Noted In Transit
(And currently percolating underneath the glad and cheery surface of SadNo.)
1) A stupidity that passeth all measure, as Hillary Clinton attempts to seem tougher than Obama by expressing a willingness to launch a nuclear first-strike on an ally (i.e. Pakistan, i.e. a nuclear power).
2) Rot attacks the foundations via the FISA thing currently hurtling through Congress, as the White House attempts to write itself a get-out-of-jail-free card for some kind of surveillance operation in ’04 (cough cough ahem) that was apparently so illegal, most of the Justice Dep’t threatened to resign over it.*
And now stay tuned for a word from our sponsor:
* This is taking place as half the liberal blogowhatsis is at Yearly Kos, so the response is somewhat muted, but also see Glenn Greenwald here.
Not to harp on it, but don’t forget the new Executive Order stripping you of the rights of citizenship if you undermine Lebanon.
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh!
Loah ratezzzzzzzzzzzz!
Legal, schmegal! Don’t you know there are TERRORISTS out there?!?! RIGHT NOW?!?!?! Threatening to kill YOUR loved ones?!?!?!
A giant mutant man-eagle hunkers down on the trunk of your car and shits an egg onto it out of which it’s demonspawn abomination of a child pops with an insurance policy clasped in it’s horrid, bloody, cruel beak and you’re amazed by the rates on the policy?
Isn’t that time to like re-evaluate your religious beliefs or something
Not when the answer to every question ever posed is, “Jeebus did it.”
There’s also the problem with a foreign policy panel at YK consisting of Kenneth Baer and Peter Beinart, being reported on and heavily linked to by Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias. Jesus fucking Christ.
To parse the problem with this: Liberal hawks are talking/lecturing Kossaks, apparently by invitation, and it’s being disseminated in the blogosphere by Liberal Hawks. I don’t give a fuck how “these people have changed” — WHERE are the DFHs at what is meant to be a DFH convention?
A giant mutant man-eagle hunkers down on the trunk of your car and shits an egg onto it out of which it’s demonspawn abomination of a child pops with an insurance policy clasped in it’s horrid, bloody, cruel beak and you’re amazed by the rates on the policy?
Ho hum. I’ve seen shit like this a number of times. Usually, I consider it for a few moments, mutter damn good shit under my breath and go on with my day…
mikey
The fact is that the Democrats don’t have a single candidate who is serious about winning the War on Terror.
Hillary is proven to not be strong on winning the GWOT.
Obama is an idiot on foreign policy.
The two major Democrat candidates are too liberal to win over Americans.
Rudy v. Obama ends with a decisive Rudy victory, because Rudy knows how to fight and win the GWOT.
Same for Rudy v. Hillary
Ah, HTML, my love….if only YK was meant to be a dirty fucking hippie convention.
Markos has made it plain on more than one occasion how he feels about the DFH in his midst, and the Kos machine wants to be taken seriously in Democratic politics. Everybody knows that serious Democrats think that nuking Pakistan is an option to keep on the table.
Why do you think I’m a socialist? These people will never, ever change.
Not, to be sure, that thre aren’t a lot of DFH hanging out in the scary bowels of Koslandia – but they will never, ever be allowed out of the scary bowels of Koslandia. They will never get a seat at the table.
It’s a slow and painful awakening process, turning one’s back on the Democratic party. There just comes a point in every sweet young thing’s life where she’s been told “I promise I won’t come in your mouth” so many times that she just stops blowing guys alltogether.
The mainstream Dems are promising that they won’t come in your mouth. I can promise you that if you listen to them, they’re going to leave a bad taste in your mouth. It’s all about what you chose to believe after that.
I had to think about it for a minute before I realized who “Rudy” is. Around my house, we call him the Pander Bear.
There’s also the problem with a foreign policy panel at YK consisting of Kenneth Baer and Peter Beinart, being reported on and heavily linked to by Ezra Klein and Matthew Yglesias. Jesus fucking Christ.
indeed
Sorry….that was both cranky AND crass.
I blame it on the large quantities of pain medication I’m on, combined with the discomfort of sitting for the last four hours on a heating pad (in the middle of a Miami summer) trying to get the strained muscles in my back to relax.
Gavin, Gavin, Gavin, you forgot another classic from the greater NYC area.
I grew up in NJ, back when WPIX was indie-owned. Good times.
“I think presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use, or non-use, of nuclear weapons,” she said.”
Has Washington D.C. (the city) actually become that much of a bunker?
All those checkpoints, barricades, and barbed wire must really be twisting their perceptions…
I’m sure Jillian can’t wait for the pep talk from Kos about how “We need to elect more Democrats because the ones we helped elect voted against our POV”
But right now, it would distract attention from the YK-circlejerk for Kos to say much.
The fact is, Gary, that Rudy’s exwife and kids will crush him if he gets the nod. And it’ll be a thing of beauty to behold. Even Hillary could beat Rudy, tho she’d find a way to screw it up, probably, because Jillian does have a good point.
Truth hurts, Jillian.
because Rudy knows how to fight and win the GWOT.
Well, he certainly knows how to make a profit from it, that’s for certain.
I think that America will realize that Rudy should be judged by how he turned New York back from the abyss, and how he led New York after 9/11.
America will discount the bitter ravings of Rudy’s ex-wife.
While I disagree with Rudy’s views on social issues, I know that he will be closer to Ike Eisenhower than Bill Clinton. He will focus more on winning the War on Terror.
Mitt Romney just can’t win. Fred Thompson isn’t the man either.
Rudy Giuliani is the best shot to get a sane competant man in the White House
Gary is a Rudy supporter now?
what happened to Cheney/Bolton 2008, Gary??
Believe me, diffbrad, it’s not that I *want* Hillary Clinton to lose. If she gets the nomination, I hope to Christ she wins. I’ll even vote for her myself, although I really will need a drink and a shower after doing that.
It’s that she CAN’T win. The huge amount of mindless hatred for her out there in the heartland is just staggering. It’s not principled disagreement with her; it’s pure, visceral hatred. You can’t reason your way out of that. People just won’t vote for her. Hell, I had a friend tell me just the other day that he really dislikes her and won’t vote for her, and then just fifteen seconds later he said that he finds her platform the best of all the Democratic candidates, and overall pretty good. He didn’t even realize what he’d just said – the cognitive dissonance on this issue is that great.
I would support the Vice President if he wanted the job.
But foreign policy is the most important issue and Rudy is the best candidate on that issue.
A Giuliani/Huckabee ticket would be a very hard to beat ticket.
