NEW ANIMATION: E Stultus Unum
Finally, my take on the town hall meetings. Far from being appalled at the stupidity, I'm impressed at the power of stupid people. What if the left were able to rouse this sleeping giant of American moronitude?
Labels: Animation, Healthcare, Stupidity
posted by Ted Rall at
8:36 AM
20 Comments:
Arf!
And the sad thing is that these stupid people wouldn't have been enabled without the help of smart people.
The Founding Fathers fought against oppression for the right to assemble and protest so stupid people today can show up to town halls to assemble and protest on behalf of the oppressive insurance companies.
Environmentalist lefties fought for large healthy forests so hunters could shoot little critters then claim those same lefties are trying to take away their guns.
Smart people studied and helped design fast cars so rednecks could watch Nascar.
Scientists have discovered cures for hundreds of diseases so people could grow up disease free then protest the next generation getting vaccines cause some celebrity thinks it causes autism.
Old people get social security so they could live long enough to accuse Obama of wanting to kill them though death panels.
Civil rights supporters fought for women, minorities, and the retarded so idiots like Ann Coulter, Clarence Thomas, and George Bush can have access to society.
And so on.
Brilliant!
The so called "enlightened" gave us eugenics (particularly killing black babies - see Planned Parenthood), gave us the KKK (a militant wing of the Democrat party), gave us the NAZI party (National SOCIALIST), supported Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, segregation in the south, slavery, spying on MLK (see RFK), pacifist during WWII (see Kennedy Klan). I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I hit submit.
You're finally getting the hang of this. This is the first time I laughed at one of your videos. Pretty soon your videos will be on par with your cartoons.
wonderful - love the comparison with code pink...
@ ano 4:05 pm: sure, the nazi party consisted of a bunch of left wing liberals (I do seem to recall that their prime objectives were to legalize gay marriage, invest in public education, reduce defense spending, and provide universal health coverage). Darn socialists!
Apparently, there's no need to go to town hall meetings to observe morons in action.
Meh...
re: Anonymous 8/25/09 4:05 PM
To paraphrase Barney Frank, "What planet are you from?"
I doubt that what you said, "I'm sure I'll think of more as soon as I hit submit," meant the definitive definition of the word 'think.' Think means having a brain, and I detected no evidence of brain presence or activity in that 4:05 PM post. It was more like a tape recording, or 'Ditto.' Yeah! Rush Limbaugh territory. No need to have facts, logic or common sense. Just a soap box and a motor mouth.
To Anon 4:05
If they gave us those things, maybe they aren't really "enlightened."
D-freakin'-uh
I always thought Pastor Fred Phelps had an underrated message. Calling the war and the military gay is just about the only rhetorical tactic that has a prayer of working on troglodytes who still think our war on terror is a good idea.
I know he's an evil bastard, but people seemed fine with him when he was just hating on gays. Vanity of small differences...
Ted:
This is the funniest yet. I'm a mathematician and a year ago a colleague and I wrote a draft of a paper for the Journal of Irreproducible Results with proof that stupidity is actually quantifiable and like entropy from thermodynamics is not capable of being destroyed but is actually increasing. It is also a very powerful force as you have shown in the cartoon. The republican party learned to harness the power of collective stupidity and technically Karl Rove should get a Nobel Prize in Economics if he put his theorems down on paper for what he did. This makes Nash's Game Theory and manufacturing consent into mere sidebars if you can assign collective stupidity a numerical value then use predictive responses to effect whatever mass opinion you want. Slack jawed people without teeth will protest free dental care on the basis of keeping out communism; large groups of morons wearing flags sewn in Malaysia and riding "American" motorcycles assembled of parts made in china designed by engineers in India will protest the loss of American jobs in industries that died 30 years ago. The possibilities and power are nearly limitless. If you did this right and used people like me for food, you could become president, Ted.
Anon 8/26/09 8:47 AM
Thanks for the cliched answer. Did you want to try to refute with facts?
