The Tea Party's March of Folly: Idiocracy, Here We Come
Jon Ponder | Aug. 19, 2011
"And it was no accident
that Republican fatcat operatives
recognized these dumbasses
as suckers whom they could
easily dupe into believing
that it was the government,
not big business,
that caused the financial collapse in 2008;
that tax cuts create jobs;
that corporations are people;
and on and on
"or that a mild-mannered
DLC centrist Democratic president
who happens to be black
is actually a terrifying Kenyan
anti-colonialist Marxist
Muslim Nazi fascist illegal alien"
"Maybe it's naive to think that ideological opponents can be
brought together by a common fear of mass stupidity: Call
it idiocraphobia."
-- In her Los Angeles Times column on Thursday, Meghan Daum made note of
the rise references in political commentary to the movie "Idiocracy," a
2006 burp-and-fart, sci-fi political comedy set 500 years in the future,
written and directed by Mike Judge, the creator of the animated series
"Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill":
References to the film seem to be everywhere, and not just in
op-eds penned by cranky columnists... The latest issue of the
Economist has an article about the business-sabotaging effects of
the battles in Washington, headlined "American Idiocracy."
A recent blog post on the Psychology Today website was headlined
"Idiocracy: Can We Reverse It?" Meanwhile, it's popping up in
causal conversations, Internet comments and, most notably, on
Twitter, where it often appears as a hashtagged topic
Daum suggests that the movie has been given a second life...
Watch 'Idiocracy' Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=clYwX8Z43zg
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=clYwX8Z43zg>
Daum's hope is that interest in "Idiocracy" and the shock
of recognition of that society is being driven toward the future
it predicts will give pause to partisans on both sides and bring
them to their senses.
"Maybe it's naive," she writes, "to think that ideological
opponents can be brought together by a common fear of mass
stupidity: Call it idiocraphobia."
But, see, the problem here is not naivete. The problem with
this analysis is a reflexive reliance among media types on
the equivalency meme: both sides are equally guilty, equally
bad. A pox on both your houses...
It wasn't "Congress" that behaved like stubborn toddlers. It
wasn't Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and
their caucuses who seized control of the debt-ceiling debate and
drove the United States' full faith and credit toward the brink
of default.
Objectively, this stubborn behavior was only found among one
discrete faction: The radical know-nothing tea partyists.
There is no equivalency between any group on the left or in the
middle and the tea party.
No one else is so pliably dim-witted, so unmoored from reality
that they take it as faith that Jesus rode dinosaurs and the earth
is just 7,000 years old.
Based on the flimsiest tissues of obvious bogus-ness, they
convinced themselves that Pres. Obama, a mild-mannered DLC
centrist Democrat is in reality a terrifying Kenyan anti-
colonialist Marxist Muslim Nazi fascist illegal alien.
It is not surprising that Republican fatcat operatives have had
no trouble duping the tea partyists into believing that, for
example, it was the government, not big business, that caused
the financial collapse in 2008. That tax cuts create jobs,
and corporations are people.
It is these people, the tea partyists not Democrats,
liberals, independents or even moderate Republicans who are
the idiocrats among us...
Continue reading here:
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2011/08/19/tea-partys-march-of-folly-idiocr\
acy-here-we-come/
<http://www.pensitoreview.com/2011/08/19/tea-partys-march-of-folly-idioc\
racy-here-we-come/>
