A needed antidote to GOP dystopian hellscape propaganda
by digby
While we were all downing shots and glibly exchanging bon mots on twitter last night, Chris Hayes was interviewing Ahmed Mohammed, the 14 year old budding inventor from Texas who was held by police for making a clock earlier this week.
The exchange literally brought tears to my eyes. In a good way. And lord knows, I needed it. I think we all do:
This did too:
Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It’s what makes America great.
— President Obama (@POTUS) September 16, 2015
Twitter and Facebook have invited him to their headquarters with Twitter asking if he’d like to intern with them. And as you can see, MIT and Harvard have invited him to come see them.
This is a much needed corrective to the dystopian hellscape all those Republicans were trying to get Americans to believe their country has become — because of the foreign invaders from all over the world who are raping and killing us in our beds.
There is another America, the one that can instantly see that this is an All-American kid who has the moxie, intelligence and imagination to lead this country into a better future.
It’s interesting that his story went viral at the same time as another meme was coursing through social media:
An Arab-looking man of Syrian descent in a garage w/his accomplice building what appears to be a bomb. Arrest them. pic.twitter.com/2i4f5PT0EB
— Omar Ghabra (@omarghabra) September 16, 2015
A Syrian migrants’ child. pic.twitter.com/sjBxuInpEp
— David Galbraith (@daveg) September 2, 2015
And, by the way, Hullabaloo’s movie guy, Dennis Hartley who happened to review the new Steve Jobs movie last week-end noted the meme and wrote this at the end:
There is a corollary linking the Jobs legacy to the current Syrian refugee crisis in the form of an internet meme that has been gaining momentum over the past week. As you may (or may not) be aware, Jobs’ biological father was a Syrian political refugee. It’s a hopeful reminder of what America is supposed to be about, and an immunization against the moronic, knee-jerk fear-mongering already being propagated about how ISIS operatives will surely embed themselves with U.S bound Syrian refugees.
Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed, to me. Except for you. I didn’t mean you.