Elmer Gantry, the Klan, and the Republican Convention

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

I don't know, watching the Klan convention I couldn't help but think: are they speaking to morons, to children? How profoundly sad it is to see the self-declared "leader of the free world" , the "beacon on the hill" (yeah, I know!) put on such a sorry spectacle. Yes, spectacle is the right word here, like Elmer Gantry's histrionics...the show must go on!

The conservatives, like many conservatives in other places, are really just nasty, bitter people. Old huckleberry harping on about how the "heroes" -and who isn't a hero in the States one wonders- had earned the desks at a school for the school children. Pan shot to weeping veteran. Oh for fuck's sake. How dense can you get? Their utter naivete amazes me.

What a swell guy he is. I mean, his papa used to lift "heavy things" (ooh, ain't you impressed?). Elvis and Jesus, Jesse and the King. Dont'cha see we aints impressed by youz flip-flopping-yella-belly-nigger loving-elites. Man, these people seriously think that there's a "left-wing " media in the States (yeah, CNN, that old bastion of Marxism!) . I kid thee not. It's like the IMF chap I met who said that in his circles the World Bank is thought of as a crypto-commie organization.

Then Rudi, with his little, petty sarcastic comments. And the spin. Holey moley! We're here to change Washington, "shake it up"; McCain and Palin, great mavericks (no mention of the fact, of course , that their man Walker has been in power for 6 years, that he and his cronies are Washington). We put our country first. How very reassuring! Small town hockey mom took them on, the vested interests y'know, and won. Maybe I ain't from no big town cosmopolitan city, but heck, I sure as hell know what the definition of marriage is. "Drill baby drill" and chants of U S A . It's all so bloody predictable, so manufactured. We love our guns and our religion. Let's play to the base (al-qaeda). Oh, jeez, they're so gullible it makes me want to cry.