It just occurred to me I have no blog category label for Tea Party related stuff. I mean, beyond the popular “wingnuts” tag. How the heck did that happen?
–jane doe
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If you’ve been watching Glenn Beck much lately – something I generally try to avoid, but I inevitably see clips on Countdown, The Rachel Maddow Show, The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and/or just about every blog on the liberal side of the blogosphere – you know that the man has been bandying about terms like “Nazi” and “fascist” and “Hitler” pretty freely in connection with progressives generally and President Obama in particular.
Not that President Obama is particularly progressive, but that’s another rant for another time.
Anyway, Beck has been engaged in a lot of ranting and raving and name calling, including some odd combos like “communist fascists,” which apparently is what happens when someone moves so far to the left end of the political spectrum that they end up back around at the extreme end of the right side of the spectrum.
Apparently no one’s ever explained Godwin’s Law to Mr. Beck.
Now, just yesterday, I ran across the following photo from the Washington Post (h/t @chrislhayes, link takes you to the original photo in context):
THIS guy likes to bandy about Hitler comparisons?
I ask you, who does this photo remind you of?
Here’s a hint. Change the flag behind him with another historical flag. One from, say, Germany. Late 1930s – mid 1940s era.
Seriously, dude. Glass houses. Pot. Kettle.
Mind, I’m not calling Glenn Beck a Nazi. Because, hey, I am familiar with Godwin’s Law.*
I’m just saying that, well, if there was a photo of me looking like this floating around on teh internets, I’d really want to avoid mentioning the H-word. Or the F-word. Um, fascist, that is, not the other F-word (which I manifestly have no problem with using when the occasion seems to call for it).
Just a thought.
–jane doe
* I will concede that there comes a point where the comparison to fascism as a system of government may be appropriate, despite the emotional valence of the term. I drafted a couple of posts for this blog during the Bush administration where I speculated about where we as a nation were along the slippery slope leading to fascism, though I don’t remember if I actually posted any of them. I was not alone in speculating about this – see for instance Joe Conason’s It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush.
So, former White House Press Secretary Dana Perino — you remember her, right? Bush administration Kool-Aid junkie? Well, I guess she’s forgotten all about 9/11. Because she was on Fox News recently, distressed that they weren’t calling the Ft. Hood shooting a terrorist attack, and she actually said that there were no terrorist attacks during the Bush administration.
I know. Mind boggling.
Amazingly, it appears her amnesia is some new contagious type, because Sean Hannity doesn’t bother to correct her assertion that “We did not have a terrorist attack on our country during President Bush’s term.” Guess he forgot about 9/11, too.
Sad, very sad. I hope they get help for that. I wonder what kind of health insurance they have?
On a completely unrelated note, sorry I haven’t been around lately. I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo, and that’s taking a lot of my time. I’m probably going to do some posts in the near future, though.
Next week. After NaNoWriMo ends.
–jane doe
I don’t usually venture into matters metaphysical in this blog, but I couldn’t resist posting this:
Okay, if you’ve been paying any attention to the ultra-paranoid wingnut Rep. Michele Bachmann (R – Minn) or the late-night comedians who mock her, you’ve already heard that there are those on the right-wing fringe (also known as Republicans in good standing) who are objecting to the upcoming 2010 census as some sort of sinister left-wing plot.
A sinister left-wing plot mandated by Art. 1, Sec. 2 of that document of the radical left known as the U.S. Constitution.
Bachmann and others have announced their intention to boycott the census next year because…well, I’m a little unclear why, actually…apparently it has something to do with ACORN (the right’s favorite villain after Obama and the Clintons). And they are urging others on the lunatic fringe to boycott it as well.
Now, personally, I’m actually okay with large numbers of people in the red states boycotting the census, because the net effect if they do is that they will lose further representation in the House of Representatives, resulting in additional representatives being apportioned to the blue states. Fewer Republicans in the HoR? Sounds good to me.
However, I do feel obligated to point out to Rep. Bachmann that she might want to be cautious in her public statements about her intentions with respect to the 2010 census.
See, she’ll still be in office when it occurs (barring any revelations that she’s been hiking the Appalachian Trail like Gov. Sanford of South Carolina). And when she was sworn in, part of her oath was to uphold the laws and constitution of the United States.
And the census is required by both the laws and the constitution. As is participation in same.
Now, I’ve been known to criticize unjust laws and even engage in a little civil disobedience from time-to-time, in spite of my own oath to uphold the laws and constitution back when I was practicing law.
On the other hand, this blog (read by literally tens of readers) is about as high-profile as my own comments ever get. Nobody is pointing a microphone or a television camera at me.
Of course, they’d have to find me first, but that’s beside the point.
The point is, if Bachmann refuses to participate in the census, well, she’s pretty much giving a road-map to anyone who might be inclined to make an example of her by prosecuting or impeaching her for her refusal to participate every time she opens her mouth in front of a TV camera and announces her intent to boycott the census.
Just sayin’…
–jane doe
Matt Taibbi has apparently abandoned all hope. The system is completely fucked, and so are we. I’d leave, but where would I go? I’m taking suggestions, if anyone has any.
–jane doe
Okay, yeah, once again I’ve been terribly negligent about updating this blog. Frankly, I had hoped that the need for this blog would go away after the shrub left office. I thought I’d feel better about things once the grown-ups were back in charge.
Silly me.
But where to start?
Dick Cheney’s All-Torture, All-The Time Tour?
The Obama White House’s insistence that we just accept that we don’t torture anymore so we should just move forward?
The whole same-sex marriage issue?
The screams of “Socialism!” from the far right in response to just about everything that Obama proposes?
The murder of Dr. Tiller?
So many things worthy of comment, I hardly know where to begin…
Okay, it’s not an original piece, like Funk Vigilante‘s excellent Worst President Ever, but the video matchup put together by blog The Full Ginsberg (apparently a reference to going on all five Sunday news talk shows in one day) is still pretty good:
Just what are they preaching in evangelical churches these days?
A recent study by the Pew Research Center reveals that evangelical Christians are the most likely to support torture. The more often they go to church, the more likely they are to support such tactics.
Now, I don’t claim to be a biblical scholar. Because, hello? Buddhist. But I’m pretty sure Jesus would not be down with waterboarding.
Wasn’t he all about turning the other cheek? Treating others as you would have them treat you? Compassion? Letting he who is without sin cast the first stone?
And yet, that is the result of the survey. Regular churchgoers at evangelical Christian churches are more likely to support torture than any other group.
Questions? Comments?
–jane doe
