Because we’re too big to cry…but seriously, isn’t Michelle Bachmann living proof that, yes, we must needs weep for the Republic.*
Her latest, via TPM:
“What I love about New Hampshire and what we have in common is our extreme love for liberty. You’re the state where the shot was heard around the world in Lexington and Concord.“
That comes as news to the fine folks who tend to one of the jewels of our national park system, not to mention how it would have shocked folks like the guy who lived here. And how about the guy who wrote that line, “the shot heard ’round the world”? His house still stands in Concord — Massachusetts, by the way — but he might have had the inner resources to focus on the humor here, rather than the gutbusting ignorance.
And then there’s this fellow, full of local as well as national pride, who would have been deeply offended to think that his fellow citizens would ever entrust such a buffoon with legislative authority.
And so on…you get the idea.
Of course, because Bachmann is a Republican and thus personally and severally infallible, she did not, she says, really make any mistake here. Oh no:
So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!
Uh…
Huh?
I mean, seriously. New Hampshire’s proud of lots of stuff, some of it actually deserving of such respect. (Green Mountain Boys, yes. Ridiculously high property taxes because of an income tax fetish, no. Daniel Webster, yes. Calvin Coolidge, en route here to there perhaps not so much.** Justice Souter — My Man!)
I’m sure that the citizens of that good state are indeed proud of the patriots (treasonous rebels, from General Gage’s point of view) who defended their homes (and cached arms) in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for the sake of still nascent national liberty. But the fine folks of the Granite State have never, at least not in my considerable experience of the place, claimed the Minute Men and their blood and toil as local heroes. Just doesn’t happen.
And as for us worshippers of the sacred cod? Astonishingly enough, we actually take great pride and pleasure in our revolutionary heritage.
In the spirit of comity, I invite Michele Bachmann to come as my guest this next Patriots’ Day. We’ll get up at some unshriven hour and truck on out to Lexington to witness the recreation of the battle there. We’ll head next to the North Bridge and watch the muskets crack out as the British forces crest and then retreat on that bloody, militia harassed march back to the relative safety of Charlestown. She can come with me to the Jason Russell House in Arlington, MA and pick out the bullet holes that remain from the massacre that took place there 236 years ago, when British regulars invaded the house after killing its owner defending his doorstep. Later, we can visit Cambridge Common and stand by the cannon that mark the spot where George Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 3, 1775…
…You get the idea. Seriously, Michele, come on down! Try to learn something. And I double dawg dare you to suggest to anyone you meet that day that citizens of this Commonwealth don’t know or cherish their history.
One more thing: how can you tell Rep. Bachmann is all class, all the time? Try this for her last update on her gaffe:
And by the way… That will be the last time I borrow President Obama’s tele-promoter!
Oh man, oh man. What to say?
Well, (a): dude — if you’d used the Obama teleprompter, it would have got the fact right.
And (b): this is your modern GOP.
Somewhere, the Founders weep.
*This moment of snark offered as just a brief respite from the real tragedies in train.
**Just to make sure that per Different Cat Lady’s comment below, the joke here is obvious.
Image: Adriaen Pietersz van de Venne. “Altogether Too Stupid,” (The scene depicts a peasant woman getting her wits sharpened on the knife-grinder’s whetstone, while onlookers gather.) Before 1662.
AxelFoley
LOL, Bachman and the GOP are straight comedy. The jokes write themselves.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Sometimes you want to laugh just to keep from crying, but sometimes all that comes out is sobbing instead.
I would laugh if not for the fact that fucks like her are winning immeasurably every fucking time we turn around. The EPA is being gutted. Response? “GOOD, it’s their fault we’re poor because energy costs too much now!! And Obama overreached anyways by actually wanting to stop pollution, FUCK EM!!” Birther bills galore, state by state. “GOOD! Goddamn illegal Kenyan usurper ruining our great goddamn country with all his BLACKNESS!!!” Workers rights gutted, governors bankrupting states under the guise of ‘fiscal discipline’, all the while giving massive breaks to the Kochs and the like. “GOOD!! Fucking rich ass fat cat teachers and unions deserve to live like us destitute common folks!!”
Seriously, even when public opinion turns against them (and sadly, it rarely ever fucking does, and even when the larger public does, the voting public is too fucking borne out by Hippie Punching come election day), they fucking win because they can and do everything they fucking want and if we don’t fucking like it, TOUGH, you’re fucking all proles and hippies any fucking way.
