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Saturday, August 19, 2006

Sandwich Boards And Brown Tides

I'm obviously not much for principle, but one I strictly adhere to is never linking to a righty blogger. If they say something stupid -- which is like saying, "If George W. Bush says something stupid"; it's only a matter of time -- I might quote it, and attribute it, but I'm not giving them any traffic, meager as it would be.

Ironically, I came across this principle from the righty blogs, some of which I used to peruse in moments of supposed political equanimity. This was back before they devolved from mere triumphant assholes to rabid cornered animals, caught in a trap of their own poor workmanship.

Anyway, two things I noticed was that they very rarely linked to any lefty blogger to prove their point, and that they incestuously link to one another, even the exact same story. They have A Cause, and right or wrong, they promote one another in service to that Cause. Even if it's a brown tide, they make an effort to make sure that even the small fry get lifted a bit by the rising of said tide.

There is a righty blogger who has attracted the attention of many on the left lately, through his relentlessly vituperative rantings, his incessant howls of execration, to very loosely paraphrase The Decider's recent fave read. I happen to have become acquainted with this person some years ago, in three separate chat fora, so I am all too familiar with his barmy schtick, which has not changed appreciably.

So the sensation of observing this recent wave of snarky infamy is not terribly unlike, say, being a club rat in Liverpool and Hamburg in the early Sixties, and then six years later hearing the hype about the Beatles. That is, if the Beatles were incredibly shitty and aggressively bugfuck insane. Perhaps I finesse the issue.

Let's say that one day on your daily stroll to work, you encounter a raving meth junkie, filthy and unkempt, babbling a few phrases over and over again. He has a sandwich board proclaiming "Death To Muslims!" or some such. He carries the proverbial tin cup, which rattles with coins and bristles with a few bills of uncertain denomination. The backside of the sandwich board has been festooned with advertisements.

Maybe this speed freak is really just crazy like a fox, with his undeniably entertaining antics. Even a grisly, bloody car wreck can get a rubberneck rise out of a saint, at least once. But, you know, you get the idea pretty quickly of each situation. Meth Junkie Sandwich Board Guy is still going to be Meth Junkie Sandwich Board Guy tomorrow, next week, next year. It's not like he's ever going to take a look at himself and get his shit together.

It is helpful to be reminded once in a while just how crazy some of the folks on the other side of the political impasse really are, how intractable they are, and the nature of their assumptions. Sometimes the root of their discontent is not even really political; perhaps they have projected their own shortcomings and insecurities onto The Other. Perhaps they find more comfort in affirmation and false certitude than in realizing the true nature of the vile people and policies they so vociferously support; it's certainly a much easier path. Maybe some smug asshole from the Dukakis campaign was a little snooty with their Aunt Millie that one time, and so they've forever condemned the entire past and future of the Democratic Party and all of its associates, in their self-righteous indignation.

Whatever the case, when all is said and done, they are still just raving meth junkies with sandwich boards and ad space, but they make money every single time we walk by and laugh at them. It's just a thought.

Even though a chimp's goals may be little more than to masturbate, throw feces, and fuck the nearest chimp, you can't say they're not goal-oriented. Humans who keep showing up outside the monkey cage, pointing out the slinging of feces and the constant masturbation, maybe not so much.

4 comments:

RonB said...

Aw, come on, now I wanna know who it is.

By the way, I think Jackie Passey got everything she deserved and your buddy Brendan there did not cut and paste some of the most jerked off things she said.

Heywood J. said...

I don't mean to be coy or anything, Ron, but who it is isn't really important. The thing is that it's a repetitive circus-geek distraction, and not terribly productive in the long run. I'm not criticizing anyone in particular, it's just a paradigmatic distinction I've noticed over the past year or so.

We all return to the well periodically just to hone our chops on these crazy assholes, but it helps to keep in mind that it's a bottomless well, and there's no need to hit it every other day, especially when it helps make them money and fuel their notoriety.

I think there are a lot of people on this side of the aisle, present company included, that should be getting some of that ancillary traffic, rather than diverting it to, say, pointing and japing at Michelle Malkin's latest and greatest stab at lunacy. Bitch is still gonna be fucking crazy tomorrow and the next day and so on. I think we'd all get farther by helping each other out more frequently than wasting our time on the likes of her.

So I'm going to try to do my small part and put more effort into linking blogs like yours, Firestarter5, Dumbocracy, and others more often. That seems more productive to me than continuously pointing out that Jeff Goldstein eats paste and fucks his dog.

Heywood J. said...

As for Jackie Passey, Brendan did make some decent points about her avowed political stances, which somewhat mitigates her arrogant, off-putting tone overall. It's a form vs. content argument, and there's something to each side.

She could definitely take it down a notch or two, but she also could do herself a favor and realize that the internets are the playground of practical jokers and anonymous sadists, so don't be too surprised if the creep-to-good-guy ratio doesn't turn out so great.

I never got the urge to attack her personally (and there were some pretty ugly comments attacking her directly); I just thought it'd be moderately amusing to parody her demanding tone with what a sexist pig might demand from a prospective online hookup. Shoulda checked the calendar, because it apparently wasn't my day to think.

Heywood J. said...

Does that mean that Saturday isn't blow-job day? 'Cause I was totally in the running for the Heywoodette um, position. Until you got to Saturdays...sorry, Saturday is housecleaning day.

Well, the beauty of Blowjob Day is that it can be moved to whatever day's most convenient (though the onset of football season tends to complicate things). Never let it be said that I'm not flexible. Really, I'm all about compromise.

I thought Roy's Capek playlet was excellent, and a really innovative way to point out the idiocy on that side of the aisle. I suspect that there's a lot of people like you and me who get the gist from the posts, and don't bother with the links.

But I've seen plenty of comments from people who have checked it out. Those are pretty funny; you can almost see the fear in their eyes at actually encountering the morlocks of the internets. I guess there's really only one way to find out; I probably wouldn't just take my word for it either.