Hard Dick
It's a pretty simple story. The CIA was enmeshed inone more "Bush-era torture and anti-terrorism" program (as CBS frankly puts it) when then-Vice President Dick Cheney ordered the agency to NOT brief the appropriate members of Congress on its existence.
This is what is called a clear-cut violation of the law. It violated The 1947 national security provisions of the Truman-era which require such briefings. "[Panetta]was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress," Feinstein said Sunday. "We were kept in the dark. That's something that should never, ever happen again." "To have a massive program that is concealed from the leaders in congress is not only inappropriate; it could be illegal," Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.It's going to be very difficult for the Obama Justice Department to just sit this one out. Sounds like lawyering up time is rapidly approaching for the Cheney Team. Can't happen soon enough. There are, of course, some dissenting voices. "This is a terrible trend. . . . This is high-risk stuff, because if we chill the ability or the willingness of our intelligence operatives and others to get information that's necessary to protect America, there could be disastrous consequences," said Texas GOP Senator John Cornyn of the possibility of prosecution (You will remember him from last year's asinine "Big Bad John" web ads). Perhaps Big Bad John will consider saddling up his trusty steed and hightailing it down to Tegucigalpa. He'd fit in snug as a bug in the new Honduran regime.
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July 12th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
And if it were a Democratic administration, Cornyn would be calling for their heads.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
This creep Sen. Cornyn and his bunch are not representing the PEOPLE of the United States!
July 12th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
If Cheney made such an order, it was legal. The Act provided for an Executive Branch exception for national security reasons. In any event, the program that was supposedly concealed never was a program. Someone else said it best.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
While Woody’s an open book, some of his comments are even more telling than others.
His confession, as above, that he’s stridently comfortable not knowing what he doesn’t know about what his government does amounts to a detailed description of the origins of his world view. For Woody, ignorance is so much more than bliss.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
“America” must be protected, yes.
July 12th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
bunkerbuster, I’d trust Cheney to protect American citizens more than I trust Democrats to keep security secrets confidential. Democrats have a history of such leaks.
I don’t have to know everything that the CIA does, and we shouldn’t know unless we want to be an open book to the terrorists, too.
Anyone with a lick of sense knows that this Obama-behind the scenes-led and allowed investigation is strictly about politics and revenge rather than helping the United States.
It’s funny that Obama’s administration is referencing “Bush crimes” with no flack from the left-wing media, whereas they went ballistic when Nixon didn’t use the word “alleged” when referencing Charles Manson. The Left cares more about the Manson family than American families.
I’m finished wasting time with you guys on this subject. You made up your mind on the matter long before you heard any evidence.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
This is offensive in the extreme. I remember when the Tate killings occurred, just a few miles away from where we lived, and I remember how it shook up the community. I’m not aware of anybody, left or right, who cares about the Manson family except to make sure it stays behind bars. I would suggest that there is something more than a little sick about anyone who tries to tie the Manson killings to the normal political discourse of the American people.
Of course we also have the factual counterargument to this repugnant posting, in the facts of the Plame outing by Rove and by Cheney’s henchmen. That was a serious leak that demonstrably weakened our national security, and it is clear that Bush, Cheney, and their underlings lied blatantly about it.
Shorter version: Facism is often superficially a quicker and easier route to short term security, but it is deadly in the longer run. To consign our future to dictatorial, secretive rulers who are, more importantly, stupid about the ways that humans react to being bombed, tortured, and invaded, is to take us to the condition we were in at the end of the Bush reign.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
“Facism is often superficially a quicker and easier route to short term security, but it is deadly in the longer run.”
If you were talking about SOCIAL Security, Woody would agree with you – since, you know, FDR and the New Deal were “fascist.” Dick Cheney’s authoritarianism, on the other hand, is “all about the children.”
July 12th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Contrary to Woody’s assertion there is no “Executive Branch national security exemption” regarding the CIA reporting programs to Congress. I’ve read the act. There is a process covering particular covert actions – none of which may violate the Constitution – and for protection of sources, but no exemption for ongoing intelligence programs. The notion that the CIA can avoid congressional oversight at the discretion of the vice-president – and in this case, apparently, his chief of staff who controlled information about the program within the executive branch – is false. In this case, David Addington, an appointed aide to the Vice President was determining how the National Security Act of 1947 would be administered regarding Congressional oversight. Bizarre.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
We’ve now got a “fascist” FDR, and liberals in love with Charles Manson while disregarding “American families” in Woody’s world.
