Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The rage is not about health care

President Obama could have proposed a tax rebate of $10,000 and the conservatives still would have gone stark raving mad. When the Health Care Bill passed Republicans and Tea Partiers turned into a raging sea of childishness, insanity, ugliness and stupidity.

Representative John Boehner went apoplectic chanting "Hell no, you can't." Frank Rich, in a New York Times Op-ed piece, The Rage Is Not About Health Care, suggests Boehner "had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons."
In a debate with David Ploffe on ABC's "This Week," Karl Rove frothed at the mouth and went on a non-stop tirade. Such antics have become less funny and less entertaining.

Republicans have shouted "you lie" and "baby killer" in House chambers, violating every rule of decency and decorum. To steal a phrase from Joe McCarthy, Republican Congressional representatives have become Tea Party "fellow travelers."

For over a year Tea Party protests have attracted increasingly large crowds. They have grown louder, uglier, more threatening and more violent as time has passed. They have shouted racial and homophobic slurs at respected members of Congress and have thrown bricks through their offices - similar to a mini-Kristallnacht in 1938 Germany.

According to Rich, there was heated reaction when Social Security was passed in 1935 and Medicare thirty years later. "When L.B.J. scored his Medicare coup, there were the inevitable cries of “socialism” along with ultimately empty rumblings of a boycott from the American Medical Association."

But there was nothing like this. To find a prototype for the overheated reaction to the health care bill...you have to look to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.... it was only the civil rights bill that made some Americans run off the rails. That’s because it was the one that signaled an inexorable and immutable change in the very identity of America, not just its governance.

That a tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Medicare, an epic entitlement that actually did precipitate a government takeover of a sizable chunk of American health care. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse. The real source of the over-the-top rage of 2010 is the same kind of national existential reordering that roiled America in 1964.

In fact, the current surge of anger — and the accompanying rise in right-wing extremism — predates the entire health care debate. The first signs were the shrieks of “traitor” and “off with his head” at Palin rallies as Obama’s election became more likely in October 2008. Those passions have spiraled ever since — from Gov. Rick Perry’s kowtowing to secessionists at a Tea Party rally in Texas to the gratuitous brandishing of assault weapons at Obama health care rallies last summer...

The election of a black president and a female House speaker, the appointment of a Latino to the Supreme Court, and a gay Congressional committee chairman "would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play."

In this writer's opinion, the Tea Partiers - just like the Birchers, the patriot groups, and other extremist groups have a serious case of paranoia. And racism - despite social scientists' claims to the contrary. Maybe they should have read the liberal blogs in the early days - especially those written by southerners.

The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935.By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, some responsible leaders in both parties spoke out to try to put a lid on the resistance and violence. The arch-segregationist (Richard) Russell of Georgia, concerned about what might happen in his own backyard, declared flatly that the law is “now on the books.” Yet no Republican or conservative leader of stature has taken on Palin, Perry, Boehner or any of the others who have been stoking these fires for a good 17 months now. Last week McCain even endorsed Palin’s “reload” rhetoric.

Are these politicians so frightened of offending anyone in the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base that they would rather fall silent than call out its extremist elements and their enablers? Seemingly so, and if G.O.P. leaders of all stripes, from Romney to Mitch McConnell to Olympia Snowe to Lindsey Graham, are afraid of these forces, that’s the strongest possible indicator that the rest of us have reason to fear them too.

In my very humble opinion the Tea Partiers and Beck and Co. are one thin hair away from being seditious. If we were a police state, as that monumental wonder Beck proclaims, everyone of those thugs would be in jail.

55 comments:

  1. I'll be darned, Leslie... I used the same quotes from Rich's column in my Sunday blog. Great minds 'n all. ;)

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  2. Oh gosh. I had too much to do this weekend, so didn't catch yours. I'm kind of glad because I probably wouldn't have posted this.

    Just linked to yours. Different perspctives are good. Several others have quoted Rich around the blogosphere. It is a very thoughtful piece and beautifully expressed.

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  3. tnlib - the Tea Partiers and Beck and Co. are one thin hair away from being seditious.

    I have long felt this way myself. Since last summer, I posted at least 3 or 4 articles that basically came to the same conclusion.

    This may not surprise you (perhaps you may have felt the same): My adrenaline level seems to be abnormally high these days ... and I find myself in a constant state agitation. I attribute this, no doubt, to the antics of our so-called 'loyal opposition' party. If not outright sedition, it is certainly latent and ready to blow.

    I am glad you posted this. Well-stated, it certainly mirrors my thoughts.

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  4. I just visited Barbara's weblog where I found this article, Projection so extreme it borders in psychosis, where she links to one of the reigning monarchs of winger denialism.

    The source article is written by one Helen Smith, a PhD psychologist married to Glenn Reynolds of Pajama Media fame.

    What struck me about the source article is that Smith and Reynolds are not uneducated people and certainly not stupid, although there is not one shred of truth to what they say. So what is the underlying phenomenon here?

    Strategy: All lies are worthy lies, every denial is a good denial, and thou shalt not concede one nanometer of ground. In other words, the sum total of these polemics are calculated to demoralize and wear us down.

    When we focus on details, we miss the panorama. This is a Psy-Ops war, pure and simple.

