FIRST DRAFT

It's Always Time to Talk About Shit That Doesn't Matter

I keep going back to this, from the brilliant Cleolinda: 

(Here's my thought on that in a nutshell: Violent movies and videogames do not make people violent. Violent people are attracted to violent media. Of course, so are many of the rest of us, just for different reasons. I ended up watching The Matrix about 46,000 times--at one point on a three-day loop--for the book, and I shot nobody. If you want to talk about warning signs, don't look at the kid's taste in movies or his literary output--look at those two things in the context of his real-life behavior, which was already disturbing his teachers and classmates. Stephen King? A folksy, personable guy in real life. Quentin Tarantino? Full of energy and enthusiasm. Consequently, no one expects them to go on shooting rampages. The bitter, stalkative kid who won't even speak when spoken to, who also writes about bloody murder sprees? For God's sake, keep an eye on him.) 

I would never say we don't need to have a less nihilistic, brutal, violent culture. But we can start working on that by refraining from blowing up so many fucking kids in the world and starving them of food and care here at home. Once we are done with that I will listen to you about shooting hookers in GTA or whatever the hell we think is the problem right now. Once we are done making sure everyone can EAT, we can get on to what disaffected suburban brats are reading these days. 

Once we're done with this: 

The police came quickly and carried my son screaming and kicking into the bowels of the hospital. I started to shake, and tears filled my eyes as I filled out the paperwork—“Were there any difficulties with....at what age did your child....were there any problems with...has your child ever experienced...does your child have....”  

At least we have health insurance now. I recently accepted a position with a local college, giving up my freelance career because when you have a kid like this, you need benefits. You’ll do anything for benefits. No individual insurance plan will cover this kind of thing.

No individual insurance plan, and until the laughably toothless health care reform passed last year which has been called a staggering overreach of government power, few insurance plans AT ALL. The kinds of intensive therapies children need, even with Cadillac insurance, can bankrupt middle class families. Can bankrupt relatively wealthy families. Can, even if there is money to pay for them and doctors to provide them, can quite simply drag a family under with the grinding, every day process of staying level enough with the horizon to buy groceries and go to school. 

It is one of the grand ironies of what little mental health assistance exists that when you need it most, that is when you are usually so far beyond the beyond that accessing it seems like going to the moon. 

But getting back to Cleolinda's wise words up there, what we're not doing very well right now is creating a nonviolent world for any of us. (I almost wrote "our kids," as if adults have no need of peace and decency.) That violence is not, primarily, on screens or in "the media" or anywhere imaginary, but imaginary violence is all we can seem to bring ourselves to talk about when things like this happen. 

It's all we can bring ourselves to try to address, because real violence, real agents of violence, are political, and controversial, and emotional and upsetting and they're going to make dinner conversation awkward and difficult. Everybody agrees that shooting fictional aliens is probably not the most productive use of anyone's time. Almost nobody agrees on the correct number of children that have to be killed in drone strikes so as to properly elevate our national dick, or how much money we spend turning schools into prisons instead of the other way fucking round. 

It's like there's a list somewhere, of Things We Can Address, and it's all stuff like why so many kids have ADHD, and how parents aren't hugging their children enough, and where precisely in the schoolyard we should stick the plaque proclaiming GOD IS LOVE because that'll fix everything. It's how many teachers need to be armed, and how many cops need to be at every entrance, and the opinion that perhaps we need fewer cops in schools and OH SHIT RIGHT FEWER HOLES IN THE SCHOOLS' ROOFS WHILE WE'RE AT IT never quite makes it through the World of Warcraft soundtrack blaring on every goddamned Sunday show.

(See, already there you go, asking why I have to put it just that way. Can't I use nicer language?)

We have limited ourselves to addressing matters that don't need addressing, so as to drown out the screaming of the things that do. 

A. 

The Moment Mitt Romney Lost The Election

This is it. 

Because here's Obama's speech from the Rose Garden: 

And here's why this, and not the end of the debate in which Obama picked up a keggerator and slammed it down on every single bit of Romney's bullshit, is the reason Obama is the president, and Romney is a fucking assclown who is unfit to serve in any national office. 

You don't DO THIS. Look. I don't care if your general policy is to nuke anything that bugs you. When something like this happens you take five seconds to think before you shoot off your fucking mouth. Obama stood there on stage and said I take responsibility, it's my job to do so, and I did that here, by bringing the coffins home, and protecting those left behind and honoring their memory. And Romney made a cheap-ass argument about what Obama said. 

And he was wrong.

And the fact that he opened his mouth about it at all, that he would go there at all (you could have made so many other arguments, about military deployments and diplomatic procedures), shows such a staggering lack of grown-up goddamn judgment that you could actually hear the room draw back a little, like, really? Did you really just do that? Are you really that callous, that oblivious, that small? 

He was. It's what he is. And those of us who hadn't seen it before can see it now. 

The post-debate spin has mostly been about Obama's final answer in the debate, about 47 versus 100 percent of Americans, but I think the debate was about a much smaller number. I think it was about a few people overseas who suffered and died for their country, and about somebody who gets that, and somebody who doesn't. 

A. 

Given All the Fucking Givens

Via the Crack Den's comments thread, here's a particular piece of stupidity amidst the avalanche of stupidity coming from the Romney campaign right now: 

Another adviser expressed frustration with horserace reporters declaring Romney's campaign dead fatally behind, as President Obama pulls ahead in the polls. He said he suspects the press is projecting their own hopes for an Obama re-election at best — and purposefully cheerleading the incumbent, at worst.

"I mean, I was expecting this narrative in October," he said. "You know, the polls are close, and so the media starts cheering on their guy, saying Romney's doomed. But I didn't expect it to happen this early. They just seem really eager."

Let's look at all the ways the Libya thing was stupid. First, you turn the campaign from the suckass economy, on which you have some advantage based on Obama not doing enough and not doing the right things (not that you're gonna do the right things, but let's not get crazy), to foreign policy, where your party has recently distinguished itself by sticking its entire dick in a bees' nest.

You are a basketball player, and you challenge your opponent to the 800-meter freestyle, for some godforsaken reason. Leave aside the human considerations, like the DEAD PEOPLE, and there's no reason to open your trap at all. Just keep blithering about job creation and how government sucks. Many Americans these days seem to find that bullshit appealing, whereas absolutely none of them think it's cool to wave a corpse around to get attention. 

Plus, by making it an actual event, you made it eminently clear that your entire campaign apparatus was involved in making this statement, so you can't disavow it by saying the candidate wasn't prepared, or was taken in by a trick question, or was otherwise unable to somehow not shoot a hole in his own ass.

And NOW you want to claim liberal media trickery? Are you fucking kidding me? YOU CALLED THE PRESS TO SHOW UP THERE, MORONS. Now you're made because they wrote down what you said?

Just like during the RNC, I'm honestly getting offended at how inept the Romney campaign is, and here's why: Running for president isn't something you should do as a joke. It's not a stunt show. Sure, Bush's operation was evil, but they took it seriously. They didn't faff around. Their campaign show was the Death Star. Romney's is turning into an Ewok add-on movie George Lucas crapped out to buy himself a new boat. 

A. 

ps. HAT TIP JAC DAMMIT JESUS

The Veep's 9/11 Speech

While the Romney-ites are doubling down on their lies about yesterday's attacks (with very few followers) here's something more uplifting:

 

With Us

Re-posting for the umpteenth time because it was the first thing I read after that day, after that blur of a day and the two-three weeks that followed, that didn't feel like a fucking greeting card, that made any kind of sense to me at all: 

As we approach the Brooklyn Bridge, a ferry pulls in to the pier, calling for passengers to Jersey City. That's where Don lives. We both stop, frowning, and for a moment we just stand there together as others pass us with their heads down, concentrating on going. We don't want to leave each other. Without each other, it's just us by ourselves. It seems strange and worrisome, and I sense that he wants me to go with him so we can stick together still, but I also know he knows I have to go north and finish the walk, that it's important for both of us to get to our homes. All of these thoughts come and go and we don't say any of them aloud. We shake hands, wish each other the very best of luck, although it's not a day with much of that. Don heads back towards the pier. I turn back to the hill ahead of me. I don't turn around. It's just me now, going home.

We reach for this easy stuff, all the time. My Facebook feed is being overtaken with images of bald eagles superimposed onto the Twin Towers by people who were thousands of miles away when the planes struck. I got angry at it back then; I am angry at it now. It's so easy, the treacly songs, the easy post-and-repost remembrances. We were Forever Changed by this terrible thing that happened. Every word of that annoys me because no, we weren't, and we aren't we anyway. 

(I think I get so angry at the easy remembrances because I envy the sense of safety people now mourn as having been ripped away. I envy their former obliviousness to the randomness of bad fortune.)

Those for whom 9/11 was just a particularly compelling TV show, for whom the community prayer vigils were fan conventions for America, who were happy to wave their flags and paint their chests red, white and blue and beat up on Sikh shopkeepers? They weren't altered by it, not really. Three to six weeks later they stopped going to church again, or quit calling their parents, or started snapping at their kids, because that's how we're built. 

We are prone to grand declarations — remember how snark and irony were going to be So Over? — that have no hope of coming true. We make wild promises we have no hope of keeping, and get angry when someone reminds us of the words we spoke so rashly, of the vows we made in moments of clarity. Full of excuses as to why we didn't live up to our best image of ourselves, the one we invent to keep from going mad when something terrible happens. Like a couple of planes slamming into a building. Or a gunshot. 

Change doesn't happen with a break, or a leap, or a plane crash. The shock isn't what alters you. It's the grinding down, afterward, the every day scraping forward and forward and forward until the skin's rubbed down to the bone. It isn't fun and it isn't set to music and it certainly can't be reduced to a 15-minute ceremony in front of a statue once a year. It's every day. It sucks. 

You tell me, though. What choice do we have?

Giffords was broken on that day, and she’s broken now. I’m broken, too, and so are you. Every day breaks us in a different way. But broken is not the same thing as dead, and if you’re not dead, you’re alive, and if you’re alive, you can do something. That’s not courage; it’s just what you do. You wake up. Something’s sore. Your head hurts. You don’t want to do what you have to do today. You don’t want to talk to humans. There’s so much weight that it feels like you can’t do it anymore. It’s pointless. It’s unmanageable. It’s awful. You can’t do it. You know, deep down in your stomach, that you simply can’t do it anymore. It’s impossible.

You get up anyway.

A. 

Shorter John Kerry: Who You Callin' A Bitch?

U-N-I-T-Y: 

Ask Osama bin Laden is he is better off now than he was four years ago.

[snip]

You know it isn’t -- it isn’t fair. It isn’t fair to say that Mitt Romney doesn’t have a position on Afghanistan. He has every position.

