.
If I’d realized how predictive this mashup would be, I’d have gone into hibernation back last January. Mr. Pierce sums up this last week, in particular — “The Contagious Exercise of State Violence“:
… Somewhere in itself, and not very far from the surface, either, this country has gone mad with fear and rage. As a result, it is finding sustenance in the acts of official violence, and doing so in more different ways than the republic has seen since we had lynching, union busting, and Red Scares at the same time, back when the 19th century was turning into the 20th. Anyone who can’t see the political and sociological tissue connecting the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, and the revelations of a decade’s worth of CIA brutality, and the execution of Robert Holsey isn’t looking hard enough. In the country’s untrammeled fear and rage, it is exercising the only function of self-government it can recall as its mad brain turns to red fire — to encourage the exercise of the state’s power to wound and kill all the right people. In this madness, race and class are mere diagnostic categories. In this madness, the politics of right and left, of Republicans and Democrats, of conservatives and liberals, of red and blue, are pathetically inadequate to assess the situation. In this madness, the choices are not made within the easy and obvious contexts. This is a choice between barbarism and not, between savagery and not. This is a choice between the national soul and the national Id. This is a choice of whether to take inchoate and weaponized vengeance against the living representations of the monsters in our paranoid dreams. That’s the last vestige of self-government that we have allowed ourselves. The right to demand that the institutions of government kill what we fear. By any means necessary, as someone once said…
By any means necessary!…
Omnes Omnibus
I think I’ll stay in the recipe thread for now. After all the crap that has been going on, the silliness is therapeutic.
danielx
Truth. This is not the country in which I grew up, and it sure as hell isn’t the land of the free and home of the brave any more, to the extent that it ever was. Land of the spied upon and incarcerated and home of the terrified, maybe. The latter being the most important because frightened people are angry people. Mass fear and anger is a lethal combination.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Nice to see you here,
Pogonip
I saw a couple of articles about the Jackie hoax saying she was “cat fishing,” which the various dictionary-type sites define as setting up a fake Internet persona. I thought that was called sock puppeting. Either way, what would it have to do with catfish? I’m not asking about whether she was or wasn’t catfishing, I’m just confused about the word and the rationale behind it.
elmo
@efgoldman: Writing like that makes me want to give up my chosen profession and take up plumbing.
Major Major Major Major
Open thread, you say?
Whoo Friday night in the castro.
Watching cartoons on the couch, of course. But still Friday and still in the castro.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Nor have I. I figured that CS had.
Helen
Needs more Little Boots
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
The difference is the purpose of the fake persona. A sock puppet is usually a pretty shallow persona who just shows up to lend support to the main persona, either for pure numbers or to look unconnected to the original. Cat fishing seems to be setting up a more elaborate persona to bait people into online relationships.
Corner Stone
Not to diminish this, but how does he not even mention Al-Awlaki?
Violet
@Pogonip: Wasn’t there an MTV show called “Catfish” about people who pretend to be what they’re not and get into online relationships with gullible people?
Mike in NC
The country is gripped by the fear and rage of elderly racist white people, who are still fixated on the Ebola bullshit and the absurd “Islamic Caliphate” nonsense that the Tea Party loons have been sold by FOX News and the rest of the corporate media. They are authoritarians and would welcome Ted Cruz as their Fuhrer in 2016.
Mike J
@Pogonip: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1584016/
Anne Laurie
@Pogonip: ‘Catfishing’ seems to come from a documentary called Catfish. The guys who made that film turned it into a reality-TV series, by the same name.
Distinction, as far as I can tell, is that sockpuppets are relatively innocuous short-term, one-purpose fake IDs. “Catfishing”, the verb, is setting up a whole fake persona to trick one or more people, frequently for dark psychological reasons — like Manti Te’o and his imaginary “girlfriend“.
Confession: I didn’t post about the UVA mess when it first came out because “Jackie’s” story smelled extremely hinky to me. Not that she didn’t exist, or that something terrible hadn’t happened to her, but the scenario as printed was so trope-tastic as to be literally too good to be true. Now I’m just waiting for it to emerge that “Jackie” was wound up & pointed at the RS reporter by one of the malignant “men’s rights activists” or other bottom-feeders of the Wingnut Wurlitzer…
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: Wherever there is injustice, you will find me. Wherever there is suffering, I’ll be there. Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find…
Mike J
@Anne Laurie:
Or, as they say in the biz, “too good the check.”
