The reactions to this Sullivan post will be fun to read:
Glenn Reynolds has an interesting post, citing Marshall Wittman, about how both the religious right and the religious (i.e. intolerant, doctrinaire) left have polarized discourse in this country, and policed dissidence from the party line. Marshall thinks the left is worse. Like Marshall, I’ve experienced vitriol from both sides in my time. I will say this: the hate and viciousness directed toward me from the left in the 1990s for daring to be a gay man who was not a liberal does indeed exceed the hate and viciousness of the right for a small-c conservative who has become alarmed by the excesses and errors of the Bush administration. No right-wing group has picketed a book-signing with posters depicting my face behind the cross-hairs of a gun, as the gay left did. No one on the right has gone nuclear on my private life, as the gay left did. No one on the right has threatened to find me in Ptown and split my skull open, or called me the anti-Christ, as some on the gay left have. Yes, I get homophobic hate mail from the right all the time; and many conservative blogs have blackballed or slimed or smeared me in various ways. But that’s, sadly, what you get for being provocative and opinionated on the web. Bottom line: Hugh Hewitt is not as hateful as Eric Alterman, as any reader can see for themselves.
Nothing is as much fun as a healthy round of ‘Democrats are worse than Republicans!- NOO! Republicans are worse than Democrats!’
Please, keep me out of this. I just want to watch the carnage from the sidelines.
Pb
Heh. Way to go with the parsing there, Sully.
See? The left is more hateful when you compare apples to oranges!
But note that isn’t the comparison he made–wouldn’t want to compare apples to apples!
Because they’re homophobic, you must be to blame?
At least you’re honest. :)
SeesThroughIt
Neither the Republicans nor Democrats are nearly as bad as the Whigs. I fucking hate those guys!
Davebo
Reynolds, Marshall, and Sullivan discussing attacks.
Question, what do all 3 bloggers have in common?
Mr Furious
Pass.
Davebo
Answer: Not one of them could care less enough about what others think of their writing to provide the standard blog medium for comments.
LITBMueller
Tastes great!!!!
Less Filling!!!
Tastes great!!!
Less filling!!!
Tastes great!!!
Less filling!!! ….
Mr Furious
Good one, SeesThroughIt. Yeah, Whigs and I hate Illinois Nazis…
Perry Como
Ok ppgaz, NOW you can come in and talk about Mr. Cole tossing hand grenades. I’m going to grab some popcorn.
neil
I just think it’s funny that Sullivan is assuming that all these radical leftist gay groups have tactics which reflect the ‘left’ in any meaningful way. Not particuarly surprising, as guilt by association is pretty much the name of the game for Sully.
40 years ago he’d be explaining that the deplorable tactics of the Black Panthers prove that Martin Luther King is outside the realm of acceptable discourse. Today it’s the Muslims.
Krista
Eh…it’s one person’s experience. There are hateful people of all persuasions and political stripes, and there are people who can’t abide a person who has something in common with them, but who doesn’t agree with them on everything.
But I don’t want to spoil your amusement, John. So…
They’re LYING! The left is always open-minded, tolerant, and every single person who is left-leaning is good honourable person! The right are all eeeevvvvilllll bigots!
(Too much? It was too much, wasn’t it?)
SomeCallMeTim
Sullivan is a hack and an unscrupulous moron; we should all hate him. This is an issue on which we can find agreement, and join hands across the other things that divide us.
If he wants to pretend to be a civil libertarian, he needs to purge his archive, with special attention to the word “Padilla.”
Bob In Pacifica
The “hate” from the Left towards conservative gays (when it is not from actual homophobia, which can be found throughout any kind of definition of a political spectrum) is the kind of distaste that comes towards a member of a group that is oppressed who appears to be a collaborator with the oppressor. This kind of reaction is known in other areas. Blacks who embrace Bush get the same treatment within the African American community. It suggests a willingness to advance oneself at the expense of others of like kind.
What passes for the “conservative” movement in nowadays America, although I’d suggest reactionary movement is more accurate, is especially repressive towards gays, being that they are personifications of sexual beings whose sexuality is not constrained by procreation. (see other posts about Reich’s “sex-economy” theory)
There is a surreal disconnection from reality to all this. Many people close to the top of the Republican heap have been reported to be gay, and we have the unresolved questions of those 196 visits to the White House at all hours from male prostitute Jeff Gannon on top of it all, and yet Republicans routinely use the threat of “gay marriage” to swell fearful fundamentalists to the polls.
The book THE HIDDEN HITLER goes into great detail supporting the theory that Hitler and a number of his top echelon were gay or bisexual. Reading it along with HITLER: THE PATHOLOGY OF EVIL you can see how Hitler used the Holocaust to “kill” those things inside himself which he loathed and feared (his father was illegitimate and the his father, Hitler’s grandfather, was rumored to be Jewish).
My guess is that being a gay and announcing one’s conservative politics to other gays and supporters of gay rights would not be unlike announcing one’s new membership in the Nazi Party at synagogue. One may have tolerance in your self-destruction, but not in our self-destruction.
Oh, sorry, we’re not supposed to compare the Nazis to the BushCo Republicans. So sorry. I’ll have to stop reading books about the Third Reich.
Steven Donegal
There is nothing less interesting than a pissing contest among the blogging elite. You can always tell a slow news day.
gratefulcub
People are people, and leaning left or right doesn’t change that. Both sides have their fare share of nasty people, and those willing to say anything about anyone to advance an agenda.
The only difference between the two sides currently is that the right has the ability to stay on message and to coordinate large groups to stay on message.
I think that is why we on the left don’t think our side is as bad. It isn’t that it is made up of better people, they just aren’t disciplined enough to matter. They can’t change the discourse, they can only queer small discussions.
The whole idea of which side is the meanest is silly anyway.
Who is the worst killer of them all, Entwhistle or Peterson?????
Why do we care about the far left, far right, Entwhistle, Peterson, Coulter and Dobson anyway? Oh yeah, ratings.
Lines
Does Sully understand that the gay community feels like he’s a traitor and that by carrying water for the Conservatives, he’s essentially stabbing them in the back?
What pisses people off more than someone that should, by all means, be on their side, but choses self-destructive behaviors that damages the very cause for which the group or individual is fighting, especially when its almost approaching a cause of life and death?
I can see both sides, and how Sullivan is a target for both. He doesn’t belong to anyone at this point, he’s a lone man, trying to make a stance on his beliefs and not finding common ground amongst many. He’s not in an enviable place.
Sean
Does anybody have any references to Lefty blogs or Lefty commentators sugesting that certain cities be left unprotected because they are to right-leaning or right wing people/groups be either killed or exiled.
It seems to me there must have been at least one quote by Michale Moore or Paul Begala suggesting that Pat Roberson or Rush Limbaugh be killed by terrorist or just some righteous Lefty hero.
I don’t believe the Left is without sin; so can anyone help me find an example on the Left wing of “eliminationist” rhetoric?
Bob In Pacifica
Entwhistle? The late, great bassist for The Who?
Steve
Pb took about 2 seconds to seize on the obvious point. Yes, the “gay community” has stronger feelings regarding a gay person they perceive to be disloyal than the conservative community has towards a conservative they perceive to be disloyal. That’s because being gay is simply a stronger identifier.
If you flipped it around, and looked at the strength of emotion from the anti-gay Right versus the emotion of liberals who disagree with Sullivan’s ideology, obviously you’d find there’s a lot more hate from the anti-gay element. Identity will always arouse more emotion than ideology. It has nothing to do with whether the Left or Right is “angrier.”
Tom in Texas
Wow Bob did you really just try to insinuate that the Bush cabal are a bunch of secretly bisexual Nazis? I consider my politics slightly left of center by modern standards and libertarian by traditional ones, and I think you may have proved Sully’s point perfectly.
Perry Como
The guy from the Boondocks with the bug eye is one of the most brilliant cartoon characters ever.
Davebo
Off topic but funny, via TBogg
Come and listen to a story about veep named Dick
Went out shooting quail, but he shot himself a hick,
Had a few drinks, thought he’d have himself some fun
Turned to left and he shot the wrong one
In the face, close range, ow that hurts.