I’m sure Jillian can’t wait for the pep talk from Kos about how “We need to elect more Democrats because the ones we helped elect voted against our POV”
Gary Ruppert actually making a cogent point about the ‘A-List’ liberal bloggers and their relationship to Democratic party politics?
I call shenanigans. This is too coherent to be the Gary Ruppert from Netvocates that Mark Foley found so alluring.
It’s another one of those wingnut obsessions that says more about them than it does her. I have a friend (unfortunately rather Republican and conservative) who constantly talks about her. He’s obsessed with the thought of her nomination and her candidacy. I just want to say sometimes, “dude! Shut up! I don’t like her either but at least my reasons are political.” He’s fairly steeped in mainstream political culture so I don’t think he quite understands my political persuasions as they don’t exist in the land of Time magazine and CNN.
What’s worse is that this guy is quite gay. I don’t think he quite comprehends the reality of the Republican Party, but he’s also very hard-headed so it’s not as if I could just explain it to him. Were it that easy…
I think that America will realize that Rudy should be judged by how he turned New York back from the abyss, and how he led New York after 9/11.
You mean that in the event of another terrorist attack, he’ll be standing around with nothing to do at the site of the attack because his $15 million emergency command center was buried in the rubble of a previously-targeted building?
Jillian, Rupert Murdoch is supporting Hillary now.
She can win.
I’ll even vote for her myself, although I really will need a drink and a shower after doing that.
Me, too.
The best part about a Huckabee VP is the concern he’d show for protecting the Canadian National Igloo.
It’ll be worth it to see him get the nod, just so that the video clip of this will end up on every major network.
Fake Gary. There was distinct pro-Thompson in his ravings not but a few weeks back.
re: The FISA thing….
I can’t wait for Scott Lemieux to explain to us how it’s all Ralph Nader’s fault that the Democrats are behaving exactly like the Republicans on this issue.
I take ironic comfort in knowing New York is incapable of going for the Repub candidate in any modern national election, as it allows me not to need to dirty my hands with voting in presidential elections.
Anyone who freaks out over this; get rid of the electoral college and make my vote count, and I’ll use it. If I lived in Florida I’d vote.
Hillary’s a dud and a hypocrite. She accepted more cash donations from the health insurance industry than any other candidate, Republicans included.
Fuck her!
That was before Thompson hired Spencer “Soft on terrorism” Abraham to run his campaign
She accepted more cash donations from the health insurance industry than any other candidate
Since corporations can’t directly donate, these donations came from people working for health insurance companies.
What do you have against those people? They’re exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
IB- How’s about if Nader had the courage of his convictions President Gore would’ve never created an illegal wiretapping program?
Which is not to say I think Bush is all Nader’s fault.
He bears a small measure of responsibility.
If Al Gore wasn’t so out of touch that he lost his home state, then he would have been President, and America would have been far worse off.
Sorry, I’m having a hard time reading all of your posts, there’s a lot of Fake Traffic, and it’s scrambling your letters. Try again later.
I’m gonna fight it, dear Jillian. It’s not that I’m an idealist, and I know Markos’s personal politics and I’m fine with it. What bothers me, though, is that probably 85 percent of the netroots think like us about Liberal Hawks, yet Liberal Hawks continue to dominate the discussion. It infuriates me, and doubly so when I try go the Atrios/DeLong “why can’t we have a better press corps/pundit class” routine (that everyone agrees with when *they* do it), but I get shit for it when I do it at a target where it is even more a propos.
For fuck’s sake, why is it so awful to say that the leftwing opinion mags the netroots links to should be, you know, similar to the netroots on foreign policy matters? Most people have even waken up to the fact — 20 years obvious now — that Michael Kinsley is not our kind of pundit. Yet TAP and WM and the Atlantic and so on has hired Kinsley wannabes who operate on the Charlie Fucking Peters stylebook and it drives me batshit.
The other day, Kaus was bitching about being left off a mailling list of such people like Jon Chait and Ezra Klein. I don’t blame him! That’s absolutely his kind of crowd. And while everyone will admit it when it comes to Kaus, no one will say much about Chait, Klein, et al. Nothing makes me want to put my fist through the monitor more than knowing that when the next war comes, the press corps will behave essentially like it did before and during the Iraq invasion because because the “new” bosses, among what should be the opposition, operate under the same assumptions and are inspired by the same biases as the “old bosses”. And the wingnuts will have a cakewalk for a war “debate”.
Friends, who mean well, are trying to tell me politely to STFU on this front but I can’t.
But I finally got a nibble on that front in the Dennis Prager thread, and I’m gonna reply in a post maybe the end of this week. I’m sure it’ll still somehow alienate people who don’t like Liberal Hawks any more than I do (though for some reason won’t complain about their continued monopoly in *our* media) but, well, ich kann nicht anders.
Keep on fighting ’em, darling. The more folks like you piss ’em off, the sexier y’all are.
The Democratic party used to belong to people like us. Could you imagine if they tried to propose something like Social Security today? Hell, you don’t have to imagine it – national health care is a lot like Social Security, and you can see what they did with that.
And if I recall my 12th-grade history correctly, Franklin Roosevelt did propose national health care as part of Social Security but it was dropped due to political considerations.
Go figure.
Yeppers, Simba. SS was also supposed to be paid for out of income taxes, but ended up getting paid for out of payroll taxes, which are inherently more regressive.
Ah, well. Roosevelt did the best he could, and his best was good enough that some of the scions of business started talking about organizing a fascist putsch against him.
Good times, good times.
Which is not to say I think Bush is all Nader’s fault.
He bears a small measure of responsibility.
Oh, fucking enough already. Nader got something like 90,000 votes in Florida, IIRC. On the other hand, more than 200,000 registered Democrats voted for Bush. Why do they not inspire the same kind of carpet-chewing that Nader does? Call me crazy, but I think maybe they should have been expected to vote for their party’s nominee, much more than the idealistic Greens who probably would have just sat the fuck home if Ralph hadn’t been on the ballot. He was a protest vote, remember? Jesus jumping fuckhead Christ, I’m so sick of this thanksralph! herd mentality.
And yeah, what Incontinentia said. Fuck Lemieux too.
I wonder if enough of Roosevelt’s remains exist to run them for Pres. Maybe if we dug up the Kennedy Bros and combined it all.
I voted for Nader in 96. I worked for NYPIRG. He gets shit because alone of all the significant players in the game, he alone gave people reason to expect better. Use all the right wing dismissal tricks you want, there remains legitimate cause to be disappointed he stayed in the race and ran it the way he did. He was not the reason Gore lost, but he helped make it possible.
Oops. Strike one of those alones.
Sorry….that was both cranky AND crass.
