RadioBanter

Legitimate use of a Tazer gun

Art Unwin — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:07:28 GMT

On TV news last night they showed a video of a police officer talking
to a man resting on a sofa in his own home. His wife had called
saying that he had a heart attack and should go to hospital. The man
refused to go
preferring to rest rather than go to hospital for treatment as he
could not afford it. The police officer then tazered him to make him
go to hospital! The chief of Police said that standard protocol had
been followed.
Only in America!!!!
I wonder if he is still married to the woman
or he cancelled his insurance policy?

GB2RS NEWS Sunday 5th September 2010

Newsdesk@rsgb.org.uk — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 15:00:24 GMT

Re: iBiquity finally under investigation - LMFAO!!!!!!

RHF — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:28:36 GMT

On Sep 1, 2:07*pm, none > wrote:
> "HD Radio Not High Definition"
>
> "Despite iBiquity�s claims of improved sound quality and transmission,
> there have been numerous complaints about HD Radio from not only the
> radio industry but also consumers... Automakers are aware of the
> complaints associated with HD Radio. For example, in 2007, BMW
> released a Service Information Bulletin describing the problems
> associated with HD Radio, but noted that there was no retrofit kit or
> procedure available. The attorneys at Keefe Bartels are continuing
> their investigation into HD Radio and whether consumers are being
> forced to purchase technology that does not work as claimed. If you
> have experienced problems with your factory-installed HD radio
> receiver, we are interested in speaking to you."
>
> http://www.keefebartels.com/CM/HotTo...picsandAlerts1...
>
> "HD Car Radio Investigation"
>
> "Consumer statutes and laws protect the purchasers of various products
> such as HD car radios. A party may be legally liable for statements,
> omissions or misrepresentations of material facts that should have
> been know to be false or misleading and promoted the sale of the
> product. Such laws protect innocent consumers from unlawful and
> deceptive practices. The victims of questionable business practices by
> parties such automobile manufacturers are the consumers who purchase
> or lease cars with HD car radios at significantly increased costs when
> these devices fail to function as they are represented to work. As
> news develops and the investigation proceeds, Keefe Bartels, LLC will
> carefully monitor events and research all relevant laws."
>
> http://www.keefebartels.com/CM/Custo...estigation.asp
>
> YOU ARE ****ED, STRUBLE!!!!!!!
> LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

IBOC - iBiquity Finally Under Investigation
-ROTFL- ~ RHF
Lawsuit Most Likely Going Nowhere
http://groups.google.com/group/ba.br...b5d6149534c9ae

�Patriot� hate groups grew by 244% in 2009

--_---______------____ — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:55:49 GMT

Hatred is getting a lot of press this week as reports of violent
harassment against Congressional Democrats continue to surface. It began
last weekend with Tea Party activists shouting racist and bigoted comments
at House Democrats during the final push for health care reform.

But new research shows the Tea Party may be the nice guys amid soaring
numbers of hate groups.

An "astonishing" 363 anti-government or "Patriot" groups appeared in 2009,
with the totals going from 149 groups to 512, according to a report
released by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

That's a 244 percent increase in one year. Many of the "Patriot" groups
are militias. Before 2009, there were 42. Now, there are 127. Hate groups
overall stayed at a record high of nearly 1,000 despite the disintegration
of one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the country.

According to the SPLC, a non-profit dedicated to fighting intolerance, the
numbers are cause for "grave concern."

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/0327...grew-244-2009/

-----

Following the recent attack by right wing Muslim fundamentalists during
the Christmas holidays, the Moscow bombings, several spree shootings,
massacre by a right wing fundamentalist Muslim US Army Major, the shooting
in the Holocaust museum by a right wing white supremacist and the Tiller
murder (a doctor shot by a right winger in a church), rightists all over
the country have been crying out for more bloodshed because they simply
cannot accept the fact that a non white is President and his Chief of
Staff is Jewish.

