While interviewing Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on his CNN Headline News show last night, right-wing talker Glenn Beck declared that there’s “nobody in Washington that anybody trusts anymore.” Saying that he’d “like oversight” of the money Congress is allocating for the bailout of the financial system, Beck suggested Gen. David Petraeus would be the perfect person to provide the oversight:
BECK: thought of it, Senator. I`d like oversight, but here`s who I would like to provide the oversight for the people who are overseeing this mess, and that`s General Petraeus. I would like to see somebody bring General Petraeus in and have him sit there with all the stars on his shoulders and say, “Ok now, explain again how you didn`t create this mess?”
The attacks were no mystery. What puzzled Turkish police was the weapons' origin. Glocks are high-quality sidearms, but by last year they had practically become common street weapons in Turkey. More than 1,000 had been taken from criminals, guerrillas, terrorists and assassins all over the country, and authorities believed tens of thousands more had found their way onto the black market
There are many more where those came from. At least three U.S. government agencies are now investigating the massive "disappearance" and diversion of weapons Washington intended for Iraqi government forces that instead have spread to militants and organized gangs across the region. The potential size of the traffic is stunning. A report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office last month showed that since 2004, some 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols, bought with U.S. money for Iraqi security forces, have gone missing.
snip
Major U.S. arms transfers began when Gen. David Petraeus was commander of the Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq (MNSTC-I), better known as Minsticky. Its mission was to train, arm and organize Iraq's military and police forces, but the Iraqis' weapons came via the State Department, and the supply line was actually run by private contractors.
Here is a message to Barack Obama: You need to spend more time fighting back against the lies and smears of a Swift Boat campaign more ugly than the campaign against John Kerry, and less time having sweet-talk meetings with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes followed by professorial discourse with Bill O'Reilly. This is war, Barack, and you had better fight back.
The sickness and dementia of a purported news network airing with smug laughs and happy chortles a naked appeal to hatred and bigotry in this attack on "a lesbian Air America host" is a low that even a Republican cable organization like Fox should never stoop to.
Mr. Olbermann, a 49-year-old former sportscaster, has become the face of the more aggressive MSNBC, and the lightning rod for much of the criticism. His program “Countdown,” now a liberal institution, was created by Mr. Olbermann in 2003 but it found its voice in his gnawing dissent regarding the Bush administration, often in the form of “special comment” segments.
As Mr. Olbermann raised his voice, his ratings rose as well, and he now reaches more than one million viewers a night, a higher television rating than any other show in the troubled 12-year history of the network. As a result, his identity largely defines MSNBC. “They have banked the entirety of the network on Keith Olbermann,” one employee said.
On the final night of the Republican convention, after MSNBC televised the party’s video “tribute to the victims of 9/11,” including graphic footage of the World Trade Center attacks, Mr. Olbermann abruptly took off his journalistic hat.
“I’m sorry, it’s necessary to say this,” he began. After saying that the video had exploited the memories of the dead, he directly apologized to viewers who were offended. Then, sounding like a network executive, he said it was “probably not appropriate to be shown.”
Get your fear on little GOPeeons... The desperation suits you well.
Because, unlike KO or Chris Matthews, who are likely nothing more than typical moderate conservatives that lean Democratic in their personal politics, Rachel Maddow is, IMHO, even closer to actually being a full-blown honest-to-God liberal. We know that has you wetting your pants on the spot. That is what the attacks on her are all about.
I watched Rachel's new show last night... And it was good. A few tweaks in time and Rachel Maddow's show could very well surpass all of the other cable news networks shows in ratings because it has been so long since there has been this kind of voice on any of those channels.
The American people are starving for this kind of truth to power editorializing from the failing punditocracy.
And where the Edward R. Murrow award winning - for his work in the aftermath of 911 - Keith Olbermann's ratings successes as MSNBC's flagship show have only scratched the surface of this serious problem, I believe that Rachel Maddow's show will tear a gaping wound open in the fallacy that is force fed like pablum to the brownshirt wingnuts at FOX trying to paint a false picture of Americans being conservative.
American politicians being crammed down the citizens' throats may be more conservative... But American citizens being more liberal than than any of the politicians and most of the TV news available have proven to be fed up with that situation.
The simple fact that Blogosphere is dominated by the left - Yes! COMPLETELY DOMINATED BY THE LEFT as all of the biggest and most popular political Blogs are left leaning.
