Into the Sewer: the American right wing, 2011

Documenting the overlapping zones of batshit and mainstream conservatism, resentment, revisionism and radical randianism, confederacy, straussianism and/or bonapartism in 2k11

What doesn't go here? Currently elected republicans talking or doing shit (we have a politics thread), People running in the GOP primary (they'll have a thread soon I expect). Or people who write for the Corner (there's a thread for that too). Or David Brooks. He has a thread.

Anything else goes! The fringier the better! Anything fringey with a huge following is best. Primary sources preferred! So go easy on the TPM linx, ok?

here's my first example:

steve sailer on charles murray on "the state of white america"

http://isteve.blogspot.com/2011/04/charles-murray-state-of-white-america.html

i tried figuring out the c-span website but it didn't cooperate w/ me

already posted this in the other thread, but just for completeness' sake:

http://debatejim.com/

never forget, "fecal matter sodomy will soon be law"

one of those isteve commenters has named himself after this dude who'd i'd never heard of:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Tillman

i love shit like this (attn max) (ok i got this from tpm)

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/apr/03/bogus-coins-bullion-seized-in-cda-become-focus-of/

Federal prosecutors go to court in North Carolina on Monday in an attempt to obtain government ownership of an estimated $7 million in “Liberty Dollars” and silver bullion seized as contraband at a private mint in Coeur d’Alene.

The forfeiture action comes 17 days after a jury in U.S. District Court in Statesville, N.C., convicted Bernard von NotHaus of conspiring against the U.S. government and manufacturing and selling counterfeit coins.

The case against the 67-year-old is believed to be the first time the Justice Department has brought a successful criminal prosecution against someone minting, selling and circulating coins in direct competition with the U.S. Mint and Federal Reserve.

The U.S. attorney who brought the case claims von NotHaus’ activities amounted to a form of domestic terrorism.

The jury conviction of von NotHaus comes six years after the start of a joint investigation by the FBI and U.S. Secret Service into his nationwide Liberty Dollar operation.

During that time, von NotHaus went from promoting private coinage to promoting marijuana as a religious drug. He started the “Free Marijuana Church” in Honolulu, giving away joints and calling himself a “high priest” who had used pot for 40 years.

In 1998, while living in Hawaii, von NotHaus founded NORFED (the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code) and began printing his own currency and minting coins.

His Liberty coins, manufactured at the mint in Coeur d’Alene, were marked with a “$,” the word “dollar,” USA and “Trust in God” instead of “In God We Trust,” which is found on U.S. coinage.

The private coin and currency operation would be to the Federal Reserve what FedEx became to the U.S. Postal Service, von NotHaus boasted a decade ago.

Quickly, von NotHaus and NORFED became icons in anti-tax and radical sovereign citizen movements throughout the United States.

oh look

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvHhqr8OeFc

to the defense!

seth lipsky in wsj

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704425804576220383673608952.html

some dude at 'liberty4free.com'

http://www.liberty4free.com/Liberty%20Dollar%20Trial.htm

here he is on kudlow in 07

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJhMwxL_KR8

some hilarious linguistic gymnastics since he can't call them 'coins'

ha i love these liberty dollar bozos

my personal right-wing obsession, the sovereign citizen movement, is currently getting headlines in alaska:

A member of the Alaska Peacemakers Militia is facing misdemeanor charges alleging he delivered fake court documents to court officials.

Kenneth R. Thesing was issued a summons Friday on two counts of simulating legal process, or sending fake court documents with the intent of causing the recipient to take an action, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

The papers were delivered in December and January while the district court in Fairbanks was preparing to try militia founder Francis Schaeffer Cox on a misdemeanor weapons charge.

Many of the documents bear Cox's signature and address his belief that he is a sovereign citizen not subject to state courts. They include a restraining order demanding that law enforcement officers stay 1,000 feet from Cox, the newspaper said.

No attorney was listed for Thesing in Alaska court records and searches of online databases found no telephone listing for him.

Each count of simulating legal process is a class A misdemeanor, punishable by a maximum of one year in jail.

just searching "sovereign citizen" on google news is guaranteed a solid 20 minutes of entertainment

apparently they have been occupying/squatting abandoned strip malls/development houses in and around atlanta

"Sovereign citizen" enjoys a lot of overlap with the violent neo-Nazi survivalist right. Some of them shoot people and there's a cadre of feds who go around to various local police forces briefing them on how to recognize "sovereign citizens" in routine traffic stops -- because they're dangerous.

Tip-offs -- fake plates, fake licensing, etc.

http://www2.fbi.gov/page2/april10/sovereigncitizens_041310.html

They're bigot white crooks with the added fillip of justifying it with an extremist ideology based on a make believe set of home-made laws.

ahh but theyre so much more fascinating than your run-of-the-mill neo-nazi survivalists! i think i have talked about this elsewhere but this kind of bureaucratic mysticism (or mystical bureaucracy?) that they subscribe to is so amazing. the idea that you can free yourself from tyranny by filling out the right forms in the right order (and the religious overtones this involves) is sort of... poignant to me! its like a pynchon novel.

True. Years ago I knew someone like this. They were best avoided.

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2011/04/11/is-rush-limbaugh-hitting-the-oxycontin-again/

LOVING this j crew scandal

let's call them what they are: sodomites and tribadists!

“We have to reach out to those trapped in lifestyle that ultimately leads to death,” she said, ignoring the fact that all lifestyles ultimately lead to death.

so many lols

“When you live a lie, you tell a lie. Truth is not a philosophy. Truth is a person, and his name is Jesus Christ. Tell the truth in love, but it isn’t love until you tell the truth"

ryan sorba!!

"It divides you from truth and what’s the meaning of life. If you don’t have truth, you have nothing but fake."

"Guess what? Guess what? All right, guess what? Civil rights are grounded in natural rights," said Sorba. "Natural rights are grounded in human nature. Human nature is a rational substance in relationship. The intelligible end of the reproductive act is reproduction. Do you understand that? Civil rights, when they conflict with natural rights, are contrary -- hey, you sit down. The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. The lesbians at Smith College protest than you do. All right? Bring it."

― goole, Friday, February 19, 2010 5:20 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

he's like a right wing dat nigga delmar

― goole, Friday, February 19, 2010 5:20 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark

the idea that you can free yourself from tyranny by filling out the right forms in the right order (and the religious overtones this involves) is sort of... poignant to me!

Very true, ALSO that there's a secret savings account that represents you, which if you could tap into, could provide for you for many years. $630,000 has to be a lot more than most of the adherents of this worldview have ever seen in one place or even imagined having. The kind of freedom from worry that amount must represent is kind of...sad.

i think that the general idea of the so-called sovereign citizens is to gum up the innards of the courts and government bureaucracies with their innane filings. in some cases they do it for explicitly criminal purposes (e.g., filing fake liens and counterfeiting). i wasn't aware that there was anything metaphysical to those acts, though i could be mistaken.

also, and as i've said eons ago on ILX, their arguments re the constitutionality of federal/state taxes get a few pages in yer typical federal tax law casebook (if that) -- they are the tax law equivalent of the funny pages, i suppose.

For the Christian male, there's certainly nothing gay about wanting to get down on your knees and submit to Jesus. To live your live for him and only him, to be his daily servant. To let him come inside you, to let him touch you, like a stranger in the night.

Seriously though, if you ever listen to evangelist radio in south Ga/north Fla, it's some of the most homoerotic stuff you'll ever hear.

Seriously though, if you ever listen to evangelist radio in south Ga/north Fla, it's some of the most homoerotic stuff you'll ever hear.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81ibVbxkjnA

You're also talking about the secessionists/nullification nuts now, too, a surprising number of which have crept into power in local governments. The last two years, because of the Obama presidency, have been energizing to them.

i think that the general idea of the so-called sovereign citizens is to gum up the innards of the courts and government bureaucracies with their innane filings. in some cases they do it for explicitly criminal purposes (e.g., filing fake liens and counterfeiting). i wasn't aware that there was anything metaphysical to those acts, though i could be mistaken.

― It's Britney, bitch! (Eisbaer), Tuesday, April 12, 2011 8:32 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i imagine that a fairly large portion of sov. citizen types arent "true believers" but my understanding is that plenty of them really truly buy into it on a level beyond the purely mechanical

:david-wynn: miller and his bros spring to mind

And certainly anti-gov't sentiment is good for big business.

For the Christian male, there's certainly nothing gay about wanting to get down on your knees and submit to Jesus. To live your live for him and only him, to be his daily servant. To let him come inside you, to let him touch you, like a stranger in the night.

you know this sort of broad-stroke point-and-jeer bullshit really upsets me, but i'm having trouble pinpointing exactly what bothers me here: (a) that you're just slandering all christians when you're really only referring to a tiny fractional subset thereof, (b) tiresome hypocrisy-spotting, or maybe it's (c) actually trying to be funny with this "lol unintentional homo" shit because honestly ads for lite beer are funnier than this

the Christian Right kinda sets themselves up for this with their hardcore homophobic rhetoric and beliefs. i don't think that a little jeering is outta place or smug.

on ilx?

I think there's a general tone-deafness that results from people talking about their Christian experience in toootally un-considered ways that are 100% motivated by emotion. Unfortunately for them, it makes them sound kinda dumb sometimes. If they were thinking about anything except glorifying and magnifying the EMOTIONAL impact, they would have choosen other words or other topics entirely.

So I kinda think some ridicule is deserved for that alone, even leaving homophobia out of it.

I should say: ...motivated by emotion and/or intending to make an emotional appeal to the listener and ONLY an emotional appeal.

That "fake Jews" thing today kinda gave me the screaming mimis because it sounds exactly like evangelicals talking about anyone who isn't evangelical, including other Christians. So I'm feeling critical of the evgcl requirement of a big, emotional conversion experience and continuing expectations that your faith-walk would lead you into some kind of spiritual euphoria if you were doing it right.

first of all, the knowing reference to "the christian male" is enough to annoy me here; i fully realize i'm setting myself up here as an obvious apologist but there are christians for whom theology isn't understood in these terms! xp

Well he did say it was radio evangelism -- this is kind of a self-selecting group.

and second, this is a personal issue but i'm just really really REALLY exhausted by this trope that any sort of intimacy whatsoever between men (or male deities!) must be "homoerotic" and can be treated as a source of humor or as an insight into the subjects' sexuality.

can I just go back to this for a sec:

NORFED (the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and Internal Revenue Code)

elmo's amorphously otm, imo

It has this "these people are homophobes, so it's okay to make fun of them for sounding like the goddamned queers" feeling.

Which is not to say that's the intention, but yeah, it feels really icky.

ahh but theyre so much more fascinating than your run-of-the-mill neo-nazi survivalists! i think i have talked about this elsewhere but this kind of bureaucratic mysticism (or mystical bureaucracy?) that they subscribe to is so amazing. the idea that you can free yourself from tyranny by filling out the right forms in the right order (and the religious overtones this involves) is sort of... poignant to me! its like a pynchon novel.
― ban drake (the rapper) (max),

oh totally... the sovereign citizen thing came out of christian identity all that racist craziness but its goes far beyond its humble origins and has become something alex jones types are picking up on and I see all these pdfs and booklets on conspiracy sites about how this stuff and like, getting out of criminal charges through changing your name to something really hard to spell right and then challenging all legal documents with the "wrong name on it" - like names adding ; and { into various places in their names. I don't know why those jokers think that will work in the long term. A lot of the advice and stuff seems like bush league tricks to gum up the works so that they just leave you alone rather than deal with the hassle.

Honestly I would rather just pay my taxes instead of making my legal name g00gle"pr00fed`. But some people really get off on "screwin' the man," endless bureaucratic hoops be damned!

about how *(to do) this stuff

yeah look obviously there's a dissonance between the idea of spiritual communion and the vaguely erotic metaphors used to describe it and yes it can be funny!

but ilx poster adam bruneau singled out "the christian male" so he must think there is something particularly funny about gayness

xp

re: gumming up the works, here's how you do it old school:

http://www.paywithpennies.com/

Greetings. This site is about my culture jamming involving large payments in pennies to organizations that are difficult to deal with. Banks, government agencies, and the occasional retailer have all fallen prey to "penny payments." In today's society, it is all too common to hassle the consumer or the taxpayer. More and more we are asked to "hold," "wait in line," "fill out complex or time consuming forms," or give up confidential information.

...of course this guy had all his pennies neatly boxed up and apparently paid to ship them to the vehicle tag department, which sorta lessens the impact. You're supposed to empty a sockfull onto the counter for full effect.

http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/item/bruce_tweets3.jpg

^^ Via http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104130019 . They actually get funnier. (By which I mean stupider.)

dennis miller is such a piece of shit

Famous polar bear Knut was found dead this AM. Left a suicidenote saying he couldn't bear the shame now that GlobalWarming has fallen apart. about 3 hours ago via web Retweeted by 100+ people

DennisDMZ
Dennis Miller

sometimes I wonder why him and Victoria Jackson don't have some kind of conservative comedy-duo routine

it's really tempting to think that Miller's right-wing persona is entirely a charade.

ditto Victoria Jackson's dumb blonde schtick

Miller isn't even as funny as Ann Coulter at this point.

it really bums me out that Norm MacDonald is bros with nuDennis and BillO.

this doesnt really count as "fringe right wing" so much as "completely insane" but i just received an email with the subject "An Open Letter to that Despicable Cunt Tina Fey - FROM GOD"

it features a lot of quotes from rappers, and a long passage directed at kanye west

can you post it somewhere on ilx? it sounds hilarious.

yeah that sounds like a good time

its really long--heres the section about kanye

Kanye West: GOD wants to KNOW if you really think that Michael Jackson is absolved of his egregious sins of child sexual abuse because he was a great musical artist?

Do you really believe that producing great art somehow allows you to circumvent GOD’S LAWS?

Are you that fucking foolish Kanye, you arrogant punk cunt?

And how dare you call GOD’S penultimate Prophet/KING, my beloved GW, a racist.

How fucking dare you Kanye West, you arrogant punk cunt.

Go turn on all the lights in your mansion and fuck yourself in the ass with a hot curling iron, Kanye.

How fucking dare you insult a Prophet/KING of GOD with lies.

GW IS NO MORE A RACIST THAN YOU ARE A GOOD CHRISTIAN KANYE WEST.