Aw hell, don’t apologize for saying what’s on yer mind Jillian. WTF is the point of these here intert00bz if we can’t say what’d on our mind with them?
And Crass? How can you possibly get crasser than stating you want to kill millions of people, and turn their national territory into a giant dead wasteland where nothing can live for centuries? Stating that in order to seem tough. How can ye get crasser than that? I don’t think you can.
The thing is, this is no longer politics as usual. It’s been a slow motion train wreck, and as such it’s kind of hard to really comprehend how much has been lost, even for those of us who talk about it every day. Take your mind on a vacation back to 1999, and look around today, at the fear, the divisiveness, the hatred, the vitriol. The things this government has done in our name, with our money, and then refused to tell us about. What america has become, both as a practical matter and in the eyes of the rest of the world. The example we set. The cover we provide the worst dictators in the world, except of course those who we deliberately demonize in order to terrorize our own population into supporting self-destructive policies. Take your mind back there, look where we are today, extrapolate another sixteen or eighteen months. This is a major crisis. We can’t hope to get back what we had, not anytime soon. We can only hope to stop here, and perhaps roll back the worst excesses. Time will tell.
HTML. You know I don’t necessarily agree with you, except that you certainly have every right to take that position and try to force change. And the changes you advocate, if you could somehow bring them to fruition, would be good changes. But at a time when everything is in play, including freedom, democracy, peace and prosperity, it seems somewhat counterproductive to rail against people who might help us stop the train wreck. Oh, I get that you are convinced they’ll just “lead us” into another war, but if we get an administration without the cheneys, feiths, wolfowitzes perles and libbys, maybe we’ll have a government that will ignore their fringe cries for blood, and act more responsibly in the world. Maybe. It’s really our only hope, because if we just have a circular firing squad and the rovians are there to pick up the pieces, it’s all done. Over. And none of it will matter any more…
mikey
Use all the right wing dismissal tricks you want
Do what now?
200,000 > 90,000. I wasn’t even that great at math, but I can figure out which one bears more responsibility. Why were these Jeane Kirkpatrick Democrats justified in doing that?
And I think Nader’s a joke. I just have yet to see anyone convincingly explain to me how it is that all those disaffected idealists were planning on voting for Gore until Ralph led them astray. I’m arguing: they probably wouldn’t have voted at all. And yet you still would have had 200,000 dumber-than-shit Democrats voting for the fella they’d like to have a beer with.
I meant the dismissive lumping me into a herd mentality behind someone I don’t read that often. I was against Ralph running in 2000 back in 99, because it was clear it was going to be a close election.
Here’s some different math.
90,000 > 512
Say 2/3rds wouldn’t have otherwise voted, and that roughly 75% of those that did still vote went Gore. Rough guesses, but not unfair, right?
That’s 22,500.
Still bigger than 512.
Oops. 22.5k minus 7.5k for Bush, for a net gain of 15k.
But foreign policy is the most important issue and Rudy is the best candidate on that issue.
Yeah, just ignore the collapsing bridges and exploding streets and worry about the Stealth Iranian death-ray-equipped bat drones that will be killing MILLIONS if we don’t vote Republican in 2008, yup.
I’m not arguing Gore, and even moreso the people running his campaign, didn’t fuck up majorly. They deserve more blame, as does the media. The people who disenfranchised thousands of black voters in Florida and otherwise rigged the vote in the state for Bush and the Supreme Court deserve primary blame.
Ralph was a bit player throughout, but, in the end, a player nonetheless. If he’d been honest with himself and not made it personal against Gore, he’d have seen the need to step out and not make it that small increment easier for BushCo to sleaze its way in. I don’t know that anyone could have foreseen how…. horrible this Admin has been, but that’s only the degree. That they were evil, a word I try not to use but is the only one that fits, was apparent then. Gore was a technocrat and lost in the fog of DC, but he was never remotely equivalent to Bush.
Hey, my hippie friends. In the interest of bringing the correct (aka right) and the left together, how about some light comedy? Is that the kind of thing that you think you might be into?
Simple Simon
Met a Pie Man
Carrying Quite a Load
Oh! It’s just Kevin
When he turns eleven
He’ll get to have it a la mode…..
mikey
Dude. I don’t give a hop, skip and a fuck for Nader. He could disappear tomorrow for all I care. I simply can’t understand why the same people who blame him for costing Gore the election refuse to blame those fucking Democrats. Sure, he played some role in that fiasco, but he was a distant third behind the criminal activities of the Republicans themselves and, you know, those 200,000 turncoat Democrats. Did I mention them yet?
Not to mention – it’s 2007. We’ve had almost seven long years to see what inept fuckups the Democratic party consists of. Is that Ralph’s fault too? Did he just break their spirit with his shenanigans in 2000? Their own registered voters cost them the election. The party itself has done everything in its power to make itself irrelevant since then. At what point do the apologist hacks drop their obsession with their secular Judas figure and face up to it: we were bound to end up here at some point. The Republicans have been on an authoritarian tear for my entire lifetime. Every time they’ve gotten near power, they’ve expanded the executive branch, illegally attacked someone, and gone at the Constitution like a bunch of frat boys on a passed-out cheerleader. And when the Dems get back in charge, they keep trying to shuffle to the right and make nice.
You think President Gore wouldn’t have faced the same rabid, ferocious noise machine? You think his own party wouldn’t have stood there like a bunch of dumbfounded dipshits while it happened? And you don’t think the eventual return of the Republicans to power wouldn’t have played out much like it has? You don’t think the first Republican back in the White House wouldn’t have looked for the first opportunity to invade someone, anyone, in the Middle East?
Blaming Ralph reeks of weakness, the sort of impotent fantasy that people cling to when they know, but won’t admit, that they were fucked all along. Our own little dolschtosslegende. Just as pathetic as the right wing blaming the lack of clapping for the results in Iraq.
I was responding to your post at 0:27, not 0:37, just to be clear.
mikey,
Does the Greasemonkey script work on the comments RSS feed?
Sadly, No.
(although it is in full force in my browser)
I’m so glad Rudy’s campaign has hired Gary.
Simba, I am a simple man.
I don’t use a newsreader.
I like stainless and cast iron pans.
I prefer a revolver to an auto.
I sharpen my knives on a stone.
I drink my scotch straight.
I smoke my pot in a simple little pipe.
Complexity makes my face hurt. Er, that is, as long as I get to define what exactly constitutes complexity, y’know?
mikey
Didn’t pie loving Mikey put me on block? What gives, my friend? Nevertheless, I don’t want to crowd in on whatever it is that has the left’s panties in a bunch today, but I WOULD like to spread some joy. Here’s another. These guys are so funny that even hippies might forget whatever hippie agenda they are whining about and laugh.
