Frances Fox Piven: “It Only Takes One Person Who Is A Little Deranged”
Eric Boehlert over at Media Matters has an excellent article about the right-wing paranoia surrounding Frances Fox Piven:
The racket Frances Fox Piven heard in the middle of the night last weekend sounded like someone pounding on the front door of the small, isolated house she calls home in the Hudson Valley, north of New York City. Startled and awaken from her sleep, Piven, who had plenty of reason to feel on edge, pondered her next move.
A City University of New York professor and scholar of grassroots activism, the 78-year-old Piven has been the target of relentless Glenn Beck attacks. For an entire year now the Fox News talker has been pushing a tangled conspiracy theory that puts Piven, and her late husband, fellow academic Richard Cloward, at the center of an all-powerful left-wing movement to “collapse” the United States economy and government — a devious collapse designed to allow President Obama to radically transform the country, according to Beck.
The talker’s basis for the dark attacks date back to a Nation essay Piven and Cloward wrote 45 years ago. And as part of his misinformation campaign, Beck has repeatedly demonized Piven, denouncing her as an “enemy of the Constitution” and someone who wants to “destroy America.” Piven has become a star player in Beck’s rogue gallery of treacherous, all-powerful (often Jewish) liberals, seeking to eliminate the American way of life.
Beck’s fans have recently taken notice of Piven. On a website Beck runs, The Blaze, which also traffics in the Piven smear campaign, readers began posting lurid threats against the elderly academic. “ONE SHOT…ONE KILL!” announced one. “Why is this woman still alive?” asked another. And this particularly shocking threat: “Maybe they should burst through the front door of this arrogant elitist and slit the hateful cow’s throat.”
…
Through it all, Piven has watched with a growing sense of amazement, as well as guardedness. “It only takes one person who is a little deranged to take such rhetoric and make it real,” Piven told Media Matters in an interview. “It’s a big country and there’s all kinds of people. And there are also right-wing guerilla groups who have a kind of culture, or code, of death and it may prod them into action.”
The warnings prompted the Center on Constitutional Rights to write Fox News chairman Roger Ailes, urging him to stop Beck from portraying Piven as a terrorist, and falsely accusing her of advocating political violence. “You can stop the reckless endangering of the safety of Professor Piven,” the Center wrote. [“Bite me!” was Fox’s response (essentially).]
…
The violent taunts (“We should blowup Piven’s office and home”) have made Piven “wary,” but she remains unbowed. “I think what the death threats are intended to do is extort silence from me. Although I think there is danger out there. I think most of them are simply ridiculous.”
Piven specifically notes that Beck’s paranoid theories have a “frightening potential,” in light of the Tucson massacre, and says that the Beck attacks take so much of her time that she might not be able to get back to what she wants to do — writing: “I would like to work, but if this continues I won’t be able to because I’m not going to just duck and ignore it.”
So, apparently this is the form that censorship will take under the Tea Party. They’ll point to the scariest leftists and academicians, and through intimidation make these individuals so fearful that they stop working. Piven worked to bring the plight of the poor to the front of the public’s consciousness. Now she’s spending her time worried for her life and fending off the attacks of a crazed madman who has the ear of nearly half the people in this country (either via his website, Fox, or his radio program.)
THIS IS INSANITY, PEOPLE. (And reminiscent of another period in this world’s history, IYKWIMAITYD. (GODWIN!)
To really understand the gravity of this clusterfuck, one has to foray in to the Land of NotsoBreit-bart: here’s Breitbart nitwit Dana Loesch’s article on the subject [Although “article” is not an apt description since her “article” comprises nothing more than dog-whistles (“ACORN! “Palin of Arc!” “Boogity Boogity!”) interspersed with crazytalk and jibber jabber]:
…
Considering that many pundits openly admitted to not even knowing who she was, I hardly believe that they knew she came from Russian parents of Jewish descent. Does it matter? When someone makes insane comments, do we first need to ask for everyone’s laminated identity politick card before freely criticizing them? Or can we criticize the merits of someone’s argument without regard for religion or ethnicity?