Very few of the right wingnut Blogs even come close to the top left Blogs - which tells you all you need to know about the leanings of American activists, voters and citizens. Hopefully it will not be long before the true voices of the people are dominating the news cycles again.
This may scare the hell out of the far right wingnuts and many in the media, spurring their vicious attacks and fear mongering on even further with their formulaic poison pill of feeding into the scared and bigoted viewers they rely on.
In the end, and as the failed Traditional Media becomes more and more exposed to the viewers - the citizens that the Media are supposed to speak truth to power for - for what they truly are, we can only hope they will change their ways, hope they will stop flacking for corporations and talking point politicians and hope they will stop working against the real interests of Americans or they will continue to slip into the obscurity of failure and irrelevancy that they have epitomized in their spiraling downfall.
During "Morning Joe" today Scarborough recounts the reaction of Murphy to Obama's speech last night by sending an eMail to his fellow Republicans during the speech that was simple and to the point:
"Houston, we have a problem..."
That may go down in history as a serious understatement... Watch Barrack Obama's speech and see for yourself:
[update] Now, Peggy Noonan is on "Morning Joe" embarrassing herself with the pure pedestrian BS she is trying to insert into the mundane and outdated pundit class' dialog.
The Maddow Show:A website called "The Progressive Puppy" calls it the quote, "single smartest move ever made by a television network." 'The Nation' already identified her in these terms: "Everything about her radiates competence and a deft, bright careerism." And at the website Daily Kos, there was, upon the news late this afternoon, posted this poem: "For Unto Us, a Star is Born. "A Gift is Given. "And she shall be: Wonderful, Confident, the Mighty Women, the Everlasting Progressive, the Princess of News." In our third story on the Countdown: but around these parts, with all due modesty, I think I've summed it up best: we just call her "Next!"
We hope to continue to see some of the sharpest and brightest opinions to grace that network's cast of part time pundits coming forth from Rachel Maddow on a full time basis.
MSNBC has just doubled its credibility as a real news source.
Team McCain needn’t have worried. This was not your usual political TV show. Warren — Pastor Rick, around here — asked big questions, about big subjects; he wasn’t concerned about what appeared on the front page of that morning’s Washington Post. And his simple, direct, big questions brought out something we don’t usually see in a presidential face-off; in this forum, as opposed to a read-the-prompter speech, or even a debate focused on the issues of the moment, the candidates were forced to call on everything they had — the things they have done and learned throughout their lives. And the fact is, John McCain has lived a much bigger life than Barack Obama.
The fact is that John McCain presented nothing more than canned stump speech answers to most of the questions. Ya know? The same old same old you would expect from any republican campaign. Predictable in his own self reverence (X = Heroic, X= Courage, X= Mavericky touchy feely across the aisle in a way only a republican could ever do), the bulk of the McCain interview was straight off of the pages of a GOP talking point cartoon strip.
When McCain got the question, he was able to tell an old story with a sense of gravity and poignancy that he seldom shows in public. He described his time as a prisoner of war,
“I’ve always put my country first. And one of the times I had that test was years ago, and far way, in a North Vietnamese prison camp, when our North Vietnamese captors came to me and said: ‘You can go home early.’ Well my friends,
Cue this Blogs canned laughter to the canned stumped speech response.
And would the freak stop calling everyone "my friends"... MY FRIENDS understand that there is nothing funny going on with the disaster that is this countries economy and they also understand the view that "$5 million per year" as the line for separating the rich from the poor is not funny unless you are a clueless elitist with a rich wife that balances your checkbook and signs your checks. You can't distort that ridiculously callous statement.
Right now most of MY FRIENDS have cut back on expenses so much that many of them cannot afford one beer for themselves, never mind imagining they are going to be drinking with and from John and Cindy McCain's brewery heiress fortunes.
Calling everyone "my friends" is about as maverICKY as McCain can possibly get.
Some of the real issues that McCain needed to shore up and tried to maneuver as his positives? Here is his response to working with the opposition:
When McCain got the question, everyone in the room thought he would bring up campaign-finance reform, the issue on which he has alienated the Republican base for years. But he didn’t. “Climate change, out-of-control spending, torture,”
Let's look at how McCain reached out across the aisle on these issues, OK?
