This post will be banned in Saudi Arabia.
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact
FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.
We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.
🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵
It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!
Optimism opens the door to great things.
Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.
Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!
If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.
“They not like us!” (that’s for sure!)
Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.
No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.
We won’t go back.
Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll
I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.
Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.
The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.
“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.
I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.
Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.
How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.
They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.
You are here: Home / A Balloon-Juice Milestone
TheFountainHead
Eh, is that really that much different than the War on Christmas here at home?
/snark
RSA
Thanks for the link. I like this bit:
A “virtue and vice squad”. Oh, my God.
Caidence (fmr. Chris)
/looks at article
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHA
Could today become any more comical?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Carnacki
I don’t like how the Saudis operate, but Bush loves them. Many so-called “conservatives” at my old Southern Baptist church would mock Middle Eastern governments, and then tout positions that were remarkably similiar to theocratic governments there. The fundies of all stripes would love to ban secular holidays.
Gus
Religious fanatic freaks.
Chris Huston
This is not surprising at all. My family lived in Saudi Arabia for nearly ten years while my dad worked for the oil company Aramco. We had to smuggle a plastic Christmas tree into the country, they are very sensitive about such things because there is no separation between church and state.
The “virtue and vice squad” are called Matawas. Their main job is making sure all shops close during the 5 prayer times during the day and the more aggressive ones have been known to attempt to confiscate a cross necklace etc if a forgetful foreigner has one on etc.
Tim C
Lord I wish it was 1906 and we couldn’t care less what happened in Arabia and Mesopotamia. They could behead and jihad themselves to their hearts’ content and we could be blissfully unaware and unaffected.
ThymeZone
Oh lord. Both he and his father kiss their hands … in front of cameras.
Kiss the hands of the Saudis. Did you ever think you would live to see the day when presidents of the United States would kiss the hands of foreign leaders?
No matter how many times I see it I still can hardly believe it.
Dayv
Ladies and gentlemen, our esteemed allies in the middle east.
See also: has Uzbekistan boiled anyone alive this week?
Wilfred
Part of it has to do with religion. KSA is the location of the most important place in Islam; the government has the responsibility of maintaining religious sensibility throughout the country. The anti-vice squads used to be made up of Bedouin with bamboo canes who’s pummel people caught smoking on the street during Ramadan.
The other reason has to do with resistance to Americanization and the incessant marketing of Western culture, also kept up by religious authority, ulema, and some Saudi intellectuals who remain part of the Arab anti-colonial project.
Chris
Thankfully, our own corporate overlords will prevent such laws here.
Unless the anti-obesity overlords get involved and ban chocolate and those chalk-flavored candy hearts.
Punchy
Not a BJ milestone: the thread post will be poorly written and rife with typos.
IanY77
Everytime I see something like that, I’m reminded of a classic Dan Savage column where a ME reader was pissed that he hinted that Canadian sexual mores were superior to those of Saudi Arabia:
And no apologies for the Canadian chauvinism.
IanY77
Whoops, meant to add:
Or South Park:
Ugh
Someone needs to photoshop a big valentine’s day heart onto the picture of Bush and the Saudi ruler holding hands.
srv
You know they have “texting” police at the Malls there? They monitor instant messages to catch kids flirting, casual connections and people not maintaining a certain digital decorum.
Zifnab
Truly gag inducing. If this country ever does find itself one day under Sharia Law – like the wingnuts piss themselves to sleep at night dreading – it’ll be because of wankers like Bush.
J sub D
A new descriptive term needs to be coined for Saudi Arabia. Something that combines insane, misogynistic, retarded, closeted queer, neanderthal, anal rententive and a few more. If it wasn’t for North Korea these asswipes would lead the world in fucked upedness.
Wilfred
Funny how Arab/Muslim bashing has become a parlor game for progressives. Ironically enough, today saw another example of the inevitable ramifications of unabashed cultural superiority:
Now in case you’re wondering how good white people, some of them Canadian immigrants, could do so dreadful as steal children from their parents you only have to remember that to people of that day the Aboriginals, wogs, didn’t have any culture. There was no use fussing about with ‘being tolerant of intolerance’ or some other prettified nonsense.
