Quote of the day: Frequency

Here's Charlie Pierce on Booby Prize Senator Scott Brown about to be on the receiving end of a can of whoop-ass from the Dana Scully of 21st century American politics, Elizabeth Warren:

He's still behind, but the race is still tight enough to produce at least 250 strange Texas euphemisms from Dan Rather.

Ah, memories.

The unforgiving minute: Obsessions

Actual headline from NPR's actual web site this week:

State Bill Outlaws Use Of Fetuses In Food Industry

The bill in question prohibits “the manufacture or sale of food or products which use aborted human fetuses.”

You may or may not be surprised by the following:

(1) This happened in Oklahoma.

(2) The fellow who authored this law, State Sen. Ralph Shortey, cannot point to any evidence of any company in Oklahoma manufacturing or selling food products containing aborted human fetuses. Apparently he's just making sure.

So I must return to a question I've asked before (usually in connection with the oft-repeated claim that legalizing man-on-dog sex would be the inevitable consequence of legalizing same-sex marriage):

Can you really be this worried about stopping something that you haven't already been thinking about -- a lot?

However virtuous these people pretend to be, this sort of thing reeks of an unclean mind.

Minute's up.

Right-winger Mad Libs

Last week, Digby examined this passage from a right-wing radio fulminator whom we'll leave in well-earned anonymity (source here, via Right Wing Watch, if you really must know):

This, again, brings us back around to the larger subject of this Occupy Wall Street, this astroturf movement that's been funded from [George] Soros down and from every other angle, taking a bunch of over-educated, over-indulged white youth and attempting to force change ... So we shouldn't be surprised that this group, this Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been endorsed by the Messiah himself, President Barack Obama, that they are now trying to infiltrate the schools and corrupt the minds of children.

I think the Occupy Wall Street movement, the larger movement, is anathema to the idea of American Exceptionalism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of those involved in this movement hate America as it was originally formed and founded as a free market country rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic.

Now Digby's point is that talk like this works by taking memes from the opposition, or conventional wisdom, and turning it wrong-side out. It exemplifies a point many critics on the left have been making for years: A lot of right-wing talk comes down to “I know you are, but what am I?”-style projection of their motives onto their enemies. (A corollary of this principle is that, if Republicans accuse Democrats of doing something, it's almost certainly something that the Republicans have already done themselves.) I agree with the Big D's point, and that passage is certainly a textbook example of the rhetorical move in question.

But that passage is more than simply a manifestation of the uncommonly angry minds populating the right end of the dial in America for the last twenty years -- it's much more.

With only minor continuity edits that don't affect the content, it's the basis for a fabulous party game: Right-Wing Mad Libs!

Rules: This is a game for multiple players. One player asks each of the other players, in turn, to select a word as specified on the numbered list below. Following this, the completed passage is read aloud with the selected words filling in the blanks.

If multiple teams compete, the creators of the best version are eligible for positions on a high-profile group blog funded by a right-wing think-tank.

Before the passage is read aloud, players must select:

1. An organization or movement.
2. A person.
3. An adjective.
4. An adjective.
5. An adjective.
6. A person.
7. A verb.
8. A plural noun.
9. A verb.
10. A plural noun.
11. An adjective.
12. An adjective.
13. An adjective.

Try it and see! Before you know it, you and your friends will be hooting and howling at the moon like Rand-quoting, hippie-punching, government-hating Tea Partiers!

This, again, brings us back around to the larger subject of this _____1_____, this astroturf movement that's been funded from _____2_____ down and from every other angle, taking a bunch of over-_____3_____, over-_____4_____ _____5_____ youth and attempting to force change ... So we shouldn't be surprised that this group, this movement, which has been endorsed by the Messiah himself/herself, _____6_____, that they are now trying to _____7_____ the _____8_____ and _____9_____ the _____10_____ of children.

I think the movement, the larger movement, is anathema to the idea of American _____11_____-ism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of those involved in this movement hate America as it was originally formed and founded as a/an _____12____ country rooted in the _____13____ ethic.

It's a sure-fire hit at parties, and an easy way to prove that, thanks to your enemies, America is going to __________ in a __________.

(Hint: A place, and a noun.)

Feel free to post your entries in the Comments.

Saturday morning tunes: "She never was afraid -- of goons and ginks and company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raid"

Well, wasn't this a noteworthy week in America?

Item: General Electric, which posted $14.2 billion in revenue worldwide ($5.1 billion in the US) in 2010, paid $0 in US corporate income tax for 2010. (In fact, it got a $3.2 billion refund. This was, of course, all perfectly legal* -- whose people helped design Administration policy for the last decade?)

Item: The Tea Party governors and Republican legislators of Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan continued their holy war against their state's workers -- unionized or non-unionized.

Item: And just to ice the let-them-eat-cake, five US House Republicans even went so far as to re-introduce a provision that would starve out uppity workers by denying food stamps to families with a member who's on strike (it's actually a long-time favorite of the corporate right).

Finally, yesterday was the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire -- or, if you prefer, The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Massacre:

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911, was the deadliest industrial disaster in the history of the city of New York and resulted in the fourth highest loss of life from an industrial accident in U.S. history. The fire caused the deaths of 146 garment workers, who either died from the fire or jumped to their deaths. Most of the victims were recent Jewish and Italian immigrant women; the youngest were two fourteen-year-old girls. Many of the workers could not escape the burning building because the managers had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. People jumped from the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors. The fire led to legislation requiring improved factory safety standards and helped spur the growth of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, which fought for better working conditions for sweatshop workers.

In the memory of those women -- those who died and those after, who would not let those deaths be meaningless -- here's Pete Seeger and Arlo Guthrie singing "Union Maid" (written by Arlo's dad).

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^*See Kinsley's Law.

Turns out George W. Bush learned something from the Sixties after all

Just not the particular lesson from the Sixties you might have been thinking of:

Oliver Stone’s new documentary South of the Border, which interviews several left-wing leaders of Latin American countries, has unearthed a startling new allegation from Argentina’s former president Néstor Kirchner. During his interview with Stone, Kirchner said he once discussed global economic problems with former President George W. Bush. The former Argentine president says that when he suggested a new Marshall Plan, referring to the WW II-era European reconstruction plan, Bush "got angry" and suggested that "the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats." Instead, Kirchner says, Bush suggested that "the best way to revitalize the economy is war"

There's a Memorial Day thought for you.

(Image via.)

Quote of the day: "Nonsense," "Nutty," "Whackadoodlrey," "Then the people have to think about it"

Pierce on Arizona desperately trying to turn itself into Little Casablanca:

Consider what has to happen for this nonsense to become law. Someone has to be nutty enough to propose it. Then, there have to be committee hearings. Then, there has to be a committee vote. Then, there has to be debate in both houses of the state legislature — except in Nebraska, which has a unicameral state legislature and, thus, 50 percent less whackadoodlery than the other 49 states. Then people have to think about it and vote for it.

You'll never think of the Brandeisian phrase "laboratories of democracy" the same way again.