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.

dailyKOS as partisan hacks ...

Really, I was used to dailyKOS presenting facts (and then explaining how they proved 'their' opinions). But since the site went 'obama' they now mainly spout opinion of how the other side is just sooo unfair while their side is pure as the driven snow.

Evidently it's so simply that a 6 year old knows the answer. It's unfair for Clinton to suggest that the Michigan primary was fair. But it appears to be the unanimous opinion of the dailyKOS that its more than fair to take both Michigan and Florida voters out of the primary process. That's fair because Iowa wanted and the DNC agreed that we all must bow down to Iowa being the decider of who we get to vote for. That's what passes for fair to the dailyKOS bunch because it works out best for Obama, not because it's fair. Even a 6 year old could figure that out if you gave her all the facts.

I'm not suggesting that if the reverse were not the case that Clinton wouldn't be just as unfair as Obama.

I am really sorry that dailyKOS went obama instead of just staying partisan Dems. It's a loss.

So, where's the goodness ...

Marcos writes that Republican Senator Richard Lugar's speech about the Iraq war is a good thing, if a little late.

According to Lugar's spokesperson, this speech was "months in the making, weeks in the writing". Yet Lugar stood with Bush against recent Democratic efforts to force the president to change course in Iraq.

It's good he's found reason, but Lugar made his move after Democratic efforts to force such change ended in defeat. His speech will make waves, but it could've made a more practical difference for our troops suffering in Iraq had he made it a few weeks ago.

Still, I shouldn't complain. This is a good thing.

Well, just how is it a good thing? This is what Republicans do all the time. Lugar wants a little distance between himself and Bush on the war. He waits til his words will have no real impact. Next time Bush needs another Republican wall-of-shame covering his back about the war he'll show us just how much his little speech meant. Words from Republicans mean nothing, nada, zilch ...

F**k Daily Kos?

A contretemps at Conceptual Guerilla about Daily Kos. The comments are the real interest here. Such as:

This particular rant brought me into contact with the "peanut gallery" over there. It's an interesting dichotomy. The writers - both the front pagers and the popular diarists -- are generally very good. But they aren't really the audience -- something I never really understood until this episode. I thought I was talking to guys like you -- large numbers of whom were invisible to me. ...

He's right, though. Kos is a major factor in closing off the rest of the progressive blogs from view. His success, which had so much potential, has been used to limit the field rather than expand it.

Markos at dailyKOS needs to get over himself ...

I agree with Markos' point that a blogger-code-of-conduct has very little to do with the issue of the threats that Kathy Sierra received.

And I would have preferred that she felt she had the kind of support from others on the web with similar problems to stick it out. That was one of the things that the feminist movement provided: support. But a later generation started backing away letting themselves be convinced that 'feminist' was another dirty word like 'liberal.'

But what really galled me about Markos' post is his equating 'a gem' of a email (or comment, I'm not sure which) he received with the explicit and obscene missives that Sierra received.

Markos repeatedly shows his insensitivity to women's issues.