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"Say it Loud: I'm Elite and Proud!"

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pnwmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 06:18 PM
Original message
"Say it Loud: I'm Elite and Proud!"
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 06:21 PM by pnwmom
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/04/13/pat_robertson/

By Bill Maher

April 13, 2007 | Say it loud: I'm elite and proud! The right-wing crusade to demonize elites has paid off. Now the country's run by incompetents who make mediocrity a job requirement and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school. New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite," or as it's otherwise known, "hating." They've had it up to their red necks with the "elite media." The "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is influenced by "the Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shitkicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite" you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

SNIP

You know how whenever there's a major Bush administration scandal it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screw-ups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third most powerful official in the Justice Department of the United States. Thirty-three, and though she had never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 95 U.S. attorneys. How do you get to be such a top dog at 33? By acing Harvard, or winning scholarship prizes? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College -- home of the "Fighting Christies," who wait-listed me, the bastards -- and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school.

I'm not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. It's called Regent. Regent University School of Law, and it shares a campus with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network studios. . . .Since 2001, 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration. . . .So there you have it: It turns out that the Justice Department is entirely staffed with Jesus freaks from a televangelist diploma mill in Virginia Beach. . . . It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.
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kdpeters Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 07:14 PM
Response to Original message
1. BARF!! Snobbery is nothing to be proud of
Liberal is a good thing. Elitism is vulgar. Dismissing and ridiculing hardworking Americans as rednecks and hayseeds is what makes you worthy of that "liberal elite" label. Frankly, you've earned it.
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pnwmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 07:17 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. That title of Maher's was just to get attention. Please read the post,
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 07:18 PM by pnwmom
not just the title. He's addressing some very important points. The Bush administration is full of appointees who are in there not because of their merit, but because of their fundie religious credentials.
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kdpeters Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 08:15 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. I read it and i sat through the ad to read the entire article
Edited on Fri Apr-13-07 08:32 PM by kdpeters
It was a good point over all. It was. And it was a good article - except for that subtle attitude running throughout. Maybe i should have made that clear, but that's the kind of thing that invalidates his entire point to someone who isn't as willing to sift out the point as much as I am.

There was indeed an undercurrent of "kidding on the square" -- that "I'm sort of joking, but I'm also sort of not" Actually, I don't think he was making a joke, but rather was making a serious argument with facts and humor. I'm telling you, there is most certainly a vein of liberal elitism and it shows up here on DU quite often.

One thing Bill said that struck me was, "I don't get it." Many of us don't. My point is that until we do, we'll continue to play along in the illegitimate framing of the Republican propaganda, but GOOD LORD, let's not willingly agree to go along with it!!

The real elites are the Republicans and conservatives which is why they push that BS non-stop. It's much more than a vein. It's the lifeblood of their movement. The haves and have-mores are their base. They have nothing but contempt for those faithful hardworking Americans they're always crowing about and it doesn't take anything at all to expose them. Trust me. I'm a country boy and they immediately launch into anti-rural, anti-Southern snobbery and derision when they want to insult me. I love calling that rank hypocrisy.

That's the key. Expose them and show regular folk the respect that they deserve. We can't fight this BS by giving into it.
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pnwmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 08:31 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. I understand what you're saying, and thanks for elaborating, too.
And I do think he was being "jokey" -- after all, that's his job. He also tries to get a rise out of people by the way he speaks, and I know that not everyone likes that style. He often bugs me, too.

But I agree with his point that people should be appointed because of their merit, their competence -- not because they are cronies or subscribe to Bush's fundie beliefs. As I know you do, too.
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kdpeters Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 09:08 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. Actually, I like Bill Maher a lot.
I don't think he'd get his feelings hurt by my response. He's not someone to let BS go unchallenged. Neither am I. That's one thing I like about him. If you understand my point, then you understand why I find it worthwhile to challenge it. BTW, please reread as I was editting that post to elaborate even more. I hope you understand that I know who the true elitists are. I know all too well who really has contempt for poor working folks. It's not so much us liberals.

But I agree with his point that people should be appointed because of their merit, their competence -- not because they are cronies or subscribe to Bush's fundie beliefs. As I know you do, too.


Yes. Of course i do, but I call THAT elitism. Nepotism, no-bid contracts for wealthy cronies, appointments not on merit but on Bush's favor? THAT'S ELITISM!!! Let's call them on it, not aquiesce to their nonsense propaganda.
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mainer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-14-07 09:42 PM
Response to Reply #1
8. Definition of Elite: YES, we want them running the country
From Dictionary.com:
Elite: the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.

What's wrong with wanting the best and brightest to run our country? We've already tried it the other way and look where it got us.
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undergroundpanther Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 07:23 PM
Response to Original message
3. Robertson is sick
And the whole right wing religious crap is infesting everywhere there is power to be weilded. Because these depraved hypocrite,incompetant bullies WANT to control the world and destroy anyone who is not like THEM.

They are Psychopaths FIRST,Meglomaniacs second and christian is down near the bottom of the list.

These rightwingers are all working to the same goal globalization than global domination.

Remember the moonie connection to pat robertson.If this connection between bush the fundie evangelical fascists and Bush dosent make you wanna retch nothing will.
http://www.americanatheist.org/spr00/T2/fitrakis.html
http://www.geocities.com/craigmaxim/pocket.html
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/10/03/MNG4M936HP1.DTL&type=printable
http://www.watch.pair.com/moon.html

This coup has been planned for a LONG time
http://www.talk2action.org/story/2006/9/23/01913/3060/Front_Page/Video_blog_Moon_s_tour_with_Bush_Pat_Boone_and_
http://www.xenutv.com/cults/gb2.htm
http://www.theocracywatch.org/internal_document_ird.html
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pnwmom Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Apr-13-07 08:35 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. This whole moonie-Christian connection is all so twisted.
Wasn't there something in the news a year or two ago about pastors of fundie churches removing their crosses from their churches because the Moonies told them to?
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