Blood Libel

You have to ask yourself what was Sarah Palin thinking when she invoked "Blood Libel" against the media in it's treatment of her in the wake of last weeks shootings in Tucson? If she thought it would provoke an unflattering response on the part of the media, she wasn't thinking too clearly.

All the media players have to do is play the clip of her saying it, over and over again, while letting her, ever so slowly, twist in the wind.

I'm not saying it's not a little embarrassing to watch, because it is and most of the embarrassment has to do with the realization of the sick fascination that something like this engenders in all of us. That doesn't really do her any good though, does it?

Kick Off

I don't want to be too cynical but it seems to me that somebody needs to be. Tuning into the memorial service for the victims of last weeks mass shooting in Arizona, yesterday, was a big surprise. I have never seen a memorial service for the victims of this kind of event that was anything like it. I'm not going to go into what went on there. If you've seen it, you know. If you haven't seen it, you need to watch it. Make up your own mind what you think about it.

It was not a traditional memorial service in any sense. It may not really have been a memorial service at all. What I think it might have been, was the kick off, by President Obama and his campaign staff, of the 2012 Presidential campaign. We should know more about this after the President's State of the Union address to Congress in a couple of weeks.

I think that the coming election campaign will not be about concrete issues. Both parties are going to be saying the same kind of things about the issues and more than usually, both parties will be saying one thing and doing another.

The next Presidential campaign and perhaps for legislative and State executive offices as well, may be about feelings. About what kind of people and what kind of a nation we want to be.

Republicans will still try to brand Democrats as tax and spend, entitlement bearing liberals who are soft on crime and immigration, anti military and Godless atheists. Both sides will charge that the other wants to steer a course toward fascist, totalitarianism. I don't think anybody is going to listen to any of that.

I think it's going to come down to would you rather hang out with one posse or another. Rebs and Yanks, relativist or fundamentalist, Lions or Rotary, Crips or Bloods. Style not substance. Don't let anybody kid you, style is real important.

I'm going to be left out, probably. I don't have those kinds of sensibilities. More of a Geek than a Mod or Rocker. Still, it should be interesting to watch as they battle it out.

Who do I think will come out on top? The Republicans are going to have to nominate somebody really special to beat Barry O, unless he really blows it.

Gunned Down

A lot of people seem pretty grateful that the 9mm slug and following propulsive exhaust gasses, unleashed at point blank range, that ripped through the brain of Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords from back to front, didn't completely liquefy the contents of her skull, killing her instantly. Several other people did die from gunshot wounds, including a senior Federal judge and a little 9 year old girl. That seems bad enough. I doubt Gabrielle will be returning to a normal life and her Congressional duties any time soon.

It seems moot as to whether or not the shooter was politically motivated or just mentally deranged. It seems to me that many, if not most, of the Tea Partiers, Birthers, ethnocentric racists and xenophobes that make up the bulk of the Republican Party base are mentally deranged, the leadership being closer to the pod people that replaced previously rational people a la "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and the rank and file little more cognisant of what's really going on than the shambling zombies in "Night of the Living Dead".

What seems to me the most typical response to the shooting, by the Right Wing, that I have seen so far, was posted on "Hot Air" and lamented that Sarah Palin would now be in great danger from retaliatory gun violence from enraged "Leftards" and she had better recruit and travel with large numbers of heavily armed body guards. Right, that's where we should be placing out main priorities at this time, protecting the safety of Sarah Palin. What would the country do without her? We need someone to tell us who to shoot next.

It would be nice to think that this senseless episode of gun violence would provoke a discussion among Americans about the heightened levels of inflammatory, divisive, political rhetoric among us and the inevitable consequences of them, but it would also be a mistaken thought.

The Wingnut Creed Is A Lie

The crux of the wingnut creed is that government exercises too much control over the individual. Bullshit.

Wingnuts believe that Church and State should not be separate. They think that a woman should not have control over her reproductive function. They believe that the individual should patriotically support any war that the government engages in, for whatever reason. They think that it's all right to withhold basic civil rights from individuals because of personal choices they have made regarding religion, sexual preference, political or personal philosophy.

It is the wingnuts who want to institute totalitarian control and repression on the people of this country. It is they who want to roll back the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They need to quit lying to themselves and everybody else but they never will. They're too stupid to even see what they are.