Something political that, surely, we can ALL agree on.

I quite agree.

the AmeriRight channel is one notch away from the AmeriLeft channel on my XM Radio, and that fucker holds court for several hours a day. From supporting the idea that we should reinstall Saddam since he can "control" those people to thinking that american politics should be "shouting", he's never lacking a no-doubt well-thought-out & nuanced stance on any topic.

uhhhh since when did intellectual stand for "blonde in short skirt"?

Whatever. This thread was about us holding hands and coming to SOME kind of common ground.

But, if we must - Coulter's writing does not make me want to grab a red pen and edit, spell-check, etc. I can't say that for Michael Savage - or Al Franken, for that matter.

(It WOULD be funny if he was Dan Savage's brother. I'm a big Savage Love fan, myself, and would love to see those two debate. Both can be quite belligerant if they want to. My money's on Dan.)

I pretty much hate everything about him. His 'Noo Yawk" tough guy shit - his telling that gay dude to 'get AIDS and die" - even the shit he says I agree with, I hate his approach. Yes, he's a sloppy thinker. One of the sloppiest I've ever read, actually.

I think I'd like to fight him.

michelle malkin is kinda cute, but has the personality of an amputated squid.

Since the election, ILX liberals have become violent, rape-happy terrorists. Tough talk!

As the election approached, I became deeply critical of you due to your decision to vote for Kerry. My vote for Bush wasn't motivated by homophobia or any other "values issue." (Is homophobia a family value?) Like many people in Connecticut, I supported Bush because I thought, after 9/11, that he would be preferable to Kerry as a wartime leader. I understand why people think I'm wrong about that. It's no accident, however, that Bush lost to Kerry in New Jersey and Connecticut by a lot less than he lost to Gore in those same states in 2000. It sure wasn't because Rove turned out the homophobic vote up here.
But seeing things a little more clearly and calmly now, I have to say that I am embarrassed by what happened to gays this year. They were crassly exploited by the political party I supported, and the other party didn't do enough to protect them. Not enough people stood up to say "this is wrong." I sure as hell didn't. I just wanted my guy to win. I'm sorry that happened.
I realize that this apology is probably worth a bucket of warm spit to you. But you should know that I've talked to several other people who voted for Bush, but now have the same sense of buyer's guilt I do. I think that means that next time they start trying to take people's rights away, maybe more of us will stand up and say "this is wrong." I solemnly promise that I will.

Excuse me, Roger, but ask anyone....I was just as violent prior to the election. And I'd sooner "rape" a hippopatomus than so much as touch Ann Coulter with a ten foot barge pole.

Shouldn't you be off reading a Bible, buying a gun and persecuting a homosexual?

xpost Even when my intent is to AGREE, many of you bait me with childish nonsense. What are you all so afraid of? I mean, you ALREADY lost the election - now's NOT the time to get nasty and tough. It's WAY too late for that! Now's the time to lift me up and give me a big hug - right?

That's not Sullivan's, that's the person who wrote him.

Maybe I'm NOT making fun of those Chick Tracts I get every day at the prison I work in. Maybe I'm AGREEING with my born-again boss when he talks about how I'm going to hell. "Yes, yes, Floyd," I say, "I'm going straight to hell despite my good deeds and belief in something resembling 'God.'" Golly, how could I have been so blind to my own actions and beliefs? Thanks, Alex. I'll start changiiiiiiiiiing....NOW!

Now, buying a gun - THAT sounds like a good idea! That'd make four.

And remember, we're talking about Ann Coulter here....hardly one to steer clear of violent talk herself.

Sedaris voted for Kerry too, I'd wager.

Michael Savage's real last name is "Weiner." I am totally not joking, but I AM laughing like a little girl right now.

And yes, for the record, he is totally fucking insane. The guy thinks liberalism is a "mental disorder," but politics aside, even, the guy is clearly batshit. I can't believe he has his own show. Wish I had a retarded monkey I could teach to talk; I could make a mint on the talk-show circuit.

