"gay nazis" in action

Well, queue the outrage from Christianists. Box Turtle Bulletin reports:

San Francisco police had to escort a group of preachers out of the Castro. Those so-called “Christians” are now using this as an excuse to post the most extraordinary claims and garnering vast amounts of publicity and sympathy for themselves on right-wing blogs.

Links to KTVU report on the story here, and also to the raw footage (5 min) that made up the report.

Here's a report from one of the prayer people, provided in the YouTube description:

Since it was a long night, I can't even begin to remember all of the things that were shouted and/or chanted at us. Then, they started throwing hot coffee, soda and alcohol on us and spitting (and maybe even peeing) on us. Then, a group of guys surrounded us with whistles, and blasted them inches away from our ears continually. Then, they started getting violent and started shoving us. At one point a man tried to steal one of our Bibles. Chrisdene noticed, so she walked up to him and said "Hey, that's not yours, can you please give it back?". He responded by hitting her on the head with the Bible, shoving her to the ground, and kicking her. I called the cops, and when they got there, they pulled her out of the circle and asked her if she wanted to press charges. She said "No, tell him I forgive him." Afterwards, she didn't rejoin us in the circle, but she made friends with one of the people in the crowd, and really connected heart to heart. Roger got death threats. As the leader of our group, people looked him in the eyes and said "I am going to kill you.", and they were serious. A cop heard one of them, and confronted him. (This part is kinda graphic, so you should skip the paragraph if you don't want to be offended.) It wasn't long before the violence turned to perversion. They were touching and grabbing me, and trying to shove things in my butt, and even trying to take off my pants - basically trying to molest me. I used one hand to hold my pants up, while I used the other arm to hold one of the girls. The guys huddled around all the girls, and protected them. Soon after, the cops came and stood between us and the mob. When it was getting more heated, the cops were like "You guys should leave." and Roger said "We want to stay." Someone tried to steal my backpack, but I tapped a cop on the shoulder, and said "Hey, that's my bag." and he got it from him and gave it to me. Others weren't so lucky. Probably half our team got their jackets stolen. Eventually, as the crowd was getting more and more uncontrollable, the cops were afraid for our lives, so they escorted us to our van. (The cops were very nice to us from start to finish.)

Story is a bit implausible to me... Okay, mean chants and whistles, sure. But notice how the account quickly descends into stereotypes: The gays are peeing on them somehow. They try to molest the narrator. They're afraid for their lives, but somehow one of them is able to brave the mob and "connect heart to heart" with one of the fallen, without being molested or killed of course. All in all, a great opportunity for the Christians to display how much they love these fags and just want to help them, but they are so depraved that they resist it:

We can't hate the people because they are just broken and blinded by the spirit of this age. Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against Principalities and Powers. It's not a political thing, we just love the people.

Comments on that story are fuckin scary. ("God will judge that city soon!" "Fucking faggots. I hope for a backlash so severe no fag would dare come out of the closet. Chase the sick liberal faggots to the shores. Icky pervert deviants. Kill them all. ")

Classic Nazi tactics: invade the enemy's neighborhood and insult them, provoking a reaction that can then be propagandized to show how "hateful" they are.

daily Godwin

Gay Nazis! But not the kind you think. Take it away Newt Gingrich:

"I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion."

Teh Gheys are coming! Watch out! If you take away their rights they will speak out against you -- just like Hitler!

In other right-wing Godwin goodness, Michael "Savage" Weiner turns over a rock to find Hilmar von Campe. He's an old aristocratic HJ basterrd whose thing appears to be writing the same book over and over again -- "I was a Hitler Youth and so I know firsthand that [the Soviet Union/globalization/Muslims/Obama] are about to take over America JUST LIKE HITLER DID!!" O NOES!!

intemperate but true

"How the Secret Service Turned into the Stasi"

And if that isn't Godwin-defying, which it technically is not, then why not refer to them as the SS throughout. That's their proper acronym after all.

epic Godwin battle of the century

Damn!!

First, Bush violates all kinds of political norms in going off on Obama (well, his favorite "some people") during a speech to the Knesset for Israel's 60th anniversary.

Second, Democrats and tv journalists go nuts blowing his lame comments away. (Especially on the heels of yesterday's idiotic "I quit golf" lies.) Biden calls "bullshit" -- LITERALLY.

Third, some absolutely psychotic right-wing talk show host (Kevin James, apparently - no, not that one!) goes on Hardball to try and defend the comments and attack Obama. Pulls out all the appeasement b.s he's been trained to do... and Matthews asks a simple question: "What did Neville Chamberlain do?" Hilarity ensues.

Salon War Room's summary:

Matthews asked James a simple question: What exactly did Chamberlain do that was so wrong? (The following is a close paraphrase of the ensuing exchange.)

Well, he was an appeaser, James exclaimed.

Yeah, but what did he do?

He was an appeaser!

Kevin, what exactly did Chamberlain do?

He appeased!

Pretty much sums it up. The whole segment has to be seen to be believed. James was screaming and finger pointing from his first words. Matthews was bemused at first, then ripped him a new one. One of the more amazing takedowns of recent tv gabfests. Matthews absolutely destroyed him -- "if you don't know what appeasement is, don't talk about it!"

Definitely one to show the kids in class. How NOT to do historical analogies. You can't just throw out buzzwords, you have to define them with details.

daily Godwin

Note to Ben Stein: When the Corner isn't in your corner, give it up.

Stein: When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers [i.e. biologist P.Z. Myers], talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

Crouch: That’s right.

Stein: …Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place, and science leads you to killing people.

