Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

The revolution will be supervised.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

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Reader Interactions

98Comments

  3. 3.

    Chris T.

    “We, The People” assembling peaceably to air grievances and perform other acts of democracy is absolutely certain to destroy democracy!

  4. 4.

    Linda Featheringill

    @Chris T.: #3

    “We, The People” assembling peaceably to air grievances and perform other acts of democracy is absolutely certain to destroy democracy!

    Nah. Not destroy democracy. But it really might threaten the status quo.

  5. 5.

    Mark S.

    I thought it was going to be George Will or Krauthammer, but it’s that asshole Anne Applebaum! To save everyone the trouble, Anne puts forth three theses in her column:

    1. British people remind her of Monty Python.

    2. Democracy is boring and legalistic. Ordinary people have no business getting involved in it.

    3. Democracy and globalization don’t mix, so I guess democracy has to go. Or maybe not. I don’t know what Anne’s point is.

  9. 9.

    David Koch

    BWHWHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH

    Applebaum is a Roman Polanski child rape apologist.

  11. 11.

    David Koch

    Of course this has nothing to do with a perceived threat to democracy, after all, since when is free speech and free assembly a threat to democracy, but rather, this is a last ditch, desperate attempt at demonization.

  12. 12.

    smintheus

    @Mark S.: Her point is that democracy involves working through your existing institutions for reform rather than just demonstrating in the streets like twits.

    Let’s see now…the very first democracy, in archaic Athens, was established by working with the regime of the corrupt aristocratic tyrants, errmm…no, actually, by taking to the streets and demanding change, encircling the privileged class on the Acropolis and forcing them to cede power to the whole people.

    But, hey, what do Greeks know about the meaning of ‘democracy’ anyhow?

  14. 14.

    JGabriel

    Doug, I feel like a man encouraging a friend’s worst impulses here, but you have to check out the latest from David Brooks:

    When people are gloomy they have fewer babies, and, sure enough, fertility rates have dropped sharply …

    Here I thought birthrates were down because people were financially strapped and worried about how to afford kids, but no: it’s just that people stop having the sex when they’re gloomy.

    America went through a similar values restoration in the 1820s. … Then, too, Americans rebalanced. They did it quietly and away from the cameras.

    Because they didn’t have video or mass-produced cameras in the 1820s, you fucking jackass.

    It just astounds me that the NY Times gives this man premium op-ed space twice a week and a six-figure salary.

    .

  15. 15.

    RareSanity

    I can’t believe that OWS is pulling it off…and when I say that I can’t believe it, I mean that I am in awe of how what they started has inspired people all over the world.

    I can’t believe it because it seems unreal…the same way the onlookers feel when the nerd finally had enough of being bullied, and clocks the bully with a right cross of pure, unadulterated rage.

  17. 17.

    Spaghetti Lee

    This is old hat for a professional worrywart like Appelbaum. She has the phrase “accelerate the decline of Western democracy” saved to a Word file, and she just punches in the morning’s major headline and meanders through 600 words as to why before a coffee break.

  19. 19.

    sherifffruitfly

    I predict Cheney will be on Sunday talk shows within a month declaring OWS people to “constitute an existential threat” to the country.

  20. 20.

    Batocchio

    Many members of the ruling class have never been fond of democracy.

    Applebaum writes:

    Although I still believe in globalization’s economic and spiritual benefits — along with open borders, freedom of movement and free trade — globalization has clearly begun to undermine the legitimacy of Western democracies.

    “Global” activists, if they are not careful, will accelerate that decline. Protesters in London shout,“We need to have a process!” Well, they already have a process: It’s called the British political system. And if they don’t figure out how to use it, they’ll simply weaken it further.

    What an idiotic straw man. Most protesters are acutely aware of their national political systems – most of all those systems’ deficiencies. The protesters are objecting to plutonomy, and policies that benefit the richest 1% at the expense of the 99%. What a shock that Applebaum doesn’t identify the ruling class as the bad actor in this social contract. What a shock that she doesn’t call out the lack of patriotism among too many members of the ruling class, who never stop to consider how much their country has done for them, and certainly never ponder ‘what they can do for their country.’ Instead, the most privileged whine that they’re the most persecuted. The WaPo is always reliable for Establishment concern trolling.

