Sleeping Giant Kind Of Awakened, Hits Snooze Button

This just in: 60,000 to 70,000 gazillion billion Tea Party patriots descended on Washington D.C. today to 9/12 it up in style. Tree of liberty, etc., etc. Just sayin’, libs.

 

Comments: 80

 
 
 

Just as a matter of interest, how many turned up in DC for the anti-Iraq war protests? How many across the country? The world? And how much media attention did that get?

Honestly, the way the media seems to have been slavering over the tea partiers, somebody must be providing a constant stream of drugs for ’em.

 
 

An entire weekend of teabagging? Consult a physician if you experiene chafing, redness, or chapped lips.

 
 

Undress my teabags, libs!

 
 

“We are all Joe Wilson.”

No. Not at all, you fucking racists.

 
 

Obama will probably wonder why he bothers , I know it is a bit of wonder for me .
The caution of employing care could never be more aptly applied than for what these poor folks ever so vaguely wish .
Be it ever so vague there is no place like the one they imagine

 
 

We are all Paul Blart.

 
 

The Tree of Liberty must occasionally be watered by pissed nimrods taking a whizz.

 
 

That report is a lie. In actual fact, every single American in the world– even the ones living overseas– is at the protests. Including myself, as I type this.

 
 

The best part, of course, is the FreedomWorks chief jerk saying ABC News had said there were 1.5 to 2 MILLION people there, which ABC promptly denied ever saying, & the FW spokesman saying “I dunno why the boss said that.”

And then the droolers (The serious droolers, Malkin, Instaninny, Roger L. Simon “Oh, I didn’t think this would work, I was wrong”.) picked up a headline from The Daily Mail that said 2 MILLION & ran w/ it. Yes, they are so stupid they are off by powers of ten.

Have several screencaps of it all, but am entirely too lazy to write it up; surely someone else will notice.

[All quotes are paraphrases, if you don’t know. Hate to be called for inaccuracy by a troll.]

 
 

Did the sleeping giant have his gloves on, or off, when he hit the snooze button?

 
 

A sleeping giant? But where’s the PENIS? IS THAT WHAT THAT OBELISK IS? A morning woodie?
Enquiring foreigners want to know.

 
 

Oh for heavens’s sake, you libs! I think we all know that Rahm Emmanuel had them take all the trash cans away so it would look like that!

 
 

If Rahm took them away it’s because tax haters shouldn’t use tax funded trash cans or rely on tax funded trash pick up.

They should have brought their own lawns to sit on, too; the ones they left at home with all the yellow pee stains on them.

 
 

Crap.

What a bunch of twits.

It’s things like this that make me almost surrender to my sort-of-libertarian friend’s point of, “What. These are the people you want to have national health care? These are the people you would keep corporations from preying on? These are the people you don’t think should be shipped overseas as cannon fodder as soon as they complete puberty? Fuck. Why?” I mean, he has a point.

Alas, my views are less altruistic than that, and what I really want is national health care for me, protection from rapacious capitalistas for me, and to not have to pay for some schmuck’s mommy issues by shoveling half and more of the country’s tax revenues straight into pointless foreign wars, and straight into the pockets of the industries that love them, killing untold numbers of innocents along the way.

He does have a fucking point, though.

 
 

Good grief, fellow Marxists/liberal fascists/progressives/communists/lefties!

Don’t you remember how we ended the war in Iraq? It was by marching on Washington DC on September 24, 2005!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_24,_2005_anti-war_protest

Organizers claim that around 250,000 people attended the demonstration. Police said that 150,000 was “as good a guess as any”. C-SPAN, which broadcast the pre-march speeches, is said to have estimated 500,000.

When more than a hundred thousand people show up in the Mall–the people who were elected . . . arrange to be out of town, mostly. And don’t lose much sleep if that fraction of the population disagrees with their positions.

I know that showing up for that march allowed me to live with myself. But it didn’t do anything to change Bush administration policy that determined military actions in Iraq.