Nazi's were right wing theocrats and totalitarians. Your list included a number of equally bad leftist totalitarians. The problem with your argument, however, is that nothing you labeled enlightened was in fact enlightened. Socialism is the state taking over the means of production. Nazi-ism is the opposite. It is the means of production taking over the state (aka: fascism). The KKK was involved in the democrat party when the democrat party was the CONSERVATIVE party. Equating a party with political philosophy is fairly disingenuous. During and for a while after the Civil War, the Republicans were the progressives. The eugenicists involved early in planned parenthood were a result of the conservative white power structure of the time, and have little relationship to the organization that exists today. Should modern Republicans have to be equated to the sins of their party 100 years ago? I think that is unfair, assuming those sins are not part of the current party platform.
It is disturbing, this revisionist idea that Nazis were some kind of progressive, hippy liberals or even leftists. I can assure you that nobody who lived through the regime would characterize them as commie liberals!
The Nazi's (National SOCIALIST Party) were not hippies. They were statists.
You can rationalize the past evil's of the Democratic party you want. You can't argue with facts. They were segregationists, eugenicists (to kill black babies AKA Planned Parenthood), slave owners, the home of the KKK and some were defenders of Stalin.
You actually have a good idea, one we on the "Left" should consider using.
The bleak reality of this last election was that the reason Obama wasn't torpedoed by Romney or Ron Paul was that the "Religious Right" consider Mormons worse than Muslims.
The Religious Right have for decades been a large part of the elite's "Rabble" power base. With the social changes of the 60s, they got scared and enraged and easily manipulated.
They give the right wingers:
1. A token amount of money. (nothing compared to big corporations)
2. Lots of free campaign work, including illegal activities.
3. The few non-stolen votes they recieve.
Their usual tactic was framed with the Republican "Attack Ads" of the 90s. They do everything possible to disgust the American people in the process of government, so they don't vote. Then they mobilize the "Moralists" with "Hot button" issues. A large voting poll becomes a small one, easy for special interests and cheaters to sway.
However, they've taken for granted the "Religious Right" for far too long. Whenever their interests got in the way of Big Corporations they lost. AND, their leaders are CINOS "Christians in Name Only".
Just look at how "Good Christians" give people who are "Masons" a hard time. hehehe Read Chick's "The Curse of Baphomet"... On the other hand, the rumors about Masons end where "Skull and Bones" and "Bohemian Grove" end. Have a Southern Baptist converse with his minister and show him the "Men's art club" he goes to yearly that has a "Leather Room" and a simulated (I hope) human sacrifice in front of a giant owl statue. "But, Reverand, it's just a play that came from that thar ShakesPeer guy..."
The "Left" could do tremendous damage to the "Right"'s ability to organize if it:
1. Attacks their support of "Godless" leaders, notably the decades old association with the clubs I mentioned. They long for physical and political attacks, but "Mockery as fools" with evidence to back it up really gets their goat of baphomet that they "Swar they didn't worship!"
2. Attack their religious divisions. That they couldn't "agree to disagree" with even Mormons means they are ready to go at each other's throats in civil war once (if) their treasonous, anti-American "Dominionist" takeover works. Too many churches that to the "Outsider" seem identical see the ones right across the street as "Servants of Satan bound to burn in Hell everlasting with Ghandi and all the other Satanist Baby Rapers!" - I've heard that, really! And often the "Scism" involves their minister just breaking off to start his own church or borrowing their pastor's lawn mower and not returning it. Listen to them, learn about them and their neighbors and then drive a wedge between them.
3. Their children. During their teen years, the kids are very rebellious. Any of us with a "New Age" background and some writing skills could make "Gnostic" works that lure their kids away, causing their families grief and disruption. Even that movie "Zietgeist" is shaking them to the core, and they come out with "Blanket denials" where they outright lie that a fact or two is "Wrong or" lie with truth "Perhaps exxagerated" but obviously shut off the move and ran screaming to pray.
4. Economic reality. They have supported the right and big business the most, they benefit the least.
(Cont…)
(Cont...please forgive the length, Ted, but I think this is important)
I've tested #4 and this really clobbers them: The dirty fact behind "outsourcing" is that it is NOT cheaper to make something overseas, despite the "Death Camp" wages. The reason it is cheaper is not that the products do not face tariffs. The reason is that they operate at a loss, but the government uses our tax money to bail them out and ensure a profit. They not only "Steal" American jobs overseas, they steal from us to make these operations profitable.
