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I live in Wasilla, so have gotten used to dealing with wingnuts.
There didn’t used to be so many of them, but their women get pregnant early and often. Many have families with over ten children. Between the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividends (12 X $1,600), and state assistance for home schooling seven of the kids (7 X $2,700), a typical large wingnut Christianist family of twelve pulls in over $38,000 per year in tax-free state assistance, even if both mom and dad are working. And they’re fixing to make it better for them, you betcha.
I call it evangelical welfare.
Today I’m in the waiting room at the local medical clinic, waiting to have the packing pulled out of a wound I’ve been dealing with. The TV announces Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’ demise.
People actually cheer.
The guy reading a year-old issue of Guns & Ammo in the chair next to me loudly mutters “Good riddance, you fucking commie fascist!”
He looks vaguely familiar – perhaps from one of the Tea Party events I’ve covered in Wasilla.
“Did he do something to you?” I ask.
“Didn’t you see Red Dawn? That was about him!”
“The old version of the movie, or the new one?” I return.
“Whaddya mean, old – new? It’s all the same.”
“OK.” I reply. ”You don’t think he was a very good president, do you?”
“Fucking president!? He was a goddam fucking dictator. Do you know how many people he killed?”
“A lot?” I ask.
“You don’t know shit, do you?” He’s trying to scope me out at this point.
“Maybe I don’t know as much as you do,” I retort, “but I speak Spanish and read articles in the Latin American press. Was Chavez worse than the guy he replaced?”
“What?”
I reiterate, “Was Hugo Chavez worse than President Larrazabal?”
“Uh, Goddam right he was….”
“How about President Chalboud?”
“Did Chavez kill him too?” the guy asks.
“I doubt it. But maybe al Qaeda killed Chalboud and Larrazabal, to make way for Chavez? You wouldn’t put it past them, would you?”
“Hey! I’m beginning to like you.”
Someone at the reception desk calls my name. I get up and shake the hand of the Chavez critic. ”Who do you think would be a good successor of Chavez for Americans?”
“What…..success … or.. what….?” he queries.
I finish with “Nice talking to you,” as I amble off to get my blood pressure taken.
Anyone have a similar story?
flickr image by Philip Munger
17 Comments
BTW – 127/74 and healing.
How the U.S. is going to destroy Venezuela.
I just don’t know Alaska, ET. I spent 6 weeks in 1979 in your state, from Fairbanks to Valdez (to see the pipeline stuff) to Chitina, spent a day on a tiny island (read rock!) somewhere in the middle of Lake Louise owned whom by I can only assume is called a perimeter man; Skagway, Juneau, Denali etc, and for the life of me, I never felt the politics as rabid as it seems now. Of course there are extremists in AK, they exist in Oregon as well. But I never felt uncomfortable around them. Nor outnumbered. Skagway residents invited me back…to live there!
I revisited in 1998 to attend a wedding in Juneau, taking in B.C. and The Yukon as I traveled. If anything, it seemed more mellow. (Someday I’ll tell you about my experiences in ’79 with the Jesuits).
So, I suppose I owe it to myself to come back again. Maybe soon.
Got a phone call yesterday.
NRA ” we’d like to get your opinion. First listen to theis brief message from our president, Wayne Lapierre.”
Brief message follows. It sounds taped
NRA live person. “Do you agree with Mr. Lapierre’s message?’
Self “I could not disagree more”
NRA. Do you know they are trying to take away our right to have assault weapons.”
Self “Assault weapons have no place in a civilized society.”
NRA (pause) “Thank you for your time.”
Self (noting the pause before his ending) So I don’t get to answer the rest of the questions?”
NRA “but it’s our right under the second Amendment. It gives us the power to protest against government oppression.”
Self “What if you actually tried out this fantasy uprising. How long would you last before the cops shot you down.”
NRA “But the police would be on our side.”
Self “They’re on the side of their paycheck. How’s it working out for that guy Dorner in California? Or for the occupy movement?”
NRA “But the Constiution says…”
Self ” what does the Constitution actually say?”
