My news fast continues, and after weeks of oblivionI have concluded that nothing at all is taking place in the world!
I would have thought by now that if anything at all that could possibly affect my life were transpiring in the known Universe, surely a dribble of it would have reached my ears in the nearly three weeks since I foreswore the News. And although the sad event of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s OD did slip past my defenses, as well as the  the Fishhawks winning the Super Bowl, I now believe that the world is otherwise running like clockwork and has become an Eden of peace!
Certainly no one I know has disabused me of this notion. It turns out I was my friends’Â only connection to that great River of Bullshit as well, useful on those days when they wanted a window into word events. No wonder my friends are always so happy. I’d love to be able to tune me the fuck out too!
Allow me to remind you of the world as it was when I transcended the earthly plane: Syria was a bubbling cauldron of blood and shit, Chris “The Only Un-Crazy Republican Left in Politics” Christie was taking it from every direction like the star of a bukkake video, a new Debt Ceiling showdown was looming, Congress was poised to torpedo our Iran negotiations, and the NSA was being given one of Obama’s trademark pat-on-the-head finger waggings.
How did these critical matters play out? Have any new topics of distraction arisen???????? You can see by my enthusiastic use of question marks that I have not completely lost interest in worldly events. I invite you all to post comments to this post that tease and tantalize me about the goings-on in the world without actually naming names or otherwise “spoiling” the story. Just give me a few crumbs so that when I emerge from my chrysalis in a few weeks like Rip Van Winkle I will be able to backtrack and see what you are hinting at.
I predict this is the way we will all be dealing with the 24-hour news cycle in the future! I’m a trailblazer! Spread the word! (Just not to me.)
Last week the Syrian-level war within the conservative “movement” got a little bloodier and a lot more public.
On the front lines, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham frightened the straights when Bill broke ever so slightly with the party line over gay marriage. After O’Reilly suggested that opponents of gay marriage need to rise above being mere “bible thumpers”, Limbaugh responded on his radio program by telling O’Reilly to “<insert whatever that chunk of ass blubber has said every day for the last 25 years>“, which was then followed up by Ingraham appearing on the O’Reilly Factor to back Limbaugh’s play.
Ingraham may be a frequent guest host on O’Reilly’s radio show, but that didn’t stop O’Reilly from talking over her, down to her and basically farting in her face. It is a beautiful thing to watch the right wing eat it’s own. Do watch.
On the more far-flung battlefields, things were heating up as well. Breitbart.com contributor John Nolte threw a hissy when another conservative, Ben Howe, dared to critique what initially appeared to be the trailer for the funniest fucking fail project ever: A Movement on Fire (below is the extended edition, which includes a music video).
What looks like a sweded version of The Matrix is, in fact, a faux-movie trailer that was shown at the recent CPAC conference (and which we can be sure was rewarded with roof-shaking applause, foot stomps and mongoloid grunts). Ben Howe did not realize this fact when he took to Buzzfeed.com to condemn this schlock for being the biggest embarrassment to conservatism since President-He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Named. Howe’s act of heresy incensed Nolte, who lambasted Howe for airing his thoughts on a non-movement approved website.
Going postal over someone’s critique of what appears to be a disaster in the making is hilarious enough, but are Howe’s objections to the trailer any less relevant when you realize it is merely a commercial for a right wing website? Howe’s fears that A Movement on Fire would damage ongoing efforts by conservatives to conquer Hollywood are well-founded. Despite the ersatz nature of the project, the trailer is still an accurate window into conservative delusions about art and politics. John Nolte isn’t really upset over the criticism; he’s worried that this crap will get wider exposure.
In his editorial “Another Terrible Conservative Movie”, Howe points out Movement’s similarity in tone to The Hunger Games (its name even evokes the spirit of Katniss Everdeen, the “Girl on Fire”), then worries aloud that general audiences will roll their eyes at this portrait of a manicured, post-Obama dystopia. But if this were a real movie, worse would be in store for conservatism than detached retinas. If A Movement on Fire really did hit the big screen, audiences exposed to it would probably turn the nation Bolshevik overnight out of spite. Even North Korea has classier propaganda than this!
First we are shown a woman (who looks like the prettier of Cinderella’s step-sisters) overlooking a city while a non-professional voice actor tells us that 15 years ago, “…Freedom died,”… or liberty or individuality or whatever. Then some jackbooted thugs come up from behind her to play peekaboo. We are supposed to want to rescue this Avatar of American Exceptionalism, but come on! Would you really risk a police beating for this ugnaught?
Lady Liberty or a white CCH Pounder?
Next we discover that the country of Shining City on a Hill is under the tyrannical rule of the Development Party, which has conquered freedom or self-reliance or whatever using the power of vinyl banners. (Banners are to this movie what telescreens were to 1984.)
The Neo of our tale isn’t going to take this lying down, though. Like the tyrants, he also has access to a Kinko’s, and after breaking his oppressive taxation card he and a team of revolutonaries embark on a campaign to overthrow despotism through the power of 99¢ color copies!
A society where a QR code is scannable? That’s hella futuristic!
Surplus Romney signage, do your thing!
What is interesting is that every act of “rebellion” the trailer shows is something that conservatives spit on in real life. Hacking computers…like Anonymous? Fighting authority with empty symbols… like V for Vendetta masks and Che T-shirts? And what’s all this about standing up to the police??
My news fast continues, and after weeks of oblivionI have concluded that nothing at all is taking place in the world!
