Shhhhhh, don't point out the monsters among us ...

Glenn Greenwald responds to the woolly thinkers who counsel we make nice to those who's goal is to take control of this country by any means.

In what universe is it "obscene" to compare the architects of the Iraq War, the torture regime, and endless War with Muslims "to killers and terrorists"? The comparison is true by definition. The people who launched the attack on Iraq are guilty of an aggressive war -- what the Nuremberg prosecutors condemned as the "kingpin crime" that "holds together" all other war crimes -- which killed hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings, turned millions more into refugees, and destroyed an entire nation. The aptly named "Shock and Awe" was designed to terrify an entire civilian population into submission. John Podhoretz criticized the brutal assault on Fallujah for failing to exterminate all "Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35," while his father has spent years agitating for a devastating military attack on Iran. At least 100 War on Terror detainees in American custody died as a result of their treatment, tens of thousands more (including clearly innocent ones) were put in cages for years with no due process (where many remain), and as recent mosque-related controversies reveal, a substantial portion of the American population craves a religious war with Islam. And that's to say nothing of the acts of other countries which this faction supports: from mauling an imprisoned population in Gaza and attacking a harmless, civilian ship in international waters to propping up some of the most oppressive tyrannies on the planet, including many in the Muslim world.

Sometimes, one's political opponents are "monsters" -- or at least engage in genuinely monstrous acts -- and what's morally offensive is not those who point this out, but rather those who insist that the comparison not be uttered on the jingoistic ground of shared nationality. ...

...

The endless, destructive War on Terror depends -- like most wars do -- on a cartoonish demonization of the Enemy as something utterly foreign, inhuman, and subject to entirely different drives than Us. Moulitsas' book, at its best, destroys that rotted premise by highlighting the many similarities between Them and Us. Because that similarity is a great taboo -- perhaps the greatest taboo -- it has triggered all sorts of outrage: outrage that is actually a testament to the value of the argument he makes.

What's the problem? ...

Whatever else is true, the American Right is now openly siding with a foreign government against their own, and bitterly Blaming America for these problems. They're protecting this foreign government's actions even though our top Generals say those actions undermine our war effort and directly endanger American troops. They're advocating policies -- such as the Israeli bombing of Iran -- which America's Joint Chiefs Chairman has gravely warned will seriously impede our wars and lead to the deaths of our soldiers. They're demeaning the top American General with command responsibility for two theaters of war. And, in a Time of War, they're attacking the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief -- and relentlessly depicting him as weak and inept -- all because he's prioritizing American interests over those of a foreign country. All of that seems to severely breach the standards of Patriotism they have long advocated and which have long prevailed, to put that rather mildly.

It's always OK when the reThugs (Republicans, Conservatives, far right, Lieberman) do it ...

It would be funny if we weren't living it ...

Study of Bush's psyche touches a nerve

A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity". ...

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Link via The Existentialist Cowboy: It's the Hypocrisy, the Financial Collapse, the War Crimes.

Balance ...

It is right balance of ideals as stated by Conservative and Liberal positions that is lacking? Could be. Read Conservative vs Liberal

Excerpt on the issue of the US education system (or lack thereof):

The problem arises because conservatives do not have a position on education that drives us to be more productive as people. Conservatives do not argue that we need to be better in vocational training. And they argue against the utility of science. This is strictly medieval thinking. And it threatens to eliminate the middle classes. The problem of inferior education also arises because liberals tend to undervalue the social, political, and cultural values and tools of thought that are rightly taught in liberal arts colleges, in high schools, and in elementary schools. [emphasis added]

I was going to just pull out a quote or two ...

... but there's too much in this post: The Persistence of Ideology by batocchio.

... The only "consistency" between widespread deregulation and a bailout is always giving the rich what they want - allowing them high profits for themselves in good times and protecting them from risk at public expense in the bad. ...

[...]

... It's not just economics that seems to mystify [movement conservatism], though, but basic human nature. ...

[...]

