Also Nazis, Part 3

 

I know what you’re thinking.

What? Nazis again?

Oh Goddamn, Jim, not more stinkin’ Nazis. Haven’t we had enough Nazis around here?

Welcome to this week’s installment of when political lunacy puts on a Speedo and a leather jacket, straps on a pair of water-wings, and attempts a rocket powered jump over a tank full of great white sharks.

I’m thinking that Also Nazis will become a regular feature, at least for the duration of the election season. Or until actual cannibal death Nazis from the dark side of the moon show up in flying saucers shooting killer bees from giant laser cannons mounted on atomic powered velociraptors and led by the Robot Uber-Fuehrer with Adolf Hitler’s electrified zombie head in a jar of pickle juice mounted on top of its massive armored shoulders.  Whichever comes first.

Looking at the political divisions in America, I kept getting this weird sense of déjà vu.

It reminded me of something.

But I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Red faced hatred. Incoherent screaming. Obscene hand gestures. Bizarre irrational behavior. Brother against brother, American against American.

Hmmm.

And then, earlier this week it hit me.

In fact, it almost literally hit me.

I was on the Glenn Highway, headed home from Anchorage towards The Valley when a PT Cruiser blew past me – this is noteworthy in and of itself, since I generally drive a tad, just a tad mind you, above the speed limit myself.  This guy was moving like Rush Limbaugh headed towards a free all-donut buffet, swerving back and forth between lanes faster than Mitt Romney changes his position on abortion, and zig-zagging around other cars like Paul Ryan dodging questions on his budget plan.  As the little car zoomed up the slow lane at ninety plus miles an hour he closed in on an enormous Dodge RAM pick-up in the left lane. Predictably, the truck sped up in an effort to stay ahead of the little PT Cruiser.  The Cruiser wasn’t having any of that, and in a reckless suicidal maneuver the tiny car dove under the truck’s front bumper like a shiny midget kamikaze, missing the bigger vehicle by scant millimeters … and then slamming on its brakes to avoid collision with the minivan in front of the truck. 

Remember that scene in A Fish Called Wanda? When that giant granite block fell from ten stories up and landed smack on top of that little tiny dog (at the 3:19 mark)? Wump! Splosh! I was expecting something exactly like that. By rights, that PT Cruiser should have been flattened into road-kill beneath the giant truck. Honestly, each of the truck’s tires weighed more than that little bitty car.  But, somehow, in a cloud of blue smoke and squealing rubber, the truck driver managed to avoid smashing the car into a greasy bugsplat, and the vehicles behind him (Me, Goddamnit!) somehow also managed to avoid messy death by chain-reaction. 

It didn’t take the giant pair of dangling “Truck-Nutz” swinging from the RAM’s trailer-hitch to figure out what was going to happen next. 

Clouds of black diesel smoke erupted from the truck’s twin stacks as the driver slammed the gas pedal to the floor.  The truck driver’s massive rage was palpable – despite the fact that he’d also been acting like an idiot in attempting to cut the other guy off.  He swerved onto the highway’s shoulder roaring past the PT Cruiser in a cloud of gravel and you could hear the howl of his monstrous off-road tires singing over the rumble-strip, it sounded like the thundering wings of avenging angels. The Cruiser actually sped up in an effort to prevent the truck from getting ahead but the RAM had the advantage of wrathful indignation and not only passed the Cruiser but he roared around the blocking minivan and triumphantly reassumed his position in the lead.

Then the truck slammed on his brakes.

I have no direct evidence, but I would assume that this was the point where the minivan driver began to regret his failure to plan ahead in the “Bring an extra pair of undershorts for the commute” department  (Me? I came prepared, I never wear skivvies during an election year. I like to be ready just in case I need to tell a politician to kiss my shiny metal ass).

After teaching those behind him not to screw with giant trucks, the RAM sped back up and pulled head of the minivan, who was likely distracted by the fact that in addition to his soiled panties he was probably also having a heart attack. Because, you know, Jesus H. Christ!

With complete disregard for the safety of anybody else on the road, the Cruiser dodged nimbly to the right, zipped around the minivan, and swerved back into the left lane inches ahead of the truck, cutting off the RAM yet again in an astounding display of testosterone fueled assholery. 

Those in the vicinity of these two homicidal jackasses (Me, Goddamnit!) variously braked or accelerated onto the shoulders out of the way like townsfolk scurrying for safety on the streets of Dodge City as two booze fueled gunslingers stumbled drunkenly from the saloon and set to cockfighting in the middle of Mainstreet.

