Tim James Speaks English

By now I'm sure you've all heard about Tim James, son of Alabama's worst governor in modern times, whose millionaire-financed campaign has so far failed to get him in first place among Republican nominees for governor of Alabama. In desperation, James has begun pandering to the racist-ignoramus demographic with an advertisement about driver's license tests.

But in the age of YouTube, that sort of thing can quickly be turned against you:

Open Letter To Arizona Lawmakers

Dear Arizona Lawmakers,
I didn't plan on writing another politic rant so soon. But then you, dear Arizona Lawmakers, decided to pass SB1070.

Oh America, land that I love! You do keep it interesting with the politics. I think that's part of the reason I <3 you.

One of the major provisions of the above mentioned bill allows the police to check the immigration status of and detain anyone they suspect of being an illegal alien. But what could possibly lead a police officer to suspect that someone is in the country illegally? I’m going to go ahead and guess that folks with brown skin who “don’t speak American” with “funny sounding” names are the main target of this bill. Anyone who would like to argue otherwise is more than welcome to. This is just my opinion after all. However, I seriously doubt if the three white Europeans I personally knew who lived in the US illegally (before I met them) would be stopped if they happened to wander into Arizona.

My first thought on reading the law (and yes, I actually read the whole thing) is that its constitutionality is highly debatable for a number of reason, but in particular because it’s the federal government that deals with things like immigration, not the states. And I'm not even going to touch on the "searches" part of the "unreasonable searches and seizures" bit of the Fourth Amendment (applied to the States via the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment if I'm not mistaken). But let's be honest, it’s been a few years since that Constitutional Law class I voluntarily took in college, so please anyone with a deeper understand of the issue (i.e. a lawyer), feel free to jump in on this point.

Now Arizona lawmakers, I have just a few more minor questions for you (*rolling up my sleeves and taking off the kid gloves*): What were you thinking? Or perhaps to really address the incredible stupidity of this bill, what the F*CK were you thinking? No really, I’m curious as to the thought process that went into this. Please enlighten me. How exactly do you plan on enforcing this law? As in, what criteria need to be met to satisfy the “reasonable suspicion” part of someone being in the country illegally? And how exactly are folks who are stopped supposed to prove either their legal immigration status or their American citizenship? Hell, I’m an American citizen but the only piece of ID I walk around with in any country is my driver’s license, not my birth certificate or my passport (for obvious reasons, both are kept under lock and key pretty much at all times). And if I’m not mistaken, you don’t actually have to be an American citizen (or in some states be in the US legally) to get a driver’s license. So I ask again, how exactly is one supposed to prove their immigration and/or citizenship status?

I’m well aware of the fact that there are folks in the US illegally (like I said, I’ve personally known three) and that countries along the Southern US border seem to be especially effected. I completely understand that Arizona wants to do something to deal with this issue. I understand that and sympathize with that dilemma. I’m not against that. I’m not necessarily against tougher enforcement of current immigration law or a reform of immigration law. I am, however, against legislation like this which is essentially racial profiling rolled up in a nice pretty Birther bullsh*t package.

Sigh…I’m not saying immigration laws shouldn’t be enforced. But maybe, just maybe, this isn’t the best way to go about it Arizona Lawmakers. I can only hope that you come to your senses soon...or barring that a federal court overturns this puppy and sends y'all back to the drawing board. I'm fine with either.

Toodles,
American Black Chick in Europe

Cross-posted from American Black Chick in Europe.

You Might Be a Troll If... (A Long Essay on Trolls and Trollery)

By Bloggingdino

We use the term “troll” gleefully across the Cybertubes, so how about some reflection on that concept? A while back, Octo brought to our attention a fine pair of April, 2008 essays by Interrobang (apparently an old student of rhetoric) entitled How to Argue Like a Right-Winger, Part 1 and Part 2. What I write below is loosely inspired by those essays, and in some cases I’ve borrowed or adapted from IB’s categorizations; but on the whole, I’ve tried to respect the uniqueness of IB’s work and have rearranged and added categories, etc. Please have a look at the originals – they’re excellent and they offer concrete examples. I’ve also stepped back from making this all about right-wingety deviousness, although obviously I don’t think we “Marxist sociopaths” do as much troll-work as the right.

First of all, let’s just say that no matter who engages in Das Tröllerei,* none of the tactics detailed below would be necessary if the people self-consciously using them were interested in the truth or had the slightest chance of prevailing by means of sound argumentation. If you do this stuff on purpose, you’re just being a jerk and trying for some nefarious purpose (or maybe even no purpose at all), to frustrate the conversation amongst well-intentioned, well-informed, intelligent people. If that’s you, John Milton has you pegged – the man had a way of tracing everything back to its grand origins. Okay Belial, thou raiser-up to bad eminence of bogus persuasive speech, read it and weep, straight from Paradise Lost 2:110-17):

A fairer person lost not Heav’n; he seemd
For dignity compos’d and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue
Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas’d the ear ….