Or – do not yet live in the age of which Dr. King spoke, an age where we can be judged not by the color of our skin but by the content of our character? Progressives can’t have it both ways. Either we’re a society that looks beyond religion and race or we’re a society that caters to it and assigns exceptions because of it – which is, itself, racist.
Piven claims to not have any idea why Glenn Beck “plucked” her out of “thousands.” She distances herself as much as she can from ACORN, her participation in the New Party, and her involvement in the inner circle which ultimately launched the President’s political career.
Glenn Beck merely repeated Piven’s words. Progressives, by way of their hysterical reactions, are only validating what the public already believes: that Piven’s remarks epitomize the “vitriolic rhetoric” progressives say should stop but can’t help but to engage in themselves. It’s the double-standard on full display.
Again, where was this attention when Sarah Palin’s church was burned down? When she was threatened publicly, multiple times on Twitter?
On Facebook? There wasn’t any.
As for Beck, there isn’t any “Jewish problem.” He’s criticizing a woman for her own comments. Can those using this inane narrative prove that he used her religion against her?
Says Jeffery Goldberg in a post with which I partially agree:
That said, Beck has not crossed a certain line, by identifying his targets openly as Jewish. Nevertheless, this, to me, is a classic case of anti-Semitic dog-whistling. Beck is speaking to a certain constituency, and the thought has now crossed my mind that this constituency understands the clear implications of what Beck is saying.
If Beck is anti-semitic then all those opposing Sarah Palin hate women and mothers and are sexist as does anyone who disagrees with this post; those who oppose Antonin Scalia hate Italian Catholics – and those who have ever criticized or opposed Andrew Breitbart are also anti-semitic. I guess they didn’t think that through.
You see? On the one hand, Glenn Beck — who spouts nothing but crazy from his mouth-hole — has spent eighteen months calling Frances Fox Piven an enemy of the Constitution on TV, radio, and in a little internet enclave called The Blaze. Sarah Palin’s 1000-member church was burned down two years ago (By whom? For what reason? Did the arsonist hate Palin? Did the arsonist hate one of the other 999 members of the church? Who knows! Let’s just speculate because it would be irresponsible not to!). On the other hand, a handful of people — who are not organized in any fashion or bowing at the altar of any one person1 — have written unsavory shit about Palin on the Twitterz.2
BOTH SIDES DO IT.
1 RESEARCH!
2 One person said: “I hate Sarah Palin’s ugly ass. I just wanna punch her in the face and take her to Lens Crafters.” Now that’s just comedy. Also, too, blood libel.
[via Media Matters]
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
JMG
The only way this will stop is if it is made clear to Beck and company that any harm which befalls their targets will befall them.
DougJ DougJson
It’s very sad that liberals like you are seeking to politicize right-wing death threats. Do you know how many death treats Saran Palin has received from hippies? You don’t, do you, because you get all your new from BIASED left-wing sites like this one.
Both sides do it and when you refuse to admit it, you’re part of the problem.
BGinCHI
She should offer to go on his show and debate him. She’s really smart and he isn’t.
If he refuses, she should broadcast that (Maddow) and he’ll look like a nutbag threatening a feisty old lady.
frankdawg
Ol Beckerhead should be more careful. Some day he will pick on someone other than an old lady or a bunch of community activists. Some day he might pick on someone that takes his threats seriously and decides to defend themselves.
Poopyman
@DougJ DougJson: Holy crap! I read that without looking at who wrote it first.
You’ve got quite a bright future ahead of you commenting at Redstate, DJ.
(Not that you haven’t been there already.)
BobS
Michael Moore needs to make Beck and FauxNews the subject of a film.
Lysana
Beck’s rants have already inspired one crazed gunman. He didn’t get close to The Tides Foundation thanks to 880 traffic and the CHP, but failing that intervention, we’d have had this discussion about media responsibility last year with a provably connected case of murder on our hands.
The attacks on Piven are more of the same from that huckster. He angers me. Blithely spinning his bullshit and turning it into gold. Rumplestiltskin of the Cattle Pens. When does he get to pay for his sins against humanity and decency?
Ash Can
I’d like to see Frances Fox Piven hire a crack personal security detail, with Beck/Ailes very publicly made to foot the bill for it.
BGinCHI
@BobS: Or Tarantino.