    After the uprising of the 17th June
    The Secretary of the Writers Union
    Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee
    Stating that the people
    Had forfeited the confidence of the government
    And could win it back only
    By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier
    In that case for the government
    To dissolve the people
    And elect another?
    -“The Solution,” Bertolt Brecht, 1953

  21. 21.

    danimal

    Hippies now or Jacobins later.

    I totally agree with this.

    It’s amazing to me that the very learned, very ambitious, very well-read, very, very serious people are so utterly clueless about the historical trends that have repeated themselves in this past month. The Occupy movement is the most refreshing and relieving development to come along in at least a generation.

    I’m stunned that the Very Serious People really don’t seem to understand it. I always thought they were being disingenuous; turns out they are just rock-stupid.

  22. 22.

    slag

    It’s kind of funny…one of the chants that I got most tired of during the last march was:

    Show me what democracy looks like!
    __
    This is what democracy looks like!

    because I thought it was too…obvious.

    Apparently, I was mistaken.

  23. 23.

    Suffern ACE

    @David Koch: Yes. When the Iranians were in the streets last year, the apologists were all aflutter with talk of awakening of Democracy! But the mostly washed masses show up around here and they might as well go home.

    She shouldn’t worry so much. We actually liked our instituions for the most part. The aristocracy who’ve been in charge of them the past decade, not so much. We would like them to peacefully retire to hermitages to be alone with their thoughts. For some reason, though, I’m thinking a life of quiet self-examination would scare the crap out Ms. Applebaum.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    If you define “democracy” in the way that the deserting coward wailed about during the invasion of Iraq…that is, a Kim-Il-Sung-esque twisting of the term to mean “mo money for my homies, scarfed directly from the treasury”, nominally for “privatization” of the support of the military that results in soldiers dying in showers with electrical shorts and being offered shitty contractor meals, then, yes, the “democracy” of the top 1% is endangered.

    And good riddance to it.

  26. 26.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @danimal:

    These stupid morons have no Bismarck to kick them in the pants and inform them that you are playing with fire…didn’t you people see the news from Paris during the Terror? That’s what you’re inviting, idiots.

    Peaceful change or violent revolution. Take your pick, shitheads.

  27. 27.

    jwb

    The way the media are squealing like pigs right now, I have to wonder if their ratings and traffic are down.

  28. 28.

    scav

    @RareSanity: Please Please Please Please Please. I know what you mean and it’s good. But this did not originate in this country (although this particular naming of it might have, and it is not insignificant symbolically that ‘mercans have finally gotten off their duffs and into the streets). There have been massive demonstrations in Spain for a good while. The messier ones in Europe you’ve probably heard of. (Maybe not the Irish. The French are always out.) Plus the whole thing in the Middle East. The general economic situation has gone on long enough everywhere for people to start heading out to the streets so it’s probably useless to get into the minutia of who went first (as if it mattered) but I don’t think we’re really in the running for first out of the gate. It is indeed great and awe-inspiring that this thing is taking hold. But we’re a part of this, not leading it. It is acephalous and self-organizing in response to a global situation.

  29. 29.

    Dougerhead

    @Batocchio:

    It’s not all globalization either. That’s the Friedmanian dodge “oh, we can’t have Social Security because of the Chinese”. It’s all bullshit.

    If anything, the dislocation caused by globalization calls for more of a government safety net.

  32. 32.

    Q.Q. Moar

    Oh, it’s Annie Apple. I thought perhaps it was Our Lady of the Dolphins, who had scolded the #OWS protesters for not being terribly civil or godly or something, even though they had no power or meaning. Oh, here’s the quote:

    A movement that will go nowhere but could do real damage would be “We hate the rich, let’s stick it to them.” Movements built on hatred are corrosive, and in the end corrode themselves. Ask Robespierre.

