I’m not even going to bother reading the “response,” because I’m pretty sure Freddie won’t actually respond to me, but to the demons in his head, and the quote Mistermix supplied was enough for me. However, a few quick thoughts.
1.) If Freddie actually thinks that I am an enemy of Greenwald or that what bothers me about McMegan is her lady parts, then I think we have this all figured out. He’s not only a pompous ass, he’s fucking illiterate.
2.) I just destroyed your specious bullshit AND told you to fuck off on my front page. I don’t need a mob of internet trolls (ie: anyone who disagrees with you) to do my business, and am very capable of expressing my opinions in my own crude and special way.
3.) This is just fabulous:
HE’S JUST A GRAD STUDENT FROM POOR FAMILY!
SPARE HIM HIS LIFE OF YOUR HUAC-TIVITY!“No, no, no
I will not let it go!
LGM
Has a devil set aside for me!
For me!”
I’d like to see the whole song.
Also, “an army of rabid, anonymous commenters” has been added to the rotating taglines.
The One True Leftist
For a guy who teaches and studies rhetoric, Freddie deBoer seems really unaware of his own. Granted, part of that is a skewed sense of himself and others, but still.
Oof–gotta go. I’m needed for some HUAC work.
Hawes
Yeah but another name for Queen is monarch and another name fife monarch is authoritarianism.
So fascism.
Villago Delenda Est
BEELZEBUB IS REALLY JOHN COLE!
JOHN COLE!
JOHN COOOOOOOOOLE!
(insert clip of Wayne and his friends rocking out in the Pacer.)
BGinCHI
Freddie is precisely the kind of grad student that made me finish my dissertation so that I could get a job and some professional colleagues and get the hell out of the Peyton Place of thin skins and large egos.
People who are convinced that they are right and will not accept the subtleties of other positions when presented with them are always going to complain about being victims. Their only alternative would be to examine their assumptions, and THIS they will not do.
What I like about Cole and others here is that they admit when they are wrong, which is often.
scav
@Hawes: And queens move goalposts diagonally for as many squares as they see fit. So oppression of squares.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Welcome to the Inner Circle of the Bavarian Illuminati. You may now proceed to level five and participate in our Conspiracy Against Freddie (premium select elite edition).
A Humble Lurker
I love this place. It’s like Camelot: it is a silly place.
Schlemizel
Can someone point me to the offending comment thread? I missed it and frankly would love to see where this level of butthurt comes from.
Also too, I missed the post where JC unleashed us flying monkeys against that poor defenseless kid (hope you do not take my badge and secret decoder ring). You really need to get a new flying money signal because many of us missed it.
Villago Delenda Est
Dang screwed up the link on edit.
Here it is again.
Morzer
@Schlemizel:
Freddie’s problems started with this:
http://tinyurl.com/yol2fh
Eric U.
butthurt should be a tag so we can search for all the good posts. Actually, there should be a JC-butthurt tag and a JC-Iloveyouguys tag as well.
Lee
I think that is fairly well established at this point. He simply cannot read the words that are in front of him. Maybe he is just getting the words in his head mixed up with the words that are actually present.
Morzer
@Lee:
Given his problems with boners, I think Freddie is most likely a non-fucking illiterate.
Schlemizel
@Morzer:
Well, that is highly over-rated in my opinion.
@Morzer:
OUCH
TooManyJens
\o/
Belafon
@Eric U.: Everyone would use it.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
On an OT note, a blogger of better caliber than our dear Mr. DeBoer, has an article in Salon about the crazy of open carry.
A reminder that Digby is a treasure, and gun fetishism is a pathology.
Bob In Portland
Report from Odessa. Some survivors of the fire in the trade union building were strangled by the fascist mob. Cops stood by and watched.
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer: BUUURRRRNN!
rea
Wow, over here I’m rabid, over at LGM I’m objectively despicable!
Cacti
Someone thinks John Cole is an enemy of Glenn Greenwald?
Which blog were they reading?
Morzer
@Eric U.:
Wasn’t JC Butthurt a Confederate general? Or am I thinking of Rand Paul’s special adviser on Ethnic Sensitivity?
Cacti
@Bob In Portland:
Hodor!
Karen in GA
Ah, the moral superiority of the grievously wronged.
(Sorry I’m late, I only got the Liberal Bully Organization meeting invite a few minutes ago.)
ETA, also too: “Rabid”? Fred needs decaf.
BGinCHI
@Bob In Portland: I’d make fun of you, but at this point I find you sad.
Botsplainer
Dear Fredzo – when your argument shifts to “quit abusing me, anonymous internet commenters”, it means that you are losing.
Laughing at you, not with you.
kindness
That is so funny. Yesterday LG&M had a post titled: “Does it ever occur to you guys that your commenters are objectively despicable people?”
You can guess the comment came from a person who just did not like the company they have over there. It applies to Freddie too. What an ass. For myself, I am proud to be an objectively despicable person when it comes to folks like Freddie.
BGinCHI
@rea: More pets here, so more infection.
Quaker in a Basement
Did somebody break the Internet? I can’t raise Freddy’s site at all now.
Everyone has misused him. Ripped him off and abused him.
Morzer
@kindness:
Um, Freddie was the supplier of that comment.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti: They had a public disagreement about something some time back. That one disagreement means they are mortal enemies now for all time.
But only if you’re a PhD candidate in Rhetoric & Composition.
Morzer
@Quaker in a Basement:
Oh no! The Vast Leftwing Internet Conspiracy has ASASSINATED Freddie’s innocent little blog!
ulee
The long knives are out.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bob In Portland: HODOR! TIMMEH!
Ripley
At last they found it: 2016 RNC Convention, first choice location.
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer: Yes, we are that evil. We make Darth Sidious look like a fluffy little bunny.
KG
you know what one of my favorite things about the internet is?
if i don’t like something (or someone) there’s an infinite number of other sites i can go to. and if someone doesn’t like me? i can not give half a royal shit about their opinion, because again: infinite number of websites… but that might just be the way i was raised.
TooManyJens
@Morzer: Oh Lord, now he’s really going to be insufferable.
Morzer
@KG:
Well, young ‘un, when I was raised there was no internet of the sort you suckled on. Our computers thought 48k was pretty fucking fantastic as memory went. We learned to appreciate what we were given and always finish whatever Daddy Blogger might bring home from a hard day’s hunting and gathering in the cyberwoods.
pzerzan
I just want to clear something up-does Freddie deBoer believe Brendan Eich and Donald Sterling should still have their jobs? If so, how is that the “true leftism?”
Morzer
@TooManyJens:
Just as John Cole was dialing up his Obamadrones for the final strike as well….
danielx
I’ve been wondering why i’ve developed this uncontrollable thirst and drooling, together with recurring images of tiny foamy-mouthed dogs swimming upstream through my blood vessels to EAT MY BRAIN. Now I understand that it’s because I’ve contracted rabies through reading about/commenting upon/mocking wingnut douchebaggery – too much, perhaps.
Still, it’s a target-rich environment (yes, you too DeBoer), so what’s a guy to do?
And yes…it’s true…Cole is the Devil.
Kevin
His blog couldn’t handle more than 12 people at a time.
Trollhattan
@Bob In Portland:
Hodor!
ranchandsyrup
@A Humble Lurker: “It’s only a model.”
Morzer
@Kevin:
“He chose… poorly.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubw5N8iVDHI
Cassidy
@pzerzan: Because reasons.
@Cacti: I’d be lying mini said I haven’t watched the pure and the more pure turn on each other lately.
Schlemizel
@Bob In Portland:
that is another donation to
http://helpeuromaidan.info/donate
Do you enjoy supporting fascists? because if you do you will continue to shit in unrelated threads with this sort of mad ranting for no point. In the 2 weeks you have been doing this, you sanctimonious ass, you have converted a grand total of nobody to your side and are now actively raising money for the fascists you claim to hate.
At this point you can either admit you are helping fund the Ukraine freed fighters and continue shitting on threads or you can go the fuck away. You might try being reasonable but I fear that is well outside your ability so just go the fuck away.