Homeland security warned us that rightists would fly out of control and
the recent arrest of Hal Turner for uttering death threats and encouraging
his followers (right wing NeoNazis) to commit murder, along with the
aformentioned right wing terrorist attacks on innocent American citizens,
reminds us that they were correct in their analysis. Will the Obama era
be like the Clinton era, where though the attack by radical right wing
Islamics was met with punishment of the perpetrators and no further
attacks on American soil against citizens until Bush dropped the ball on
9/11/2001, the primary concern for American safety in the 1990s were the
right wing militias, mass murderers like Tim McVeigh, Olympic stadium
bomber Eric Rudolph and the Unabomber, all right wingers who spent their
days attacking their fellow citizens because they were filled with hate of
all things centrist and left. Add the Westboro Baptist Church, the
American Nazi Party, The KKK and National Vanguard, and you have a cess
pool of right wing maniacs ready to kill, kill, kill.

The right have destroyed this country, left its economy in a shambles and
are doing nothing to fix it but obstruct the efforts of good men to help.

The recent murders are more proof of the festering, ugly bitterness of the
right. Sore losers and nobodies with nothing to offer as a fix for the
destroyed Bush economy but pathetic whining and bellyaching.

Like all rightists these days, fat lazy white GOP trash are self loathing
defeatist and is having a melt down over Obama's popularity and success.
It is obvious that the defeatist right want Obama to fail and the USA to
burn, they're angry that Obama is undoing all the damaged caused by Bush
and the
Republicans. They're angry that McCain was crushed in the election,
proving that the right is no longer relevant in American politics or
business. They're angry that McCain failed and didn't get a chance to
continue Bush's looting of the treasury, giving to the rich as gifts.
They're angry that they didn't get to see this country burn. Rightists
are for big government. Bush expanded government by over 30% before his
first term ended. Fiscally irresponsible Republicans have almost destroyed
America.

All they can do now is continue their vain efforts to obstruct the
recovery, recovery from the damage they have caused. Some, including
NeoCon David Frum, say that there will not be a republican house majority
or a republican president for the next 20 years.

The Kooky Right Wing Revisonist Myth Of "Liberal Fascism"

Charles — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:14:55 GMT

Fascist
noun
1. a person who believes in or sympathizes with fascism.
2. (often initial capital letter) a member of a fascist movement or party.
3. a person who is dictatorial or has extreme right-wing views.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fascist

The right wing myth of Liberal Fascism is obscenely false and deliberately
so, a fine example of the perversion of history coming from
�conservatives� these days - and that�s why we normal folk call them
�Wingnuts.�

Syndicalism is a potential substitute for the evils of capitalism, a
reformed corporate system that depends on unions to overcome economic
imbalances of the sort common in the American system, eventually leading
to socialism. Mussolini�s shift from the left to militarism in fascism�s
formative era was opposed by Italian socialists, including the
Syndicalists, though a few leaders did throw in their support. This,
however, is a far cry from �Jimboo�s� statement above.

In fact, the foundation of Mussolini-style fascism is the military - labor
unions are the perceived enemy of the Italian military-industrial model.

From �Mussolini & Syndicalism,� by Tom Wetzel:

�Mussolini � was developing the fascist ideology during the war years,
he continued to advocate �heroic action� but he now saw this in terms
of military action rather than in terms of workers revolution �
Nonetheless, Mussolini got very little support from the working class
for his new patriotic, pro-war position. Working people in Italy had
seen too many instances of troops and cops being used to repress
workers struggles to identify the military as �theirs.� However,
Mussolini did succeed in convincing the main leadership of the Italian
Syndicalist Union (USI) of his patriotic position by early 1915. At
the USI�s congress in 1915, its general secretary, Alceste de Ambris,
and other leaders such as Filippo Corridoni, tried to sway the
organization into a pro-war position. It is this event that gave rise
to the myth of syndicalist support for Mussolini. � �

Apart from a few leaders who attempted to assist Il Duce, he had
absolutely no support whatsoever from the Syndicalists. So it can not be
said that he used the movement to advance his fascist ambitions � but lies
and myths are all �conservatives� have these days to advance their own.
Pity the liars of the right � they are intellectually denuded and must
cling to Goldbergian fantasies laced with Rush Limbaugh�s manic-depressive
ravings.

