Sunday, August 02, 2009

A Teabagger In the Crowd!

It amazes me how real life can play out years or decades ahead of time in the movies. It was only a year and a half ago that I watched the film A Face in the Crowd for the first time. A classic movie directed by Elia Kazan, who you may remember also directed many other socially relevant films such as On the Waterfront, and East of Eden.
The film takes place in the 1950's during the heyday of radio, and the beginnings of television. Its main focus was a character named Lonesome Rhodes as played by a youngish Andy Griffith. Griffith was absolutely captivating in this film, and if you get the chance to see it you will never be able to watch his series The Andy Griffith Show again without instinctively recoiling at his saccharine voice. The character Rhodes is a found star living among the captives at a small town jail who likes to dispense advise, and grassroots wisdom, while plucking a guitar. Lonesome likes the limelight, and power that comes from the attention his populist screeds on television, and radio bring. He gins up hatred, and anger in a way I find comparable to the way the modern GOP does today.
It was during last years election that I first saw similarity between this "found star" Rhodes, and the Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. She too, (just like ol' Lonesome) can muster mobs of people and raise anger toward made up boogie men, and fake issues using an amazingly sweet voice. People like Sarah, and Lonesome Rhodes often do get the attention they seek, but in real life, as in the film they too find themselves washed up when former allies turn on them. I do not believe it will be long before the cooler heads in the GOP begin to reel in their crazy activist counterparts, and give them a map to the door. If they ever plan to make a run at 2012 in a serious way, they will need to be able to point to level headed leadership in order to woo a majority of voters.


If they are not able to do so, we may be seeing the real end of the GOP as we ever knew them. History shows again, and again how mob mentality eventually leads to the path of destruction. Generally the destruction of those behind the curtains pulling the strings.
Make no mistake, it IS the GOP pulling the strings, and pushing a mob mentality this weekend. For every congress person the GOP sends people to scream at, and shout down at town hall meetings this month, they are loosing many voters that came to hear about the health care plan they want and need badly. This time voters will not blame the Democrats for the destruction of health care reform, as the evidence is clear that Republicans are the party of NO!

50 comments:

el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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Spirogyra said...

The Dems were caught off stride when taking the health care debate to the streets. I guess they underestimated the resolve of special interest groups wanting to derail any and all discussion on reform. An unofficial poll showed 57% Americans believed outrageous behavior at public hearings could be attributed to GOP lobbyists.

When you have no strategy to fix a broken system, I guess the next best thing is to stoke fear of change. The Repugs are masters of that. The Dems again stick their heads in the sand leaving Obama to deal with air head Palin.

el grillo said...
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Spirogyra said...

Every state is in dire straights and in a large part because of obligated health care costs. 50 million Americans have no health care resulting in the single largest cause of personal bankruptcies. The longevity and personal health of Americans is equivalent to that of 3rd world countries for which we pay the most compared to any other country in the world. US corporations must compete against other countries whose employee health care costs are covered by the government or who use nothing less than slave labor. It's no wonder Europeans are perplexed over our fighting over universal health care.

el grillo said...
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Spirogyra said...

So, is there any hope? A piecemeal approach to health care reform has actually worsened the situation. The last hastily crafted reform (prescription drug program) jammed through by the repugs is going to cost a trillion bucks. The gutless dems should rub the repugs noses in that and undo the damage.

el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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Spirogyra said...

I like the "medical mafia" reference. I'll try to use it in my arguments against the protectors of the status quo. I've toyed with "socialism security" as an argument against the Don Johnson's of the world who call health care reform socialism, fascism, and communism but bitch when their social security administration check, delivered by the USPS is a day late.

dmarks said...

El Grillo:

Good for Hillary. The so-called "coup" was against a dictator who was trying to seize power and become "president for life". Nothing to do with mythical "corporate interests".

Spiro: What the Dems did not understand was the depth to which an informed public did not like their ill-conceived plan. The outrage has everything to do with the public interest, and nothing to do with "special interests".

I see you both like to use appeals to overrated often imaginary forces to explain why pretty bad ideas get rejected.

dmarks said...

El Grillo said: "Mrs. Palin was obviously an unqualified candidate for a serious governing position"

At the time of the election last year, she had more executive experience than Senator Obama did. So she was at least as qualified as Obama was, at the time of the election. She also had much better ideas, too.

Spirogyra said...

dmarks, the outrage has more to do with stifled debate than the content of any one plan. You act as if there is no need to fix the health care situation in this country.

As far a Palin's "executive" experience, it could be argued that Kwame Kilpatrick had more executive experience than Palin. He even had more international experience having visited Windsor casinos. One more reality check. Johnny McCain had zero executive experience. He renounced any involvement with his wife's family business.

Spirogyra said...

demarks,

I am at a loss as to how to respond to your comment "She (Palin) also had much better ideas, too."

el grillo said...
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BarryCtyBoy said...