Frankensteinbeck
I went back and read the comment and he actually said that. Greenwald is certainly a controversial figure here, but a lot of the yelling is at you, Cole, for agreeing with some of his arguments. It would take some truly involved conspiracy theory thinking to make us your bully boys in an anti-Greenwald movement – especially since ‘controversial’ is right, and both sides of the argument are well supported here.
Trollhattan
@pzerzan:
Not clear to me, either. And basically, Sterling can’t watch his team from inside the arena. Poor lamb.
Cassidy
@Cassidy: “if I said”
scav
@Morzer: “innocent” as in virginal as in unvisited? Well, one can possibly see the original problem. Or is Freddie pulling a purity-ball daddy-date protection maneuver for the daughter of his mind and defending his child’s integrity for his chosen, presumably singular and equally pure replacement date?
JPL
This is the first time that I was a member of a mob, never mind being part of an army of rabid, anonymous commenters. Home Depot gives discounts on Memorial Day to members of the army but I’m not sure this particular army applies.
Whatever happened to Freddie, he actually had a few good posts on education a few years ago?
kindness
@Morzer: In that event my comment is particularly pertinent. What an ass.
Villago Delenda Est
John “Arthur” Cole encounters Freddy “Dennis” deBoer on a moor.
pzerzan
@Trollhattan: Yeah, that’s what I’m having a hard time understanding. I know FDB keeps calling the folks here and at LGM bullies and monsters and all that other stuff but he never has said (at least not what I’ve seen) anything about what should happen to Eich and Sterling. At least Sully et al said Eich should keep his job. Not sure how FDB thinks “true leftists” should have handled those situations.
Turgidson
@Morzer:
And don’t forget, the computer had to walk uphill, both ways, barefoot, in order to connect to the intertubes, which at that point were the technological equivalent of a dirt road covered in glass.
maeve
@Morzer:
When I was a young’un we didn’t have your comp-u-ters. Abaci were good enough for us.
Morzer
@kindness:
Now you see why Freddie has become one of the internet’s Ten Most Unwanted list. His social skills apparently begin with pissing in someone else’s coffee maker and end with him raging against the unreasonable way other people react to this.
ranchandsyrup
Are we all going to intertr0n jail for bullying?
I call top bunk.
slag
Who else runs around insulting whole swaths of people and then gets all “WHY I DO DECLAAARE!” when they insult back?
Oh yeah. Sarah Palin, is that you?
Maybe FDB has finally gotten a real paying job as Sarah’s ghost writer. Or vice versa.
scav
@Turgidson: The smoke-based modems were a real innovation, puff-binary, the works.
Morzer
@maeve:
I bet you never had to make your own abacus from the entrails of a freshly strangled mammoth plus some flints you’d been keeping for a rainy day in downtown Buffalo! Check your privilege!
beltane
How can I be rabid when I’m up to date on my shots?
Villago Delenda Est
@Turgidson: In a snowstorm!
Schlemizel
@Frankensteinbeck:
No, no, no,no,no – you do not understand how blogs work! See JC is responsible for believing anything and everything posted by any one of us because it is his blog. That goes back for as far as he has had a blog. Therefore JC loves GG, whom(thanks mom) he hates, supports Boy Blunder whom he humiliates, is a raging libertarian, liberal, conservative, pinko, gay-bashing homo-freindly, misogynistic feminist – sorry I ran out of breath there but you get the idea. Whatever suits my need to whine about I can find in comments here & JC must also believe those things because they appear on his blog.
This is the Bill O’liely school of logic. He has used it in the past and it seems to work.
ruviana
@Hawes: Yeah but isn’t another name for Queen “Freddy (mercury)?”
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Quaker in a Basement:
The internet is fine. Freddies site breaks because it’s impossible to packetize bullshit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Turgidson:
I remember upgrading from a 1200 baud to a 2400 baud modem and being absolutely AMAZED at the speed increase.
Morzer
@scav:
Yeah, but it was a total bastard watching the brogrammers to make sure they didn’t try and integrate a stack of weed and ruin productivity for the whole cave.
Schlemizel
@Turgidson:
Crap, I was born and raise before the time when some people thought digital watches were a pretty good idea.
@Villago Delenda Est:
The first time I saw a DecWriter 1200 spew text I was stunned. The old TTY 33 was high tech when I was a kid.
ruviana
@BGinCHI: I’ve been following this both at LGM and here and I keep wondering–what will Freddie do if he does finish and does get a job? Academia is not generally noted for its kindhearted, understanding, and gentle nature.
CDW
Freddie never had as many people looking at his blog before. He thanks LGB and BJ for all the traffic.
Howlin Wolfe
Army of rabid, anonymous commenters is second only to a Charging Army of Guitars in the Things to Be Afraid Of.
NO! DON’T PUT ON THAT GYPSY KINGS CD!!!
Just kidding! I love the Gypsy Kings, but the sound they generate with their many 6-strings can overwhelm an enemy.
Morzer
@ruviana:
They’ll probably make him a Dean for Internet Outreach.
Villago Delenda Est
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Oh, puhleeze:
Example One.
Example Two.
It’s possible to packetize bullshit.
Schlemizel
@ruviana:
Then it will be a contest of equals not like now with filthy rabble like us trying to drag that fine gentleman down into the slop with us.
Howlin Wolfe
@Lee: He’s literally illiterate!
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
HOLEE SHEEEIT WE GOT US A DANG BLAWGWAR NOW AINT WE HOOBOY! IT AINT BIN THIS FUN SINCE JEAN HAMSTER FEESTED ON YOUR FAT CARKISS JG!
Kevin
If this were a real mob, Cole would have found a way to sell Cat themed torches and pitchforks by now.
elm
@pzerzan:
It seems to be even sillier than that. He believes that Sterling should have been pushed out, but that people who criticize him on Twitter should write a dissertation about why he should be criticized with properly-cited references to political theory supporting their position.
Quoth deBore:
For your reference, here is the Elias Isquith piece that sends poor Freddie screaming to the tone-police.
Jay
Cole, you once had an all-time comeback for especially annoying whiners: “Don’t sprain your arm nailing yourself to that cross.”
I’ve long thought that crack is rotating tagline-worthy.
Who’s with me?
Morzer
@Kevin:
You missed the cat-themed torches, pitchforks and toe-crusher special last Wednesday? Honestly, what sort of rabid, anonymous commenter are you?
Villago Delenda Est
@Kevin: Tunchtorches?
opiejeanne
@Schlemizel: Oh, I missed your comments in the thread last night. If you go to Gettysburg, hire the private tour guides at the National Park HQ* They will drive your car for you and talk while they drive, stopping at points of interest and explaining how the battle unfolded, and they are wonderful. I think it was about $65 for 2-3 hours when we did it and it was so good we tipped him $65. Someone told us about it and we found it difficult to believe that it would be that good, but there were three of us and it would have cost $30 apiece to ride the bus.
Across the road is the cemetery and there are walking tours that explain not just the battle that took place there among the stones, but also the social significance of that cemetery: it was one of a handful of a new type of cemetery, where anyone could be buried regardless of religion or lack thereof, and it was fairly new when the battle came to it.
*where you can catch the bus tour, but people complained that they couldn’t hear the speaker very well.
Bob In Portland
@Schlemizel: Keep on. Enjoy it. Bankrupt yourself sending money to Kiev. It’s yours. It’s just that you’re not getting all the news so you don’t get to glory in imagining doing the strangling yourself. What way do you prefer people to be killed? Shot, burned alive, choked to death, beaten to death? Are you filled with pride seeing young men with swastikas tattooed on their chests chanting that they want to be part of white Europe?
It’s weird to me that people who can snark here about racists and American fascists every day seem to embrace the fascist coup in Ukraine. And so it is. You, I’m afraid, demonstrate why America is sinking into a shithole of fascism.
Keep on laughing.
Botsplainer
@Morzer:
He IS the Kweisatz Haderach!
Villago Delenda Est
Noisemax, being Freddy deBoer like:
Carney’s Benghazi ‘Spin’ Burns Reputation
With whom? With Faux and Noismax addled twits who hate him anyways, because he works for the near sheriff?
