Ordinarily, I would ignore these yahoos, but in the climate of violence that has emerged in this country you can bet that somewhere, someone on a message board or newspaper thread is trying to make a false equivalence between the “anarchists” that so plague many demonstrations and the insanity of the right. It’s an old rightie trick: take any stupid thing that someone not associated with liberals, progressives or the Democratic Party, and try to make us own it. You know it’s coming.
So for the record, violence is wrong, and your mother probably told you that. And the Beatles sang about carrying pictures of Chairman Mao. And so on. Putting a bandana over your face and hurling rocks at cops and newspaper photographers, or whatever actually happened, is just stupid, pointless mayhem. More seriously, the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a highly sophisticated and deeply moral reason for his theories of non-violent change, which anyone can explore using the Tubes of the Internet. It’s not a game, but once you throw a rock or a punch, you’re out. I don’t know how he did it, and every time I go back and re-read some of his works I’m still in awe.
To be fair, there have been some voices from the right denouncing the death threats against politicians and such. I happened to catch talk show host Kirby Wilbur doing so on KIRO-TV the other day, so good on him. I hope he keeps speaking out.
Unfortunately, conservatives in this country have always owned violence, it’s their cultural tradition, not ours. That’s what a lot of people don’t seem to understand about the 1960’s: much of the violence that happened was either state-sponsored violence against its citizens, or was reactionary right-wing violence against social change. Somehow the right has twisted history so that many folks only seem to remember the relatively few loons who tried to build bombs in a brownstone and blew themselves up. If we’re being honest, we do need to remember that the Weather Underground did mount dozens of terrorist attacks, and that while they issued telephoned warnings in an attempt to avoid loss of life, it was still patently insane. My point is that was the end, not the beginning. Americans hated it and hated them.
In any case it’s ironic that the right is now falling victim to the same base tendencies that undid the tattered remnants of the New Left in the early 1970’s. I think it’s a form of political nihilism, as I’ve stated previously. It’s self-indulgent nearly beyond comprehension and offers nothing but destruction, which is one thing it has in common with rock-throwing “anarchists.”
One thing objective observers may note: the Democratic Party doesn’t have a massive communications infrastructure geared at whipping up “anarchists,” nor is the Democratic Party making “anarchists” a centerpiece of the election this year. We don’t have a cable tee-vee network and countless AM radio stations telling everyone how we understand that something made the “anarchists” mad. We aren’t feeding them ridiculous conspiracy theories and telling them that the government is going to kill them and take their most valued possessions.
So honest observers will not accept any false equivalences involving a few “anarchists.”
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
1981 interview with Lee Atwater in which he explains the GOP’s Southern Strategy:
The Right ALWAYS frames its violence as somnehow only self defense.
They justify killing cops, bombing federal buildings, murdering abortion doctors,dragging people they don’t like behind pick up trucks, defending themselves against the ‘war of norhtern aggression, and on and on.
Whenever possible, they try to incite ignorant surrogates to do their assassinations. To defy their violence by fighting fire with fire is a losing strategy.
I believe that there are people in high places who think that they can regain power by inciting civil unrest and seizing power throgh a military coup. This is the true danger of the ignoramus teabaggers.
The only way to fight this battle (legally, of course)is to properly target the real enemy and move against them.
Who is funding and promoting the teabaggers with money and in ther media? It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.
We need a return to the fairness doctrine. The only way to shut them down is to refute every lie one at a time now and forever.
That being said, the peaceful approach of an MLK stood in stark contrast to the alternative — Malcolm X.
There was more than a little physical cowardice in the rights capiutulation to the civil rights movement.
Jon-
A nice post on why marijuana should be legalized. ‘Cause your smoking some primo stuff and, if it were legal, you could share.
Thankfully the ‘net won’t let the lefty media drop the images of the anti-war protesters down the memory hole. “kill bush” was a major theme; movies, posters, rallies, and don’t forget the paper mache.
You hypocrite.
Great post, Lee. You hit on a number of important points, and you’re pitch-perfect. No one could have expressed these truths better.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Sarah Palin is cementing her credentials as a world-class idiot who is reckless enough to blow up the whole fucking world if she gets the chance:
“The flap over Sarah Palin’s criticism of President Barack Obama on nuclear policy is mushrooming. In a conversation Tuesday night with fellow Fox News personality Sean Hannity about the New START pact with Russia, Palin likened Obama to a kid in a playground fight who says ‘go ahead, punch me in the face and I’m not going to retaliate.’