Some phrases that have worked for me:
"The world's Topsy Turvy? You tell me, I'm guilty as charged, a "Hippie New Ager" and I'm warning You, a devout Christian that the leaders you support go to these groups. This is no "Conspiracy theory" this is fact..." gives simple printed pamphlet...
"Think I'm lying about trade? You yourself just mentioned how Judd the Farmer was going out of business because the Supermarket wouldn't take his vegetables at any price or commission. Look at how vegetables grown in some Republico Del Worthlessia are hauled on refrigerated trucks 1000 miles yet they cost half what Judd can break even for. That is "Kosher as Ham on Rye", my friend! And I'm not a "Pinko Commie", I'm actually arguing for a "Free Market" solution. Remove these false economies, America will have a strong demand for labor and a short supply. This will force wages higher with no laws, and those that work hardest and use their brains the best will earn the most from the boom! I'm a Leftie arguing for Capitalism, here! I'm really on your side. I don't want a free ride, I just want to be sure that if I'm willing to work for my bread and keep, I earn my bread and keep, is that too much to ask from the guys with ten mansions and five yachts?"
Kurt,
It would be hard to place the Nazis in American political terms. They were indeed socialists and favored state healthcare, education, and jobs programs. Their definition of socialism also included growing private business opportunites by state sponsored military conquest. That sounds more like a kick their ass and take their gas Republican.
Just because bad people did something, it doesn't follow that it was a bad idea. Eisenhauer got the idea for interstates from the Autobahn. Was I aiding the fourth Reich by taking the freeway home from work today? We shouldn't dismiss universal healthcare just because the Nazis or the Soviets or whomever had it. That would seem like the more salient point than the exact placement of the Nazis on the political spectrum.
@Anon 12:41 am. The United States 2nd or 3rd act of congress was to fund a public school system Does that make George Washington a communist? The U.S. Government paid for the railroads by loaning the rail companies (and robber barons) money and by granting them huge tracts of land that they later sold at a huge profit. Does that make the U.S. a socialist country? Just because a totalitarian right wing political system includes building infrastructure and military does not make it a left wing totalitarian political system. This "the Nazi's were leftists" crap is such revisionist and false history. When people say these things they are trying to equate providing equal access to health care and limits on insurance companies with murdering 6 million people. It is as simple as that.
On the subject of eugenics.... You guys have got to be kidding me. Sanger was a social darwinist. So was Rockefeller. When you make an insane blanket statement that "Planned Parenthood was founded to kill black babies" you probably should also note that most educated people at that time believed that rich were rich due to superior genetics and that poor people were poor due to inferior genetics. That Margaret Sanger wrote that reducing reproduction rates in ghetto's would improve the gene pool, she was just repeating the state of modern science at the time she lived. Certainly racism was involved, but you might want to read The Great Gatsby or some Hemmingway so you can get a good understanding of how rich folks thought about race back then.
On the idea that Democrats are currently the party of the KKK, well, I am sorry but that is just dishonest. You (the poster who repeated this several times) are a liar. Lyndon Johnson and JFK kicked the racists out of the party. They kicked George Wallace out of the party. They did everything they could to kick Senator Byrd out of the party. The current party of the nutbag racists is the Republican Party. I grew up in Indiana, I saw Ronald Reagan go down to Mississippi and give the racists a big pat on the back. I read Richard Nixon's statements about the "Southern Strategy." In order to believe the things you believe, you either get all of your information from Rush, Beck and the like, or you live in a cave. Either way, it makes you a fool. A useful idiot, to quote Lenin.
Lastly, as the big purveyors of pork directly to corporations, how, again, are the Republican assholes NOT statists? The liberal special interests groups tend to be charity and labor. The conservative ones tend to be military contractors, health care related companies (who make most of their money by government mandate) and industry protectors.
The conservative [special interests groups] tend to be military contractors, health care related companies (who make most of their money by government mandate) and industry protectors.
And their power dwarfs other interests. They effectively run both parties--though the Democrats pay lip service to interests that might actually benefit a majority of people.
I'm sure the party of the KKK would elect the first Black president and house 90% of the Black vote. Riiiiigggghhhtttt. A little less Limbaugh and a little more common sense please.
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