I watched in horrified fascination as the huge truck and the tiny car jockeyed madly for position, it was like an enraged rhinoceros under attack by a blood maddened Chihuahua. They were swerving and braking and speeding around each other, you could see the drivers gesturing obscenely and screaming insults at each other oblivious to the danger, oblivious to the collateral damage, as they vied to prove who had the biggest willie like incensed mountain goats slamming their heads together over and over. Other drivers got involved, and the ripples of outrage spread like an infectious disease with a dozen cars ducking and dodging and weaving and screaming and blowing horns. They roared down the highway in a blood engorged mass at well over a hundred miles an hour and I lost sight of them as they sped across the Hay Flats headed towards Wasilla.  Once I no longer needed both hands on the wheel and traffic had settled down, I phoned the State Police.  Or tried to anyway, I couldn’t get a signal – the Hay Flats are kind of a desert when it comes to cell phone reception.  I got off at my exit and I’ve got no idea how it all worked out – doubtless the idiots got away with their insanity, going their own ways smug in their indignant manhood and seething righteousness, home to tell their wives about how some asshole did them wrong on the highway but by God they sure showed that fucker, yes they did, you bet.

And, as I said up above, that’s when it hit me.

That, right there, is exactly how most Americans approach politics.

Mindless red eyed Road Rage.

That’s exactly what it is, rage.

This mindset, this Political Rage, that seems to have infected much of America lately is exactly the same as the unthinking reflexive fury that far too many people display on the highways. For a lot of Americans, the only thing that matters is who has the biggest dick and damn the consequences, to hell with the danger, screw the utter stupidity of it all. 

In recent stump speeches Mitt Romney has been telling a story about how he once met Glen Doherty, the former US Navy SEAL turned State Department employee, who was killed along with Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya. 

Seems, Romney was apparently invited to a party that Doherty also attended, the two met, and Romney has mentioned it several times on the stump.

Big deal.

I see nothing particularly egregious about this, one way or the other.  Politicians (and bloggers for that matter, hello) use chance encounters and conversations and personal events to illustrate their viewpoints all of the time.  I’ve done it myself. In this essay.

However, Doherty’s mother, Barbara Doherty, an Obama supporter, asked that Romney stop using her son’s name. So Romney’s campaign immediately acquiesced and Mitt has since stopped using the anecdote. 

Again, despite the minor media furor, big deal.

Not long ago, I was asked to remove a post from Stonekettle Station about a Navy airplane crash I once witnessed, because those close to some of the men killed in that crash didn’t want the event used to illustrate the point I was attempting to make with the essay. Out of respect for their wishes, and because of some mistakes I’d made about the actual facts of the crash (I’m not an aviation guy, I got some things wrong. I should have known better than report as fact things I’d heard through the rumor mill), I agreed immediately and removed the post – even though I think it’s still one of the best things I’ve ever written.

For Mitt Romney to use his encounter with Glen Doherty to illustrate a political point does not make him an opportunistic asshole, it just makes him a guy who was trying to connect with people and events on a personal level, it makes him a politician just like every other politician that has ever lived.

Likewise, for Mrs. Doherty to ask that her son’s memory not be used to further a political agenda also doesn’t make her an asshole, even if she is an Obama supporter. Mrs. Doherty by any account has the right to ask for a little respect, she’s earned that courtesy. Her son bought her that right, and paid in full.

It’s a minor, very minor, news item that has zero impact on anybody other than the friends and family of Glen Doherty.

But, see, then there’s the Political Rage.

When the story appeared yesterday on ABC news, the comments under the article were bizarrely overblown. People, left and right, just plain lost their minds:

- What a disgusting human being Mitt Romney is. He will do or say ANYTHING to get elected.

- The Leftstream media is sure trying to take the heat off Ovomit.

- It is heartwarming to see that the trust placed in the administration that is indirectly responsible for the murder of her son is unwavering. I doubt she’ll get a form letter now.

- Sounds like the mother is the one using her son’s death for her political reasons—sour grapes –so to speak–she need to look at the fact –that extra security was requested and denied by the administration–which could have contributed to her son’s death–before defendind OObama –with what he knows about foreign policy –it could fit in a timble

- She needs to watch the hearings. It’s gut wrenching. They failed to protect her son and she says Romney is politicizing??? Wow!

