The Thinking Party ... As in "What Are they Thinking?"

One could argue that with a few blips, conservatives have largely controlled the political discourse in America for the past 30 years (if we accurately define Clinton as one of our finest Republican presidents, as I think we should). Sure, common sense, the facts and sound logic occasionally intervene, but in a country where we are all taught to be reactionaries, fear mongering, anti-intellectualism, blind allegiance to the flag, God and the market (in the opposite order) and bold faced lying go a long way. So once your constituents have been taught to react with abject horror and due hysteria to any hint of liberal ideology (or liberal bias as they like to call it), is it any wonder that kids films will find their ways into the fray. The latest victim of conservative apoplectic fury is Happy Feet Two, which has the gall to hint at the possibility that global warming could actually be happening (what happened to the arguments over the cause? Now we apparently can't just check average annual temperatures any more?), that two older male penguins are still bachelors (and thus obviously gay, duh!) and that vegetarianism could be a good choice (well, actually it's pescetarianism since they do, umm, eat fish). New York Post reviewer Kyle Smith goes as far as calling the film "Kiddie Karl Marx" (TPM). And this is where the stupidity has gone a little too far for me. I mean Obama clearly is a socialist, even though he never actually passed any bill that has anything to do with socialism (the popular ownership of the means of production), talking about racism in America is clearly "race baiting" even if it exists (unless you are talking about how lazy Mexicans are or how irresponsible every poor parent in America is) and any discussion of the rising income and wealth gaps is without question "class warfare" (though maybe we could use some). But I have to ask when Karl Marx ever wrote about global warming, homosexuality or vegetarianism. Just in case you didn't discern the irony in that question, he didn't! It is just this sort of stupidity that ensures that Adam Sandler still gets to make films; and maybe more surprising, that they actually make money. And speaking of ignorance as less than bliss, I wonder if Idiocracy (2006) may become the most prophetic American film ever made ...