Disco Joe & the Moderates

Moderates, centrists, swing voters – whatever you call them, they piss me off. More, even than neocons. I mean, neocons are just greedy; they’re like crooked carnival barkers looking for suckers. You know they’re scamming everyone, so don’t be a sucker.

But the moderates!

Moderates are neocon enablers; they see the suckers getting soaked and, though they are in a position to stop it, do nothing. At best, they simply don’t want to jeopardize their comfortable lives; at worst, they are actually profiting from the scam. If you corner one of them, you can get them to admit that, yes, the scamming is bad and something should be done about it, but, well…

No one was against the Iraq War before it started. Not John Kerry, Not Hillary Rodham Clinton, not Joe Biden, not John Edwards; and after it started, while things were going okay, even the few token dissenters seemed to quiet down a little. Now that things aren’t going so well, and the ‘centrists’ are starting to feel stupid for authorizing the crime that is Operation Iraqi Freedom, they are changing their positions.

“And had I known then what I know now, I never would have cast that vote, not in 1,000 years.”
—Senator Diane Feinstein

“I was wrong.”
—Senator John Edwards

Here is a good rundown of John Kerry’s highly nuanced position. Here’s Biden’s.

Makes you want to yell, “Come on! Spit it out! Yes or no? For or against? Get the fucking marbles out of your mouth. Sheesh.”

But, you see, had we kicked the snot out of Iraq, the ‘centrists’ would still be all for it. They’re only against it now because it’s taking too long and costing too much. It’s not a position based on principles, it’s based on political expediency and comfort. Many of the people who oppose the current conflagration retain favorable views of the first Gulf War. Why? Cuz we kicked the snot out those bastards. It only took a few weeks. We were badass and popular. It has nothing to do with right or wrong. It’s all about being liked.

Look how they pounced on Dick Durbin for suggesting our treatment of Guantanamo prisoners was un-American. They gave him a much harder time than they gave to Zel Miller for endorsing Bush at the Republican National Convention. Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, the late Paul Wellstone and a teensy weensy list of other True Democrats have spent more time defending themselves against attacks from within their own party than they have struggling with Repugnicans, and this has been a valuable gift to the Rumsfeld cabal.

Of course everyone likes Wellstone now that he’s safe and dead. It’s the same way Madison Avenue now embraces Jimi Hendrix. No longer fearful that he might do something challenging or provocative, they trot out his image whenever they’ve got a hot new product to sell.

One thing that really pisses me off about “moderates” is their constant refrain that Michael Moore and Al Franken are just like Bill O’ Reilly, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh. Here’s the news, dipshits: Michael Moore and Al Franken ARE NOTHING LIKE O’Reilly, Coulter and Limbaugh BECAUSE THEY DON’T LIE. I’ll admit Moore’s idyllic portrayal of pre-war Iraq in the early moments of “Fahrenheit 9-11” was a little misleading, but that’s nothing compared to this. And this. And this. And this, this, this and this.

Here is a list of lefty publications and web sites:

http://www.thenation.com/
http://www.progressive.org/
http://www.motherjones.com/
http://harpers.org/
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site
http://www.theatlantic.com/
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
http://www.ericalterman.com/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
http://www.counterpunch.org/
http://www.rawstory.com/

I challenge any reader to find something anywhere in any of them that comes close to the endless torrent of dangerous bullshit spewing out of Fox News, Regnery and the other components of the massive right wing disinfotainment machinery.

Remember when disco was huge? It wasn’t just a form of music, it was a media sensation. Everything had to be disco. Disco movies, disco jeans, disco hair and, of course, Disco Duck. It was such a colossal craze that it affected everything. Even the Rolling Stones, the very synonyms of rock-n-roll, started recording disco songs. Well, it’s kind of the same way now. Rupert Murdoch and other greedy dildoes have created a media juggernaut consisting of maudlin, self-serving, jingoistic, feel-good rhetoric that portrays the aggressor as the victim, presented with glitzy, high-tech repetition. And like reeds in a stream, “moderates” can’t help bending with the current. Just as it was pathetic in 1979 to watch some chubby 40-year-old stuff a sock down his too-tight polyester disco slacks and do “the Hustle,” it is now pathetic to see Hillary Rodham Clinton trying to censor video games and ban flag burning. Or Joe Lieberman trying to be Bush's Secretary of Defense.

Come on, you guys. This pseudo-Christian flag waving is just a fad. Like disco, it will go away as soon as everyone realizes how bad it looks, sounds, smells, tastes and feels. Of course, there will be a few holdouts – there always are – but most rational people will look back on the ‘Shrub’ era with embarrassment.

Please, Hillary, Joe, Joe, Bill, John, John and Diane, listen to Howard and Dennis. Don’t try to squeeze into those disco slacks. Stick with rock-n-roll. It’ll be back soon, and you won’t look so dumb to your constituents when it returns.