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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Slow Clap for Congress

Slow Clap for Congress

by Imani Gandy (ABL)|  August 2, 20117:06 pm| 36 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Sarcastic clapping is my favorite.

 Looking for a way to express your disgust with Congress?

Do you enjoy sarcastic clapping?  Then why not make a Slow Clap for Congress video?

I just did.

Like a lot of people on Sunday afternoon, Baltimore-based software developer Chris Ashworth was frustrated with the way Congress had handled the important but often routine business of raising the nation’s borrowing limit.

“When the debt deal goes through,” he mused on Twitter to what he describes as a fairly modest following, “can we start a meme where we all make videos of ourselves slowly & sarcastically applauding our politicians?”

That was the beginning of Slow Clap for Congress, what is at present a very basic website hosting Ashworth and a handful of other folks doing — well, you get the idea.

~snip~

“I think everybody’s responding to the fact that politicians are generally just behaving immaturely,” Ashworth told me today by phone, “and that’s just frustrating when there are so many things that we can have disagreements about that we can have in a mature way.”

[My Slow Clap for Congress video is after the jump]

Thanks a lot, Congress.

[via Tech President]

[cross-posted at ABLC]
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Previous Post: « One and Done
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Reader Interactions

36Comments

  1. 1.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 2, 2011 at 7:08 pm

    That is some wild shit.

  2. 2.

    Steve

    August 2, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    I think it’s a mistake to feed the meme that “Congress,” as an institution, is to blame, as if there were no difference between the two parties.

    The Democrats disappoint me in many ways. But they didn’t hold the economy hostage. And we got a lot more shiny things from Congress back before the Republicans won control, which suggests a cause-and-effect relationship to me. So in Casa Steve the message is still “Republicans suck.”

  3. 3.

    Patrick

    August 2, 2011 at 7:10 pm

    Perfect!

  4. 4.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    August 2, 2011 at 7:11 pm

    I’m battlin this motherfucker over on your thread and you’re makin movies! Damn! :)

  5. 5.

    Lolis

    August 2, 2011 at 7:11 pm

    @Steve:

    Hear, hear. I know liberals love to prove they can criticize their own side till kingdom come, but we shouldn’t all become Jon Stewart now.

  6. 6.

    Clever moniker

    August 2, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Casa Steve sounds likeb a great restaurant with 24-hour takeout.

    Just sayin’…

  7. 7.

    Clever moniker

    August 2, 2011 at 7:12 pm

    Casa Steve sounds like a great restaurant with 24-hour takeout.

    Just sayin’…

  8. 8.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 2, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    That was very dramatic.

  9. 9.

    arguingwithsignposts

    August 2, 2011 at 7:14 pm

    “I think everybody’s responding to the fact that politicians are generally just behaving immaturely,” Ashworth told me today by phone, “and that’s just frustrating when there are so many things that we can have disagreements about that we can have in a mature way.”

    I’m curious what he thinks these disagreements are that we can have “in a mature way”?

    I want actual policies.

  10. 10.

    Citizen_X

    August 2, 2011 at 7:15 pm

    @Lolis: Clap. Clap. Clap.

    No, wait, that was non-ironic clapping! I was serious!

  11. 11.

    DonkeyKong

    August 2, 2011 at 7:16 pm

    Apathy is the new cute.

  12. 12.

    KCinDC

    August 2, 2011 at 7:17 pm

    @Steve is right. Blaming “Congress” feeds the same ideas in the public that the “both sides” idiocy from pundits does, and Republicans benefit. It’s also closely allied with “Government can’t do anything right”, another GOP talking point.

    If we’re going to have any chance in 2012 with the way the economy is looking, we’ve got to place the blame squarely on the shoulders of Republicans, where it belongs. Repeatedly. Forcefully. Persuasively.

  13. 13.

    Fax Paladin

    August 2, 2011 at 7:23 pm

    Because I’M a POTATO.

  14. 14.

    some guy

    August 2, 2011 at 7:29 pm

    slow clap for Give ‘Em Head Harry
    slow clap for Gang of Six
    slow clap for President Herbert Hoover
    slow clap for Hoover’s cheerleaders
    slow clap for slow clappers

  15. 15.

    Bago

    August 2, 2011 at 7:30 pm

    Really, it’s all about the limp fish sound.

  16. 16.

    gnomedad

    August 2, 2011 at 7:31 pm

    Now that we know your name, I was hoping we’d hear what you sound like. You sure know how to string your audience along. :)

  17. 17.