Tell us again how your infatuation for baseball makes you “normal”, Woodster…
July 13th, 2009 at 3:00 am
At the most basic level the constitution lays out for us why this sort of action is illegal. It says, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Which of course never happens with a secret program.
Only anti-democrats argue for more secrecy. Only people who despise freedom–actual freedom as it applies to real lives, as opposed to the mantlepiece freedom so adored by the radical right today–can actually argue that our freedom should be curtailed in order to save our freedom. It’s Ben Tre logic.
But actually all of the above gives Cheney way too much credit. The guy was a two bit thug; a criminal who inserted himself above the law; a despot with contempt for America and its people. We have a place in this country for people like that, and the sooner Cheney is forced to do productive work for a change the better. No doubt Woody would adore his new license plate hand crafted by his hero.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:47 am
WASHINGTON — The Wall Street Journal reports that the CIA program concealed from Congress was a secret plan to kill or capture al-Qaida operatives.
The bastards.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:48 am
Woody isn’t the first to make that claim. In fact, the Mises Institute makes a fair case.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Woody happily remains without guile — utterly transparent.
Now he’s fessing up that, for him, the benchmark is his own emotional state, not any relevant or specific facts.
Woody confesses:
”I’d trust Cheney to protect American citizens more than I trust Democrats to keep security secrets”
It is, indeed, all about trust — a state of mind — for Woody. No need to trouble himself with what, why or how Cheney might actually be acting. In fact, Woody’s state of mind is such he feels BETTER OFF NOT KNOWING. That why his emotional state can guide his decision-making utterly uninterrupted by inconvenient facts.
Wake up, Woody. Your state of mind isn’t an argument.
Separately, I would take issue with Dan O’s characterization of Cheney as a two-bit thug.
It’s important to recognize that Cheney faithfully represents the paranoid fantasies of a significant minority of Americans — a minority that was fully capable of taking and holding power.
Cheney didn’t bully Bush, nor Congress. He rather carefully, assiduously cast himself as the fantasy avenger for the macho-insecurities of an extremely vocal white male minority.
Cheney cut constitutional corners not simply for personal aggrandizement, but because of deep, paranoid delusions about the world around him.
To be sure, there is only a blurred line between Cheney’s authoritarian fantasies and at least the self-image of a two-bit thug. But even though it’s blurred, the distinction is important.
To the extent that Cheney did aggrandize himself, it was for the purpose of fulfilling his ideological fantasies. He’s never shown himself to be a power for power’s sake kind of guy. He obviously was happier wielding secret power behind the scenes as vice president than taking credit and glory, as the classic thug does.
Bush, on the other hand, is much more the Mayberry Machiavelli. Power was, for him,an entitlement. And while surely he shared his father’s self-image of noblesse oblige, he never was capable of fulfilling it.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:33 am
So Bob Williams, why could Congress not be briefed about this? Given the narrow number of people who currently under the law do need to be briefed, namely the Intelligence committee leaders, and the mood in the country then, which was to remove the threat and strike back, what would have been derailed by reporting to Congress? How would we have been harmed in any way?
July 13th, 2009 at 4:36 am
i almost feel bad for busting on bunker the other day. he kills woody
though maybe that’s not to hard to do
i think woody should just basically admit he’d rather have a monarchy in america.
he does not at all, in me, celebrate
what is most beautiful about america.
at least in some circles of thought, both historically and present,
that a man is not in this country higher than
the laws which allow him to even come
to power.
that whatever the faults and flaws of this country,
there should be no tendency for monarchy
i know madison would disagree.
but what’s the use speaking to you all? you all, left or right, have your minds made up,
i have a few friends where we get together and there is insane mean debate but no one has their mind made up.
whatever.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:40 am
but i have a question why does woody even read marc’s site? does he even respect him?
i was reading aristotle and nietzsche tonight. two definite “right wingers” not really. but for the sake of argument i will call them that.
can you imagine if those types of men argued with leftists and they fought hard in intellectual battle over something simply called truth.
alright. that just made me look goofy,.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:14 am
“Tex” – the problem is that I made the point that this crank characterization – “Hitler, Mussolini and FDR – 3 Peas in a Pod” – is “MIses Institute” turf. Woody, on the other hand, thinks “classical liberals” are on the left.
