Our Patriotic Values are Doooooooooooomed!
Didn’t you hear? Flags are being tortured on every street corner by crazed pinko commie islamofascists! Liberal provocateur Jack Murtha is spreading hate speech across Florida, calling America the greatest threat in the world! Gays have not only mounted (pardon the pun) an assault on marriage, but their traitorous friends in Hollywood have turned Superman into, well, a Super Man Lover! And the Great Satan itself, the New York Times has declared open war on the United States Government, giving away all our precious Ultra-Classified-War-on-Terror-Secrets to Osama and the terrorist forces of evil!
Or so Republicans and their conservative mouthpieces in the media would have you believe. The Senate has wasted the last few days debating a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning, despite the fact that I can’t recall the last time anyone bothered to burn one in protest. Gay marriage is as much a threat to my lifestyle choices as NASCAR and World Cup Soccer, but nonetheless, the radical right wing of the GOP felt compelled to bring it to a vote in the Senate on June 7th.
John Murtha, by the way, didn’t call the United states the greatest threat to world peace, though lots of idiots of the right wing media machine were more than happy to spread the lie that he did. And as for the New York Times, all they did was expose the same bank surveillance program that the Bush administration has formerly bragged about to the press. Not exactly the stuff of treason and sedition charges, despite what the NRO may think.
So why this massive shit storm? Why this much ado about (literally) nothing. Because this is the way Karl Rove works to win elections. Dirty tricks. Smears. Stir up his own base, suppress the votes of Democrats, and turn off everyone else from wanting to vote at all.
So if your wingnut friends and relatives bring this crap up, just remind them that the GOP has been down this same road before. Instead of defending Dems against this load of cow manure, turn it around and attack the Republican talking points with some of your own. Ask them why can’t the Republicans deal with real issues, like Iraq, gas prices, global warming, stagnant wages, the ever increasing and excessive federal debt and more and more people who are losing their health insurance and pensions each day while billionaires get tax cuts. In short, don’t play into their stupid, petty game of polarization and divisiveness. Don’t play defense, play offense.
Oh. I almost forgot. Superman’s not gay.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . .
They’ve been trotting this flag burning thing out since Vietnam, haven’t they?
It’s not buring THE flag, it’s burning A flag, there’s a big difference. The flag is a symbol of freedom, and to use it to take away the freedom of expression is beyond ironic.
and just propose a Constitutional amendment to ban flag burning at gay weddings?
It’s nice that we’ve got full employment, full health insurance coverage, peace in the Middle East, and full education funding, leaving time for Congress to debate these important issues…
That’s from June 12th
Today’s cartoon is right on topic too.
Ask them why can’t the Republicans deal with real issues
Stepping back from the issues you mention while thinking like a progressive Rovian-like offensive strategist (how is that wording?), I can’t help but see women’s freedom issues as the goldmine for a progressive win in the future. There are more women voters than men, and nobody likes to be discriminated against and turned into a second class citizen, especially with the help of their own vote!
What I am trying to say is that all the social conservative policies that tend to be anti-women’s freedoms oriented should be brought to the forefront in a massive advertising campaign for pro women freedom policies. It may not give instant success, but as the women of this country begin to see what they are getting and what is happening, I think there will be a massive abandonment of the repub and socially conservative democratic party ideals. Again, nobody likes to be discriminated against with the help of their own vote! They just need to be shown what they have been actually voting for recently.