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  5. With all due respect, each of your minds are much greater than this failed broadway critic. He begins with a small platform of fact then makes a great leap of conjecture and fantasy.

    It may be fun reading for liberals, but it's marshmellow fluff.

    At least Matt Iglesias knows how to construct a cogent argument. Rich could learn something from him.

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  6. Octo, my first reaction was, "you've gotta be kidding me..."

    Then I realized (prepare to boo me) that Smith had an interesting point, even though, while making it, she's shown the same empathy deficit of which she's accusing the libruls.

    But she is right that the left does not understand (or respect) the right -- and the feeling is mutual, which is something that she's neglected to mention explicitly, yet still managed to convey in her writing.

    Again, those are the pesky and alienating differences in our value systems. People from the left and the right value very different things -- diametrically different, in fact -- and this makes respectful communication, not to mention mutual understanding, very difficult, if at all possible.

    We (generically speaking) tend to demonize the other side in a knee-jerk fashion (something Smith pretty much did herself), without even attempting to comprehend the reasoning behind their actions, and certainly without acknowledging its validity.

    And yes, often there is something disturbingly smug about the way we libruls look at conservatives as a knuckle-dragging sub-species. While it can be sadly rewarding at times (and I should know), it typically does not serve any purpose other than our personal catharsis.

    It is not easy to comprehend, and much less so to empathize with, somebody who represents values very different from our own. This, in my experience and personal opinion, is actually the most difficult task in human relationships of all kinds. Ironically, Smith unintentionally demonstrated it in her piece.

    (And no, I don't have answers to this problem, in case you wonder, other than to try and be kinder and less judgmental whenever possible in dealing with other people. I know -- easier said than done.)

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  7. Interesting comments.

    SF: I think that's just your perception. Rich's comments have been widely quoted - not only on the Net but in several publications. Besides, having been a "failed" (your perception?) has nothing to do with being a a good political or social commentater. It's no different from an actor becoming a politician.

    Goldstein should visit some right-wing blogs if he wants to see some genuine name calling. Liberals can be just as guilty of it but more than one conservative blogger has admitted that their side of the fence is much louder and uglier - for the most part - than the "lefties."

    I used to think that there was a wide divide between Republicans and the extremists on the right, regardless of their title. At this point I think the "official" Republican Party has prostituted itself, unfortunitely, at least in Congress. So now I try to make a distinction between conservatives and extremists. I think the former are as upset about this insane behavior as most half-way intelligent people are.

    Today (yesterday) I posted about Pence apologizing to Dodd. I have to say I was more than a little saddened to read comments from fellow liberals that were just as cynical as what we might hear from those on the extreme right. Not to sound preachy or smug, I think we have to rise above our own knee-jerk reactions, if you will. It's not easy. I've certainly resorted to some uncharacteristic ; ) comments a time or two. I just worry that the level of incivility will get so far out of hand that we will never again be a "civilized" nation.

    Having said all that, what people want to say in private or to themselves is fair game. And I mutter to myself all the time.

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  8. "Strategy: All lies are worthy lies, every denial is a good denial, and thou shalt not concede one nanometer of ground. In other words, the sum total of these polemics are calculated to demoralize and wear us down.

    When we focus on details, we miss the panorama. This is a Psy-Ops war, pure and simple."

    Exactly. Fill the airwaves with enough smoke and you not only poison the atmosphere, you distract from actual problems. Brad Friedman has chronicled the absence of comment on Breitbart's "Big Government" site regarding billion-dollar scandals in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a reason Fox News does not report much on, say, the Armor Group story.

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  9. This is how Hitler took over Germany. He created a hateful wave that grew in size and intensity and the rest is history. I hope we Americans can rise to the challenge and squash these treasonous human beings.

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  10. Thanksm, Maleeper!

    Godwin's law proves out every time, as Matt Welch reminds us. Frank Rich is playing fast and loose with his historic analogies.

    David Paul Kuhn says yes, there is a rightwing fringe (just as there is a leftwing one),
    but he refutes Rich's unhinged-from-reality claim that it is racially-driven.

    My point is that Frank Rich is a knee-jerk reactionary whose writing is lightly sprinkled with fact and logic but bereft of context. He's a simpleton.

    I'm not criticizing his thesis, I'm just saying he defends it poorly with a fluffy marshmallow cloud of empty, emotional rhetoric.

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  11. "My point is that Frank Rich is a knee-jerk reactionary whose writing is lightly sprinkled with fact and logic but bereft of context. He's a simpleton."

    Funny you say that. I just commented on my own blog to someone who said it was too long:

    "I think he needed to substantiate the claims in the latter part by pulling the historical elements together and by reviewing them.

    I think a lot of us have wondered what the reaction - congressional and public - was to the passage of SS, Medicare and CR. We oldies may remember the latter two but younger people may not. I've tried to find something on the Internet but haven't met with much success. Rich has at his disposal a NY Times database that goes back for eons, so I was quite happy to read about all this. Plus it provides the 'proof" that all these righties are clamoring for - although they never seem able to back up their lies except with more lies."

    I think we all agree with the Hitler analogy, but like that knee-jerk reactionary Rich, I wonder if these people ever took a history class. How can one be a socialist and a fascist at the same time? And if anyone amongst us is fascist it is probably the . . . .