Heh heh, weiner. I remember hearing that before.

I'll get to anthony's post in a sec...

I don't assume anything about anyone's political values, as you claim. I simply respond. Alex talks about wanting to hear a neck break, Le something or other was talking about bombing all the American cities that voted Bush, scores of ILXors spoke openly about leaving the country after Kerry's loss, and someone actually started a thread the other day about wanting to 'rape' 'homophobes.' Are these the hysterical ILXors you refer to? Should I just not respond from now on? Should I not call bullshit when I see it? Are you just against discourse in general?

"He will cry..."

To my knowledge, I've never cried about anything spoken to or about me on this, or any other messageboard.

"...about being persecuted and baited while constantly attempting to provoke people in a similar fashion."

See, this is simply not true, anthony. I started this thread because I was tired of feeling that, aside from music, I couldn't agree with anyone on ILX about anything. It's lonely at the top of reason. But then I thought, surely, EVERYONE can join me in hating such a dumbass as Michael Weiner. But no, immediately, necks are snapping and I'm self-fellating.

Even some of my ideological foes here can attest that I HAVE been attacked unfairly on more than one occasion, simply because I do not agree with the majority here. You'd defend yourself too, if you ever had the balls to venture out from within the confines of the similarly-minded sheeple.

First, this:

"While I don't condone the hyperbolic bile on either side of the fence"

Then, 16 words later, this:

"Whether he's a troll or genuinely clueless, it's tiring and pointless to engage him in a political debate. It's clear he gets off on this, and I for one will no longer offer him further masturbation fodder. If I find myself needing to react to his dickery on a thread, I'll just cut and paste my favorite moments of his self-fellatio and let them speak for themselves."

So, the big question is:

Why are you so obsessed with cocks, anthony?

No, it was about congratulating yourself/baiting people by drawing attention to someone you purport to believe unworthy of it.

Even some of my ideological foes here can attest that I HAVE been attacked unfairly on more than one occasion, simply because I do not agree with the majority here. You'd defend yourself too, if you ever had the balls to venture out from within the confines of the similarly-minded sheeple.

everyone happy now?

I'm saying, YES I've been attacked, but if it bothered me that much, i wouldn't stay here. Didn't ya hear? Boys don't cry.

gabbneb's post brillinatly illustrates the type of paranoia I'm talking about.

Tragic and sad, but not shocking.

-- Roger

http://www.disneyanaexchange.com/Photobin/WZZ-Roger.jpg

Except I have horns.

But yeah.

7) Kerry made Bush look stupid in the debates.

Do your eyes and ears work?

Kevin - I've met 7 ILXors and I THINK they'd vouch for my character. I wasn't wiping baby body parts off my lips when I met any of them. I'm no troll. Why is it so diffiuclt to believe that a person can hold views that are different from the indie rock staus quo? I don't see what's so amazing or scandalous about not being a hippie.

Seriously -w ahts' so surprising? That I listen to 'good' music and still somehow don't believe in income tax? I don't get it.

And that's 7 more than, you know, C***m. (Actually probably more like 8 or 14.)

Yes to the first part. RE: the second part, the USSC stopped the FL recount, not voting, but I get and agree with your point. RE: part #3, 2000 was shameful for fraud and USSC's opinion, which I find more shameful than an apparent majority disagreeing with what I find to be the truth. I guess it's possible that fraud happened this time, but don't believe that the Democrats pursuing it is a worthwhile use of political energy.

2) Ken Lay and Enron, huge Bush supporters, defraud California, screw thousands out of jobs and pensions.

yes, but did this play much of a role in the election? attention spans are short, and mebbe the dems should have played this up more, but proving a connection wouldn't likely have been worth the effort.

3) Administration ignores terrorist threat, including 8/6/01 memo predicting a 9/11/01 type attack.

sadly, I think any administration would have more or less behaved in the same way.

