Oct 13 2007
A Week of Creeping Meatballism - 1
Main Entry: ignorance Part of Speech: noun Definition: unintelligence Synonyms: benightedness, bewilderment, blindness, stupidity, callowness, creeping meatballism, dumbness, crudeness. . .
Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)
I wanted to use the word nescience. It’s such a pretty word, prettier than ignorance, and more politically correct than idiocy, but then I found this – creeping meatballism – and it was just too perfect to pass up. Meatball, indicating something thick and without grey matter. Creeping, as in something that is alive, growing, invasive. 2007 has been an exceptional year of creeping meatballism for me, with so many examples that I’ve decided to dedicate an entire week of posts to stu the subject.
It’s relatively uncharted territory for me. On my blog, as in life, I try to avoid dum people who are, by nature or design, frustrating. I don’t always succeed, but I try. A sense of humor helps, but my resevoir of funny has run dry this year, and there’s only one way to get it back. I have to give the thick and greasy their space in the bloglight. Unfortunately, they’ve given me so much material, it’s going to take about a week to roll them away from my consciousness and lighten the load. This is part one. (Feel free to use the comments section to vent about the idiots creeping meatballism you’ve experienced).
On the global level for me, there’s still Bush and his dangerous right-wing minions. The 
perverse brainwashing that has led otherwise normal people to believe that our soldiers really are dying “for our freedom”. Our freedom from what exactly? The terrorism that didn’t stem from the country we’re presently fighting? The hijackers that weren’t from Iraq? A still-free Osama Bin Laden who’s probably camping out near Pakistan? Our freedom to impose democracy on others without their consent? Terrorists are present in every country, particularly in the middle East. Should we fight for “our freedom” from every culture and country that harbors them as a preemptive strike? Or just the ones Halliburton and other war-funded corporations can make money from?
Bb-but, the brainwashed say, “We can’t withdraw, or they’ll think they’ve won!” Won what, exactly? The right to run their own country?
Okay, I know, it’s been talked to death. The stuttering National Guard drop-out and C-average cheerleader who is our President will finally exit the gnarled political stage he built with materials on loan from daddy, Cheney, Rove and right-wing fanatics. Millions of us await 2008, and some sort of revival of logic. Rationalism by any other name, has never smelled so sweet.
23 responses so far
I have a sign over the sink in my kitchen - “1/04/09 Bush’s Last Day”. I’m not one to rush my life away but that day will not be here soon enough!
Maloof, I have the Tshirt!! LOL.
No Kidding, I pin the same little pin on EVERYDAY!
I wear it out of sheer frustration, fear, anger. Like I am powerless, so it is my little protest every day. The fear by the way, isn’t the fear of “the terrorists”. It is the fear of just how quickly this country is losing it’s grip on reality. Watch, the brainwashed are going to BAA BAA like sheep all the way to Iran now. Let the war machine roll on! We must fight all the terrorists. Yeah, so we can sit and watch our families die, while our country decays around us. While we have lost the respect of nations, murdered innocent people, for corporate greed.
But hey, they have a Walmart in Bagdad, and that is so important in the fight against terrorism.
Bush’s last day is 1/20/09 which is a long way to go yet and unfortunatly things will keep sinking into the quick-sand.
I am still asking Bush everytime I see him on TV. WHY did you go into Iraq? There was no reason to go into Iraq at all. Sure Saddam was doing his own thing in HIS own country as it was HIS country NOT the USA’s country. Yes, Saddam killed people in HIS county which is NOT right, but is it right for the USA to go there and kill innocent Iraqi people? The day the statue of Saddam came down probably was a great day for the Iraqi people,. I wonder how many of those happy people from that day are still have a home with running water and lights on IF they are still even living.
Here is the USA, each state does it’s own thing. For instance, one state may not have state and local taxes whereas other states have both. Some states make you pay car taxes each year and others states don’t have. Some states the gas prices are higher than other states. We are not uniform in each state in the USA and we don’t fight each state because they do things another way.
If Iran wants to go into Iraq, or North Korea wants to go into South Korea, let them do their own thing and the USA needs to stay the heck out of it all.
I would like to submit an example of meatballism. Have you heard of Rush Limbaugh calling troops who speak out against the war, phony? And the soldier, Brian McGough that produced a rebuttal via a commercial? Well, I wrote a post about it on my blog, titled Phony Patriotism. I then went to Brian’s blog - Inside my broken skull (he was injured in Iraq). There, I got into a loooooong discussion with what I believe fits the meatballism in which you speak. The utter and total belief that we are indeed fighting for our freedom and for the *revenge* of 9/11 that these people hold true just baffles me. Now, I will not dare call these people I was debating with stupid, for most are military (or retired military) and some seem quite intelligent. But some still can not, will not acknowledge that Bush lied and it is a fraudulent war.