Omnes Omnibus
Come on, Tom, what does Massachusetts know about things like tea parties?
Yutsano
I prefer to cry. Especially since this woman has enough ego to try for the Big Chair. And will be taken seriously by the media while she does so.
4jkb4ia
And this is the woman who claims she became a conservative because of Gore Vidal’s Burr and her great love for the heroes of the Revolution. It speaks for itself.
different church-lady
Dude, PLEASE tell me you listed Calvin Coolidge as a NH thing only as a snarky parody of the kind of mistake Bachmann made.
JPL
But when Michelle Bachmann visited South Carolina, they said she was the smart Sarah Palin. Theoretically it’s still possible, I guess.
hilts
Michele Bachmann is a babbling buffoon who is so dumb she couldn’t pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.
soonergrunt
Well, you know, it wasn’t over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor.
The republic has withstood worse than Michele Bachman and the teabaggers. It will withstand them too.
Suck It Up!
anyone notice the spelling of teleprompter? tele-promoter?
is that how the original founders would have spelled it?
PeakVT
The Green Mountain Boys were actually from the New Hampshire Grants, now known as Vermont.
JPL
@Suck It Up!: Well that’s why she didn’t borrow it. No one knew what she wanted.
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: I see what you did there. Did you know that the tea party museum recently was struck by lightening, closed and several years later burnt down? I haven’t been back to the states to know if it’s open again. Man I loved that place when I was a kid.
cathyx
If being smart and getting facts right were important to republicans, politicians like Bachmann wouldn’t even be in office.
The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik
@cathyx:
Fixed that, etc., etc.
Cat Lady
Sorry Tom but I don’t want that crazy eyed fucktard within 100 miles of this great Commonwealth for any reason, and I don’t want to hear the word Massachusetts leave that dumb orifice unless it’s her last word on this earth. Also.
Digital Amish
Palin/Bachman 2012
It’s A No-brainer
GregB
Looking forward to Michele Bachmann’s pilgrimage to Bethlehem NH to honor the birth of the Messiah.
JPL
@The Political Nihilist Formerly Known As Kryptik:
I couldn’t resist one more correction.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: In August of 2009, my wife and I went to Boston; she had never been before so we did the whole Freedom Trail, Lexington/Concord, and Salem tourist thing. The tea party stuff was still closed for restoration.
Tom Levenson
@PeakVT: Indeed so. I always loved that bit of obscurity.
@different church-lady: Kinda. Coolidge was born in Vermont, of course, and rode his way up Massachusetts politics. Which puts NH kind of between the way stations on that journey.
Enough for home-grown pride in the Bachmann-verse, dontcha think?
Tom Levenson
@GregB: FTW!
Davis X. Machina
Calm down, comrades.
Bachmann’s statement possesses a higher form of Truth — her statement has a kind of revolutionary truth, one that soars above the dialectical opposites of ‘truth’ and ‘falsehood’.
We can no longer concern ourselves with the old, bourgeois ‘truth’, that asks ‘Does this statement comport with reality”?
Rather we must ask ourselves “Does this statement promote the Party, and further its role as the Vanguard of the Revolution?” If the answer to that is ‘Yes’, then the statement is true.
Correctly oriented cadres like Comrade Bachmann know that.
All power to the soviets of preachers and hedge-fund managers!
The GOP is the last Leninist parliamentary party in the West.
jlow
OT/ Heart breaks. PJ Crowley resigns under pressure from White House for his comments regarding the detention of Bradley Manning.
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: My English partner really wants to visit it next time we make it to MA… I hope it reopens soon!
Yutsano
@Tom Levenson: I look at it this way: at least it wasn’t Harding.
mai naem
I ran across this woman who had the Palin book – can’t remember the name but this woman had gone to Costco during a Palin special appearance to buy it. Anyway I made a very vague comment about how Palin needed more seasoning, she wasn’t ready etc.( I didn’t want to piss off the woman and say Palin was a moron) The woman immediately said how Palin gota raw deal from the press etc etc and how Joe Biden was no better than Palin. Oy vey. I also had a discussion about Palin and how stupid she looked during the Couric interview etc. etc. and this woman who I respect immediately replied that Obama was just as stupid because of his 57 state comment during the primaries. These are the people who vote for these morons.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
See, what she meant was that if you were in New Hampshire, you could hear the shot fired in Massachusetts because it went all the way around the world and that includes New Hampshire. Duh. It’s not like she was on the moon or anything.