4) Bush, Cheney, and Powell either lied to us about weapons of mass destruction or are incompetent enough to have taken us to war over faulty intelligence.

agreed. While they've each obviously got some blood on their hands, I'm really surprised that Powell hasn't expressed some embarrassment publicly. by resigning. I understand the military committment to serving one's commander, but WTF is his deal? his current position is civilian.

5) The $5.5 billion surplus has been squandered into a $5.5 billion deficit. Our country is on the brink of bankruptcy.

in general, I find BushCo's fiscal policy to be irresponsible, but this is also a very complicated issue that I doubt any of us are qualified to break down with absolute certaintly. the notion that a Dem administration would be running a balanced budget right now is dubious. I believe that the US, for now at least, is uniquely able to carry huge deficits that would kill any other country. With China on the rise, however, this may soon change...

6) Cheney the ex-CEO of Halliburton, under investigation.

Halliburton is under investigation, not Cheney. I have zero faith in Cheney, but I think that pursuing his connection to any fraudulent activity on Halliburton's part is a waste of energy. Regardless of his involvement, could he come across as any eviler????

7) Kerry made Bush look stupid in the debates.

The level of analysis on which Kerry embarrassed Bush is light years above the thought patterns of a majority of voters, and apparently had little staying power. People who appreciate "nuance" or "complexity" in approaching election issues, and would then proceed to apply such analysis to their voting decision, would likely agree with this point, but it seems that that's a painfully small percentage of the electorate.

8) Even if this election wasn't fixed the gay baiting disqualifies these idiots from office.

I find it reprehensible, but it was apparently effective. Off the top of my head, I'm can't say how Kerry should have handled this issue (this is a really, really big weakness for Dems, obv), but it clearly hurt, if not killed, him.

9) All of the above are scary.

Indeed

10) It's scary that none of the above matter enough to the 30% of the adult population who supposedly voted for Bush.

Not sure about the 30% figure, but yeah.

11) We're basically fucked.

I rilly, rilly, rilly, hope you're wrong. Am praying for a wicked backlash. I feel that an important issue is this: does Rove feel that, by getting Bush re-elected, his job is done? Or does he actually believe in the neo-con and "morals" crap to the extent that he's willing to put the administration's neck on the like by aggressively pursuing these agendas in a lame-duck administration? I'm guessing that he does whatever it takes to preserve the GOP's good name in a sufficient majority of voters' minds. Nothing more, nothing less.

12) Jessica Rabbit is smoking hot.

Her name sounds hott, but I have no idea who you're talking about.

I have become super-cynical about politics, especially on a presidential level. If I didn't dislike RoveBush so much, I probably couldnt' be bothered. Sadly, it appears that, if the Dems want to win in the future, they need to be more Machivellian (sp?) and adopt a more marketing-based and organizational approach from the start. ugggghhhh.

(i'm guessing on the characteristics, but am giving you benefit of the doubt)

but you're not helpin by not really explaining why in very clear terms, whereas everyone else knows why they prefer kerry.

libertarian: (a) a republican who likes to smoke pot. (b) a republican who doesn't like going to church.

the libertarian party: nursery school for republican children.

the libertarian party: nursery school for republican children.

-- Eisbär (llamasfu...), November 7th, 2004.

lol, roffle, otm, etc.

I'd kick your ass (I totally kicked somebody's ass before. I'd do it again. Oh baby.), but I've got whiskey to drink. Eyyyy. Sit on it!

*waits for someone to call him a right-winger*

Aw mannnnn, why'd ya have to go and rile up the liquortarians?

I don't understand why anyone bothers with Ann Coulter at all, but her shtick doesn't bother me like Savage's because she doesn't seem fundamentally unhinged to me the way he does. On the other hand, she once wished that Timothy McVeigh had blown up the building where I and a bunch of my friends work, which doesn't exactly -- how you say -- endear her to me.