(APPLAUSE)

He -- he was against -- he was against setting a date for withdrawal. Then he said it was right. And then he left the impression that maybe it was wrong to leave this soon. He said it was tragic to leave Iraq. And then he said it was fine. He said we should have intervened in Libya sooner. Then he ran down a hallway to run away from the reporters who were asking questions. Then he said, the intervention was too aggressive. And then he said the world was a better place because the intervention succeeded. Talk about being for it, before you were against it.

(APPLAUSE) Mr. Romney -- Mr. Romney -- Mr. Romney, here’s a little advice; before you debate Barack Obama on foreign policy, you’d better finish the debate with yourself.

(APPLAUSE)

Now -- President Mitt Romney -- President Mitt Romney, three very hypothetical words that mystified and alienated our allies this summer. For Mitt Romney an overseas trip was what you call it when you trip all over yourself overseas.

(APPLAUSE)

You know, it wasn’t -- it wasn’t a goodwill mission. It was a blooper reel.

[snip]

Folks, Sara Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska. Mitt -- Mitt Romney talks like he’s only seen Russia by watching Rocky IV.

At which point the watching party I was at lost its goddamn collective mind. 

People are always surprised whenever I tell them my one true political love is John Kerry. I mean, John Kerry? He's boring. He lost. And conventional wisdom is that he lost because he was boring and elite and lacked backbone and what have you, he windsurfed and shit. He's French. 

Well, call me a Frog because hot damn, last night he walked out onto the stage and told Mitt Romney his other ride was Mitt's mom and next time if Romney doesn't shape up he might not use the saddle. 

And immediately the commentary was WHERE WAS THIS GUY FOUR YEARS AGO, because certainly our noble political punditry couldn't possibly have fallen all over itself to make Kerry unsuitable despite the hockey-playing, liberal-lion-2, war-hero story he had to offer them. Surely they couldn't have missed something. 

Except yeah: 

"Did the training wheels fall off?" –-after being told by reporters that President Bush took a tumble during a bike ride "Here I am in the state of New Mexico. George Bush is still in the state of denial. New Mexico has five electoral votes. The state of denial has none. I like my chances." "Invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor." "Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country." "Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent." –-item #3 on Kerry's "Top 10" list of Bush tax proposals, as read on the "Late Show With David Letterman" "I wanted to have John Edwards stand. Dick Cheney wanted to sit. We compromised and now George Bush is gonna sit on Dick Cheney's lap." –- discussing negotiations over the vice presidential debate

(And before anybody starts in with me about Edwards, ask yourself if the worst thing he has ever done is still nicer than the nicest thing Dick Cheney has ever done. As long as he wasn't Vice President of Being Responsible With One's Penis, he probably could have muddled through.)

In fact, watching Kerry actually made me remember my biggest disappointment with Obama, his truly dismal record on civil liberties. That was what Kerry ran on in 2004, and the biggest wrong he would have righted if we could have pulled our heads out of our asses and elected him. It was why, all kidding about OMG WHATTA BABE aside, I fell in love with him: He went to war and came home and at the age of 27 walked into the halls of Congress and said stop this, stop this now before it gets any worse. 

We all should have listened then, and again in 2004. Maybe we'll listen now. 

A. 

Bin Laden's Death Has a Pro-Obama Bias

How dare you use the killing of Bin Laden to point out that Bin Laden was killed? DON'T YOU KNOW IT MAKES OBAMA LOOK GOOD?!11! 

In their first interviews about the secrecy-shrouded project, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal — who each claimed Oscars for 2009's Iraq-war drama The Hurt Locker — insist their film is a study of the unsung heroes who worked behind the scenes to take down bin Laden, not a celebration of Pres. Barack Obama's decision to authorize the strike that killed him, in May 2011. ''There's no political agenda in the film. Full stop. Period,'' says Boal, a veteran war correspondent. ''A lot of people are going to be surprised when they see the film. For example, the president is not depicted in the movie.''

Although Sony decided last fall to move the film's debut from October to December, well after the election, the project continues to draw fire. Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and the right-wing watchdog group Judicial Watch have questioned whether the filmmakers received access to classified documents while researching their story.

Yes. Bin Laden being dead makes Obama look good. Because using whatever political metric you like, before Obama was president Bin Laden was alive, and now, while Obama is still president, Bin Laden is no longer alive. This is a clear example of liberal bias in media. 

And exactly how much of this sensitive information did the filmmakers actually get? 

The records, obtained through the Judicial Watch suit, showed that even as top Pentagon officials were complaining that too much information was being disclosed about the raid that killed bin Laden, a senior DoD official promised the filmmakers a Navy SEAL team contact who could offers details about the raid.

Boal called the offer "dynamite," but the Pentagon said later that the promised liaison effort never took place.

CIA documents showed that Boal was given a tour of a mock-up used to plan the raid on the compound in Pakistan, but a CIA spokeswoman said in an internal e-mail that the agency's contacts with the filmmakers should be kept "a bit quiet" due to "sensitivities" about the selective nature of such access.

They gave the guy a tour of a model? And a source promised to put them in touch with another source, but that never materialized? This is from Politico, and that's the worst they could come up with. Okay. 

And the CIA was worried wingnuts would have hysterics about nothing. I can't imagine why. 

A. 

What It's Time To Talk About

In answer to Charlie's question here.

No, it is not time to talk about gun control. It is time to talk about Chick-fil-A, and whether the president is secretly a communist, socialist, or Kenyan Muslim Marxist.

It is time to talk about how Christians are persecuted for not being able to slap the Ten Commandments on every inch of every courthouse. 

It is time to talk about how anybody in the military who voices an opinion about the war is a terrorist-loving traitor. 

It is time to talk about how anyone who wants reasonably inexpensive medical care is a freedom-hating government leech. 

It is time to talk about who really "built that." 

It is time to talk about what's trending online.

It is time to talk about which movies are inherently conservative and should be supported, and which Disney characters are indoctrinating your children into liberalism. 

It is time to talk about how video games are making kids crazy.

It is time to talk about your parenting, and how you're doing it wrong. 

It is time to talk about Drew Peterson, and then, in six months or so, it will be time to talk about how we talked too much about Drew Peterson. Six months after that, it will be time to talk about the next Drew Peterson, or Casey Anthony, or whoever that last one was. 

It is time to talk about your fucking taxes, and how you are unhappy with them, and how your unhappiness rates Congressional action. 

It is time to talk about how everybody else has it just a little bit too good. 

It is time to talk about some poor kid who has an iPad.

It is time to talk about what some d-list celebrity "tweeted." 

It is time to talk about who should be allowed to go out in public with his pants like that. 

It is time to talk about pregnancy pacts, and rainbow parties, and how kids don't think oral sex is really sex, and how Clinton is probably to blame. 

It is not time to talk about gun control, because talking about gun control requires talking about laws and policies and various precedents, about how we live and what we live for. 

It is not time to talk about how we can be a less fearful society, a less aggressive society, a less fucking STUPID society, because that seems to require a reach and an ambition so critically lacking in those who task themselves with leading those conversations that we might as well pray for the EASTER BUNNY to save us. It makes about as much sense. 

It's not time to talk about gun control. It's time to talk about what fried chicken you should eat to honor America's freedom. It is time to talk about that.

A. 

In Which I Agree with David Frum

I know, I feel gross about it, but: 

TV news -- and especially local TV news -- is dominated by news of violent crime, the more spectacular and murderous the better. TV news creates a false picture of a country under attack by rampaging criminals, and especially nonwhite criminals. The people who watch the most TV news, Americans older than 50, also happen to be the group most likely to own a gun.

Only one-fifth of young Americans own a gun; one-third of over-50 Americans do. Republicans are twice as likely to own a gun as Democrats. Maybe not so coincidentally, Republicans are more likely to watch the scariest news channel of them all: Fox. Whites are twice as likely to own a gun as nonwhites -- and it may also not be a coincidence that gun purchases have suddenly spiked since November 2008.

Proponents of gun control are baffled that horrific massacres such as the one in Aurora, Colorado, do not lead to stricter gun control. They have their causation backward.

The more terrifyingly criminal the world looks, the more ineffective law enforcement seems, the more Americans demand the right to deadly weapons with which to defend themselves. It is local TV programming directors, not the National Rifle Association, who are tirelessly persuading Americans that they need to strap a gun to their legs before heading to the mall.

I cannot make my doctor's office stop showing The Today Show no matter how much I beg. The nurses like it, she says to me. Okay, but after five minutes of it in the waiting room my blood pressure spikes to stroke levels. The morning after the Aurora shootings, before anybody even knew what this was, we were having a panel debate on whether you should "be worried about taking your kids to this movie." 

First of all, the fucking thing is rated PG-13 and is incredibly loud and violent so no, you shouldn't take your (young) kids to this movie. Not that that stopped half a dozen people at my midafternoon showing from bringing toddlers. I swear the next time a retail spot opens up next to my 'hood's theater I'm snagging it for a drop-off babysitting service for the kids' sakes. I hope that two-year-old keeps you up ALL NIGHT with his nightmares, geniuses. 

Second, though, WHAT THE FUCK ON EARTH. Really, that's our major concern right now, if you should take your kids to a movie because somehow one dude who went on a rampage at Batman means every movie is now dangerous? You know what's dangerous? The WORLD. I will never understand, when so much out there that we cannot control limits our freedom, we would voluntarily scare the shit out of ourselves on a near-constant basis about things that have already happened when it's what we haven't thought of that's gonna come out of nowhere and kill us. 

You watch morning TV (and evening TV about YOUR CHILDREN and how will you KEEP THEM SAFE) and the whole world starts to look like this network of safe areas and danger zones, with checkpoints and times where and when you can cross. Streets you won't go down, people coming to get you, everybody else out there filled with murderous intent and you, helpless. We know, somewhere deep in our bones, that we can't protect ourselves. We know this is futile. And instead of saying look, none of us are safe or all of us are and there is no middle ground, we build a bunker, top it with battlements, and hurry everyone inside after dark. 

Only to find that we sit, surrounded by ammunition, with no one to shoot at but ourselves. 

A. 

Not legally crazy

Accused mass murderer James Holmes remains in the news; especially because he looked so wild eyed and out of it in his court appearance. There's a bit of hysteria on the internets that he might get off with an insanity defense. Not bloody likely: there's big difference between crazy and legally crazy. Holmes may well be insane BUT this carefully planned murder scheme as well as the booby trapped apartment means that he is NOT legally crazy.

I hope that some of the folks who are freaking out about this will take a deep breath and relax. Holmes is more likely to be sent to death row than to the looney bin: he knew what he was doing however insane it seems to us semi-normal people.

Colorado Shooting Evokes Memories of "Never Again..."

The last time Colorado experienced something like this, I was in a newsroom in Missouri with a kid who would later become a good friend and the best man at my wedding. It was 1999 and he was a junior in college. I, all of 24, was in my first real job as staff editor and adviser.