WereBear
‘Bout time.
scav
@Schlemizel: Oh pish. He’s clearly established that he has no equals. At least none that he recognizes. Under the anonymous masks of hordes unwashed jackals could be entire contentions (nice autocorrect for conventions!) of rhetoricians. And only recognizing the critiques of superior diploma-ed job-givers is merely a quirky, self-serving take on argument from authority.
Morzer
For those vicious, snarling jackals interested in following Freddie’s latest, it includes the alarming line:
and
Can’t the voices in Freddie’s head manage a more interesting conversation, just once in a while?
Mnemosyne
Meh. Even his insult isn’t as good as the one that church lady (not our current different-church-lady) came up with, about us being a rabid pack of jackals.
MattR
@Jay: My favorite line from The Ref featuring Denis Leary and Kevin Spacey.
“You know what I’m going to get you next Christmas, Mom? A big wooden cross, so that every time you feel unappreciated for your sacrifices, you can climb on up and nail yourself to it.”
Schlemizel
@opiejeanne:
Cool – I was looking at those online & saw a couple of really bad reviews & a bunch of good ones. I will put that on the list. THANKS!
rea
One of the amusing aspects of this bitter denunciation of the commentors here and at LGM–go over to Freddie’s place, and who are his regulars? Guys (of course, guys) like Hector St. Clare, Mao Cheng Ji, and tgm. Rightwingnuts, women-haters, antisemites, trolls and assholes, with a history of being banned at LGM and Crooked Timber.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
And this unsourced report is totally true, unlike the reports about Russia providing surface-to-air missiles to the pro-Russian separatists who shot down Ukrainian helicopters?
Your double standard is showing again.
MomSense
@Howlin Wolfe:
Well, last night I picked up my fiddle after 20 years away and let me tell ‘ya–I am making some weaponized sounds! I could definitely take the Gypsy Kings!
elm
@Mnemosyne: You can’t expect him to admit that he got it from Russia Today dotcom, can you?
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
You’ll find plenty of young men with swastikas tattooed on their chests who are proud to be part of white, racist, gay-bashing Russia. Does that fill you with pride?
Lee Rudolph
@Morzer: Having rabies takes time, dammit.
Mnemosyne
@elm:
But Russia Today is the only place you can get the real truth about what’s going on! All of the western news outlets are biased against Russia!
Schlemizel
@Bob In Portland:
I am not laughing at the horrific situation Russia has caused in Ukraine – I AM LAUGHING AT YOU, you sanctimonious ass. You shit over here accusing us all of being horrible people for not believing something you are unable to support with unbiased facts. I have asked you on more than one occasion what you suggest we do about it that would help and you ignore that entirely. You are nothing but a troll, and not even a very good one. You do not exist.
SatanicPanic
@Morzer: jeezus. It can’t get any better from there.
shortstop
Someone had a Gettysburg discussion last night?
@opiejeanne: Seconding this — the private guiding program is fantastic. However, the guides are wildly uneven in quality. We visited twice and had two very different guides. The first was John Archer, a historian and author with an expertise in Culp’s Hill and an uncanny resemblance to John Ehrlichman. Don’t hold that last part against him — he was a terrific, engaging guide. If they try to give you John Smarsh, demand someone else. He’s a retired English teacher and school superintendent (which tells you something about the Gettysburg public schools) who is patently unacquainted with his native tongue. He also tried to Obama-bash his way through the morning until we told him to knock that shit off. He tells cheesy ghost stories, seemingly unable to distinguish between these and actual history, and his jokes are painfully corny. He also doubled the two-hour tour to four hours, which would have been fine if he’d been telling us about the battle rather than sharing his own banal reflections on life.
Take some real time to walk around the battlefield yourself. There are several short trails in interesting places. Pack a picnic and eat it looking down at Devil’s Den. Spend some time in town looking at the historic district, much of which is still bullet-ridden from the Union sharpshooters on Cemetery Hill firing back at the Confederate snipers in the town attics. Twin Sycamores is a particularly good place to see this (plus they have awesome ice cream).
Enjoy the countryside — we were surprised and overwhelmed by how beautiful it is.
Morzer
@SatanicPanic:
I get the impression that Freddie’s masochism is causing him to pick theoretical fights with himself, now that he’s got his quota of morale-improving beatings from here and LGM.
kindness
I for one hail our leader of an army of rabid, anonymous commenters.
Now can we pleeze have some kitteh & puppy pics?
Frankensteinbeck
@Schlemizel:
Pretty sure all he wants is to threadjack so he can feel superior and powerful. It’s a ‘don’t feed the troll’ situation.
shortstop
I haven’t been around much lately. Is Bob in Portland for real?
Alex S.
@elm:
Interesting. I would say that Isquith and DeBoer share, or compete for, the same niche in the blogosphere.
Also, I would like to see a thread about Odessa. With lots of BeeGees references.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Thse aren’t SAMs, they’re Freedom Sparklers(tm). Vlad puts them on his birthday cake.
raven
@shortstop: He’s hijacked thread after thread and people just keep talking to him.
Frankensteinbeck
@shortstop:
Apparently. Persistent and vitriolic like a more coherent M-C. Very, very determined to threadjack, posts over and over in every thread about this one issue, with the singleminded message that we caused Ukrainian fascists to murder innocent Russian protestors.
Villago Delenda Est
@rea: If Freddy wants to see an actually rabid commentariat, he should spend some time at FreeRepublic, where they deal with dissent by insta-permabanning those who dare to deviate from the Partei line.
Morzer
@Frankensteinbeck:
And we did all that while murdering Freddie’s innocent little blog. I stand in awe at our accomplishments.
Villago Delenda Est
@shortstop: His real name is Bob Romanov, and he’s as determined as Vlad Putin to reconquer all of the former Russian/Soviet Empire.
Schlemizel
@shortstop:
Thanks for the tip! Its sort of scary to drop $65 and an afternoon if the odds are getting that second guy. The 1 star ratings mentioned a talkative guide with little understanding of the battle and one mentioned ghost stories. I wonder if they got your guy. We do plan on walking several places. Given its early July we expect heat & humidity (which is really part of the experience I think). Having read about the 1st MN since I was a kid I want to stand where they stood. Obviously Devils Den, The Peach Orchard and the Wheat field.
I am also reading a lot of hate for the new museum. Several of the negatives commented particularly on the “liberal interpretation of events. Have you seen the place & what was your take?
Trollhattan
@shortstop:
Depends on your definition of “real.” Real persistent, to be sure. Real fond of trolling: “Hey, I wanna go to Ukraine and help liberate Russian-talkin’ Patriots from nazi Ukranian meanies, and also, too, help Russia annex everything not named Chernobyl. Who’s with me?”
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: Why doesn’t he just go over to the GOS? An afternoon there will fuel his indignation engine for months.
elm
@Alex S.: A more cynical soul than I might even suggest that Mr. deBoer thinks that Isquith’s position could be better-filled by somebody else. Perhaps somebody with academic credentials in Rhetoric and Composition.
chopper
it’s okay, [BONERS] will be along in a few to fredsplain to us peons how he’s still right and everybody else is still ‘not doing it right’.
raven
@Schlemizel: You’d collapse if you knew how much I’m spending on a charter boat Friday!
dedc79
Doees Freddie have a job that we could get him fired from?
Jennifer
Thank goodness he didn’t refer to anyone as a huge lying asshole, or I’d be humming
Enormous
Mendacious
Disembodied Anus
to the tune of “Kokomo” for the rest of the day.
(all due credit to the dearly departed PoorMan)
Schlemizel
@Frankensteinbeck:
I have come to that conclusion and no longer recognize who we are talking about. He does not exist.
DrSubstantiveComment - Processed in a Facility That Also Handles Snark
Can someone make sure that I’m on the mailing list for FdB attack co-ordination?
Thx!
p.a.
@Morzer: as usual, Duncan Black was years ahead of the curve.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: First, it’s not even being reported and debunked in the western press. It’s yet another story that the MSM looks away from. The strongest answer to a lie is the truth. The easiest answer to the truth is to avoid it.