As for Roger, I maybe don't pay enough attention to ILX to know why people react to him this way. Maybe I've just dealt with enough libertarians to not get outraged by them anymore. Plus, he moved to Knoxville, which is like my second-favorite city in the world, so he can't be all bad.

sadly, I think any administration would have more or less behaved in the same way.

Not so sure, just speculating of course, but remember when the Project for the New American Century (i.e. everyone who's in charge now) implored Clinton to take care of Saddam back in 1997, he is reported to have replied that he wasn't as worried about that but was more busy with Al Quaida.

It's awesome that some think of me as a libertarian troll (and FWIW, I've never smoked pot and I go to church a dozen or so times a year); anyone who farts in the echo chamber seems to receive the same nod.

And dammit, there are lots of people just like me out there.

(Knowing Bush, that person will be Arlen Specter just prior to a judicial confirmation.)

This seems so, well, macho to me - the idea that attempting to understand is somehow a weakness, that treating others as complex and rational human beings is a mistake, that there is something 'girly' about empathy and compassion. I won't apologise for attempting to understand people (even Roger) because it is characterised as naive hippy bullshit. Why didn't you just call us 'girly-men' and save yoursef some words, Momus?

Oh, it's pretty rad! I went to a party last night at Russ/Leah/St.Germain's place and got so smashed that I don't quite remember walking home.

Kevin OTM re: Momus being a macho/pompous ass. (not based on political opinions, just personality. but that's probably just as fake as everything else...)

That said, you can condemn me all you want, buddy, but my 'team' didn't 'win' - yours just lost. Actually, hasn't it all been downhill for you ever since that whole 'Berlin Wall coming down' fiasco?

Pretty much. I mean, not counting the 8 years of peace, prosperity and fiscal responsibility. And blowjobs.

http://www.nationalreview.com/gaffney/gaffney200411051020.asp

These people are assholes, I hope we can all agree.

Really? Were you on Le Grand Magistery? What band?

(I'm still giggling at the idea of me being 'macho'. Pompous maybe, but macho, hee hee hee...)

So, Bush invaded Iraq to protect the unborn? I agree, they are idiots - and possibly baiting the left as well.

(x-post) It stunned me too Momus - but your insistence on avoiding namby-pamby emotions and 'making the tough decisions' kind of attitudes is such that I don't know how else to describe it.

Liberalism sees itself as a benign, progressive, universalist, un-self-interested philosophy. Did you note the sigh of relief from Russia and China when Bush was re-elected? That's because those nations both abuse human rights at home, and a liberal US president would be onto them about that. But Bush will just turn a blind eye. Because for conservatives, it's all about the narrowest self-interest. Universal values be damned, let's pursue what helps us. The US has become 'The us'. Us as in 'us versus them', because never before has the US been so aware that other people hate it. Us as in 'our little group of cronies'. And never has that group been so small and so rich. The more exclusionary, corrupt and privileged 'we' become, the more we're aware that we're a little clique of evil fucks. But we can't help it, and it all goes so smoothly, and those suckers the poor vote for us. Meanwhile, we do fuck all about climate change, global instability, growing inequality, growing resentment...

anyway, it IS more than a little arrogant to be told by some boob from buttfuck, red state "the meaning of 9/11." particularly when you work in the city where 9/11 happened, and you could see the buildings collapse in a city directly across the hudson from it.

Hmm.

so otm it hurts

I wonder how much the 'seeing themselves as evil' has to do with traditional conservatism. One of the main ideas of such is a cynicism of what people are capable of (partly why you don't change society - even if you intend good, it'll probably come out bad), the idea that people are selfish and must be controlled by a strong state. Combine this with the Christian idea of fallen man, and you probably end up with an ideology that really doesn't think very highlt of people, that distrusts them, thinks they need to be coerced etc. The trouble with this thinking is that it is mostly self-fulfilling - if the political establishment treats people with distrust and fear, they people tend to responf by trying to screw the system anyway they can - after all, that's what people are like, right?

