Don't worry. This isn't a political blog. Although after going down to gawk at this weekend's Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" Rally, in which I learned hundreds of thousands of Americans don't seem to understand the irony of their own religious extremism (Jesus belongs in the government just about as much as Mohammed, get it?), I'm hard-pressed not to make it one.Because the 9/12 Kool-Aid is being consumed by a few more hundreds of thousands of people than I'm comfortable with.
"But why so serious, Marissa?" you ask.
Because this happened: After a-little-too-loudly asking my friend (you don't go into such events alone, after all) to remind me which part of the Constitution was penned by Jesus, I got an unsolicited talkin'-to from one of these forefatherf*ckers, who insisted "all of it" was. He said the Constitution had less to do with establishing the rule of the people and more to do with "establishing our country's ultimate belief in our Lord and Savior." He added, despite those silly little things called facts, it wasn't Jefferson or Madison who wanted the Church to be separated from the State but the "War Courts." Uh, what? I don't think even the clown who told me this knew what he was referring to. And our forefathers? Well, I'm pretty sure Jefferson not only just rolled in his grave, but he also probably punched the lid off his coffin pretending it was this guy's face. I, on the other hand, just wanted to give this guy an elementary American History book...and some fashion advice because, besides his warped version of history, this man's abomination of an outfit was also most definitely treading on me. Did anyone invest in pleated-front khaki Dockers this weekend? Because I'm pretty sure you just made a fortune...
Even worse than the khakis, though, were those NOT in khakis and mainly this woman, who dared to show her love of Amurrica by sporting the Canadian tuxedo. Gasp! And here I thought all these people loved Jesus. Don't they know he turned Canadian tuxedos into wine? Right? RIGHT?! THAT'S WHAT THE CONSTITUTION SAYS! (See? I can make sh*t up too.) Chanel, Chapter 1, Verse 1: "Thou shalt not wear jean-on-jean xoxo God."
Eh.Now, not everyone there committed such sartorial sins. In fact, one guy dressed overwhelmingly appropriate for the occasion, showing his support for shooting things (it's how the Lord intended it!) by wearing his camouflage gun vest layered over his Sunday button-down.
Lock and load!Finally, while the Church of Glenn Beck Jamboree largely lacked what I went there to mock (wacky T-shirts and misspelled political posters), I did find one outfit that adequately summarized the day, both in terms of fashion and politics.
R.I.P.'Cause it died a little bit on 8/28...And, honestly, so did my unwavering optimism in humanity. I learned that it's impossible to even try reasoning with the clearly unreasonable -- with people who rely solely on words (that, apparently, they don't find in books) to define themselves instead of actions; with the certifiably insane who have no other explanation for what their self-proclaimed "restoring honor process" entails other than exalting some strange fondness for an era in which leeches were used for medicine and women couldn't vote; and mainly, with people who think access to fanny packs is guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. But all hope is not lost: The enlightened among us fought and won the struggle to abolish slavery in the past, so I hope we can abolish this Glenn Beck f*ckery now. Good luck and fashion Godspeed...
30 comments:
You kinda have to know how to read to know what the Constitution says. If you don't, you depend on other people to tell you what is in it.
Somewhere, in either the Constitution or the Bible, maybe both, (I haven't checked, I just heard about this) it clearly states that in the early part of this century, an idiot would arise from the Pacific Northwest and a plague of stupidity would follow him throughout all his days, infecting all who heard him speak.
Mr. Beck must be obeyed. God tells him what to do.
See:
http://bit.ly/bex02R
I love how it is perfectly acceptable in your world to mock white people with absolutely repercussions.
If somebody were to post similarly about blacks or gays, your indignation would ooze of the page.
Dick--
Not really. In the world of The Anti DC, it's perfectly acceptable to mock everyone, regardless of color/sexual orientation. It just so happens 99.9 percent of the people who attended the Glenn Beck's Jesus Jamboree were white, so that's just what my camera captured.
If you read this blog with any regularity before basically calling me a reverse-racist, you'd have seen some of my non-white/straight shambles:
Exhibit A: http://theantidc.blogspot.com/2008/08/shambles-pi-diy-edition.html
Exhibit B: http://theantidc.blogspot.com/2009/01/shambles-pi-what-am-i-in-russia-edition.html
Exhibit C: http://theantidc.blogspot.com/2008/08/shambles-pi-gasp-nyc-edition.html
See? No need to get your khakis in a bunch. Shambles P.I. doesn't see color or sexual orientation. But here's the larger question: I didn't mention race at all in my post. Why did you?
I have yet to see/meet/hear someone who clearly disagrees with these types of groups actually disagree with them based on any salient point. It's always a criticism of the way they look, talk or act or an assumption that everyone there is packing heat under their fanny packs and most likely married their cousin. Oh, and this inane criticism of these folks because they believe in God. What in the world is wrong with that?
Thanks Anti-DC for proving me right once again.
