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1. I'm basically an ex-"Right-winger". Born in 1973, in an area that is basically your typical decaying, Rust-belt area. My home town is essentially Mayberry/Hooterville with a college, so it's not entirely unexpected that I'd grow up surrounded by/marinating in Right-wing bullshit.
I originally come from "Pennsylvania Dutch Country" (thankfully my wife and I no longer live there), and some of my best friends during my High School years were Mennonites. I guess you could say that I served as theri "gateway" to the Non-Mennonite world (I used to be into Role-Playing games, for one, and my family wasn't particularly religious). So that puts me in the rather interesting position of being well aquainted with the Mennonite/Evangelical/Fundamentalist sub-culture, without having actually been a committed "member" of said subculture. My family life is fairly typical of the time-period and area, I guess. My mom worked at the same factory where my Grandmother had worked, and my Dad (when he was actually employed or even around) tended to be a security guard at any of a number of different places around the area. Unfortunately for us, Dad was fairly consistently unemployed, both due to the fact that he'd sustained several damaged vertebrae during an accident at one of his jobs (I never really figured out the details, and honestly don't care), and the fact that he was mostly not around, because he tended to hang out at whichever local bar didn't have him banned at any particular point, and bang random women he scrounged up. (Mom didn't know this, of course -- or at least if she did, she was able to lie to herself about it enough that we could maintain the superficial facade of a "happy suburban home".) (*sigh*)
Well, long story short, Mom and Dad broke up when I was 15 or so, which took us from lower middle-class, to "barely even surviving". Dad (useless prick that he was -- and most likely still is) fairly routinely failed to send the support payments he supposedly owed Mom, so she ended up working double shifts fairly routinely. As a result, I never really saw much of her for weeks on end (when she wasn't out working, she was home watching Oprah, or out somewhere rather desperately trying to meet a guy, which never worked out very well, due to her tendency to choose the same basic asshole repeatedly).
Meanwhile, Mom had decided to allow my heroin-using half-brother Mark (who is 10 years older than I am) to move home, because she was pretty sure he'd end up getting himself murdered if she didn't.) Ostensibly, the move home was to be only for a year, until he could "get his shit together". He still lives there. My wife and I (who have been married for 9 years), now live 1200 miles away.)
In addition to heroin, Mark's other primarily interests in life were:
1. White-Power racism (centered around various batshit insane conspiracies involving Jews, Freemasons, the Trilateral Commission, etc. etc. -- Just do a Google video search for the movie "Blood in the face". The bullshit spewed by people in that movie is a pretty accurate mirror of what I had to hear incessantly from 16 until I finally scraped together enough money to move out).
2. Absurdist fantasies centered around "Turner Diaries"-style armed violence against ZOG (the "Zionist Occupation Government").
(Not that my Mom was any better: I remember one particularly glaring incident, while we were waiting for an appointment somewhere or other, and she spotted a WHITE Punk-rock-looking guy with a significant number of piercings and tattoos and such. According to Mom, he looked "just like one of them Ubangi niggers." Sorry, folks: this is what I come from).
One of my other big influences at the time was listening to Short-wave broadcasting. (I was -- and remain -- very interested in different cultures and VERY open to meeting new people, especially when they are from outside of my particular demographic, if that makes sense). I had to become somewhat of an autodidact for various reasons (mainly because the miserable Redneck hell-hole where I lived had an abysmal excuse for a "school", where for various reasons I spent more time being bullied, than actually "learning". (of course, the fact that they stuck me in the "Gifted" program *and* the "Resource Room" simultaneously didn't exactly endear me to my classmates. (In case you're wondering why: I was born 3 months prematurely, and am fairly severely visually-impaired as a result. Just mentioning it up front, in case you think it matters.)
Back to Short-wave broadcasting. Back in "The Day" (heh!), short-wave broadcasts originated from the U.S. tended to be either be: Fundie/Dominionist propaganda, survivalist/militia "patriot" propaganda, or some blend of the two.
As a result, nothing the Teabaggers say surprises me. I heard it all, incessantly back in day, either from my racist half-brother, or from what was at THAT time (rightfully) considered the "lunatic fringe" culture of Short-wave sociopaths.
Stuff that pisses me off:
1. "Libertarians" who can't tell the difference between the (wholly-mythical) "Free Market", and the REAL economy (transnational corporate plutocracy).
2. Defeatist ass-clowns who actually think "staying home" (failing to vote) somehow "sends a message". The ONLY "message" that has ever sent -- or WILL ever send -- is "I may pretend to care about making the world better, but really, I just like to bitch and whine about stuff." (Hint: to the extent that "depressed voter turnout" among Liberals/Leftists/"Progressives" was a factor in the Teabagger fiasco last November, EVERYTHING the Teabaggers have done subsequently (from Scott Walker's Union-busting right on down to the current "Debt-ceiling" mess) is YOUR FAULT, if you're one of those who thought "staying home" last November would somehow "punish Obama for being too Right-wing/Bipartisan/Compromising too often". I don't care if my saying that "offends" you: if you "stayed home", you basically handed this country to the Teabaggers on a silver platter, and you are a traitorous asshole, no matter what inane rationalizations/apologetics for doing so you may be able to dream up. Well, that's about it. I'll be interested to see if this post just sits here doing nothing, or if I've provoked a flame-war from the apathetic clowns who "stayed home" (and in so doing, REALLY let "The terrorists(Teabaggers) win". Hopefully I'll keep participating (assuming,of course, that there IS anything left after August 2nd. -- Thanks again, Teabagger-enablers!) :(
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