Of course he has to phrase it in speculative terms, lest they catch on, but you can take this as gospel, because he’s been on the inside:
They can’t tell you what they do, but if it upsets Republicans, ACORN is there, colorless, odorless, and pissing off Rush Limbaugh. I remember when it used to be A.N.S.W.E.R. and the ACLU that had these guys up in arms over everything. Maybe they are just working their way through the alphabet. If that is the case Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation better get ready for the shitstorm of poorly written emails they are going to get during the 2010 midterms.
You’ve been warned. The Clinton Global Initiative and Democracy For America should also start thinking about those barricades, come 2016. Or, I guess, fainting couches. Or no, uh, laughing pillows? Chuckle backrests? This is serious!
That clip of Glen Beck sums up everything that is wrong with the violent rhetoric from the right-wing. [...] That’s wrong — and it’s time for it to stop. We need dissent in this country, but there is no room for those who encourage political violence.
The clip in question compares Obama & Co. to “vampires” and suggests that we must “drive a stake through [their] heart[s]” or risk the economy becoming “undead”. Perhaps this was a dog whistle to FVKs, but I suspect he may have been speaking metaphorically. Or else the Secret Service is going to learn how to defend the President from people carrying point’ed sticks.
The proximate cause of this hand-wringing is that some guy killed three cops because of FOX News. The evidence that FOX made him do it was that he was concerned about “the Zionist-controlled government“. I confess I don’t watch a lot of FOX News, but I don’t think that’s one of their talking points. Come to think of it, I think this guy may have had other influences.
Dave Neiwert – who has written extensively and thoughtfully about the connections between right-wing extremist ideas and and mainstream wingerdom – reproduces this quote from Bill Clinton:
In this country we cherish and guard the right of free speech. We know we love it when we put up with people saying things we absolutely deplore. And we must always be willing to defend their right to say things we deplore to the ultimate degree. But we hear so many loud and angry voices in America today whose sole goal seems to be to try to keep some people as paranoid as possible and the rest of us all torn up and upset with each other. They spread hate. They leave the impression that, by their very words, that violence is acceptable. You ought to see — I’m sure you are now seeing the reports of some things that are regularly said over the airwaves in America today.
Well, people like that who want to share our freedoms must know that their bitter words can have consequences and that freedom has endured in this country for more than two centuries because it was coupled with an enormous sense of responsibility on the part of the American people.
If we are to have freedom to speak, freedom to assemble, and, yes, the freedom to bear arms, we must have responsibility as well. And to those of us who do not agree with the purveyors of hatred and division, with the promoters of paranoia, I remind you that we have freedom of speech, too, and we have responsibilities, too. And some of us have not discharged our responsibilities. It is time we all stood up and spoke against that kind of reckless speech and behavior.
If they insist on being irresponsible with our common liberties, then we must be all the more responsible with our liberties. When they talk of hatred, we must stand against them. When they talk of violence, we must stand against them. When they say things that are irresponsible, that may have egregious consequences, we must call them on it. The exercise of their freedom of speech makes our silence all the more unforgivable. So exercise yours, my fellow Americans. Our country, our future, our way of life is at stake.
Which is fine and true, for certain values of “them”, and “things we deplore”, and “people like that”, and “hatred and division” so on. Of course, non of these values are defined, and none of these people are named, which leaves pronouncements like this utterly meaningless. Indeed, there was a time – long ago, in the reckless days of my youth – when I quite literally hated the President of the United States, and said some very divisive things along those lines, possibly involving metaphorical violence, possibly involving the forceable insertion of frozen pineapples into delicate orifices and perhaps breaking into people’s houses and peeing on their pillows and shaving their pets. I seem to recall hearing a lot about “responsible dissent“, and “fever swamps”, and how saying mean things was tantamount to fascism, and I recall thinking that the people saying these things should blow it out their pasty, pockmarked asses. But who can remember, so long ago? The point is, there’s a difference between openly advocating violence and calling people not nice names, or needing to calm the fuck down and stop being such a spaz, or being an idiot, or making shit up, or any of the myriad forms of douchebaggery which are the inevitable result of letting people speak their minds in our infinitely stupid democracy. I’m not saying there’s some invincible firewall between militialand and FOX News – there certainly isn’t – but that doesn’t mean they are the same thing. Being a terrorist and being a crazy loser are distinct modes of being, even if there are occassional overlaps on the reading list. Being vague about this, or purposefully conflating the two, gives cover to the former as it smears the latter.
As Obama touched down in Iraq yesterday, his top secret arrival (even victorious Iraq is a dangerous place for American leaders to show up announced) was greeted with plumes of smoke from a series of car bombs that left 37 dead. Just today, a bomb hidden in a bag exploded near a Shiite shrine killing another 7.
These public incidents of violence led to the predictable ripple of harumphs and chin strokes from the very serious crowd about whether or not Obama’s planned troop withdrawal is premature, and whether the removal of those troops will permit this type of violence to continue or, even, escalate*. This mulling proceeds as if the decision is entirely up to us, with the sovereign government of Iraq to be informed as needed (that pesky SOFA be damned).
“Maybe Obama should alter his plans. Surely he must in the name of all things that are decent, humanitarian and responsible.” Thus, the compassionate imperialists offer their heart-felt pleas to think about the children.
But here’s the thing, we’ve had roughly 130,000-140,000 US soldiers in Iraq for over six years, and a funny thing happened despite our presence: hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in political violence. Many millions more have been forced to flee internally and abroad.
While the Serious Set frets about the potential for a full blown civil war to erupt should we leave, few seem to have noticed just how many Iraqis were blown fully apart while we had front row seats.
