Wow. More than eight months left ’til the November presidential election and already several energetic stalwarts in the BeatBush™ crowd — by way of an ad parody (coupled with more conventional media-friendly tactics, like claiming victim status) — are painting the Bushies and their supporters as closet racists who nurture an irrational distrust of “swarthy” people.
Which means come October the Dems will have upped the ante, and we’ll begin seeing clumsily doctored photos of a leatherclad Dubya reciting lines from the PATRIOT Act while anally raping Hilary Clinton with John Ashcroft’s severed fist.
Question: Should the Bushies be allowed to put a generic face to our enemies in the War on Terror? — one that doesn’t present likely terrorists as, say, hair-lipped female septuagenarian albinos …? Answer: I dunno, let’s ask Al Sharpton. Or maybe Terry McCauliffe. Oh, and quick: somebody get a mic on that Ibrahim Hooper fella. I wonder what he‘ll have to say about this…
In any event, the Bush campaign has only itself to blame for this latest manufactured outrage. After all, they used a “swarthy man” with “bushy eyebrows” in their ad when they could have easily replaced the controversial image with a head shot of Sean Penn. Or Barbra Streisand. Neither of which wouldn’t have altered the message one bit, now that I think about it.
I can’t even begin to imagine what kind of google hits just ‘leatherclad Dubya’ alone gets you, let alone the rest.
As they say, classic
.
Myria
Granted, there’s “I Am Sam,” but comparing Sean Penn to a terrorist? It’s bad enough that the nexus of Clear Channel, the FCC and the religious right has censored Howard Stern for critizing Bush (if you think there was any other reason I have some Iraqi WMD I’d like to sell you). What’s next? Hollywood blacklists? Internet wiretaps? Secret detentions of citizens? The arrest of homosexuals? The jailing of abortion doctors? Race-coded fearmongering? Careful, folks. Remember how fascism arose in Italy and Spain: an unholy alliance of wealthy landowners, the military, the Church and the corporations. That’s why the grieving Spaniards (who for various reasons, one of which should now be clear, overwhelmingly opposed their government’s participation in the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq) won’t turn nationalistic and bloodthirsty—they know only too well where that can lead. Islamofascism does indeed have its milder Western corollary, as is becoming frighteningly apparent.
I loved Fast Times at Ridgemont High, if that helps.
You humorless fuck.
here.
“That’s why the grieving Spaniards … won’t turn nationalistic and bloodthirsty—they know only too well where that can lead.”
I guess that’s why the first thing the Spanish government did, before the evidence had settled, was to blame the bombing on Basques.
Frank, that
I am amused with the “Willie Horton” ad discussion. As far as I know, the ad, which Gore invented, was correct in every respect. It did not say that evary Black was Willie Horton. It did say that Willie had been allowed furloughs during which time he raped and such. It suggested that granting those furloughs was unwise. It did not say that granting such furloughs to Blacks was wrong. I know that most black men are honest law abiding assets to the community. I suspect that those who object to the Willie Horton ad believe otherwise. And now, we are not to mention a criminal if he is swarthy.
Assholes!
How many times have you heard the argument “15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi Arabian… why aren’t we invading Saudi Arabia?” in prelude to the Iraq war question. So now we get someone remotely looking like one of the hijackers in an ad…