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Who REALLY Lives in Fantasyland?
Our new cable has a feature that lets you watch 4 news channels at once, while only hearing one. It was handy during the DNC because CNN interviewed Obama's half-sister instead of actually playing Jennifer Grandholm's awesome speech. A few days later, I was using this feature and watching (the HATED) Mike Huckabee. And man...even for FOX, it was some crazy shit.
It was a story about how the IRS is going to church services and listening to what was being said. Huckabee talked about it as if jackbooted thugs were coming to burn down their churches and force people to not love Jesus or whatever. The truth of the matter, of course, is that the IRS is sick of extending non-profit, tax-exempt status to churches who advance a political agenda. Doing so is illegal, so government agencies are making sure no laws are being broken. But of course...FOX lives on instilling fear and have created a narrative that atheists and Muslims are taking over our beautiful, freer-than-free country and trying to obliterate the great American love of Jesus.
That, in my opinion, is the fantasy. The "were so oppressed and have no choice but to take arms against those who would dare disagree with us" stance. Then they go on to blame bad weather on God being mad at us. *yawn*
I hear all the time how my "liberal Dem" buddies and I are living in a fantasy world where allowing the poor to have basic food, shelter, medical care, etc guaranteed to them is a good thing. A magical land where everyone has dignity and therefore is more likely to become a contributing member of society. Madness, amirite? I mean, there's no real precedent for it, right? Except for Canada, Australia, and all over Europe and free parts of Asia.
I was even told recently that I needed facts and numbers to support my assertion that America shouldn't be run like a business. A business exists to make money for its shareholders, and most of us don't have enough money to get a full share of anything. Businesses only care about those whom they have chosen to represent them. Everyone else is hoisted out by security. Businesses hang cameras everywhere to secure their product from internal and external thieves. And Right-to-Work essentially means that labor means fuckall to them, because there's always more people desperate enough to do the labor. America is not a business, we're a collection of people not commodities. We elect a President, not a CEO.
Then there's the laughable assertion that the U.S. is a flawless Meritocracy. Everyone's success is directly tied to how much effort you, personally, put in. No luck, no nepotism, no help from anyone--especially the government. That's why the snobby rich children of snobby rich assholes end up working at McDonalds while the brilliant children of crackheads are now prominent physicians.
Oh wait, that never happens. America simply doesn't allow for it. Oh sure, people will hold up examples like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (neither of whom actually started out poor or disenfranchised), but that's two people out of millions. Americans are taught to respect and admire people who've made something out of nothing, but how many people like that do you actually know? The Facebook guy? Well, if you're already in a nice college somewhere, you're WAY ahead of the game. The idea that a privileged fuck like Romney should be respected for all he's achieved (translation: how much money he's made) is obscene. Is there a Romney product in every home? No. Do tons more Americans have living-wage jobs because of Romney? Again, no. Did Paul Ryan's family get ALL their money from government programs? That one's a yes.
So this idea that all you have to do to be successful and own a home, car, and put your kids through school is work really, really hard and that EVERYONE can and should do it? Or that anyone who isn't able to make that happen isn't a victim of circumstance, they're just plan lazy? It's bullshit. Verifiably so. These GOP nutters either know it's crap when they say it, or they're actually so deluded and out of touch with working America that they think it's true. Maybe Ann Romney thinks surviving ONLY on interest from a trust is "roughing it." Maybe she has no idea that many Americans don't have homes and cars and other things she has multiples of.
The fantasy is this idea that people who aren't making it don't actually need any help. The fantasy is the America where Christians are being picked on because all of our secular laws aren't tailored to the sensibilities of the loudest among them. The fantasy is the America where huge swaths of disenfranchised, dejected, often homeless and/or mentally ill Americans will stop wanting to do drugs if we can make TV PSA's effective enough. Or that fantasy where school budgets are slashed over and over, and insane emphasis placed on standardized testing will somehow produce a generation of people capable of reading, algebra, and independent thought.
The fantasy isn't that everyone is capable of contributing in a meaningful way. That's reality.
The fantasy is this idea that if people aren't contributing, it isn't because they need help or because something is wrong--it's because they are lazy or hate freedom or don't have enough Jesus in their life. As I was saying on FB recently, If we can just start with the presumption that everyone is doing the best they can, we could leap-frog over a lot of the bullshit and get down to the task of helping improve people's lives.