    It gets better, because

    In any case, the rich would leave. The rich are old, they feel like refugees in the new America anyway.

    So, all the rich people are old, and they’ll just split the comfy tax haven that is our beloved homeland and split to … where, exactly? Peggy doesn’t say. She does get perilously close to the truth though, when she says a real movement would say

    “Enough. Wall Street is selfish and dishonest, and Washington is selfish and dishonest. Together their selfishness and dishonesty, their operating as if they are not part of a whole, not part of a nation of relationships and responsibilities, tanked a great nation’s economy. We will reform.”

    Wow, that’s very much what the Occupy protesters are saying, but Peggy can’t hear them over the voices in her head.

  33. 33.

    David Koch

    @jwb: They probably pissed over Saturday’s traffic jam in Manhattan.

    It’s already hard enough to bounce from one NYC party to another, without the additional clogged cross-town traffic.

  34. 34.

    David Koch

    @Q.Q. Moar:

    Movements built on hatred are corrosive,

    Peggy would know. Saint Ronnie built his entire movement on hatred of minorities, unions, and government.

  38. 38.

    danimal

    @Villago Delenda Est: It can’t happen here, I suppose.

    Throughout human history, the rich have bought peace by throwing a few coins at the masses. Bread and circuses worked for the Romans for example. Now, our precious Galtians are crying because they aren’t loved as they hoover up our last dollars. Their pride is their undoing, and it’s about time.

  41. 41.

    Mnemosyne

    @scav:

    I think you could argue that OWS wouldn’t be having the success that they are now if the Arab Spring had failed. I think that seeing those people stand up to their corrupt governments gave people in the West a lot more hope that they could demand change at home and be listened to.

  43. 43.

    RareSanity

    @scav:

    I didn’t mean it that way. When I say inspiring around the world, I meant the pictures from the far reaches of the world that say, “We are the 99%”. I know they haven’t inspired everything that’s gone on, more likely, they were inspired by those events.

    But what they have stirred in this country, is something I didn’t think was possible.

  44. 44.

    slag

    Can I just say something? If any one of you fp fuckers ever writes anything like this:

    I’m feeling like a Cassandra again, just as I did in 2008 when Obamamania was at its height and everyone was insisting that politics had been transformed for all time. I’m sure I’ll be just as unpopular now as I was then, but here goes:

    I’ll personally track you down and make you apologize. Truly. In theory, I love digby, but when your head is so far up your own ass that you start to say shit like this where other people can read it, it’s time to hang it up. You’re done. Good night, Gracie.

  47. 47.

    Cacti

    @Q.Q. Moar:

    So, all the rich people are old, and they’ll just split the comfy tax haven that is our beloved homeland and split to … where, exactly?

    The libertarian paradise of Somalia.

  48. 48.

    Yutsano

    OT: Hand to the FSM I talked to someone who lived on Palin Street in Galt, California. You seriously cannot make this shit up.

  52. 52.

    slag

    @MikeJ: Come to think of it…a little “Why are you hitting yourself? Stop hitting yourself,” could also serve as it’s own reward. But let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

  53. 53.

    Jenny

    Obama topped 1,000,000 individual donors today.

    One million donors in 6 six months.

    That’s curious. Blogs keep telling me he’s lost the base.

  55. 55.

    Yutsano

    @Calouste: It got better: the guy was acting all oppressed because he didn’t do what we originally requested…in April. He got levied twice and only now whined about it. He even discussed going Galt, which would have made the irony that much richer.

  56. 56.

    piratedan

    here in Tucson, based on the evening news, they’ve started issuing trespassing citations to the OWS: Tucson folks. Supposed penalties up to 1,000 and naturally, a blight on your permanent record. The OWS folks plan to counter that Trespass on public property charge stating that the actual local statute doesn’t apply when in the act of performing civil disobedience.

  58. 58.

    The prophet Nostradumbass

    The libertarian paradise of Somalia.

    I’m getting tired of people using the people of Somalia for the butt of a joke involving glibertarian idiots. I’m sure the people unfortunate enough to have to live there right now find it to be uproariously funny.