And the circle-jerk continues...

BarryCtyBoy

Lone Voice said...

Did anyone else wonder yesterday after reading the local paper who was running the local sheriff's dept?

If the quote is correct it would appear that Sheriff Leaf has a policy that his officers can work when and where they want and he pays them.

If one is to believe what you see and hear on the tv reality shows investigating drug activity is dangerous and they never do it alone, yet in our county apparently the local drug officer was allowed to to come and go on his own

Seems like a great way to have a disaster happen.

Lonevoice

Spirogyra said...

What happened to West Michigan Rising? Did it sink?

Patti said...

I too am wondering what happened to West Michigan Rising...

agnosticrat said...

Here is an explanation I found on bloggingformichigan.com:
http://www.bloggingformichigan.com/diary/4643/good-morning-michigan-lunch-money-monday-august-31-2009


The Death of WMR (4.00 / 3)
From Paul at Soapblox:

The metaphor I came up with is it's kind of like losing a sock at the laundry mat.... and your site was a sock that got left behind.

We used to have a bunch of servers from one company. After the hack back in January, we hooked up with a new company to provide backups, security, and hosting. We did a whole migration process to move all SoapBlox sites from the old servers to the new servers. When doing this, the site westmichiganrising was missed. It was not in my records--a mistake attributed only to me.

So eventually, since we had new servers which were running all SoapBlox sites, the old ones were shutdown at taken off line. Since your site did not get transfered, it was still on the old server when it got turned off. That's why it disappeared and the data and files were all lost.

I'm sorry that we lost all your data. I can only imagine how annoyed and upset you would be right now. Sadly, I cannot do anything to get it back because the site wasn't in our records. And I don't know how I forgot about you.

I have added you to our records, and am offering you another year of free service if you'd like to stay. However, again, I cannot get the old data back :(

There are a lot of very upset people out there that are hoping that they may be able to start over again, but from what I have seen the Phil is up in the air.

el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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Lone Voice said...

did dar give an interview like he did on Fri past? did he have on his brown jumpsuit with pants tucked in his combat boots?


lonevoice

el grillo said...
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Lone Voice said...

I am sure the sheriff took care of the donuts and then some from the pic of him.

Spirogyra said...

Call me a coward, I prefer casual observer, but I watched from the sidelines. From that vantage point, I saw Dar mingle with both sides. I think it was prudent for him to be there since I saw no sign of the Hastings Police.

el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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el grillo said...
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Spirogyra said...

How about betting on yet another budget impasse? From a gubernatorial election standpoint, it seems Hoodwinkstra's only argument against Granholm is whether or not Standish should get the Gitmo prisoners. Standish and the state wants them, Peter the Great does not. I wish more states were fighting like this to take in nuclear waste.

el grillo said...

This site has been shut down from lack of interest.

For discussions of local interest click on the link to the Progressive Dems blog over in the green area.

el grillo said...

"The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance to Obama's vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. Dialogue and negotiations are preferred as instruments for resolving even the most difficult international conflicts. The vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations. Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting. Democracy and human rights are to be strengthened.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

"For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman. The Committee endorses Obama's appeal that 'Now is the time for all of us to take our share of responsibility for a global response to global challenges.'"

el grillo said...

This site has been shut down from lack of interest.

For discussions of local interest click on the link to the Progressive Dems blog over in the green area.

el grillo said...

Failure of the majority party in Congress to exercise support of President Obama on any of the issues important to the voting public in the USA has spawned renewed interest in third party candidates.
Combining the fear of eventual conviction of Cheney, Wolfowitz, Addison, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Rice, and Bush, along with approximately 600 others for direct and indirect activity involving war crimes and violations of the Constitution, the Geneva Convention, etc... with a dwindling inventory of intelligent party faithful (still about the same 34% that still support wars and AM radio)...
the Republican Party appears to be gearing up for the worst thrashing in history by favoring a Palin-Gingrich ticket.
Smart money will be supporting this ridiculous pair of fools, guaranteeing strength to third parties in 2012, and re-election of Obama.

SUPPORT PALIN-GINGRICH 2012!

el grillo said...

.



CLOSED FOR THE DURATION

somewhat like the Seasonal Barry County Democrat Party

CLOSED FOR THE SEASON




.

dmarks said...

"She too, (just like ol' Lonesome) can muster mobs of people and raise anger toward made up boogie men"

Actually, Palin has a pretty good talent for identifying real problems, the real people reaponsible, and good solutions to the problems. No made-up bogeymen.

"If they ever plan to make a run at 2012 in a serious way, they will need to be able to point to level headed leadership in order to woo a majority of voters."

They are already doing this.

el grillo said...

I couldn´t have said it better myself!

Jay said...

No real activity on this blog. There is word that both Judge Fisher and Judge Holman may retire in the new year. Any comment to that?

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