I'm Depressed
A lot of people have asked me why I’m not writing a lot lately. What about Judy Miller? What do I think about her? Not much, really. The feds put the screws to her. To hell with a free press. Why would it surprise anybody? Somebody asked why I haven’t written about Tom Delay. Mostly it’s because I don’t really care. Tom Delay is a pig. He’s going down. I can’t say anything nicer then that about him, so I probably shouldn’t say anything at all.
The truth of the matter is that I’ve been watching a lot of the talking heads lately, and it’s made me so fucking depressed I don’t even want to think about media or politics or anything “serious” for a long time. Lately it’s been the Bill Bennett thing, but that’s only the latest in a long line of things the scumbags in the right-wing media have latched on to that have made me want to slit my wrists. Listening to Tucker Carlson (John Stewart was certainly right about that dick) defend Bennett made me want to puke. His premise? That people are accusing Bennett of racism out of spite. The same tack was taken by whatever blonde bimbo that was filling in for Bill O’Reiley this weekend. To them there is nothing racist about the statement “you could abort every black baby in the country and crime would go down.” They say the statement was taken out of context. Bullshit. I heard the context and the statement was still racist. And what’s worse these truth benders know it. They aren’t stupid. They know that they can score points with the KKK crowd while confusing those who aren’t really paying attention, in an attempt to prop one of their decrepit, morally bankrupt icons up. Of course it’s a racist statement. Why Bennett made the statement I have no idea. Either he is much stupider then I always believed him to be, or else he was trying to provoke the very reaction he got, or else maybe he was all hopped up on acid and some idiot at the station put a mic in his hand by mistake. I don’t really know and I don’t’ care. Bennett has always been a foul, evil, twisted son of a bitch, a huge fat Nazi with a very small penis and the bitter life outlook to match. He was the first conservative I heard engage in real Orwellian doublespeak, back when he was “drug czar.” He said “we have to go after the casual user, those who use drugs once in awhile and otherwise lead a normal life, because they give children the impression that you can use drugs and still lead a normal life.” In other words, they prove that I’m full of horse shit, so they must be brought down. Dr. Gonzo once said that he thought Ed Meese should be fucked by an elk. I can say no less for Bill Bennett. Bennett’s larger context was that you should not bring statistics into the abortion debate, in reaction to Steven Levit’s discovery that the legalization of abortion after Roe v. Wade was responsible for the drop in the crime rate in the 1990s. His point was that it shouldn’t matter if the crime rate will go back up if Roe v. Wade is overturned because abortion is wrong period. It was his bringing race into it, his implication that black people are primarily responsible for crime in the USA, that marked him for the closet Grand Wizard we always knew him to be. Thankfully, in this post-Katrina news cycle, the public is paying attention to race right now, and Bennett will be cut no slack.
Have you gotten the impression that I’m angry tonight?
John Gibson went after someone—I don’t know who—and attacked him really viciously, because he had the temerity to support the first amendment. This guy was backing the ACLU in their suit to get all the Abu Grahib phots released. Gibson’s position was that they should not be released because it would lead to the killing of more Americans. Forget for a moment that that is a pretty broad assumption, and that the terrorists in Iraq couldn’t possibly hate us any more then they already do. Gibson went so far as to say that a mere legal technicality like the First Amendment should not apply with photos that could show America in a bad light. He actually said that!!! Well excuse me! I thought that’s exactly what freedom of the press was SUPPOSED to protect. Like Rush Limbaugh and Morton Downey Junior before him, Gibson came from the airwaves in my hometown, and I liked him when he was local. Now he makes me want to drink Draino. I am mortified that he and those other clowns are in anyway associated with me, but there are a lot of reasons why, like Herb Caen before me, I left Sacramento.
I watched one of those “debates” you see on Fox the other day. It doesn’t even matter what the subject was. As usual the conservative talking head was allowed to spew forth a bunch of nonsense, unchallenged, and then as soon as the poor hapless liberal opened her mouth the host joined the conservative guest in ganging up on her.
That’s what really pisses me off about the right. They are bullies, every one of them: Rove, Cheney, Bush, Hannity, Carlson, O’Reiley, Novak, Limbaugh, Drudge, Delay, Frist, all of them. They are mean, nasty, vindictive bullies. They push people around, defame their opponents, intimidate the press, and bald face lie to us. They use fear to control us. They use hate to divide us. They vilify the poor and oppress the weak and say they do it for all of our good. They play the homophobia card for all it is worth because they know that Gays are an easy target and that a lot of folks fear and hate gays the way people in Germany feared and hated Jews back in the day. They obfuscate. Like all petty tyrants they try to control the news through belligerence and lies. They pay newscasters to support their views and produce favorable news segments for TV stations to air, and claim that it’s not propaganda. Worst of all, they have proved again and again they will do anything, destroy anyone, to maintain their power. Ghoering, Goebels, and Himler could be writing their playbook, and like the Nazi three they are themselves a bunch of weak, perverted, schizoid drug addicts who compensate for their impotence and confused sexuality by beating up on the little guys.
It’s depressing. Maybe Tim Leary was right after all.
posted by M.A. Cramer/Valgard at 8:52 PM
3 Comments:
The Bennett thing... you don't buy the line of showing a ridiculous option to prove a point? I think given the whole context of what he said - that sounds like a logical excuse. How can you know what's in a man's mind?
Whatever the intent (and I know the intent) the comment implies that black people are reaponsible for crime in America. It is a racist comment. Even if it is statistically ture it is racist: the assigning to a group of people negative stereotypes based on race (group divisions based on physical apearance). and yes, before you jump in, I am well aware that this opens me up to an accusation of desiring to avoid the truth in favor of my liberal bias. I don't buy that either. Whether or not Bennett is a racist at heart or not his words were racist. He could have made the same point by saying "we could abort every low-income baby in this country and crime would go down," and it would not hae been a racist statement. It could be seen as classist, but ti also would have been seen for th absurd proposal (ridiculoous option) you say it was. I think it is very possible that this was Bennett's Jonathan Swift moment and it blew up in his face. To me it still shows, at best, an ignorance toward race problems in the US (and at worst all out racism). But I do think Bennett is smart. It occured to me today that this could have been a deliberate effort not only to provoke but to obfuscate. It is in the best interests of the republicans right now to confuse the issue of race relations and racism. This statement, and the reaction it provoked, have allowed the3 talking heads to make an issue of the idea of "false claims of racism," which naturally takes some of the heat off them from New Orleans. One of them said the other day that there is a group of people, and he named Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton among them, who ahve made a career out of making false accusations of racism--the implication being that not only are accusations against Bennett false but accusations of racism in regards to Katrina are also false (which I more or less believe). This allows them to disimiss any statemnt to the effect that race was a mittigating factor in the huricane disaster (which even President Bush admitted that it was). am I saying that this was the plan of the vast Right Wing Conspiracy (TM)? No. (It's out int he open nowadays, so calling it a conspiracy sounds silly). But I do think Bennett was smart enough to think three steps ahead on this one, and predecit not only the reaction from civil rights activists, but also the conservative media's defense and the good use the argument could be put to. He is smart enough for that. Of course, I don't actually know what was in his mind.
He could have made the same point by saying "we could abort every low-income baby in this country and crime would go down," and it would not have been a racist statement.
No, it would not have been a racist statement, but it would have been decried as a “classest” (or how ever the hell you spell that) statement and all the same “oh how horrid” things would still be said.
Still, I can not imagine what the hell Bennett was thinking, though one strongly suspects he wasn’t thinking at all. It’s on my list of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard come out of a republican’s mouth, and that’s not an easy list to make.
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