A few months back I caught a short documentary on HBO called, Right America: Feeling Wronged. The filmmaker (in the interest of full disclosure, Nancy Pelosi's daughter, Alexandra) traveled to Republican rallies in middle America, where she felt the true base of the Republican party was not being sufficiently represented, even on Fox News, where, she contended, the higher-ups choose "city" Republicans and practiced on-air personalities rather than real members of its constituency.
Her feeling was that people in the middle of the country often traveled to traditionally liberal cities like New York and LA for vacation, but that most people from these cities never got to see the average Americans in those places less-traveled. And she wanted to capture that.
In the end, and this is my take, I think she ends up showing that the reason Fox News and the Republican party neglect to give their actual base more air time is because such a large number of their voting constituents are a complete embarrassment, with their blatant xenophobia, racism, and blind repetition of talking points, that to publicly display them would actually be a serious liability to their retention of a significant number of rational conservative voters.
My conclusion is simple: the South is fucking terrifying. Here are a few highlights I jotted down... At several junctures, Pelosi asks how people feel about the possibility of Obama being elected President, to which people very openly and proudly state that they aren't ready for a black President! One guy says he isn't ready because he was brought up "old school." What the fuck?! That is seriously old school. That's pre-Emancipation Proclamation old, dude! When did "old school" = racist? I thought it meant, like, you still prefer to write things by hand, you don't use a calculator, and you think I Love Lucy is funny...
Another guy says, "I'm not too partial to blacks," and justifies this by saying he's from the South. He then tells Pelosi that if it were up to him, she still wouldn't be allowed to vote. Another jackass unflinchingly pontificates, "I ain't votin' for no nigger!" Yet another intrepidly moronic individual declares that America is "chicken shit" for not allowing the Confederate flag just because it offends black people. Totally. Black people are such whiny pussies about that whole slavery thing, huh? I mean, get over it already, people (sarcasm). This same guy then breaks down crying about how immigrants get all the rights and "we get nothing." Wow.
I think my favorite segment shows a series of people who are absolutely certain that Obama is a Muslim who is secretly in cahoots with bin Laden. A couple of them make the same retarded joke (only, scarily, they're not joking) about how Obama's going to swear in on the Qur'an if he's elected. One guy even incredulously proclaims that when he gets sworn in, Obama is going to say his name is Barack Hussein Obama... That IS his name!!! Jesus!
I mean, I'm kinda torn here. While I want to highly recommend this film, I'm scared that if another country got a hold of this video we'd be doomed once they saw how utterly stupid we are. I'm thinking we should have another Civil War, but without the blood. Those who rely on rational thought and critical reasoning can get the coasts, and everyone else can have the middle. Govern accordingly.
Anyway, I couldn't decide between a million clips, so I just decided to provide the first 10 minutes of the movie, and you can pursue this further if you're so inclined:
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"While I want to highly recommend this film, I'm scared that if another country got a hold of this video we'd be doomed once they saw how utterly stupid we are"
ReplyDeleteRelax, mate. We already know....