La Resistance

Remember the wannabe rapist from the beginning of THELMA AND LOUISE? Sure you do. Remember how he asks Thelma, when he's first coming on to her, if she's got a 'funny uncle', because if she does, then he has something in common with him?

I've got a funny uncle. Occasionally, he sends me email forwards -- raving right wing/conservative crackpot stuff, usually with the latest Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter lunatic distortions or outright lies emblazoned front and center in all bolded full capitals bullet points. Stuff about all the people Bill and Hillary Clinton have had assassinated to cover up her lesbian love affairs, and how the New World Order is going to steal your baby and raise him up to be a liberal Muslim suicide bomber, and all that shit. You know the drill, I'm sure.

Yesterday, he sent me an email that linked to this page, advising me that he had joined The Resistance, and he hoped I would, too.

I... you know, it's... they... you couldn't...

There are no words. Really. The English language isn't adequate to express how I feel about this. But, what the hell, I got a blog, and like Gene Kelly, I gotta dance:

12 years of Republican dominance in Congress (1994 to 2006), with another two years (the last two) of a nominally Democrat controlled Congress where Republicans still managed to obstruct, stall, and filibuster any and all meaningful reform Democrats tried to enact. The stolen Presidential elections in 2000 and 2004, the insanely triumphant cackling and self righteous "Iz you a patriot or iz you ain't" shrilling of the far right blogosphere, the far right 'intellectuals', the far right talking heads on FOX and MSNBC and CNN, the far right whatever. Watching Karl Rove smirk and Ann Coulter strut and Rush Limbaugh posture and Bill O'Reilly preen, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

18 years of Gingrich, DeLay, Hastert, Foley, Santorum, Craig, any number of Bushes, and Cheney, Cheney, Cheney, relentless, ubiquitous Cheney, who somehow managed to be everywhere at once and nowhere at all, from his 'undisclosed location', with a smoking shotgun over one shoulder and a great big F bomb perpetually rolling off his oily, evil tongue.

Was it all worth it?

Is this, at long last, our reward, for gritting our teeth and putting our heads down and somehow trudging our way through the last near-20 years of systematic corruption and corporate/government abuses like a farmer up to his chest in chickenshit and pig vomit? Did we go through all that just so we can watch as the entire conservative movement goes into a screaming shrieking spasm of Cheyne-Stokes respiration, as they undergo a complete and utter meltdown when finally, irrefutably, inarguably, a wearied, disgusted majority of the American people catches up with the rest of the civilized world by unequivocably standing up and saying "You know what, we're really tired of your stupid bullshit"?

Three ruined nations, a shattered world economy, a wrecked and poisoned global biosphere, a destroyed public education system, a thoroughly corrupted and debauched media, a body count of innocent victims running into the millions... these are just some of the costs of doing business for the last two decades of grotesque Republican fearmongering, profiteering, and assets plundering. Watching from the sidelines as our Republican leaders and their avid, barking, jackel-like cheerleaders Search and Replaced "truth and justice" with "spin and corruption", "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" with "depraved indifference to human life"... as they turned the American dream into an American nightmare, as they sacked two foreign countries and gutted our own, slaughtering millions and smearing our national psyche not only with blood, sweat, and tears, but also with pus, snot, and shit... a million or more shattered lives, exchanged knowingly for a few hundred bloated, smirking plutocrats, cackling as they dive into their vaultfuls of gore-stained, bomb-blackened, bulletholed greenbacks. Hell, what's a little... or a lot... of innocent viscera spattered across a great big mountain of currency? In the end it all still spends. Hold your nose, wipe it off on the shirt you stole off someone else's back, and stuff it in your wallet. Nothing wrong here. Move along.

It is worth it, now that we've finally emerged on the other side of that long, long tunnel?

Of course not. Nothing could make the non-stop parade of corruption, slaughter, and degradation the Republicans have enacted for the last eighteen years worth it, but sure as Bill O'Reilly loves him some loufahs, it's fun to watch the little sonsofbitches running in circles frothing and foaming and pawing at the air now.

It's not worth it, by no means is any of it worth it, I'd give it all up in a heartbeat for a chance to go back to Florida in 2000 and cast a different vote... but, in the absence of that option, well, I'll sit back and enjoy what I see spread out before me at the moment. Which is to say, the magnificent vista of 55 million right wing nutjobs who voted for McCain, flopping around in the bottom of the boat like stunned, asphyxiating trout, eyes popping, gills heaving, tails flapping in furious indignation as suddenly they realize that the out of control executive powers they happily bestowed on one of their own are about to pass into the hands of a goddam socialist liberal Democrat... who isn't even Caucasian.

Which brings us back to my 'funny uncle', and the funny, funny stuff he emails me sometimes.

So, he's joined The Resistance.

The Patriotic, Resilient, Conservative Resistance.