Andy, there's no salient points with which to disagree because these Know Nothings aren't putting forth any ideas - salient or otherwise - of their own.
Nobody is criticizing people for believing in God. But when you've decided to read the Bible into the First Amendment, we're going to have issues.
But if you want some salient points...
"Ground Zero Mosqe" - neither at Ground Zero, nor a Mosque. Discuss. See also First Amendment; Religious Tolerance; Shining Light on a Hill; opposition to mosques in Tennessee, California, and Wisconsin.
Affordable Care Act - based around insurance exchanges proposed by Republicans in the 1990s. Probably the most "market-based" way to ensure everybody can enjoy the basic human right of health care. Not actually socialism. Not actually a government take-over of anything.
Cap & Trade Legislation - also proposed by Republicans as an alternative to Command-and-Control reegulation. But that was back before Know Nothings took over the GOP and decided that denying climate change was good politics.
Plenty more where these came from. If you want a discussion, go find one. You're not going to find it in a Know Nothing echo chamber.
(Please note that Know Nothing refers to the general propensity of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and their ideological followers to disparage any form of higher education as "elitism" and would must rather make decisions from their Colbertian gut than based on any kind of empirical evidence. It is a critique of their ideology, not of their intelligence.)
White people are crazy. Even more if Dick above is white.
A truly uppity, judgmental post. Vast generalizations about entire groups (just from wandering around a crowd gawking at people's behinds and snapping photos to rah-rah your marginally superior fashion sense) is a close relative to the racism that inspired MLK to have a dream.
Sure the Tea Party people can be shallow, divisive and apocalyptic. But they can also be insightful, inclusive and spiritual. If you can't admit to that complex reality, then you're insufferably full of yourself.
Would love to see you in front of a large audience (even fellow haters) delivering the same rant. It would certainly add at least 20 years to your age.
Andy--
You said: "I have yet to see/meet/hear someone who clearly disagrees with these types of groups actually disagree with them based on any salient point. ... Oh, and this inane criticism of these folks because they believe in God. What in the world is wrong with that?"
First of all, I think I made it quite clear that my main criticism of the Tea Party/Glenn Beck group (besides, of course, the whole fanny pack/marrying your cousin thing that you mentioned -- KIDDING!) is their hypocritical mash-up of Church and State. If that's not a salient point, then I encourage you to re-read the First Amendment. It's pretty important.
Look, I was at the Beck rally. I heard Sarah Palin, Beck, that baseball player, etc., speak. They all kept talking about "America's" need to turn back to God, look toward Jesus, etc. When you start saying that and it's clear that by "America," they mean "the American government," then yes, I have a big f*cking problem with that. And, please, let's try not to mince rhetoric here. Although Beck/Palin didn't mention Obama directly on Saturday, they certainly have in the past and Beck already made it overtly political by choosing the location to make his sermon, er, speech, so my inference is a fair one.
Now, if you misread my words, like it seems Beck and the Tea Party misread Jefferson's, an early advocate of the Church/State separation (Google it), I invite you to go read them again. I said: "Jesus belongs in the government just about as much as Mohammed, get it?" I didn't say I have a problem with people believing in God. I said I only have beef when someone or a group of people let their relationship with God -- whether it's the Christian variety or not -- overtake logic in, say, public/international policy-making decisions. Glenn Beck of all people, with his obsession with 9/11, should know best: That happened because of crazy religious people. They just happened to be of a different religion than him. All I'm saying is let's not flip the proverbial coin over and do the same damn thing. That is not honorable. That is not America.
Paul--
Yes, Paul. What a totally appropriate simile! King's fight to end little things like SEGREGATION is EXACTLY like Beck's and the Tea Party's fight to merge Church and State, whilst wearing way too much denim!
How did the speech go again? Oh that's right! King said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed in Canadian tuxedos: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men -- except for fashion critics -- are created equal."
And King also must have had the dream that one day a demagogue would hijack his memory and exploit it for his own personal gain...
Seriously, critiquing fashion is now akin to racism? WTF?!?! Just when I thought I was the most baffled a person could ever be...
Marissa,
Your comments above show your true beliefs on the topic. Don't insult me or any one else who stumbled across the blog (because of TBD.com linking to it)with your lame "we make fun of everybody" argument. Have the guts to own up to it.
Since you like to end comments with a question I'll do the same: What kind of a pathetic and petty person devotes their time to tearing people down?
One last thought while I am here. If you see no color, where are the mocking pictures of the black people at the rally? They were there. I've seen pictures. Funny you missed them.
To all haters,
Um, what do ANY of your points have to do with the fact that the First Amendment requires the *separation* of church and state? Not to mention that Thomas Jefferson wrote that in the Bill of Rights quite a few years after Jesus died. (And WTF are the "War Courts"???)
And what part of "This isn't a political blog" didn't you understand?