“Asked during an interview Thursday with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos to respond to Palin’s remarks, the president said, … ‘if the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff are comfortable with it, I’m probably going to take my advice from them and not from Sarah Palin.'”
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....s/19433405
Roger Rabbit Commentary: This woman is rapidly morphing from a goddamned idiot into a dangerous idiot. I mean, bitching at the president for ratcheting down the level of nuclear tension with Russia? Jesus H. Fucking Christ … this woman is fucking insane … not to mention irresponsible … yes, it’s time to dust off the “Daisy Ad,” but things have changed since 1964; approximately 40% of America’s voters are now impenetrable and irretrievably insane. Someone like her could actually get elected now. God help us all if it ever happens.
“Unfortunately, conservatives in this country have always owned violence, it’s their cultural tradition, not ours.”
Yeah- conservative Republicans rioted in Berkeley, ravaged the WTO in Seattle, flew a plane into the IRS in Texas, founded the Huttaree nutjobs, encouraged pimps to get federal money (ACORN)and the SEIU beat a black man at a Tea Party rally. Funny how all those “conservatives” are registered Democrats, isn’t it? LOL!
BREAKING NEWS: Ex-Aide: Bush Knew Gitmo Prisoners Were Innocent
“A former top aide in the Bush administration accused President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of knowingly holding hundreds of innocent men in Guantanamo Bay prison so as not to undermine the case for going to war in Iraq, according to a published report today.
“According to the London Times, Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff and has since become a leading critic of the Bush administration’s handling of terrorism and the war in Iraq, said the officials knew that most of the initial 742 detainees sent to Guantanamo in 2002 were innocent, but they believed it was ‘politically impossible to release them.'”
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....t/19433370
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Of course, we all suspected, and knew in our hearts, all along that this was true — why else would Bush have released hundreds of Gitmo detainees to their home countries? But now that we have confirmation, it’s time for Obama to stop pussyfooting around and convene war crimes trials. There is no immunity given to our highest-ranking political leaders in the Constitution or our nation’s laws for acts like this. If they go scot free, the Bill of Rights is a meaningless scrap of paper, and none of us is safe from our own government. This is tyranny, and calls for Hague or Nuremberg justice.
“Who is funding and promoting the teabaggers with money and in ther media? It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”
It’s probably a bit of a stretch to claim that Karl Rove or some corporate front has been actively funding the likes of the Hutaree or Mister Texas Wheelchair Pipe Bomber. For one thing, they wouldn’t have to–surplus fatigues and ammo aren’t all that expensive.
However, by initiating and bankrolling the “teabag” movement to disrupt public discussion of the health-care bill last summer, the operators of the right-wing propaganda machine may have started something that even they no longer have any control of. Simply put, by putting their own brand of craziness on center stage, they provided encouragement to others who are even crazier.
@7 John425 04/09/2010 at 11:27 am,
What is funny is your apparent willful ignorance and your thinking that using it advances your point.
Anarchists and ‘free marketers’ share the same philosophy.
Noam Chomsky has described anarchy as being like a freeway, where people obey the rules of the road (generally) because of their survival utility — not because a cop might give you a ticket.
@6 General Jack D. Ripper in a skirt.
Speaking of violence, dig DeVore. In his previous thread he’s swinging his cleaver like a psychokilla: delete after delete after delete.
Instead of Serial Mom, we got Serial Jon. Sux 2 B us.
re 9:
Is that what you got out of what I wrote? No wonder you look down your nose so much. You misapprehend someone’s meaning and lecture them about saying something that cannot be found in it anywhere.
Let’s put it this: Who among the funders of the teabaggers is trying to disassocite themselves from the violent results?
@7 Fuck you, you know exactly what Lee is talking about, you America-hating bastard.
Cute: “The flap over Sarah Palin … is mushrooming.”
The problem, Suck-Rog, is not reckless Obama policy re Russia. The problem is reckless feckless Obama policy re rogue states that launch bio/chem weapons against the United States. Obama just gave them a Mulligan … they can slap us with anthrax, gas, or smallpox and we won’t nuke them back, as they’d deserve.
Not even Palin would be as stoopid as President BO. He cut Eastern Europe out of its missile shield against rogues, and now he green-lights the rogues. Obama’s going rogue or he’s a croaking rogue. Either way, this doesn’t end well. Particularly after his egregious disrespect of Bibi at the “White” House.