KG
@danielx: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Yoda was right about that. Sadly, we doing have an Emperor to throw into a nuclear reactor
KG
@Corner Stone: he is infamous… What’s that mean?
Carolinus
@Corner Stone:
Perhaps he doesn’t feel bombing terrorists on a foreign battlefield belongs in his litany of offensive acts of official violence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Corner Stone: I hadn’t realized you were an Okie. Obligatory.
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: I am infamous? Damn, in the last thread, I was called Satan. I am not quite sure how to process this.
lamh36
Anne Laurie
@Mike J: Yup.
It also seemed somehow relevant — but I haven’t seen any “real” journalists mention this, so probably just my active imagination — that UVA had recently had a genuine Nightmare Rape Trope acted out on one of its students in real time. Tipsy blond freshman wanders away, her corpse is discovered weeks later, a big Black man is charged with her murder and identified as a former college rapist and possible serial killer. Having another blond freshman turn up just afterwards, with a sensational story about privileged White frat boys acting out scenes from The Painted Bird on her defenseless self seemed just too, too novelistic.
Murphy the Trickster God is a crappy plotter, but usually not *that* pat.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: its a reference to this
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: Aha. I did not make the connection. I have seen the movie but it isn’t one I personally mine for quotes. We all have our separate areas of nerdity.
Mike J
@Anne Laurie: And of course less than a week after the RS story breaks Slate is running with, “are colleges doing too much about rape?”
lamh36
Someone said dude is Canadian, so…
lamh36
Anyone catch this on AC360 tonight? I don’t actually watch AC360, ever since Katrina, I just find Cooper to be much more of an ambulance chaser than journolists at times…plus I refuse to watch CNN, unless forced to.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Georgetown did it recently too. I think something about this case has resonated and it might build. Maybe a tipping point has been reached?
lamh36
Ya know, I know it’s probably logistically not possible, but I sure wish the film makers could somehow screen the film in Ferguson, or Brooklyn for protestors and the like??/
Anyway, new short teaser trailer for Selma Selma – Trailer 2
And ICYMI, the full length official trailer: Selma – Official Trailer
Also too, I can’t help it, I love this song. I’ll have to see if I can get it on my Ipod. It’s been nominated for GG for Original Song. Written and performed by John Legend and Common
“Glory”
https://soundcloud.com/johnlegend/glory-ft-common
Corner Stone
@KG: I never used trick photography.
lamh36
Also too, win or lose: Golden Globes: ‘Selma’s’ Ava DuVernay Becomes First Black Woman to Receive Director Nomination
lurker dean
@Pogonip: there’s actually an interesting backstory, the idea is that the “catfish” are people who keep things lively and keep you on your toes, because that’s what catfish do to cod:
“They used to tank cod from Alaska all the way to China. They’d keep them in vats in the ship. By the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So this guy came up with the idea that if you put these cods in these big vats, put some catfish in with them and the catfish will keep the cod agile. And there are those people who are catfish in life. And they keep you on your toes. They keep you guessing, they keep you thinking, they keep you fresh. And I thank god for the catfish because we would be droll, boring and dull if we didn’t have somebody nipping at our fin.”
http://tinyurl.com/qfdedlm
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: the infamous line is the only one I really use from that movie. I actually had to look up Corner Stone’s first quote because I wasn’t sure if it was the Three Amigos or the Shadow
Corner Stone
@Carolinus:
That’s an interesting take, I guess. But as we’re discussing “fear” and acts of state violence, it seems that murdering a US citizen with no due process may be important. At least to those of us who consider other acts of state violence like rectal feeding to be abhorrent.
I get that you most likely don’t. But it’s a few hours til breakfast where I am.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: Without badgers, you wouldn’t have this. Also, as a side note, Badger’s politics in Wind in the Willows are rather awful. Toad is the only non-appalling character.
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: You haven’t read The Grapes of Wrath? You should. IIRC you are a recovering high school libertarian; Steinbeck instead of Rand might have been a good thing.
lamh36
Oh and I know that Rep John Lewis is a favorite of John Cole, so just wanted to post this link to the young man tapped to play the Congressman…Stephan James.
Apparently, his next film role might just be playing Jessie Owens in a biopic!