Unfortunately, Tim Geithner and the Obama gang seem to be too willing to continue the dodgy moves of Paulson and the Bush administration. Maybe it's class solidarity, similar ideologies, or the difficulty of fighting the bankers who own Congress. Maybe they simply aren't working hard enough to protect the country's economy against astonishingly arrogant, reckless and selfish corporate narcissists. Maybe they simply fail to realize the true nature of these oligarchs, and how dangerous they are. Maybe they're just too corrupt themselves. What Jonathan Schwarz wrote back in October about a flabbergasted establishment is as relevant as ever:

Who wouldn't be stunned when the most greedy, venal, vicious, cruel, arrogant, ignorant human beings on earth aren't eager to work in the public interest? Especially when people like them have never been willing to do so in the entire history of mankind, except on the rare occasions when they've been directly threatened with execution? It's stunning!

Somehow, it never occurred to them that human beings would be greedy and selfish.

There's much more.

An article to read ...

[emphasis added]

Conservatism Is Dead by Sam Tanenhaus
An intellectual autopsy of the movement.

"What conservatives have yet to do is confront the large but inescapable truth that movement conservatism is exhausted and quite possibly dead. And yet they should, because the death of movement politics can only be a boon to the right, since it has been clear for some time the movement is profoundly and defiantly un-conservative--in its ideas, arguments, strategies, and above all its vision."

[ ... ]

"How did this happen? One reason is that the most intellectually sophisticated founders of postwar conservatism were in many instances ex-Marxists, who moved from left to right but remained persuaded that they were living in revolutionary times and so retained their absolutist fervor. In place of the Marxist dialectic they formulated a Manichaean politics of good and evil, still with us today, and their strategy was to build a movement based on organizing cultural antagonisms. Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy ... "

[ ... ]

"How did this happen? One reason is that the most intellectually sophisticated founders of postwar conservatism were in many instances ex-Marxists, who moved from left to right but remained persuaded that they were living in revolutionary times and so retained their absolutist fervor. In place of the Marxist dialectic they formulated a Manichaean politics of good and evil, still with us today, and their strategy was to build a movement based on organizing cultural antagonisms. Many have observed that movement politics most clearly defines itself not by what it yearns to conserve but by what it longs to destroy ... "

Read the entire article here.

Fundamental confusion ...

Found this article (Religious Fundamentalism and Politics by Jeff Haynes) by searching google: fundamentalism and politics.

Being an impatient person I didn't get past the 5th paragraph. This stumped me:

To many observers and ‘ordinary’ people, religious fundamentalism is always socially and politically conservative, backward looking, inherently opposed to change. But if this is the case how can we explain the activities of militant Islamic groups around the world - often dubbed ‘fundamentalist’ - who strive to overthrow regimes with which they disagree? Other groups which have been labelled fundamentalist - such as ‘born again’ Christians in the United States or orthodox Jews in Israel - seem to fit more closely the conventional wisdom, as they are often linked to very conservative political forces who seek to roll back what they perceive as an unwelcome liberalisation and relaxation of social and moral mores.

The paragraph implies that religious fundamentalists cannot be both conservative and seek to impose their fundamentalist beliefs on others through change in current day political environments, even when the goal of the change is to impose upon the society, country or world the 'correct' laws and codes of behavior from the past. Isn't that what the GOP, along with the US christianists, claim to be doing? Re-creating some magical time from the 1950's through a somewhat violent assault on our laws and the very framework that holds our country together to such an extent that our police forces have been turned into military occupiers in our own cities?

Fundamentalism, conservatism and crusades seem, to me, to be linked concepts --with other hidden authoritarian objectives thrown in for good measure, of course.

I suppose for the author a 'rollback' to the past is conservative but 'striving to overthrow regimes' is not conservative. Though, of course, both may follow from a belief in 'the strict maintenance of ancient or fundamental doctrines of a religion or ideology.'

Really, it's only a matter of degree. If we can still use the term conservatives for those who are said to be 'averse to change and hold to traditional values and attitudes' when this same change-averse group is willing to rollback from present day to some idealized time decades ago, then why not use the term conservative for those who would use shock and awe to bomb a country back to the stone age for their own good?

Or perhaps there is no such thing as a conservative. Or a better definition of conservatives would be that they reject change when they are comfortable with the present but insist on change when the past looks greener? Or there's money to be acquired.

"Liberal media, my patooties."

Looking for a concise demonstration of just how much like GOP trained propagandists most of the pigs, who refer to themselves as journalists or reporters or commentators or news show hosts, are?