Well the security said, Dick get away from here,
Get back to the lodge and have yourself a beer
We’ll clean up like we did with Valerie Plame
The victim can’t talk, so he’ll be the one to blame
Later, that is. In the morning. Have another drink.
Well the press they started to make a mighty fuss
The White House said, don’t blame it all on us
Talk to the veep or Mary Matalin
Set it up with Hume, he’ll help us with the spin
Softball questions. No follow-up. Fake journalist
Well Dick went to Brit and he told a big lie
Said he was sober and he hopes the guy don’t die
Then went back to his bubble, kept from out of our view
With a message for David Gregory: Hey Dave, fuck you.
Now the moral of our story is that Dick can do no wrong
Fighting for America, got to keep the country strong
Gonna keep us out of wars so we don’t get stuck
And if you hunt with Dick Cheney, then you better learn to duck.
Y’all fuck off now, y’hear?
gratefulcub
Uncle Ruckus. When he went to a MLK speech holding a sign reading “I love Jim Crow”, well, that just might have been the most brilliant moment of the greatest show on TV.
Probably not, but only because there have been so many great moments.
deekaa6
The side out of power will always appear more hatefilled that the side with the juice. During the 90’s I would say that the right was far more hatefilled than the left and 5-10 years from now when the far right is once again marginalized as fringe wackos, abortion doctors will be ducking bullets and we’ll be talking about a new David Duke.
Davebo
And more on topic, where the hell does Marshall Whitman get off claiming to be a democrat or even an independant?
Let’s see, he was a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute which recently hired one Lewis “Scooter” Libby
prior to that he worked for John McCain.
prior to that he served as the Heritage Foundation’s director of congressional relations both for the U.S. House and Senate
prior to that he served as the Christian Coalition’s director of legislative affairs
And these days he spends a lot of time trying to convince someone, anyone, that he’s not a GOP party hack.
ET
My first reaction was “yeah right.” But then I thought that because I wasn’t a target of the left’s version of the screaming meanies I just didn’t see it. I see some of the vitriol directed at Sully as a mirror to those freaks from the Westboro Baptist Church who protest at soldiers funerals because they somehow make a connection between the soldiers and abortion/gays or whatever their personal boogymonster is.
Bob In Pacifica
Tom In Texas, I believe that a number of people around Bush are gay. There have been plenty of rumors about Bush’s sexual orientation. Just google “Bush” “Lips” and “Yale.” I have also said that the reactionary politics of today’s Republican Party have the very same sexually repressive and anti-gay features of the Nazi Party, although all totalitarian governments (and those who strive towards totalitarianism) feature sexual repression as a means of control over the population. By sexually repressive, I mean opposition to out-of-wedlock sex, homosexuality, pornography, abortion and stem-cell research, birth control, etc. While labeled as “pro-life,” it is more accurately defined as anti-sexual. Think about how fear of sex is used repeatedly by the Right to motivate people to action.
Essentially Republican Reaction is anti-gay. I think Sullivan’s point was that conservative gays get a lot more hate from Liberals than Conservatives (which I don’t necessarily buy).
Explaining the dynamics of the Republicans’ hatred towards gays is not the same as hating Sullivan.
Hate the game, not the player.
gratefulcub
Why all the hate for Sully? It seems like the popular thing to do. The Bald Gay Conservative/Liberal British Association came out against him.
I like him. I disagree with him about 54.453% of the time. Sometimes I strongly disagree. He has always stayed true to who he is and what he believes. Conservatives should have sided with Bush, and then slowly realized that he wasn’t a conservative.
I guess he is the perfect example of the problems with our polarized political atmosphere. To be a gay conservative that supports equality, but not affirmative action means you are welcome no where, except on Bill Maher, premiering tonight on HBO. (I always wondered what it would feel like to plug something. A little whorish)
SmilingPolitely
Democrats? Republicans? No, it’s the good for nothing Libertarians they we should all despise.
Pb
gratefulcub,
I don’t hate Sully, but–much like John Cole–I don’t appreciate it when he acts like a dishonest little prick, which he does now and then. Actually I more or less agree with him about darn near everything except for a. his blind war-hawk status, b. his conservative-enabler tendencies, and to a lesser extent c. things like abortion, on which some reasonable people can agree to disagree. And at least Sully was intellectually honest enough to take a hard look at the evidence, admit when he was wrong, bite the bullet, and vote for Kerry. :)
comandante agi
Let’s thank Sully for initiating an utterly pointless discussion.
Vladi G
Why should anyone give a shit what Marshall Whittman thinks? Why should we care about three right wingers claiming the left is worse than the right. And spare me any of the “Whittman is a centrist” crap. Whittman is a tool.
ppGaz
Okay, catching up here. Long day.
So, you want to “watch the carnage from the sidelines.”
Alrighty, and our role in this is ….? How do I help you with this? We don’t know how to quit you, so how do we fit in with this sideline carnage-watching exactly?
I’m just asking.
rilkefan
Alterman? That’s a weird choice. Alterman must have said something once that really hurt Sully’s feelings – and he can’t link to it because it was manifestly true.
gratefulcub
Off topic, I know.
Everyone here trashed John two or three days ago for saying the Democrats will over reach on the Cheney incident. Replace Democrats with ‘the left’ and he was dead on. The democrats with a big D don’t reach, much less overreach. But…..
I took a stroll through the left blogosphere just now. By perusing firedoglake, digby, and others (people I like), it appears that Dick was Drunk.
Maybe he was, there is ample evidence that points towards that possibility. But, anyone out there calling him a boozehound that got liquored up and shot his buddy in the face……they are not helping. It is completely legit to say that it looks fishy and it needs to be investigated. But, Jane Hamsher is saying Clinton Shot Vince Foster, instead of being rational.
Slide
Who is more hateful?
A quiz.
Rush Limbaugh vs Al Franken
rush wins
Sean Hannity vs Alan Combs
Sean wins
Ann Coulter vs Michael Moore
Ann wins
Mike Savage vs Randi Rhoads
Mike wins
Bill O’Reilly vs Keith Oberman
Bill wins
Brad R.
Slide- when you pit her against Savage, OK. But Randi is pretty damn bad, if you ask me (and annoying to boot).
MAX HATS
He wrote an article for The Stranger (he and Dan Savage are cordial) in one of their pride issues a while back, with the thesis (I’m probably going to get the precise quote wrong) “my attraction to men with back hair has no bearing on my opinion on taxes or the Iraq war.” I for one totally agree. The idea on the left that certain groups owe their votes to democrats simply because of how they were born, be it black or poor or gay, is to me the most offensive recurrant theme in more or less mainstream leftist thought.
Marcus Wellby
I think of Reynolds, Wittman, Sullivan, Hewitt, and Alterman Sullivan is the more genuine. By genuine I mean someone whose political beleifs take a little from column A, a little from column B, etc. The others are soley “team” players who will gloss over facts that are uncomfortable for their side.
I think — in real life — its almost impossible to fully support the credes of either left or right. Nothing is that black and white. Then again, I am a fan of Pat Buchanan and Michael Moore.
rilkefan
Like, _The Bell Curve_ wasn’t racist and intellectually dishonest.
Agreed, he’s not a total hack, and on some issues (e.g., marriage), he’s a fine writer and advocate. But I won’t forget being labelled a fifth columnist for Bin Laden.
MAX HATS
As far as the extreme left versus extreme right contest, I’d say it distracts from the real issue: which extreme has more control over their mainstream political counterpart. Sheehan knows her representative versus Dobson getting weekly calls from the White House on matters of policy. No contest.
gratefulcub
Pb,
I don’t like it when John acts like a ‘little prick’ either. Or Digby, or the FireDog crew, or you, or me. We all do it. We all say things that we shouldn’t. Hell, I even apologized to Darrell a day after I said something to him. Uh huh, DARRELL.
I guess my question wasn’t a question at all, but more a comment. He gets trashed from all sides because he has the audacity to decide each issue on his own. He refuses to adopt someone else’s global philosophy. Being a liberal doesn’t mean I am on the so called liberal side of every issue. So, I respect sully because I at least feel like what I read from him is what he believes, not the global cause he is promoting. A bit like our host here, whose point I usually agree with, just not his tone.