‘Star Wars’ Hero John Boyega to Be Replaced by ‘Selma’ Actor in Jesse Owens Biopic (Exclusive)
Here he is in character as John Lewis (he’s next to Wendell Pierce),
http://d21vq5ijtkyr0m.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/SelmaDayOne-web.jpg
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: the only thing I remember about Wind in the Willows is that it was the first book to make me fall asleep. I was 10 and reading it for a book report. I literally fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon. Second worst book I read in my academic career.
The worst was A Good Earth my junior year in high school. I also should probably hate To Kill A Mockingbird since that was one of those books that put the idea in my head that becoming a lawyer was a good idea
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m 85% sure I read Grapes of Wrath in high school. I’ve actually never read anything by Rand, ever.
Anne Laurie
@Corner Stone:
There’s a lot of state-sanctioned criminal activity out there, too much for one paragraph.
And once you bring up drones, people want to stop talking about state-sanctioned criminal activity and “displace” their frustration onto why do you hate our President you racist!!!! But, yes, we’ll pay for Al-Awalaki, someday. Well, you and me or more likely your kid will pay — just not the guys who gave the orders or pushed the button.
lamh36
‘Selma’ Director Calls Sony Emails ‘Sickening and Sad’ http://variety.com/2014/film/news/selma-director-calls-sony-emails-sickening-and-sad-1201377767/
At a Q&A at the DC premiere, Congressman Lewis talked a bit about seeing his younger self on screen:
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Toad is a hipster douchecanoe. But I will defend Mole to the death.
(Not to mention the Piper at the Gates of Dawn, of course. When I first read Wind in the Willows, age seven or eight, I said to myself oh, that’s what they call Him in this historical period!)
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: Rand’s books were unreadable to me. Is there a lawyer in the US who did have Atticus Finch in mid when s/he entered law school? Yes, he says – answering his own question. John Yoo and his ilk coulld not have envisioned him. Also, and in a completely different way, I am sure that a lot of AA lawyers had Thurgood Marshall in their minds. And then we all met the concept of billable hours.
max
@Roger Moore: A sock puppet is usually a pretty shallow persona who just shows up to lend support to the main persona, either for pure numbers or to look unconnected to the original. Cat fishing seems to be setting up a more elaborate persona to bait people into online relationships.
Yeah. A sock puppet can exist for any reason. Catfishing would be a special type of sock puppet.
{keeps reading} Or what Anne Laurie said. Feh. Speaking of which:
If I’d realized how predictive this mashup would be, I’d have gone into hibernation back last January.
I love Charlie, but he wrote this today:
Sigh. Pardon me: DUH. The people who a) wanted to go to war with Iraq before Bush was ever in office and who had B) sold themselves on the idea that Saddam Hussein was somehow behind Al Qaeda and C) believed that only state actors could be behind terrorist attacks then D) set up little torture camps so they could extract information from ostensible ‘high-value detainees’ so E) they could ‘prevent future terrorist attacks’.
A+B+C+D+E mandates F) that they were looking for the nefarious state actor behind the evil terrorists, which means they were looking for Saddam. Because of course they were.
Now if he was saying that they were evil enough to try and create false information to support a war against Iraq, well, the problem there is not they aren’t evil enough, it’s that they wouldn’t use torture to fake something they believed was true. That is, they were/are dumb and delusional, so they went all Communist prison on those guys asses and demanded the detainees cough up the ideologically correct answers.
Stalin was constantly looking for evidence of secret Trotskyite plots inside the Soviet Union, so the NKVD just beat their prisoners until they coughed up the requisite confessions to Trotskyite sins. Of course, all those prisoners were confused because they had been told to hate Trotsky, which they did, and thus it took some serious beatings to extract the ideologically correct confessions because said prisoners hated Trotsky and the change required utterly phantasmagorical confessions – which went utterly against the prisoner’s ideological grain.
The guards doing the beatings may not have believed in the confession they were extracting from the current prisoner, but since they were surrounded by confessions extracted from prisoners they had not met, they believed that some conspiracy was afoot. When you can’t find something that you know is there (it’s not there), then you keep
lookingbeating harder until voila. (‘See, Pavel? I knew this one was a saboteur.’ ‘Oh, a hooligan and a saboteur? You’ve been a very bad boy, comrade. So… when were you first contacted by the Trotskyites?’)The Bush administration may have been evil, but they were also completely fucking bugnuts. And also kinda stupid.
max
[‘Same shit, different evil empire.’]