I have no idea whether or not Russia has provided anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels in the east. Two separate stories in the New York Times about Russian soldiers operating in eastern Ukraine were withdrawn and corrected by the Times, although people here still repeat them. The anti-Semitic flyer was determined by the world press to be a hoax, probably circulated by the Kiev government as propaganda against eastern Ukrainians. A more recent story by two Times reporters said that the eastern militias are composed people living in the region, further debunking the first two stories.
But we know that the CIA is helping the coup government. We know that Nuland bragged about the coup in advance of it. So there is no doubt that the US is supporting their allies, the fascist coup government six thousand miles away from Washington, DC. It would be hard to imagine Russia not providing some aid to their allies in Ukraine.
Today Putin called for negotiating again. Why is negotiating bad? Why is shooting people better for democracy and whatever else you are expecting out of Ukraine?
And what do you expect Ukraine to look like in a year?
Villago Delenda Est
@Morzer: Please do not distract Gospodin Romanov with unpleasant facts that conflict with his programming.
Thank you.
RSA
@elm: Thanks for that comment, elm. It makes things a lot clearer to me. And this, from FdB,
makes me wonder about how much hair-splitting is needed to put racist talk in the category of free speech but “You’re a racist” in the category of limitations on free speech. I recognize the social differences, but it’s all words.
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
but Putin wants to negotiate! he even said it himself! if there’s one thing that dude is known for, it’s acting in good faith.
Villago Delenda Est
@RSA: The new meme on the right is that if you dare to criticize their speech, you are in fact trying to prevent them from speaking at all, particularly since if you do so you’re obviously a law of Congress and therefor working against the spirit of the First Amendment, which only applies to white Christians, anyways, by direction of Jehovah himself via a couple of stone tablets he dropped on Philly in 1787.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
You have to admit though that he has (perhaps all too briefly) shut the fuck up after I mentioned the less appealing aspects of the Great Russian People.
Nonetheless, your point is well taken and I shall now ignore Comrade Romanov in Portland.
shortstop
@Schlemizel: Never saw the old museum, but we thought the current one was quite interesting — well designed and curated, with a good mix of objects, text and videos. It did a pretty good job of being accessible without being excessively dumbed down. I assume the people complaining about a “liberal” interpretation are the ones who go around arguing that the war wasn’t about slavery; it was all about sovereignty (eye roll).
We were not impressed with the movie, and I didn’t find the cyclorama too interesting except as an example of how the war was at one time represented and honored.
I think it’s worth the time/money risk of booking a private guide. Being on a bus with 100 other people isn’t fun, and you really do get a lot more out of the experience with a guide, especially one who can cater to your particular interests and questions because you’re the only people he’s guiding. That’s true even if you’re well versed in the battle, as you obviously are (and we were). I wonder if you could call the visitors’ center and request a particular guide? I really do recommend John Archer, and you can probably find some other specific recommendations online.
p.a.
@Schlemizel: has BiP ever commented on anything else? Don’t feed the trolls, especially the one-note trolls.
Someguy
Bob in Portland – in all seriousness, are you a Russian sock puppet? Look dude, the communists are loooong gone. There’s no need to stick up for them any longer. Sticking up for the Russians now is like sticking up for the Koch brothers, if the Koch Brothers were murdering their business rivals and political opponents and invading Mexico at the same time.
Are the Ukrainians racist bastards? Sure, probably. Are the Russians racist bastards? Oh hell yes, unreservedly so. With racists on both sides of the equation, that sort of reduces the moral alegebra in the discussion over Ukraine to a question of principle, whether it’s right for one sovereign country to bar fight monkey stomp another one for no apparent reason other than it feels like strutting around a bit. And honestly, don’t you think it’s fatally ironic to your arguments to call the Ukranians nazis, when the primary motivational themes for the country invading them are nationalistic pride and gaining a little more lebensraum, along with protecting people of pure russian blood who happen to live in Ukraine (after the forced resettlement of the 1920s, BTW…)?
Admittedly, the Russians only intentionally starved 5 or 7 million Ukranians the last time they invaded Ukraine, so maybe the Ukrainians’ seemingly extravagant over-reaction is blowing the situation all out of proportion…
Schlemizel
@raven:
Well that is a different scale. I’m thinking $65 to get driven around & told stuff I already know by someone not very good at it is expensive.
shortstop
@Schlemizel: Oh, I just saw you’re going in early July — anniversary of the battle? We were there July 2 and 3 for our first visit and there were lots of special events going on: ranger talks, guided hikes and horseback rides, a reenactment, etc. We are really not reenactment people, but we did watch that one.
Chyron HR
@Bob In Portland:
Interesting distinction–“I’m not in denial, I’m just willfully ignorant!”
raven
@shortstop: I just finished a new book on the Battle of Atlanta and the author said they were able to placate the vets of the battle by having the cyclorama in Grant Park when they flattened “Legget’s Hill” for 1-20 .
raven
@Schlemizel: It’ll be REALLY expensive if I don’t catch some big-ass fishes!
Schlemizel
@p.a.:
I’ll plead guilty to trying to provoke that which shall not be named. I had hoped my donating to the Ukraine cause might make it disappear. That he did not made his motivation clear and so he died.
BGinCHI
@ruviana: He’ll be a pain in the ass of a colleague and get drummed out like Newt Gingrich if he doesn’t grow up.
But I’m sure he prefers attention to self-scrutiny.
Paul in KY
@Villago Delenda Est: I am the Mouth of Coleron!
Schlemizel
@raven:
Oh gawd! we went on a fishing trip with some friends of ours one time & it turned into a nightmare. They kept everything they caught no matter how small. When we were all done the guy weighted the cleaned catch & announced it was not a good trip because he could have bought fish from the store for less per pound than the cost of the trip! They invited us back the next yeear and we just had other plans.
Paul in KY
@Morzer: We used to whittle a mouse to use on our 200 byte Ktel etch-a-puters. Ya fancy blogreader you!
elm
@RSA: deBoer would have a stronger case if he provided an example of:
Isquith’s piece certainly did not label Sterling’s defenders as racist.
The thesis of Isquith’s piece seems to be here:
As deBoer’s piece stands, you’re right. He seems to consider accusations of racism to be comparable to actual racism.
Accusations of racism may get a person un-invited from a dinner party, forbidden from attending basketball games, and may even force Sterling to sell his basketball team for a mere 9-digit selling price (instead of 10 digits). Nonetheless, there are plenty of individuals who will offer comfort and succor.
Actual racism in the actually-existing U.S.A. gets people shut out of education, shut out of employment, shut out of political participation, and literally lynched.
raven
@Schlemizel: It will be inpossible for me to catch enough to break half-way even. I’m going by myself, something I’ve always wanted to to but my winnings from the b-ball tourney means I can throw the $500 away and then pay for the rest. I’d love for someone else to come but it ain’t happenin. Sportfishin. Of course the 130lb tuna I caught near Not Max’s house was costly since the fish belonged to the boat!
shortstop
@Schlemizel: Pretty soon I’m going to stop talking — sorry, but I’m crazy about this NMP, if you couldn’t tell. Did you know the NPS has been working assiduously over the years to restore the battlefield (which is ginormous) to close to its 1863 appearance? A lot of the buildings, like Meade’s headquarters and the Codori, Bliss and Rose farms, had always been preserved because of their positions in the middle of events. But more recently, treelines and fencelines have been restored, too. That means, for just one example, that you can stand at the high-water mark and look across at exactly where Pickett’s Charge began and see how many split-rail fences they had to cross. It makes the experience of being there much more meaningful.
fidelio
@rea: This is why it’s important to keep your vaccinations up to date. Rabies is not joke.
Paul in KY
@MomSense: Cool! Hope you have alot of fun getting back into it.
raven
@Schlemizel: 10,000 people died on this hill on 22 July 1864. Nice view today.
chopper
@BGinCHI:
he did go out of his way to lecture LGM about how the commenters need to practice ‘self-criticism’. that one made me chuckle.
fidelio
@Morzer: No, he was a pre-COnfederate rabble-rouser and fire-eater. Failed to get along with Jefferson Davis and ended up retreating to his plantation and complaining about both sides and how that failed to respect him and TYRANNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
celticdragonchick
@rea:
Hector_St Clair is a regular over at Rod Dreher’s merry band of People Very Concerned About Natural Law And Ghey Sexytymes.
celticdragonchick
@shortstop:
We’ve been trying to buy up property over at Guilford Courthouse NMP and restore the battlefield to its’ original condition.
