Thursday, May 15, 2014

Ann Coulter's Attempt to Mock First Lady Obama and Hashtag Activism Backfires

"Give me all of your babies, for they 
fuel my unbridled hatred."

Ann Coulter is a right-wing political commentator and activist that can best be described as the female version of one Rush Limbaugh. Just about every word that hisses its way past her forked tongue and sharp fangs are loaded with hate and tipped with spite (and yes, if words had flavors, hers would taste distinctly of bullshit).

She is one of the champions of ignorance over at Fox News, and she is evil personified. To give you a brief glimpse of what I mean, here's a little quote from Coulter from an interview she did with the New York Observer back in 2007:

"If we took away women's right to vote, we'd never have to worry about another Democrat president. It's kind of a pipe dream, it's a personal fantasy of mine, but I don't think it's going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.

"It also makes the point, it is kind of embarrassing, the Democratic Party ought to be hanging its head in shame, that is has so much difficulty getting men to vote for it. I mean, you do see it's the party of women and 'We'll pay for health care and tuition and day care - and here, what else can we give you, soccer moms?'"

Believe it or not, that's one of the most boring quotes I could find from her.  Here's another that I found just floating around on the web:

"Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. 'Abortion' becomes 'choice,' 'communist' becomes 'progressive,' 'communist dictatorship' becomes 'people’s democratic republic' and 'Nikita Khrushchev' becomes 'Barack Obama.'"

Now there's a fun game! Compare Khrushchev to President Obama and see how many actual similarities you come up with. My guess? Zero. 

One more:

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan’s premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society."

Ignoring the racism that you and your conservative ilk perpetuate does not for a color-blind society make, Ms. Coulter. And comparing liberalism to the ideology of the KKK can only truly be done if you completely disregard the meanings of words, definitions, and the little voice in your head that's off in a dark corner mumbling to itself, "Hey, uhm, maybe you shouldn't say something that stupid or whatever," before it winks out of existence entirely.

Enough of that, though. Coulter is clearly a malevolent harpy-witch, so why write about her now? Good question, me. And might I add, what a wonderful segue into the topic at hand.

Thanks, me.

You have all probably heard the tragic news out of Nigeria by now - that more than three hundred school girls (some sources are saying two hundred) were kidnapped by a terrorist organization known as Boko Haram. You can read a brief run-down of the story here.

In order to draw international attention to the issue, a Nigerian lawyer spawned the hashtag "#Bringbackourgirls" on April 23rd. By the 13th of May, it had been retweeted 3.3 million times, and now the world's eyes are set on Nigeria and Boko Haram.  Ordinary citizens, celebrities and even First Lady Obama tweeted pictures of themselves holding up signs that said, #Bringbackourgirls to draw more attention to the issue. The First Lady alone accrued over 55,000 retweets.



Of course, conservatives were quick to mock the whole endeavor (and miss the point), being of the mindset that simply retweeting a picture of yourself showing icky emotions like sadness was pointless, lazy, and idiotic.

Ann Coulter took it one step further, and boy did the internet punish her for it.

 #Bringbackmymeds
(photo courtesy of TPM)

Thinking herself pretty fuckin' clever, Coulter tweeted the above picture of herself with the caption, "My hashtag contribution to world affairs..." on the 11th of May.  Coulter's "contribution" to world affairs had pretty much the exact same effect as a patient with syphilis making a "contribution" to a blood drive. I'm not quite sure what she thought was going to happen, but I imagine it wasn't what came next.

The internet dug out its old copy of photoshop from the mildewed box up in the attic, carefully and lovingly dusted it off, and then proceeded to mock Coulter with the same stone-faced bitchiness that she has so perfected.


Literally. And it gets better:






It's easy to think that simply retweeting a phrase is the lazy way out of doing some good in this world, but it's hard to argue with the results. As of the time of this posting, the world is mobilizing in an effort to rescue the kidnapped girls in Nigeria - an issue that nobody knew about before April 23rd (the girls were kidnapped on the 14th).

Community service comes in all different forms. You can volunteer if you have the time, send care packages if you have the money, or even be on the front lines of the rescue if you've got the drive. But sometimes you can only pass the word along to those with the power to make change happen. That's not to be ridiculed - it's to be admired. Technology and social media should not be underestimated in these kind of global events, either. We're talking about news that, two hundred years ago, would have taken months to reach us (if at all). 

So, in the end, Coulter got a bit of what she deserved and (surprise!) conservatives were made to look like stupid assholes... again. Hopefully one of these days she'll fuck up so massively, the powers that be will yank her off television for good. I'd say she's a Donald Sterling waiting to happen if that weren't already true.

If you want to see more pictures of Coulter's "hashtag hijacking backfire", Gawker has quite a few of them here (be warned, though - they get pretty graphic).

How long, exactly, have you been without it?
Would you even recognize it at this point?






On a more serious note, my heart goes out to the young girls currently in the hands of Boko Haram, and to the loving families of those girls. It is my sincere wish that you are all returned home safely and soon. Stay strong, stay brave, and know that the world has you in their hearts and minds.

And Boko Haram? You guys are the crotch stains of planet Earth. Amoeba look down on you. Kidnapping innocent girls as they try to educate themselves for a better future? Are you serious? To quote the famous Jon Stewart:

"All right.  You guys are trying so hard to convince everybody that you're such bad-asses, but all you've done with this kidnapping is highlight who the real bad-asses are — the kids you kidnapped. Compared to a teenager who knows that her desire for an education could get her dragged into a snake-infested jungle to be sold as a bride to some demented stick-chewing cartoon villain, but still gets up and goes to class every day fully aware of that danger — compared to their courage, I'd say Boko Haram is a bunch of little girls.  But you know what?  You don't deserve that compliment."

No. No they certainly do not.




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