Character Counts, Eh?

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A tea party group in California has produced what some are calling the most blatantly racist and sexist attack ad of all time. It makes the old “Willie Horton” ad look subtle.

In the blog comments today, righties are weirdly oblivious to why some would find this monstrosity offensive. They think the outrage must mean progressives think the ad is effective.

I understand the California Republican Party has distanced itself from the ad, but the baggers don’t want to take it down. Hey, it’s a free country. Let them stand by the political speech they believe in, and let the world see what they are made of.

15 thoughts on “Character Counts, Eh?”

  1. Every time I think the Wingnuts can’t get any crazier, they prove me wrong. Even if I was trying to satire the Tea Partiers, I’d have a hard time outdoing this video.

    I don’t like to pull threads off-topic, but since there isn’t much more I can say about the video (other than it’s insane), thought I’d share the following (a long read, but great!):

    Rolling Back the Progressive Era
    By Michael Hudson
    How Bankers are using the Debt Crisis to welcome in the Financial Road to Serfdom

    Financial strategists do not intend to let today’s debt crisis go to waste. Foreclosure time has arrived. That means revolution – or more accurately, a counter-revolution to roll back the 20th century’s gains made by social democracy: pensions and social security, public health care and other infrastructure providing essential services at subsidized prices or for free…

    http://michael-hudson.com/2011/06/rolling-back-the-progressive-era/

  2. “Let them stand by the political speech they believe in, and let the world see what they are made of.”

    Thank you for saying that – it’s just what I needed. Thanks too for your gracious shelter from the storm.

  3. I studied and worked to be an actor in NY City back in the ’80′s and ’90′s.
    I wonder what kind of person would be willing to act in an openly racist and mysogenistic piece of diarrhetic shit like this?
    Especially an African-American one?
    If someone offered me a spot in something this offensive, I would have told them to go fuck themselves – no matter what it did to my career.
    If it was a performance, or avante-garde, piece mocking racism, that would of course be a different story. It’s a matter of context.
    I hope the “actors” were told it was some sort of a spoof or parody, or something.

    And what does it way, beyond the ones who “wrote,” directed, and acted in it, about the people who ok’s this thing, not just at a political lever, but a TV channel one?
    Never mind, I know what it says. I’d just rather not say it. Maha might get mad that I even know that may four-letter words and insults.

    Other than that, WOW, I’m speachless…

    • I hope the “actors” were told it was some sort of a spoof or parody, or something.

      That’s possible.

  4. I’m curious to know about the woman and men who agreed to perform in this ad. What the hell is that about?

    • Regarding the question of why any self-respecting black or female person would have agreed to be in this ad — there’s a discussion about this going on here. My only explanation is that the participants may not have realized exactly how outrageous the finished product would be. I postulate that if you take the performances out of context and look at them in isolation, they might not be that blatant. I’m not interested in watching it again to see if that’s true, however.

  5. They think the outrage must mean progressives think the ad is effective.

    Oh, yes, it’s just devastating. By all means, blanket the airwaves with it. I’m sure Janice Hahn would hate to be thrown in that briar patch.

  6. One element of the ad that amazes me is how childish the production is. I mean, the bloody letter font? And the red eyes? Seriously? It’s like a Halloween video made by middle school students. And not the talented ones.

    Visually, it’s a mess. I can’t tell whether Janice Hahn is supposed to be a vampire, a pole dancer, some kind of Teletubbie/pole dancer hybrid “telebuttie”, or what. And why that bad rap video broke out in the middle of the vampire movie I don’t understand at all. And those black & white photos of bad guys throughout time? Hunh? And what’s with the emphasis on the woman’s rear-end? It’s in almost every shot. I guess you’d need to be keyed into tangled right-wing stereotypes and obsessions to parse that properly. I can only guess it has something to do with black gangsta’s liking white women’s bootie? Or is it just that they wanted their jackass white male viewers to be thinking with their dicks by waving it to engage their hindbrains?

    Whatever. Apparently, because all of that somehow supposedly symbolizes that Hahn supports gang intervention programs, and she DOES support gang intervention programs, the right sees nothing wrong with it.

    Still, it seems like they could just string garlic up in front of the polling places, and keep her supporters away. Besides, isn’t the voting held in the daylight? And not in strip clubs? I don’t see how vampires will be a problem.

  9. I’m firewalled from videos while at work (thank you, corporate overlords– at least this once!), but from the description of red eyes and cheesy fonts, I wonder if this video arose from the same cesspool as the California gubernatorial ad last fall, involving a “wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing” with glowing red eyes. That one was much mocked over at Wonkette; this new one sounds too corrosive to provide opportunities for snark.

  10. Holy crap. Incredibly sexist, incredibly racist, and incredibly cheesy and amateurish. The final part – “Let’s keep Hahn out of Congress” while an assault weapon fires on full auto – could not be more blatant in egging on Jared Loughner types to carry out a “second amendment solution”.

  11. The ad looked like something out of Idiocracy. The district Hahn is fighting for is generally progressive but with a fair amount of defense contractor conservativism. It’s hardly fertile ground for TeaBaggers – it’s no accident the CA Republican Party – as well as Hahn’s opponent – has denounced the ad. I hope she has some Hollywood friends who could turn this ad into a great attack piece against the Tea Baggers, that is if she thinks it’s necessary.

    In positive news for California, a recent ballot proposition that put a citizen committee in charge of the decennial redrawing of congressional districts, recently announced their draft map. Formerly, the legislature was tasked with redistricting – they gerrymandered the state into reliably safe districts with uncompetitive races, which only cemented the polarization in the legislature. This effort by citizens promises to change that, and people say it will require the Republican party to run more centrist candidates or die.

  12. I continue to contend that a black man in the White House elicits a kind of maniacal fear among a lot of Americans. How else to explain the continuing, and getting more pronounced, irrational behavior of Obama’s opponents.

    It’s been suggested that the fear of blacks from some of the white community stems from their own suspicion of their inadequacy, of the belief that being ‘white’ they have nothing to fear from blacks as long as blacks can’t achieve the same status as they. But should that change, should blacks be able to compete with whites on an equal footing, whites (they) will be at a disadvantage or at least put in danger of losing out.

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