Okay, so I promised a note on the opposition response to the State of the Union address, but there isn't much to say. What's frustrating to me about the opposition response is that it isn't really a response--it's a pre-recorded speech that only addresses the issues raised in the SOTU if the issues raised in the SOTU are the ones predicted by the opposition in the preparation of their response. And while that's a bit annoying when the speech is predictable and/or lacking in substance, it's particularly frustrating when there's stuff I'd like to hear them actually respond to.
What we got instead was basically your standard political speech, recorded and played after the president was done speaking. And because this year's SOTU took so many rather unexpected paths, Paul Ryan's for-real response made him sound like he'd been sleeping through the speech, and Michele Bachmann's me-too speech made her sound… very much like herself.
The For-Real Response: Paul Ryan
OMG OUR ECONOMY IS SHIT AND IT'S GOING TO MORE SHIT AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE AND WE'RE GOING TO BE GREECE AND OUR DAY OF RECKONING IS AROUND THE CORNER OH MY HOLY FUCK!!!
Showing posts with label war of words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war of words. Show all posts
Friday, February 04, 2011
Thursday, February 03, 2011
On the state of the state of the union
Okay, so I watched this year's SOTU the day after the event itself. We don't have standard television (and not in a snooty, Jesse Eisenberg, "I don't even have a TV" way--we watch an assload of TV, but we stream most of it), so I ended up watching it later on YouTube. That gave me the opportunity to read a lot of commentary on it beforehand, which I probably shouldn't have done but did anyway (so there), and that had me looking for undesirable things in Obama's speech: extreme socialism, extreme kowtowing, a sense of giving in and giving up.
I didn't see any of it.
Now, you all know me. You know my politics and views. You know that Barack Obama has been my pretend boyfriend since the 2004 DNC. But you also know that I tend to be (I think) fairly reasonable and discerning. And with this speech, I discerned… a pretty good speech. It was an appropriate balance of optimism (dare I even say hope?) and realism, it made solid proposals that were backed up by ways to make them happen, and it really, really showed a lot of respect for our country.
A few things that jumped out at me, briefly:
(Okay, a whole bunch of stuff that jumped out at me, at length:)
America the Beautimous
I didn't see any of it.
Now, you all know me. You know my politics and views. You know that Barack Obama has been my pretend boyfriend since the 2004 DNC. But you also know that I tend to be (I think) fairly reasonable and discerning. And with this speech, I discerned… a pretty good speech. It was an appropriate balance of optimism (dare I even say hope?) and realism, it made solid proposals that were backed up by ways to make them happen, and it really, really showed a lot of respect for our country.
A few things that jumped out at me, briefly:
(Okay, a whole bunch of stuff that jumped out at me, at length:)
America the Beautimous
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
On rhetoric and romanticised revolution
Or, But Words Can Never Hurt Me
Okay, so I'm sure you know that Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot, along with 18 other people, at a neighborhood meeting in Tucson. The shooter was a scattered, rambling, unsettling anti-government type; the victims included a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge who died while shielding a man with his own body.
When a tragedy like that takes place, the immediate instinct is to figure out why, God, why it happened--and it's a reasonable one. This tragedy had an easy focus: Sarah Palin's PAC had posted a map online pointing out Democrats who had supported Obama's health care reform bill. Each was marked with crosshairs; Palin introduced the map by saying, "Don't retreat, instead--RELOAD!"
That a woman targeted with crosshairs should end up shot is horrible but more ironic than suspicious; we have no reason to believe that Jared Lee Loughner was trying to follow Palin's instructions when he went after Giffords. But at the same time, it's significant--while Palin's map may not have been the instigator of this act, it definitely contributed to a growing culture of violent imagery and threatening political rhetoric.
Regardless of the Tea Partiers' own culpability for such rhetoric, it's easy to start with them. They're the ones who adopted the imagery of the American Revolution, which was a violent protest that went far beyond the dumping of tea into a harbor to actual and extensive bloodshed. In a time when objections to things like taxes are generally bloodless and handled by men in suits, Tea Partiers play the role of oppressed colonials who can only accomplish their goals at the business end of a rifle. In the hands of a Revolutionary War re-enactor, that's quaint; in the hands of an unorganized and impassioned crowd scattered across the nation, feeding each other's fervor and whipping themselves into a self-righteous frenzy, it's dangerous.
Okay, so I'm sure you know that Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot, along with 18 other people, at a neighborhood meeting in Tucson. The shooter was a scattered, rambling, unsettling anti-government type; the victims included a nine-year-old girl and a federal judge who died while shielding a man with his own body.
When a tragedy like that takes place, the immediate instinct is to figure out why, God, why it happened--and it's a reasonable one. This tragedy had an easy focus: Sarah Palin's PAC had posted a map online pointing out Democrats who had supported Obama's health care reform bill. Each was marked with crosshairs; Palin introduced the map by saying, "Don't retreat, instead--RELOAD!"
That a woman targeted with crosshairs should end up shot is horrible but more ironic than suspicious; we have no reason to believe that Jared Lee Loughner was trying to follow Palin's instructions when he went after Giffords. But at the same time, it's significant--while Palin's map may not have been the instigator of this act, it definitely contributed to a growing culture of violent imagery and threatening political rhetoric.
Regardless of the Tea Partiers' own culpability for such rhetoric, it's easy to start with them. They're the ones who adopted the imagery of the American Revolution, which was a violent protest that went far beyond the dumping of tea into a harbor to actual and extensive bloodshed. In a time when objections to things like taxes are generally bloodless and handled by men in suits, Tea Partiers play the role of oppressed colonials who can only accomplish their goals at the business end of a rifle. In the hands of a Revolutionary War re-enactor, that's quaint; in the hands of an unorganized and impassioned crowd scattered across the nation, feeding each other's fervor and whipping themselves into a self-righteous frenzy, it's dangerous.
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