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You are here: Home / Politics / Crazification Factor / Why We Fight

Why We Fight

by Soonergrunt|  February 13, 20128:07 am| 162 Comments

This post is in: Crazification Factor, Don't Mourn, Organize, Election 2012, Post-racial America, Assholes, Flash Mob of Hate, Looks Like I Picked the Wrong Week to Stop Sniffing Glue, Sociopaths

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I followed a link from commenter Harlana to Little Green Footballs, where Charles Johnson reads Fox News discussion threads so you don’t have to.

There are almost 5000 comments posted in the thread — these are from the first few pages. Notice that the racist bastards deliberately misspell their slurs or insert random spaces, so they aren’t caught by word filters. And many of the worst comments have numerous “likes” from other commenters.

All grammar and spelling errors are exactly as found…

“not nignogs their death is a plus”…”i don’t even consider them to be included in the human race let alone on a pedistal. the people that do are a bunch of loosers.”…”This is typical of the blk gene pool; it happens all the time”…”Who cares? Black_trash gone is enough”…

It goes on and on and on.  I read about a thousand comments there, give or take, and they break down into hateful shit that frequently makes the above look tame, a very small number complaining about those posts, and a larger number complaining about the liberal conspiracy to make Fox and conservatives look bad.  As has been stated before, the best way to embarrass a conservative is to disseminate his words as widely as possible.

This is Why We Fight.  This is the nature of the opposition.  I live amongst these people here in what they proudly refer to as “the buckle of the bible belt” and I’m here to tell you that John’s post of last week was right on the money.  You need to read their sites–Fox News, Free Republic, Lucianne.com, Michelle Malkin’s site,  and others.  See what they say to each other when they think they aren’t being watched.  The palpable hatred and violent fantasies will make you sick, but you need to know what they want, and you need to keep seeing it in their own words.  It’s one thing to say “we read them so you don’t have to” but it’s entirely another to make you all see that you do, in fact, need to.   In a few days after this thread is dead, some conservatives will post here claiming that it’s all projection and fantasy, just like they did with John’s post last week.  None of that will change a thing.  If you’ve ever wondered why I dump shit all over the sorry-assed conservatrolls we have here, it’s because there is no fundamental difference between them and the people quoted above.  Their world is the world that our little trolls would make, and people such as they deserve only contempt.

Lest you or anyone accuse me of nutpicking, I am specifically calling out the commenters on those sites.   But I’ll note that there’s a reason that racists and bigots frequent sites like Michelle Malkin’s site (which is actually pretty ironic) and Freeperland and Fox.

If you love this country, you need to know and you need to fight for it.  If you want a better future for your children, you need to know and you need to fight for it.

EDIT:  I’ll go even further.  Knowing what you know after reading that swill, it is incumbent upon you to go out into the world and ask of your conservative friends and relatives (because we all have them) an explanation of their associates.  ABL once asked me why I thought it was important to differentiate between the person of George W. Bush and the policies he had which had racist ends.  I replied that I didn’t think he was personally a racist.  Well, you know, I still don’t.  But I understand a little bit better about where she was coming from.  Until and unless they are made to deal with the very real results of their policies and ideas, and are held responsible for the company they keep and the people they promote, they will not change.  The real hard core ones cannot, and will not change.  But others will, and those others must be held responsible in order that they stop supporting the worst of the worst.

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162Comments

  1. 1.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:10 am

    It’s the same shit in the comments in the local paper here in Athens, Ga. You’d love some of these dude, one has a CIB as his avatar and another always signs his posts “disabled USMC combat vet”.

  2. 2.

    Egg Berry

    February 13, 2012 at 8:13 am

    @Raven: what is a CIB?

  3. 3.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 8:17 am

    No, this is the reason I can’t read them any more. The violent rage that I feel when I see people thinking like this, the strong desire to wipe out all humanity, is just too strong. I am not going to act on that rage so it just depresses me more knowing that these people are out there, breeding, voting, destroying everything.

    I have smelled burning shit, I don’t need to do it every day to be reminded of what it smells like.

    That said, thanks for being willing and able to at least monitor the garbage.

  4. 4.

    Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill

    February 13, 2012 at 8:18 am

    I came of age in the South, in the 80’s. And it wasn’t until recently that my Dad felt me old enough to tell of what he went through, when these kinds of opinions were in the open, when the white side and black side of town were truly separated, and one said had all the power, every time.

    These people, and they are legion, want to take us back there. Do not doubt their intentions, their coded language in public, their support of people like Ron Paul who’s policies, well-intentioned or not, make such assertions of racial/sexual power easy and simple.

    And all it takes is for the rest of us to keep our eyes closed, and mouth shut.

  5. 5.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 8:19 am

    @Egg Berry: CIB is a Combat Infantry Badge.
    The person using that as his avatar is claiming to be (and may very well be) awarded that badge, which is only given to Infantry personnel of the Army who have engaged the enemy in close combat.
    It looks like this.

  6. 6.

    Bostondreams

    February 13, 2012 at 8:22 am

    OT: Steve King doesn’t know how babies are made.

  7. 7.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:23 am

    @Soonergrunt: In James Jone’s last book, “Whistle” he writes about a group of Guadalcanal vets in the VA hospital in Memphis. When they go to town on a pass they won’t wear any decorations except their CIB’s.

  8. 8.

    Egg Berry

    February 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

    @Soonergrunt: Thanks

  9. 9.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 8:26 am

    @Raven: It’s the only one that really matters if you’re a grunt. Everything else is additional.

  10. 10.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:31 am

    @Soonergrunt: Um, I think I knew that. I was at the 10th Anniversary of the Wall and I ran into a guy wearing a 1st Signal Brigade patch (my outfit) and a CIB. I just looked at him and he launched into this story about being attached to an infantry unit, blah blah. I just nodded and drove on.

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    February 13, 2012 at 8:37 am

    @Egg Berry: Combat Infantry Badge. It is an Army badge and a Marine would not have it.

  12. 12.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 8:37 am

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: i grew up in the South and of course, i heard racial shit, but at that time, the schools were fully integrated in my area and i remember blacks being treated on the same level as me, at least that was my perception at the time – in school, college and an early job working for the state, anyways. i had black authority figures in my life.

    i realize how incredibly naive i was now and i feel really bad about that. i have never seen the level of racial hatred that has spewed forth since Obama was elected. and i wish i could say i’m no longer shocked but then i read something like that. but the internets have made it easier, people apparently get to say anonymously how they really feel, mostly those that don’t have the balls to say to most people in person.

    it is poison i am reading, with the repub presidential race, it is even more prominent and in your face than ever.

    but i hope the stupid fuckers help nominate Santorum.

  13. 13.

    4tehlulz

    February 13, 2012 at 8:39 am

    The only way true progressives fight is to lay down and let these people destroy the country, allowing our message to take hold in the aftermath.

    Santorum/Paul 2012

  14. 14.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:40 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Marines and Navy personnel have the Combat Action Ribbon )CAR).

  15. 15.

    SuperHrefna

    February 13, 2012 at 8:41 am

    That was a depressing link. It’s worse in real life though. I avoid wingnuts as a rule, but I found myself in the middle of a clutch of them while volunteering at a local animal shelter – there is one shift in particular full of the most racist wingnut cat ladies you ever did meet, giggling with spite as they fold the newspaper that lines the litterboxes so the cats will pee on the first family’s faces. I tried so hard to find a way to reach them, but I came to realize that all they really want is the rush of being together, of being united against a common enemy and HATING that enemy (black people, everyone else at the shelter, you name it, they’re against it). Sometimes life is like junior high, but with more serious consequences.

  16. 16.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:41 am

    @Omnes Omnibus: Combat Infantry Badge. It is an Army badge and a Marine wouldcould not have it.

  17. 17.

    goethean

    February 13, 2012 at 8:42 am

    Um…wasn’t Little Green Footballs ground zero for virulent anti-Muslim sentiment for several years?

  18. 18.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 8:43 am

    thank you for posting, btw, Soonergrunt.

    @goethean: I did snag that originally from digby’s site. i don’t read LGF.

  19. 19.

