*Who* is smug? (Another take on "Smug Alert")

A bit late, but this came curtesy of David Craig Simpson, webtoonist, and occassional commentator . . .:

The link: <http://www.idrewthis.org/index.html>

(scroll down to "I Think This")

If that's still too much, here's the actual screed . . .:

Hollywood's not out of touch. You're out of touch. Nyeah.

Sometimes I'll be watching "South Park" and it will offend me. And I have to remind myself that, well, that is precisely the reaction "South Park" is designed to provoke. Especially, these last few years, by pressing my buttons sociopolitically.

And, okay, I won't impugn their right to animate talking poop or anything, but I am going to take issue with their characterization of George Clooney's speech at the Oscars as "smug."

They seemed to regard it as self-evidently, and overweeningly, smug, so let's take a look at what Clooney actually said. One section in particular:

"And finally, I would say that, you know, we are a little bit out of touch in Hollywood every once in a while. I think it's probably a good thing. We're the ones who talk about AIDS when it was just being whispered, and we talked about civil rights when it wasn't really popular. And we, you know, we bring up subjects. This Academy, this group of people gave Hattie McDaniel an Oscar in 1939 when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters. I'm proud to be a part of this Academy. Proud to be part of this community, and proud to be out of touch."

That might be "smug" if he'd said it out of the blue, in a cultural vacuum. But he didn't. He said it as a direct response to a year in which, once again, Hollywood got accused, about a billion times, of being "out of touch" with "real Americans." This was Clooney firing back, and I don't understand why so many people think liberals should never ever be allowed to hit back (usually these are the same people who call us a bunch of pansies if we don't hit back, so we're damned if we do...).

The moment he said it, I not only agreed with it; I knew for a fact I'd eventually end up quoting it here. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of how red state conservatives are allowed to declare, as much as they want, that they're the only "real Americans," that only they possess "values," that God favors them over us, etc., and it's never "smug" and it's never "elitist." It's...I don't know, simple homespun wisdom or heartland pride or some bullshit like that.

But the moment a liberal opens his or her mouth to respond to all this chest-beating self-congratulation by saying "hey, wait, you know, before you declare us irretrievably immoral and out of touch, I insist you actually take a look at what we stand for and see if you think it's so bad," he or she is "smug" and "elitist" and "out of touch."

I mean, why did Clooney get accused of being "out of touch" in the first place? Because he made a movie which took Edward R. Murrow's side over Joseph McCarthy's. Because his film, "Good Night and Good Luck," plainly sided with journalism, truth and courage, and against vicious red-baiting lies from one of the worst people we have ever allowed to dominate our national discourse.

What was the right's other argument that Hollywood was "out of touch" with mainstream America? "Brokeback Mountain," of course. A movie that, gasp, depicted gay people. Non-stereotypical, emotionally complex gay people, at that. And, you know, if you ever acknowledge that homosexuality exists anywhere in the world, you're a tool of the radical gay agenda. Now get back under that rug.

Someone had to say it. As it happened, it was George Clooney.

This raises a larger issue, one I've never really heard addressed: why are we always the ones who are "out of touch" with them? Why are they never accused of being "out of touch" with us?

If the major arguments that we're "out of touch" are that we don't see homosexuality as shameful and don't believe in ruining people's careers and trampling half the Constitution to advance some vague notion of "anticommunism" (or, more recently, "antiterrorism"), why is it just taken entirely for granted that we're supposed to stoop to their level? Wouldn't everybody be better off if they rose to ours? Why is that never the challenge that's issued?

It reminds me of a classic "This Modern World" cartoon:

Conservative guy: "You know what your problem is? You're completely out of touch with Americans who believe that abortions should be criminalized and that homosexuality is a sin against God!"

(Long pause)

Sparky: "You say that like it's a bad thing."

I suppose you could argue that this is purely electoral: the red state neanderthals' favorite party currently runs everything, so clearly we need to show them some more respect if they're ever going to, I dunno, stop voting against their own obvious economic interests just to spite us. (It always seems like the argument that we need to show them "more respect" in order to win elections boils down to the assumption that that's what they're doing.)

But I don't think that's quite it, because, when the Democrats inevitably take back at least part of the government, I just can't imagine we're going to start hearing that the red middle of the country, and the Republican party, need to get "back in touch with" the coastal liberals everyone currently assumes are hopelessly decadent "elites."

I mean, logically, wouldn't that make just as much sense? They're self-evidently just as "out of touch" with us as we are with them, but have you ever, prior to reading this, heard anyone mention it?

Look. If Hollywood stands for peace, equality, and everyone's civil rights and dignity, and the alternative is a group of people who basically stand for war, bigotry, and marginalizing people like me because they find expanding their worldview to include us too difficult, guess which side I'm going to come down on?