Villago Delenda Est
@Schlemizel: They kinda missed the point of a fishing trip, didn’t they?
Brother Dingaling
This is Freddie’s entry from Gawker’s “50 Least Important Writers of 2012:”
And so of course now he comments there all the time.
Villago Delenda Est
@elm:
It’s actual tyranny that doesn’t count because I’m white and it doesn’t apply to me.
There. I said it.
fidelio
@Schlemizel: Remember punch cards?
Villago Delenda Est
@p.a.: He has commented earlier on other things, but once the Ukrainian Nazis started beating up on innocent pure as the driven snow under a Chinese coal fired power plant Russians, he talks of nothing else.
Morzer
@Brother Dingaling:
It rubs the L’Hotion on its skin, or else it gets the bloghose again….
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Why will it be more expensive if you don’t catch fish?
raven
@Gin & Tonic: Cost-benefit ratio.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: Actually, you find them here in the US too. And some of them shoot people who they think are Jewish. Just happened a few weeks ago out in the Midwest.
The difference is that America is supporting the Nazis in Ukraine, although I guess that fair being fair, you wouldn’t mind Russia sending money and weapons to the Aryan Nation, would you?
shortstop
@Morzer: Ha! You’re on a roll today.
Keith G
Have we entered the stage where we are debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Blogosphere food fights are best walked away from.
Villago Delenda Est
@fidelio: When I was XO of the computer unit that did mainframe processing for all US Army forces in Korea, in 1988, we were still using Hollerith cards to track the control of rationed items (liquor, cigarettes, rice) sold in Commissaries and the PXs throughout Korea. The reason why it hadn’t been updated to bar codes or something more modern? Because it worked reasonably well and expending a lot of effort on updating it didn’t seem to be cost effective to our customer, the command G1 folks. Probably because you couldn’t initiate and complete the project during a standard one year tour of Korea.
Comrade Dread
@kindness: If a Libertarian doesn’t like you, it’s a mark that you’re most likely a decent human being.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
And you’ve managed to ignore the extreme anti-Semitism manifested by those bare-chested, amiable young Russian Nazis with the chic swastika tattoos that are all the rage in the Arbat?
You must be Rand Paul’s dream mealticket – terrible eyesight and an endless capacity for not noticing inconvenient facts about your favorite fascists.
rea
@raven: they were able to placate the vets of the battle by having the cyclorama in Grant Park when they flattened “Legget’s Hill” for 1-20
Gosh, how many veterans of the Battle of Atlanta were still around when they built I-20?
TooManyJens
@celticdragonchick:
And Scary Black People.
Comrade Nimrod Humperdink
Jesus Christ, I take half a day off from Interneting, and come back to an epic pie fight that I’ve basically missed. I dunno if Freddie will get more traffic for himself out of all this, but I’m gonna probably spend more time at LGM now.
That’s what ultimately drove me away from Kos. At least here the histrionics brings the funny.
Nerull
@Bob In Portland: Maybe people just aren’t rushing to take sides between one side who some say is composed of fascists and the other side that is definitely composed of fascists.
Which fascists do you support? Is one better than the other?
Calouste
@Brother Dingaling:
That description is probably contributed more to humankind than the entirety of de Boer’s work, and is infinitely more readable.
The Moar You Know
So….I’m part of a mob now? Huh. That’s awkward. I’m more of an introvert.
raven
@rea: I’m sorry, you are right, it was just flattening the hill and surrounding area for delevlopment.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Or it’s a fake story created to enrage people like you. But then you’d have to admit that maybe the Russians have not actually been 100 percent honest and aboveboard in all of their dealings with Ukraine, wouldn’t you?
I’m sure the separatists just picked them up at the corner store. Because it’s easy to buy surface-to-air missiles at any store in Ukraine, right? They keep them right next to the canned borscht.
Er, no, Russia Today has claimed that the CIA is helping the coup government. Your crazy buddy who was totally right about Iran-Contra but doesn’t actually speak Russian or Ukrainian has made the same claim.
Are there CIA agents in Ukraine? Of course — because there are CIA agents in every county where the US has an embassy, and at least a few where we don’t. Every single one. Does the presence of CIA agents in Switzerland prove that the US is controlling the Swiss government? There are CIA agents in Nigeria — did they mastermind the kidnapping of those schoolgirls? There are CIA agents in Malaysia — I bet they caused that airliner to crash!
Sorry, but saying there are CIA agents in X country proves jack shit. It’s a scare tactic. And you heard the scary words and fell for the Russian propaganda hook, line, and sinker.
Bob In Portland
@Villago Delenda Est: And everyone else here avoids the topic like the plague, I guess getting their cues from the Mighty Wurlitzer.
I actually was pretty upset before we invaded Iraq too, and I did a lot of posting on the internet about that too. Don’t remember if I came to Balloon Juice back then. I was here when Cole was still semi-Republican, but I can’t recall what the general consensus of the kinda laid-back liberals here was at the time. What was everyone’s position here on that one? Seriously, does anyone remember that far back? I realize I’m older than most posters here, but were you down with the sanctions Clinton put on Iraq? People died because of that too. Is Iraq better after our intervention? I’m sure you were sure that Serbia was the absolute evil player in Yugoslavia, right? No other sides to that. Death squads in El Salvador? Killing off Allende and what followed in Chile? Or maybe your opinion changed on those after the years. Support the Gulf of Tonkin resolution?
I ask these things because I wonder if you’re only opposed to America’s overseas exploits after a reasonable time has passed and some of your thought leaders in the press eventually point out a lot of people are dead on account of our intervention and investments around the world, that maybe you’re all incapable of imagining what happens next.
So if anyone cares (and apathy is always a good way to avoid troubling topics) what do you think will happen in Ukraine? A year from now what will it look like?
Gin & Tonic
@Morzer: One of the reasons BIP doesn’t provide links in his posts is that people might read them, and follow *their* links, and get to some place like Jerusalem Post, which yesterday had, contra Bob”s breathless “summary” here, actual quotes, such as:
When RT is more honest than you, I think you might want to re-evaluate your position.
raven
@Villago Delenda Est: They thought about going to computerized FDC for the battleships and when they did a study they found the analog was so accurate it was not worth the money.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
This may come as a surprise to you, Bob, but the US is not going to invade Ukraine.
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Not unless President John S. McCain gets his way… oops!
rea
@raven: Not to quibble unduly, but total casualties for the Battle of Atlanta (both sides) were about 9000. Lots of the wounded died later in those days, but there were nowhere near 10,000 dead–that would be more than Gettysburg. And the battle was fought over a broader area than just that hill . . .
Morzer
@Gin & Tonic:
Ah, but those were self-hating Jews, not honest Jews like Comrade Bobby Romanov in Portland.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
Yeah, remember all of those speeches from Secretary of State John Kerry about how Putin has aluminum tubes, and the statement from NSA Director Susan Rice that we can’t wait for the smoking gun to turn into a mushroom cloud in Ukraine?
In fact, funnily enough, I can’t remember anyone in the Obama administration threatening anything other than economic sanctions. Perhaps Bob can link us to the publicly documented statements by Kerry, Rice, Biden, or Obama saying anything similar to the kinds of things that Powell, Rice, Cheney, and Bush were saying in the run-up to Iraq.
Come on, Bob. You’re the one claiming that the US is getting ready to invade Ukraine. Time to put up or shut up. Show us the statements from the Obama administration that are so very similar to the ones the Bush administration was making prior to the Iraq invasion.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Mnem, you might have missed it but John Brennan visited Kiev. First Langley denied it. Then the next day the administration admitted it. So the government lied and then reversed themselves of Brennan’s presence there.