Get thee behind me! You know the work of civilization is hard, with its demand that we rise above our sordid selves by means of artifice; by an insistence, that is, on civility, decorum, and reason. Proper treatment of language is a big part of all this. Just maintaining our ability to think clearly, to concentrate, is the product of great care and persistence, and everyone knows how easily our minds wander, how easily we are swallowed up by triviality, linguistic abuse and wrangling, egotism, and anger. But always to set this care to naught is your perpetual task. You would bring our noblest ideals and designs to nothing, replacing them with the fruits of evil, fear, and confusion. I’d call you a stage villain, but that would be giving you too much credit.

I don’t write any of this material in the naïve expectation that we will arrive at some discursive utopia wherein people who disagree profoundly can all be good friends. In fact, I suggest that it’s hardly worth bothering with the old model of writing to win over those who identify with a perspective inimical to our own. I’m kind of with Wilde’s Lord Harry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray on that one: “I never argue. Only the intellectually lost ever argue.” A minute spent trying to win over a fool is probably a minute wasted, one that I could have used to read some Italian or French, or whatever. Heck, staring into space would be more productive than trying to convince some jackass that 2 + 2 = 4 and not “2+ 2 = 7 times 3 divided by Barack Obama is Hitler.”

One thing I really like about IB’s essays is that they often counsel calling attention to the devious tactic itself – rhetorical outing, so to speak. That can come across as a bit rude (almost like correcting someone’s grammar, however much that someone may deserve a whole can of syntactical whoopass right in the beak), but I think it’s true that it’s effective because it calls attention to the metadramatics of the argument; people in general don’t like being taken for suckers, so if you point out that somebody’s using a slick rhetorical tactic because he or she thinks we’re all too dumb to notice, the audience may well sympathize with the pointer-outer, not the slickster.

Still, a word of caution on all this is in order before I roll out my whimsical and incomplete slickster categories. The word “troll” itself is an easy categorization that shouldn’t escape scrutiny. The tactics described below aren’t all necessarily extrinsic to or mutually exclusive of genuine means of persuasion, i.e. “rhetoric.” Maybe the worst of them are, but at some level, even those trying to be honest may end up engaging in some amount of categorization, word-play, and so forth: the work of interpretation isn’t easy, and thinking relies on categorizations. Anybody who’s read Nietzsche should know that “concepts” and “categories” are in themselves sort of an essentialist sham that can trick us into thinking we know things we really don’t. So there! Also sprach Zarathustra. And then there’s the fact that many people may ignorantly, but in good faith, proceed in a manner that is indistinguishable from self-conscious trollery. As with obscenity, “I know it when I see it” is fun to say and worth something, but it’s hardly an absolute standard. I don’t know that there’s a solid way to make a universal-assentworthy judgment about troll-speak the way Uncle Manny Kant says there is for making a judgment about a beautiful shape or object. I may be able to say, “this rose is beautiful” and insist that y’all agree, but I’m not so sure I can say, “this writer is a troll” and insist that y’all agree.

And who among us has not sinned? Who hasn’t called an opponent an ass, or gotten snippy, or been presumptuous about what others “must” think, and so forth? Reflection on our own tendencies is in order, too: with me, for instance, it’s erudition – I can bedazzle people with book larnin’ – quotes in half a dozen languages, references to literary authors both canonical and obscure, etc. But that sort of thing can easily degenerate to the level of the cheap pun, and it shouldn’t take the place of sound reasoning. Ultimately, it’s impossible to know with certainty the intentions of another, so let those who are perfect be quick to cast the first e-stones. And may our own minds be as free as possible from temptation as we lay up our rhetorical edifices from one day to the next, for Nisi Dominus ædificaverit domum, in vanum laboraverunt qui ædificant eam. (Psalm 126, Vulgate Bible; KJV: “Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.” The Lord really ought to do something about those sub-prime mortgages, though. Okay, so here goes:

YOU MIGHT BE A TROLL IF:

1. You make big claims and sweeping philosophical statements based on no discernible evidence or justification, and simply expect others to grant you this initial point. Your opponent is in trouble now because you control the argument’s initial premise and should be able to steer them towards your own conclusion. (Bullying Assent to First Premise)

2. You make bald and even grandiose assertions (as stated in 1) and then put the burden of disproof on others. When they provide the necessary disproof, you insatiably demand still more evidence. This tactic turns your opponent into a servant who can never please you or meet your demands. (Moving the Goalposts)

3. You don’t even try to make a coherent argument but instead toss out incoherent assertions, premises, facts, questions, and whatnot either in toto or on the fly, as you respond to others’ criticisms of what you’ve said. The point is to confuse and frustrate your opponents until they give up, at which point you will seem to have won the argument. It takes time to refute even one false claim or logical fallacy – hit them with twenty and you’ll drive them to distraction. You’re still a bad person. (Gish Gallop)

