2011 archive
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
The confluence of racist lies and gunnuttery: School board member decides to attend meetings backing heat. Wonder whether this leads to a new meaning for the expression, “a heated discussion.”
Brett Reese is alleged to have left a voice-mail message for KFKA-AM 1310 owner Justin Sasso on Wednesday in which he threatened a “shootout” if Sasso did not stop his advertising reps from calling on businesses that underwrite Reese’s noncommercial station, KELS-FM 104.7, the complaint said.
(snip)
Critics, including other members of the school board, have said the letter was originally written by white supremacists.
A statement from KFKA said Reese’s letter has been reviewed multiple times by historians, who have labeled it, at best, “full of ‘half truths.’ “
It Is about Time 0
All it takes to recognize the wanton destructiveness of mountaintop removal mining is to fly over West Virginia once.
One cannot forget the scars in the landscape. The picture at the link is enough to convince anyone except, or course, a coal robber baron.
The EPA said it based its final decision to veto a previously granted permit for the Spruce No. 1 mine on the pollution that would have destroyed wildlife, polluted areas downstream and increased the water contamination risks for people who live in West Virginia’s already heavily mined Coal River basin. The streams the veto protects — Pigeonroost Branch and Oldhouse Branch — are two of the last “high-quality” streams in the watershed, the agency said.
Birthright 0
Facing South recounts the history of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in statistics.
Read between the lines to see the bigotry of exclusionists.
QOTD 0
Baltasar Gracian, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
Yes and No are words quickly said, but they need a great amount of thought before you utter them.
Compromising Positions 0
I tend to think that compromise is generally a good thing, so long as there are not clear moral issues on one or the other side. Half a loaf and all that.
But exceptions exist.
Here is an example of a case in which failure to compromise will ultimately benefit the common good and, indeed, all of society:
I urge both parties to stand firm and resist conciliation.
“Those Weird Things Called ‘Constitutional Rights'” 0
(Warning: Some Language.)
Enough Enoughness Is Never Enough 0
Really, why don’t these folks just take Viagra?
“High Capacity Magazines … When ten rounds isn’t enough,” the Internet site offers.
(Ad is cited in the lead to a column by Ruth Marcus.)
Twits on Twitter 0
Crackdown on twits for hire in the UK:
In a statement, the OFT said online advertising and marketing that did not disclose paid-for promotions were “deceptive” under fair trading rules. “This includes comments about services and products on blogs and microblogs such as Twitter,” it said.
Celebrity twitter endorsements are already big business in the US, where artists such as Snoop Dogg can earn a reported $3,000 (£1,900) for sending a tweet endorsing a product. But the US Federal Trade Commission insists that such endorsements must contain the words “ad” or “spon” to show the reference has been paid for. Such a requirement does not currently exist in the UK.
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Good news for foreclosures (see the previous posts):
Initial jobless claims rose by 35,000 to 445,000, according to Labor Department data released today. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for 410,000 filings. The average number of applications over the past four weeks, a less-volatile gauge, increased to 416,500.
Update from the Foreclosure-Based Economy 0
Bloomberg:
“We will peak in foreclosures and probably bottom out in pricing, and that’s what we need to do in order to begin the recovery,” Rick Sharga, RealtyTrac’s senior vice president, said in an interview at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. “But it’s probably not going to feel good in the process.”
A record 2.87 million properties got notices of default, auction or repossession in 2010, a 2 percent gain from a year earlier, the Irvine, California-based data seller said today in a report. The number climbed even after a plunge in filings in the last part of the year — including a 26 percent drop in December — as lenders came under scrutiny for their practices.
Firing more public employees and cutting more old folks’ pensions are clearly indicated to keep this trend alive.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
A compilation of hate-full-ness.
If this were an episode of Criminal Minds, these would be portrayed as the ravings of–oh, never mind. The words speak for their speakers.
Via TPM, where you can find the attributions for the quotations that Congressman Dingell was kind enough not to attribute to those who said them.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Tim F. at Balloon Juice explains. Be sure to follow the link at the end of the post.
QOTD 0
Alexander Hamiltion, from the Quotemaster (subscribe here):
In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.
Ducking the Whirlwind 0
The rightwing is quite happy to sow the wind with its rhetoric of violence, hate, and paranoia. But as for reaping the whirlwind?
Not so much.
Facing South* looks at history for indications whether vile and violence-laden rhetoric can lead to political violence. Here’s the excerpt; read the entire post for context and supporting arguments:
Many civil rights activists, scholars and reporters maintain there was a direct line between this blood-stained chapter in U.S. history and the violent rhetoric of politicians like George Wallace, the Alabama governor and presidential hopeful..
Indeed, a veteran of the civil rights years, Congressman James Clyburn, speaks from personal experience (follow the link to hear the full exchange):
Again, the issue is not Sarah Palin’s bellicose graphics (though it appears that she may reap that particular whirlwind), it is the right’s paranoid tactic of painting other patriotic Americans as the enemy, as unpatriotic and traitorous; it is their fantasizing about and making light of murder and death; it is their demonizing those who have different opinions; it is their glorifying bloodshed; all of which are as common among the loudest voices of the right as it is rare** on the left.
Joanna Weiss addresses this well in the Boston Globe:
“To prepare soldiers to go to war, you’ve got to dehumanize the enemy, because that’s the only way to kill people,’’ notes Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University. “What we’re in the process of is either dehumanizing or de-Americanizing one’s opponents.’’
Rhetoric that cheapens life becomes a rationalization for behavior that cheapens life, even for the irrational.
_________________
*I mentioned the Facing South link in a comment yesterday. I was planning to post about it, but had to let the treatment simmer in my brain pan.
**I said, “rare,” not absent; I don’t want to hear any “I saw something nasty on a car with an Obama bumper sticker” whining.
Bringing “Undercover Investigation” to New Levels 0
In the U. K., whose authorities seem to have their own paranoia issues and have been busily infiltrating non-violent environment groups for years, there’s more than tree-hugging going on:
The woman told the Guardian that Mark Kennedy, the Metropolitan police officer at the centre of a growing controversy over the infiltration of peaceful environmental protest groups, had relationships with several women and may have used sex as a tactic to glean intelligence.
Definitely skeevy in skivvies.
All seriousness aside, this sounds eerily like Nixon’s Cointelpro, a violation of civil rights and liberties simple because they could get away with it.