“Why Nazis and Fascists Loved FDR – Fair case ?” Have you ever heard of the Liberty League ? Check it out – American fascism…didn’t exactly “love” FDR.
Look – You rightwing cranks can’t claim FDR was the tool of communists imposing socialism AND he was imposing fascism. This stuff makes you sound as stupid as…uh…Jonah Goldberg. Sophistry unhinged from even a kernal of historical or political sensibility. Pure intellectual inchorence. Masturbatory incantations. And did you read that book review by the Mises guy ? If that’s a “fair case” you’re at about kindergarten mentality. Incidentally, the book reviewed had a rather significant name change in the transformation from German to English – “Distant Relationship” became “Three New Deals”. By virtue of the kind of “analysis” that the Mises Institute comes up with, apparently via short book reviews that are lightweight harping at best, social democratic governments like Sweden and Denmark are the culmination of European Fascism. You’ll do very, very well explaining all of this to the Eurpoeans who lived through the era of fascism and saw the consequences of tyrannical racist and nationalist extremism that typefied fascism. But, yeah, Roosevelt instituted a jobs program and introduced some moderate regulation of industry so he was just like Hitler. That puerile sophistry is a “Fair case” where “Tex” comes from.
Go back to barbecuing, “Tex”.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:30 am
Hey Tex – here’s a book review explaining how major revenues of Alaska are based on a scheme of public ownership of extensive oil resources. Which makes Sarah Palin just like Ahmadinejad (before she turned quitter.)
http://tinyurl.com/nwcet3
July 13th, 2009 at 5:36 am
A comparison of investment in the German autobahns and the US federal highway program shows Dwight Eisenhower to be EVEN MORE OF A STATIST MANIAC THAN HITLER !!!!
July 13th, 2009 at 6:48 am
Not to mention, reg, that the review in question is about the worst piece of hackery ever put into words.
Half of the case against Roosevlet consists of nebulous quotes from Hitler and Mussolini praising FDR, and the other half criticizes Roosevelt on the grounds that he was not sufficiently agrarian and states rights (more or less). If making the TVA is “soft fascism” (whatever that is), then all of our presidents since FDR have been fascists. All this guy has done, and Woody too, is to demonize any use of Federal power, especially if emplyed by a Democrat. Not only are you guys anit-democratic, you’re anti-modernist inasmuch as you then also repudiate all of the gains made since, say, 1940 in civil rights, and so forth, since it was ultimately Federal power that made those things happen.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:47 am
The very fabric of society is breaking down around us. What the hell is there left to believe in?
*
Comments (…)
* Buzz up!
* Digg it
* Charlie Brooker
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o Charlie Brooker
o The Guardian, Monday 13 July 2009
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o Article history
It’s all gone wrong. Our belief in everything has been shattered by a series of shock revelations that have shaken our core to its core. You can’t move for toppling institutions. Television, the economy, the police, the House of Commons, and, most recently, the press … all revealed to be jam-packed with liars and bastards and graspers and bullies and turds.
And we knew. We knew. But we were deep in denial, like a cuckolded partner who knows the sorry truth but tries their best to ignore it. Over the last 18 months the spotlight of truth has swung this way and that, and one institution after another was suddenly exposed as being precisely as rotten as we always thought it was. What’s that? Phone-in TV quizzes might a bit of con? The economic boom is an unsustainable fantasy? Riot police can be a little “handy”? MPs are greedy? The News of the World might have used underhand tactics to get a story? What next? Oxygen is flavourless? Cows stink at water polo? Children are overrated? We knew all this stuff. We just didn’t have the details.
After all their histrionic shrieking about standards in television, it was only a matter of time before the tabloids got it in the neck. Last Monday even the Press Complaints Commission, which is generally about as much use as a Disprin canoe, finally puffed up its chest and criticised the Scottish Sunday Express for its part in the Dunblane survivors’ story scandal. You remember that, don’t you? Back in March? When the Scottish Sunday Express ran a story about survivors of the Dunblane massacre who’d just turned 18? It fearlessly investigated their Facebook profiles and discovered that some of them enjoyed going to pubs and getting off with other teenagers, then ran these startling revelations on its front page, with the headline ANNIVERSARY SHAME OF DUNBLANE SURVIVORS.
“The Sunday Express can reveal how, on their social networking sites, some of them have boasted about alcoholic binges and fights,” crowed the paper. “For instance, [one of them] – who was hit by a single bullet and watched in horror as his classmates died – makes rude gestures in pictures he posted on his Bebo site, and boasts of drunken nights out.”
