I have to laugh at the notion offered up by DougJ Mistermix that the media might notice the Republicans are crazy and a pile-on might begin. It just cracks me up. Look where we are now- Paul Ryan, the GOP poster boy who offered up the blueprint for the biggest piece of class warfare ever offered, giving trillions in tax cuts to the rich while screwing everyone else, refuses to even talk to his constituents. Instead, he has luncheons at private locations where they charge an entrance fee. Concerned citizens pony up the fifteen bucks, show up, and when they ask him about jobs, he has them arrested:
How does it get crazier than that? You can’t make this shit up. If a Christmas Carol were written today, Tiny Tim’s crutches would be used by Scrooge to beat him before sending his whole family into bondage and giving Scrooge the proceeds, and David Gregory would lead a roundtable with the different ghosts where they would all explain that the lump of coal left in the Cratchit household would be better used by the producers in society.
cathyx
There’s been so much crazy for so long, the template for what is sane is broken.
Big Baby DougJ
That was mistermix’s post, but I agree with him.
This kind of illustrates his point in a perverse way. Ryan is in the “serious bucket” so he could shoot a man in Reno just to watch him die and still be a brave Burkean.
Perry isn’t Officially Serious yet, and he says a lot of nutty stuff some of which actually does push Villagers buttons (they didn’t like the Bernanke stuff), they could decide he’s crazy like Bachmann and Palin. Stranger things have happened.
SIA
Just stunning. I hate that fucker.
Ocotillo
That little piece of shit, how the hell can Wisconsin get rid of him with Walker and the Koch boys gerrymandering the state?
BGinCHI
Until the GOP threatens the NFL or cable TV, we’re not gonna have any changes in the MSM or the “Independents” (lazy idiots who can’t be bothered to have an opinion).
And Fuck Paul Ryan.
cathyx
We have been beaten by the crazy stick for so long that we don’t even feel it anymore.
Cheney writing a book about his admitted illegal activities gets him interviewed on all the news shows, not put in jail.
srv
Pretty Boy has had his own private Wingularity.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
@Big Baby DougJ:
But you have Perry’s suggestions on secession being juxtaposed with the health care reform as if they were direct parallels or something. That’s the whole point , Perry might be getting pushback, but he’s not officially ‘crazy’. Not in the ways that get him instantly discredited. Meanwhile, folks like Al Gore, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, and many others on the left wing side have officially been made ‘crazy’ to the point that they’re only mentioned as either jokes or proof about how fucking batshit and dangerous the ‘left’ is and why we must all kowtow to the GOP or else.
campionrules
Ehh,
You’re at a private event and you get asked to leave and you decline: citation for trespassing. Probably a couple hundred bucks
Plus they were warned ahead of time by the police. So clearly, they knew it was going to happen.
RJ
These folks should have brought their legal weapons with them. If it’s OK for wingers, it should be OK for the rest of us, right?
Big Baby DougJ
A lot of win there.
Bulworth
@BGinCHI: Seriously.
Earl Butz
hahahahahaha oh God, that’s rich. I have a better chance of finding a million dollars in my mailbox when I go home today.
Remember, both sides do it.
Bulworth
“Independents” (actual Republicans feigning non-attachment
lazy idiots who can’t be bothered to have an opinion).Fxd
Nutella
@campionrules:
And clearly Ryan was in the wrong for never speaking to his constituents, too, so he should have expected to be challenged about his cowardice.
The questioners were at a private event that they had paid to attend so I hope they at least get their $15 back.
ETA: which is about as likely as “the media might notice the Republicans are crazy and a pile-on might begin”.
dead existentialist
@Big Baby DougJ: that was brilliant, wasn’t it.
BGinCHI
@Bulworth: Accepted.
The default setting in this country is Foxified.
singfoom
Wow. That’s just incredible. Clever of Ryan to make it a private event so he can’t be yelled at. There seems to be a lot of energy and momentum against the elites right now that are fucking up our economy and jamming austerity down our throats, but the action is at the local level.
How do we harness that righteous anger and momentum into a national force?
KCinDC
@Big Baby DougJ, Perry may not be Officially Serious yet, but if he wins the nomination he automatically qualifies regardless of apparent craziness. If sanity has to be redefined to ensure that The Truth Is Somewhere In Between, then so be it.
kdaug
“Free Speech” zones, pay-to-play “Townhalls”, subservient militarized police, unlimited corporate cash in politics…
“You have the right to free speech
As long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it”
BGinCHI
@singfoom:
Aggressive Bipartisanship.
campionrules
@Nutella:
I doubt it unfortunately. Apparently, the police handed a list of guidelines to those that were participating before they entered.
