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learn to swim

I think Tool had it right with their song Aenima.

As Americans braced in recent days for a war against Iraq, many Californians were feeling strangely out of it. The great expanse between the two coasts appeared ever vaster. The sense of threat, so acute in the East, was real but less immediate here.

During some lunchtime and office-cooler chatter there has even been longing for President Clinton, a Hollywood favorite, who, the reasoning goes, would never have allowed a war to play havoc with Oscar night, one of the state's most hallowed traditions.

California. What a place.

Comments

I live right outside San Francisco and avoided going into the City today precisely because these protesters were tying up traffic. They've delayed emergency response vehicles from getting where they need to go and they even tried to get onto the Bay Bridge, one of the main thoroughfares into S.F. Talk about STUPID. These protesters take the cake.

As for feeling out of touch with the rest of the country...well, that's definitely San Francisco for you. I wouldn't say that applies to the whole state of California, though.

I'd like to second that. Not all of us living in the Bay Area are a bunch of assclowns.

Regards,
Tony

I'm down here near Orange County, CA and a LOT of us don't spend our days pining for Clinton.
How can you criticize Bush and his administration for being stupid or not having enough "gravitas" when you're worried about allowing "a war to play havoc with Oscar night..."
Sorry, I have to step away from the computer, count to ten, and maybe I'll stop seeing red...

Do these people have any idea how shallow they sound? Don't answer that.

San Diego is a military town, so we generally don't have to witness that Salads-n-Suns Kumbaya nonsense. On the other hand, our jackass mayor, Dick Murphy, is currently "too busy" with Chargers related "business" (read: sucking Spano's dick like there's no tomorrow in the hope the Chargers won't move to LA) to issue any kind of statement in support of the war or of the military. Never mind that something like 1 in 5 people stationed in the Gulf right now are based in San Diego.

Proof that not all Californians are commie-hippie-nutjob-shitholes: Protest Warrior.

The kids are alright.

Hey,I live in the East Bay,and it does feel a bit odd being a conservative single dad in this Nest of Knuckleheads™,but I would have serious ulcer by now if it weren't for for the ASV comment section.Thanks to all of you I've been able to chuckle it off.Gettin' blubberly,gotta go........

Hmmm, protestwarrior.com seems like a bunch of over-generalized rhetoric denouncing anyone with liberal thinking as mentally deluded, while at the same time claiming that liberal ideals are good and noble. So it's good to know what liberal values are, but liberal thinking is akin to a mental illness, and people who think that way should be disenfranchised.

I had been missing California quite a bit but since protestwarrior.com doesn't describe me, I'd hate to think that if I still lived there my only other choice would be commie-hippie-nutjob-shithole.

I will say this however, I was educated in California, and one of the things I learned is that the human brain - with more than 10exp13 neural connections, is capable of more than simple binary classifications, especially when it comes to putting people into pigeon holes. Funny how flatworms see the world in black and white, and after 500,000,000 years of evolution to develop complex eyes and brains, some people do too.

Not all Californians are whack jobs.

I'm an antheist, and I've never voted Demosratic. I did vote for Perot in '92, when I was 18. :(

One of my good friends is an agnostic, gay, Jew. He is now a neo-con.

His parents, an artist/interior decorator and a professor at UC Davis (and Jewish), are leaning Republican now. They still probably vote Democratic next election, but they'll be more critical.

While the Demo's will probably win states like NY and CA next election, they won't win them by ,uch, and they'll lose almost every other state. By 2008 or 2012 the Demos will have figured out the worst of their issues, and they' be back in the running. Probably without the extreme stupidy that is currently in the Democratic party.

