DEMOCRACY SMACKDOWN 2010: WE’RE GOING TO NEED MORE BATSHIT

[defrog]

By now you know the hottest weekend meme is the Anderson Cooper Terror Babies interviews with Debbie Riddle and Louis Gohmert, in which they up the ante in the Repeal The 14th Amendment movement from “anchor babies” to al Qaeda immigrants giving birth to babies to be raised as sleeper terorrists (as Team Def reported to you last month).

I can’t add anything that Jon Stewart hasn’t already covered, except to say that it’s great fun to watch Debbie and Louis get miffed about Cooper asking them for actual evidence of the Terror Baby threat. “What’s THAT got to do with anything?! Jeez, I wouldn’t have even come on here if I knew you were going to ask me a bunch of questions!”

To be fair, it’s been at least a decade since TV reporters actually asked a politician a question like that, so I can understand why they weren’t prepared.

Anyway, let’s admit it – the Terror Babies conspiracy is one of the more awesomely demented batshit election memes to emerge this year (though not as good as Basil Marceaux Dotcom, of course). And that’s saying something in an election where candidates are talking about everything from UN bicycle conspiracies and concentration camps for illegal immigrants ("We can ship them out to the middle of the country and put up high walls and leave them there") to govt spending being a violation of the Ten Commandements and Obama being controlled by the Queen of England.

Which is why I’m rather disappointed by Linda McMahon’s lack of contribution to the shenanigans.

I realize she wants to be known more for her business chops in running a successful global sports entertainment company than the actual content the company produces. But seeing as how there’s little fundamental difference between pro wrestling and politics – apart from the actual violence (depending on which country yr talking about) – you’d think she could come up with something a little more intense than two sensible career women in an minivan. Her opponents are getting more entertainment mileage out of WWE footage than she is, for God’s sake.

I’m not necessarily arguing that the American election process would benefit from having a lot more cartoon sex, violence and steroid abuse (well I am, actually, because at this stage, it couldn’t hurt).

I just find it odd that the woman who (1) ran the biggest company in an industry that built itself up in no small part by exploiting anti-immigration and anti-gay hysteria as a gimmick to work the crowds and (2) fired Jim Ross in public by kicking him in the nuts is the most comparatively polite GOP candidate running for office.

On the other hand, she won her primary, so who am I to be critical?

Talk softly and carry a big folding chair,

This is dF

Comments

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

Australia's having a general election next weekend and I am ready to do a straight swap with you.

The American election looks like a circus in outer space as viewed through an acid flashback. The Australian election is just a collection of sad old incompetents arguing moot points.

Hot election issue: will the new broadband internet infrastructure we (a G20 country in the year 2010) still don't have, but which we are going to build "Any day now". Will it be obsolete the moment it's rolled out, or will it be obsolete before they put shovel to dirt? Does it even matter, when neither of the major parties actually intends to building it?

You have a candidate named Dotcom. We don't have candidate who knows what a dot com _is_.

-- JF

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I feel for you. We've been covering the NBN thing from the start in the course of my day job. So of course we'll be interested to see if the elections will completely wreck what Stephen Conroy has tirelessly promoted as Australia leading the way to the True Broadband Era (after years of passing off 144k connections as "broadband", of course).

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

Conroy is another clown in a long line of similar. He has worked tireless to promote it... and his genius internet filter... but he's done bugger all to make it a reality. You'd think nobody had ever rolled out fibre before.

Neither this government nor the Howard government before it properly understand the value of broadband.

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

They've spent the last year just arguing over the NBN Co corporate structure and convincing Telstra to separate its retail and wholesale business. Though I understand parts of Tasmania are the first to get actual service.

We covered the Internet filter story too. It got a lot of laughs in the office, I can tell you.

[jasonfranks.livejournal.com]

It's either laugh or cry...

[nebris.livejournal.com]

I'm stealing this entire post cause I'm too freakin' tired to write anything myself.

~M~

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I need to learn to steal more – took me all morning to write that. :)

[bedsitter23.livejournal.com]

"It's a bad sign when Lou Dobbs thinks your immigration policy is Draconian".

Jon Stewart ftw!