Go turn on all the lights in your mansion and fuck yourself in the ass with a hot curling iron, Kanye.

Until you apologize to GW on national TV – the same way you egregiously insulted him, you are not right with The AOFD – you hear, Kanye?

Until you apologize to GW on national TV you are not right with The AOFD and if you are not right with The AOFD you are not right with GOD.

KNOW IT!

Don’t make me take you to that ghetto university, Kanye. I am a proud graduate of THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CENTRAL and I won’t hesitate to fly back to LA, rent a Regal, pick yo black ass up and take you back to the USC campus and buy you frozen yogurt; cuz I know a pretty girl like you who delights in wearing those frilly pink panties loves frozen yogurt, don’t you Kanyeta West?

What’s your favorite color of frozen yogurt, Kanyeta?

Either apologize on national TV to GW or you gonna GET SERVED – FROZEN YOGURT!

Best believe PUNK cunt.

And you best thell your girl Little Rhinoceros not to be runnin her bitch mouth at no more Real G’s – you hear?

You best thell her princesses get the princess treatment: bitches get the bitch treatment; but then, you KNOW that, don’t you Kanyeta?

Best believe.

the guys website is lastwordofgod dot com

yay xp

Oops! Google Chrome could not find lastwordofgod.com :(

sorry-- lastprophetofgod dot com

was born in salt lake city, utah on the morning of january 30, 1975. my parents moved back to minnesota when i was six months old and i was raised in new brighton, minnesota. i was a devout altar boy in the catholic church for eight years – from 5th grade through 12th grade. i went to saint paul academy high school in saint paul, playing varsity soccer and basketball while there. i attended college at trinity university in the great state of texas, graduating in 1997 cum laude with a ba in english. after graduation i backpacked around australia, new zealand, figi, and southeast asia. upon return, i lived in austin, texas and briefly in miami, florida before moving to los angeles, california to start graduate school at the university of southern california in august 2000. i received my mfa in screen and tv writing from usc in august 2003. for the last 3 plus years i have worked in financial services at the capital group in downtown los angeles before resigning from that job on january 21, 2011 to devote my life to CHRIST. i have toiled at over 50 different jobs, including bartending and waiting tables at a dozen different establishments in 4 states – serving well over 50,000 people during the 7 years i did it off and on. i lived in hollywood, california for the past 10 years and was a quotidian reader of the los angeles times during my tenure in the CITY OF ANGELS. i am an ordinary looking man; 6.1 and 190 pounds with short brown hair and brown eyes. i always loved GOD, but in my mid-twenties I abandoned THE LORD for a selfish life of hedonism. i am an alcoholic, a marijuana addict, and a sex addict (i picked-up and fornicated with almost 100 women of off craigslist in the last 6 years; i tell you this not to brag or boast but to illustrate the depth of my depravity: FOR I AM ASHAMED). the LORD blessed me with great intelligence, but like many intelligent people, i came to think i was smarter than GOD and fell into what i call a life of casual nihilism – what the band pink floyd called being comfortably numb. before i first spoke the WORD OF GOD in january 2004, i accepted CHRIST as my savior – but i did not walk with Him. i continued to abuse alcohol and marijuana and lie, cheat, steal, blaspheme, and have sex outside of marriage. finally, on the morning of january 3, 2011, i came home just in the nick of time and was Born Again in JESUS CHRIST. on the afternoon of january 3, 2011 – the 3rd day of the 11th year – i saw with my own eyes CHRIST rise above the mountains over THE CITY OF ANGELS. on the 11th day of the 11th year, GOD commanded me, his last prophet, to send out THE GOOD NEWS and commence HIS FINAL MISSION. i am eternally grateful to JESUS CHRIST for dying for my sins and to GOD for granting me this mission. thank you LORD! for you are the REDEEMER of the world and i only seek to speak for you; to walk with you; and to serve you. you are my one and only Master, LORD! all glory and praise to our LORD AND SAVIOUR AND MASTER JESUS CHRIST NOW AND FOREVER! AMEN! FIGHT ON!

yours forever in CHRIST

cjt

KNOW IT!

Elmo, that whole thing i wrote is a joke towards homophobic Christian evangelists who pretend to espouse the infinite equal love of Jesus while seeing homosexuals as some other species or race of human that is utterly unlike them. I wrote nothing that I haven't literally heard them say, and for them to announce that one form of love is more valid than another is the ultimate in hypocrisy. They are pretending to embrace a God of unconditional love and misquote his teachings to spread hate, and yet declare there very love for this God by obliviously using what can easily be perceived as sexual (and half the time, homosexual) entendres.

I have total respect for the LGBT communities and hope that anyone that sees my previous comments finds humor in a homophobic Christian evangelist mistaking that one form of love can invalidate another form of love. I tried to do this through satire, and if it is too crude then i apologize if you are offended. This is an internet message board. While i am myself not a member of the LGBT community, i think at least most of my LGBT friends would appreciate the irony/satire of such statements.

think at least most of my LGBT friends would appreciate the

lol lol did u really do this

his quotes page is something special

lastprophetofgod dot com /?page_id=23

Openly gay celebrity blogger Perez Hilton writes children's book, Washington Times calls him a pedophil:

In a statement about the book posted on his website, Hilton, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira, says:

I am absolutely elated about this book, which comes from a very dear and genuine place within me. While I can identify in many ways with THE BOY WITH PINK HAIR, he represents so much more. This story is about every kid that's ever had a dream, felt excluded, wanted to belong, and hoped that one day they could do what they loved and make a difference. Today, with this book, that's exactly what I feel I have the opportunity to do. I hope everyone can share in the spirit of a boy that only wants to bring some happiness to the world around him.
But the Times chose to represent Hilton and news of the book deal by insinuating that he is, in essence, a pedophile.

From the Times:

Mr. Hilton's book, according to the publisher's press release, is "the story of a child born with a shock of fabulous hair that sets him apart from his peers. While some find this difference hard to accept or understand, 'The Boy With Pink Hair' uses the opportunity to find what makes him special and share it with the world."

It would seem that Mr. Hilton, whose legal name is Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr., does indeed have some experience with children.

"He does have a known interest in children," says Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for Family Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, "having published a photo of teen star Miley Cyrus that could have been considered child pornography."

In June 2010, the blogger took to Twitter to disseminate a picture of pop star and teen actress Miley Cyrus getting out of a car, legs spread open, and crotch apparently visible for all to see.

At the time, Miss Cyrus was 17 years old.

^^PEDOPHILE. Worst typo/username combo ever.

ugh really.

pedantry: the correct term would be ephebophile, which is an attraction to late-adolescents. pedophilia is an attraction to prepubescent kids; hebephilia is pubescent kids. shades of grey.

but that aside: pretty sure perez ain't at all interested in vajayja, teen or no.

conor "friedersdork" reads andrew breitbart:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/04/the-flaws-of-breitbartism/237376/

" America is in a media war. It is an extension of the Cold War that never ended but simply shifted to an electronic front. The war between freedom and statism ended geographically when the Berlin Wall fell. But the existential battle never ceased. When the Soviet Union disintegrated, the battle simply took a different form. Instead of missiles the new weapon was language and education, and the international left had successfully constructed a global infrastructure to get its message out.

Schools. Newspapers. Network news. Art. Music. Film. Television. For decades the left understood the importance of education, art, and messaging. Oprah Winfrey gets it. David Geffen gets it. President Barack Obama gets it. Bono gets it. Even Corey Feldman gets it. But the right doesn't. For decades the right felt the Pentagon and the political class and simple common sense could win the day. They were wrong. "

kind of an extreme rejection of marxism, if you read it one way. control the means of presentation!!

Corey Feldman, that communist bastard!

If only there were a voice for the American right in this country.

haha for real. If 'soak the rich' and 'death panels' and 'job killing health care bill' aren't the right controlling the messaging, I don't know what is.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110414/REVIEWS/110419990

this is kinda funny, just for the difference between ebert's rating and the user rating

Atlas Shrugged is almost the only 4 star movie on that list. I suspect young Republican guerillas have been ganging up on the voting (controlling the messaging again!)

"He does have a known interest in children," says Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow for Family Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, "having published a photo of teen star Miley Cyrus that could have been considered child pornography."

This is hilarious and depressing all at once.

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_2_vandalism.html

Even this two-facedness pales beside the hypocrisy of the graffiti vandals themselves, who wage war on property rights until presented with the opportunity to sell their work or license it to a corporation. At that point, they grab all the profits they can stuff into their bank accounts. Lost in this antibourgeois posturing is the likely result of the museum’s graffiti glorification: a renewed commitment to graffiti by Los Angeles’s ghetto youth, who will learn that the city’s power class views graffiti not as a crime but as art worthy of curation. The victims will be the law-abiding residents of the city’s most graffiti-afflicted neighborhoods and, for those who care, the vandals themselves.

I pretty much agree w/ that article

all 6,600 hundred words of it?

I am absolutely elated about this book, which comes from a very dear and genuine place within me. While I can identify in many ways with THE BOY WITH PINK HAIR, he represents so much more. This story is about every kid that's ever had a dream, felt excluded, wanted to belong, and hoped that one day they could do what they loved and make a difference.

oh fuck off you pink-haired yawner.

no, just the general sentiment

One can only wish good luck to those barrio parents who want to keep their children out of the tagging and gang lifestyle once word gets out that a fancy downtown museum is honoring graffiti with a major exhibit. Children who deduce from Art in the Streets that graffiti is a route to fame and contracts with Nike will have about as realistic an understanding of their career odds as boys who think they don’t have to study because jobs await them in the NBA.

really now

I'd rather have graffiti than the corporate advertising that dominates our visual landscape. I think of both in oppositional terms.

like my bus is already literally covered in advertisements, some kids want to put some of their own shit up there for free? okay with me.

yesterday night someone was telling me about one of their friends who regularly traveled across the country just to sneak into a NYC subway yard, tag a train and put the pictures on the internet.

then the MTA spends thousands of dollars cleaning it instead of, ya know, running trains.

yeah well maybe they shouldn't bother to clean it up

But then it might soak through the walls of the train and infect potential white train riders with, you know, ghetto or something.

Trainy Mo Paintier

this is strictly an aesthetics issue. if you wanna argue that a bus covered in graffiti is somehow ulgier than a bus draped front to back with a Sprite ad campaign, I'm just not going to agree with you.

look i get that graffiti is some kind of net negative economically, or something. and that it might have some kind of signaling effect for a piece of urban space. and yeah, property owners aren't exactly in approval of it.

but, really, heather mac donald needs to calm the fuck down and get a damn life. this idea that it's the root of all our moral evils -- or 'aristocratic' approval of it -- is just stupid. warmed over nixon/giuliana crap that needs to go away.

http://media.metronews.topscms.com/images/2f/04/1a6a25064b039d03bb76fc701872.jpeg

the fact that NYC has been able to clean up its trains is a big reason why people like taking them again. if we want people to switch transit modes we're def not gonna do it w/ shakey's cool graffitied buses and trains.

but I guess it's worth it for that authentic urban grime!

I think not not being in danger of getting mugged or stabbed on the subway or on the street on your way to or from the subway might have had something to do with increasing ridership, too. Unless you have a more specific source, it's not possible to arrive at your point from that graph alone...?

the fact that NYC has been able to clean up its trains is a big reason why people like taking them again

I am suspicious of this conclusion

global warming? who cares! I refuse to sit in that moving sprite ad. god forbid public transit tries to find ways to partially pay for itself.

tax the shit out of gas guzzling commuters and use that money to pay for mass transit.

problem solved.

today I learned that graffiti causes global warming

I think not not being in danger of getting mugged or stabbed on the subway or on the street on your way to or from the subway might have had something to do with increasing ridership, too. Unless you have a more specific source, it's not possible to arrive at your point from that graph alone...?

Cleaning up the subways was part of the crime reduction strategy, right?

all that sprite money, lining the pockets of our public transit overlords :( :(

lol i don't really have a problem with advertising either

they could have a win-win by making the subway station walls and cars out of whiteboards and leaving dry erase pens all over the city

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GtfmuN_f0_k/SvD8D9bQVeI/AAAAAAAAEHY/HWrQvudkKZ0/s400/letters+on+train.jpg
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
http://www.munidiaries.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/judgment-day-ad-by-tara.jpg

they could have a win-win by making the subway station walls and cars out of whiteboards and leaving dry erase pens all over the city

lol

this would be kinda awesome actually

3 days from now? huh i won't bother doing the dishes then

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/files/2011/01/Jesus-Graffiti.jpg

that one looks a lot better than the May 21 one, come on now!

post your favorite ad here

3 days from now? huh i won't bother doing the dishes then

― goole, Monday, April 18, 2011 3:58 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

dogg what month are you living in

feel like its possible to take a nuanced position about graffiti, public transportation, economics, property rights, etc.

april and may are the same month to me. it's kind of a problem.

like each other month has something distinguishing about it but for some reason those two are just the same thing.

i still probably won't do dishes, for a month, anyway

thats not going to endear you to jesus

keep your lamps trimmed and burning, and holy fuck, is that an old pasta salad, in your sink?

lol

If you're a company buying ad space in a risky public forum then you should be the one to pay for it to be cleaned up, not the taxpayers. Otherwise make the city pay for my broken car window too.

Jesus is coming, look busy doing the dishes.

I think not not being in danger of getting mugged or stabbed on the subway or on the street on your way to or from the subway might have had something to do with increasing ridership, too. Unless you have a more specific source, it's not possible to arrive at your point from that graph alone...?

I'm not aware of a study that *proves* this and I think it would be hard to measure because there are like 8 different variables. gonna ask a friend who might know.

but I mean, it seems commonsense to me: if appearance makes no difference in our choice of transit, why would we spend any money on it at all? why should sf spend so much on a nice transbay terminal? just like a nice car is going to make driving more appealing - at least to some people, a nice looking train is gonna make a train ride more appealing (to some people). and I would say that most people disagree with your 'if it pisses off cops it must be beautiful' aesthetic shakes.