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  13. Psy-Ops sounds right to me, Octo and Matt.

    The only other thing that could explain the persistent lying is a general degradation of the culture to the point where we have all become such cynical relativists that when called out for a lie, we chortle sadistically and repeat it several more times at greater volume: “‘What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer” (Bacon). You know, end-of-the-republic, world-historically jaded stuff.

    But I think it would be correct to suggest that the right has for some time now been engaged in a disinformation campaign: their interests don’t match the interests of ordinary people and they don’t actually believe in the “small gov” philosophy they’re supposed to be promoting, so practically their every public word and gesture amounts to some disingenuous move to deflect attention from those simple facts. Their bread is heavily buttered by the military-industrial complex, the big private health insurers, big banking, big pharma, the oil companies, etc. This is partly true of the Democratic Party as well, but it is truer still of the Republican Party, and there are far fewer relatively independent or at least resistant voices in the latter party, whose actions and rhetoric, frankly, call to mind Marx’s claim in The Communist Manifesto of 1848 that “The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” Can you think of any Republican versions of, say, Anthony Wiener or Alan Grayson? I cannot – the chaps I used to think were well-intentioned and fully rational (such as moderate Lincoln Chaffee) have all been run out of town on a rail. (Texas Rep. Ron Paul is another matter – I disagree with his libertarian version of economic and social history, but I don’t think he’s in anybody’s pocket.)

    False equivalence is the stratagem du jour, it seems: above all, discounting the danger represented by the fruitcake right-wing militias around the country by saying that “the left does it, too.” Sure, they used to do it in the sixties and seventies, but they used to do a lot of things back then that have gone out of style. Name me a present-day “armed left-wing American militia.” I don’t believe there is one. The nuts running around in the woods with camo & ammo aren’t reading Marx or V.I. Lenin (still less Antonio Gramsci or Louis Althusser); if they can read at all, they’re reading Mein Kampf and loving every viciously racist, totalitarian-oriented word of it.

    I don’t like extremists of any kind – they do not recognize the fundamental human rights of other people and are always willing to sacrifice perfect strangers on the altar of their own addled abstractions. I can suggest with considerable objectivity that the present-day danger is coming from the American far right, not the practically non-existent American left. These days, there are three flavors of American politics: centrist,* right, and extreme right. Baskin-Robbins we ain’t, folks.

    *“Centrist” is, of course, conveniently labeled “socialist” to hide the fact that an unholy percentage of the populace is either crazed by some cultic inflection of a more staid Christianity or, in more secular terms, so far right that it’s well on its way towards sailing off the edge of the political flat earth.

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  14. I'm not criticizing his thesis, I'm just saying he defends it poorly with a fluffy marshmallow cloud of empty, emotional rhetoric.

    C'mon, SF, let's get real. Of course you're criticizing and invalidating his thesis by impugning his reasoning and him personally.

    Again, differences in values shape how perceive facts.

    You clearly want to (and do) believe that teabaggers are not racist and you are offended when others note the obvious (that they are racist -- certainly not all of them, but many, if not most).

    Yes, officially, the Tea Party phenomenon is not about race, but economic concerns. Officially.

    But take a look at the racial composition of the Tea Party -- 99.9% white. Hardly a coincidence. These white people froth at the mouth spewing insane accusations (socialist, commie, nazi, foreigner, Muslim, etc.) with no grounding in reality toward a black president. The attacks on his person have nothing to do with Obama's policies, which most teabaggers are not able to describe or articulate. If you ask them directly whether they object to Obama's blackness, of course they'll deny it. Even they know that it's socially unacceptable. Why, they may even tell you that some of their best friends are black! (Though I have yet to hear this one from a teabagger.)

    You talk about lousy reasoning on the part of Rich and others, yet quote Kuhn who keeps telling us that because many of today's teabaggers opposed Clinton, that means they are not racist.

    Surely you understand that this in no way refutes the (strong and obvious) possibility that teabaggers are racist. One can hate Clinton and still be racist. In fact, racists do hate Clinton (for his policies and more) just as they do everybody else who at any time drew our attention to the plight of blacks in this country and tried to do anything positive about it.

    So teabaggers' dislike of Clinton, presumably for his policies, is no argument against their being racist. It is, to use your own words, a lousy, defensive, emotionally-driven, marshmallow-style reasoning -- wouldn't you agree?

    Today's racism in the US is not your grandparents' racism. It has evolved and adjusted to the changing social climate where outward manifestations of racial hatred and prejudice are no longer acceptable and are, in fact, loudly and publicly condemned. But that does not mean that racism has magically disappeared.

    Today's racists use a different language and methods to convey their hatred and prejudice -- they may, for example, maintain that some of their best friends are black (but of course!), yet condemn organizations and policies (as unconstitutional, corrupt, wasting money, what-have-you) created to foster racial equality or specifically help blacks.

    The rallying cry from the right against social justice (and health care reform) is one of the examples of the changed racist language and methods. The issue of social justice in the US is, by historical necessity, intimately wedded to racial inequalities, as blacks have been disproportionately overrepresented among the have-nots in this country. Condemnation of any efforts toward social justice is (not always, but more often than not) a veiled expression of racism today, as are many, though not all, calls against any health care reform coming from white folks whose thinking goes as follows:

    I have a job and health care insurance, so I'm safe. Why can't they (blacks) get jobs too, they'll have health care then? But they just don't want to work, is all.