Redhand
These days I usually just lurk at BJ: too large “a community,” my comments lost in anonymity, but this Bachmann quote is too special. So I misplaced the battles Concord and Lexington by saying they were in New Hampshire. It was my mistake, Massachusetts is where they happened. New Hampshire is where they are still proud of it!
An incredible twofer, really. Bask in your appalling ignorance, Michelle, and shit on the “liberal” Commonwealth where the events really happened.
Being Republican really does mean you never do have to be sorry for being stupid, or ignorant, or incompetent or utterly incapable of serving a legislator. That such a fucking idiot is serving as a member of Congress is truly depressing.
different church-lady
@Tom Levenson: I guess it’s a kind of geographical version of the McEstimate.
kdaug
@Digital Amish: I see what you did there.
kdaug
@Davis X. Machina: Ah, yes. Faith-based truth.
And Jesus was a sandy-haired white man who spoke English, because otherwise the Bible wouldn’t be written in it.
Davis X. Machina
@kdaug:
Laugh, kdaug, but when I was a TA teaching Latin at an Enormous Southern State University, one of the students asked me — we were working our way through some of the more famous quotations from Jerome’s Vulgate, Fiat lux and such — why anyone would have translated the Bible into Latin when there’s such a small audience for it.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@soonergrunt:
Dude, I loved you in “South Pacific“. I don’t share your optimism.
hilts
@Digital Amish:
Palin Bachmann 2012
Stupidity Squared
The Dimmer Twins
Bookends of Buffoonery
Tom Levenson
@Davis X. Machina: Face, meet palm.
lllphd
sitting here on cape ann watching the sun play hide and seek, trying to decide if i have the energy to head to good harbor beach for a walk (or should i try to nap back that hour i lost last night?)….
what a hopeless woman! and what a hopeless state of affairs that she is taken seriously, and that the movement she supposedly spearheads (oooh, the images, crazy cap’n bachmann lampooning the great “white” tea partiers, in indian whale costumes, of course) is taken so seriously that no one NO ONE can breathe even the faintest hint of universally known truth about them under any circumstances.
sigh.
but, i digress. question: are suckitup! and myself the only ones who noticed teleprompter is mis-spelled?
neither she nor sarah know when to quit (when they’re ahead??? don’t hold your breath for that one), so though we must suffer, there is that level on which they’re each a gift that keeps on giving.
kdaug
I, for one, find Bachmann’s qualifications to run for president unparalleled. Not everyone has had the opportunity to eat custard with President Bush.
(Run, Michelle. Run. Please.)
dmsilev
Someone really needs to ask Barney Frank to comment on Bachman’s statement. And make sure to get his response on video.
dms, proud to have grown up in Massachusetts
Martin
Well, laugh at them if you want, but PJ Crowley just resigned for telling the truth, so another real notch in their belt.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Davis X. Machina: You should have explained that the Latin was necessary at the time because Hebrew hadn’t been invented.
eemom
there is nothing funny about these people — at least not while they control a majority in the fucking United States House of Representatives and continue to be taken seriously by people who cast ballots.
Put Bachmann in a circus, where she belongs, and then I’ll laugh.
FlipYrWhig
Imagine how crestfallen she’ll be when she realizes that Berlin, NH isn’t where the infamous wall used to be!
Kyle
Don’t you remember from your history books the battles at Lexington and Concord, New Hampshire? It was right before the Founding Fathers freed all the slaves.
Ridiculously high property taxes because of an income tax fetish
Don’t forget the state monopoly on the sale of liquor — soshulism!
kdaug
@Davis X. Machina: Or Aramaic.
GregB
@FlipYrWhig:
She was planning on making a big speech asking Gorbachev to tear down this wall.
hilts
@jlow:
Incredibly bullshit move. Obama needs to pull his head out of his ass and stop defending the indefensible treatment of Bradley Manning.
Citizen_X
Come on, Levenson. If the people of Massachusetts were actually proud of the revolutionary patriots, they’d have named a football team after them or something.
PurpleGirl
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: LOL. You bad, you very bad. I like how you think.
soonergrunt
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: Well played Sir.
Mike G
And Sarah Palin stupidly thought her career would have more longevity than Justin Bieber’s is going to have.
