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JANUARY 3, 2003 – They are like
drones, programmable puppets.
"Bush haters." "Hate bush." "So
angry." One by one they echo back the latest Limbaugh lines
they've been fed.
For a party that has come to power by spewing hate
and preaching anger, the Bush/Limbaugh Republicans are now
frustrated and lost as the other side has begun copying
them.
Day in day out, from coast to coast, completely
dominating the airwaves 24 hours a day, the Bush/Limbaughians came
to power by saying things like, "Democrats like people who sleep
with little boys," (Michael Savage) and, "Only the schmucks died in Auschwitz," (Morey) and
doing things like hanging up on a caller who is giving an argument
that shows they are wrong and then calling the person they hung up
on, "an idiot." (Larry Elder)
This is all day, every day. The hate, the
name calling, the constant personal attacks. And it is
President Bush who is responsible for it. He embraced Rush
Limbaugh from the beginning, he, Cheney, and his administration
appeared and appear on these right-wing shows, and indeed his
administration and spokespeople have been at least as
mannerless, mean, and personally attacking and insulting as their
counterparts in the media. If there were two words that most
fully describe the Bush administration they are mean and
mannerless.
And now they accuse the Democrats of being too
angry, of hating.
The Bush/Limbaugh Republicans came to power by
doing two things: 1) Smearing on a personal level anyone who
doesn't march lockstep with them, and; 2) Silencing the
opposition.
All of this was done quite simply through
grade-school level bullying. Consciously lying with that
trademark FOX News smirk on their faces, shouting over and
interrupting the opposition, and personally, hatefully,
name-callingly attacking anyone who says something they don't
like.
But, as we all know, there is nothing a bully
likes less than for someone to stand up to them. It ruins the
fun of their game. And always their first reaction when
someone gets upset with them is to react ferociously and try to
intimidate them away from taking action by making fun of them for
being so angry and upset. That is a standard staple of the
bully's game. You know the taunt, "Look how angry he is, his
face is turning red. You gonna call your mother? Look, I
think he's gonna cry."
In reality, any good American confronted with
lying, name-calling bullying that is being used to undermine all
basic American institutions and values should be furious. And
they should despise the scum that partakes of it.
President Bush is calling - even if he uses his
talk show hosts to do it - anyone who doesn't exactly agree with him
a pedophile lover, idiot, and pussy. That should make anyone
with a sense of decency and moral values furious.
The Bush/Limbaughians are stifling debate by,
without exception, talking over, cutting off, using evasive,
addict-abuser type response games, and running one-sided talk
program after one-sided talk program. There is nothing more
American than free and fair debate, and the Bush/Limbaughian's goal
is to put an end to it. Anyone who would tolerate that all out
assault on American values is unpatriotic.
And all those who participate are clearly cowards
of the highest degree - as all bullies are. They fear hearing
another side of things, and are so impotent they need Limbaugh and
Hannity and Bush's lying talking points to give them something they
can use to make themselves feel tough.
"Bush haters" is a phrase they echo now every time
you talk with them, while up until a month ago not a single one of
them ever used this phrase. Nothing is clearer than that these
are a bunch of mindless, order-taking imbeciles just waiting for
Daddy Gillespe or Papa Limbaugh or Master Bush to program their
brains and give them the line of the month - certainly because they
know if they open their mouths to speak for themselves they will
only show an embarrassing lack of knowledge and
intelligence.
No good American can or would stand for any of
these things. It is not about your perspective on Iraq, it is
not about what you think about tax cuts or Medicare. Quite
simply, it is about basic decency, morality, and American
values. President Bush and his supporters are an affront to
all that is good, all that our nation was founded upon, and the
basic notions of courage and fairness that are central to
democracy.
We all know this. Nothing is clearer than
the meanness, hostility, and debate-squelching argument tactics that
President Bush, Rush Limbaugh, and FOX News use daily. And it
is equally clear that the problem is not that the Democrats are too
angry, it is that they are not angry enough to yet take
action.
They are being called pedophile lovers, they don't
respond. They get called idiots, they let that go. And
one by one they march onto FOX New Sunday. And so they help
expand FOX News' audience, and as they do, more and more you see FOX
News being played in public, be it at airports, department stores,
or restaurants.
The Democratic Party should have ordered a
complete boycott by its members of FOX News. They should in
unison stop participating in the FAUX FOX debates. They should
deride the station's overt bias publicly and often - it is their
duty to inform good Americans of what this right-wing propaganda
station is up to.