Nice, yeah?
As I’m sure you recall, there was an immediate outcry, which was covered at length in all the papers. You remember their outraged front pages, right? All their cries of SICK and FOUL and VILE in huge black text? Remember that? No? Of course you don’t. Because the papers largely kept mum about the whole thing. Instead, the outrage blew up online. Bloggers kicked up a stink; 11,000 people signed a petition and delivered it to the PCC. The paper printed a mealy-mouthed apology that apologised for the general tenor of the article, while whining that they hadn’t printed anything that wasn’t publicly accessible online. All it had done was gather it up and disseminate it in the most humiliating and revolting way possible. Last Monday’s PCC ruling got next to zero coverage. Maybe if it had happened after the News of the World phone-hacking story broke it would have gathered more. Or maybe not. Either way, the spotlight of truth is, for now, pointing at the press.
But this is just one small part of the ongoing, almighty detox of everything. There’s been such an immense purge, such an exhaustive ethical audit, no one’s come out clean. There’s muck round every arse. But if the media’s rotten and the government’s rotten and the police are rotten and the city’s rotten and the church is rotten – if life as we know it really is fundamentally rotten – what the hell is there left to believe in? Alton Towers? Greggs the bakers? The WI?
The internet. Can we trust in that? Of course not. Give it six months and we’ll probably discover Google’s sewn together by orphans in sweatshops. Or that Wi-Fi does something horrible to your brain, like eating your fondest memories and replacing them with drawings of cross-eyed bats and a strong smell of puke. There’s surely a great dystopian sci-fi novel yet to be written about a world in which it’s suddenly discovered that wireless broadband signals deaden the human brain, slowly robbing us of all emotion, until after 10 years of exposure we’re all either rutting in stairwells or listlessly reversing our cars over our own offspring with nary the merest glimmer of sympathy or pain on our faces. It’ll be set in Basingstoke and called, “Cuh, Typical.”
What about each other? Society? Can we trust us? Doubt it. We’re probably not even real, as was revealed in the popular documentary The Matrix. That bloke next door? Made of pixels. Your co-workers? Pixels. You? One pixel. One measly pixel. You haven’t even got shoes, for Christ’s sake.
As the very fabric of life breaks down around us, even language itself seems unreliable. These words don’t make sense. The vowels and consonants you’re hearing in your mind’s ear right now are being generated by mere squiggles on a page or screen. Pointless hieroglyphics. Shapes. You’re staring at shapes and hearing them in your head. When you see the word “trust”, can you even trust that? Why? It’s just shapes!
Right now all our faith has poured out of the old institutions, and there’s nowhere left to put it. We need new institutions to believe in, and fast. Doesn’t matter what they’re made of. Knit them out of string, wool, anything. Quickly, quickly. Before we start worshipping insects.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
reg isn’t worth my time for a response, as he’s a school drop-out who never studied economics but always thinks he’s right. In other words, reg is a teenager.
However, someone else who read his comments volunteered to clear the dispute with him.
reg, it’s never to late to go back to school. Just don’t go to one of the government indoctrination centers that are called public schools in California.
July 13th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Woody says: ‘By the way, have you ever seen how Horowitz is treated when by leftists when he tries to speak at a university. Quite a contrast to Chomsky’s respectful reception at West Point.’
Gee, Woody. Ever stop to think why that is? Maybe because Horowitz is someone who threw out the baby with the bath water rather than understanding some people are corrupt. But that doesn’t mean that you then decide to exact revenge on everyone because your blind idealism was betrayed. He is a case for a psychiatrist’s couch not for the lecture circuit.
Chomsky got the respect he deserved. And your assumption that EVERYONE who goes to West Point is a Right wing cracker like you with fundamentalist beliefs is as bad as Horowitz now thinking that all liberal ideals are the work of the devil. The two of you have a lot in common.
July 13th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Did a quic recon of what it takes to get into West Point. Woody, you would never make it. Be disqualified on lack of physical ability not to mention mental agility.
But I did find a fantastic sounding book that came out a few years ago by a Rolling Stone Editor who took up the challenge of living at West Point for 4 years and wrote the book:
Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point
David Lipsky
I am going to get it from the library!!