X-post - I noticed that no-one in the US is working class, you're all middle class...it's a kind of false pride (don't let the neighbours find out we're poor!) that is easily exploited.

In the US this transition to seeing itself as The Other (and, I think, as something 'Evil', in a petty Beavis and Butthead sort of way) happened because of Bin Laden's spectacular intervention on 9/11, but also because of identity politics and globalism. What happens in identity politics is that group by group, people split off from the mainstream and pursue their own interests. Gays, women, blacks... eventually the 'mainstream' starts to feel like a minority. And so you get angry white men claiming to be discriminated against, you get 'Iron John' attempting to do for masculinity what Andrea Dworkin did for feminity, and so on. This happens on a national level too -- first Wales and Scotland get their own identities and their own assemblies, then England starts saying, well, why can't we have that too? What looked like an Oedipal struggle to get free of The Father turns strange when The Father too suddenly wants to split off. So I think the US has now reached this 'second adolescence'. Instead of being the big boss state, the universalist state, the daddy, the US now wants to be an irresponsible teenager, and be who it really is. I call this 'moronic authenticity', because after decades or centuries attempting to embody mature, universal values (what else is the US constitution than a document of the liberal enlightenment, an attempt to assert universal human rights?) the US has decided to become a pastiche of something very local, limited and specific. And so cowboys and capitalists and every-man-for-himself gets paraded. But it's 'fake folk', and it's moronic. Bush can't even remember what people in Texas are supposed to say. When he reaches for a proverb, he peters out half way through. His American authenticity is as fake as a theme restaurant out on the highway. And I believe that globalism has added to Bush's fancy dress wardrobe. It's added a couple of gothy, Marilyn Manson-type outfits. Because global opinion is that the US brings death, there's a skeleton bodysuit in there. It comes out when the Pentagon briefs about 'Shock and Awe'. It comes out when 'surgical strikes' obliterate a civilian wedding. Even Bin Laden has been called in as an image consultant. Because when you're adolescent and insecure, you care a lot what your enemies say about you, and you find yourself almost wanting to live up to the hateful image. 'Do you really think I'm that bad? Do you want to find out? Come on, then, make me mad! Then you'll find out!'

My mom got so narked when I told her she was working class. I was all up in her face with 'but tch'are, Blanche! You wear all the gold you own at all times, you drive a secondhand Cadillac, your boyfriend works shifts, you won 20 grand at a casino and installed a hot tub
and deck on the side of your 2BR house and stuck a Corvette in the garage, you take a poodle to work with you WHERE DO I STOP? Did you put aluminum siding on the house to remind you of Trailers You Have Known? Are the old Roseanne writers hiding in my old room and giving you IDEAS?' I'll tell her she can go back to having latte and croissants when she learns how to pronounce both those words correctly.

Also, I noticed the British media were drawn like magpies to clusters of those strange 'representative' fortysomething Republican women who wear sequin sweatshirts and look like they're taking the day off from trying to win a pink Caddy the Mary Kay way. If my sister could bake cookies (or anything, for that matter) she'd be there in 10 years.

sounds more like a 'midlife crisis"! next thing ya know the USA will be driving a sports car and start dating countries less than half its age.

(and I agree with Suzy on the "you shouldn't be allowed to eat food you can't pronounce" thing. Then again, my parents have been calling me a snob for years, ever since I told them that Jeffrey Archer wasn't a very good writer)

it also makes for awful music.