Chris,

a) The comment about commies was a jab at the stereotype much of the rest of the country has about California (in particular, the comment in the original post), a stereotype based on the high profiles of the Bay Area and Hollywood).

b) Protest Warrior mocks the stupidity of the left and in particular the protesters (the vast majority of whom are being led by communists - in case you hadn't heard, ANSWER is a World Workers Party front group). If you don't believe that they are fundamentally anti-American rather than anti-war, just look at who they are defending. Or, just look at their signs: "We support the troops when they shoot their officers" and "No war except class war" pretty much say it all. I refuse to recognize a real difference between someone who says that and the guy marching with him.

c) Liberal ideals - you're mixing terms. The Left is not truly liberal. I strongly support liberal ideals, I do not support the politics or policies of the people who currently call themselves "liberals", and I most emphatically do not support the leftist fascism which calls itself "liberal".

d) I do not see the world in black and white. I made one reference to one site which I found amusing in its mockery of the left. That hardly means I view those as the only two camps.

e) "Shitholes" - I had no idea how appropriate that term was at the time. After the "vomit-in" (posted by Michele below), some apparently took it a couple of steps further with other bodily functions. There's a reason many of us refer to Frisco as a cesspool.

f) I grew up in California, and like many other commenters, I detest being represented to the rest of the country by Frisco. I live in the East Bay, not a highly conservative area (overall best described as a "suburban liberal" area), but we all support the troops and even the hardcore Bush-haters generally support the liberation of Iraq (if not the war itself).

California is the only place in the world where people go to Disneyland to get back in touch with reality.

Hey Ken, we might have been neighbors (I used to live down the block from hoopty mike). You live in the East Bay and you call SF Frisco? That's a rarety. (you might remember the story of those criminals who were caught by posing as locals but then telling people they were from Frisco, which raised suspicions).
a.) see e,f below.
b.) Guilt by association. That's a tricky road. I can think of a few "conservatives" that my conservative friends would be horrified to be grouped in with. Your refusal to distinguish between the "We support the troops when they shoot their officers" sign carrier and the person next to him is crippling. protestwarrior.com infiltrates the protests, and might be just one of those people marching next to a radical. More to the point: I have many friends who are the kinds of red-diaper-doper-baby-left-wing-radicals (rddblwr) that are oft complained about by the compassionate conservative right, and all of them are participants and organizers of protests, and all of them would be similarly repulsed by such a sign - yet by your own admission your broad stroke paints them all the same color. In addition to that, you are dead wrong about the majority of protestors being anti-American and led by communists. None of my rddblwr friends are (the p-value of that would be unfathomable, if it were true).

c.) By example: "Religious ideals. The Catholics are not truly religious." Hardly a defensible statement (except perhaps to an extremist). I think you're generalizing beyond usefulness. Generalization as a tool for understanding ceases to be useful when it distorts one's vision.

d.) I'm very glad to hear that. Feel free to ignore my redundant rebuttals above.

e,f) SF is not a cess pool. It's a wonderful city with a lot of amazing people, a few assholes, and a few lunatics. I grew up in the bay area and it's an incredible place with both open and closed minds. Because of that, I love being represented by "Frisco". In fact I just moved from the people's republic of Berkeley to a much more conservative place. If people want to stereotype me, it's to their detriment and confusion. They usually learn it doesn't fit so well.

Reality is not left or right, yet people seem to waste inordinate amounts of time arguing and insulting each other over which cookie cutter to use rather than forging ahead with the issue. Anyway, I don't think we disagree really. I'm just pulling your chain 'cause you threw it out there.

Chris, go ahead and yank my chain, i'll yank back ;-)

b) Guilt by association: Like most "conservatives" or "libertarians" (and I don't fit into either category) I am horrified by certain "conservatives" - therefore I will not march next to them. My comment stands that those who voluntarily marchunder the leadership of communists (or fill in any particular association you want) but refuse to distance themselves have forfeited any right to complain if others take them for communists.

c) It still comes down to a definition of terms. The word is being used to mean two very different things, and there is nothing wrong with agreeing with one and disagreeing with the other.

e,f) Sorry, this one we won't agree on. I'm in the East Bay and very deliberately call it "Frisco" to distance myself. I have spent enough time there to know that I have spent more than enough time there. I know a lot of people like it but....ugh!

As for the last comment (cookie cutters), I don't disagree. But when certain people have gone so far around the bend that they can no longer be taken seriously, I will not refrain from mocking them.

Cheers, Mon.