    Silver

    August 2, 2011 at 7:32 pm

    I’ve been doing this for a while. Except instead of a slow clap with my hands, I incorporate my penis.

    I think Andrew Sullivan watched me once on Chatroulette. Just goes to show you, you never know who you’re masturbating for.

  18. 18.

    Donut

    August 2, 2011 at 7:33 pm

    President Barack “I’m Gonna Stretch This Process Out for Months in Hopes of a Grand Bargain” Obama deserves his very own slow clap video, too. Just sayin’.

  19. 19.

    Sad Iron

    August 2, 2011 at 7:50 pm

    Wow. This is sure to shake things up. Now, for a full day of activism, make sure to watch The Daily Show and Colbert and repost your favorite clips on Facebook.

  20. 20.

    manual

    August 2, 2011 at 7:59 pm

    11th dimensional chess!

  21. 21.

    LarsThorwald

    August 2, 2011 at 8:38 pm

    I have never cut a video on my Macbook, but I just did.

    I think anyone interested in doing a video for this should refer to Welles in Kane doing the slow, determined clap for his wife at the opera. That’s some serious slow clap with passion and anger right there.

  22. 22.

    Concerned Citizen

    August 2, 2011 at 9:55 pm

    That really sums it up. The dems should have let it burn. The hostage taking will never end now.

  23. 23.

    Jon H

    August 2, 2011 at 10:05 pm

    Should we wear green in our video, to show support for someone?

  24. 24.

    ABL

    August 2, 2011 at 11:00 pm

    @gnomedad: you can watch this video of me interviewing one of the speakers at the South Central Tea Party rally for The Grio. I haven’t gotten around to combining it with the other videos, so it’s incomplete.

  25. 25.

    ABL

    August 2, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    @Sad Iron: i’m wearing a ribbon right now, too.

  26. 26.

    steve

    August 2, 2011 at 11:22 pm

    That was awesome, but why do you take your glasses off to clap?

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    August 2, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    When I slow clap I only use 2 fingers. It’s not loud but the message gets right across.

  28. 28.

    Mutaman

    August 2, 2011 at 11:49 pm

    How about a thread for those of us looking to express our disgust with Obama?

  29. 29.

    suk

    August 2, 2011 at 11:52 pm

    It is all the fault of Congress, not our shitty hack President.

    Uh-huh.

  30. 30.

    sixers

    August 3, 2011 at 12:16 am

    It went from “Obama’s got this” to “Congress sucks”. Did he ever have it or was that just bullshit?

  31. 31.

    PeaceisPower

    August 3, 2011 at 4:27 am

    @KCinDC: “The wrecking Crew how conservatives rule”, Thomas Frank, Metropolitan Books, 2008, http://WWW.HneryHolt.com

    “If we did any of these things alone the papers and the public could concentrate on it, get the facts, and fight. But what we reasoned that if we poured them all out fast and furious , one, two, three,–one after the other–the papers couldn’t handle them all and the public would be stunned and—give up. Too much.”
    We sat there, he amused, I as stunned as his public.
    “Well, you Pennsylvania politicians know something even Tammany doesn’t know.”
    He nodded. “Yes, he said. “We know a lot they don’t know. We know that public despair is possible and that that is good politics.”-The Wrecking Crew, Thomas Frank

    The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens, 1931

    The shutdown of ’95-’96 aimply jump-started the process for conservatives of convincing America that “Government does not work!” Pretty effective, eh?

    “I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
    Grover Norquist, regarding the Federal government.
    THIS is the guy in ABSOLUTE charge of the Tea Party fiscal policy. Any questions as to whether the argument that discrediting the federal government is the guiding principle of the GOP?

  32. 32.

    Chinn Romney

    August 3, 2011 at 9:33 am

    Let’s not forget to give it up for Fearless Leader while we’re at it.

    Clap….clap…..clap…

  33. 33.

    SectarianSofa

    August 3, 2011 at 11:50 am

    I LOL’d through my tears.
    Too bad Republicans only listen to their economically illiterate inner demagogues. Democrats will see this and think we’re sad that they didn’t cut corporate taxes more.

    Can we slow clap some Keynesian economic sense into people’s heads? Will that work?

  34. 34.

    PeaceisPower

    August 3, 2011 at 12:27 pm

    @PeaceisPower: http://WWW.HenryHolt.com

  35. 35.

    noabsolutes

    August 3, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    you look so… angry… way to blog.

  36. 36.

    Kiki Kauffmann

    August 5, 2011 at 7:27 am

    How about a slow clap for the tea partiers!

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