    SuperHrefna

    February 13, 2012 at 8:45 am

    @goethean: Yeah, it’s weird how it changed. Cheering though!

  20. 20.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 8:48 am

    @SuperHrefna: i can’t even get to the point of trying to reason with people like that, because i would just have a meltdown and forget all logic. i just avoid them, now. good on you, however, for trying.

    (but i am so glad i am not subjected to that kind of shit at work now. i remember a lawyer i worked for at the time almost had a meltdown when Obama was elected. he was a yankeh, also.)

  21. 21.

    Cermet

    February 13, 2012 at 8:50 am

    Can we stop the posting about Marines and CIB? In that comment the person was very clear that those were two separate posts by different people. No Marine was claiming to have a CIB. So the point is mutt.

    Love the new spell check …

  22. 22.

    walt

    February 13, 2012 at 8:54 am

    Mainstream Republicans play a game where they disapprove of all racism, bigotry, and hate. And they’ll find something a commenter said on DKos to prove both sides do it. The false equivalency is the right’s perpetual get-out-of-jail-free pass. The MSM is their enabler here.

    But Republican policies, including voter suppression, speak for themselves. The culture war is their depth charge aimed directly at the id of the white working class. And since a right-wing majority is now dependent on it, there’s no separation between the right and its Pavlovian messaging.

    Every Republican I know is a hypocrite. Every last single one. They play this game where they pretend they’re never racist and vote for a party where racism is the primary if hidden political expedient. I don’t worry about the actual racists since their sense of identity is all-too easily threatened. I blame the civilized Republicans who manipulate the rubes on behalf of a royalist economic agenda. They’re not being held responsible because, like Mitt Romney or George W Bush, they’re “nice” people.

    “Nice” people don’t condone bigotry, however. Call them on it.

  23. 23.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 8:55 am

    @Raven:
    Did you ever notice the number of green barrettes being worn at Viet Nam Vet rallys? Whole damn US Army there was nothing but special forces I guess – can’t imagine how we lost.

    I was working at a company back in the late 90’s & we got a new Director for our division. At his welcome ceremony he stood up & said how he was unafraid of challenges and how there were no obstacles form him: “I was a Navy Seal, I have killed people, there are no obstacles”. At that point I got up, left the room & sent my resume out to a guy I knew. 3 weeks later I was with another company.

    This guy ran that division into the ground. He was also exposed by an organization called “Boys Of The Old Breed” – shocking I know but just like Jesse Ventura this clown was never a Navy Seal.

  24. 24.

    kth

    February 13, 2012 at 8:55 am

    @Raven: everyone is a Green Beret on the internet, or can be.

  25. 25.

    jibeaux

    February 13, 2012 at 8:56 am

    I don’t mean to sound all counselor-y or anything, but my God what must your life be like to harbor so much hatred that the death of Whitney Houston — a human being who is extremely statistically unlikely to have directly or indirectly harmed you in any way — would bring that out? Ironic, maybe, that racists have such black, black souls.

  26. 26.

    SuperHrefna

    February 13, 2012 at 8:58 am

    @harlana: The three years I spent trying to find a way to communicate with those ladies was a strange time. I’ve never managed to do anything like that before, and I’m not sure I’ll bother trying again. I’m back in avoiding winguts mode. Though I still think that at least one of them could be reasoned with if she didn’t have her friends around her, urging her to get with the wingnut program. Hatred is a very social activity with them.

  27. 27.

    Someguy

    February 13, 2012 at 8:58 am

    I agree that conservatives are a bunch of retards that evolution passed by, but if we are going to hold our friends and family accountable for the idiots posting on blogs and commenting on news stories, to really get up in their face and go all Fight Club on them, we need to be prepared to be held accountable for the Occupy dude who took a shit on an NYPD car, the papier mache head folks & etc.

  28. 28.

    greennotGreen

    February 13, 2012 at 8:59 am

    There is another kind of conservative, maybe the bulk of their voters: people like my elderly mother who don’t want to believe their Republican party has veered so far away from respectability. I think now she’s okay with integration, and she always thought black people should be treated politely, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she had voted against Obama because he is black. But if you try to point out how crazy the party has gone, she just (figuratively) puts her hands on her ears and sings, “La la la la la.” I think there’s a lot of loud singing going on in older Republican circles.

  29. 29.

    gene108

    February 13, 2012 at 8:59 am

    I replied that I didn’t think he was personally a racist. Well, you know, I still don’t.

    Bush, Jr. wasn’t racist. He wanted to expand the Republican brand to minorities, with his “compassionate conservatism” and aborted attempt at immigration reform.

    See the appointment of the first black Sec. of State, first black woman Sec. of State, first Latino Attorney General and women and minorities all up and down his cabinet.

    You may not like how these people did their jobs, but he didn’t go back to sticking old white me into every Cabinet post.

  30. 30.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 8:59 am

    @Schlemizel: My buddies and I always joke that EVERYONE was a fucking point man. No drag no slack just point. Have you ever met a Marine that was in any kind of support? Not likely, every swingin dick was a grunt.

  31. 31.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:01 am

    @Schlemizel: Ventura was UDT, not a Seal but no walk in the park.

  32. 32.

    Cermet

    February 13, 2012 at 9:02 am

    @Schlemizel: Ventura was a Navy UDT which had its name changed to Navy Seals later. So, while he was not a Seal, he was in the same outfit – they did the same job just under different names; can’t really call him a liar. As per the wiki.

  33. 33.

    WereBear

    February 13, 2012 at 9:03 am

    @SuperHrefna: It’s very weird when people seem to be “doing good” but in the worst way.

    But of course, “doing good” can have many confused definitions. I guess we all have patches of good and bad.

  34. 34.

    Argive

    February 13, 2012 at 9:03 am

    @goethean:

    Johnson did an about-face in 2009 when he realized that a lot of the people he’d been allied with for many years (Geller, Spencer, et al) were supporting hardcore racists like Geert Wilders. Since then, he has totally changed LGF, now choosing to focus entirely on documenting right-wing mendacity. It’s gotten to the point where the mere mention of Charles’ name is enough to make Andrew Breitbart start foaming at the mouth.

  35. 35.

    Cermet

    February 13, 2012 at 9:06 am

    @Someguy: You are joking or a troll; thugs have led countless attacks on black’s rights (across the board) and tried every dirty trick in the book to stop blacks from their right to vote for how many years (over a hundred!), and you try and compare that to one person shitting on a pig’s car or someone wearing a mask? You take the prize for most dumb post.

  36. 36.

    greennotGreen

    February 13, 2012 at 9:06 am

    @Argive: I thought getting out of bed in the morning was enough to make Andrew Breitbart start foaming at the mouth.

  37. 37.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 9:07 am

    @SuperHrefna: it’s hard for me to understand. i have always felt like an outsider and never felt pressure to be like others just to have a clique or to “belong”. it seems too high a price to pay when you have to act like an ignorant asshole in order to be a member.

  38. 38.

    Egg Berry

    February 13, 2012 at 9:09 am

    @kth: cool! So I can be a green beret?

  39. 39.

    Tokyokie

    February 13, 2012 at 9:13 am

    Furthermore, my experience has been military vets, especially those who’ve seen combat since the Korean War, are less likely to hold racist attitudes. When your life depends on trusting somebody whom you’ve been raised to believe is subhuman, ditching a racist attitude is a matter of survival.

  40. 40.

    lacp

    February 13, 2012 at 9:16 am

    Don’t have to go to those sites; if I feel a need to read that stuff (and I don’t), all I have to do is read comments at philly.com, which is the website of the Philadelphia newspapers. If a crime is reported that involves black people, loads of ALL-CAPS comments about ANIMALS, THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS ARE RUNNING THE CITY, JUNGLE, WELFARE, CRACK HO’S, etc., etc. If a crime is reported that involves white people….well, it’s vewwy, vewwy quiet.

  41. 41.

    Argive

    February 13, 2012 at 9:17 am

    @greennotGreen:

    It was a glorious day when my Republican grandmother admitted that voting for Bush (twice!) had been a terrible mistake. I don’t think she’ll ever vote for a Republican again.

