how our betters view us

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 05, 2004

In case you're curious about how thoughtful, balanced, well-educated and good-willed persons regard those of us who are not so happily endowed, herewith a sampling of editorial wisdom à propos:

Sidney Blumenthal in the UK Guardian:

Brought along with Bush is a gallery of grotesques in the Senate: more than one new senator advocates capital punishment for abortion; another urges that all gay teachers be fired; yet another is suffering from obvious symptoms of Alzheimer's. The new majority is more theocratic than Republican, as Republican was previously understood; the defeat of the old moderate Republican party is far more decisive than the loss by the Democrats. There are no checks and balances.

Doug Ireland in the LA Weekly:

Scurrilous gay-baiting literature abounded. And, of course, the Bushniks could count on the fervent homophobia of Bush's shock troops from the Christian right (heavily subsidized by taxpayer dollars through patronage disguised as "faith-based initiatives") to hammer home the Sunday-go-to-meetin' anti-gay message -- and the sweeping Republican victory. ... The Democrats were bereft of any strategy to fight this politicization of the anti-gay backlash.

Dan Kennedy in the Boston Phoenix:

From Howard Dean's youth-driven campaign to projects such as P. Diddy's "Citizen Change," from delightfully crude anti-Bush songs such as "Ignorant Son of an A******" to more-polished efforts by the likes of Public Enemy and Eminem, from Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 to Jon Stewart's Daily Show, an unprecedented amount of attention has been lavished on young people in the hopes getting them to participate in self-government. After all that, nothing changed. ... The forces of reaction masquerading as morality are ascendant. Four more years. For more years of war, of global warming, of trampling on our civil liberties, of secrecy, of threats to women's rights, of more tax cuts for the rich and bigger deficits for the rest of us, of right-wing court appointments, of continued inequality for lesbians and gay men.

Katha Pollitt in The Nation:

Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, "safety" through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President.

It has to be tough to reach this level of tranquil, clear-sighted objectivity.