Still, I don’t fault the Rotary club in this – they tend to invite speakers from all different affiliations. My understanding is that this particular club had previously invited Democrats to speak. The 15 dollars is standard for their lunches if you are not a Rotary Member. They are rather scrupulously non- partisan.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
If the media didn’t get it the GOP was nuts when they tried to destroy the world economy with the deficit default, nothing will get their attention.
...now I try to be amused
I wonder why the Dickensian meme hasn’t caught on more; it’s so apt. It’s pretty old too. After Gingrich’s crew took over the House in 1994, a humor contest entry suggested they would rename food stamps “gruel stamps”.
Nutella
@campionrules:
Yes, none of this is the Rotary’s fault. It’s Ryan’s cowardice that’s to blame.
singfoom
@BGinCHI: Sir, I appreciate the cut of your snark-filled jib, but I was asking a serious question.
There’s an ocean of anger and desire for good jobs and for change, but how do we apply that at a national level?
Sure, you can help people register to vote, or get involved in issue advocacy, but we need something broader….and I don’t see anything that works on a national level.
I would say the Democratic party, but then I would be being snarky.
DFH no.6
Yeah, I had to laugh at mistermix’s notion, too. Well, more like a wry, sardonic grin, actually.
I can be a foolishly pie-eyed optimist about politics sometimes (as my 29 year-old lefty-but-cynical son often reminds me) but I don’t believe there’s any way the opinion-shaping members of the media point out that the fascists are not wearing any clothes. Not happening. Their salaries depend on them continuing to pretend otherwise, that the despicable and crazy is not, in fact, despicable and crazy..
That’s why the opinion-shaping media is so obviously right-leaning (emphasis for any fascists looking in who feel like throwing out the discredited canard that today’s American media is primarily left-leaning).
Oh, and I just loved the legal hair-splitting by campionrules at #9. Miss the point much?
nellcote
Are the police guidelines given out for every Rotary speaker or does Ryan have special needs?
andy
I couldn’t help noticing the poor servers cringing a bit as they work the room. Imagine your job was having to be nice to people who would laugh if you were discarded like garbage.
Zifnab
@campionrules:
The Rotary Club is bipartisan now? We really are through the looking glass. They were the flipping definition of conservative white male elites back in the 80s.
Zifnab
@campionrules:
The Rotary Club is bipartisan now? We really are through the looking glass. The Rotary Club in my community has always been just a mini-local Chamber of Commerce.
Suffern ACE
Well that is a good question as to how those Cratchets came to still have a lump of coal anyway. Surely they didn’t save for it. Wasting their money on so-called “bling” like that is why they stay so poor.
BGinCHI
@singfoom: The Dems are the only game in town; they just aren’t playing it very well.
All I can say by way of optimism is that Obama needs to campaign hard, win the election, then pivot to Aggressive Motherfucker who leaves nothing on the field when he’s done. The GOP will obstruct, but he has to bash them on these issues you are pointing to.
No shitty compromises.
singfoom
@BGinCHI: Fair enough. I don’t have a lot of faith in the narrative that you’ve painted coming true. The odds of that seem like 70/30 in favor of that not happening.
Though, perhaps as a lameduck, he won’t give a fuck anymore and not pull punches.
WaterGirl
Un-fucking-believeable!
General Stuck
Ryan, imo, is a true believer, and there are fewer of those in congress than the majority wingnut grifter types. He really believes the Reagan trickle down doctrine, and all the other custodial class ideas for Americans to leave the governing in the hands of the most productive, and the rest can just die off, or work for peanuts to scratch out a paycheck to paycheck existence. There can be no safety net for these folks, which could clog up the profit machine.
These kind of wingnuts don’t have a chance on the national stage, precisely because they are dead on serious about the bullshit conservative articles of faith, that if only we could be purer in our wingnuttery, then the people will see that we are right, then we wouldn’t fail. Who else does that sound like?
Perry is a gold plated hustler, through and through, but close as I can tell, unpolished fool’s gold with little discipline to dial it back enough to get elected on the national stage. His true believer status, rests solely in the sanctity of Rick Perry, the rest is just packaging to get elected. Neither one of these are viable General Election POTUS candidates, imo, unless things get a lot worse than they are. And Mcconnell and Boehner are busy at that chore as we speak.