Adam was from Colorado and he knew the area surrounding Littleton. He still had friends in that area. He had connections to that zone based on football rivalries, overlapping proms and other such things that happen to bring high schools from across the state together.

We weren’t covering it locally, as my boss had a (correct) view that having a shit ton of people three states away reacting with “It’s just a terrible tragedy” quotes doesn’t make for decent journalism. Thus, all we could do was watch the AP wire as it came in and stare agape at the TV that hung from a ceiling-mounted swivel near the copy desk.

It turned out that he didn’t intimately know anyone involved. Family members, friends and vague acquaintances appeared to have been spared. He never really spoke of it, though I could see something in his eyes that showed his world had changed a little. The wounding was over, but the scar would remain.

His home state would ever be known as “that Columbine place.”

In the wake of this shooting, everyone agreed on two things: 1) this was a terrible tragedy and 2) something must be done so it would never happen again.

This morning, as I was working in the garage, the radio’s 103-second news update (No shit. 103 seconds. No wonder we’re fucked as a country.) led with the shooting in Colorado. It was a quick hit on the way to other things like Winneconne’s Sovereign State Days and the weather. The announcer didn’t seem to change tone or break stride.

I went inside to read about this and found out that we don’t know anything about this guy.

He was 24.

He was about 6 feet tall.

He apparently owned a rifle, a handgun and some body armor.

He went after people in the midnight showing of “The Dark Knight.”

Why did he do this? We don’t know. However, rest assured, we will quickly be told all the answers by the pundits, the talking heads and Wayne LaPierre.

The Today Show is already yammering on about the movie’s “dark culture.”

I’m quite certain if he had started shooting up “Ice Age 3,” we’d be having a serious morning-show discussion on the impacts of climate change.

Reactions from government officials will be swift. There will be discussions about our gun laws and how easily a whack job can obtain a gun. There will be legislation to ban guns or concealed-carry. It won’t pass because a) the NRA owns everything and b) the slogan “Guns don’t kill people. People do.” will rise up and Jedi mind-trick everyone into thinking this guy could have done this with a Louisville Slugger if he really put his mind to it.

Banning guns isn’t the answer any more than electrifying the fence at the Mexican border is the answer to our immigration issues. If you don’t believe that, watch “Bowling for Columbine” again and get back to me.

Reactions from movie people will be swift as well. People will dither about how costumes need to be banned, as this guy just appeared to be a costumed weirdo, who was in no way a threat to anyone until he started shooting. Eventually, you will be asked to put on a “Marcus Approved Robe” made by the company that produces those fine paper gowns you wear at the doctor’s office when getting a physical.

People will argue that we are a violent culture and we must find a way to fight back, never once seeing the irony in that statement. Colorado is a death penalty state, so rest assured, this guy will be up for the chair or the needle or whatever it is that makes us feel humane in ending a life. They will kill this guy slowly and deliberately to show how much gravity the situation has. They will also silently take perverse pleasure in it, much like someone who manages to ground the fly that has pissed him off for an hour, but not kill it. Finality will now come on his terms.

The death of the insect will be vengeful, as will this man’s inevitable demise.

Why the man did this is unknown. Why we react this way is easy to understand.

When faced with something incomprehensible and tragic, we look for ways to rationalize it. We try to figure out if the guy’s little league coach yelled at him too much or if a priest touched him. We then stop giving a shit about him and start becoming actively self-interested.

We don’t want to be that next group of people watching a movie wondering if the guy next to us in the Darth Maul mask actually has a working light saber he’s going to kill us with. We are like the three idiots in Spaceballs who start screaming “Do Something!” when Mega Maid goes from suck to blow.

We panic. We demand. We say, “Never again!”

In an attempt to keep their seats in congress, their positions running corporations and their sense of control, those we turn to fire off a salvo of actions that have the same logic and accuracy as the shooter’s bullets. They figure if they tighten gun restrictions or make us remove our shoes or scan us for gun powder before we can order a latte, everything will be fine. They delude themselves into believing that they can control everything that could possibly hurt us.

They tell us, “There! We fixed it! It won’t happen again.”

And we go back to thinking everything is fine.

Until the next time.

Speaking of Terrorism

Doesn't Joplin have enough fucking problems without xenophobic fucksticks making trouble? 

A. 

Crazy Talk

On developments in Syria, this caught my eye: 

By formally designating Syria a civil war, the International Committee of the Red Cross may have inadvertently revealed an uncomfortable prospect for the country’s future: Civil wars are typically protracted and bloody as both sides fight with their backs to the proverbial wall. And they rarely result in the complete vanquishing of either combatant party; far more common are political and territorial compromises that redefine the state.

I have no idea what that would look like. NO CLUE. Do you? 

One of the things that continues to infuriate me about our punditry (not so much the journalists in the region or even their editors, removed as they may be) is the tendency to talk about the Middle East as if it is another planet and the customs and people there strange to our human ways. "Why do they hate us" is only a terrorist attack away from being written again, always, forever, and ... um, look, we can argue all day long about justification for this or that bit of foreign policy but can we at least all get together on the concept that human beings are human beings and we react in fairly predictable ways? 

When I was editing the Feith book, I kept telling my boss that it was like he and his buddies hadn't read any recent history. "Forget recent history," quoth the boss, a much smarter fellow than me. "All you have to read is Shakespeare." Go back even further, the Bible. Go back further than that. Revenge, resentment, frustration boiling over into violence, it isn't like we don't know how these things work.

It's not justifying any of them to say that they work the same everywhere, and if you say you would never, or you couldn't, or you don't, then you're in a much more advanced stage of kidding yourself than even you think. 

A. 

ps. Countdown to some veteran of Operation Enduring Cheeto saying we need to go over to Syria and "turn the whole place to glass" starts in 3 ... 2 ... 

Prosecute Banksters, Not Whistleblowers

Oh for fuck's sake. 

A. 

On Police States

Show me what a police state looks like?

I'm on record any number of times saying that Godwin's Law is a law for a reason, and that Hitler is like Hitler and pretty much nobody else is like Hitler. If you're going to call somebody a Nazi, they'd better be invading Poland. 

So no, Chicago is not like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia this morning. But it is possible to hold in our minds the idea that this is not in fact an actual police state, and also that "Not Soviet Russia" is not, shall we say, the highest standard to which we should aspire. 

And the comments to this piece are typical of what I've been reading all over the place this weekend: 

Love those blue helmets! Reminds me of the 60's and 70's when the CPD pounded the scum down. Glad to see tham do it quite well again.

Commuters! Run them over with your cars. And at the same time lower the unemployment rating.

Charming. 

A. 

OMFG PROTESTERS

Journalism at its finest.

Just fucking shoot me. Look, there is legitimate reporting about actual security concerns, disruptions to commutes, etc, and then there is this hicktown fucking freakout like oh, God, we've never had a major event around here before so let's scare the people in the 'burbs who last were downtown for a play three years ago and got nervous about parking under fucking Navy Pier. 

One downside to all the fine weather is that it seems to have spurred Asshole Season to arrive somewhat early. 

A. 

Some People Spoke Up

Never let it be said that everybody went along: 

Over and over again, in Afghanistan and Iraq, in Guantánamo, in secret CIA black sites and at CIA headquarters, in the Pentagon, and in Washington, men and women recognized the torture for what it was and refused to remain silent. They objected, protested, and fought to prevent, and then to end, these illegal and immoral interrogations. While the president and his top advisers approved and encouraged the torture of prisoners, there was dissent in every agency, at every level.

The documents are full of these voices. In fact, it is thanks to these dissenters that much of the documentary record exists. From emails among FBI agents sharing their shock over scenes they had witnessed in interrogation booths in Guantánamo, to letters and memoranda for the record, to major internal investigations, the documents show that those who ordered and carried out the torture did so despite constant warnings and objections that their actions were ineffective, short-sighted, and wrong. It is no wonder that so many of these documents were suppressed.

There's this tendency, especially among our stupider punditry, to act like "everybody" just lost they damn minds in the wake of 9/11 and went all torture-happy because "we" were all so pissed off from having been attacked like nobody had ever attacked us before with the new world we were living in and all that transformative socio-bullshittery and nonsense. Thus, if "we" are all responsible, then none of us is responsible, and nobody needs to be held to account, and nothing needs to be said. Let it all be forgotten so we can go on our merry way. 

Obama's record on this stuff, by the way? Appalling. Especially so, and all the more so, for a fucking scholar of the law. Forget punishing the people who did this. It would be nice if he, himself, stopped doing this, first off.

A. 

Protesting Too Much

So a few hundred people with signs was enough to scare the G8 to Camp David instead of my home base, and reporters are acting like small-town beauty pageant losers all HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO POOR WIDDLE US, and I can't tell you the bitching that was going on for the past month or so. About how there were going to be all these awful protesters mucking up the pretty pretty downtown that's there for people from Wisconsin and Michigan to visit, getting their unwashed free speech all over everything and how horrible that they raise their voices. 

You know, the usual one percent doctrine. 

Steve: 

Seriously, the city could have encouraged its hospitality industry to market to the protesters as well as the dignitaries. Tents, supplies for signs, protest apps . . . a whole market to exploit.

And even more seriously, welcoming protesters as participants to the weekend would have been much smarter than treating them like the enemy and turning the whole thing into an impending crisis. Our cultural, civic and political institutions could have scheduled workshops, debates, art exhibits - the whole works. We could have shown the world how to bridge the gap and connect the 1% to the 99% and showcased democracy at its best.

Security would still have been an issue and incidents no doubt would have occurred - and likely still will when NATO gets here. But that's part of the price we pay for living in a free society.

Seriously. Maybe Occupy would have been a little less hardcore about stuff if the city hadn't shown every indication of meeting them more than halfway, acting like there had never been a demonstration here before and oh god oh god we're all going to die get the riot gear Martha, it's the big one. I've never seen such fucking hick hysteria, and this in a city everybody goes around mouthing all the time is so world-class.

There are a lot of goddamn people who live here, and some of them are going to stand outside a convention center with a sign that says FUCK THESE PEOPLE, and we are all just going to have to get over the unspeakable trauma of seeing that.  

A not-insignificant number of people may have been (may still be) total dicks, violent and destructive, but why on earth was the fear of that cause for the full-scale militarization that was going to occur? Do people not act like violent destructive dicks every day around here, too? Whence cometh the idea that these criminals required tank divisions basically, and other criminals don't? Or are we just flat-out saying it now, that the prime minister of East Gofuckistan is deserving of a peace and quiet our citizens can easily do without? 

That's unworthy of a place like this, a big glorious noisy busy messy place like this. The other day I went out my front door and there was a whole rotisserie chicken lying in the middle of the road, I mean every time I ride the L there's some guy in a panda costume singing for no reason or something. We live here because of the crazy shit that goes on, not in spite of it, and despite everyone's best attempts to sanitize all public spaces the public, occasionally, has other ideas. Acting threatened by that doesn't intimidate our critics. It just exposes our cowardice. 