You’re so beautiful you could be a waitress! Whine about whatever you like to whine about later. Bush =KKK, Cheney and his Rethuglicans, Mud for oil, Cheese for France… whatever. Just click the link and enjoy. Not the first one. That’s just Mike diggin’ his pie. The second one.
Heh, anyone else want to argue? Mike’s been (as usual) – owned. But we still keep some pie out back for him.
Seriously, my hippie friends, I didn’t read whatever Gavin is complaining about on this post, but I bet it’s all the same crap – Republicans bad/evil/selfish, Democrats are holy creamy goodness.
Watch this instead.
Administrations like Bush’s and wars like Iraq do not spring forth like Minerva out of Jupiter’s forehead. Such things don’t just fall out of the sky or materialize out of the ether. Conditions must exist first, and one of those is a fucking rotten press corps. I can’t do anything about Bush and the “MSM”. I can maybe have an influence on the netroots movement and its prefered press organs. I really can’t make it more simple than that. Bush may not care about political capitl now that he’s a lame duck, but it was fucking political capital that allowed him to get the country into these messes. Well, political capital, like it or not, is definitely shaped by the press so the idea that pundits and writers are blameless simply has no merit. Writers aren’t “just writers” when they have audiences in the numbers they have and with the many influential ears they are able to bend. These people are responsible — some of them like Yglesias even admit they are responsible — yet they have not changed about them that which caused them to be responsible — for the mess we’re in. Yes, Bush ultimately “did it”. But he had help. When Bush is gone, the helpers remain. It’s foolish to think they won’t “help” again.
That makes sense. I GET that. It just seems that there is a mechanism in place to change the administration, however flawed that mechanism might be. There is NO mechanism in place to coerce publications to change who writes for their organs. Nor should there be. Your voice is powerful, but you have very little power. You can’t get Yglesias replaced by digby, you can’t get Ezra replaced by Greenwald, you can’t get Beinart replaced by krugman. I honestly don’t know, or understand how these decisions get made. Hell, CNN keeps Beck on when his ratings are HORRIBLE. But we can work together to take the power away from the criminals who currently hold the power. And I’m sorry, but you have to admit that Dick fucking Cheney has more power to harm american interests than Mathew fucking Yglesias. And if Ezra can help us from where he is, well you don’t have to forgive him, but frankly, you’re an idiot if you don’t USE him when it suits your purpose. Y’know?
mikey
I’d just like to invite you all to move up here to Denmark.
Sure, we have our political problems too, but, you know,
up here you wouldn’t be DFH’s … most of you’d just be sorta mainstream.
Yeah, yeah, it’s further away than Canada, (the usual refuge bandied about)
but Danish bacon is way more crisp yet succulent than the canucky variant.
Plus, you’d get to play with Lego.
Lego, people!
Motherfuckin’ LEGO!
Oh….
We’ve also got socialized medicine,
a decent social safety net
and, if you’re REALLY good… we’ll even mate with you!
Get some viking in ya! WHOOHOO!
Come one, come all!
You can even bring along Gary and Kevin for a laugh.
Consider it an open invitation from yours truly,
the Great Dane,
Michael Søndberg Olsen.
I know someone whose boyfriend lives in Denmark. And he lives in Philadelphia. I could never do that, but then again love is one of those things that makes people do things they never thought themselves capable of.
Were these guys former Republicans? I just wonder,since I really don’t have the time or the inclination to read them often at all,so I don’t know much about them. It just seems like,from the bits and pieces I have seen from them,that they never really left their conservative roots at all. They remind me of people I know. Former Republicans but only former because Bush annoyed the shit out of them. Otherwise,their politics aren’t much different,they’re still conservatives. But,among their circle of friends,they’re considered far left. It’s the wierdest thing,but maybe it’s just this place in general that’s wierd(I live in Atlanta’s urban sprawl zone).
I know some of the more popular lefty blogs are run by former conservatives,Kos,John Aravosis,I know there are others. I think that factors into some of the overall attitude about those of us considered to be on the DFH team. At last year’s YKos,there was a panel on southern politics and no one on the panel actually lived in the South. When “progressives” have events down in my neck of the woods,they never go anywhere but Atlanta,possibly Athens,that’s it. They wrote us off down here. Pisses me off,but not much can be done on that at the moment. There’s a messed up regional disconnect down here in the Bible Belt and I’m not sure how you get past that unless some god awful horrific thing happens to shake people out of their coma.
Jesus fucking Christ: Ezra Klein, Yglesias, and Drum aren’t going to help get Dick Cheney out of office any fucking goddamned more than anyone else who’d write *where they write.* This isn’t the New York Times where the operating assumption is so-called objectively, these are publications where the operating line re: elections is pro-Democrat. (They were always partisan — that’s not the issue — it’s that their beliefs are ideologically crapulent. Should I have kissed Joe Lieberman’s ass when he was a democrat for being a Democrat? Fucking hell.)
If all one has to do to pass the smell test is to bash Dick Cheney directly all the time, well this site would be a lot different now wouldn’t it?
I’ll come, monkey devoid of hair! Denmark is among the coolest countries in the world (short list). And I love ‘a laugh’! are you guys still flippin’ the bird to religion by publishing those silly renditions of Mohammy? You’d better be. It’s why we’ve bought well over 20 lbs of Havarti cheese. It’s good stuff, but I have to hope it’s for a good cause.
As an aside, I thoroughly enjoy slamming pie loving mikey, but when is enough enough, Mr. pie loving Mikey? We all get that you find pie ‘groovy’. But can you let it go? Again, I find your addiction to pie hilarious, Michael, but not in a good way.
Let’s all hope he recovers. Until then, click those links above!
“Jesus f*&king Christ: Ezra Klein, Yglesias,”
Ouch! Way to go to hell on the fast-train, HTML Mencken!
Angryoldbroad: No, they aren’t. They are just conservative Democrats pissed off by Bush enough that they appear leftists right now. Their operating assumptions on matters of war are not ours. They basically admitted that they hated hippies and anti-war people, they were ignorant of history (like Vietnam) being only old enough to remember the Kosovo war, and so they were Liberal Hawk. stupid, stupid.
As for the southern thing, well you’re preaching to the choir here. I think they are influenced by a book called “whistling past dixie”, which I havent read but from what I gather advises Democrats to ignore the South, to write it off, that Southern votes aren’t worth trying for. I think that thesis is silly — I like Dean’s 50 state strategy — and I think the Dems could really capture working class votes in the South if they’d be more populist (a la Edwards) without sacrificing anything but the Brad DeLong types (which, what are they gonna do — vote Republican when Democrats no longer drink Free Trade kool-aid? If that’s all it takes to make them switch they weren’t very Democratic anyway) and the DLC/corporate whore contingent (good riddance).
