Sometimes My Country Makes Me Want to Stab Out My Eyes with a Dessert Fork

I'm so fucking depressed.

There's too much stupid. My arms are tired. I can't muster the energy to spank. I'm going to have to rely on my fellow bloggers to beat back the hordes of raging fuckwits for tonight.

Steve Benen over at the Carpetbagger Report got my day off to a depressing start with this stark assessment of Obama's projected losses in Kentucky and West Virginia. Race may not be the only factor, as Steve points out, but it's pretty damned hard to discount. Combine race with all the bullshit about him being an elitist urban liberal who believes in principles more than pandering, and it becomes all too easy to understand why Obama's going to lose the working-class white vote.

They'll give him a pass for the same reasons my white, working-class Midwestern relatives will: they can't stand the thought of voting into office a man smarter than they are, and the fact that he's a black man who's smarter than they are just adds a whole new dimension to it. I hear racist poison spew from all sides when I speak to them. They don't always try to cloak it. And I'd hoped they were an anachronism, but it's become abundantly clear to me that they're not uniquely ridiculous. There's all too many just like them, or far fucking worse.

Don't believe me? Have a look at this McClatchy article.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's race and inflammatory racial remarks made by his former preacher negatively affect how likely voters view the candidate, according to a new poll in Kentucky.

More than one in five likely Democratic voters surveyed said being black hurts Obama's chances of winning an election in Kentucky, compared to 4 percent who said Obama's race helps him.

More than half of respondents said Obama's race isn't a factor in the upcoming May 20 primary. But many still said the racially charged remarks by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright will play an important role as they decide whom to support.

Among white voters, Wright's statements were important to 46 percent, compared to only 11 percent of black voters.

Pass me the dessert fork.

Blue NC just made it worse. They tried to show why race wasn't the main issue in all this. Maybe it's not, but it's hardly comforting to read what is. Buried amidst a lot of very good, valid ideas and issues is this quote from Ohiobama, advising Obama how to campaign in Appalachia:

Forget all national issues for a few days and talk about local issues. Find out what those communities want and speak to those wants. Don't send Oprah or Michelle to those areas; send George Clooney and John Edwards if you can get him. Don't jet around. Take bus tours with multiple stops in small towns. Pay attention to local history. Visit historic sites. Recruit new voters from the hollows as well as from college campuses. In fact, avoid the college campuses, they stigmatize you.

So he has to send white males like George Clooney to campaign? Avoid colleges because of some fucking stigma? What the fuck does it say about this country when colleges stigmatize a candidate? How stupid do they want the President to be?

I was excited about Obama because, unlike most of our presidential contenders these past many years, he's actually had a brain and a chance at winning. But I'm starting to wonder if he has any chance of winning once the American Ignorance Machine really gets cranked. Pretty Shaved Ape over at Canadian Cynic certainly didn't buck me up on that front: he thinks both of our Democratic candidates are "mediocre." Now how fucking sad is it that Obama isn't mediocre enough in America's eyes?

Which one of you buggers snagged my dessert fork? I need that back, thanks so much.

Especially after reading up on the Pledge controversy. Etha Williams at The Sacred Tree of Jeanne Shade quotes a plethora of stupid fuckers spouting off on why people should stand for the Pledge of Allegiance or leave the country.

Newsflash, fucktards: nothing in the bloody Constitution says that you're supposed to be a bunch of blind fucking sheep bleating empty bullshit about flags and patriotism. Let's ask Thomas Jefferson what he thinks about blind adoration of the United States of America, shall we?

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical."

"To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom; for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement."

Well, shit. Jefferson wouldn't have supported the "love it or leave it" wankers. Hey, Etha? Who've they got to support them?

"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

-- Hermann Goering, Hitler's Reich-Marshall, at the Nuremberg Trials

Oh, deary deary me. Seems that some folks have forgotten that there's a place for dissent in a democracy, and a good reason for it: blind devotion and willful ignorance can, as Etha so beautifully pointed out, have rather severe consequences.

Speaking of willful ignorance, Blake Stacey over at Science After Sunclipse has an example of it that hits like a battering ram to the solar plexus. He reports on the latest battleground over evolution in classrooms - Maine, of all places - and quotes a man who's a definite contender for Most Fuckheaded American:

Blevins spoke in favor of SAD 59 Chairman Norman Luce’s suggestion, that a philosophy class might provide a better forum for the study of evolution.

“That’s a sane approach,” Blevins said. “The evolution concept is a theory, and not provable. If the science department at Madison High is simply teaching theory, then you ought to leave it in the science department.”

My darlings, I present you Pastor Roy Blevins. He gets to wear the "Fucktard of the Day" hat. Blake did smite him mightily, but alas, this kind of stupid is adamantium. And he's a pastor. People listen to this stupid bastard. They trust this stupid little twit.

And then they're going to go vote for the dumbest bastard they can find when it comes time to select the person best qualified to lead our country.

Do you see now why I want my dessert fork back? Sharpened, please. I need to stab out my eyes in such a manner that they're still intact enough to stuff in my ears so I can drown these assclowns out.