4. You have a Belial-like love of word wrangling and contextual confusion-mongering that would put the Medieval Schoolmen to shame. At some point in many of your exchanges with those wicked people who dare to disagree with you, your comments start to sound pretty much like this: “If only you would pay attention to my words! I didn't say what you said I said because you didn't say you said she said I claimed you said x and I never said y in the first place even if you persist in saying I said z. So there!” You do this even when your honorable opponent is manifestly quoting what you’ve just written, verbatim. (The Maze/Word-Wrangling & Quibbling)

5. You consistently and boorishly misuse words that have a long history of meaning a certain thing, or you use them as taunts. You almost always refer to your opponents as “Rethugs” or “The Democrat Party,” the latter even though you know damn well that the proper adjective is “Democratic.” You sling around terms like “socialism” and “fascism” with abandon either without knowing what they mean or without caring even though you actually have a pretty good idea how to delimit them properly. The power to choose the terms by which we proceed with an argument or define our opponents is immense. But in a more sordid vein, the point of this tacky and abusive exercise is to annoy others, to get under their skin and waste their time. You know they’re right and you’re brazenly misusing language, but you don't care because you’re with Humpty Dumpty from Through the Looking Glass:

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said. Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously.

“Of course you don’t -- till I tell you. I meant ‘there's a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn't mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master -- that's all.”

Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. . . .

6. You state your opponents’ philosophy and arguments in a preposterously extreme manner so you can demolish them with ease. The resulting viewpoint is well beyond the level of caricature since the latter, after all, is based upon an accurate conception of its original,* while the strawman argument need not be. Caricature has been the instrument of great artists; strawmen are for triflers. (Strawman)

7. You attack the character and integrity of your opponent. We all know how common this is in political campaigns, and it works online, too: no matter how patently false the charge, a percentage of hearers will believe it to their dying breath. (Nothing is easier to destroy than a person’s reputation.) A variety of the ad hominem tactic is to attack the opponent for his or her very erudition and literacy. Any three- or – gasp! – four-syllable words in there? Just ignore the annoyingly precise and correct substance, call the writer “arrogant” and “elitist,” and then shore up solidarity with those who agree with your own stupid-ox, monosyllabic point of view. Smarty-pants eggheads! You’ll fix them! (Argumentum ad hominem)

8. When somebody is getting the better of you in an argument, you change the subject and get upset if anybody points out what you’ve done. Ever try to have a conversation with a person who blocks all attempts to pursue any one topic? Immensely frustrating and, therefore, effective if your rhetorical goal is to evade capture by a more powerful, wiser opponent. (Changing the Subject/Scatterbrain)

9. You persistently associate things that really have no connection: one key purpose here is to devalue or condemn a given idea, term, practice, or person by asserting a link with another that people don’t like. Want to invade Iraq? Easy -- Saddam: al Qaeda | Saddam: al Qaeda, | Saddam: al Qaeda (and/or WMD) | Saddam: al Qaeda (and/or WMD), etc. Result: Oh, alright already – bring it on! We might even call this a species of The Big Lie™: “nobody would keep making that connection if it weren’t true! They dare not, for shame!” – except, of course, dear blogger, that you have no shame. (Conflation)

10. You assert that two phenomena are equivalent – equally outrageous, prevalent, important, or problematic – when they clearly aren’t. If a piecemeal army of right-wing militiamen is running around in the nation’s forests preparing in deadly earnest for Armageddon, you simply compare their activities to a couple of rude words offered up by lefties at some town hall meeting, or dredge up an account of the Symbionese Liberation Army or the Weathermen from decades ago. See? Everybody’s doing the Extremist! Trouble is, they’re not. At present, violence-tending radicalism is almost entirely the province of the far right. (False Comparison/False Equivalence)

11. You do unpleasant things such as lie, distort, misquote, harp, carp, nitpick, accuse, slander, insult, heckle, engage in angry outbursts, fail to appreciate irony and humor, etc., all the while accusing your opponents of precisely such behavior even though they’ve exhibited no more than understandable frustration with your incivility and incoherence. Freudian stuff to the core: deflect contemplation of your own anxiety, guilt, dishonesty, bad faith, and bad conduct by projecting them onto others. This allows you to externalize your inner demons and completely derail the argumentative process because now the other person – who actually does care about honesty and good faith -- is busy responding to your false accusations rather than advancing a claim or view. (Projection)

12. You make ridiculous, obviously false, or hateful comments and then act wounded when somebody on the other side bluntly says your statements are ridiculous, false, or hateful. Oh Lord, where is civility to be found in this naughty world? Then, since your nicey-nicey opponents don’t like to hurt others’ feelings, you can take maximum advantage of that weakness on their part. But you’re an outrageous provocateur and an extremist – ’tis your own incivility that has tried the patience of others. And now you want them to feel guilty? (Tone, Plea for Civility)

