I'm bored with doing the "shorter" technique on these idiotic douchebags, so I'll try a different game. I'll revise their texts more broadly; translate them, as it were.
Yeah, that's it. I was thinking of pomo equivalencies, but they won't do. Then I thought, I'll be like one of those CIA creeps preparing an incriminating document for release through the FOIA. But then all they do is redact. Their object is concealment, mine is the opposite.
So, I'll think of myself as a translator, deciphering windy and insane texts from the original wingnutese into plain English through which the original stupidity and fanaticism is more readily apparent.
Here I go:
David Frum is so proud of his June 7th
"Readers of British newspapers might be forgiven for thinking that Tony Blair flew to Washington last night solely in order to discuss with President Bush the issue of Bob Geldof.
"The forthcoming G8 summit at Gleneagles has been billed as the moment when world leaders come face to face with world opinion, represented by Geldof, Midge Ure and Joss Stone, and are commanded by them to Make Poverty History.
"Mr Blair's trip to the United States to prepare for this Scottish showdown has been carefully spun by Number 10 to present him as on the side of the rock stars, and against the hard-hearted Americans."
The Telegraph goes on to joke that Blair might have had a few other things on his mind during this visit than acting as advance man for a retired rocker. It's a useful reality check. Here's another.
Tony Blair, being our Greatest Ally Against Evil, is not so silly or frivolous as to be truly influenced by liberal rock stars.
Arguments over foreign aid are exercises in symbolic politics, not real assistance. Remember the tsunami? Bush early on made the mistake of suggesting a tentative figure for the US contribution. He was savagely criticized for alleged stinginess - even though at the time nobody had any real idea of the extent of the damage and the cost of repair. In the end, the US and other countries were stampeded into pledging much more, perhaps vastly more, than the economic damage done by the tsunami.
Stupid rock stars, with their hand-wringing, emotions-over-substance rhetoric, obviously are attempting to scam the G8 leaders. In fact, all these relief crusades are scams of one sort or another. Those pesky Asians basically got a welfare cheque by using the tsunami as an excuse. If Bush had held firm, these ultimately wasted funds could have gone on to better uses, like killing A-rabs, or a tax rebate for the filthy rich.
African aid relief is the same. Jeffrey Sachs may imagine that he knows how much it will cost to pull Africa from poverty, but almost nobody outside the UN apparatus and the world of pop culture believes him. (See my review of his book in Commentary.) The numbers tossed around as desired figures for aid are to a really disturbing degree plucked from thin air.
Liberals pull these numbers out of their asses. Obviously, if the need is greater than zero dollars, it's not a number that conservatives can agree with.
Meanwhile, there is something practical that can immediately be done to fight poverty right on America's doorstep: Pass the embattled Central American Free Trade Initiative through Congress. But because CAFTA is premised on the unglamorous idea that poverty will be defeated by work and trade, not guilt-induced donations, none of its advocates have ever picked up a guitar in their life.
I really detest musicians and artists: their chosen purpose in life is to try to make people feel guilty. Real heros are the generous rightwingers who have no "artistic talent" but are so giving that they'll pass sweatshop-creating legislation. But trust Liberals and artists, the bleeding-heart fucks, to not appreciate it. It's a thankless job, everybody is against us -- why, we only have all of Corporate America on our side, as well as control of all three branches of government -- but somehow we tough-minded conservatives will keep our resolve in the face of sneers and guilt-trips, and give unto the dusky and wretched of the earth the sweatshops and environmental destruction that will lift them out of poverty, which is no less than they, or we, deserve.
Frum's June 9th entry is a bit more jaunty:
The GOP a "Christian" party? Wait a minute - I thought it was run by, ahem, "neocons."
Don't you get the joke? "Neo-con" is a euphemism for "Jew". Leftists who claimed that neo-cons highjacked Republican foriegn policy were obviously exhibiting prima facie evidence of anti-semitism. In fact, anyone who ever said "neo-con" in reference to Republicans is more or less an anti-semite. Anyway, now they're being inconsistent! They used to mean that Jews ran the Republican Party, now Howard Dean is saying that white christians run it! They should keep their conspiracy theories straight!
Anyway, aren't American parties supposed to "look like America"? And last time I checked, wasn't America full of Christians? Like 95%?
Obviously, Dean meant fundamentalists, but we Republicans don't recognise a distinction, though even if we did, my bad faith is so massive that I'd throw out this meaningless statistic that 95 percent of American is Christian, anyway. Come on, Liberals, I can use statistics to prove anything I want: 13 percent of all people know that.
And is the insinuation here that there's something wrong with being white or Christian? That whites and Christians are a rather unattractive and robotically single-minded bunch? (If true, by the way, that would sure have spared Europe a lot of wars over the past 2500+ years ...) Isn't that an unwise thing to say for a Dem chairman who has promised to reach out to red state America?
Yes, now is the time to argue that Christian Whites are a heterodox group. See? Am I not clever? I can also imply that Howard Dean is a self-loathing honkey, a racist; try to get your NASCAR votes now, no-neck.
I'm trying to think of what would be a Republican equivalent of a remark as omindirectionally bone-headed as Dean's. Here's my invention: It is the equivalent of a Republican party chairman sneering at the Dems, "Look at these people! It looks as if none of them ever cashed a dividend check in their lives! Why they have no stake in the country at all....."
How long would such a moron as that last at the head of the RNC? About a minute and a half, right? I don't wish the Democratic party well, but just from a point of view of sporting interest, I do wonder: Can't anybody over there play this game?
Since Dean unfairly tarred the trust-fund babies, idle-class filthy rich, rich men's whores, and fundamentalist christians who control the Republican Party, I'll pay him back in funny money not, perhaps, noticing that the joke's on me. Hah, you Dems are all poor laborers! Or petite bourgeoisie at best! See? Top-down class warfare rhetoric is certainly no worse than the bottom-up class warfare rhetoric Dean is spouting. Is it? I mean, after all, there is no such thing as a class structure in America, anyway. Wait, come back...
posted by RETARDO MONTALBAN @ 11:13 PM
<< Home