Sorry Snowbilly, you’ve been out-bimbo’d and out-stupided by Bachman Turner Diaries Overdrive.
kdaug
Besides, that’s just stupid. Hadn’t they ever heard of Latinos? There’s a bunch of them…
MikeJ
@Kyle: The state monopoly on liquor sales isn’t that weird. Having state liquor stores in the interstate rest areas is weird.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: Nothing tops drive-thru daiquiri stands. Now if the state of Louisiana actually RAN them…
Southern Beale
Oh now, see, husband and I were talking about this over coffee this morning and we totally expected the Bachmann rebuttal to go like this:
“I never said the battles Concord and Lexington happened in New Hampshire! NEVER! I said they were heard in New Hampshire, and they’re proud of them in New Hampshire! And that’s 100% true! Taxachusetts’ Un-Merkin and terroristic Soc1al1ist1cky policies prove that I”m right! And liberals are mean! So there!”
So, I give her some props for not going in that direction, save the “liberals are mean” part.
soonergrunt
taking my kid to the museum. getting away from the news for a bit. Ya’ll have fun.
Southern Beale
Since we’re talking stupid liquor laws I had to wait 20 minutes at Whole Paycheck this morning until it was noon so I could buy beer.
Cuz it’s Sunday and somehow buying beer before noon on Sunday is Satanic or something.
Fucking stooooopid.
gelfling545
And in other news of lunatics running for public office see the Buffalo News re: Carl Paladino (R-Dementia)
http://www.buffalonews.com/topics/carl-paladino/article365304.ece
lllphd
@Redhand:
being republican means not having a lick o’ sense, evidently.
being sorry for being stupid would imply that one would actually have enough sense to know how stupid one is.
and, they all are. evidently.
Elvis Elvisberg
It’s usually not too hard to tune out silly statements from people like Bachmann, but that snide pseudo-apology is significantly worse that her usual ignorance.
I was born in Concord, Massachusetts. The idea that we’re not proud of our role creating and leading this country from the very beginning is absolutely infuriating. It would be one thing if this were some lone wacko, but it’s a woman who speaks for and is celebrated by one of the two major parties in this country. I know there’s a real East Coast smug elitism out there, but it isn’t the raison d’etre of a political party. You’ll never see any Democratic official saying that the Midwest is fake, unpatriotic America, which is how this ignoramus casually slurs my hometown.
Don’t forget, Republicans, we created this country. We fought to take away your slaves. We made you desegregate your scohols. We were among the first to permit gays to marry, and we were first to have universal health care.
We are forever the conscience and future of America.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@soonergrunt: Thank you, but not as well as Mary Martin and Mitzi Gaynor played it.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@PurpleGirl: Please don’t accuse me of thinking. It will get me into trouble with Bachmann.
Omnes Omnibus
@kdaug: You are making that up. Ain’t no such language.
Nick
@hilts:
I hate to tell you this, but Bradley Manning isn’t being treated out of the ordinary for military prisoners. It’s not uncommon to force someone to stay naked if they’re on suicide watch. Military jails are different than civilian jails.
This cause celebre of Bradley Manning is ridiculous. If the guy was accused of giving secrets to the President of Iran, we wouldn’t be talking about this. Well, maybe Greenwald, but like I said, he’s the type of person who wouldn’t be satisfied unless we released all those accused of terrorism, publicly washed and kissed their feet and then paid their living expenses for the rest of their lives.
And even then he’d complain we didn’t use soap.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Southern Beale:
simple,its free religion and free enterprise.
the church has exclusive rights to the sunday morning alcohol concession. duh.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@hilts:
Fix’t.
I bet that when her husband puts his ear next to her ear he can hear the ocean.
asiangrrlMN
Very very very sorry that my state spawned this idiotic, guano (h/t Shadow’s mom for the swear substitute) crazy nutso. But, we have also given you Al Franken, Keith Ellison, and my own rep, Betty McCollum, so that makes up for it, amirite?
I would like to take this opportunity to unroll part one of my platform in my run for the Republican primaries. I guarantee that I can out-crazy all of them.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
We all know that “Orwell was an optimist”. But I think we need to give some credit to C. M. Kornbluth.
(He was a science fiction writer of the fifties, and the linked story was the inspiration for “Idiocracy”.)
ETA: This is extremely Bachmann-relevant.