13. Pretend to agree with your opponents’ policy/candidate suggestions or general outlook, but introduce some sham concern just to distract them and derail the argument, undermine the candidate they support, etc. You really like that Barrack Obumuh feller, but this or that (bogus) concern about something he did ten years ago, or, better yet, about what others less generous than yourself might opine, makes you anxious about his candidacy. Meaning that you really support some other Democrat anyhow but won’t admit it, or that you’re on the other side altogether and don’t want Obama to win the primaries because you are afraid he is the most likely Dem to get elected president over your guy. (Fellow Traveler/Concern Troll)

14. Instead of bothering to read your opponent’s nuanced argument – who has time to do that nowadays? – you pick a couple of key terms and fill in the rest, thereby turning the opponent’s complex thoughts into simplistic, third-rate hack work, parroting the party line, ideological twaddle, and so forth. It’s easy as apple pie to demolish such rubbish, no? Whenever you find yourself assuming, “the writer is a liberal or a conservative, and therefore thinks x, y, and z,” bingo! (Keyword Fallacy/Instant Categorization)

*Whatever Aristotle may imply in his Rhetoric or Nicomachean Ethics or Politics (I forget which—I am getting lazy these days!) about how we kaloi androi or honest, good people may be free to wield certain devices without bringing ourselves down to the level of knaves; and whatever Plato may say about how it’s perhaps okay for the rulers to tell a fib or two for the people’s good.

*Dickens’ phony ultracapitalist Mr. Bounderby in Hard Times is an example of a caricature that strikes home. His absurd “I pulled myself up by my own bootstraps” posturing mocks laissez-faire ideological abstractionism.

Tea Party! An(other) Open Letter

Dear Tea Party Leaders,
Have I mentioned I'm not a big Tea Party fan? One of the top reasons is because too many folks who participate in these rallies don't really know what they want. There's a serious lack of direction. Case in point:*



Somehow, your movement has managed to attract Birthers, racists, libertarians, Republicans, anti-big government folks and folks who are just feed up in general (among others). That's a whole lot of (often) conflicting ideologies and goals. Which means there's an incredible lack of consistency in the Tea Party position beyond "the government is too big."

A few questions for you Tea Party Leaders (excluding Fox News, since I think they're full of sh*t anyway): How is the government too big? How exactly do you suggest slimming down the government? Which federal agencies should go? What/who would pick up the slack of those eliminated federal agencies? Would the slack be picked up at all? What is the Tea Party's view on health care reform in general (not just the recently passed bill)? What about immigration and/or immigration reform? Regarding taxes, how does one propose funding the military/unemployment/Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security etc. without some form of taxation? Or should those programs just fall by the wayside?

I normally describe myself as a moderate with liberal tendencies. That's only half true. I'm a liberal with both liberal and conservative tendencies. When election time rolls around, I do actually (attempt) to research the candidates and try to choose the candidate I think will be best for America. In the last election, I heard it from both sides, both my liberal and conservative friends, because I was seriously considering voting for Hilary Clinton (hand she won the primaries), Barack Obama and John McCain (up until he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate). Out of the last 3 presidential elections that I've been able to vote in, the candidate I hauled my ass to the post office/American Embassy to send my absentee ballot in for has won exactly once. One out of three is a pretty sh*tty record. When my chosen candidates lost, did I start shouting about how the tyrannical Commie Fascist  government was ruining America or talk about how my rights were being trampled on without representation? No. And why didn't I?

One, in my humble opinion no government in the history of America has been Communist or tyrannical in the true sense of the words, although some of my Southern brethren who are still fighting the damn Civil War might disagree. Sidenote: You lost. Deal. With. It. Please feel free, Tea Party Leaders, to disagree with me on the Communist/Fascist/tyrannical government point, providing evidence that does not include Fox News or anyone associated with Fox News with the exception of Shepard Smith, who I secretly kinda love.

And two, not liking your representation isn't the same thing as not having representation. You have representation. Not having representation looks something like this: being counted as 3/5th of a person while being denied the right to vote, hold property, marry or be treated like a human being. That's not having representation. So until the day the Obama administration officially repeals voting rights for all white Americans (I say this only because the Tea Party rallies seem to be overwhelming white, another point y'all might want to look into), I'm really going to need y'all to stop throwing out that whole "no representation" thing.

Oh and while we're on the topic, I keep reading all this stuff about how the Obama administration is stomping on the Constitution blah blah blah, generally from strict constructionist. Refer back to the 3/5th Compromise on why my black-descendant-of-slaves ass is not a strict constructionist. In my (over)educated opinion, part of the reason the Constitution has worked so well for so long is because it's a document which can grow and change with the times (see Article 5)....something the Framers ever so thoughtfully allowed for, even if they did drop the ball with the whole black-folks-as-chattel thing.