BTW, anyone who believes that Mussolini was a �devout communist� in 1926,
as �Jimboo� does, is drudging through too many disingenuous Wingnut blogs
and needs a decent therapist � preferably a liberal one. This was the very
year that Il Duce declared Italy to be a far-right totalitarian nation � a
fascist one. He traded in his communist principles for corporatism. The
rest is history � but far-right stinkbug propaganda-meisters know very
little about that �

Rightwing Kooks Rightwing Kooks Rightwing Kooks

No — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 01:05:27 GMT

Chicago Tea Party Rally Draws Rightwing Kooks -- and Counter-Protesters

Last Thursday's Tea Party at Daley Plaza in Chicago drew about 1500
participants. Belying their alleged "grassroots" nature, the rally's
organizers were heavily aided by pre-rally publicity in the corporate press
-- including not only the inevitable wall-to-wall Fox News coverage, but also
a front-page lead article in the Chicago Tribune.
2010-04-17-0001.TeaPartierlosingit.jpg

Tea Partier loses her sh-- while debating an anti-Tea Party counter-protester

Anti-war organizers who attempted to hold a rally on Daley Plaza a month
before were met with demands by Daley Plaza management that they come up with
a $2 million per incident insurance policy not only for themselves, but
similar policies for each of their vendors. The insurance demands proved so
onerous that anti-war organizers were forced to change the location of their
rally.

But the "grassroots" Tea Partiers either came up with the millions of
insurance coverage, or got privileged with a pass from Daley Plaza management
authorities who refused to give same courtesy to anti-war organizers.

Even though in the weeks leading up to the rally, Tea Party organizers
repeatedly told their supporters to leave their nuttier and racist signs at
home, a number of kooks defied the organizers' attempts to clean up their
movement's image.
2010-04-17-0002.Xenophobiaonparade.jpg

Xenophobia on parade

The lead speaker at their rally was former Republican primary gubernatorial
candidate Adam Andrzejewski who, belying the Tea Partiers' claims of being
against intrusive government, supports a constitutional amendment banning
equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

And that's just the start of his bigoted agenda. Here is how Andrzejewski
answered a candidates' questionnaire:

** Do you support civil unions or gay marriage in the state? Against

** Would you support a constitutional amendment to sanctify male/female
marriage? Support

** Would you make Illinois a right to work state? Support

** Do you Support state funding for stem cell research? Against

** Are you for allowing sanctuary cities in Illinois? Against

** Are you for the moratorium on executions? End it [1]

Here's how he answered another questionnaire:

** [Are you for] Allowing and promoting Gay Straight Alliance Clubs and LGBTQ
(lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender, queer) programs in taxpayer-funded
schools? Oppose

In other words, Mr. anti-big government supports a government ban on certain
students' organizations.

** [Are you for] Imposing Federal environmental restrictions on States and
individuals? Oppose [2]

So when it comes to government controls on corporate behavior, he advocates
ZERO environmental regulation!

Another of the Tea Partiers' prominent speakers was Kathy Barkulis. She's a
big fan of racist blowhard Glenn Beck and writes of "the negative impact of
illegal immigration on American citizens." [3]

On one of her blogs she posted a picture of Obama between Hitler and Lenin
and wrote, "They hate America. They hate the U.S. Constitution. They hate
individualism. The more I read about the backgrounds of the president's
czars, the more I fear for the future of our country. This goes beyond
Socialism. They are Communists, Marxists, and Anarchists. They are
Collectivists. They hate capitalism. They hate successful individuals." [4]
2010-04-17-0003.Sillysigns.jpg

Right wing conspiracy theories were well-represented.

A typical blog post is entitled, yes, in ALL CAPS, "COMMUNISTS IN THE WHITE
HOUSE....WILL ANYONE STOP THIS ???????" [5]

Joe McCarthy, where are you now when we need you to tell us just how many
communists there are in the State Department??

