I was listening to "Savage Nation" last night (my husband forces me to! I swear he just likes to see me angry at someone other than himself.) I was astonished (rather than appalled) to hear what Mr Savage and his callers had to say about current political events.
You might also be astonished to hear that - wait for it - I agreed with some of what he had to say. I'll wait for a moment while you clean your beverage off the computer screen.
All done? Great.
Both Michael Savage and his callers began expressing dismay at the corruption of our government on all levels, and including both parties. The other amazing sentiment expressed was a certain level of impatience and frustration at our administration's obsession with Iraq, while domestic problems are ransacking our country.
Granted, we agree on principle, but not on causality. The prevalent domestic issues on the minds of most progressives include health care, energy independence, comprehensive gun laws, first amendment issues, ecology, education etc...
The main issue of contention on his show however, also included first amendment restrictions - only with a highly racist and bigoted twist - and border control rather than immigration reform. He said "Border Fence" so many times that I've taken it upon myself to randomly blurt out "Border Fence!!" in everyday conversation.
The point of the story however, is that it seems there is a political shift occurring, although for different reasons, that puts Americans who were at political odds in the same boat.
We're all unhappy, disenfranchised, and feeling the effects of a disingenuous government. Finally it seems, (almost) everyone understands where the blame needs to be placed.
Too bad it happened so late in the game. (Border Fence!!)
1.04.2008
Opposite Sides of The Same Coin
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7 comments:
Anok
I find myself agreeing often with true conservatives. They are peeved at the perversion of their party too. We are all sick of the underhanded crap and it occurs on both sides, I don't care who does it I just want to see the right thing done for the sake of doing the right thing! Put the right of the country first!
It takes true love to survive been subjected to such torture. Michael "Weiner" Savage! The inhumanity!
Cheers!
It's amazing what not being fucked by Allan Ginsberg will do for a person.
I'm so sorry you have been subjected to the tirades of Savage and his neocon listeners.
However it sounds like more people are sick of what has happened to this country, in both parties.
The so called 'conservatives', NeoCons, and Republicans see their power slipping away and as such they will change their meme.
In the 90's they were all about freedom, liberty, State's Right's etc. We had the Okalhoma city bombing, Ruby Ridge, and Wako. They were pissed at Clinton and Janet Reno.
In came Bush, stripped them of their rights, spied on them, read their emails, tapped their phones, and all they could say is "if you gots nothing to hide then you gots nothing to fear you stoopid libruls".
Well, now they see all their power slipping away. As such, they are finally waking up and realizing, it's no longer going to be Bush reading their emails and listening t their phone calls without a warrant, it's going to be Hillary or Obama..
So they're freaking out. All of a sudden they are all about freedom and liberty again.
They conveniently turned a blind eye to all the corruption that took place on the Republican's watch when they controled Congress and under Bush's watch. $13 Billion missing in Iraq? Who cares! Still haven't caught Bin Laden? So what! Dumping billions into Pakistan with nothing to show for it? Big deal!
But now that Democrats are on the verge of taking total control of the government ofcourse they are once again concerned about corruption, freedom, and liberty. Of course now they are concerned with deficit spending and the national debt.
They turned a blind eye to Bush piling trillions on to the nationa debt and pushing us into deficit spending after he inherited a surplus. They fully supported the borrow and spend mentality of the Republicans.
Now with Democrats in charge their argument will be all about those damned tax and spend libruls and the need for fiscal discipline.
When Bush grew the government to its largest sive ever with the behemoth waste of money known as the Department of Homeland security, Limbaugh and Savage yawned...who cares?
But now that there is talk about National Healthcare, oh god! We can't have these behemoth government nanny state programs!
I don't believe their tripe for a second. It's the politics of convenience. All they care about is having power. Now that their power is slipping away they will say and do anything to work toward getting it back again. What ever plays to their supporters they will say. They are pandering to the rampent discontent Americans feel right now in this country on both sides.
But again, all the conservative talkers conveneintly ignored and even bragged about all of Bush's failed policies but he was their guy. They had power. Bus routinely met with Conservative radio hosts and right wing bloggers. They could care less that what Bush was doing was diametrically oppposed to their own ideologies. They are sycophants who sold themselves out just so they could stand in the shadow of Bush.
I can't remember who said it (Lenin, Trotsky, or some other old beard), but they noted "nationalism is the outer shell of an immature bolshevism". Maybe that's a bit optimistic, but it does indicate people are looking for radical answers. The problem is those ideas they turn to first, especially if they themselves are not particularly rooted in community life, are often reactionary and offbeam. But it need not be this way ..
Thanks for all the great comments guys! Polishifter, A Public Sociologist, you are both right on. True words - unfortunately in some ways.
Rafael, RickB, Larry, thanks for the laugh! Its true, it takes ions of love to endure such bigoted drivel on a regular basis. Sometimes though it is entertaining. Other times things they say inspire me to look into issues, or just to keep writing.
Jim, I know what you mean. In my meanderings with Anarchism I find that some of the "conservative" values creep up in my own philosophy - things like personal responsibility and fiscal responsibility. Of course, its with a different twist ;)
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