Since I'm leaving France in a week anyway and avoiding doing anything at all productive, I'm going to go ahead and address the Birthers element of the Tea Party movement's whole "Obama wasn't born in America" thing (despite the birth certificate) for sh*ts and giggles. Let's assume the Birthers have a point on this (they don't). Doesn't. F*cking. Matter. His mother was American. He gets citizenship through her anyway, in addition to being born in Hawaii (yes, it is consider part of these United States). And before any of your Birthers cite the "natural born citizen" clause, please note the Constitution doesn't really set down the criteria for "natural born citizen." Go ahead and check. I'll wait.

And breath. Rant. Over

Toodles,
American Black Chick in Europe

*P.S. To the young lady in the video who called Glenn Beck "very educational," I can see the American educational system greatly failed you. And for that I'm truly sorry. Beck could connect the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus to a Commie-Islamo-Fascist plot to overthrow America using that delightful chalkboard of his if he wanted to. The writer in me is impressed with his level of creativity. The non-batsh*t crazy person in me secretly weeps that folks believe him.

Cross-posted from American Black Chick in Europe.

It's all about Freedom

Yessuh, the Tea Party Right is all about freedom and keeping big government out of your private life so that big corporations can act like feudal robber barons or brown shirted beer hall bullies and do as they please to you without interference.

Take the Lizard for instance -- you know the fellow who does the voice-over for the Geico Gecko. Seems somehow he thought he had the freedom to leave a message of disapproval on the voice mail of FreedomWorks, one of those Tea Party organizations who tell you it's all about freedom while polishing their hobnail boots, cleaning the weapons and making misspelled signs.

A simple little lizard hardly has a chance against a TeaParty Tyrannosaurus and it's ability to intimidate Geico into firing him on the spot. Perhaps I shouldn't say forced, since Geico really had a choice here - just as I have a choice never to do business with them and recommend to everyone I know that they take 15 minutes to call Geico at 800-871-3000 and tell them that they just lost a potential customer. Here's your chance to be Dr. Ben Marble for a day. 15 minutes could save your country.

Retaliation -- that's what BigGovernment.com did to actor Lance Baxter. They published his phone number and asked their teabag terrorists to harass him and call his employer to demand his dismissal. Nice people! Just the kind of people you want telling you about what's wrong with America: too damned much freedom!

Menace from the Right: The John Birch Society – Part 2

JBS Attacks on Religious Leaders, Churches and Synagogues

The Birchers led a vigorous campaign against the nation’s religious leaders to stir up dissension between clergy and their congregations. During this time period, and even now, members of the JBS were fundamentalists who opposed preaching a social gospel that made a relation between Biblical teachings and social justice. Thus, they were vehemently critical of the favored liberal social legislation of the National Council of Churches. (6)

In 1961 Amarillo, Texas, JBS area coordinator William L. Lee charged a local clergyman with being sympathetic to the Communist cause and accused the National Council of Churches of being infiltrated by Communists. A leading clergyman demanded that Lee keep quiet or hand over his evidence to the FBI. Not surprisingly, Lee had no proof but this did not stop Church members from demanding that their pastors sever ties with the Council or risk losing contributions to the collection baskets. (7)

This was just the beginning of a campaign of hate and fear that would reach every sector of Amarillo society, turning neighbor against neighbor and almost causing a mini-civil war. The Birchers used this same operating method in towns across the country. First, local religious leaders were attacked for belonging to the National Council of Churches and then the Council was accused of being a pawn of the Communist Party. Finally the whole ugly mess would spill over into other local institutions such as schools, local governments and politics.

Officially, Welch tried to keep his organization free from charges of anti-Semitism but he really didn’t put a whole lot of effort into it so his success was negligible at best.

He did warn members, “Communist plants and agents provocateurs would try to divert good Birchers into a misguided campaign against Jews in order to neutralize the work of the Society and its fight against the Communist conspiracy.” (8)

But the presence of anti-Semites within the organization was evident everywhere the Birchers had a chapter. The Society’s American Opinion Library offered books and pamphlets written by several people who were hostile toward Jews. One such book was Nesta Webster’s World Revolution – the Plot against Civilization which was her “attempt to portray a conspiratorial Jewish power lurking behind Communism.” (9)

National and Local Politics

Robert Welch and other leaders of the John Birch Society adamantly denied that their organization was politically motivated. But in 1964, they claimed they had at least a hundred delegates and alternates at the Republican National Convention in San Francisco.

After Barry Goldwater was nominated, the Birchers elbowed their way in and used the campaign as a means for advocating their own ideology. Society members joined the GOP and Republicans joined the JSB. This cozy relationship gave the Birchers considerable influence within the Republican Party but the honeymoon wouldn’t last. (10)

While local Republican groups had defended the JBS, national GOP leaders began to bitterly denounce it. William F. Buckley wrote a 5000 word article in his National Review denouncing Welch:

How can the John Birch Society be an effective political instrument while it is led by a man whose views on current affairs are, at so many critical points . . . so far removed from common sense?

Goldwater, risking his own political career, followed up with a letter to the magazine:

Mr. Welch is only one man, and I do not believe his views, far removed from reality and common sense as they are, represent the feelings of most members of the John Birch Society. . . . Because of this, I believe the best thing Mr. Welch could do to serve the cause of anti-Communism in the United States would be to resign. . . . We cannot allow the emblem of irresponsibility to attach to the conservative banner.