Alison
@Major Major Major Major: When I lived in SF, the Castro was the neighborhood I’d walk around in sighing wistfully, wishing I could afford it. My property managers’ office was there, and whenever I;d go to drop off my rent, it was like a kick in the shins.
You is lucky :)
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: No, Toad is not a hipster. Toad is wholeheartedly enthusiastic about everything he does. There is not a speck of irony in him. Your distaste for him probably comes from something else. He might well be a well-meaning trustafarian.
KG
@efgoldman: Atticus Finch, I might have been the only kid in high school that hated watching the movie in class after we read the books.
@Omnes Omnibus: Atticus Finch and Daniel Kaffee. And sweet baby Buddha, do I hate the billable hour
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: You are obviously much younger than me. Daniel Kaffee?
ETA: I know who the Danial Kaffee character is; I just am too old for him to have been remotely formative.
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Okay, I’ll change the epithet to “trustafarian”. He can be played in the movie by the voice of Chris Hughes, right?
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men (looked it up myself)
Violet
@lamh36: “Selma” looks like it’s going to be such a powerful film. Looking forward to seeing it.
KG
@Omnes Omnibus: that movie was freshman year of high school, give or take
Helen
Hey Little Boots (and whoever cares) I am listening to the Dixie Chicks. Taking the Long Way Around. which includes “I’m not ready to make nice.”
Yeah. Me either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I like Toad for two reasons. First, he loves what he loves. Second, the anti-working class/union/etc. sentiment in that book was so palpable that even I caught it, and Toad was immune to it. Toad was an adrenalin junkie, and a s a borderline case myself, I get him. And voice him with Hugh Bonneville. Toad is nice and well-meaning. He’s simply clueless.
Violet
@Helen: Man, the Dixie Chicks really got destroyed by their comments. So stupid. I blame W for all that.
I remember seeing them just right before they became big. I didn’t know who they were and was completely impressed. Then a few months later, their first big hit. I was all, “Hey! I know who they are!” They were great live in a smaller venue.
Omnes Omnibus
@KG: I got out of the army in the year that movie came out and started law school the next year.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: You could post links. I had to find my own.
lamh36
Ferguson to Increase Police Ticketing to Close City’s Budget Gap
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
A thought provoking post by Dean Baker at the CEPR earlier in the week on Chronic Lyme Disease and the TTP:
The TTP “free trade” treaty that is being negotiated is part of the piece, as is fracking.
The US medical system has lots of issues, and it may get even more convoluted if the TTP and agreements like it become law in their present form. Imagine local and state laws being pre-empted by poorly designed scientific studies that draw poor, or no, conclusions that just happen to support important economic interests….
Something to keep an eye on.
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Although there a lot of candidates (things I have said and done may qualify), this may be the most clueless action of the year.
lamh36
Felt like this week would never end. I’ve been feeling so tired this week. I want to just turn off my phone and spend the weekend in my bed and just getting up to nourish myself and relieve myself. I’m that tired.
In fact, I plan to absolutely do this, but I can’t turn off my phone. My cousin’s husband is in the TICU at my hospital. He had been having headaches for about 5 days and started having blurry vision, so he went into the emergency room and they admitted and did an x-ray and found that he had excess fluid surrounding his brain. They told him and my cousin that they would have to perform surgery to drain the fluid. When I left them they were deciding what kind and when they would schedule the surgery. Until they do, my cousin’s husband (who’s the primary breadwinner in her family) has to stay in TICU until they decide on the aspects of the surgery, so that they can monitor him closely.
So I’ll be at home, tired, but on pins and needles waiting to see how it goes with my cousin’s husband.
Ugh…so …
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: Good thoughts heading your cousin’s husband’s way.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you Mr. Omnes. Post Links? Tried Failed. But EVERYONE should go to Mr. Omnes link. Best song ever. Talkin’ about Mr. Bush.
Jordan Rules
J. Cole performing ‘Be Free’ on Letterman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0LNMviSTTg
@lamh36: Best wishes to you and yours lamh36, always appreciate the links. Good on Sactown and our Canadian brethren.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen:
2003 still rankles. I know there are people who post on this who migrated left (and there is our esteemed bloghost), but I will harbor some very iffy at best feelings for a lot of people based on what hey did and said back in the run up to and early days the the Iraq invasion.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s the waiting that’s the worse thing. the docs all agree he needs surgery to drain the fluid, but they’re taking a wait and monitor approach and the doc who’s supposed to perform the surgery wants to wait until Tuesday! Which means my cousin’s husband has to stay in TICU until then. He works as a sous chef her in NOLA and his company barely give the workers PTO. So he really only has 4 actual days off from work. The job also changed their healthcare coverage so that now there is some issue with him being able to apply for FMLA or something (I work in healthcare, but I barely understand it myself).