Crouch: Good word, good word.

You can see the whole shameful thing here. It's a pity Crouch didn't invite the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the studio for a three-way conversation. It would have elevated the tone.

Hee.

Goldberg links

So that was a long time between posts. In the meantime, Doughy Pantload's well-researched argument that has never before been made with such care has come out. It makes me cry inside. Here's a quick link list of some of the more effective takedowns:

In which Jonah asks his readers to research for him.

Followed by a Spencer scholar who actually responded to DP's request... and was rebuffed when the answer didn't suit what DP wanted. Bonus quote: "Where to begin? YOU ARE A BAD JEW . (Sorry. Just slipped out.)"

This guy also shows the problem at the heart of the Pantload's book: the fallacy of the undistributed middle:

All [animal rights activists] believe [in animal rights].

All [Nazis] believe [in animal rights].

Therefore all [animal rights activists] are [Nazis].

Logic is fun! I want to do more!

All [liberals] believe [orgasms are fun].

All [Nazis] believe [orgasms are fun].

Therefore all [liberals] are [Nazis].

Over here, Matthew Yglesias discusses why it's so hard to take the Pantload seriously.

"It seems that nothing gets conservatives off nearly so much as writing obviously unserious books with patently offensive titles, designed in every way to not be taken seriously, and then get huffy when people make fun of them without having given their precious works the deep consideration they deserve."

Sadly, No! has done the most work on this, from even before the thing came out. They note that DP says:

"For many socialists and progressives, socialism was racism and racism was socialism. Nazism was socialism for a race. The Nazi view was uglier and more extreme than anyone else’s, but it was not philosophically so distinct from the views of many progressives in America and socialists in Britain."

So what does it then mean that DP's own publication, the National Review', has its own long and distinguished history of racism. Doesn't that make them Nazis? Or at least "socialists" of some kind?

Sadly trashes DP's performance in a Salon interview. The best part: "the only reason he got dubbed a fascist and therefore a right-winger is because he supported World War I". Yeah, it has nothing to do with the fact that he, uh... FOUNDED THE FASCIST PARTY.

Teh stupid. it hurtz.

Rather than fry brain anymore right now, I'll just link to Neiwert's definitive review, his correct description of how fascists' occupation of the right in both voting patterns and financial support, and his bibliography of books where you could actually learn something. DN also comments on some specific factual errors resulting from mistranslations (see Sans Everything on the lack of research and linguistic knowledge that went into this, contrasted with how conservatives used to practice scholarship).

THIS is the definitive post on the substance of DP's book. Followed by the appendix with real sources (Orwell, Payne, Paxton, Eco, Griffin). Good work, Dave! You're a trooper!

And finally, he directs to John Emerson's review, which discusses how hard it is to respond to tripe like this.

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.

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?

photo juxtapositions

Cool "convergence contest" at McSweeney's -- lining up two photos from different historical eras, which makes an implicit link between the two. The best one, and saddest, is the anti-Nazi poster describing the Lidice massacre ("this is Nazi brutality") with one of the Abu Ghraib hooded inmates.

There's also this cool one of a brain and a subdivision. A lot of these are convergences of natural and man-made forms. How man mimics nature without even realizing it. These might also be good for an early lecture about building and man's alteration of environment.

UPDATE: I just can't stop with these! Contrast Goya's Saturn devouring one of his sons with a picture of Bush kissing a baby in the same position. Hilarious!

Another one converging a row of Iraqi prisoners being led away for questioning with Singer Sergeant's Gassed, one of my favorite paintings of all time. Could use this in the last lecture, as students will have seen Gassed in the WWI lecture.

Time magazine's deliberate convergence of their "X-ed out Hitler" cover of May 1945 with al-Zawahiri... As the editor notes:

The design of the more recent cover raises some interesting sets of questions:

1. Are they really comparing al-Zarqawi to Hitler? As nasty a character as he was, it seems like a bit of an overstatement to compare his death in terms of significance to that of the architect of the Holocaust, the man who sent the whole world to war. Plus, the death of Hitler, announced by the first cover, brought about Germany's surrender and the end of the war in Europe. Is Time, therefore, declaring the war in Iraq over, and victory for al-Zarqawi's opponents? Doesn't seem likely.

2. For whom was the second cover designed? Hardly anyone alive today would remember the Hitler cover, so the "historical resonance" factor is virtually nil. Only unusually dedicated followers of Time covers (Timeheads?) or Time employees—and even in that case only Time employees who have poked around the archives or who have made studies of past cover designs for their own work—would "get" this reference.

So it seems like an internal wink, then: a deliberate convergence by Time magazine for Time magazine. They would have had to wait this long, as anyone who remembered the first cover would also be pretty outraged at the comparison. It will be interesting to see who Time decides to X out 60 years from now.

This one comparing devastation in Beruit and Warsaw could be good for the lecture on cyclical theory of history (as could all of these - would be a good addition).

The works of man mirror nature -- Swedish logging site looks like a tree itself, from the air.

Trippy.

Godwin's Law. part 1

First of what will invariably be a series. Republican shill Dan Riehl has his panties in a bunch at Glen Greenwald's dissection of Mansfield's advocacy of an American Fuehrerprinzip in the Opinion Journal.

Standard ad hominem attack and invective for the first part, and then the Godwin's violation:

The tactic of mis-characterizing enlightened argument with which you may disagree is fascistic, at best. Salon should be ashamed.

Um, mis-characterizing an argument is facsist? All intellectually dishonest people do that no matter their political stripe. Dan Riehl YOU FAIL NOW.