“If that’s what you’re into”
Good Lord, I hope I haven’t stifled the hippie debate! If so, I apologize. It was never my intention to shut the idiot left up. Speak now! Let the whole world know why we call you the idiot left! Mikey, here’s your chance to shine!
If all one has to do to pass the smell test is to bash Dick Cheney directly all the time, well this site would be a lot different now wouldn’t it?
Honestly? I’m not sure what this means. Am I supposed to NOT bash cheney? ‘Cause fuck that.
As a result of your work, HTML, I now read Ezra and Yglesias every day. In fact, I’d never heard of either of them before. Don’t always agree with them, but they surely seem to have a problem with this administration. Since I’m concerned about the future of this nation, and believe that the current administration is pursuing policies that will result in it’s destruction, I prefer to surround myself with, and encourage the participation, of anybody who can help influence opinion leading up to the 2008 presidential election. I believe, by dint of their writing skills and their positions, they both have an opportunity to do so.
And like I say, while they may have specific positions I don’t agree with (full disclosure, so does everybody. Question: Is there a writer you agree with 100% of the time? I don’t know one), they are saying things today, in 2007 that I find both valuable and helpful. Were they wrong in 2002? Reckon so. But as a result of the actions of the administration, we are in a much more precarious position today than we were five years ago. And come on now, how much of this is going to matter if rudy or mitt wins the presidency in ’08?
mikey
Oh, and one question I always keep forgetting to ask you, HTML. Juan Cole was pro invasion before the war. He’s quite upfront about that. How come you never include him in these pieces?
mikey
Rudy knows how to fight and win the GWOT
He does? And where did he pick those skills up, exactly?
Also, why hasn’t he, like, lent a hand in the past 6 years then? What exactly has he done to help with the GWOT since leaving the mayor’s office in 2001?
Rudy Giuliani’s claim to fame is that on 9/11/2001 he managed to look less stupid than George Bush.
Kevin, The Transparent Troll said:
“I’ll come, monkey devoid of hair! Denmark is among the coolest countries in the world (short list). And I love ‘a laugh’! are you guys still flippin’ the bird to religion by publishing those silly renditions of Mohammy? You’d better be. It’s why we’ve bought well over 20 lbs of Havarti cheese. It’s good stuff, but I have to hope it’s for a good cause.”.
Yep, we do so despise Mohammy.
And Jesusy and Jehovy.
And all the other fantasies.
“As an aside, I thoroughly enjoy slamming pie loving mikey, but when is enough enough, Mr. pie loving Mikey? We all get that you find pie ‘groovy’. But can you let it go? Again, I find your addiction to pie hilarious, Michael, but not in a good way.”
See, this is why Denmark is NOT a good choice for you, Kev.
You see, up here we -value-people who serve their country, but aren’t brainwashed.
People like Mikey.
A hero.
(And I know he’ll HATE me calling him that,
which only proves he deserves the label).
P.S.
Stop sucking my dick.
I already have people lined up for that
Ok, hero is bullshit. Lemme tell you how it works.
Yeah, I got some bling.
The heart shaped ones were for being stupid, and lucky, all at once.
The star shaped one was a travesty. When the sun came up we had over 70 bodies piled up in front of us, within a few dozen meters. You don’t want to know what that’s like, how it looks, what it smells like. But here’s the thing. I put sixteen (yep, go back and look at that number) guys in body bags that morning. They got buried. I got a fucking piece of jewelry.
Oh, and if you had a problem with John Kerry, do yourself a favor and don’t ask me what I did with that goddam thing.
I kept the hearts though. They match the scars. And the CIB? Don’t think you can come in here and take that away. That’s my E ticket….
mikey
Kevin. You don’t seem to understand. I’m IGNORING you. You are not important enough to register. You are a non-entity. Nothing you can do or say will impact my life. I have chosen to participate in the online give and take without you. There’s nothing you have to contribute but pie. And hey, pie’s kind of funny…
mikey
I like Dean’s 50 state strategy — and I think the Dems could really capture working class votes in the South if they’d be more populist (a la Edwards) without sacrificing anything but the Brad DeLong types
HTML:
I’d really, really like to see that. Dems actually being populist, that is. I also like Dean’s 50-state strategy- it seems like exactly what the Democratic party needs. I wonder if it would be possible.
Dammit. On a completely personal note, I have GOT to stop using the rubber bands from the newspaper to tie my hair back. God, that hurts!!
mikey
Stop sucking my dick.
I already have people lined up for that
My dogs got all startled when I started laughing at that.
Dammit. On a completely personal note, I have GOT to stop using the rubber bands from the newspaper to tie my hair back. God, that hurts!!
Dude, I feel your pain. Finding decent hair ties is a serious pain in the ass, especially when the hair in question is as long and thick as mine. Course, there are plenty of good ones, but they’re all far too pink and sparkly for my tastes. I mean, I’m secure in my manhood, but one can only go so far, ya know?
They need to make a scrunchy desgined specifically for dudes, is all I’m saying.
Mike said: “Kevin. You don’t seem to understand. I’m IGNORING you.”
BUSTED Mikey! You’re hardly ignoring me if you’re reading what I write, huh? Don’t be too embarrassed though Mike. You can call it ‘espionage’ or something. Chicks totally dig mysterious men.
I take it the hippies decided not to laugh at my links and instead chose to make a big pantybunch whine about whatever it is that’s ticking off the unemployed left today? Can’t say it wasn’t expected.
They need to make a scrunchy desgined specifically for dudes, is all I’m saying.>/i>
Someone could make a fortune.
Were you all guys all the vintage guitar show? Cause I think I saw you there.
mikey said,
August 5, 2007 at 3:58
“Ok, hero is bullshit. Lemme tell you how it works.
Yeah, I got some bling.
The heart shaped ones were for being stupid, and lucky, all at once.
The star shaped one was a travesty. When the sun came up we had over 70 bodies piled up in front of us, within a few dozen meters. You don’t want to know what that’s like, how it looks, what it smells like. But here’s the thing. I put sixteen (yep, go back and look at that number) guys in body bags that morning. They got buried. I got a fucking piece of jewelry.
Oh, and if you had a problem with John Kerry, do yourself a favor and don’t ask me what I did with that goddam thing.
I kept the hearts though. They match the scars. And the CIB? Don’t think you can come in here and take that away. That’s my E ticket….
mikey”.
You don’t get it because you’re too meek.
That post is EXACTLY what makes you a hero.
You have been there
and you’re telling us how it was.
Hell, just being alive is almost heroic.