- Apparently she is part of the 47%

- too many stupid comments from too many stupid romney fans, who will evidently say anything out there butt & think it’s whistling dixie.

- So the Obama hacks get snotty, HOW DARE Mitt USE HIS DEATH…Like OBAMA DID when he left those men, without backup there to die, when he crawled into bed, since he was so DAMNED CONCERNED .. MOM? Obama has LOST the military vote by 40 points… and the miserable;e low life democrat party hacks like that Heroes mom, can’t even let his name be mentioned, or his story told, because she hates republicans?.. Mitt did not put himself into the story… he simply told that he MET the man….and that drives the democrat hacks crazy..She’d have a point, if he did what Obama does… and put HIMSELF in the picture as the hero.. but apparently.. being a democrat, means party first……. country dead last..I’m a vet, and having left wing family ain’t unusual for a service member,.. but seriously… we know from his friends,.. and brother SEALS… he didn’t like Obama.. so his mom is twisting the fact he didn’t support Obama, according to his SEAL friends, told in other news articles..so she had to be nasty…… typical.. when she had to know her son was no fan of Obama.. check other news sources.. Obama lost the SEAL vote a while back.. and this young man’s friends say he had no love for Obama…

- I am sorry for your loss Mrs Doherty. But you are bias and a hypocrite.

- hey romney people….READ THE ARTICLE!!!!! IT SAYS DOHERTY DIDN’T LIKE THE MEETING WITH ROMNEY….THOUGHT HE WAS GOOFY. So stop yelling at his mother saying that she’s biased….Dang Y”ALL ARE BIASEd!!!!! DUH! ….here let me help you with that LOG in your eye.

The comments run on for another two hundred entries becoming more and more insane and incoherent, if these people were on the highway they’d be exchanging gunfire by now. Eventually, if you read down far enough, you’ll get to the Nazis. Because, of course, there’s going to be Nazis. 

I just don’t understand how can you call a grieving mother a Nazi because she doesn’t want her dead son’s name used to further the political agenda of a politician she doesn’t agree with. 

I’m mean, shit, how do you get there? How do you become so furious, so enraged, about a subject that really has nothing whatsoever to do with you that you’d call the mother of a man who died in the service of his country a traitor and unAmerican?

I boggle at the comments like this one:

- What a shame! A Great hero story, but because the mother (which I’m sure her son wouldn’t agree with) made it political, not Romney. She clearly is in the bag for Obama. Can we remind ourselves of Cindy Sheehan!!!

Really? I mean, really? The commenter is sure that he knows Barbara Doherty’s son better than she does.

Honestly, how far is too far? When do you stop, take your fingers off the keyboard, take your foot off the gas pedal, and say to yourself, “Wait a minute. Just wait a fucking minute here. Holy hell, I’m about to waterski straight to a tank of great white ridiculous. I need to stop right now. Right now.”  Look here, if you’ve arrived at point where you’re calling Barbara Doherty a Nazi, it’s time that you got yourself some professional help because you’ve really got nowhere else to go that doesn’t eventually lead to a roof, a high powered rifle, and a copy of Catcher in the Rye. I’m just saying.

Now, while Americans are fighting it out in the media over a minor anecdote that really doesn’t matter, down in Arkansas a guy named Charlie Fuqua is running for a republican seat on the state legislature (Yes, Fuqua, that’s his name. Let’s not be all fourteen years old about it. Fuqua). Charlie is a fine upstanding Christian man who would like to see Arkansas run in accordance with Biblical law. Literally.  He wrote a book about it, here’s a interesting passage:

The maintenance of civil order in society rests on the foundation of family discipline. Therefore, a child who disrespects his parents must be permanently removed from society in a way that gives an example to all other children of the importance of respect for parents. The death penalty for rebellious children is not something to be taken lightly. The guidelines for administering the death penalty to rebellious children are given in Deut 21:18-21.

The fuck?

The death penalty for your children?

Parents should put children to death so that other children will respect their parents?

What. The. Fuck?

OK, obviously he didn’t actually say parents should be allowed to kill their kids.

Or did he?

Why yes, actually he did.

Charlie Fuqua wrote a book, published this year, wherein he clearly says that while the Bible doesn’t give “blanket authority” for parents to kill their children, it does specify that parents are allowed to kill their kids so long as they “follow proper procedure to have the death penalty executed against their children.”  And though Charlie feels it should be “rarely used,” he does specifically say that the ability of parents to put their children to death would “be a tremendous incentive for children to give proper respect to their parents.”