These attacks may have diminished the impact of the Society but the JBS was not ready to roll over and die just yet.

The Society’s most successful campaigns really were not on the national level but on the soft underbelly of American where a minimum amount of pressure could often produce a maximum level of alarm. Some of this was described in Part 1 in the sections on churches and schools. But one of the most intriguing operations involved organizing boycotts through the use of cards, variously called Card Capers or Card Parties.

In 1962, a Miami chiropractor by the name of Jerome Harold organized The Committee to Warn of the Arrival of Communist Merchandise on the Local Business Scene. When Welch heard about it, he urged his members to get in touch with Harold.

A huge boycott spread from one city to another as JBS members organized local card parties of their own. Using postcards with a hammer and sickle printed on them, and the legend, “Always Buy Your Communist Products At ______.” The names of local retail stores which sold “red” merchandise would be filled in on the dotted line. (11)

Members took the cards and unobtrusively entered the marked stores – dropping them on counters and tucking them under merchandise. If a Bircher was caught red-handed, he would apologize, say it was all an accident and quietly leave the. But they always had another card with them – with the name of a lawyer just in case.

Society members urged local and state representatives and agencies to pass laws imposing prohibitive taxes on stores carrying merchandise from Eastern Europe. Some of the biggest names in America’s retail industry yielded under the pressure and Sears, Woolworth, Kresge, the Walgreen Company, and others, stopped carrying “red” goods.

In the end, the Birchers had to retreat as stores began refusing to give in to this well organized pressure. The climax came when a Los Angeles department store obtained a court injunction against further card distribution and sued the card committee and two of its leaders for four million dollars. The Birchers beat a hasty retreat and the card party ended. (12)

The American Opinion Library in Houston, identical to other Birch libraries across the country, served as an index to many of the Society’s activities at that time. One was able to purchase pamphlets which defended the JBS from its critics and analyzed the cause of the Los Angeles riots and the Civil Rights movement.

The Communists know that a divided people are easily conquered. They realize that if they can manipulate one American into fighting another American, their battle is won. One of the most important steps in creating a race war is to break down respect for law and order and portray the policeman as the enemy of the Negro. (13)

In one pamphlet was a picture of Martin Luther King at the Highlander Folk School, now The Highlander Research and Education Center) which was located in Monteagle, Tennessee at the time. Billboards with this picture were scattered along America’s highways from East to West.

Also found in the library were bumper stickers urging the United States to withdraw from the United Nations and declaring that “Disarmament is Surrender.” The inevitable pieces of jewelry were sold which had similar messages inscribed on them. And copies of Welch’s speeches were also available.

I didn’t write about the fluoridation issue in the original paper, but I can remember my family questioning Welch’s mental faculties every time there was a news report about his dire warnings that it was a Communist plot to poison the minds of Americans. Besides Rachel Maddow’s now famous video, there is this very good report here which quotes from the March 1960 JBS Bulletin.

6. Janson, The Far Right, p. 41.
7. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 3-4.
8. Ibid., p. 27.
9. Forster and Epstein, The John Birch Society, p. 33.
10. Ibid., p. 70.
11. Forster and Epstein, Danger on the Right, p. 24.
12. Ibid., p. 24-26.
13. Constructive Action Committee, Civil Riots U.S.A. (1965).

ARMAGEDDON

Armageddon is getting a bad rap these days, and perhaps it is time to stop the gratuitous and shameless stereotyping of all things apocalyptic. First, I should point out that the dictionary is wrong about the word as a singular entity in every instance and, if you don’t believe me, trying turning the word into a plural without getting a spelling error message in rude red underscore.

In fact, there is much diversity in the realm of Armageddon, whose inhabitants come in all shapes and sizes, all denominations, and all persuasions. There are Armageddons of the Earth by tremor and magma; Armageddons of the sky that rain meteors and boiled frogs; and Armageddons of the sea that emerge in the stealth of night leaving telltale footprints on the mind. There is the Armageddon of healthcare reform that will eat your baby and kill your grandmother; the Armageddon of imbedded microchips hidden under folds that go beep in the night; the Armageddon of socialism and the imagined specter of freedoms lost; and the Armageddons of war, famine, Swine flu, fast foods, soda pop, anorexic Barbie dolls, and rock-n-roll.

Shall we fear the dreaded Armageddon? It lives among us in our towns and villages. It fills church pews and the halls of Congress. Perhaps we should accept Armageddon as merely another force of nature that sends human lemmings over the cliff and helps restore the natural balance. Armageddon is plagiarism masquerading as hyperbole, and the night will always sweat with terror as before we rubbed shoulders with delusional nincompoops hearing voices in their heads.

