Dracula the vampire

Sadly No brings teh funny with some Seinfeldian pokes at the Washington Times' spicing up of anti-Democratic press releases. The writer wants to paint Charles Rangel as a vampire, leading to:

Like Dracula the vampire, Count Rangula is cagey about his intentions, luring his victims (us) with promises of “reforming” the tax code.

I mean, Dracula the vampire… does he really need “the vampire” in his title, as vampire? Dracula, “the” vampire? Are we going to confuse him with Dracula the district attorney? Dracula the pope? There’s no other Dracula…

In the original Seinfeld ("The Fire"):

JERRY: I mean, Bozo the Clown...does he really need "the clown" in his title, as clown? Bozo, "the" clown? Are we going to confuse him with Bozo the district attorney? Bozo the pope? There's no other Bozo...

Use this in student writing materials.

fake news

One of the legacies of this era in American history will be how fake news became established. Not Daily Show/Colbert fake... but government-produced propaganda masking itself as objective news.

On the heels of the FEMA "press conference" comes this reminder from Tbogg about the fake news segments produced by the Bush administration. From the NYT story quoted:

Karen Ryan cringes at the phrase "covert propaganda." These are words for dictators and spies, and yet they have attached themselves to her like a pair of handcuffs.

Poor dear. Stop crying and grow some professional ethics.

sad state of discourse

Orcinus complains that a new Carnegie Mellon study ranking blogs lists so many conservative ones as the 'must-read' top 100 of the blogosphere. The #2-ranked blog (which I had NEVER heard of! - guess I'm an out-of-touch moonbat), Don Surber, contained stunningly ignorant discussion of hate crimes laws.

Gives Dave an excuse to collect many of his posts on hate crimes. So follow the link above for useful summary discussion.

propagandists always land on their feet

FEMA director of external affairs John "Pat" Philbin stages a fake press conference where FEMA employees posed as reporters.

FEMA hack gets caught.

FEMA hack issues insincere apology.

FEMA hack rewarded with new job as new public affairs chief for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

Army colonel goes Beau-bonkers

Glen Greenwald wrote on the Army's selective leaking of documents to right-wing bloggers (while they at the same time withheld them from TNR's FOIA request), a move right out of the Bush administration playbook. Glen fears that the Army under Petraeus is getting as politicized as everything else under Bush's influence.

A few days later Glen received "a bizzare, unsolicited email" from Petraeus' spokesman. (He's posted the full text here.)

Col. Boylan does not deny the central point of my post, because he cannot: namely, throughout the Beauchamp matter, the U.S. Army has copied almost exactly the standard model used by the Republican Party's political arm in trying to manage news for domestic consumption: namely, they deny access to the relevant information only they possess while selectively leaking it to the most extremist and partisan elements of the right-wing noise machine: in this case, the Drudge Report, Weekly Standard, and right-wing blogs.

Another aspect of the story is the military's cooperation with right-wing bloggers in the persecution of Jamil Hussein, who is still being held without charges 1.5 years after the Malkin flying monkey brigade first fingered him as a terrorist-sympathizing reporter.

More links to both stories inside Glen's always-well-linked posts. He concludes:

I would think Col. Boylan would have more important matters to attend to than writing me emails about how Alan Colmes is the "real talent" and how I lack the balls to go visit him in Iraq -- beginning with finding out who has been working secretly with right-wing outlets in the Beauchamp and Bilal Hussein matters, if he does not already know. The linchpin of a republic under civilian rule -- as well as faith in the armed services by a cross-section of Americans -- is an apolitical military. Like all other branches of the government intended to be apolitical, this linchpin is eroding under this administration, and that ought to be of far greater concern to Boylan and Petraeus than hurling petty insults.

Update: Hilarious denials from the Colonel that he sent the email. Snotty, dismissive tone that

stands in stark contrast to the extremely eager and cooperative conduct in which they engage when passing on information to the right-wing blogs and pundits whose political views are apparently aligned with theirs. That takes us back to the first and most important point -- the U.S. military, which has an obligation to conduct itself apolitically and professionally, appears in many cases to be doing exactly the opposite.

