I Can See The Fnords: Dungeons & Anti-Christs

[athelind]

A few days ago, John McCain's Head of Communications made a snarky comment about "the Pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd ...[in]... mom's basement" -- echoing a comment he made earlier in the summer.

Everyone's been treating this as an amusingly stupid gaffe, but remember: this is the same campaign that has paid for ads portraying Barack Obama as the Anti-Christ, or, at the very least, a false prophet.

The Radical Religious Right loves to portray fantasy novels and role-playing games as Tools of Satan. Now, the once-"moderate" G.O.P. candidate's are hinting that the bloggers and columnists who support Obama are those same Scary But Comical Satan-Lovers.

Coincidence? John Brunner defined that as "You weren't paying attention to the other half of what was going on."

Head of Communications, indeed. This guy's got scary semiotic savvy; he knows exactly what buttons to push in his constituency.

---

Comments

[pyat.livejournal.com]

Not just a pet blogger - his head of communications.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Corrected.

[paka.livejournal.com]

And this is really the way the right wing always phrases their rhetoric. At best we're comical assholes who don't know what reality actually requires, and at worst we're intentionally, intelligently bent on destroying the USA and everything it stands for. But you can never badmouth conservatives equally, because that simply indicates that you're having this horrible kneejerk reaction.

I'm really so sick of the situation and I just don't perceive it ever changing.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

At best we're comical assholes who don't know what reality actually requires, and at worst we're intentionally, intelligently bent on destroying the USA and everything it stands for.

And somehow, they can say both things at once.

[paka.livejournal.com]

I really hate it. Back in grade and high school I learned that what characterized bullies was the no-win solution nature of their threat; if you fought back you were a laughable sociopath, if you told someone you were a tattler with nothing to complain about, if you tried calling names back you were laughable, if you stayed silent you were a wuss who invited more of the same bad treatment. And now that I'm an adult, and theoretically we're all adults who work in a less puerile way, I find that somehow, acting like we're still all in 3rd grade is okay - well, at least if you're the "playground bullies" of the world.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Not so much no-win for you, as no-lose for them. Untouchable in any meaningful sense, bullies simply don't care how you respond.

Of course, that kind of arrogance tends to foster carelessness. The phrase "Watergate tapes" springs to mind.

[paka.livejournal.com]

Whether it's no-win for me, or no-lose for them, I'm really tired of it.

I would like the USA to be about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and all that's greatly diminished when this is not a good country in which to be a worker, in which to grow old, in which to get sick, in which to travel, in which to have and raise children, in which to fall in love and get married, and in which to explore spirituality. I'm tired of there being excuses for the people responsible, while if, for instance, I come up with similar (and similarly false!) smears against conservatives or Christians as generalizations, I'm this bad person.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

As I remarked else-LJ, the apology Goldfarb has offered reads like aw-shucks backpedalling.

(How exactly is a political campaign supposed to improve Americans' charisma scores, anyway? I'd think that the trashing our collective rep has taken with McCain's Master at the helm would've irrevocably scrod that particular pooch.)

With his nod to the "hard working Americans who play Dungeons & Dragons", Goldfarb comes off like a gaybasher who's been called on the carpet, now claiming that he didn't mean to offend the manly fags.

[pyat.livejournal.com]

However, the apology is from before his latest comment about D&D players. So, he talked about basement-dwelling RPG playing Obamaites... then apologized...

Then did it again, two weeks later.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, damn. I hadn't noticed the timing, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

As an artist favored by the Serpent and myself recently noted (paraphrasing from memory), "Until you stop doing it, you're not really sorry."

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Whoops, that'd be me.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Who was that? I keep saying that to my grandspawn.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Pseudo Manitou, and you made the same remark when someone presented a link to the piece in question.

[kreggan.livejournal.com]

Is pushing buttons back worthwhile? After all, McCain might be a bit old for the job. And he divorced his wife, which makes his commitment to family values questionable... His reliability is suspect too, being something of a loose cannon..

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Best not to say "loose cannon" in conjunction with someone who's probably gone hunting with Cheney.

Ba-dum-ching.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Better not let him have a shotgun bigger than .410 I think.

[stalbon.livejournal.com]

The man has also admitted to being an 'internet illiterate', so while he most assuredly knows what goes on in the circles of the web through his associates and underlings, he can pretty much pander to the religious right by claiming he stays away from it because it has become the 'territory' for those same Satanists and 'do-nothing' loafers whose sole purpose is to undermine our stability and defile our children.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

...and he doesn't even have to come right out and SAY it, either. Just the implication is enough.

[jirris-midvale.livejournal.com]

One man's gaffe is another's hammer. See, here's the thing -- you give an enemy strength when you assume he is weak. You should assume every move from someone you are opposed to, no matter how foolish, has a purpose behind it.

While he might look silly to us pansy ass liberals for such a retarded comment, that sort of thing actually speaks to people who think that Obama's team is full of lazy ass fat kids who know absolutely nothing beyond world of warcraft and free handouts from their mommies.

The best way to play the crowd is to make the other side think you aren't playing.

I'm getting really fed up with the snide comments followed by frenzied cries that I'm going to dump america into a fire as soon as I can, which quickly turns to weepy eyed defensiveness when I speak up.

I will say it once again -- if I had a time machine, my first order of business would be to drop Anne Coulter into the 1950's because I have a cruel sense of irony.