Naw, There’s been no Right Wing Extreme Rhetoric
Posted on 01/11/2011 by Juan Cole (www.juancole.com)
Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and other far right-wing demagogues have been quick to defend themselves from the charge of fostering a climate of poisonous political hatred in the United States, in the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Gifford and the killing of Federal Judge John Roll, along with the injuring or killing of 10 other victims.
Just so we are clear, Glenn Beck playfully spoke on his radio show of murdering Michael Moore with his own hands. Rush Limbaugh suggested that Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were worse than Middle Eastern terrorists and that maybe our Pentagon has the wrong people in its sights. Ann Coulter expressed the wish that Timothy McVeigh had bombed the New York Times building rather than the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. These are major media personalities with millions of followers, who have been made multi-millionaires by corporations precisely because they routinely authorize the intimidation of workers, ordinary people, and thinkers who challenge the political status quo. So let us survey their hate speech, which in a civilized country would make responsible businesses ashamed to employ them and a conscientious public ashamed to listen to them.
Dec 4, 2010
Paid Astroturf bloggers
From Glen Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.
There's no evidence that the Obama administration has actually implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein, though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein's position would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to be asked. Regardless, Sunstein's closeness to the President, as well as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination of the mentality behind what he wrote. This isn't an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class. All of that makes Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/01/15/sunstein
Cass Sunstein has long been one of Barack Obama's closest confidants. Often mentioned as a likely Obama nominee to the Supreme Court, Sunstein is currently Obama's head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs where, among other things, he is responsible for "overseeing policies relating to privacy, information quality, and statistical programs." In 2008, while at Harvard Law School, Sunstein co-wrote a truly pernicious paper proposing that the U.S. Government employ teams of covert agents and pseudo-"independent" advocates to "cognitively infiltrate" online groups and websites -- as well as other activist groups -- which advocate views that Sunstein deems "false conspiracy theories" about the Government. This would be designed to increase citizens' faith in government officials and undermine the credibility of conspiracists. The paper's abstract can be read, and the full paper downloaded, here.
Sunstein advocates that the Government's stealth infiltration should be accomplished by sending covert agents into "chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups." He also proposes that the Government make secret payments to so-called "independent" credible voices to bolster the Government's messaging (on the ground that those who don't believe government sources will be more inclined to listen to those who appear independent while secretly acting on behalf of the Government). This program would target those advocating false "conspiracy theories," which they define to mean: "an attempt to explain an event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have also managed to conceal their role." Sunstein's 2008 paper was flagged by this blogger, and then amplified in an excellent report by Raw Story's Daniel Tencer.
There's no evidence that the Obama administration has actually implemented a program exactly of the type advocated by Sunstein, though in light of this paper and the fact that Sunstein's position would include exactly such policies, that question certainly ought to be asked. Regardless, Sunstein's closeness to the President, as well as the highly influential position he occupies, merits an examination of the mentality behind what he wrote. This isn't an instance where some government official wrote a bizarre paper in college 30 years ago about matters unrelated to his official powers; this was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class. All of that makes Sunstein's paper worth examining in greater detail.
Oct 12, 2010
Why Working People need to Oppose Republicans
Link:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/soros-i-cant-stop-a-republican-avalanche/?hp
Maybe it is about time that people explain what the consequences are of a republican leadership in the US.
- Kids receiving even worse education
- Health care only for those who can afford it
- Outsourced military
- More outsourced law enforcement
- More jobs to low wage countries and receive tax refunds for it
- You being able to buy more goods for low prices at WM, but not having the money to buy it
- More debt
- More religious bigotry in every day politics, not freedom of religion but freedom to convert others.
- More isolation of the outside world
- More people living in poverty
Yep, I would vote for that, lets be honest the first 8 years of this decade have been so good for the US and let alone what the rest of the world has seen of the divine leadership of the US.
The Obama administration might not have done what people hoped it would, which is not surprising, since the mess it really inherited. And please stop this idiocy of calling a liberal a socialist or even a communist, if you really don't even have a clear idea what it actually means. And if you do mean this it only means that the GOP is extreme right or even populist, since the Dems relate more to conservative governments around the world then the GOP.
But by all means vote GOP, but you might turn out the light for the leadership torch because nobody will take you seriously.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/11/soros-i-cant-stop-a-republican-avalanche/?hp
Maybe it is about time that people explain what the consequences are of a republican leadership in the US.
- Kids receiving even worse education
- Health care only for those who can afford it
- Outsourced military
- More outsourced law enforcement
- More jobs to low wage countries and receive tax refunds for it
- You being able to buy more goods for low prices at WM, but not having the money to buy it
- More debt
- More religious bigotry in every day politics, not freedom of religion but freedom to convert others.
- More isolation of the outside world
- More people living in poverty
Yep, I would vote for that, lets be honest the first 8 years of this decade have been so good for the US and let alone what the rest of the world has seen of the divine leadership of the US.
The Obama administration might not have done what people hoped it would, which is not surprising, since the mess it really inherited. And please stop this idiocy of calling a liberal a socialist or even a communist, if you really don't even have a clear idea what it actually means. And if you do mean this it only means that the GOP is extreme right or even populist, since the Dems relate more to conservative governments around the world then the GOP.
But by all means vote GOP, but you might turn out the light for the leadership torch because nobody will take you seriously.
Jun 24, 2010
Mchrystal firing and the futile Afghan War
Ok Big Stan is gone, does it make a difference?
From the Michael Hastings article in Rolling Stone
"But even if he somehow manages to succeed, after years of bloody fighting with Afghan kids who pose no threat to the U.S. homeland, the war will do little to shut down Al Qaeda, which has shifted its operations to Pakistan. Dispatching 150,000 troops to build new schools, roads, mosques and water-treatment facilities around Kandahar is like trying to stop the drug war in Mexico by occupying Arkansas and building Baptist churches in Little Rock."
The USA has lost the War. When will they admit this?
From the Michael Hastings article in Rolling Stone
"But even if he somehow manages to succeed, after years of bloody fighting with Afghan kids who pose no threat to the U.S. homeland, the war will do little to shut down Al Qaeda, which has shifted its operations to Pakistan. Dispatching 150,000 troops to build new schools, roads, mosques and water-treatment facilities around Kandahar is like trying to stop the drug war in Mexico by occupying Arkansas and building Baptist churches in Little Rock."
The USA has lost the War. When will they admit this?
Jun 19, 2010
When are these corrupt politicians going to be fired?
If the financial catastrophe and the gulf catastrophe and whatever other catastrophes lurk have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence--insidious, secret corporate influence--in agencies of the U.S. Government. It is an institutional problem--relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence. It will never go away. It will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global, and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention.
Business as usual is no longer acceptable
Business as usual is no longer acceptable
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