Anyway, if you feel like seeing meatballism first hand, I invite you to read our debate. It is long, and I wrote quite a lot, but I had to. I just couldn’t believe their beliefs! It is sad, really. Baffling. I also found some interesting info along that way, things i hadn’t heard before, so it might be informational as well. (maybe not, but at least it was for me.) ahha
Brian’s blog is: http://www.broken-skull.com/index.html And the debate takes place in the Hey Rush Fans comments sections.
Your postman story is hilarious. Lord help us all. hahaha
Sara
Jane,
Wow, I could have written your blog today. You are asking the same questions I have asked about Iraq. Have you noticed that when Bush and his buddies give us the rationale for invading and occupying Iraq, that if you look at it real close, it doesn’t hold water. It never makes sense. Was it for national security, human rights, global stablization? I don’t feel safer. There are worse tryants that Saddam. And, Russia, China, and other industrial countries are beginning to flex their global muscles.
After many attempts at getting some answer from all my governmental representatives and not receiving one response, my frustation lead to a personal protest. Considering the only wish I have is for PEACE. Scary word, PEACE. So, I am no longer seen in public without a Rosie “PEACE” t-shirt. It is amazing how the word “PEACE” promotes dialogue from perfect strangers. It is so reassuring. It proves to me that I am not pissing on the fire all by myself. You’re right there with the rest of us. Thanks.
Right there, Pat, and counting the days. Ready to step up to the plate and volunteer whatever skills and time might be helpful. The last thing I am feeling is passive.
Sara, not only heard about it, wrote a story about it. Limbaugh. The $250M Fraud.
Patty G., Allison, Maloof and Laurie — I couldn’t agree more. But do you think Americans who agree with us will actually get pro-active next year?
Dear Jane,
I think a lot more of our government than you seem to.
I believe, that Bin Ladin is in Iraq…or Iran…or he’s really dead.
I think, if he’s not there now, he has been off-and-on for a very, long time.
I happen to believe that Iran is being surrounded by our military, and I think we’ve waited and waited, to do what’s needing to be done…with diplomacy…and that’s not going to work.
I think we are not aware of what’s really going on…
I hope anyway…that we are really ignorant…to what’s really going on!!!
Duh! haha I totally forgot I read about it on your site first! I gave the background, just so everyone would know what I was talking about, but I totally forgot I heard about it from you. I have been in the debate with that site ever since.
So, I can blame YOU for getting me into this week long, loooooooog debate. haha JK! :o)
Anyway, it is interesting to read their *loyalty* to Bush, and what they consider *supporting the troops*.
Not even the government says, any longer, that Iraq had anything to do with Osama. But yet, many, many people still believe the lies they first told us. No one in the military or White House believes that Osama is in Iraq. They all think he is in the mountains of Afghanistan.
“I believe, that Bin Ladin is in Iraq…or Iran…”
But see how effective they were in selling us those lies?
Yes. The link to the Salon article in the WCM-1 post shows just how little Americans are informed. The majority also believed that some of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq. None of them were. It’s how quickly spin works when people are willing to believe it without checking the facts. - JD
Helpless is the word. You can protest, donate, write to your congressman and senators, speak out, blog, march, and it goes nowhere. The Bush Co. continues the war crimes and no one is listening to the people. We are nothing, we have no power anymore…..it seems.
Yes, in a way we are helpless.
But we must as Americans at least be informed.
We can’t afford to be passive any longer. You have to dig for the facts outside mainstream media, we can’t rely any longer on the news in it’s present form, and just assume we are getting information. We’re not getting it! Ken Burns has been showing his latest documentary about WWII on PBS. He made a comment that stuck with me. He said When America got called into what he considers a war that did need to happen, they were asked to sacrifice, work for the cause. Every American was involved here at home.
When we went into Iraq, we were told to go shopping. They don’t want us involved, paying attention. They want us in the mall. What does that tell you?
Jane,
To answer your question about “do you think Americans who agree with us will actually get pro-active next year?”, my answer is NO! I don’t see this happening in 2008 but I do see this happening once the new President takes over in 2014. The only way people will start to take action NOW is if there is a “draft” and then more and more will protest the War. It’s hard for me to call this one a WAR because we already claimed “Mission Accomplished” on a country that didn’t attack New York on 911.
I remember Vietnam days and what it felt like when the draft was instituted. I was one of those young brides to save a young man from going to War until it didn’t matter whether you were married or not.
