So to answer the question — and I’d answer and have answered it, the same way. Yes and no.
Yes, America’s always had a lot of ugly sides, much in its character that deeply black. But WhiteManistan has become special in that it is now so obviously divisive and predatory.
Ted Nugent is the living example. He’s even earned a visit from the US Secret Service, something 99.8 percent of Americans manage to avoid in their lifetime.
As a result, he’s moved to center stage in America, not for his music, but for his glowering ideology and nihilism. It needs to be reiterated in case you don’t quite get it: The current national social environment is such that the US Secret Service visit seems actually to have been good for his career!
From this blog, in 2012, here’s Nugent making one of his metaphorical references to shooting an animal when discussing the president of the US, at a GOP fundraiser in Sangamon County, Illinois, the county Abraham Lincoln represented in the state legislature:
“We have a guy in the White House who is an absolute, America-hating punk,??? Nugent said. “And it isn’t really the punk’s fault. It’s we the people for bending over and letting the punk in the door.???
“How about a welfare program … (where) for every kid who gets a sandwich from the welfare program, there’s about 10,000 pigs buying bling-bling, dope and meth with my welfare money,???
“If we don’t fix the United States government this November, we will get exactly what we asked for,??? Nugent said, “and it won’t be the rabid coyote’s fault for getting into our living room – it will be our fault for not shooting him.???
What happens when these utterances hit the press? Well, the local newspaper journalists really don’t know how to deal with it. And so it appears funny and idiosyncratic, someone just being a colorful character.
But it’s built up over time and now the din is continuous from WhiteManistan, which is not a place, but an ideology, a way of life.
And it has paralyzed the government of the United States because it refuses to recognize the elected legitimacy of the president of the United States.
The country can run itself on automatic, through apparatus and structure, but there will be no progress. And that’s because the ideology of WhiteManistan has taken up a adversarial position.
The country cannot be governed when the legislature and the executive branch are engaged in a duel to the death.
It doesn’t take any genius to see the John Wilkes Booth element in WhiteManistan.
At the Times, Stanley Fish writes:
“Secession is near. Can’t wait. Which by the way is Constitutional.???
It’s constitutional, in this view, because a government in the act of eroding constitutional values is itself unconstitutional and has become a tyranny. Therefore to oppose it by whatever means available, including force, is not to undermine constitutionality, but to affirm it. It is in this spirit that John Wilkes Booth cried “Sic semper tyrannis??? (“thus always to tyrants???) just after he shot Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln famously said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.??? Booth’s modern successors are saying that a house in the hands of tyrants does not deserve to stand and they are ready to bring it down with their constitutionally protected guns.
As Police Chief Johnson said, this is creepy and scary, but is it — to return to my original musings — un-American? Yes and no. On the one hand, nothing can be more American than throwing off the shackles of a government that has overstepped its bounds and disregarded the rights of its citizens. That’s how it all began. (“No taxation without representation.???) But on the other hand, the American tradition of accepting the results of elections — even when they bring with them policies you believe to be misguided at best and disastrous at worst — is in danger of being undermined when groups of armed people decide that the present leadership is infected by unpatriotic, socialist ideas and must be resisted at all costs.
A government founded in a revolutionary moment is always vulnerable to a determination by a zealous minority that its revolutionary ideals have been compromised by itself. When that happens, each side will engage in its favored rhetoric, one proclaiming, watch out, they’re coming for our guns, the other warning that militant right-wing nuts are preparing themselves for armed insurrection. One side will cry “tyranny???; the other will reply, “You guys are crazy.??? And both will claim the title of true American. That’s where we are.
I don’t claim the title of “true American.”
But there is no equivalence between my beliefs and those labeled the intellectual property of “Booth’s modern successors,” as Fish refers to the N.R.A.
There is just bad.
And in American history, if there is an obvious linkage between America’s former leading tribe and the man who shot down Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, that’s where the bad lies.
WhiteManistan lost the last election and is having a collective paranoid nervous breakdown. This, in turn, has severe repercussions for everyone.
Anyone can go to Google and search images for Americans carrying guns openly, all taken during the years of the present administration. And there are more always coming. It’s what I did for the WhiteManistan Vacation video.
It’s interpreted, by some, as Americans exhibiting their freedom. But when you look at all of it, it’s just creepy and off-putting. It’s a collective pathology, a sickness in the soul.
