Translation: Your popular internet meme is Hitler. The tyranny of liberal stewardesses, on the other hand, is trenchant political commentary.
* I know, Foster is alluding to Goldberg's other magnum opus, The Tyranny of Cliches, but no one on God's green earth has read that besides me and one very drunk press agent, and since unlike National Review I have to appeal to a wide audience, I went instead with its more notorious predecessor in ignominy. T of C stinks, BTW. The theme boils down to 1.) The Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman nor an empire, haw, fart, and 2.) Libruls suck.
The important thing is he understands he needs a lotta syllables to look smart. Go Dunce Go!
ReplyDeleteConsidering that their entire worldview is one giant platitude -- o for the lost Golden Age of jes' folks like us, ridin' on dinos with Jebus -- another cliche, the one about glass houses, was the first thing I thought of.
ReplyDeleteThe analogies of imbeciles.The shrillness of desperation, Also, the pot calling the kettle black.
ReplyDeleteThey're a bit peeved because all they could think of for this picture was "A black man hugging a white woman. Eeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww!"
ReplyDeleteA spoonful of bromide helps the pulse rate go down
ReplyDeleteIt's quite funny that The National Review is seemingly lamenting some sort of decline in intalleckshualism in the public discourse, given that they seem to be the loss leader in that category. Can one really go all Mike Tyson on cliches if one is a cliche himself?
ReplyDeleteTruly this authoritarian meme has shut down all conservative talk, using an evocation of an imagined golden past that never existed. Why, they haven't made a peep. Surely the liquidation of the kulaks teabaggers is right around the corner.
ReplyDeleteA Minute of Thesaurusing.
ReplyDeleteDAMN YOU FATS I was just about to comment on the Mad Libbing of Thesauruses.
ReplyDeleteAnyone here actually read Jonah's most recent epic? Ever since I saw the borderline parody that is the table of contents, I've been hoping a copy might end up in the local library, but no luck. Oh, they've got every Bernie Goldberg book, because it is a politically conservative community, but apparently Jonah isn't good enough for them. I can't get past that.
ReplyDeleteThe message I get from this is one of absolute terror that normal people might realize that the entire rightwing movement is nothing more or less than complete bullshit. The fear of being exposed is strong with them.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't a cliche. There really aren't any buzzwords. Feel free tell me the shibboleth here. And honestly, chestnuts aren't totalitarian. Walnuts maybe. Almonds. But not chestnuts.
ReplyDeleteAt worst, it's a bit mawkish and entirely too earnest for my tastes. I still think Christie is a repellent human being -- but like Rudy, he's showing, however briefly, a decent side (well, to be fair, his sides have sides, rimshot! America Fuck Yeah!!) -- but in all honesty, it's a pretty sweet notion that we have to capacity for unity from time to time.
Which is, of course, the reason Foster doesn't know just what to call this. He's confused and hurt that Obama is hugging a white woman and she seems consoled by it, while Jabba seems to accept the President's presence.
I blame filberts.
ReplyDeleteLook, it's the damn hazelnuts, I tell you, spreading their stale flavor everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what else to call this
ReplyDeleteHow about "the butthurt of banalities," since "boo hoo how terribly I'm victimized by other people's free speech, no matter how harmless or feel-good" doesn't fit the pattern?
How is the Holy Roman Empire mislabeled as an empire? It encompasses a wide array of political subunits, from kingdoms to bureaucratic cities, with dozens of different ethnic and linguistic divisions, as diverse as you could wish.
ReplyDeleteThis is some fairly shoddy history, I must say, a glib semantic trick that uses a shadow of thin wit to obscure not just a shallow understanding but a downright apathy to the hard intellectual labor of understanding the past.
The oppression of proverbs. The might of mottoes. The compulsion of cornball. The domination of drivel. The reign of rigmarole. The paramountcy of palaver. The authoritarianism of adages.
ReplyDeleteIf this is fascism, chain me to the wall.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's just old-fashioned whining.
ReplyDeleteYes, but now served with a side of heroic resistance against the overwhelming power of a sententious
ReplyDeleteslogan. I guess they've always been the weakest most powerful tiny majority of winner-victims ever, but this locution achieves a new level of cake-takery.
You know what? I'm conceding that Scrabble match right now.
ReplyDeleteWoohoo, who said cheaters never win? Some fascist of the familiar phrase, that's who.
ReplyDeleteThe (blatant) ripoff of <a href="http://fimby.tougas.net/farm?page=4>Charlotte's Web.</a>
ReplyDeleteWingnuts are definitely totalitarian.
ReplyDelete(Trying again)
ReplyDeleteThe ripoff of Charlotte's Web.
I can't imagine what it's like being a conservative. They get offended at everything! Honestly, how do they go about their day-to-day business. The first interracial couple or organic grocery they see must just ruin the whole day. Surprised more of them don't off themselves. Instead they crawl home to bitch about tumblr memes.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think the meme itself is fine. I'm OK with a little uplift every now and then.
Synonym Girl
ReplyDeleteI desire to reside with
A Synonym Girl
I could be content
For my natural duration with
A Synonym Girl
A fantasizer of images
I dash through the dark
You visualize us combined
Pursuing the lunar luminescence
My Synonym Girl
(etc.)
Father, remit me cash at once
I intend to succeed
I require an additional opportunity
Understand your offspring enjoys
Terpsichore
Yes…yes…
I'm sorry (i.e., I'm not sorry), but "ridin' on dinos with Jebus" has got to be the last line of a refrain from a country-ish song about low-information morons. Now, what rhymes with "Jebus" besides--wait for it--Reince Priebus?
ReplyDeleteIt feels like Jonah in the belly of the whale
ReplyDeletehe get so lonely in the belly of the whale
Ahhh we're only gonna have us a little fun down down down
I've lit the candle we can get a lot of reading done
"Waal, I hope you all will see us,
ReplyDeleteMe and Limbaugh and Priebus,
Riding' on dinos with Jebus,
In the sweet, sweet bye-and-bye!"
absolutism, monocracy, bromides, despotism, chestnut - these are all words, in the english language no less, and of course, are central to my point.
ReplyDeleteTheir day comes pre-ruined. Sans scapegoats, their dawn-to-dusk existence would consist of a ceaseless gnawing of dread and self-loathing around the edges of their consciousness, something that they'd identify as angst or anomie if those weren't soc-psych pussy bullshit foreign words that they'd long since forgotten from when they had to learn them to pass a few gut liberal-arts courses on the way to getting their business degree from Weeping Mary Statue University. If they live somewhere where everyone drives an SUV with a fully-stocked gun rack and eats nothing that isn't deep-fried first, a place that they at first assumed would be paradise on earth, they'll ceaselessly scan the radio dial until they hear Elton John or Melissa Etheridge, upon which, carefully stoking the sparks of well-worn outrage into a guttering flame of spite, they'll post about how they can still remember a time when it wasn't OK to be a fag. That, or Rush tells them which obscure civil servant will be the subject of their two-minute hate.
ReplyDeleteSaid the bishop to the actress! Phwoar!
ReplyDeleteautocracy of adages!
ReplyDelete