The Summer of Hate: Counterculture in 2009

By Dan Brooks in counterculture, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, inevitability of death, oppositional culture, populism, representative democracy, subculture, the crank factor, town hall meetings, town hall protests, widespread dumbening 4 Comments
Apparently if you go Hot Topic it's all Glenn Beck CDs and copies of The Wealth of Nations now.

Apparently if you go to Hot Topic it's all Glenn Beck CDs and copies of The Wealth of Nations now.

I was going to be angry about these kids, but one look at the profoundly sixteen-year-old-girl expression on that sixteen-year-old girl’s face and I didn’t have the heart. (If you’d like to get real sad, you can read a blog written by that poor girl’s mother, in which she calls Barbara Boxer a “moronic twit.” The badge on the right side indicates that she’s made the list of “best conservative blogs on the net,” which is apparently determined by total word count.) That’s her boyfriend on the left, proving again that teenage boys will do anything under certain conditions. And what are these desperate youths and the ragtag band behind them protesting for? Lower taxes on the rich, reduced social services, deregulation of business and conservative fiscal policy.

To hear Frank Rich tell it, protests like these are harbingers of a new era of cultural and political upheaval. Last weekend was the fortieth anniversary of Woodstock, which television raised me to believe was the most important moment of the 20th century. It turns out that was all to promote The Wonder Years, though, because this year’s commemoration was overshadowed by the season premiere of Mad Men. First of all, if you don’t watch Mad Men, you should start immediately. It is the Cadillac of television shows, or the Combat! blog of television shows in that Frank Rich and I agree with it more than anyone else in America. Second of all, Frank Rich is right. The year that resonates with our present cultural moment isn’t 1969; it’s 1963.

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Some historical perspective on this Town Hall thing

By Dan Brooks in Birthers, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, Obama citizenship, populism, representative democracy, rumormongering, the crank factor, town hall meetings, town hall protests, widespread dumbening 4 Comments
"Look, I love America, America loves failure...I mean, do I need to draw you a picture?"

"Look, I love America, America loves failure...I mean, do I need to draw you a picture? Oh."

Rick Perlstein had a terrific editorial in the Washington Post yesterday, in which he points out that populist hysteria has historically broken out every time the United States embarks on a period of significant change. Whether it’s the insane red scares of the postwar era—when the combined FDR and Truman presidencies were called “treason” by disgruntled plutocrats—or widespread rumors that the 1964 Civil Rights Act contained a provision for enslaving whites, shrill rhetoric and ridiculous claims have been midwives at the birth of every new American era. Gross.

Perlstein also points out that the two ready explanations for why legions of Social Security beneficiaries have appeared at the same meetings to make the same baseless claims create  a false dichotomy. It’s not that A) everyone is retarded or B) insurance companies and conservative politicians are in league to manipulate public perception. It can be both!

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Arm yourself: Full text of H.R. 3200

By Dan Brooks in conservative liars, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, representative democracy, the crank factor, town hall meetings, town hall protests, widespread dumbening 2 Comments
Members of the PennsylMembers of the Pennsylvania Republican Party are asked not to wear their strings of pearls when they protest the expansion of social services.

Members of the Pennsylvania Republican Committee are once again reminded not to wear strings of pearls when protesting the expansion of social services.

The Democrats’ proposed health care reform package lost ground again yesterday to the competing Stupid Assholes Package, and the New York Times is starting to get a little snippy. In a story that blurs—and by “blurs” I mean “carefully erases”—the line between commentary and news, David Stout observes that Town Hall meetings across the eastern seaboard reflected “deep-seated fears, a general suspicion of government and, in some cases, a lack of knowledge on the part of the questioners.” The article is full of such gems of understatement, further solidifying the Times’s role as the disapproving butler of American democracy.

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Don’t worry—we still have the Millennials

By Dan Brooks in consumerism, health care, health insurance reform, help me kill zombies, hipsters, Millennials, town hall meetings 4 Comments
This is going to be so funny when I AAAAIIIIGHOHGOD! SWEET JESUS, I CAN'T...I MEAN I CAN'T (Silence. Cell phone ring.)

This is going to be so funny when I AAAAIIIIGHOHGOD! SWEET JESUS, I CAN'T...I MEAN I CAN'T (Silence. Cell phone ring.)

Yesterday at Combat! blog we got a little freaked out about how it’s entirely possible that everyone will get too stupid to operate America. Those of you horror movie fans who still crave tales of terrifying democracy will enjoy this article in the New York Times about Arlen Specter’s town hall meeting. It tells the story of Berks County Tea Party chairman Jon Stahl, a 65 year-old laid off from his job 18 months ago, who has since organized protests against taxes, the stimulus plan and health care reform. Presumably he is able to work full-time to stop government welfare because he gets social security benefits. The Times article points out that anti-reform protesters arrived several hours early to the meeting, creating enormous lines. I quote:

Proponents of the overhaul voiced the opposite fear, also citing larger issues at stake. “This isn’t just about health care,” said Carolyn Doric of Harrisburg, “it’s about political power and a means to regain political power.” Ms. Doric did not get into the meeting.

Normally, reading something like that would cause me to buy a high-powered rifle. But then I remembered the Millennials—that idealistic new generation that swept Barack Obama into power in the first place, and constitutes a new creative class of educated, informed, young professionals immune to conservative populism. Previous generations may have devolved into single-issue tax phobics, but the Millennials won’t be consumed by their need for disposable income. Right?

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