July 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
HHmmmmm…… Friends, more to the point, if Woody were on the left, clogging up the discussion here with meaningless drivel (Republican: GOOD, Democrat: BAD) day in and day out, he would have been thrown off the site years ago. As the Third Charmer was, twice. Except, of course, I was saying things that were true and pointing out the, shall we say, faulty aspects of the arguments of Marc Cooper.
So, first, can anyone at this point explain why Cooper does NOT owe Nancy Pelosi an apology, as She was obviously telling the truth about being misled? More importantly, read today’s “Daily Howler” as Somesby recalls, in detail, how Al Franken called out the Republicans on Health Care in the 90s, while Cooper was no doubt frothing about Whitewater. To Cooper, Franken was a “clown,” Krugman is “vermin.” But he doesn’t seem to have much to say on how the Hillary Slayer is doing on Health Care.
Probably doesn’t much care….
July 13th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Why would anyone apologize to Nancy Pelosi about anything?
And how is it she was mislead when millions not even privy to the information prior to war being declared KNEW it was all a crock of shit? What planet were you on, Thirdcharmer? So what is your cuckoo point?
For Woody: Since you probly lie awake at night thinking about the locker room at West Point, rent Clair Denis’ Beau Travail. Its too beautiful a film for you but you will probly get off on the hard bodies while missing the content entirely.
July 13th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Oh. Its in French. But thats ok. You wouldnt get it even with the English subtitles.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Marc, it would be interesting if you could muster a blog on the “inappropriate” use of the word “inapporpriate:
To wit:
(From you link to Dianne Feinstein. Won’t someone rid me of that quarrelsome bitch in Democrat’s clothing.)
The Senate’s second-ranking Democrat, Richard Durbin of Illinois, called for an investigation into the allegations, saying “to have a massive program that is concealed from the leaders in Congress is not only inappropriate, it could be illegal.”
Touching yourself in public is “inappropriate”. Hiding a military program from Congress is bordering on something close deserving of the guillotine– if we had one. But then that would be considered an “inappropriate” response to such calumny, chicanery and betrayal of the law of the land.
July 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
This is a tactic, as you well know, that is often employed by the right against opinions they don’t want to hear: shout them down
Fixed.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
It’s Marc blog and the fact that he opinionated is something that is to be appreciated. That said, if you’re going to draw up a list of people for him to apologize to, screw the beltway liberals, who mostly deserve what they got. Marc should instead start out by saying a sorry, belatedly, to Naomi Klein and Max Blumnethal, then work his way from there
July 13th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
though maybe that’s not to hard to do
Shooting fish in a barrel.
July 13th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
You had to run to that hack who writes for you and Roper to clean up your shit ? You’re an ignorant little dipshit, Woody. The moron who wrote that crap skipped over the fact that you imputed “classical liberalism” to the “left”, i.e. “my side” – proving you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. The guy just regurgitated what I already knew – and the fact that he cites Justin Raimondo in “Reclaimng the American Right” proves MY point, not yours. (Justin Raimondo disagrees with you on almost every political issue, incidentally, except social security and the like. He’s an anti-war ultra-liberatarian – and the dirty “H” word that you spit out when you don’t use the one with an “F”. He was a fixture in San Francisco radical politics for years.)
You’re still stupid Woody, and tell that hack to go fuck himself if he doesn’t have the guts to take me on here…
July 13th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
“elected to use profanity as his main argument ”
The “Big Boy” you’ve got defending you because you can’t rationally defend yourself seems not to have read my comments. They precisely made the distinction between those who claim the mantle of “classical liberals” and modern liberalism – this is pretty elementary stuff, even for someone who studied accounting. You assumed that everyone who called themselves “liberal” was somehow on “the left” because you are ignorant of political history. You are lazy, Woody. And for your “Big Boy” to defend your mode of argument (“reg is a pedophile”) over mine (“go fuck yourself because you obviously don’t know what the hell you’re talking about” after I’ve SHOWN that you clearly don’t) is the sign of a hack who’ll say anything. And tell me what David Horowitz, who has been a propagandist and hack of both the Left and Right, has to do with anything that went before in the discussion.
You are a sorry little know-nothing…and the guy you’ve got trying to prop you up is a tired sophist – I could write his shit in my sleep , it’s so weak and predictable.
July 13th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
One more thing – there’s no profanity in my earlier posts that proved you’re a moron. And, aside from naming some free market cranks who opposed Roosevelt and the New Deal – along with HL Mencken, a Neitzchean contrarianwho opposed everything and everybody and, among other things idealized Germany, perhaps because he shared their anti-semitism, and opposed entry into WWII – your “Big Boy” didn’t take on a single one of the points I made.