People need to march on Washington the day of the Presidential Inauguration. This will make an impact for sure. The day Bush takes his last ride through Washington, there should be pictures and only pictures lining the streets of all the soldiers that died under Bush’s administration. There should be pictures of all the wounded soldiers too!
The 911 families should place pictures there too because IF Washington had their act together and read memos we wouldn’t have lost these families. I would also add all the pictures of people who died from Hurricane Katrina. We Americans watched live TV coverage of our fellow Americans pleading for help while Bush did nothing for days and days and days.
If Bush wants to see a crowd of people on his last ride out of office, these are the faces he needs to look at.
The media has power and they need to use their power to show all of us what is happening. We don’t see our wounded soldiers coming home. We don’t see the flag draped coffins of our soldiers coming home. Out of sight, out of mind comes into my head. When we saw what was happening back during Vietnam, we were glued to the TV and we did something. Let the paparazzi go and sit at the airports and take pictures of our men and women coming home. If the paparazzi can invade celebrities lives the way they do without breaking laws, then maybe they are the ones that could get pictures of our soldiers coming home. People need to see in order to react!
Barry Manilow’s song “One Voice” comes to mind as it takes only one voice to get things started. The day of the ‘Live Earth” concert when Melissa Ethridge came on stage in New Jersey, the crowd felt her energy and her words. It reminded me of the 60’s and the protests going on at that time. Melissa’s song “I Believe” ran through my veins that day and still does everytime when I hear it.
PEACE
right on Patty.
I worry more about the chilling effect and brainwashing–the effectiveness of the right wing’s PR/media machine–than anything else. As long as people–who, in my experience, are average or above average in intelligence–continue to believe the story lines put out by Fox News, et al, that anyone who asks a question or voices a concern about anything that Bush does is a lunatic or a “hater,” then they will not be able to take the next step and question for themselves the crazy, dangerous things this administration has done. I can’t even get as far as trying to convince people that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. They are like pod people, after their steady diet of “news” and talking points from the shows they watch & listen to. They just retort, endlessly, “Freedom isn’t free!” and “Why do you hate your country so much?” This goes so far beyond the culture wars that played out in the sixties. Back then, “the silent majority” of middle-aged people were baffled and scared at how the counterculture seemed to be changing society in very large ways. Remember, back then there was talk of Revolution and “any means necessary.” So, in a way, though I was and still am very much a solid liberal and progressive, in my own middle age I now look back at my parents’ generation and have a little more understanding for their reactions. Remember how visibly the antiwar movement and other simultaneous left-of-center movements played out so dramatically. Which is why today’s counterparts for the antiwar, alarmed-at-Bush segment of society seem so tame by comparison, and why it is scary to me that they can be demonized so thoroughly and completely — enough so to quiet down many people who ordinarily might speak up. I mean, think back to the Dixie Chicks. They made a silly joke at a concert, and look at the venom that resulted. Death threats. Boycotts.
I think Ronald Reagan and Karl Rove, with their respective campaigns to roll back the clock to pre-counterculture days, have been enormously successful. So much so that people can’t even see the lunacy of the things they are fighting for. All they seem to know is that they are opposed to anything that anyone left-of-center posits.
That is so true Prudy.That is why it is important right now to elect Hillary Clinton as our next president.
We can begin healing. We need to move ahead right now in America with a woman at the helm. Its time people. Time for change.
Allilson, I just don’t know if Hilary Clinton or anyone can turn the tide against the brainwashing that the right-wing media machine has achieved.
My concern is that people become educated about the media, and realize that they are being fed lies, half-truths, and truthiness via sound bytes that originate from the White House and get picked up & carried about by Drudge, Limbaugh & others on right-wing radio, the Fox Channel, and, sadly, other mainstream media outlets who increasingly have begun parroting the sound bytes and using the discourse tactics of repetition and tar-and-feathering that the WH, Drudge, Limbaugh, Fox, et al., use. I can’t imagine how any Democratic politician can fix this problem.
Robert Greenwald’s documentary exposing Fox for what it is, “Outfoxed,” was a start, and there is a website called Fox News Hounds where writers recap Fox’s news shows and try to show people how biased and silly that network is. But I fear only the choir understands how deceitful and dangerous Fox is and how hugely influential it has become. If you read the comments on Fox News Hounds you will see that they contain only mud-slinging between the choir and the trolls. I don’t get the idea that any right-wing hearts and minds have been changed.