The Feinstein Amendment would have accomplished all of these objectives, but Senator McCain voted against it, presumably because he wishes that the CIA be permitted to continue the use of other of its enhanced techniques, apart from waterboarding. Those techniques are reported to include stress positions, hypothermia, threats to the detainee and his family, severe sleep deprivation, and severe sensory deprivation.
You can be certain that entrenched Iraqi politicians and power brokers learned many lessons well, on how to cause government breakdown and failure, from the entrenched politicians and power brokers in the GOP currently working hard to give their hand picked successor, John McCain, a shot at continuing bush failures on into the future.
Outside the administration, there is still a lobby pressing for a move against Iraq, but it is President Bush's strong political standing as a wartime commander in chief that will be essential in preparing the country and its allies for an Iraq campaign, foreign diplomats and administration officials say.
On Dec. 5, Congressional leaders sought to frame the justification for attacking Mr. Hussein in a letter to the president.
''For as long as Saddam Hussein is in power in Baghdad, he will seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them,'' said the letter, signed by Senators Trent Lott, Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain, among others.''We have no doubt that these deadly weapons are intended for use against the United States and its allies. Consequently, we believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later.''
Arizona Senator Skipped Every Crucial Vote in 2007
Washington, D.C.--In the 2007 National Environmental Scorecard released today by the League of Conservation Voters, John McCain receives a score of ZERO. McCain was the only member of Congress to skip every single crucial environmental vote scored by the organization, posting a score lower than Members of Congress who were out for much of the year due to serious illnesses--and even lower than some who died during the term. By contrast, the average Member of Congress scored a 53 in 2007. McCain posts a lifetime score of only 24.
Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director
"We were appalled two weeks ago when John McCain was the only Senator who chose to skip a crucial vote on the future of clean energy in America-dooming the measure to fail by just a single vote. As it turns out, this was merely the most recent example of a clear pattern of missing the most important votes on energy and the environment--as his abysmal LCV score clearly demonstrates.
"McCain missed votes to save his constituents $499 million dollars at the pump and at least $550 million on their energy bills, while creating more than 10,000 new clean energy jobs in his home state.
"Out of 535 Members of Congress, John McCain is the only one who chose to miss every single key environmental vote scored by the League of Conservation Voters last year. When it came time to stand up and vote for the environment, John McCain was nowhere to be found.
"Every other Member who received a zero from LCV last year at least had the temerity to show up and vote against the environment and clean energy time after time. And unlike John McCain, I doubt any of them would claim to be environmental leaders or champions on global warming.
"The votes chosen by LCV represent the most important votes on the most pressing environmental matters facing us today: energy, global warming, clean water, stewardship of our public lands, and other crucial issues. Republicans and Democrats alike in both chambers received perfect scores of 100 this year, proof that being green isn’t a question of red or blue.
"John McCain’s LCV score exposes the real record behind the rhetoric: a lifetime pattern of voting with polluters and special interests instead of consumers and the planet when it comes time to stand up and be counted. Or perhaps worse yet: a consistent refusal to stand up and be counted at all. We encourage people to contact John McCain and tell him it’s time to start showing up to vote when the environment is on the line."
A private roundtable with McCain will be held for his Colorado Finance Committee at 5:30 p.m. at The Petroleum Club at the downtown Denver Athletic Club. Attendees at the roundtable were to raise $25,000 apiece, according to the invitation.
That will be followed by a photo opportunity with McCain for $2,300 per person, then a general reception for $1,000 per person.
According to an analysis of campaign contributions by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Democrat Barack Obama has received nearly six times as much money from troops deployed overseas at the time of their contributions than has Republican John McCain, and the fiercely anti-war Ron Paul, though he suspended his campaign for the Republican nomination months ago, has received more than four times McCain's haul.
Despite McCain's status as a decorated veteran and a historically Republican bent among the military, members of the armed services overall -- whether stationed overseas or at home -- are also favoring Obama
McCain, when trying to define "marriage" in one of his canned responses, never seemed to mention - nor did Rick Warren call him out for it - the fact that his definition of marriage didn't mention that you could be a serial marriar in his little world and enjoy multiple affairs unquestioningly. That defines McCain's position on marriage and McCain's real faith right there.
McCains personal actions speak volumes about his real faith where his words failed to reveal the truth about his real political positions.
Though McCain does have big, big - HUGE - credibility issues - not just the with many of the voters that showed up at that forum - this was a forum that was made up of what, in the recent past, was a near guaranteed vote for his corrupt side of the campaign aisle.
