This is it, guys. This is the culmination of it. This is the apotheosis of the asshole dude we all know at the party, sitting there sure that if all the imaginary undeserving dicks in his head just disappeared he’d be king of the fucking mountain. This is the entire GOP argument of the past 40 years, that the reason we are always vaguely and sometimes explicitly screwed up as a country is that somebody out there is getting what you deserve and even though you don’t know who that is, hey, you should be really fucking pissed off!
(And by the way, if you don’t know who that is, we’ll gladly tell you. I think today it’s the gays again, but it might be welfare queens. Nobody called from Asshole HQ with the lottery numbers yet.)
And from that argument — DO YOU WANT YOUR TAX DOLLARS SUPPORTING SOMEBODY WHO PICKS HIS NOSE? WHO HAS FOUR HUNDRED BABIES? WHO’S TOO LAZY TO PAY THE MORTGAGE? WHO COULD BUY FRUIT FOR HIS KIDS BUT FEEDS THEM GROUND UP GLASS INSTEAD? WELL? DO YOU? — issues every other one, about government spending and pork (otherwise known as infrastructure projects in towns not your own but paid for with money you could otherwise use to become king) and contraception/family planning (otherwise known as fixing mistakes made by dishonest slutty girls not your daughters withmoney you could otherwise use to become king) and wars of choice (fought against people who don’t look like us and therefore want to take our shit and actually, this time wecould have used that money to become king, because it cost just that much, so DAMMIT) but this is it:
You are worthy. Everybody else is getting away with it. Everybody else is just some lazy asshole who’s scamming people dumb enough to work for it. Everybody else is your enemy, and I feel for these people, honestly, because it’s got to be so exhausting living constantly under siege like this, but my sympathy stops at the vague desire they’d get some therapy. I don’t intend to reward their pathetic horseshit with legislation, come on.
What’s truly interesting to me, as this morning’s poll numbers indicated, was that this argument, so stunningly effective for decades now, has suddenly stopped working. People don’t believe they’re the only worthy ones any more. People don’t believe the mortgage crisis was caused by poor people buying houses or by ACORN. People don’t believe our economy will get better if we just deport all the Mexicans everywhere, even the ones in Mexico. They aren’t buying this shit anymore, and while I’d like to put it down to the fact that we’re finally coming around to a more realistic and compassionate view of the world, I think what’s actually happening is that enough of us are fucked enough that the lies don’t hold up the way they used to. EVERYBODY knows at least ten people who are monumentally hosed right now, EVERYBODY. You can’t say, “That isn’t happening where I live.”
I mean, c’mon, even Peggy Noonan caught which way the wind was blowing when the Talbot’s closed.
A.
I know this guy! He’s an attorney and he is smarter than anyone (he tells me that all the time.)he’s not a trial lawyer attorney, he doesn’t corporate mergers and acquisitions and IPOs. His Pro-bono works is just so his wife can say that he does pro-bono work for the ————-fill in the blank.
I know this guy! He’s the CEO of a huge company that has been really successful, especially using the government to both get his way and to buy his products. But he hates big government and thinks that Ronald Reagan should be on Mt. Rushmore (if not Rush himself!)
I know this guy! He’s a hedge fund manager and he lost a TON of money recently, he blames Greenspan now, but he still voted for Bush twice. He knows the SEC is and was a joke, but he want the OTHER guy to be regulated, not him.
I know this guy! He’s a successful talk radio host who makes 6 figures a year yet is a member of the very Union he hates and rails against the guys making cars at 26 dollars an hour. Even though the union protected him against fines that would destroy him personally.
I know this guy! He’s every jerk who knows that looking out for number one means pissing on everyone who isn’t in his immediate family while he takes a number two on the country and expects the taxpayers to wipe his ass because he made a TON of money in the past and worked hard and is smart unlike those other people in non-financial industries.
And this guy? He votes Republican because he buys their services to give him more of the same. And if the country tanks, well it’s someone else’s fault who wasn’t smart enough to get out at the top like he did.
I hate this guy, yet I still want to be like him because if you want to make a good living this is how you are supposed to be. You can’t do it any other way anymore. It’s rich jackhole or nuthing. All the rich people in America during the Bush years who aren’t like this guy are anomalies. To be like this guy is the only way to be if you are rich. I know that because the media and these guys tell me so.
(Oh and Warren Buffet is the exception that proves the rule, and all the other rich people who aren’t like this guy don’t count either.)
A…
this argument, so stunningly effective for decades now, has suddenly stopped working. People don’t believe they’re the only worthy ones any more. People don’t believe the mortgage crisis was caused by poor people buying houses or by ACORN. People don’t believe our economy will get better if we just deport all the Mexicans everywhere, even the ones in Mexico. They aren’t buying this shit anymore, and while I’d like to put it down to the fact that we’re finally coming around to a more realistic and compassionate view of the world, I think what’s actually happening is that enough of us are fucked enough that the lies don’t hold up the way they used to.
Amen!
It reminds me of the immediate post-Katrina fallout. Suddenly, it was like everyone GOT IT that what was happening in Louisiana and Mississippicould be happening to me — IN MY CITY! A kind of “scales falling from their eyes” moment.