  42. 42.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 9:18 am

    @Raven: LOL. It’s also among the most falsified badges there are, with the jump wings and the Ranger tab.
    I met a guy once at a VFW hall who told me that he was a Clerk-Typist in Viet Nam and had never fired a weapon anywhere but on the range and hadn’t even carried one most of his tour. I offered to buy him a drink because I figured with all of the “SF guys” and “SEALs” I met who won Medals of Honor and Navy Crosses and Silver Stars and so on and so forth and such like, that he must have been the busiest guy in the whole country because he was apparently the ONLY Clerk-Typist in the ENTIRE war so he had to have worn himself out typing up all those award packages.

  43. 43.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 9:21 am

    @greennotGreen: i watched some of his speech before that, he was foaming at the mouth then and crowing about confronting the protestors, to great applause and cheers, so he was following through on his “threat”. too bad for the wingers it was a pretty lame performance. but i’m sure they think it’s all cool and badass and stuff.

  44. 44.

    Howlin Wolfe

    February 13, 2012 at 9:22 am

    I don’t want to know the details of their assholery; I need to know I don’t want them to control public life, and for that I don’t need to read their bigoted brain-dead maunderings.
    But I’m glad you monitor them, sg, because somebody has to. Seems you’d be awash in this crap being in OK, so you’re doing yeoman’s work. THANKS!

  45. 45.

    jibeaux

    February 13, 2012 at 9:23 am

    @lacp: It doesn’t even have to be a crime. In our area, there was a legal immigrant couple from Africa here, hardworking, underpaid, married people. They became pregnant with quintuplets or some such, naturally, without having used any drugs to spur conception. Good GRIEF the hateful, awful, racist comments from people who did everything in their power to stretch far enough to find some way to blame these people for being over their financial heads in babies. On me, at least, it has the opposite intended effect as I am stubborn and motivated by spite, so I sent them some money.

  46. 46.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:24 am

    @Soonergrunt: Yep and I was the only truck driver!

  47. 47.

    Argive

    February 13, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @Soonergrunt:

    Someone I know served in Vietnam as a mechanic. He told me once that he spent his entire tour at a base so far from anywhere important that the closest he ever came to combat was when he saw some explosions off in the distance during the Tet Offensive. Yes, that’s right: his base was so marginal that the NVA and NLF didn’t attack it on a day when they attacked almost everywhere else.

  48. 48.

    Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill

    February 13, 2012 at 9:25 am

    @gene108:

    Bush, Jr. wasn’t racist.

    And herein lies much of the problems I have with these discussions — we saw it writ large with the recent Ron Paul situation.

    As an African-American, what really concerns me most days is if their actions and policies help or hurt the cause of resolving racial bigotry. We gave Sen. Byrd a pass on his past not just because he repented, but because, by and large, he supported the work to heal those wounds. Bush…I grant your point, but not nearly as much work as Byrd, in my opinion — just look at how his DOJ ignored working Civil rights issues. And Ron/Rand Paul are just in thrall to people who just want me back “in my place”.

    The problem comes when we reduce these issues to “are they really a racist?” Because then we’re not fighting institutionalized racism, the history of homogenized white supremacy, but a KKK/Neo-Nazi-eqse boogeyman, and comparing real people against that nigh-impossible metric. Hell, Rush can say the most racist crap on radio, get kicked off TV for same, and lots of people still think he’s not racist. LOTS of people, and not just dittoheads.

    That’s the side effect of thinking only the kinds of people who hang up Stars and Bars can be “really racist”. Fixing racism is an uphill struggle, and to be blase about race in America, or to do acts like appointing “people like me” publically while dismantling the apparatus to protect my interests…yeah, you’re going to have to sell me a little harder that you’re invested in racial justice.

    And racial justice, in the end, matters a fucking lot more than “are you a racist”?

  49. 49.

    RossInDetroit

    February 13, 2012 at 9:30 am

    My grandmother is 93 years old and voted GOP until 1993 when grandpa died. She lives in Muskegon, which has some of the worst poverty and racial division of anywhere north of the M-D line. But boy, does she hate the GOP now. It started with Shrub and his wars. Don’t ask her about politics unless you want to hear her eloquently tear the hide off of every Republican in office from now until dinner time.

  50. 50.

    jibeaux

    February 13, 2012 at 9:33 am

    @RossInDetroit: Oh, but I do. For your family, get some video of her while you can, talking about politics or family or anything else she wants to talk about. It’s funny, people are always taking video of kids, which is great, but it’s bittersweet when those videos pick up in the background all those wonderful souls who were never the subject of the videos but had stories to tell at the time, if they’d been asked.
    Somehow I’m having a melancholy morning.

  51. 51.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:34 am

    @Argive: Well, they sort of did target the high profile shit.

  52. 52.

    RossInDetroit

    February 13, 2012 at 9:35 am

    My late father in law was in the Navy during the Korean War. He always joked that he was stationed on a small island 3,000 miles off California. He was on Grosse Ile, in the Detroit River.

  53. 53.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 9:35 am

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: This is what I meant by

    But I understand a little bit better about where she was coming from. Until and unless they are made to deal with the very real results of their policies and ideas, and are held responsible for the company they keep and the people they promote, they will not change.

    Even to say that until and unless we recognize the institutional problems, and the problems that we create and further, and come up with fixes that are rooted in a sense of justice, we aren’t going to make much progress on this front.

  54. 54.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 9:37 am

    @RossInDetroit: LOL.

  55. 55.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:39 am

    @RossInDetroit: My wife’s uncle had a beautiful display case in his living room with an M-1 and all this WWII stuff, he spent the war in Bermuda!

  56. 56.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:41 am

    Low IQ & Conservative Beliefs Linked to Prejudice

    “There’s no gentle way to put it: People who give in to racism and prejudice may simply be dumb, according to a new study that is bound to stir public controversy.”

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    February 13, 2012 at 9:42 am

    RossInDetroit @ 52

    Sorta reminds me of the old joke where a guy talks about his service injury, when what really happened was he fell off his bar stool while watching the Army-Navy game on TV.

    Of course, when I was a kid, back in the before-time, people actually cared about the game. Especially when Staubach was the QB. Now, not so much.

  58. 58.

    RossInDetroit

    February 13, 2012 at 9:44 am

    @SFAW:

    Yeah, I know a guy who’s on military disability because he was fooling around with a Marine’s wife and got thrown down a staircase. But at least he’s honest about it.

  59. 59.

    The Moar You Know

    February 13, 2012 at 9:44 am

    They want you to die. They’d love it if they could actually force you to kneel in front of them and then blow your brains out all over your driveway, but they’ll happily accept your death no matter the circumstances, for you are the Other and they’re done fucking around.

    Liberals do not want to “get” this. I understand why. It is a terrifying thing to accept, that your fellow citizens want you dead, but it is true.

  60. 60.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:45 am

    @The Moar You Know: Fuck em

  61. 61.

    Marc

    February 13, 2012 at 9:46 am

    Until and unless they are made to deal with the very real results of their policies and ideas, and are held responsible for the company they keep and the people they promote, they will not change. The real hard core ones cannot, and will not change. But others will, and those others must be held responsible in order that they stop supporting the worst of the worst.

    This. At this point I honestly believe the enablers are even worse than the bottom-feeders they enable.

    That would include everyone from the “moderate conservatives” who stand by and do nothing while their party sinks into the gutters of racism and misogyny, to the media arbiters and general apathetics who refuse to make a choice between the imperfect and the insane because it wouldn’t be “fair,” and even some of the progressive purity trolls who refuse to recognize what we’re up against (when they aren’t actively supporting it). They give the crazies power; they deserve their share of the responsibility and the blame.

  62. 62.

    SFAW

    February 13, 2012 at 9:48 am

    I thought getting out of bed in the morning was enough to make Andrew Breitbart start foaming frothing at the mouth.

    Fixed, to reflect those instances when Breitbart’s best buddy and personal altered altar boy (O’Keefe) comes over to watch gladiator movies with Andy.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    February 13, 2012 at 9:50 am

    Ross –

    You’re a whole boatload of win this morning. Thanks for that last one, glad I hadn’t just taken a gulp of coffee when I read it.