I am going to give this pastor the benefit of the doubt on all of this before tonight's debate between Obama and McCain since his background seems to show a little more enlightenment than most of the religious types we have seen spoon-fed to the masses on TV news in the last couple of decades:
"As a pastor, I believe in the separation of church and state, but I don't believe we can separate religion from politics, because one's faith determines one's worldview, which informs one's decisions and determines how one would lead," Warren said.
His views on many of the political problems we face appear to be more encompassing - to include all of the very real problems of AIDS, poverty, the environment - as well as the other issues we usually hear about from the one-trick pony that Dobson's Focus on the Freepers has become. There are too many important issues that Dobsonites have purposefully and completely ignored and, even, fought hard to suppress in the religious discussions of politics.
McCain talked the canned talk but, and this is where McCain's silly walk express falls flat on it's huge BUTT, his voting record clearly shows disdain for all of the other issues where he never walked the walk. Heck, most of the time he didn't even care enough about issues enough to bother to show up to vote.
And, in failing to address these issues honestly and thoughtfully...
McCain lost this debate big time to the newer and younger voters that are going to look at his words, hit the internet... And match his words up against his record.
McCain lived a big lie last night, but has never lived a bigger life than Obama.
The NRO should be embarrassed by their pitiful propaganda piece.
McCain often mentions how his faith sustained him while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, telling how one of his captors treated him humanely and once secretly drew a cross in the first to signal his own faith.
McCain also talks about his stewardship of the environment and care for the poor — his wife helped found the American Voluntary Medical Team and led 55 medical missions overseas to deliver emergency medical care to the poor. Asked to provide medical care to two babies from Mother Theresa's orphanage, McCain brought one home and the McCains adopted her.
McCain, reared an Episcopalian, now attends a Southern Baptist church in Arizona. He opposes abortion rights.
Obama has talked about how his Christian faith influenced his public life, which included working as a neighborhood organizer trying to help people who lost their jobs. He became a practicing Christian as an adult, joining the Trinity Church of Christ headed until recently by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Obama quit the church during the primary campaign after inflammatory comments by Wright hit the Internet. He supports abortion rights.
What I want to know: Why do they have to write the story to say that McCain attends a different church - You know? Different from the one that gave McCain his faith that was so rock solid that it carried him through his POW experience on into his multiple affairs (not even mentioned in this story on personal faith) and divorce (not a word on that either?) - But Obama?
Obama QUIT the church.
Yep! McCain simply attends a different church but Not Obama... Obama quitthe church. All things considered, is that a fair assessment and honest message coming from any of the traditional media given this topic of personal faith? Interesting choice of words. Kind of straight out of a Frank Luntz school of framing for the media.
How are we supposed to judge a debate focusing on giving "a place for America to hear the candidates' hearts by going beyond moral issues and their virtues, to also share their values and vision for leadership" when important facts are misrepresented and left unchecked in the media before the debate has even started?
Hopefully the pastor will give an honest effort illuminating the issues that are truly in the public interests. But, equally important, I hope that the pastor has done his homework on the many issues that are too often left answered - or are reported on - in a dishonest manner by politicians and media stenographers.
Anyways... The debate, the first time Obama and McQueeg, err, McCain will meet to put forth their positions from any point of view - faith based or not - is tonight at 8 P.M. for your own personal viewing pleasure - Faith based or not.
“Though appearing separately, the candidates will field similar questions about their faith, abortion, same-sex marriage and humanitarian efforts abroad,” writes Maeve Reston in The Los Angeles Times. It is a chance for both to hone their comments on sensitive topics and practice connecting with an audience not chosen by their tightly controlled campaigns.”
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has reaffirmed his stance that marriage is "the union between a man and a woman," although he supports civil unions for gay partners.
Sorry, but I am for marriage equality... Because you can't pick and choose who has a right to freedom. Never mind the fact that I never had to get permission from gays, lesbians and bisexuals in order for me to be allowed to get married to my wife. Why should they have to get my permission?
A note on Warren -- he helped Bush get elected in 2004. And Serious Person of Faith Andrew Sullivan calls him "pernicious."
For the record, this practicing Roman Catholic thinks this is absolutely terrible for the republic and a huge freaking embarrassment. But aided by a pretty decent pinot noir, I'll give you my thoughts, in real time.