John Cole posts here on the issue, highlighting the long-term danger to our democracy that this implies. Politics is being outsourced to veterans and officers who cannot be criticized, and a significant segment of the officer corps seems likely to go along with the brewing Dolchstosslegende.

Update II: "Leo Strauss" adds: Where's Charlie Moskos on how detached and politicized the military has gotten in the last six years? Harsh words all around here.

Beauchamp update

This is still going on? Yesiree. No links to the right-wing rampage (at Drudge, Ace of Spades, etc) but they've been claiming SB recanted. Of course in the end it turns out that it's the Army's manipulation of information, selective leaking of documents, and Big Brother monitoring of his conversations. TNR report here.

daily roundup

Article from The Nation about how all those right-wing emails are born and spread.

From the beginning, the vast majority of these Internet-disseminated rumors have come from the right. (Snopes lists about fifty e-mails about George W. Bush, split evenly between adulatory accounts of him saluting wounded soldiers or witnessing to a wayward teenager, and accounts of real and invented malapropisms. In contrast, every single one of the twenty-two e-mails about John Kerry is negative.) For conservatives, these e-mails neatly reinforce preconceptions, bending the facts of the world in line with their ideological framework: liberals, immigrants, hippies and celebrities are always the enemy; soldiers and conservatives, the besieged heroes. The stories of the former's perfidy and the latter's heroism are, of course, never told by the liberal media. So it's left to the conservative underground to get the truth out. And since the general story and the roles stay the same, often the actual characters are interchangeable.

more when i find them again... should've added right away and now i have to go back and look...

Nietzsche on 21st cemntury American Christianity

Via AS, in response to a video of a christian smashing his computer because an ad for a porn site popped up. It begins with the FN quote:

The church fights passion with excision in every sense: its practice, its "cure," is castratism. It never asks: "How can one spiritualize, beautify, deify a craving?" It has at all times laid the stress of discipline on extirpation (of sensuality, of pride, of the lust to rule, of avarice, of vengefulness). But an attack on the roots of passion means an attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life.

And ends with the reader's comment:

Viewed through this lens, the entire current era of American cultural politics -- the Christianist era -- could be seen and understood as a squeal of weakness: weakness reflected in the overwhelming urge to deprive others of choices and options, the weakness reflected in political bullying and in the impulse to create an all-powerful executive, the weakness reflected in the recourse to torture, the weakness reflected in refusal to engage in the unglamorous arm-twisting of diplomacy.

Watching the Watchmen

Dave Neiwert posts at Campaign for America's Future concerning a recent rally by the Watchmen on the Walls - the scary new group of Russian/Ukrainian immigrant fascist homophobes.

I don't feel up to commenting on this right now, and in any case Dave's said things in his usual superlative way. His post is a description of the phenomenon, an account of the protest, and a contextualization of this movement in the larger world of the modern radical right.

Panties for Peace

Apparently the Burmese junta thinks women's panties rob them of their power. So women are sending them by mail, and flinging them over embassy walls.

"Not only are they brutal, but they are also very superstitious," Jackie Pollack, a member of the Lanna Action for Burma Committee, told the Guardian Unlimited. "Condemnation by the United Nations and governments around the world have had no impact on the Burmese regime. This is a way of trying to reach them where they will feel it."

double dose of Dave

Two essential posts from Dave "Orcinus" Neiwert today (or at least, I saw them today):

First one on the right's new fascination with fascism - specifically, accusations against liberals of being Nazis.

The evil genius of the Nazi regime is that it created, and imposed on its world, a social regime in which the worst traits of humanity -- greed, selfishness, mendacity, betrayal, cowardice -- become the supreme social traits, not just in the camps (though there especially) but throughout Nazi society, because it was precisely those traits which insured one's survival.

And isn't this exactly the regime the right is trying to create here? No insurance for you! Ramp up the fear factor! Set everyone against each other and let the most vicious win!

Second one on a forthcoming book on the Japanese internment. (Eric Muller's American Inquisition) DN's got an internment book of his own, obviously, but this one focuses on the process of how Japanese-American citizens had their loyalties evaluated to determine who should be interned and who could be let go. Sounds great. Should assign.