Here’s hoping the Tea Baggers can tolerate such frustration as well as the liberals. We didn’t shoot anybody or blow anybody up. May the Tea Baggers exhibit similar tolerance and patience.

 
 

“He does have a fucking point, though.”

…ew.

 
 

…ew.

Hey, you try being married to a pencil sharpener for umpteen years.

 
 

Ayn Rand was one of those great thinkers who was torn between marriage counseling and narcissm . Luckily for the world she chose one dimensional fantasy .

 
 

Oh yea? Well, I opened up a worm hole to another dimension, and a googlebazillion tea baggers walked thru all goatsed up.

 
 

Kaus files been mickied with again ?

 
 

I have to go with the majority opinion here that they ought to be left to the tender mercies of the free market. Maybe we could just give them a state we’re not using, like Alabama, and let Glen Beck run it.

 
 

When you start of with assumptions that haven’t the slightest connection with reality, sometimes people respond by asking “what colour is the sky in your world?”. It’s an idiom, a figure of speech, a way of saying that the bases for your beliefs could only be true in some alternate parallel dimension.

Trust these wingnut whackaloos to take that away from us as well. Check out BM Matt’s Update.

 
 

I’m kind of amazed at how they mutated the Gadsden flag into the SLA.

 
 

The trash left their trash behind.

The tree of liberty must be watered with the blood of empty Coke cans and greasy Big Mac wrappers.

 
 

That report is a lie. In actual fact, every single American in the world– even the ones living overseas– is at the protests.

IN MY PANTS.

 
What's My Nym, Kitsch?
 

Do stories featuring a sleeping giant ever end well for the giant? The Cyclops episode of the Odyssey and “Jack and the Beanstock” come to mind.

 
 

“We are all Joe Wilson.”

With a name like that, you’d think that the gentlaman from South Carolina would be more circumspect about calling the President a liar.

 
 

Speculation is free, as the market should be. Matt Welch of Reason (linked by the Ole Professor, don’t you know):

Big crowd. Do not believe any description that says “thousands.” If there weren’t at least a healthy six figures there, I will permanently revoke my head-counting license.

Bullshit licensing is theft. Let no state make you pay to do it.

More from the libertarian perspective, this on message consistency:

The most moving chant might have been when we walked past the Newseum, with its ginormous carving of the First Amendment on the side, and the crowd spontaneously said “Read that wall! Read that wall!”

Freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. There must be some hidden clause in there that both Obama and I have failed to find and read.

 
 

But it didn’t do anything to change Bush administration policy that determined military actions in Iraq.

True enough. Of course, Bush was the leader of the Fuck You Party, so there’s that.

 
 

Do stories featuring a sleeping giant ever end well for the giant?

Not long after Gulliver wakens, he is worshipped as a hero with the media fawning all over him. Later in the story, he is put on show trial and sentenced to blinding – after which he flees Lilliput and lives in exile forever. In fact, after Voyage 4 (remade into a series of movies with Charlton Heston and later, Marky Mark) he Goes Galt and hides in the basement, scrawling out diatribes about how the world is against him and after his precious bodily fluids – emerging only to sneak into the stables to have sex with horses.

Although that sounds like a sad and pathetic existence, for teabaggers it’s a major step up – so there you go, happy endings for all the horsefuckers.

 
 

In actual fact, every single American in the world– even the ones living overseas– is at the protests.

Even the ones living in imaginary political entities.

 
 

60,000-70,000 in Glenn Beck’s fevered brain

 
 

It’s a true Gray Roots movement.

 
 

I was running around DC yesterday looking for records. I didn’t go to the Mall; the only evidence I saw of the festivities was on the Metro when I saw an ENORMOUS woman in a motorized wheelchair wearing a baseball cap with the flag superimposed on a map of the USA. She was in all kinds of stretchy elastic clothes, with tinted glasses and various other flag-related things. As a recent escapee from West Virginia, I thought, Wow, these are the types of people I really don’t miss seeing all the time. Then I saw the little sign on the back of her wheelchair that said STOP THE SPENDING. Oh yeah, some crazies convention was supposed to be going on today. She had a hubby there in a Vietnam Vet hat, partially obscured from my view by a divider. When the Metro got to their stop, she drove herself out, and it turned out fat hubby was in a little motorized chair too! The immobile freedom couple buzzed and rumbled off into the evening.

