Our 'Too Angry' Image: No Problem, An
Opportunity!
By Marc Grobman
OpEdNews.Com
Ever since Howard Dean entered the presidential
races, and continuing to this day, the mainstream media continue to
label Democrats, liberals, lefties and progressives as "too angry."
That's disturbing. The media didn't claim the
Bush Administration had an anger hang-up as it locked up people
without trials. It didn't accuse it of being angry when it attacked
Iraqis with cluster bombs and artillery shells made with radioactive
depleted uranium. So when the media outs us as hotheads, we must have
a desperate need to chill out.
How can we do that? Hold anger management lectures
and teach-ins? Trade our martinis and marijuana for Paxil and Prozac?
Phooey to those ideas. Anger is a reasonable and
honest response to the hate crimes we see being inflicted on the
planet and its occupants. So instead of hiding our anger, let's rile
the right-wingers so much that they sweat and scream. Then we'll
appear calm by comparison.
How can we goad the right into a boiling rage? Easy.
We'll just turn the caricatures they've made of us into blueprints
for holidays that celebrate their nightmares:
Gay Marriage Day, November 18:
We press legislatures to make Gay Marriage Day a state holiday,
observed on the anniversary of the Massachusetts Supreme Court's
decision that gays have the right to marry. The authorizing
legislation will mandate it be a paid holiday for all state and local
government employees, and require companies with twelve or more
employees to grant it as a paid holiday to their workers as a
condition of eligibility to bid on state and local government
contracts. It will waive marriage license fees for gays in lieu of
paying them reparations for past years when they were denied the right
to marry.
Atheists' Day, June 25:
Christmas is a federally-sanctioned holiday, in violation of the
Constitution's First Amendment, which in part prohibits the
government from supporting religion. But most of us would feel
conflicted about challenging the legality of Christmas as a national
holiday. Who wants to be the Christmas-canceling grinch? Who wants to
give up their own Christmas holiday? Let's instead demand a level
playing and prayer field, and establish Atheist's Day, a federal
holiday celebrating secularism. The ceremonies will be held on June
25, the anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision banning prayer
in public schools.
Marijuana Appreciation Day, or MAD, ongoing, plus
March 20:
The group MAD Now will hold rallies supporting subsidies to pay
farmers to grow marijuana. The federal government will then ship the
harvest to our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to raise their morale,
with extra rations for our dispirited National Guard troops. Most of
them probably enlisted in the National Guard under the impression they
would be guarding the nation. This nation, that is. MAD Now will also
demonstrate in front of the White House on March 20, the anniversary
of the invasion of Iraq. Referring to the Bush-Cheney-Powell recurring
hallucination that Iraq definitely possessed weapons of mass
destruction, the groups will chant, "What were you smoking?"
Big Government Day, May 1:
We'll support establishing a government-run national health care
system administered by a huge bureaucracy modeled after the U. S.
Postal Service. The right would hate this. After all, the Postal
Service charges only thirty-seven cents to pick up a letter from the
front door of a home in Bakersfield and deliver it to the front door
of a home in Baltimore, while paying its CEO less than fifty million
dollars a year. Any business that operated that way would be cheating
its stockholders and management in favor of serving customers at the
lowest possible price. Since that's socialistic, we'll rally to
support government-administered health care on May Day, also known as
the International Socialist's Holiday.
Fem-Libbers' Day, March 8:
It's been a long time since we've had a good old-fashioned
bra-burning. Too long! We must reclaim our cultural heritage before it
vanishes! To celebrate emancipated, assertive, independent women, we'll
burn bras on International Women's Day. At a special bra-burning
extravaganza, we'll present the annual Fem-Libber Award to New York
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yes, there are others who've
contributed more toward feminist goals. But the purpose of these
holidays is to enrage the right-wingers, remember? And what names
infuriate them more than "New York" and "Hillary"?
© Marc Grobman 2004
Marc Grobman is a freelance writer in Fanwood, N.
J., who edits newsletters, writes for business and consumer publications,
and has written business speeches. His satirical essay on gay marriage's
threat to the sanctity of marriage appeared in the January 4, 2004 New
York Times New Jersey Weekend Section, titled, "And an Amendment to
Protect My Marriage." This article is copyrighted by Marc Grobman.
Permission is granted to forward this or to place it on a Web site as long
as the article is included intact, including this statement. Published in
OpEdNews.com. Email: marcgro@comcast.net
. Web site: http://the-efa.org/EfaDirectory/Resumes/upload/Grobman-ResumefunctionaHTML.html