Dan
Michelle Bachmann is the latest in a long line of examples of all that is wrong with the republican party. I fear she may turn out to be far more dangerous than Palin because she has a kind of messianic fervor to her, whereas Palin has always made clear that self-promotion is her ultimate goal.
hilts
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
The same holds true for Todd Palin.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Nick: I’ve read this in many places. Is there not a less degrading, inhumane, insanity-provoking way to protect a prisoner against his own suicidal impulses? BTW, apparently Manning is on suicide watch because of a snide wisecrack, not because of a serious evaluation.
Your attack on Greenwald, regardless of what you may think of his arguments, is gratuitously stupid.
hilts
Michele Bachmann’s IQ is lower than Mariano Rivera’s career ERA
Villago Delenda Est
@GregB:
Heresy! Everyone knows the Messiah was born in Bethlehem, PA, in a steel mill.
lllphd
@Martin:
the tea’tards did not do this one (think they even know about manning??); the pentagon did this one.
to step into seriousland a sec, not a ‘diplomatic’ thing for crowley to say. and he is, after all, in the state dept. if he has trouble with what’s happening to manning (and he and everyone else on the planet should), then he SHOULD resign. but in protest (cf, john brown, ann wright, john brady kiesling, etc.), not because he was loose-lipped in the most polite and carefully spoken profession on the planet.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Villago Delenda Est: And His birth was attended by the Three Peter Kings.
Bill Murray
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: to paraphrase Nick, his argument is no more gratuitously stupid than any other Nick comment, so isn’t any big deal. After all, many other people have been accused of making gratuitously stupid comments and been treated harshly, so again not a big deal how Nick is treated
hilts
@Nick:
The US government is trying to get Manning to crack in the hope that he’ll rat out Julian Assange.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Bill Murray: @hilts: This statement plus Nick’s statement = All suicide watch prisoners are under pressure to rat out Julian Assange. QED.
Nick
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
Perhaps, but this is the military. All they know is degrading and inhumane. I come from a military family, this is not uncommon. Why Manning is being singled out by progressives all of a sudden is telling, but when guys are treated like this for other reasons, like because they’re accused of committing adultery, they go unnoticed. These so-called progressives are not upset over Manning’s treatment, they’re upset because of why he’s in jail in the first place.
don’t care, he’s a reactionary asshole and he deserves it.
kdaug
@Omnes Omnibus: You caught me.
I saw it in my spoon of Alpha-Bits this morning, and thought it sounded cool.
Sorry.
Nick
@hilts:
even if that’s true, that’s neither surprising nor uncommon.
even in our civilian legal system, police use sadistic mind games to get people to crack, threatening to go after family and children. This is how humanity does things…what? you think Europeans are any better? They have less rights than we do.
I’m sick of emo progressives making heroes out of certain people and ignoring it otherwise.
Villago Delenda Est
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
Nick is simply a fuckhead. Ignore him.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Nick: Soldiers accused of adultery are treated this way? This is hard to believe. Why not just stone them to death?
I disagree. Even if he’s an asshole, he deserves a reasoned refutation of whatever asshole statements he makes.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Villago Delenda Est: Hard for me to do. People like Nick to me are like plush toys to a toddler — a lot of fun to play with.
ETA: Kind of Bachmannesque, don’tcha know.
jlow
@asiangrrlMN: Don’t forget Paul Wellstone. This country misses him. At least it should.
Nick
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
This is how the military does things. It’s a different world where people have less rights and are treated in a more authoritative manner. Like my dad said when I wanted to join the Army “The military is not a free society, and it’s not a democracy”
Sure, it’s nice it was. I’d like it to be. But Manning’s treatment is no different than the way military prisoners have been treated in the past, for being accused of lesser crimes, but NOW liberals are losing their shit.
Why, because someone gave him a Web site to snarl on?
lllphd
@Nick:
um. excuse me?
are you justifying the treatment manning is suffering? and on what grounds, exactly? because this is the military?
honey, i grew up in a military family too, and last time i checked, it was military folks who conducted the nuremberg trials. and signing on to the geneva conventions does not exclude the military.
these are the reasons folks are upset about manning’s treatment, which is patently criminal by international law and treaties to which we as a nation are signatory. this is not a trivial matter here, dude. get a clue.
and if, by the by, you are aware of military personnel being treated in this manner for adultery?? you show proof, and i guarantee you’ll have the entire progressive population up in arms on that one, and greenwald will be leading the pack.
say what you will about greenwald, nick, but that guy has forgotten more constitutional law than you’ve ever imagined in your puny little brain. and that’s not a slur, as i include myself in that company. greenwald is definitely relentless, but he is without par the most principled writer on these matters out there, and the world is fortunate to have his conscience as our guide. oh, wait; i’ll add scott horton to that very very short list.
you, sir, i fear don’t make the cut on this one. but do keep trying.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Nick:
joeyess
I’ve become convinced that this quote from Al Swearengen of HBO’s Deadwood is appropriate in almost any situation:
JWL
Bachman speaks with God. God has a sense of humor. She doesn’t. And there you have it.