 
 

Shorter teabaggers: “We don’t want your services, gubbamint, if it means brown people get them too.”

 
 

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Discuss.

 
 

Freedom of speech, press, religion, assembly and petition. There must be some hidden clause in there that both Obama and I have failed to find and read.

That is the one that says, except for LIE-bruls who have to STFU!

 
 

The Honduran Army is going to slaughter the world.

Funny how they never had any problems with a president who actually had plans in place, which he implemented, to slaughter hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. Wonder what the difference is?

 
 

Straw Man I’ll bet dollars to donuts their scooters were paid for by, MEDICAIDE, MEDICARE or SSI. They want the spending to stop with them.

 
 

Straw Man I’ll bet dollars to donuts their scooters were paid for by, MEDICAIDE, MEDICARE or SSI.

Given the Vet cap he mentioned, I would guess that the guy’s scooter was paid for by the VA.

 
 

I’d swear up and down that this kindly Injun fellow was Charles in Charge‘s James T. Callahan, if Callahan didn’t die a couple of years ago.

 
 

Oh, dear sweet crack baby Jeebus. My son’s ancestors are spinning in their graves and contemplating a second Cherokee War.

 
 

When the Metro got to their stop, she drove herself out, and it turned out fat hubby was in a little motorized chair too! The immobile freedom couple buzzed and rumbled off into the evening.

Hey, I enjoyed Wall-E as much as the next twelve-year-old, but that doesn’t mean I want to see its computer-animated characters come to life. And this recent demonstration of the Will Of The People makes me wonder: What if the captain hadn’t decided, all dictator-like, to push that Big Red Button That Makes Spaceship Return to Earth, but had instead acted in a democratic fashion, and held, say, town-hall-type meetings to assess the views of the spaceship’s tubby residents? “Wait, you want me to get my ass out of this motorized chair and grow my own food in something called soil? Why, that’s socialism!

 
 

Additionally, nobody was carrying Dusty Springfield, Sparks, or Loretta Lynn records. I will just go ahead and blame this on Teabaggers too.

 
 

“The Honduran Army is going to slaughter the world.”

Look, they spelled “You’re” right on the sign. Doesn’t that count for anything?

 
 

Burning Man drew 50,000+ this year. And there was no transit to get there, no restaurants, no amenities, no FOOD OR WATER unless it was hauled there, and it was in the middle of an alkali desert.

So what we had in DC was wingnut Burning Man – for pussies.

I am so not impressed.

 
 

I understans the dressing up as a native American alluding to the original tea party thing, but when you do that while holding signs that say “We want our country back”, well it just sends a whole other message.

Amercia…love it or mispell it.

 
 

Oh, and the Burners clean up after themselves, to the point that no one can see any evidence they were there.

 
 

A real grassroots protest, you say?

Pepper-spray victims or it didn’t happen.

 
 

Time for my nap!

 
 

These are some frightened people. About what, I can’t tell. But they’re frightened.

 
 

justme said, It’s things like this that make me almost surrender to my sort-of-libertarian friend’s point of, “What. These are the people you want to have national health care? These are the people you would keep corporations from preying on?

But libertarians support the knuckleheads. Fer instance, Thomas L. Knapp, founder of the Boston Tea Party.

 
 

“We are all Joe Wilson”

Does that mean I can bone Valerie Plame?

 
 

Honestly, the way the media seems to have been slavering over the tea partiers, somebody must be providing a constant stream of drugs for ‘em.

Remember “if it bleeds, it leads”? Well, nothing’s bleeding right now so they’ve settled for “if it shits itself and sounds like a pack of howler monkeys, it leads.”