  64. 64.

    WereBear

    February 13, 2012 at 9:50 am

    @Marc: Yes, what part of Doing Evil by standing by and doing nothing has passed them by?

  65. 65.

    RossInDetroit

    February 13, 2012 at 9:52 am

    @jibeaux:
    I think my grandmother would be a good subject for a video memoir. She was born in 1919 and has an amazingly detailed memory. Names, dates, inches of snowfall, miles driven, etc. She misses nothing and apparently still remembers it all. We test her from time to time. What kind of tin can did Grandpa fix the muffler pipe with on the Rockies camping trip in ’67? Green beans.
    She’s lived her whole life in a city that went from a prosperous industrial center to a depressed an rusting relic. There’s a lot to be learned from that.

  66. 66.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 9:57 am

    @RossInDetroit: Salmon fishin in the bay used to be a blast!

  67. 67.

    The Moar You Know

    February 13, 2012 at 9:58 am

    @Raven: Not going quietly, that’s for sure.

  68. 68.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 9:59 am

    @Cermet:
    NO, he didn’t!

    The casualty rate for Seals was 17 times that of UDT. As a result the Navy was always short of Seals & all Jess The Boobie would have had to do was volunteer for Seal duty. I don’t blame him for not doing that, who wants to die for a mistake? But I do blame him for trying to take the credit he didn’t earn.

    Seals go in against opposition UDT did not. UDT can be risky but as the 17 to 1 rate tells you it was not as risky as being a SEAL.

  69. 69.

    Jim Pharo

    February 13, 2012 at 10:00 am

    Confronting bullies in public is the key to ending their power. It helps to do in online, but it’s really best in meat-land. We’re not trying to argue with them, or get them to agree with us. We simply need to call out their nonsense as nonsense. If they get religion and come on over, fine. But if not, you may influence someone else. Those in public leadership positions especially need to do this.

  70. 70.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 10:01 am

    @Cermet: Wrong.

  71. 71.

    Shinobi

    February 13, 2012 at 10:04 am

    Dammit, now the song is in my head.

  72. 72.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 10:04 am

    SEALS and UDT

  73. 73.

    Raenelle

    February 13, 2012 at 10:06 am

    IMO, you have completely missed the core of the problem. The core is not ignorant people and the ignorant shit they think, no matter how cruel and malignant that shit is. The core problem is always, IMO, economics. An aging, at-the-end-of-its-tether capitalism creates the excuses to distract from its ever more greedy gobbling up of every bit of excess profit. That’s the problem. This country could be entirely 100% white and able to trace it’s lineage back to the Mayflower, and those crackers would still be falling for some stupid hatred devised by capitalist lackeys like Rove.

  74. 74.

    Chris

    February 13, 2012 at 10:07 am

    You need to read their sites—Fox News, Free Republic, Lucianne.com, Michelle Malkin’s site, and others. See what they say to each other when they think they aren’t being watched. The palpable hatred and violent fantasies will make you sick, but you need to know what they want, and you need to keep seeing it in their own words.

    I read PJMedia every day for about a year or two after the Obama election just to know what the other side was saying/thinking. Eventually fell away because, besides being utter Pravda-level horseshit and Nuremberg-level hatred, it just gets boring when you do it for long enough. But I’ll confirm Sooner’s statement. It really is sickening beyond words to observe conservatives in their natural environment.

  75. 75.

    Chris

    February 13, 2012 at 10:18 am

    @Argive:

    Johnson did an about-face in 2009 when he realized that a lot of the people he’d been allied with for many years (Geller, Spencer, et al) were supporting hardcore racists like Geert Wilders.

    Not just racists but fascists, I believe. Basically he finally realized that the European half of the “Anti Jihadist Movement” was completely saturated with quasi-fascists like the BNP, the FN or the BZO, tried to object to that, found out that his fellow conservatives didn’t give a damn, and after that, finally converted.

    Took him long enough, but better late than never.

  76. 76.

    Ben Cisco

    February 13, 2012 at 10:20 am

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill: THIS, THIS, THIS, A THOUSAND TIMES FRACKING THIS!
    __
    If you run with them, you ARE them.
    If you tolerate them among you, you ARE them.
    If you vote for them, you ARE them.
    No more excuses.
    No more false equivalences.
    No more “but s/he’s really not racist/sexist, etc. etc.
    You vote for any of them, you’re voting for the worst of them.

  77. 77.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 10:24 am

    @Ben Cisco:
    “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” – Sir Edmund Burke

    And I would say that if you see men (good, bad or indifferent) doing bad things and say or do nothing than you are encouraging bad things to be done.

  78. 78.

    SFAW

    February 13, 2012 at 10:35 am

    “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing” – Sir Edmund Burke

    I get the feeling that Burke’s head would modestly ‘splode, were he to see what the current flavor of evil conservatism looks like.

  79. 79.

    SFAW

    February 13, 2012 at 10:37 am

    You vote for any of them, you’re voting for the worst of them.

    “But the two parties are EXACTLY THE SAME.” – St. Ralph the Pure, and others

  80. 80.

    cmorenc

    February 13, 2012 at 10:41 am

    I have a dear friend from childhood in a small town in eastern NC who I lost touch with for over three decades after college, until by chance I encountered again a couple of years ago down at a beach in NC where he now lives, and we’ve since kept in touch mostly by email. HERE’S THE RELEVANCE TO THIS THREAD: turns out he’s a classic wingnut Republican, and because our political views were (35 years ago) very closely similar, he’s assumed mine have more or less remained the same even though we haven’t explicitly discussed politics since becoming reacquainted. AND SO I’m now on a wingnut email friends distribution list, and hence see the sorts of stuff they’re sending around intended only for comfortably like-minded folks rather than public distribution. I had a choice: I could reveal myself as now being a progressive, I could engage them in debate…but realized it would be like arguing with fenceposts or brick walls, and the only result would be to get cut off from an interesting source of their uncensored, candid thinking when they think they’re talking among like-minded folks and not trying to clean up the jokes and talking points for public consumption. Reading their view of events is often like an Alice-in-Wingnutland feverishly distorted dreamworld in which e.g. Barack Hussein Obama has power-hungry tyrannical ambitions and is intentionally bankrupting this country, and besides his wife Michelle has an uncanny facial resemblance to a chimpanzee (their words, not mine). My friend isn’t the author of any of this, he simply passes it along to me and several dozen other friends. Possibly there’s one or two of them who, like me, are possum-playing progressives who’ve decided the uncensored window into their world is more valuable than arguing with fenceposts and getting cut off. Other than this one ugly side of him, he’s a genuinely good, well-meaning guy on a face to face personal level. Lots of wingnuts actually are decent folks one on one as neighbors or face to face friends, but show their ugly side when enough of them group together.

  81. 81.

    Linda Featheringill

    February 13, 2012 at 10:43 am

    On a more peaceful note, a Whitney joke:

    It seems she left a note. It was about 38 seconds long and covered 5 octaves.

    [voice of an angel] :-)

  82. 82.

    Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor

    February 13, 2012 at 10:44 am

    I lurk on right-wing and “mainstream” comment sections all the time, and every word Soonergrunt says is true. Godwin be damned, these are fascists. Theofascists, plutofascists and/or racists, every one. It’s as if they’re waiting for that One True Leader to arrive and finally organize them. Hopefully our system will prevent that.

    It’s reached the point that I no longer comment on local blogs/comment-sections. Not to be paranoid (I’ve been physically threatened over the net many times)… but I have family to worry about now.

    As far as calling moderate Republicans in one’s personal circles to task, I’ve been doing that for awhile. The Tribal drive is very strong. But even with these folks, I just can’t see the contraception issue having any legs.

    Normally, I can peer into the right-wing brain, and understand in the abstract what the thinking is… but now I’m at a loss.

    The events of the past week make absolutely no sense to me, either.

  83. 83.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 10:46 am

    @Raven:

    Crap, I thought it was 17:1 but this guy documents 34:1. There is no way I would have willingly agreed to that exchange – and I’d like to believe I am decent enough to not pretend I did.