Even now, after the surge has worked its magic, hundreds of Iraqis are dying a month. Our soldiers haven’t stopped that, nor can they Only Iraqis can decide if and when to cease insurgent and civil war activities (reductions in violence had more to do with Sunnis and Sadrists agreeing to a cease fire than with extra troops to interdict). Iraqis will decide to come to a lasting peace when they’re ready, not when the US decides that it would be convenient or politically expedient. Such is the magnitude, tragedy and resilience of the mess Bush created. He’s a special kind of fuck up is he.
Consider the means employed with the recent spate of attacks and the typical modus operandi of combatants: car bombs, suicide attackers and IEDs planted in populated areas. How, exactly, does our military presence prevent those types of attacks? Are our soldiers supposed to intimidate suicide bombers: You better think twice buddy. If you try to explode yourself with US troops around, they just might kill you.
That oughta work.
The likely rejoinder is that we can keep set piece battles from erupting – or better yet, from continuing since some have already occurred even with us around. To which I’d reply: So we can keep the civil war and insurgent clashes on a medium simmer for a prolonged period of time, rather than face the possibility that either could and would flare up – and flare out – over a shorter span.
All for the low, low cost of many trillions of dollars and thousands of US soldiers’ lives.
Yeah, Obama really should reconsider. If we leave, there’ll be violence.
UPDATE: Obligatory late 80s/early 90s hip hop video:
We’re having a All-Real-American tea party, y’all!
Via. If you’re wondering, this is somehow connected to “Go[ing] Galt“, Obama must fail, The Three Percenters, Obama is a Communist, Obama is Hitler, Obama is Satan, the imminent sightings of Now-Even-Blacker Helicopters, and the rich tapestry of impotent teeth-gnashing and hair-rending and shit Youtube videos which makes today’s Wingnuttia the special place it is. If you are wondering more than that, then that’s pretty much you all by yourself there, because nobody gives a fuck what losers think. If you thought that video was hard to watch, imagine having to convince yourself you liked it. Now imagine the sort of person who is now trying to make themself like that video, and how much they deserve to feel like that, and just sort of let God’s Eternal Love wash over your soul and deliver you to the purfumed gardens of Schadenfreudtopia.
There’s no larger point here. I just like watching people I dislike fail miserably so I can feel better about my own shortcomings. It fulfills me spiritually.
It’s hard surprising when someone fires back at a harsh critic of his or her employer’s competence and/or ethics. But when that someone is superstar New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, and the return fire takes the form, in part, of “Fuck you,” it raises a few eyebrows — and makes you wonder about a broader hubris.
The exchange in question came yesterday at the Freedom to Connectconference, a gathering in suburban Washington where people discuss issues related to data networking and the information revolution. Friedman’s keynote talk was all about his latest book and touched on the conference theme only briefly during the Q&A.
He’d already dropped the F-bomb at the start of his talk (in a WTF mode) when he noticed the conference back-channel discussion scrolling by on a stage-monitor screen. Later, during the Q&A, he was asked to comment on a question posted there that challenged the Times’ credibility in a fairly general and nasty way.
He began, appropriately, by saying that yes, the paper makes mistakes. But then he offered what sounded like a more heart-felt response, the above-noted “fuck you,” winning applause from some but certainly not all or (by my estimate) even a majority of the audience.
I was having scones and tea on the veranda with Lady Howell when we read this, and neither she nor I had the slightest notion what this “fuck you” phrase could possibly signify. So we paid a social call on David Brooks, Master of the Plebian, and, after consulting some of his low-born contacts, we discovered to our utter horror that it is an obscene reference so beyond the bounds of polite society that I will not sully the internet by getting into more detail. Suffice to say that all six of our dainty, shell-like ears felt like they had been packed with the commonest of gutter filth when our investigation was through! Clearly, we need to empanel a Crisis Conference On Ethics At Conferences On Blogger Ethics In Crisis at the earliest possible opportunity in order to address this immediate threat to Western Civilization.
No one is going to take the NY Times editorial page seriously until they stop being such potty mouths.
At what point do the people tell the politicians to go to hell? At what point do they get off the couch, march down to their state legislator’s house, pull him outside, and beat him to a bloody pulp for being an idiot?
At some point soon, it will happen. It’ll be over an innocuous issue. But the rage is building. It’s not a partisan issue. […] Were I in Washington State, I’d be cleaning my gun right about now waiting to protect my property from the coming riots or the government apparatchiks coming to enforce nonsensical legislation.
What Big Gummit perfidy provoked this incitement to gun scrubbing in preparation for the imminent black helicopter jack booted thug riots? What proverbial straw broke the camel’s back and led to the descent to chaos and warfare unbridled? Behold:
Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation’s strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.
Many people were shocked to find that products like Seventh Generation, Ecover and Trader Joe’s left their dishes encrusted with food, smeared with grease and too gross to use without rewashing them by hand. The culprit was hard water, which is mineral-rich and resistant to soap.
This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but post-rinse residue. Hey Erick you collosal ass-clown of a jackoff of a moron, I got your Wolverines! right here:
Postscript: The early days of Deterg-o-fascism? If I recall Hitler was a germophobe.
What’s that? If Hitler was a neat freak, why would he mandate the use of underachieving detergents you ask? I think that only goes to prove my point.
It’s hard surprising when someone fires back at a harsh critic of his or her employer’s competence and/or ethics. But when that someone is superstar New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, and the return fire takes the form, in part, of “Fuck you,” it raises a few eyebrows — and makes you wonder about a broader hubris.
