It used to be that the NRA was considered a political force not to be crossed, yet that opinion seems to be changing with politicians openly talking about regulating firearms.
It is a welcome change.
Showing posts with label Guns and Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Guns and Politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Woman Bites Dog, Brit Humor Looks at U.S. Politics
I've always liked British humor, although it can be far more scathing than what we are used to here in the U.S.; it has a delicious sharpness to the wit.
This struck me as insightful lampooning of American hypocrisy and folly on the topic of sex and sexuality, particularly given the homophobia on which Michele Bachmann made her political bones in MN, and nationwide, and from which she is now trying to backpedal - without alienating the right wing homophobes that have always been the foundation of her base.
I believe Michele Bachmann, who prides herself on 'being the tip of the spear in opposing the terrifying (to the religious right) so-called gay agenda', and who co-owns a 'pray the gay away' clinic, finds her own hypocrisy punctured like a balloon here on the sharp spear of British humor looking at American politics.
Yes, it's rude. It's very rude, particularly if you are offended by anything that suggests oral sex.
It's also funny. Very funny, all the funnier for, if you'll pardon the pun, pricking her priggish hateful politics, and hypocrisy, since her husband Marcus is suspected of himself being gay, but still in the closet. Too bad the photographer didn't catch a picture of Marcus taking that first bite....
I wonder if the right wing media will be giving Michele Bachmann as much grief over her use of mustard as they did when Obama was on the campaign trail and used mustard, but not ketchup on a hamburger. Obama was accused of somehow being 'elitist' for preferring mustard. Funny, how prejudicially the right looks at preferences of all kinds.
Bachmann went on to win the Iowa straw poll, which involves an astonishingly tiny number of votes, and which is indicative politically of absolutely nothing, in proportion to the hype accorded it. Kinda like Bachmann herself, all hype, no substance.
From the UK media, the Telegraph:
This struck me as insightful lampooning of American hypocrisy and folly on the topic of sex and sexuality, particularly given the homophobia on which Michele Bachmann made her political bones in MN, and nationwide, and from which she is now trying to backpedal - without alienating the right wing homophobes that have always been the foundation of her base.
I believe Michele Bachmann, who prides herself on 'being the tip of the spear in opposing the terrifying (to the religious right) so-called gay agenda', and who co-owns a 'pray the gay away' clinic, finds her own hypocrisy punctured like a balloon here on the sharp spear of British humor looking at American politics.
Yes, it's rude. It's very rude, particularly if you are offended by anything that suggests oral sex.
It's also funny. Very funny, all the funnier for, if you'll pardon the pun, pricking her priggish hateful politics, and hypocrisy, since her husband Marcus is suspected of himself being gay, but still in the closet. Too bad the photographer didn't catch a picture of Marcus taking that first bite....
I wonder if the right wing media will be giving Michele Bachmann as much grief over her use of mustard as they did when Obama was on the campaign trail and used mustard, but not ketchup on a hamburger. Obama was accused of somehow being 'elitist' for preferring mustard. Funny, how prejudicially the right looks at preferences of all kinds.
Bachmann went on to win the Iowa straw poll, which involves an astonishingly tiny number of votes, and which is indicative politically of absolutely nothing, in proportion to the hype accorded it. Kinda like Bachmann herself, all hype, no substance.
From the UK media, the Telegraph:
 |
Michele Bachmann tries out a local delicacy at the Iowa State Fair - a foot-long corn dog. Photo: Toby Harnden |
On the eve of the Ames Straw Poll, the Republican candidates made a last push for votes at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines – a huge spectacle in which cattle, pigs and horses are on display as well as politicians and Iowans queue to for fairground rides and some of the most unhealthy food on the planet (I was going to try the Fried Twinkies but the queue was,alas, too long).
Sarah Palin, who is not on the Straw Poll ballot, made a high-profile appearance, as is her wont every time it seems she’s slipping out of the limelight, and was duly mobbed by the press. “There is still plenty of room for a common sense conservative,” she said, deliberately fuelling yet another round of speculation that she might after all enter the 2012 fray.
A characteristically avid and vocal band of Ron Paul supporters surged around their hero and his son Senator Rand Paul as they held forth beside an adjustable mattress booth. Paul, an uncompromisingly anti-war libertarian, is a highly improbable Republican nominee but Palin, amongst others, reckon he could finish top in the Straw Poll, which was won in 2008 by Mitt Romney, who is not competing this time around.
Tim Pawlenty, who has put more money and organisational planning into Iowa than any other candidate, attacked Bachmann and Romney at the Ames debate on Thursday night but today, his cowboy-booted foot resting on a hay bale, he sought to single out President Barack Obama. “Tell Barack Obama he has had his chance and it isn’t working,” he told the crowd.