Shakey, at least the ads are purportedly bringing in revenue to MUNI. My problem with this divide and my sympathy with iatee's bent is that 'oppositional street art' is mostly feckless when it's not intentionally intimidating and almost all the graffitti I see on MUNI is lame. I like and admire good graffitti art (my neighborhood is full of owner sanctioned pieces, many of them quite good) and I think it deserves to be curated in museums and sold in galeries as much as any other school of art but the whole romance of anti-bourgeois art pose is kind of callow to me.

at least to some people, a nice looking train is gonna make a train ride more appealing (to some people). and I would say that most people disagree with your 'if it pisses off cops it must be beautiful' aesthetic shakes.

this is not my aesthetic criteria at all btw

like that Judgment Day ad I posted is just shitty in terms of composition, imagery, fonts everything. the day-glo "SUPER" tag is a superior work in every way. And I like this suggestion that if advertisers are going to own our public space, than they should be obligated to pay for its maintenance/cleanup as well, rather than making municipal transit agencies bear the cost.

What worries me is how many ppl I know who seem progressive and alternative yet who eschew the public transport system often because they say it's smelly and teeming with undesirables. Okay, dude, you can ride your bike to work or take a cab home, but that's just not going to be the reality for most ppl and making MUNI uglier isn't going to change the way the police interact with the neighborhood. It's unlikley to change MUNI's interaction w/a neighborhhod much. What we can be sure of is that it will cost lots of money to clean, money that could be better put of use elsewhere.

I'm just not that much of a fan of untargeted anarchic rebellion. What does it ever get done? Burn a police station in Cairo? Okay, I get it. Even put up graffiti when the regime doesn't even bother to count your vote? Sure, okay. But putting graffiti on transit buses 'cause you're a disaffected teenager, really?

And what's with this heavy metal music?

I am like 10,000x more concerned with what the INSIDE of RTA buses/trains look like than I am the outside.

advertisers pay as much as they think the spot is worth, you act like soda companies are taking advantage of our poor transit agencies. so blame them, blame taxpayers for not sufficiently funding transit, but corporate capitalism is not really to blame here.

advertisers pay as much as they think the spot is worth. corporate lobbyists didn't sneak soda ads onto buses. sure, blame taxpayers for not sufficiently funding transit - though, you know there are ads in lots of countries that do fund transit and have gas taxes too. cause it's a way for the government / a government agency to make money.

haha I quoted my first draft of that instead of quoting shakey

I prefer quoting myself anyway

Adam B otm

But putting graffiti on transit buses 'cause you're a disaffected teenager, really?

tbf disaffected teenagers do a lot of stupid shit, in general

And what's with this heavy metal music?

Actually, there are mornings on the bus when the cacophony engendered by ppl's bad headphones bleeding techno and metal and salsa and whatnot is noise pollution as bad as a boom box.

blame taxpayers for not sufficiently funding transit,

I can and will

btw rock n roll ain't noise pollution

I think riding the subway/bus should be like riding my dad's boat; before you can get on, you have to spend 90 minutes cleaning it up and preparing it for the trip.

me too! but that doesn't mean we should let public transit fall to shit. xp

tbf disaffected teenagers do a lot of stupid shit, in general

I certainly did but I'm not going to defend it by giving it some veneer of legitimate insurgency.

also let's all take a moment and acknowledge Shakey's bravery in coming out as a Nickelback fan

So this is today's cluster thread, eh?

this isn't really a cluster

I don't think anyone's actually mad enough for this to be a cluster thread

well maybe Shakey hates me now but he opened the door for that bad joke

also let's all take a moment and acknowledge Shakey's bravery in coming out as a Nickelback fan
uh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abNqNYCHUHw

(and I don't even like AC/DC - my wife is the huge fan)

btw rock n roll ain't noise pollution

So you think that in a public area ppl have a right to loudly impose their music on other ppl?

lol yes thank you, I know that song exists

doesn't change that you totally adore and worship Nickelback, especially when it is blaring out of the headphones of the graffiti-covered businessman next to you on the train

parents who want to keep their children out of the tagging and gang lifestyle

ah yes "the tagging and gang lifestyle" will surely entrap our artistically inclined urban youths deprived of any & all arts curricula once they see spraypaint as their path to glory; don't they know the mural on the side of the community center was drawn by drug dealers and pimps?

i mean really

mw w/ you on this too btw

joeks bruv. about noise pollution. and heavy metal

xp

So you think that in a public area ppl have a right to loudly impose their music on other ppl?

tbh the only person who has this right is me, because my taste is impeccable

LOL Dan, next time we collide in the Cities remind me to show you the printed welcome leaflet my grandfather had made for his first Missisipi River houseboat which had the punchline AND KEEP YOUR DAMN FEET OFF THE VARNISH.

haha

Whenever I blare music loudly in public, I'm always hearing EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO HEAR; it's uncanny!

I am in favor of covering businessmen in graffiti btw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iL1xELROQQ&feature=fvwrel

L-R: iatee, M White

"the tagging and gang lifestyle" While I think this is an entirely legitimate point somewhere, this wording sounds like simple encoded racism to me. The tagging lifestyle? Really? I know artists who make a damn good living but I don't think they'd call their work 'the tagging lifestyle' and if ppl like the article writer spent as much time actually talking to kids and finding ways to give them opportunities to express them instead of just expressing his generational prejudice, he might be part of a realistic solution, instead of whining about art he's not fond of.

why would a punk be listening to that, the scene makes no sense.
benjit06 7 months ago

ps shakes how does your bizarre logic translate to graffiti in places that aren't currently infiltrated by corporate america? like trains and buses that don't have ads? or buildings in my neighborhood?

Man my brother-in-law has an entire shelf full of books about graffiti art that would argue with there not being a "lifestyle" associated with it, but let's keep the strawmanning up.

Shakey, I can't see that at work and I'm worried your zing will lose some of its flavor when it's gone cold later. What is it?

it's a noise pollution joke

like trains and buses that don't have ads?

we don't have these where I live, sorry.

or buildings in my neighborhood?

varies depending on the piece. if it's well-executed and well-integrated into it's surroundings I'm inclined to give it a pass. if it's been done in coordination with the owner, hey great (piece might still suck though, obviously). if it's just a bunch of black tags on a private piece of property, I'm against that. also fwiw private property /= public property

xp

http://i.imgur.com/4nmwL.jpg

this is the building next door to me - really sticking it to the sprite corporation, amirite

I think we should be careful to separate Basquiat-level graffiti from some guy who's written P E N U S on the train's wall with a Sharpie

b/c I am pretty cool with the latter, genuine lols every time, whilst the former just makes me think about how dangerous it must be & what if you got hit by a train & wouldn't that suck & so it's a downer every time

http://www.haighteration.com/2011/03/new-haight-street-mural-begs-not-to-get-tagged-gets-tagged-repeatedly.html

P E N U S

i lol'd

also in case it isn't obvious, I live in a neighborhood where there is a LOT of graffiti, murals, etc. nonetheless, when someone spraypainted "gentrifier" on our place a year or so ago, we got it painted over lol. It was just hastily scrawled black text (at least they spelled it correctly, I guess)

re: "the tagging and gang lifestyle"

this wording sounds like simple encoded racism to me

well yeah, i think that's the point isn't it? to elide the entire range of criminal activity, from tagging to violent assault, into one undifferentiated mass of GHETTO CRIME?

weird, i could have sworn this thread title said "2011" not "1982"

Harry Schell April 18, 2011 at 12:56 PM
Los Angeles and its gliteratti are sliding into oblivion. It will take a long time, if ever, to repair what these wealthy "patrons" have done in the name of "art". Taggers killed or injured at least three people last year, people who interrupted their artistic fugues, and those are just the reports the media savants deigned to publish. How many more people were injured is a guess, but these three for sure are not all it. And with glitterati to make enemies of, the Lost Angeles Times surely would filter "bad things" carefully.

Mikkydee April 18, 2011 at 8:53 AM
LA Zoo graduate students can paint, wow!

Kenny Komodo April 17, 2011 at 7:13 PM
Nice article in that it exposes the hypocrisy of the left yet again. However I'd like to add another definition to the term "I rack"; my use of the term would be as in "I rack my .12 gauge shotgun anytime I see some street thug making eyes at my property that he thinks it's his right to deface". The unforgiving "clack-clack" sound of a .12 gauge pump being "racked" is surely a deterrent to wanna be street artists. Or am I being racist in wanting to defend my property?

you have to spend 90 minutes cleaning it up and preparing it for the trip.

I keep chuckling to myself that I'd have to explain why I was 90 minutes late everywhere and smelled like bilge water.

^^^I can assure you this is a THING with all the boat-proud men of the Upper Midwest.

Awwww my parents don't do that with the boat, you pretty much show up and get on, but you'll have to go out front and help cast off lines in order to get out of the slip.

I don't doubt it. It's just that it would be a little anomalous in downtown SF.

xpost

this is a challopsy position to take but imo officially-sanctioned (or even officially tolerated) graffiti is pretty corny and stupid

like what if... by opposing graffiti... i am actually supporting it??? *strokes chin, lost in thought*

what do you mean by "officially sanctioned"?

cuz murals are awesome when done well

I was going to say, I've seen some really well done owner-sanctioned murals before.

eh im just kind of fucking around but i dont really think murals are what were talking about here anyway

http://images.cdn.fotopedia.com/flickr-2977072539-image.jpg

^^obviously owner-sanctioned grafitti mural in SF that is awesome

Old school graffiti

i mean this is dorm-level stuff but what does it mean, exactly, to prefer graffiti to ads? i mean from a real-world public-policy perspective. do we just let anyone paint whatever they want on the trains? offensive stuff? hateful stuff? what if they want to paint something in a spot where they could feasibly harm themselves, or harm others? do they just go ahead and do it, or do they need a permit?

its all well and good to say you prefer graffiti to ads--and i do!--but im not sure how you go about enforcing that preference. and this is sidestepping the question of what graffiti "means" when its sanctioned or approved or tolerated. because i think graffiti takes some (large) portion of its power and meaning from its illegality & its outsider-ness!

If somebody paints graffiti on the side of my apartment, I'm gonna kick his artistic ass.

what does it mean, exactly, to prefer graffiti to ads?

as I said in my initial post, it's an aesthetic preference, and one that I see in oppositional terms (ie, graffiti is the poor, disenfranchised inverse of corporate advertising, and if the two are going to be juxtaposed against each other, as they frequently are on mass transit, I know which one I prefer)

i mean from a real-world public-policy perspective

this is tricky but for me the crux of the issue is that I prefer that public spaces be reserved, if they are going to be reserved at all, for non-commercial art.

do we just let anyone paint whatever they want on the trains? offensive stuff? hateful stuff?

surely whatever standards are applied to commercial advertising can be applied to public art. fwiw there's tons of advertising I find offensive/hateful. Diesel's "Be Stupid" ad campaign, for example.

If somebody paints graffiti on the side of my apartment, I'm gonna kick his artistic ass.

In SF, you're also obligated to clean up tags on your bldg.

Still don't understand Shakey's animus towards advertising, so much of which is clever and awesome. Shakes, you're acting like Don Draper stole your girlfriend.

whole other thread

can't help the lols I'm getting from one of ilx's most ardent supporters of urbanism-as-necessary-future having a problem with graffiti. High concentrations of people equals graffiti. If you want people to live in big cities, then you should get v. comfortable with graffiti, which has been a constant of western civ for as long as there've been cities anywhere.

was there a lot of graffiti in Victorian England

from the Glasgow Herald of 1859:

"... The next thing to which I would refer is the abominable and disgusting appearance of almost every street. It is disgraceful to see the manner in which the otherwise elegant ranges of buildings are all smeared over with chalk, althuogh it took no more offensive form than merely ugly scrawls and filthy blotches; but when you are met at almost every turn with filthy words, it is surely time that something be done ..."

TS

http://www.explore-italian-culture.com/images/ancient-roman-graffiti.gif

VS

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_X8I9MsVzxso/Sb8T64WmFcI/AAAAAAAAAKY/Tb2XIqvTCNY/s400/penis_5.JPG

the English satisfied their need for graffiti by going to other countries and naming lakes, hills, etc after their queen

can't help the lols I'm getting from one of ilx's most ardent supporters of urbanism-as-necessary-future having a problem with murder. High concentrations of people equals murder. If you want people to live in big cities, then you should get v. comfortable with murder, which has been a constant of western civ for as long as there've been cities anywhere.

a form letter from a Police Catechism (a training manual for policemen) from 1903:

43. A gentleman complains to you of rude and indecent words being chalked on the outside of his premises, by children from a neighbouring street. Having before complained to the police of similar nuisance, with no effect, he now wishes strong measures to be taken. What steps would you take?

P.C ...............(No.) ...............(name), reports that at ............... a.m. ...............inst., a gentleman ...............(name) ...............(occupation) ...............(address), complained of great annoyance caused by children from ...............Street (adjoining) chalking rude and indecent words on the outside of his walls and shutters ; and also stated that having before complained of similar nuisance, he now wished strong measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence.
P.C. at once obliterated the words complained of, and informed complainant that he would duly report the matter so that it should be read out to each relief; and in the meantime he would keep strict observation to detect the offenders.

The Royal Navy was full of little white Basquiats.

lol max I wasn't even talking abt u but be mad if u want

glad we've reached the level of equating graffiti with murder

clusterfuck ahoy!

I will remember that graffiti and murder are comparable for you tho, sorry if there has been a graffiti in your past somewhere or something, did not mean 2 rankle lol xp.

nah i know who you were talking about! just saying its not ~~weird~~ to be pro-urbanism anti-graffiti anymore than its weird to be pro-urbanism anti-murder!

okay lol @ "a graffiti in your past"

i mean sub in any crime!

can't help the lols I'm getting from one of ilx's most ardent supporters of urbanism-as-necessary-future having a problem with theft. High concentrations of people equals theft. If you want people to live in big cities, then you should get v. comfortable with theft, which has been a constant of western civ for as long as there've been cities anywhere.

you don't have to 'get comfortable' with graffiti. i don't see the same moral problem with it that heather macdonald does. or really the economic problems that iatee sees. but i don't think cities or property owners ought to give up cleaning it up, either. it's just one of those things! outdoor urban space is always contested in this way. it's not nothing but it just seems basically innocuous to me really. how's that for nuance.

