Oh my goodness, the Fox All-Stars have discovered that religious freedom is hard to guarantee in a theocracy. Seems this Christian who has been sentenced to death by an Afghan court for converting from Islam has opened their tired little eyes to the fact that “democracy” isn’t easy to impose on a nation that’s following strict Islamic law. Yah think?
They agree that this kind of thing has implications for Iraq too, can you believe it? Mort Kondrake says that he’s been hearing that women in Basra are all having to cover themselves up in burkas now!(No kidding) Fred Barnes is concerned about Iraqi Christians too.
Evidently, the wingnuts are up in arms about this story. Someone in the handpicked military family audience even brought it up during Bush’s Q&A today. (And here I thought everything was going great over there but the press isn’t reporting it.) The whole place can go to hell in a handbasket but if Christians are persecuted then there’s a problem.
Since this is shaping up to be bloggy fun day, I can’t help but weigh in on this delicious little dust-up over at Jeff Goldstein’s dog house pertaining to none other than my pal and blogging companion, tristero.
Tristero already wrote about it, as you all probably know. But he failed to properly highlight Goldstein’s bizarrre and freakish dog-fantasy comment, which I feel is important for posterity. I suspect it was because he felt that its exceedingly disturbing images of bestiality might have been too vile and odious for discerning readers. He is right. But I believe that there should be a record of right wing insanity and I think people should be forced to look at it so they know that when these same people claim the left is unhinged, they are merely projecting their own incredibly fucked up psyches on to others.
These are the people, remember, who claim to have better values than you:
Today’s subject: tristero, who (let’s face it) has the intellect of a gibbon, though he clearly fancies himself a brilliant debunker of lockstep winguttery. In fact, his post (as seen on Digbysblog) – Loven stole HIS idea about the strawmans, we’re told / and Atrios was exactly right that I’m an idiot who doesn’t realize my own idiocy (a pronouncement, incidentally, that can only be made by one who assumes he is far more intelligent than the object of his scorn, which position essentially deconstructs the study in the Atrios post tristero fellates, or else proves it to his detriment, I’m not sure which) – is par for the course with these bandwidth sucking cocklords. You allow them to stay and say their piece, and they interpret that as a “right” that you now owe them, and they then take that as an invitation to start helping themselves to things in the fridge, or slipping a finger up your dog’s asshole, etc.
Well, sorry, but that ain’t my thang. These fucktards want to take shots at me on their own sites, they can have at it. But from now on, they can keep it there, or they can bitch about me on sites I don’t give a shit about anyway.
What they can’t do is take pot shots at me on other sites, then slather some peanut butter on their joints and show up here hoping to help themselves to a quick hummer from my dog.
So goodbye to tristero. And there will be others, as well. I won’t let this place turn into the cesspole Cole nurtures.
And seriously, what did tristero offer here? He’s a mouthpiece for lib-Dem talking points, from the few posts of his I read, and I have more interesting conversations with beets and sea monkeys than I ever could with someone who is so bent on getting noticed by Atrios that he’s already committed to sing a Katrina and the Waves cover at the next Eschacon – while wearing nothing but one of those bitchin’ Che berets.
Keep in mind that tristero’s post on Goldstein’s blog was inoffensive. It was the post on this blog that got him banned. The offensive line?: “Hat tip to Jeff at Protein Wisdom who really is exactly as Atrios describes him.”
That’s it. That’s what brought on this gut-wrenching, noxious screed. Somebody appears to have a very, very thin skin.
But let’s talk about the rather, shall we say, hallucinatory imagery we see in that post. I’m beginning to think that someone needs to do a serious psychological study of the effects of bestiality on conservative politics (or is it the effects of conservative politics on bestiality?) There are just too many instances of this for it to be a coincidence. Lil’ Benji and his box turtles, Santorum and his man-on-dog action, Rush and his fantasies of women and german shepards, Laura Bush and the horse cocks — the list goes on. (Oh boy, here comes another round of freaky google hits. Hello Abu, howya doin?)
Here’s Rush:
“…the trend toward more new mothers leaving the workforce. Yes, it’s a trend. It started years ago when the feminist movement decided that their best friends were going to be German shepherds. You know. So that’s — well, it’s true. You go to the right airports and you can see it.”
What is it about these people that makes them constantly think of animal sex? (In Rush’s case it’s also an obsession with being tortured by women, but that’s another story.) When you think about how to insult a political rival, does your mind automatically turn to bestiality? Mine doesn’t. The idea of someone slathering their joint and asking the dog for a hummer has literally never entered my mind. (And I have a dirty mind.) But this goes way beyond any pornographic visual I have ever entertained. Ever. In fact, it makes me sick. Sticking your finger up a dog’s ass is something that I would think only occurs to veterinarians and perverts.