You guys are really, really lame. Even when you haul out your big “intellectual gun.”
July 13th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
“One more thing” – Woody, your “Big Boy” defender would do well to have another look at Harry Elmer Barnes before he drops his name as someone who stuck to “liberalism” while FDR abandoned it (an idiotic argument, even when it applies to Hayekian-Von Mises types, but at least semi-coherent and familiar.) Barnes was a complicated figur, but he was primarily an isolationist who opposed the US entry into WWII and finally a guy who sadly went the route of Holocaust denial, claiming that “International Zionism” was inflating the number of deaths in the Nazi genocide in order to raise money for the cause and to isolate Germany in the Atlantic alliance. Here’s a sample of the alleged “classical liberal” Harry Barnes who you (or your front man) cites as evidence of Roosevelt’s links to fascism, from an article entitle “Zionist Fraud”:
WERE SIX MILLIONS EXTERMINATED?
With the help of one hundred pages of statistics, cross-checked and verified by reliable documents, in difficult but condensed and detailed analysis, Rassinier offers us two conclusions, between which he refrains from making a choice.
The first is that, according to the data available, and correcting the inevitable duplications and exaggerations, presented by the “World Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation,” there were 17, 583,057 Jews alive in 1962. Some 1,485,292 are said to have lost their lives in some way during the war. The second, from other sources, also checked, and supplied by Mr. Raul Hilberg, in his Destruction of the European Jews, is that some 18,265,601 Jews survived, while 896,892 of them perished during the war.*
Whichever of these conclusions one accepts, although we are horrified when confronted with these million or more victims, it must be emphasized that we are far from the figure of six million which shameless propagandists, doubtful witnesses, and others ill-informed have accepted.
It is instructive that despite the figures cited, as based on the corrected data, both of these Jewish sources accept the legend that six million Jews were exterminated by the Germans during the Second World War.
OUR CONCLUSION
It is abominable enough that from a million to a million and a half Jews perished between 1940 and 1945, without having to add vast imaginary slaughter. It only weakens the case when, with the use of false documents, the weakest sort of testimony, and statistics outrageously inflated, the State of Israel claims indemnity for six million dead. This completely inaccurate figure only serves Communist and other political causes in Europe, and outright financial purposes in Tel Aviv.
(You really are out of your depth, Woodster.)
July 13th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
Incidentally, Woody, that Harry Barnes essay is reprinted on a Holocaust denial website that uses terminology like “alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz.”
Classical liberalism, indeed…
July 13th, 2009 at 6:26 pm
Hey Woody, “one more thing” – since you’re recommending books by Justin Raimondo, you might want to check this one out:
http://www.amazon.com/Terror-Enigma-11-Israeli-Connection/dp/0595296823
(In way, way over his head…)
July 13th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
who cares.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
No health care from the Democrats.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Reg, HL Mencken did discover he was Jewish. Did you know that? (Part Jewish, a quarter, a third. Something)
I am not sure he deserves the calumny you are heaping on him. He was brilliant and is a linchpin in any journalism curriculum worth its salt. He influenced everyone you even think you might admire. He carried a torch for European culture as a bulwark against the raving ignorance of the the seething, grasping great unwashed that pretty much made up America from turn of the century through the 30′s.
His criticism of America is more apt now than ever.
If you can, dig up HL Mencken Critic of American Life.
George H Douglas
I just found it on Questia
Its an academic work that is just too juicy. I heisted it from a library and its one of my prized possessions. You might have to do the same if you want to read it.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
A bit of Mencken-ania
Just to set the record straight about his complexity:
“The two main ideas that run through all of my writing, whether it be literary criticism or political polemic are these: I am strong in favor of liberty and I hate fraud.” The Constitution and the Bill of Rights, Mencken believed, were sacred documents. “I know of no other man,” Mencken once said, “who believes in liberty more than I do.” His belief fueled his fight for civil liberties for all men, regardless of race. As early as 1917 he addressed the concerns for African-Americans. His articles against lynching on the Eastern Shore of Maryland during the 1930s resulted in a boycott of Baltimore goods and threats against his life. Even so, he worked closely with the NAACP to help promote the Costigan-Wagner Anti-Lynching Bill. His continuing fight for equality is evidenced in his articles against segregation, prompting Clarence M. Mitchell [1911-1984], Washington Bureau Director of the NAACP to tell his sons that Mencken was on the side of the black man. When Franklin D. Roosevelt refused to let Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution enter the United States, Mencken was one of the first journalists to denounce that action, stating that the United States should open its doors.