I'd sub in jaywalking but I've been to Seattle

can't help the lols I'm getting from one of ilx's most ardent supporters of urbanism-as-necessary-future having a problem with penis & Smash Mouth. High concentrations of people equals penis & Smash Mouth. If you want people to live in big cities, then you should get v. comfortable with penis & Smash Mouth, which has been a constant of western civ for as long as there've been cities anywhere.

is buggery a bigger problem in cities?

do we have any reliable penis & Smash Mouth stats from 2010

i dont really even agree with iatee, i just think being "pro-graffiti" is a weird stance. or not weird--i guess i dont really know what it "means" to be "pro-graffiti." like i dont know what people who like graffiti are proposing we do, about graffiti.

xxp i think i basically agree with goole! its... a thing that is bad in certain ways and good in certain ways. and i dont think making it... legal, or whatever shakey wants, will "solve" anything

(curious as to which city is the penis & Smash Mouth capital of the country)

(also goole otm)

it is a little weird tho to me! it's like being uncomfortable with needing to deal with other exigencies of high concentrations of people & income disparity among large populations, etc. murder/other crimes are different in that people have a real indwelling agreed-upon-by-all right to not get killed, to keep their own shit, etc. who the visual landscape belongs to, whether "private property"/public property whose appearance I don't get to dictate, etc., can even exist when (say) your large building blocks my view of the sun, etc., that's big difference - for me, graffiti in big cities is a pretty rational response of people who don't own the buildings expressing they do in fact have a claim to the place they live

High concentrations of people equals penis & Smash Mouth.

dying

i dont disagree with that jd! but im not sure what follows from there. we legalize it?

(also "to keep their own shit"--i mean this is partly about property rights too, isnt it?)

and i dont think making it... legal, or whatever shakey wants, will "solve" anything

I didn't say anything like this...? I just said I preferred it to advertising, which also adorns our beloved transit and is also often horrid/ugly.

altho tbf prosecuting it really does seem like a huge waste of time/resources.

well yeah i guess i dont really understand what fight were all having here

well yeah i guess i dont really understand what fight were all having here

iatee hates graffiti and I don't

iatee thinks transit ridership increases as graffiti decreases and I kinda don't believe that

i dont disagree with that jd! but im not sure what follows from there. we legalize it?

max you have known me for years, you know when it comes time for practical applications I am pretty much not the dude to call

oh i see, you guys just want to talk shit on the internet

^^^^^^

i once worked in a deli in a small town, it was part of a food co-op. one day this older woman came up to me, looking very frightened, and wanted me to look at something in the bathroom. i thought it was going to be a big bug or something. so i went in there (these were unisex, lol it was a food co-op) and she pointed to the trash can. i didn't see anything wrong with it. so i flipped up the lid (one of those spinny kinds) and underneath the lid, was someone's tag. that was it.

she was really freaked out by a tag. i had never lived in a big city at that point or anything, but this seemed pretty ridiculous to me and i tried not to be patronizing. she thought it was some kind of gang thing and now like the crips had claimed one of the unisex bathrooms in the st. peter, mn food co-op as their spot or something.

oh i see, you guys just want to talk shit on the internet

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/kgtoh/kgtoh0907/kgtoh090700510/5158491-latest-breaking-news-newsflash-splash-screen-announcement-illustration.jpg

as I said in my initial post, it's an aesthetic preference, and one that I see in oppositional terms (ie, graffiti is the poor, disenfranchised inverse of corporate advertising, and if the two are going to be juxtaposed against each other, as they frequently are on mass transit, I know which one I prefer)

look, you've been trying to frame this as a 't/s: graffiti vs. corporate ads?' but I'm sorry, that's not a decision anyone has to make. most of the graffiti in the world isn't over ads because ads are generally temporary and easy to replace. on my way home I saw a subway map covered in graffiti and impossible to read. if the question becomes "graffiti vs. useful maps" I think it becomes an easier t/s, so maybe you should attempt to think about it like that.

mass transit has never been about evil corporate america and the ads don't even make that much money.

High concentrations of people equals graffiti. If you want people to live in big cities, then you should get v. comfortable with graffiti, which has been a constant of western civ for as long as there've been cities anywhere.

NYC was a big city in the 70s and 80s when it had disgusting looking trains and not enough money to clean them up and it's a big city in 2011 when it does have enough money to clean them. (though not for long.) I'm perfectly 'comfortable' with graffiti, my apt building has graffiti on it and I don't spend very much time thinking about it. but am I for spending money to clean it up? for sure, I think that's a worthwhile investment, esp if we're talking about public transit. am I for harsh penalties for people who sneak into train yards and tag trains? absolutely.

also there is also nothing particularly urban about graffiti these days, you can find the same ugly tags in the suburbs, they're just cleaned up faster. bored teenagers exist in big cities, in small cities, in rural areas.

I hear those Minneapolis Crips are some scary motherfuckers btw

not even

ST. PETER CRIPS

I am still roffling over here

I found MS-13 grafitti in a wooded area around here about 5 years ago!

i think i tried to say that if some guy had tagged the underside of a trash-can lid in the food co-op bathroom, he was probably not anyone that needed to be feared. but this didn't really calm her down! so i just said we'd clean it up and don't worry. which i'm pretty sure i didn't do either.

xps

shakey we don't live in pleasantville! this wasn't in mpls anyway

am I for harsh penalties for people who sneak into train yards and tag trains? absolutely.

do you see this as a revenue generator or something?

cuz obviously it functions more or less as the opposite of a deterrent

I mean I'm pretty sure if you do the math on how much the municipality would "get" from trying to impose a huge fine on some poor, dumb teenager, it probably is less than what it actually costs to house that youth in prison when they can't pay the fine.

I found MS-13 grafitti in a wooded area around here about 5 years ago!

― five gone cats from Boston (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Monday, April 18, 2011 5:09 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

lol this probably would freak me right out tho

there's a "controversy" in echo park about some graffiti on the back of a giant billboard with the letters "FTW" on the back. it had been there for years and finally was painted over, only to reappear a few days later in a more elaborate font. in between comments section arguments over whether or not it means "fuck the world" (commonly used by a local gang asserting territorial rights) or "for the win" (which seems slightly less likely), i've heard some interesting comments from people who live in this place and tend to feel intimidated whenever they do in fact see graffiti that may be related to gangs and street crime. like i specifically don't really care about graffiti but then again i'm not someone who lives in an area where graffiti is a huge problem (beyond someone scribbling "WHATS THE DEAL WITH FAIRFAX???" and surrounding it with stars of david.)

http://www.fairfaxunderground.com/forum/file.php?40,file=23844,filename=seinfeld1.jpg

WHATS THE DEAL WITH FAIRFAX???

(curious as to which city is the penis & Smash Mouth capital of the country)

Newport Beach, surely.

I think some towns seek penis & Smash Mouth designation - like Tree City USA only with penis, and Smash Mouth

that's big difference - for me, graffiti in big cities is a pretty rational response of people who don't own the buildings expressing they do in fact have a claim to the place they live

what I don't get: how this is any different in a 'big city' than anywhere else? there are poor people in the place you live, lots of them don't own a house like you do. you'd really be cool if they came up to your house and tagged it? truthfully?

not every building in a 'big city' is owned by a big corporation, most of the buildings in my very-graffitied neighborhood aren't. that being the case, how is this any different from a non-'big city'? why would someone have more of a 'right' to tag a building in a poor urban environment than a poor suburban environment?

most of the buildings in your very-graffiti'd neighborhood aren't owned by landlords who own many other such buildings? this is the thing about big cities - the visibility of the haves who own all the places where the have-nots have to work & live are pretty glaring from street-level. the guy tagging your building is tagging "your house" but also, theoretically, mine: what if I'm cool with it & you're not?

beyond that "x is a pretty rational response" doesn't equal "I'm cool with its effect on me," which I assume you know and are just being argumentative. Revolution is a rational response to class inequity, according to me, but I'm also not "ok" with being killed in food riots; my not being ok with something isn't really the yardstick by which the rationality of that something should be measured

you are jumping through some crazy logic hoops here and I'm pretty sure you realize it. food riots? really? we're talking about bored teenagers scrawling their names on shit.

your argument was graffiti is a pretty rational response to an urban environment w/ huge income disparities, but that argument doesn't stretch very far considering that graffiti doesn't just exist in urban environments and doesn't just exist in places w/ huge income disparities. and even in urban environments w/ huge income disparities, I've never seen any sort of correlation that would make me think that yeah, they're clearly targeting the 'haves' with that subtle artistic political act. graffiti on a bus stop is not targeting the 'haves' of society, it's something that the 'haves' are never even going to see, and something that makes life just a tiny bit shittier for a lot of have nots.

this is the thing about big cities - the visibility of the haves who own all the places where the have-nots have to work & live are pretty glaring from street-level. the guy tagging your building is tagging "your house" but also, theoretically, mine: what if I'm cool with it & you're not?

this is the thing about weird stereotypes about big cities - they don't make any sense. I'm talking about people tagging buildings owned by low and middle class people - those type of buildings exist in 'big cities'.

most graffiti i see is ms-13 gang graffiti and it's almost entirely on small businesses, not like bmw dealerships or hi-rise condos

also

KEEP GRAFFITI WEIRD

oh and i used to see native mob graffiti and it was always like huh native americans have gangs i didn't know that

KEEP GRAFFITI WEIRD

― the zing cheese incident (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, April 18, 2011 8:11 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the point that graffiti has always been a feature of big cities, documentably, since the rise of the urbs kinda stands - it's always, always, always going to win - trying to "address the problem" is like trying to address the problem of pollen or dust: graffiti's everywhere, always, there's more of it where populations are more concentrated, fretting about graffiti in cities is like fretting about corn in Iowa. there's corn there. don't go there if you don't like corn.

oh and i used to see native mob graffiti and it was always like huh native americans have gangs i didn't know that

native mob doesn't mean native american gangs? go ahead and kill santa for me while you're at it why don'tcha

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/04/mocas-art-in-the-streets-exhibition-brings-out-graffit-vadalism.html

one of my friends was on some sort of board that oversaw (and lived in) a building that got tagged every day, sucked for him I guess

it's always, always, always going to win

this straight up doesn't make any sense because we clearly have 'won' many times and it's nothing but a $ thing. nyc subways today look nothing like this:
http://imagecache6.allposters.com/LRG/37/3725/DKSAF00Z.jpg

and only will again if the MTA runs out of money. rich american cities clean up their graffiti relatively quickly! as do rich suburbs. so yeah, how to 'win' the graffiti battle: have enough money to clean it up regularly. amazingly simple!

oh but what about people who live in poorer neighborhoods? oh sucks for them, guess they'll always have to deal w/ the beautiful art around them. I'm sure if you went up and asked them, they'd tell you how much they love it.

how to 'win'.... have enough money

man yr arguments always seem to come down to this

well dude you've also 'won' the battle against graffiti as you don't have to deal with the american underclass writing shit on your house and car on a regular basis. congrats!

you need to spend some time in the country man the city is really affecting yr temperament

a few things:

- the 'poor, dumb teenagers' doing all this tagging or whatever? i smell strawman. as someone who tags and also knows quite a few prominent graf artists and taggers, there is a pretty wide spectrum among taggers in terms of intelligence, economic situation, race, etc.

- graffiti has been around since the dawn of western civilization. and yeah, in ancient greece and rome, there were totally 'P E N U S'-like tags.

- tagging buildings where low and middle-income people live is not condonable. public transit tagging isn't my thing either. it's like breaking into someone's shitty ass 1985 honda when there's a BMW up the street. i only tag yuppie businesses, churches, and advertisements.

- finally, i think graffiti can be totally amazing and actually improve a neighborhood's appearance. even if it isn't sanctioned.

There's this place under a bridge that gets tagged all the time and I wonder if the taggings would stop if they repainted it with that weird military camouflage mosaic on so that whatever gets painted on top will get lost in the visual jumble. Because every time they repaint over it in high-contrast white, I feel like the bridge is naked and could use some graffiti trousers.

Tagging private property is still a dick thing to do. I drive past a house whose wall faces a busy avenue. Every time its resident(s) paint the wall, it gets tagged. While I know that's the breaks, it's got nothing to do whether the residents are "bourgeois." My point: who's to know and who cares?

never change, the table is the table

table do you know where shakey lives?

Not sure if Shakey is bourgie enough for tabes to tag.

i am loling @ "i only tag yuppie businesses" ty sir

tagging buildings where low and middle-income people live is not condonable. public transit tagging isn't my thing either. it's like breaking into someone's shitty ass 1985 honda when there's a BMW up the street. i only tag yuppie businesses, churches, and advertisements.

wow you are a fucking douche

I hope someone not only tags but does even more serious property damage to the next building you make shitty "transgressive" porn in

and if that happens to be a 1985 honda so be it

no dude you don't understand that's just how radical he is

that radical

bomb the suburbs, yo

i did iirc

lol nvm

in my direct action days i always drew the line at outright property destruction & even balked at serious property damage because """"the yuppie"""" is never the guy that has to clean up your mess

do ppl really not like grafitti i had kno idea

knew all that was gonna happen, still posted, don't really give a fuck what any of you think of me, thx.

if they're of a dude's taint I don't think they're technically california rolls fyi

in my direct action days i always drew the line at outright property destruction & even balked at serious property damage because """"the yuppie"""" is never the guy that has to clean up your mess

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Tuesday, April 19, 2011 2:03 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

fretting about graffiti in cities is like fretting about corn in Iowa. there's corn there. don't go there if you don't like corn.

I call bullshit. Corn is a major subsidized business based on a plant that has been sudiously modified over centuries, not some native species that has been grooving there for ages. I reserve the right to criticize corn in Iowa as much as I reserve the right to criticize something as petulant and innefective as graffiti as means of protest or reaction to socio-economic disaffection. The poers that be secretly love graffiti; it's relatively inexpensive in terms of their wealth, doesn't really challenge their hegemony and allows them to sneer at the poor in good conscience.

sudiously = studiously

I just want to know the yardstick by which I measure a "yuppie" business owner. I mean, what if he drives a BMW, but its a 20 year-old BMW that he bought for cheap on craigslist?

'you know it when you see it'

some native species that has been grooving there for ages

love this

if they're friends with your rich parents then they're probably yuppies

Phew, good thing my parents aren't rich, I'm not so good at my tagging.

can you still be a yuppie if you're over 35?

can you still be one if you're UNDER 35?

you know you're a yuppie when... you have a bookshelf filled with graffiti art books

would you have to have been a young urban professional in the 80s

it is v. weird to me that people still use the term "yuppie"

compare & contrast:

- gang tags
- bathroom graffiti
- large-scale spray art
- stencil art / wheatpasting (banksy / shep fairey)
- urban nerds chalking up sidewalks & buildings to mark wifi hotspots (yes this used to be a thing)

I like all the arty stencil stuff on the sidewalk.

