RANDOM MUSINGS

So I was flipping my channels on my Sirius radio this morning and I stopped on the “Sirius Left” channel which was broadcasting one Lynn Samuels. I listened for a few minutes and came to the not so shocking conclusion that small but vocal portions of the electorate are just plain f**king nuts.

Listening to Ms. Samuels it became clear that she is a Hillary Clinton supporter who simply cannot come to grips with the fact that Hillary won't be the nominee, and that this has sent her off the deep end. Her sheer vitriol toward Obama and her utter sycophantic worship of all things Clinton was jarring, and what was even more disturbing was that caller after caller was ready to throw in the towel because Hillary is not the nominee, and if not support McCain, completely bash Obama based on nothing other than bitterness. It was adolescent and puerile, and because these people are supposedly on the same "side" I am, embarrassing.

It illustrated perfectly the difference between those whose political passions are based in stances on the issues and belief in policy, and those whose politics are a reflection of their own personalities and egos. Both parties are rife with both types and there are probably many points on the spectrum between these two poles, though I've seen more of the latter type on the right. In fact you could say that it's just this kind of "play my way or I'm taking my ball and going home" paradigm that has defiled the country for the last 7 1/2 years.

The Neocon cabal that hijacked the GOP could give a rat's ass about conservative values or idiology but did whatever the hell they wanted to do and only pandered to the "true believers" as insurance that they'd be able to stay in for long enough to complete as much of their objective as possible. And the objective was simple -money. It was all a giant cash grab. Sign on and we'll cut you in. Stand in our way and we'll eliminate you. Real conservatives believe in reducing government restraining spending and keeping their noses out of other peoples' business. These folks did the exact opposite in every area of endeavor and because they'd bought the press they were able to distract the public away from their having done so. It was all about them -their investments, their businesses, their rights, and f**k anybody who dared challenge them -whether from their own side or the opposition. You were either on their bus or under it.

That's the same attitude that I heard from Samuels and her callers. If they don't get their piece of the pie served their way they'd just as soon shit on it. It's no surprise though -look at the candidate they follow: she was willing to repeatedly bash a fellow candidate from her own party and praise the candidate from the opposition party for her own political gain. Didn’t matter that if she lost she’d have screwed the issues she alleged to support. Didn’t matter that she’d not bothered to actually wage a coherent campaign –damn it people had better give her what she wanted or they’d pay. Thank God she didn’t succeed. Moreover, it’s not as if this was some sort of new attitude she had –she behaved the same way with her healthcare plan during her husband’s administration and it blew up in her face then too.

Now –just as I’d predicted- the gramps campaign are using her idiotic slagging and lies verbatim in their ads, and her zombies are insisting that they get…what exactly? It’s insanity.

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Speaking of insanity: I was at the gym the other day behind the Orange Curtain (this is a local expression referring to the fact that that Orange County next to LA is infamously conservative and mocking it as similar to the Berlin Wall.), and unsurprisingly FOXNews was on in the locker-room. The “discussion” centered on how somehow making fun of Gramps’ not knowing how many houses he owns is an attack on his wife because, poor thing, it’s not her fault that she’s rich. “Oh Waaah”, I said and some old guy –obviously only hearing my tone and not my comment and thinking he’d find a sympathetic ear said “What the hell does it matter how many houses he owns” and I said something like “well gee, I think it matters a hell of a lot seeing as though the housing market’s gone to hell in a handbasket and a rising number of folks can’t pay their mortgages”. To which he replied –well “it’s really gonna be screwed if that n----- gets in there.”

Yep, he actually said it.

I looked him in the eye and said “what did you just say?” and he looked a bit surprised, and then rattled off a litany about how Putin was going to push “that boy” around just the same way as [Khrushchev] did Kennedy and began shuffling out the door going on about how he’d trained to fight those “commies and g**ks” to which I replied “yeah I’m sure you did you f***ing racist”, and he was gone.

Reminds me that while we have a great deal to be proud of as a nation at this moment, we still have a lot of work to do. This guy actually thought it was OK to say the n-word to a total stranger in a public place.