Me and another guy on this old friend's email send list asked him to quit forwarding the Glen Beck inspired drivel that passes for some of the jokes he thinks are funny. Here's the last one he sent, despite my explicit demand that he shouldn't, received today:
WHY I'M DEPRESSED . . .
Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel, "Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to the Promised Land ."
Nearly 75 years ago,(when Welfare was introduced) Roosevelt said, "Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is the Promised Land ."
Today, Obama has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the price of camels and mortgaged the Promised Land! I was so depressed last night thinking about Health Care Plans, the economy, the wars, lost jobs, savings, Social Security, retirement funds, etc . . . I called a Suicide Hotline . I had to press 1 for English. I was connected to a call center in Pakistan . I told them that I was suicidal.
They got excited and asked if I could drive a truck......
Here's my response, written immediately after receiving it:
This is why I'm depressed:
This country, which has been both great and hideous over it's short lifespan, is about to plumb the depths of the latter attribute, if it is to be taken over by jackasses who believe the shit in the email (above) is funny. My guess is such as them have health care because, maybe, a spouse provides it; their grandparents were immigrants of a despised ethnic group a few decades ago (and thus learned to despise people who look less like WASPs than they do); they or a close family member (or members) had a great, probably unionized and government-connected job which gave them a great leg-up in life; and they are paying about pretty much what their parents did, percentage wise, in total tax burden, maybe a little less. They use our government-built airports and highways, they practically inhale petroleum products (the availability of which is guaranteed, at the cost of over a trillion US dollars a year in taxpayers' money, via military expenditures), they or their parents (or both) are on the evil FDR's Social Security, they've used evil Unemployment and/or Food Stamps at some point in their lives, and they think Sarah Palin is brilliant. And hot.
Oh, and they send political bullshit they get in emails, stuff that some cracker-wanker wrote on his laptop while sitting on the shitter, making fun of anyone who he feels threatened by. They can't help it, I guess.
Obama's biggest mistake, and he's made many, is listening to the folks that said he had to coddle the right wing of the American electorate. He had a chance to fix some shit that had been sorely fucked up royally by not only the Bushes and Reagan, but by his apparent mentor, Bill Clinton, the great appeaser. Instead, every piece of legislation he signed (other than the Ledbetter law giving women the fucking right to the same fucking pay for the same fucking work as men for crissake), was so watered down and encumbered by stupidity (insurance mandates?) that it only served to provide something to laugh at and throw darts at. Too bad. Now we're looking down the barrel of a cultural nosedive that will make the fall of Rome look like a Lawrence Welk number.
Oh well. I hope these "joke writers" are ready to be ruled by religious zealots, because that's what the religious zealots they've made their devil's bargain with are intending to do, that is the whole reason they're up to this bigoted, race-baiting, mind-killing hate-fest. It's not Obama, folks. Not even close.
It's these guys using these idiots, and they just might pull it off. If they do, this is a small snapshot of what America is about to become.
That's why I'm depressed.
I pressed reply all about an hour ago.
Oh, and one more thing that just came to me:
If they think they're going to "Take Back America", who the fuck do you think they're going to try to take it from?