The Reality

Here’s why we can’t have nice things:

Obama isn’t a liberal. And he isn’t a fighter.

In November of 2008, the country voted for things that the Conservative Governing Majority* hate. (The CGM is loosely defined as all of the GOP, many Democrats, and most political media institutions.)

During a year of campaigning for President, the national political dialogue made it clear that if Obama won he would do many wonderful and/or dasdardly things. The shopping list was drilled into our heads:

And apparently we voted overwhelmingly for universal healthcare reform, we voted to end the war in Iraq, we voted to tax the rich, we voted to stop gaybashing bills like DADT, and on, etc.

Those things will never come… without a fight.

Why? Because there is too much profit being made by Corporations and the Senators they have purchased in our current system of Corporate Feudalism. To achieve the shopping list items meant fighting against the will of the Conservative Governing Majority.

Obama is not a liberal and he is not a fighter.

That is why we can’t have nice things.

Here is the really tragic part: George Bush’s destruction of the Republican Party brand, and his exposure of Conservative Ideology – fiscal, foreign, and domestic – as an absurd sham, truly opened the door for a New New Deal. One that could revitalize American society much in the same way that FDR had done after Hoover, 80 years ago.

“When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters-one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.” – JFK

This grand opportunity is being squandered by Obama. He is becoming Jimmy Carter every day. I sometimes think this is more depressing to watch than the eight interminable years of Bush.

One hundred years ago, conservatives argued against my grandparents getting married on the grounds that they were from different religions. The conservatives quoted the ancient Bible and rested their case on a 3,459 year old essay: “Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them; you shall not give your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters for your sons.”

Thankfully, my grandparents’ love won the fight.

Forty-two years ago, conservatives argued against some people in my parent’s generation getting married on the grounds that the couple in love were from different races. The conservatives again quoted the ancient Bible in legal court opinions:

“Almighty God created the races, white, black, yellow, Malay, and red and placed them on separate continents, and but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend the races to mix.” - Judge Bazile, Caroline County, VA, 1965.

Thankfully, Mildred and Richard Loving won the fight. I didn’t marry a white person and nobody gave us guff.

Today, conservatives argue against some people in my generation getting married on the grounds that the couple in love is from the same sex. The conservatives quote the same tired fire and brimstone from the ancient Bible: “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” Bill O’Reilly said.

I don’t doubt that we will win our fight soon. But I’m just so goddamned tired of fighting the same fight over and over again against the same conservative forces. Will this country never grow up?

UPDATE:
Dear Bill O’Reilly,

You say, “Will it end with a box turtle?” If the turtle pays $36, takes a blood test, is a legal resident of the state, has a legal birth certificate, a social security number, is over 18 years of age, found to be of sound mind, and signs his name with black ink on a civil marriage certificate before the county clerk’s officer and a witness… then, well, yes.

Kisses,
Fred

The LA Times reports that Stephen Colbert is “thrilled” to hear a majority of conservatives don’t know that he’s making fun of them. A recent Ohio State University study confirmed what I long suspected. But that’s only half the story. The second part of this story is an example of how stupid our media is.

Rebecca Ascher-Walsh writes in The LA Times:

Perhaps his most public gaffe was his 2006 performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, where a stunned audience listened to him reel off lines about then-President Bush such as, “Events can change; this man’s beliefs never will.”

Gaffe?

That wasn’t a gaffe! It was on purpose, lady. It was indescribably brave. That wasn’t a gaffe, that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen on Television in my entire life.

Colbert mocked George Bush and the assembled media to their faces. That neither butt of his joke laughed at themselves or each other doesn’t make it a gaffe, it only makes it better.

When Colbert delivered his well-crafted monologue of vicious, bitter mockery, directly to the objects of his scorn, his fans cheered for him. There’s three possibilities for this writer’s use of the word ‘gaffe.’

1. She doesn’t know what a gaffe is.
NOTE: (A gaffe is when Sarah Palin mixes up DesMoines and Davenport Iowa, calling one the other. OTOH, it’s not a gaffe when Sarah Palin doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is — that’s called stupidity.)

2. The LATimes editors are still peeved about Colbert’s mockery, and so as to delegitimize the truth of Colbert’s attack, they dismiss his monologue as some sort of near-miss performance.

3. The writer just might be as confused about Colbert as the subjects of the Ohio State University study, because nobody who actually understands Colbert’s act can possibly think this this is a gaffe:
Stephen Colbert at White House Correspondents Dinner