I have a penchant for irritating conservatives on social networks. It’s more a hobby than a pastime but it certainly serves a purpose. I get to know why and how they tick. Obviously the more anonymous one can be the more obnoxious the network persona. I am a particular thorn to said conservatives as I yam who I yam, no frills, pretense or hyperbole. It bothers them immensely, which in and of itself is rather satisfying. I wouldn’t say I troll so much as I keep an evil eye out for chinks in their armor, which happened yesterday. I had the privilege of being introduced via a twitter follower to a handful of mainly female gun toting, (their profile pics were awash in glocks and ammo) right wing human boils. The initial interaction began when one was ranting about Augusta National Golf Course allowing women join and the failings of the organization at the hands of hairy faced lesbian feminists. So, yeah, my interest was piqued.
What I wasn’t prepared for, (and I should really know better by now) was the out pouring of emotional support said gun wielding ladies received from the twitterverse. It was comical, disturbing, sad and a bit soul destroying. They descended on myself and one other sane tweeter like locusts on a corn field. It truly was a twitter zombie apocalypse, except, it’s twitter, it’s not real life, right? Or so I thought. As the day grew long the initial Republican army of the righteous evolved into the back biting, insult strewn descent it always does. Not surprising I know.
What I was left with though was how this twitter fest of the zombie right initially bore fruit. A woman, complaining about a male chauvinistic organization granting equal rights….shock and horror…to women!!!!!
This icky feeling of imbalance followed me throughout today, and then I saw her. A woman, about my age, sitting under a tree outside the grocery store holding a simple but well drawn out sign, “SINGLE MOTHER-UNEMPLOYED-NEEDS WORK!”
She and I chatted for a while and I realized this was why I was left feeling tarnished and unfinished. The right can only see what their blinders let them see, head lines, sound bites, force fed ideology. They would rather see the great “injustice” of a golf course allowing over privileged white women to wander around chasing a small white ball, and not see the real travesty: The single Mother, asking politely if she can work to feed her kids.
Well said. They focus on the trite, which allows them to ignore the real suffering.
well said. It’s very similar here in the UK (but without the guns, most of the time); idiots that read a paper like “The Daily Mail” and believe it, despite the fact that they have been proven wrong again and again (like during the 1930′s when they openly supported Mussolini, Hitler, and British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley). We are doomed…..
Welcome, Dee. Good to read your words. My only surprise is that it took any time at all for the “initial Republican army of the righteous” to devolve. It usually happens without a beat.
Except one of those women invited was black. Some women are nuts. Just like some men. Why would anyone NOT want equality? Granted, I feel a bit nauseated when it’s bestowed–like equality is THEIRS to *bestow* instead of ours by right of humanity. I suspect, were I one of the women invited to join Augusta, my first reaction would be to tell them where they could stick their noblesse oblige and how deep up and in they could shove it. But I might quickly reconsider, knowing that though there might be repressed hatred and ostracism, that I could use those rat pricks to MY advantage, rape their connections and networking for all they were worth… and beat their sorry asses at golf (or at least my redneck husband could, I suck at golf). At least that might be my goal… but I also noted that they only invited rich Republican women, so I guess my invite isn’t coming along any time soon. I do hope that the main cause of this really WAS that IBM told them to bend over and take it where the sun don’t shine for dissing their CEO last year at the Masters.