Weapons of Yellow Fuzziness
The wingnuts have got themselves in a tizzy about some old chemical shells that were found in Iraq back in 2004. These were just degraded shells which the DOD itself says were from Saddam’s pre-1991 armament. Yet the magic of wingnuttery has suddenly transformed these relics into the long-lost Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Maha correctly divines that the real import of this story is that we — and by “we” I mean “we who have fully functioning cerebral cortices” — need to ask ourselves again, “just how stupid are these people”?
I took all this in, and then made some coffee, and then sat down to consider the burning question of our time — how stupid are Bush supporters, really? This goes way beyond your average left the keys in the car stupid, which plagues the best of us from time to time. There’s something more primordial going on here. In some cases, IMO, we’re looking at simple turtle crossing an interstate stupid. You can’t really blame them for it. In other cases we may be dealing with more exotic forms of cognitive handicaps, however, such as I’m getting messages from Mars stupid, or the cookbook said to separate the yolk from the white so I boiled the egg first stupid.
Actually the wingnuts remind me a little of my brother’s dog Maggie, who can be repeatedly tricked into thinking that an old yellow tennis ball is in fact a fearsome monster. Now Maggie is a sweet, sweet dog — much nicer than any wingnut you could ever meet — and I shudder to make this comparison. And really it’s not fair, because in most respects I think Maggie is probably smarter than your average wingnut. But she’s a sucker for the tennis ball trick.
See, my brother has this old tennis ball that’s split open on one side. As long as it’s lying on the floor, Maggie is undisturbed by it. It’s just a tennis ball. But all my brother has to do is pick up the ball and squeeze it so the split looks like a mouth opening and closing, and she goes apeshit. ohmygodohmyGOD! bark bark bark bark BARK! BARK! Put the ball back on the floor, she’s fine. Pick it up again and squeeze its “mouth,” she goes apeshit. Every goddamn time.
This has been going on for several years.
You would think that an otherwise intelligent dog would eventually deduce that the tennis ball is not a threat. You’d think that at some point — say, after 200 rounds or so — enlightenment would dawn, and Maggie would grasp the central truth that if it’s just a nasty old tennis ball when it’s lying on the floor, then it’s still just a nasty old tennis ball when it’s in my brother’s hand. Yet she cannot seem to make this cognitive leap. Again and again, she is deceived into yelping madly at the monster that has suddenly materialized before her.
If Maggie had a blog — and what a charming thought that is: dogs with blogs! — she’d probably post about the Weapon of Yellow Fuzziness. She’d advise other dogs that the WYF can appear at any time, without warning, but especially when one’s human happens to be sitting on the sofa with an old yellow tennis ball nearby. Some dogs, border collies perhaps, might wonder aloud if there could be a connection between the old yellow tennis ball and the WYF, perhaps even a question of mistaken identity…but Maggie would bark them down. No, no, no! she would cry. The WYF is real! I’ve seen it over 200 times now!
20 Responses to “Weapons of Yellow Fuzziness”
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GettingWarm says:
I think it’s time to stand up and make a loud noise about the kind of ignorance some people are demonstrating that has bled well into the arena of irresponsibility and even gross negligence. There are still far too many who cling desperately to the belief that “Bush has inside information and knows more than we possibly can.” Others thinkg that Bush is a Christian president and therefore guided by the Almighty. This blind sense of trust and acceptance boggles the mind. When are people going to wake up and be outraged by our loss of human rights, our violent continuings in Iraq, and the extensive loss of natural resources? It seems to me that many Americans are happy with their passivity. Acknowledging areas of moral ambiguity is more effort than the right wing seems willing to take. When will people wake up and become independent and responsible thinkers? Few seem interested in taking real steps toward change. It’s depressing!
June 23rd, 2006 at 8:41 am EST -
ginmar says:
You know, if the insurgents had WMDs they’d be using them against US forces. It’s that simple.
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Chris says:
No, no, no! she would cry. The WYF is real! I’ve seen it over 200 times now!
Damn.
I’ve put the eloping ladder in the truck. I’ll be right over.
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Mandos says:
You want to elope with the DOG?
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Chris Clarke says:
Do you even READ my blog, Mandos?
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Violet says:
How is dear sweet Zeke these days, Chris?
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Chris Clarke says:
dear. and sweet. and increasingly achy. And happy that Becky’s off for the summer.