Keith G
@BobS: Move On did it five years ago:
http://www.outfoxed.org/
Angry Black Lady
@Poopyman: me too! haha. well done, son of doug.
General Stuck
Glen Beck was the worst part of his daddy running down his mamas leg. “yer gonna have to shoot them in the head” right wing excrement cable teevee star, that which speaks volumes about this country. Fine asshats, bring it on.
On another asshat note. Obama plans to announce a 5 year budget freeze tonight, so we can expect the usual suspect firebagging political wizards on how this is Bush’s third term and the end of America as we know it, and how collectively, they are so over on the Obama sellout, the black dude with a 55 percent approval and his coffee cup sitting on the Oval Office desk.
Let the wanking begin.
Zifnab
@JMG:
Unfortunately, there is always money to be had in the cheap, racist demagoguery market-place. So Glenn will continue to reap political and economic profits for whomever sponsors him. He’s rich as shit. That gives him a great deal of protection. No one is seriously laying a hand on Glenn Beck.
Frankly, the left just doesn’t have enough deranged nut bags to hit that magical critical mass that gives us the violence that blight the Democratic Party. The right cultivates them, like psychotic little piranha farmers.
Loneoak
I’m fascinated by their ability to seize upon the most innocuous and secondary historical figures as the architects of major global conspiracies to steal their bodily fluids. Piven may be awesome and brilliant, but she ain’t no master of the universe. We could call it simple diversionary tactics, but I think it’s also something nuttier. Don’t know what to call it, though.
General Stuck
A song for this thread Eminence Front
Zifnab
@General Stuck:
If Obama is going to play the same kabuki games as his right wing counterparts, he deserves the derision. A five year budget freeze (which will not last two seconds longer than a Democrat remains in the White House) isn’t going to shore up the trillion dollar annual deficit. Another six months in Afghanistan and Iraq isn’t going to bring about a peaceful resolution to the double Asian land war. Slashing away at Social Security benefits will not preserve the program for future generations. Another round of tax cut extensions will not grow the economy, nor will another round of state and federal spending cuts create any jobs.
Obama has surrounded himself with Wall Street and D.C. insiders and he’s getting really terrible advice. If the fireblaggers sound silly and hyperbolic, its only in response to the bad policy they keep getting hit with. When Obama stops going halfsies on conservative policy, he could easily win back the lefty support.
That 55% approval rating is tentative at best. We’re only another economic slip away from Nov ’10.
Ash Can
@General Stuck: I think a budget freeze, on its face, is a dumb idea and needless bone-throwing to the cut-the-deficit hypocrites. That said, I have to wonder what the practical implications of this would be with a Republican House. I wonder if Obama sees this as a way to force their hand. One can hope.
freelancer
@General Stuck:
C’mon join the party dressed to kill.
Omnes Omnibus
@Loneoak: Nuttiness?
c u n d gulag
I’d call Beckerhead a punk, but that would be an insult to all of the real punks out there, who probably aren’t as cowardly as this little kevlar vest wearing, security guard protected ‘man of the poop-le’ bitch is.
Thomas
The sad fact is if something happened to her, what would be the consequences for Beck? I am guessing nothing. would he be fired? Would his ratings go down? No and no. He would essentially get off scott free. Pretty sad commentary on things.
celticdragonchick
@DougJ DougJson:
I see you have been giving the magical balance farie a bareback rodgering again. She wants more money next time.
Cris
I love the right wing trope that they’re the ones who care about the Jewish people, and lefties are a bunch of anti-Semites. I guess the inconvenient fact that American Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic (70-80% depending on the survey) just means they have been hoodwinked by the powerful propaganda of liberal fascists.
debbie
Apparently, Beck’s in the process of going blind. There is justice, after all.
Karen
We may not be able to arrest or detain Beck and the rest of his Foxian pondscum but how about lawsuits?
If G-d forbid, someone shoots at Piven or damages her property almost all the attacks by people who Fox “whistles” at could be traced from the messages Beck sends.
When does 1st Amendment become inciting a riot?
But you ain’t seen nothing yet (sorry BTO). I hope that the security for President Obama’s State of the Union speech is super, super, tight.
It’s going to be a long two years…or four more…but the more they get away with, the more blatant the violence will be.