 
 

So what we had in DC was wingnut Burning Man – for pussies.

Well, at least we can count our lucky stars that the sack-suckers manage to wear pants.

 
 

But libertarians support the knuckleheads.

Well, there are left-libertarians as well. I did say “sort-of-libertarian” as his views tend that direction, but he doesn’t self identify as such. The nutters have spoiled the Libertarian Party even worse than they’ve done to the Republicans.

I also said “almost”.

 
 

More than anything else, they seem to be into making signs that they think will just be the cleverest, funniest, shock-a-lib statement ever.

And a lot of them look like aging hippies, too.

God, Boomers are assholes.

 
 

Watch out there, wapsie. Some of us Boomer assholes are regular commenters here.

 
 

I know, MzNicky, I know. Present company excepted. You’re probably also aware that this is a widespread and not entirely misplaced sentiment of those of us under 50. There’s a lot of talk about hatred of Obama for being black. It’s valid, of course, but barely on the radar is the hatred of his being (relatively) young. Which I think is nearly as great an issue. Ask an X-er what it’s like being middle-aged now and still having your bosses at work keep telling you you’re “just not ready yet” for leadership positions.

 
 

but barely on the radar is the hatred of his being (relatively) young. Which I think is nearly as great an issue.

Wait –whaa? Who hates Obama for being young? X-ers? Why? Please tell me I’m misunderstanding you.

As for your whine about being bossed while middle-aged (if you’re a GenXer, I’m assuming by “middle-aged” you mean, what, 35? 40?), wait until you’re in your 50s or 60s, can’t afford to retire because you need your health insurance more desperately than ever and/or your “retirement fund” has evaporated into the ether, and you face being let go every day by your decade(s)-younger boss because you’re considered over the hill. Not to flame up an age war or anything, but sheesh.

 
 

Watch out there, wapsie. Some of us Boomer assholes are regular commenters here.

How ded u get on tha internet?

 
 

Boomers are totally assholes. One even shot Adama!

 
 

Maybe we should water the Tree of Liberty with some of the teabaggers’ bodily fluids.

 
 

It’s not about being bossed per se, it’s about being continually deferred from making real decisions in the professional organization in which I work. I see where your situation might leave you less than sympathetic about that. I’m not much better off, however.

As for your faux-incomprehension of my point about Obama’s youth making him a frightening alien, an untrustworthy Other, as much as his blackness does, it’s very very cute… but perhaps a little undignified in a woman of your years; a habit better outgrown, not unlike the clowning of those teabagger dopes on the Mall.

 
 

wapsie: My incomprehension is not faux. This is the first I’ve heard of Obama being “hated” for his relative youthfulness. Please explain. I’ll turn my hearing aid up.

And rather than give you the good spanking you deserve, I’ll just close by guessing that perhaps your employer’s reluctance to give you the authority to make “real decisions” has less to do with age and more to do with lack of good judgment.

 
 

Not to defend wapsie, but I can somewhat understand where the idea of Obama hatred based on age might come from – as another form of being “Other”. Obama is about the same age (or only slightly older) as some of the older teabaggers’ own children. If you’re inclined toward authoritarianism, as some of these folks seem to be, you expect your children to not only respect you, but to defer to you (whether you deserve it or not). That’s the whole idea behind patriarchy, right? Because of years of experience and living, you’ve Got It All Figured Out.

Trouble is, that doesn’t work any more, if it ever did, because the pace of technological and (to a lesser extent) cultural change has accelerated. This requires not only learning new things, but actively unlearning and letting go of things that made sense 20 or 30 years ago. Paradigm shift and all that. The younger folks have the advantage of not having to unlearn early lessons – yet. They are able to skip over that and focus on what makes sense now. It’s not rejecting the lessons of history, it’s being able to see that yes, that might have made sense under those circumstances, but in the current circumstances it wouldn’t work because of (insert reasons here).