I am not the only person, by far, who’s said it.
Why should millions of people who don’t carry arms feel encouraged and heartened by this? I refuse to believe people with any empathy for their fellow citizens think and feel this way. I was not raised in a community where even a small minority thought it was an act of freedom to march around on the sidewalk or at the supermarket with a gun strapped over their shoulder.
I think you wouldn’t be normal, considering the state of the nation, if you weren’t unnerved by someone carrying a weapon in a common place. “There goes a real asshole,” is a gentle reaction.
With WhiteMan, it goes way beyond this, too.
One is just not not paying attention (or being willfully obtuse) if you haven’t seen the routine displays of rage and the threats, sometimes veiled but often very obvious, that come with the gun carriers, the defenders against the socialist usurper non-American who is the president.
Don’t get in the way, or we just may have to shoot you, traitor/gun grabber.
That’s the message. There is quite frequently perceptible pleasure, an enjoyment, in this public bullying.
I’m sick of it. But there’s no remedy, coming together or rapprochement in the future.
This makes the phenomenon of WhiteManistan one of the foremost security challenges facing the nation.
If the country, and the people in the majority who vote, cannot remove the ideology of WhiteManistan from its blocking and corroding position on the center stage of American government, the country will remain in paralysis.
Worse will come from it. A recent West Point study on domestic terrorism from the violent right in the United States drew the conclusion that one factor was the statistically most important as a predictor for increases in the incidence of right wing violence.
That factor was the number of Republicans in the House of Representatives.
The authors speculated this was perhaps because the ideology, or the atmosphere created by this governing body, was seen by people liable to commit domestic terror attacks as favorable to their cause.
Notice, this is not insurrection, but something far more common: right wing, politically-motived violence, almost always against non-whites, or groups, businesses and agencies viewed as enemies of white male American universalism and supremacy.
That’s WhiteManistan.
It has always been present in the American body politic. But when the country was stronger and better governed than it is today, the worst aspects of it could be kept from overturning everything.
That’s not the way it is now.
The United States won’t get another Fort Sumter. It will just become more brutal toward non-WhiteManistan in states were legislatures and local government are controlled by extremists, the federal government dysfunctional and incapable of reining it in.
The paradox will lie in that kicking the shit out of anyone who isn’t white, right-wing and pro-corporate fascism will be embedded as the meaning of freedom.
When making WhiteManistan Vacation there had to be an absurd quality written in. And so with the embarrassing juxtapositions, cartoon lettering and queasy color changes over pictures of gun-toting white Americans and their shelves of ammunition. Because without laughter the impact of such an outlook is too hostile.
Who on earth thinks a country is great when one very public reaction to a massive slaughter of children is marching around in public with assault rifles and shopping runs on guns and ammunition?
But that’s the Ted Nugent-ization of the country: “Fuck you, idiot! We’re gonna keep buyin’ them guns and ammo, yearrrrrrgh!”
From the New Yorker, related, on WhiteManistan central, Texas:
This very month, the Texas House of Representatives passed twelve bills in a single day designed to soften gun laws, although Texas is already among the most permissive states in the Union when it comes to firearms. One of the laws allows college students to carry handguns to class. There is no waiting period to purchase a weapon, or any need to register a firearm. Machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and silencers are perfectly legal. Indeed, one bill now under consideration exempts assault weapons and high-capacity magazines from federal regulation in Texas. If that provision is ruled to be unconstitutional, another bill now in the Senate would make it a crime for any law-enforcement office in Texas to carry out federal rules restricting gun rights.
In bold-face, the now commonplace strategy in the neo-Confederacy of WhiteManistan: nullification.
The Nuge Immigration Plan (NIP) takes five years for even illegal immigrants to become Americans. Until then, they should be treated like indentured servants, meaning that they have to earn their citizenship.
The NIP is not an amnesty program. Amnesty is for left-wing mollycoddlers, losers, bureaucrats and hippies. Occupy that.
We need a real full-length, undefeatable border fence built. All illegal men in America should be required to work on building the fence,
to be completed in one year. We would pay them minimum wage, provide food and shelter, and provide them English and
American history classes at night. Everyone wins.
“The most racist thing our government does is to print literature in Spanish,” he adds.