Oh, of course - snobbery and wannabes are everywhere where there is a class structure - so everywhere then. THe difference is that Britain has a history of, and still has, a great deal of working class pride - Labour left this behind on their long trek to the right. I guess in Marxist terms the British working class just have a greater degree of class consciousness. Anyway, Britain retains it's deep distrust of the rich (at least amongst the poor), and an almost automatic association of wealth with immorality - whereas the US likes to kid itself about class mobility.

oh yeah, it was

(the Bl00d Gr0up)

-- don weiner (migg...), November 7th, 2004 5:02 AM. (later)

mentioning don and rog in the same sentence is absurd, don actually does occasionally catch grief for simply disagreeing civilly (he catches grief for slyly antagonising too)(farting in the echo chamber), but i can't recall him ever whining or devoting 95% of his posts on political threads crying about how everyone gives him hell even though he's completely right and everyone else is completely wrong. i don't recall don calling bullshit on anyone building a spaceship.

agreed. hence, goofus and gallant.

don, you didn't read my second clarifying post, did you? while you do fart in the echo chamber, you do it in the nicest possible way. I really enjoy your contributions to political threads.

I caught your clarifying post, but it's never a moment of pride to see myself referenced to trolldom (though being referred to as gallant is something no one's ever thrown my way.) I didn't take offense to your comment, just thought it deserved a comment of my own.

God, just the last few days already have made me ill with all the "liberal elitists just need to get more in touch, they just don't understand regular Americans," blah blah blah, as if there's some great mystical, mythical core to "Red State America" that is incomprehensible to the rest of us. Bullshit. Bullshit bullshit bullshit. I've lived in the Bible Belt, and as a reporter interested in cultural issues I bet I spent more actual face to face time than anyone at Fox News ever has sitting in offices, churches and homes listening to Christian Coalition members, creationists, anti-abortion zealots, anti-environmentalist, pro-privatization, anti-public-school, no-taxes-ever true-blue America-lovin' conservatives. And I didn't treat them badly. Hell, I sought them out. I reported what they had to say. I tried to put it in context, and tried to provide other viewpoints, but I wasn't out to denigrate them, just listen to them. They're worth listening to, some of them. Some are smart, some are funny, a good many are personable. But none of that takes away my right to call them wrong, or misguided, or misinformed, or driven by some half-baked, mean-spirited, simple-minded misconception of ancient Middle Eastern mythology.

I do understand them. And I think they are, most of them, full of shit.

For instance, the GOP resisted desegregation 40 years ago but now has a position like the Democrats of that time. Even what we call 'right wing' these days is much less right wing than its equivalent 40 years ago; a matter of partial funding for stem cell research rather than full funding, or a commitment to a Palestinian state by these means rather than those means. Etc.

Now, what interests me about this 'slow leftward creep' idea is that both the left and the right see things this way. The right thinks of itself as embattled because of what they see as a left-leaning intelligentsia (the press and the urban liberals) who actually do have their hands on the reins of history, and will always be there with their progressive ideas. The left has its liberal idea of 'progress', rooted in the Enlightenment and related to the Marxist idea of the scientific inevitability of the worldwide success of socialism.

So I want to ask, do you think that, even if Republicans win from here to 2050, they'll be winning on platforms that would look, to our eyes, more Democratic than the current Democrats? Is there an inevitable leftward swing to history?

other point: it may be that gloating about the future judgement of history is a dangerous safety valve that leaks leftist action in the present (ie. we're going to be shown to have ben "correct" eventually anyway so let's just suffer through, grin and bear it, etc.). Kind of convenient for the right, innit?

So what happens when you focus all that mainstream energy on cultural issues, and put them on the agenda like that? Isn't it a classic case of short-term thinking? Sure, the conservatives win in the short term, but liberals win in the long term, because the platform has been built and half the campaigning has already been done for them. And the other side has been argued by people who self-identify as 'evil'!

I think you're right about the long term future of gay rights - Rove is making some short term capital on the issue, even though he probably understands that by doing so he actually accelerates the acceptance of gay marriage, which will happen, I believe.

Anyway it should be obvious to all that things that are to the left NOW will move to the centre over time, the difference between Che in jail and Che on your wall. Then with your 20/20 hindsight you can feel warmly subversive and ahead of your time.

Karma is a form of checks and balances, don't you think? What's gone around will surely come around again.