So I thought
March 7th, 2011 | 
Author: I was in a casino bar in Vegas the other night. I never used to pretend to play video poker for free drinks. You can get double Tanqueray martinis for milking five dollars on Jacks or better. It doesn’t get much better. So I do that now. I was with my new boss and he stepped away for a minute. I didn’t notice the kid sidling up and manning his machine and place at the bar at first. As soon as I did, I tapped him and told him the seat was occupied and pointed out the half finished hefeweizen. Apologetic, polite and gracious he was. We began to chat. He used the phrase “preciate you now” a few times and I guessed out loud he was from South Carolina. I was right. Nice guy.
At some point, politics became a subject. I don’t doubt it was by my hand or mouth. By this time my new employer re-emerged and a lively discussion commenced. The boy (26 years old) rocketed a phrase that shook and shocked me. I’ve read all about such pronouncements and proclamations but never actually heard them uttered directed at me in person. Just tossed off. “So who kills Obama?”, he said. I wanted to throat punch the skinny little ignorant fuck. This kid who was so pleasant and unassuming. You know that feeling when something happens with so much unexpected suddenness it tilts you enough you just can’t behave normally for a time?
He was in town for a NASCAR race not as a spectator, but actually working for a racing team. Nationwide not sprint.
I decided to continue talking to him and figure out where that cracking lightning bolt of abject ignorance came from.
Turns out he was egregiously uninformed and surrounded by similarly ignorant people. He had no idea more jobs were created under Obama in two years than under Dumbya in eight. No idea that the auto industry bailout wasn’t an attempt to nationalize the industry and that most of the money had been paid back or that GM was now healthy in the black. No idea that TARP was implemented by Bush. No idea that unions were why he got overtime pay, sick leave and weekends. No idea that the Tea Party was in no way a grassroots movement but rather funded by those among the very wealthiest in our country.
However brief, it was surreal. He honestly turned out to be a nice guy.
I just couldn’t stand it. I needed to understand from whence it came. I needed to have my suspicions confirmed. And they were. He did. He told me everything I needed to know. Everything I already knew. Everything I already understood. Everything he didn’t know and everything he didn’t understand. His whole deal was exactly what I assumed it to be. What’s more, is he was so painfully unsure about what he was saying. What he was so reflexively repeating. It was simultaneously awful and affirming at the same time.
Simultaneously awful and affirming.
Awful. Everything I needed to know. Everything I already knew. He was wrong because he didn’t know shit. He had no idea what the truth was.
I didn’t challenge him, I merely pointed it out. Without confusion. Absent any ambiguity.
Affirming because I understood, not for the first time, that the rub was explicit. Obvious. Easy. Convenient.
He’d been manipulated. Beguiled. Almost effortlessly bewitched.
The President of The United States is a nigger. A Muslim. A socialist. A communist. Not one of us. Not a citizen. A man with an overt agenda; to destroy America.
That’s what it was and that’s what it is.
As much as I knew that. As much as I understood that. As much as I owned that. Here it came from an otherwise decent and respectable young man’s mouth. As I spoke with him I began to see it in stark relief. Somehow, as fair and polite as he was, not even he was able to see his views for what they were. He was decent and it broke my heart. I can’t describe how sad it made me. I was crushed. He was racist. By accident but deliberate, through little fault of his own. By proxy. He told me he watched Fox and listened to Limbaugh because “…..they tell it like it is and will say what everyone else is afraid to admit.”
He wasn’t able to define socialism or communism when I prodded him with a smile.
America’s greatest threat lies threat lies in it’s own people. The nicest people you could ever hope to meet.
Fucking ridiculous.
Drinks for my friends.
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Once again…you’ve nailed it! Ignorance, as it turns out, is not “bliss” for those of us who have to sit beside it day after day after day.
I’ll give it to you for continuing the conversation. Your first instinct would have clouded my ability to remain calm and I would have left the scene, not wanting to burn my already overloaded brain with more stupid. Sheep.
And ignorance is their goal & they are winning.
Too true 🙁 <3 Positive Thoughts we are able to save ourselves before it is too late <3
This is the best article and commentary I have read in a long while. I had the same revelation at the Tea Party Rally in DC last year, except most of those people were not nice, just racist!
