You're a Dim Bulb Herbie

The God-Fearing Real Americans of Nebraska surely hate terrorism more than the urban elites who are the most likely victims of terrorism, and will certainly not tolerate the anti-American argument that there are degrees of terrorism, regardless of the fact that this is true. Bill Ayers and the Rainy Day Bombers have never been proven to have killed anyone, which makes them more like ambitious vandals than terrorists in the way we understand them. Terrorism as a means of committing MASS murder is actually something quite new. One or two corpses and a dozen film cameras has been the more traditional historical goal.

But of course Real Americans couldn't care less about the varying shades of terrorism, and indeed don't seem all that concerned about the victims of terrorism. They're pretty up front about their contempt for New York and Washington D.C. after all, and the Real Americans' reaction to Hurricane Katrina reveals a mindset that is quite proudly indifferent to the suffering of non-real Americans. It may seem obvious that the trouble with terrorism is its tendency to kill and maim people, but when Queen Tracy Flick Palin of Real America referred to terrorists in the vice-presidential debate, she made a point to emphasize their hatred of America in that folksy fakecent of hers. (i.e. Obama would sit with terroists, who HATE AMERICA.) The real Americans' hatred of terrorism has little to do with the pain and suffering caused by terrorism, and the country that the Real American loves more than you is most certainly not a love for his compatriots, who have such a frustrating tendency to turn out as non-real Americans. No, the America that they love more than us is an ancestral father-god, a totem, and their hatred of terrorism lies in its symbolic show of contempt for that totem.

There is also the fact that the Real American is not terribly bright. He is in fact a bit too stupid to understand human existence very well, and so he needs a eternal river of enemies to keep his badger brain occupied. If life is nothing but defending the women and children from this endless stream of enemies, then it suddenly becomes okay to not know all of the things you don't know.

And so the Real American will hate whoever some talking pile of diarrhea on Real American radio tells them to hate, and Bill Ayers is the hot Other of the moment. Barrack Obama, you see, lives in the same neighborhood as Ayers. Indeed they have been in the same room and yes even spoken to each other. Their relationship goes so deep that they have served on the same educational board. Senator Obama, elitist that he is, dares to be more concerned about helping children than he is about keeping himself pure from totem-hating taint.

The right-wing's attempt to paint this relationship as anything more than a business acquaintance has been comedy gold. Michelle Malkin has produced a blurb from one of Ayers' books in which he states that Obama lives down the block; the same shocking expose that one can find in the Chicago phone book. Phyllis Schlafly has suggested that a President Obama would appoint Ayers as his education secretary; a position from which he would surely implement the long-dreaded mandatory unisex restrooms. The Real American quite naturally believes every bit of it. He is, after all, finally receiving the richly deserved kick in the ass from a society that is becoming ever more urbanized, educated, and accustomed to interacting with people from different backgrounds; and since Real Americans are spoiled children who will never blame themselves for their own failures, they have little choice but to faithfully believe in dark conspiracies at the highest level of the Liberal Elite.

And so the public reaction to Ayers invite to speak at dear old Nebraska U. was utterly predictable. You might think that an invitation to speak is something less than proof of agreement with whatever may be said, but you can just keep your damned elitist logic away from the Real American. He is the one who decides what truth is and he will dictate his truth to you. It is inarguable (or else) that universities are polluting pure young minds with liberal bias. It is inarguable (or else) that liberal reformers are all secretly violent revolutionaries in disguise. So here you have a former terrorist, (though of course there is certainly no such thing as a FORMER terrorist. Once you have defiled the totem you are forever cursed.) speaking at the liberal university, and that's all there is to that. There is no context, there is no detail, there is most certainly never any allegedly or maybe, or else. It was only a matter of time before this university, like every university, would prove itself to be insufficiently anti-terrorist. They have left the Real American no choice but to show his hatred of terrorism by threatening to murder a man with politically intolerable ideas.

There was never any doubt that Dave Heineman, Jon Bruning, and every other shat out pile from the state GOP machine that dreams of playing Senator someday as long as they stick to party talking points would condemn the invite*. There was never any doubt that once the heat was on the university would fold like, well, like the University of Nebraska. For their acquiescence Perlman and the gang will surely be rewarded by the Unicameral with a twenty percent cut in their budget to make room for tax cuts and nifty meth-fighting gear for the state patrol.

(* Though I should be careful to exempt Ben Nelson, who is a GOP shit pile already in the Senate.)

While the rest of the United States is showing a sudden and welcome loathness to allow the Real American to shrivel this country into the third world, it's heartwarming to know that the Real American will always have Nebraska, but wait. It goes without saying that any young professional with the slightest ember of intelligence or morality is getting the hell out, but we're being replaced by those damned Mexicans aren't we? A blessing in disguise I say. Not only will the real American be rid of all the people who are smarter than him and make him feel so very, very, small and weak, but now he can gorge himself on an endless supply of funny-speaking boogeymen.

And as he cowers in the corner of the village bar in his sleeveless Trace Adkins shirt futilely trying to wash down a lifetime of hatred, ignorance, and cowardice with a pitcher of warm Bud Light, the Real American can look back upon the time when he chased some damned hippy out of Nebraska, and feel something like the happiness that has always eluded him. Congratulations real America. You have, at the latest possible hour, in the last possible place, won the day. One small victory to keep you warm in the unmarked grave of history's discarded lies.