His impassioned defense of the First Amendment, in favor of freedom of speech was woven throughout his career. His defense of this basic right is evident in his series of reports from the Scopes Monkey Trial, where a school teacher was arrested for teaching the theory of evolution in Dayton, Tennessee. The state wanted to make it a crime to teach anything other than the biblical account of human creation. Mencken despised the effort of any group, whether ministers, reformers, or politicians, to force their way of thinking on society. There were many journalists covering “The Trial of the Century,” but Mencken’s articles were syndicated and quoted throughout the country.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:14 am
Six serial posts by a serial psychopath. For your sake, reg, let’s hope that Obama-care includes special funds for the mentally disturbed.
You get hung up on and misstate one definition out of an entire discussion, because you don’t have a leg to stand on concerning the issue. You’re really pathetic. But, we knew that when you were so active getting Obama elected.
Actually, people who are stupid and cowards are the ones who want government to take care of them rather than being smart enough and responsible to take care of themselves. Were you always a momma’s-boy?
Roosevelt was a fascist as is Obama. You are, too, as you support a centralized governmental authority over individual rights, which are supported by conservatives.
Momma’s boy. I think we have you pegged, psycho.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:30 am
One thing we know for sure, we’ll never get health care from petty nihilists like Sergio who sit on the sidelines mocking anyone who has the guts or energy to engage in politics – beyond getting Mike Davis’ autograph.
I don’t hate Mencken, Ann. I said he was a contrarian and a Nietzchean – verging on nihilsm – who had little use for most folks. Yeah, he was an engaging social critic and a great writer and editor. But he was a pretty dyspeptic guy who was way off base on most political questions outside of civil liberties. (As an example, Mencken was furious over the US abandoning the Gold Standard. Now there’s a burning question – ask Ron Paul. Thus Mencken is often revered by cranks for things he believed that were dubious at best.) And he was conflicted about Germany through the ’30s because he idealized what was, in fact, a pretty creepy Prussian culture. No, he wasn’t an anti-semite to the point of defending genocide and when he got on the right side of an issue he was a fierce advocate. Complex guy, but not someone I’d pull out of the box to suggest that it’s not crazy to call FDR a “fascist.” That’s what this silly and ultimately boring – because Woody can do no less than extend his stupid shit when his ass is uncovered – brouhaha was about. You really don’t have to school me on the Scopes trial – but I’ll note that Mencken wasn’t just a Darwinist but a proud and aggressive “Social Darwinist.” My shorthand is right about Mencken in the context he was dragged into discussion by Woody – or whoever is providing him with copy.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:32 am
“you don’t have a leg to stand on concerning the issue. ”
The issue, shithead, is that you called Obama – and FDR – “Fascists.”
And you dragged out a bunch of shit to “prove it” that showed you had zero knowledge base and were cherry-picking quotes that were fraught with idiotic notions.
You are a fool.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Woody – if you don’t like being taken apart like a cheap Tinkertoy, don’t try to act like you are anything other than a backwoods bigot by citing books, historians, etc. in order to “clear the dispute.” You only dig yourself deeper, especially when it’s obvious you don’t have a clue about the origins of the arguments or how dubious – at best – the stuff you are citing actually is. You pulled a bunch of names – and a book – out of someone else’s hat to “clear the dispute – and inadvertently recommended a holocaust denier and a guy who argues that the Israelis knew about 9/11 and didn’t warn us. This is the sewer you end up swimming in when you try to impress us. And if I were you I would quit using the fact that I didn’t go to college as a flag to dispute my intellectual credentials, because when I rip you a new one – effortlessly, I might add – and leave you huffing and puffing and simply reasserting your unhinged prejudice it just makes you look that much more ignorant.
July 14th, 2009 at 8:30 am
“Roosevelt was a fascist as is Obama.”
ROFLMAO!
Man, I knew back in November that watching the right wing extremists go completely moonbatty over the next eight years was going to be enjoyable–I just didn’t realize how quickly the unraveling would begin.
Pass the popcorn!
July 14th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Ok Reg, as long as you were kicking WOody’s ass over using Mencken as an example of anything that would support his warped point of view.