Your papers please

I admire Arizona's own particular brand of conservatism. Some would rather have it called Libertarianism but whatever you call it, I don't think it goes far enough. To give license to any policeman to assume probable cause to stop and search and demand papers of anyone who looks foreign is all well and good, but if it's confined to Arizona it just ain't enough. We need to follow Arizona's lead and make it national policy and any cop from Athol Massachusetts to Zebulon Georgia should be able to stop and demand papers of anyone below a certain level of blondness.

Because of Arizona's proximity to sources of ethnic pollution all cars with AZ plates should be stopped and searched and all air passengers arriving from Phoenix should be shunted aside for special handling. If even one leaf blower wielding, dish washing, fruit picking, leprosy carrying insurgent is stopped, it's worth the minor inconvenience. Of course there are those who need to be exempted from the rule - take New Mexico Governor Richardson or former Attorney General Gonzalez. We could have RFID transponders injected under their skin to identify them as trusted members of suspicious races so no celebrities, lawyers or politicians will be Tasered, beaten or otherwise humiliated in the process.

Again, Arizona leads the way in demanding that all candidates for President must present proof of US birth to be on the AZ ballot. Libertarians who profess to be strict constitutionalists may find a problem here, but I'm sure that the gravity of the problem will change their minds. It's also very important to define the nature of the proof lest the candidate furnish a state certified certificate attested to by the governor and director of vital records and attempt to fool State officials with it. It will take some work, but it can be done. In fact the bill gives the Arizona Attorney General discretion in the matter. According to the bill passed by the Arizona House on Monday, partisan or racial or ethnic suspicion alone is probable cause to reject the candidate and keep him off the ballot. Fortunately, House Republicans were able to pass the bill before Tuesday so as not to give Liberal terrorist supporters (if you'll forgive the redundancy) a chance to say it was done in honor of Hitler's birthday.

There are some Hitler loving, Maoist Liberal heretics in Arizona however. It's hard to believe but Phoenix Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema thinks all this is making Arizona a laughing stock, but that's easily countered by a sustained barrage of hysterical accusations of Communism, Fascism and palling around with terrorists. Works every time. It's like shooting Liberals in a barrel.

Fire in the sky

I'm a gettin' tired of Armageddon. Yes, the earth will become incapable of sustaining life some day and the sun will die and the Universe might just be torn apart by some sort of dark energy stuff. Sure sometime between Wednesday and 50 million years from now we're likely to get whacked by another chicxulub sized asteroid but if and when, it won't have anything to do with Giving America the same health care plan Communist enslaved places like Massachusetts and Switzerland enjoy.

"There has been plenty of fear-mongering and overheated rhetoric, and if you turn on the news, you'll see that those same folks are still shouting about how the world will end because we passed this bill. This is not an exaggeration, leaders of the Republican Party have actually been calling the passage of this bill 'Armageddon.' They say it's the end of freedom as we know it," said the President in Portland ME shortly after the bill passed. ""So after I signed the bill, I looked up to see if there were any asteroids headed our way. I checked to see if any cracks had opened up in the ground. But you know what? It turned out to be a pretty nice day,"

I think even the people who publish crazy stories for crazy people are a bit shy of endorsing the latest meteorite to be noticed as a sign that God really is going to destroy mankind and probably animal and plantkind because his own most special country in all this vast universe has been polluted by reigning in the insurance companies and is eventually to allow the poor, sick, underage and temporarily unemployed to have medical insurance. But World Net Daily did take pains to note that it wasn't such a nice day in China or and that all the other earthquakes and underground rumblings and ash clouds of the last few days might indicate that all has been foretold by John of Patmos, patron Saint of Psychotics.

None the less, WND was careful to point out the uppity nature of that comment and how that uppity president was very insulting to"Conservatives" who of course are the only ones likely to believe this medieval insanity about signs and portents in the sky - and in fact do believe it. What, of course, could he do that wouldn't insult them when the basic facts of history, Chemistry, physics, paleontology, geology, meteorology and cosmology make their hairy palms sweat with righteous anger and desperate denial.

Don't get me wrong. I put Conservatives in quotes because they aren't that at all. Some of them just play conservatives on TV and radio and in places like World Net Daily because they make a lot of money on the slander circuit. Others are just ignorant, bigoted, superstitious and misinformed -- and some are just substantially subnormal. If there are real conservatives about these days, they're in hiding, unwilling to be associated with the Idiot's Crusade and the few who remain, like George Will, for instance are sure to provide great entertainment in trying to rationalize their inevitable opposition to brokerage, mortgage and banking reform so they won't be called Communists too.

The rest won't try nor will they need to, pseudo-conservative memories being as short and malleable as they are. All they know and all they will need to know is that locking up Wall Street crooks must somehow be a danger to our "freedom," an offense to God and another bit of proof that the Liberals are leading us straight to a future of fire and brimstone falling from the sky.

Take Texas

Sometimes I don't know whether to keel over dead from laughing at the people insisting I think Barack Obama is a messiah and trying to force that sour confection down the throats of Democrats or to have a fatal stroke yelling at them about how they've been trying to shove messiahs of their own up the other end.