Liberal Fascism v3.0

Goldberg's back with a new title for his never-to-be-released steaming load of feces book "Liberal Fascism". From Shakesville:

the new new re-re-title is to be Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Well, he's dropped the "totalitarian temptation" thing, but now of course he faces a new problem. Even if you think Mussolini was a member of the "left" (and he wasn't), he was certainly and unambiguously never a member of the American left, or the American anything. But who cares? Mussolini's back in, which means I get to throw this in Goldberg's face repeatedly, just as I'd hoped to:

Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere. -- Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism

PWNED!!

Use or Abuse?

Looks like we're trying to piss off the Turks. (Reuters: "Turkey Withdraws Ambassador to the US")

AS, quoting an Armenian-American historian, on why this is misguided:

I am insulted by that sticker. That Congress “finds” the genocide to be a fact makes the tragedy no more real than its refusal, so far, has made it unreal. Truth does not need a permission slip from the state.

While I'm obviously one of those who thinks that this was genocide, what's the point of Congress putting its official stamp of approval on it. A nonbinding resolution. Yay.

And it brings to mind -- for the second time tonight -- Nietzsche's admonishment in Use and Abuse of History, that it takes more strength to forget than to remember. History should be a constructive, not destructive force. Why is our Congress raising an entirely symbolic issue whose only effect is to needlessly piss off an ally who neighbors our current war zone? It's asinine.

UPDATE I: Excellent Harpers' review of Use and Abuse in context of Bush's recent embarrassing speech referencing The Quiet American. And another on the essay in its context of the 19th century Germans' fascination with ancient Greece.

UPDATE: And just look what story Daily Show does as I'm typing this... Funny. Night of synchronicity in deed. But... Um, looks like I'm on Bush's side on this -- NOOOOOOO!!

warriors?

Was reminded recently of how popular this term has gotten in current American parlance. It - like 'homeland' - seems to me a recent import. Need to look into this more.

Quick find here: reclaiming the term 'warrior' in the Jungian sense to help mobilize against war. In this example (Commondreams.org article "Calling all warriors for peace") it's Cindy Sheehan who's the warrior archetype.

undercover with the KC Klan

Brave reporter from the Kansas City alt-newsweekly The Pitch goes undercover with the Klan and the NSM. (Peter Rugg, My Secret Life in the Klan) Seems like the group's been stuffing copies of the paper with their own propaganda flyers, which then makes people think the paper's allowing racist advertising, etc. Funny bits in the story, but also scary of course, and very much playing up the element that these guys think they're normal, loving Christians, good neighbors, etc.

The story includes a sound file of the phone call in which the reporter informs his source of what's really going on. It's riveting to hear how this guy reacts - "I have a family; I'm just trying to raise my kids." "I didn't think the Pitch was gonna get that pissed about it." He's also paranoid about the Klan/NSM finding out he talked... "I guess I'm just SOL."

Found this through the invaluable Dave Neiwert, whose post on it includes some links to recent neo-Nazi gatherings (which have no always been well-attended).

Who Hates Whom

It's an interesting primer on current ethnic/sectarian conflicts, AND it contains a grammar lesson in its title! What's not to like?

And he's putting up bonus chapters for conflicts that couldn't make the book due to space considerations. Here's the first one, on Senegal. Funny/sad quote to end it:

Finally, Dakar residents also harbor a much more recent resentment -- toward George W. Bush, who made a televised speech from Gorée Island in 2003.

Other high-profile figures ranging from the Pope to President Clinton to Nelson Mandela have made similar stops with minimal incident. However, according to Reuters (in a widely-published article no longer on their own site), before Bush’s arrival, Senegal’s national capital was shut down, over 1000 residents were taken off the streets, and the roads in and out of the capital were closed. (More from a local witness here.) Then, on the morning of Bush’s speech, the residents of Gorée Island itself were rounded up and herded onto a soccer field, out of sight of the cameras, where they were forcibly held for six hours until the event was finished.