  59. 59.

    Spaghetti Lee

    @Yutsano:

    Google maps tells me it’s just north of A Street. Which = A Street, I presume. Maybe the universe does have a sense of humor.

  62. 62.

    slag

    @Suffern ACE:

    The crowd had an amorphous message that the poor and middle class have been marginalized in today’s America.

    I laughed out loud. Apparently a message is amorphous when you need to use at least 10 words to characterize it. If you could do it in…I don’t know…8 words, then you have a clear-cut message.

  63. 63.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @The prophet Nostradumbass:

    What are you talking about? Democracy appeared, fully formed, out of nowhere, on July 4, 1776.

    That’s true I saw it in a museum. Democracy was also riding a dinosaur.

    the speakers are British and thus sound as if they belong in a Monty Python movie anyway.

    This woman has been living in Europe for decades and she still writes things like this.

    Protesters in London shout,“We need to have a process!” Well, they already have a process: It’s called the British political system.

    Yeah, and how’s that been working out? Oh wait, I forgot, for you and other financial aristocrats, just fine.

    This comes to mind.

  65. 65.

    Suffern ACE

    @slag: I know. I expect more from the Lower Hudson Journal News reporters. This isn’t the New York Times, where pretend reporting is allowed, and being daft to go along leads to a twice weekly columns. There is plenty of time to cover this in depth. Although maybe not. The vast Suffern ACE estate is only two blocks from the Gazebo and I walked by it three times on Sunday afternoon, but didn’t notice a protest to join.

  66. 66.

    r€nato

    @The prophet Nostradumbass: I’ve never been there, but I think I can be reasonably sure that a country that has been pretty much without a national government for 20 years, where the per capita GDP is a few hundred dollars a year, where 3 out of 4 people don’t have access to sanitation services, where 98 fucking percent of the women have been circumcised (aka genital mutilation), and the average lifespan is around 50 years, is what the experts commonly refer to as, “a shithole“.

  69. 69.

    Batocchio

    @Dougerhead:

    True! There’s hardly anything they won’t cite as a defense of the ruling class – because as Friedman and the rest will shamelessly argue, it’s really in our best interests, too.

    I also like both:

    Hippies now or Jacobins later.

    Roosevelt today or Robespierre tomorrow.

  70. 70.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @JGabriel: It looks like they’ve removed the reference to cameras, without comment. It now reads:

    Then, too, Americans rebalanced. They did it quietly and in private.

    It’s funny to me how Brooks and others love this idea that the 1960s actually had no effect, or the opposite effect from what people thought at the time, with the measure being “Richard Nixon was reelected President” followed by a lot of other Republicans in the White House in the many decades following, which really actually amounted to a Reagan/Bush cabal, including two from one family.

    Yes, Richard Nixon was elected President again. He also then resigned, in disgrace. If anyone thinks that had nothing to do with the climate of anti-establishment anti-authoritatian protest in the era then he’s dreaming.

    Feminism, civil rights, all of the things that changed during and since the 60s seem so second-nature now that people forget how different some of those things were before that, in the early 60s say.

    Reagan ushered in a big new conservative era in many ways but it wasn’t a return to the really old school right, which is easily demonstrated by the fact that Reagan would be seen as a moderate these days.

    Then there’s now, but the extremist GOP of now really is a tiny population, that’s sort of the whole point. It’s the collusion between them and the tiny percentage holding almost all the money that makes it so deadly. The general population actually comes out shockingly liberal about most issues when polled.

    The country really hasn’t become more conservative, it’s become more dysfunctional and the whole thing more rigged for the right.

  74. 74.

    JGabriel

    TPM:

    A new InsiderAdvantage poll of the Republican field in Florida shows Perry with just 2.9 percent of the vote …

    Does anyone know what’s going on with Perry’s numbers in FL?

    I can understand a drop in his polling numbers, given his debate performances, but less than 3%? Did someone start a rumor in FL that Perry was an anti-semite or something?