    Here is the money quote:
    “I’m reading a book, Stolen Valor, that exposes men who lie or exaggerate about having fought in Nam with elite units. That’s what Jesse’s doing when he claims to have been a SEAL. He’s trading on the valor of others. He hasn’t earned the right to call himself a SEAL.”

    One of the things I admired about Al Gore was his down-playing of his going to Viet Nam. He could have pretended like these other phoney bastards but he always said he was never in danger & never did anything deserving of praise there. Plenty of men were and did and it only cheapens their honor to try to pretend you did.

  84. 84.

    John

    February 13, 2012 at 10:47 am

    When and how, exactly, did Charles Johnson become sane? Or is he still insane about Muslims, but sane about other stuff now?

  85. 85.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 10:50 am

    @Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:It’s reached the point that I no longer comment on local blogs/comment-sections. Not to be paranoid (I’ve been physically threatened over the net many times)… but I have family to worry about now.

    I make my living only by the kindness of strangers. As a contractor I don’t dare identify myself because you just never know. I even keep a phoney FB account. I want nothing I can control to provide anyone with a reason not to offer me a gig. I’m not ashamed of my opinions but know there could be a price to be paid.

  86. 86.

    dww44

    February 13, 2012 at 10:50 am

    @Raven: The same here in my newspaper in Macon. I stopped reading the online comments to the editorial page a long time ago. The letters themselves are bad enough, so full of the ignoramuses.

    I can’t decide if there are actually that many outright mean, ugly, and racist folks in the country or if perhaps there’s a whole coterie of folks who just go from website to website posting their objectionable views everywhere.

  87. 87.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 10:53 am

    @dww44:

    You do know that the RNC had (has?) a program to pay per post some number of trolls. I keep meaning to dig up the links on this, it was exposed sometime around the 2008 election I think.

  88. 88.

    gttim

    February 13, 2012 at 10:53 am

    My step-father was in Korea… during the Vietnam War. He thought it was a good posting. He prepared paychecks. The meanest thing he ever did was overpay jerks. Then the next paycheck they would get a notice that they had been overpayed previously, so would not be getting a check this time. HE told funny stories about the war.

    My grandfather was in Germany during WW2 in a tank. He did get a commendation for taking out a machine gun nest on his own. He never spoke a word about the war. I found out about his exploits by a clipping my grandmother had saved. He never spoke of it. He also had German medals he cut off a dead officer. He never showed them to people.

    I know a special ops guy who did many tours in Iraq. He does not tell stories. I don’t think I have ever heard him raise his voice. He is kind and humble and loves his family. He could probably kill me with his pinky.

    I have found that people who really are in combat usually do not talk about it. They do not brag about it. They do not need to.

  89. 89.

    wonkie

    February 13, 2012 at 10:53 am

    @SuperHrefna: I am a twice a week volunteer at a dog rescue that is just packed with haters. It’s bizarre. All ladies, all people who are very nice face to face including face to people of color facxe to face. the weird thig is the nicehess face to face is genuine. Oe has a very nurturing supportive realtionship with a disabled gay neighbor.

    BUT…it is so very ijportant tothem to constantly re-affirm their sense the they are the majority, they are right, America is theirs, rectitude, respectability, honor are all theirs AND EVERYONE ELSE IS THE OTHER. Their politicallives are ruled first by fear and then by selfishness. Goverment programs fot ehm, not for the other. Ad they will turno a dime and not blik. One week in the Tea Partry because they think its anti-corporate power, the next week haters on Occupy because Wall Street makes jobs.

    I think that the human animal must be evolved so that about 27% are hardwired to relate to people they don’t know with hate and fear.

  90. 90.

    goethean

    February 13, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @John: 2009 apparently

  91. 91.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2012 at 10:54 am

    @dww44:

    I can’t decide if there are actually that many outright mean, ugly, and racist folks in the country or if perhaps there’s a whole coterie of folks who just go from website to website posting their objectionable views everywhere.

    My local fishwrap’s letters to the editor has a steady stream of right wing dipshits who send letters in and are published once a month (the policy of the paper is one a month per person) basically repeating the same moronic Faux Nooze talking points, hating on Obama, hating on “liberals”, hating on minorities, hating on anyone who questions the 1%.

    Chances are good that these shitstains are flooding every forum they can find with their Santorum.

  92. 92.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 11:00 am

    @John: He has completely come back to the light, about 18 months ago.

  93. 93.

    bemused

    February 13, 2012 at 11:02 am

    Duluth, MN has an Un-Fair Campaign to start a community dialogue on racism with billboards and posters in office windows. One billboard says, “It’s hard to see racism when you’re white”. Another is “Is white skin really fair skin?”. This has evidently offended hundreds of white residents who have complained. Mayor Don Ness and other supporters including colleges and YWCA, have received dozens of hateful messages and emails from all over the world when the news of the campaign hit websites that cater to white supremacists and racists.

  94. 94.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2012 at 11:03 am

    @gttim:

    I have found that people who really are in combat usually do not talk about it. They do not brag about it. They do not need to.

    Furthermore, the have absolutely no desire to. They’ll tell you they were there, at most, but will not go into detail. The things they experienced were horrendous. You don’t want to think about them, you don’t want to recount them, you’re not proud of the things you had to do to survive. If you did something that others consider heroic, you probably don’t view it that way…it was something that had to be done at the time, in order to save the lives of your fellows, or to get the job done you were charged to do.

    They’ve been humbled by those things, and they simply will not talk about them, even to concede they were humbled by them. Because stating that would be, ironically, bragging, and they have had what my NCOs used to call a significant emotional experience. One that transforms.

    They are my heroes because the refuse the name.

  95. 95.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 11:03 am

    @Schlemizel: It’s one thing to keep your professional life separate from your politics. It’s another thing entirely to hide your politics because you know it’s not socially acceptable. You hide your politics for the same reason that most people don’t discuss that subject in their offices. It’s irrelevant to the mission of most companies, which is to make money by gaining and servicing clientele

  96. 96.

    Danny

    February 13, 2012 at 11:03 am

    Yes, the FoxNews comments section is indeed a stinking cesspool of unapologetic racists. It can also be great fun; these fuckers are easy to troll.

  97. 97.

    r€nato

    February 13, 2012 at 11:07 am

    why on earth would anyone hate on Whitney Houston, other than just being an out-and-out racist hater? What the hell is wrong with these people?

    $10 gets you $1000 that if you dared call them a racist, one of the first three replies would be, “YOU ARE THE *REAL* RACIST!!!”

  98. 98.

    r€nato

    February 13, 2012 at 11:08 am

    @dww44: generally they are people with too much time on their hands and a lot of hatred inside fighting to get out.

  99. 99.

    Chris

    February 13, 2012 at 11:08 am

    @Danny:

    Yes, the FoxNews comments section is indeed a stinking cesspool of unapologetic racists. It can also be great fun; these fuckers are easy to troll.

    Who was it who talked about how easy it was to troll them into frothing Anti Socialist diatribes with quotes from Adam Smith? Was it you?

  100. 100.

    WereBear

    February 13, 2012 at 11:09 am

    @wonkie: This whacked me out the first time I saw my cat links back to such sites. The only political topics I touch on are animal rights, but sometimes they overlap. I’m sure I’ve lost a few readers that way, but I don’t get in-yer-face about it because the bottom line is helping the kitties. And their people.

  101. 101.

    Mark

    February 13, 2012 at 11:09 am

    Sort of off-topic here, but I have a sincere question that I hope someone can answer. My girlfriend is a hippie liberal who grew up in what I can only describe as privilege (two doctor parents, Bethesda, Columbia, Brown) but she cut off her family for a while and moved to Arkansas with an ex-boyfriend eight years ago and spent four years there.

    I’m from Canada, so WTF do I know, but I can’t discuss the south with her without feeling creeped out. She refuses to admit that the civil war was about southern racism and enslavement of an entire people. And she tells me about how the people she knew in the south had what she terms “state pride.” And this doesn’t disgust her! I hear that and I hear “white pride”, which, mixed with this notion that somehow the civil war was partly or mostly about “something else” really creeps me out. She thinks I’m being judgmental about a place I’ve never been (I’ve spent less than two weeks south of the Mason-Dixon line…)

    I guess I’m looking for something clear and concise like Dennis G. writes that would tackle these issues. Because there’s no way that I’ll ever convince her that she has a blind spot and I know anything about the south.