Of course America is always looking for a hero and wants one so badly we've made heroes out of some strange characters, but one man's hero is always the other man's Devil and nowhere more so than in the USA. Did FDR save us from complete economic collapse and a likely shift away from faith in the Capitalist economic model, or did he make it far worse because he was in fact only a puppet: like Truman and Eisenhower, a Quisling serving his Soviet Masters? As I said, one man's Messiah is the other guy's Satan. At least he and Ike and Truman didn't succeed in handing over the reigns to Stalin or Kruschev -- or did they? It depends on the definition of Communism and what looks like a free market to one person is obviously not to another. There will be no reconciliation until long after it becomes moot and the US is a distant memory to be made into an object lesson for propagandists yet unborn.

At any rate the longing for some kind of return to a past that didn't happen as described is alive and thriving like bacteria in some Texas bus station men's room and making it impossible for us to be a real nation rather than the loose confederacy of Hobbsian States they envision. Take Texas - please.

Newsweek says that the tenacity of Texas Governor Rick Perry tells us much about America in the age of Obama. I think it tells us a lot about America in the age of James Buchanan; divided irrevocably on issues that now seem morally and legally obvious to most of us.

The US in the mid 19th century was a cultural hodgepodge, filling up with immigrants speaking many languages, publishing papers and supporting theaters and associations using German Polish, Italian, Russian, Czech, French languages and more. Governor Perry thanks that "hodgepodge" sapping our "moral strength" today. It's strange to behold when in my lifetime civilization was on the brink of collapse because of the far right Utopian dream of ethnic and linguistic "purity." It's a strange kind of freedom that is allowed only to people of certain ethnic and religious backgrounds, but Texas is a strange kind of place.

Governor Perry worries that our country is run by government bureaucrats, instead of the Confederate model where it was run by wealthy landowners, and the current Republican model where free elections don't legitimize a candidate they don't like and where the country should be run by a confederation of wealthy Corporations and perhaps officially sanctioned religious leaders.

Am I making unfair comparisons to pre-Civil War era conditions? Keep in mind that Perry, when asked by Newsweek to explain his Capitol Steps talk about secession, only mumbled about long term debt and "what this administration is doing from an economic standpoint."

No the government is the enemy unless the Government is the enemy: "wants to be the epicenter and one size fits all. .. . . we have very, very different ideas about the structure of this country and how it should work" and as far as I can see, they're pretty much the same as those of Jefferson Davis and bear an uncanny similarity to the ideas of many America Royalists who quite liked the State religion and its forced conformity, heresy laws, witch trials and all.

"I don't care how hard you work. We are going to take more" are the words he puts in the mouth of the Democrat Demon. He needed to since it wasn't there in the real world he's such an alien to: the world where the Yankee president is going to take your slaves and let them whistle at white girls and where Obama is gonna take your guns even though he ain't. The Yankees are gonna make it hard for us to use public schools to teach far out fringe conjectures about a 6000 year old universe and magic creation of men out of mud. Of course if we taught them that Allah made us out of a blood clot, you'd soon hear the tune change from their "god given right" to teach our children to another assumed right to demonize other people's rights and lie about the data.

So how do you argue with someone for whom the truth is like silly putty; where you need absolute proof of some things and sneer about the entire idea of proof or even ignore evidence with other things: someone who believes in absolute authoritarianism yet decries absolute authoritarianism in Democracy? How can the smug insistence that huge debts and massive borrowing is just fine unless it's done by Democrats?

You don't.

How do you argue with someone who insists the Depression started with Roosevelt and not with Hoover's huge tax cuts: someone who insists that FDR's spending didn't end or ameliorate the depression but admits WW II did because of the huge government deficit spending? How can you make him tell you why we should be more patient about seeing results from trillions spent to do unnecessary nothings in Iraq than about seeing a complete economic turn around after 15 months. How do you argue with someone who will defend unto death, or at least until the Thorazine kicks in, that contradictions and unanswerable questions weaken an argument, that freedom is all about ethnic and religious purity, that orchestrated demonstrations of inchoate anger are an acceptable way of petitioning for redress of grievances and undoing elections?.

You don't and I can't and I'm tired of trying. I'm tired of listening to How Obama has squelched our freedom of speech, how the midwest meteorite and the earthquake in China are the result of health insurance reform and other totally imaginary, seditious things, many of which are the deeds of previous administration and even supported by Conservative leaders. I'm disgusted to live in a country that allows itself to be eaten alive from the inside and won't lift a finger to help itself.

This won't end well, if it ends at all. It won't end as long as we entertain ourselves with new and ever changing diatribes of just what liberals do and just what liberals did and just what liberals are. No one but the innocent are ever burned as witches, but moreover, we'll never be able to be constructive, we'll never be able to have a democracy that works and I have to believe that the people behind this insanity know it quite well and wouldn't have it any other way.