I would call the head of the CIA a CIA operative of sorts. If it were merely a ceremonial visit you’d think that Langley would have been more forthcoming about his visit. You may not have known but there are CIA agents in just about every American embassy around the world. There are reports, but not filtered through the Mighty Wurlitzer, that there are teams of CIA agents and FBI agents in Kiev. The presumption is that the FBI are trying to track down Yanukovich’s money, which would not be an unreasonable presumption.
So you believe that Brennan just stopped by in Ukraine to sample the local chocolates in Kiev? You think that the CIA personnel in the embassy are merely sitting on their hands? Just like the School of Americas had nothing to do with training death squads, right?
raven
@rea: Ah, page 214 of “The Day Dixie Died” Upward of 10,000 Americans were killed, wounded or captured fighting for and defending the rolling landscape east of Atlanta on July 22, 1864. . . No single day of action for the remainder of the Civil War would match the carnage of this battle.”
Do you think I’m paying too much to fish? :)
scav
Between Comrade Bwobby deP and Freddie deB, it’s been a busy busy day for those not being interacted with on their own terms using only their own means and their own sources. When will all these internets learn that such pure and holy apostles are to be recognized by their numinous aura and instantly served without question in the rhetorical and footnoted manner they hope to become accustomed to?
Suffern ACE
Which one was Freddie again? Was he the one who appointed himself omsbudsman? Or was he the one with the strange troll who kept threatening to ruin his day job?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Tovarisch Romanov has his narrative, and he’s sticking to it.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
So, according to you, the fact that a CIA operative was in Kiev is both profoundly suspicious and absolutely routine. Thank you for your contribution, but I think we’ll let the grown-ups take it from here.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Yes, you’ve mentioned that widely reported “secret visit.” Forbes has an interesting article on why Brennan was probably there. Funnily enough, it doesn’t say anything about the “CIA coup of the government” that you keep blathering on about. Interesting how actual experts in the region keep contradicting everything you say, isn’t it? But I guess they’re all CIA plants or Nazis, amirite?
Hob
Since there are a lot of LGM commenters here: does anyone have a clue what de Boer is talking about when he accuses people at LGM of thinking “Muslims aren’t human”? He’s repeated this charge several times and never explained it. With the rest of his nonsense I at least have some idea of what he’s misreading, but this?
Villago Delenda Est
@Suffern ACE: ED Kain was the self-appointed Ombudsman, who was bringing libertarian wisdom to the befuddled Juicitariat.
fidelio
@Villago Delenda Est: This does not surprise me in the least.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Ah, but it’s not your presumption, is it, Bob? Your presumption is that the FBI is there for something something neo-Nazi fascists. Because there’s no reason the Ukrainian people would want to know where all of the millions their former president embezzled went to. They had to be told by the Americans to be upset about it.
raven
somebody going to tell me what the fuck LGM is?
Mnemosyne
@Hob:
I’m guessing that he’s mixing up LGM (Lawyers, Guns & Money) with LGF (Little Green Footballs). LGF was seriously anti-Muslim until Charles Johnson finally woke up and realized he was throwing his lot in with white supremacists.
raven
@Mnemosyne: yay!
Jebediah, RBG
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Did you dip into the comments on that one? I had to bail very, very quickly. Gun nuts have some strange, strange thoughts.
Villago Delenda Est
@raven: The other benefit of analog is that it teaches a human skill to humans and it doesn’t require generator power and an electronics repair operation to maintain.
What it does require is regular, frequent training because the skill is perishable, so an MBA would balk at that, because it costs money in terms of labor that could be going to hookers and blow for Generals. Unfortunately for the MBA, Generals do not think like that. They’re not MBA trained CEOs.
SatanicPanic
@Suffern ACE: No our self-appointed ombudsman was ED Kain. Maybe Freddie should be mad at him for not keeping us in line.
Morzer
@Hob:
People who don’t attach the same absolute value as Freddie does to the morality of drone strikes are, in Freddie’s view of the world, objectively viewing Muslims as not fully human and committing genocide against them.
SatanicPanic
@Villago Delenda Est: Not considering drones the defining issue of our time = being anti-Muslim
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: No, the US has already invaded Ukraine, with money and aid to the fascist government. Nuland, if you recall, bragged about the upcoming coup to our ambassador in Kiev before it happened. That was when she said, “Fuck the EU.”
America is sending troops to all the places in NATO that the US once promised would not be part of NATO as if it serves a military purpose. You can see it all over the net. Politicians and pundits, afraid that some of that military budget might be spent on something else like starving American children, want Cold War 2.0. I’m pretty sure that Russia won’t bite. They’ve already reclaimed Crimea, which is the strategic prize they wanted. I’m suspecting that Putin and Russia will let Ukraine become what it will become, an economic failure where restive citizens will be punished by fascist gangs for speaking up. What’s your prediction? Will the IMF bankers be pelted with flower pedals and candies when they start fracking the Ukrainian countryside?
Also, the US can only ratchet up sanctions against Russia so far. If Russia is totally isolated from Europe, meaning that they won’t be getting Russian petroleum products, then we can expect a major worldwide depression before and if the US ever gets enough fracked natural gas to replace it. America’s sanctions against Iran won’t stand if Russia breaks rank. I’m presuming that if the US gets any more belligerent that Russia will stop letting our military retreat from Afghanistan through their airspace.
Make a prediction about Ukraine’s future. Heck, are rooting for the Oil Princess or Willy Wonka?
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: I’d like to hear your presumptions instead of you imagining mine. There is a wide space between suspicion and belief.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Yes, because they’ve spent roughly 20 years trying to integrate Russia into the international system, only to realize that there wouldn’t be enough starving American kids if they succeeded. It all makes perfect sense now!
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: You mean the Forbes article “Why CIA Director Brennan Visited Kiev: In Ukraine The Covert War Has Begun”?
Do you really rely on Forbes for your information on American intelligence intervention overseas? What did they have to say about the death squads in El Salvador? How about how Pinochet helped bring capitalism back to Chile? And you’re right. Forbes didn’t say anything about coups or the CIA’s involvement in them. Right on the mark. And if Forbes doesn’t mention it then I guess it isn’t true.
That’s great, Mnem. Thanks for that bit of info on yourself.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic: I assume if this were say 1139, and we were not considering crossbows to be the most critical issue of our time, never to be used against fellow Christians, but reserved for use against barbarian heretics, like, say, Muslims, well….
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Uh, you realize that you’ve invented a completely new definition of “invade,” right?
George Orwell would be proud of you.
Bostondreams
@Bob In Portland:
Probably having to deal with the aftereffects of a brutal Russian invasion. How you see fascists everywhere but in Russia, a country led by a man who is pretty much a model of fascist leadership, I don’t know.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Oh Sweet Jesus no! I rely on
some whackaloon namedthe amazingly credible Bob in Portland for all my understanding of American foreign policy. It’s the only sensible thing to do.Bob In Portland
@Morzer: When Snowden was in the American embassy in Switzerland it was “profoundly suspicious and absolutely routine”. The CIA has people in just about every embassy to do “profoundly suspicious and absolutely routine” things. The routine things are what you should be ashamed of. The CIA agents in Guatemala in the 80s? Doing charity work for the local indigenous peoples?
And the CIA would never aid the Ukrainian coup government like they did with fascist governments sending their best and brightest to The School Of The Americas, would they? If they did it would be mentioned in Forbes.
Morzer
@Villago Delenda Est:
Isn’t that violating my second amendment rights? I mean, what if I meet one of them Baptist heretics and he has a crossbow? Should I like literally unilaterally disarm and sing kum-fucking-baya with him?
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Yes. Did you actually read it, or did the prospect of reading an article by someone who’s an expert in Russia and the former Soviet Republics and actually knows what he’s talking about scare you away?
Also, Forbes magazine was founded in 1917 so, yes, I’m pretty sure they’ve supported some nasty US policy over the years, just as every other American publication of that vintage has done. I’m assuming you also reject every story that Seymour Hirsch publishes in The New Yorker since that magazine has been around since 1925 and published plenty of credulous articles on Central America and Pinochet.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: Not you, Mnem. But that’s okay. Having cross-conversations can be confusing, and I’m guessing you’re easily confused. All the more reason to let a newsreader tell you what to believe.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
It may have escaped your notice, but so far no-one has accused Eddie Snowden of planning to invade the Ukraine. A small point, but worth integrating into your cognitive therapy.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Interesting that you bring up Snowden. Snowden flees from the NSA carrying two laptops and several hard drives full of information about NSA spying capabilities. He takes them first to China and then is given asylum in Russia. Suddenly, it seems like Russia is able to break every code from the US and its allies.
