Bill Maher slapped down the GOP last night, for calling the Occupy Wall Street protesters “hippies”. Maher made his comments at the end of the “New Rules” section of his Real Time show:
And finally, New Rule: Republicans have to stop calling the Wall Street protesters “hippies”. Yes, they’re peeing outdoors, and having sex in sleeping bags, or as Bristol Palin calls it, “dating”. But they’re not hippies!
The hippies are all gone. Woodstock was 42 years ago. Forget the brown acid, the people who were at Woodstock are now taking the blue Viagra. “Turn on, tune in, drop out”, refers to their hearing aids. Wavy Gravy is 75 years old. He’s making wavy gravy in his pants.
Maher continued by saying how he had visited the OWS in Washington DC, last Saturday and had found:
Everyone was extraordinarily well-behaved, and contrary to reports, I was not offered a single marijuana cigarette. And I’m a little insulted. All right, someone did give me a magic mushroom, and it did blow my mind, and I thank you, Senator McConnell. And sorry about your eyebrows, I’m sure they’ll grow back.
Anyway, the next morning, when I woke up bloody and naked in the woods, I had a relevation… I mean, a revelation. Of course conservatives want to make this about hippies, because they like to live in the past! Rush Limbaugh, who really is too square to be a drug addict, said, “When the free drugs run out, when the free sex runs out, they’ll get bored and move on to something else.”
Oh that’s right, Grandpa. Look at them, strumming their sitars and wearing dungarees. Whatever happened to the good old days of segregation and date rape? But I get it. You’re bitter because we fought a culture war in the ‘60s and the Right lost. Rick Santorum is like that Japanese soldier on the island who doesn’t know the war is over, so he’s still fighting against birth control and butt sex.
Plus, Republicans are now mostly a Southern party, and if there’s one thing Southerners don’t do well, it’s lose a war and get over it. The ideals of the youth movement became assimilated into American society. That’s why we have gays in the military now, and pre-natal yoga classes, and tofurkey. And that’s why Rick Santorum will never be President, and a black guy who snorted cocaine is.
Maher went on to explain how the people who are occupying locations across the US are not the counter-culture:
These people down there, they’re not the counter-culture. They’re the culture. They don’t want free love. They want paid employment. They don’t hate capitalism. They hate what’s been done to it.
And they resent the Republican mantra that the market perfectly rewards the hard-working and punishes the lazy, and the poor are just jealous moochers who want a handout. Yeah, because if there’s one group of people who hate handouts, it’s Wall Street.
Maher’s comments are apt as a breakdown of people taking part in OWS shows that while two-thirds identified themselves as under the age of 35, 13% are aged between 35-45, and 20% are over the age of 45.
50% of protesters were in full employment, 20% were part-time workers, and the remaining 30%, just under half 13.1% said they were unemployed.
This is hardly the hippies the GOP is helping the media to portray.
Transcript of Bill Maher’s commentary here.
Via Alter Net