Any bets at who the next target will be?
My guess is the Sheriff of Tuscon. I hope I’m wrong.
Roger Moore
@Loneoak:
Of course they pick on innocuous secondary figures as the subjects of their conspiracy theories. Since conspiracy theories don’t have to have any relationship to reality, it’s just as easy to center them around nonentities as around the rich and famous. For a bully like Beck, that’s idea. Targeting somebody famous and important is likely to result in counterattacks, either in person or from proxies, and that’s the last thing a bully wants. A minor figure is much less likely to fight back effectively.
Tattoosydney
I have an idea, how about ABL does one post where she tells us who’s not an anti-semitic fruitcake. It’ll probably save her some typing.
Beck is an asshat, but given my total incoherence blah blah mumblecakes she used rude words waaaah.
/predictable mattminus post
celticdragonchick
@Karen:
You can be sure that the Malkinbots will scream that whoever shoots at a Glan Beck target is a sekrit lefty youbetcha…and has granite counter tops.
Karen
@Cris:
Oh but they do care about the Jewish people. Who else will get slaughtered to bring upon the End of Days.
I try to tell my family who actually believe that since the Right Wing is on the side of Israel that the right wing LOVES Israel. They just want the slaughter of all the Jews.
General Stuck
It is how Obama negotiates, read Ezra on it. On it’s face maybe it does look dumb, but I am not smart enough to second guess this highly successful president, that when the smoke clears, mostly wins. There is more than one way to skin a skunk, and not always the most obvious, which is not always the best. There was already a three year freeze anyways, and the wingnuts want it set at 2006. If Obama gets his way, it will be at 2010 levels. Spending is, for right or wrong, a political issue right now, and there are solid signs the economy is solidifying into a recovery, so I am not going to second guess this presidents strategy, and plan to point and laugh at those who do. It can all be reversed if Obama wins a second term, so everything proposed like this is politically reveresable. If Obama doesn’t get reelected, then it won’t matter anywho.
Karen
@celticdragonchick:
Um…maybe it’s me but I don’t get that part. What’s bad about granite counter tops?
Fang
I think some of his targets are obscure and powerless people as:
1) They’re easy targets and can’t fight back.
2) They’re obscure enough he can make stuff up.
That said he’s playing a VERY dangerous game, and frankly I don’t think he gets it. An attack on one of his targets would be bad, but such an attack is likely to be very indiscriminate.
Part of the reason for the right-wing freakout over Tuscon was because that was EXACTLY what they’re afraid will happen – someone will go willy-nilly after a liberal target and kill a bunch of people.
That’s what Beck is risking. If it happens, then things get very interesting because of legal issues, culpability, lawsuits, etc. Worse, with the wingnut mentality of never back down, he’d have to keep ramping up his game.
Cacti
Is it a blood libel if we point out that as recently as October, a Beck fan had a shoot out with the California Highway Patrol, or that Pittsburgh cop killer Richard Poplawski was also a fan?
Chad N Freude
@Karen: You know who else wanted the slaughter of all the Jews?
Kryptik
@Loneoak:
Not to mention that, outside of politicians and Soros, they’re almost always non-monied people. Because as always, what’s good for the rich and big business is necessarily what’s best for the country, you goddamn Anti-American hippie.
JPL
@Ash Can: I wouldn’t mind a five year freeze using last years numbers. It does depend on how he sells it though.
Omnes Omnibus
@Karen: Look in the lexicon under countertops. All will become clear.
Poopyman
@Karen: Per the lexicon.
General Stuck
@Ash Can:
And sorry if I came off a little strident and assholish, but just finished reading posts on several net roots blogs on this and was annoyed at that.:)
Karen
@Fang:
That said he’s playing a VERY dangerous game, and frankly I
don’tthink hegets itis laughing all the way to the bank while he dogwhistles his acolytes to kill his “enemies” without getting his own hands dirty AND gets rich.Roger Moore
@Cris:
FTFY.
BobS
@General Stuck: Do you enter every thread here, regardless of topic, with the intent to vent your spleen against FireDogLake, Glenn Greenwald, or anyone in attendance who thinks Obama’s qualifications for sainthood are a little thin?
