Rhinhart and Not Sure for Americuhh!!!

There's a conspiratorial clown in Oklahoma  running for re-election using a comic book as a tool. Well, I don't have any big feelings about comic books. When I was a hatchet, I'd stop daily in this little smoke shop/newsstand/bookie joint on the corner of Harrison and Water back in Syracuse, and plop down my 15 cents for something...Classics Illustrated was a brand I liked. In second grade, I got to read versions of the Illiad, Ivanhoe, Against All Flags, Caesar's Gallic Wars, and so on. Think of Cliff Notes, only with color pictures. I read Prince Valiant Comics; I read The Viking Prince; I read about SGT Rock and Easy Company; Blackhawk...you get the picture. They used actual, multi-syllabic word constructions with subjects, predicates, objects, and even the occasional subjuntive clause. I believe those things were called, what was it, I'm blanking...oh, yeah, complete sentences.

However, this guy's stuff is homophobic ( a gay character has horns, and I don't mean trumpets!), full of lousy grammar and misspellings  When challenged on the misspellings by CNN, the guy said something like, " I don't necessarily care, dude...you know? Really, kaschizzle..."and probably flashed some gang signs. He claims the thing took him two months to do. The fact that this idiot is a white, Christian, Republican-suit  under indictment and awaiting trial in September for corruption charges  makes it even more precious. He blames the "Gays, Godless and liberal 'good old boys" on the country commission for his travails.

I do not know who the good old boys at the courthouse are," said County Assessor Leonard Sullivan, a Republican who has had public disagreements with Rinehart.

I have really encouraged him on more than one occasion to get professional help. He really needs it,"  said Sullivan, who is not depicted in the comic.

While to a certain extent this is just silly and funny -- those Oil Patch Republicans, what a barrel of laughs -- I think there are more serious issues for us to consider. And laugh at.... Leonard Pitts  has an intriguing insight into the whole thing, plugging the cult not-quite-a-classic Idiocracy... 

I am not an Oklahoma County voter, so maybe you wonder why I care about Rinehart's campaign. I don't. What I do care about is what I will call the ongoing stupidification of America, of which this is but one glaring example among many. Think of the congressman who advocated bombing Mecca to teach Muslims a lesson. Think of the "zero tolerance" policy that required a 10-year old to be suspended for bringing to school the tiny toy gun from his GI Joe. Think of the "Jay Walking" segment on the "Tonight Show" where average Americans cannot answer basic questions of civics and history. Think of those cable shows where we are theoretically entertained by coarse women vying for the affection of washed-up rock stars. Heck, read your junk e-mail. And then tell me you don't feel the nation's collective IQ dropping like stocks...No, I'm talking about stupidity, which I define as an inability to analyze, draw conclusions from, or otherwise "use" information even when one has it. And stupidity is often characterized by smug indifference. When a CNN anchor drew Rinehart's attention to his spelling errors, his reply was, "I don't necessarily care." ...In recent years, we have seen intelligence demonized as the sole province of the "elite," a term that once described accomplishment, but is now used to condemn anyone who looks like he might have accidentally cracked a book or had a thought. Not long ago, I gave a commencement address in which I told young people I am less concerned with what they think than "that" they think. Because we are losing that skill. Me, I find that alarming.Maybe you disagree. I bet you'll feel differently when Brent Rinehart is president.

Not that Pitt is Edmund Burke in his writing. Lots of incomplete sentences and grammatical misconstructions...don't begin sentences with "And." Sentences are supposed to express complete thoughts. And so on. But, I'll leave with for those interested in textual analysis to worry about that piece of the pie.

We have what appears to be basically an illiterate as president; based on the prowess of the remainder of the Bushite gang, I'm having problems with any of them having advanced degrees...Despise him as he deserves, Henry Kissinger is obviously brilliant. Twisted and deranged, but brilliant. Condi, not so much...The Lee Atwater-Karl Rove tradition of taking things out of context and inflating them really is contributing to the decay of thought and discourse. I'm about ready to advocate the return of duelling pistols as a way of settling disputes. I'm pretty sure that John McCain would have called out Bush and Rove in 2000. Today, he's as craven as they are, but that's for another time -- we're not accountable as a nation. Hamilton spread rumors of incest on the part of Burr, Burr shot his ass off. Hamilton smugly went to the duel sanctimoniously intending to "reserve his shot." Burr had a different approach.By the way, Burr was the sitting Vice President of the United States at the time. So, Cheney was only the second VP to shot someone in office...in his case, a friend, by accident.  Andrew Jackson shot a man who insulted his wife despite having taken a round in the chest that might have killed him, saying later that he would have killed the bastard if he had been shot through the heart. Jackson fought 13 duels. I'm not advocating murder as a way of thinning the herd, but the lack of testicular fortitude on the part of politicians in general might be amped up a bit i fthere were personal consequences for one's actions.

Brent Rinehart

Since the cratering of the Cthulhu-Guiliani campaign, we've been reaching around trying to find a new candidate to endorse. There aren't a lot of possibilities that really fit...but, I think Brent Rinhart would make a helluva continuation of the Bush story. Brent Rinehart is da man wid da plan...blame in on the gay, commie, Jew, liberal good old boy elites Rhinhart and Not Sure for the USA...they got electrolytes...

Comments

[drip]

C-AXE -- The ignorance of the populace is a feature not a bug, as they say in techno land. The system can't survive without stupidity, mere ignorance is insufficient. The populace must know things as true which are objectively false.

[Brian]

Given the above, in the words of the inimitable Ioz: The Solution is Dissolution. I live in California, which is quite a distance from The Christian Imperial Kleagle Republic of Oklahoma. Lincoln was wrong. Let 'em be "free" to form their own nasty little theocracies and thugocracies! :)