Oh, for....!
Nov. 18th, 2009 03:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakBecause apparantly the "death panel/public health care" comparisons weren't offensive enough for some members of the American Right, Glenn Beck decided he needed he should get more topical, and came up with this incredibly tasteful comparison instead:
America has spoken clearly, consistently—we don't want [government-paid healthcare]. And for the first time in history, we don't think it's the government's place to give it to us. We're kind of reading this [holds up unidentified piece of paper] from time to time now. We are—excuse this analogy, but I feel like it's true—we're the young girl saying [puts on scared voice and crying face] "No, no—help me!" [back to regular voice] and the government is Roman Polanski. In the end, I think we're all gonna be cowering in France.
(Quote from this article, which also links the clip in question..)
You know, I think that actually manages to be more offensive than anything said previously ever since Polanski got arrested, which is quite an effort. (It also manages to mangle its own tasteless comparison by confusing just who went to France, but that's beside the point.)
Then there's the article Neil Gaiman linked to in his blog this morning, which compares the film based on his Coraline with Frau Holle - which he calls Mother Hulda - (not that either of the Brothers Grimm would recognize their tale from the bowlderized description he gives - more about that later), with the author coming to the conclusion that:
Those who made "Coraline" are also likely to endorse the evils of abortion and homosexual marriage, and given a chance, could easily change America into a Soviet-style hell on earth. That is - if you will - Mother Hulda shows the soul of the Right, and Coraline, the tormented soul of the Left.
A side-by-side comparison of the two stories reveals that ours is much more than a political struggle. Ours is truly "a battle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.".
Jacob Grimm, who was a linguist, scientist and who loved to trace fairy tale characters back to ancient gods, would have been disgusted by this diatribe, and, being the more agressive of the two brothers who thrived on spectacular academic flame wars, would have written an incredibly acerbic reply. You know what else he and Wilhelm G. were, besides academics and intellectuals? Liberals. Progressives. Jacob took place in the doomed revolutionary parliament in Frankfurt 1848, as one of the representatives. In short, he and his brother were everything the American Right ridicules and hates.
This claiming of the Grimms' fairy tales - who are in their undisneyfied version scary as hell sometimes, which contributes to their power, and certainly more gory than anything Neil Gaiman comes up with in Coraline - reminds me of that other display of ignorance a few months ago, when the very British Stephen Hawking suddenly found himself Americanized by Republicans and used as an example of someone whom evil British health care would have murdered. (Resulting in an immediate statement by him that he owes National Health Care his life, thank you very much.)
But you know, the truly frightening thing here is that people like this article writer or Glenn Beck can't dismissed as fringe nutjobs anymore. They have an audience. They actually get listened to and believed by millions. I think it wasartaxastra who a while back said that the Republicans used to play to the fundamentalist crazies in order to get their votes but by now have been completely overtaken by them. Honestly, I used to roll my eyes and dismiss types like Beck from my thoughts, but that was before eight years of Bush did incredible damage. Now conservative America freaks me out because I'm afraid of what the next Republican goverment will do to both the US and the world.
America has spoken clearly, consistently—we don't want [government-paid healthcare]. And for the first time in history, we don't think it's the government's place to give it to us. We're kind of reading this [holds up unidentified piece of paper] from time to time now. We are—excuse this analogy, but I feel like it's true—we're the young girl saying [puts on scared voice and crying face] "No, no—help me!" [back to regular voice] and the government is Roman Polanski. In the end, I think we're all gonna be cowering in France.
(Quote from this article, which also links the clip in question..)
You know, I think that actually manages to be more offensive than anything said previously ever since Polanski got arrested, which is quite an effort. (It also manages to mangle its own tasteless comparison by confusing just who went to France, but that's beside the point.)
Then there's the article Neil Gaiman linked to in his blog this morning, which compares the film based on his Coraline with Frau Holle - which he calls Mother Hulda - (not that either of the Brothers Grimm would recognize their tale from the bowlderized description he gives - more about that later), with the author coming to the conclusion that:
Those who made "Coraline" are also likely to endorse the evils of abortion and homosexual marriage, and given a chance, could easily change America into a Soviet-style hell on earth. That is - if you will - Mother Hulda shows the soul of the Right, and Coraline, the tormented soul of the Left.
A side-by-side comparison of the two stories reveals that ours is much more than a political struggle. Ours is truly "a battle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.".
Jacob Grimm, who was a linguist, scientist and who loved to trace fairy tale characters back to ancient gods, would have been disgusted by this diatribe, and, being the more agressive of the two brothers who thrived on spectacular academic flame wars, would have written an incredibly acerbic reply. You know what else he and Wilhelm G. were, besides academics and intellectuals? Liberals. Progressives. Jacob took place in the doomed revolutionary parliament in Frankfurt 1848, as one of the representatives. In short, he and his brother were everything the American Right ridicules and hates.
This claiming of the Grimms' fairy tales - who are in their undisneyfied version scary as hell sometimes, which contributes to their power, and certainly more gory than anything Neil Gaiman comes up with in Coraline - reminds me of that other display of ignorance a few months ago, when the very British Stephen Hawking suddenly found himself Americanized by Republicans and used as an example of someone whom evil British health care would have murdered. (Resulting in an immediate statement by him that he owes National Health Care his life, thank you very much.)
But you know, the truly frightening thing here is that people like this article writer or Glenn Beck can't dismissed as fringe nutjobs anymore. They have an audience. They actually get listened to and believed by millions. I think it was
artaxastra who a while back said that the Republicans used to play to the fundamentalist crazies in order to get their votes but by now have been completely overtaken by them. Honestly, I used to roll my eyes and dismiss types like Beck from my thoughts, but that was before eight years of Bush did incredible damage. Now conservative America freaks me out because I'm afraid of what the next Republican goverment will do to both the US and the world.
