discussion. But it doesn’t seem to me that it’s worth having that discussion unless and until you bring some more factual evidence into the discussion.
From what I see around here, that lazy parasite vote you talk about all have W stickers still on their pick’em up trucks.
There are lots of those folks too poor to pay taxes who just don’t vote–unless some one of the parties (and they are competitive at this) come around with walking around money.
And as far as folks receiving a government check, 1.8 million of them are in the military.
And then there is Lockheed, CACI, CSC, DynCorp, SAIC, SRI International, and Xe Services just to name a few of the lazy parasites.
Gliberty, you are the CLASSIC example of stupid, never mind parasitic.
Everything that comes out of your mouth is stupid. You haven’t written one comment here that has anything to do with reality. You make joefromlowell look like Albert fuckin’ Einstein.
Go light yourself on fire and jump into a pool of gasoline. Seriously.
Pretty harsh, Brendan, but deserved. IIRC, JoefromLowell is nothing like LibertyForAll, which I gather means all rich white men, except George Soros, as the Framers intended.
It’s pretty fucking stupid to be so blinded by your personal grudges that you can’t see anything else.
Stupid, mean, and crazy – a much less common combination on the left, but it’ good to have you here to demonstrate it for us.
>>one-half of the country receives a government check.
did you make up that number yourself, or hear it from Rush?
our armed forces “receive a government check”. So do people collecting social security benefits that they paid into their whole working lives. To you these are among the “lazy parasites”?
oops. this is a reply to Liberty, not to BooMan.
Well, I suppose that referring to anyone who receives a government is a bit of a hyperbolic generalization…but any more than Boo describing all Republicans as “crazy”, “mean”, “stupid”?
Just curious.
Government Check
When exactly has BooMan described all Republicans as stupid, crazy, and mean?
After all, there was Harold Stassen, Thomas E. Dewey, and of course Abraham Lincoln. Whatever you might say about them, neither of them have ever been described (even by BooMan) as “stupid”, “crazy”, or “mean”.
Sorry…all Living Republicans…
Well, if you are going to exclude Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Mark Hatfield, Eliot Richardson and Nelson Rockefeller, then yes, with the sole exception of Colin Powell, all living Republican politicians are stupid, crazy, and mean. Cases in point W, Cheney, McCain, Palin, DeMint, Sessions, etc. etc.
Name some living Republicans who aren’t stupid, crazy, or mean.
George Pataki? I’m reaching here.
Dick Lugar, but he was recently excommunicated.
Colin Powell, but he turned stupid at the UN.
John Danforth and Alan Simpson seem to interject some old fashioned straight talk from time to time.
Me. If no, I guess I’m crazy. (I’m pretty sure I’m not stupid or mean).
i think I deleted Stupidity for all’s comment. Not that there was any substance in it, but apologies to those who like to read stupid shit. It was an accident.
BooMan – your link to driftglass still doesn’t work; that link is this diary.
Fixed the link. Having front-page privileges has its advantages.
FWIW, I haven’t posted much in recent months due mostly to some recurrent health problems, but after some quality hospital time the past few days things seem to be better. Hopefully I’ll be back into it shortly.
thanks for fixing it, Geov. Good to hear you’re feeling better.
It’s not “how” but Why things got so stupid.
In this, you’re again missing the obvious point.
It always has been and continues to be about money; specifically keeping taxes low for the wealthy class, protecting their wealth via tax breaks, tax deferrments (basically: welfare for the rich) and keeping the Treasury (our tax money) flowing to the wealthy via open ended contracts.
driftglass mentions Scaife and Murdoch,and calls them names which is uselss, but fails to mention their objective.
Again with the lame, pointless complaining about/criticizing lamestream media (run by people like Murdoch for the reasons I stated). and you offer zero solution to the problem..
The solution, too is obvious: We become the media, and it’s not the thousands of blogs out there doing what you do. that’s getting us nowhere.
The solution has to be much more creative and aggressive.