The 99%: We’re Not Even Livestock

So Rush Limbaugh is pulling another stupid human trick, this time assaulting the very idea that schools might want to feed poor children.  What I find revealing is his stated rationale for challenging the notion that it might be a good idea to give poor children food:  “If you feed them, if you feed the children, three square meals a day during the school year, how can you expect them to feed themselves in the summer?”  It’s as though he were describing baby black bears in Yosemite National Park who might not learn to forage properly if tourists keep giving away their pic-a-nic baskets.

The thing is . . . I have become more and more convinced that this attitude isn’t too far off from how the political and economic elite really do see the rest of us.  I used to think they view the millions of Americans who are the 99% as akin to crops or livestock, something to be harvested or culled for money when the need arose.  But I no longer believe that analogy holds.  After all, ranchers actually do have to spend money and tend to their cattle, farmers actually do have to water and care for their crops.  But the 1% and the public servants who toil on their behalf no longer bother to ensure we have minimal care.

Instead, I think it is more accurate to say that the 1% now conceive of the hundreds of millions of Americans who together make up the largest economy in the world as a kind of natural wildlife that should be left free to forage on its own, but which they are at perfect liberty to trap, skin, slaughter and eat as they please, their exploitation restrained only by the dimmest of understandings that enough of us must be allowed to survive so that our next generation can be trapped, skinned, slaughtered and eaten in turn.

And, indeed, it’s fairly easy to understand why they’d see us that way.

Republican Voters Are “Big Fans”

I really like Patton Oswalt; I think he is hilarious.  And so when I discovered via NetFlix a movie in which he had starred called Big Fan, I ordered it up immediately.  NetFlix describes the movie as a “black comedy” and black comedy – what used to be called “gallows humor” – is my kind of thing.  And I have to admit it wasn’t a bad film, but after watching it I felt a little cheated.  I found the thing to be so unremittingly bleak that I wouldn’t have categorized it as a comedy at all.

In the film, Oswalt’s character – Paul – lives a life of quiet desperation.  He works as a poorly paid parking garage attendant, stuck in a little booth and taking shit from customers.  He still lives at home with his mother.  He has only one friend, and there is no romance in his life whatsoever.  His only real joy comes from his beloved New York Giants football team, about which he is rabid.  He scrutinizes the games and players, he is a regular on a local sports talk radio station, and he and his only best buddy tailgate every single Giants home game even though they are too poor to actually afford tickets.  Instead, they watch the game on a tiny, crappy TeeVee while sitting in the stadium parking lot.

Despite starting at such a low point, Paul’s life gets even worse as the movie plays out.  He faces several decisions during the course of the story and, each time, he is so afraid of hurting his beloved team that he willingly foregoes opportunities to make his own life better.  By the end of the movie – and as a direct result of both his frustration with his own pain and his unwavering devotion to his team – Paul has assaulted his arch-rival (a fan of the hated Philadelphia Eagles), and is in prison.

And yesterday afternoon, whilst talking with a friend of mine, I had an epiphany.  The members of the rabid Republican base are all Big Fans.  They are all Paul, and the GOP is their team.

Thomas Jefferson vs. Lazarus Long

A great deal has been written both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream press about the GOP’s recent adventures in restricting American citizens from exercising their fundamental right to vote.  Of course, the GOP has for years raised phantom charges of “voter fraud” to justify things like requiring voters to present photo IDs before voting . . . despite the fact no evidence of any significant (or even insignificant) voter fraud has ever been presented.  As Bill Maher once pointed out, “We’re America, we don’t vote.  What’s next, you’re gonna pass a law to prevent people from wrongfully showing up for jury duty?”

 

But with the Republican tsunami of 2010 – especially in state races – and as very nicely summarized in this diary by The Troubadour, they’ve since cranked their efforts to restrict voting rights up to Eleven.  And all of these efforts, of course, work to the Republicans’ electoral advantage because all of these measures tend to have the most restrictive impact on minorities, the poor, and college students – you know, groups most likely to vote for a Democrat.

But I’m fairly convinced that this isn’t the only reason the GOP has embraced these vote restriction measures as fervently as they have.  Oh sure, obtaining an electoral advantage by denying your opponent’s supporters the right to vote is nice, but it’s especially nice for the GOP because the Conservative mindset doesn’t believe in democracy.  Instead, the Conservative mindset holds that only the “right sort of people” should be allowed to vote and – coincidentally enough – if you are someone who doesn’t feel like voting for the Conservatives then you, my friend, are not the “right sort of people.”