One of my favorite comedy routines has always been Bill Cosby's stand-up performance "Bill Cosby: Himself". It is the routine that spawned the Cosby Show. One of my fovorite excerpts from it was when his wife "Holds a yard stick over her head like a samurai sword and announces the beatings will now begin by say, 'I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!'"
Well, that is how I feel right now. I have had enough. I am sick of the constant barage of e-mail right wing jokes, modified pictures (or pictures with blantant lies as captions), deceptively edited videos, stories that are pure fabrications being represented as truths, horror stories about Obamacare denying older people medical treatment, patriotic rants, NRA bullshit, secret Muslim bullshit, FEMA camp bullshit, lies, lies and more lies, and on and on and on.
However, here is the real kicker though, I am not mad at the conservatives for all of this. That would be like getting angry at a skunk for smelling badly or getting mad at snake for biting you. You cannot be angry about that because that is what they do, it is their nature. I am angry that we seem to be to satisfied just trying to counter all of these nonsensical claims one by one or sometimes we may brush them off by saying clever retorts like, "You must get your information from Faux news" or my personal (non) favorite, "I am not going to dignify that with a response".
The rant continues beneath the orange cloud of shit storms...
I want to know, where is the progressive equivilant of this propaganda campaign? Where are the e-mails showing flat out, bold face lies against them? Where are the deceptively edited videos and stories about shit that never really happened meant to enrage the general population? Where are the media channels that spout non-stop horror stories about everything conservative along with selective "mistakes" that turn every Democrat that is caught doing something illegal magically into a republican by simply changing the letter in front of their name. Why aren't we throwing a constant barrage of shit up against the proverbial wall hoping for that one in a dozen to stick and get someone to believe and hate them for it?
Where is the counter offensive in this propagana war? Do you think we are above that? If we are above fighting that kind of war then we might as well give up now because we are through. This isn't a gentlemen's boxing match where there are rules against low blows, head butting and biting; this is an anything-goes-brawl and we are getting our collective asses handed to us.
Most of the people I personally know whom I admire are conservative. These are my friends, co-workers, family, mentors, people I coach little league with, people who dedicate their lives to charity, pillars of the community, etc... These are good, intelligent people. They are doctors, dentists, chiropractors, lawyers, teachers, small business owners, housewives, church leaders, directors in major corporations, firemen, police officers, and on and on. These are not stupid people and they are not mean people. These are my friends, the people I look up to and trust. These are people of influence... And every day, one of them sends me an e-mail or they post on facebook or tweet something that is an absolute lie about progressives.
It is almost always a forward of some kind but it usually comes with some personal commentary of disgust or anger or fear or something. I have given up on correcting them because it would take me thirty hours a day to refute it all and I come off looking like I am the bully calling out a friend on his facts. People do not really follow the snopes.com links you post to refute things anyways because it takes effort and they do not want to believe anyway. They would rather be angry about some make believe scandal. Right wing propaganda has not left it up to amateurs to create the bile in which they spew, they have highly talented professionals to do that for them. Who is the progressive equivilent to Frank Luntz? Who is the Democratic equivilent to Karl Rove? What is the liberal organization that balances ALEC? Who are the working man (and woman)'s benevolent billionaire backers like the Kock Brothers, Adleson's or Pete Peterson for that matter. Which mainstream media truly offsets Fox news? What Morning Joe on MSNBC?
I am not the person I used to be. I am an engineer with a respectable family in a small town and I like it that way. But I used to be a fighter. I used to bounce and bartend in some real tough, red neck bars and I have been in hundreds of altercations. I have been to jail for fighting, been fired for it more than once, I have had baseball bats (plural), knives and guns pulled on me, beer bottles, tables, pool balls and just about everything else thrown at me (including a full can of root beer that hit me square in the back of the head). I have fought multiple people at the same time, I have been jumped, sucker punched, spit on, bitten, a guy tried to gouge my eye out with his thumb and I can continue going on for a long time. I was lucky to have always came out on top in these fights though.
