August 15, 2012

No one reacts when Republicans get crazy. They're entitled, you see.

They bring guns and slogans about killing tyrants to a tax protest and talk about "Second Amendment Remedies" if things don't go their way, and the police stand respectfully by. When progressives gather, their signs are considered possible weapons and Homeland Security is alerted and batons and economy-sized tanks of pepper spray are prepared to fend off the threat of college students and women, lest they get out of hand.

They race-bait talking about the "bla... people" and turning schoolchildren into janitors because they have no hardworking role models and it's smirkily dismissed. Biden mentions the chains Wall Street has busily wrapped around us already and it's "a new low" in politics.

There are a shocking number of American conservatives who embrace absolutely batshit ideas. One person I had always believed reasonable recently mumbled something about Obama being "crafty" about his birth certificate. Many mainstream conservatives would ban abortion and think climate change is a hoax created by scientists.

And the others will not speak up. They hear the crazy. They see it. But this is their group. Their identity. Their church. A few may get out of hand occasionally, shoot a doctor or a some churchgoers, but to many in America, including an unfortunate bulk of law enforcement, you only really have to worry when "those people" get out of hand. The commies. The hippies. The women. The gays and minorities. The educated. The godless.

We are "those people." From Hoover hounding John Lennon out of the country to Reagan denying AIDS and siccing shotgun-wielding police on people making a garden, we have been marginalized as the anti-normal force. The threat to stability. Our motives are as suspect as our birth certificates. We are the Other.

We have to speak up and make ourselves known. A rock-ribbed fan of W. Bush recently observed to me that a free market "finding equilibrium" after a series of violent highs and lows is not a helpful thing, and that Wall Street insiders in government bode ill for everyone. Another hardy mainstream conservative observed that endless wars drain lives and money for no apparent good.

We're Those People, and we are The People. And there are more of us than is supposed.

August 6, 2012

Rightwingers chum the water we're all

swimming in, then shrug when the sharks show up, eyes rolling, to feed.

Violence would be the expected response if the things they keep saying we're true. If taxation was theft. If extremist foreign powers were infiltrating the government. If health reform was a Stalinist plot to euthanize your elderly relatives. If straight white Christians were being marginalized and oppressed for loving hamburgers and Jesus.

Then someone takes them at their word and sets up a rat-poisoned anti-personnel bomb on a parade route. Shoots another doctor. Slashes a gay person.

It's not their fault. It has nothing to do with either the ease of obtaining firearms or the constant drumbeat about how everyone needs to "stock up" on ammo before liberals disarm the real Americans.

And hey, look, someone spray-painted a funny sign on a chicken restaurant run by a proud bigot, so it all washes out.

Can't blame them. Who could predict all that bloody chum would attract a monster?

August 4, 2012

Interesting observation. I think this issue touches his Crazy Place.

After watching Rachel's piece last night, where she pointed out that he's not only consistently refused to show his tax returns, but has done so while just as consistently demanding everyone else's, including their spouses', I think this income tax thing is a very special obsession of his.

My SO observed that Romney is not a rich guy who just lets accountants handle everything. All these tax shelters and funky business structures offshore are not something that every single rich person does. Many, sure, but this is elaborate. It's a pet project. He is OBSESSED with his income taxes and specifically, trying not to pay them. He doesn't have to "check" for ABC or anyone else. He knows, to the penny, what he's paid. And I think this claim of a $200 million fortune is far short of what he's holding.

And there's something more. That scary, detached glint in his eye. He's got it a lot, to different degrees, whenever "those people" are asking him questions, but when it comes to this tax issue, he is ENRAGED.

There is a plunging dagger behind his eyes, barely restrained from ripping the throat out of anyone daring to "go there."

I had thought before Romney was just kind of an entitled empty suit. But as these little details of his personality have emerged, all of which entail cruelty, I think he's actually a nasty scary piece of work. I think his family is afraid of him. Ha, ha, Daddy shoved your face in butter, but don't think you can do that do Daddy. No one messes with Daddy.

Don't know how it's going to turn out, but I think this is a guy with a serious mask on, and he could do anything if cornered.