  102. 102.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 11:10 am

    @Soonergrunt:
    Oh I don’t hide my politics (much) in real life. After they hire me my work always makes me worth keeping. What I don’t want is somebody thinking “Hey I say that commie dick post something bad about my most beloved cause/candidate. I guess I’ll file his resume in the trash.”

    I actually am having pretty good luck turning a very nice guy from his very not nice beliefs into a reasonable guy. He is a second amendment fetishist but is starting to see that the collateral damage he is suffering from because of it is making the cost/benefit ratio unfavorable. I think I have him voting Dem this fall. But I know he is much more able to see through the BS now.

  103. 103.

    Chris

    February 13, 2012 at 11:11 am

    @Danny:

    Yes, the FoxNews comments section is indeed a stinking cesspool of unapologetic racists. It can also be great fun; these fuckers are easy to troll.

    Who was it who talked about how easy it was to troll them into frothing Anti Soshulist diatribes with quotes from Adam Smith? Was it you?

  104. 104.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 11:12 am

    @Schlemizel:
    I wanted to edit this to include the idea that work is work so the politics exists only as a topic of discussion when someone else brings it up but WP says I don’t have permission to edit my comment.

  105. 105.

    Bubblegum Tate

    February 13, 2012 at 11:15 am

    @Bostondreams:

    Steve King saw Principal Skinner and Ms. Krabapel in the closet making babies, and he saw one of the babies, and the baby looked at him.

  106. 106.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 11:17 am

    @Mark: I’ve lived in ‘the South’ for the better part of my adulthood, and the primary “State’s Right” they were defending was the right of the state to determine that one man could hold another as property.
    For the CSA, it was ALL about maintaining and extending slavery all the way to the Pacific, full stop. EVERY single Confederate state had slavery as in issue in their secession proclamations.

  107. 107.

    gttim

    February 13, 2012 at 11:18 am

    This also reminds me of when we, Bubba and myself, outed a guy who was passing himself off as a Vietnam Vet who had been wounded in action. This was on an old blog run by Bubba. By IP address and an email, he let slip through on an earlier posting, we tracked him down to…. the Focus on the Family offices. He was a writer for them. What fun we had that day! He had never even been in the military!

  108. 108.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2012 at 11:19 am

    @Chris:

    That was me. It’s incredibly easy, they really are ignorant twits.

  109. 109.

    D. Mason

    February 13, 2012 at 11:21 am

    I have mixed feelings on this post… I’m pretty conservative in my policy beliefs but people like the ones described, people who subscribe to the politics of hate along with hypocrites who push religion on one hand and death on the other, are the reason I throw my lot in with DFHs instead.

  110. 110.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 13, 2012 at 11:22 am

    @Bubblegum Tate:

    Counsel for Ralph Wiggum on line one, Bubblegum. Something about “gross defamation of character” for the comparison.

  111. 111.

    Mark

    February 13, 2012 at 11:26 am

    @Soonergrunt: Thanks, that helps. If you have anything else you can point me to – books, links – it would be much appreciated.

    The great irony of this situation is that my girlfriend is Armenian, identifies with it, and is very aware of the genocide and of Turkey’s current refusal to acknowledge it. Her blind spot wrt white southerners enslaving other people makes my head explode.

  112. 112.

    Monala

    February 13, 2012 at 11:33 am

    @gene108: I’ve often thought that that’s why Bush claimed that Kanye West’s statment, “Bush doesn’t care about black people” was the worst moment of his presidency (which is a WTF?! if I ever heard one). I think Bush feels this way because not being racist was the one thing he thought he did right-and Kanye challenged him on it.

  113. 113.

    Rafer Janders

    February 13, 2012 at 11:34 am

    @cmorenc:

    Reading their view of events is often like an Alice-in-Wingnutland feverishly distorted dreamworld in which e.g. Barack Hussein Obama has power-hungry tyrannical ambitions and is intentionally bankrupting this country,

    And is also, simultaneously, a weak man who can’t get anything done. The cognitive dissonance is fascinating.

  114. 114.

    J R in WVa

    February 13, 2012 at 11:37 am

    I somehow got on such an email list for – what’s the phrase? – Nazi Wingnuts, I guess… I took the time to look up actual facts disputing the foundation of their rants, and responded to everyone on the address lists.

    I have to admit, it was much easier than confronting bigots face-to-face. But it was still pretty satisfying, and after a few rounds, they eventually stopped sending their vile tripe to me, which was a good thing.

  115. 115.

    Soonergrunt

    February 13, 2012 at 11:37 am

    @Mark: Go to the Disunion blog on New York Times. It is 150 years ago–the events leading up to and during the civil war. It’s written by various historians, north and south, as well as diary excerpts from northerners and southerners contemporary to the time. Back around the December/January time frame, they were covering the part when the southern states seceded, one after another.
    You can get various tools to block the NYT cookie from your browser so that you won’t get hit with the payment demand.

  116. 116.

    PIGL

    February 13, 2012 at 11:46 am

    @cmorenc: the friendly-neighbour nice guy front means damn all. It’s simply conventional church-goer turd-wrapping. The ugliness beneath is the reality, the surface pleasantness is a disguise to give social repectability to their midnight cross-burnings.

    You know who else went to church and was nice to white children and puppies? And no, I am not being snide. These people are killers in waiting. We must not be bamboozled by their charm and presentable social facades.

  117. 117.

    debit

    February 13, 2012 at 11:48 am

    @Bubblegum Tate: Sex Cauldron? I thought they closed that place down.

  118. 118.

    Anya

    February 13, 2012 at 11:57 am

    @John: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/35243_Why_I_Parted_Ways_With_The_Right

  119. 119.

    Linnaeus

    February 13, 2012 at 11:58 am

    @Mark:

    You can get a good sense of the hollowness of the “states’ rights” argument from reading the primary sources. Leaders of the Confederacy like Jefferson Davis and Alexander Stephens were very clear that white supremacy was the cornerstone of the state they sought to build.

  120. 120.

    Raven

    February 13, 2012 at 12:04 pm

    @Schlemizel: Careful with that Stolen Valor. Read “Patriots” by Chris Appy.

  121. 121.

    Marc

    February 13, 2012 at 12:18 pm

    @Schlemizel: I don’t think anybody should feel obligated to get into a fight with the wingnuts every time they hear something insane. We all have work and family relationships to maintain, etc., and there are only 24 hours in the day. Constant engagement is impossible and probably counterproductive.

    But I do believe in “first, do no harm”:

    1. Do not vote for these fuckers, or the fuckers who enable them.

    2. Do not pretend that liberals are in any way equivalent to these fuckers.

    Anybody who does one of those is no better than the racist commenters Soonergrunt read. Because they give the racists political legitimacy.

  122. 122.

    catpal

    February 13, 2012 at 12:20 pm

    You are right. we must always fight for the better.

    I am writing comments on my local news site to reply to some of the bigoted thoughts posted. Recently in the contraception “what about My Freedom of Religion” idiocy, I replied that Contraception coverage is about Employer Law, and that Catholic hospitals and schools are Free to Not accept Federal $$$$, and go out of business.

    that actually worked on a few and they were silenced, for a little while.

  123. 123.

    dww44

    February 13, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    @Schlemizel: @Soonergrunt: Well, I’ve lived in the South my ENTIRE life and right now we are enjoying(?)a resurgence of the Civil War Reenactment events and announcements from our state public radio about the anniversary of the Civil War. Except they don’t call it the “Civil War”;they call it the “War Between the States”. The announcer went so far as to talk about our “celebrating” the events of the war.

    Our public media is funded by the state legislature, wholly a Republican controlled entity and I’ve seen lots of cowardly framing coming over the public airwaves. History is being rewritten in our schools and in our media.

  124. 124.