I can attribute three things to why I am still alive: For one, I was usually sober and they were usually drunk. Two I was too young and stupid to be afraid and finally, I was completely unrestrained by any sense of moral limitations. I did whatever I had to do to win because I am certain many of them would have killed me if they had the chance. I never had to use a weapon against any of these people but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't have if they would have ever gotten the upper hand. I did bite, squeeze testicles, head butt, sucker punch and most of all, I used intimidation and fear tactics against them. I never beat someone who was defenseless because I never saw the need. Once I removed the threat (whatever that threat may have been) I moved on. I knew people who got off on hurting people but I never did. It was almost like a sport to me.
Progressives are fighting for everything that is good in this coutry. We are fighting for basic human needs for the poor and the working class. We are fighting for the sense of security for our futures. We are fighting to re-build everything that is good about this country like education for our children, care for our elderly, reliable infastructure, a safe environment for ourselves and our future generations. We are fighting for fairness and justice and we are fighting for the truth. However, this is not some well regulated, olympic boxing match type of fight where there are rules and consequences for not following them. This is a bar room brawl where anything goes. I can promise you, in a bar fight, if your morals tell you that you cannot hit a guy with glasses, a guy with glasses is going to kick your ass. If you refuse to fight because fighting is barbaric then you best just stay away from the kinds of places I worked at. I have seen a girl come out of the bathroom holding her eyeball where she was attacked and kicked repeatedly in the face with cowboy boots while another girl held the door closed. That is the kind of place these ultra-right wing has brought this propaganda war to. It is not pretty. It is not how we would choose to be if we had a choice but alas, we do not. If we want to get our country back to something reasonable fair and just, we need to fight the way they do and quit whining that they do not fight fair.
The opposition has already established that they will not be fighting by the same rules we have established for ourselves so quit "Wishing" they would and resolve to either fight the fight you are in or give up and hide or run away or something. If you are in a mud slinging fight, you cannot expect to "not get dirty". I am sick of seeing one hundred succinct, deep cutting e-mails, facebook posts and tweets spouting off about progressives wanting to destroy this country for every one, usually dull, long winded, complicated accusation of Republican wrong doing. By complicated, I mean that if you are not familiar with politics or the definitions of words like socialism or civil rights then you probably would not understand the response.
Suggesting tea party enthusiasts, conservatives and Republicans as stupid, uneducated, racists hicks is the usual line of attack because there is an element of that in those parties but we have to go way beyond that if we are going to be successful. People see doctors and lawyers and professionals in these groups and their senses tell them that is not true and therefor the line of reasoning becomes ignored. We have to throw a lot more up against the wall than just that.
Why aren't there David Vitter photoshopped pictures showing him in a diaper with a prostitute being sent around everyday? Sure, they may be discovered as fraudulent but it will force the conversation to he really did wear diapers with prostitutes whether the pictures are real or not. Why do we not have fake e-mail conversations between Mark Sanford and his South American girlfriend suggesting that he illegally gave foreign aid to her country from the people of South Carolina's tax dollars. There is enough truth around that to at least force the media to cover the story and show the details of what really transpired. Why don't we show selectively edited videos of Cheny saying he knew that Iraq didn't have WMDs but wanted to go in for the OIL (Operation Iraqi Liberation). The rightwing has done similar things like those to progressives numerous times and yet we are above that kind of tactic. Bullies love to fight people they know will not fight back and the 1% are kicking our asses in the propaganda war because we simply do not fight back (at least not effectively).
I am tired of seeing the onslaught of 1% propaganda. I am tired of progressives always being on the defensive. By the time we try to defend ourselves from the latest accusation, they have already moved on to a dozen more accusations for us to try to defend. I want to go on the offensive. I want to fight back. I am sick (and tired) of allowing them to establish the narrative. I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!