I don’t know how people can be educated on how misinformed they have become since feasting on the steady diet of Fox and the Fox effect. I truly believe we are suffering through almost 8 years of this horrific Bush administration in large part because people listened to these so-called news outlets and let them make up their minds. Otherwise, why would right wingers who claim to be “strong on national defense” allow Bush’s incompetence to drive the war on terrorism into the ground? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for these hawkish right wingers to have tossed his sorry ass out the door during 2004 and to have run someone hawkish and competent against him? I’m not saying I would have agreed with them or voted for this person. But the fact that they did not, and that they just appear to be content to sit in the backseat of the car and not ask any questions about how Bush has run amok while in office just shows they have become brainwashed with the notions that have been beat into the ground by Fox, et al., that “true patriots” should shut up and, like sheep, follow the Bush program.
So I don’t know how Hilary or anyone can help this problem.
Prudy
I am not so worried about changing peoples minds, because I agree, we are very divided.
But now is not the time to throw in the towel either. I don’t expect Hillary or any other candidate for that matter to sweep in and magically save the day. But we do need a break from the present direction we are being swallowed up by. We need that so badly as a nation.
I got tired of feeling helpless. I search for answers, and when I find them, I e-mail them out. I wear my little 01/20/09 pin every day. I don’t hesitate to speak up about anything wherever I am. I don’t care a damn if it is impolite to talk politics or not. I feel it is all I can do. I live between Sacramento and San Francisco, and my intention is to take to the streets. I have to; as a mother, as an American. Between now and the election, can you imagine the death that will take place? Can you imagine the money being spent?
I am so sorry for jumping on a soapbox. I just feel we are just handing everything over without even a fight. And we are all so going to regret if we don’t make the right choices.
You are right. They won’t show the protests on TV. But there will be people who see, and maybe they will make sure they vote at the very least.
I realize how unlikely that sounds. But I refuse to go down without a fight.
I can only do everything I can as one person. But Everyone can do that.
I wish people understood that this IS the freedom everyone thinks is worth fighting for, that is on the line.
Allison, I’m sorry if I gave the wrong impression. I didn’t mean to not keep on trying. And you surely don’t need to apologize to me for being on a soapbox.
You don’t see too many people these days who have the courage to get on a soapbox. All I meant was that this right-wing media contraption has infected minds to such an extent, I don’t think right-wingers can think straight anymore. I do worry about changing minds, because I don’t know how to put progressives into office without changing the minds of some “independents” or so-called “moderates.” When you think about all the huge anti-war protests that took place in the run-up to Bush’s War and the protests thereafter, they didn’t accomplish anything because, for one big reason, the right-wing media apparatus covered them with such a slant and with frankly such deceit, it made a lot of people not want to join them, and made politicians not want to show up and speak. I attend one such protest in NYC and then on the Fox News channel afterward I saw how they covered it and it didn’t bear any resemblance to the “regular” people I marched with; on Fox all they showed were the police running after unrelated petty thieves running down side streets. And they kept saying the protestors were all “socialists.” It was just one big lie.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t protest or work to stop the war; I’m just saying one of our tools in this fight has to be to figure out a way to deprogram people who don’t understand what a sham the right-wing (and many of the mainstream) press and punditry is. Maybe it’s a generational thing? I’m old enough to have watched firsthand how increasingly conservative our culture has become in the past 10 years (since Rush, etc., and the Internet, with its subcultures of anonymous hate-filled commentors), in reaction to being slimed on all fronts by right-wingers in the press and online.
I hope I explained myself better. I cerainly do applaud what you and all of those who fight the good fight do. And you are right in that we must not stop now. Or ever.
Oh Prudy you are so right!
I totally hear you, and you are dead on.
Without media that is honest and not beholden to serve the agenda, it is an uphill battle. The administration played their hand of manipulation well.
And you are right, the conservatives do not even see it. Content as sheep, America is the greatest, Freedom isn’t free…it sure isn’t.
