America left
A friend induced me to listen to America Left on XM. "Why?" I asked.
"Know what the enemy is doing."
I did. There is a host named Mike M. who was moaning last night about climate change, and how 20% fewer Americans thought that there was climate change than thought it two year ago. He was shocked at the apostasy from his religious belief. Notice how global warming has become climate change, but the cure is still the same: draconian governmental interference, and massive statism. Perhaps the weasel words used to describe it twigged people to the essential lie.
And even worse, he whinged, only 36% of people believe it's anthropogenic. That's not a word in his ken, but that's what he meant. To the left, mankind, or at least American mankind, is responsible for everything.
In other words, we don't know whether it's getting warmer or colder but we believe, as a matter of faith, that things are changing and therefore we Must Do Something About It. Notice the self-importance here. They can't even define a problem and yet want to take action. Like a fat chihuahua barking in a pensioner's house.
The cure that we have had presented to us by His O'liness and all the happy little statists in Washington is Cap and Trade, which would be quite costly and have virtually no effect whatsoever, on Global Warming, er, Climate Change but would ruin our economy. Which may be the point, but that's for another day. But still it must be tried because, all together now, We Must Do Something. The tocsin of the self-important. Although it is not in the Hippocratic oath, "First, do no harm," sounds to me to be entirely reasonable as a working philosophy. But then if you're a happy little interfering leftist, that doesn't give you enough room for self-expression. These people do not exist alone in a room.
Saying that Cap and Trade is good for Climate Change, when we don't know what it is, if it is, especially since we've been cooling for a decade, is like a doctor telling a patient, "You're either diabetic or hypoglycemic, and we don't know which. But you're going to get insulin and it's going to cost you half your paycheck and don't become an insulin denier. Because that's heretical."
I have to confess that some of the right-wing talk shows grate on my nerves; there is at times a gruff and bullying tone that annoys. Michael Savage comes to mind and Sean Hannity's face seems just perfect for slapping. O'Reilly is a polemicist and bully. But after listening to America Left I'll take them any day at all. Mike M.'s sissified and self-righteous whining made me cringe in my seat. I recall the one time in my life in Midland that I voted in the Democratic primary--to throw a dead cat at Lloyd Doggett--and I recognized the beseeching, hurt tone from the voices of the primary workers. These were people who were so severely damaged that they were hell-bent to change the world. Not to make it better, but to make it anything but what it is because it might save themselves from the awfulness of personal responsibility.
Finally someone called Mike M. The conservative talk shows have too many callers, but someone calls. After fifteen minutes of Mike M'.s whining someone finally picked up the phone, and started stammering.
Mike was embarrassingly grateful for the call, and every time it was over to caller, there was a five-second silence on the air. I wish I could have heard the bleeped expletives or would they too have been embarrassingly feeble? Mike M. and his caller kept assuring each other that the world was in danger of their terror du jour and that science backed them up, when it in fact does not, and that they alone could see the truth. Evangelism to a religion which can be empirically disproved.
This however was not as bad as another episode, when he was interviewing someone who was reeling off anecdote after anecdote. Mike kept breaking in, "Give us a call. 1 866 MOONBAT." The guest would get out two lines, and it was, "Give us a call. 1 866 MOONBAT."
I was on tenterhooks, expecting to hear, "Call us. You can have a night with my daughter. Just help me! You can have a night with my son! He's a little squishy! Oh hell, he's the starting quarterback but get me out of here!" I really was beginning to feel for these people when I ought to have been laughing until I teared up. Never show the left mercy. They will never return it; David Horowitz, an ex-leftie, is insistent on that.
And finally--finally, when the guest was completely out of weak, solipsistic anecdotes--someone called, and they both sighed, only to find that the caller was another damaged person angry with the world for it not thinking he was as great as he was. They kept trying to pull words out of his mouth to avoid going back to the hell of having nothing to say except a constant whine, without even the interruption of a flashing switchboard.
America Left is hilarious. It is the home of damaged and angry people who cannot understand that they must attend reality and not the other way around. Fleeing from the responsibility of living their own lives to the pseudo-security of statism.
It's the saddest network I know and I probably ought to feel guilty for laughing as much as I did.
UPDATE: Tonight on America Left the same Mike M. was belittling people who refused to take the flu shot. He said that he and his kids, who were in their 40s, had had a thousand shots and they were doing fine. But also he understood all about the pharmaceutical and medical complex and how evil they were.
How many flavors of cognitivie dissonance are there? Or is cognition a generous term?
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10 Comments
Theo, I've tried listening to "America Left" on road trips and I just can't last as long as you did. I am very willing to listen to someone that is intelligent speaking about something that I disagree with. But, the people that they had hosting the show I listened to were absolute idiots. I couldn't take it anymore.
The reason that Rush Limbaugh has been on the air so long and has enough money for a G5 and an NFL team is because he has an absolute death grip on the English language. There are few orators out there better than him. Any idea he has, he is able to very clearly broadcast to even the lowest common denominator.