Get your Tivos revved up... This really is campaign comercial stuff dreams are made of:
$5 million per year is rich??? How out of touch with the realities of today's economy can McCain possibly be? $5 million per year is uber-ultra-elitist rich. You can bet that Cindy McCain, his second wife, is the one that watches their money 'cause McCain is clueless when it comes to the cost of living.
...reason to give a recommend, then there was never any diary over there that was ever worth a recommend.
The Great White Hope
The media’s moment of disillusionment with John McCain appears to be at hand. Even Joe Klein has finally noticed that McCain’s profile is beginning to resemble the endomorphic shadow of his backstage advisor, Karl Rove, not one of the faces on Mt. Rushmore.
It’s all very predictable – about as predictable as the media’s abrupt discovery in the summer of 2005, as New Orleans sank beneath the waves, that the president of the United States was, gasp!, an incompetent boob.
But anyone who’s studied McCain’s career with any intellectual detachment at all (as opposed to the hagiographic tendencies of his media cheerleading claque) could have told you: The truth about John McCain is that he'll do just about anything and say just about anything to win. He always has. He's just been more clever (and cynical) than most in how he goes about it.
"It appears that what brought him to this horrible event was his lack of being able to obtain a job, his frustration over that, and his stated hatred for the liberal movement," Chief Owen said.
"It appears that the church had received some publicity in the recent past regarding its liberal stance on things and that is at least one of the issues we believe caused that church to be selected."
The Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church describes itself on its website as working for social change since the 1950s, including desegregation, racial harmony, fair wages, women's rights and gay rights.
But how do conservatives so corrupt a nation with their poisonous ideas that they can consistently cut back on liberal social safety nets like the food stamps that this man was about to lose, and that set this man off on his terrorist tirade, while simultaneously convincing the downtrodden citizens that their true allies, liberals that support safety nets, are to blame? A man who thinks that he is being discriminated against for his age, a man that would have had natural allies in today's left for this issue, taking it out on liberals when it is the conservatives and the GOP that have created the disposable employee society that favors corporations and makes many groups of employees obsolete by these conservative standards.
And, undoubtedly, conservatives will blame the evil liberals for all of the failed bush policies, conservative driven deregulation, and GOP created deficits that got us here. And, clearly, there are people that are crazy enough to buy their divisive propaganda and will act on it.
This is a worse problem than the simplified version of the GOP purposively creating a failed, bloated bureaucracy and then pointing to it when they are out of power and saying "government is bad" and blaming liberals for all of it as some vote getting tactic.
As with the church shootings in Colorado last December, the right will find some way to spin this story and turn Adkisson into an anti-Christian liberal whack job and blame it on the liberal media.
In response to the tragic church shootings in Colorado, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins naturally pointed the finger of blame at the “secular media.” The senseless massacre of several deeply religious people by one of their own reflected, he claimed, “hostility that is being fomented in our culture from some in the secular media toward Christians.” Of course, Perkins has it almost exactly backwards. Whether concerning abortion, gay Americans, immigration or judicial appointments, the line connecting the rhetoric of the Republican Party and the mainstream conservative movement to right-wing terror is a very short one.
[update deux] Scholars & Rogues seems to be writing about the same thing today, and it is well worth the read:
It would be simplistic and wrong-headed of me to blame a particular person or institution for Adkisson’s actions. I don’t know what Rush had to say last week - although I’m sure it was hateful and stupid - but Rush didn’t load up the shotgun and pull the trigger.
However, Rush is one of the people who has helped poison the waters in the sea that is American culture. FOX “News” and its hatefuck parade of gleefully toxic talking heads have dumped billions of gallons of rhetorical bile into the streams feeding the ocean of public opinion. Karl Rove has taught a new generation of bright-eyed Typhoid Marys to bathe in the waters that the rest of us drink.
Jim Adkisson was an unbalanced man, and perhaps it was only a matter of time before he snapped. But two questions to ponder: first, who created the conditions that hastened the snap? And second, when the train jumped the tracks, who created the bogeyman that the diseased brain latched onto as the cause of all the pain?
Inside the house, officers found “Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder” by radio talk show host Michael Savage, “Let Freedom Ring” by talk show host Sean Hannity, and “The O’Reilly Factor,” by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.
All he is missing is some Beck and Coulter on that hate monger's reading list.
Questions on John "The Bruce McQueen" McCain's credibility from Kevin Drum that the media really needs to address, but instead of just generalizing about the MSM... Perhaps we need to direct this to each of the slack-jawed media bobblehead stenographers individually to get their attention:
Remind me again: where does all this cred come from? And what window do Democrats go to to get the same treatment the press gives McCain?
So....
Do any of you media types have what it takes to present a truly unbiased look at John McCain's MASSIVE credibility gap on almost every single topic he pushes into your media talking points?
If any of these issues came up for a candidate on the Dem side it would be on an endless media loop and the lead story on every political wonks show...
Reading this entire piece by Anne-Marie Slaughter is as painful as watching a one armed boxer that does not realize they are too punch drunk to enter the ring ever again... And not understanding "why?" they should never have taken up the sport to begin with.
It is not just that the Joe Kleins, Bill Kristols, and every other punch drunk hawk pundit wannabe on both the right and the left has been so wrong on so many important topics... But every metric they have used to come to their failed decisions has been equally as wrong as well. When it came to Iraq, the bell hadn't even wrung yet and they were all out cold on the mat.
To put it simply? No, we will never trust any of your suggestions, ideas or your reasoning ever again. No, we will not ask you for your opinions. And No! Don't bother to offer them. Not from any of you "Serious People" going through life ignorant of your own serious deficiencies when it comes to critical thinking.
I'm surprised Tucker Carlson's barely watchable show lasted as long as it did.
Insiders tell TVNewser Tucker Carlson's 6pmET show Tucker is getting the axe, but Carlson stays on as a political contributor to all MSNBC shows at least through the 2008 election. The official announcement, expected tomorrow, will include details about who will replace Tucker at 6pmET as well as other political programming additions. Sources say the network is going to beef up its schedule with more NBC News talent.
In recent days, Jossip, as well as other blogs, ratcheted up the talk that Tucker would be replaced "for a new project." In its 33-month run, Carlson's show has had two names, four time slots and multiple formats. At 6pmET, it builds on its Harbdall lead-in on some days, but loses audience on others.
Carlson is expected to host the show through next week, with his new role and title to take effect March 17. We're told he'll also be reporting from the campaign trail.
Finally! We have documentedmany of Tucker’satrocities during his time at MSNBC and have been asking for this for years. Carlson will remain at MSNBC as a contributor for the time being, but at last, there’s a chance we’ll see a reality based, progressive show in that time slot. Rumor has it Air America Radio’s Rachel Maddow is working on a show for the network — we can only hope she gets her shot. She’s earned it.
Rachel Maddow would certainly be a great addition to MSNBC's lineup.
Right-wing radio host Melanie Morgan — who once called for the editor of The New York Times to be “sent to the gas chamber” — has been fired from her job at KSFO 560 AM, but will continue her World Net Daily column. “[J]ust because Melanie Morgan is off the air doesn’t mean she’s off our radar,” said Media Matters spokesman Karl Frisch.
Keith Olbermann brings on Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson to discuss the horrific history behind Bill O’Reilly’s casual and callous use of the phrase “lynching party” in reference to Michelle Obama’s quote about being really proud of this country and the implications one may draw from it.
You know what lynching was?Lynching was a horrific practice of murder, torture, dismemberment, burning alive, hanging, and the only purpose of lynching was to perpetuate white supremacy in the Jim Crow south.It wasn’t…the idea of course, wasn’t to lynch all black people, but by lynching a few black people…not a few, by lynching some black people to demonstrate to other African Americans that this could happen to you, that you have no power, that we have all the power, and that we can take anything we want from you, including your life.There’s nothing funny about lynching.There’s certainly nothing at all funny or remotely appropriate about the use of a lynching reference to talk about Michelle Obama.And the word “unless” followed by “we’ll track it down,” is way beyond the pale.
I have written on this subject before, and I agree with Eugene Robinson on this topic, but I also think that it goes beyond just the racial issues:
I'm sure race has nothing to with the recent surge of nooses in the news since we are soooo over bigotry in the U.S.
Police are looking for whoever dangled a 3-foot rope with a small loop at its end from a tree outside a campus cultural center that is home to several black organizations. The incident is being treated as a possible hate crime.
"This is bigger than a noose," Black Student Union President Altmann Pannell told his fellow students, many of whom were wearing "Terps as one" buttons."
"This is bigger than a noose because we as a community know that something else is going on in this country," Pannell said to murmurs of agreement. linkage
That "something else" is not missed by minority communties, especially when the disparities in justice are blatantly tied to the color of one's skin.
For a year, Jena (pronounced JEEN-uh), a poor mining community of 3,000 people, has been embroiled in racial tensions pitting the black community against white school officials and a white prosecutor. It began last August when a black student asked at an assembly if black students could sit under a tree where white students usually sat. The next day, two nooses hung from the tree.
Black parents were outraged by the symbolism, recalling the mob lynchings of black men. They complained to school officials. District superintendent Roy Breithaupt and the school board gave three-day suspensions to the white students who hung the nooses, overruling the recommendation of then-principal Scott Windham that the students be expelled.
The case of the Jena Six has been covered extensively by fellow bloggers, such as Hello, Negro with information on how to donate to the defense fund; also My Right Mind! who offers a slew of tips to assist these young teens.
Nooses are more than just complex slip knots in a rope - they are both symbolic and directly representative of torture, murder and racist mob rule.
But before you go there, I want you to think about this:
Lynching is sometimes justified by its supporters as the administration of justice (in a social-moral sense, not in law) without the delays and inefficiencies inherent to the legal system; in this way it echoes the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, which was justified by the claim:
"Terror is nothing other than prompt, severe, inflexible justice."
What are some of the possible reasons why racism seems to be on the rise in the Good Ol' USA? Hey! It's not like anyone in our government would ever encourage this kind of terrorizing behavior with its own actions and ideologies...
The "traditional" conservative Claes G. Ryn has argued that neoconservatives are "a variety of neo-Jacobins." Ryn maintains that true conservatives deny the existence of a universal political and economic philosophy and model that is suitable for all societies and cultures, and believe that a society's institutions should be adjusted to suit its culture, while Neo-Jacobins
are attached in the end to ahistorical, supranational principles that they believe should supplant the traditions of particular societies. The new Jacobins see themselves as on the side of right and fighting evil and are not prone to respecting or looking for common ground with countries that do not share their democratic preferences. (Ryn 2003: 387)
Further examining the relationship between Neoconservatism and moral rhetoric, Ryn argues that
Neo-Jacobinism regards America as founded on universal principles and assigns to the United States the role of supervising the remaking of the world. Its adherents have the intense dogmatic commitment of true believers and are highly prone to moralistic rhetoric. They demand, among other things, "moral clarity" in dealing with regimes that stand in the way of America's universal purpose. They see themselves as champions of "virtue." (p. 384).
Thus, according to Ryn, neoconservatism is analogous to Bolshevism: in the same way that the Bolsheviks wanted to destroy established ways of life throughout the world to replace them with communism, the neoconservatives want to do the same, only imposing free-market capitalism and American-style liberal democracy instead of socialism.
Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, had the following to say in a December, 2005 interview with the German weekly Der Spiegel:
"They are not new conservatives. They're Jacobins. Their predecessor is French Revolution leader Maximilien Robespierre."
Sheeple see... Sheeple do... Or some terrorizing thought like that?
His statement makes Bill O'Reilly both racist and a homegrown terrorist, IMHO. The Jacobins used lynching to terrorize the people during the French revolution, and the neoconservatives/Jacobins do it today.
The prospect of even a symbolic press lynching party is a horrible and disgusting message for O'Reilly to send to Michelle Obama and it is meant to go to the entire African American community in the USA... But it is also part of the "Fear Campaign" meant for the consumption and terrorizing of all Americans and to spill over to the rest of the world.
Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan sum up the John McCain campaign platform pretty effectively:
BUCHANAN:Here’s a guy, basically, what does he say? The jobs are never coming back, the illegals are never going home, but we’re gonna have a lot more wars.
SCARBOROUGH:We’re gonna start a lot of wars! He has promised, for the record Keith, John McCain’s platform — and it certainly looks inviting for the fall — he has promised less jobs and more wars. Now that’s something we can all rally behind.
While campaigning in Michigan earlier this month, McCain said some Michigan industries cannot be resurrected. “I’ve got to give you some straight talk: Some of the jobs that have left the state of Michigan are not coming back,” he said.
And just this weekend, McCain told a crowd of supporters, “There’s going to be other wars. … I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”
And the McCain Silly Walk Express stumbles its way into the lead through the shear incompetence of the other GOP presidential candidates. His likely campaign motto?
John McCain in 2008! The best of the worst the GOP has to offer!
According to ctblogger the Silly Walk Express will be stumbling through Connecticut with his neoconservative brother in eternal arms, Joe Lieberman:
McCain, the front-runner in the Connecticut GOP primary, is appearing Sunday at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, the site of an appearance before winning the state's primary in 2000.
The Arizona senator will appear with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman and U.S. Rep. Chris Shays, says a well-placed source.
I wonder how those "stick with Joe" Democrats feel right about now?
My guess is that they feel pretty darn dumb after we, in Connecticut's left Blogosphere, warned them over and over again...
With bigoted views like this, is there any doubt why advertisers are pulling out from buying spots on his radio show?
On the air, he says that Latinos "breed like rabbits", and that America's public schools are "teaching kids in the third grade how to put a condom on a cucumber." He explains that civil rights are a "racket" that is "used to steal only from the white male -- no one else pays the price." He is worried about "degenerates on the left who want to sell Americans on the idea that homosexuality, bisexuality, transsexuality, even sex with animals is normal." He demonizes pot smokers, refers to third-world nations as "turd world nations", and strongly opposes abortion (although his first wife had two while they were married). After the Dixie Chicks spoke ill of President George W. Bush, Savage inexplicably suggested they should be jailed as traitors. "We've all been warned about the dangers of a theocracy", says Savage, "where religious zealots rule. Today in America, we have a she-ocracy where a minority of feminist zealots rule the culture."
One of his books was a work of fiction called Vital Signs, in which the protagonist wrestles with his attraction to masculine beauty. "I choose to override my desires for men when they swell in me", Weiner wrote, "waiting out the passions like a storm, below decks." At one time, Weiner self-published his own zines featuring inflammatory pieces about gay sex at San Francisco bathhouses. He was apparently opposed to such things. But he was a friend of beat poet Allen Ginsberg, the very, very out gay author of Howl. In a 1970 letter to Ginsberg, someone signed Michael Weiner described a semi-erotic encounter he had had with another man in Fiji. Weiner says he did not write the letter, though the return address was in Honolulu, where Weiner resided at the time. Savage now describes his one-time friend Ginsberg as "latrine slime," and says that upon hearing of his death, "I clasped my hands together and prayed to God. I said, 'Thank you, God, for answering my prayers. One of the blights of the human race is gone.'"
Perhaps, his statements after Ginsberg's death might be the result of unrequited love? Though, I am not certain how this would explain his attacks on women, like the Dixie Chicks, that stake out strong political positions?
Beyond his flip-flopping sexuality issues are his well documented deficiencies concerning issues ofideology, race - which extends well beyond just the above mentioned Latinos - and religion:
Savage on the tsunami: "I wouldn't call it a tragedy. ... We shouldn't be spending a nickel on this" — Listen
Brave New Films has been conducting a a campaign to get advertisers to drop support of Micheal "Savage" Weiner's outrageous statements on his radio show "Savage nation." So far, four advertisers have buckled under the people's pressure:
* USO is a non-profit organization that does not pay for its PSA's to air. Although it claims to have no control over when its advertisements air, it has refused to even request that its ads not run during the Michael Savage show.
He also seems to have a reckless tendency of advocating violence against those that he targets for his hate speech, as evidenced in his quotes above and something that his advertisers might want to be made aware of as well.
I suggest that you contact all of these companies and either 1) ask them to stop supporting the hate speech spewed by this bigot by pulling their adds OR 2) thank them for pulling their advertisements from his show already.
And please remember to be polite since you will catch a lot more flies with honey.
But if they refuse to comply or are particularly obstinate in their statements I won't blame you for verbally unloading on them a little. lol [update] Another advertiser, GEICO, has has agreed to pull their adds.
* USO is a non-profit organization that does not pay for its PSA's to air. Although it claims to have no control over when its advertisements air, it has refused to even request that its ads not run during the Michael Savage show.
* We are getting reports that some corporations are denying their ads are running. This is not true. Here is just one recent commercial segment with Wyeth (Chapstick) and Stamps.com advertising.
In a new Weekly Standard editorial, William Kristol, one of the most prominent and influential voices in the conservative movement, suggests that Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) recent speech attacking war critics may be cause for the eventual Republican Presidential nominee to “offer him the vice presidency.” Peter Wehner, a former assistant to President Bush, endorses the “Joe for VP” meme at the Corner.