Let’s be clear about this: Violence is wrong, but the right of self-defense has been recognized by all human societies since the dawn of human history. We liberals believe in democracy and the rule of law — while the right clearly does not — and we will adhere to that; but if the rightwing America-hating bastards start something, we don’t have to lay there like doormats and take it.
@13 Fuck you, asshole. This blog is private property, and you’re one of two things here: An invited guest, or a trespasser. If you don’t like the house rules, find yourself another blog to excrete on.
As one R Goldy…I never for an instant equated the Anarchist thing in Olympia with Democrats big or small D.
In fact, I never associated them with any party I know of and only fleetingly for a second with the caricature of Fight Club. If anything they’re in their own sub group of cowards that don’t have the stones to try for real change and have to cover their face because they’re embarrased they can’t come out of their lazy terrorist closet. They’re ticks on society and should be unmasked and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Stop Cereal Killer DeVore before he whacks again.
@16 “Obama just gave them a Mulligan … they can slap us with anthrax, gas, or smallpox and we won’t nuke them back, as they’d deserve.”
Oh and you think our fleet of B-1 bombers, B-52 bombers, cruise missiles, guided bombs, etc., aren’t enough?
The only thing nukes do compared to conventional ordnance is cost less dollars per kiloton. But you’re willing to risk initiating a nuclear exchange to save a little money. If you want to kill yourself, go jump off a bridge, but don’t pull the rest of us off with you … jerk.
@21 Too late, I flipped you off first, ha ha.
Labeling you KLOWNS and ObaMao and all his Oba-Mao Zombies the Marxists that you are seems to be working…even for ObaMao’s old Senate Seat!!
Friday, April 09, 2010
Chomsky’s an asshole, Major. He’s a corporatist neo-capitalist tool of empire. Spend some time, if you want to get down with anarchy, with Dwight Macdonald … Trotskyist conservative anarchist. Start with Discriminations, a collection of Macdonald essays. His essay about the Warren Report is, by itself, worth more than Chomsky and Rabbit combined.
@24 Yeah, Cynical, we know a lot of voters are crazy enough to vote for Republicans. The smoking wreckage of America’s reputation and economy are ample proof.
Y’know what? President Obama can’t win with the wingnuts. Even when he channels St. Ronnie, those idiots call him a Commie and an appeaser (and much, much worse).
The Gipper would have ripped Sarah Palin a new one for her idiotic statements.
N in Seattle–
Oba-Mao is a fraud.
Says one thing and does the opposite.
Did you hear about Oba-Mao’s recent order that Military personnel cannot speak at any faith-based events??
WTF??
Why not??
That was precisely the point of the most successful foreign policy we’ve had since 1945. President Eisenhower traded the expensive bulk of a conventional force structure for the lean, mean New Look of an intense nuclear deterrent that detered a new war while ending an old one, Truman/Acheson’s Korean catastrophe.
Eisenhower got bang for the buck while saving bucks: most of his budgets were in balance. It was your Kennedy-era banking prof, remember, who led us over a cliff of fiscal insanity. Eisenhower balanced a real budget. Kennedy’s Heller Whiz Kids thought that they could play the budget like a goddam game. Just one example among many of Democrat misfeasance and malfeasance.
Reagan was an abolitionist. But he was also a gentleman. Doubt that he’d have ripped Palin’s new one. Not even Pelosi’s, though Allah knows Pelosi deserves it.
Reagan at Reykjavik was a trifle messianic. Think it’s a good thing he didn’t get abolition, and he didn’t get abolition because he had the good sense to protect, above all, the bargaining power and the potential of a once-and-future SDI.
Note again that President Obama already cut the nuts off strategic defense in Eastern Europe. He shredded promises already made. That’s a direct contrast to GWB’s shredding of the ABM Treaty. It’s a contrast because ABM clearly reserved to each signatory the right to protect its national interest by withdrawing from the treaty. Also, one signatory to ABM, the USSR, was no longer the USSR.
The Left, nevertheless, beat down Bush for ‘abrogating’ ABM. But hardly a word from the Left about Obama’s flip-off of Poland and the Czech Republic.
re 25:
The only thing about your statement that could be true is the part about him being an asshole — but that’s a subjevtive judgement. You are an asshole too, so you have something in common.
