I may be snarky, but I am not a physical stereotyper. Narrow minded, critical, quick to shove people into boxes based on their attitudes and beliefs, yes. But not critical of people’s appearance. Trust me, I fit in to more than a few stereotypical boxes. I really think the way Republicans think is: fat = poor and black, so the fatter and poorer black people can get, the sooner they can die and leave all the $$ for the thinly rich. But then these tea party events started to be covered by the media and the photos exposed the vast majority of the tea partiers non-ironically decrying health care from the coziness of their scooters, were, well, chubby. Sure there were also pinched, methy, racist trash with compromised dentition, and yes, parody inflates negative characteristics. But, for the most part, we saw the new face of the Republican Party to be standard white, slightly overweight to morbidly obese, 60+ disabled, blue jean wearing, poorly informed, reactionary, patriotic, gun-loving, flag-waving, myopic racists sitting down because they can’t stand up for themselves for too long. You know, this:
Suddenly it’s cool to be fat – if you’re white – and Jeebus help anyone who tries to tell you what to put in your own sacred mouth. If you are poor, black or brown and fat, it is a different story entirely. This is evidenced by the peculiar conservative backlash to the First Lady’s benign “Let’s Move!” campaign. God forbid we have another confected “crisis”, as with gambling, smoking and drinking and taking drugs, where the middle class declares war on the underclass! A gaggle of fat cat conservatoids have attacked Michelle’s efforts as – there they go again – another Obama Family assault on the personal freedoms and liberties to kill ourselves with Double-Downs, Hot Pockets and Mayonnaise (all the tea bagger food groups). “Let’s Move!” mostly calls for labeling stuff and reforming school lunch programs, OR, according to baggers, “Nanny State Big Government Overreach”, government “run amok” (Sarah Palin), or an “Obama government obesity task force” (Sean Hannity). Hannity rhetorically editorialized:
“Does every American family need a dietitian appointed by the government to tell them that this food is going to make you fat, and this food is not?”
Well no, Sean, not every American; just the estimated 32.7% of American adults who are overweight, the 34.3% who are obese, and 5.9% who are grossly obese. So, you know, just the 72.9% of us. Pig-faced Glenn Beck laid into the First Lady for encouraging restaurants to “offer healthier versions of the foods that we all love”, dishing up a super-sized dollop of gut-busting humor, saying that fat folks should, well, just die:
…..get your damn hands off my fries, lady! If I want to be a fat fat fatty and shovel French Fries all day long, that is my choice. But oh oh, not so fast anymore. Because now we have the new fact, whether you like it or not, we have government health care now. … You know those fat people sitting on their couches? And I mean really fat. I don’t mean not like me. I mean the people who’s skin grows into the couch. … I say let them die. I say punish the person who’s been bringing them the milk shakes that allowed them to eat and not get up off the couch. Am I too harsh?
Right, Glenn. Because there’s no difference between advice and a mandate. Americans don’t need to know that Chili’s rib-eye steak has 116 grams of fat, twice the recommended daily limit. Or Burger King’s healthful-sounding Tendercrisp Garden Salad with Ken’s Creamy Caesar dressing is packed with forty-three grams of fat. Just eat it, shut up, and die.
House Repubs continually vote against supplemental funding for school breakfast subsidies for poor children, in that it might be fostering the scourge of childhood obesity. It’s irrefutable logic… if you don’t feed poor kids, they won’t get fat! While children are assaulted with ads for horrible, fatty, sugar-laden, sodium-encrusted food, the Republican are ordering the Department of Agriculture to back away from crafting even voluntary guidelines for companies that pitch food to kids. These Godless, sexless, phantoms of misery and pestilence have their heads so far up the asses of Big-Ag and corporate food processing donors, that they’re depriving Americans of the information to make choices. Then they kick them in their fat asses again by denying them access to health care and the drugs to counteract high cholesterol, clogged arteries, and prevent their future heart attacks.
“GOP Rising Star”, hefty Chris Christie (you know, the one who had Operation Dumbo Drop him onto his kids little league field then had a limo take him the 100 yards to the diamond), told Don Imus:
“I am setting an example, Don. We have to spur our economy. Dunkin Donuts, International House of Pancakes, those people need to work too.”
Take it easy at the Dunkin’ Donuts, Tubby the Tuba! That 32-ounce Dunkin’ Donuts Coffee Coolata in your hand packs 46 grams of fat, twice as much as that glazed doughnut in your other hand. Guys like Christie find their Rooty-Tooty-Fresh and Fruity’s much more relatable than the peculiar type of government “policing” that subsidizes our nation’s corn, soy bean, and wheat crops, creating an over-abundance of derivative products – like high fructose corn syrup (sugar) or soy – that find their way into practically all refined foods stocked in the double-wide, freedom-aisles of our local grocery stores.
The GOUT, a 1799 caricature by James Gillray
Centuries ago, when obesity was a sign of wealth and power, the nobility would gorge themselves on venison as society’s lower class starved. “The Gout” was known as the disease of kings, not least for striking down the bloated, leg-of-mutton chewing Henry VIII. The target of cartoons in Georgian and Victorian times – as satirists lampooned the idle rich and their weakness for alcohol, sweets, and rich foods – The Gout is back (I see the ads for the meds on the teevee). But this time, the afflicted are not Kings. THOSE people have resources to draw from. It’s regular folk, the people who don’t have access to farmers markets and Whole Foods, to role models, to decent health-care, to accurate information and effective treatments, to even the time to worry about it. The world accepts the notion that fat folks are at fault for their own unhealthy lifestyle, lacking in self-denial and impulse control. That mothers living in poverty buy rice in bulk, Bisquick mix and powdered milk because they can’t get enough yummy carbs, not that they’re cheaper and last longer. That a losing struggle with weight reflects a failure of willpower seems far more desirable to me than that I’m a helpless victim of Fosters Freeze and. But as an upper-middle-class, urban dwelling professional, I have those resources to draw from in my battle of the bulge.
So, what’s wrong with Michelle’s campaign? How is it even new? In 1948, doctors pioneering a study of cardiovascular disease, persuaded the American Heart Association to mount a successful and long-running campaign that has Americans smoking far less, with lower blood pressure and cholesterol. Now, 3/4 of our fat population is getting fatter and they — and their children— are getting type 2 diabetes and, according to Uncle Beck’s wish, are dying in record numbers.
A coupla personal-freedom-hating, liberty-killing, cartoon bears.
I am sure there are fat, Republican Americans who are well educated, decent people. But the proof is in the pudding parfait when you look at scientific surveys of some people on the Internet that says that left-leaning humanists eat the fanciest of fancy feasts, while conservatives literally eat filthy garbage, mostly from the microwave freezer aisle or from fast-food ratburger chains. According to a scientific list created by somebody on the Internet, the states with the highest rates of adult obesity are: Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan and Arkansas. This isn’t funny. It isn’t funny that folks living in the poorest states with the worst quality of education are overweight and sick, even if they are too misinformed to vote for their best interests.
As for the medicare-baggers, I say, let them have the liberty to cram fetid, rotten, E.Coli infested crap into their freedom faces, and for God’s sake, let them opt out of the Health Care Reform Bill already! Let’s restore the liberty of the insurance companies to reinstate their caps, deny their tea-kids’ coverage because of their pre-tea-existing conditions. Let the racist, belly-aching seniors forgo their donut-hole rebate and their co-pay free check-ups. My only beef with “Obamacare” is that we hard working, patriotic Americans will have to foot the bill for keeping these selfish hypocrites alive.
awesome patriot on wheels illustration by Katie Lisk