Drive-by thought

[veronica_rich]

One of the joys of being a journalist is the press releases I get in my e-mail. /sarcasm

Today I received one from a right-wing Teabagger-type group that I frequently get things from. Their sole purpose in life seems to be decrying anything that's not right-wing for the sake of it not being conservative enough. (Seriously, I've seen them get on Obama's ass for things he's done that conservatives have lobbied for in the not-too-distant-past. It's sort of fascinating.) It's calling on editorial writers to condemn the media's politicization of Rep. Giffords's shooting on Saturday - you know, the ones who have speculated whether the shooter could've been influenced by the violent, base, emotional, nasty rhetoric of the right-wingers?

I'll be glad to do this. At the same time, I'm going to denounce the politicization of religion. I think all references to it in politics and lawmaking should be banished and condemned from consideration, argument, persuasion, and influence. We've restricted individual rights in the name of religion, marched off to war in the name of religion (and persecuted those who disagreed with that action, also in the name of religion), torn down fellow Americans in the name of religion, refused to listen to the wisdom of older countries with more experience because they didn't share our religion, voted based on religion, appointed to positions of power based on religious affiliation and influence, and looked the other way on prosecuting religious leaders of truly despicable acts of child molestation (male and female) in the name of religious "forgiveness" and legal protections under right of religion.

Whatcha think, Teabaggers? Fair trade?

Comments

[joey112.livejournal.com]

word

[placeofinsanity.livejournal.com]

I'm not a...I can't even say that word without laughing, teabagger - but I did grow up in a republican family...in Massachusetts which is a democratic state. I get a lot of shit for what I believe in, I'm not Obama's biggest fan and I really wish that John McCain hadn't picked Palin as a primary VP because seriously, dude, no thank you. In 2012, if Obama runs again and its against Palin, I'm not voting, I'm moving to freakin' England.

However, I find myself at odds a lot of the time because of my Republican upbringing and my liberal friends/life. So from there, I can only say that people are stupid and my ability to care about politics is waning. Siigh.

[bonnie-halfelvn.livejournal.com]

I used to be a "ditto-head." Now I'm a Democrat in a Republican family and a conservative district.

Welcome to the club.

But your head might explode if you move to Socialist freakin' England. ;)

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

My mother spent the bulk of her life as an old-school Republican. It took her many years to accept that the GOP ideal had changed from the 1950s, when she was a kid, in the half-century that followed.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It's true, not everybody can get excited about politics, and a lot of us only get excited every once in a while because it's not good for our blood pressure. I remember in my own lifetime, political discussions and debate being a lot more civilized - the kinds of things I see on serious news shows and debate forums now are the sorts of things I would've only expected in a "Spitting Image" or "D.C. Follies"-type parody show in the 1980s, for example.

[bonnie-halfelvn.livejournal.com]

Works for me.

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

You know what gets me is the utter hypocrisy. Words matter when they are trying to get votes, smearing their opponents, and lying about their records (I'm looking at you, Joe Miller(, and yet when their words come back to haunt them, they refuse to own up, refuse to take responsibility for their irresponsible utterings. You use graphics that depict a rifle sight to "target" political opponents, then own up to your own misguided and irresponsible shit. You tell people who donate to your PAC that it's time to RELOAD (no way to misinterpret that little verbal gem), then OWN FUCKING UP to your stupidity and apologize. Oh, and Bill O'Reilly, how do you sleep at night, man? You hound Tiller for months, make veiled statements on your national television show about how someone should take out this abortion doctor, and lo and behold, someone does.

People need to take responsibility for what they say. They sure don't mind owning up to what they say when it gets them positive media coverage and votes. It works BOTH WAYS, assholes.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

Rhetoric is rarely appreciated for its impact in its own time; only in hindsight. I used to grind my teeth at the diplomatic verbal runaround politicians did before we had Dubya and Cheney, who didn't give two shits about how they phrased things, and then it became more clear the value of that "bland" diplomacy most politicians normally use. Likewise, all the references to violence spewed by politicians and pundits in the past few years don't seem literal until someone who is clearly unbalanced DOES it.

The importance of words by and for the general public has been downplayed to such degree for years, as though they have no meaning. (I'm not talking about the hyper-PC crowd, which takes things in the extreme opposite direction.) I'm not sure this is going to have much impact on making words important again, though ...

[pir8fancier.livejournal.com]

I'm just going to throw this out there. If some radical left-wing PAC had put up a webpage with a photograph of the Palin family with a bunch of gunsights over their faces, and then some unbalanced person who owned a bunch of guns felt that the radical right was threatening his/her existance and then hunted down a member of the Palin family and shot one of her kids, I bet she would believe that this irresponsible, violence-metaphor had a lot to do with it. OWN UP!

I agree with you about the religion. This is when I'm sad I didn't go to law school because we need to keep the re-separate church and state. The lines have become unacceptedly blurry.

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

No, if you'd gone to law school and tried to fight for re-separation, you'd just give yourself a heart attack beating your head against the wall of the pseudo-Christianity that permeates and dominates our society. And yes, it IS fake Christianity - the brand that the rich and highly conservative bears no resemblance to what Christ is recorded to have actually taught. I wish more high-profile types would point this out, actually.