I don’t know about you, but I think a license to kill your kids would be  less likely to result in increased respect and more likely to result in children resorting to preemptive strikes against their murderous parents.  I’m also not clear how killing your kids squares with the “Thou shalt not commit fucking murder” or the whole Christian Right to Life idea. But then again, I’m not a Christian so the details of this bronze age idiocy escape me.  And yes, I checked, Charlie Fuqua is not a creation of The Onion. He’s a real live republican who calls himself a Christian and you know, never mind, go right ahead and pronounce Charlie’s last name the way it looks.  I know I will, because seriously, Charlie, fuck you.

One more thing, if you’re Charlie Fuqua’s kids, I’d get the hell out now, right now, and I’d never look back.  Because, wow. Just, wow.

Now, least you think it’s just Charlie Respect My Authoritee! Fuqhead gone round the bend down there in Arkansas, meet State Representative Loy Mauch.  He’s another Christian republican (Not to beat a dead horse or anything).  Representative Mauch also wrote a book.  He didn’t suggest killing your kids, instead he announced that slavery “was a blessing in disguise” for black people. 

Yep.

In letters to the Democrat-Gazette, Mauch strongly defended slavery and said a number of times that Jesus condoned it:

If slavery were so God-awful, why didn’t Jesus or Paul condemn it, why was it in the Constitution and why wasn’t there a war before 1861? The South has always stood by the Constitution and limited government. When one attacks the Confederate Battle Flag, he is certainly denouncing these principles of government as well as Christianity.

How’s that a “blessing” for black people? Easy, see slavery turned them into Christians. Doh.

In other letters, Representative Mauch wrote that Abraham Lincoln, the founder of Mauch’s own republican party, was a Marxist.

I guess once you go down the “Slavery is okay with God and it’s okay with me!” road, calling Abraham Lincoln a communist is pretty much small potatoes.  Mauch organized a 2004 conference praising John Wilkes Booth and calling for removal of Lincoln’s statue from the monument on the Washington Mall. He also proudly waves the Confederate Battle Flag and calls it “a symbol of Christian liberty versus the New World Order.”

New World Order, and you thought I’d forgotten about the Nazis.

How in the hell does somebody who openly hates the United States stay in office?

Seriously, how does a guy who openly supports slavery and a political organization that tried to destroy, literally destroy, the United States of America through armed rebellion, stay in office?

Easy, he’s supported by the Republican Party and his fellow Arkansas conservatives who apparently can’t seem to see the astounding irony – probably because they’re too busy assaulting President Obama for not being American enough.

Okay. I admit it. I’m with Fuqua on this one, maybe Mauch should have been drowned at birth.

Seriously man, welcome to Arkansas, land of the free, home of the brave, kill your kids, and let’s refer to black people as “farm equipment” all the doodah day!

Meanwhile, next door in Missouri, Representative Todd Akin still doesn’t quite comprehend the fact that women are actual citizens now.  He remains confused about female biology and upset that Clare McCaskill isn’t behaving in a more ladylike manner.  Poor Todd, he longs for a simpler time, when men were men … and women were livestock.

If Todd Akin is ever lonely, he’s got a soulmate up in Wisconsin.  State Rep Roger Rivard (Republican again, surprise surprise!) says that “some girls rape easy.”  His dad taught him that. Some girls, son, they just rape easy, hell you don’t even need to use roofies!  Roger’s dad told him:

“…If you do have premarital sex, just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry.” Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, “Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.” All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, “Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls, they rape so easy.” What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape. So the way he said it was, Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.

Roger feels his comments might have been taken out of context.

I’m not really sure what context his comment should be put in, unless by “context” he means “Arkansas.”

By the way, Paul Ryan? The guy who wants to be vice president, he’s a big fan of Roger Rivard.  Ryan said, “Roger needs to be reaffirmed to get this job done and fix the State of Wisconsin.”

Somebody needs to be “fixed” all right, that’s for sure.

You know, at this point I’m starting to wonder if maybe actual cannibal death Nazis from the dark side of the moon might not be such a bad thing after all.

Comparatively speaking, I mean.

And I’d sure like an atomic powered killer bee laser, I know just who I’d point it at.

But I digress.

 

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got another commute into Anchorage tomorrow and I need to go mount some flamethrowers on my front bumper.

 

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More Nazis can be found here: Also Nazis, Part 2