Wingers going nuts over fiction

August 31, 2006 in Political Animals | 6 comments

Well, it’s the silly season again. Of course, with the radical right, when isn’t it the silly season?

AJ Strata is having hysterics over a BBC television movie that will air next year, which portrays the fictional aftermath of the fictional assassination of President George W. Bush. (Did everyone understand that this a fictional story? Good!) AJ breathlessly informs us that:

This will kill the democrats who will have to come out strongly against this and alienate the radical far left. If not they will lose the center. Either way they lose. It is only a question of whether they lose with honor or the jump into the fevered swamps.

Everyone get that? Every time anyone anywhere imagines anything about Our Sainted President that AJ doesn’t like, the Democrats must must MUST immediately respond! The fate of nations hangs on a fictional TV movie!

What, I have to ask myself, is AJ smoking these days? Whatever it is, it’s strong stuff.

Of course, Jay “rope + tree + ACLU lawyer = pinata” Stephenson at StopTheACLU.com has to chime in:

But I’m sure there is a market for such a movie. The fringe moonbats will be flocking to see this.

Jay seems to conveniently forget that he’s already been caught advocating the use of murder as an instrument of political will. Pot, kettle, black.

Michelle Malkin, bless her shriveled, bigoted soul, chimes in as well. After posting a few examples of threatening images depicting violence against George W. Bush, she piously intones:

They all need serious help.

Of course, as David Neiwert has amply documented, Michelle does not see the seemingly endless deluge of violent rhetoric coming from her side of the blogosphere to be a problem. In fact, it is doubtful that she sees it at all — another example of what I have dubbed “Invincible Ignorance”.

Once one leaves the Reality Distortion Field that AJ, Jay, Michelle, et al live within, some facts become clear:

  1. It’s a BBC TV movie, folks. Such productions are not notable for their effect on US politics.
  2. There is no indication it will be shown in US any time soon.
  3. There is no indication of the political leanings of the writers and producers. (The wingers imagine that anyone who could fictionalize the assassination of the Fratboy-In-Chief just has to be a liberal, but experience tells us that right-wing imagination has a very tenuous connection to reality, at best.)
  1. It is, in fact, the radical right that is a source of an endless cesspool of eliminationist rhetoric.

    Of all the things to get exercised about in this world, the wingers sure do know how to home in on the most trivial.

    UPDATE 09/02/06 02:21 PM: Kevin Beck posts an extended response to the comments of ‘Dan L’ (see below).

  1. dan l on September 1, 2006 at 9:05 am

    So it’s cool if I make a movie about the assasination of Barrak Obama? You wouldn’t have a problem with that? Cool.

  2. meatbrain on September 1, 2006 at 9:41 am

    No, Dan, I would not have a problem with that. Fiction, you see, is fictional.

    Now, were you to make an actual threat against Obama, or any other office-holder, I’d be all in favor of the appropriate law enforcement agency investigating you quickly and thoroughly.

  3. kemibe on September 1, 2006 at 9:49 am

    Who’s Barrak Obama? Any relation to the U.S. Senator from Illinois?

    Hey, I checked out your “site,” Dan. You open your latest offering with, “The American Left has always used media to broadcast how they want things to be.” I’m wondering what this has to do with the title of your post—“Wouldn’t it be great if….somebody were to assasinate George Bush?”—since the film this title clearly refers to was made in the United Kingdom by a British filmmaker who, like other British artists, is probably not a puppet of the U.S. media.

    And I’m going to guess that the answers to your questions to meatbrain are “yes” and “no” respectively, since he, unlike you and your hand-wringing friends, understands the difference between making a movie about a shooting and actually shooting someone. (In case this is unclear, by the way, the”Star Wars” saga is also a work of fiction. All six movies, in fact. No one has ever built a Death Star.)

  4. dan l on September 1, 2006 at 3:12 pm

    Oh I’m sorry bitches, did I offend somebody by leaving a comment?

    Well if it’s fiction, why not just use some random fictional president instead of Bush? Oh wait. Because libby’s everywhere are jerking off watching a movie where Bush gets assasinated.

    And uhh, Kemibe, I checked out your ‘site’. Good to see you’ve got the opposable thumbs thing down. Maybe next somebody will teach you how to use eating utensils. At leat you’re admitting you’re a monkey.

    Cheers!
    -dan l

  5. meatbrain on September 1, 2006 at 9:11 pm

    “Oh I’m sorry bitches, did I offend somebody by leaving a comment?”

    Well, no. Had you stopped to think, Dan, you would have realized that the presence of a comments form means that I invite comments. Perhaps you might try stopping to think, once in a great while.

    “Well if it’s fiction, why not just use some random fictional president instead of Bush? Oh wait. Because libby’s everywhere are jerking off watching a movie where Bush gets assasinated.”

    You will have to ask the producers of the movie why they chose to portray the assassination of George W. Bush rather than a fictional President.

    No one is doing anything while watching the movie, because it hasn’t aired yet, Dan. You could try reading for comprehension.

    Stephen Covey has said that “We see the world, not as it is, but as we are”. Obviously, you see yourself jerking off while watching a movie — and you are therefore incapable, in this case, of imagining anyone else doing anything else.

    “And uhh, Kemibe, I checked out your ‘site’. Good to see you’ve got the opposable thumbs thing down. Maybe next somebody will teach you how to use eating utensils. At leat you’re admitting you’re a monkey.”

    At least we know now that you are incapable of rational discussion, preferring instead to stoop to the use of the well-worn ad hominem fallacy.

  6. kemibe on September 2, 2006 at 8:56 am

    “Oh I’m sorry bitches, did I offend somebody by leaving a comment?”

    No, but your mutterings are an affront to the English language.

    “Well if it’s fiction, why not just use some random fictional president instead of Bush? Oh wait. Because libby’s everywhere are jerking off watching a movie where Bush gets assasinated.”

    Excellent. I see a plural noun including a random fictional apostrophe and a clever masturbation reference, but no cogent argument as to why the film is liberals’ collective dream. You’re making the classic mistake of projecting, which in this case means thinking that everyone is as bloodthirsty as right-wingers when it comes to political disagreements, but liberals aren’t inclined to want people shot; most of us would be happy to see Bush and his shady cronies simply leave office.

    “And uhh, Kemibe, I checked out your ‘site’. Good to see you’ve got the opposable thumbs thing down. Maybe next somebody will teach you how to use eating utensils. At leat you’re admitting you’re a monkey.”

    I knew your clever retort would end with a dose of irony. Chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys. I guess it’s been a while since you strolled the halls of higher education. Thanks for your focused and meaningful comments on the site, though.

    The pissing and moaning over this film is also ironic in light of right-wingers’ constant manifest pride over being “non-PC.” Evidently, it’s only okay to be “non-PC” when the targets aren’t imaginary right-wing icons such as a competent George Bush, an impartial and sensible Ann Coulter, and a queer-hating Jeezus H. Christ. You intellectually bereft and purely reactionary assholes are some of the easiest targets imaginable.