Marcus Wellby
Slide, I don’t think Olberman belongs in the quiz. The others do, but I see Olberman as someone who calls bullshit when he sees it regardless of party. Don’t forget, he started as a sportscaster where being biased is a much, much, much bigger no-no than in covering politics.
Damn, the left vs. right animosity is nothing compared to the potential violence of a Red Sox vs. Yankees debate.
Brad R.
rikefan-
To be fair, Sullivan has calmed down significantly from his post-9/11 freakout. He still has some baffling lapses into wingnuttery (his defense of THE BELL CURVE, for instance), but for the most part he’s quite readable.
rilkefan
gratefulcub, you’ve got to read Hamsher for tone there. See my analysis at the “Slow Lerners” thread.
Brad R.
Damn, the left vs. right animosity is nothing compared to the potential violence of a Red Sox vs. Yankees debate.
Johnny Damon is dead to me. Let him take the $13 million to play with Slappy McBluelips, Juicin’ Giambi and all the other overpaid cobags who will never win championships.
gratefulcub
If that is something other than a shot at me, let me know.
But Ann Coulter was just being funny.
Marcus Wellby
Funny, when Air America came on I thought Randi was fantastic. After two weeks I just couldn’t take her anymore. But when it comes to genuine freaking lunacy it is hard to find someone crazier or more annoying than Savage. The first time I heard him I thought it was brilliant parody — almost like giving DougJ a radio show.
rilkefan
Brad, sure, I read him regularly until recently. And if I missed a post of his apologizing to me for his 9/11-early insurgency or so slurs, I’ll take that into consideration.
And to give him a little possible credit, the last Bell Curve go-round I sent him mail (under cover of criticizing Armando) lacerating him in my capacity as a scientist, and after a short exchange he shut up about it. Maybe just a coincidence, I don’t know.
Brad R.
Savage is something special. I mean, only Fred Phelps has that much hatred in him.
Brad R.
Brad, sure, I read him regularly until recently. And if I missed a post of his apologizing to me for his 9/11-early insurgency or so slurs, I’ll take that into consideration.
Yeah, and his bizarre musings on Muslim genocide were straight out of the Gama quadrant. I think of him like a John Nash- someone who has worked very hard to climb from the depths of post-9/11 lunacy, but who still has lapses where he talks to imaginary friends.
That said, though, there was almost nobody who gave the detainee abuse story more attention and scrutiny. I’ll happily give him credit for that.
rilkefan
gratefulclub, no shot intended (well, maybe a poke at JC).
Actually I agree to some extent about Coulter – she’s a comic, not an analyst. But she’s treated – no, feted – by the establishment as the latter. And Hamsher is 95% deadly serious and here are the links, and the 5% comedy is harmless. Coulter is 95% “let’s go commit war-crimes that appeal to the right’s worst instincts”, ha ha ha, and 5% miniskirt.
Sine.Qua.Non
I’m done with Andrew Sullivan. It is difficult to read someone who just recently denied he was conservative, when it is obvious to anyone who reads his articles and blog, that he is quite conservative. I don’t care whether he is he is gay or asexual, or loves sheep. To claim, unbelievably, that the left is more vicious than the right is ridiculous. All you have to do is turn on just about any TV news program and be proven wrong. (I’m sorry he was vanquished by the left and right due to gays and homophobes, but that is as far as my sympathy goes.)
tb
Like the Lenny Bruce bit- “We all need to stick together- and beat up the P
pollacks!”
Vladi G
It’s great when I can read a Brad R. post and get a little “Baseball Think Factory” along with my “Three BUlls!“.
gratefulcub
Rilfekin,
I am probably misrepresenting myself in this conversation. I think Coulter is 100% serious. I believe she and the others are the worst thing to happen to this country, until gore lost florida.
My point about Hamsher was this: When she posts what she has posted the past couple of days, everything she says about anything can be disregarded. She looks like she is so eat up with hatred that it completely clouds her judgement, hence, anything she says from here on out cannot be seen as coming from sound judgement. It is a shame, because we need people like her.
Slide
Yeah… thats kinda my point. There are plenty of assholes on both side to go around but for anyone to suggest that the left is “worse” than the right has to be completely delusional. I pittend Randi against Mike because she is the worst left wing radio talk show host that I can think of and yet she can’t hold a candle to DOZENS of right wing talk show hosts the have been corrupting our public dialog for years. The right started this (yes, I now a childish and silly argument) with right wing talk radio. Now that the left has learned a few of the lessons of the right and fight back in the same manner then we have an uproar.
Same thing with pitting O’reilly and Oberman. No.. they are not comparable… again.. that is my point but what better a match? Both on cable news channels opposite each other. They have been having an ongoing war with each other for quite a while now. Why is unfair to show that the left (Oberman) is much much much more fair and impartial than O’reilly? Isnt that the debate? Show me another cable talk show host that is the left wing equal to O’reilly. Can anyone do that?
Pb
gratefulcub,
What we’ve established about Cheney and friends is that at best, they lied about not drinking and couldn’t keep their story straight. And once you’ve got that, I feel it’s up to them to start providing some facts, since we obviously can’t trust anything they say. And since they’ll never provide said facts…
Of course, this has been Cheney’s M.O. since forever–like his secret satellite footage providing a justification for invading Iraq that turned out to be totally bogus. Of course, that was for the *first* Gulf War…
gratefulcub
SQN,
When did he deny being a conservative? He has been screaming for weeks that he IS a conservative. Daily, he goes through his credentials. The issue is that he is being called a liberal, and not conservative. His number one point for the last year has been that he is a conservative, and bush and the bushbots are NOT conservative, they have just hijacked the name. Goldwater, Grave, rolling over.
Brad R.
Olbermann is pretty awesome, if you ask me. I think he’s one of the few major liberal pundits with (gasp!) a good sense of humor.
gratefulcub
Pb,
You won’t find a bigger Cheney hater. I don’t trust the man. I am a child of an alcoholic, and I know what “I just had one beer at lunch” means. I am from a federal game reserve, a true sportsmens paradise. Not personally a hunter, but all my friends were. Drinking and hunting go together. Their stories have changed more than my underwear this week. It all looks bad.
My point isn’t that he wasn’t drinking, or that they will eventually tell us the truth. It is: who is she going to convince with that flaming rhetoric? She sounds like Rush. To any moderate that wasn’t in the ‘Cheney was drunk’ camp as soon as we found out about the 18 hour delay, she sounds unhinged. And that doesn’t help.
Pb
Slide,
I guess no one wants to give Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan a talk show?
OCSteve
Gratefulcub:
Bingo. I used to read her for what I thought was reasonable leftist perspective. But she lost it on this. She went right around the bend. I won’t be able to treat her seriously in the future due to this.
Pb
gratefulcub,
I agree, there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about these things. However, she’s entitled to her opinion, and to her snark–and I’m not about to try to censor her ‘for the cause’ or some such nonsense.
Slide
brad i agree… Oberman makes the points with humor. I can’t tell you how important that is. Another example, John Stewart. Nothing like ridicule to make your point. He did a great bit yesterday on Fox’s cheney interview and how all the talking heads on Fox kept saying how unimportant this story was and how overboard the white house press was over the Cheney shooting.. and then he showed endless clips of the wall to wall coverage of the Entwhitle shooting. Bam… fox thinks some unknown shooting his unknown wife is much much more news worthy than the VP blasting a guy in the face and not reporting it for 18 hours to the press…
Brilliant. And then we have Sean hannity disputing Dick Morris’s contention that alcohol must have been involved with Sean Vanity saying, that cheney had no history with alcohol…. ? huh? Two DUI arrests and getting kicked otu of Yale for drinking does not constitute a history with alcohol? what liars.
Brad R.
Pb- that is a great petition. I just signed it. I encourage everyone to do the same.
Brad R.
brad i agree… Oberman makes the points with humor. I can’t tell you how important that is. Another example, John Stewart. Nothing like ridicule to make your point.
Sadly, I think Michael Moore used to do stuff like this really well, even though he was still notoriously sloppy with facts. TV Nation is still a freaking hilarious show.
Steve
I guess you’re not a regular reader of that blog, because it has always featured a puzzling mix of partisan red meat and deep, thoughtful analysis. You can find a lot of substance there if you look in the right places. As to whether the blog has any credibility as far as persuading the other side, shrug, they’re not being persuaded by lefty blogs in the first place.