George Clooney and I aren't smug, and we're not out of touch. You are, red state America. You always have been. And history already knows it.

Well homosexuality and AIDS were dealt with decades before, at least on UK Television. I'd say that if it takes Hollywood ten or twenty years to catch up then it pretty much IS out of touch. Hollywood only ever tends to take risks when there is money involved, whether that money comes with a bankable star or becuase it addresses a demographic it still amounts to the same thing.

Also Clooney once voiced a dog for Matt and Trey, I assume there was just a little bit of a piss taking going on there.

On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 00:39:49 GMT, blue wrote:

The UK has been ahead of the US on these issues for quite a while, so that's no surprise . . .

I'd say that if it takes Hollywood ten or twenty years to

Perhaps "out of touch" with the leading edge, but still ahead of the curve (i.e. the good kind of "out of touch") . . .

Hollywood only ever tends

At the time of the "red scare," self-proclaimed, card-carrying Communist writers and directors in Hollywood were developing soviet propaganda. T date, I have not yet seen a hollywood movie that criticizes the blatent political propaganda that was foisted upon the American people by this movement. Instead, it's always Joe McCarthy and what and a**hole he was. Well, you may not agree with his methods or his use of paranoia, but I don't see how you can use this as an excuse to ignore the truth - that KGB operatives had commandeered many parts of hollywood and the civil rights movement to spread communism and that hollywood was financially and artistically supporting a party that was trying to systematically tear down US capitalist society. In many ways, the current homogonous political drivel that still pours forth from Southern California is still very much influenced by that time.

Thank god for South Park, for providing an alternative perspective that is completely non-existent in Hollywood. As a progressive, you really should appreciate an alternative perspective rather than be aoffended..

On 11 Apr 2006 06:52:29 -0700, [email] wrote:

Whatever "KGB influence" was invovled, it don't change the positve changes those movements did for America; and continue to, no matter how much it's denied . . .

Oh, I just posted this; if you wanna take it up with D.C., there are his forums . . .:

<http://lupinia.us/ireadthis/>

[email] wrote:

???????????????

This is by far the stupidest shit I've read in a while.

If you really believe this, you're a full-fledged cretin.

wrote in message news:[email]...

It had to be KGB operatives, because real Americans would *never* do that on their own, right?

Actually that's wrong. Many Americans who understand what Communism actually is, do not think it's a bad system. And that's true, Communism in itself is not bad or evil. Totalitarianism and government corruption? Those things are bad and cause unimaginable harm. Communism itself is a perfectly viable system for small groups of people. There are a number of communes in the US and elsewhere based on Marxism and communal ownership of property, and they've been prospering for decades. Many monestaries and tribal cultures operate similarly. The key is (in the most successful communes) that it's strictly voluntary and for the ones I've seen, rule is by charter (like a constitution) and it takes a 2/3 majority vote to make any changes or additions to the charter.

If they were, then they were being foolish. Capitalism is a flawed system and the US will tear itself apart (economy-wise) within ten to twenty years. (This teardown will be hastened by al-Qaeda, China, and by the movement of petrodollars to petroeuros. Without these three factors the US might last another 30 to 50 years.)

What the Soviets called "communism" (which was actually something else entirely) had more obvious flaws than the US system. Both the Soviet system and the current US system are ones which do not continue to prosper without growing hegemony. Currently the US is meeting increasing resistance with that in the mid-east (As the USSR did) and like the USSR, the US will destroy its own economy trying to gain political control over that region. The cold war was nothing more than competing hegemonists each trying to gain the edge over the other, and the war on terror is nothing more than a rebellion against US hegenomy and military agression by a covert religious-military group we demonize by calling "terrorists".

Ever since Reagan's first federal budget went into effect in 1982, the US economy has as its foundation borrowed money. Check the blue graph on this page: http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html The national debt corrected for inflation. You can verify the graph's numbers by looking up national debts for each year at the US Treasury's site (www.ustreas.gov/ ) and Googling for an "inflation adjustment calculator.)

You can see that in adjusted-for-inflation dollars, the US debt remained between 1.5 trillion and 2.1 trillion dollars from 1947 to 1982. By 1995 it had shot up to about 5.7 trillion.

Right now China is by far the biggest creditor to the US. When, (not if) China decides to pull the plug, the US economy will collapse much worse than the great depression.

Yes, the liberals do a lot of harm when they go overboard with trying to make everything "fair" to everyone. On the other hand, those who call themselves conservatives nowadays are often so arrogant they are blind to any perspective but their own, and their group is much more heavily poisoned with nationalists. Nationalists are by far the most dangerous people for a country's survival and will be the largest ultimate cause of the coming fall of America. Once nationalism begins to take over a country, the end result of self-destruction quickly follows.

Wow, looks like Stone and Parker are full of shit. They claimed in the episode that Clooney took credit for the civil rights movement.