Opposite Day

"Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans?"

Via Sullivan

At this point, the collective heaving sigh of millions of people, weary of the lunatic hatred, the fringey nuttiness and the charbroiled ideologies and the grandiose schemers, are just turning it all off. People who read blogs are people who read blogs (and newspapers). If you're one of the handful who reads mine, you'll still peer into this insanity from time to time.

But really, I feel a certain calm with this right now. Even if Palin or somesuch other wingnut wins in 2012, terrible though that would be, really, it's not ok, but something will rise out of its ashes. It may be the end of American politics if that happens, but its actual possibility (unlikely though that possibility may be), raises questions I will be asking anyone they pertain to come 2012:

- What does your party propose to do to solve our increasingly complex problems?

- What do you mean when you say you're "taking your country back"?

- How are things really going to be different or better for you under President Palin/Gingrich/Pawlenty?

- Do you really imagine that progressives, queers, lesbians, blacks, Hispanics, liberals, (actual) socialists, professors, scientists, doctors, writers, lawyers, the ACLU, Hollywood, anti-war activists, and on and on and on, will just pack it in and absolve themselves of the political process henceforth? Do you think the Civil Rights Act is going to wind itself back and rescind?

Especially if you galvanize us even harder with a politician as poisonous as her?

You really do live in The Outer Limits.

Citizenship

The whole interview is well worth it.

Attn Wing Nuts

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I wish you all would watch this video. Watch it. Become less appalling. You know who you are, but of course, it's my blog, so you're not reading this.

These people are out-of-their-minds fucking wailing-at-the-moon crazy. Who WANTS to use nuclear weapons? Mostly it's people who'd call 'em "nucular", that's who. Stupid is always out for power. I wish their flocks would goddamn watch something like this, but of course, they won't.

F A T

The final part of Red Letter Media's AOTC review. It works as a standalone bitch slap to George Lucas and is highly recommended:



Note: This clip contains the ultimate expression of devotion to The Empire Strikes Back

Bugbears

Here we find two of the most common pundit afflictions: (1) a compulsion to assert equivalencies even when they don't exist, and (2) a willingness to spout anything without doing the slightest work to find out if it's true. Douthat's claim about Maddow -- that "conservatives are only invited on [her] show when they have something nasty to say about Republicans" -- is completely false.

- From Glenn Greenwald, who is always clear and direct.

Somehow, a very real and understandable discontentment with the the red-state blue-state divide has managed to produce a moral equivalence meme, regarding journalists, pundits, etc. My Sullivan addiction notwithstanding, his essentially moderate views notwithstanding, I don't think he's even a symbol of this, with his Moore, Hewitt, Malkin, etc. awards. He's still, essentially, a moderate (who calls himself a conservative).

I don't blame the President, either, based on his 2004 "we're not red states or blue states" speech.

I think it's a more amorphous, insidious muddying of clarity that's afoot. You cannot sufficiently tell me that the left's most potent rhetoric has anything on the far-right's spitting on people and making fun of or screaming at Parkinson's sufferers. We have one side that uses words like "socialism" where in private they're using the epithets they wish they could still use in the open.

This separates them from perfectly helpless, small-C conservatives who have legitimate concerns on spending, the deficit, taxes, etc. I've never felt these were inherently shallow things to focus on politically.

Rachel Maddow, someone whose videos I've obviously posted here a lot, is not an example of a dismissable journalist, damnable on the basis of her partisanship.

She is absolutely indispensable, largely due to her bias. She is honest on where she stands. She has a worldview, a variety of left-of-center political stances, and an absolutely fearless willingness to challenge people's orthodoxies, on both sides. She is learned, articulate, and always backs up what she's got with some kind of factual representation. We must stop condemning people simply for the courage of possessing a worldview.

The right in this country developed all on their own the myth of the "left-wing media".
They've used that meme to essentially elevate it into its own reality. It took them forty or so years.

So which side, now that there are two warring journalist sides, is correct? The right-wing side has managed to hold onto their own base while disillusioning other people into thinking that both sides are "equally wrong". They're masters of this.

So don't let them win. If we start swallowing this idea that both sides are equally wrong, both sides are damnably biased, we're invariably receiving our genesis of that idea from a long outdated right-wing talking point.

And worse, we're acting like children. It's the media's job to present us with the facts, not all sides of every issue. For "all sides" read "conservative ideology".

Be an adult. Weigh and consider the facts you are handed. And fuck "balance".

He's Your President Too

I've knocked around Bill Maher a little bit in the past year, but I do still like the guy. He's right on this one, whether you like his atheism movie or not.

Get 'em, Roger

Does it make me a liberal if I believe Jefferson has been more central to American history than Calvin? That Lincoln was our greatest president, and Davis not our President at all? That the Theory of Evolution towers with majesty above those who, in some cases, believe the earth may be 10,000 years old, and that men walked the earth with dinosaurs? No, it doesn't make me a liberal. It makes me an educated, rational being. Unfortunately, in some precincts of Texas that may appear to be nearly as bad.

(Via)

No Right Not To Be Shocked

I wonder how often this book will brought up in protest at my store.



(The book in question.)