Nick
@lllphd:
I’ve been criticizing the way the military conducts justice since I was a teenager and NOW suddenly everyones all up in arms…What Manning is accused of doing is worse than 2/3 of what other prisoners treated just like him did, but now I’m supposed to be outraged?
No one cried for Shakita Perdue (Google her name) and that was a civilian jail. Where was the ACLU then? Where was St. Glenn?
Not really, no. There’s nothing in any treaty that says we can’t do that, other countries who signed do it too, plus very little of what we sign is enforceable because when the Senate ratifies treaties, it often includes a clause making it moot unless backed up by US law. the treaties were sign are worthless under our laws.
lllphd
[email protected]Nick:
suicide watch that i’m aware of NEVER involves stripping patients to nothing. they’re typically placed on 24/7 watch, or if they’re unruly (and manning is not) they’re placed in four point constraints. not pretty, but if someone is threatening to harm himself or others, this is the treatment of choice.
again, this treatment of manning is criminal, military or not. just as in our very skewedbywealth civilian justice system, crimes are committed. but they can be prosecuted. so i say if you have a beef, and evidence, by all means, press your case.
otherwise, you’re just whining. or snarling; amusing you’d call greenwald by that black kettle.
actually, what you say suggests you harbor serious personal issues regarding military discipline and or progressives. you might want to find some help with that; no one here is in a position to assist you in that regard.
best of luck.
Nick
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
Well, at least they stopped publicly executing people for desertion. I’d really hate to see what Greenwald would have thought of FDR over Eddie Slovik.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: OK. FYWP wouldn’t let me correct that. Try this:
@Nick:
I think you mean “authoritarian”.
The military is not a free society, and it’s not a democracy.True, and it cannot be if it’s to be effective. But it’s not a binary choice between free society democracy and barbarianism. The US military has to be better than Gadaffi and Ahmadinejad.
And anyone who posts anything deserves at least a refutation, regardless of the scorn that accompanies it.
joeyess
We may not have to worry about her running for President after all. When the primaries start, she may set up her headquarters in Des Plaines, Illinois.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@lllphd:
While I’m inclined to agree with you, I don’t think remote psychiatric diagnosis is a good thing, Sen. Frist notwithstanding.
Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude
@Nick: It takes more than that to achieve military justice.
Villago Delenda Est
This is Nick projecting. Big time.
Wolfdaughter
Nick:
Yes, the police do use sadistic mind games. This is wrong, too. One does not justify the other. Also, do you have any actual proof that the Europeans have fewer rights than we do? I don’t think that’s true. And even if it is, again, that does not justify mistreating Manning or prisoners in our “legal” system.
I also dispute that we progressives get “emo” selectively. If we know about injustice and mistreatment, we protest and complain, and some very motivated people actually go to state legislatures and so forth to try to pass new laws or get old laws overturned. Or they try to get their communities to work with police to lessen the frequency of abuse.
It’s possible to be “emo” about more than one miscarriage of justice.
TheF79
Well I saw them in Cologne with Gang of Four in ’78 and that was before they sold out… wait, what are we talking about again?
Nick
@lllphd:
it does if the warden thinks the prisoner is going to use his clothes as a noose to hang himself which has been done.
I know it sounds ridiculous, but it happens. This is not new nor uncommon, but suddenly people are outraged like hell, and if Bradley Manning was in jail right now for giving secrets to Iran, you’d all still be mocking Michele Bachmann.
marcel
@PeakVT:
The Green Mountain Boys were actually from the New Hampshire Grants, now known as Vermont.
Actually, I think this used to be part of Albany County, now known as the People’s Republic of VT.
Nick
@Wolfdaughter:
Two words, Amanda Knox.
In some European countries, like Spain and Ireland, there’s no presumption of innocence.
marcel
That shoulda been Albany County, not Albany Country.