If so, read this: Compare And Contrast by tristero.

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Would that progressives would stop using the Republican terminology when dealing with the GOP's 24/7 misinformation campaign. Not a day goes by that I don't see the term 'liberal media' used as irony on liberal leaning blogs. Once, twice. That's interesting. Time after time? Day after day?

The blogosphere has many progressive voices who are great writers. Couldn't some of these coin a phrase that identifies the scum that pretends to report the news but instead massages it into GOP propaganda? Then work to turn that phrase, or word, into instant dirty word recognition like the GOP's media scum have done with the word 'liberal.'

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My other request into the void is to turn the word liberal back into a word that has a meaning, rather than an epithet controlled by GOP worms.

From Wikipedia:

Liberalism is a broad array of related ideas and theories of government that consider individual liberty to be the most important political goal.^[1] Modern liberalism has its roots in the Age of Enlightenment.

Liberalism emphasizes individual rights and equality of opportunity. Different forms of liberalism may propose very different policies, but they are generally united by their support for a number of principles, including extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy, and a transparent system of government.^[2] All liberals — as well as some adherents of other political ideologies — support some variant of the form of government known as liberal democracy, with open and fair elections, where all citizens have equal rights by law.^[3]

...

Here's some of what Conservapedia says about liberals:

Historical Liberalism

In history, the word "liberal" has meant different things at different times, and was associated with individual liberty in prior centuries. In the postwar period, liberals supported government intervention in the economy and welfare state policies, as well as peaceful coexistence with the communist block, which are not liberal policies in the sense of classical liberalism. After the end of the cold war, with the demise of socialism and communism, many liberals embraced some ideas from economic neo-liberalism, and coined it the "Third Way". In the area of national security and foreign policy liberals in the U.S. failed to define a consistent stance, even after the events of 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Iraq. Liberals generally support affirmative action, gay marriage, and abortion.^[13]

Original meaning: Classical Liberalism

Liberalism is a political philosophy with freedom as its core value. The term was originally applied to supporters of individual liberties and equal rights, but, in America, the term has come to represent a movement of social change that often conflicts with conservative values such as moral values and tradition.

The phrase "liberals in the U.S. failed to define a consistent stance even after the events of 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Iraq" caught my eye. --Is consistent stance anything like a wide stance? Never mind.-- But it is an interesting choice of words. Stance instead of position or reasoning or conclusion. Stance has to do with posture and posturing. Not with information, reasoning and judgement.

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Added: It's really comical (in a depressing sort of way) that McCain is now attacking the media as a campaign strategy. The media who have doted on him for years. The media who have covered up about his lies, his temper, his meanness, his pettiness. The media who have attended his barbecues. The media that pushed his image as a maverick. Now he's using them as fodder in his campaign for the Presidency. Couldn't happen to nicer 'people.'

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

People like Al Gore and Chris Dodd and Martin Luther King are out of fashion these days. People laugh at passionate men of principle in this time when principles are considered something for chumps and fools. There's no angle on principle, no immediate political upside in saving the constitution when the Republicans are spending every minute of the day preaching fear and bloodlust and superficial political gossip rules our discourse. But they stand up anyway and suffer the taunts and jeers of people who think they are naive or narcissistic or crazy, because they believe in something. And I am exceedingly grateful for it.
Honestly, I wasn't looking for quotes about Bank of America ...
I just cancelled my BOA card and we are refinancing through a local loan shark. His rates are MUCH BETTER THAN BOA. ... Check out B of A's special 1 hour offer to increase their debt and interest rate while pretending to help them! If B of A performed as stated in this complaint then they can no longer be considered a 'bank' but must be considered another scam artist, albeit one with considerable power and political connections.

Bank of America in this state said the only way they could help us was if we opened new accounts.

So we did.

At another bank.

Conservatism, like liberalism, is not a dogmatic philosophy, but rather a style of thought, an approach to politics or life in general. It stresses the status quo and traditional values, and is typified by a resistance to change. ...

The "conservative movement," however, is a decidedly dogmatic political movement that demands obeisance to its main tenets (and exiles those who dissent) and a distinctly defined agenda. Movement followers proudly announce their membership. ... their raison d'etre has transformed from the extenuation of their "conservative" impulses into the Machiavellian acquisition of power, usually through any means necessary.

