The black socialist commie Nazi Terrorist did it!

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Did anyone punch anyone? Was there any actual blood? I think I might've missed it.Did Pelosi kick John Boehner in the testicles and then run away laughing before a screeching Virginia Foxx grabbed her by the hair, pulled her to the floor and punched her in the kidneys?
Did just about everyone on the House floor bitch-slap Bart Stupak -- who should right now vanish of the face of the earth forevermore, you simpering mealworm -- while Rahm Emmanuel head-butted Harry Reid, even as both burned a sneering Newt Gingrich doll in effigy? I might've been dreaming.

Did Obama finally strut in like a prize-fighter, like a Muay Thai boxer, bruised and exhausted after a solid year of this insane, polarizing BS, the viciousness of which even he never imagined? Did he deliver a dazzling barrage of calm, swift kicks to the heads of bitchy Repubs and nervous Dems alike, as everything devolved into a violent, smoke-filled melee of broken glass and shattered dentures, with little Joe Lieberman whimpering in the corner, rocking back and forth, wondering whatever happened to his integrity?
I don't think any of that happened. It sure felt like it happened. Maybe it should have happened. But I guess it didn't.
Behold, with the astonishing passage of flawed-but-incredible health care reform, we have the concomitant, frightening realization that this remains one of the most acidic, bitter, hopelessly divisive times to live in America and care a whit for national politics while maintaining a shred of morality, hope, a progressive soul.

Like millions, I was fairly convinced it simply could not get much worse or more acrimonious than when Dubya ran the nation into the ground, embarrassing and humiliating us planetwide a thousand times over as the rogue idiot pseudo-cowboy laughingstock war-hungry prick of the civilized world. I was wrong. But not in the way I imagined.
As Paul Krugman rightly points out, most Dems in the HCR fight reluctantly took their cues from Obama himself; they were inspired and urged to move from a place of genuinely trying to do what's right, a rather simple moral good for the nation, even at the expense of their own careers, all led by Obama's genuine ideal that basic health care is a national right, not a privilege.

In short, despite all their whining and infighting, the left wasn't pushing HCR because they wanted to stick it to the GOP. They weren't pushing it because they wanted to personally profit from various corporate cronies, though I'm sure some certainly will. They weren't pushing it due to multiple personal agendas. It was an authentic, at least somewhat egalitarian push to advance a basic ideal of the nation. Well, mostly. Which, in politics, is about as good as it gets.
The Republicans, on the other hand, were pure venom. Theirs was a systematic fearmongering, a nonstop bombardment of misguidings and untruths, an acid bath of panic overlaid with a fine sheen of racism and rage. This is turning out to be easily the nastiest, meanest GOP organization in ages, the house that Karl Rove built, a group shaming their own party's once-noble legacy. Even Reagan, who claimed Medicare would destroy the country, would be stunned at this gang's level of savagery.
Common wisdom now holds that while Obama finally succeeded in a truly historic, once-impossible vote, he has failed in his promise to be the uniter president, the community organizer of our liberal dreams, the guy who could somehow mend or at least bridge the hemorrhaging rift, not merely between the two parties, but also the two sides of American culture. This rift is defined hereby as the gulf between people with extant intelligence and subtle understanding of ideas, and the Sarah Palin-grade paranoids who don't quite understand what the hell they're raging about, but nevertheless do so with much clenched passion, fake tears, guns and a whole garage full of stockpiled bullets.

This is, to me, perhaps the saddest outcome of the insane health care fight. Not even Obama, the most intelligent, calm and experienced bringer-together president we could possibly hope for, was able to make a dent in the great wall. In fact, all evidence indicates he's even more polarizing, the absolute reverse of dumb-guy Bush who so violently repelled the intelligent and the informed. Obama is doing the opposite: the paranoids are so scared by the guy's untouchable force field of smarts and self-assurance, they're coagulating into little clusters, foamy little pools of resistance and anti-gummint hate.
Verily, health care reform will go down in history for many things -- Catholic nuns kicking ass, Ted Kennedy not having to roll in his grave, Democrats actually vaguely unifying -- but few are as amusing as the creation of the silliest political movement in recent American history, the Tea Party, a group barely cognizant of what it even stands for, with zero grasp of the history it's named after, who nevertheless will doubtlessly grab every tax benefit, housing subsidy, COBRA extension, Restoration Act moneys and (now) health care benefit that evil socialist Obama hands to them and their sniveling home states, even as they spit tobacco juice in his face. Adorable.

Perhaps the saddest idea of all, however, is the general lament I've heard repeated countless times on the left, this sense that if Obama can't do it, if this astonishingly calm and assured, rock solid, deeply reasonable president can't bridge the divide or at least hack through some of that barbed wire, we are, if not completely doomed, then certainly stuck deep in a sociocultural abyss no one has a clue how to navigate.