Atrios surely has a partisan potty mouth, but that doesn’t mean he’s full of shit when he talks about economics.
gratefulcub
I am in no way trying to censor anyone. She is entitled to do whatever she damn well pleases. But, she does consider herself as fighting ‘for the cause’, single quotes and all. She posts about how to create change, how to fight the fight publicly, etc. She IS part of the ’cause’.
So, as she comments on how to help the ’cause’, I have commented on ‘how’ ‘she’ ‘has’ ‘hurt’ ‘the’ ’cause’ on this ‘issue’.
My ””””” key is stuck.
Mac Buckets
Awww, I thought this was going to be good, but then you went off on talking heads and entertainers, which is no doubt the dumbest way to try to tell who’s more hateful.
A true quiz would begin something like this: Who is more hateful?
Howard (“I Hate Republicans”) Dean vs. Anyone on the Right
This is the only kind of race the Little Ball of Hate can win.
rilkefan
gratefulclub, I might go so far as to agree that Coulter sometimes kids on the square.
Hamsher however is just joking in this case, and, as I showed over yonder, it’s not a subtle thing. I’ll even give you that she does get angrier, and consequently less reasonable, than I like on occasion – just not here.
I’m a Yankees fan, and I’m not sure signing Damon was worthwhile – sure it hurts the Sox, but he’s likely to be worthless in a few years and the rest of the outfield isn’t spry either, plus we already had a superior leadoff hitter. Another little legacy of the Winter of Womack.
Slide
huh? used to? the last documentry he made grossed more than any other and I thought was quite funny in parts and quite sad in others. I know the right wants to make Michael Moore the demon child but I think he does a fantastic job.
tb
What bunch of shit. Yes, after much objective analysis Sullivan concludes that, once again, the left is a hundred times worse than the right. Like a bunch of Kucinich voters are ever going to bash his fucking head in. Yeah, they have such a history of violence.
Pb
gratefulcub,
Which is fine. :)
Brad R.,
Hilarious. You liberal Nazi you. :)
Mac Buckets,
I call your Howard Dean and raise you an Ann Coulter.
jack
Who is more hateful?
Rush Limbaugh vs Al Franken
Hateful? Al Franken. Rush says lots of rude and nasty things, but he doesn’t sound hateful, per se
Sean Hannity vs Alan Combs
Sean, though ‘idiot’ more than hateful. Neither one of these two spews much that can be called ‘hate’
Ann Coulter vs Michael Moore
This is a tough one. They both say vile things, think vile thoughts….
It HAS to go to Moore because he’s more well known with wider distribution. Ann’s a pissant by comparision.
Mike Savage vs Randi Rhoads
Both of these people are lunatics. But the ‘hate’ title would have to go to Savage–he’s far less discriminating in doling it out–he hates everyone.
Bill O’Reilly vs Keith Oberman
These guys are contrarians. This one’s gotta be a tie. Neither one spews to much that could be called actively hateful, and O’Reilly’s sexual peccadilloes leave him looking more goofy and sad than hateful. Call it a tie.
There. I took the quiz and put some actual thought into it. Like the Oberman/O’reilly match-up, it’s a tie.
Which is correct. Neither side of the political aisle has a monopoly on hatefulness
gratefulcub
Steve,
I probably read about 80% of what she writes.
Red meat is fine.
No left leaning blog is going to change the other side.
Blogs aren’t even for the moderate.
What is the correct use of blogs? Aren’t they the talking points that partisan civilians take out into the world to use in the office conversations, private debates, etc.? I wish she would have crafted her statement better than boozehound cheney.
i still read her every day. She is still the best source for all things slightly legal. It is a great site. She has just made me cringe this week at times.
Cyrus
Well said. Whether or not that applies to Reynolds or Wittman rather than just Sullivan is uncertain, but you’re right that Sullivan’s problems have much simpler explanations than liberalism being a symptom of insanity or something.
As for Wittman, he’s a joke. Has he ever even bothered explaining how one can spend the past 20 years working for Republican politicians and still be called a centrist without bursting into uncontrollable laughter?
Until now I had read a post of his here and there, but that was it. Just now I’ve read some posts at random, and you know what he reminds me of more than anything? That episode of “Crossfire” where Jon Stewart chewed out both of the talking heads and got a standing ovation from their own studio audience. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but to the extent that Wittman is moderate at all, it doesn’t even look like his ideology is founded in a set of beliefs at all, like John or Andrew Sullivan, just by sampling talking points until he finds something that looks like a 50/50 distribution. If he’s really non-partisan at all, he’s just a sensible liberal. And while John might talk about Democrats “overreaching”, even he would admit that something’s deeply stupid about that hypothetical sensible liberal’s approach to politics, or for that matter human nature.
Slide
Ok, Howard Dean vs:
or
or
or
or
tb
As far as I know Michael Moore has not called for anyone’s death for their political views (or for any other reason) the way Coulter has.
gratefulcub
Because this was the Winter of Juan Pierre. Finally the Cubs have a leadoff hitter. We are going to get a career year out of Woody (he will stay healthy). The bullpen will be the best in the NL. Zambrano is looking at a Cy Young type of year. Derek Lee, MVP.
I’m going home now. I couldn’t even keep a straight face writing that. But hey, everyone has a chance in February.
Pb
Slide,
Oddly enough, a lot of what Michael Moore claimed in Fahrenheit 9/11–even a lot of what the right specifically whined about–later turned out to be exactly right. But Michael Moore never gets credit for not being inflammatory–the real elephant in the room in F9/11 was that he intentionally didn’t mention Israel at all–which is perhaps the smartest thing he ever did for his career.
ppGaz
Oddly enough? Most of it was already out there, and most of his footage was rented off the shelf.
It’s not like he discovered some big secret thing. He just put together a compendium of stuff mostly already known or reported and strung together some rent-a-footage material to go with it.
It seemed “sensational” because he got attention paid to it, mainly. The fact that the Bushes are whored out to the Saudis wasn’t exactly news, for example.
Jeff R
I’ve always liked http://www.zombietime.com as a museum of “grassroots” hate. Sure, you get the professional haters on talk radio, but to truly get the essence of absolute, seething, teeth-grashing contempt, you gotta look at the average joe on the street with a BUSH=HITLER sign in his hand and a “HEY HO, HEY HO, RASCIST NAZIS GOT TO GO” chant in his heart.
If nothing else, after the anti-abortion protests of the 80’s and 90’s, the right wing* learned well that shock tactics don’t accomplish anything but make people think you’re an immature asshole. Looking at the “Walk for Life” pics on that site, it seems the left side still needs to get that lesson.
*Except Fred Phelps, who everyone knows is an asshole anyway.
ppGaz
Do you even know who these people are? Since there is nobody on tv named “Oberman.”
O’Reilly is a huckster and a buffoon. Olbermann practices actual journalism, perhaps with a style not liked by some, but it’s reporting none the less. O’Reilly doesn’t report, he just bloviates. This is an apples-oranges comparison.
DougJ
What does that have to do with anything? Being right does not mean you are not crazy. Craziness has nothing to do with whether or not the things you say are accurate or logically consistent. Craziness is defined by Chris Matthews, David Brooks, and Cokie Roberts, not by any sort of object, verifiable reality. If you don’t understand that, you’re stuck in a pre-911 mindset.
Cyrus
I agree, that’s a very offensive idea. Let me know where I can find such a strange creature that holds it.
Perhaps you’re referring to the belief that if one votes for the party that makes its reputation, implicitly and sometimes even explicitly, by demonizing and denigrating people like oneself, then one must either be stupid or exceptionally callous to vote for said party. Add to that the fact that such people, even though unintentionally, give cover and legitimacy to those doing the denigrating, and “Uncle Tom” and similar terms begin to look like serious insults.
If you think the attitude I described is arrogant and presumptious, well, that’s true, but neither of those traits are uncommon or unique to The Left(TM).
And I don’t feel that way about Sullivan, as it happens, the thing I seriously hold against him is his stupid “fifth column” remark. I’m just explaining it. But intentionally or not, your characterization of why some people have an antipathy towards him was way off-base and unfair.