Like 99 percent of WhiteManistan, Nugent apparently believes illegal immigrants in the US do nothing but soak up government benefits. As someone who’s lived in southern California — no longer any part of WhiteManistan — for over two decades, I find this simultaneously stupefying and hilarious. It is precisely why the GOP is dead here.
[Pablo Pantoja] has a long, impressive political resume, but most recently he was the State Director of Florida Hispanic Outreach for the Republican National Committee. Not any more. Pantoja is now a Democrat.
In his own words (shared with permission):
From: Pablo Pantoja
Subject: From Republican to Democrat
Date: May 13, 2013 5:57:11 PM EDT
Friend,
Yes, I have changed my political affiliation to the Democratic Party.
It doesn’t take much to see the culture of intolerance surrounding the Republican Party today. I have wondered before about the seemingly harsh undertones about immigrants and others. Look no further; a well-known organization recently confirms the intolerance of that which seems different or strange to them.
Studies geared towards making – human beings – viewed as less because of their immigrant status to outright unacceptable claims, are at the center of the immigration debate. Without going too deep on everything surrounding immigration today, the more resounding example this past week was reported by several media outlets.
A researcher included as part of a past dissertation his theory that “the totality of the evidence suggests a genetic component to group differences in IQ.??? The researcher reinforces these views by saying “No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites, but the prediction that new Hispanic immigrants will have low-IQ children and grandchildren is difficult to argue against.???
Although the organization distanced themselves from those assertions, other immigration-related research is still padded with the same racist and eugenics-based innuendo. Some Republican leaders have blandly (if at all) denied and distanced themselves from this but it doesn’t take away from the culture within the ranks of intolerance. The pseudo-apologies appear to be a quick fix to deep-rooted issues in the Republican Party in hopes that it will soon pass and be forgotten.
The complete disregard of those who are in disadvantage is also palpable. We are not looking at an isolated incident of rhetoric or research. Others subscribe to motivating people to action by stating, “In California, a majority of all Hispanic births are illegitimate. That’s a lot of Democratic voters coming.??? The discourse that moves the Republican Party is filled with this anti-immigrant movement and overall radicalization that is far removed from reality. Another quick example beyond the immigration debate happened during CPAC this year when a supporter shouted ““For giving him shelter and food for all those years???? while a moderator explained how Frederick Douglass had written a letter to his slave master saying that he forgave him for “all the things you did to me.??? I think you get the idea …
The current Republican Party, the living heart of WhiteManistan, makes idols out of psychopaths like Ted Nugent. And the national media environment rewards him for it.
But there are costs to continually hating on everyone unlike you.
More limited in scope and apparently more capable of interesting real publishers are secession novels. Call it a semi-literary genre for WhiteManistan readers without quite enough spine to actually fire on their local Fort Sumter.
In another way of speaking, Tom Clancy knock-offs for neo-Confederates.
Anyway, the Wall Street Journal did a brief review of a few which envision the secession of Texas.
One book with a major publisher, St. Martin’s Press, is “Don’t Mess with Travis” by Bob Smiley, which envisions a Texas governor driven to secession after he discovers a federal plot to siphon off the state’s natural resources and ship them to California.
“We wanted to show the absurdities on both sides of the aisle,” says Mr. Smiley, a television writer in Los Angeles and former researcher for the late William F. Buckley Jr. Of secession, he adds, “It obviously remains something people in Texas think could and maybe even should happen.”
“Alan R. Erwin learned how seriously some took the idea in 1979, when he wrote a pioneering work of Texas secessionist fiction, ‘The Power Exchange’—and found that some Texans considered him the leader of a real revolution,” adds the newspaper near the end.
“I kept telling them, ‘You need to read my book, because we don’t win,'” Mr. Erwin said of the actual [Texas] secessionists,” to the WSJ.
Makes me think I should turn WhiteManistan into a short story.
Discuss.
Note: You really should appreciate that I did such a good job with the surf rock. Because I care about those kinds of details.
Q: You say on your website “Styx and REO deserve me.??? What does that mean?