S. cerevisiae
God this pisses me off. I love that she is taking him on publicly. Call him out as a coward hiding behind his flying monkeys. Go Professor!
General Stuck
@BobS:
Do you enter every thread here with pre butthurt for Firedoglake and Glenn Greenwald, even when they are not mentioned? Now bend over and have some spleen.
Allan
@Zifnab: Great example. You’re ready to go comment at FDL now! They’ll never know they’re being mocked!
Oh, wait, you’re serious…
J
It’s a bit of a problem when any comparison to Hitler/Nazis and so on is completely off limits but any crime that falls short of the standards set by the Nazis (if committed by a right winger) is not worth bothering about and certainly far less serious an offense than calling attention to it/complaining about it. (I learned this from Ross Douthat.)
Mnemosyne
@Zifnab:
Given that the House voted this morning to slash budgets back to 2008 levels, proposing a freeze at current levels looks pretty good. In fact, it looks like the administration did what people always want them to do: they waited for the Republicans to put their proposal on the table first.
BobS
@General Stuck: So then your answer to my question is yes?
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks, It was 2008 levels not 2006 as I stated.
General Stuck
@BobS:
If you are an idiot with little reading comprehension or intellectual honesty about what you read.
Sir Nose'D
Glen Beck is on one of the big flatscreens at my gym. I caught the beginning of yeserday’s show. He pointed out that he teaches peace. He follows the teaching of Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Jesus Christ. So that proves he is not inciting violence, Q.E. motherfucking D.
numbskull
@General Stuck:
Going pre-emptive asshole on us, eh?
General, you really have absolutely not idea what a 5 year budget freeze would mean, do you?
numbskull
@General Stuck:
Whew! Oh man, you’re making my eyes water.
shortstop
Okay, but it drives me crazy that no one can spell guerrilla. The Spanish, I don’t even speak it. Very well.
General Stuck
@numbskull:
I prefer to think of it as obligatory troll protection. And five years is a long time and anything can happen in that time. It will not be set in law, it is pure political posturing. You folks seem to think politics played well is somehow unnecessary and is somehow written in stone and automatic forever fail. But i know my preemptive assholing will not stop chickens from being fucking nor progressive pearls tightly clutched tonight, or ever. so carry on.
Obama will once again eat the wingers lunch, I predict, on the coming epic ideological budget battle and showdown at the alter of nihilism. Doesn’t mean he won’t compromise some, it does mean he will be mostly full of republican milkshake.
WereBear
@debbie: Or, he’s lying.
Jennifer
Seems to me that she could bring civil suit against Beck and Fox for defamation and inciting harassment. Because whether one of the nutters takes the bait and actually harms Piven or not, they are interfering with her life and harassing her and they’re doing it based on Beck’s say-so. I’d bet some super smart shark-like attorney could win a civil case against them.
de stijl
@shortstop:
It’s the guerrilla de ochocientos libra in the room.
de stijl
@General Stuck:
A trollphylactic?
General Stuck
@de stijl:
why yes
Jebediah
@Jennifer:
I would love to see that. I would love it even more if the attorney were paid for by George Soros – that might make Beck’s head explode. I can picture the arm-waving, drooling gibbering, howling and screaming.
ruemara
If Piven is still teaching at CCNY, these Beckheads probably won’t want to head over there to, um, ‘larn’ her anything. I used to live in that area and although it’s made some great strides, certain factions would be happy to focus on interlopers bringing a certain mindset to their little corner of Manhattan.
Good thing I’m not the focus of any teatardian tempest. I’ve got nothing but time and a finely tuned sense of destruction towards those that bother me. Suing Beck, Fox and Rupert Murdoch would sound lovely to me.
maus
@DougJ DougJson:
Not a tenth of how many she’s received by morons such as yourself who believe she hasn’t gone far enough.
El Cid
Piven & co-author Cloward did a heck of a lot more than just write an article in The Nation.
They played a key role in helping organize a movement beginning at the same time as their article to have grassroots, organized struggle for poor people and their interests.
One of the biggest aspects of this was to note how few eligible Americans with low incomes qualifying them for welfare aid actually were getting it. And often it came with quite punitive conditions.