I was in Cambridgw Mass. about 12 years ago in a really seedy bar filled with bikers and an older man in tweeds. A few bikers decided to give the old man a hard time and he turned about with a fiercwe visage, leapt nimbly over over a pooltable (used one arm to assist), grabberd a pool cue out of the biggest biker’s hand, and thrashed the two to a bloody pulp.
You guerssed it. It was Noam Chomsky defending his honer against these biker punks.
So, if I were you, I’d be careful about who I call an asshole.
Violence completely turns people off to the point because then all they see is the destruction and not the protest.
You too, asshole. That makes three of us, almost enough for Bridge. To Nowhere.
Nastiest barfight I ever saw was at the Wheel Inn, south side of Billings. One Lesbian Biker Gang piled in from the north door, Harley chains coiled in the their fists. Another Lesbian Biker Gang piled in from the south door, grabbing pool cues as they came in.
Best guess is that they were being paid off by Michael Steele and the RNC.
About Chomsky the corporatist capitalist imperialist tool, there’s a book out there somewhere that counts down all the dollars he’s gouged from various corp/govt/DOD grants.
@16 um… Not Obama did not.
Here’s Major Major for Dummies.
Anarchism is a phrase that’s most often misused by the media or by people who don’t know anything about the history of anarchism.
Anarchy as a philosophy is much more complex than writing an “A” on a wall or being knee-jerk against government.
People that wear all black an throw rocks usually haven’t a clue about what anarchism as a philosophy actually is. I suppose some of them do and are just so fed up by the lack of social change that they resort to violence, but I bet the majority of them don’t.
From my post under “Anarchy”:
Traditionally anarchists ( since 1860s) have been on the left side of the spectrum. Their main beef has been against corporations and for the collectivization of labor; they have been more radical than traditional organized labor though. They have never been “libertarian” in nature, at least not in economic matters.
In the US, they have their roots in the poor and immigrant communities during the terrible period of industrialization (think the Italian immigrants Sacco and Vanzentti).
During the Spanish Civil War, anarchists fought along side socialists and communists to preserve the Republican government; fighting against the monarchists, the Catholic Church and the Falangists of Franco. The leftists also fought each other (since they each had different visions for Spain), which led to their defeat by Franco. (It also led one Socialist soldier, a man by the name of George Orwell, to come to despise the totalitarian nature of the communists.)
One of the foremost Anarchist philosophers was Prince Peter Kropotkin of Russia. He’s a good resource for anyone interested in what Anarchism actually is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kropotkin
@16
The new treaty specifically states that we CAN retaliate with nuclear weapons against nations that use biological weapons against us.
Please do some research before you post your talking points here. You are wrong as usual.
Here’s a video of John Stewart taking Fox to task for this exact BS story:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....31455.html
Hey headless lucy fool@2;
So the tea party forebears were leading the recent WTO riots?
So the tea party forebears were leading the Weather Underground attacks?
So the tea party forebears were leading the SDS attacks?
So the tea party forebears were leading the UW Horticulture building destruction?
So the tea party forebears were leading the radio tower destruction?
So the tea party forebears were leading the homes of dreams destruction?
Who knew headless lucy? Puddy didn’t!
Delbert@4,
Save this link. Puddy has…
re 33:
In the parlance of the day (obscure Lebowski reference), you are a nitwit.
You dun an academic for receiving grants (the commonplace way in our day and age to fund your research), much the same way you dun Al Gore for flying to Norway to get his Nobel. What the hell do you expect him to do? Swim???
I didnt realize that groups like the Weatherman, PLA, ELF, SHAC(who planted bombs as late as last year in California), ALF, etc… were conservative groups….
or could it be that Devore is full of shit?
– your gonna love my nuts…
re 38:
Your damn right, broughanski. We just charged in there, bayonets at the ready, and knocked those sissy teacups right out of those little chubby pink fingers!!!
The hell with you and your frigging horticulture building!!!
I don’t want MY tax money going to no freaking nancy horticulturists!!!
re 41: Who have they threatened to assassinate??
re 41: Its been a few years since it was the hippies against the young republicans. We will drag you guys kicking and screaming into the 20th century.
check these people out..I wonder if they voted Republican or Democrat?
“http://www.zombietime.com/us_out_of_iraq_now_sf_3-18-2007/IMG_2393.JPG”
but you know, nowdays the left tells us that they never threatened violence…..too bad they forgot to erase all the images on google…lol
@44…SHAC’s planted bombs as late as last year
perhaps denial is a value you have in spades?