But, even widespread condemnation and vilification will not stop the zombie GOP’ers, their rabid supporters and loud-mouthed bigoted bullhorns. Perhaps some hot tar and feathers might do the trick. If they keep up the harangues and obstruction (e.g. Sacramento), they might just get the treatment.
SP
Hey, if Santelli wants to yell about scumbags getting away with something, maybe he should start with the banks we’re bailing out. Read this and weep, my friends.
http://tinyurl.com/au8xn5
Sigh! I guess Jim Cramer wasn’t enough of an asshole for our corporate media.
I think what’s actually happening is that enough of us are fucked enough that the lies don’t hold up the way they used to. EVERYBODY knows at least ten people who are monumentally hosed right now, EVERYBODY.
A F—–G MEN!
Also, Athenae, have you ever readthis
credit default swaps/derivatives/ponzi schemes. YEAH! IT’S THE POOR PEOPLE FAULT.
wallstreet is people!
Admittedly, I do have some misgivings about giving money to folks who were irresponsible – but I also remember that a lot of these people were pulled into that situation by “smart” loan agents who kept telling them to inflate their income on the forms so they could get more. I also remember that the situation is a whole lot more complex as many were trapped by the housing bubble (no doubt accelerated by subprime loans for “easy money” and massive overspeculation on the housing market by investors)
But did this guy actually come on the edge of saying that the bailout money should be given to the folks who have money and are doing fine? Who in their right moral mind would advocate being a reverse Robin Hood and taking from the poor to give to the rich? Should I add “because the rich deserve it”?
I know that the “reverse Robin Hood” has been done for several thousand years. But in the USA doing this has usually at least had some aspect of shame and therefore trying to hide it.
Very nice, A, with one little quibble: the part about the argument not working anymore. I work with someone who still believes that anyone who can’t pay for healthcare shouldn’t get it. Apparently including a coworker whose hours were just cut and who will (what a coincidence!) be losing her health insurance in 8 days. Other coworkers are furious at the stimulus package on general principles, because general principles are all they have; they haven’t actually followed the process. I am related by marriage to a whole herd of people who believe it’s someone else’s fault, whatever “it” is at the moment. This includes a relative who quit his job because he saw the writing on the wall (hours cut, etc.) at his company and assumed that he would be able to waltz into another job anywhere he wanted. Three months later, this late-middle-aged white guy with limited skills can’t find anything. Somehow, it’s the fault of the illegals, Obama, or whomever Fox News is blaming today. I’d love it if people figured it out, but here in SmallMindLand, nothing’s changed.
I, like MapleStreet, also have some misgivings about the folks who may have misrepresented their income to get into a house beyond their means. But, like MapleStreet, I have very little sympathy for the people that let them get away with it.
But the thing that irks me most about the rant above is that three or four years ago, before the housing bubble burst, the guy above would have been lauding people who got ahead by buying enormous homes far beyond their means to pay for, then turning around and selling those homes after their value went up. This jackass would have been calling that sort of thing capitalism at its best, and I’m betting that he would have been urging people to do the very thing he decries now. Why? Because it would have kept the housing bubble growing, and lots and lots of people were getting rich off that bubble.
So what changed? Are those people good capitalists or not? (That’s purely rhetorical–it’s clear to me the jackass would call them bad capitalists–because they gambled and lost. Only winners get to be good capitalists.)
Direct your rage inward, jackass. The people you should be pissed off at are YOU.
I’m close enough to a couple of Republicans to know their resentment toward folks who diabolically steal their birthright comes straight from the GOP DNA.
It often starts when they sense something askew in the workplace (it could have been a job way back when). They notice someone who has fewer skills, is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, drools on her shoes when tasked with the mildly vexing, but who nevertheless advances because she looks better or brown noses or whatever.
And our Republican friends may be right on that point, but then everything goes awry. One would think they’d look around and say, yeah, fuck me, life’s not kittens and rainbows, this happens to everybody and I need to make choices and deal with it: I could bust ass for better pay or position, brush up on my social skills, maybe even thank my colleagues or compliment them, or failing that, look for a more compatible line of work or go back to school and improve my chances.
It’s this juncture where they say, nah, fuck it, I’ll be the shitty attitude, late-for-work guy who can’t meet project deadlines, but uh, it’s not my fault I get overlooked for a raise, it’s all the #@! #$!s in the world with their boots at my throat.
What’s ripe about this fantasy is how often it’s coupled with nostalgia bollocks. Even back when white dudes only worked for other white dudes, there were STILL fuckmook managers, insufferable martinets and daft bureaucrats.
And yes, this is a benefit of the doubt gesture, but even if you’re the smartest person in the room, that alone doesn’t make up for listening skills, diligence, conscientiousness, compassion, grace under pressure, persistence, finesse, tolerance, optimism or a passion for work. Sigh. And then they yak about responsibility.
Well said Jellymista!
I feel for these people, honestly, because it’s got to be so exhausting living constantly under siege like this…
Thank you for saying it – all of it – A., because they have exhausted me to the point that I can’t write about it anymore.
And the guy who works across from me was watching that fucker Santelli in real time yesterday – when the boss is away, etc. – and drinking it in like mother’s milk. Meanwhile, we’re down 60%-70% from last year because no one can afford to buy the products we importor export.
You mean … I COULD BE KING????!!!! OMG I never knew that.
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