In other words, sack up, and figure that if the vast majority of the world's people can live with crushing poverty and systemic powerlessness all of their days, you can handle a week or two of people on the street being rude enough to bring it up in conversation. 

A. 

You Have No Rights Here

Not once somebody says the word "terrorist," anyway: 

The National Defense Authorization Act covering $662 billion in defense spending for the next fiscal year includes a provision requiring military custody of a terror suspect believed to be a member of Al Qaeda or its affiliates and involved in attacks on the United States.  
 
 A last minute amendment allows the president to waive the authority based on national security and to hold a terror suspect in civilian rather than military custody. But the bill would deny US citizens suspected of being terrorists the right to trial, subjecting them to indefinite detention, and civil libertarians say the amendment essentially is meaningless.

For all our jokes these days about how Libertarians are essentially Republicans who like pot, they are in the absolute, complete and utter right on this: 

"If the president thinks you are a terrorist, let him present charges and evidence to a judge,” Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said in a statement Friday. “He has no authority to lock you up without any judicial review, just because he and Congress believe he should have unlimited power. That is the kind of power held by tyrants in totalitarian regimes. It has no place in the United States.”

The shock and horror of Republicans, meanwhile, continues to be darkly amusing.

Echoing arguments against federal government power made by his father, presidential candidateRep. Ron Paul (R) of Texas, Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky spoke forcefully against the measure: “We are talking about people who are merely suspected of a crime, and we are talking about American citizens. If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent toGuantánamo Bay.”

Where exactly did you think we were going with this, fellas? In case you haven't been paying attention at the meetings of the local Asshole Promulgation and Knitting Society, this is pretty much exactly the substance of their every resolution from like Nixon on outward. American citizens with unwelcome or inconvenient or just plain yucky political beliefs being sent to Guantanamo Bay isn't some unintended and tragic consequence of this bill or of any of our insane national security policies of the past 10 years; IT'S EXACTLY THE PLAN. So don't act all shocked and appalled and you a fucking virgin, now; you felt the rails humming long before you heard the train. 

A. 

The Healing Process

Sweet blueberry Jesus, I hate this stupid therapy language and the people who use it when it doesn't mean anything other than SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP:

The UC-Davis Chancellor responsible for the pepper-spraying of her students, Linda Katehi, today went on Good Morning America and explained why she should not resign or otherwise be held accountable: “we really need to start the healing process and move forward.” On a radio program in the afternoon, she expanded on this view by saying: “We need to move on.” 

That's it. That's all it means. It means go away. It means stop talking about how I hurt you. It means stop talking about the wrong done and the reparation due, the action taken and the appropriate consequences. It means I am sick of hearing you whine. It means I want to leave you and your mistreatment and your issues behind on the road and who cares if you're still bleeding, because at least I stopped hitting you and really, what more do you people want from me? Just heal already, so that I can forget.  

Once and for all time, the person hurt is the person who decides when it's time to move on. The person affected is the person who decides when the "healing process" starts, and what the healing process even IS. It is not up to the perpetrator to determine what course of action the victim needs to take. 

I personally think it would start the living hell out of everybody's healing process if Katehi resigned before she was sued into next week, but again, that's not up to me. Until one of the students pepper-sprayed in the face for the outrageous crime of sitting on the sidewalk tells us all what needs to happen for the healing process to begin, I think we can consider this whole thing officially un-healed. 

A. 

David Brooks: I Am An Asshole, and Therefore Secretly So Are You

David Brooks cannot bear how superior everyone sticking up for victims of child sexual abuse is these days: 

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don’t see.

First up: Advocating for action to stop sexual abuse as it occurs, and then strenuous laws aimed at preventing it from ever happening again, comes across as morally superior BECAUSE IT IS. If it's now out-of-bounds smug to say we should as a society better protect the powerless from those who prey upon them, smug sounds pretty good to me.  

Second: It's entirely possible to say that someone in such-and-such position should have done something, while also acknowledging that in that same position, you don't know what you would have done. 

But even if you can't say precisely what you would have done, you should at least know what should be done. And every time you say it out loud, you move us all a little farther away from the place where we riot in favor of an institution that enabled sexual abuse. The entire point of talking about the people who didn't see, or saw and didn't act, or acted but not strongly enough, is to reinforce the idea that passivity in the face of evil is not okay. 

So of course along comes David Brooks to talk about how that's just a normal human reaction, so, you know, whatevs. It's interesting that he assumes that all outrage on the part of "a zillion commentators" (obviously not this very good one that makes the same point without the smarm and judgment) comes from a place of vanity. What else could possibly motivate such outrage? 

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

Brooks prefaces this, his oh-so-brave contrarian stance, with a few grafs that blither on about how we used to acknowledge our sinfulness but now kids have self-esteem so we can't do that anymore. Or something. 

As to David's other examples: The problem in the wake of our torturing innocent people in secret prisons was not insufficient self-examination. It was that we were torturing innocent people in secret prisons and needed to not ever be doing that. David Brooks, now so concerned that we turned away from our inner angels, spent much of the past decade studiously not mentioning the innocent man shipped off to Syria to be tortured. 

I assume he didn't say anything at the time because he didn't want to appear superior. 

A. 

Failures of Leadership

I don't like generational sniping. First of all, there's no contest to win Greatest Generation, pace Tom Brokaw. Second, I think it obscures complexity and makes it easier for us to fetishize the good old days while dismissing the contributions of the young (and thereby letting the young off the hook in the process), but there's something in this otherwise messy piece that I've talked about a lot: 

We looked to Washington to lead us after September 11th. I remember telling my college roommates, in a spate of emotion, that I was thinking of enlisting in the military in the days after the attacks. I expected legions of us -- at the orders of our leader -- to do the same. But nobody asked us. Instead we were told to go shopping.

The times following September 11th called for leadership, not reckless, gluttonous tax cuts. But our leaders then, as now, seemed more concerned with flattery. Then -House Majority Leader and now-convicted felon Tom Delay told us, “nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” Not exactly Churchillian stuff.

Those of us who did enlist were ordered into Iraq on the promise of being “greeted as liberators,” in the words of our then-vice president. Several thousand of us are dead from that false promise.

We looked for leadership from our churches, and were told to fight not poverty or injustice, but gay marriage. In the Catholic Church, we were told to blame the media, not the abusive priests, not the bishops, not the Vatican, for making us feel that our church has failed us in its sex abuse scandal and cover-up.

I can see where you'd read that and say, look, don't wait for a leader, just be one, it's not magic. I think a lot of our problems have come from the idea that we have to sit around and wait until just the right, perfect, sinless person comes along and THEN we'll get off the couch. THEN it won't be a risk of any kind to do what we've known for years we should do, which is fight for the powerless against the great. Just get off your entitled ass already, Generation X/Y/Whatever. 

This is speaking to something else, though, and it's how the leaders we do have underestimated us at a critical point in our history. They took people who were, by and large, willing to do just about anything after 9/11. Those who weren't taking the opportunity to be bigoted assholes and burn down Pakistani-owned gas stations were as ready as anyone sitting by the radio listening to FDR to be called upon to serve. And when no such moment came, the adrenaline and energy went directionless, turned inward, became exhaustion and fear and despair. 

We fear asking great things of others because we're afraid we'll lose them. If you grab your pennant and jump on your horse and yell, "This way!" and no one follows you, you'll look like an asshole, right? Better to mill around in the field with everybody else. I think, and I know how ridiculous this sounds because how much power do these people have, that they're actually afraid to lead. Look at the way Democrats always back down, at the first sign of opposition. "Ooh, it's about to go bad, better cut our losses now." Even look at the way Republicans always run back to the safest parts of their orthodoxy, to old ideas that even they know won't accomplish a fraction of what they say they want. 

And it's HORSESHIT. You never lose people because you ask too much of them. You lose people because you ask too little. Eventually everybody's going to get sick of camp food and sleeping outside in the rain and go home, if nobody says, "this way!" and sounds the call to arms. 

Hell, if nobody follows you at least you're going somewhere. 

A. 

Victories

We'll take them where we can get them.

A.

The War's Never Over

All Saturday's headlines were about the war in Iraq being over.

Which means it's a great time to start another one!

A.

 

"Exiled as a 'Security' Threat, Former Orland Man May Soon Return"

I broke this story when I was still reporting for the Daily Southtown, eight years ago. As part of a 9/11 retrospective I was asked to look in on the case, and this was the update:

A suburban Chicago Muslim leader exiled from the United States after 9/11 could be back as early as this fall after a federal judge declared the government's argument for keeping him away "totally asinine."

Sabri Samirah, formerly of Orland Park, has spent the past eight years in his native Jordan. In 2003, he traveled there to visit his sick mother and on his way back was stopped by immigration authorities, informed he was a "national security risk" and barred from returning to America.

Today, his lawyer is negotiating the terms of his return to America. Samirah is hopeful he will be back before the end of the year.

A.

 

Nitwits Assume Everyone Is Just Like Them

Oh, GOD, the Chicago Tribune editorial board:

These alternating epochs arrive unannounced and elbow one another aside. During one morning's aeronautical attack in 2001, this nation discarded the carefree holiday from history that traced to 11/9 — the date in 1989 when dispirited communism gave up on the Berlin Wall — for the combative era of 9/11. It was just that fast: One day Americans assume they're invulnerable; the next day warriors armed with knives and ailerons are murdering them by the thousands.

Guys? I know it's hard to bestir yourselves from Morton's, but attempt for two minutes to realize that from where you are sitting you can chuck a rock and hit three or four neighborhoods where absolutely nobody had then or has now any illusions of invulnerability. Not everybody needed the crash course in coping with disaster that they got after 9/11. Not everybody needs to be told by the TV news how to talk to their kids about things that suck.

Even if we're only talking terrorism, a bunch of people wrote this book report called BIN LADEN IS GOING TO KILL US ALL FOR REAL, and that the president shrugged and went back to his pudding doesn't mean nobody else gave it a thought. I realize noticing the people who noticed this sort of thing requires us all to feel stupid for not listening to them, but feeling stupid for not listening to people who were right is kind of a required thing.

A.

There's That National Unity I Remember

"These are foreigners that run that place, you know."

The message “9-11 Go Home” was spray-painted on the exterior wall of State Line Grocery, heavily damaged by the fire reported at 2:40 a.m. [EDT] on Wednesday, Clay County Sheriff Vic Davis told Hatewatch. The convenience store, reportedly owned by a Sikh family, is located three miles south of Hayesville, N.C., in Clay County, on State Highway 69 near the Georgia border. It was closed at the time of the fire. Arvinder Singh, who operates the store and lives nearby, was not injured.  He could not be reached for comment.

