Right Wing Nation

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For that reason, like Bob, he became an English major. He took courses with the aging hippies who were now English professors. Obese Wimmin of Color in Third-World Literature: An Overview. American Imperialism and Mass Murder: A Survey. The Literature of Mother Earth. Nurturing the Oppressed: A Seminar.

Not only did these courses have nothing to do with English literature, but they required little if any thought or work, and this was what Roger wanted. Write a paper, use lots of socialist psychobabble, and get an A.

The aging hippie professors loved Roger and hailed him as one of the best students in the department. At one’s urging, Roger changed his name to EarthAngel VeganSpirit. His university sponsored talks by visiting PETA, ELF, ALF and CAIR activists, and he attended them all and often got credit for his courses for doing so. Because Roger, like Bob, had never known evil–unlike previous generations–Roger honestly believed that any action to save flora and fauna was justified. Never mind that Roger was a diabetic and had to take insulin–derived from animal research–to survive. Never mind that he bought his clothes at K-Mart, then protested Old Navy for supporting sweatshops. Like all liberals, he believed logic and consistency were irrelevant.

When he graduated, he scanned the newspaper for jobs. None called for his only skill: acing postmodernist leftwing courses. He applied for all sorts of jobs out of desperation, and finally got an interview.

Roger went, in his birkenstocks, dirty clothes, and his hair plaited in thick ropes, wearing left-wing anti-GOP buttons. When he arrived at the office, the secretary’s first impulse was to call security, until he told her he was there for an interview.

She suppressed her laughter.

The interview went something like this:

You were an English major, I see. What can you bring to our business?

You know, that’s a fascist question. That’s why corporations are evil, all you care about is what you can get out of me.

Uh, okay. I see no work experience on your … resume. Have you ever held a job?

Why would I do that? I was in college!

I see. Uh, Mister Jones …

Please, my name now is EarthAngel VeganSpirit. I’m very conscientious. Read this. [hands grimy letter of recommendation–unsealed–to the prospective employer]

I see … so you were the top of your class in … Corporate Evil in the History of Literature. Computer skills?

I can use a word processer, but technology is ruining the planet. I don’t believe in computers. Have you ever read the UnaBomber’s Manifesto?

Well, Mister … anyway, we’ll let you know what we decide.

After several interviews that went very much the same, Roger began to whine and complain to his fellow activists. Why should he be expected to have job skills? Why should he be expected to have a useful degree, when he wanted to major in English? An English degree teaches you how to think, after all! Why should he have to dress up for an interview and sell out to the man?

Unemployed, Roger didn’t want to leave his cozy little college town anyway–it was full of similarly unemployed, whining, neo-hippies. Even the local Democrat party was nothing but whining neo-hippie green activists. So Roger, like his activist friends, gave up trying to find employment and went on the public dole.

Since all their time was free time, they staged all kinds of sit-ins and demonstrations. They staged “performance art” to protest the war on terror. They blocked traffic by standing across a large parking lot holding hands and singing protest songs (it was an all-purpose protest and not about any particular issue). Patrons complained because they could not get out of the parking lot, the police tried to break them up and when they would not cooperate, arrested them.

Roger and his activist friends screamed “Police brutality! Fascists! Corporate puppets! Haliburton Nazis!” to anyone who would listen–the city council gave them several hearings and cried in sympathy for these poor souls who wanted to save the planet.

There were not just a handful like Roger, but hundreds. Some were like Roger and had nothing but useless degrees; others had professional and graduate degrees–marketable graduate degrees–but chose to stay in town and stay on the dole because they didn’t want to “sell out.” In ten years, the population went from just under 40K to 60K, though thanks to the left-wing party in power, the number of jobs did not increase (no development! no urban sprawl! save our trees!) and the local economy went down the toilet. Unemployment in the town was the highest in the state, over twice that of the nation.

Yet few seemed to care.

The university paid its staff far less than any other Big Ten school, and there was plenty of whining about that. Never mind that if the cities in which the Big Ten schools are located are compared, this one had the least compeition from other businesses–and hence the lowest salaries. Never mind that the town was full of unemployed people with degrees and the available workforce was inflated. Never mind that they could always move to another city for a better paying job. Reality didn’t seem to ever phase the people in the town. They went on, oblivious, voting for whoever screeched the loudest about saving the trees. As their lives were flushed in front of their eyes by their own priorities and lack of contact with reality, they drove around, oblivious, with their Vegan Power, Ralph Nader and Anybody but Bush bumperstickers, waiting for their candidate to come along and give them a nice big government that would save them–from their own stupidity.

Linked to TMH’s Bacon Bits

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For some time, a large number of Americans have lived in an alternate universe where everything is supposedly going to hell. If you get up in the morning to read the New York Times or Washington Post, watch John Murtha or Howard Dean on the morning talk shows, listen to National Public Radio at noon, and go to bed reading Newsweek it surely seems that the administration is incommunicado (cf. “the bubble”), the war is lost (“unwinnable”), the Great Depression is back (“jobless recovery”), and America about as popular as Nazi Germany abroad (“alone and isolated”).

But in the real adult world, the economy is red-hot, not mired in joblessness or relegating millions to poverty. Unemployment is low, so are interest rates. Growth is high, as is consumer spending and confidence. Our Katrina was hardly as lethal as the Tsunami or Pakistani earthquake. Thousands of Arabs are not rioting in Dearborn. American elderly don’t roast and die in the thousands in their apartments as was true in France. Nor do American cities, like some in Chinese, lose their entire water supply to a toxic spill. Americans did not just vote to reject their own Constitution as in some European countries.

And indeed, on the day of the election, Ivins writes a column headlined, “Despite Bush’s claims, situation grows steadily worse in Iraq,” as if wishing the elections away, the progress in Iraq away, will make it so.

You have to almost feel sorry for these poor liberals, whose doom and gloom, anti-American diatribes just don’t seem to get them anywhere. Instead of realizing it, they just scream louder, like spoiled four year-olds in the supermarket. “I want the candy NOW!”

And if you want an even sadder example, head over to Michelle Malkin’s blog and follow the links.

I did say “almost feel sorry for,” you know.

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