DougJ
I don’t like the idea of this thread at all. While I think that there are plenty of lunatics out there, the real lunatics are the people running the asylum — the Beltway pundits. David Brooks is much of a threat to our society than Mark Noonan (the nut over at Blogs for Bush) or all the people at Red State combined. Likewise, Cokie Roberts and Richard Cohen are much crazier in their own way than Cindy Sheehan.
Pb
ppGaz,
Oddly enough for some people, anyhow, that Michael Moore was right. I agree with you that there’s a lot of stuff he left out, or could have hit harder, but for what it was, I think he did a good job.
Pb
Jeff R,
Right on bro, they should put all those racist white nazis in forced labor camps. Or something.</malkin>
Gray
“hate and viciousness directed toward me from the left in the 1990s for daring to be a gay man”
Hmm, that’s not really correct. Sure, there’s been a lot of “hate and viciousness directed toward” Sully at a certain time. That’s been when it became public that he was anonymously seeking for sex partners at a gay website, emphatically stating that he’s a fan of unsafe anal sex, no rubbers, pls. Surely most here know that Sully has Aids.
Pb
Gray,
Yeah, but I don’t think Sully likes it when people bring up his Bareback Mountain days…
Richard Bottoms
Gays hate Andrew Sullivan because he is helping, even indirectly, the religious right. His idea that fear of terror trumps any fag bashing from the Republican party doesn’t fly with them. Whatever term gays have the eqautes to Uncle Tom, he’s it.
He is as loathesome to them as Armstrong Williams doing a buck & wing for the conservatives.
As far as both Andrew Sullivan, and the black shills are concerned, it isn’t their message we reject in a lot of areas, black folks are mighty conservative.
It’s the constantt requirement to apologize for and justify the anti-fag comments, the comparisons beastiality, the visits to Bob Jones University even.
They know their’s is a party with a lot of redneck racist homophobes but they are required most times to bend into pretzels as they defend the party they love so much.
Fuck Andrew Sullivan and his poor me schtick. Don’t like compared with dogs, switch parties or STFU.
Gray
Hehe, I did forget that the practice is called bareback. And thx for the link, Pb. Should have checked wiki myself…
DougJ
I can’t stand Sully. He’s like a character from the real world, alternately bemoaning how hard it is to be him and calling everyone else a hypocrite. I remember going through a phase like that — but it was when I was 19.
DougJ
Sullivan put up ads for bareback sex when he was HIV positive? Oh my God. That is about the most irresponsible thing you can do. Short of getting liquored up and hunting quail, of course.
Gray
Hmm, my memory is not that good, so I just read the wiki article. It says his ads mentioned that he is HIV positive and that he was seeking sex with other positives. This is a different story. I apologize for the misleading statement I posted above.
rilkefan
Made me burst out laughing in my lab, fortunately kinda deserted at the moment.
Richard Bottoms
Republicans want their fags in the closet, like Ken Mehlman.
And they want them be grateful for the wink and nod they get for their demonic behaviour. Deviating for sexual norms is fine if you are useful. Criticizing George Bush makes you not useful.
Whining about your treament at the hands of this crowd with Sullivan’s background generates a zero on the sympathy meter.
Tim F.
Sullivan should try to have an abortion.
Kimmitt
Who the hell cares what Sully thinks about anything, much less his self-absorbed whining about how the people he’s trying to screw over are upset about it?
Beginning of discussion:
Sully says…
End of discussion:
Sully’s a moron.
Richard Bottoms
You always knew Sullivan was only tolerated because he provided cover for the Log Cabin Republicans and their parents & siblings who needed to convince themselves their party really doesn’t loathe the sight of gays while pulling the ‘R’ lever. He wanted to believe they “really like me” instead of being just a bothersome faggot now.
BTW, I have even less empathy for John and his recent conversion. I am polite when addressing him specifically, as opposed to Republican generally (whom I take every oppourunity to bash and insult), because I am a guest on his blog. But his situation cuts even less ice with me that Sullivan’s.
Nikki
I’m still trying to figure out how the gay left treating him badly back in the 90s equates to the entire left of today being worse than the entire right of today.
Bob In Pacifica
Richard Bottoms, Tim F., Kimmit,
Here here!
Game over.
Richard Bottoms
>Here here!
I believe you mean: Hear, hear.
Richard Bottoms
It’s such an entire load of horsehit when you look at the media machine dedicated specifically crank out right wing sping from Faux News to the 700 Club.
When you show me an equivalent speaking engagement on the left for that bitch Ann Coulter you let me know.
Richard Bottoms
I’m still waiting to hear what it is that was so over the top for Michael Moore to say:
1. The Buhses have a close and ongoing relationship with the Saudi government
2. Relatives of the man who led the most devastating attack against the US ever were flown out of the country after the attack without being interviewed by the FBI while the rest of the entire US airline fleet was grounded.
3. George Bush sat like a dork for several minutes while war was declared against us
4. The rich won’t be sending their kinds to fight the war
5. George Bush vacations a lot
Pretty far out stuff there. Not.
Yet people lined up to the tune of $110,000,000 to hear it.
CaseyL
“I used to like Jane ’till she went around the bend with all that anger and hatred.”
I keep seeing stuff like this, and not just about Jane Hamsher: “Oh, I used to respect/like/read [Leftwing Commentator] but then I realized they’re just a bunch of angry Bush-haters” and it really pisses me off.
I’ve asked this before, and I’ll ask it again: What is the “proper” emotional response to an Administration that has committed the enormities that the Bush Admin has committed? Can anyone explain why we shouldn’t be angry; why we shouldn’t hate Bush and all his creatures? Is there any reason at this point to still rationally believe in Bush’s good faith – on anything?
It seems to me, if you love this country – love the idea of this country, love the ideals of this country – you sort of have to hate (or at least despise) the entire Bush Administration, because (it seems to me) that everything the Bush Administration has done has been profoundly destructive to all that.
A lot of us didn’t start out hating Bush. We maybe didn’t like him much, didn’t agree with his policies, etc. But “hatred” is a lot different from mere dislike and disagreement, and the Bush Administration got itself hated the old-fashioned way: by earning it.
Maybe, instead of dismissing assorted and sundry as “just Bush-haters,” you’d do better to think about why we hate him. We do have reasons. Good ones, too; not “well, he can’t keep his pants zipped” bullshit reasons.
Bob In Pacifica
Well, the game is over here. No one’s actually speaking.
Richard Bottoms
Seems to be, yes he’s shredding the constitutoon, got 2500 of his countrymen killed, mired our great-grandchildren in debt.
But gee, he’d be fun to have a beer with unlike that French guy. So lighten up.
D. Mason
CaseyL I can try to answer your post, atleast from my own perspective.
I try to think about each issue without respect to which side each party takes. I am conservative, about as far as one can get on the spectrum actually. Not like a Bush conservative who confuses conservative with Republican. I can’t stand Bush, mostly because of his spending and because I believe in the Constitution. I’ve never voted Republican, but socialism lite as preached by dems scares me a big way so being a Democrat is out. I find myself reading blogs on both sides of the aisle because I never agree with either side all the time.
The reason the Bush hating is such a major turn off to me is because vitrol never got anyone anywhere. Hating Bush isn’t informed commentary, it isn’t even original these days. Reading to the left-wing blogs bloviate about how much they hate Bush gets pretty tired after a short time. Sure they could talk about what policies they disagree with and why but I guess spewing is more fun. They might get alot of peoples attention if they discussed policies. There are plenty of Americans who don’t agree with Bush and who can’t turn to the TV “news” for informed discourse, they certainly can’t look to the right wing blogs for a balanced commentary but they’re also not ready to join the extreme left. Being one of these people I understand how frustrating it is to read a lefty blog and see nothing but hatred for Bush. I don’t begrudge them the centiment but It’s useless to me so a blog centered around it is also useless.
I know very few people who agree with the Bush agenda(I live in Alabama so that is startling to me), yet there are so few outlets that cater to people who don’t agree with Bush but also don’t want to burn him at the stake. Maybe the left-wing blogs are like the right-wing radio was during the Clinton era: hateful garbage to anyone except the most indoctrinated. Not to suggest that right-wing blogs aren’t hateful, but they’re also not looking for any converts so they can afford to be less reasonable.