    The change in the way racism is expressed today does not make it any less pernicious -- on the contrary, it is even worse, because it gives racists a cover of plausible deniability for their dirty deeds. Enter teabaggers.

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  15. Elizabeth,

    C'est ce que vous avez dit. Moi aussi. The most legitimate thing about the Tea-Folk, I suppose, is their anger at the big banks and so forth. But they are also the dupes of those same entities because they stand for no coherent way to deal with them. In my view, they are at best confused and incoherent, and the worst among them are flat-out racists.

    Incidentally, with regard to my previous comment on this thread, there IS one crazy-radical left-wing armed militia: a little-known group known as The Righteous Serrated Teeth and Razor-Sharp Claws of the True Marxist-Commie Dinosaurs. Hail the Worldwide Reptilian Revolution, Tovarischi! Dino-Power! Bourgeois humans -- get out the way!

    (The Revolution begins in ten minutes, just as soon as I finish my morning coffee.)

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  16. Dino, can non-dinos join? After coffee, of course?

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  17. The Righteous Serrated Teeth and Razor-Sharp Claws of the True Marxist-Commie Dinosaurs

    TRSTRSCTMCD does not exactly roll off the tongue, Dino. Unless the grating name/sound was chosen on purpose to intimidate others, in which case I applaud your ferociousness.

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  18. Elizabeth - (prepare to boo me)

    Never! You are the best of the best, and we love you!

    Let me assuage some of Silverfiddle’s concerns from a historical perspective. In the 1950s and 60s, the leading conservative voice of the era was Barry Goldwater, the Senator from Arizona who ran for president against LBJ in 1964. Although Goldwater supported civil rights, he did not support civil rights legislation and, as a result, was called a bigot and a racist by angry voices from the left. History shows, however, that Goldwater was the first legislator of the era to hire minority staffers and interns … long before most left-leaning Democrats … hardly the actions of a racist. I think this is what Silverfiddle has in mind when he challenges our commentary.

    No one should doubt the honesty and integrity of Barry Goldwater, although some of us on the left still find it incomprehensible that the injustices of society can be cured by noblesse oblige alone. Perhaps it is ironic to note that the daughter of Barry Goldwater, the granddaughter Dwight Eisenhower, and the son of William Buckley, and many other old-time conservatives, switched parties in 2008 to support Barack Obama.

    At least in theory, ethical treatment and public policy tend to be indistinguishable in the mind of a progressive liberal. In the mind of a traditional conservative, fair and ethical treatment cannot always be legislated, as Goldwater believed. It was an honest argument … won by the progressive side.

    What we call conservative today is not conservative thought, as we once knew, but a hybrid of other political forces. The former states rights segregationists, who called themselves Dixiecrats, left the Democratic Party in the 1970s and joined the Republicans. Inside the Republican Party are the old-time plutocrats who resented the progressive social policies of the first Roosevelt, the New Deal of FDR, and the Great Society of LBJ.

    The Republican Party of 2010 is a peculiar hybrid of historical (i.e. hysterical) reactionary forces: An admixture of states rights, anti-labor big business oligarchs, and former segregationists.

    This is no longer your Uncle Barry Party.

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  19. Yes, they can join, but only as honorary members -- it beats being on the menu, though. As for the acronym, I tried to tell them it would roll off snouts of any shape and dimension with great difficulty, but did they listen? Nooooooo, not THEM!

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  20. Octo,

    Regarding your thought as follows: "At least in theory, ethical treatment and public policy tend to be indistinguishable in the mind of a progressive liberal. In the mind of a traditional conservative, fair and ethical treatment cannot always be legislated, as Goldwater believed."

    That is a very accurate assessment which brings out the fact that both sides can maintain a rational argument.

    A further thought: on the one hand, you cannot force people to be innately decent by legislation; on the other, you can legislate that they must at least act that way. Of course, a society in which just about everybody went around merely pretending to respect one another for fear of adverse consequences would hardly be ideal or even, in the long run, probably, sustainable. They would all just be waiting for their golden chance to cut one another's throats. To mean anything, the sentiment must be genuine.

    But then there's also the fact that failing to legislate in certain areas (such as civil rights) amounts to giving the worst freaks and bigots free reign to be as nasty as they wanna be. And that's hopelessly wrong, too: public policy and law shouldn't become a shield for the brazen idiots among us.

    It's consonant with your idea, I think, to say that those who overestimate the power of government to legislate morality err, and so do those who underestimate the need to restrain the jerks by collective means (public policy). I suggest, too, that the latter err somewhat in not realizing that to an extent, public policy and law can influence who we are and how we see one another.

    Allied to the suggestion I just made is a basic Hegelian point that the Ayn Randers always miss, pre-Hegelians that they are: "the self" is not a radically autonomous entity or an island; we don't develop in total isolation but rather in conjunction with (and even struggle with) the society and institutions into which we are born and within/by which we live. We are born into, and therefore always already part of, a given linguistic, socio-economic, and political order -- all of which means "we" aren't "us," really, before those orders go to work on us.

    Anyone who doubts this insight might do well to consider the simple act of naming that initiates us into our identity: such an utterance might be thought of as inextricably or undecideably a "foreign" imposition and constitutive of an intimate region of our very identity.