“There’s a possibility,” the sheriff said when asked if the arson fire appeared to be a hate crime. “What leads us to believe it may be a hate crime is what’s written on the side of the building,’’ the sheriff said. “These are foreigners that run that place, you know.”

There is this sentimentalized picture of us, after 9/11, baking cakes for firefighters and donating blood and deciding to be nicer to our neighbors for about a week. We remember it that way because we have to, because it's human to want to justify something so frightening. It made us better people! It made us stronger! Which, as I said earlier, places responsibility on the wrong party, on the thing that happened, rather than on ourseves.

We made us better, we made us stronger, we made us braver.

We made us this, too:

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sikhs increasingly have been the targets of hate crimes. In March, Surinder Singh, 65, was shot and killed in Elk Grove, Calif., while walking with his friend, Gurmej Atwal, 78, who was critically wounded and later died. Both men were wearing dastars [traditional Sikh turbans] and long beards common to men of that faith.

There have been no arrests in that double-murder investigation.

VIa Maitri and Sepia Mutiny.

A.

9/11: His Death Was His

If your child is musical

don't study piano

and if he's dying

stay off his turf

So begins a poem Charlotte Mayerson wrote after her son died of AIDS. Her book about losing him, The Death Cycle Machine, clarified the way I felt about a lot of things, but this most of all: Ownership of another's experience, and how violently opposed to it I am. Someone else's suffering is not yours, it's not for you, and while you can be profoundly changed by things that have happened to others, you can't forget who those things happened to.

I had to be slammed to the ground

A thousand times

Before I figured out

Whose tragedy it was

People said this stuff all the time, in the days following 9/11, and they're saying it again now, in the relentless waves of anniversary coverage. "This has reminded me of how short life is." Umm, okay? Great? For you? I'm sure every single dead person is grateful for the chance to give you a little psychic kick in the ass? "This has made me love my family more." "This has made me go back to church." "I'm going to learn more about the world now." Awesome! But wasn't it kind of a lot of pressure to put on New York, on its still-smoking skyline, to teach you a lesson?

Who is today for? I did not lose anyone on 9/11. There was a friend in Washington we didn't hear from, for a few hours, but he was fine. This 10-year anniversary is not prompting me to react with post-traumatic stress (unless the overwhelming snappish anger toward treacly remembrances counts). This isn't mine. It's not for me. There is no hole in my horizon. I've been to New York twice, liked it both times, love many people there. I've visited DC, seen the Pentagon before and since the attacks. But these places aren't my home, and I can't claim it as such. I wasn't breathing dust and ashes. I didn't hear the planes, or feel the ground shake.

Back to Mayerson again:

That, broken heart or no

I'd one day sip

Condolence tea with honey

While he would choke

On snow.

Maybe if I had lost someone, I would be grateful for an entire country of strangers honoring him with their thoughts, today. But part of me says that's not what we're doing, right now. My doctor's office runs The Today Show no matter how much I complain, so Friday while I waited to be seen I was stuck listening to Matt Lauer and his cast of pretty twerps telling us all how to feel, as if feeling is primarily what we're supposed to be doing here.

There was this rage-inducing Bush interview [video], where he was asked about what it was like "to be commander in chief on that day." Because primarily what we're concerned about here is how the costume felt. Not, why did you respond the way you did, not, why did you drag America into two unwinnable wars and fail to kill or capture the man responsible, not in what possible way did any of your justice department's failed prosecutions of suspected terrorists help keep us safe at all, but what was it like to be playing a real-life war games scenario? What was it like, in Presidential Candyland? The barely suppressed excitement, in that question, as if that moment was not the breaking apart of thousands of lives but the beginning of a grand adventure.

And why not, really? It's not as if we drew any profound connectedness from these events, after day three or so. Bush told us to go shopping and carry on like nothing had happened, and in large part we did that, those of us for whom this was something we watched from afar. Even now, it's like, "What wars?" We thought it was awesome that Obama managed to have bin Laden killed but then we went right back to trying to make the mortgage.

If any part of this belongs to the country, if any part of this belongs to "us" as a whole, it's in what came after. In our complicity in the wars, in how we failed to stop so much of the hysteria and fearmongering from taking us over. In our willingness to take anything and everything off at the airport and our steadfast refusal to consider a change in how we deal with the rest of the world. In how we made enemies of allies, fought wars basically to make our pundits feel good about themselves, keep electing people who can't solve problems ... that's what we all own. That's what we all did, and didn't do.

But that's not a spectacle. That's not a show. And that pales, doesn't it, next to the voice mail message someone can't erase, because then he'll never hear her voice again.

Today doesn't belong to "America." It belongs to the dead and to their families. To those who tried to stop it, and those who succeeded, and those who failed. That the rest of us watched it like a movie, that can't be avoided, but we can avoid being absolutely gross about it, pretending that gives us admission to the show. Someone's father is dead ten years today. Someone's mother would have had a birthday, seen a grandchild born. Someone's husband, someone's wife, someone's brother, someone's friend, someone's son, someone's daughter. Ten years of holidays, trips to the beach, missed. Ten years of aching loss.

Not mine. Theirs. Yours, maybe. You have my condolences.

Never forget, people will say today. Not thinking about how lucky they are, to be able to even consider the option. Thousands of families don't have to be told.

A.

These People Should Be Vilified, or Shunned

This is exactly the kind of treatment Rumsfeld and those like him are due.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - Religion Of Peace edition

Ok campers - a little change in protocol today - we're going to have to inspect the Freepertude from perspex windows outside the iso chamber - it's too crazy and dangerous to go in there just now.

You see - Norway happened.

Oslo explosion - live coverage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/ ^ | 7/22/2011

Posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:50:05 AM by cll

Edited on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:53:53 AM by Admin Moderator. [history]

 A man disguised as a police officer began shooting where youth were attending a Labour party conference at Utoya, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has just confirmed.

1 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:50:10 AM by cll

.

.

To: cll

For a country under 5 million people this is their comparison to 9/11. Not to diminish 9/11 but this is horrible.

I have many friends in Norway, some posting on Facebook already. They have spoken often of Muslims not integrating into Norwegian society at all. But mostly everyone felt safe.

Possibly because they actually knew some Muslims, as opposed to reading about them in places like FR, or seeing them as cartoon creations?

Rude awakening today for them. Shall be interesting to see how this enfolds.

6 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:53:45 AM by alisasny

Yes it will, won't it?

.

To: cll

In my travels working with troop movements, I have been to Oslo on occasion. Fine city, wonderful people. God be with them in spirit and courage, strength and rage be with them in the flesh.

These bastards are evil and sick, and their religious beliefs are beneath contempt.

14 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:57:13 AM by Cap74 (You can disagree with me. You can attack me. Do not lie to me.)

Bookmarked.

.

To: cll

Time for Western Civilization to Rock the Casbah again.

On THEIR turf.

15 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:58:05 AM by EyeGuy (2012: When the Levee Breaks)

.

.

To: cll

This will not stop until a real war on islam begins... and we all know that it is muslim demons that are doing this.

LLS

23 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:09:21 PM by LibLieSlayer ("GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH"! I choose LIBERTY and PALIN!)

.

.

To: alisasny

Most of the older Norwegians do not like what has been happening in their country but they do like their cradle to grave benefits

Horrors! How dare they??

so they haven't said enough.....the younger generation (under 40) have been raised to worship at the twin altars of “tolerance” and “diversity”.

Those BASTARDS!!!

Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for them, as well as the other European countries who have welcomed the wolves into their sheep folds and are now surprised to discover “what sharp teeth” they have!

29 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:16:04 PM by VikingMom (I may not know what the future holds but I know who holds the future!)

.

.

To: cll

Must be the Amish or the Mormons again.

Must be.

Norway needs to get a clue that an immigration policy which is driven by political correctness is suicidal.

37 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:35:46 PM by American Infidel (Instead of vilifying success, try to emulate it)

.

.

To: dfwgator

“This is a new kind of, a new kind of evil. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And American people must be patient.”

George W Bush, September 6th, 2011.

Anybody really think he used the word “crusade” accidentally? I don’t.

That's because you're a dumbass, too.

Ezekiel 39?

46 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:54:53 PM by RobRoy (The US today: Revelation 18:4)

Proverbs 14.7

.

And then...

.

To: All

Police have a suspect in custody. Looks like it was a right-wing Norwegian native trying to take members of the ruling Labor Party.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017851/Named-The-blond-Norwegian-32-arrested-holiday-island-massacre-linked-Oslo-bomb-blasts.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

146 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 7:45:27 PM by Endo

.

....for about half an hour.......

.

then:

To: Endo

So much for all the comments on every Muslim that exists!

147 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 8:15:18 PM by toldyou (Even if the voices aren't real they have some pretty good ideas.)

.

10 minutes later:

.

To: Endo

Hmmmm....silence here...can it be that everyone jumped to conclusions?

148 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 8:20:27 PM by toldyou (Even if the voices aren't real they have some pretty good ideas.)

They're thinking.

 

.

To: cll

It wasn’t a muslim attack. It was a home-grown white boy.

150 posts of muslim hate and it wasn’t even a muslim.

152 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:56:54 AM by Prairie Rat

They're still thinking!

Yosemite Sam: All right! Don't rush me. I'm a-thinking... and my head hurts.

.

Finally.....

.

To: Prairie Rat

Still, it could have been muslims,

Well, there you go.

so just let that
rage out , let it go, and think how much better you’ll
feel knowing that it’s gone.....til the next time.

154 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:09:37 AM by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)

I'll keep that in mind, fuckmonkey.

I'd like to say it gets better, but after the jumpola...we have Bachmann.

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Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "Ashes in their mouths" edition

Good morning, everyone!

You know, I almost - almost - feel sorry for the Freepers.

First the birth certificate, and now this.

Rumsfield Chief of Staff tweet: Osama Bin Laden Killed (Confirmed!)
Twitter - Keith Urbahn (Rumsfield's COS)

Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:43:12 PM by ph12321

Chief of Staff of Donald Rumsfield tweeted OBL has been killed. Perhaps this is Obama's new speech coming soon?

1 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:43:14 PM by ph12321

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To: ph12321

Why is the first thing I think is: How convenient?

Good if true.

It's true. This man is a moron.

3 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:45:02 PM by CommieCutter (Promote Liberal Extinction: Support gay marriage and abortion!)

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To: ph12321

well wag the dog,
this will cover the fake birth certificate!!!!

5 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:45:07 PM by 9422WMR (Illegal is not a race. Obamacare is a crime)

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To: ph12321

That would be great news to be sure! Watch the marxist girl child try to take credit.

11 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:46:16 PM by fuzzybutt (Democrat Lawyers are the root of all evil.)

For what? Reactivating the Bin Laden desk at the CIA after Dubya de-activated it? Perish the thought!