CaseyL
rilkefan, I saw that and could not believe my eyes.
Whittington has got to be the WASPiest of all possible WASPs, because, yes, I can sort of understand how a true blue, old school WASP would apologize – for the public spectacle, which is so personally mortifying.
(And only someone of Whittington’s age and background could be that much of a true-blue, old school WASP.)
Slide
D Mason its not just that many of us “disagree” with the Bush’s agenda. That makes it sound as if it is just a disagreement in policy issues in which reasonable people can differing viewpoints. It is much more than that to to some of us. We see this President making profound and harmful changes to our democracy. Torture is not just a policy difference to me, it is a fundamental departure from how I view my country. Warrantless wiretapping. Attacking political opponents in a most vicious and unfair way. Policy taking precedence over science. Cronyism. Corruption. Secrecy to hide what you are doing. Politicising intelligence. Fear mongering. Incompetence beyond comprehension. A complete disdain for dissent or transparency in government. To me these are not issues that have much to do with right or left, liberal or conservative. Its much deeper than that and yes, I freely admit I hate what this President is doing to our country. Guilty.
CaseyL
D. Mason – many thanks for a thoughtful reply.
Yes, there’s no question but that some blogs really get going on Bush – esp. the comments sections. FTR, I stopped reading Atrios’ comment sections over a year ago; and even some of FDL’s commenters are OTT. Some of that is the price of success: FDL used to have far fewer regulars, and the comments used to be almost entirely substantive, or at least not simple screeds. Now FDL is a Big Name Blog, and gets far more hits, so of course there’s going to be more frothing and screeding.
But I disagree that lefty blogs only spew and don’t discuss the policies and actions that cause the hatred. dKos and FDL often post intensive legal and policy analyses. Michael Berube posts wonderful, articulate, and incredibly funny opinions skewering the neocons, and his comments section attracts more incredibly articulate and funny people. Ditto the Nielsen-Haydens over at Making Light. Glenn Greenwald – well, maybe I shouldn’t call him a “lefty”; I think he’s a moderate who’s simply reached his limit of reasonableness and (to paraphrase Brad DeLong) has joined the “Ancient and Hermetic Order of the Shrill” – but his posts, while they are broadsides, are also carefully thought out and written.
Speaking of the Order of the Shrill – part of the spewing and screeding comes of realizing that everyone could see the Bush Train Wreck coming, and the people who are supposed to be doing something about it have abdicated their responsibility. There are a lot of bloggers who started out as reasonble sorts, who tried to stay reasonable sorts, but somewhere between Abu Ghraib and Katrina realized that their worst nightmares had come true, and it seemed the country at large either didn’t notice or didn’t care. That’s a formula for despair, and despair does funny things to people.
Kyle
Eric Alterman is gay?
D. Mason
Slide, I agree with you whole heartedly, I despise what this administration is doing, alot of former republicans I know agree. Belly-aching on a blog won’t help the situation. Ranting on some left-wing propaganda website about the horrible repugnicans will not solve any problems. That’s my point.
People who are of a generally conservative mindset(the ones I know atleast), but who also see this admin. for what it really is don’t give a shit about how much the left-wing blogosphere hates Bush. If the only percievable alternative to Bush is a left leaning version of Bush there is no reason to get out of my lay-z-boy to go vote. Blogs play an increasing role in public perception, most Americans don’t trust the “news” on TV. Having both sides spit hateful bile back and forth really only shows that average Americans are damned if they do and damned if they don’t, so to speak. You can’t imagine how this is frustrating? You can’t see how this would turn people away from left leaning blogs?
I read AMERICAblog and KOS- they don’t address the issues that are really troubling me. Without Bush hate and Gay rights they wouldn’t have anything to write about. It’s not that I hate or even dislike gays, but honestly, with all that’s going on, gay marriage is so far down on my list of shit that matters it’s like a new vanilla ice album on billboard. That just leaves Bush hating and honestly that’s so old hat it’s boring. It’s not that people who don’t want to read about how much the left hates Bush like Bush themselves, they’re just sick of hearing about how much the left hates him.
Kyle
And it’s going to be a while before I get around to that.
Slide
D Mason. Quite frankly to suggest that blogs like Kos and AMERICABlog are just about Bush hating is just nonsense. Kos is a huge community, some of which are Bush haters no doubt, but a community that is providing a very valuable resource providing information that we don’t get from the MSM. They are also an organizing force of growing strength. The right mobilized many of their followers through right wing talk radio. They, through the very talented Rush Limbaugh, actually wielded tremendous power. they intimidated the MSM by their constant attacks of liberal bias. The MSM did back flips to go the other way. A recent survey of Sunday morning talk shows showed that conservatives greatly outweighed liberals on their panels. That is no longer acceptable. The liberal blogs, like talk radio before them, are exerting their influence. The Washington post got a taste of that when their ombudsman made a blatently false claim and then refused to correct it for days. They were inundated with people complaining.
The republicans didn’t regain the congress by playing nice. By being Democrats light. They regained power with bomb throwers like Newt Gingrich who once claimed Democrats weren’t like “normal” Americans. Hate? Tom Delay. Dick Armey. They did’t take over by being polite and engaging in temperate policy debates. Sorry, the time for civil discourse is long gone.
CaseyL
D Mason – really and truly, you should check out the blogs I mentioned, if only for the fine writing.
As for alternatives to Bush… don’t know what you mean by a “left-leaning version of Bush,” since I don’t see anyone on the Democratic end of the spectrum who is a proudly ignorant child of privilege who never accomplished anything without his family connections and who surrounds himself with sycophants. Care to name names?
Of the Democrats maybe, possibly, running in 2008:
Feingold? No.
Warner? No.
Clark? No.
Richardson? No.
Clinton? Aside from the advantage of being married to a former President, still not equivalent. Hardly ignorant and proud of it, certainly not an ideologue, and not known for needing sycophants.
Bayh? Well, his dad was a Senator. Other than that, nope.
Edwards? Nope. Quite the opposite, really.
Feingold and Edwards are liberal’s liberals, so I’m quite sure you wouldn’t contemplate voting for them for one moment. But Clark, Bayh and Clinton really aren’t considered “way left” by anyone except the “way right.”
Who are the GOP’s probables in 2008?:
Giuliani? Kind of liberal; plus, a messy private life. And his closeness to Kerik didn’t speak well of him. Actually, the only reason he’s mentioned at all is his undeniably, admiration-worthy heroic behavior on 9/11. That’s good – but is it enough?
Rice? Never mind the obvious issues, she was a disastrous NSA and seems thus far to be a not very effective SecState. Also – and as her tenure at NSA showed horribly clearly – she’s way too process-oriented, lacks any notion of initiative, and clings to outmoded ideas until they literally blow up in her face.
Jeb? O God Please; not another Bush.
McCain? I know a lot of people still get weak-kneed at the mention of his name. I used to be one of them. (Yes, really.) But anyone who’d suck up to the people who slandered and slimed him and his family the way he’s sucked up to the Bushes lacks a certain something….integrity, maybe?
Romney? He’d get the theocrat vote; otherwise, I don’t know anything about him.
Frist? Ha ha ha.
Maybe you’ll chose not to vote at all. I, personally, consider that an abdication of the most minimal duty of a citizen. As many people have noted (Robert A Heinlein among them), if you can’t find someone to vote for, you can always find someone to vote against. That ain’t pretty, but it’s often true.
Gray
“part of the spewing and screeding comes of realizing that everyone could see the Bush Train Wreck coming, and the people who are supposed to be doing something about it have abdicated their responsibility.”
Hmm, deja vu, i.e. Alles schon mal dagewesen…
Gray
Heinlein? Dont forget that he promoted voting rights only for the military and veterans in “Starship Troopers”. This would be a crass disappointment for all the keyboard kommandos :D
But the above quote may be clear-sighted. 2008 might be decided by the question which candidate is disliked by the majority..
CaseyL
Gray, I’m not sure what you meant by the German phrase. If you mean I want somebody besides me to “do something,” I do the usual things – write to my Congressperson, work for my candidate, etc. I’m not sure what else I can do, within legality – and beyond legality, I’m… not ready to go that route.
