POLITICAL CORRECTNESS

"Space Truckers" also had a nice 'space bar'. As did "Spaceballs".

Here's another space bar:

People overly fond of saying "politically correct" lose my attention in a hurry. Most of these folks use it as a convenient ploy to lay blame on someone from a conservative slant. I'm sorry. I can't abide conservatism just now.

This statement is not politically correct. If you are oversensitive, don't read this.

Actually, edgar, I didn't mind it. But the uni-polar facism which has replaced it is pretty ugly alright. Do you think Grover Norquist does Ann Coulter up the ass?

I'm not sure about Grover Norquist blatham, but I have a feeling that Ann Coulter and Grover from Sesame Street are more than just "friends".

I always wonder if "facism" might be some kind of beauty cult, where anyone whose face is less than perfect is shunned and excluded.

AFAIK there are no true fascist governments in existence. I think the term is overused. Whenever people are required to comply with regulations or laws, someone has to roll out the term "fascist."

You are not alone, though I wish you were, in your rather lousy understanding of what has happened to your party in the last two decades. Worse yet, is your lack of understanding of how fundamentally un-American that party has now become - how distant from the intentions of your founders.

The level of partisanship, and the decline in the level and style of political rhetoric hasn't occured by mere chance. It's intentional, because it serves a purpose. Here's Norquist to the Denver Post...

Does that remind you of Ann Coulter? Or perhaps of the attack dogs sent out when anyone from the Bush administration speaks negatively of the administration (free speech principles definitely not withstanding).

The purpose served is division. It is America waging war against America. How do you understand or perceive what occured to Clinton? A citizenry incensed at sexual misconduct just rose up in their moral goodness and yelled until other politicians did something? Yet, all through the run up, and then the impeachment, polls consistently showed the citizenry thought the matter of small import. Perhaps the citizenry were insufficiently moral themselves (George Will's thesis) and so those in public office who had a proper moral compass had to lead? Righteous men such as Dennis Hassert (who, when confronted with the fact of it, admitted unfaithfulness to his wife) and Knut Gingrich (who began humping another woman while his wife was in hospital)?

Or, we could consider an alternate thesis...that it was merely a manifestation of a desire for power and dominance, a desire strong enough and pathological enough to use any trick in the book and to disguise the fact of that though deceit and misrepresentation. The sort of ethical worldview that might run push-pull ads asking about John McCain's 'colored child', or smear as traitorous and un-American a Vietnam vet who had lost his limbs.

The notion of a one party state is the functioning goal of Mr. Norquist, and of Mr. Rove, and of Mr. Reed, and of those who support them with funds, with media control and manipulation, with church basement letter campaigns, with court challenges to recall elected officials, etc. Some state the goal explicitly (Norquist), some have been explicit in the past but have learned prudence (Reed), and some will stay behind the scenes, their intent most apparent in their actions and the consequences of their actions (Rove).

Whether or not the America you and I and the rest of the world have been familiar with will survive is not at all certain. That is, in great part, because so many of you do not have the intellectual courage to get more complicated than good vs evil, or biased dem vs biased republican, or to face that Americans are no different from anyone else and can fall to great depths of self-delusion, and to very ugly internecine battle.

I'm not optimistic. Your myths about yourselves and your country are, like everywhere and everyone else, the door through which all those things which AREN'T American will enter.

You might want to check out the Club for Growth, then crosscheck the folks involved (Armey, Cato Institute, Moore, etc) with Mr Norquist and friends.

Too many Republicans want a blood bath. I used to consider myself in some respects conservative. But, the cultural war that has ripped this country apart since before the Civil War is stronger than ever and it's no longer feasible from my viewpoint. In the foreseeable future it's all-out war.

I agree with edgar on this. Hmm, I was going to post this in another thread, but sometimes songs can be incredibly prophetic, and I don't care what the conservatives think about my being poetic rather than "factual":

I think most people know this Dylan classic...

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

It's still relevant, cav.

Indeed it is edgar.

There's a classic essay by American historian Richard Hofstadter that I point to on these pages now and again titled The Paranoid Style of American Politics. Here's just a bit...
full essay

That was written in 1964!

It too is still relevant, blatham. The big difference being the balance of power has shifted somewhat since then.

Well this discussion has led down an interesting path. First, I went to look up the definition of "fascism" and found this page:

What is Fascism?

I'm not sure what "Couples' Company" dot com is all about (it appears to be a religious website), but that probably doesn't matter. The article about fascism is very interesting. I got about half way through it before I realized that blatham hadn't talked about fascism at all, but I decided to read the rest of it anyway. Then at the bottom there was a link to another page:

They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945 University of Chicago Press. Reissued in paperback, April, 1981.

It looks like that web page is an excerpt from the book. It's quite long but it's interesting to hear from someone who was in Germany at the time and was part of what happened. And it was while reading through that account that I understood why such a thing couldn't happen here.

We have a two party system in this country. Oh sure, there are Socialists and the Green Party and Libertarians, but they don't have enough voters to matter much. The Democrats and Republicans are the Big Two, and they are so closely matched that these days you usually don't see an overwhelming victory for one side or the other on any level. What you do see is plots and plans and behind the scenes scheming to get ahead in one way or another, so one's party of choice can win over the other party. And of course one party watches the other carefully and cries foul when the other party goes too far, so naturally there are conspiracy theories and dire warnings and lots of finger-pointing.

So there's this whole tug of war going on between the parties to win the hearts and minds of the voters. And I think this is a good thing, because it provides balance. Over the years, you'll see the country move toward liberalism, and then it reaches a certain limit, people say "no more of this," and it moves back toward conservatism again. The country is a pendulum with its attitudes swinging between two limits that, when you think about it, aren't really that far apart. I talk with a friend in The Netherlands occasionally, and he is amazed at how close together our Democrats and Republicans are in their ideas, and how far apart we Americans consider them to be. In Europe, according to him, the split between the two extremes is very wide, yet it seems that stability is maintained because the majority of the delegates in their multi-party governments tend to be moderates.

So don't worry too much about the country becoming fascist or socialist or even a one party state, because it's not going to happen no matter how much some people want it (nor is it desirable). We have our own political checks and balances, and they are working just fine. Right now the pendulum is swinging toward the conservatives. After a few years I'm sure it will start to swing back the other way.

Those are interesting Dylan lyrics. I had heard the song before, but I didn't know the words.

Yes, 'it can't happen here'.

When enough voters fail to see a government's leaning as fascist and support its policies to the hilt, we have de facto fascism, call it by any name you choose. We are very much in danger of it happening here.