For me, graffiti > ads, in pretty much every instance ever. I think the aesthetic choices and values presented in modern advertising is more reprehensible than any kid writing P E N U S on a concrete wall.

I'm just imagining some creative director for an ad agency reading this and telling his staff they need more graffiti-like 'penus' copy in their campaigns.

jesus christ this is not 'graffiti vs ads', I don't support ads either beyond 'way that underfunded transit agency might pay for service'

"I don't support ads either..."

Geez, you guys are so cute.

tbh if you find the Old Spice aesthetic "reprehensible" I think you might as well barricade your door and start stockpiling cats now

yeah how many of you watch "Mad Men" and still find advertising reprehensible?

And I mean artsy stuff whatever, I don't even consider that part of the argument. the overwhelming majority of graffiti is lazy, ugly tags. you pretty much only see banksy-type shit in williamsburgy areas and yeah I'm sure they were done by people who table has shit on and not poor minority teenagers.

excuse me 'on whom table has shit'

haha

Only a yuppie would talk like that.

(xpost)

My bitchin' throw-up:

http://stuytownluxliving.com/lux-living/images/stuy-town-graffiti-1.jpg

This community association paid me to paint this mural on their fence:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3447/3304840475_43f900ab9e.jpg

I have to say, the hastily-scrawled "CRIPS PUSSY" really does give a certain something to that hallway.

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/_F62cSIWcBjQ/TZNT2guH9mI/AAAAAAAABlc/CQXkeyA6K9E/cosmonaut3.jpg

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/4/18/1303126269481/Piss-Christ-by-Andres-Ser-007.jpg

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ has been destroyed by Christian protesters in Avignon, France, after weeks of protests.
When New York artist Andres Serrano plunged a plastic crucifix into a glass of his own urine and photographed it in 1987 under the title Piss Christ, he said he was making a statement on the misuse of religion.

Controversy has followed the work ever since, but reached an unprecedented peak on Palm Sunday when it was attacked with hammers and destroyed after an "anti-blasphemy" campaign by French Catholic fundamentalists in the southern city of Avignon.

The violent slashing of the picture, and another Serrano photograph of a meditating nun, has plunged secular France into soul-searching about Christian fundamentalism and Nicolas Sarkozy's use of religious populism in his bid for re-election next year.

It also marks a return to an old standoff between Serrano and the religious right that dates back more than 20 years, to Reagan-era Republicanism in the US.

The photograph, full title Immersion (Piss Christ), was made in 1987 as part of Serrano's series showing religious objects submerged in fluids such as blood and milk. In 1989, rightwing Christian senators' criticism of Piss Christ led to a heated US debate on public arts funding. Republican Jesse Helms told the senate Serrano was "not an artist. He's a jerk."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/18/andres-serrano-piss-christ-destroyed-christian-protesters

'"I don't support ads either..."

Geez, you guys are so cute.'

lol I don't support or not support ads, they are what they are. I didn't mean it in a rage against the machine shakey mo sense, but I'd still rather ride on a bus without ads on it.

"Piss Christ" was a beautiful photo

It's kinda shoegazey

Yeah i agree, it was pretty beautiful

yeah, but the best thing about is is the figure of christ in piss

i woulda destroyed it cause it smelled bad

this is my piece of olfactory performance art. stick your nose in this box and whiff deep; you'll experience 'overdose death in the back of a trans am on a hot day ca. june 1987'

it's a photo

I think the best thing about bus ads, in my experience during my prime bus-riding years, was how many of them were for events and television programs that had long since passed.

Andres Serrano's Piss Christ has been destroyed by Christian protesters in Avignon, France, after weeks of protests

Those dudes are like the ppl who protested against 'The Last Temptation of Christ' in the 80's.

From Wiki (emphasis mine):

Attack on Saint Michel theater, Paris
On October 22, 1988, a French Christian fundamentalist group launched molotov cocktails inside the Parisian Saint Michel movie theater while it was showing the film. This attack injured thirteen people, four of whom were severely burned.[6][7] The Saint Michel theater was heavily damaged,[7] and reopened 3 years later after restoration. Following the attack, a representative of the film's distributor, Universal International Pictures, said "The opponents of the film have largely won. They have massacred the film's success, and they have scared the public." Jack Lang, France's Minister of Culture, went to the St.-Michel theater after the fire, and said, "Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts."[7] The Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, said "One doesn't have the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother."[7] However, after the fire he condemned the attack, saying "You don't behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ. From the Christian point of view, one doesn't defend Christ with arms. Christ himself forbade it."[7] The leader of Christian Solidarity, a Roman Catholic group that had promised to stop the film from being shown, said, "We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary."[7]

The attack was subsequently blamed on a Catholic fundamentalist group linked to Bernard Antony, a representative of the far-right National Front to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for his fundamentalist beliefs.[6] Similar attacks against theatres included graffiti, setting off tear-gas canisters and stink bombs, and assaulting filmgoers.[6] At least nine people believed to be members of the Catholic fundamentalist group were arrested.[6] Rene Remond, a historian, said of the Catholic far-right "It is the toughest component of the National Front and it is motivated more by religion than by politics. It has a coherent political philosophy that has not changed for 200 years: it is the rejection of the revolution, of the republic and of modernism."[6]

what is this thread about now?

cat hoarders

I think it's awesome that the museum intends to leave the slashed photo up. That's art.

the scent of musk glands

Crips Pussy iirc

TS: piss christ vs snot christ

piss christ vs. blood & semen III

neither. menstrual christ: http://humanrestore.com/interesting-articles/the-gnostics-drank-menstrual-blood-which-they-considered-to-be-the-blood-of-christ/

serrano's followup, "crips pussy," much less controversial for some reason

ok this is pretty awesome but how bout a change of subject

there's a few difft profiles of a dude named David Yerushalmi, a lawyer who's the source for a lot of the language of the anti-shariah bills being proposed at the state level.

here's his website, for "society of americans for national existence" which is weirdly members only, and a blog

http://www.saneworks.us/indexnew.php

what is this thread about now?

I figured right wing Christian fundamentalists destroying a painting that has long been a symbol of EVIL SECULAR ART FUNDING was more appropriate for Into the Sewer: the American right wing, 2011 than people arguing about graffiti.

"...which define sharia as that objectively knowable shariah..."

Um

That is some Bircher-level paranoid nonsense, goole.

adam, you did see I tried to tie it all together , right? ;)

The book-length analysis of shariah as the enemy threat doctrine, which I wrote about here last week, is subtitled, An Exercise in Competitive Analysis: Report of Team ‘B’ II. This Team B II Report is modeled after the 1976 document known as the ‘Team B Report,” which was the original “exercise in competitive analysis” by intelligence community outsiders who challenged the then-prevailing official CIA-driven U.S. government intelligence estimates of the intentions and offensive capabilities of the Soviet Union and the policy known as “deìtente,” which such estimates ostensibly justified.

wow what a great act to follow:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_B

the sharia thing is pretty amazing!

deìtente Dude really needs a copy editor.

Now, you’re confused, you say. How is it possible that leftist-progressives oppose a law to protect fundamental constitutional liberties? The answer of course is that leftist-progressives only support constitutional liberties when they put national existence at risk and oppose them when they work to protect national existence.

I figured right wing Christian fundamentalists destroying a painting that has long been a symbol of EVIL SECULAR ART FUNDING was more appropriate for Into the Sewer: the American right wing, 2011 than people arguing about graffiti.

But it happened in France?

Have you not heard of sickle-cell anemia or Tay-Sachs? Are these diseases "racist" or "white supremacists" because they affect people of African descent and Ashkenazi Jewish descent, respectively? Indeed, the point of the essay was that this does not speak to a "supremacy" by one group over another, merely a distinction or difference. Where in the essay does it speak in any way about one race being "superior" as in better or as in deserving certain "rights" over another?

Hmm, interesting to see that those guys have never been able to see past their ideology, goole.

anyway, this dude twigged me because he goes into one of my favorite tics of right-wing thinking of all stripes -- basic discomfort with democracy itself. like, i have my prejudices and everything but it would never occur to me to start grousing about the right of old southern white people to have the franchise, say...

but here he goes:

[4] The Founding Fathers purposefully limited the political franchise to a subset of the overall adult population. In several articles we asked the question why that was. It certainly was not, in their estimation, a mistake or an oversight. These men were brilliant political theorists who came together to author our founding documents and to create a social and political culture which developed into the greatest nation of modern times. This forces the question what it is the Founders sought to institutionalize by allowing such a limitation to the most important aspect of representative government. The modern narrative is that these men were flawed in the extreme and the great founding political error limiting the franchise in the way it did can be explained by the fact that the Founders were racists, bigots, and misogynists. But this narrative does not even bother to ask whether America could have come to exist or survive if modern notions of "democracy" as a kind of constant plebiscite among peoples with no common culture or worldview had existed at the time. Might it be worth asking if these men understood there to be an importance -- either in fact or in political theory -- to this discriminating limitation? But alas, to even ask this question is to suggest, at least by implication, that there might have been good reasons for such limitations. That, in today's politicized environment, is enough to indict even the best men.

^^^

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met" - A. Lincoln

have you been on youtube lately? we are a republic omg, not a democracy!!

youtube/ rw blogosphere/ politico comments

yes apparently i hate myself

That line always makes me laugh.

"We're a Christian country not a monarchy!"

here's the same kind of complaint from a very different kind of right winger:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/13/peter-thiel/the-education-of-a-libertarian/

I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good. I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives, and the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual. For all these reasons, I still call myself “libertarian.”

But I must confess that over the last two decades, I have changed radically on the question of how to achieve these goals. Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my thinking, I hope to frame some of the challenges faced by all classical liberals today.

...

To return to finance, the last economic depression in the United States that did not result in massive government intervention was the collapse of 1920–21. It was sharp but short, and entailed the sort of Schumpeterian “creative destruction” that could lead to a real boom. The decade that followed — the roaring 1920s — was so strong that historians have forgotten the depression that started it. The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

shame about what happened at the end of the 20s i guess

Oh my god

So he's basically still a girl-hating dork teenager

I love how these guys really like the boom and bust cycles. They're like alcoholics who get absolutely legless on Friday and Saturday and teatotal the rest of the week.

I stand against...the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.

Sort of confused here. Is this some kind of anti-atheism statement? Is he a Kurzweilian?

Sort of think "the inevitability of the death of every individual" is less an ideology than a fact of life.

yeah i don't really get that statement either.

i think the idea is that, for libertarians, every kind of "mass" ideology, gov't, religion, whatev involves someone getting killed at some point, and the justification is, well, they were gonna die anyway.

which kind of puts anyone who isn't a 'classical liberal' in the same boat as mao and, like, rennaissance popes. which i guess is the point.

I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good

I thought this was table for a moment.

the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertariansthe vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians

Doesn't often bear multiple C&Ping but that did

"I remain committed to the faith of my teenage years: to authentic human freedom as a precondition for the highest good"

Highest good = ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU! ME, ME, ME, ME, FCUK YOU!

the ideology of the inevitability of the death of every individual.

I'm pretty sure this is not an ideology

he's speaking of the metaphorical "death"; dude is trying to abolish orgasms

i was gonna say something about how libertarians have this weird read of history where there isn't any kind of oppression except from states and that's always getting worse (or has been at least since, well, when? the 19th century? the 18th?)

but i poked around and here's something from a cato bigwig at least pushing back on that idea:

http://reason.com/archives/2010/04/06/up-from-slavery

Has there ever been a golden age of liberty? No, and there never will be. There will always be people who want to live their lives in peace, and there will always be people who want to exploit them or impose their own ideas on others. If we look at the long term—from a past that includes despotism, feudalism, absolutism, fascism, and communism—we’re clearly better off. When we look at our own country's history—contrasting 2010 with 1776 or 1910 or 1950 or whatever—the story is less clear. We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn’t face. But in 1776 black Americans were held in chattel slavery, and married women had no legal existence except as agents of their husbands. In 1910 and even 1950, blacks still suffered under the legal bonds of Jim Crow—and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period.

(not really very sewer-y, sorry!)

Now, you’re confused, you say. How is it possible that leftist-progressives oppose a law to protect fundamental constitutional liberties? The answer of course is that leftist-progressives only support constitutional liberties when they put national existence at risk and oppose them when they work to protect national existence.

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Tuesday, April 19, 2011 11:43 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ha i'm finally reading Nixonland and this sounds like it was lifted directly from that book

goole, he still misreads Adam Smith in assuming that all regulation is always bad. Smith doesn't argue against common sense regulations as much as he argues against state monopolies that primarily benefit the Crown and its dependents.

ha, though i like the way the kicker at the end implies taxes are as bad as, or worse, than slavery, jim crow, and the denial of womens rights xp

The answer of course is that leftist-progressives only support constitutional liberties when they put national existence at risk and oppose them when they work to protect national existence.

The great shift here, stems from the hyperbolic, sweeping 'only'. W/o it, l-ps are msiguided and dangerous and conservatives are sound. W/ it, l-ps seek the destruction of the nation and conservatives can not only be proud but they are a necessity.

i should really read adam smith one of these days.

which "he" do you mean, michael?

xps david yerushalmi writes like a bullying asshole so i dunno if there's much good to be had picking him apart...

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ljwqj6obHt1qcokc4o1_500.gif

^^ freedomworks softball team

and we all faced confiscatory tax rates throughout the postwar period.

Assuming you were really wealthy, maybe. Interesting to note that this was one of the periods of the greatest wealth creation in the history of humanity.

I wonder is stealing bases is allowed in Objectivist softball.

*if

It's mandatory, actually

which "he" do you mean, michael?

David Boaz.

See if you can find Adam Smith's Mistake by Kenneth Lux, goole.

k, i should start with the primary stuff tho! i'm really very poorly read, it's crazy

We suffer under a lot of regulations and restrictions that our ancestors didn’t face.

This victimizing stuff is so narcissistic and petty, thinking you are unique in the history of mankind because you suffer the great injustice of having to pay taxes. The injustice of having a number on a piece of paper not be a higher number.