This imagery is not exactly well … mainstream. And yet, right wingers seem to come up with it all the time. I know that pets are part of the family and all, but I don’t this is what most Americans have in mind when they hear the wingnuts lecturing everyone about family values. And, just because it’s a dog doesn’t mean it isn’t sodomy, you know. Even if your dog’s a girl.
ugh
Now, I’ve got a picture of Jeff Goldstein wearing nothing but an “Uncle Sam Wants You” t-shirt, his joint slathered from top to bottom with a 1/4 teaspoon of peanut butter, singing “How much is that doggie in the window?” If you’ll excuse me, I have to go puke and then get my brain dry-cleaned.
Oh, not just because of the synapse frying revulsion of that image. Sorry. As bad as that is, I can take it. It’s this, featuring even more disturbing bestial images — and even worse writing.
Thanks to Hilzoy at Obsidion Wings for that coup de grace. She shall burn in hell for making me read that.
Update: Oh. My. Dear. God. This peanut butter thing is part of the whole Abu Ghraib horror. Read Jeanne D’Arc.
This is a great idea. Senators are all home (for what, their 6th or 7th break of the year?) and are going to be hearing from their constituents. It would be very effective if any of you in cities or towns where your Democratic senator has an office, to walk in and have a little chat with the staff (or the Senator if he or she is around) about how you would like them to support Feingold’s censure motion. Give them the personal touch.
You could also call and find out if your senator has any public appearances — town hall meetings or such — where you could go and have a nice chat about how you think it’s important to support Feingold because the country needs to know that Democrats don’t endorse breaking the law — and don’t think that any president has a right or a necessity to do it, even in a time of war. You know, just remind our elected representatives what Democrats actually stand for.
Read Glenn’s post for pointers on how to make the argument.
I think it’s awfully of interesting that the Washington Post hired a 24 year old ex-Bush staffer, whose daddy (also a Bush staffer) was in charge of the making sure Abramoff got what he wanted. (Wasn’t the entire Deborah Howell flap about the shoddy Abramoff coverage in the first place?)
You see, it turns out the Domenech family came in for a number of Bush administration appointments. Not only Ben, but Ben’s dad, Doug, who was White House liaison to the Department of Interior.
Or to put it more colloquially, White House guy to make sure Jack Abramoff got what he wanted with the Indians and the Pacific Island stuff.
Wayne Smith was the point man for Indian casino policy at the Department of Interior. He ended up having kind of a rough ride over at Interior. And, according to Smith, as reported last year in the Denver Post, Domenech told him “we had to pay attention to [Jack] Abramoff, because otherwise the religious right and (Ralph) Reed are going to come up and bite us, and our whole base will go crazy. They will light up our phones, shut down our phone lines.”
According to Smith, Domenech was the conduit for Abramoff operative Italia Federici. Said Smith: “Doug would come down and say, ‘Italia called and Jack wants this’ That’s how it all happened internally.”
Oh my. He’s not just “involved.” He’s in it up to his eyeballs.
Here’s our new writer for the Washington Post, back when he was “Augustine” on Red State, writing about how the Republicans are actually the party of ethics (not that Abramoff is really that bad of a guy.)The “do what’s right Republicans” need to flush the system of the “do as you’re told Republicans.” Looks like Dad is one of those “do as you’re told” guys. Oooops.
(Are we dealing with another one of those weird Republican father-son deals again? Haven’t we had enough of that these last five years? I even hear the kid has a Henry V obsession. Of course, that’s better than a “Red Dawn” obsession, but still.)
I think this may have been a poignant, if weak, defense of dear old Dad:
Oh please By: Augustine
That’s bullcrap. Abramoff boasted of being an insider at EVERY agency, not just Interior. Because he lied to his clients, we’re supposed to believe that he actually had any effect on policy? Please.
Norton is hated by environuts, for good reason: she got more done on environmental issues than anyone else has since James Watt.
That’s sweet. Just because his father was up to his eyeballs in Abramoff’s deals at interior doesn’t mean that Abramoff actually had any effect on policy.
Besides, Dad knew it was just about keeping the “wackos” in the base happy, see. The forced childbirth fanatics, for instance. Like his own son.
And I’m sure others have already found the most intriguing “Augustine” post — the one that probably brought him to the attention of the people who evidently hate Froomkin at his place of employment:
If one spends any amount of time reading the columns of washingtonpost.com’s Dan Froomkin – whose status as leader of the hack is without compare – it’s easy to realize that, on any given day, the cut and paste function has to be a tiring chore. Every day, it’s use the same template, find a new reason to hate. “Bush is a liar because X.” “The President is a fool because X.” “The White House wants to kill your child’s pet because X.” Etc. He has his crowd, and he plays to it.
Coming from a little boy who calls Coretta Scott King a communist on the day of her funeral, that seems a little bit much, don’t you think?