    Finally, though this adds another layer of complexity to an already too long comment, I do, of course, recognize how powerful a fiction the notion of a radically autonomous self is, and how much it appeals to most of us. Fictions are not to be disrespected or dismissed out of hand....

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  21. I don't like extremists on either side either, Dino.

    But Octo, do you not remember Goldwater's speech at the RNC where he said, "Extremism in the defence of liberty is no vice." I'm glad the Baggers are too stupid to remember it.

    He only won AZ and 5 southern states. I campaigned HARD against him, losing over 10 lbs., and I have no regrets.

    And remember, BG was a member of the John Birch Society until he announced his run for the presidency. I believe it was Wm Buckley who advised BG to get out of it. And Buckley was the only conservative with the guts and integrity to denounce that predecessor to the Tea Baggers in The National Review.

    "the daughter of Barry Goldwater, the granddaughter Dwight Eisenhower, and the son of William Buckley, and many other old-time conservatives, switched parties in 2008 to support Barack Obama."

    I wasn't aware of that and I'm glad to hear it.

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  22. Although I have never been to a tea party, I sympathize with the movement. I resent being called a racist by implication. No one here has called me a racist, but I am a conservative. Where do you draw the line?

    We diminish the impact of words like racist, nazi, and communist when we abuse them by overuse.

    What percentage of conservatives do you think are racist?

    Do you tar an entire group of people, around 40% of the country, with this racist brush?

    Re Kuhn: I understand you point of logic, for it is valid. Kuhn does not prove that this movement is not driven by racism, while Rich completely fails at proving the opposite.

    I provided the link to give thinking people an opposing view. Could it just be possible that this movement is not fueled by racial hatred?

    BTW, have you noticed how since we've all been focused on what toothless, banjo playing racists we conservatives are, that we are no longer debating the merits of the political issues of the day?

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  23. I had every intention of adding something to this magnificent analysis but after the second reading I just couldn't get by this little observation:

    "Frank Rich, in a New York Times Op-ed piece, The Rage Is Not About Health Care, suggests Boehner 'had just discovered one of its more obscure revenue-generating provisions, a tax on indoor tanning salons.'"

    Bwhahahahahahahah!!! Please forgive me.

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  24. Mike: You're the first one to pick up on this. I thought it was hilarious and opted to keep it in even though space was a little tight.

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  25. SF, I hear your resentment.

    No, I don't think all conservatives are racist (though one could make a similar argument, looking at the US history and the conservatives' role in it), nor do I think all Tea Party members are racist. Believe it or not, I too sympathize with many of their economic and political concerns.

    The question of racism as a motivating force in teabaggers' actions will remain "officially" unresolved, I suspect, with teabaggers and the right in general vehemently denying its influence, and outside observers strongly suspecting it. We'll just have to leave it at that, barring unforseen developments (like, for example, a sudden, massive influx of African-Americans into the teabaggers' ranks -- yeah... FOX and Palin have apparently tried to facilitate something along these lines, but somehow it didn't work out the way they planned ;).

    Leslie and Mike, the tan tax would enrage even a less orange being than Boehner. It's just a silly idea. But, what do you know, it was proposed by a Republican, I hear.

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  26. SF - I resent being called a racist by implication. No one here has called me a racist, but I am a conservative. Where do you draw the line?

    Elizabeth, I attributed SF's remark to a bad hair day and chose not to respond. That Air Force One Photo certainly shows that there are racists somewhere, although how many remains a mystery, and I refuse to conjecture. I do not perform ad hoc social research on command.

    I will not conjecture from where SF got his bad hair day, but I refuse to have his free-floating anger deposited here. SF needs to get his emotional ducks in a row.

    Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

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  27. April 1 with Silver Fiddle. Note the headline:


    THURSDAY, APRIL 1, 2010


    Meanwhile, Obama Voters Continue Killing Innocent Citizens


    Lost in all the hootery hoopla, crime in our inner cities continues unabated.

    It's bad enough that inner-city poor people have been imprisoned in their own homes and neighborhoods by a liberalism that rewards irresponsible behavior, but they also find themselves victimized by the shoddy schools and rampant criminality that liberalism encourages.
    The burst of gunfire, apparently a drive-by shooting, led to a police chase in which four D.C. officers were slightly injured.
    Initially, three people were reported killed in the shooting. D.C. police said early Wednesday that a fourth victim had died. Police were still looking for a motive in the shooting, in which at least nine people were hit. (WaPo - Spray of Gunfire)
    Ask the people who live in these community organizing cesspools what their definition of terrorism is. Which has killed more people? militias, or criminal gangs?

    Don't These criminals Know DC has a Gun Ban?
    Police sources said an AK-47 assault rifle might have been used. A man who said he was in the area at the time recounted the sounds he heard as "tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, and then boom!"
    And have you noticed since our nation's attention has turned to the 50% of us who are gun clinging, banjo playing redneck righwing Christian racist hatemongers, we are no longer discussing the important political issues facing our nation?

    The Oligarchy of Oceania would be envious...
    POSTED BY SILVERFIDDLE 2 COMMENTS

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  28. Missing on the SF recap were a couple of photos pulled at random from The Smoking Gun website's Best of 2008 mugshots.