I agree that the bar is set so high for the voters to be offended by republican greed and avarice, that we really can’t imagine them turning against the GOP in a wholesale way for more than one election cycle, two at the most, for being too crazy to allow back into power.
Of course, this is all my own navel gazing, and subject to being completely wrong.
But goddam, I gotta believe there is a failsafe point of self rescue from the spiraling trajectory the wingnuts want to take us down with. Maybe it’ll be Perry’s stomping on SS and The New Deal with flat out calling for those programs to be destroyed. But the voters better wake up soon, and get serious about their republic, or it might one day be too late.
Jay B.
@BGinCHI:
Or he could, you know, right now run against two of the very few institutions that are less popular than him — The GOP and Congress. But he’s not. And he won’t. And your optimism actually makes me feel sad at this point.
Shinobi
I saw one video where a woman at this “townhall meeting” was talking about feeding her family and 10% unemployment and someone shouted “get a job.”
Perhaps we should change the inscription on the statue of liberty to “I got mine, STFU.”
danimal
I have no doubts about the cravenness of today’s media, but the GOP is down to about 15% approval ratings these days. Somehow, the depravity of the GOP is shining through to the public.
It’s not that wild to think that the media, if for no other reason than following public opinion, starts a pile-on on the wackos of the right.
Emerald
@andy: Heh. I’ve worked in those conditions–big country club full of assholes (and some really nice folks too).
Hint: do not disrespect a person who is going to prepare or serve you substances that you intend to eat or drink.
I’m just sayin’.
Splitting Image
No, I have to agree it could happen, and very suddenly. What a lot of people don’t appreciate about Social Security (and Medicare) is that it is designed to serve a specific function within an individual’s spending habits. If you’ve ever gone to an investment seminar, you’ve probably heard about the “investment pyramid”. Cash and no-risk investments form the base of the pyramid.
Medicare and Social Security are designed so that people can always count on having enough money in the base of their pyramid to keep them going throughout their entire lives. This frees up the income from their jobs to be spent on consumer goods or invested in higher-risk projects, such as starting their own companies. How often did you hear this during the ACA debate? People hanging on to company jobs instead of going out on their own because they can’t risk going without health insurance?
Take away Medicare and Social Security (or their Canadian equivalents) and everyone will suddenly have to redirect just about every penny they can spare into the now-empty base of their investment pyramids. This will grind entrepreneurship to a halt and cause consumer spending to plummet, especially for luxury goods. (In other words, hello Great Depression)
Cable TV is a luxury good. I think it is reasonable to assume that premium cable channels will be among the first things to go if people suddenly need to save their pennies for retirement. That means no more CNN, no more MSNBC, and certainly no more Fox News. If Paul Ryan’s “road map” comes anywhere close to being enacted, all of the TV bobbleheads will be out of a job, which means that you can count on the them to turn on him as soon as they get their marching orders to do so. The marching orders will get delivered the moment the suits in charge get worried enough about their own profits, whenever that might be.
They’re not there yet, but I wouldn’t argue that they won’t get there.
BGinCHI
@Jay B.: I’m just putting that optimism out there…I’m not sure I really share it.
We sure as fuck need some hardball class warfare from the left right now though.
Elliecat
@singfoom:
I don’t think there is anything that is going to work on a national level. I am convinced that the only thing that will work is on the individual level. One-on-one, in our communities. Getting involved, connecting with people, understanding their needs and concerns and educating them on how their needs and concerns are or are not being addressed by the people they vote for.
I know that’s not exciting and sexy like some big national action or movement would be. But I think it’s more likely to influence people and change their perceptions over the long term. Maybe if we talk about it in terms like “subversion” that would get more people interested.
ETA: to add “ed” (because for some reason we have to justify every f’ing edit)
maya
@campionrules:
Around my way there is really no diffence between the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce. Memberships are interchangeble and virtually all Rotarians have or represent businesses. One additional benefit; in unincorporated areas, county pols regard local CofCs as psuedo town governments without the hinderance of holding open elections.”Scrupulously non-partisan” my ass.
It’s kinda like the American Legion, aka, the Ye Olde Republican Veterans Association, which, btw, owns the hall where this sumptuous event took place.
Elliecat
@BGinCHI:
Who is going to do it? Who are we hoping will do it? What will it entail? What are we all doing about it while we talk about how we need it?