But to keep yer sanity so well makes it double.
Fuck the medals; so what?
You’re alive and well enough to actually tell the stories.
I know, accepting compliments, especially for things
that you have mixed feelings about, is hard.
But you deserve more than passing accolades.
dang
I know. I’ve worn my date’s “scrunchy”, but honestly? I made sure it was all buried in the hair. Can’t we have something Rambo would wear. I mean, that dood had fantastic hair…
mikey
Look. Those sixteen guys? I don’t know how most of them died. It was crazy, and everybody was kind of doing what they could, y’know? But I’m going to promise you something. Some of those guys died doing things I wouldn’t do. Maybe that’s why they died. They held the line. I think I did my job, but they fucking DIED doing theirs. Who’s the fucking hero? If I couldn’t kill my way to the morning light, would I have run? I hope not, but here’s the news. Those sixteen guys didn’t run. They fucking well Held The Line. Nobody got through. They died.
Give ME a goody? Fuck. That’s insane. I killed. I didn’t die. Fuckers who run the show will never understand how war works. You want to make this easy? Give a silver star to every sergeant that ever saw combat. ‘Cause if you think any of us would have stood, instead of running? Nope. Fuck you, sorry, Ell Tee, that was the sergeants…
mikey
Mikey…
Damn.
I have my own long jagged mental scars…
But hearing about yours put them into perspective.
Still…
give yourself just a tiny break.
If not you’ll turn into your own worst enemy.
O.K.fuck Kos and his ilk.They’re to busy purging all the anti-zionist bloggers to seem palatable to the “mainstream”to really do any good.And as for Rudy “Il Duce” Guliani,I can see why he appeals to dickheads like GR.For all his foreign policy experience not withstanding,he seems to have spent most of his tenure defending the indefensible,like cops killing innocent civilians and harassing squeegee men.Essentially his best qualities are helping out his gumbahs,and kicking folks when they’re down,hence all the support from the most reactionary elements.Oh yeah,and getting a public museum to defund an artist for painting with elephant shit,his finest hour,such a pious Catholic.He did get rid of those friggin car alarms though.Fuck em all,I hate the lot.
Yeah, DEMIZE!, the lobbying for Isreal is inded something to worry about.
But not in the “EVOL JOOS” way.
In case you haven’t noticed,
some of those most critical of Isreal are jews themselves.
So keep the trolling anti-semitism to yourself.
Juan Cole as an example proves that you’re still missing the point. Juan Cole is a blogger whose only gig in the progressive rags is an occasional guest post at Salon.
Juan Cole’s value is in analysis of Muslim countries/cultures, not of our foreign policy. He’s a specialist not a generalist and his value in specialization outweighs his flaws in generalities. Yglesias and Klein and Drum have no such excuse. Josh Marshall, otoh, does because he does original investigative reporting, which is why I don’t bash him for being wrong on Iraq. The others don’t. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?
As for the Cheney thing, if we stuck to your rules *there would be no criticism of the media SINCE IT CONSISTS OF “JUST WRITERS”* IOW, there would be no sadly, no because wingnuts are “just writers” whom you argue have and have had no effect on what politicians can do or get away with. So all we could do by the mikey rules is bash politicians — which isn’t, exactly, our bread and butter, right?
But fuck it, mikey. You won’t see the point. I just hope you bash the fuck out of Glenn Greenwald the next time *he* bashes Joe Klein, and I hope you bash Roger Ailes the next time *he* bashes Mickey Kaus, so you’ll be consistent with the crap you’re trying to sell me.
HairlessMonkeyD said, yes thank you,I’m Jewish you fucking twit!
Oh and BTW.aside from my ethnicity or whatever,I’m agnostic,was there any thing in my post that would even remotely be considered “Anti-semitic”?SADLY-NO!!
Um.
Sorry???
mikey
So keep the trolling anti-semitism to yourself.
Uh…where was the anti-semitism, trolling or otherwise? Unless you know this person from a previous encounter which isn’t being disclosed, it looks as if you’re overreacting.
The only thing I can see is that there was a knee-jerk assumption of anti-semitism because of the term “zionism”. However, zionism is the term of art for Jewish nationalism, and was created not by anti-semites but by the original zionists themselves, c. the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
So Gary has been hired by Rudy, and Kevin’s been hired by the makers of “Flight of the Conchords”. Who’s going to sponsor annie?
So Gary has been hired by Rudy, and Kevin’s been hired by the makers of “Flight of the Conchords”. Who’s going to sponsor annie?
Annie will be sponsored by Hannah Lise: Modest Apparel for Women and Girls. Alternatively titled: clothing for theocratic nutcases who think that even school uniforms are “immodest”.
Ok, everyone shut the hell up and smoke this.
Now.
Ok, then. Now exhale. There we go.
Also, can someone please tell the world Flight of the Conchords isn’t funny? There are funny, good people in it, and it’s happy n pleasant n shit, but not funny. The sole joke in the show is when the funny looking one busts out the faux soul singer voice.
They’re arcade fire to Mr. Show’s pavement. Standards have simply fallen, it’s a fact.
Muted, my ass! I seem to remember leaving comments on Blogs That Noted F.I.S.A. When It Happened (i.e., Americablog and Eschaton, not S.N!) that had lots of ‘fuck!’s and exclaimation points!!!!1!!!!1! So, it was unserious, naturally.
Mikey
I like stainless and cast iron pans.
I prefer a revolver to an auto.
I sharpen my knives on a stone.
I drink my scotch straight.
With you on 75% of that (never lived in the US, so I’ve never needed a handgun).
What’s your position on stainless vs. carbon steel kitchen knives? And have you ever used a coffee cup instead of a sharpening stone (the bottom rim, unglazed porcelain – slower, but gives a bewdiful edge).
Quit fibbing, monkey of no hair. You only hate the Christian God. The whole world knows this about the left. Christians find this annoying. I find it funny to watch you trying to weasel out of this position.
“So Gary has been hired by Rudy, and Kevin’s been hired by the makers of “Flight of the Conchords”. Who’s going to sponsor annie?”
Geez, m’lady. Not everything has a financial backing. The Conchords are just funny. They wouldn’t pay me to advertise if I asked them. Good Lord, are you one of those crazy ladies who thinks 9/11 was planned by Bush?
Guys: viz the hair tie thayng, are your content to look like a geek? Because something that I occasionally used, before I cut my hair, was the lanyard holding my USB stick.
Just hold the USB in one hand, pull it taut and stick your finger through the loop at the other end, then with the USB-hand wind it round and round the hank of hair until it gets close, then stick the USB through the loop, pull it tight, and voila! Casual accessorising for Teh Geek On Teh Move.