As an American citizen, while he will show respect to President-elect Obama, (yeah, right) he still opposes the far-Left and socialistic elements that comprise the centerpiece of President Obama's agenda. He recognizes that it will take a patriotic and resilient Citizen Resistance to block implementation of this agenda and he joins with others who oppose these threats to our liberties.

Proudly, no doubt. Head held high, eyes feverishly gleaming in the dawn's early light, modern day musket-equivalent (probably an XM-8, if he can come up with the scratch, or a Vietnam era surplus Kalashnikov, still readily available virtually everywhere, if he can't) belligerently brandished before him. Ready to fight, shoot, kill, and die... or, at the very least, to type viciously into his DSL connection and forward a whole lot of really idiotic spam while clenching his teeth heroically and patriotically, to protect America from President-elect Obama's far Left and socialist agenda.

And what, exactly, is this far left, Socialist agenda? Well, let's check it out together.

Specifically, my crazy ass uncle resists:

Socialistic wealth redistribution including any and all tax increases and big-government welfare programs.

Here's what I love. When rich motherfuckers increase their already insanely bloated personal bankrolls by cheating and robbing and bilking and scamming the poor desperate working folk whose toil actually produces the wealth that the super-wealthy so avidly and avariciously enjoy, we call that free market capitalism, and the rabid right wing worships it as something near-divine, an inspiration handed down from on high by Almighty Jeebus himself.

When somebody comes along and says "Let's straighten out the tax code so that the wealthy pay something kind of remotely approaching what should be their fair share for the ongoing upkeep of this country, and let's make sure that instead of most of those taxes going into some wealthy private defense contractor's pockets, we put a good chunk of it into public entitlement programs, and public education, and other things that would benefit the non-wealthy working class", well, jesus christ! It's time to posse up; the commies are comin' for our guns and our wimmen-folk.

The rich perpetually picking the pockets of the poor? That's okay, we like that just fine. The poor getting some of their money back from the rich? Insanity! Take to the streets!

Silencing conservatives through the Fairness Doctrine and other efforts that restrict free speech.

The Fairness Doctrine says, if you're using a public trust like the public airwaves, which the government regulates and licenses in the name of the people, then if you're going to spend a certain amount of time promulgating one extremist point of view, you have to give those who wish to promulgate opposing viewpoints equal time. Will this ruin conservative talk radio? I can only hope. In all honesty, though, I can't see why it should. If a radio station wants to give Rush Limbaugh 4 hours of airtime a day, then they'll have to turn around and give, say, Michael Moore or Howard Stern 4 hours of airtime a day. So half the time their audience is raving right wing nutjobs, and the other half it's slavering left wing moonbats. You don't think advertisers want to sell products to either market demographic?

Beyond practicality, the Fairness Doctrine is, well, fair. Radio stations don't own the airwaves, they just lease them. Objective truth may be beyond our capacity to find in the emotionally charged political atmosphere, but at least we can require media outlets to present more than one point of view. It may not get us all the way there, but it's a damn good start.

Beyond all this, President-elect Obama apparently doesn't support its reinstatement, which makes me sad, but which makes the whole argument kind of moot.

Open border anarchy including amnesty for illegal aliens and promotion of multi-nation “unions”.

I personally find it laughable and hilarious when some dipshit whose parents, or grandparents, or great grandparents, or great great great grandparents, came over here from Europe back when immigration control was virtually nonexistent, gets up on a stump and shakes their fist and pisses their undies and sprays spittle all over themselves because they're afraid that different, darker skinned people who weren't born on this continent or different, darker skinned people who actually WERE born on this continent are going to, like, overrun America and snatch up all those great lettuce picking jobs and hump everybody's daughters, or somebody's, anyways.

America is now and always has been a nation built on the hard work of immigrants seeking a better life for themselves and their descendants here than they would have if they stayed where they were born. (It is also a nation built on the slaughter of the indigenous population by technologically superior invaders, and if the universe was an inherently just or decent place, an armada of highly territorial aliens would be landing all across America right now, slaughtering the majority of us with their deathrays and herding the survivors into the swamplands of New Jersey. But never mind that now.) That America is a great melting pot, and a place where anyone can come, work hard, and prosper, has been in the past and should be again one of our greatest cultural values.

Those who feel that they are more entitled to a piece of the American dream than others who were born elsewhere are blind to the true historical virtues, such as they are, of the United States of America, and cannot truly be considered patriots by any thinking American.

Government-run health care that weakens our system and imposes more tax burdens on citizens.

As opposed to privately run healthcare that is contributing to the destruction of our economy and causing hundreds of thousands if not millions to live in poverty, sickness, and despair every day of their lives. But that's okay, because our current system isn't 'socialist', and really, that's all that matters.

Weakening of our military through rapid pullback from Iraq, defunding our troops and overall disarmament.

You know what weakens our military? Let me count the things that are currently weakening our military --

* Sending them off on badly planned, poorly executed missions which result in several thousand of them being killed and several hundred thousand of them being maimed, disfigured, crippled, and ruined for life. Also, overstocking our military with criminals, sociopaths, the emotionally unstable, the borderline retarded, the socially dysfunctional, and the desperately poor, because decent, law abiding, intelligent, sane Americans with enough money to choose anything besides the military don't want to get sent over to the Middle East where they will be killed, maimed, disfigured, crippled, or otherwise ruined for life.

