s skippy the bush kangaroo: when will the hardly-ever-right wing grow up?

skippy the bush kangaroo



Tuesday, August 11, 2009

when will the hardly-ever-right wing grow up?

note to the hardly-ever-right wing: if you can't see how putting whiteface on a black man is offensive, however "reverse-meta" one tries to argue it is, then you are either willfully blind, surreptitiously disingenuous, or just plain stupid.

many pundits are defending the image, concentrating on the similarities evoked between heath ledger's joker & what the artist is trying to say about obama. without getting into the logic (which wonkette already skewers quite well), to us it's equivalent to as if the hardly-ever-right said, "look, i'm only saying the black guy is cheap! that's why i used the word 'niggardly'! no racism involved!"

it's the same approach that the hardly-ever-right is taking to public debate in the town hall disruptions this month. not that the disruptions are themselves racist, but they are obviously an attempt to push buttons by treading the line of taste and social contracts, by not quite stepping over it (or more precisely, merely stepping one step over the line), for the sole purpose of setting everybody on edge.

they are, in a nutshell (which is where they belong), causing trouble just to cause trouble, which, ironically, is more like the joker than obama ever was.

the hardly-ever-right responds, "oh, the left is so hypocritical! it's fine when the left protests bush, but they hate it when we demonstrate against obama!"

or, "the left called bush hitler for years! now they cry when we call obama's administration fascist!"

the problem w/this point is that the hardly-ever-right wing assumes (incorrectly) that the "tit for tat" formula automatically includes escalation.

it's true, the left protested bush's attempt to privatize social security, among many other things. but the demonstrations took place outside the venues. if we recall correctly, nobody on the left ever made it into bush's appearances, because they were usually arrested for wearing kerry t-shirts or having democratic bumper stickers.

the hardly-ever-right sees no difference between protesting outside of an event and shutting the event down (or disrupting it) w/protests inside the venue.

and unfortunately for us all, the multi-millionaire media sees (and reports) that false equivalency as well.

same thing w/hitler (and we read this in a comment on another fine blog, but we don't remember which one and where, so, alas, no links):

one guy makes a video showing bush morphing into hitler for an on-line contest, and the whole of washington dc howls in protest. limbaugh and beck regularly say obama is a fascist to their millions of radio listeners, and nary a peep out of the media.

escalation is a natural part of tit for tat in the hardly-ever-right wing's mind. equivalence doesn't necessarily have to take quantity or frequency into account.

which brings us back to our original point about the obama/joker poster. yes, the metaphor doesn't actually work on a logical level. but it works fine for stupid people. joker: bad. obama: bad. see? equivalence!

actual numbers or logic or cause and effect (or science or math or schoolin' of any kind, for that matter) just never enters into the minds of the hardly-ever-right wing.

they simply want to get a reaction and make noise. they are the little kid in the back seat who, after being admonished to stop hitting his sister, sticks his face right up next to hers and says "i'm not touching you, i'm not touching you."

grow up already.
posted by skippy at 6:25 PM |

5 Comments:

I'm personally amused by the juxtaposition of the Hitler references and swastikas with the simultaneous references to socialism and/or communism. Do these people remember WWII even if they don't understand the bipolar difference between fascism and communism?
commented by Blogger Left I on the News, 3:28 PM PDT  
Many on the right are not old enough to remember WWII, and trying to teach them would break their brains.

Also, I've linked to this.
commented by Blogger D., 3:31 PM PDT  
Hear, hear!
commented by Blogger Fixer, 4:25 PM PDT  
On NPR tonight, I heard one of the teabagger crowd saying that Hitler was a socialist.

I didn't really think of the whiteface angle. My reaction was - huh? My assumption was it was just weird - nothing more than "joker: bad. obama: bad" - and I guess that's all there is. This crowd doesn't do satire (or art) well, after all!
commented by Blogger Batocchio, 2:22 AM PDT  
On the -Obama-Joker thing - It seems to me we just saw an instance where a man was arrested in his own home when he was not suspected of a crime - but he was rude to the cop in his house. And the RIghties said the cop was in the right because all citizens need to show respect for authority.

These same folks mock the president in a mean way - and claim protection ounder the 1st amendment. Ya' can't have it both ways. Either the president is in authority and desrves respect - or the 1st amendment covers a man in his home aven if he's bad-mouthing a cop.

I am not and nevr have suggested there is no room for disagreement or debate. But I object to a double-standard - and this one is glaringly obvious.
commented by Anonymous tampadoug, 3:56 PM PDT  

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