Marissa, you really don't have a lot going on up there. (Am referring to your brain, for these purposes.) The problem of someone uppity like yourself making vast generalizations isn't limited to insults about fashion sense (and we must assume you are gorgeous and chic, lacking photographic evidence, since you are ambitious in your criticisms). You demonstrate third-grader cognition with your endless use of "they," and "they," and "they, and "they" without any affective nuance that accounts (as I wrote originally) for diversity. I assume that you are not so shallow to believe that a crowd of white people is implicitly not diverse. It is the behavior of a classic bigot to look at skin color and race to assumptions about everything underneath that skin.
I should put this a lot more simply: You sound like a jerk. People are complex. Don't just walk around in a crowd, get back to your hideout, and blog that the whole crowd was nuts. Are you twelve years old?
Glenn Beck attracts the same (surprisingly large) sector of society that opens their checking accounts to the 700 club, telemarketers, and Nigerian princes who contact them by email. On the one hand I feel sorry for them; on the other hand I have to wonder how they could be so f***'n stupid.
When is the last time Glenn Beck left his upper class church to feed the homeless in Southeast DC, Compton L.A., or Harlem NYC? Mr. Beck says he knows who to fix America, but he is more than willing to step on those that he doesn't recognize as part of his America? Reminds me of the Nazi's, just remove the insignificant. Mr. Beck knows life is easier to live when you can complain and people buy your bull, but it's too hard to work at finding solutions that will help everyone. Did Mr. Beck serve in the military, serve as a volunteer firefighter, or work at a clinic helpng the HIV patient? No, because it doesn't bring him nor Fox any money.
dick/paul: thank you for confirming beck and his listeners are idiots
OK, now this is getting into uncharted, absurd-to-the-max territory. To put it another way, even my helper tortoise's erudite helper monkey can't decipher what's going on here. How did someone(s) turn a simple humor piece about FASHION into a make-believe, projectional racist tirade?
Honestly, Paul/Dick/kingmill30@gmail.com (the email of the person who just sent me a series of grammatically incorrect death threats), your ability to airbend logic is almost impressive.
I say "almost," because as we all know by now, thanks to our friendly Internet meme, Haters Gonna Hate. Meh. Make a JPEG and get back to me.
It appears that the *TEABAGGERS* have found your blog.
Haha, love how deeply people read into this. (Funny how they seem to only be able to deeply read into things that make fun of them, and not deeply read into the things, oh, that they claim their creed is based upon.) I say you come to our beloved city in droves, clog up our metro, fart up our restaurants, hinder move-in day at our universities, and do nothing less than symbolically spit on history whilst ruining the national mall for any visitor who wants to actually appreciate the majesty of our nation's capital, we deserve to make fun of your clothes! :D
I'm afraid what we're seeing are the same social conditions that gave rise to the Ku Klux Klan (White protestants afraid of becoming the minority, wrapped in the American flag and standing on the Bible, supposedly backed by God in all they're saying). And Palin and Beck are leading the pack.
Marissa,
Everything you said here was spot on correct. And these sad, embittered detractors that you're wrestling with on this comments page prove most of your points. If they want a Constitution that centers around God they should move to Iran where they will have the added benefit of getting to do what they've always wanted to do to gays, uppity women, and secularist college professors. And then the rest of can live in the Land of the Free (no thanks to the current wars for that freedom by the way).
Rock on Marissa and don't let those walking inflamed prostates get you down!
Signed,
One of the tens of millions of middle-aged white christian men that agree with your point off view.
Patty, Mike, Mike Licht, The AMT, Debbi, Freewheel, Anonymous 1, fred, Allison, Anonymous 2, and Ian--
Thank you for proving to me that there are far more rational, intelligent, good-humored people out their than not.
And to Free--
I understand how you would come to that conclusion, but trust me --- we're not all drinking the Kool-Aid, as Ian proved. It's just too bad the white people who seem to get the most TV time are usually famewhores hellbent on using the lowest common denominator to achieve their success. Quite frankly, it's embarrassing...
It seems that Marissa was one of the few signs of intelligent life in that group. Shine on!
You asked for a JPG?
http://www.washingtonian.com/page_dbimages/10499/IMG_8896_reszie.jpg
Behold: fashion.
sorry to derail about War Courts, but this is one of the wackiest of the conspiracy theories:
http://flagspot.net/flags/us-fring.html
PaulYou--
Geez. Do I have to teach you people everything? I clearly meant a JPG having to do with the Haters Gonna Hate meme, not my own personal fashion choices. However, if you want to learn more about my own outfit inventions, please to see all these posts in which I blog about (and often mock) my sartorial decisions:
http://theantidc.blogspot.com/search/label/outfit%20amour-propre
I hope you can learn something helpful.
Best,
Marissa
PS: Sorry I beat you to the punch.
Maybe you sound like a jerk. But at least you don't sound like a moron.
They look, talk or act or an assumption that everyone is packing heat in his fanny pack, and probably married his cousin. Oh, and this criticism futility of these people because they believe in God.
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