It is their duty to call out President Bush's
support of Rush Limbaugh's hate and lying propaganda, and Michael
Savage, Sean Hannity. Simply, they should confront the
President with a laundry list of the hateful, lying comments and
challenge him to rebuke each right-wing commentator one by
one.
It is their duty to rebut the lie lines that are
echoed endlessly even now by the mainstream media. Why did it
take two decades for anyone to rebut the right-wing lie that the
Democrats created the deficits of the 1980's by being big spenders,
and even then it was only a comedian, Al Franken, and not anyone
within the party?
Day after day - literally, all day every day all
over the country - the Democrats are being talked over, hung-up on,
called names, subject to addict/abuser diversionary games.
This is a moral outrage of the highest order, and this is even
before you start to look at the policies which this bullying is
being used to support, which are looting the nation's coffers and
undermining decency and basic American values.
So while throughout the non-Moderate Independent
press you will hear about how the Democrats are too angry, or that
the problem is that they "hate Bush," it is clear to us at M/I that
the problem is that good Americans are not angry enough and that
anyone who doesn't hate him is unpatriotic, cowardly, and has no
concern for basic decency and American values.
And make no mistake, Bush supporters know
this. They know that they and the President lie,
regularly. They know that they preach and embrace hate.
They know they throw personal insults. And they know they lie
and pretend they don't know they are doing these things. And
it all gives them great amusement and joy.
I know a number of Bush supporters, and
universally they are dishonest and proud of it. Universally
they mock decency, though when in public they claim piety.
They are well aware that they are claiming the high road while
taking the low road. And they love it - it makes them very
happy. They think it is funny, they think it is cool.
Make no mistake, the entire pin that holds the Bush/Limbaugh machine
together is silence and subservience on the part of good Americans -
in other words, letting them get away with claiming the high road
while taking the low road.
The key constituency that allowed the ultra-right
wing to come to power within the Republican party was suburban
Southern women. These women only support the President as long
as the lies are kept in tact as they find overt racism tacky and
uncharming.
And in fact the entire base of support for
President Bush is held together by David Dukitis. As David
Duke, former head of the Klu Klux Klan, learned when he decided to
run for Governor of Louisiana, all you need to give would-be
supporters is plausible deniability. That is, instead of
saying, "Yes, I am a racist," and wearing a sheet - which gives your
supporters no cover - you simply remain a racist but put on a nice
suit, get a face peel, and say, "I am against racism."
I have not, at any point, met a Bush supporter who
isn't aware that the President lies - though they deny it just to
frustrate you and maintain their cover if you have a debate in
public. But there is not a single Bush supporter - not one -
who doesn't know that he lies, who doesn't know that he's mean,
amoral, mannerless, and hostile. They all know these things
and they embrace them. And most of them only do so because
they are being given plausible deniability by FOX News, Rush
Limbaugh - and the Democrats who march onto FOX News rather than
calling it out.
They know that Republican National Committee
Chariman Ed Gillespe will feed them the lie lines that allow them to
maintain their public cover, to turn the argument against the other
side (i.e. making Democratic anger at the lying the issue, not the
lying itself,) and that the media will get their back and play the
central role in maintaining their cover.
The key to Bush's support has nothing to do with
Iraq, the economy, the War on Terror. Most Americans really
don't pay attention to the details of policy and don't believe
things will go so well or so badly no matter which side runs
things. You see with President Bush in power that we can have
recession, massive unemployment, constant war and American deaths,
and it doesn't bother them.
There are only two reasons that President Bush has
the support he does: 1) because he allows his supporters
the pleasure of being bad while having a public front of being good,
and 2) because the Democrats let the plausible deniability continue
to exist unchallenged.
Some Democrats have started to fight back
somewhat, and that is why the bullying Bush/Limbaughians are
starting to attack with, "Oh, look at how angry he is," "My my,
they're such angry people." But still the problem is not in
any way shape or form that the Democrats are too angry. It is
that they are not really angry enough yet to resolve to do something
about it. Still, they are anger without action. And a
bully loves nothing more than someone they can make red in the face
but who will not stand up to them with action.
The Democrats should be furious.
Morality-having Republicans should be furious. Any decent
American should be furious. And that fury should be directed
with a mighty fist right into the face of each and every one of the
bullies each and every time they bully.
Next Democrat or morality-having Republican who
goes on FOX News - and doesn't deride the station while there -
should resign from politics for good, as they are not men of
action.
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