    Someguy

    February 13, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    @Cermet:

    I’m just saying, if I go and start screaming at my conservative family members about what some moron winger wrote in in the San Antonio Goatfuck Review, I’m going to have some shit about some asshole protestor thrown back in my face, followed shortly by a punch in the mouth. Seriously, get up in the face of conservative family members or co-workers. Push them. See how far you can take it before they go neanderthal.

    It’s in their nature to resort to violence.

  125. 125.

    Someguy

    February 13, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    @catpal:

    I replied that Contraception coverage is about Employer Law, and that Catholic hospitals and schools are Free to Not accept Federal $$$$, and go out of business.

    That’s absolutely correct. Nobody is making them run hospitals and soup kitchens and charity centers and colleges with mediocre-yet-overhyped football teams. Somebody else will step up.

  126. 126.

    D. Mason

    February 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm

    @Mark: It’s because it depends on who you know in the south. There are people who really do believe in the idea of the United States as a classic republic instead of a nationally ruled body. They view this as part of the checks and balances system which has been discarded, thus breaking the rest of the system in its absence. To people who have political views like this the civil war was a turning point not only because it freed the slaves but because it eliminated the notion of state sovereignty. It’s not even that they’re wrong so much as they have tunnel vision. For the rest of the country the notion of freedom and liberty came before the structure of government in the list of Americas priorities and rightly so, but not for them. They don’t hate black people they just think we had to break the government to guarantee their equality. They’re genuine and their rhetoric is compelling — that’s why a lot of it has been adopted as dog whistles over the years.

    To answer your question as best as I can… if she really believes in “state pride” instead of talking about it as code for hating black people, which you would need to determine as someone who knows her, you must approach the matter as such. It feels like an attack to treat someones beliefs (even if you consider them misguided or incomplete) as racism, especially if those beliefs pertain entirely to the structure of government. The civil war was a long time ago and it’s hard for anyone to relate to the circumstances that led to re-arranging our government because of bigotry. Constitutional purity can take the focus absent the ability to relate to the circumstances.

  127. 127.

    Kilkee

    February 13, 2012 at 12:37 pm

    @kth: And no one knows I’m a dog.

  128. 128.

    The Moar You Know

    February 13, 2012 at 12:39 pm

    @Mark: The South is complicated, and your discussion is further complicated by the fact that she, like you, didn’t spend a lot of time there (she obviously thinks four years is long enough. It is not.) She’s seeing only the things that she was allowed to see. You don’t really get a glimpse of the reality of the South until you’ve got a family history well sunk in it.

    Leave the topic alone.

    PS: I find the idea of her talking about “white pride” beyond amusing, as an Armenian she’s no more “white” to a Southerner than Barack Obama is.

  129. 129.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    February 13, 2012 at 12:52 pm

    @RossInDetroit:

    Wait…We’ve never talked about Muskegon, or our common ties to it before? (I know I’ve talked to Raven about it, and I’m still worried that he actually ate those salmon…)

    My grandmother was born (1913) and raised in the Heights- lived the vast majority of her life in the house in which she was born. She died in ’08. She had a lot of the Father Coughlin anti-Semitism in her that seemed to dissipate sfter my mom remarried, but she was always a Democrat. She had that same kind of memory as your grandmother, though.

    One point of disagreement: It’s not that bad in Muskegon. Yes, the steel mills and paper mill have closed, yes, it’s definitely not what it once was (it’s all been downhill since the lumbering days 100+ years ago, when there were more millionaires per capita than any place in the world), but it isn’t anything close to as bad as Gary, East St. Louis, Benton Harbor, Flint or Detroit-proper.

  130. 130.

    Anya

    February 13, 2012 at 12:54 pm

    BTW, Charles Johnson has his own response to this post over on Little Green Footballs:

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39914_Reactions_to_Fox_News_Commenters_Spew_Racism_at_Whitney_Houston

  131. 131.

    Nutella

    February 13, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    @Mark:

    I have heard that it is true that in those days many people felt that they were citizens of their state first and the US second. The crap about the war having causes other than slavery is crap, though.

    She can read what the secessionists themselves said about their reasons here. From the South Carolina articles of secession:

    A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
    __
    This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

    The people who claim that slavery had nothing to do with it are deliberate liars or ignorant fools who have a powerful need to believe that the myth of the gracious antebellum south was real. They’re wrong.

  132. 132.

    Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill

    February 13, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    @Mark: The single best book is to hang them by their own words: The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The “Great Truth” about the “Lost Cause”. The book is mostly just documents from the eras in question, documents that tell in their own words how central Slavery was to the Southern Cause.

    The thing that stood out at me was reading all the Secession docs, and realizing of all of them, only North Carolina did not explicitly mention Slavery as a cause for secession. It’s downright chilling.

    Also read, on this very blog, much of Dennis G.’s posts, which deal with how the concepts of the South extent into today’s politices. Another source is Ta-Nehisi Coates, who was my source for the aformentioned book, and has written a great deal about these issues over the last couple of years.

  133. 133.

    dollared

    February 13, 2012 at 1:04 pm

    @Someguy: Yeah? And so should they rest comfortably in their bigotry and beliefs? Can you distinguish between advocating that poor people die in the streets and making paper mache dolls?

    I’ll be blunt: you just sound very, very conflict-avoidant.

  134. 134.

    dollared

    February 13, 2012 at 1:17 pm

    @Soonergrunt: Thanks for this post. I’ve gone through the entire post Reagan era, and I sit in constant wonderment at how it is that wingnuttery is so socially successful, and how liberals are afraid to advocate for a better society. I never let my wingnut friends off the hook. I never let my “moderate Republican” friends forget that they own the deficit and the wars – because that is the objective result of their adherence to a hopelessly corrupted party. I am a contractor, and I am a “social freelancer” (no church, no country club, etc.) in a big city, and I pay both an economic and social price for my unwillingness to sit quietly while all kinds of white people – well meaning and otherwise – advocate our collapse as a nation.

    We have to fight this war as they do – openly, and knowing that every day is a battle. Or they will win. And we are much, much closer to a Russian style oligarchical state than most people realize. Check out the Facebook page “We are firing employees who signed the recall petitions” to see naked economic intimidation of citizenry in Wisconsin.

  135. 135.

    Brachiator

    February 13, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    @Soonergrunt:

    I replied that I didn’t think he was personally a racist.

    Big deal. I don’t know if Eichmann was personally an anti-semite. Still glad that the motherfucker was hanged.

    I have no idea why people stubbornly believe that racism matters more if it is a “sincerely held belief.”

    But as you note, people need to look at the outcomes, not just the personal feelings of bigots and their fellow travelers.

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:

    The thing that stood out at me was reading all the Secession docs, and realizing of all of them, only North Carolina did not explicitly mention Slavery as a cause for secession. It’s downright chilling.

    The Confederate Constitution enshrined slavery as a right of white citizens. All the states, including North Carolina, signed on for that.

  136. 136.

    The Moar You Know

    February 13, 2012 at 1:32 pm

    Check out the Facebook page “We are firing employees who signed the recall petitions” to see naked economic intimidation of citizenry in Wisconsin.

    That is some grade-A trollery right there. My congratulations to the guy who is working so hard on it, he knows how to yank people’s chains.

  137. 137.

    jake the snake

    February 13, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    @gttim:
    I have only met one vet, vietnam or otherwise who would say
    anything about the war they we in. And I don’t think the one who talked about was ever anywehre near combat.

  138. 138.

    AnneW

    February 13, 2012 at 1:56 pm

    @Mark: I grew up in Arkansas. I too used to believe that the Civil War was about more than slavery. Lies My Teacher Told Me is the book that opened my eyes.

  139. 139.

    harlana

    February 13, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    @Mark: there is a sort of revisionism about the history of the civil war. i was taught in school (in the south) in the 60’s/70’s that the civil war was about slavery. the revisionism came later and i think i bought into it for a while (well, i thought i was in the company of intellectuals, after all!), before i knew better. they buy into it because they need to so badly. they feel they are being blamed for something they had nothing to do with, they don’t want see anything beyond that sense of guilt they don’t want to feel. i don’t know how else to put it. deep down, it satisfies this tribalistic urge. there is a certain level of family tribalism in the south today, as a matter of fact. it played a part in breaking up my marriage.