Anyhoo, my cousin and her husband are trying to put on a brave face, but you can tell they are spooked behind the joking and smiles.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Just recently a wing-nut said to me “I don’t wanna hear about the Dixie Chicks” and I said “Yeah turns out they were right”. He STFU.
lamh36
@Jordan Rules: I saw that performance. It was very good. It really seemed to touch Letterman too
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: The Dixie Chicks also did this.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: I’ve waited while my both my mom and dad had surgeries and I was too far away to even offer physical comfort. It sucks.
Jordan Rules
@lamh36: Yeah. It was special. He just released an album on Tuesday, he didn’t have a breakout single and this song is not on the album. He used the platform to perform this. I heard Dave was doing his usual break and once Cole started he walked back towards the stage to watch. Powerful.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah. And they HATE AMERICA. Not so much.
Anne Laurie
@Helen: “Not Ready to Make Nice” was the Dixie Chick’s specific response to the hateful fooferaw (cancelled bookings, ClearChannel blackout, death threats) after Natalie M. said, during the runup to war, that she was “ashamed to come from Texas” (like Dubya). It’s also the song that I used to hook the Spousal Unit on their music. He’s mostly a classical or instrumental-folk guy, but he hated the war criminals around Dubya enough to resist his anything-but-country prejudices.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: I really, in the back of my mind (your reference to the DC song brought it forward), still look askance at anything supporters of the war have to say about anything. I know that, for example John Cole, has offered multiple mea culpas and I accept that they are sincere, but still…. What happened back then still affects me.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36: Fuuuu…. I clicked over, because I was hoping that was the Onion.
Anne Laurie
@lamh36:
That’s horrible (although better than the alternative, says the eeyore.) My prayers will be with your family.
srv
The French, Krugman and the Dixie Chicks. I think that is the sum total of mainstream pundits who were on the right side of the war.
Now we’ve got two years left – who else besides bankers, NSA, cops and torturers need more protection? Uber?
Anne Laurie
@Omnes Omnibus: “Travelling Soldier” always makes me tear up — and I’m lucky to be just a couple years too young to have lost classmates in Vietnam.
Guess it’s good to know the scar tissue hasn’t completely deadened my shriveled soul…
“Top of the World”, too also:
I wished I was smarter
I wished I was stronger
I wished I loved Jesus
The way my wife does
I wish it had been easier
Instead of any longer
I wished I could have stood where you would have been proud
But that won’t happen now
That won’t happen now…
Tenar Darell
@lamh36: These people really are incapable of learning from their mistakes. Is it possible for a whole community to get a Darwin Award?
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus:
I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it
I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: It makes me tear up as well. I will cite the fact that Churchill was a weeper to keep my cred.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: And?
Tenar Darell
@lamh36: I hope everything works out okay. I don’t have any good recommendations on handling those pins and needles. I send best wishes.
Helen
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right I probably wouldn’t if I could‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should
Mnemosyne (iPad Mini)
@lamh36:
It’s frustrating, but it’s probably good that they don’t want to rush in and start messing with his brain if they don’t have to. I hope all goes well.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helen: My dear, I posted links…
Elie
I can’t remember such dark times as this– even in the middle of the civil rights battles of the 60’s – there was a sense of doing the right thing for this country. Now it seems we are being exposed as fearful, angry and mean people — ever willing to beat up on the weak or the “other”… anyone not successful or rich (in front of who we grovel) is to be exterminated without question — and its their fault too!
That said, I do feel an underlying positive energy to our having enough honor left to expose ourselves – at least about the torture. The police murder, immigration and Ebola freak outs are exposing our values and lack of honor — but it is open for all to see — and it is having an impact — I have no doubt — though I don’t know how long it will take — but it will result in good things — righteous things — I have faith still – STILL.
I have to also say that there is only so much I can take these dark days… the recipe and animal posts hit just the right note… saw a field of swans grazing yesterday — beautiful! Gotta keep things like that close to me…
Elie
@lamh36:
My best to you in regards to your family member with it sounds like bad health problems. I send him and you healing energy and good thoughts…