Of course my hair’s pentiful but fine, so it’s not overly weighty. But then again, the lanyard is fairly sturdy, the USB stick makes a good solid stopper/weight, so it’s unlikely to come undone.
Rubber bands are eeeevulllll. Unless you like yipping every time you put your hair up.
I’m just doing my best to curb you guys from the ridiculous idea that John [sic] Stewart’s stunned look after any conservative speaks is funny. IT’S NOT!!! It’s as goofy as Gavin’s “Shorter so and so” posts. The Conchords are merely a vessel to bring you guys back to an understanding of true humor.
It’s all about reparations. either we or all of the LSD you guys took back in the ’60s warped your minds. We’re sorry! Or the LSD is sorry (assuming acid has emotions). come back to us, my hippie friends! We can fix you!
You’ll thank me later. I’ve already repaired young Mikey 10% (hey, he requires A LOT of work. Give me a break. Horrible flaws require intensive efforts to fix.)
’d just like to invite you all to move up here to Denmark.
There’s a lot that’s great about Denmark–strong unions, public health care (for the time being), but let’s not forget Denmark supported the war in Iraq, sent troops there. Denmark also continues to plunder the seas, slaughtering whales like they are so much tuna.
strong unions in Denmark? We’ll fix THAT!
Watch the monkey get hurt! Seriously, you hippies need to take yourselves a tad less seriously. Please remember that you are not important in the grand scheme of things. You’re just a hippie. The world moves on around you and without you. That said, be the biggest useless/worthless hippie you can be! I suggest mushrooms.
Denmark also continues to plunder the seas, slaughtering whales like they are so much tuna.
Perhaps you are thinking of Norway. Shun the evil Norwegians. Shunnn themmm.
The Faeroe Islanders regularly slaughter pilot whales, but they are an inbred pack of sheep-fucking seaweed-breathed dunebillies. The Faeroe Islands are duelling banjo territory — also an autonomous region, only loosely attached to Denmark.
re: Nader…
As I always end up reminding people when this topic comes up: I’m not a big Nader fan (though I am a Green). I voted for him in ’96 (in what we’d now call a solidly blue state), would have voted for him in ’00 (in a solidly red state) but he wasn’t on the ballot and write-ins aren’t allowed. In ’04, in that latter state, I would have voted for Green nominee David Cobb had I been allowed to.
FWIW, I think Nader is affirmatively committed to pressuring the Democrats by threatening to “spoil” elections. In 2004, he even refused to endorse Instant Run-off Voting, a key Green Party plank and the surest way to eliminate the spoiler problem.
Nader is, in a sense, far too much of an optimist about the Democrats. They’re not going to improve in order to avoid spoilage. They’ll just blame Ralph. And as any of us around the intertubes knows, this tendency goes right down to the activist roots. Far from being a thorn in their side, Nader is the Democrats’ fucking Emmanuel Goldstein. If he didn’t exist, they’d have to invent him.
And Nader’s commitment to this clearly bankrupt strategy despite what happened to his reputation after 2000 (and despite his inability to catch any fire in 2004) indicates a deep political tone-deafness that would be a disaster in a mayoral candidate, let alone a presidential candidate.
Sad to say, I’m afraid that the hardcore Naderite Green Party minority of 2004 might become a hardcore Naderite Green Party majority in 2008. If the GP nominates Ralph next year, it will be IMHO, effectively the end of (this rendition of) the Green Party. And we’ll go out not with a bang but a whimper.
Bah. Eat whale blubber Danes! Ignore the sissy hippies. Their whines come with the territory,. Dang, now I want some!
A couple of things:
DEMIZE!
EeeeK!
Sorry, sorry!!!
This’ll learn me to not post on four different sites at once.
Especially late at night when the cobwebs of the mind start to gather.
I apologize profusely, and, going back to read what you wrote,
I really have no clue what made go off like that other than that I think I confused you with another commenter at another site.
I blame that. And the vodka from Finland. Sorry.
Herr Doktor Bimler said:
“Perhaps you are thinking of Norway. Shun the evil Norwegians. Shunnn themmm.
The Faeroe Islanders regularly slaughter pilot whales, but they are an inbred pack of sheep-fucking seaweed-breathed dunebillies. The Faeroe Islands are duelling banjo territory — also an autonomous region, only loosely attached to Denmark”.
That is pretty much it, yeah.
You from the frozen North as well?
Denmark’s position on whaling.
http://www.stopbloodywhaling.org/story_details.php?select=45
what scares me right now is russia planting its flag on the north pole…now that the ice cap is melting they’re laying their claim to the oil reserves. the arctic will be the next environmental battle ground.
btw, those who are starved for good scifi might want to check out a new series starting this weekend called
Masters of Science Fiction – looks good.
http://www.mastersofscifi.com/site/
Science Fiction has only ONE master…
Harlan Ellison.
Certainly, there are very few filmmakers that do sci-fi well. Just a handful. I’d say, restricting it to living directors, Ridley scott, Jim Cameron, and, yes, Paul Verhoeven, teh Wachowskis… there aren’t many more.
Hey! I was there, and I’m a DFH in the eyes of many, though I guess technically, I’m a member of teh specialized subculture, Dirty Fucking Hippy Geeks.
Screw Peter Beinart! I saw the Leadership Forum with 7/8ths of the Dem candidates up on stage. I was also entitled to attend one ‘breakout’ session with an individual candidate in a room, answering questions posed by audience members. Due to some odd circumstances, I got to attend two – Hillary’s and Obama’s. All the candidates were pretty good, though it pays to keep Mike Gravel’s statement in mind (paraphrasing here), “Well, everybody here is promising you nice things–universal health care, an end to the war… but none of that matters, because none of it will come to pass. Our political system is too broken. They’re just telling you what you want to hear to get elected.”
And, sure. He’s right. It’s all pie-in-teh-sky, or most of it, anyway. And, is Gravel nuts? Perhaps. But, still, sometimes it’s nice to have your guy (or gal) tell you exactly what you want to hear, if only to hear it.
Bah. There comes a point where you’ve been told what you want to hear so many times that you can’t listen to ANYTHING that comes out of the mouth of a candidate without hearing “but I promise I won’t come in your mouth THIS time”.
Jillian. It’s come to a point where we don’t CARE if they come in our mouth. We’d just prefer they didn’t shoot us and bury us in a shallow grave afterwards. Y’know?
mikey
Certainly, there are very few filmmakers that do sci-fi well.
Sad but true. Although I’d nominate Terry Gilliam as one talented director of a particular sub-genre. I’d also add Mamoru Oshii and perhaps even Kiriya Kauaki, although Casshern is more live manga than scifi.