But if you’re a believer in patriarchy, that can be seen as incredibly disrespectful. Especially if you’re insecure about your claim to authority to begin with, which I would argue is a real issue for a lot of the wingnuts. They were sold a bill of goods by THEIR parents that if you do this, this and that, your future is secure. They did this, this and that, but while they were busy doing that the world changed. And their future is not secure. Might not have turned out that way if they had been paying attention to what was going on in the world instead of fixating on consumerism and network TV, but it’s too late for that now. So now they’re faced with either trying to catch up or blaming someone else for it. One of these is much easier to do than the other, and doesn’t require self-reflection. So, the mental progression is something like:

1. All right! I am now a Respected Elder ready to share my wisdom with the world.

2. Wait, what? You mean that idea (deregulation, tax cuts, pre-emptive war, etc. etc. etc.) was tried? But things are a mess! Must not have been done right. My parents/boss/buddies thoroughly explained the logic to me.

3. You want to do WHAT? Don’t be ridiculous, it’s clearly not possible to (digitize medical records securely, pay a living wage to anyone below my job classification, etc. etc.)

4. Damn kids. No respect. I know your ideas will fail, and mine would work this time. Because shut up, that’s why.

From there it’s a pretty short trip on the crazy train to “Obama hates us! He wants to kill senior citizens by trying scary new stuff we don’t understand!”

Before someone accuses me of being one of them there Krazy Kidz, let me point out that I’m a 52 year old white male. I like to think that I’ve been paying attention to what’s going on in the world. Part of that, I think, came from having a career in a profession (I.T.) that barely existed when I was a kid and that completely reinvents itself every few years. My early big successes look incredibly lame now. I fully expect the projects I’m working on now to have a half-life of 3-5 years if they turn out REALLY well. Change is challenging, but if its done right, things can get better. I’m not exceptional. I like to think that I represent a lot more people than the wingers do, especially in urban areas. The Silent Majority of the New Millennium, Richard Nixon be damned.

There’s another little piece to this, at least for me. There are certain ages that are looked on as milestones when certain things ‘should’ be accomplished. Some are culturally set, like finishing college in your early 20s and starting a family before 30. Even though fewer and fewer people follow this timeline as time goes on, it’s still out there in a zillion cultural references. Others are personal. Back in high school, I toyed with the idea of majoring in music in college. I started reading about musicians and composers, and realized I was already about a decade behind where I should be if I wanted to be like them. Hell, Mozart had written over 200 compositions including operas, concertos and masses by the time he was 18, the age I was then (On the other hand, by the time he was the age I am now he had been rotting in a pauper’s grave for about 16 years, so there’s that). I acknowledged my limitation and moved on. I still play and perform, I just don’t pay the bills with it.

And I have to admit a slight twinge when I was on my way to the Inaugural and realized that, for the first time in my life, I was going to be older than the President of the United States. As kids, we’re conditioned (ok, I was conditioned) to look at the President as the ultimate Wise Elder. I’m not all that wise. Certainly not infallible. What does it mean that the President is younger? Is he less wise and more fallible? Or is he just a helluva lot better at what he does than I would be? Yeah, that one. I would really suck at that whole Presidenting thing.

On the other hand, I bet Barry Hussein couldn’t design a really kickass and intuitive user interface for a complex data system. So there.

 
 

JadedOptimist: Many thanks for your comment. It answers a lot of questions I’ve had. “Hatred” toward Obama based on his age? That was truly a new one to me.

If you’re inclined toward authoritarianism, as some of these [teabaggers] seem to be, you expect your children to not only respect you, but to defer to you (whether you deserve it or not). That’s the whole idea behind patriarchy, right? Because of years of experience and living, you’ve Got It All Figured Out.

Well yes, that’s part of it. As an (over)educated ’60s/’70s-era feminist, I understand about The Other and patriarchy. Back in the day when we were delineating and defining it, I don’t know that we ever thought it could, or would, apply to age. We were too busy trying to convince the white male paradigm that it wasn’t the only one that existed, let alone the one that should have ultimate societal/cultural power. The age range was from newly-enlightened 18-to-20-year olds (like myself) to the middle-aged and older. (In fact, delegitimization of age as a tool for discrimination — against young or old — was part of what feminists and other civil-rights activists of that era pioneered.)