Besides an array of assorted right wing crackpots, the Tea Partiers drew at
least a few Nazis, who apparently view the Tea Party movement as a potential
recruiting ground. Here is one of them at Thursday's rally:
2010-04-17-0004.NeoNazi.jpg

And here is a YouTube video of the same Nazi - wearing the same ubber-
patriotic shirt - speaking at a 2009 Hitler Birthday celebration with a
portrait of Adolph Hitler behind him:
http://www.youtube.com/user/sorenren.../9/hlm5Pd54sEw
2010-04-17-0005.NeoNaziprotectedbypoliice.jpg

Fascist protected by cops is escorted away from the Tea Partiers' rally after
counter-demonstrators surrounded him and began chanting "Nazis go home!"

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Fortunately there was a strong crowd of anti-war, pro-civil rights counter-
protesters, both on one corner of the plaza and mingling on the edge of the
Tea Partiers' rally.

2010-04-17-0006.UndocumentedUnafraid.jpg
2010-04-17-0007.Counterprotestersgroup3.jpg
2010-04-17-0008.Couple.jpg
2010-04-17-0010.RUAgainstTeaPartyBIGOTS.jpg
2010-04-17-0011EqualRightsforGaysNOW.jpg
2010-04-17-0012.ThomasGoree.jpg

Many left wing commentators have noted that the Tea Party movement has served
as a "useful idiot" for the Republican Party and the portions of the big
business elite whom they represent. This is true enough, and it should serve
as a warning for how we need to oppose them.

If the left is seen as simply tools of the Democratic Party, we lose all
credibility, and justifiably so. Moveon.org and other extensions of the Party
are more interested in promoting the Party at all costs while paying lip
service to the real hurt that many working people are feeling just days after
the federal government released a new round of statistics announcing record
foreclosures for the first quarter of 2010.

Yes, we must defend the Obama administration against the racist attacks of
the Tea Partiers -- while also opposing Obama for the fact that he has done
next to nothing for Blacks, Latinos, gays, immigrants and working people in
general. Whatever happened to the bold promises of repealing or reforming
NAFTA that Clinton and Obama dueled over in the run up to the Ohio primary?
Or card check? And that's just the beginning of the list.

Almost all of Obama's promises to the left have been kicked into the second
half of the first (only?) term of his Presidency, after the mid-term
elections when the Democrats will then have the excuse that they do not have
the power to enact their promises into law. By pushing the business elites'
priorities -- the record bailout to the financial services industry and a
maintenance and expansion of Bush-era empire building and attacks on civil
liberties -- Obama has clearly "played" most of his supporters.

Like with Bill Clinton before him, it has been Obama's accommodations to the
right, while taking the left for granted, that have fueled the rightward
drift in Washington politics, where "health care reform" metamorphosizes into
private health insurance industry preservation, with big fillips to anti-
abortion nuts and a freeze on domestic spending along the way.

Our opposition to the Obama administration, while now far smaller than it
needs to be, can only be effective if we return to the core demands of our
movements -- demands that are not designed to give comfort to the
administration, but to confront it for continuing the Neanderthal policies of
its predecessors:

-- Concerned about the indebtedness of our children and future generations?
Stop spending 57% of the federal budget on past and present wars.

-- "Si se puede" ("Yes we can") is not a cheap electoral slogan. Amnesty for
all immigrants. They are working people like most of the rest of us, trying
to eck out a living in hard times. We are idiots if we allow ourselves to be
part of a divide-and-conquer strategy of our opponents trying to scapegoat
immigrants for the lack of jobs and social services.

-- Full legal equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people,
including marriage rights and equal employment rights in government and the
private sector.

.... and these are just for starters ...

Paranoid Kooks Destroy The Credibility Of The Right

Starkiller�[_2_] — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:55:01 GMT

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PASSION AND PARANOIA
CATEGORY: Birthers, Politics, conservative reform

I have been taken to task in the past for railing against those whose rants
against President Obama have crossed the line of reason and entered the
dangerous world of paranoia. I include in this category the Birthers, of
course, as well as those who believe Obama wishes to set up some kind of
dictatorship, and those who believe our freedoms have been �destroyed� or are
in the process of destruction.