These movements found national leadership in the National Welfare Rights Organization and the related Poverty Rights Action Center.
Martin Luther King too had interacted with this movement and on his part began to plan for the launch of the “second phase” of the civil rights movement — economic rights for the poor. The “Poor People’s Campaign,” it was called, and at the very beginning of this turn MLK Jr was assassinated. The subsequent protest march honored the promise to do so, but didn’t really have the hoped-for impact.
Part of the strategy that Piven and Cloward advocated — not just in The Nation article but in prior and later meetings and organizing was to enroll eligible poor people to their legally authorized benefits, quite quickly, as well as organizing welfare recipients to advocate for their own needs and for better treatment.
(It wasn’t by accident that LBJ and various progressive Democrats, including NC Governor Terry Sanford, wanted to emphasize self-help efforts, housing possibilities, and jobs programs for the poor, and conservatives attacked this and fought it at every stage, leading to the easily-resented and patronizing welfare system, as necessary as it was to aid so many Americans who were truly suffering. Had we kept programs similar to New Deal public employment, we would have saved a shit-load of money, people would have been much, much better off by actually having had jobs, and who knows how many billions or trillions of dollars worth of public works could have been done? But, no, no, that would be ‘Communist’ and threaten employer domination, so let’s make sure that if we have to have aid, let’s make it so that independence was harder to achieve.)
Yes, in a bunch of areas this caused financial pains and even crises for local governments; but beyond this, in the large and predominantly northeastern and mid-western cities in which these movements had concentrated, these people demanding the welfare they were legally eligible for, and for various changes to policies were mainly African Americans, so, this was a big part of the late 1960’s white counter-reaction to African American rights and the civil rights movement in general.
It was a very significant set of events in which Piven & Cloward played key roles. And certainly had various effects up until today. Many of them quite negative. Or maybe it all would have happened anyway.
What it isn’t is a generations-long conspiracy by a mastermind elderly academic to, whatever, use this super-secret well-known late 1960s-early 1970s movement to impose Afro-Stalinism on today’s USA.
Ash Can
@General Stuck: Seeing as being strident and assholish is a prerequisite for posting comments — one with which I’m more than happy to comply myself — I didn’t even notice that there was anything strident or assholish about your tone. And I agree with your main idea. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I wouldn’t question Obama — there’s always something to question people in authority about — but I have far more confidence in his propensity to do the right thing, and in his ability to discern what the right thing is, than in just about anyone else’s in DC.
Ash Can
@maus: That was snark on DougJ’s part. Really.
Svensker
@maus:
Wut?
TR
@maus:
It’s called sarcasm.
Karen
@Maus
Are you new here? Doug J is pretty liberal.
General Stuck
@Ash Can:
Fair enough. Questioning is one thing, I should have said not outright condemnation that is the normal kneejerk response of knowing better about these things. Obama has earned that much, I think.
CJ
Is that picture supposed to be flattering? He looks deranged.
Benjamin Cisco
@CJ: There’s a reason for that.
Cerberus
@General Stuck:
Sure, if politics is a game and victory on the short term for the “right side” is all that matters.
If however, politics isn’t a game, like you know, it isn’t, then, it kind of matters what is being passed and how and what is being fought for long term.
Yes, that’s the job of we the people, yes, Obama and the democrats in general are up against some big ass negatives. Yes, Obama is certainly the best choice we’ve got and has done some things I’m mighty proud of, but I’m starting to turn Firebagger just from all the idiot statements that victory without context matters more than the policies enacted and fought for.
Especially when the biggest thing we’re supposed to shut up for: electoral success, has not been forthcoming and a lot of bad practices are seeming to be entrenched for the sake of good politics (I’m not just talking about the immediate surrender to conservative memes, but more things like the treatment of Bush’s unemployment calculation methods and treating them as anything close to accurate to determine necessary funding which ensure that the people “voting their pocketbook” are going to feel underserved).
But it’s especially annoying for those of us to whom politics matters. Non-white, non-male, non-cis, non-straight, unemployed, uninsured, underinsured, and so on.