Gray
The translation is: “Stuff like that happened before”, Casey. and I was thinking of people who learned too late that they voted for the wrong guy. Hence the german phrase…
D. Mason
well people who aren’t “in the know” about possible dem candidates might see the hateful rhetoric on some of the blogs and be turned off, that’s what I meant. To someone who is not an adherant to party line, the left looks an awful lot like a mirror image of the right. That is of course because they are almost identical except for a few hot button issues but that’s OT. My point is that when people who simply don’t like Bush but don’t want to string him up either see the tone of some left wing blogs they can invision those people turning out a candidate very similar to dubya. They might be tempted to stick with the devil they know… I’m just saying.
Sine.Qua.Non
People did vote for the wrong guy. The anger over the Bush race and the elections is a deep-seated agony to many people, including myself. This is because I knew what Bush was like when he was Governor of Texas. Nothing has changed for him except he has a bigger bankroll now to bankrupt. And, he can play war with a country that never attacked us in the first place.
Richard Bottoms
You know what, I’ve had it up to here about common sense solutions derided as socialism. Making sure everyone who needs health care has a shot at getting it is not socialism. It good damn sense. Ensuring old people aren’t destitue, ditto.
Take you whiney, I’d vote for you if you weren’t so mean and scary and shove it. You people do this kibuki dance every two years and then go vote for the Republicans anyway.
We will not be intimidated or fooled into being silent or more “reasonable”.
This “I am a conservative but I might be persuaded” is a load of horseshit sold to pollsters in 2004. If the rape of the constitution and $500,000,000,000 wasted dollars, 2500 bodies, and 15,000 maimed soldiers isn’t enough to convince you, you can’t be convinced.
Keep you vote. Stick it where the sun don’t shine or just stay home. We’re not buying this fraud again.
Bugger off.
Richard Bottoms
BTW, I’m sure your personally a great guy and all. It’s just your vote I don’t care about. If Iraqi’s tortured to death in your name don’t move you to action, nothing will.
Kimmitt
Once one realizes that Sully’s a narcissistic idiot with a near psychotic level of disinterest other human beings, it all becomes clear.
This is a guy who discovered in 2004 that the Republican Party is antigay. Seriously. This was a major revelation, and it shook him to his core. And the first ramification of this was his sudden and strident opposition to policies which he had previously advocated — e.g. random internments, torture of prisoners, etc. Because he was so utterly self-centered that he couldn’t bring himself to notice the foul rot until it affected him personally, if peripherally.
The Other Steve
I don’t read Sullivan.
I don’t care what Sullivan has to say.
From what you’ve quoted, I just have this story to relate…
In Holland during the Nazi occupation there were groups of people who helped the Nazi’s, thinking that life would be easier if they just went along.
After the war was over and the Nazi’s left. Those who had been persecuted by the Nazi’s turned around and went after those sympathizers with a vengeance.
My guess is those sympathizers also thought that the Nazi’s were kinder than there Dutch brethren.
But then, they didn’t get the point.
The Other Steve
I think you get what you look for. Seriously. I don’t read americablog, but I do peruse kos.
Most of it is just crap, but occasionally there is phenomenal insight. It’s got a high noise to signal rate, but that signal is tremendously useful.
Now compare this to “righty” blogs, which offer nothing in terms of insight, simply a parroting of the party line, a reinforncement of the conventional wisdom, and a whole slew of Clinton hatred.
And if you think the left hate Bush, it’s nothing compared to the way the right hated Clinton. I’m surprised they didn’t try to assassinate him.
Bob In Pacifica
Kyle, it was a response from Tom from Texas way back. Read it or not. There’s a benefit to understanding not only what people proclaim but what people hide. This thread started out about gays, hate, left and right.
Bob In Pacifica
I remember how truly shocked and scared I was as the seventies began, as the revelations about Nixon, the war, the secret government actions all began trickling out.
The news about the current Administration, their love of secrecy, torture, spying on citizens, on one level it seems to be a repeat of the Nixon years, and the revelations of the Cold War secrets. So this round of atrocious government has been more depressing than shocking to me.
The Reagan Administration was about turning the ship around, away from liberalism. It was business. When we heard about the torture and the death squads and the underhanded deals with Iran, at least, we thought, they are taking care of their business. At our expense, but they are taking care of their business. PATCO and murdering labor leaders in Latin America were just about tipping the scales towards the rich. That’s all. Nothing personal.
But this round has a feeling of being produced by psychologically troubled people. Not that Nixon wasn’t a bit disordered. The Bush Administration is pathological, though. How their torture policy came about really does suggest a sickness in Bush and his appointees. The lack of respect for other humans is palpable both in their actions and the words of Bush’s supporters. There is also a sense that not only do they not know how to govern but that they are gleeful in destroying government.
Nixon was anti-gay. Reagan was anti-gay, not personally but in policy. Bush wages a politics of destruction, and there is some very dark pathological element in him wanting to anhilate things, like a little boy alternately scared or petulant.
There was a Germany that survived WWII. There were Hitler supporters, and presumably some of them were chastised by what their support of the Nazis wrought. But everyone was left in the ruins. That’s what I think about sometimes, what will be left by 2009.
Bob In Pacifica
I think it was D. Mason who was giving the “scared of socialism” rant. Which is kind of like the scared of “liberalism” rant.
You know, you get close to 300 million people in a finite area and we all can’t avoid everyone else. We have to deal with each other. You can invent a system for paying outrageous prices to pharmaceutical companies in exchange for campaign donations or outright payoffs, or you can make a system where people get the medicines they need as cheaply and efficiently as possible. Both systems involve the government overseeing the allocation of monies in order to provide services and products to peoples. Both systems are socialist in the very broad sense. One system screws over poor old people in favor of fattening the wallets of the wealthy.
The socialist argument is bunk. It’s something taught to us as children to scare us. “Socialism is bad. Fear it.” That’s why Mason and others go to the polls and vote against themselves every time. They’re scared of what they were taught to fear.
This fear even seeps out of John Cole’s posts. It’s like a homing device buried deep inside every reactionary. Fear, and the anger arising from being afraid.
CaseyL
Let me just say WORD to Richard Bottoms and Bob in Pacifica. Excellent points, guys.
The Pavlovian response to anything the GOP sticks the “socialism” label on reminds me of a billboard some RW nut put up back in the mid-80’s, that asked why everyone was so excited about Gorbachev, when he was “just another Communist.”
The Other Steve
On socialism…
It’s interesting. I happen to not be a fan of private charities, viewing them almost universally as corrupt and only interested in their own existence rather than actually helping the people they purport to help. As such, I prefer government to provide the safety net, because then I have a certain level of oversight. And, if the mission is accomplished, the government program should disappear.
It’s that latter part which is my belief that goes counter to reality. Even so, it’s still better than the charity scams we have today as a norm.
CaseyL
Oh, and this –
– doesn’t make much sense. If you want information about a candidate, you go to the candidate’s website, and that candidate’s local newspaper website to see what the homefolk have to say, and the national newspapers, and then you go to places like mydd or dKos or swingstateproject for discussion and analysis of the candidate. You get information from numerous sources, not all of it commentary/discussion.
Anyway, you can find even more hateful rhetoric on RW blogs, where they routinely call Democrats traitors, approve of torture, and support all-out war against Islam. Do you make your electoral decisions based on what they say?
Kimmitt
Interesting. I’ve worked in a couple of non-profits, and I’ve seen some of this attitude in some — but in others, the sense of purpose was palpable.
Richard Bottoms
Monkeys from the tribal council?
Darn. If the Democrats weren’t so mean I’d leave that silly old GOP.
D. Mason
Partly, yes. Well not just blogs but the rhetoric in general. I do pay attention to what the party foot soldiers are saying when I choose a candidate. I voted
for kerryagainst Bush in ’04 and didn’t vote in ’00 because I thought Gore had it in the bag. I can’t stand party Republicans, they’re not conservatives and for my money Bill Clinton was more conservative that George Bush ever pretended to be. But thanks for assuming. Just because I’m not willing to come on here and verbally felate John Kerry or whoever else is on the dem ticket doesn’t mean I’m a republican. George Bush scared the shit out of me from the first time I saw him campaigning. However, all of that shouldn’t lead you to believe that I like the “left-wing” agenda. I, like so many other Americans are forced to choose what we percieve to be the lesser of two evils.I like the whole “you’re either for us or against us” vibe. It’s so Rove of you.