If you meet a guy with no money at all, support borne of love and friendship can often get him back on his feet. If you meet a guy with no love or friendship, he's gonna be a miserable fucker no matter how monetarily rich he may eventually get. For serious.
It was a story about how the IRS is going to church services and listening to what was being said. Huckabee talked about it as if jackbooted thugs were coming to burn down their churches and force people to not love Jesus or whatever. The truth of the matter, of course, is that the IRS is sick of extending non-profit, tax-exempt status to churches who advance a political agenda. Doing so is illegal, so government agencies are making sure no laws are being broken. But of course...FOX lives on instilling fear and have created a narrative that atheists and Muslims are taking over our beautiful, freer-than-free country and trying to obliterate the great American love of Jesus.
That, in my opinion, is the fantasy. The "were so oppressed and have no choice but to take arms against those who would dare disagree with us" stance. Then they go on to blame bad weather on God being mad at us. *yawn*
I hear all the time how my "liberal Dem" buddies and I are living in a fantasy world where allowing the poor to have basic food, shelter, medical care, etc guaranteed to them is a good thing. A magical land where everyone has dignity and therefore is more likely to become a contributing member of society. Madness, amirite? I mean, there's no real precedent for it, right? Except for Canada, Australia, and all over Europe and free parts of Asia.
I was even told recently that I needed facts and numbers to support my assertion that America shouldn't be run like a business. A business exists to make money for its shareholders, and most of us don't have enough money to get a full share of anything. Businesses only care about those whom they have chosen to represent them. Everyone else is hoisted out by security. Businesses hang cameras everywhere to secure their product from internal and external thieves. And Right-to-Work essentially means that labor means fuckall to them, because there's always more people desperate enough to do the labor. America is not a business, we're a collection of people not commodities. We elect a President, not a CEO.
Then there's the laughable assertion that the U.S. is a flawless Meritocracy. Everyone's success is directly tied to how much effort you, personally, put in. No luck, no nepotism, no help from anyone--especially the government. That's why the snobby rich children of snobby rich assholes end up working at McDonalds while the brilliant children of crackheads are now prominent physicians.
Oh wait, that never happens. America simply doesn't allow for it. Oh sure, people will hold up examples like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates (neither of whom actually started out poor or disenfranchised), but that's two people out of millions. Americans are taught to respect and admire people who've made something out of nothing, but how many people like that do you actually know? The Facebook guy? Well, if you're already in a nice college somewhere, you're WAY ahead of the game. The idea that a privileged fuck like Romney should be respected for all he's achieved (translation: how much money he's made) is obscene. Is there a Romney product in every home? No. Do tons more Americans have living-wage jobs because of Romney? Again, no. Did Paul Ryan's family get ALL their money from government programs? That one's a yes.
So this idea that all you have to do to be successful and own a home, car, and put your kids through school is work really, really hard and that EVERYONE can and should do it? Or that anyone who isn't able to make that happen isn't a victim of circumstance, they're just plan lazy? It's bullshit. Verifiably so. These GOP nutters either know it's crap when they say it, or they're actually so deluded and out of touch with working America that they think it's true. Maybe Ann Romney thinks surviving ONLY on interest from a trust is "roughing it." Maybe she has no idea that many Americans don't have homes and cars and other things she has multiples of.
The fantasy is this idea that people who aren't making it don't actually need any help. The fantasy is the America where Christians are being picked on because all of our secular laws aren't tailored to the sensibilities of the loudest among them. The fantasy is the America where huge swaths of disenfranchised, dejected, often homeless and/or mentally ill Americans will stop wanting to do drugs if we can make TV PSA's effective enough. Or that fantasy where school budgets are slashed over and over, and insane emphasis placed on standardized testing will somehow produce a generation of people capable of reading, algebra, and independent thought.
The fantasy isn't that everyone is capable of contributing in a meaningful way. That's reality.
The fantasy is this idea that if people aren't contributing, it isn't because they need help or because something is wrong--it's because they are lazy or hate freedom or don't have enough Jesus in their life. As I was saying on FB recently, If we can just start with the presumption that everyone is doing the best they can, we could leap-frog over a lot of the bullshit and get down to the task of helping improve people's lives.
If you meet a guy with no money at all, support borne of love and friendship can often get him back on his feet. If you meet a guy with no love or friendship, he's gonna be a miserable fucker no matter how monetarily rich he may eventually get. For serious.
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