Pretty sure anyone from the past would gladly trade not having to put their children to work in a factory, not getting the plague, not dying before your 30th birthday, not being able to travel anywhere without it taking month/years of your life, not living in a cave, etc. for an abstract numerical inconvenience.

Let's all say this together: MY INCOME IS NOT A LIVING HUMAN BEING

On the Home Page

NRO hosts a symposium of old hands and godfathers of the conservative movement remembering Bill Rusher.

William F. Buckley Jr. toasts Bill Rusher, with whom he has been recently reunited.

Ed Whelan unpacks the legal implications of Vaughn Walker’s recent disclosure.

Fred Thompson tells the true story of the Gucci loafers at the Iowa State Fair, and derives a lesson about political journalists.

Dennis Prager urges Christians to exhibit solidarity with those persecuted in the Middle East.

Mona Charen observes that the government isn’t smart enough to effectively promote public health.

Thomas Sowell exposes the hypocrisy of those who claim they are against “bullying.”

Jay Nordlinger improvises on protesters in Syria, Obama in Latin America, Vittorio Arrigoni (killed) in Palestine, and Bill Rusher’s love for dessert and freedom.

At one point should this tryannical imposition by the collective on the individual end? Do we have the collective right to proscribe murder? To insist on military service? To demand innoculation, primary education, etc...?

Quit bullying us into not bullying!

love for dessert and freedom

Ha ha! These oafs.

Ladies and gentlemen, the American right wing, 2011.

Speaking of tyranny!

This should make NRO apoplectic.

Every day, I suffer under regulation.

do we have a thread on how conservatives are incapable of being funny?

Well, Reagan's dead, right?

the dreadlock guy's reaction to the girl interrupting is legit funny tho

i dont really think it counts as right-wing sewer but this #trigscrew situation is something else

http://www.adweek.com/news/press/wonkette-editor-slates-weigel-duke-it-out-emails-adweek-130832

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-04-22/trig-palin-wonkette-post-how-it-started-a-flame-war

it was ill-considered and poorly executed, but i still think this is pretty key:

"the last word linking to a video of Levi Johnston accusing the former governor herself of calling Trig 'retarded.'"

"In any case, Jack has been admonished and put on night probation until further notice."

max is this how you got your gig

"I'll tell you what. He went to Occidental College then suddenly he ends up at one of the best schools in the country, Columbia. He vaults from there to Harvard Law School. Suddenly he's on the Harvard Law Review. Suddenly he's the editor of Harvard Law Review. We've never seen any grades of the guy. These are legitimate questions," Buchanan said.

http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/the-manchurian-candidate.jpg

is pat buchanan implying that occidental college is NOT one of the best schools in the country?!

he's really blowing the lid off your (and obama's) biggest deception

the grades thing is even funnier when the donald does it.

do we have a thread on how conservatives are incapable of being funny?

― like, in Portland, they just don't fucking care, for example. (gr8080), Thursday, April 21, 2011 9:50 PM (6 days ago) Bookmark

man there are two ppl who write for big gov't & the corner, andrew klavan and uh somebody 'kahane' (who's s'posed to be some kind of liberal caricature pseudonym) and they are both completely devoid of lols.

I direct you to Jay "Chuckles" Nordlinger's post on The Corner this morning.

nordlinger is hilaire!! don't think he knows it tho.

I began my column yesterday with an item on President Obama: his occasional peevishness, his descents into dislikability. I say that this side of O will be a boon to Republicans in 2012. An irritable, disdainful Obama will be easier to beat than a gracious, all-embracing one (One?).

In that column, I used the word “snippy,” which leads to a walk down Memory Lane, if you don’t mind. Do you remember Election Night 2000? Sure you do. A doozy. Al Gore calls George W. Bush to concede. But then he places another call. The Texas governor says to him, “You mean to tell me, Mr. Vice President, you’re retracting your concession?” Gore says, “You don’t have to be snippy about it.”

Oh, man, Bush could be snippy — true. But our current president is no slouch of a snipster himself. Did you see or read about his exchange with Brad Watson, a TV reporter from Texas? Go here. Now, from what I can tell, Watson wasn’t disrespectful. But he was reporter-like. And Obama isn’t used to that. He is used to quite gingerly treatment from the press. Remember when that anchorman executed a little bow to him?

After Brad Watson had his allotted seven minutes, Obama said to him, smoke practically exiting his ears, “Let me finish my answers the next time we do an interview, all right?” Given the treatment that O has received from the press, I have trouble blaming him for being sensitive, or snippy, when someone acts like a normal reporter around him.

Remember when a New York Timesman, at a formal press conference, asked him what had “enchanted” him the most about the presidency? (Well, that was the kind of question that the Bushes and Reagan always got from the Big Media. Right?)

P.S. No one likes conservative whining about media bias. But may I say — for the thousandth time — that we don’t much like the bias, either?

When i grow up i want to be a presidential mood ring.

to paraphrase Val Kilmer: "'Peevishness'?! Who _talks_ like that?!"

Also, a neat point that Pareene brought up a bit ago is that so many of these guys have harped on about 'bias' for so longthat they've now internalized it to mean 'active malice.'

and as such, attempt to respond in kind.

Trump said, "we have to look at it. We have to see, is it real? Is it proper?" He added: "It is rather amazing that all of a sudden it materializes." And, Trump said, there are still questions about President Obama's background. "The word is," Trump told the press, Obama "was a terrible student when he went to Occidental [College]. He then gets to Columbia. He then gets to Harvard."

"I don't know why he doesn't release his records," Trump said. "Why doesn't he release his Occidental records?"

^^ Pareene's response to this: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/26/trump_affirmative_action/index.html

Let us take, as an example, the story of a student so obviously unqualified, so transparently unworthy, that a book was written about what his admittance into Harvard said about the sorry behavior of supposedly elite colleges.

That student -- that dull, below-average student who somehow made his way into Harvard -- was Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Kushner's father, real estate developer Charles Kushner, bought Jared his Harvard acceptance. It cost him $2.5 million. (Kushner later went to jail for tax evasion and witness tampering, so it was also, technically, dirty money that bought Trump's daughter's husband's entry into the Ivy League.)

Wall Street Journal education writer Daniel Golden's book "The Price of Admission" explores the Kushner donation at length. An official at Kushner's (expensive, private) high school told the author: "There was no way anybody in . . . the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard. His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen."

But it did.

And that is how things actually work at "elite" schools.

why doesn't he ask the experts Trump is getting his information from?

http://thepragmaticprogressive.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/donald-trump-quote-1-10-07.jpg

"Look, I applaud this release. I think it's a step in the right direction," so-called "birther queen" Orly Taitz told me in one of her many media interviews this morning. "I credit Donald Trump in pushing this issue."

But she still has her suspicions. Specifically, Taitz thinks that the birth certificate should peg Obama's race as "Negro" and not "African."

"In those years ... when they wrote race, they were writing 'Negro' not 'African'," Taitz says. "In those days nobody wrote African as a race, it just wasn't one of the options. It sounds like it would be written today, in the age of political correctness, and not in 1961 when they wrote white or Asian or 'Negro'."

O RLY

I still can't believe her name is Orly Taitz

http://www.theonion.com/articles/trump-unable-to-produce-certificate-proving-hes-no,20250/

I still can't believe her name is Orly Taitz

Actually, being saddled w/such a name explains a lot about her.

i just wanna interrupt to lol @ the mention of the Kushners (the buddies of my state's disgraced ex-governor Jim McGreevey).

that's all.

Adam I posted that already apologize to me immediately

• If the original document was in a bound volume (as reflected by the curvature of the left hand side of the certificate), how can the green patterned background of the document's safety paper be so seamless?

• Why, if Obama was born on August 4, 1961, was the “Date Accepted by Local Reg.” four days later on August 8, 1961?

• What is the significance of the smudges in the box containing the name of the reported attendant?

• David A. Sinclair, the M.D. who purportedly signed the document, died nearly eight years ago at age 81. So he is conveniently unavailable to answer questions about Obama’s reported birth.

• In the “This Birth” box there are two mysterious Xs above “Twin” and “Triplet.” Is there a sibling or two unaccounted for?

• What is the significance of the mysterious numbers, seen vertically, on the document’s right side?

• Finally, the “Signature of Local Registrar” in box 21 may be a desperate attempt at establishing the document’s Hawaiian authenticity. Note to forgers: It is spelled “Ukulele.”

These friggin' people. I mean, on one level, you want to blow apart their arguments (e.g., "• Why, if Obama was born on August 4, 1961, was the “Date Accepted by Local Reg.” four days later on August 8, 1961?" BECAUSE THE FUCKING REGISTRAR'S OFFICE WASN'T OPEN AT 7:30PM ON A FRIDAY, DUMBSHIT), but why bother. LITERALLY nothing will convince them.

• David A. Sinclair, the M.D. who purportedly signed the document, died nearly eight years ago at age 81. So he is conveniently unavailable to answer questions about Obama’s reported birth.

ffs the doctor who delivered me has been dead for years.

dead....conveniently

what are the odds that the doctor who delivered someone approaching 50 years old would be DEAD

someone should look into this IMMEDIATELY

the significance of the smudges

dead....conveniently

NOT TOO CONVENIENT FOR HIM, AMIRITE??

Is there a sibling or two unaccounted for?

One thing I am amused by is how this all marches thru the usual steps of conspiracy theory. You'll never reason a man out of a position he adopted thru non-reason, etc.

http://thehivedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/twins.jpeg

This is my big opportunity to claim Dutch citizenship, since I can't trust my birth certificate and my mother that I was born in the USA.

This part is over, forgery or not,

now we can debate the true meaning of

a Natural Born Citizen

But First some Questions

Why did a good man go to prison because of this little piece of paper, that only cost $10.00?

Was this worth over 2 million dollars of private money and 2 plus more million in public money to keep secret?

Why was this made two days ago and yesterday Hawaii said they do not release these any more?

A natural born citizen is a person born with unalienable and undivided allegiance to the United States of America. And this is something the current occupant of the Oval Office never had.

So some local rightwing douchbags are protesting the appearance of Imam Rauf in Portland this evening.

http://islamtodayoregon.blogspot.com/2011/04/feisal-abdul-rauf-coming-to-portland.html

"In those years ... when they wrote race, they were writing 'Negro' not 'African'," Taitz says. "In those days nobody wrote African as a race, it just wasn't one of the options. It sounds like it would be written today, in the age of political correctness, and not in 1961 when they wrote white or Asian or 'Negro'."

She's got a point -- nothing says "politically correct" like referring to black people as "Africans."

dudes.

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185094

hahahahahaha

You could say he's seen many shops in his time...

warning, do not click if completely insane right-wing racism will ruin your day

GOP Oklahoma lawmaker: Blacks don't work as hard as whites

gee, I wonder what this link will contain (lol)

this woman is a treat (from Wikipedia):

Women usually don't want to work as hard as a man... women tend to think a little bit more about their family, wanting to be at home more time, wanting to have a little more leisure time.

So basically, she is telling her constituency she is lazy and should be replaced by a man.

pareene's takedown of ben stein is pretty hilarious

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/28/ben_stein_jokes/index.html

With 3053 comments, the FOX News article about Superman renouncing his citizenship is a gold mine:

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2011/04/28/superman-renounces-citizenship-00th-issue/#comment

lol usa

And written by a former ILXor! Awwwwwwww.

Oh sorry, not that article.

This article, which is also a total goldmine of psycho comments.

Nobody listens to Ben Steni though -- remember his students?

Superman has never killed anyone, right?

(I think that makes him more pinko leftist than anything else)

I'd never visited worldnetdaily before today--but, damn, they make truthers look like they have integrity.

This fucking front page:

BORN IN THE USA?
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Obama's half-sister raises
birth-certificate doubts
Claims despite 'adoption' by Indonesian
stepfather, it is U.S. 'law' that matters
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
A tale of two birth certificates Breaking News
'Rosetta Stone' documents provide comparison
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Aligning birth certificate statements, evidence Breaking News
Descriptions of document have varied by witness
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Graphics pros challenge Obama birth certificate Breaking News
Layers of images found in released computer document raise doubts
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Is name of Obama's birth hospital somehow phony? Breaking News
Rumors swirl about entry in latest certificate issued by White House
--WND

BETWEEN THE LINES
It's settled! Obama's ineligible
Exclusive: Joseph Farah notes birth certificate proves opposite of what media think
--WND

DEALS OF THE DAY
Did terrorist Ayers really write Obama's book?
Emmy-winner Jack Cashill's latest blockbuster exposes the unthinkable
--WND

Rush Limbaugh: Trump can now say 'I won' Breaking News
WND's radio recap covers buzz over birth certificate, gas prices, more
--WND Diversions

CBS anchor: 'Trump is a racist'
Bob Schieffer attacks as liberals desert reality show to protest 'birther' stance
--London Daily Mail

WND.COMMENTARY
Hate speech makes a comeback
Pat Buchanan: Is asking for records documenting Obama's past really racism?
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Obama challengers: Document proves president ineligible
'They are going to have to face the music on this at some point'
--WND

NEWS ANALYSIS
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Corsi: What is it about twin girls born day after Obama?
Best-selling author explains major problem with president's document
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Hawaii elections clerk rips 'overall filth'
'These people must be held accountable, must be punished, removed from power'
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Obama document still doesn't answer all questions
Critic notes: 'He has raised disturbing questions about his character, judgment'
--WND

CNN: What's next for 'sideshow' over Obama?
'We don't think he's natural-born. We don't think he's naturalized'
--CNN

WND POLL
Origin of the specious
Sound off on Obama's release of his purported long-form birth certificate
--WND

SPECIAL OFFERS
Learn fallout survival skills
Japanese reactor crisis renews interest in radiation preparation
--DirtyBombSurvival.com

N.Y. Times flubs timeline of 'birther' claims
Theories 1st circulated by Hillary supporters in 2008
--Newsbusters

Eligibility attorney still has questions
'I do feel that this is a step in the right direction ... I do question the timing'
--Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

WND VIDEO
WorldNetDaily
TV meltdown over Obama's Social Security 'fraud'
Birther thrown off MSNBC for discussing president's mysterious Connecticut number
--WND

PHOTONETDAILY
See copy of long-form birth certificate
Document cites hospital, includes signature of attending doctor
--Whitehouse.gov

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Can't wait for Corsi's 'Where's the Birth Certificate?'
Neither can we. But here's some reading to pass the time
--WND

THE FULL STORY
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Is Obama constitutionally eligible to serve?
WND's complete archive of news reports on the issue
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Obama's day of reckoning could end his presidency
Free, landmark summary explains eligibility issue clearly, suggests what you should do
--WND

ELECTION 2012
WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Soros group targeting Trump Breaking News
Accuses 'the Donald' of engaging in 'malicious attacks on our president'
--WND

Black Chamber prez blasts 'Marxist, fanatical' Obama
'They might as well put on the brown shirts and swastikas'
--Real Clear Politics

Obama's dad 'serial womanizer'
U.S. immigration docs paint picture 'slippery character' warned to stop 'playboy ways'
--London Daily Mail

SPECIAL OFFERS
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25-year shelf life, emergency kits, survival items, MREs, 1000+ products!
--Emergency Essentials, Inc.