Jim Brady and John Harris: Happy at last.
Update: Jane says “fly little wingnut fly” and sends Jim Brady a personal thank you note. I agree that Lil’ Benji is going to be the gift that just keeps on giving.
UpdateII: For those of you who don’t read wingnut talk fluently, Publius at LawandPolitics was kind enough to translate Lil’ Benji’s first post.
Digby makes the wisecrack about her not having sex. I can only take from his comment, that he is like so many other’s of the same ilk who believe we’re all like jungle animals and have to hump when the mood strikes. Of course, that isn’t the case. People don’t walk down the street and just bump into each other and start screwing (unless it’s a Cinemax movie). We have the mental capacity to be able to take care of such business in private. We also have the ability to abstain. Nothing is going to happen to us if we don’t have sex.
And if you’re in a position like this woman, a low paying job and two kids already. Guess what? Don’t fuck.
This is not the attitude of a person opposed to abortion, but of someone who doesn’t want women to have access to pleasure. If he was merely opposed to abortion and only abortion, he would have written, “If you’re in a position like this woman, a low paying job and two kids already, guess what? You and your partner damn well better use good contraception or get your tubes tied or be prepared to accept the consequences of raising a third kid.”
But no, it’s either/or to this guy. Either you have sex or you don’t. He lives in a world where there is no morally acceptable way to use condoms, birth control pills, diaphragms, or any other effective means to enjoy sexual activity without the potential for procreation.
It is insane to call these people “pro-life.” If they are pro anything, it is pro-misery. They wish to make everyone’s lives, especially women’s, as dreary, as guilt-ridden, and as fearful as possible. Unless you do exactly as we say and especially, don’t fuck, you will be hounded by furies, and we are only too willing to be those furies. And if you’re not happy following our “God-given” orders for a moral life (an outrageous, blasphemous lie), if you don’t love raising that third or fourth kid you really don’t want, or enduring a grim, neutered existence stripped of all potential for pleasure and joy, hey don’t blame us. That’s your problem.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to this sickening, cramped, and phony worldview. It is called liberalism, which holds, as one of its self-evident truths, that human beings have a right to the pursuit of happiness.
I will always have a great fondness for Al Gore. In 2000 I watched him get trashed by a ruthless Right Wing Noise Machine and a sophomoric press corps who were determined to punish him for Clinton’s sins (which only they and the very right wing of the Republican party felt required punishment in the first place.) It was one of the most god-awful displays of character assassination we’ve ever seen — and the way it ended, with the Republicans pulling every lever of brute institutional power they had to seize the office, had to have been a terrible, dispiriting event. I know how bad I felt. I can only imagine the searing disappointment he must have endured.
But what seems to have happened to him in the aftermath is quite inspiring. Rising from the ashes of his defeat, he has come back to be an authentic, inspiring voice for progressive thought. I suspect that when you have been publicly cheated out of something so huge, you figure nothing in your public life could ever hurt you again.
It turns out that Gore took exactly the right lessons from his defeat and has focused his attentions not only on the vapid bloodlessness that has become the Democratic approach to politics — but he has also focused on the primary instrument of his demise: the establishment media.
In a fascinating cover article in The American Prospect, called The New, New Gore, Ezra Klein uncovers what’s up with Al Gore’s new media obsession and what he’s really doing with that TV network he started. Unsurprisingly, the guy who invented the internets, has a lot of ideas about the future. Check it out.
Like his progenitor, Jonah Goldberg, this new “Red State” blogger at the Washington Post proves that conservatives should never, ever (EVER) discuss popular culture. They are in over their heads and it always makes them look very foolish.
He pontificates at length about the fact that his allegedly liberal bosses (Jim Brady???) didn’t know the ultimate, totally awesome, awesomliness of the film “Red Dawn.” In his world this movie is what they call “cool.”
Back here on planet earth, it’s what 10 year olds call “cool,” and everybody else calls “camp.” It would be the equivalent of Left Wingers revering “Wild In The Streets” for its serious political message.
Apparently, I have become the first person officially banned by Jeff Goldstein from commenting on his site. He cites as one of his main reasons that I tried to solicit a blowjob from his dog. At least that’s what I think he said, it’s kinda hard to tell with poor Jeff.
For the record, I want to state categorically I did no such thing (and what is it about rightwing nuts and their obsessions with man-on-dog?). I never met his dog and have no interest in doing so. Everyone knows I have far more kinky…proclivities.
Looks like the Iraqi police cannot protect themselves. Eighteen police officers died – eighteen! – when a police station – a police station! – was attacked.
But, as Tom Friedman says, where some see lemon, others see lemonade. The good news is that at least some business is thriving in Iraq: terrorism insurance. Now there’s a racket…sorry, career with a bright future.