Common Sense
@Yutsano: They’re doing this in Houston now. I can’t believe they haven’t been busted yet. Places are selling alcoholic smoothies and daquiris in to go cups, with a straw already in it. However, they only rip off half of the straw’s paper covering, and claim that the top half staying on makes it a closed container.
lllphd
@Nick:
interestingly, i remember the perdue case (family in atlanta area). that was an extreme case, and please note that not only was there an investigation into that treatment of the poor young woman – everyone found it appalling – but she filed a $10 mill lawsuit, still pending far as i can tell. so, sure, that was horrible, but – and not to diminish her suffering – she had recourse and is taking advantage of it in our justice system.
i will make a strong point that this is NOT a military case, which you seemed to know so much about. still, while the military is not entirely subject to the same kinds of justice seeking as civilians are, that’s a matter of the reduction in certain civil rights an individual relinquishes when joining up. you’re right, it’s not a democracy, you can’t vote on whether or not you go on a mission or scrub the latrines, but certain rights of humanity military personnel still enjoy.
and one of these, GUARANTEED BY THE GENEVA CONVENTIONS, is that you will not be stripped naked! you’re just wrong on that one, nick.
google it.
Nick
@lllphd:
Manning isn’t a POW, Geneva Conventions don’t apply. I was talking about the UN Conventions Against Torture.
lllphd
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude:
couldn’t agree more; no diagnosis in there at all. hence my suggestion to him no one here was in a position to assist him.
lllphd
@Nick:
it may well happen because a warden orders it, but this is not in his purview and it is NOT SOP. suicide threat is a mental health issue, and if a warden is concerned, then a mental health professional should be called. in any case, if a warden or the military uses stripping to naked, it is illegal, not to mention immoral.
if people are “suddenly” outraged, as you assert, it is because they did not know it was “common,” as you assert. these facts do not damn progressives for “ignoring” this problem, as you assert. quite the contrary; greenwald is heroically bringing it to our attention.
this may be a little late for you, as you say you’ve been crying out about this “for years.” but, just for the record, i’ve never heard of those cries. in fact, i’ve never heard of you.
but just a tip, if this is the way you’ve been “crying out,” i for one am not at all surprised that you had trouble getting folks to listen. there really are ways to do that. as much as i admire greenwald, i will agree that he is terminally strident (and not to mention wordy). but good lord almighty, you sure can’t fault him for not knowing what he’s saying. the man is brilliant and principled enough to shame the saints.
i must quit this now and do productive things.
smile.
Woodrowfan
@Elvis Elvisberg:
yeah, but you still can’t drive worth a damn! :)
mr. whipple
LOL. That reminds me of this.
Nick
@lllphd:
I believe one was and declared that he should be stripped naked. It’s the military, the “mental health professional” consists of some crank with a PhD with a photo of John Yoo hanging on his wall
you mean to tell me Mr. Know-It-All Principled to Shame The Saints did not know this was”common? Please.
Davis X. Machina
@Reader of the Most Depressing Blog Evah, Formerly known as Chad N Freude: Pre 1947, in other words.
Davis X. Machina
@kdaug: You made that up. There’s no such place as ‘Aramaia’.
Wolfdaughter
Nick:
I was unfamiliar with the case of Amanda Knox, but I just read about it on Wiki. Granted, Wiki isn’t always reliable, but this sounded pretty straightforward.
It sounds like she was mistreated by the Italian police, but do you seriously think that such treatment never goes on here in the States? Of course, all such mistreatment is wrong, regardless of country, or of the crime in question.
Lacking presumption of innocence is not good, but do you have evidence that those accused of crimes in Spain or Ireland receive worse treatment than here in the States? And do you seriously think that people aren’t arrested and railroaded here in the States with inadequate evidence, despite our supposed “presumption of innocence”? In fact, Manning is a textbook case here. He hasn’t been convicted of anything.
And I would just remind you that we have the highest number of people incarcerated in the U.S., at least among industrialized countries of the First World. And what about all the people on Death Row who are being released as new evidence is brought forth?
henqiguai
@lllphd (#106):
He, Manning, wasn’t stripped naked. He was stripped down to his skivvies (i.e. shorts, underpants, boxers, whatever he wears). But regardless, as was pointed out, if the warden decides you might be a suicide risk, at least for a brief time, you might legitimately be stripped down completely; shoe laces come to mind as a likely tool to be removed. Personally, not sure if I would prefer being stripped down to skin (would be quite distressing to any observers) or put in a straight-jacket. No, I’m sure, take my clothes; being in restraint really would put me over the edge.