Allison, I found your Jefferson quote on another thread & will cut & paste it where I can refer to it. It made me feel better-though I have to reread it to give myself hope that people who have been so thoroughly persuded by propaganda media will detoxify their brains…. I confess I feel so hopeless that things can change–and all because of the brainwashing machine I keep going on about. I have seen the influence firsthand, with family and friends and people I encountered while campaigning for Kerry. It doesn’t make me feel better to turn on Air America or Keith Olberman (though I do) because I am confident that those of us who had Bush pegged from the get-go DO get it; we haven’t changed. We ARE informed–or else if not, we have a healthy skepticism about what the media & pundits put out there; and on the left we have a tradition of questioning authority and questioning one another. President Johnson was not coddled during the Vietnam War by the left the way much of the right still coddles Bush. It’s the people who have bought into the stock phrases of the right wing that scare me. A dear sweet relative of mine, someone I love and do not argue with but rather discuss things with (because she always wants to know my opinion, even though she disagrees) told me that she is opposed to gay marriage because “the next thing you know, we’ll be legalizing marriage between an adult and an animal.” I wanted to put a healing hand on her head & exorcise the demons from Fox News that have infected her. Yes, she heard this ditty from a Fox “journalist.” And now believes it. This is one of many examples. And to just say, “Oh, well, it’s just a difference of opinion. That’s life!” isn’t good enough—because her view will result in working for and voting for an amendment to the Constitution that will deny rights to gay couples. Which really has no bearing on HER life at all but punishes them. That’s the case with a lot of right-wing issues. It’s the same with trying to criminalize abortion….. The list goes on.
I don’t know how on earth to get these people to turn off Fox, Rush, the right-wing websites, and blow out the cobwebs and think for themselves again.
I guess each day you get up and try once again to think of some little way you can persuade someone to please read something else, or please think of how their views can result in laws and policies that can hurt other people, people who have nothing to do with them.
I confess I am very discouraged, especially when I hear the right-wingers once again responding to the current saber-rattling about Iran the way they did to Iraq. And still blaming everything on “the liberal media.” Nothing has changed, it seems.
My apologies for sounding so doom-and-gloom. I just keep hoping if I post about this problem, a solution of sorts will crop up. There is a method to my melancholic musings!
Prudy,
I feel your frustration totally.
Why do they always go right from Gay marriage to animals?
Fear. They love to spread their fear like a cancer across the country.
I am discouraged too. I think we all are.
It is a scary time here. I feel there is a vast amount of people being sucked in much the same way the German people were not so long ago. We have lost so much already, and people think that if they can listen in on our phone coversations, and read our e-mails, that it will prevent the terrorists from getting us. This has been 8 long years of Fear, lies, and wicked manipulation, and you are right, it is bleak.
A few months back, I walked into the living room and my husband was sitting there listening to Bill O’Reilly. I went off. He makes me so sick I get queasy. I yelled “how can you sit there and even stand to listen to that crap”? He said “darlin we keep our friends close. and our enemies closer”. It is a battle for our real freedom that we are in. The battle lines have been drawn, and we need to fight now. At the very least, we should all ask everyone we come across to think about voting next year. Just say Are you voting?
Are you registered? Plant the seeds, spread the word, keep talking. I am at a loss for any other answers. We are all in this together, keep the faith.
Peace
Allison, the leap to animals baffled me. I can’t imagine she would have thought of this herself….. I hope in my lifetime if not sooner it comes to the point where discriminating against gays is unacceptable not only culturally but with laws and policies; and that the concept of needing to “defend marriage” just because a gay couple wants to get married, too, will be considered ridiculous. I don’t believe with any fiber of my being that discriminating against gays in any fashion is “just another point of view” that is to be tolerated or respected. That doesn’t mean I will provoke arguments with anti-gay people in personal situations, getting in their face and “trying to make them agree with me.” (It doesn’t mean I’ll sit silently, either, if the topic comes up.) But I don’t see it as just another “difference of opinon” the way two people might differ on a book or a movie. I simply can’t tell this relative of mine that I respect her view; her “view” on this hurts people because her “view” will mean voting for people and policies that will directly hurt others; I can only hope to quietly and without rancor implore her to see things another way. I don’t know if it will work, but I will continue to try. We’ve gotten to the point these days where pundits have us thinking that everything has two equally valid points of view. I don’t buy it. I didn’t buy it when I encountered racists in the past who were against integration. I don’t buy it now with some of these other issues.
I think every day I have to wake up and try again to think of all ways to fight the good fight, to inspire people to think differently about the things they have been fed by these bellicose bullies on right-wing TV and radio. If I just throw up my hands and say, “oh, well” … I’ll feel worse than I do during days when I feel it is all uphill.
As for your husband watching O’Reilly — he has a stronger stomach than I do. I get too mad to watch anymore. I do see clips and read transcripts online, and since I watched him in the past, I know that he is not being “taken out of context.” I watched enough of him to figure out his schtick. If your husband cares to, he could read Fox News Hounds’s site, which came out of Robert Greenwald’s documentary “Outfoxed.” The writers on that site do an excellent job of analyzing the bias on the various Fox shows, pointing out all the tools they use to deceive their viewers. It keeps you up to date without having to endure the channel itself (which always makes me very angry, and unproductively so).
The beat goes on, the fight continues…. Every day is a new day to try again!