“Awful. Everything I needed to know. Everything I already knew. He was wrong because he didn’t know shit. He had no idea what the truth was. I didn’t challenge him, I merely pointed it out. Without confusion. Absent any ambiguity. Affirming because I understood, not for the first time, that the rub was explicit. Obvious. Easy. Convenient. He’d been manipulated. Beguiled. Almost effortlessly bewitched.”
hahahahahaha – Sounds like so have you. You’re worse than my bible school teacher pushing Jesus on me all through my formative years. WOW.
Get off your high horse, buddy.
Interesting come back and insite you got there. It seems we seem to be on high horses to you, because you Cleatus are just a BAFOON!
I’d say this article pretty well characterizes many of the “folks” that I’ve encountered that were adamantly “Anti-Obama”.
Many of them are well-intended, but most of them are extremely racist and unbelievably un-informed (even though most of them will deny this). Most of them believe the only “news” outlet worth watching is FOX “news”! They are what I would characterize as “sheep” or “parrots”… generally incapable of rational thought, but willing to be led around by almost anyone who knows how to appeal to their sense of self-righteousness, they are also capable of repeating phrases and cliches that they don’t understand (and cannot defend). What a pathetic sector of society… If they weren’t so racist, I would almost feel sorry for them. But I just can’t forgive (and I will not tolerate) racism.
These people are beyond ignorant. They have no idea the falsehoods and misinformation they are being told as the “truth.” I know a few people like that. But we have others who are enlightened and telling the truth and maybe, just maybe, converting some of the clueless like this “good ole boy” that you bumped into in Vegas. There is more stuff out there that “NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT” to paraphrase Rachel. Peak oil, the double-dip recession,the implosion of the money system. Those are issues that we know are there and choose to ignore. So, everyone needs to get on the same page. But i admire your willingness to stand up to the ignorance and bigotry of this man and hopefully “enlighten” him.
Once critical thinking stops and you no longer question – your politics
are now a religion.
This is a great article Mike! You nailed it. They just hate him because it’s easier than learning the facts. Knowing very little, they repeat mantras over and over. They drop words like “socialism,” and “Muslim,” and “communist,” and have no idea what the words mean. And the very people who use programs Obama supports, disrespect him at every turn. And they ALWAYS assume other people agree with them!
Wow… Don’t you just love the brain washed becker-heads? Christ on a fucking cracker, if they would only read a news paper instead of wiping their ass with it they might learn something. But.then again, most of these teabaggers are happy being spoon fed bull shoot.
Thanks, Michael!! We must educate ignorance, and sometimes it is done one person at a time. They have bought in to the notion that FoxNews Entertainment is the ONLY credible source, when in actuality it is the least. The politicians repeat the lies, over and over, and the people who don’t research information accept it as fact. Add to the lie, the premise that “eople will tell you different, but they are brainwashed”, and it’s nearly impossible to make an avid Fox viewer accept truth.
OOPS…people
Felt the same way the bush/hitler signs way back when. Lots of stoopid people out there that need to respect the office, not necessarily the man that holds it.
I love it too because it is respectful of him, but critical of his ignorance, and it recognizes that he is being manipulated. I hate the assumption that these people are all evil–they are not; they are in fact natural allies who have been lied to in order to keep them from being allies. It is sad.
So everyone agrees with your “story” here? Wow. Amazing. And if this is true, 1 person paints the entire picture? Comical……..at best.
Wow so that did post. Counting how long it stays posted as I “await moderation” those words were never more true. Answer me this:
1.) While the politicians open the borders to garner votes, why wouldn’t the voting populace vote to deregulate the immigration laws until more drastic changes could be made? (it would keep the politicians in power for the time being)
2.) How can public healthcare be sustainable in regards to the first question? (if there there is less enforcement how do we collect for healthcare?)
Interesting that Rush / Hannity recently admitted that actors were hired to call in. However, let’s discuss more ignorance. Has GM paid back? Yes, they borrowed new money to pay back old money. Pensions saved for a while, nice to have friends in government. How is ol’ Peace Prize Winner doing about Guantanamo, torture and foreign wars? That’s what I thought. Any bankers going to jail? No, they are connected. And, finally, lets see if you are “manipulated. Beguiled. Almost effortlessly bewitched.” How is that search for the dead guy going? Do buildings fall into their own footprint? Really? How is the TSA working out? Stop any terrorists? Keep up the fear, just in case the terrorists attack North Dakota. Your friend from South Carolina was ignorant. You are just as ignorant, sorry. Drinks for my friends as well.