Air America couldn't pay it's bills after a month on the air because they would bring out any idiot that happened to be gay, a minority, downtrodden, or poor at any point of their life and put them on the radio. America Left seems to be carrying on that same tradition.
JC, your point that the left's interaction with reality stops at the point that they became enlightened is very fine--thanks. I'm going to steal it. Or become enlightened, but in the real sense of the word. Not the sense of nursing a grudge against reality.
Boomhower, you also had a very good observation about Air America's failure being because all they did was trot on pathetic people. We could call this the Sally Struthers School of Politics. Find something pathetic and think that it makes a point.
"Here's a gay man who was looked at funny when he was in high school and so it follows that it's racist if we disagree on socialized medicine." That's an elision of their stance but only by a few seconds of air time. And it's entirely possible for gays to be looked at funny and survive. This is pulling everyone into a pathetic cauldron of hurt, damaged people, and telling them to remain hurt instead of just getting over it. Is this in any real way different from voluntary slavery?
Politics ought not be merciless by any means, but subsuming intelligence to bathetic emotion is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Pulling at people's heart strings is fine for a television ad for hurt puppies, but to do so to induce them to vote for statist measures is not only wicked; it is ultimately futile, because the problem is not solved.
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It came to me today. Do you recall the Bugs and Daffy cartoon when Bugs said, "What's up, Doc," and got a standing ovation? Daffy did a very good buck-and-wing and there was no applause at all. Just the sound of a cricket chirping.
Last night on America Left I heard crickets chirping.
I even started to wish for the commercials for adamandeve.com and how to defraud the banks who hold your credit cards.
Here is a flu shot victim
What you and most of the commenters fail to realize is that the opinions and attacks on this blog are just as extreme as America Left.
Swing voters and normal people do not like extreme.
Boomhower, Great Orator? At his peak Rush Limbaugh had 20 million listeners. 122,394,724 people voted in the last election. The majority of people do not like Rush Limbaugh. I find it beyond ironic that he is deaf you know what they say.. use it or lose it,
Also, he was on 1-Y (emergency only) draft status during Vietnam.. Phony Soldier anyone? The reason.. a boil on his butt.. the kind you get from sitting on it too often. Operation Chaos was a joke.. really.. using your vote to contrive an election.. way keep it classy Rush.
People do not like fanatics or rabble rousers.
I always vote for the candidate and I am not a member of any party, if Palin had not been chosen and the "Bomb Iran" comment had not been uttered I would have voted for McCain.
Think about the tone of the blog posts.. you may be turning some swing voters off, and we comprise the majority of voters.
Enemy: You seriously were swayed to vote for President Obama because of a bad joke the other guy made? Wow. Just, wow.
How are you feeling about that vote?
Enemy (an elision and not an appellation), the opinions on this blog are de natura right wing. It is the substance of the blog, although I may have some more libertarian views than some of the others. Still, unabashed right wing.
Not really sure what you're driving at attacking Rush Limbaugh; it is inchoate.
I did mock some of America Left's views; they are risible. But my two main points were first, how very immature they sounded. Not just different in political philosophy, but how everyone seemed to have a grudge against the world, furious that the world just didn't treat them right. Check out some far-left blogs and you'll find it a common thread--the demand to change things.
The tocsin of "We must do something!" is essentially left-wing because it doesn't bother to analyze the problem for a solution. It merely is a tantrum against the status quo and is immature and irresponsible.
But the other thing that I noticed about America Left is how vacant it is. The waiting list for callers to Rush is, I'm guessing, enormous. Same for others. There is no shortage of people wanting to vent, and Rush doesn't need them. He can do the show without them.
But America Left literally had me feeling sorry for them. Mike M.'s vamp was sad and sorry, and despite the beseeching to call, virtually no one did.
Bear in mind that this is the side of the aisle that couldn't get a station in the People's Republic of Austin. Because no one listened to it.
Son of a gun, this is so heplful!
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“angry people who cannot understand that they must attend reality and not the other way around”
Well put!
I have noticed that the Leftist’s Reality seems to stop at whatever era they became angry. (They might say, “Enlightened”.) I remember being at a party a few years back and having a discussion with a couple of ladies (I believe they were in their 60’s) one of whom assured me she worked as a social worker of some kind in one of the worst neighborhoods in NYC. When I asked her why out of wedlock births were so high in these places, she blamed it on the teachings of Christians in general (and the Catholic Church in particular). I remember this was an issue back in the 60’s, 70’s & 80’s. But I guess they still don’t have things like school, television, movies, parents, etc. in these areas where they can get other points of view on Birth Control. When I said that maybe they should take some personal responsibility, all hell broke loose! I was accused of being against Birth Control! I felt like I was in an episode of “Maude”.
Anyway, don’t feel too bad about laughing at them; they wouldn’t feel bad about laughing at you.
JC