George Tiller Killed

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

The only difference between nuts is the tree they are on. These particular nuts are on the gospel tree. If they weren't on this tree they would most certainly be on another nut bearing tree.

Well said Hawk!

[Adios]

Thanks guys.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

The only difference between nuts is the tree they are on. These particular nuts are on the gospel tree. If they weren't on this tree they would most certainly be on another nut bearing tree.

I am so totally stealing that.

[hooplala]

So, these people are basically saying that they have no faith in their god to dish out punishment, since they believe they need to dish it out themselves. 

They sound like heathens to me.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The correct way to kill someone in cold blood and use your fairy story of choice to justify it is to claim "holy vessel" status. This allows the deranged fucking psycho pious christian to completely ignore the fact that they are actually the problem.

[Cain]

I saw a passing reference to Tiller in Tom Frank's What's the matter with America? (sold in America as What's the matter with Kanas), which I was reading in the library today.

Which was kind of sad.

But Franks had an interesting take on what was generally going on in Middle America, which I had only heard second hand up until today, but which I more or less agree with.  He describes what is going on as a sort of inverse populism - that is, populism without the economic element.  He also describes a "backlash industry", which uses populist methods and techniques, but in the service of economic goals which do nothing to satisfy the actual social greivances of the inverted populists.  This backlash is people like Ann Coulter and the like, who magnify and hype social issues designed to cause a divide between a supposed liberal elite which mocks the Heartland and true American (ie religious) values.  The issues never get resolved, because for all their bluster the GOP are a mostly upper class, suburban and educated leadership (though infiltration from this populist element is gaining power - see Sarah Palin for more).  Because they are never resolved, these populists get more and more hysterical, conspiratorial and fanatical.

Its not hard to see why violence erupts in such situations.

That the Democrats have basically abandoned their populist roots does not help either, as it cedes the ground to religious and right-wing organizations, some sensible, but far too many interested in seeing the poor and less powerful in society actively work against their own interests.  And far too many religious groups who, knowingly or otherwise, continue such a state of affairs.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

I saw a passing reference to Tiller in Tom Frank's What's the matter with America? (sold in America as What's the matter with Kanas), which I was reading in the library today.

Which was kind of sad.

But Franks had an interesting take on what was generally going on in Middle America, which I had only heard second hand up until today, but which I more or less agree with.  He describes what is going on as a sort of inverse populism - that is, populism without the economic element.  He also describes a "backlash industry", which uses populist methods and techniques, but in the service of economic goals which do nothing to satisfy the actual social greivances of the inverted populists.  This backlash is people like Ann Coulter and the like, who magnify and hype social issues designed to cause a divide between a supposed liberal elite which mocks the Heartland and true American (ie religious) values.  The issues never get resolved, because for all their bluster the GOP are a mostly upper class, suburban and educated leadership (though infiltration from this populist element is gaining power - see Sarah Palin for more).  Because they are never resolved, these populists get more and more hysterical, conspiratorial and fanatical.

Its not hard to see why violence erupts in such situations.

That the Democrats have basically abandoned their populist roots does not help either, as it cedes the ground to religious and right-wing organizations, some sensible, but far too many interested in seeing the poor and less powerful in society actively work against their own interests.  And far too many religious groups who, knowingly or otherwise, continue such a state of affairs.

Very nice assessment!

I agree with the assessment of the Dems... 'Liberal' values, should be a very Christian sort of thing... feeding the poor, caring for the elderly, orphans, widows etc... that's all very Jesus kinda stuff. In fact, before the 80's a large number of Christians apparently claimed to be Democrats. Only with the rise of the Moral Majority and the hyperfocus on abortion, homosexual rights etc. did the GOP suddenly become the group for Jesus. The Dems need to start quoting scripture when discussing national healthcare.

But then they would piss off the loud nutters in the atheist camp.

[Cain]

Franks talks about that a lot in reference to the 1890s-1930s populist movements in the Mid-West.  William Jennings Bryan and all that.  Also, in Kansas in particular, the abolitionist movement (which was very popular with the New York and east coast liberal set of its day).

Of course, he also points out the Christians involved in such things then are usually the more liberal churches now, like the Quakers (ignore the Nixon in the closet), the ones denounced by such conservative Christians for their apparently non-Christian beliefs.

Interestingly, he spends a few pages talking about the religious conservatives particular attitude to poverty.  They've actually grown to love the whip, in a way.  Almost all the political organizers on the religious right are volunteers who do this in their spare time.  One of the most powerful men in Kansas in this movement he speaks to works full time in a factory, on the line assembling parts.  They believe their poverty, Spartan way of life and denial of earthly pleasures is proof of their moral righteousness and their superiority over the effete liberal elites, and their RINO friends.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Franks talks about that a lot in reference to the 1890s-1930s populist movements in the Mid-West.  William Jennings Bryan and all that.  Also, in Kansas in particular, the abolitionist movement (which was very popular with the New York and east coast liberal set of its day).

Of course, he also points out the Christians involved in such things then are usually the more liberal churches now, like the Quakers (ignore the Nixon in the closet), the ones denounced by such conservative Christians for their apparently non-Christian beliefs.