I am amazed that so few people seem to be aware of this. The pendulum swings right, then left, then right, then left. Movements are born, rise bloom, and then dwindle and die. The rise of conservatism that began as a backlash against a then-sclerotic and corrupt liberal dominance in the late Seventies has run its course, and the conservatives then consolidated power, before finally running anyone but the true believers out of the movement. They did so because victory (for either side) brings with it the wish for furteher and more extreme victories. Now, only a fierce rump of the most extreme believers remain and the movement, and the people who were pushed out or who are disgusted by their current extremism are now in the other tent.
ABd you can even see the seeds of future destruction on the partt of today’s liberals, who want to elect, as we say, “more and better Demcorats.” Early on, that translates to more, but later it just means “more liberal,” which in turn pushes out moderates and here we go again.
And the pendulum continues to swing. Note to conservatives: Unless you’re farily young you might not be around for the next big conservative upswing. It’s not swinging your way right now, big picture.
Ever heard of separation of church and state, asshole?
@48…then explain churches on military bases, asshole.
military chaplains? did you forget about them?
heading out this weekend to vandalize more churches rujax?
Funny!! All the classy, profane, violent language from the Lefties/Commies….. I don’t know how old some of you Morons are, but I lived through the fifties and sixties…..Conservatives were at home and working, and the Hippies and Negros were the ones rioting and burning down America….You crazy Effers are not revisionist, you have complelely reversed poles on Mother Earth. Thank God the Second is still intact….You lefties are dangerous.
Oh Cynical!?!?!?
Did you hear that bit on Hannity?
Question NOTHING! “Baaaaa-baa-baaa-baaa” – Cynical
http://www.snopes.com/politics.....hbased.asp
You might want to watch the John Stewart clip. If you had an ounce of self respect, it would pain you to see the two media darlings of the right, Hannity and Gingrich unequivocally making clains that are flat out lies.
Maybe you’ll question a few things you hear on TV once in a while.
You continue to be stupid. Not just mistaken, not just incorrect, willfully ignorant! Well Done!
Facts and rujax…
diametrically opposed particles! rujax is a very small particle!
That’s from your HuffPo, @37. Seems the issue I raised, our nuclear retaliation against chem/bio attack, is indeed unresolved.
It’s the Read-The-Treaty version of Read-The-Bill. We need to know the devilish details in Obama’s inchoate treaty, starting with the chemical/biological issue.
And really ….. do you really want us to take you seriously when you run off at the mouth using Jon Stewart as your mouthpiece? Jon Stewart, who couldn’t even go a round with John Yoo?
We’re thru the looking glass and down Rabbit’s hole for sure.
Or maybe we’re just swingin’ on Love Daddy’s pendulum.
@50
Right. It was the hippies with the guns @ Kent State. It was the Negroes beating Amelia Boynton to the ground. I remember the photos of the hippies beating the righties on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Mr. Cynical Ass Clown AFRICAN-AMERICAN RACIST joke teller:
I think Republican Sen. Coburn said it best, “So don’t catch yourself being biased by FOX News . . ”
If the moniker “Fair and Balanced” were true, then why would Republican Sen. Coburn make that statement to his constituents in OK?
Ok, you got me……Conservatives have snuck into downtown LA, in blackface, and tried to burn it down several times….. Yes, the White counterparts to this are the Bike Gangs selling drugs, but they don’t blame it on anyone…they just want to make money. After 6 generations have “prospered” thru LBJs Great Society, and The War On Poverty it’s clear to see how well all that worked out…I guess we have Hope and Change now, so whoopee. *wildlyrollingeyes* DumbAzz Socialists….Go Figger.
@50 “You lefties are dangerous.”
Not remotely as dangerous as lawbreaking, Constitution-shredding, nuke-armed wingnuts.
If violence is wrong why did libtardos threaten Bart Stupak on March 18th before his flip on health care vote?
Oh wait… they were libtardos… never mind.
Yep, if you are not a jackbooted goosestepping progressive libtardo you attack yours in your party. Such a “big tent”.
checksez@50,
Wasn’t it hippies at the 1968 DNC in Chicago?
In case you hadn’t read it.
“Dear Lord,” the letter reads. “This year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.”
http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/04/.....tml?hpt=T2