But I’m still unclear on how that applies to Obama. Are you saying that some of the generation of my children (who are ages 27 and 30) “hate” Obama as part of the authoritarian establishment, regardless of his progressive politics? Help me out if you are inclined; I sincerely am still struggling with this notion.

No, we Boomers do not have it “all figured out.” Progress moves forward, we hope, because nobody’s got it down right yet. And if this has to do with mommy and daddy issues, we could talk all night. I’m from the cold, unemotional, shadowy-father-figure and mommy’s-depressed-so-leave-her-alone ’50s childhood genre, but that doesn’t mean I feel the need to broad-brush all of “The Greatest Generation” as “assholes.” No one gets out of childhood unscathed. The deal is to transcend, understand, and move on. If I’d applied resentment toward my elders to my politics, I’d have never supported George McGovern or Jimmy Carter for president.

And I’m also a 50-something who’s tried to keep up as best she can with the extraordinary technological changes in the world. I think they’re fabulous. I’ve kept up, happily, in order to remain employed. I love the electronic media revolution, and citizen journalism, and think that the resultant information access and dissemination is the greatest democratizing tool in history.

Okay, I’m babbling a bit now, and no one’s going to read this anyway; but I have to add that to me “hatred” is such a strong word. It’s one that’s appropriate when describing the behavior exhibited by the teabaggers, racists, and other assorted stubbornly ignorant that we saw Saturday in DC. My shriveled old liberal heart sinks at its application toward President Obama by otherwise progressive souls. It does not compute, as an old ex-hippie might say.

 
Shut up, that's who
 

Obama is a baby boomer.

 
 

“Are you saying that some of the generation of my children (who are ages 27 and 30) “hate” Obama as part of the authoritarian establishment, regardless of his progressive politics?”

Yikes, I hope that’s not how what I said came across. That’s not the group I was attributing the… discomfort to. I was actually referring to *some* boomers, as well as some folks born before WWII and others (like you and me) born at the tail end of the boom, but not quite GenX. To this group, Obama is subverting their understanding of the authoritarian establishment, because he is not following the “I’m in charge, I’ll take care of everything. No, there aren’t really any significant issues to deal with – those are just people who hate America trying to scare you and besides, nothing is your fault anyway. Go out and play, now.” script of the last eight years.

In using the term patriarchy, I was attempting to get at the idea of ‘father knows best’ which I think extends beyond the white male paradigm to other, very different cultures. There is some truth to that idea, if you are talking about actual fathers (and mothers!) with actual small children. Parents are charged with raising and teaching their children. Assuming that they make a good-faith effort at doing so, children should generally respect and defer to their parents’ wishes. Key words here: children should defer to their parents. Father = patriarch.

But somewhere along the line that got warped into the idea that older, authoritarian people (men) should ALWAYS have the last word, and if you don’t take their advice, disaster will result. Some people refer to the GOP as the “Daddy Party”. There’s a childish subtext in all the talk about how George Bush kept us safe and protected us from terrorists that makes it all sound like how Papa was able to banish the monsters under the bed on stormy nights. Dick Cheney becomes the country’s Daddy, dealing with the bullies so we don’t have to. I suspect that for a lot of wingers, Cheney really does remind them of their own fathers, maintaining an air of superiority, protecting them from things they really don’t understand, and requiring only blind obedience in return. I’m only speculating; my father wasn’t anything like that.

So we have a group of people, say in the 50 – 75 year old age group, who feel that they are entitled to have their way when it comes to how the country is run. Unfortunately, they aren’t prepared. They don’t understand the issues. They don’t understand technological tools. They don’t understand these things because for at least the last eight years they didn’t need to, because Daddy Cheney was in charge and would protect them from having to make hard choices. Instead of becoming the Wise Elders, they willfully avoided confronting issues. Daddy knew best, they trusted him, and anybody who questioned Daddy was a bully, even if they turned out to be right. To this day, beltway journalists of a certain stripe blame the anti-war crowd for… something, because they were disrespectful in daring to suggest that Daddy Cheney might have had ulterior motives. Sure, they were right, but did they have to be so tacky?

