Make no mistake. Modern California conservatives (most of whom are self-described Republicans, but in some places are just as often self-described "Independents," "moderates," "libertarians," or "pro-business democrats"), while typically softer around the edges, and more willing to create the conciliatory appearance of trying to appeal to thoughtfulness and a peculiarly unctuous brand of reason than their fellow wingnuts in, say, Idaho or South Carolina, are just as bizarrely moronic. To be sure, they're more enamored of civil liberties and the products of enlightenment values, or they're more "libertarian" (i.e., often 420-friendly, accommodating of the little ladies' right to choose, and happy with miscegenation), and doubtless they'd cry like bitches if you actually dropped one in an Elohim-style survivalist compound in Montana or a Stars & Bars-waving Mississippi trailer park, but ultimately, that's all window-dressing -- at their heart, they are just as spiritually penurious, just as emotionally and intellectually dishonest, and just as morally incompetent as their national Party brethren and allies.
The motley, rickety collage of California's left-of-center electorate, despite its incessant infighting, continually makes great strides in combatting the agenda of the Bund set's effete political descendants on the Left Coast, but these successes have not completely halted the march of robber barony and soft fascism; they have merely slowed them to a crawl. This is good, in that lets our nationally based opponents know that the Bear Flag State is not to be trifled with, but bad because it aids them in honing their underhandedness -- we force them to take their steps ever more gradually, and ever more obliquely, running the risk that there's that much more they can accomplish under the radar.
Our tutoring them in their greater circumspection is in part why we suffered such a grievous loss a couple of years ago when, aided by Gray Davis's absurd willingness to bend over and self-lube for big business, and in-no-small-part-self-servingly abetted by Daryl Issa's ill-gotten millions, we ended up with a Schwarzenegger administration partially orchestrated by and entirely (if secretly) beholden to Bush White House Svengalis. (Yes, I am momentarily digressing over spilt milk.)
It is true: policies that may market brilliantly in Orange will not go over in Venice, or even Malibu. The voters of Glenn or Colusa counties will quaff all sorts of medieval snake oil from which the folks of Mendocino, Siskiyou, and even Butte would rightly recoil. And when the salesman are nationally recognized right-wingers, endorsements from, for example, the sneeringly evil Dick Cheney will have the opposite of the intended effect -- they do our jobs for us. But they've gotten clever. Cranky, professionally prickly, xenophobic stable whores such as Dana Rohrabacher and Richard Pombo have been moved to the back burner, and put on a low flame. "Special Interests" have, with limited success, been quietly redefined to mean not multi-billion-dollar corporate interests, but firefighters' and teachers' unions. Our governor is a famous Holleevüd Schtah married to a feisty Kennedy.
Under this very same, oh-so-liberal, reasonable, "moderate" California Republican executive, an awesome victory has been scored for the reactionary right: a special election scheduled for this November 8. Think of it: special elections traditionally have a very low turn-out, meaning most of the people who head for the polls are the most dedicated Kool-Ade drinkers. And if opposition to the current regime and its plans continues to be as actively, virulently antipathetic as it has been recently, the bad guys still have the recourse of merely toning down public awareness that anything is happening on the 8th.
Of course, this bold effort could backfire -- there could in fact be a massive turn-out, which would be bad for the proponents. And already our side has scored a point by getting at least one positive initiative on the ballot.
But today I'm focusing on the first one, in numerical order: the heinous Proposition 73, which submits for voter approval a waiting period and parental notification before the termination of a minor's pregnancy; the initiative would be an amendment to the state's constitution. This one is so clearly ugly, immoral and vicious, so in tune with the über-patriarchal, misogynistic values against which we fought so bloodily in the 60s and 70s, that I do not need to discuss it in detail here. I'll merely let Abigail Van Buren do my blogging for me:
Her father beat her so badly that she was in the hospital for more than a month. She lost the baby because of the beating and ended up in foster care.
A gob of runny shit smeared on paper like Prop. 73 could be proposed only in a California that exists in Bush's Uhmur'ka.
In the following weeks, I'll visit each proposition between bouts of the usual Freedom Camp perversion and frivolity. Until next time, remember, chillun': vote early and often, and on November 8th, let's smack these motherfuckers back to the 13th Century for which they so clearly pine.
"...un zat is vhy Kalifohniya must annex Sudetenland."
10.15.2005
Ore : 1:07 PM
Ore : 1:07 PM
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Comments for "...un zat is vhy Kalifohniya must annex Sudetenland."
your moral indignation veritably moistens my panties.
- Posted at 12:17 PM | By
Kevin W. Baker
Res: I have a suppository for that, but it's awfully big and thick. This may hurt a little...
Nölff: I surely am. And stick around -- doubtless you'll find something to disagree with ;)
P.S., I didn't mean any broad-stroke slur against South Carolinians in my rant, btw.
Nölff: I surely am. And stick around -- doubtless you'll find something to disagree with ;)
P.S., I didn't mean any broad-stroke slur against South Carolinians in my rant, btw.
P.S., I didn't mean any broad-stroke slur against South Carolinians in my rant, btw.
Eh, go ahead. What are they going to do, burn you in effigy atop a pile of tires at the edge of the trailer park?
Eh, go ahead. What are they going to do, burn you in effigy atop a pile of tires at the edge of the trailer park?
- Posted at 3:55 AM | By Kevin W. Baker
Do I know you?
- Posted at 9:58 PM | By Ray Bridges
Baby, nobody knows me...for I am the wind!!!
(But seriously, probably not. Unless you're talking to one of the other posters. Like the new typepad look at your place, btw.)
(But seriously, probably not. Unless you're talking to one of the other posters. Like the new typepad look at your place, btw.)
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