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will says:
Santorum is an idiot. Sadly, too many people will cite to his speech as evidence of WMDs even though the evidence and the Department of Defense disagree with Santorum
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Mandos says:
You know. Maybe Maggie’s just putting one over you. A meta dog.
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love2all says:
You know, it’s hard to write against the war or to write an essay on why right-wingers are nutjobs (or wingnuts, depending on what part of the country you’re from). Well, actually NO, it’s not hard. But it IS hard to do so without sounding like you’re preaching to the choir. It’s hard to hold the interest of the opposing side. I write essays and post them online. The right nutters wind up just skimming it and go right back to insulting me, calling me un-American, a traitor, god-less, etcetera. You know how it goes…
But I think this is a great analogy. I’m not meaning to gush, but really it is, it’s humorous and you could probably trick even a right-winger into laughing before they realize, “Hey. That there essay’s speakin’ ‘bout me!” Maybe not. They’d probably be insulted early on, but would still read the whole thing.
I love Maggie already. No one can resist dogs, not even wingnuts. I have a cat named Maggie. She’s not scared of yellow balls but she jumps three feet straight up if she sees a beetle on the floor.
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love2all says:
Just found a great quote to defend ourselves against such wingnuts, especially those that say that call us un-American:
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.” -Teddy Roosevelt
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love2all says:
Excuse the minor typing errors above. My apologies.
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CR says:
T.R. was very much a man of his time. But one of my favourite Presidnets ever.
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Steve says:
This latest “there really are WMDs” claim is the closest I have seen this administration come to virtually plagiarizing Goebbels’s “big lie” playbook.
Can’t find ‘em? Just say they are there.
Want to know what scares me?I think it could work.
Some fucktard like Santorum says they actually ARE there, so they are.
In fact, I’m coming around myself already: They say there are WMDs. Damn, there are WMDs.
And all along we thought they are lying.
Im not sure I have ever understood the “big lie” as well as I do right now.
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gordo says:
I’ve got a theory as to why the 39%ers can’t give up the idea that Hussein had a WMD program. For those of you who’ve seen it before, I apologize in advance:
Before Bush was elected, this was the same crowd that scoffed at the idea that the United States should make democracy and human rights foreign policy goals. They derided and mocked organizations like the United Nations and Amnesty International.
They railed against President Clinton when he confronted Milosevic over the issue of genocide. They were untroubled by President Reagan’s overtures to Saddam Hussein, overtures made while Hussein was actively murdering his people by the thousands. Bush himself scoffed at the idea that the US should engage in “nation building” during a debate with Vice President Gore.
I think they sense their hypocrisy. Deep down, they feel a bit strange when they rise with righteous indignation to decry the right-wing Muslims’ positions on gays and women. They remember, somewhere in the backs of their minds, thinking that liberals were being stupid and naive when they criticized Reagan’s support of the Apartheid government in South Africa, and the murderous regimes of El Salvador and Haiti.
They know that the regimes of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan are repressive. In short, the die-hard Bush supporters know that there really is no way for them to be consistent and to support the war in Iraq at the same time.
Unless, of course, Iraq really was a threat the United States. It’s a bit silly to think of Iraq threatening the United States, even if they had weapons of mass destruction. But if Bush’s last loyalists can imagine that there really were WMD in Iraq, they can at least justify the war on their own terms.
In other words, it’s what might be called Making Yourself Stupid Syndrome. Missing WMD forces the wingnuts to either A) Admit they were wrong about the war, B) Rethink their assessment of internationalism, the UN, and unilateral use of force, or C) Admit that the real reason they wanted the war was because they were pissed off at the A-rabs.
So they choose D) Believe with all your heart that somewhere in Iraq, there are WYF.
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gordo says:
Note: My html skillz are more n00b than l33t, so please insert paragraphing into my quote, as appropriate.
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Violet says:
Gordo’s comment 15 is interesting in light of the little analogy of Maggie, because I often think that she fools herself on purpose because she wants to.
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gordo says:
Violent–
Thanks for the paragraphing. At least Maggie has an excuse: her brain is about half the size of an average human’s.
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will says:
Speaking of WMDs, you should watch this video of Bush singing Sunday Bloody Sunday:
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CR says:
I love the fuzzy ball story. Cracked me up.