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Sail to Alaska with guys probing birth certificate!
Get to know Jerome Corsi, the nation's No. 1 best-selling author
--WND

WorldNetDaily Exclusive
Radiation detectors back in stock!
Government bought them all out during Japanese crisis
--WND

Sail to Alaska with guys probing birth certificate!

worst trip ever

worst slash fic ever

Awesome and really focuses a lot: http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/04/30/conspiracy_theories_truther_birther/index.html

Reviving for the Graffiti Connection:

http://theopeninghours.com.au/2011/05/02/cause-and-effect/

Last week, a wall that Teazer, Numskull and Roach had painted in Camperdown, was painted over by someone (owners, real estate agents, council….?) without the artists knowing. This was the response from an unknown person. It made our day. We’re not sure which one we like best…

http://theopeninghours.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/camperdownwall.jpg

I think we can all agree that this is graffiti at its best

Cock-tagging Shibuya would have been an interesting mission in Jet Set Radio.

Tangential at best but interesting.

uh wau

I'd love it if he got pwned by his ten yr old son for being a Nazi, though it's more likely that he was a dick, had guns about his house and was vocally down w/shooting ppl he didn't like and the latter fact resonated w/his bullied son.

LOL

http://sarahpalin.com/

*chuckles*

HA

fun new conservative meme

http://newsflavor.com/politics/us-politics/did-senior-militaryintelligence-officials-overrule-president-obama-regarding-mission-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

A reluctant American president who was ultimately overridden by senior military and intelligence officials to finally take out terrorist Osama Bin Laden…

Note: This communication came from our long time D.C. Insider and details previous and ongoing conflicts surrounding the decision to assassinate terrorist Osama Bin Laden. This has been reproduced here as originally communicated to us.

__________

Please get this out ASAP. Want specific people to know we know.

RE Osama Bin Laden. Significant push to take him out months ago. Senior WH staff resisted. This was cause of much strain between HC and Obama/Jarrett. HC and LP were in constant communication over matter – both attempted to convince administration to act. Administration feared failure and resulting negative impact on president. Intel disgusted over politics over national security. Staff resigned/left. Check timeline to corroborate.

Now Intel already leaking to media facts surrounding how info obtained. Namely from enhanced interrogation efforts via GITMO prisoners. Obama administration placed in corner on this. Some media aware of danger to president RE this and attempting protection. Others looking for further investigation. We are pushing for them to follow through and already meeting with some access.

Point of determination made FOR Obama not BY Obama. Will clarify as details become more clear. Very clear divide between Military and WH. Jarrett marginalized 100% on decision to take out OBL. She played no part. BD worked with LP and HC to form coalition to force CoC to engage.

IMPORTANT SPECIFIC: When 48 hour go order issued, CoC was told, not requested. Administration scrambled to abort. That order was overruled. This order did not originate from CoC. Repeat – this order did not originate from CoC. He complied, but did not originate.

Independent military contacts have confirmed. Stories corroborate one another. This is legit.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden was in fact a Coup within Obama WH.

Speaking with additional contacts RE info.

Stay safe.

________________

HC = Hillary Clinton

BD = Bill Daley

LP = Leon Panetta

CoC = Chain of Command/Commander in Chief

UPDATE: JUST RELEASED PHOTO OF THE WHITE HOUSE “WAR ROOM” DURING THE OSAMA BIN LADEN ASSASSINATION OPERATION SHOWING A SEEMINGLY ANGRY BARACK OBAMA STILL WEARING HIS GOLF ATTIRE AND BILL DALEY, HILLARY CLINTON, AND ROBERT GATES ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF ROOM. THIS PHOTO APPEARS TO FURTHER SUPPORT THE DESCRIPTION OF THAT DAY’S EVENTS BY INSIDER…

I like that we've gotten to the point where people aren't arguing that obama shouldn't be president, or isn't legally/functionally qualified to be president, no, they're arguing that he simply isn't the president.

there is a v hilarious segment of the right-wing (incl. at least one corner commenter i believe) that openly fantasizes about a military coup

longtime fans might enjoy this politico article about newsmax

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/54514.html

x-post Something like that actually did happen with Gerald Ford IIRC

obama still hates the flag!

http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/05/wtf-at-wtc-obama-has-american-flag.html

x-post. Here's the story:

The unreported, but important, main reason behind (Secretary of Defense) Schlesinger's dismissal, though, was his insubordination toward President Ford. During the Mayaguez incident, Ford ordered several retaliatory strikes against the Cambodians. Schlesinger told Ford the strikes were carried out, but Ford later learned that Schlesinger, who disagreed with the order, had none of them carried out. Ford let the incident go, but when Schlesinger committed further insubordination on other matters, Ford finally fired him.

The killing of Osama Bin Laden was in fact a Coup within Obama WH.

Speaking with additional contacts RE info.

Stay safe.

this whole thing is amazing, i love the terse, i-must-write-before-i-am-captured sentences pulled out of teenage espionage novels. it should almost end, -Stay safe, be careful they don't get- no! oh NO! NYAAARRR

every word of 'speaking with 'additional contacts' 'RE' 'info' is lol

I bet G.Golrdon Liddy's radio show is hilarious about now

Gingrich to announce bid on Hannity! It's always great when a candidate's so awful he has to do damage control before he does anything else

you can fake being angry and have real anger behind you, you can fake being moral and have real moral force, but you can't fake being smart and have any real ideas.

man i just tried to read a bunch more of that "ulsterman" dude's stuff http://www.triond.com/users/Ulsterman (great find max, where is this stuff getting repeated? i mean, beyond larry 'whitey tape' johnson)

http://socyberty.com/issues/white-house-insider-obama-hesitated-panetta-issued-order-to-kill-osama-bin-laden/

the whole thing is so fantastical...

and here's his 'interview' with a 'longtime political operative within the Democratic Party.'

http://newsflavor.com/politics/us-politics/white-house-insider-obamas-west-wing-civil-war/

Now I know I told you that there was a bit of a control fight between Daley and Jarrett, right? I know it’s been a while but I seem to recall that. Well this fight has broke out into all out war between these two. And Jarrett is getting her ass kicked. That’s not to say she won’t claw her way back, she’s got the confidence of the First Lady and the president…but those two are learning they aren’t calling the shots anymore. Too much at stake to allow those two elitist morons to just -expletive- it up.

(Interrupts) What do you mean by that. Sorry to break in there, but please explain what you mean?

A: What I mean is that Barack and Michelle Obama…it was communicated to them in no uncertain terms that they are to follow directions. Every president, as powerful as that position is, can have their chain jerked when a situation requires. That chain has been jerked very hard this past month. Very hard. I don’t want to go into that right now though. I want to tell you about Jarrett and Daley. That story is going to legitimize this with the ones who I want to know. So I’m going back to that.

ftr i've never even heard of either of these websites before today, ha

here's another interview with some other "DC insider"

http://newsflavor.com/politics/world-politics/white-house-insider-president-obama-should-be-arrested/

featuring art by our own dan lacey

all of these transcripts standing on the brink of YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HIGH UP THIS GOES

guys sitting writing transcripts being all i'm pretty sure this is what's going on *blog*

I couldn't divine what the big scandal was supposed to be. Linda Tripp wannabes here.

i dont know where its getting repeated but we got 3-4 "tips" about the secret military coup this weekend

Highly doubt longtime friends Daley and Jarrett are clashing, FYI.

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HIGH UP THIS GOES

3 to 4 levels above the president, it sounds like

lol

http://www.urbanhonking.com/no/universe/Reptoid.jpg

Sorry Mr. President, but you need Rep. Allen West's level of security clearance to make the call here

he should have used his old junior senator keycard, the one with the targeted-cryogenic-assassination privileges

After reading Remnick and Scott, the public has absolutely no idea whether Dunham married Obama Sr. and where Dunham spent the next seven months. The story the two reporters tell us about the first year of Obama's life is conspicuously and consciously false. And yet they and their pals get to mock us for the very act of asking questions about Obama's birth! Someone please wake me and reassure me I am dreaming.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/05/how_the_media_falsify_obamas_o.html
May 10, 2011

i think jask cashill is the guy that thinks bill ayers wrote obama's books, because he did a serious analysis, and they both use totally unique words like "glowing" and "undoubtedly" or something

keep an eye out for stories about how obama doesnt care about mississippi flooding

American Thinker

literal LOL for the lizard people, thanks for that Tracer.

so pumped to see all of this

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/mike-huckabee-fixes-american-history-video.php?ref=fpblg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BKDD3BDNHg&feature=player_embedded

holy shit

holy SHIT

LOL wow

DISCO

^ god yeah that, just about died

oh no, this is bad, really bad

That guys got a gun! ...Come on! (motions towards gunman)

is that James Brolin doing Reagan's voice?

they don't do reagan's face any favors, sheesh

really can't believe that's real and not an elaborate TV Funhouse hoax, but there's flash Huckabee welcoming me to the website...

totally saying to my next batshit relative "if we ever forget that we are one nation under god, then we will be one nation gone under"

'We' didn't start out as one nation under God; that's all I have to tell these historically impaired people besides HERE'S AN F ON THE TEST.

Oh, and DISCO

From the site: "We recognize and celebrate faith, religion and the role of God in America's founding and making our country the greatest place on Earth"

is pretty close to

(Hitler, from this show) "Germany has been ordained by GOD to rule za world!"

Kinder, küche, kirche IOW.

excerpt from Treaty of Tripoli - signed June 10, 1797

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

What does it mean that Learn Our History is “unbiased”?

Learn Our History’s products have been developed to correct the “blame America first” attitude prevalent in today’s teaching. While we recognize that America is not perfect and has never been perfect we celebrate our incredible history with a balanced account of the events that created this great nation. We don’t feel bad about the great things America has achieved – we celebrate our success!

so basically it means that it's totally biased

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPND6NYBFb8

But what about when you shoot at the walls of heartache?

i know he declared this week but let's keep all newt-ery in this thread, can we?

this is like exactly what the TPM enterprise is for, imo

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/gallery/2011/05/a-guide-to-the-complete-works-of-newt-gingrich-novelist.php?img=1

Of the eight novels already published, three, including the first, "1945," are alternative histories set in the World War II era. Three others are alternate histories set during the Civil War. And the two most recently published works dramatize the events of the Revolutionary War. Armed with an e-reader, TPM took a look at Newt's novels this week. Here is our report.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/media/16carr.html

matt drudge is basically the king of the right-wing sewer

new gingrich - paul ryan ~ fite!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/us/politics/16gingrich.html?ref=politics

“I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said. “I don’t think imposing radical change from the right or the left is a very good way for a free society to operate.”

rmde

also @ max's link: jfc

i like david carr but i dont really get why he was giving drudge such a bj there

i mean i "get" it i just wish he wouldnt

oh no guys, Trump is OUT!

never fear, you guys will never run out of sideshows

ya thank god you're not leaving us

btw guys I am also formally announcing today that I am not running for the GOP nomination for president in 2012.

I know there's been a lot of speculation out there, just wanted to put that to rest.

x-post -

David Carr should have gotten a quote from Media matters re false Drudge claims

mediamatters.org

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/converting-mamet_561048.html?page=3

ugh

haha yeah

And the essays in The Secret Knowledge do occasionally have the tone of a man locked alone in an office, talking to himself. “I was a monomaniac,” he said of the period he was writing the book. “Crazed.”

The prose moves very fast, and some of the arguments seem to be missing a few essential steps; premises rocket to conclusions on the strength of sheer outrage. The conversion is complete: This is not a book by the same man who told Charlie Rose he didn’t want to impose his political views on anybody. At some moments—as when he blithely announces that the earth is cooling not warming, QED—you wonder whether maybe he isn’t in danger of exchanging one herd for another. He told me he doesn’t read political blogs or magazines. “I drive around and listen to the talk show guys,” he said. “Beck, Prager, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved.”

scocca and chait both good on the mamet piece

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/88454/house-games

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/scocca/archive/2011/05/16/david-mamet-shocker-rich-person-discovers-he-is-a-republican.aspx

david mamet is such a dick.

honestly i'm surprised that this happened... now. didn't he write a first-person version of this 'conversion' somewhere like 6 years ago??

and honestly i was surprised even then. when i was intro'd to mamet via glengarry and oleanna i figured the guy was a rightist anyway

yeah i would never have called him a liberal

the country in which he actually lived, where people interacted smoothly in the marketplace to their mutual benefit

really, now?

Higher ed, he said, was an elaborate scheme to deprive young people of their freedom of thought. He compared four years of college to a lab experiment in which a rat is trained to pull a lever for a pellet of food. A student recites some bit of received and unexamined wisdom—“Thomas Jefferson: slave owner, adulterer, pull the lever”—and is rewarded with his pellet: a grade, a degree, and ultimately a lifelong membership in a tribe of people educated to see the world in the same way.

like scocca points out, i dont know that i want to be a member of a tribe that doesnt think thomas jefferson was a slaveowner

haha part of why i hate mamet is he came to speak at my college and gave this very "wake up, sheeple!" talk about how college is dumb and how much smarter he was than all of us and it was very offputting.

ronin is so good though

He compared four years of college to a lab experiment in which a rat is trained to pull a lever for a pellet of food.

he's been using this line for over a decade at this point

xp i love a lot of mamet movies; i was kind of heartbroken when i went to that talk

feel like my previous dismissal of Mamet has now been retroactively justified

ronin is so good though

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Monday, May 16, 2011 3:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

he's so good at situations where grumpy men know how to do stuff

his movies without real female characters are less uh problematic

oleanna is a real p.o.s.

goole otm

the plays get more into the reason why they bother, which is that women are cunts.

spartan is good, redbelt is good... state & main? intolerable. low pigeon content is key to good mamet in this century.

xps lol

i've always assumed oleanna would infuriate me.

i don't really remember it tbh! it was sort of like 'disclosure' iirc, only with trademark weird halting dialogue.