I wonder what a cultural critic like Dan Savage would have to say about all that
canuckistani
Funny how progressives will criticize cultures where you can be executed for homosexuality or flogged for the crime of being raped. Those damned lefties just won’t wear your strawman suits, will they?
Zifnab
Yeah, cause the idiots screaming their heads off about France falling to the New Caliphate were totally liberals. You’ve hit the nail on the head, Wilfred.
Don’t forget, Americans hate Venezuela for its freedom and Hugo Chavez is a saint persecuted only for the love he shows his people.
Svensker
Yes, we Americans are so superior to those Saudi scum. Why just today, the U.S. Senate passed a bill allowing the President to wiretap U.S. citizens without a warrant, and he doesn’t have to tell anyone he’s doing it or why. And just last week, the President admitted to torturing prisoners, and nobody has done a fucking thing about it, nor will they.
But, we’re allowed to have sex with anyone we want, so who cares about the rule of law, barbarity or the Constitution.
Jamey
Dayv:
No, but it’s only Tuesday.
srv
Bushland.
Jen
Man, I love Dan Savage.
He also had some great response to a guy who was looking for information on his particular fetish, which was used women’s tennis shoes. (I know, it boggles the mind.) It was along the lines of, “okay, this is the last time I’m doing the legwork for you freaks, ok? There’s this thing out there called the internet, and even typing in your weirdo fetish gets about 100,000 hits so stop being so lazy already.”
Wilfred
yes, because we can fuck animals if we want, we can attack other countries at will and bomb the shit out of anyone we don’t like. Because we. love. freedom.
But why only cultures that do that? What about those neanderthals in Kenya, or all of Black Africa for that matter? All those years of freedom and they still live like animals? Does that sound about right?
What about our country, that lets murderers go free in Iraq because their military? Have progressives condemned that as much as they have KSA prohibiting Valentine’s day?
And we can torture and kill and incinerate because we send candygrams to celebrate a martydom – now that’s ironic.
Jen
Wilfred, this is a silly argument and a zero-sum game. If you’re a liberal/progressive/decent person/pick your favorite label, you are outraged and offended by human rights abuses, wherever they may occur, and they occur pretty much everywhere.
This is hardly a blog that can be accused of tolerating or accepting the abuses of our own government, which after all spawned its current incarnation.
Wilfred
Oh I am outraged. That’s the entire point. if I wanted I could post endlessly on abuses that happen in South America that few of you have ever heard of, but the point is to change what you can, not what you can’t.
I hate bullying and injustice wherever it is – not just the outrage du jour meant to score not so clever points. I have yet to see one post on this site in 3 years, for example, on Israeli barbarity in the Occupied territories.
Dennis - SGMM
It already seems endless to me.
Jen
Funny, it seemed to me like your point was that no one else’s fuckedupedness could be discussed without a corollary discussion of our own exactly equivalent fuckedupedness, combined with nonsense like
Dayv
Well, I certainly have — but I’m a socialist, not a “progressive.”
Jamey
Wilfred: No one’s saying that there aren’t two sides to the story, just that the two sides are not, by any stretch of the imagination, even remotely valid.
Sometimes it is valid to question the values of another culture. And the defeat of Dodd/Feingold is a perfect example: The abrogation of our copious rights is an outrage, albeit one that pales in comparison with, say, a man being executed for having sex with another man.
Jamey
Er, not remotely valid. Remotely equal.
Stupid crack!
Cyrus
So what you’re saying is that Dan Savage is racist or a hypocrite or something for commenting on an injustice when confronted by an example of it? Or the people commenting here on Saudi Arabia are? Really, your point here is incoherent at best.
Grand Moff Texan
No, you’re quite right.
It sounds FA BU-LOUSSSSSSSSSSSSS
.
Grand Moff Texan
Then you’d be on the wrong sodding thread, you fucking twat.
.
Faux News
Wilfred: the Paultards are planning a march on DC soon (TBA). Please join them, as you are clearly an angry man who has been marginalized. They will welcome you and your anger into their fold. I look forward to you carrying the sign which states “Land, Peace, & Bread”.
