Combat! - Page 391 of 406 - A blog by Dan Brooks

What this country needs is more religious paranoia

By Dan Brooks in conservative liars, Jerome Corsi, rumormongering, sociopaths, the crank factor November 9, 2009 2 Comments

barack_obama_muslim1

Sure, the federal government has taken a lot of steps lately to address America’s most serious problems—the financial collapse, skyrocketing health care costs, our tarnished image abroad. But when will the Obama administration wake up and do something about our imaginary problems? Specifically, why hasn’t anyone said anything about the secret Muslim takeover of our military and national security apparatus? Is it because any schoolchild will tell you that religious purges of government and the public sphere are associated with the ugliest chapters in our or any other nation’s history? Or is it because the President himself is secretly a Muslim? Hint: it’s the second one.

Friday links! Agonizing anticipation edition

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized November 6, 2009 1 Comment

Hot dog dog

Ah, early November—the season when America waits for things. Fall is crappy and wet, but winter—like a father glaring at you over the back of his hand—has yet to unleash his fury upon us. Baseball season is over, but binge-eating-and-gift-giving season has yet to begin. This time last year, we were waiting for our newly elected President to replace the semi-retarded cowboy who had taken over the White House. Now, we’re waiting for aforesaid President to make good on one of his biggest campaign promises, despite the strenuous opposition of a whole nation of semi-retarded cowboys. And tomorrow night is Fedor vs. Rogers, which, if you don’t know what that is, oh man. The point is, we’ve got a lot to look forward to over the next couple days/months/decades, and the anticipation is killing me.

It didn’t kill this guy, though, thanks to the swift intercession of paramedics from the Office of the Attending Physician. Ironically, the man who collapsed at Michele Bachmann’s “House Call” anti-health care reform rally on Capitol Hill yesterday was saved by government doctors. Apolitical coverage of the event has been hard to come by, in part because the whole thing was a piece of political theatre to begin with and in part because a bunch of other horrible stuff happened yesterday. The New York Times offered some street-level reporting in their Well blog, the tone of which I would describe as barely-restrained anger. The author the article, David Herszenhorn, points out that many in the crowd, “while visibly angry, could not articulate the main problems in the health care system or how they should be solved.” Now that’s the real America, right there: visibly angry, and unable to articulate what the problem is.

Michele Bachmann uses Fox to tout fake “Super Bowl of freedom”

By Dan Brooks in conservatism, conservative liars, corporatocracy, health care, health insurance reform, obama, Reactionary Populism, representative democracy, the crank factor, town hall meetings, town hall protests, widespread dumbening November 5, 2009 2 Comments

The longer you look at this picture, the more her facial expression ceases to be a smile. Seriously. It's like one of those Magic Eye things.

Now that Sarah Palin has been eaten by a grue, the mantle of Person In the Republican Party Who Might Actually Believe That Stuff has been taken up by Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann. You may remember Bachmann from her bizarre assertions about the US Census and its possible role in a massive government conspiracy—something she stopped talking about after a census worker was killed in Kentucky. Like Palin, Bachmann believes in an American People whose will is diametrically opposed to that of the federal government—particularly the Congress part of the government, which she, bafflingly, is a part of. Also like Palin, her signature issue has become health care reform. Despite polls showing that most Americans favor a public option, Bachmann knows that “real, freedom-loving Americans” oppose the government “taking away [their] health care.” To make their voices heard, she’s taken it upon herself to organize a protest on the steps of Capitol Hill at noon today, at which she encourages protestors to enter their congresspeople’s offices and demand that they vote against health care reform. “This is the Super Bowl of freedom, this week,” she says. How can Michele Bachmann find the resources and communication apparatus to organize such a Super Bowl, in which an abstract concept competes with another, unnamed abstract concept on a week’s notice? Well, fortunately there’s Fox News:

What’s funny about the Onion’s Glenn Beck car accident gag?

By Dan Brooks in Uncategorized November 4, 2009 3 Comments

It's not funny, but I agree with it. I guess that's better than laughing.

Today’s Combat! post is going to be unusually short, because I spent the time during which I normally write in my blog waiting for the Bresnan technician to come out and install cable internet in my new home—an expedience which, ironically, was supposed to make it easier to write in my blog. I also spent all the other time I usually spend doing stuff waiting for the Bresnan technician to et cetera etc. Just because Bresnan tells you when they’re coming doesn’t mean it has any significance to them. They’re like a college sophomore that way.

Anywhom, during the six or so hours I was deprived of the internet today, literally threes of you sent me this video from the Onion News Network. If you somehow haven’t seen it already, I urge you to watch it immediately. Entitled “Victim in Fatal Car Accident Tragically Not Glenn Beck,” it depicts a small town riven by the news that the young honor student killed by a drunk driver is not the Fox News star. It’s funny. Then again, “funny” is a subjective term, especially if you’re moral mountaineer Melissa McEwan.

New Levi’s commercial offers hope to dirty, half-underwater America

By Dan Brooks in consumerism, counterculture, fake cool, hipsters, oppositional culture November 3, 2009 25 Comments

Bitch, you also need a shirt.

If you’ve recently been to a movie targeted at 18- to 34-year-olds—Zombieland, say, or Couples Retreat, which are basically the same movie when you think about it—you’ve probably seen thew new “Go Forth” line of Levi’s commercials. The campaign involves a variety of spots for film, print and television, but the one I like best opens on a flickering neon sign half-submerged in floodwater. The sign reads, of course, “America,” and the ad proceeds—over a wax-cylinder recording of Walt Whitman reading his famous poem of the same name—to show us a series of slums, riots and scenes of rural poverty, intercut with shots of dirty children/manchildren running around in blue jeans, ending with the gunshot crack of fireworks and the admonition, “Go forth.” As usual, by “like best” I mean “am most disturbed by.” Video after the break: