Elsewhere (28)
I wasn’t planning to comment on the shootings in Arizona, but the rush to exploit the tragedy for political gain shouldn’t pass unremarked. The first thing that caught my eye was this smug and nasty sermon from the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky, who tells us “rage is encoded in conservative DNA.”
Guns are simply too central to the mythology of the American right, as is the idea of liberty being wrested from tyrants only at gunpoint. For the American right to stop talking about armed insurrection would be like American liberals dropping the subjects of race and gender.
Mr Tomasky’s rather selective alarm has thankfully been noted by Natalie Solent and Tim Blair.
Glenn Reynolds, a man whose “conservative rage” is difficult to detect, offered this:
To be clear, if you’re using this event to criticize the “rhetoric” of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you’re either: (a) asserting a connection between the “rhetoric” and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you’re not, in which case you’re just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible… Those who purport to care about the health of our political community demonstrate precious little actual concern for America’s political well-being when they seize on any pretext, however flimsy, to call their political opponents accomplices to murder.
At Harry’s Place, Gordon MacMillan is troubled by “violent metaphors,” albeit only those used by some Republicans:
If you do use such explicit language like “reload” and “bullseye,” and “cross hair” imagery then to many the message is clear. You’re gunning for people even if it is metaphorically.
Even more troubled – to the point of authoritarian incoherence – is Pennsylvania Democrat Robert Brady. Mr Brady hopes to outlaw the “use of language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.” As an example of impermissible symbology, Brady pointed to a map used by Sarah Palin to indicate “targeted” congressional seats, saying: “You can’t put bull’s-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official.” That the map in question does no such thing doesn’t appear to hinder Mr Brady. Apparently his perception is enough.
As Jeff Goldstein notes,
Neither Sarah Palin nor that Kos jaggoff targeted Congresswoman Giffords. What they targeted was her Congressional seat. Nobody literally put a bullseye or a target on her. And anyone pretending that they did – in order either to win political points or because they actually believe such nonsense – is either craven and opportunistic, or else too moronic to be taken seriously, save for the dangers they pose to our liberties by advocating for a legally-binding crackdown of fucking symbolism… One person’s dog barking is another person’s words from the Devil instructing them to kill. The answer to which is to get the person hearing voices some help, not to outlaw dogs.
Update, via the comments:
The tawdry surrealism continues. As yet, there’s no evidence that Loughner’s homicidal actions were inspired by, or related to, anyone else’s “rhetoric.” Nor is there any evidence that Loughner was driven to murdering people at random by the graphic design of strategy maps, as featured on the websites of Sarah Palin, Harry Mitchell and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. None of which delays the Guardian’s Michael Tomasky in his second rush to the fray. After casually denouncing his critics as “just comments from conservatives,” Tomasky asks, apparently in all seriousness:
Does there have to be absolute hard proof that Jared Loughner was a committed right-winger before we can say that violent [i.e., right-wing] rhetoric likely played some kind of role here?
Well, one might just as readily assume that “some kind of role” was played by Loughner’s taste in music and drugs, or his fondness for the Communist Manifesto, or his elaborate rants about grammar conspiracies and UFO cover-ups. Baseless supposition is, clearly, an entertaining pastime. And hey, who needs evidence when it comes to murder? There’s the narrative, after all. Which may explain Tomasky’s confidence in concluding,
I don’t think anyone can plausibly deny that most of it [violent rhetoric] comes from the right wing.
At which point readers with strong stomachs may wish to poke through this.
Language still plays on the mind of Paul Krugman, a moral lodestone for readers of the New York Times. Mr Krugman triumphantly quotes a three word comment about being “armed” – with facts – as a damning example of “eliminationist rhetoric.” A phrase Mr Krugman uses three times, despite his difficulties in finding examples. Oh, and the New York Daily News tells us, quite firmly, that Sarah Palin may have “the blood of more than some poor caribou on her hands.” Apparently it’s possible to call for temperate rhetoric while accusing one’s opponents of complicity in murder.
Feel free to add your own.
“rage is encoded in conservative DNA”
Tomasky is shameless. Blood libel and double standards won’t cost him his job though. At the Guardian they’re treated as qualifications.
“He went to considerable expense and trouble to shoot a high-profile Democrat… What else does one need to know?”
So a psycho left winger shoots a Democrat and Tomasky blames ‘right-wing’ rhetoric. Tha man’s a genius.
“So a psycho left winger shoots a Democrat and the left blames ‘right-wing’ rhetoric.”
The key factor is, I suspect, the man’s mental illness rather than his politics, which seem at best incoherent and conspiracy-driven. But it is remarkable just how readily some on the left have tried to assign culpability to People They’ve Never Liked Anyway – and who apparently have violence encoded in their bones. In other circumstances, such blathering would be laughable. And then there are people who hope to outlaw words and symbols that could be perceived as threatening, even when they aren’t, by people so inclined and with agendas of their own.
Presumably the fact that the Daily Kos published an article titled “My CongressWOMAN voted against Nancy Pelosi! And is now DEAD to me!” two days before the shooting had no effect on the killer.
This link also shows the Democrat target map that explicitly shows Giffords as a target
http://hillbuzz.org/2011/01/08/my-congresswoman-voted-against-nancy-pelosi-and-is-now-dead-to-me-eerie-daily-kos-hit-piece-on-gabrielle-giffords-just-two-days-before-assassination-attempt-on-her/
Also Climate Resistance do a good post on the Guardian’s Damien Carrington
http://www.climate-resistance.org/2011/01/the-immoderate-moderator-comment-is-not-free.html
TDK,
Thanks for that. Point well made.
Bishop Hill
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/1/10/damian-on-lunatics.html
I think it’s fair to point out that some of the rhetoric coming from the Tea Party/Beck/Limbaugh posse has been positively deranged. And Palin has pandered to this sentiment shamelessly (remember the ‘death panels’?).
That doesn’t mean that she has incited murder, but she has been extremely irresponsible in her rhetoric. Not that this is purely a conservative flaw.
re: Death Panels
Health care needs are virtually infinite, whereas the resources to meet the needs are limited. Ipso facto health care will be rationed. There are many options to achieve but we’ll highlight only two:
1. Ration by ability to pay
2. Ration by bureaucrat committee according to some scale (eg. QALY)
No country’s health care is based entirely on only one of these – there is a mix. (The US system is biased towards 1, the UK’s towards 2.)
In the UK, people who smoke are in some areas refused operations that could extend their life. The committee that met and agreed to deny such health care (and instead direct the resources elsewhere) inevitably caused the earlier death of some people. Similar facts can be elicited for the overweight or for people who live in the wring area. For example, I have to go private to check for a particular heart problem, whereas my relatives in other parts of the country can be checked for free.
Therefore the facts of rationing are established. It is merely the name of the committee that is in dispute.
In the health debates in the US (and the UK for that matter) conservative opponents of state health care are routinely described as wicked, heartless, condemning the poor to die etc etc etc. ie there is no shortage of “positively deranged” rhetoric coming from proponents of state rationing of health care. I note that you selectively condemn only half the overheated political rhetoric (“death panel”). Without the full picture it is hard to understand why such rhetoric is deployed.
I would suggest that in a political debate, requiring that the terminology should be fixed by one side is illogical and invariably partisan.
I don’t recall the Guardian objecting to the film which depicted the assassination of George W Bush:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_President_(2006_film)
TDK, I did point out that the right did not have a monopoly on wild and hysterical rhetoric. I remember that when Palin’s candidacy for the Vice President was announced, the likes of Naomi Wolf portrayed her as a latter-day Evita, ready to prepare the ground for a fascist coup. That to me was an infantile and counterproductive way of attacking Ms Palin, who could better be accused of being a political lightweight who confuses soundbites with policy.
Palin and her ilk could have led the charge against Obamacare by examining its regulations in depth, and pointed out its flaws. Instead, they resorted to scaremongering. That puts them in the same category as the ‘Bushitler’ crowd during the previous administration, and the ‘Clinton is a drug-dealer/murderer’ mob during the one before that.
It is interesting that there is such a loud call in the left-wing mediasphere about toning down the rhetoric, and making our political discourse more restrained and “civilized”. All this, when “acivists” for left-wing causes, such as environmentalism and human rights and animal rights, move further and further into extremism. I have seen accounts of training in universities for would-be activists that encourages them to be “in your face” as they confront people opposed to them. I have also read accounts from environmentalists who attended meetings intended to resolve issues, where they went into the meetings, not with the intent to compromise, but to take the most extreme position possible, so that any compromising was done by the opposite side. It is a standard left-wing tactic, which has been discovered by the right, mostly in the form of pro-lifers, who have taken it to the extreme of shooting doctors who perform abortions.
Now, of course, the left says that we need to calm down and be responsible. And, as well, they say that we ALL need to hold ourselves responsible for the shooting, because we have ALL spoken too harshly and raised the rhetoric level too far. More guilt.
This was a tragic shooting, and the asassin needs to be held acocuntable, but for all of us to take responsibility is weird.
PlanetMoron catches the pot calling the kettle black at http://planetmoron.typepad.com/planet_moron/2011/01/its-like-a-crisis-only-better.html
And guess which line the Beeboids have taken…
http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/2011/01/bbc-editor-removes-anti-palin-tweet.html
It’s not as if the guardian ever incites violence is it now.
As long as one forgets the enless recent ecouragement for “direct action” against the coalition cuts trotted out by a motley collection of trots, and chanpagne socialists.
Why, anyone would think the average guardianista is a sanctomonious hate-filled hypocrite.
Sorry, I was too strong, but the point remains that most demands for an end to hyperbole/hate speech emanate from partisans who find it acceptable from their own side. We live in an era when the left demand and practice direct action, yet hyper ventilate when anyone opposes them, or suggests the use of the same tactics. You don’t even need to oppose Obama’s health bill, just point out that the claims of cost savings are ridiculous and see the claims of hate speech roll in. You disgree because he’s black – sound familiar.
I’m no particular fan of Palin, regarding her (as you do) as a lightweight, but I do enjoy the fact that she irritates the great and good. I also recognise that whereas I might prefer my commentators to be reasonable like say Thomas Sowell, others are persuaded more by the likes of PJ O’Rourke or Mark Steyn. Thus Palin has her place.
There’s a fatal mistake been made by the right in the last 30 years. They have allowed themselves to be defined as the Nasty People. Think about that. We have a Green movement that is fundamentally misanthropic and yet they are seen as “nice” caring people. That’s because they own the narrative. In order to combat the left we must stop accepting their narrative, stop allowing them to frame the debate.
Yes some of the Tea Party are barmy but when the media attempt to claim that this is solely a movement of racist whites we need to shout bullshit.
I don’t get upset at death panels because essentially this is essentially what the committee’s are doing – they are choosing who gets treatment and who doesn’t. For the sake of conciliation let me give you an example of where I get irritated at the right – when Christopher Booker defended Creationism.
essentially I need to proof read before I click post!
Oh, and we all remember the 10:10 video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mw5_EBk0g)about blowing up children who did not go along with the GLobal Warming/Climate Change/Global Climate Distruption propoganda…
“rage is encoded in conservative DNA”
Must have inherited from their “raging grannies.”
“I think it’s fair to point out that some of the rhetoric coming from the Tea Party/Beck/Limbaugh posse has been positively deranged. And Palin has pandered to this sentiment shamelessly (remember the ‘death panels’?).”
Yes. I remember the government twice trying to include death panels in Obamacare. And both times the death panels were accurately labeled “death panels.”
“we’ll highlight only two”
Highlighting the top three “rationing” techniques
1 Friends with inside connections to politicians and bureaucrats get infinite care (the EU+ Soviet method)
2 People buy what they can afford (this is not “rationing”)
3 People are “evaluated” by bigoted, prejudiced bureaucrats with insane standards
Only number two is fair.
I’m a little bemused by this piece and its comments. What exact point are they making? That political hay shouldn’t be made by a tragedy like this? I quite agree. Or that the degree of inflamed rhetoric on the right is balanced by that on the left?
See, it works like this…When a trained psychologist expressing fervent Islamic views and deep opposition to the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan goes on a shooting spree on a US Army base, it is an “isolated and tragic case” and Janet Napolitano will tell us that “This was an individual who does not, obviously, represent the Muslim faith”.
Now if a pot-smoking, pro-flag burning, anti-religion nut case goes on a shooting spree, this is an individual who does, obviously, represent Sara Palin and anyone to the right of the political spectrum.
Of course I try to keep in mind that it’s not that y’all lack the intelligence to understand this, it’s more likely an indication that y’all are mentally unbalanced.
I agree with Lee Ward above. Just because some on the left are irresponsible idiots does that give some on the right a free pass? I don’t feel any affiliation with either (thank God). But isn’t it entirely reasonable to describe Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc. as indulging in inflammatory demagoguery?
Lee,
“What exact point are they making? That political hay shouldn’t be made by a tragedy like this? I quite agree. Or that the degree of inflamed rhetoric on the right is balanced by that on the left?”
I can’t speak for the commenters, but I’d say both points are worth pondering. (Though I wouldn’t use the word “balanced.” In terms of both prevalence and people explicitly acting on “inflamed rhetoric,” I’d say the left currently has the edge, and by some margin. See the archives for dozens of illustrations.) What most caught my attention was the eagerness to make connections and accusations of an unproven, dubious or ludicrous nature – a kind of linguistic land grab: “See how violent and dangerous our political opponents are! Something must be done!” As though this particular episode were driven by political affiliation rather than, say, derangement, and as though violence were “encoded” only in one’s opponents.
Update:
As yet, there’s no evidence that Loughner’s homicidal actions were inspired by, or related to, anyone else’s “rhetoric.” Nor is there any evidence that Loughner was driven to murdering people at random by the graphic design of strategy maps featured on the websites of Sarah Palin or Harry Mitchell, or the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Yet this is the bizarre implication or insinuation of numerous commentators. To me – based on what little we know so far – this sounds quite bonkers. We already have politicians and commentators calling for the outlawing of “language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening.” Among them, Robert Brady, who seems to believe that an innocuous piece of graphic design will turn otherwise sane people into homicidal maniacs.
(Incidentally, the “elsewhere” posts don’t advance an argument in the way that a standard post here might. Sometimes the items featured share a common theme or are tangentially connected. Sometimes it’s a collection of disparate views and/or subject matter. Think of the one above as a spur to conversation.)
There’s a fatal mistake been made by the right in the last 30 years. They have allowed themselves to be defined as the Nasty People.
I don’t believe could have been avoided. The left controls the media, not the right. Tell a lie often enough, it becomes true.
“We already have politicians and commentators calling for the outlawing of “language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening.” Among them, Robert Brady, who seems to believe that an innocuous piece of graphic design will turn otherwise sane people into homicidal maniacs.”
Glenn Beck is sounding saner by the minute.
“Glenn Beck is sounding saner by the minute.”
To be clear: I don’t much care for inflammatory rhetoric. I didn’t care for the hanged and burning effigies of an incumbent conservative president, or the supposedly titillating film about assassinating that same incumbent conservative president. And I wasn’t overly impressed by the comedienne who took delight in gang rape scenarios featuring a conservative female candidate. None of it looks good, to say the very least. (And given the number of such examples, across the political spectrum, the fixation with an innocuous map of congressional seats seems a tad bizarre.)
But in a free society deranged and repulsive outbursts aren’t likely to go away anytime soon. Unless, that is, some people try to criminalise outbursts they find ugly. And that’s the thing. What’s the endgame for someone like Robert Brady? Who gets to decide what kind of map graphics are “threatening”? Exactly how much banning and censorship will save us from the risk of that one suggestible sociopath who may – may – be out there?
As for gun control – this is only required to prevent the wrong people from owning guns.
The right people, should of course be allowed to carry;
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/early-lead/2011/01/heath_shuler_said_hell_carry_g.html
TDK, aynrandgirl – the Nasty People brand only means something to the left, so those who are not-left tend to ignore it. While the leftists seem to think that that they can shape reality by discussing it in the right terms, those on the non-left tend to dismiss this view. The truth may be somewhere between these two sides…
-S
lee
I guess your point is directed at me.
I thought I made it clear I preferred a more reasoned debate. In any case I cannot see any method to restrict it, that would be fair to all sides. That isn’t to say I believe that open calls to assassinate political opponents or commit other crimes should be allowed. However I note that in this case, as in so many other cases, the causal chain is tenuous at best.
So my answer is free speech is best. We ought to allow the Michael Tomasky’s of this world to make spurious claims about Palin’s complicity but then ridicule his shoddy logic. Which I guess is what’s happening.
Simen Thoresen
those on the non-left tend to dismiss this view.
I doubt that’s true. It is widely known that surveys of the public demonstrate a reluctance to admit to certain views. Thus fewer people admit to intending to vote conservative than actually do. Or conversely consider the gap between the high numbers of people claiming to be doing their bit for the environment with the actual results.
And finally, Michelle Malkin posted a series of relevant links
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/10/the-progressive-climate-of-hate-an-illustrated-primer-2000-2010/
“They have allowed themselves to be defined as the Nasty People.”
Whatever Loughner’s motives may prove to be (assuming they’re comprehensible), note the associations that are already being forged by Tomasky and his peers through sheer repetition: “Guns… Crosshairs… American Right… Tea Party… Shooting… Palin… Republicans…” Newsweek published a photo of Loughner alongside the words “right wing extremism,” despite the fact his politics are as yet unclear and their relevance unknown. The slaughter of six innocent people, including a child – by a madman – is being associated with People Who Aren’t Leftwing. Those raging, dangerous, nasty people. According to this narrative, it’s not a lone psychopath on a murder spree; it’s about his rhetorical accomplices and their “violent metaphors.” With enough repetition maybe more people will believe that “rage is encoded in conservative DNA.”
it would be nice if you provided some examples of their “inflammatory demagoguery”.
I think a great deal of the rage we are seeing can be ascribed to those on the Left who feel they have set the tone of the discourse for the last half-century and are now seeing their iron control slipping away. The new media really are a threat to the old oligopoly, and not an over-hyped one, which explains the animus towards such things as blogs and talk radio. As a rather quotidian example, even comparatively recently, the idea of a bunch of people scattered across the globe being able to have a near-real time back-and-forth about the nature of political rhetoric would have been fanciful.
I don’t recall the Guardian objecting to the film which depicted the assassination of George W Bush
That’s different. That’s art.
it would be nice if you provided some examples of their “inflammatory demagoguery”.
I’ve heard the following inflammatory demagoguery on TV :
To arms, citizens,
Form your battalions,
Let’s march, let’s march!
That impure blood
May water our furrows!
…
Tremble, tyrants and you traitors
The shame of all parties,
Tremble! Your parricidal schemes
Will finally receive their reward!
We’ll also have to do something about pet dogs and their inflammatory language (recall that the Son of Sam killer was told to kill by his neighbor’s dog).
“But isn’t it entirely reasonable to describe Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc. as indulging in inflammatory demagoguery?”
Actually no, I do not believe it is. In fact I see it as an unjustified smear against reasonable people that you happen to disagree with politically.
But then I’m probably an inflammatory demagogue. It’s so hard to be sure anymore.
Oh, it goes on. Michael Tomasky returns to the subject again, glibly denouncing his critics as “just comments from conservatives,” and asking, apparently in all seriousness: “Does there have to be absolute hard proof that Jared Loughner was a committed right-winger before we can say that violent [i.e., right-wing] rhetoric likely played some kind of role here?”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2011/jan/10/jared-lee-loughner-and-responsibility
Well, one might just as well assume that “some kind of role” was played by Loughner’s taste in music and drugs, or his fondness for the Communist Manifesto, or his elaborate rants about grammar conspiracies and UFO cover-ups. And hey, who needs evidence when it comes to murder? There’s the narrative, after all. Which may explain Tomasky’s confidence in saying, “I don’t think anyone can plausibly deny that most of it [violent rhetoric] comes from the right wing.”
That towering intellect Jane Fonda saw fit to blame Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, though evidence and logic escaped her yet again. Ditto Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who used an innocuous comment about being “armed” – with facts – as an example of “eliminationist rhetoric.” And the New York Daily News is telling us, quite firmly, that Sarah Palin may have “the blood of more than some poor caribou on her hands.” Some people can evidently call for temperate rhetoric while accusing their opponents of complicity in murder.
As Jeff Goldsten notes drily over at Protein Wisdom:
“As a rough estimate, about 51,999,999 households, responsible for the legal care of 259,999,999 guns, did not shoot up a political meetup at a Safeway this weekend — despite the climate of overheated political rhetoric and conservative-bred HATE that practically compels them to do so.”
http://proteinwisdom.com/?p=23980
It’s one thing to say that lurid and combative rhetoric can be unpleasant or counter-productive or whatever. It’s something else entirely to insinuate, based on nothing, that such rhetoric inspires mass murder and therefore makes the speaker complicit, along with his or her audience. And only a fool would allow his political opponents to decide what constitutes legitimate political discourse.
“And only a fool would allow his political opponents to decide what constitutes legitimate political discourse.”
It’s starting already. “HATE SPEECH = MURDER.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110109/ts_yblog_theticket/in-the-aftermath-of-the-giffords-shooting-a-debate-over-heated-political-rhetoric
And guess who’ll get to decide what counts as ‘hate speech’…?
In the interests of balance, let it be known that when Stephen Timms was stabbed the Graun was less than equivocal in condemning his would-be assassin:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/04/youtube-radicalisation-roshonara-choudhry
Yay, I think I’m first in with Australia’s best, the celebrated Leftard columnist Bob Ellis. Believe it or not he’s one of our literary heavyweights.
It would not do him justice if I tried to summarise the piece. Suffice to say he has mown down all before him with this article ‘Tucson Gunshot Blues’.
Ok, here’s a teaser:
‘The events in Tucson underline too, with blood and screaming, prayer and soul-searching, America’s decline as an opinion-forming nation in a world grown more educated in its addled and feckless boorishness. No other nation agrees much any more with lethal injections, handguns for nutjobs, bigamous preachers, nose jobs, Elvis weddings, stark naked tabletop dancers, gigantic steaks with Freedom Fries, annual ‘work’ on businessman’s faces and perpetual religious wars in the Middle East in the way Americans do, and most feel the craziness has to stop’.
You Poms might’ve won the Ashes but no one can match us for Lefty ratbags like ‘our Bob’.
Here’s the link: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/42964.html
The last word…?
http://kaching.tumblr.com/post/2709520449/pay-attention-pay-close-attention-read-carefully
I think the Left has overreached with this libel. I think too many people see it for what it is.
Another piece of the puzzle: the despicable Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik (D) has been running his mouth in the same vein as described above, blaming talk radio and a “climate of hate” that of course, comes entirely from non-Democrats. There are rumblings however, that Dupnik has a motive to distract from the facts of the matter — that despite years of bizarre and potentially dangerous behavior, the shooter was allowed to slide repeatedly without prosecution, possibly because his mother is a Pima County employee.
http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-is-a-product-of-sheriff-dupniks-office/
If he’d been prosecuted as the law allowed, of course, buying a gun would have been prevented by his criminal record.
The allegations linked above are not actionable as they stand. They are however, a starting point for further inquiry. Previous contacts between the Sheriff’s department and the shooter have now been acknowledged by Sheriff Dupnik himself. Note that the obsession with Congreswoman Giffords has been traced as far back as 2007.
There is the additional question of, where was the police presence at Gifford’s public event?
‘No other nation agrees much any more with lethal injections’
Indeed, other countries with death penalties prefer other more human methods of execution, like hanging, stoning, or firing squads. And of course they’re enlightened enough not to sentence you to death for something trivial like murder, but real crimes like being gay, or wanting to marry someone you love, or even speaking out against the government.
‘handguns for nutjobs,’
And Australia’s never had any problem with gunmen going on rampages?
‘stark naked tabletop dancers,’
And the problem is what exactly?
‘gigantic steaks with Freedom Fries’
Hmm … I’m hungry.
‘perpetual religious wars in the Middle East’
Well it’s good to know there was no sectarian or confessional violence in that part of the world until 2001.
Gordon MacMillan over at HP is a ‘true believer’ in the Holy Church of Labour. His posts read like hastily retyped press releases from Ed Milliband’s sock-drawer.
More on what Wm T Sherman is hinting at.
Some more signs of a cover-up here…
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2011/01/12/20110112gabrielle-giffords-arizona-shooting-pima-county-wont-release-jared-loughner-records.html
I thought this was worth digging out. This is a news clip of John Wayne’s ‘roast’ in Harvard Uni in January 1974, where the most violent action is the lobbing of snowballs, and the confrontation between anti-establishment students and the maker of the ‘Green Berets’ revolves around piss-taking and self-deprecation. I’m not sure something like this could happen today – either in a Uni Hall, or on ‘Fox News’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dINMVPRA3DY
“Mr Krugman triumphantly quotes a three word comment about being “armed” – with facts – as a damning example of “eliminationist rhetoric.””
The NYT comment pages get more like the Guardian’s every week.
Anyone think we’ll ever hear retractions or apologies from Krugman, Yglesias, Tomasky, Moulitas etc?
“Anyone think we’ll ever hear retractions or apologies from Krugman, Yglesias, Tomasky, Moulitas etc?”
Given the apparent lack of interest in reality, I doubt it very much. That’s one of the advantages of being uninterested in reality. You can pretend you were never wrong.
“Given the apparent lack of interest in reality”
When I was in school, there was a popular T-shirt that read “Reality is for people who can’t handle drugs”. I mistook it for a joke. Apparently its purpose was to communicate information. Is there one specific drug or is there some sort of cocktail recipe that works, cause I’ve tried a few myself but none of them seemed to work as required…