To: ph12321

The death certificate has been faked. Check for chromatic aberration.

14 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:46:37 PM by ClearCase_guy

Heh.

To: ph12321

“Chief of Staff of Donald Rumsfield”
Your first clue this is BS.

24 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:48:11 PM by 9422WMR (Illegal is not a race. Obamacare is a crime)

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To: freebilly

Hope it’s true....

Seriously?! I can't stand the thought of this pretender taking credit for OBL's death. Ugh ... the left will go nuts over this.

33 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:49:18 PM by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)

There you have it, folks - Freepers would rather Bin Laden was still alive than killed at the order of President Obama.   Priorities.

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To: freebilly

Are you sure?

I mean Obama kinda looks like him without the beard.

And we’ve never seen them in the same room together at the same time.

47 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:51:08 PM by Jonty30

The downward spiral continues after our jump into the mouth of madness,,,

A Nation of Busy Bodies

This is, in a way, a followup to Athenae's post this morning. Over my lifetime, we've increasingly become a nation of busy bodies. The right wants to tell women they don't have control over their own bodies and gays that they should neither smooch nor have sexy times. My brothers and sisters on the left have spent the last few days telling people how to react to the death of Osama bin Laden; including trotting out a quote from MLK that was only partially accurate. The sub-head on Joan Walsh's post at Salon sums up my reaction quite succinctly: "The frenzy over a "fake" quote reveals our desire to outsource our moral decision-making to someone else." Joan is a smart woman.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but no one is entitled to tell other people what to think or feel. I didn't do the boogaloo in the street when I heard about the demise of the master criminal bin Laden but was tempted to do so when *my* personal bete noir Slobodan Milosevic died. I hope that if Hitler had died in 1938 that folks wouldn't have berated the people he persecuted-Jews, Gypsies, Lefties to name but a few-for being glad he was dead. Yes, Osama was a piker compared to the Fuhrer BUT the anaology is still applicable.  

My late mother was a kind person who was always willing to help others BUT she's the one who taught me to mind my own business and not offer unsolicited advice. She once said: "They call it unsolicited advice because you weren't asked. If you're asked, be honest and straight forward but nobody likes a Nosy Parker."

I never quite knew (or cared) who Parker was and why he or she was so bloody nosy but it was sound advice then and just as sound in this era of social networking. In short, mind your own beeswax and don't be a fucking busy body:

 

May Day for bin Laden

I'm Greek so I understand vendettas and the desire for vengeance. The Greeks aren't as obsessive about revenge as the Sicilians but try ordering Turkish coffee in any Hellenic eatery. If you do so, prepare to duck because some crockery may be headed your way. Smash.

I had a Greek-Greek relative who was convinced that everything good was invented by the Greeks: it was like hearing a Stalinist insist that Russians had invented the telephone, telegraph and Tina Turner's dance moves. I once asked this Uncle (a third cousin but every guy who's older than you in a Greek family is called Theo or Uncle) to explain why baklava was made throughout the former Ottoman Empire if it was strictly a Greek dish. His answer: it was spread by itinerant Greek chefs who fed phylo to the Turkish phillistines. (Okay, that last bit was embellishment.) He went on to remind me that if it was Turkish, it was skattah (shit.) I didn't buy it but I enjoyed busting the old boy's chops.  

That was a circuitous way of saying that, while I don't plan to dance in the street to celebrate bin Laden's demise, I'm not shedding any tears for a mass murderer. Slaying that particular bearded dragon doesn't really change much but I've enjoyed observing the political contortions of folks on both the far left and far right; all of whom are determined to fit this unwieldy narrative into an ideologically tidy box. Forget about it, y'all. The world is not only a mess, it's messy.

Even before May Day, Osama bin Laden was yesterday's man. I'm far more interested in seeing if we yet again send the Pakistanis to bed without supper and then throw another a few billion dollars at them. Spare the rod, spoil the Pakstani security forces. It's clearly time to put them on a starvation diet since Osama was hiding in plain sight not far from the Pakistani version of West Point. What does it take for us to get properly pissed off at the Pakistanis? If this doesn't do it, nothing will. I suspect, however, that our abusive relationship with Pakistani will continue...

And Then

First of all, I have zero interest in scolding anybody for being happy today. For dancing or singing or spraying champagne. For celebrating for the TV cameras, for Twitter, or just for themselves. For cracking jokes. We grieve how we grieve, and make no mistake, this is still grief. It's impossible to get an A in it, and it's grotesque to try. Lecturing others on how to do it right is just a way to draw attention to yourself, to make you the Virtuous Voice of Truth. I've never liked that voice. Ever.

But let me ask you this: Read this and tell me, could we have done this before now?

In an interview at CIA headquarters two weeks ago, a senior intelligence official said the two proud groups of American secret warriors had been “deconflicted and basically integrated” -- finally -- 10 years after 9/11. Indeed, according to accounts given to journalists by five senior administration officials Sunday night, the CIA gathered the intelligence that led to bin Laden’s location. A memo from CIA Director Leon Panetta sent Sunday night provides some hints of how the information was collected and analyzed. In it, he thanked the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for their help. NSA figured out, somehow, that there was no telephone or Internet service in the compound. How it did this without Pakistan’s knowledge is a secret. The NGIA makes the military’s maps but also develops their pattern recognition software -- no doubt used to help establish, by February of this year, that the CIA could say with “high probability” that bin Laden and his family were living there.

Could we have had the champagne at Ground Zero, could we have had the dancing and the singing, the silence and the reflection, the closure and the open wounds, without the past 10 years of pointless death in Iraq and Afghanistan? There were no military casualties from killing bin Laden, the president said, and it hit me like a fist in the gut. Could we have done this, brought justice however brutal, without killing another American soul?

There are times I go to a Pat Robertson-type place, I really do, and think about the karmic bitchslap we are so utterly due for what we've done. And I pray, almost, an argument, "lots of us tried to stop it." Tried, of course, meaning nothing to the dead. 

So this morning the wars continue, because after all they weren't about bin Laden. If we had done this 10 years ago, would it have been enough? The president talked about how united we were on 9/11; I was working that day and every day thereafter, not too far from where he was, and he is telling us a pretty story, a pretty lie. We were not united. We were fractious and enraged, and quite a few Sikh and Indian men, quite a few innocent Muslim women, can attest to that if we choose to listen to them. In that furious fear-driven anger, would this have been enough?

Look at the pictures. Look at the joy and sorrow. You tell me.

A.

 

The Posh Boy & The Merchants Of Death

British Prime Minister David Cameron was the first Western leader to visit post-Mubarak Egypt. He said all the right things about democracy and yadda, yadda, yadda. Initially, I was impressed until I saw this:

David Cameron's efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East by becoming the first foreign leader to visit Cairo were overshadowed as it emerged that he will spend the next three days touring undemocratic Gulf states with eight of Britain's leading defence manufacturers.

After a hastily convened stopover in Egypt, where he spoke of being "inspired" by protesters, the PM began a long-scheduled trade mission by landing in Kuwait, a key military ally. Britain has approved 1,155 arms export licences for Kuwait since 2003, worth a total of £102.3m, according the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.

There was a shitstorm over the timing of the trip. One good thing that's come of it is this:

Britain faced embarrassment over the weekend when it was forced to revoke arms export licences to Bahrain and Libya amid fears that British arms may have been used in the violent crackdown on protesters. Cameron, who is seeking assurances that no British arms were used against protesters, insisted that Britain has some of the toughest rules on arms exports in the world.

They do? Really? As an American, I suppose I should be relieved that not all the shit being thrown at protesters was made in the USA. But I'm horrified that the UK allowed any sort of arms sale to Libya; especially now that Gaddafi's personal role in ordering  the Lockerbie bombing has been confirmed by one of the rats scrambling off the demented dictator's sinking ship. So much for being tough on terrorism. Of course, the Posh Boy will turn around and blame the Artful Dodger and the Labour Government. So it goes.

As for Cameron, the mask of moderation that he donned when in opposition has proven to be a poor fit. In power, the Posh Boy has turned into a regular old member of the nasty Thatcherite party as he gleefully takes an axe to the National Health Service. He, however, has the Liberal Democrats as useful idiots, patsies and fall guys. The Posh Boy may be a malaka but he's no fool.

Cameron's merchants of death tour of the Middle East has made me think of George Bernard Shaw's classic play Major Barbara. The title character joined the Salvation Army as a way of rebelling against her arms merchant father, Andrew Undershaft. It's well worth a read and the next time the 1941 film version pops up on TCM check it out. It features stellar performances by Wendy Hiller as the title character and Robert Morley as her odious albeit witty father who was part of the original MOD Squad. No, not the campy Sixties teevee show, the MOD Squad from Thank You For Smoking: Merchants Of Death. The Posh Boy is now their teaboy...

What Opposing Torture Looks Like

Thank God for at least one judge who understands the law:

I have read letters and statements from many individuals who were not called to testify at trial but wanted to be heard. Those statements, and they have all been made available to you, of course, those statements describe brutality at your hands or those under your supervision or command, some even more appalling than the torture the witnesses here have testified about.

One remarkable thing about the statements was how many came from outside the Chicago area. These people say they had to leave Chicago because they were terrified that the police would do this to them again.

One statement from a prisoner, however, will probably haunt me the longest. This man reports that he has been in prison for 30 years. He stated he was 17 when he was arrested while walking down the street and brutally tortured until he confessed to a murder. He said, I had the body of a man but I was a child inside.

He remains in prison for a crime he insists he did not commit, being abandoned by family and friends who trusted that the police would not have charged him had he not done the crime.

The grandmother, who stood by him, died while he was in prison, a graying, middle-aged adult. Imagine the loss.

I also point out the statement Mr. [Anthony] Holms made yesterday as particularly moving. He said, I remember looking around the room at the other officers, and I thought one of them would say, “that’s enough,” but they didn’t.

Now when I hear your attorney implying that if someone did the crime, no harm, no foul, they deserved it, I am frankly shocked. Even if counsel only means to say that none of these people can be believed because they are criminals, the mountain of evidence to the contrary completely belies that position.

[snip]

The freedom that we treasure most of all in this country is the right to live free of governmental abuse of power. Those who represent the government and hold power over other citizens are the embodiment of the principle that we live by — the rule of law. The rule of law holds us together as we live out our great social experiment known as the United States of America.

Maybe hearing that would have engaged Eric Zorn's emotions.

A.

Our Noble, Peaceful Politics

This line of thinking is starting to get on my goddamn nerves:

The great miracle of American politics is that although it can tend toward the cutthroat and thuggish, it is almost devoid of genuine violence outside of a few scuffles and busted lips now and again. With the exception of Saturday's slaughter, I'd wager that in the last 30 years there have been more acts of physical violence in the stands at Philadelphia Eagles home games than in American politics.