At Guantanamo Bay there is no law. ... COMING SOON to all 50 states.

The RED mind ...

Arizona Republican Representative Jeff Flake voted off the reservation and 'Seeing Red AZ' is concerned Flake's vote would help legitimatize 'life styles' that will invade Arizona's schools and churches -and 'other' places.

The U.S. House has passed HR3685, or “ENDA,” a bill that ostensibly prohibits discrimination against homosexuals. In reality, it puts in place another plank to legitimize that lifestyle. “Legitimizing” ultimately makes it more difficult to keep it out of schools, churches, and other places where one might want to make reasonable exceptions.

A call for invasion and democracy should come next from the RED sector of the State of Arizona ...

Articles like this is what makes the web king ...

... until, that is, the communication companies, in concert with a corrupt and deranged Republican Party (along with many complicit Democrats), gain final and absolute control of the web and turn it into a vast teenager messaging service and corporate email net. As for the rest of us? Expect shopping channels, I mean web sites, and commercially produced videos with the aim of dulling down the populace even more than has already been accomplished by TV and Cable programming.

But until then we have stupendous articles like 'Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite' popping up with marvelous frequency. Imagine finding such a fine, informative and timely article in your local newspaper ... by-the-way, have you learned anything new from you local paper recently?

Manson eyes ...

Images from a video at DailyKos:

DHinMI tells why what he calls Bush Authoritarianism is not fascism in Bush Authoritarianism: Blackwater+Amway=GOP, Pt. 2

But the main reason why it’s wrong to refer to Bush authoritarianism as fascist is, simply, that it’s not fascist. Fascism exalted the state as the most powerful force, more powerful than any other institutions, including business. It was to be the embodiment of the mobilized masses, and while big business was largely left alone, all other institutions and individuals were to subservient to the state. In contrast, Bush authoritarianism, and the broader movement of what Klein calls "disaster capitalism," doesn’t seek to build up the state or mobilize the masses in a nationalist cause. Instead, it seeks to destroy most aspects of the federal government, and turn over tax dollars to private enterprises sucking at the teat of the taxpayer under the guise of greater efficiencies. This is the antithesis of fascism.

I did think that the business interests in those Fascist countries of yore were more entwined with those governments than this paragraph seems to suggest. I also thought that the neo-Conservatives in this country were originally called neo-Fascists.

Of taxes and explosions ...

I'm copying an entire post from Rick Perlstein's blog. I hope he does not mind but this juxtaposition of quotes is the kind that may break a mental log jam in someone's mind. And because that theoretical someone may theoretically read this post but theoretically not follow a link I have copied the entire post. I will remove it, of course if requested to do so. The following is posted at Rick Perlstein's blog, a blog that all should read.

Steamed
By Rick Perlstein on July 19, 2007 - 2:09pm.

We've referred to this document frequently, and will do so much more in the future. It's the skeleton key to understanding the Manhattan steam pipe explosion and its meaning for America's declining greatness. For now, let's strike, as it were, while the steam is still hot (200 degrees, in case you haven't heard). Scroll down and watch the CBS News report on yesterday's rush hour explosion in midtown Manhattan.

Here's what they say:

"...The explosion was so massive, so powerful, almost the entire East Side of Manhattan had to be shut down and evacuated...."

"...Ruptured steam pipes are a common occurence in New York. Mayor Mike Bloomberg blamed the gigantic incident on his city's aging infrastructure...."

To contextualize, here's what the previous mayor of New York has been saying:

“I’ve lowered taxes 23 times as mayor”

—at the May 15 Republican candidate debate, before pledging across-the-board federal budget cuts of five to 20 percent.

"You know why you have one of the best economies in the country? Because you have no taxes.'"

—to New Hampshire Republican activists on April 3.

"Every year - in good times or bad - I required city commissioners to propose cuts in their own budgets.... Fiscal conservatives understand the value of controlling the size and cost of -government. Controlling spending makes -government more efficient and more effective in achieving its core responsibilities."

—in an April 11 op-ed entitled "My Four Pillars of American Prosperity."

