WHEN DID EUROPE BECOME A BAD WORD?
Yesterday, Mitt Romney kicked off his presidential campaign by slamming Obama's "European answers" and accusing him of drawing inspiration from European capitals. Europe is being demonized because they criticize the US. Remember freedom fries? That's what republicans dubbed french fries after the French blasted our war on Iraq. Turns out that they were right on that one, n'est-ce pas? Rumsfeld, in his quest for perpetual war, urged America to ignore France and Germany because they were just "Old Europe." (I guess we should focus instead on the advice of the newer nations on that continent--like Bosnia and Herzegovina.) And Germany's Chancellor Merkel recently warned the US from taking military action in Libya. Hmmm. I don't care where they're from--I'm prone to listen to anyone who advocates not attacking someone else when we're in two long, pointless wars which we're losing despite having the largest military budget on earth.
Of course I know what Mitt was getting at. He's trying to paint Obama as foreign and capitalize on republican's prejudice against our first black president and his "socialist" health care. And he has to make that distinction since he governed Massachusetts with a similar plan to Obamacare. But can't Obama's detractors at least stay on message? So the president is not Kenyan, not Indonesian, not even Hawaiian, but European now? Can he still be a muslim terrorist, though? I guess European would fit in with the "czars" accusations levelled at him a year ago. Dunces whining about an imagined threat from Obama's czars when they have no idea what the word even means--it just sounds foreign and commie so it makes for appropriate ammo when you're grasping at straws. And of course, the whiners weren't concerned at all that Bush had more czars than Obama ever did. If Obama's ideas and identity are so poisonous and the complete opposite of apple pie, couldn't the GOP at least spell out their problems with him without using button-pushing words which don't even make sense to use?
I suppose sense doesn't really come into play often with GOP voters, who are proven to be less intelligent than democrats. If it did, they might want to ask themselves if they valued democracy, which this country was founded on. That radical, seditious concept hails from Greece. The last time I checked, that was still a country in the dreaded Europe! Very old Europe! And a country also known for it's butt-fucking!(I imagine that very few readers of this blog would have an issue with that foreign concept either.)
How can Mitt expect us to follow him when he's deriding the very continent from which we derive most of our culture and ideas? We saw how Bush's doctrine of "You're either for us or against us" worked out. Maybe the people who are criticizing us are actually right. If anything, Americans need a broader world view for a much-needed reality check to tell us that the rest of the world views US as terrorists thanks to our occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Besides, this attitude of "We're the US, we're #1 and we listen to no one" only works when you are actually #1. And republican policy sent this country into the dog house under Bush. Now the US can't even pay it's bills! Third World here we come! How can more of the same policies from Mitt or any other republican ever help get us back on track?
Once, the US was a brash new colony cutting it's ties with the old world and asserting it's independence. Now we're asserting our buffoonery and resistance to the truth! With it's state-run health care, safety nets for the poor, and greater emphasis on clean energy which we admitted we need here, Europe is not the continent to ignore. The whole world needs to come together to combat global warming since it affects every race, creed, color and political party on the planet. Unless, of course, you're a republican who denies science in favor of fairy tales from the Bible.
But take heart, Obama. Many of this country's most illustrious talents, from Josephine Baker to Miles Davis, never got the respect they deserved until they moved to Europe. So there's still hope for you.
Of course I know what Mitt was getting at. He's trying to paint Obama as foreign and capitalize on republican's prejudice against our first black president and his "socialist" health care. And he has to make that distinction since he governed Massachusetts with a similar plan to Obamacare. But can't Obama's detractors at least stay on message? So the president is not Kenyan, not Indonesian, not even Hawaiian, but European now? Can he still be a muslim terrorist, though? I guess European would fit in with the "czars" accusations levelled at him a year ago. Dunces whining about an imagined threat from Obama's czars when they have no idea what the word even means--it just sounds foreign and commie so it makes for appropriate ammo when you're grasping at straws. And of course, the whiners weren't concerned at all that Bush had more czars than Obama ever did. If Obama's ideas and identity are so poisonous and the complete opposite of apple pie, couldn't the GOP at least spell out their problems with him without using button-pushing words which don't even make sense to use?
I suppose sense doesn't really come into play often with GOP voters, who are proven to be less intelligent than democrats. If it did, they might want to ask themselves if they valued democracy, which this country was founded on. That radical, seditious concept hails from Greece. The last time I checked, that was still a country in the dreaded Europe! Very old Europe! And a country also known for it's butt-fucking!(I imagine that very few readers of this blog would have an issue with that foreign concept either.)
How can Mitt expect us to follow him when he's deriding the very continent from which we derive most of our culture and ideas? We saw how Bush's doctrine of "You're either for us or against us" worked out. Maybe the people who are criticizing us are actually right. If anything, Americans need a broader world view for a much-needed reality check to tell us that the rest of the world views US as terrorists thanks to our occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. Besides, this attitude of "We're the US, we're #1 and we listen to no one" only works when you are actually #1. And republican policy sent this country into the dog house under Bush. Now the US can't even pay it's bills! Third World here we come! How can more of the same policies from Mitt or any other republican ever help get us back on track?
Once, the US was a brash new colony cutting it's ties with the old world and asserting it's independence. Now we're asserting our buffoonery and resistance to the truth! With it's state-run health care, safety nets for the poor, and greater emphasis on clean energy which we admitted we need here, Europe is not the continent to ignore. The whole world needs to come together to combat global warming since it affects every race, creed, color and political party on the planet. Unless, of course, you're a republican who denies science in favor of fairy tales from the Bible.
But take heart, Obama. Many of this country's most illustrious talents, from Josephine Baker to Miles Davis, never got the respect they deserved until they moved to Europe. So there's still hope for you.
posted by Lady Bunny at Friday, June 03, 2011
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