You know, that's fine, the last 30 years. How about a few years before that? It's not like there aren't still people alive who can't remember this:

James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, has been shot and wounded after entering Mississippi on a civil rights march.

Police have arrested a 41-year-old white man named Aubrey James Norvell from Memphis on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

I'm really about done with us congratulating ourselves on how awesome we are now, as if all of that was 3,000 years ago. As if it was Elizabethan England. As if it was ancient history. And also, really? Really? "With the exception of this latest round of dead people, it's not that bad?" That's what you're going with? What the blue-arsed Christ.

Here's the thing: There is lots and lots of political violence in this country. We kill people with our politics every single day. When we consign them to poverty, when we keep them from places of learning worthy of their aspirations, when we declare their needs invalid, when we find a way, any way, in our desperate avoidance of giving a shit, to ignore the sick and downtrodden, that is violence.

Just because nobody's firing a gun doesn't make it any less deadly. Or any more moral.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "It wasn't us!" edition

 

Good morning, gentle people - well, you knew that there wouldn't be much introspection over at FR over the Tucson shooter, but you probably couldn't imagine the trip down De Nile that the Freeperati are taking.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to double up on iso suits, gloves, and booties. It's a mess in there.

Here's what passes for soul-searching in Freeperville:

Not "Should we quit screaming hate at public servants?", but rather "This wouldn't have been so bad if numerous people in the crowd had pulled out their own handguns and started blazing away!"

Let's face it, if this had been a Republican event-VANITY
Me | 1/8/11 | self

Posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 8:43:23 PM by SonofReagan

If this had been a Republican event in Tucson today there would have been just one death, the gunmen. Several in that kind of a crowd would have pulled their weapons and aeriated him immediately.

Leftists! You started this war and one of your own contiunued it today.

1 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 8:43:23 PM by SonofReagan

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You're not a son of Reagan, you're a son of a bitch - and a stupid one, at that. This isn't a fucking movie. If five people pull handguns in a crowd of people and attempt to shoot one of them, two things will happen:

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1. More then half the shots fired will miss, hitting bystanders, and the other would-be heroes.

2. The bullets that do hit the shooter will overpenetrate and hit bystanders, and the other would-be heroes.

But hey - it works in the movies, so what the hell.

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To: SonofReagan

Ditto that...especially here in Texas!

5 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:10:23 PM by NYTexan

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Someone stole your brain and replaced it with a ditto machine.

"And posting 'Me, too' like some brain-dead AOL'er"

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To: NYTexan

Democrat or Republican, here in IN the thumbstraps going off would have sounded like popcorn.

8 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:19:10 PM by tumblindice (Henry Fonda won a Bronze Star, his daughter won our contempt)

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And the bodies hitting the ground would have sounded like a platoon dropping their duffle bags on the tarmac.

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To: SonofReagan

I have attended five Tea Party events; first one, concealed carry, the rest open carry.

Always got a positive response, and usually an admission of carrying themselves.

I don’t know if no one else would have been wounded, but I can guaran-damn-tee you the perp wouldn’t have survived.

10 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:23:36 PM by IYellAtMyTV (Workday Forecast--Increasing pressure towards afternoon. Rum likely by evening.)

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Check the handle - I imagine he does a lot of yelling.  At his TV, at clouds, at kids on his lawn... Rum will do that to ya. This imbecile needs to have his CCW permit folded until it is all sharp corners and inserted up his ditto-hole.

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To: SonofReagan

Can you imagine what would have occurred had this been Sarah Palin? Outside of the jokes that would have been made of course. They are quick to blame the Tea Party, who are as docile as 55 yr old white folks that the MSM bill as terrorists. What worries me is that some smart ass Liberal Attorney will have this guy change his story and have him confess to being on the Tea Party payroll. With the current AG I have a greater worry that something will be covered up.

21 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:45:58 PM by Bringbackthedraft (The candidate they smear and ridicule the most is the one they fear the most.)

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Pic of 55-year old docile white folk:

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Of course, there's the occasional Freeper that is suddenly very sensitive:

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To: SonofReagan

Maybe it's just me but the bodies of the dead aren't even cold yet. There will be time for a more sober analysis later perhaps. The tone of this just seems a bit harsh this soon after a 9 year-old (and 5 others) was blown away.

Like I said, maybe it's just me.

3 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:05:32 PM by muir_redwoods (Obama. Chauncey Gardiner without the homburg.)

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To: muir_redwoods; SonofReagan

It’s not just you. This kind of crap makes us all look bad. Would not be surprised if it the thread shows up on some other site.

14 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:35:56 PM by NucSubs

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An appeal for reason:

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To: SonofReagan

I think it is hyperbole to call this “war” .....maybe its ok to say “culture war” or “political war”

After all Dems did relinquish control of the House....and in January of 2013 if those on the right are able to convince enough people to vote accordingly, Obama will also relinquish control ....and no “war” is called for

26 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:08:23 PM by woofie

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Quickly dealt with...

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To: NucSubs

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

28 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:25:09 PM by SonofReagan

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To: montanajoe

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

29 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:26:20 PM by SonofReagan

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To: douginthearmy

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

30 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:27:27 PM by SonofReagan

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I guess it was too confusing to write your rant one time and just address it to all the traitors, huh?

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To: crescen7

Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone in this. Every thread I read includes this rhetoric, and it’s incredibly upsetting. On one thread, a commenter said Ms. Giffords was “a full blown kook shot by one of her own team members”. It’s sickening.

35 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 11:06:24 PM by TexNewMex

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You're just now finding out that you'reposting on a site full of belligerent nutcases???

Welcome to reality.

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Next up - the original shooting reaction thread (what the mods didn't scrub, anyway).

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Both Sides Now

I was out all day, so I came home and Oh Holy Shit, and in reading across the various AP reports there's this:

Giffords also was among about 20 Democrats opposed in last fall's elections by Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee. Palin's Facebook page in March posted a U.S. map with the cross-hairs of a gun scope imposed over each of the 20 Democrats' districts. Gun imagery appeared in various ways in the campaign, often not connected at all with gun rights.

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," Giffords said at the time. "The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Palin's Facebook page had the following comment in the hours after the shooting:

"My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona."

Ferocious comments, and even occasional violence, certainly animate American politics from time to time; witness the bloody drive for racial equality and desegregation, and the antiwar protests, of the 20th century.

Emphasis mine.

How about "witness the bloody reprisals against those fighting for racial equality and desegregation, and the wars of choice, of the 20th century?" How about phrasing it that way? Instead of making it out that yes, ten hippies got the fuck out of hand and so it's a sort of general "political rhetoric" that's violent, and not one goddamn party in service of its vicious goals?

You want to talk about violent political rhetoric? As if it's new? As if it's recent? How about the violent rhetoric that says that people deserve to die because they're poor, because their parents are undocumented, because they're black, because they should have moved out of the 'hood, because they were walking where they shouldn't have been? How about the violent rhetoric that says that children should be doomed to schools that are like demilitarized zones because their parents have committed the crime of not being wealthy? That kind of thing isn't new.

How about the violent rhetoric that told terrorists to bring it on, that said a war in another country would be a cakewalk, that said of looting and violence that it was merely "untidy," that asks whether Arabs and Muslims deserve freedom, that wonders at the lack of gratitude families show for bombs dropped on their wedding parties? We've been hearing that for a while.

How about the violent rhetoric that asks if the devastating earthquake that destroyed half of Haiti would have been less devastating if those poor Haitians would just "internalize responsibility?" How about the violent rhetoric that declared that American cities could drown for all we cared, because those people had big-screen TVs and were stupid for living there anyway? That's going on six years now, we've been hearing that kind of thing.

Before we talk about people at anti-war protests with very rude signs, maybe we could get through the last 40 years in which one party's violent rhetoric and even more violent actions have created the society in which we now live. A society dominated by economic nihilism, threaded through with suspicion and fear, all of it wrapped in a very nice red, white and blue goddamn bow, shoved in a gun barrel and shot into the sky.

We've been tolerating political rhetoric that is unspeakably violent since long before Sarah Palin started spewing her nonsense on Facebook. If she never spoke again, if she never said another word, we would still have a society in which it is totally okay to call some people expendable because they're unprivileged, evil because they're idealistic, and irredeemable because they have the gall to say that the way things are isn't the way things have to be.

Sarah Palin and her Facebook page are just a little cruder about expressing it, is all. And nobody really minded all that much until some lunatic started shooting.

A.

Far Be It From Me to Praise Don Imus ...

But he does kind of make a good point here:

THUNE: The difference I think with the tax bill is there is a deadline, Jan. 1, we have to get this done, taxes go up on Jan. 1, that’s a matter of law. We need to get the issue addressed for the firefighters and the 9/11 victims and we will. But again there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this, and there’s a way in which you can pay for these things, and try and get this thing to where it doesn’t cost quite as much, where it doesn’t provide as much exposure, as much liability – there are some things in this bill that we think can be improved upon. We need an opportunity to do that.They want to rush through all these things at the end of the year, without debate, without amdendments, with the opportunity to go through a normal process. And I think we can do that, we can do many of these last-minute initiatives they’re trying to push through, we can do them next year.

IMUS: I know there’s a deadline on the tax situation, but there’s also a deadline on the health of these firemen and these police officers.

Procedure is great. Proper civility and pinky fingers extended and the right fork and I can't tell you how many moronic meatspace conversations I have in my life that go like this, where the thing itself is ignored in favor of how my voice went up a decibel higher than some whiny ponce thought was proper, but PEOPLE ARE DYING. I'm sorry if that interferes with Senate calendars or whatever the fuck Thune is on about here, but could we cut to the goddamn point already?

Blah blah blah there's a way to do stuff. Yes. There's been a way to do stuff for ten fucking years with these people. It started with not lying to them about the air quality at Ground Zero, and it continued with not making them beg Congress for what we really really ought to be presenting them on a silver platter in between foot rubs from Penelope Cruz and Clive Owen, and it's now to the point where just shut the fuck up, okay? Seriously, it's embarrassing.

There was a way to do stuff when we decided to shove cash out of airplaines at two countries we now a decade/seven years later demonstrably don't give a fuck about, and there was a way to do stuff when we decreed that the budget surplus should go back to everybody but most especially to really rich people, and there was a way to do stuff when we decided to give Thune, who really is a repulsive bologna pony, an office and a staff. If we can't afford one thing it stands to reason we can't afford something else, and so while we're picking and choosing I demand that Thune generate his own electricity because paying for it is just silly when we're in a budget crisis.

And by the way, what this is really all about? "Exposure and liability." So sorry you might actually have to pay somebody whose life got ruined in service of this country as selfless as any we've ever seen in our history the approximate amount you would gladly blow on hookers, if only you could find one in DC desperate enough to touch you with more than the tip of her umbrella.

Schmuck.

A.