CaseyL
You were doing fine till you got to that. I didn’t say, imply, infer, or use secret coded hand signals to convey that…
… or that, either, come to think of it.
Don’t know what your game is. Don’t much care. You want information, I gave some places you can find it. You want to go on assuming lefties are hate-filled socialist whatevers, knock yourself out.
D. Mason
All political extremists are hate-filled, it’s in their nature. I’m not saying you’re one of them or that most lefties are but surely you realise they exist and I assure you they are hate-filled.
BTW I have no game, I just don’t take my ideology from the party line… not from either side. Maybe it seems like I’m playing games when I don’t pick a side and root for them regardless of my feelings. I think the “two” party system we have is poisonous to freedom and democracy.
I feel like I’ve been pretty forthcoming with my stance yet digging assumptions are still made so you will forgive me if I am a little defensive.
Kazinski
It is obvious that leftists are more hate filled than conservatives. Conservatives are empirically happier. I may be stretching things a little but associating unhappiness with with a bitter hate filled outlook seems a natural.
http://pewresearch.org/social/chart.php?ChartID=39
AlanDownunder
I guess that tells everyone (except Reynolds apparently) where he lies on the political spectrum.
Bob In Pacifica
Kazinski, hate is not the opposite of happy. Sadness is the opposite of happiness. Being happy at the way Bush is ruining the country may not be the appropriate response to current events.
It may make Jack Abramoff happy to call Choctaw Indians monkeys. Doesn’t make it good.
D. Mason, where do you get the position that “all political extremists are hate-filled, it’s their nature.” I guess you can presume that someone so far out of the mainstream must be disappointed and that disappointment must lead at some point to anger, but I think the idea that certain people by their political beliefs must be hate-filled is absurd.
You can argue that people who have hate-filled beliefs are hate-filled, but it sounds like another one of those “beliefs” that you carry around in your head that you haven’t examined.
You could say that “American Indians are all hate-filled because of what the white man did to them.” And you could find Native Americans who are angry, even hate-filled. And you could find a lot of people who are happy and living their lives to the best that they can. By the way, identifying a group as hate-filled is the first step to marginalizing and eliminating them.
I think the “hate-filled” label is another way for you to dismiss the “socialists” mentioned earlier in this stream. They must be hate-filled, so I must not support them, or even examine their beliefs.
I think you are fearful. Instead of avoiding “socialists” and other “hate-filled” groups, you should sit down, write out a list of things you fear and then start figuring out where the fears came from and how rational they are.
The Other Steve
Hmm, this seems to be implying that people like myself get our ideology from the party line.
Afraid that’s not so. My ideology comes from my observations and learning. I only happen to cheerlead for Democrats, because the Republicans are moving in a direction counter to American Values right now.
As for the poison. That’s the fault of the Republicans. They hold this belief that if they make political discourse in this country so hateful and spiteful, it’ll turn people away from voting. Given that they can’t win on issues, this is all they had left to use.
And that little factoid is largely why I am a Democrat, despite the fact that on ideology I don’t much agree with them.
D. Mason
No, it’s the fault of both parties(if you consider them to be seperate parties atall, which I don’t). The fact that you would only blame the republicans shows your true colors. Try again.
Both parties cooperate in taking America down a destructive path. Both parties are working towards a corperate state. Don’t forget it was Clinton who supported NAFTA and signed it into law. This was one of the most destructive economic policies since Regan revolutionised corperate welfare.
Several people jumped on me for using the word socialism and I guess technically speaking they are right. Socialism is when governments controls the means of production and thusly the economy. What we have is not socialism lite, it’s bastardised socialism where corporations(the means of production) control the government. The results aren’t completely different but there is a nuance, and for this mis-characterisation I apologise.
Kimmitt
I must disagree, very strongly. While NAFTA was more or less a wash for the US and Canada, it was a godsend for Mexico, on several levels.
That said, NAFTA does have some environmental issues which very much need to be fixed.
D. Mason
A WASH?????? WTF is it that you think “a wash” means? In my dictionary it means nothing lost nothing gained, but there was a massive loss for both the U.S. and Canada, a loss in jobs and ability to produce something of value. If you think that exporting good paying jobs while importing low espectation workers isn’t bad for the economy then you need to brush up on your economic theory. If you think having no ability to produce is beneficial to a nation then maybe you need to have your head examined.
I realise it was a godsend for Mexico, but since when do we decide our national policy based on whats good for Mexico? I’m not suggesting we say “fuck them” or anything, but there is a way to help them without destroying our own economy in the process. A guest student program perhaps? Teach their citizens who apparently have so much ambition to build up their own economy. Maybe encourage U.S. companies to invest in Mexican upstart companies(working in tandem with the guest student program perhaps?). Maybe we could *gasp* end the costly, non-working “war on drugs” and allow them to profit off pot legally(cut out the cartels). We can import Mexican products from Mexican companies and still not export American production. There are a plethora of options that we could use to build up the Mexican economy that do no involve the outsourcing of American jobs. This would truly benefit Mexico, Canada and the United States. The politicians chose the NAFTA option because it benefited their campaign contributors in a way that none of the other options did.
CaseyL
Wow, D. Mason. That’s a most excellent screed, and I mean that very sincerely.
I really like your ideas about guest-student programs and supporting local entrepeneurs. Why don’t we do that? Because US companies don’t want more competition, natch. God knows they’re busy snuffing it out as fast as they can right here at home. (They call it “market consolidation,” I call it “monopolism.”) You are absolutely right about “corporate socialism” – but I prefer to call it corporate welfare. Oddly enough, the slams conservatives make against welfare for individuals – how it atrophies ambition, makes people dependent on it – applies even more truly to corporations.
About NAFTA: I think – think, mind you – that some of the rationale behind NAFTA, esp. regarding Mexico, was that people who could find good jobs there would be less likely to sneak across the border as illegals to look for jobs here…which would, theoretically, mean more jobs for US citizens. It doesn’t look as if things have actually worked out that way, but I could be wrong. It certainy didn’t take into effect US companies moving their operations to Mexico altogether – but, again, I’m not sure how big a factor offshoring to Mexico is versus offshoring to China, India, et al.
The Other Steve
No, it shows I’m informed and you’re still sucking on the kool-aid teat. Yessir, that’s what the Republicans want you to think, that both parties are full of nasty people, so it’s just not worth your while to vote. Why is that? Because their devoted legions show up like clockwork.
So don’t feed me that bullshit, Sir, and then accuse me of being biased.
Honestly, I’m at a loss to explain NAFTA. I believe free trade is beneficial, as it allows us to consume cheaper priced goods, and it helps to build up the economy of the producing country. This is especially important with Mexico, because a lot of their people keep trying to leave anbd move up here illegaly.
But from what I’ve seen the situation has gotten worse in Mexico. So I’m not sure why NAFTA was a failure, but it’s not done what we thought it would.
On the other hand, in the past year I’ve noted buying goods made in Jordan, Russia, Vietnam, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc. All over the world. That’s not a bad thing.
I have a friend who was laid off by NAFTA, and he received job retraining and was better off as a result.
So the situation is complicated. I grant you, we need to look at the broader macroeconomics within the US as well.
Skip
“Hugh Hewitt is not as hateful as Eric Alterman, as any reader can see for themselves.”
And not as smart either.
D. Mason
It wouldn’t be a bad thing if those goods weren’t being produced by people working for American based companies who recently closed their domestic factories.
Kimmitt
Most studies have concluded that some sectors lost and some sectors gained, and that the gains and losses more or less balanced each other out. One of the conclusions of these studies is that the vast majority of the manufacturing jobs that went to Mexico would have left the US anyway, unfortunately. You can see that this is likely true, since a lot of those jobs have since left Mexico for China.
That is, flight of industrial jobs has very little to do with NAFTA and very much to do with China’s accession to the WTO.
I agree with this, but NAFTA was the main reason why Clinton chose to bail Mexico out of its short-term currency crisis. That single event is, in my opinion, even more important than the growth rate over the past ten years.