Michele Bachmann, Iowa born and the favourite to win the Straw Poll, arrived half an hour late for her slot and then spoke for just over two minutes, saying that Iowans were “going to send the signal” to the rest of America just as they had in 2008. “This is where Barack Obama got his start. This is where he’s going to come to his end, in Iowa.”
She beat a hasty retreat after being aggressively heckled by a young man who shouted that she believed homosexuals were “second-class citizens” and that she should not try to “pray away the gay”.
Driving away on a golf cart with her husband Marcus beside her, Mrs Bachmann stopped to buy a foot-long corn dog – a chicken and beef sausage in deep-fried batter. After applying mustard and allowing Mr Bachmann to take the first bite, she chomped into it with gusto.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Update on the UK Riots
More from MSNBC.com:
The sad truth behind London riot
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News correspondent
LONDON -- As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here's a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"
The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
The truth is that discontent has been simmering among Britain's urban poor for years, and few have paid attention. Social activists say one out of two children in Tottenham live in poverty. It's one of the poorest areas of Britain. Britain's worst riots in decades took place here in 1985. A policeman was hacked to death. After these riots, the same young man pointed out, "They built us a swimming pool."
Poverty, joblessness cyclePolice and local leaders in Tottenham made real progress in improving community relations in the intervening years and that's true about all of Britain. The best way to prevent crime, the theory goes, is to improve the lot of the people, then they won't need to commit crimes. But caught in a poverty and joblessness cycle, young people in many British urban areas have little hope of a better life.
So when a local 29-year-old father, described by police as a gangster, was shot dead by an officer, the response came quickly.
Mark Duggan was killed Thursday. On Saturday night about 50 relatives and friends protested outside the Tottenham police station.
Local young men, almost all with their heads covered by hoods -- known here as "hoodies" -- took advantage to indulge themselves in a favorite sport: cursing the police. This quickly escalated into a night of hurling rocks, bottles (Jack Daniels, one young man told me -- "we broke into the liquor store, drank the Jack Daniels and threw the bottles at the cops"), burning two patrol cars, torching buildings, smashing shop windows and carting off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of phones, cameras and clothes.
The looting and rioting had nothing at all to do with the killing of Mark Duggan. That was the spark. The bonfire had been prepared by years of neglect, fueled by the anger of young men with no stake in the system, angry at everybody and quick to exploit fury at the killing of a local man, even if he did allegedly fire at the police officer first.
So now the question people in Tottenham are asking is: Will the government pay attention to the social issues underlying the anger?
And a wider question is: Would anyone care at all if there had not been violence?
The sad truth behind London riot
By Martin Fletcher, NBC News correspondent
LONDON -- As political and social protests grip the Middle East, are growing in Europe and a riot exploded in north London this weekend, here's a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"
The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
The truth is that discontent has been simmering among Britain's urban poor for years, and few have paid attention. Social activists say one out of two children in Tottenham live in poverty. It's one of the poorest areas of Britain. Britain's worst riots in decades took place here in 1985. A policeman was hacked to death. After these riots, the same young man pointed out, "They built us a swimming pool."
Poverty, joblessness cyclePolice and local leaders in Tottenham made real progress in improving community relations in the intervening years and that's true about all of Britain. The best way to prevent crime, the theory goes, is to improve the lot of the people, then they won't need to commit crimes. But caught in a poverty and joblessness cycle, young people in many British urban areas have little hope of a better life.
So when a local 29-year-old father, described by police as a gangster, was shot dead by an officer, the response came quickly.
Mark Duggan was killed Thursday. On Saturday night about 50 relatives and friends protested outside the Tottenham police station.
Local young men, almost all with their heads covered by hoods -- known here as "hoodies" -- took advantage to indulge themselves in a favorite sport: cursing the police. This quickly escalated into a night of hurling rocks, bottles (Jack Daniels, one young man told me -- "we broke into the liquor store, drank the Jack Daniels and threw the bottles at the cops"), burning two patrol cars, torching buildings, smashing shop windows and carting off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of phones, cameras and clothes.
The looting and rioting had nothing at all to do with the killing of Mark Duggan. That was the spark. The bonfire had been prepared by years of neglect, fueled by the anger of young men with no stake in the system, angry at everybody and quick to exploit fury at the killing of a local man, even if he did allegedly fire at the police officer first.
So now the question people in Tottenham are asking is: Will the government pay attention to the social issues underlying the anger?
And a wider question is: Would anyone care at all if there had not been violence?
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