There’s been some ink spilled lately
denigrating so called ‘angry liberals,’ that is, people who have
allegedly lost their right to be taken seriously because they are
‘angry.’ And they are ‘liberal.’
Well, I hereby declare myself a charter member in the ALC (Angry Liberal Club).
Sure,
at first I felt guilty -- what right do I have as a patriotic American
to be angry? Or liberal? Oh, I tried to repress the ‘angry thing,’ I
tried -- if I was asked, I claimed I was a ‘peeved moderate.’ Or a
‘mildly upset centrist.’ But after much work through ‘BIT’ (Blog
Immersion Therapy), I stopped feeling the shame. I’m coming out of the
closet to announce I am an Angry Liberal Guy. And I am pissed.
You might be saying “Man, what are you so angry about, Angry Liberal Guy?”
I’ve compiled a short (and by no means complete) list just so I could see it all in one place:
I’m
angry about the shredding of the constitution…illegal
wiretaps…falsified intelligence…secret prisons… use of torture as an
accepted means of interrogation…Terry Schiavo…the war on science…denial
of Global Warming…the fascistic secrecy of our elected officials…
presidential signings that declare the President above the law…the
breakdown of the wall between church and state…the outing of a
clandestine CIA agent for purely partisan political gain…the corrupting
influence of K Street… the total sell-out of the legislative process to
corporate interests… appointments of unqualified cronies at every level
of government…Harriet Miers…Brownie…Abu Ghraib… Scooter …the complete
mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the lies about the complete
mismanagement of the war in Iraq…the grotesque budget deficits… the
pathetic response to Katrina… a civil rights division dedicated to
undermining civil rights…an environmental protection agency that
refuses to protect the environment… (Take a breath, Angry Liberal Guy.)
And I’m angry about a smug, simple-minded, incompetent,
unqualified President, and a press that denies the obvious fact that we
have a smug, simple-minded, incompetent unqualified President.
If these things don’t make you angry, I have to ask -- what the hell is the matter with you?
And what would it take to make you angry? -- C.B. Shapiro