Funny coincidence, that, don’t you think? But I’m sure your hero Vlad would never, ever use an unfair advantage like that to try and take over a neighboring country, right? It just wouldn’t be sporting.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Oh no, I believe you totally, Bob, just like I believed those wonderful, independent-thinking people who told me that the Mayan Apocalypse was a Real Thing.
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
After all, Putin swore as one intelligence operative to another that the Russians did not spy on their own people. I mean, that’s so obviously worthy of belief and trust!
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: The whole Mayan thing was cooked up by the Gehlen Organization. Just like everything that has happened since 1946. That is the broad outline; Bob can give you the details.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
Hey, as long as we’re trading conspiracy theories, mine seems a whole hell of a lot more plausible than Bob’s. And has more evidence, to boot.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Shhh, Komrade. Ve don’t vant ze American pigdog in Portland to know all our zecrets!
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Yes, I read it. What great “Aha!” was I supposed to get from speculation by someone at Forbes about the visit? Did I think that if they knew anything about any covert actions in Ukraine that they would mention it in their article? More importantly, did you? All things that Brennan had to be in Kiev to pass along, right Mnem?
So if America has trained fascist governments in terror and torture techniques at the School of the Americas for all those years, do you think that they decided not to pass that information along to Ukraine? Really? Why? Because they’re too white?
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Do you think we could get ED Kain to officially deny it in Forbes, thus giving it total credibility in Bobby Romanov’s eyes?
Gus
This is the kind of shit that kills enjoyment of blogs. Pissing matches between bloggers are tedious.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: And no one has accused you of using logic here. Flippant stupidity merits no serious response. So who’s your favorite talking head?
Bob In Portland
@Gus: That’s what pictures of kittens are for.
It’s my fault. I should have known that American foreign policy is off the table at Balloon Juice. Or at least disagreement about it is.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Ah, the old absence of evidence is PROOF POSITIVE that my theory is correct! argument beloved of all conspiracy theorists.
Why not talk about Russia’s covert actions in Ukraine, Bob? Oh, right, you don’t think Russia is doing any covert actions at all, and all of the pro-Russian separatists arose spontaneously and had their grandmothers make surface-to-air missiles in their kitchens.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Why you are, Great and Powerful Bobby in Portland. I count the minutes between the pearls that slip from your rosy red Russian lips.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Now you’ve got the basis for getting in touch with reality. Work on it, tiger!
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Forget the bullshit about the Mayan thing. Nazis in Latin America turned up flying cocaine planes for Southern Air Transport in the 80s. Some of the old-timers helped out with a few of the coups we threw, like the one in Bolivia, but that was what, thirty, thirty-five years ago.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland:
Spend a few minutes in the archives.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
CIA employs undead zombie Nazi drug-mules in Ukraine to starve American children!
Somehow I think your theories are a little bit lacking in that touch of reality that makes the difference.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: Morzer, you seem to have jumped in in an attempt to insult me. The people who insulted me in the buildup to the Iraq war kind of slinked off after awhile. Do you even care what happens to the people of Ukraine or just that Putin is a bad man, like Saddam, and we must do something about it? Even more, are you happy with America spending money on making war for the betterment of Exxon that you’d rather poor kids here starve?
Josie
Foreign policy is not off the table, but it would be nice if the discussions were relegated to the posts that are actually intended to introduce those topics. Since you agree that you are responsible for all the thread jacking, maybe you will consider restricting your comments to the threads that invite your topics. Just a thought.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: Tell us that the CIA and its affiliates never have anything to do with the drug trade. Please.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
I doubt that it’s possible to insult you, Bobby. I am laughing at you to fill a few minutes of downtime before I go back to real world pursuits. You are the amateur hour clown show, not the great blog statesman you seem to fancy yourself as being.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Mnem, let’s try your presumptions on this. What are your presumptions about the CIA in Ukraine? Do you have any or do you wait until someone on CNN tells you?
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Mnem, let’s try your presumptions on this. What are your presumptions about the CIA in Ukraine? Do you have any or do you wait until someone on CNN tells you?
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
Still waiting for your proof that this is a buildup to the US invading Ukraine. I’ve asked multiple times, and I keep getting crickets.
Put up or shut up.
Gin & Tonic
@Josie: Back in the distant past, like a week or two ago, he’d confine his stuff to open threads. Lately, though, it’s been every thread, unfortunately.
different-church-lady
Oh fuck all… I’m going to lose the entire evening to catching up with this pie fight and laughing my ass off!
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: I think that he is trying to argue that he was correct in the past and is therefore correct now. Of course, some of us who notice the fascists and racists on both sides and condemn unwarranted aggression were correct back in ’03 as well. And we condemned unwarranted aggression in both cases.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
My presumption is that the CIA is aiding the Ukrainians against Russia at the request of the new Ukrainian government. Note that I am able to state this assumption without spinning off into fairy tales about how the CIA engineered Yanukovych’s overthrow, claiming that the new government is filled with neo-Nazis, or that the Russians are poor innocents who have been dragged into the situation against their will.
Your problem, Bob, is that you bought the Russian propaganda against Maidan hook, line, and sinker, and now you’re unable to back down from it. The really funny thing is that, for someone who claims to be aware of all US foreign policy traditions, you sound like a Reaganite telling us that the Contras were freedom fighters, and anyone who pointed out that maybe the Nicaraguan government didn’t want US-backed “freedom fighters” killing people hated freedom, America, Mom, and apple pie.
Adopting the belief system of Reaganites, only from the left, isn’t really independent thinking, you know. Knee-jerk contrarianism will not serve you any better than knee-jerk jingoism. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Judging by your bizarre utterances, I’d say you were a lot closer to the drug trade than the CIA.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: I’m not sure how you presume that Russia is now suddenly able to decode everything. Seems to me that they’ve been working on spying for decades. Remember when Oswald showed up in Moscow and suddenly a U-2 fell out of the sky? But maybe you’re right. Maybe Snowden is a Russian spy. That is, after he was an American spy.
If I were the head of Russia and wanted to injure the US for my advantage I’d recruit a Snowden. But that could also be Germany. Merkel is the one who has been making the most noise about the NSA and has Europe backing away from the US (and Britain) in intelligence-related things. Germany is reunited, Russia is not going to invade them again. NATO what purpose does NATO serve for her? But lets see how important the EU alliance will be with the US when Ukraine does what Ukraine inevitably will do.
Bob In Portland
@Morzer: I let them read my laptop. But Earl Blumenauer is my representative.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was correct in the past, too. I knew Iraq was bullshit. And I was pretty confident (fortunately, with reason) that the US would not bomb Syria and that we would not get tied down in Libya. So where’s my cookie for past correctness?
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Well, I correctly predicted the outcome of the last Superbowl. Where’s my recognition as an analyst of international affairs, hmm hmm?
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
It’s almost like I linked to an article that made that claim in this very thread.
Mnemosyne
@Morzer:
I knew the Cubs would not win the World Series! Clearly I am more expert than you on international affairs, because my game has “world” in it!
Morzer
@Mnemosyne:
Listen, kid, I predicted that it would rain three days ago. Now that’s a prediction involving a global system, so clearly my predictive powers are superior to yours. I am going to raise you one global event and I’ll see you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
I grant that my second and third sentences were more chocolate truffle than cookie, but still….
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: It took a little while for America’s part in overthrowing Arbenz to reach our shores. You accept that now, right? Do you believe that we had something to do with overthrowing Allende? Do you hold out the possibility that some of the guys in Chile who ran those stadium tours may have gotten some tutorials at The School Of The Americas?
Now, we do know that Vicky Nuland was bragging about five billion spent on changing and she was able to predict exactly who was going to be named the interim head of state. So how far off the reservation is it to wonder about where all that money went? And would it be wrong to speculate that the CIA’s secret budget might just possibly have had a few kopeks for Ukraine?