Interestingly, he spends a few pages talking about the religious conservatives particular attitude to poverty.  They've actually grown to love the whip, in a way.  Almost all the political organizers on the religious right are volunteers who do this in their spare time.  One of the most powerful men in Kansas in this movement he speaks to works full time in a factory, on the line assembling parts.  They believe their poverty, Spartan way of life and denial of earthly pleasures is proof of their moral righteousness and their superiority over the effete liberal elites, and their RINO friends.

Very interesting observations. I need to read that book.

[Cain]

Its been out a good five years now...your local library may even have a copy.

He also seems to have wrote a book on the commodification of rebellion, which, going by some of his off the cuff remarks in What's the matter with Kansas? could be interesting.  Not sure of the exact name, but might be something to look out for.  Some of his observations mirrored those from the book link I posted in O:MF and that Cram remarked on.

[Jenne]

That's awesome stuff, Cain, and I agree with that assessment 100%.  I see it all the fucking time, esp in my own redneck-based family.  It's very very tough to find any middle ground for the paranoid, because the talking bobbleheads on both sides pay lip service but never seem to make any headway in solving a damned thing.  Their separate agendas are always working against any sort of real solution, and it's very fucking frustrating to even TRY to convince those who are lured into and swallow wholesale the BULLSHIT that they are being PLAYED.

(here's where it gets long, feel free to stop here, tl;dr, etc.  My parents are prime examples.  They both came from Dixie-crat type liberal families.  My father, So Cal boy all the way, but his parents' antecedents were Catholic and midwestern on his dad's side and Hollywood corruption on his mother's.  No educational background at all, either.

With my mother, her parents are Dixiecrats with Bible thumping lifestyle.  Reagan Dems.  My mother's people were in turns part-racist, part-preacher.  My grandfather went into the navy at an early age to escape poverty (no education there, either), and my grandmother, the most pragmatic of all of them (father a farmer, mother a school teacher) is self-educated and got her degree at the age of 65.

My parents themselves have this strange distrust of the Ivory Tower(tm), and they ridicule the educated with fervor.  They sound like a rap sheet of talking points from Rush Limbaugh. Both of them have high school degrees only.  They are so ripe for the prejudicial, calculating manipulation and downright powergrabbing agenda of the rightwing local and national politics.  My father now (with just a smidgen of chagrin) admits that the politics he has supported for years (with $$$$ sometimes) are the very same that put him in prison.

My mother, who's been reduced to severe poverty after being a millionaire's wife, is a two-headed hydra.  On the one hand, she wants to be treated specially by the government, because she has no formal education, no job experience, and the government took all her husband's ill-gotten gains from her.  So why not give her the free ride everyone else should get, right?  Yet she'll rail against the so-called welfare mothers, the higher taxes and anything else that would make sense for someone who would love to take advantage of anything offered to her through the gummament.

So of course they still cling, to the Conservative platform and the "Family Values" that those asshole Republicans and their talking heads shove down their listeners' and constituents' throats.  The REALITY of my parents' situation just doesn't seem to compute.  They have no shame in it, because they have THE BIBLE on their side.    (Yes, I come from at times very stupid, hard-headed people.)

It's nuts.  When you use religion and fear and extreme poverty to whip people up into this war-like mentality...well, you get the goddammed Taliban is what you get.  But no amount of comparison will sway the zealots.  They are the so-called RIGHTEOUS.

Which both repels me and makes me fear how far they will go.

[Adios]

The only difference between nuts is the tree they are on. These particular nuts are on the gospel tree. If they weren't on this tree they would most certainly be on another nut bearing tree.

I am so totally stealing that.

Take it!

[Iason Ouabache]

My mother, who's been reduced to severe poverty after being a millionaire's wife, is a two-headed hydra.  On the one hand, she wants to be treated specially by the government, because she has no formal education, no job experience, and the government took all her husband's ill-gotten gains from her.  So why not give her the free ride everyone else should get, right?  Yet she'll rail against the so-called welfare mothers, the higher taxes and anything else that would make sense for someone who would love to take advantage of anything offered to her through the gummament.

Sounds exactly like the Craig T. Nelson rant on the Glen Beck Show I posted the other day. "The government is eeevvvill and no one should have to pay taxes. Everyone should be self-relient. I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No."

[Jenne]

My mother, who's been reduced to severe poverty after being a millionaire's wife, is a two-headed hydra.  On the one hand, she wants to be treated specially by the government, because she has no formal education, no job experience, and the government took all her husband's ill-gotten gains from her.  So why not give her the free ride everyone else should get, right?  Yet she'll rail against the so-called welfare mothers, the higher taxes and anything else that would make sense for someone who would love to take advantage of anything offered to her through the gummament.

Sounds exactly like the Craig T. Nelson rant on the Glen Beck Show I posted the other day. "The government is eeevvvill and no one should have to pay taxes. Everyone should be self-relient. I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No."

Yup.  It's a sickness, it really is.  And you'd think spelling it out or education would help.  But since they are always right and they are suspicious of anything that comes from a university...you know how left-wing those places can be!...yeah, it's a bloody-forehead-against-wall proposition.

[Cain]

Franks also noted that unlike the moderate Republican elite, many of these people did not have University educations.

The Republicans set up this beast to garner votes, with no real intention to ever follow up on their promises.  And now, the monster they created is shambling off to the nearest village, shouting "braaaaaaaaaains....".  They saw the promises were never being kept, so they infiltrated the party en masse and moved it way to the right.

They almost deserve to be run out of the Party by the Palinista.