ViVeLaMe
Paging Clinton apologists:
Hillary Clinton couldn’t muster the energy to go vote for the Dodd/Feingold amendment stripping immunity for telcos from the Protect America Act.
Ready from day one to change America, ha!
ThymeZone
Not sure. I have made some pretty strong posts bashing the crap out of Israel the last 3 years, although I am not sure we addressed that particular topicette.
But I have said in so many words that Israel is a state born in recent history out of terrorism, and employs terrorism today to advance its agenda. The proximate topic that raised the issue most recently was the Lebanon July war.
I have also said in so many words that a country that gives lip service to peace for 50 or 60 years and can’t find any probably doesn’t really want peace. After a half century, “God gave us this land” really doesn’t cut it for me. All I can say is, if He did, the He did a piss poor job of it, because you are still fighting over it and your neighbors are saying exactly the same words to justify their fight with you.
Jon H
What? No decapitations then? No hand amputations for theft?
Dammit.
Zifnab
TZ, you don’t fit Wilfred’s psychological American liberal niche and/or have no links to previous works to back yourself up. Ergo, *giant rasberry*…
Darkness
We’ll get back there, probably in our lifetimes, possibly in the next 20 years. There are only a handful of non-peak oil countries remaining of which Russia is by far the largest. (Do they like having their hands kissed? I expect not, they seem classier than that.) So, you will have the opportunity to laugh at the Saudi’s dessert-bound asses, uh, while you are walking to work.
Jake
Bwahaha!
Just when I think the world has reached its FauxRage limit, along comes Wilfred to complain because we’re complaining about the Saudi government when there are plenty of other nasty inhumane governments to complain about.
The Circle is Complete!
Or, I’m having a flashback to college.
Either way allow me to do my part to make sure this blog will be banned by saying: Fuck the fucking radicals with a splintery pitchfork handle.
libarbarian
And this makes it ok?
Darkness
I just realized that I wrote “dessert-bound asses” but I guess I’ll stick with that. It fits too. Or perhaps their outfits are just horrifically unflattering.
ThymeZone
But I will, if he sends me a picture.
Wilfred
Just amazing. TZ has balls so he deserves some respect – the rest of you are just tossers who get the vapors when you’re selective hypocrisy is thrown back at you. Muslim and Arab bashing is fine but God help anyone who takes the piss for Israel or Blacks or Gays or anyone else your current social conditioning has taught you really matters.
Demonization is the instruction, war is the act. Blacks had to be turned into animals without a history or a culture before they could be enslaved. Iraqis had to be turned into baby incinerating, child slaughtering animals before they could be liberated. Arabs must be turned into freedom hating, gay bashing tyrants before…
Posts like the one that started this thread are part of the process, albeit a small, insignificant one. If you understood the process, you’d never participate in it. Well, some of you wouldn’t, but if you think it a bit odd that to call Barack Obama a Muslim is a smear in and of itself then you might have a clue.
Incidentally, by posts I mean the blogs that pop up here, not individual comments.
les
Thank you, Grand Moff Texan. And what the fuck is a Moff?
les
Wilfred, buddy, find the meds. And then contemplate the lunacy involved in taking a position that no one can bash any human rights abuse, unless they bash all human rights abuses. Or is it just that your ox is being gored, or your favorite target skipped today?
Raka
That’s the most beautiful sentence in the English language.
binzinerator
We could be doing that now, if only we’d spent that 2 trillion for the Iraq war on alternate energy research.
We made space research and manned missions to the moon a national priority when sputnik showed us how far the Russians were ahead of us — with huge consequences for our national security, science and simple prestige.
We spent billions our space program. That ‘surge’ paid all kinds of dividends, with advances in aerospace, electronics, materials science, engineering, biology, and ripple effects even down to consumer products.
But a crisis in energy? Any ‘space program’ initiative for that? Fuck no, we don’t even do no conservation. It isn’t a real American trait, said Cheney.
If we had started in October 2001, by 2006 we would’ve been well on the way to reducing the geopolitical importance of Arabia and mesopotamia to that of 1906.