  140. 140.

    dollared

    February 13, 2012 at 2:26 pm

    @Brachiator: Remember when Barbara Bush was walking through the Astrodome and she said “see, they’ve got food and shelter, so they are coming out very well.”

    I’m sorry, that’s at the very least classist, and is most likely racist. The point is that she sees a person in distress, and thinks “it’s their fault.” Her prejudice (“pre-judge”) is that she thinks “shiftless” when she sees a black face or a white person with trashy clothes.

    And that is evil. Fuck GWB. That’s his world, and he owns every conseqauence of the disaster he presided over.

  141. 141.

    peggy

    February 13, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    @Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:

    Bush, Jr. wasn’t racist.

    Junior, like Lord Peter Wimsey, could be aristocratically indulgent of the little people and thus appear not to be a racist. His true opinions were expressed by the Justice Department when they fought against affirmative action and by his Supreme Court picks.

  142. 142.

    Essayist-Lawyer

    February 13, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    I would say the best response on the whole states rights issue is to ask which is more important, states rights or individual rights. States rights are all fine and good, but individual rights come first.

    The assumption that states can do no wrong is absurd.

  143. 143.

    Mark

    February 13, 2012 at 2:52 pm

    Thanks everyone for the commentary; I will take a look at the books and blogs recommended. My girlfriend is as far from a racist I could ever imagine, but I think she has a hard time recognizing that a lot of her friends in Arkansas are racists.

  144. 144.

    Nutella

    February 13, 2012 at 3:00 pm

    @Mark:

    She reminds me of an old friend whose father was a stone racist. Because of his racism he disliked and feared majority-black Washington DC and kept himself and his family in the white suburbs. The daughter had that same fear and dislike of the city, not because she was racist like her old man, but because she had always and only heard negatives about the city and she never actually went there to see if dad’s idea was correct or not.

  145. 145.

    moderateindy

    February 13, 2012 at 3:07 pm

    @greennotGreen: Along the same line as your mother come people like my friend. He probably should be a Republican, White, male, rich, if not 1 definitely top 2%. But not racist or hateful. He’s just one of those people that picked “his side” when he was in his 20’s and refuses to do any self examination about that choice. His team has an R on the front of its jersey, and the facts won’t change that. Whenever I point out how bat crap crazy the Republicans have become, or what an epic failure their policies are, (even for someone like him that pulls in 300-350K a year, but almost all in salary that actually gets taxed,) he simply shuts down. There are the weak defenses like, I hate all politicians etc etc. But the truth is he doesn’t follow politics, and doesn’t want to seriously analyze the policies put forth by “his party”. Which honestly is how 85+ % of Americans act regardless of political affiliation.
    Most people pick teams and then overlook their sides flaws. Perfect example, As a Chicago Bulls fan, I despised Dennis Rodman all the way up to the point that he became a Chicago Bull. Suddenly his antics became much less obnoxious. Sure he had matured by that time and wasn’t as thuggish, more of a jackass than thug, but he wasn’t all that different from the guy I had despised. The power of tribalism

  146. 146.

    Schlemizel

    February 13, 2012 at 3:13 pm

    @dww44:
    I have told the story here many times of my 4th of July experience. They would have a CW demonstration every year with the North “winning” the engagement once & then the south “winning” later in the day. The SOuth always got a huge cheer the North never. I found that very depressing.

    @AnneW:
    Love that book – I wish it were required reading, particularly for wingnuts.

  147. 147.

    Gus diZerega

    February 13, 2012 at 3:54 pm

    This post and subsequent thread is fascinating from beginning to end (so far – I hope it continues). I am raving about it on my own blog and on FB. I hope those who read me come here.

    I have only one brief comment to make of my own, that might have already been made. Some of these folks are genuinely friendly face to face, especially when you are family. For some it’s a role, for others it’s genuine. I think the latter differ from us primarily in their capacity to put themselves in shoes different from their own, and the way to reach them, if it can happen at all, is through the heart not the mind.

  148. 148.

    Ruckus

    February 13, 2012 at 3:56 pm

    @Raven:
    Every swinging dick was a grunt.
    Of course that’s because that’s what every marine is told from the gitgo. And yes I have known a few marines who were in support during vietnam and never claimed otherwise. But that may not have been your exact point.

  149. 149.

    Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)

    February 13, 2012 at 4:03 pm

    @moderateindy:

    Sure he had matured by that time and wasn’t as thuggish, more of a jackass than thug, but he wasn’t all that different from the guy I had despised.

    Shit, Worm was more mature as a rookie with the Pistons than he is now. And he was never a thug. You’re confusing him with Zeke, Lambs and Rick Mayhem…And, maybe, Charles Oakley, who, iirc, was a thug as a Bull…And you seem to have forgotten the rep of your own Bulls back in the ’70s- saints they were not.

  150. 150.

    Gus diZerega

    February 13, 2012 at 4:07 pm

    Fox just scrubbed the site and eliminated all traces of their poisonous fans.

    http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/39915_Update-_Fox_News_Makes_Racist_Comment_Thread_Disappear

  151. 151.

    Someguy

    February 13, 2012 at 4:41 pm

    @dollared: @dollared:

    Yeah? And so should they rest comfortably in their bigotry and beliefs? Can you distinguish between advocating that poor people die in the streets and making paper mache dolls?

    Yeah? Who was the last person you punched out in a political disagreement, street fightin’ man?

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    February 13, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    @gttim:
    Once worked for a company that hired a jackass for president who later wrote a first person magazine article about being a medic doing helicopter rescues in Vietnam, when he was never in country. Real vets hung his ass out to dry.

  153. 153.

    Patricia Kayden

    February 13, 2012 at 5:00 pm

    @Gus diZerega: Wonder if they’ll claim that there were no such comments.

  154. 154.

    Ruckus

    February 13, 2012 at 5:15 pm

    @jake the snake:
    People with real combat experience want to forget and can not. For some those experiences overwhelm all the other experiences. For the rest, they just learn how to compartmentalize the bad memories.
    Those without real combat experience make shit up because they have no idea.

  155. 155.

    peggy

    February 13, 2012 at 5:27 pm

    @Mark:
    Your girlfriend’s demographic tends to be contemptuous of Southerners and she was able to see beyond that.

    I’d recommend intensive immersion in Ta-Nehisi Coates’s writings on the Civil War. Start withThe Civil War Isn’t Tragic, a shocking opinion that might help her understand the black point of view.

  156. 156.

    The Populist

    February 13, 2012 at 5:28 pm

    @Raven: Sounds like a troll board I stumbled onto called Campidiot.

    Argh, a bunch of dipshits high fiving each other when they call african americans and libs names.

    Funny, when you call out their nonsense, they find new nonsense to throw right back at you. It’s not unlike a monkey flinging poo.

  157. 157.

    LowProfileinGA

    February 13, 2012 at 6:16 pm

    @Cermet: “Mute,” I think you mean.

  158. 158.

    Henry Bayer

    February 13, 2012 at 7:46 pm

    @LowProfileinGA: Mutt is funny, mute less so. Moot not at all.

  159. 159.

    Not Sure

    February 13, 2012 at 10:41 pm

    I consider myself a disabled veteran of the fight against mindless “conservatism.” I dissected Ann Coulter’s screechings for over a year, and still bear the emotional scars. I just can’t do it anymore.

  160. 160.

    Jean Lepley

    February 14, 2012 at 4:39 am

    Mark, before you write off the rebel cause as simply “defending slavery”–and especially before you presume to know just what motivated ordinary men to fight so long and so hard in this extraordinarily bloody national struggle of ours–I suggest you read James McPherson’s *For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War*. Based on letters and diaries from nearly 1,000 soldiers, this work leaves me, at least, with the same terrible sadness as did Michael Shaara’s *Killer Angels*. Reading Shaara, I found myself illogically “rooting” for both sides, while McPherson’s work shows Union and rebel alike espousing the cause of Liberty (when they had a cause, that is; many soldiers only sought to survive!). Which is not to deny that slavery was, historically speaking, the issue at stake–only that it was not what men necessarily *felt* they were fighting for.

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