    Petty criminals in Obama t-shirts.

    Oh well.

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  29. "Oceania, Oceania! Every thought, every thing -- 'tis for thee." (Love that theme song from 1984! BB! BB! BB! BB! Who wants to read that stupid Winston's thoughtcrime-ridden diary anyway?! Especially when, if we just join up with the RNC, we can all go have ourselves a good old pornosec time at the local Fake-Lesbian Bondage Strip Club? Two plus two make -- however many faux girl-on-girl three-ways you want them to! [insert slurred Republican Eagle speech effect; plugin required].)

    As for the racist issue, well, let this dino suggest a look at that silly poll done a while back -- easily googled by the industrious -- telling us that something like 24% of queried Republicans alleged a belief in the Antichristdom (or likelihood thereof) of one B. Hussein Obumuh. Even larger numbers seem to think he's a "socialist" (meaning, of course, someone who likes mixing with people at parties), or to question whether he was born anywhere on planet Earth. I'd suggest that a pretty good number of these true believers cannot possibly hold the views they do without unacknowledged discomfort with the man's race somehow coming into the picture. The beliefs themselves are patently insane and absurd, so whatever else aside from race really "makes sense" as a justification for maintaining them?

    But in the end, I'll gladly sign on to the notion that being "conservative" by no means suggests that a person is racist, directly or otherwise. Of course not!

    Now, on t'other hand, if you think that-there Obumuh feller is a Kenyan Marxist Antichrist who's gonna take away yer gun and use it to kill yer granny, then you just might be a racist.... Just sayin'....

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  30. I'm just happy to contribute to the fun...

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  31. It seems Silverfiddle has two link lists at his weblog, one called MY FAVORITE BLOGS and the other called GO TROLLING!. Our Swash Zone is listed under the latter.

    In the comment immediate above, Silverfiddle says:

    I'm just happy to contribute to the fun...

    Since Silverfiddle regards us as troll-worthy, then perhaps Silverfiddle should be treated as one in kind. Nothing like having one's trust broken and being played for a sucker.

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  32. Octo - While not engaging in the conversation, I have been following the thread here and Silverfiddle so far he has respected our comment policy while bringing a different perspective to the conversation which is what the Zone is all about.
    I am disappointed to hear that he is encouraging trolls to visit us from his blog. Since we have treated him civilly here, I think it would be fair to ask him to either remove us from his troll list or become persona non grata here as, in the words of Earl Smoot, "You can't ride two horses with one ass."
    Either you are interested in intelligent debate and civil discourse or you are promoting childish, trollish behavior - can't have it both ways.
    So, what say you Silverfiddle?

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  33. I've taken a few days off from posting because I've been so depressed and disgusted with my countrymen and all this sophistry by a minority posing as a persecuted majority, but if SF thinks anyone is calling him a racist because I see massive racism in this neo-Confederate movement, he's dreaming. I haven't even speculated on it and I have no way of knowing. The term itself has been as twisted beyond recognition by both sides of the aisle and is largely useless.

    What I do know is that the people I see and hear who are the most vocal Obama bashers are as ripely contemptuous and dismissive of as any skinhead with steel toe boots and swastika tattoos.

    Nonsense about socialism and tyranny is nothing but a white sheet to hide the fact. We heard no noise about larger government during the largest, most expensive, most tyrannical administration and the one that gave us all this debt and the only reason they call federal regulation of interstate corporations "socialism" or "Tyranny" is because they don't want to screech n*gger where we can identify them.

    No, all "conservatives" and all tea-bag banshees aren't racists, but I don't know many racist liberals. George Wallace didn't run as a Democrat.

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  34. Hey, Captain, welcome back. We've worried about you, thinking you may have decided to sail the ocean blue (or jump the shark).

    BTW, what you said above, all of it.

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  35. OK, I jumped the shark(?) on SF's no-trolling promise which wasn't (mea naive culpa).

    Here is how the exchange went:

    Me: on your blog you encourage trolling on The Swash Zone and other left-leaning sites... Trolling? Really?

    Just sayin', what with the intellectual honesty 'n all.


    SF: I have since been educated that what I do is not really "trolling," since I engage in sincere dialog and don't needlessly provoke people. So I guess I'm misusing the term. I have written a couple of posts on trolling and I always encourage my fellow righties to be civil.

    That's all. SF made no promises of change, of course (what was I thinking!), just did some 'splainin. (Geez, some of us never grow up. I mean myself, of course.)

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  36. Elizabeth,

    Now I see the light -- all those are good, sound reasons, to be sure.

    Per quanto riguarda "trolling," it would be pointless of anyone to encourage it against us because we have comment moderation. Dumb comments will never see the light of day here, earning instead only a private sneer of contempt from the person or animal deleting them. And believe me, an allosaurus's sneer of contempt is a terrifying thing -- well, okay, a mildly disquieting thing. You want terrifying? Go get T-Rex or, better yet, Giganotosaurus to write for ya.

    And I second Octo's vote of confidence in you.

    Welcome back to the Capt.

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  37. SF can't even get the simplest facts right.