* A shitty, corrupt, Republican-controlled Veteran's Administration.

* Young, fit, avidly pro war, conservative American 'patriots' who will not join the military, and who will not let their children join the military, and who vehemently oppose allowing us to withdraw other people's children from an illegal, immoral conflict that is devouring our armed forces the way a chickenhawk war blogger slugs down Twinkies and microwave popcorn.

* Americans who think 'supporting the troops' means slapping a magnetic ribbon on their bumper, instead of getting them out of harm's way.

These are things that weaken our military, and given all of these things, how getting our asses out of place we never should have gotten into in the first place, along with spending less money on guns so we can spend more money on healthcare, education, and infrastructure, really factors much into it. Bush, Cheney, and their Republican lackeys have all but DESTROYED our military, while pocketing billions in illegal, immoral war profits. If all Obama does is 'weaken' our military, it will be a vast improvement.

Social liberalism including radical pro-abortion agenda, the end of marriage and the homosexual agenda.

Nobody is 'pro abortion', and abortion would be much, much less frequent if conservatives would allow easier access to contraception for those that want it and better, saner, more useful sex education in schools for those that need it most. Beyond that, though, an individual's right to choose to have, or not have, whatever medical procedures they desire, or do not desire, on their own bodies is a fundamental one, whether the medical procedure in question strikes you as morally dubious or not. (For the record, I despise abortion, but that's subjective, and I don't believe my subjective hatred of something should necessarily be legislated, because it's not my body, and therefore, not my decision.)

What was the middle thing... oh, yeah, the 'end of marriage and the homosexual agenda'. Heh. Letting more people get married is hardly 'the end of marriage', and the 'homosexual agenda' is, essentially, enforcing Constitutional guarantees of equal access to and protection under the law of the land to every American citizen, not just the ones whose sex lives you happen to approve of.

And, again, President-elect Obama has stated many times that he isn't in favor of gay marriage. I can only hope that, now that he's actually been elected, he drops his waffling and says what he should -- marriage is part of the law, and the Constitution guarantees all Americans equal access to the law. But he's probably hoping to get re-elected, so I imagine I hope in vain.

Liberal court activism that undermines faith, family and liberties while expanding government control.

With Democrats in at least nominal control of both Congress and the White House, I fully expect and anticipate that within the next year, we'll see this talking point quietly dropped by every conservative pundit. Why? Because a substantially Republican appointed judicial branch will become the right wing's last, best hope of staving off the widespread enactment and enforcement of liberal, leftist, progressive policies, that's why. Suddenly, judicial activism will no longer be a terrible thing, it will, instead, become the patriotic duty of all decent, right thinking judges everywhere.

Having predicted that, I will also say that faith and family are private matters that should (ideally, anyway) never be touched on in any way, positive or negative, by the government. As to 'liberties', just for one example near and dear to the rabid right, celebrating Christmas is, indeed, a basic human right. Forcing everyone who doesn't want to celebrate Christmas to pretend to anyway in every aspect of any possible potential public display and over every public airwave, on the other hand, is not a basic human right and is, in fact, a grotesque invasion of the basic civil liberties of many other people who may prefer to celebrate some other form of Midwinter Solstice holiday, or, for that matter, none at all. So celebrate Christmas if you want to (I certainly do) but, y'know, shut the hell up about it, and especially shut the hell up about what other people choose to celebrate, or not, their own damn selves.

That's liberty... liberty for all, not just spoiled white male Christians who can't get over the fact that they don't control the world any more.

Post-American globalism that diminishes our global role and threatens our national sovereignty.

In other words, a world where Americans actually have to deal with the negative consequences of their arrogant, idiotic, and immoral actions and attitudes towards non-Americans, is not a world my uncle, or any of his fellow Resistance members, wants to live in.

Environmental extremism, the CO2 tax,undermining coal and nuclear, and bans on
exploration.

Because we all know the Rapture is coming soon anyway, so fuck the environment, we want our big gas guzzling Humvees and ginormous flat screen TVs and Jesus wants us to have them, too. So THERE.

I would take the Resistance more seriously if I did not know that these people are Americans, like me. And Americans, like me, don't do anything that requires us to get up out of a comfortable chair, put down our beer or our soda, and make any effort whatsoever beyond reaching for a kruller, or a remote control.

It wouldn't surprise me if The Resistance hits or exceeds its target of a million registered members by Inauguration Day, 2009. Why shouldn't they? 55 million people voted for McCain, and to join the Resistance, all you have to do is sit on your ass and type some stuff into your computer.

When it comes to actually doing something, though, well, I suspect the Resistance won't amount to much.

Although I imagine the group will very quickly be able to put together a truly astonishing array of Photoshopped Sarah Palin porn...