I also think that Verhoeven buggered up Total Recall, and I’m horrified by what he did to Starship Troopers. Although I do think his choice of Michael Ironside was very fine: that man should be in far more scifi, and far more films in general. Remember V?
And for serious scifi series-ness, my ultimate candidate is Blakes 7. Sure, the “spaceship interiors” rattled when people ran, the aliens were clearly rubber suits, and the tech level was kindergarten, but it was incredibly well-written, with a cast of characters who interacted like a chemistry lab and some great moments.
Seems like we’re a long way from the original post, but Sifu put it into angry perspective earlier:
http://www.thepoorman.net/2007/08/03/im-not-lazy-im-shocked-into-silence/
What’s your position on stainless vs. carbon steel kitchen knives?
High carbon steel knives are to be preferred whenever their usage patterns will allow for the prevention of rust. In high humidity, oceanside or extreme outdoor rough usage, go for stainless (good old 440, or the newer titanium alloys), but as you move away from the more extreme uses, go to carbon steel. In the kitchen it’s a no brainer.
High carbon steel holds a better edge, is stronger, sharper and more easily maintained. Their only downside is they will rust. If you can prevent them from rusting, they are the first choice…
mikey
Hanna Lise
At the core of women’s modest clothing is of course the dress. Like our skirts, every modest dress at Hannah Lise is long, non-revealing and does not have slits above the calf. Actually, more than 98% of all of our dresses have no slits at all. Our dresses all have sleeves and a modest neckline, unless they are designed to have a shirt or blouse underneath, as in the case of a jumper. Modest clothing for women doesn’t have to be frumpy and dumpy either. We strive to find the most beautiful, quality garments, while adhering to our high standard of modesty.
Visit one of the many fine, online clothing stores and you can find beautiful dresses and skirts, long, flowing and seemingly modest.
But when it arrives you find that it has a big slit up the back that was hiding in the photograph. Not here. Modest clothing means that none of our skirts or dresses have slits above the calf (99% have none at all).
Shop with confidence!
I’m waiting for their fall line of burkas to come out.
What’s that program that allows you to replace certain comments again?
Why does god or allah or whateverthefuck keep changing his mind about which bits can be “shown” and which bits have to be covered? For that matter, why does the fucking DEITY of the whole fucking UNIVERSE care about what one gender of one species on one planet fucking WEARS when it goes out in it’s own society??
This is so beyond weird and wacky, and nobody seems to notice…
mikey
All those “You must/mustn’t wear THIS!!1!” shit is stoopid. As well as dietary law. Just fucking dumb. And, supposedly, God is omniscient. So, no matter *what* you’re wearing, it’s as though you’re completely naked to him anyway.
This is so beyond weird and wacky, and nobody seems to notice…
Oh, I notice it. It’s just that there is so much in society that is almost as weird, wacky, and nonsensical that I’m kinda jaded.
Reality TV for instance. Why the fuck did anyone want to watch fake-ass Donald Trump, with his horrible hair, yell at his subordinates, humiliate them, pit them against each other, and fire one of them per episode? Or that similar show, “Hell’s Kitchen”, why do people like that shit? I’ve seen enough of that in reality that the show has absolutely no attraction to me.
But, you know, the modest clothes thing is more bizzarre, I gotta admit. What is even stranger, to me, is the idea that this indescribably vast, omniscient, omnipotent being, who can create a universe or destroy one, would have any interest at all in our actions or feelings, our life or death. It always seemed a bit hard to believe. If God did indeed have some interest in humans, it would seem that either he was smaller than advertised, or that he had some kind of hidden agenda.
I know this is dead, but I don’t care….just gotta get it out sometimes.
Here’s the thing, mikey. These people who were so willing, not so long ago, to call for the deaths of those they disagreed with politically (the Ba’athist powers in Iraq) in order to achieve a political goal they thought important (“bringing democracy to the world”, whatever the fuck that means) will – in my opinion – be more than willing to call for OUR deaths if they think it will help them achieve a political goal they think is important.
You’re right – they won’t kill us. Not themselves, not personally. Personally killing people is not what Sensible People do. But they will stand on the sidelines, avert their eyes, and write oh so reasonable columns about how it is unfortunately sometimes necessary to shoot people and bury them in a shallow grave after you’ve come in their mouths. And that the people who do so, when it is necessary, are heroes.
History is not, contra Marx, a science. I cannot, therefore, offer ironclad arguments that this is the case. But I can think of a handful of historical precedents when the Actual Left (the Dirty Fucking Hippies) chose for whatever reason to ally themselves with the Nominally Left but Actually Right-Leaning Liberal (the Sensible Liberals). And in every case I can think of, within a generation or so the Sensible Liberals called out the Freikorps on the Dirty Fucking Hippies and had them shot in the streets. And the Dirty Fucking Hippies all died with the stupid, cowlike expression of Governor Tarkin on their faces as they exlaimed “They lied! They lied to us!”
Allying yourself with people whom you think won’t kill you now in order to protect yourself from people whom you think will kill you right now is pretty much at the heart of every foreign policy blunder the U.S. has ever made. It’s how we got into bed with Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Ngo Dinh Diem, Ferdinand Marcos, and every single other one of the corrupt individuals we’ve supported over the years. It simply does not work as a policy. You pay for it in the end, and you pay more than you would’ve paid if you only faced up to the shit you needed to face up to honestly in the first place.
This is an honest disagreement between well-intentioned people, and I respect the hell out of you, mikey. But I cannot follow you down a path that I am convinced leads to greater destruction than what we have seen so far. I am, as always, willing to be convinced otherwise. But arguments about how the enemy of my enemy is my friend aren’t going to do it.
Actually, Jillian, just as the whole “won’t come in your mouth” line was a metaphor for dishonesty and unfulfilled promises, my “just don’t shoot me and bury me in a shallow grave” was a metaphor for the destruction of what america stands for for crass political gain.
And I was only suggesting aligning ourselves with the Democratic party, because while they are craven politicians who will piss all over civil liberties and legitimate domestic needs, (come in our mouth after promising not to) but may very well decide, if only for the most pragmatic of reasons, to end the military campaign against all people who are not-like-us…
mikey
You have to admit Verhoeven’s Showgirls was excellent sf. Set on another planet with a species resembling humans, quite realistic.
Ellison does not write science fiction, but urban fantasy. He may finish The Last Dangerous Visions before he and the rest of the writers involved are dead, but it’s been thirty years. Kevin would particularly like Iain Banks’ Culture books, where the universe is run by hippies with outrageously good firepower and excellent drugs.
I love Flight of The Conchords. I started my own blog about it.