And since our army and intelligence forces have been working with Ukrainian fascists (you know, actual fascists) since 1945 when did America stop aiding them? I know you don’t know because the CIA is secret that way, but what are your presumptions?
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Are you trying to buy into the game now that Mnem and I have revealed our cards? Damn it, if we allow this kind of thing, you’ll be invading the Ukraine (sorry, Bob, Novorossiya!) at the head of an undead horde of CIA Nazi drug traffickers. Where’s the civility and the decorum, hmm, hmmm?
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: But I posted first, you fascist.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Time for a new rule of sports espionage. Bill Belichick has something to do with everything.
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Your tactical ineptitude is not my problem, you Bolshevik thug-lover! Now, are you gonna raise, or are you gonna fold? I might tell you that I am bare-chested and riding a war-elephant through the streets of Sankt Peterburg as we speak, so there! Whaddaya got, ya goddamned Yankee?
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: Sorry, just have to ask this:
The US aided the Ukrainian fascists from 1945. In the 50s CIA programs like the Congress For Freedom imported Ukrainian Nazis into the US for the expressed purpose of moving the Ukrainian immigrant community to the right. (You did read C. Simpson’s BLOWBACK, right?) We know they were still around in the 1980s because they showed in those Ethnic Heritage Foundations for Reagan and Bush I. So if the CIA is now aiding the “new Ukrainian government” when they stop aiding the old Ukrainian fascists?
Maybe you you can check some of your back issues of Forbes. Thanks in advance for your knowledge in this area.
Omnes Omnibus
@Morzer: I have successfully predicted the rising of the sun for thousands of days.
::drops mic::
Morzer
@Omnes Omnibus:
But did you predict the sunsets?
No?
I thought as much!
Love- thirty. Your serve!
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland: Jealous that Freddie is getting all the Whiney Awards today?
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
Speaking as a sound engineer, I’m finding this trend to be objectively despicable.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
Objectively despicable, even.
Bob In Portland
@Josie: Josie, ask the people who post here why they don’t talk about Ukraine now. Surely, all the posters here with my exception seem to be really behind what America’s doing there. Or they’re silent for some other reason. Is it that a possible war with Russia isn’t ever as interesting as something that a dumb-ass Republican said about gays or blacks or monuments to the Ten Commandments in Alabama? Just disinterested or what?
I’ll state my intentions. I want to see a discussion on the American Left about our country’s actions in Ukraine. People here would rather insult me or hope I go away. Same over at Booman Trib, and most nominally left blogs. In places like Huffington Post they’ll post anti-Russian articles, but with the exception of a couple pieces in Salon it’s been mighty quiet.
Does talking about Ukraine make you uncomfortable, Josie? Why? Should I shut up because most (or all people) here disagree with me? You know, if Cole bans me you won’t have to listen to me at all.
different-church-lady
@Schlemizel:
[CONTINUED] I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
Nothing’s stopping you from starting your own blog.
Morzer
@Bob In Portland:
Dude, if you want to be a martyr for the cause of Holy Mother Russia, have the decency to do it on your own time. Ban yourself from your own blog or get yourself dropped from Alex Jones’ mailing list. Take a bit of ownership of your own existence, rather than passively trailing around the site muttering ominously about all the bad things the cruel man with the blog keys might do to you.
Medicine Man
This is Freddie’s major gripe this week, apparently. He made almost exactly the same complaint on LG&M: http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2014/05/hope-will-engage-serious-soul-searching
Just a really thin skin coupled with a sadly inflated view of his own literary prowess; it doesn’t seem to have registered with him that a lot of people disagree with him due to the poor quality of his arguments.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: I still think Victoria Nuland has you beat. She successfully predicted that the leader of the largest opposition faction in the parliament would be selected as acting PM when the previous holder of that post resigned. That’s amazing prescience, don’t you think? Or, [dum, da duh dum] maybe a CIA conspiracy?
different-church-lady
@Turgidson: Computer lived in cardboard box in road…
different-church-lady
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Then explain gop.com
Omnes Omnibus
@different-church-lady: Change impossible to difficult and it works.
different-church-lady
@ruviana: Say what you want about grad school, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
If I just say “Whatever you think it’s going to look like,” will you go away?
different-church-lady
@Bob In Portland:
Well thank heavens! Without your tireless efforts we never would have avoided that invasion!
Larv
@Bob In Portland:
You also used to be pretty upset that the US government created the HIV virus to kill off blacks and gays. Still believe that? It’s not exactly an endorsement of your ability to discern propaganda and conspiracy theories from reality. Why should anyone take your current rantings seriously, especially when it’s crystal clear that you’re just regurgitating russian propaganda from RT.com (which you refuse to actually link to, despite multiple requests)?
Goddamit, I just can’t stop feeding him.
FlipYrWhig
Can Bob and Freddie form their own blog where they complain about how everyone is mean to them not because they’re turgid and irksome but because they’re so correct and WILL NOT BE SILENCED? They can call it “2Peas1Pod.”
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
Peapod might feel a little put upon. Anyway, are we sure that Bob and Freddie aren’t two cheeks of the same ass?
Joel
Jesus Christ guys, you’re on the eastern time zone. Shouldn’t you be out drinking already?
different-church-lady
@Morzer: Sorry about ETA-ing you like that.
different-church-lady
@Joel: I was out drinking. Out in my yard, in fact, enjoying “Doctor” cocktails with my newly acquired Swedish Punsch.
Morzer
@different-church-lady:
No worries. We are all comrades here in Liberal Hyena Valhalla, united in laughing at Bob and raging at the catering staff.
opiejeanne
@Schlemizel: Be sure to look for the statue of General Doubleday. General Abner Doubleday. It made us laugh when we realized that it was that Abner Doubleday. There are statues all over the place, his is just standing in a field and was the first place our driver paused. Mark Twain had some funny criticism of the place, about the sheer number of monuments.
The tour gives you a real idea of the flow of the battle.
David Koch
BWHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Cole,
Regarding Freddie, I hate to say it Cole, but….. —->>> http://i.imgur.com/uGlmfa7.png
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Well youngin when I was growing up my computerS had two parts. The top and bottom and this slidey middle thing that moved back and forth. The storage unit was shit if it got moist at all and inputting data required the use of a piece of leaded carbon encased in wood. The language was all in maths, texting was not allowed.
Sondra
Will you throw me out of the Bavarian Illuminati if I don’t know what HUAC-tivity means? No seriously, I don’t know what it means so could someone enlighten me? Oops I mean will someone illuminate me?
Larv
@Sondra:
HUAC was the House Un-American Activities Committee back in the McCarthy era.
worn (also in Portland)
@Bob In Portland: Day late to the party as always, but after reading through an absolutely amazing amount of tendentiousness on this thread it is just so difficult not to engage in even more feeding.
Bob: just to be clear, pretty much all of us here at BJ (quite possibly every single commenter, even) who don’t live in Ukraine or it’s immediate vicinity and speak fluent Ukrainian and/or Russian are parroting what somebody else “tells” us. Hell, I imagine the truth of the matter is even that locals don’t really know what’s going on, what with both sides trying to discredit each other with massive amounts of propaganda. Your sneering at Mnemnosyne for what sources she chooses to believe is weak sauce, especially since you seem to imply that you come to the discussion with many “presumptions”.
Notice that I am not weighing in one way or another about the morality of the players in that ugly drama. Why? Because I really don’t know jack shit about the reality of what’s going on and to so so would be the very definition of foolish.
On an unrelated related note, would I be correct in presuming how you voted on our recent fluoridation ballot measure?
Bob2
Freddie’s always been the liberal whipping boy for conservatives. Note who used to link to him constantly?
Sullivan, McMegan, etc. as they sneer at him for his writing and use him as a useful idiot or liberal whipping boy. He’s basically been the Alan Colmes of the blogosphere since its inception and I’m generally shocked whenever I see him get a perch as an FPer on places like BJ or LoOG before they realize he’s just an emotional and shallow idiot who never learns. But hey, Megan likes him.