    Frank Rich was not a 'failed Broadway critic' by any stretch of the imagination. Folowing is a partial list of Rich's failures:

    Frank Rich was named associate editor of THE NEW YORK TIMES in January 2003 and began writing a weekly essay running as a column on the front page of the paper's Sunday Arts & Leisure section that March. Prior to that, he served as a columnist on the op-ed page, and was the paper's chief drama critic beginning in 1980. The first show he covered was the explosive opening night of David Merrick's "42nd Street." Before joining the TIMES, Rich was a film and television critic at TIME magazine. In addition, he has written about culture and politics for many other publications. His latest book, a childhood memoir titled GHOST LIGHT, was published in 2000 by Random House. A collection of Rich's drama reviews, HOT SEAT: THEATER CRITICISM FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, 1980-1993, was published by Random House in October 1998."

    This is interesting as well:

    http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/hot-seat/4419/frank-rich

    SF, on the other hand, IS a failed right-wing troll.

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  38. Octo: Trust broken? Played for a sucker?

    I introduced myself as a conservative/libertarian (whatever that is). I don't understand.

    You imagine me as the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, "Fly my little trolls! Off to the liberal blogs!"

    Nothing of the kind. I have written two blog posts on trolling (which is the improper term, I'll give you that.)

    In both articles I encourage my fellow conservatives to not be provocative. I won't bore you with the details, but if you have nothing better to do, google "Western Hero Troll" and you'll get both.

    Add to that the absence of grubby, fascistic militia members flooding your blog with rightwinghaterants, and I'd say there is no evidence that I have encouraged people to be stupid (which is what I think true trolling is.)

    I sincerely hoped to get some cross-pollination going, as I see some slight overlap with sites like The Reality Zone and Serving Patriot. A little less here, but all of you write well.

    In the spirit of goodwill towards my fellow bloggers, I have renamed my liberal blogroll "Left Watch! What are they up to?"

    As for Frank Rich, the man seems completely unfamiliar with how to marshal facts and organize them into a coherent argument. It's all emotional feel-good fluff, but there's no accounting for taste.

    Go check out this blog to see how someone on the left (ok, a liberal-libertarian) argues. I disagree with almost everything this guy writes, but I find his arguments almost impossible to refute, so I simply slink off in agitated silence...
    Fabius Maximus

    BTW, I got the mugshots from HuffPo.

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  39. In the spirit of goodwill towards my fellow bloggers, I have renamed my liberal blogroll "Left Watch! What are they up to?"

    Whoa! A bold move, SF! Quite a radical you are. No wonder agitated silence is your default state of being. (OK, I kid. Or do I? ;)

    But since you're familiar with emotional agitation, I hope you can understand how some fierce Zoners may respond toward your (intentional and not) contrariness. (Not that there is anything wrong with it as such, given your political leanings.)

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  40. Silverfiddle, in the spirit of encouraging cross-polinating dialog, I thank you for changing the heading of your left-leaning blog list.
    It may seem like a small matter to you, but to those of us who have had to deal with the disgusting, unwarranted, profanity laced diatribes, the mere mention of trolls gets a strong reaction.
    While there is latitude around here for a little snark and occasionally a flare of tempers, our focus remains on intelligent debate and civil discourse.
    While you will obviously not find much agreement with your views here, I do hope you will always find stimulating conversation and sincere civility.

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  41. What Rocky said, SF. Bloggingdino -- I would give her comment the two thumbs up, but I have no thumbs, of course....

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  42. Believe it or not, I'm not well-versed in blog lingo, so I did not realize how using "troll" would rankle.

    I just find certain words and phrases funny, which is why I enjoy reading Capt Fogg. The man has a way with words. "Shirtless Joe from Snakeshit Junction" was a classic, even though it describes most of my family...

    I understand everyone's disgust with trolls. I hate them. They disrupt the thread, and while an id-driven rant, complete with expletives, is the prerogative of the blog owners, it is rarely appreciated coming from a visitor. It is also quite ineffective in getting your point across.

    Fabius Maximus is the only one who almost always leaves me in agitated silence. Every time I have spoken up on his site he's snapped my head off, and with good reason.

    Ontological angst between swigs of beer is more my natural state...

    Anyhoo, thank you for the intelligence, candor and goodwill.

    I pledged to go off the grid until Easter, but here I am arguing with raccoons, dinosaurs, octopi, and the occasional human being... In this case, my ontological angst is justified...

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  43. Our discussion on racism appears exhausted for now, but as luck would have it, Bill Moyers had an excellent "Journal" today on that very topic -- the new Jim Crow (and more). Watch it if you can.

    Read also his final comment, where he references a (really amazing) book by Wilkinson and Pickett "The Spirit Level."

    Here is an excerpt:

    Even before the Great Collapse of '08 destroyed the value of their homes, robbed their pensions, and took their jobs, American families were slipping behind, and are worse off now than they were thirty years ago. Over these past three decades, workers actually increased their productivity but did not share proportionately in the rewards of their labor. Those went largely to the top.

    Since 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected president, the incomes of people at the top have doubled while those in the middle and at the bottom have remained flat.

    Let me throw some more statistics at you. You'll find their sources at our site online. Keep in mind that each of these numbers represents lived human experience.

    In this richest of countries, more than 40 million people are living in poverty.

    At some point in their childhoods, half of America's children will use food stamps to eat.