If we’d started when Carter told us to, there’d have never been a 9/11. Do you think we’d ever have bases in Saudi arabia if we didn’t need oil? No need for oil, no bases. No bases in the Islamic holy land, no bin Laden. But no. Fuck Carter, we said.
Everyone knows Carter was a lousy president, right? He went down when he had the balls to tell everyone the damn straight truth. (I consider this a cultural watershed moment. People wanted to be lied to. They demanded it. It signals a tipping point of the ascendent conservative movement — they finally had found enough willing dupes. And Ronnie told them exactly what they wanted to hear. Every good con man knows his mark.)
Seriously, if we didn’t need oil, we wouldn’t need the middle east. Just how fucking hard is it to figure this out?
With 2 trillion bucks we could’ve found a way to make oil as unnecessary as burning dried dung.
Instead we got nothing for our money but a bunch of dead people. And our energy problem, like our security, has become worse.
IanY77
Okay, I’m confused. First, I hear that liberals are hypocrites because we fight for equality at home but ignore it in Muslim countries because of PC/afraid of Islam/love Islam/want America to be taken over by Arabs/etc. So I make a half joking post about how it’s OK to criticize some of the backwards practices of said Arab countries, and now I’m a bigot?!?!
Screw you guys, I’m going home, and I’m taking my ball with me.
Jake
And women had to be turned into the root of all evil and gays had to be turned into baby molesting perverts before … whoops.
Wait. Now I’m cornfused. Is it OK for Saudi Arabia to flog women who are raped and chop off gay peoples’ heads or not?
No, I get it, it doesn’t matter. Because you see, some people have said nasty untrue things about perfectly inoffensive people as an excuse to kill or oppress them, so we aren’t allowed to point out when nasty people say nasty things about inoffensive people as an excuse to oppress or kill them. Because then we’re just like the nasty liars who kill people for no reason.
It makes more sense if you just nod in agreement.
So, Wilfred has to shut up about our offensiveness v. The Saudi government because our offensiveness is almost the same as the anti-gay offensiveness of the Saudis except for the niggling detail that we’d never round up a bunch of Saudi officials and chop their heads off.
But other than that it is no different.
libarbarian
You are obviously a joke:
1. Because people bash Blacks, Gays, and Jews here all the time. This accusation is baseless and provably false to anyone who actually looked at what is said here instead of just assuming that we meet some stereotype they hold dear.
2. It is not “Arab bashing” to call out a particular stupid policy by a particular arab government. Frankly, I think only an ignorant person who thinks in racial and religious stereotypes could even remotely confuse the two things.
IanY77
Jake:
My head hurts. Can we just talk about beer for a while?
Wilfred
You know when Vietnam ended I thought I’d never see another war because all of that Vic Morrow Combat! bullshit that prepared guys to go off and fight COMMUNISM was all dead and gone. The came Reagan and Top Gun and it just needed someone new to point a gun at.
It’s the process that creates the act, which in the right hands can get a bare majority, 50% plus 1, to do whatever the fuck it wants. It’s always been like that. So you want to criticize the Saudis, be my guest, you’re just bleating the same song the sheep have always bleated.
But at least have a chocolate to remember all the brave boys fighting and dying to bring Valentine’s Day to Iraq.
Jake
Coitanly!
So.
How many do you think WILF knocked back today?
Dennis - SGMM
I thought that you said that we were having a chocolate to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Valentine. Make up your morally superior mind, Wilfred. You’re so busy mashing things together to feed your opprobrium that you’ve descended into unintentional humor. You’ve demonstrated a comprehensive and willful ignorance of both History and Anthropology while spewing a generalized disdain for everyone but yourself.
You’re an, ignorant, sanctimonious jerk, Wilfred.
LiberalTarian
Eh, Wilfred. We all have days when we just can’t stand one more fucked up thing.
Bruce Cockburn, 1983. (God bless Canada!!!)
Hang in there.
Besides, these guys rip everybody a new one at some point. Part of the love. ;)
ThymeZone
Sexist bastard!