NRA “That we can carry guns. And a militia is good
Self (quotes the Second Amendment, verbatim, from memory) ” Have you ever read the Federalist papers, particularly #27 and 28?”
NRA “What are they?”
Self. “They were written by the founding Fathers, to explain their original intent.”
NRA “Oh”
Self “One thing they talk about there is that one of the stated purposes of the militia is to put down insurrections like what you guys want to do.”
NRA ( hangs up phone)
Self (to dead receiver) It’s simple If you want a gun, join the Guard.”
It was a little longer, including me asking in what possible universe can you or me owning a gun be considered part of a well regulated militia. No reply to that one.
I enjoyed the call more than I should. But they called me, asking for my opinion. I’ll have to be nice for a few days, to work off the karmic hit.
Not from truth-telling. From my enjoyment of dueling an unarmed man. So to speak.
Thanks. Well even without that article, you hadda know…
Nationalizing da OIL?? Giving 99%ers a break??
Can’t have that! BigOil crackheads need their fix… stat!
Thanks for your story, ET, and good luck with continued healing.
I have no similar story, albeit I’m sure that my rightwing family feels the same as the person at your Dr office, plus is as woefully uninformed as well.
Same old, different day. Brings to mind Chile on that other Sept 11 in 1973….
Team USA Fuck YEAH!!! has been champing at the bit to take over Venezuela; they hated Chavez with the loathing of a million white hot suns. How DARE Chavez nationalize the oil in HIS country??? The noive of some people.
Hasta la Vista, Hugo Chavez. RIP. Thanks for what you did; you sure gave it your best effort.
Chavez and Maduro were and are well aware of all this and have already taken countermeasures:
Chavez is gone, but Maduro will continue his policies — the most important long-range one being the creation of Alba.
Well I certainly have my fingers crossed for Maduro, and I duly noted how Chavez handled everything up until the last moment he drew he last breath. It was brilliantly played, I must say: having that election, etc, and then naming his successor.
All the best to Maduro. Better watch his back, although I’m sure he’s well aware of that and has already taken whatever measures he can.
The people have Maduro’s back. Think of the environment in the US in the wake of JFK’s assassination: LBJ rode the sympathy wave to not only crush Goldwater in 1964, but to have a Congress with Democratic supermajorities like unto those of 1936. This enabled LBJ to push for civil rights and the Great Society, and if he’d been able to keep both Bobby Kennedy and the Paris Peace Talks alive (and had been willing to call out Nixon for sending Anna Chan Chennault to disrupt the talks), the Vietnam War would have ended in 1968 and Nixon would never have become president (and would in fact have been lucky to avoid a jail cell).
Unfortunate, it’s not just the right-wing wingnuts behaving this way; it’s most of the left as well.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the right-wing wingnuts behaving this way; it’s most of the left as well.
A friend made the same point to me last night, during a break in an orchestral rehearsal. Haven’t seen any pro-Chavez remarks yet from any sitting member of the US House or US Senate.
Really good piece on Hugo today on Democracy Now http://www.democracynow.org/2013/3/6/hugo_chvez_dead_venezuelan_leader_leaves
I traveled through much of Venezuela during the 2008 elections. Electrifying time of rising the poor – free health care, free eduction up through PhD, etc. First time I ever saw participatory democracy in action, from Carracas to indigenous remote areas near the Amazon. It was such a bummer coming back to the land of empire.
Also, great documentary on the US 2002 thwarted coup attempt in Venezuela: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
RIP Hugo
I would be gob-smacked if ANY pol at the Fed level said anything positive about Chavez. That would NOT be tolerated by the PTB.
I will be surprised if ANY pol at any level makes any kind of a really public positive statement about Chavez… not gonna be permitted by the 1% and the propoganda media.
Too bad. As a prior commenter indicated, the so-called “leftwing” is nearly as “bad” as so-called “conservatives” in be majorly anti-Chavez, yet most really cannot elaborate why in anything approaching realistic reasons.
There’s this too
http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5966
What onitgoes said. :-)
Chavez was/is a threat to the idea that There Is No Alternative to capitalism, so even though his authoritarianism was nothing compared to that of various US allies (including the narcostate of Colombia), he is demonized.