A Party of Whiners.

Reading Randy Cassingham’s blog entry about an irate right-winger who chose to pick a fight with him over the ‘net soon after reading a similarly crybaby comment at the Progressive Blue version of my previous entry, I couldn’t help but recognize a pattern: there is a large segment of American society that goes out of its way to take offense at anything, no matter what.  Even…no…especially when the perceived offense is absolutely true and not necessarily intended to raise hackles, someone, somewhere must make a gymnastic leap in logic.  Why this is so is a matter of speculation, but I like to think my theory is closer to the mark.

Before I state my theory, I need to emphasize that we exist in a time of ideological warfare between left and right, with the latter having seized and kept the upper hand for the last thirty or forty years.  The far right has gained the upper hand partly by buying and dominating the media, but mostly by behaving so bestially aggressive and dishonest that it often comes across as being insane.  This might deter those who care what the opposition thinks of them, but if there’s one thing we on the left need to learn it’s that the far right is not hindered by such concern.  Let me reiterate that last point: the far right doesn’t give “two tugs of a dead dog’s cock” (Ellis, Transmetropolitan) what we on the left think of it.

This leads to the ideological right having full freedom to create narratives and then use them to pummel those of us on the left into craven submission.

In order to create and maintain a certain order within society, it is necessary to create and maintain certain narratives.  To that end, there are those whose job it is to see to it that these narratives are kept going.  For example, any remark about Sarah Palin must be filtered through a lens of attack, as though no matter what she says or does, certain social undesirables will relentlessly jump on it as though it has some dark ulterior meaning.  This is because Palin, like most of her Republican contemporaries, is so devoid of ideas (not to mention humanity) that her image must be protected at all costs — even to the point of absurdity.  It doesn’t matter that attacks might not exist; in order to engage in preventative ideological warfare, they must be invented.

This is what “Bill” tried and failed to do when he attempted to bully Cassingham into deleting his blog entry.  It didn’t matter that Randy never attacked Palin, and in fact agreed with her on a particular point — namely, that she and a lot of Americans have a hard time figuring out what a vice president, besides sitting around waiting for a sitting president to become incapacitated or die, actually does; what mattered was that a perceived potential attack had to be eliminated before someone else latched onto and ran with it.  This is what drove “Bill’s” e-mail attack on Cassingham.

Now we come to the above-linked comment by “Ellinorianne” over at Progressive Blue (formerly EENR).  This person has relentlessly complained about the content of my blog entries every time I dare venture forth into the realm of insult or name-calling.  Granted, there are web sites that enforce a certain code of conduct and which have every right to do so; sometimes it is necessary to word things differently to accommodate different audiences.  Nevertheless, there are times when I simply have to take the proverbial gloves off and call something what it is.  In this case, I called Barack Obama a corporate conservative jerk — which is exactly what he is.  I’m not now, nor have I ever found myself, alone in my sentiments since signing up for EENR.  Most people there seem to get what I’m trying to accomplish, even if sometimes they might disagree with my methods.

That’s not enough, however, to dissuade the “politeness police” — as one online acquaintance calls them — from stepping forth with their demands for tepid, timid wording.  The problem is that it’s such ideological cowards as they who help the enemy maintain dominance on the battlefield of ideas.  Extreme conservatives are allowed to say and do anything they want in promoting their heinous views, but we on the left are forbidden from “lowering” ourselves to their level by engaging in similarly rough and tough rhetoric.  Never mind that we have truth on our side, or that we’re getting our asses kicked trying to play nice with deranged animals; we can’t be seen to be as viciously partisan as our adversaries.  If we were, whatever would people think of us?

I’ll tell you what people would think of us: they’d think we have guts.  They’d think we care enough about our values and ideals to fight for them with every fiber of our being.  We needn’t lower ourselves to lying or bullying, but we do need to take off the fucking kid gloves and stand up to the bullies because, as all bullies tend to do, they piss their pants and run crying to Momma if they can’t get their way — bullies are actually moral, intellectual, and spiritual cowards who’ve realized they can dominate by instilling fear in those who are mentally and spiritually stronger than they are.  This they often achieve by resorting to physical brutality, but that only lasts so long as someone else doesn’t come along who has the physical ability to stand up to said bullies.

On the Internet, bullying takes a virtual form, but it’s still bullying.  The same principle, however, still applies: stand up to them and all they can do is piss and whine.  That’s what conservatives, who have bought for themselves not one but two large and powerful political parties, are: a bunch of professional whiners.  Let’s not allow ourselves to be bullied by whiny little cowards from within our own camp.