    It just seems like, for his numbers to drop that low, there must be something going on under the radar in FL.

    .

  76. 76.

    JGabriel

    @Bill E Pilgrim:

    It looks like they’ve removed the reference to cameras, without comment.

    DAMN IT. That was line was a thing of moronic beauty. I hope it’s still the print edition.

    They must have changed it after people started commenting about it — no comments have been published or approved yet, more than 3.5 hours after it went online — and noticed a lot of jokes about the camera line. I couldn’t have been the only one to notice it.

    .

  77. 77.

    JGabriel

    @piratedan:

    well based on Florida’s past history, either Perry isn’t enough of a crook for them or he’s simply not as crazy as they prefer.

    But that’s the problem: Perry is clearly both of those things.

    That’s why I’m thinking that something else must be going on in the FL rumor mill.

    .

  78. 78.

    gocart mozart

    Worse than an anti-semite, he’s an anti-socialsecurityite.

    Also, the Jews and Catholics may not be too keen on his religious bigotry. “First he came for the Mormons . . .”

  81. 81.

    SamR

    “Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian’s fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.” Catch-22, Chapter 39.

  84. 84.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @JGabriel:

    When people are gloomy they have fewer babies, and, sure enough, fertility rates have dropped sharply …

    I think Bobobobobobo meant ‘birth rate’. Or maybe he’s serious in saying that being gloomy makes people less fertile? Too bad they deleted the camera comment, that was pure gold.

    He “earns” a six-figure salary writing this drivel? It isn’t worth wiping my ass with but I’m sure that they think that they are getting their moneys worth out of this turd.

  86. 86.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Amir Khalid: I think the reason is simple: If everyone feels like they’re already getting screwed, it just makes the whole thing less appealing.

  87. 87.

    arguingwithsignposts

    @Odie Hugh Manatee:

    I think Bobobobobobo meant ‘birth rate’. Or maybe he’s serious in saying that being gloomy makes people less fertile? Too bad they deleted the camera comment, that was pure gold.

    Someone better screencap that paragraph before they change it.

  89. 89.

    harlana

    It’s awesome to know that “We the People” have that kind of destructive power! (You said it) Perhaps we ought to, ya know, respect and listen to them a little. Just sayin.

  90. 90.

    bjacques

    There are lots of places rich tax dodgers can go that still respect the rule of money. The Netherlands aside (here’s hoping something gets done about that), there are the ‘Stans, China, Russia, the Gulf States, Chechnya…

    What do those places have in common? They’re monarchies (or might as ell be). But the leaders there might take a dim view of some Big Swinging Dick gambling away the royal slush fund and feeling entitled to a second (or third) chance.

  91. 91.

    Bill E Pilgrim

    @Baud:

    I fail to see the distinction you are trying to draw.

    Hah. Well it could have become both, it’s true. However, it hasn’t.

    Most of the populace are not more conservative, or even as conservative, as people were in the early 1960s.

    On the other hand we have a system wherein a minority of extremely conservative people can virtually control the entire country. That’s the dysfunctional part.

    David Brooks’ argument is that no, the country is just conservative. Maybe not as extremely conservative as the current insane GOP, in his view, but he thinks it’s essentially a very conservative place and that explains everything. I disagree.

  95. 95.

    Death Panel Truck

    God save the people who didn’t get the Sex Pistols reference in the title of this post. ;)

  97. 97.

    cckids

    @RareSanity:

    I can’t believe that OWS is pulling it off…

    I agree. I was visiting my dad in the hospital this weekend & in between football we saw coverage of OWS. He doesn’t think the sit-ins will work, but “they sure have made people think.” Now, though he grew up a Dust-Bowl Nebraska Democrat, he was turned to the dark side during Clinton, mainly by Fox News & that flaming asshat Limbaugh. For him to say ANYTHING positive about a movement like OWS absolutely knocked me down. They are reaching people I’d have thought lost to the cause.

  98. 98.

    TenguPhule

    “Hippies now or Jacobins later”

    Might as well oil the Lady Gullet then. Because it will be long and bloody work.

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