I wasn’t trying to educate you as to Scopes trial. I just pulled up something on Mencken to illustrate he was not someone to be trifled with– as Woody did.
And I like “dyspeptic”. House is the first truly interesting TV character who is actually a fully fleshed out human. THe writers have created a really compelling character and he is very PC. Psychologically correct! And he is vicious and unlikable at times. Just like “real people”.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:52 am
I can’t imagine Woody and Mencken being long in the same room – Mencken would probably write an essay using Woody as an example of why he was so sour on the Great Unwashed.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:58 am
reg, did you slobber all over yourself and milk come out of your nose when you came up with a “gotcha” of no consequence? Actually, this point isn’t worth my time but, on the other hand, I have a real job and not the time nor inclination for the serial posts that you make.
Mencken said:”the common man is a fool.” reg is a common man.
July 14th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
Woody, nothing you say is of any consequence. It’s just amusing to expose the breadth and depth of your ignorance.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
reg, your have used pages of typing to discuss something that was so incidental to the discussion it’s hilarious. If you have to be that narrow in your attacks, then it’s your “breadth and depth of ignorance” that is revealed. You never presented anything worth debating. How pathetic that you wasted all that time for nothing.
Want to discuss finance and economics? Taxes? Your boy in the White House doesn’t know anything about them, except to make them worse.
Regarding Mencken, I’m sure that I look down on more people than he ever did, and you head that list.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
Woody – you don’t know a goddam thing about economics. Nor politics. Nor history. You’re a fucking accountant. Your pretensions are pathetic.
July 14th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I love you, reg. Calling him a “fucking accountant” is the best slur there is.
July 14th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Not having a dog in this fight here, I’m not sure who surge is, but his take on this reg feller is prett near on target.
Day-um, is this feller reg as dense as he makes himself out to be?
July 14th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Roper – you’re as humorless as you are stupid…you posted a comment promoting some idiotic book review that argued FDR was a fascist and I made you look like the slobbering nincompoop you happen to be. Obviously those comments you quote were mimicing your nonsensical shit. You’re dead meat in these comments threads – and you’re too chickenshit to even post under your own name anymore. What a weak dweeb…
July 14th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Looks like “Tex” (i.e., Rope-a-dope) and Woody are getting hysterical again. Reg, you out-do yourself every time.
July 15th, 2009 at 8:54 am
reg, that wasn’t Roper. Joseph, we’re hardly getting hysterical. Don’t pee in your pants over this.
July 15th, 2009 at 9:39 am
Please, “hysterical” should be your middle name, as evidenced by your soundbite serial posting and bizarre extremist claims. It does have an entertaining quality, in a train-wreck sort of way.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
Joseph, if there’s anything hysterical, it’s your interpretation of our remarks. In fact, you might say that we think the discussion is hilarious.
July 15th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
Woody’s a Soros plant — paid to make conservatives look like morons. Roper is his “intern,” normally assigned to alphabetizing the coffee and occasionally allowed to type…
July 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
reg et al, frankly I don’t have any interest in this issue, but I thought that you might want to see who is the man behind the curtain.
Political Correctness: A Vast Left Wing Conspiracy?
- – -
How do I get on the Soros payroll? He could make me rich.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Are you still yammering, Woody? You continue to say nothing of substance, ranging from banal talking points to deranged right-wing extremist gibberish. You should try thinking through your points before posting, and then you might be taken seriously for the first time in your years of fruitless commenting.
Or, to the contrary, you can continue playing the fool, which at least provides cheap entertainment: a reminder that the GOP is a sinking party riddled with extremism and backwardness.
July 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
And your qualifications, Joseph, are exactly what? All I see from you is non-substantive criticism of me. If I want someone to judge my remarks, it has to be from someone smarter and wiser than I am, and you’re not the man.
July 16th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Woody, criticizing you is like shooting fish in a barrel, but infinitely easier. You have a long record of getting your rear end handed to you by every commenter on the board. And frankly it really doesn’t matter what “you want”: when you make ignorant comments in a public arena (coincidentally, all of a “non-substantive” nature–go figure!), your comments will get exposed as stupid. You really don’t have any say in the matter–that’s just how it goes in the world of discourse. And besides, you should be used to it by now. Schooling’s hard if you don’t do your homework.
Now please stop wasting everyone’s time and work on something constructive, like learning about politics and the economy. Marc has plenty of links and resources for you to get to work on. Make use of it and educate yourself.
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