Just saying. I keep reading how we need class warfare but no details on who, where, when, what and how.
BGinCHI
@Elliecat: I doubt we’re going to find a collective solution to those questions. I hope all this crazy fucking desperation on behalf of the GOP/TP crowd signals a last gasp in our culture, but I don’t know.
I’m an educator, so what I can do is make my students smarter, critical thinkers who can see the bigger picture and not fall for Fox-type bullshit. It shouldn’t be that hard to educate people to at least not vote against their self-interest, but it is.
Emma
@cathyx: That is probably the most perfect statement about this whole thing I’ve ever read. A set of interwebs is on its way.
maya
@Elliecat: AND, if you do get around to the 4Ws & an H and form an organization, you will surely come under the scrutiny of DHS, FBI & RW entertainment/news as terrorists.
graves007
“Call Paul Ryan and tell him, thats not how we do things in America?”
Hate to break it to you but that’s exactly how things are done in America. USA is teh funnay
Elliecat
@BGinCHI:
I think it depends who is educating them and how.
How do you educate your students? You don’t just throw a lot of facts and information at them and demand that they process it and make connections. You get to know them, you develop a relationship with them, you establish some level of trust. You let them know who you are, what your goal and motives are. If you’re a good teacher, you don’t so much deliver information as help them to discover it, guide them as they process it and make connections with what they already know. And so on.
I don’t see many folks on the left doing that. Too many of them want to just throw information at people and have them “educate themselves” about issues or “wake up” to the facts. They are not interested in building relationships with people who don’t already agree with them. While they rightly deride the Right for exploiting people’s fears, too many on the left then turn around and tell those people what assholes they are for even having those fears.
ETA: lest I be misunderstood in calling the left “they”—I’m someone who has spent 30 years feeling out of step with the “mainstream” because of my lefty leanings but then being totally alienated every time I tried to get involved on the left.
PurpleGirl
@campionrules: The fact is that Ryan scheduled no other meetings with his constituents. And apparently he has not been available at his office to talk to people. That is reprehensible.
The Spy Who Loved Me
http://muskego.patch.com/articles/greenfield-police-explain-arrests-at-paul-ryan-luncheon
You take your chances when you disrupt a private event. It wasn’t Ryan’s event, it was a Rotary Club luncheon and Ryan was a guest speaker. The police explained the arrests adequately.
PurpleGirl
@Splitting Image: Sorry to break it to you but CNN, MSNBC and the Fox channels are part of the Standard package from Time Warner Cable in NYC. They ain’t premium channels. Disregarding the name, Basic and Standard are really one set of channels. The premium channels are the channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz and Encore.
Jay B.
@The Spy Who Loved Me:
Oh good. So long as process was followed, there’s no need to listen to your constituents who paid the same as everyone else to get in. Glad we all agree that it’s totally appropriate to get arrested for voicing your opinion to an elected representative because of the venue in which you voice it.
slightly-peeved
I have to point out that for all the complaints about Obama’s bipartisanship, the Republicans are about as unpopular and untrusted as they have ever been. Obama’s personal likeability is still high. Obama calling out the Republicans for class warfare will just get tuned out as more ‘he said she said’, unless people trust Obama more than the Republicans. According to the polls, he has that trust, and I think the clear repeated desire to work together helped him build it. I’d like to see more heated rhetoric from him as the campaign starts up, but I think the bipartisanship served a purpose in making the rhetoric stick.
The Fat Kate Middleton
In the words of a poster on the Facebook Page “Scott Walker is a Douchebag” http://www.facebook.com/scottwalkerdouchebag: “Paul Ryan – Il Douche.”
And here’s something else to love about Wisconsin’s current administration –
I used to ask, “How could it get any worse?” I no longer ask that.
The Fat Kate Middleton
In the words of a poster on the Facebook Page “Scott Walker is a Douchebag” http://www.facebook.com/scottwalkerdouchebag: “Paul Ryan – Il Douche.”
And here’s another reason to love the current Wisconsin administration:
http://thepoliticalenvironment.blogspot.com/2011/09/memo-proves-wisconsin-officials-hiding.html?spref=fb
I used to ask, “How could it get any worse?” I no longer ask.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Sorry about the quasi-repetition – thought I’d deleted the first comment.
Hart Williams
Until the Eloi decide that being Eloi sucks, the Morlocks will continue to feast on their tender flesh. I wish it were more complicated than that, but it isn’t.