Amy Sullivan responded, and graciously, to my open letter to her. Here are some excerpts, posted with her permission (spelling hers):
… It is good and right to criticize wacked-out crazy conservative religious beliefs. Yes, it is. If you follow *all* of my writing–not just the stuff that gets people hopped up–I do in fact critize all of those guys. Often. But you don’t say,”Boy, I hate that George Bush because he talks about Jesus all the time.” Or, “Man, the whole idea of faith-based initiatives is just religious crap.” Or, “We have a theocracy because Bush went into Iraq and that’s what the apocolyptic crazy Christian nuts want him to do.”
You say, “Bush can talk about Jesus all he wants, but he can’t base his policies on religion and he has to explain why he’s bringing religion into political debate.” And, “The faith-based initiative is a political sham; Bush hasn’t put any money into it because he doesn’t actually want to help poor people.” And, “Bush was wrong to go into Iraq, and those apocolyptic people are crazy, but those are two separate things.”
It may sound like I’m splitting hairs, but I’m not. If you don’t delineate, it’s easy for people to dismiss you because it’s sounds like you’re being reflexively anti-religion. And it makes it harder for you to have any credibility when you do go after them for trying to recruit churches to do GOP campaign work or for giving Dobson a say in picking justices or for wrapping themselves in the Christian flag without living up to any of the social gospel principles in the Bible.
In the sentence directly after the one you quoted, I went on to say that it’s perfectly appropriate to criticize them and I think that should happen. But I think people need to recognize that everything we say and do is scrutinized for evidence of religious hostility. That’s reality. So be smart about it. Give thoughtful religious moderates a reason to say, “Yeah, they’re right. These guys are a bunch of hypocrites. I belong over there instead.” Not, “Boy, those guys seem to hate people like me.” Because they’re NOT all fundamentalists.
Her point is clear and it’s one I, too, have made: focus your rhetoric. She’s right about that general point. There are just a few problems with her own rhetoric.
First, aside from a few village atheists with absolutely zero political power, like a few bloggers and commenters, no one has said any of the things she deplores. So I have to ask directly: Amy, who exactly among the important Democrats or commenters has made these kinds of intemperate comments? Where has, to use your earlier examples, Kevin Phillips or Bill Moyers talked that way?
Secondly, it is not the religious moderates in either party that provoke criticism. It is the genuine apocalyptic loons in the Republican party that have all of us, including Amy herself, alarmed. The serious problem, which Amy finesses, is that these people are in positions of immense power. In fact, the must-read article Amy references makes this abundantly clear. Brownback was appointed by Frist, himself a radical christianist as his remarks on AIDS, abortion, and Schiavo make abundantly clear. Brownback was influenced by Charles Colson, prays with Ed Meese. The man who mentored Pat Robertson has the power to send an envoy to the president of the United States to remind him to be more christianist.
Furthermore, the article describes what can only be characterized as a very serious and very secretive 25 year plus attempt to overthrow the Constitution of the United States and replace it with a theocracy, a conspiracy between Catholic and Protestant christianists (a “co-belligerency”) which, if they were, say communists and socialists, could only be described as treason.
Amy thinks there is no theocracy in the US and that Bush doesn’t want one. She’s right and she’s wrong, respectively. There is still religious toleration, but over the course of his career Bush has let slip several comments, about Jews for instance, that reveal his desire. The seriousness of what is going seems to escape her. Amy apparently misunderstands what is meant by the phrase “religious freedom” (as may Sharlet himself) when used by Brownback and his ugly ilk. She tends to think that this means that genuine Christians feel oppressed by a secularist society that is arrayed against them. Not so. “Religious freedom” is a term Rushdoony uses in “The Roots of Reconstruction” as an explict synonym for a christianist theocracy.*
No one has a problem with Colin Powell’s expression of religious beliefs. Or Christie Whitman’s. Or Chuck Hagel’s. And so on. Unfortunately, they are not at the very top of the Republican Party and the people who *are* are theocrats (political) as well as fanatics (religious). Yes, indeed, we need to hone our rhetoric. But not for a moment must we forget who these people are. Nor can we minimize their extremism. That is a serious mistake, and that is the mistake Amy makes when she criticizes “the left” for allegedly going after religious people when, in fact, that simply is not the case in the mainstream discourse.
[*Update: I am not, for a moment, suggesting that Bush subcribes to Dominionism or Christian Reconstruction. What I am asserting, and hope to demonstrate in some future posts, is that Reconstructionist objectives and language pervades the discourse of the radical right christianists, that Reconstructionist influence is direct via extensive associations with other sects and cults, such as Robertson’s and Dobson’s and that major effort is being expended to minimize these associations and to hide them from wider scrutiny. Bush desires a theocracy, it is true, but he is neither intellectually, morally, or emotionally equipped to understand or advocate pure Reconstructionist thought. He does, however, share many of the same obsessions and use many of the same tactics.]