Yeah, things under Obama versus anyone else we had a choice for in 2008 rock in that comparison, but that doesn’t make him unquestionable and certainly doesn’t mean we should surrender advocacy for better solutions than those presented and certainly means we should question when the proposed ideas are merely good for a “political win” in the “game of politics” rather than something that will adequately serve the majority of people.
Yeah, something is better than nothing, I get that. I get the hard choices thing too. But frankly, hard choice gruel doesn’t mean that the extension on my parent’s health insurance made it any more usable (it basically doesn’t pay any doctors in existence and has crippling deductibles and copays), any jobs possible to find in my area, or my life anymore safe (a good period of federal investigation into trans murders has completely falling off the radar lately and the hate crime protections have gone back to being unenforced).
What I’m saying is politics isn’t a game and fuck your “win column”. I want bills that don’t feel like the tepid half-good, half-shit feeling I got during the 2008 election (I’m Californian).
General Stuck
@Cerberus:
It’s a free country, so whine all you desire. Politics is largely a game, and one of the reasons dems often lose are people like you, that expect leaders to make them feel personally happy, all the time by what they say and do. Some of us neither expect nor need that. And if you don’t care for the “wing column” you will likely end up sitting on the sidelines, lost. Albeit proud of moral victory.
And why on earth does being “Californian” have anything to do with anything. I’m a hillbilly, but don’t brag about it.
Too much
J E Hoover
Glen Beck killed JonBenet Ramsey.
Cerberus
@General Stuck:
With re: Californian comment: Prop 8. It soured an otherwise joyous night.
With re: game.
Ha ha. Ha. Yeah…no. No it is not. The republicans benefit when we think like tha though. Because if politics is a game. If it’s no more important than whose team wins the Conference title, then it makes sense to vote entirely on tribal loyalties. It makes sense to screw yourself economically and socially to “get the libs” or “make a statement about those i-legals and darkies what are being all uppity”. It’s why the Republicans can sell government as a meaningless obstruction, unable to really function with any real crisis so why not just use it as a vehicle to give the rich endless tax cuts and subsidies and use our playground army soldiers to show who’s God has the biggest dick.
Unfortunately, politics isn’t a game. Real people’s lives hang in the balance with each “issue” treated as a football by our fucked up media and the Republican memes they have swallowed wholesale. An unemployment debate isn’t about who will win the most votes, it’s about whether people like me can find a place to work, so they can survive. A debate about gay rights isn’t about which team will win the day’s talking points and the importance of swing voters, but whether people like me can walk the streets without being killed, go to a job without being fired if we come out, have access to rights others take for granted. An abortion debate isn’t about scoring ideological points for the noble center that respects honored religious opinion, it’s about whether some woman can get the medical care she needs without having to fear for her life, risking dangerous alternative routes, or worse.
These things aren’t games. The horse race is a narrative that democrats will always lose. Why? Because they by and large are the people who will get fucked by the machinations of the game. The very personhood of non-whites, queers, women is constantly bandied like a football. And so is our basic survival as a country on issues such as infrastructure, global warming, and insuring a basic safety net. As long as it’s a game, Republicans can gleefully suggest things like defaulting on the debt or massively slashing everything or meaningless investigations and other bullshit tricks, because hey, it’s just a game and winning is what matters.
And democrats end up sucking the devil’s dick because everyone is buying into the narrative that politics is just a game, that it doesn’t matter, that what is being fought over doesn’t matter and having to accept the worst deals just to keep the catastrophic results to their barest minimum.
No, it’s not a game and anyone who can think so has so little skin in the game to be only worth pitying for how empty their lives must be.
And for your information, I have never once failed in my duty to vote. Nor have I failed in my recruitment for votes and in encouraging all those in my stable to vote and vote for the sane party.
Why?
Because this shit matters, because it’s not a game and I’m sick and tired of the horse race bullshit, all that matters is the win view dominating when these fuckers are playing with the lives of me and all my friends.
So yeah, I’m not cutting off my nose for a “moral victory”. I’m just disgusted by you. Fuck you and fuck your game and fuck your empty pathetic life where even reality feels no more important than the next Steelers game.
General Stuck
@Cerberus:
You seem very unhappy. I sincerely hate to see that. I will just leave it at we disagree and wish you the best. Though I loath the Steelers like the plague. The record must be corrected on that score.