As for that last charge, I don�t think it accurate to say that Obama wants to
destroy freedom in America, but there is little doubt his policies �infringe�
upon personal liberty. That�s the point of his �common good� agenda; that
sometimes, individual rights must be subsumed for the good of all. The fact
that the Supreme Court occasionally agrees with that idea is troubling but
not indicative of any bent to eliminate constitutional protections for
speech, religion, or assembly. The idea that the courts, or the opposition,
would simply stand aside and allow our individual liberties to be �destroyed�
is therefore, paranoid thinking.

There is a line between passionate, reasoned opposition to Obama and the kind
of paranoid thinking that drives Birthers and others to oppose the president.
The terms are not mutually exclusive but one kind of thinking is productive
and effective while the other is poisonous and unbalanced. Equating the
president with Nazis may be emotionally satisfying but is so far beyond the
pale of rationality that it pegs anyone who uses such a cockamamie analogy as
ignorant and not seriously engaged in debate. Ignorant because it is
painfully obvious that anyone who refers to any American politician, right or
left, as a Nazi� hasn�t a clue what Hitler and his thugs believed; and not
serious about debate because the epithet is used to stifle discussion rather
than encourage it.

Similar attempts to paint the president as a �Communist� are equally paranoid
and stupid. (Using the term �socialist� may seem more accurate but there too,
it appears that there is a deliberate attempt to exaggerate the effect of the
president�s policies and incorrectly define the term.)

I saw a lot of passionate opposition to the president�s policies at the tea
party at the Capitol on Saturday. Most of it was spot on and based on
patriotic notions of the constitution as well as a fierce desire to protect
our liberties from the �common good� brigade of liberals who seek to promote
policies that infringe upon our personal freedoms.

Were these protestors, who eschewed labeling Obama as dictator, or a
Communist, or illegitimate because of his birth, any less passionate in their
opposition than the paranoids who hold those beliefs?

I think it is demonstrable that they were not. The fire that burns in their
bellies against the president�s policies is no less bright, nor does their
failure to join the kooks in their conspiracy theories mean that their
commitment to the cause is any less total than those whose passion has
allowed their thinking to spill over into the realm of the silly. To infer
otherwise is not logical, nor is it very helpful.

�Passion� for a cause, by definition, engages the emotions and motivates one
to act outside of themselves for a higher purpose. Those who believe that the
president is wrongheaded, that his policies will lead to economic disaster,
who can�t abide Obama�s prevarications, and see the enormous debt being piled
on our children and grandchildren as preposterously unfair - without claiming
the president wants to put his opponents in concentration camps - are
channeling their opposition down a healthy, democratic path.

Not so much the paranoids. Despite evincing similar passion, all they are
doing is giving the opposition the wherewithal to define all opponents to the
president as crazies:

Amid a rebirth of conservative activism that could help Republicans win
elections next year, some party insiders now fear that extreme rhetoric and
conspiracy theories coming from the angry reaches of the conservative base
are undermining the GOP�s broader credibility and casting it as the party of
the paranoid.

Such insiders point to theories running rampant on the Internet, such as
the idea that Barack Obama was born in Kenya and is thus ineligible to be
president, or that he is a communist, or that his allies want to set up Nazi-
like detention camps for political opponents. Those theories, the insiders
say, have stoked the GOP base and have created a �purist� climate in which a
figure such as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) is lionized for his �You lie!�
outburst last week when Obama addressed Congress.

They are �wild accusations and the paranoid delusions coming from the
fever swamps,� said David Frum, a conservative author and speechwriter for
President George W. Bush who is among the more vocal critics of the party
base and of the conservative talk show hosts helping to fan the unrest.

�Like all conservatives, I am concerned about this administration�s
accumulation of economic power,� Frum said. �Still, you have to be aware that
there�s a line where legitimate concerns begin to collapse into paranoid
fantasy.�

There was plenty of that on display at the 9/12 protest in Washington but a
fair assessment of the tone and substance coming from the hundreds of
thousands who were there would relegate the crazies and paranoids to a small,
but significant minority. I would guess that up to a quarter of the
protestors could be identified with those fringe elements. This is worrying
but not as fatal as Obama supporters would have you believe. In some
respects, the real problem is not so much their numbers, but their influence
on mainstream politicians:

Insiders� criticisms have been dismissed by some conservative leaders,
who argue that the party needs an energized base � even if it�s extreme � to
gain in future elections. Some analysts think that conservatives� summer
revolt against Obama�s healthcare agenda helped erode public approval of
Democratic leadership enough that the GOP could pick up as many as 30 House
seats next year.