HBuellA
According to what I was told by a relative who was AWOL and thrown in the brig, Manning’s treatment is not at all unusual in the military.
The reason it is being debated pro and con is due to the focus of it in the media.
PeakVT
@marcel: The area was settled mostly from New Hampshire, the existing towns largely follow the lines of the grants made by New Hampshire, and New York never had effective control of the area, so New Hampshire Grants is what I use.
AxelFoley
@hilts:
Fuck Manning. His dumbass shouldn’t have been giving government secrets to some foreign blogger.
Richard S
Let’s get back on focus and off the details – At least both Concords are near the Merrimac – Sorta…
Omnes Omnibus
@Richard S: Dude, the Monitor and Merrimac battle was during the Civil War.
miwome
As someone who grew up mere blocks from John Adams’ house in good ol’ Lexington, I’m deeply offended on behalf of New Hampshire that Rep. Bachmann neglected that great state’s true role in MA’s patriotic history: a reliable source of liquor on Sundays.
S. cerevisiae
@kdaug: Peter: There’s a message in my Alpha-bits, it says “OOOOOOOOOO”
Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.
Wile E. Quixote
@mai naem:
You’re too polite. I tell people like this that they’re morons and then ask them how Sarah Palin is going to handle dealing with Putin or the Iranians when she can’t even hold her own against a lightweight like Katie Couric.
Richard S
@121
Richard S
Sorry I forgot the ‘k’ like the river in NH and MA.
Only An Irish Boy
Actually, the best place to start your Patriots Day celebration is in Arlington, where the two riders from Boston, Paul Revere and William Dawes meet up at the town hall and proceed up Massachusetts Avenue to Lexington and the Hancock-Clarke House.
florencedawn
A granddaughter of both the Mayflower pilgrims and those that actually fought in both Lexington and Concord, wearing Indian war paint, is offended. What they faught and died for can not possibly be put on a bumper sticker or used by those that attempt to take these freedoms away. As a granddaughter of these very same, though, i know that it is not possible for all the good seeds that were and have been planted, sprouted and bloomed. They are blooming in Wisconsin and all over this country, and all over this world. History, theology and the good human nature of people can never be defeated, especially as long as we stick together. SO let us keep doing that . . . before it gets too [email protected]
David Brooks (not that one)
I have to say it’s in Massachusetts where the Revolution is particularly patriotically commemorated. When I lived in a small town there, one of the highlights of every year was Memorial Day. Practically the entire town gather in the centre; all the groups from the vets to the Brownies parade, the chosen seventh grader reads the Gettysburg Address, prayers, anthems, Taps, visits to all the war memorials, and off to the Legion for pancakes.
That’s in America-hating Massachusetts. Move to the loudly patriotic West, and – nothing. It’s a day off. Makes me sick. And it was my then-noncitizen wife, back in 1983, who demanded to know why the Brownies weren’t in the parade, and they have been ever since.
Ecks
here’s an irony for you:
British troops try to search American civilian houses for the arms cached there, and this is an intolerable violation of liberty that justifies war against Britain.
A few hundred years later American troops search Iraqi civilian houses for the arms cached there (or not), and this is a sad state of affairs, forced on them by the dastardly Iraqi’s who keep putting their arms in civilian areas, how dare they.
Presented for your consideration, with no further commentary.
Mick1918
Egads, Ethan Allen is rolling in his grave. Lots of credit given to NH for VT accomplishments (whether originally part of NH or NY, great history there as VT became its own country for awhile). And for whoever said they lived blocks away from the John Adams’ house in Lexington that might be tough since the Adams “estate” is in Quincy. No worries though, NH = the TX of New England, their textbooks are being changed as we speak (“I KNEW the revolution started here, that Bachmann lady is a genius”)”.
Paul in KY
@Davis X. Machina: Excellent use of the dialectic, comrade!
Gore Vidal Pages
Weep for the republic, indeed! Vidal’s sounded off (not surprisingly) on his supposed role in creating this tower of babel from Minnesota. http://www.gorevidalpages.com/2011/01/gore-vidal-michele-bachmann-too-stupid-to-deserve-an-answer.html
One might argue, however, that she does deserve an answer, and the most fitting one would be: “You lose” when her district’s voters next head to the ballot box for Congressional elections. We’ll see.