I agree with Congressman Rohrabacher: When my friend Art Pedroza discusses politicians and activists who specialize in picking on other races – specifically Latino immigrants – it’s unhelpful to just automatically call them “haters.” Because the overuse of a word like that causes it to lose its meaning somewhat. I believe, and I think this is also what Rohrabacher means, that a writer should take a little more time, and meditate a moment or two on the particular hater in question, until the correct word or phrase occurs to him to describe that particular hater with precision. Or to paraphrase Gary Larson, “Gentlemen, we know they’re haters, but what sort of haters are they?”
Some examples from my own body of work:
Barbara Coe
“bitter old Babs”
“trembling fireplug of malice”
“self-contained manufacturer of her own mad facts”
Lupe Moreno
“pulsing heap of misery”
“even mas fea in the flesh”
“hollering…how Jesus had saved her from her immigrant-shtupping ways”
This crowd in general
“an ever-shrinking demographic of cranky misanthropes and losers”
“ultimately unhelpful and piteous”
“clowns”
“forty pallid geezers”
“chumps”
Joe Arpaio
“drunken despot of Maricopa County”
“lawless, brutal and buffoonish”
“The Demagogue at Dusk”
“no longer dangerous in his own right, but an unhealthy symbol and rallying point, much like Osama Bin Laden”
Allan Mansoor
“attempts to distract us with pointless and divisive anti-immigrant gestures”
“inveterate, dyed-in-the-wool, race demagogue and bully”
“traumatized, defined, and driven by the La Cucaracha truck”
“childishly shirks responsibility for his actions”
“shining white knight of the nativists and xenophobes”
“mopey cipher … reclusive childless divorcee … lifelong public employee / jailer / politician …
whose idea of being American seems to be striving toward a bland vanilla”
“pandering, preening…”
“this big baby, this big Latino-hating, labor-bashing baby”
“inarticulate unemployed former cop”
“young racial opportunist”
Van Tran
“The Oil Spill known as Van Tran”
“Herod-like douchebag”
“Dodo Bird Van Tran”
“You goofy drooling dope”
Dana Rohrabacher
“Find the barrel marked ‘US Congress,’ scrape the bottom, and up will pop the low-comedy figure of Dana Rohrabacher.”
“doing nothing … but in the manner of a crazed rabid Tyrannosaurus Rex.”
“painfully aware of his own impotence and dotage”
“flush in the bloom of his second or third childhood”
“Setting aside…his sadism and his unabashed love of pollution… he is basically a political prankster.”
“a man of low and vulgar tastes whose idea of a fun weekend is putting panties on a Muslim’s head and applying electrodes to his genitals”
“disdained by his colleagues for his utter lack of seriousness and chronic Tourette’s”
“blazing in the height of his foolish glory”
“overgrown little boy Congressman…playing at rogue foreign policy with results ranging from unnoticeable to disastrous and tragic”
“the Torture Apologist in the Twilight of his Career”
That, I submit, is how it’s done.
Aren’t we forgetting “assclown?”
P.S. Funny how good old-fashioned political invective is also mistaken for “hating.”
At least Dana finally distanced himself from that slime ball Mansoor!!!
Did he?? What did I miss?
And what do they not have in common? Apart from maybe Mansoor’s notable lack of interest in asteroids and lack of Taliban connections?
This is how most people think and feel about the people on your list:
Allan Mansoor
Mega Balls, no crap taker, bored with hispanic needs, can’t stand the amount we are spending on Mexico’s rejects!
Barbara Coe
Watched her neigborhoods go down the drain, not intimidated easily by the likes of you, activist for the citizens of this country.
Joe
He is the MAN!
Van
We will see!
Dana
Not sure about this one!
typical leftist name calling. Like watching MSNBC. absolute haters of anyone who has a different opinion, yet they are the tolerant ones !!
Vern, is that your hate? I mean hat?
Who ME!? I don’t hate, I tease because I love! 🙂
You guys, are we really being fair to Dana? I mean, sure its fun to knock Dana for all the things he’s done in the past but this is a new Dana. The champion of NORML. A Dana risen from the ashes of the Repubican Party to become a post partisan Libertarian. An advocate of reclassification, subject to the wishes and interests of the law enforcement community, Rohrabacher is one of the few national politicians to come out in favor of decriminalizing.
NO. We are not being unfair. Of course he’s mellow on pot, because he’s a stoner. That’s how it always is with Republicans, they only stray from the party line for selfish reasons.
He’s been bashing immigrants as much as ever, now that he sees it’s back in style. And his politics and economic ideas are as cruel as ever. He still denies global warming, and I’ve never noticed him stop thinking torture was funny and justified. He’s backing off the war now, but that’s safe to do now that it’s a Democrat war.
I am offended. You left me out of your eclectic list of haters and purveyors of infamy. What am I doing wrong?
But, on a more serious note, I submit that you have grossly misrepresented Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Mayor Alan Mansoor, and Van Tran. The reason they are popular with the public is because they truly believe in a nation governed by its people under the universal application of the law. There is no record of any of these gentlemen engaging in bigotry, racial hatred, or selective enforcement of our laws.
However, I agree that journalists like Art Pedroza and Frank Mickadeit, and some members of the California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR), are incurable hate-mongering activists with serious personality disorders that prevent them from engaging in any kind of harmonious conduct necessary to respectfully solve the chaos of “illegal” immigration. Actually, they lack the stoicism and integrity required to solve any problem in a respectable manner.
Jim Gilchrist, Founder and President, The Minuteman Project
Mickadeit, Jim? MICKADEIT?
(I guess he must have criticized Jim at some point.)
Jim Gilchrist, you sir are a pussy!!!