Leaders in both the establishment and the base think that the tension
could define the upcoming battle over the party�s 2012 presidential nominee.

�There�s a war going on, a pretty big one,� said Dan Riehl, a Virginia
conservative whose popular blog, Riehl World View, has criticized those
challenging the base. �Many of us distrust the elite Republican
establishment.�

Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for John McCain�s GOP presidential
candidacy last year, likened the conservative fringe to liberal activists
during the Bush years. The antiwar group Code Pink drew headlines, for
example, when a protester with fake blood on her hands accosted then-
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice � but Democrats still won elections
later.

A little refresher course in recent history; in 2004, Democrats played with
their own kooks, catering to many of their conspiracy theories, lionizing
fringe players like Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, while trying to tap the
�enthusiasm� of the netroots - as bonkers as any conservative crazies we have
today.

That worked out well for them, didn�t it?

The point isn�t necessarily to purge the paranoids, but to marginalize them
and deny them influence in the party. I know that Dan Rheil is not a paranoid
and that his anger - justified at times - directed against GOP and
conservative �elites� has both practical and ideological elements. But I
think Dan would draw the line at some of the more paranoid beliefs held by
those in the base and recognize the damage it does to reasonable, and wholly
legitimate arguments against Obama and his agenda.

Passion does not equal paranoia. Those on the left who insist on equating
�anger� with psychosis do so knowing full well that the passions aroused by
President Obama�s policies take many forms and are not all outside the realm
of legitimate debate. It is simply convenient for them to lump all opposition
to the president as crazy, or �racist.� And it plays well among their own
base as well.

Accepting those who are passionate in their opposition to Obama without
having arguments meander into the fever swamps of conspiracy and fear would
lead to the more rational elements in the opposition to come to the fore
while de-emphasizing the kooks. That can only lead to more effective
resistance to the president�s plans to �remake� America in an image none of
us - kooks or rationalists - want to see become reality.

- Radical Right Wing Republican Fascists Guilty of Sedition In Their Failed Attempt To Bring Down The US Government

Republican Fascists — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:24:48 GMT

- Michelle Malkin says that several Republicans are guilty of sedition for
accepting bribes from the Chinese government in return for authorizing the
exporting of thousands of American jobs during the Bush years, the most
corrupt period of American history where literally dozens of Bush's top
aids resigned in disgrace instead of public inquiry, trial and long stiff
prison sentences.

www.frontpagemag.com

Republicans have a long history of undermining our government. They
even tried to seize power from FDR and later Prescott Bush did business
with his friend Hitler, and was convicted under the trading with the enemy
act. As typical Republicans, the Bush's did business with the Nazis and
didn't care if it resulted in the deaths of American soldiers and millions
of Jews.

Have you listened to Limbaugh? He frequently speaks fondly of Hitler,
and Sean Hannity's best friend is notorious NeoNazi Hal Turner. Hannity
doesn't even allow Jews on his show, nor does Limbaugh. Not surprising,
radical Islam is right wing, just slightly left of the GOP.

Prescott Bush, along with other prominent industrialists attempted a
bloody coup in the 1930's to transform America into a fascist state like
Germany and Italy at that time. They approached Marine Corps Maj.-Gen.
Smedley Butler with the proposition of leading a half-million man army of
veterans to defeat FDR's government in 1933 because his policies were
perceived as too progressive. It has already been confirmed that Prescott
Bush and his elitist associates engaged in financial transactions with
Nazi Germany at a time when it was illegal. They conducted business with
the German companies that fueled Hitler's rise to power and the Nazi war
machine. Bush himself was linked to at least one Nazi business,
Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), that utilized slave labor from
various concentration camps. It has been theorized that the Bush family
fortune was amassed from those Nazi business dealings in the '30s and
'40s. With this information in mind, you can see where George W gets his
inspiration from. We can only hope and pray that America doesn't face the
same fate as 1930s Germany. However, in my opinion, we are well on our way
to repeating history.