So now this new guy comes along, saying that no, actually, that didn’t work. Not only did Daddy Cheney not protect us all, he actually harmed the country. By just about any measure you might choose. International respect, morality, the economy – you name it, it was worse on January 20, 2009 than it was in January, 2001. The new guy is saying we have to collectively take responsibility for fixing our problems. But that involves admitting that there are problems to fix. Which, for some, involves admitting that you weren’t paying attention because you abdicated on your responsibility as a citizen, choosing instead to put your trust in a mad man who made you feel all safe and like just the greatest little kid EVAH and stuff.

The health care debate shows this. Obama set the priority in his campaign to fix the system. But he isn’t dictating how it should be done. He’s not Daddy taking care of it all for us. He tried to let Congress, representing the People, figure it out. Kinda like it says in the Constitution. But they are out of practice at actually legislating. The GOP just took whatever Bush/Cheney wanted and passed it. The Dems have spent a decade mainly trying to stop bad legislation from getting worse, with few opportunities to craft significant good legislation. Not that this absolves them from their current suckitude, but I feel it’s a contributing factor.

So we’ve got a bunch of the AARP crowd behaving like… spoiled children. Children who haven’t had to deal with hard choices because Daddy has been in charge. Daddy has been replaced with someone closer to their kids’ age, who is telling them that doing so was a bad idea. The nerve! . Surely he can’t be smart and experienced enough to take Daddy’s place! And look, he isn’t even telling Congress what to do! Doesn’t he know that’s how it works? (And did you notice, he’s black?). That’s why there don’t seem to be a lot of specific policy proposals from that cohort. They can’t formulate them because they outsourced their thinking long ago in exchange for promises of safety and convenience. What they want is for everything to go back to how it was before, when they were shielded from issues and continually reassured that they all safe and like just the greatest little kid EVAH and stuff.

“I want my country back!” = “I’m scared and I want my Daddy back!”

“This man is not qualified to be President” = “This man is saying that we have to deal with the consequences of our actions. Americans don’t do that! Consequences are for pussies!”

And you’re right, hate is too strong a word. I was using it because wapsie used it. Discomfort is better, because it is a natural human reaction when faced with something that you weren’t planning for/expecting. But in that situation you have choices. You can face reality and set about understanding this New Thing, and maybe even figure out some positive aspects about it. Or you can panic.

One thing I will say in favor of the wingnuts: panic makes for more entertaining protest signs.

And now I’m babbling. I need some dinner.

 
 

Obama is a baby boomer.

Oh, well, that makes him giving billions to millionaires and conducting military show trials much nicer.

 
 

Okay, thanks JadedOptimist. Good points, I get all that. Old racist ignorant coots hatin’ on Obama I understand. But I still don’t understand why an X-er/liberal like wapsie has age animosity toward Obama because he himself is frustrated in his career.

 
 

Wapsie isn’t saying gen-xers hate or distrust Obama for his youth, s/he’s saying the oldsters like those you see at the 9/12 rallies do. Not sure I agree, as they were much older than Bush, too, but I suppose if a person already feels he’s arrogant or not qualified based on race his relative youth might also seem significant.

 
Shut up, that's who
 

Oh, well, that makes him giving billions to millionaires and conducting military show trials much nicer.

Huh? What’s that got to do with him supposedly being hated by baby boomers for being too young when he’s a baby boomer himself?

 
 

I read it as “Obama is a boomer so hatin’ baby boomers should not apply.”

It just so happens that I have enough hate for everyone and I am willing to share.

 
Shut up, that's who
 

Look at the confusion you’ve sown, wapsie. Stupid young people.

 
 

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