    Some 30 million workers are unemployed or under-employed, and for those still working, the median wage today is about $32 thousand a year, which is why so many people are working two jobs trying to make ends meet.

    Meanwhile, as the economist Robert Reich recently reminded us, in the 1950's and 60's, the CEO's of major American companies took home about 25 to 30 times the wages of the typical worker. By 1980 the big company CEO took home roughly 40 times the worker's wage. By 1990, it was 100 times. And by 2007, executives at the largest American companies received about 350 times the pay of the average employee. In many of the top corporations, the chief executive earns more every day than the average worker gets paid in a year.

    (...) get your hands on this book, "The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger." As carpenters know, a spirit level is a device to measure the level of surfaces. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett are not carpenters; they're epidemiologists who combined have spent more than 50 years taking the measure of different societies, comparing how inequality affects the health of populations.

    The more equal the society, they found, the longer its people live, while the most unequal countries have more homicide, more obesity, more mental illness, more teen pregnancy, more high-school dropouts, and more people in prison. The United States, they report, has the greatest inequality of income of any major developed country. That's the betrayal of the American promise.

    I'm a journalist, not an epidemiologist. But I've been listening to America for a long time now, and I've come to understand that what the richest and strongest among us want for their families is what most all members of society want for theirs, too: a home, steady work, enough money for a comfortable life and secure old age, the means to cope with illness and other misfortunes, and the happiness of living freely as citizens without fear.

    A society whose economic system cannot make those opportunities widely available is in deep trouble, the dreams of its people mocked and denied.

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  44. "Ontological angst between swigs of beer is more my natural state..."

    zum Prosit.

    "A society whose economic system cannot make those opportunities widely available is in deep trouble, the dreams of its people mocked and denied."

    My worry isn't so much that people are dissatisfied, but that a minority now wants to undo the democratic process by any means possible.

    I'm having second thoughts about no having bought that AK when a dealer here had them on sale.

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  45. I pledged to go off the grid until Easter, but here I am arguing with raccoons, dinosaurs, octopi, and the occasional human being...In this case, my ontological angst is justified...

    It's the irresistible pull of The Zone, SF. If you're not careful, you too may end up transformed into a marine creature (and not a moment too soon -- think of it, there is no great difference between Silverfiddle and, say, Seahorse).

    And while your angst is justified, it is completely unnecessary. Just stop arguing with us and accept that we are right. It's much easier this way. Resistance is futile and surrender oh-so-sweet. The Zone is vast and forgiving (and Captain did not buy that AK after all).

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  46. Jesus, have we become the new Borg? No, no AK so far, but I'm thinking of trading my 1873 Remington Rolling Block for a lever action Winchester or Henry in a caliber I don't have to load myself. I'm much more interested in vintage and antique firearms.

    Many of us Caribbean types do carry semi-auto rifles on our boats though. You don't always meet the nicest people out there, you know.

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  47. Good decision, Captain. AKs are terrible self-defense weapons.

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  48. All land creatures … especially those pesky Homo sapiens whose rhetorically excessive chiasmus causes regrettable miasmus … are hereby forewarned: An octopus is always well armed.

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  49. Elizabeth, yes it's true. We ARE the new Borg. Resistance is futile. Our weapons -- words, serrated teeth, tentacles and the fearless gaze of the raccoon. And we are feared mightily: I believe one right-wing site called us all "Marxist Sociopaths" a while back. Now, I must protest -- we are NOT Marxists.

    As for miasmus and chiasmus, I get them occasionally, but I take Claritin and they go away....

    Happy Easter to them that celebrate it.

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  50. Thank you, Dino. I'm one of them who celebrate, kinda (= church-free), to somewhat satisfy my parents and my kids' need for a semblance of a traditional family life.

    This half-heartedness may explain why I've always thought miasmus and chiasmus were the standard Easter fare...

    Still, happy Easter to you and to all Zoners and visitors alike (where applicable).

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  51. When will someone come up with a springtime companion to Festivus?

    Happy Easter!

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  52. When will someone come up with a springtime companion to Festivus?

    Aren't miasmus and chiasmus enough?

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  53. Elizabeth - (where applicable)

    A note to our visitors: On Easter, those coupons are redeemable only where applicable. Check your local supplier.

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  54. Octo, LOL!

    Good news: Polish Happy Easter "coupons" last twice as long, since Easter in Poland takes two days -- Sunday and Monday.

    On Monday, in addition to eating yourself to death (that is, if you've managed to survive Sunday), there is a whole bunch of annoying customs to celebrate, including a (completely atrocious and terror-inducing) Åšmigus-Dyngus, where men and boys are expected to pour water on any and all women and girls, and strike them with tree branches. (Yep, Taliban would approve.) It was actually considered a good thing for a girl/woman to be so assaulted, as it meant she was attractive enough to warrant male attention...

    I absolutely hated this barbaric custom and would never recommend it to any sentient being. But I'm willing to extend those Happy Easter wishes, or coupons, for a day (on the condition that you leave your buckets of water and twigs at home).

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  55. Reminds me of the time before Lent in Latin America, where people douse each other with water.

    In Quito, they usually go for the pretty girls with water balloons. A direct hit on the butt is considered a bulls eye. I've seen some pretty cruel pranks in Germany as well.

    We don't realize how good we've got it here...

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