Eventually, something will have to give. Much like Wal-Mart pretending to care about going "green" because it realizes it can make/save lots of money, or Exxon pretending it gives a damn about the environment because it's a good PR move, perhaps the only way to force a change upon modern politicians it is to somehow incentivize it, to make it in both parties' best interests to shut the hell up and work together, lest we corral all of them into the street with pitchforks and fire, and run them off a cliff.
I have no idea how this can be done, what magic levers might be pulled or what miraculous tactical maneuver from Obama could possibly make both sides come to terms with the hateful chasm separating them -- and by extension, us. The environment? Education? High-fructose corn syrup? Wall Street? Colonizing deep space? No one knows.
One thing do we know for sure: As stunned, bedazzled and burned by the HCR fight as Americans feel right now, that's nothing compared to how we would respond when presented with some dramatic, exciting step forward that both parties were able to agree upon via passionate, articulate, thoughtful discussion and debate. True compassion, honesty, and heart? In thiscongress? Now that's impossible.

---

Mark Morford's latest book, 'The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism,' is available at Amazon, BN.com, and beyond.

Join Mark on Facebook and Twitter, or email him. His website is markmorford.com.
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Tea party - How Bad is it for America - Well First learn to speak the language..

The death threats keep coming this fine morning.  I guess the Tea Party crew is determined to have “death panels” one way or another.  The dustup started because of this cartoon:

 
“Learn to Speak Tea Bag” ran on my usual client sites, including NPR, which really set off the guys over here, here (note Condi giving child flowers down by "donate" button), here, here and here.  Before you could say, “due to a pre-existing condition, your health coverage has been denied,” there was a full-fledged viral campaign by right-wing media outlets and blogs to jump, scream and shout about this animation.  Which, to me, is just great!

I say that not because I get some thrill out of receiving emails that are in all capital letters or have more exclamation points than letters in the alphabet, I say that because one of the most important functions of a political cartoon, or political animation, is to foster a discussion.  With thousands of comments posted, loads of emails and tweets, discussion was definitely fostered, and then some.  It’s the “then some” that worries me.

Of course discussion on the web is not known for its civility, but it finally dawned on me the strangeness of receiving death threats at the same time a crazed Somali extremist tried to kill cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Muslim extremist, meet Tea Party extremist.  Tea Party extremist, meet Muslim extremist.

That is not to say all people who associate with the Tea Party movement are killers, just as not all Muslims from Somalia are killers.  I have very good friends from Somalia, and I have wonderful relatives in Idaho who are pro-gun, anti-government conservatives. 

People in this world, my dear Tea Baggers, are not always categorized into easy boxes of Left vs. Right, Socialist vs. Patriot. 

As a matter of fact, I myself am a left-leaning, pro-gay-marriage San Franciscan, Catholic, anti-Bush, anti-Nader guy who guts his own fish, has cut down trees with a chain saw and took political science classes with Mary Cheney.  Is your head imploding yet?

Surprisingly, one of the aspects of the animation that seems to really enrage the Tea Party set is the term “Tea Bag.”  Their claim is that the cartoon uses “bag” instead of “party” in order to take a cheap sexual shot at the Tea Party patriots. You can do your own research on the alternative meaning of “tea bag,” I won’t link to anything here.  Oh, except maybe I should link to some Tea Whatever sites that use the very term that appalls them so.  Here a bag, there a bag, everywhere a bag bag!  (Too bad the sexual angle eliminates any discussion of why the Tea Party crew thinks attempting to reform a disastrous health care system amounts to Socialism, Fascism, Nazism, etc.)

Another aspect of the rabid criticism is that NPR, an organization living high on the hog thanks to the mother’s milk of government (animal metaphors, all around!), should not be funding my anti-Tea Bagger cartoons with taxpayer money.  But alas, NPR does most of its villainous work using sponsorship, pledge drives and good ol’ fashioned Capitalism!  According to the NPR site, a tiny one to two percent of their yearly funding comes via grants from crazed Socialist organizations like the National Science Foundation, CPB and (gasp!) the NEA.  After all is said and done, the amount of taxpayer money that changed hands because NPR posted “Learn to Speak Tea Bag” was about, um . . . two-dollars and twenty-five cents.  If you want to dig deeper into NPR’s financial statements, they are publicly available here.

If that sort of taxpayer funding bothers you, you definitely should avoid any taxpayer-funded city streets, return your government-sponsored digital converter box and avoid doing business with any bank that owes its existence to a taxpayer bailout.

To all of you who have written emails and comments, I really wish I could respond to every one of you.  I truly appreciate your taking the time to write, even if we may be on different sides of the political fence.  If there is one thing that my politically mixed San Francisco/Idaho background has taught me, it is benefit of continuing a discussion even if you don’t agree.  Too often these days, the Left and the Right immediately shut down if you are deemed to be from the opposing camp.  Here’s to good discussion even if we don’t agree.

Now please don’t kill me :-)

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