Mar 26 2010

Jingo-Kitsch and Hypocrisy of “AmericanDad”

AmericanDad2

At last count, AmericanDad’s “Open letter to Conservatives” had accumulated 778 recommends on TPMCafé, a site where the most recommended diary typically accumulates 20, and it isn’t hard to see why.

I was ready to cheer as soon as I saw AmericanDad’s Christmas-card of an avatar…

“Me and JonBenet on Her Fourth Birthday”

Hurrah!

And Russell King, aka “AmericanDad,” isn’t just any kind of dad!

He’s an American Dad!

Cue the music from Grand Funk Railroad, and try to memorize the inspiring chorus, America!

He’s an American Dad!

He’s an American Dad!

He’s an American Dad!

He’s an American Dad!

He’s an American Dad!

You get the idea.

Or maybe you don’t, because reading AmericanDad’s diary wasn’t much different from hearing a Grand Funk chorus 778 times in a row, and by the time you had read one of approximately 778 links in it, you might just as well have read them all, because the very same awesome idea appeared and reappeared in all of them.

For example…

You can’t fight against your own ideas just because the Dem president endorses your proposal.

Don’t criticize Obama for doing exactly what conservatives already did!

And likewise throughout AmericanDad’s almost unending litany.

You can’t call for a pay-as-you-go policy, and then vote against your own ideas.

Are they “unlawful enemy combatants” or are they “prisoners of war” at Gitmo? You can’t have it both ways.

You can’t rail against the bank bailouts when you supported them as they were happening.

You can’t enjoy socialized medicine while condemning it.

Forget that Obama acts almost exactly like a neo-con!

Forget that Obama also “enjoys socialized medicine while condemning it.” Single-payer was off the table from the get-go!

Forget that Obama also supported and continued humongous bailouts for the mega-banks, while millions of American families went into foreclosure with almost no help at all.

Forget that Obama also wants to “have it both ways” about enemy combatants/prisoners of war, and waffles all over the map about how and where to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Forget that Obama also endorsed “pay-as-you-go” and capped domestic spending while unemployment soared and millions of American families lost everything.

That’s not the point!

The point is that neo-cons criticize Obama for acting like a neo-con!

The point is distracting Democrats from the miserable hypocrisy of their corporate-conservative sell-out of a President!

And they love it!

 

1 comment

  1. You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?

    and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?

    and the rain repeatedly spattering

    its words and drilling them full

    of apertures and birds?

    I’ll tell you all the news.

    I lived in a suburb,

    a suburb of Madrid, with bells,

    and clocks, and trees.

    From there you could look out

    over Castille’s dry face:

    a leather ocean.

    My house was called

    the house of flowers, because in every cranny

    geraniums burst: it was

    a good-looking house

    with its dogs and children.

    Remember, Raul?

    Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember

    from under the ground

    my balconies on which

    the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?

    Brother, my brother!

    Everything

    loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,

    pile-ups of palpitating bread,

    the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue

    like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:

    oil flowed into spoons,

    a deep baying

    of feet and hands swelled in the streets,

    metres, litres, the sharp

    measure of life,

    stacked-up fish,

    the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which

    the weather vane falters,

    the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,

    wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.

    And one morning all that was burning,

    one morning the bonfires

    leapt out of the earth

    devouring human beings –

    and from then on fire,

    gunpowder from then on,

    and from then on blood.

    Bandits with planes and Moors,

    bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,

    bandits with black friars spattering blessings

    came through the sky to kill children

    and the blood of children ran through the streets

    without fuss, like children’s blood.

    Jackals that the jackals would despise,

    stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,

    vipers that the vipers would abominate!

    Face to face with you I have seen the blood

    of Spain tower like a tide

    to drown you in one wave

    of pride and knives!

    Treacherous

    generals:

    see my dead house,

    look at broken Spain :

    from every house burning metal flows

    instead of flowers,

    from every socket of Spain

    Spain emerges

    and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,

    and from every crime bullets are born

    which will one day find

    the bull’s eye of your hearts.

    And you’ll ask: why doesn’t his poetry

    speak of dreams and leaves

    and the great volcanoes of his native land?

    Come and see the blood in the streets.

    Come and see

    The blood in the streets.

    Come and see the blood

    In the streets!

    Pablo Neruda (trans. Nathaniel Tarn)

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