The play premiered in May 1992 in Cambridge, Massachusetts as the first production of Mamet's new Back Bay Theater Company.[3] The premiere featured William H. Macy as John, a "smug, pompous, insufferable man whose power over academic lives he unconsciously abuses."[3] Rebecca Pidgeon played the female lead, Carol, described by one critic as, "Mamet's most fully realized female character, ...a mousy, confused cipher" whose failure to comprehend concepts and precepts presented in John's class motivated her appeal for personal instruction.[3] The part of Carol is said to have been written for Pidgeon.[3]

In October, a year after the Anita Hill - Clarence Thomas hearings[1] which "crystallized and concretized"[3] Mamet's dramatization, it appeared off-Broadway at New York City's Orpheum Theatre, with Macy and Pidgeon reprising their roles. The production included a rewritten third scene.[3] Critic Frank Rich provides a summary of the play in his review of the off-Broadway production:

Mamet's most fully realized female character, ...a mousy, confused cipher

okay that's gold

oleanna is one of those... "we report... you decide" plays that "forces you to question the nature of sexual harassment" or whatever, except it doesnt, because none of the characters are real people

and the movie is just horrible

not at all shocking that this dude is a conservative, imo. thought i'd seen a decent number of his films but realized it's just wag the dog (don't remember it that well), the edge (BAD ASS), heist (ok i thought, nothing great), ronin (GOAT), and spartan (incomprehensible at the time of viewing due to [redacted], so i won't pass judgement).

which, maybe wag the dog aside, are all bona fide dude films. sort of assumed that if someone was v serious about making quality spy flicks (or novels or w/e, a la clancy), that meant that they were de facto libertarians if not outright conservatives. this is stuff made for if not exclusively consumed by middle-aged men who enjoy intelligence with their violence.

or: "grumpy men know how to do stuff

― goole, Monday, May 16, 2011 3:07 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark"

haha part of why i hate mamet is he came to speak at my college and gave this very "wake up, sheeple!" talk about how college is dumb and how much smarter he was than all of us and it was very offputting.

anybody who weighs heavy on the "sure you've got your book-learnin but it's out there in the REAL WORLD where you'll get your actual education" trope is my least favorite person

...particularily if they're paid a small fortune to chat shit at a commencement. Go tell it at a tech institute, Dave... except they wouldn't know who the fucking hell you are.

I saw Oleanna at the Royal Court and it was like being trapped in a middle aged white dude's butt-hurtedness at being told off for pinching an arse.

Not long after moving to the city, Mamet undertook his first foray into civic activism, when the City Council revived a 60-year-old ordinance and tried to force Mamet and his neighbors to cut the hedges around their homes, in accordance with a newly articulated “public right to the viewership of private property.”

First they came for the hedges and I didn't speak out.

it wasn't commencement tbf, but still. it was like, oh you're so daring, for coming to the belly of the beast that is higher education and speaking truth to power.

If he's remembered primarily as a film director rather than a playwright, t'will be some fine revenge.

I pretty much quit on him after the first Broadway production of Speed-the-Plow, where Madonna was the scheming gal, then there was that Homicide movie lunacy. American Buffalo and A Life in the Theatre have no perceivable politics.

minimalist writers are always conservative dicks

was Beckett? no idea

I think Robert Duvall originated the role of Teach in American Buffalo, so maybe they can hit the trail together next year for Herman Cain.

Mamet movies I own on DVD: Ronin, Spartan, The Edge, Glengarry Glen Ross, Heist. Mamet political opinions I give a dripping fart about: none of 'em.

bnw, what about Harold Pinter? Blows yr theory out of the water.

i should get around to seeing ggr huh

oh yeah, xp

can't believe the guy whose dialogue is the perfect distillation of intellectual machismo is a conservative dickhead

Is Vonnegut considered minimalist?

funny the playwright i think of as closest to mamet is caryl churchill but that' just how their words look on the page maybe

The Corner says that Trump and Shakey Mo Collier are out--any truth to this?

Not sure where to stick this one. Maybe the toilet?

...For years now, I’ve been saying that the modern Democratic party is the unholy issue of thirties gangsters and sixties Marxists, a criminal organization masquerading as a political party, composed of thugs, lawyers, layabouts, and guilt-ridden dupes, and motivated entirely by a lust for power disguised as the phony virtue of “compassion.”

Man, I WISH.

which, maybe wag the dog aside, are all bona fide dude films. sort of assumed that if someone was v serious about making quality spy flicks (or novels or w/e, a la clancy), that meant that they were de facto libertarians if not outright conservatives. this is stuff made for if not exclusively consumed by middle-aged men who enjoy intelligence with their violence.

John Le Carre/The Constant Gardener and the Bourne films are pretty much the only parts of this genre I can think of that don't seem this way, maybe outliers like Enemy of the State/The Conversation?

the guy whose dialogue is the perfect distillation of intellectual machismo

but we took it for satire, no?

i certainly did circa GGR

but we took it for satire, no?

speak for yourself!

i took classes at the atlantic theatre co. for awhile. i really enjoyed them. in a weird way mamet's theories about acting could be seen as classically neoliberal: each actor busily goes about "rationally" attempting to achieve goals that have been determined through script analysis. for mamet, actors are discrete entities that never share information onstage unless it's in order to further their own ends. like game theory or something. maximizing advantage. one of our tutors (who had studied with mamet) commented one day, "it's depressing to realize how little of what we do in real life is actually helping us accomplish our goals", implying that the stage was different. and yes, it is different. so much of the other non-advantage-maximizing business is just streamlined away, both at the writing stage and in the performances. which is important for telling a story, i guess. i dunno. the thing is, for many actors this REALLY WORKS as a technique.

like, mamet really believes that drama is where HEROES strive HEROICALLY. they do things we can't. they have the time and space and vision to apply all their energies toward overcoming their obstacles whereas us real-life schlubs are always getting confused by life, and lazy in our ways. and that's why we like drama, as a model of the good or even the perfect. not the perfect politics, mind you, but the perfect individual striving toward a goal.

"it's depressing to realize how little of what we do in real life is actually helping us accomplish our goals"

this seems pretty stupid to me considering every actor has the next 90 minutes of action mapped out for him when the curtain goes up. what "goals"?

well i assume you have goals in your real life

If those are Mamet's theories, how does Sweet Neo Con explain Reagan's success?

lol i meant that to stand in for the whole deal up there

xp

"1. post more to ILX"

goole i could go on at length about this but script analysis usually results in "actions" ("get someone to spill the beans", "get someone to make an exception", "get a bully to back down") - things you can imagine doing, things you can have fun doing - that accomplish what it seems your character is trying to accomplish in the script; in real life we seldom are so willful as to consciously come up with actions and then do them

well right, that makes sense

a dude with a really aggressive show-pony attitude toward actors maybe has a bit too high opinion of his ideas then? oh no, they will fuck it all up in translation, all this pesky stage-time with other people involved when i could be writing op-eds instead, just SAY THE LINES GODDAMIT...

and say them loudly, and stand on your mark. without twitching around too much.

it's true that if you're writing a script, having "victim" and "oppressor" roles already sketched out immediately crushes all the nuance and surprise that might make your script good. but it is like, REALLY WEIRD to draw a direct line from this condition of artistic creation to, say, judgements about society and who benefits and who suffers.

thugs, lawyers, layabouts, and guilt-ridden dupes

http://www3.images.coolspotters.com/photos/107199/charles-montgomery-monty-burns-profile.jpg
author photo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lUMc7we5ks&feature=player_embedded

lolzzzzz

"thanks for sharing"

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/05/sovereign_citizen_resists_traffic_stop_arrest_as_a_free_citizen_on_a_free_highway.php

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/assets_c/2011/05/Michael-Creath-Jones-cropped-proto-custom_2.jpg

A sovereign citizen in Virginia was arrested and charged with five misdemeanors after a bizarre encounter with a state police officer where he called himself a "free citizen on a free highway" and gave multiple fake names.

Michael Creath Jones, 31, was pulled over last week by State Trooper T.M. Simmons because he had a fake painted license plate with the words "Virginia" and "private use" handwritten on it.

The News Virginian reports that according to the search warrant affidavit:

Jones locked his doors and barely cracked open his window and refused to identify himself. He told Simmons he was a "free citizen on a free highway" and provided different names. The trooper asked for identification at least 10 times.

Jones also said he did not have to provide a driver's license, and only got out of the car when Simmons threatened to arrest him and break the car window. Jones struggled when Simmons tried to handcuff him. He was later charged with "resisting arrest, obstruction of justice with force, driving without a license, having an expired inspection sticker and defective equipment," Staunton's News-Leader reports.

Simmons said he found documents relating to the sovereign citizens movement and their activities in the trunk of the car, as well as a Geiger counter, according to the News-Leader.

Sovereign citizens are a loosely organized anti-government group who believe all forms of government and laws are illegitimate. Some sovereign citizens, when confronted with law enforcement have become violent, while others have sought revenge through "paper terrorism," like several in New York who were recently convicted of mail fraud.

so, why did he pull over?

The people who market to these guys are geniuses, imo

I just put this on order--anyone read it?

http://www.frogenyozurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Mad-As-Hell.jpg

There may be some overlap with the Rick Perlstein books, although it mostly covers years he hasn't gotten to yet.

A lot of Panama Canal stuff I'm sure

hidden messages in the birth certificate?

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=301329?bestoneyet

actual i'm not shitting you first sentence:

Recalling Dan Brown's bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code," computer experts have discovered strange anomalies in the Obama birth record released by the White House.

doctor's signature profile sketch = pure comedy gold

lmao @ this

http://www.wnd.com/images/110520colorfilter3.JPG

Why would the Hawaii DOH allow the document issued to the president to contain an obvious smiling face hiding within the first letter of the state registrar's signature?

Or, could it be the work of a forger leaving his mark, laughing at those who take the document seriously?

I started reading Mad as Hell but had to return it to the library before I had time to finish. Not as much overlap with Nixonland as you might think, and actually managed to make the Ford presidency interesting. I recommend checking it out; I plan on going back and finishing it soon.

i should read nixonland shouldnt i

Cherry Hill student's challenge to Tea Party champion Michele Bachmann prompts 'threats'

A Cherry Hill High School East sophomore who challenged Tea Party champion Michele Bachmann to a constitutional debate says she is concerned for her personal safety.

"A lot of them are calling me a whore," 16-year-old Amy Myers said, referring to anonymous comments reacting to online news reports about her challenge to the 55-year-old Minnesota congresswoman.

In a letter addressed to Bachmann and dated April 29, Myers leveled pointed criticisms at the Tea Party Caucus founder.

"I have found quite a few of your statements regarding the Constitution of the United States, the quality of public school education and general U.S. civics matters to be factually incorrect, inaccurately applied or grossly distorted," Myers wrote.

"As one of a handful of women in Congress, you hold a distinct privilege and responsibility to better represent your gender nationally. The statements you make help to serve an injustice to not only the position of Congresswoman, but women everywhere."

Myers and her father, Wayne, posted her letter to Bachmann on CNN's iReport website on May 6. News outlets including Yahoo and The Atlantic picked up the story over the weekend.

Amy and Wayne Myers said the comments on conservative websites alarmed them most. Several commenters threatened to publish the Myers' home address.

Others threatened violence, including rape, they said.

"They're targeting me just because I'm challenging Bachmann," Amy said.

Amy's challenge is arguably unrealistic: Few if any sitting members of Congress would actually agree to debate a teenager.

does roger ailes count for this thread? i am having trouble distinguishing between "mainstream republicanism" and "right wing sewer"

heres a good article about ailes

http://nymag.com/news/media/roger-ailes-fox-news-2011-5/

there was a great nyer article about him and the tiny local newspaper he bought (and turned into a right-wing hit machine) in his hometown a couple months ago that gawker followed up with

http://gawker.com/rogerailes

The Ford presidency is interesting to me just by virtue of the mid-'70s being so interesting--Patty Hearst, Watergate fallout, Saigon, a bunch of great American films, etc. I was too young to remember many specifics beyond the pardon, though, so I'm looking forward to the book.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/25/congressman_on_recent_flight_tsa_patted_down_child_little_old_lady_ignored_man_in_arab_garb.html

paul broun vs. louie gohmert vs. michelle bachmann

http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/imgad?id=CMeK2KXizrHY4QEQ2AUYWjII0kooOyjjrw0

I wonder if they mention Native American genocide in that.

GET $50 IN FREE GITS!

illinois representative joe walsh, everyone:

"Look," he says, "I don't think this is complicated. He doesn't really have a history. I say all of this respectfully—he is the least well-known guy we have ever put in the presidency, and there's no one even close. He's probably got easily the lightest résumé of anybody we've elected."

Walsh leans forward and taps me on the knee with a bumper sticker.

"Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there's nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white, state senator elected to Congress he wouldn't have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different. That, combined with the fact that your profession"—another friendly tap of the bumper sticker—"not you, but your profession, was just absolutely compliant. They made up their minds early that they were in love with him. They were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/weigel/archive/2011/05/27/rep-joe-walsh-r-cable-news.aspx

the "obama would never have gotten elected if he werent black" is one of the top right wing memes of the obama presidency

another friendly tap of the bumper sticker

LOL @ 'it's because he's black'. Yall sure it had absolutely nothing to do with George W Bush?

more joe walsh:

"President Obama has effectively abandoned the 50-year-old U.S. alliance with Israel. So, where is the outrage from the American Jewish community? Don’t they understand that the president is not pro-Israel? Aren’t they troubled by his history of pro-Palestinian writings, speeches, and actions? The short answer is that most American Jews are liberal, and most American liberals side with the Palestinians and vague notions of “peace” instead of with Israel’s wellbeing and security"

this guy is a treat

"And there's nothing racist about [...] a black man who was articulate"

x-post Pretty much what Geraldine Ferraro said too.