We don't endorse or dis-endorse candidates here at The Big Con. What we do is document an ideology and its failure. What Rudy Giuliani says is what every Republican candidate says. What he has provided us here—and the reason we single him out—is an illustrative tale. Put more conservatives in charge of your country; send your country down the road to wrack and ruin.

Republicans are bad for your health and dangerous to your welfare and disastrous for our democracy!

Being 'conservative' means calling a 'jail cell' a 'sanitarium' ...

So says Maggie:

ACLU Fights to Expose Public to Deadly Disease: Maricopa County, AZ Sheriff Joe Arpaio's efforts to keep a tuberculosis-infected patient in a county sanitarium and out of the public arena. The ACLU has filed suit on behalf of the patient, Robert Daniels, who is believed to have an "extreme multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

I haven't figured out why Maggie thinks a Sheriff would be running a sanitarium. And of course the ACLU is not trying to get Robert Daniels released from quarantine. Their objective is to get him treated as quarantined patient and not like the prisoner in perpetual solitary confinement.

Real ...

... misconstruction (a word I found under delusion).

The weird world of Republicans, Conservatives and Incompetents ...

Gonzo Panel half full: TPM Muckracker

Arizona's own Rick Renzi (house republican) "stepped down temporarily from the House Intelligence Committee on Thursday" after the family business (Patriot Insurance Agency, Sonoita, Az) was raided by the FBI.

The Horse's Mouth: So is it possible that John McCain has the same "electability" problem -- or even conceivably a worse one -- than Hillary does? A new poll suggests that it's time to at least ask this question. But will the pundits ask it?

First they came for the spinach ...

... a must read: E. coli conservatives by Rick Perlstein

Surveying the results, what once looked to me like principle now looks to me now like mania. Conservatism has been killing Americans. The recent food safety crisis is only one case study.

Let's start connecting the dots.

(via digby)

Prisons R Us ...

... America took a distinctly conservative turn in the 1970s. ... One of the effects is that there has been a pandering to really very ill thought out prejudice on an array of issues.

Like three strike and you are out. Only in the Republican mind would baseball be the model for a justice system.

And I know, some Democrats very stupidly followed this disastrous route just like they followed along on the Iraq war ...

Will Justice or the Republicans prevail?

Republicans (GOP, Conservatives -take your pick) want the authorities to have a free hand to do whatever they want, including murder, as long as the individual being harmed is someone that they can label as evil or illegal.

Francisco Javier Domínguez-Rivera is dead. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Corbett isn't talking. Shouldn't that be cause in itself to suspend him from his job until this issue is resolved?

So what are the attorneys that are supposed to uphold law and constitution going to do now?

A U.S. Border Patrol agent's account of what led him to shoot and kill an unarmed illegal entrant in January doesn't match witness testimony or forensic evidence, records released Monday by the Cochise County Attorney's Office show.

_______________________
Arizona Daily Star: Records contradict agent's story on entrant's slaying by Brady McCombs

They hate him because he followed the law ...

Oh, those law and order Republicans (or is GOP, or is it Conservatives)... ?

They are so upset that one of their own, Texas U.S. attorney Johnny Sutton has the temerity to follow the law where ever it leads:

Johnny Sutton said, he was bound by an unwavering ethic: Do the right thing and follow the facts, even when they lead to "unhappy places" such as errant public servants.

Sutton's adherence to that credo has transformed him from a relatively low-profile federal prosecutor to a punching bag on conservative talk shows and Web sites, where he's been vilified for weeks for prosecuting two Border Patrol agents who now are imprisoned for shooting a Mexican drug courier.

Another prosecution, involving a Texas sheriff's deputy who fired at a vehicle loaded with illegal immigrants, has heightened the outcry. T.J. Bonner, the head of the national Border Patrol agents' union, calls Sutton "public enemy No. 1." Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a former Harris County judge who remembers Sutton as an able young prosecutor, now accuses him of choosing "the wrong side" in the border war.

Democrats have been increasingly aware for sometime that Conservative (i.e. Republican, GOP) justice is aimed at attacking whomever they consider 'enemies' for made up (and real) scandals and crimes while giving their friends get-out-of-jail-free cards for anything and every thing, including murder.
____________________

Respected U.S. prosecutor faces a conservative backlash by Dave Montgomery, McClatchy Newspapers