The US president then spoke of his deep belief in liberty and equality, with no hint of irony.

The Senegalese president was instructed not to speak.

Blackwater hijinks

More on Blackwater from Dailykos, including the fun little fact that they busted a corrupt Iraqi minister out of jail and spirited him to affluent exile in Chicago. Sweet!

Blackwater roundup

All from Salon:

Video from this week's Congressional hearing.

"Bush and Blackwater" details Blackwater's ties to a vast array of Republicans.

"The Dark Truth about Blackwater" describes the company's role in Iraq and the reasons the Bushies chose to use them.

Finally, "Blackwater by the Numbers" has screen shots (and a full pdf version here) of a Congressional memo on the eve of the hearings, which details Blackwater's contracts, role, (lack of) oversight, connections to Republicans, etc.

Godwin's Law overdrive

From Orcinus, reports on the recent right-wing surge in 'leftists are Nazis' rhetoric. Sara describes how this is a two-step process: first, sever fascism from its right-wing roots; second, redefine it as a phenomenon of the left.

If the right can pull off this semantic trick, they win in two ways. First, we will no longer be able to have serious conversations -- like the ones we've had here for the past four-plus years -- about the very real ways in which American conservatives are pulling us toward genuine fascism. They'll have stolen away the language that will allow us to convict them of their crimes against democracy. We won't be able to measure their deeds by holding them up against those of previous right-wing authoritarians -- the comparisons will be simply impossible, because the definitions of the terms will be too murky to be useful. Or worse: they'll now mean something else entirely.

And evidently Oprah is a Nazi, according to radio host Bryan Suits, because she supports someone of the same race for president. So I guess by that logic all white people throughout American history are racists too?

300 links

Showing portions in class today. Some links to include in a packet:

Ephraim Lytle. "Sparta? No. This is madness", Toronto Star, 2007-03-11

Ephialtes, who betrays the Greeks, is likewise changed from a local Malian of sound body into a Spartan outcast, a grotesquely disfigured troll who by Spartan custom should have been left exposed as an infant to die. Leonidas points out that his hunched back means Ephialtes cannot lift his shield high enough to fight in the phalanx. This is a transparent defence of Spartan eugenics, and laughably convenient given that infanticide could as easily have been precipitated by an ill-omened birthmark.

Touraj Daryaee. "Go tell the Spartans". iranian.com. He hates the history and politics of the film. Sees it in light of US sabre-rattling against Iran. But also criticizes uncritical acceptance of 'western freedom' motif:

In the “freedom”-loving and “democratic” Sparta, slaves called helots were owned communally and there was an annual festival during which young Spartan men were allowed to terrorize the slave population and even kill a few of them to remind the rest of their place. And Sparta was not a democracy. It was a militaristic monarchy with a council of elders which decided political matters, but it was not a democracy. It was constantly on the warpath and constantly attempting to control and enslave its neighboring Greek city-states. Likewise, “democratic” Athens did not behave any better after it became the Hegemon in the fifth century BCE and began enslaving its neighbors, taking their lands, and destroying their way of life. Democracy (literally, rule by the people, Greek demos) was but a brief experiment in Greek history. Some estimates suggest that even when Greek democracy was at its height in 431 BC, less than 14% of the members of this society were allowed to participate in this “government by the people.” Not only was the vast majority of the population, including women, excluded from policy making, but nearly 37% lived in actual slavery [See: " Decolonizing Persian history"]. In contrast those who joined the Persian army, which included many non-hunchbacked Greeks, were paid for their service!

Take that, fascists! (Post itself is minimal, but interesting comments discussion.)

Vietnam revisionism

"The Best Wars of their Lives" in The Nation.

Conservatism's cherished fantasy of American omnipotence has died once again, this time in the sands of Iraq, and the grieving process has begun. But conservatives mourn differently from you and me. They begin with denial, anger and bargaining, just like everyone else. And that's where they stay--forever paralyzed by a petulant refusal to acknowledge their fantasy's passing, a simple inability to process reality.

See also Spencer Ackerman's "War-niks" in TNR.