A: Make no mistake, those incredible virtuosos in both Styx and REO were and continue to be inspired by the same black American musical heroes that my band and I are inspired by. I guarantee you that each member of all three bands was lured into the world of music by Chuck Berry, Bo Diddly, Little Richard and of course the Stones and Beatles who were inspired by Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, Lightning Hopkins and all the original black soul music masters. Even the sweetest music moments by those bands are delivered with real all-American gung-ho soulfulness and we couldn’t be more proud to bring our Ted Nugent Black Power Tour 2013 to the same music-loving fun gluttons that love all three bands. We deserve each other!
Q: About a year ago, you said “If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will be either dead or in jail by this time next year.??? Neither has happened. Please explain.
A: This president and his administration are so out of control that they are creating an America that does not resemble the America of our founders, and good people like me are their enemy.
Q: Because of some of your comments, you were visited by the Secret Service and were disinvited from performing at Fort Knox. Can you comment on this?
A: We indeed had a wonderful, professional meeting of mutual respect, and they left knowing what they arrived knowing: that I did nothing wrong and that they wasted their time responding to dishonest liberal Democrats who lied through their teeth.
Q: America is, I think, at its most divisive. What is the solution to bringing the country back together and can you find any common ground with the other side?
A: We the people are fighting back stronger than ever and I still believe that the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, the American Way, will prevail and return soon. We need to show unity in we the people having a dream of nonviolence upgrade for our beloved America …
The reporter asked good questions. But this doesn’t work with Ted Nugent as he responds only through e-mail.
You’ll have to admit “nonviolence upgrade,” coming from Nugent, adds to the already long list of howlers.
Does this look like someone who could destroy anything?
Nugent called President Barack Obama a “bad, bad man??? and Attorney General Eric Holder a “gun runner??? … “[If] if you dare attempt to argue with me about my right to self-defense, I will just have to destroy you,??? he said as the NRA crowd cheered again.
He’s taking the stage at today’s NRA convention. It was at the same even last year when Nugent exploded and earned himself a visit from the US Secret Service. Most people manage to get through life without having one of those chalked up on their record.
Anyway, today’s headline for a picture display of Nugent at the Houston Chronicle is pure unintentional hilarity:
Screen snaps of from the Pennsylvania mail order gun company that sold the “Crickett” kid’s rifle involved in the horrible incident earlier in the week.
Truth about a corrosive white guy-centric social problem in pix and music. Or the most appropriate theme music for the NRA convention in Houston this weekend. Your choice.
“Now it’s time to shoot all the libruls down/And take everyone else we hate ‘n’ run them out of town!” — the general zeitgeist
Use of art and music in defining a festering national social problem.
“Three in 10 registered American voters believe an armed rebellion might be necessary in the next few years, according to the results of a staggering poll released Wednesday by Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind,” reads the piece at TPM.
One in four Americans, it adds, believe addled conspiracy tales about the Sandy Hook massacre.
Hardly a day goes by without some kid being expelled from an NEA-controlled social engineering indoctrination camp for wearing a pro-gun T-shirt or simply drawing a picture of a gun.
While liberals proclaim they are the vanguards of free speech and tolerance, that protection only applies to their leftist, dope-inspired agenda that destroys everything it touches.
The purpose of kicking little Billy out of school for drawing a picture of a gun or wearing a pro-gun T-shirt or eating a locked and loaded pop-tart is to simply vilify guns, or in the words of Eric “Fast & Furious??? Holder, to “brainwash??? Americans against the Second Amendment. Achtung, baby!
Our social engineering indoctrination camps are intentionally sending the message to kids and parents alike that guns are evil. Commie community organizer Saul Alinsky would be proud. It takes a very special person to dedicate his book to the devil, which must be why Hillary “No security for you??? Clinton was so enamored with old Saul.
Of course, if a kid showed up wearing a shirt with a picture of the president’s mug on it and the words “Like President Obama, I support abortion,??? that would be just fine as that message fits the “fundamental transformation??? agenda even though abortion, not guns, is what’s eliminating the inner-city population …
And I’m sure the leftist blogs are going to attack me, misquote me, but I’ll tell you why more and more warrior heroes of the military are killing themselves: Because they are in absolute frustration and heartbreak that their boss, their Commander-In-Chief violates the Constitution that he has made an oath to while their hero warrior blood brothers are being blown to smithereens and blown up while executing their oath to the same Constitution that the president, the vice president, and the attorney general violate.
Nightclubbing: Old guys in dungarees, one with a white beard and a cowboy hat, doing “My Girl,” make the skin crawl.