An Actual War on Christmas

Well, this shouldn't freak anybody out:

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Anger over a Somali-born teen's failed plan to blow up a van full of explosives during Portland's Christmas tree lighting ceremony erupted in arson on Sunday when a fire damaged an Islamic center frequented by the suspect, authorities said.

Police don't know who started the blaze or exactly why, but they believe the Islamic center in Corvallis was targeted because terror suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, occasionally worshipped there.

Yosof Wanly, the imam at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center, said he was advised by friends to take his family out of their home because of the potential threat of hate crime, and members decried the alleged arson attack. No one was injured, and the fire was contained to one room.

That's gotta help, right? "They" were gonna blow up your Christmas tree, so you have to set fire to their mosque. Because that ends well, all the time. That never, ever creates any kind of bad situation. Don't these people at least watch movies? Plus, not to mention the general wisdom-free nature of that decision, the supposed terrrorist wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed:

A Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland on Friday, but the bomb turned out to be a dud supplied by undercover agents as part of a sting, federal prosecutors said.

So now you've got a story that should be about the FBI successfully foiling a terrorist attack attempt they set up, which is amusing in its own way, I mean, people need something to do all day, but you've gone and turned it into an escalating religious war and scared some people trying to pray. Good job, genius. The next step is the theft of some baby Jesuses from manger scenes across the land, after which it will clearly be time to nuke Iran.

A.

Travel Day Sexytimes

Yick.

Most of what we go through in airports is fucking stupid. Metal detectors, sure, okay, and dogs and let's make sure nobody's bringing a warhead on. But as others have pointed out, the shoe thing and the underwear thing and the liquid thing and all the rest of it is just trying to prevent somebody attacking in the same way an attack has already failed once. I know most terrorists aren't the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree, given how many of them seem to get caught with stuff in their shoes and panties, but COME ON.

An airport's the dumbest thing to hit right now. The truly dangerous and unsecured sites in America are where anybody gathers in large numbers to do things we think of as ordinary. Suburban shopping malls are more worried about teenage shoplifters than about terrorism, but tell me that isn't your nightmare scenario. Nobody would ever leave their houses again. There's no X-ray, metal detector, pat-down process at an NFL or MLB game. Community centers, most city buildings, a clipboard and a confident wave will get you way farther than you ought to go. Lest anyone think I'm giving terrorists ideas, this is just the stuff pulled from last night's crime procedurals on cable.

We're scared of flying because it's what happened last time. We should be scared of what's going to happen next time.

A.

The 9/12 Project and National Unity

This photo, from the Daily Southtown, was taken in Bridgeview, Illinois, during a rally for America that turned into a march on the region's largest Islamic center. It was taken on September 12, 2001.

Does it look familiar?

Here, watch this:

How about now? Now does it look familiar?

When Glenn Beck and his teatard followers first jumped on this idea of returning to the America we were on 9/12/01, all I could think of was that photo up there. Because that's who we were, a lot of us, on 9/12/01 -- assholes, painting our chests red, white and blue and high-fiving our drunken buddies while we beat up Sikh cabdrivers and yelled. That's who a lot of us were, and boy, were we ever grateful, weren't we, for Osama bin Laden giving us an excuse for a self-important hoedown.

That's the kind of thing my colleagues and I were spending our days covering, and it's why I have ZERO tolerance for hazy 9/11 unity nostalgia. Things were fucking scary for a large number of people, and not just Muslims and people who looked like Muslims, but people who wanted to go to the grocery store without running into a giant, angry mob of hopped-up aggro racists looking for some helpless Ay-rab ass to kick.

I know a lot of people have memories of examples of kindness and decency from those days; all I have is notes of phone calls from people talking about yet another container of pig's blood smashed on a mosque doorstep (CLASSY) and some dipshit accosting me at a rally yammering about how the "dune coons" were taking all our jobs away. It was high-level horrific, because Lower Manhattan was still actually burning, the entire country pretty much hadn't slept, and here come these people.

And in Bridgeview, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, police stopped 300 marchers as they tried to march on a mosque. Marcher Colin Zaremba, 19, told The Associated Press, "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have."

I used to think Beck and his wannabes like Geller were just remembering that period completely wrong. I used to think they were as deluded as every maker of every soul-stirringly horrid 9/11 Tribute You Tube is, and not recalling all the truly horrific things that were done. I mean, it wasn't like that everywhere. In New York, for example, people actually were extraordinary and kind. So I used to think this whole 9/12 Project was just based on wanting to be something we never were, as a country.

Now, seeing that video, I think Beck and Geller and all the others actually remember this thing right. They want us to be exactly, EXACTLY, who we were the day after 9/11. And damn if we aren't getting there.

A.

'Imperfect but reasonable'

Fuck the whole world, today:

In town-hall-style meetings in recent weeks, the federal judge presiding over the cases, Alvin K. Hellerstein of United States District Court in Manhattan, has urged the plaintiffs to accept the settlement as imperfect but reasonable.

In letters to clients, lawyers for Worby Groner Edelman and Napoli Bern, the firms representing more than 9,000 of the plaintiffs, spell out how costly the cases could prove if they go to trial.

“Your trial-related costs are likely to be in the range of $50,000 to $150,000, not including attorney’s fees,” each plaintiff’s letter says.

Many have pinned their hopes on a third alternative: a bill in Congress that would pay $7.4 billion for health care and monitoring programs and for reopening the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which awarded money to workers who got sick before the fund closed in 2003. But that legislation was voted down in the House, and its future is highly uncertain. “It happened in New York City, and personally I think the rest of the country could care less,” Mr. Carrano said.

As a result, many plaintiffs consider the settlement their best hope.

Tyree Bacon, a senior court officer with the New York State criminal court who volunteered at ground zero, said he was taking the settlement — in his case, about $11,000. To him, the legal battle was never about the money but about calling attention to the health consequences suffered by those “who stepped up to the plate” after the terrorist attacks.

A.

Thank God They Didn't Register Black People to Vote

Or they'd be screwed:

"[Blackwater] provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract."

(More in a bit on whether Blackwater, now known as Xe, has really shaped up its act.)

The CIA contract follows the news this month that the State Department awarded the company an 18-month, $120 million contract to protect consulates in Afghanistan. And even that's not all. In December, a Blackwater official told a contracting commission appointed by Congress that the company has training and security contracts as well as a "drug interdiction unit" working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan.

And in a must-read story published Sunday, McClatchy reported that the Obama Administration has opted not to pursue criminal charges against Blackwater for possible violations of sanctions in the company's long campaign to sell services to the government of Southern Sudan.

Right. Not much choice. Couldn't do anything else, like, say, NOT GIVE THEM THE FUCKING CONTRACT. Totally inevitable.

So amazing how that works.

A.

This Excuses Israel How?

Explain this, people:

Weakness always begets aggression, and, like clockwork, Obama's repeated signals that he is weakening America's commitment to Israel are emboldening the Jewish state's enemies.From Syria to Iran to Lebanon, from Hezbollah to Hamas and the PLO, the wolves smell blood and are trying to gauge whether they can get close enough for the kill.  

We heard some of this last week, too, about how Obama was so mean to Netanyahu and that completely made it okay to board a ship and shoot activists in international waters because ... WELL JUST BECAUSE OKAY SHUT THE FUCK UP. This argument basically states that Israel's government can commit heinous acts if our president appears to be rude, and that members of Hamas and Hezbollah are sitting around waiting for his secret bat signal to be fuckholes in their turn. I don't know how, exactly, this makes things better for Israel. I don't think this is the argument you want to seize on as a defense.

A.

Joey the Drama King

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN:

Washington (CNN) -- A bipartisan group of legislators on Thursday introduced legislation in Congress to strip citizenship from any American found to be involved in terrorism.

If the Terrorist Expatriation Act passes, an American would lose citizenship if found to have provided material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization -- as designated by the secretary of state -- or participated in actions against the United States.

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, and Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, co-sponsored the bill. An identical bill is being introduced in the House by Reps. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, and Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania.

"As the attempted terrorist attack on Times Square showed us again, our enemies today are even more willing than the Nazis or fascists were to kill innocent civilian Americans [in WWII]," Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told reporters. "Our enemies today are stateless actors who don't wear uniforms and plot against Americans abroad and here in the United States."

Okay.

If we're gonna do this can we start with child molesters? I'm not talking about somebody who believes a 16-year-old who says he or she is 18, I'm talking about those fuckwads that like 7-year-olds, the ones who will find a kid to molest no matter where you maroon them, the ones who can't be monitored closely enough to prevent them sneaking into a Brownie troop meeting. The ones with boxes of kiddie porn under their beds and a list of victims ten miles long.

If we're gonna do this, I vote we start with those assholes, and we not only strip them of their citizenship, we shoot them in the back of the head immediately following conviction. No chemical castration, no registry online, no electronic monitoring, nothing. Bullet, back of the head, immediately, because given five minutes those fucks will be chasing after the court reporter's toddler. Just strip them of their citizenship, declare them enemies of America (BECAUSE THEY ARE) and kill them. Maybe electrode their balls a little first. Let the parents of their victims do it.

I say shit like this all the time and then I remind people, who look at me like I've lost the plot, that shit like this is why I'm not in Congress. It's a sign I am irrationally squirreled up about certain things and should be talked out of my tree and bungee-corded to a chair until I chill. And somebody needs to do that with Joey here, because what he's talking about is just as deliciously tempting to the worst of our instincts and just as bugfuck crackers insane.

Somebody needs to bungee-cord Joey to a chair and tell him as much as he and his friends might like jacking off to the idea of stripping suspected terrorists of their citizenship, WE DO NOT DO THAT HERE, no matter how much fun it sounds like in their warblogger fantasies. What a stupid fucking country this is becoming, really. This commenter pretty much nails it:

Know what it's called when a U.S. citizen breaks the law? A crime.

Know what it's called when a U.S. citizen attacks the U.S. Government? Treason. Know what treason is? A crime.

Know what we do with people who commit crimes? We try them, and if we find them guilty, we sentence them. We don't take away their citizenship. That's not part of the fucking process, people.

But those punishments aren't extra-special enough for the extra-special crimes of terrorism! Or something! 

A.

Thank God '24' is Ending

I don't think I can take much more of this.

A.

Law Enforcement & Terrorism

This tidbit is buried in today's dose of WHOASHIT:

In 2005, al-Qaida terrorists used the area to fire Katyusha rockets at a U.S. warship docked in the port there.

The rockets missed the ship but hit a Jordanian army warehouse, killing a Jordanian soldier. Eight al-Qaida terrorists were arrested and later received prison terms ranging from seven years to death sentences.

Arrested? Prison terms? Who do these Jordanians think they are, coddling the terrorists like that? Jack Bauer would be ashamed. 

A.

Never Forget

It will be 15 years on Monday. She should be old enough to drive.

Doc