Jonah Goldberg's Bizarro Revisionist History

Republican Fascist — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:22:53 GMT

Crap Detector wrote

> Liberal Fascism sounds like an oxymoron

It doesn't sound that way to anti-intellectual ignorant right wing boors.
Palin worshipers like you.

Fascist
noun
1. a person who believes in or sympathizes with fascism.
2. (often initial capital letter) a member of a fascist movement or party.
3. a person who is dictatorial or has extreme right-wing views.

Jonah Goldberg's Bizarro History

In his new book, Goldberg has decided to dream up fascists on the left
rather than acknowledge the fact that the real American fascists have been
lurking in the right's closet for lo these many years.

Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From
Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning by Jonah Goldberg (Doubleday, 496
pages)

* * *

The public understanding of World War II history and its precedents has
suffered in recent years from the depredations of revisionist historians
-- the David Irvings and David Bowmans of the field who have attempted to
recast the meaning of, respectively, the Holocaust and the Japanese
American internment. Their reach, however, has been somewhat limited to
fringe audiences.

It might be tempting to throw Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism: The Secret
History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning
into those same cloacal backwaters, but there is an essential difference
that goes well beyond the likely much broader reach of Goldberg's book,
which was inexplicably published by a mainstream house (Doubleday). Most
revisionists are actually historians with some credentials, and their
theses often hinge on nuances and the interpretation of details.

Goldberg, who has no credentials beyond the right-wing nepotism that has
enabled his career as a pundit, has drawn a kind of history in absurdly
broad and comically wrongheaded strokes. It is not just history done
badly, or mere revisionism. It�s a caricature of reality, like something
from a comic-book alternative universe: Bizarro history.

The title alone is enough to indicate its thoroughgoing incoherence: Of
all the things we know about fascism and the traits that comprise it, one
of the few things that historians will readily agree upon is its
overwhelming anti-liberalism. One might as well write about anti-Semitic
neoconservatism, or Ptolemaic quantum theory, or strength in ignorance.
Goldberg isn't content to simply create an oxymoron; this entire
enterprise, in fact, is classic Newspeak.

Indeed, Goldberg even makes some use of Orwell, noting that the author of
1984 once dismissed the misuse of "fascism" as meaning "something not
desirable." Of course, Orwell was railing against the loss of the word's
meaning, while Goldberg, conversely, revels in it -- he refers to Orwell's
critique as his "definition of fascism."

And then Goldberg proceeds to define everything that he himself considers
undesirable as "fascist." This is just about everything even remotely and
vaguely thought of as "liberal": vegetarianism, Social Security,
multiculturalism, the "war on poverty," "the politics of meaning." The
figures he labels as fascist range from Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D.
Roosevelt to Lyndon B. Johnson and Hillary Clinton. Goldberg's primary
achievement is to rob the word of all meaning -- Newspeak incarnate.

The term "fascism" certainly is overused and abused. The public
understanding of it is fuzzy at best, and academics struggle to agree on a
definition, as Goldberg observes -- and he makes use of that confusion to
ramble on for pages about the disagreements without ever providing readers
with a clear definition of fascism beyond Orwell's quip.

Along the way, he grotesquely misrepresents the state of academia
regarding the study of fascism, which, while widely varying in many
regards, has seen a broad consensus develop regarding certain ineluctable
traits that are uniquely and definitively fascist: its populism and
ultranationalism, its anti-intellectualism, its carefully groomed culture
of violence, its insistence that it represents the true national identity,
its treatment of dissent as treason, and what Oxford Brookes scholar Roger
Griffin calls its "palingenesis" -- that is, its core myth of a
phoenix-like rebirth of the national identity in the mold of a nonexistent
Golden Age. And, of course, it has historically always been vigorously --
no, viciously -- anti-liberal.

So when Goldberg proclaims early on: "This is the monumental fact of the
Nazi rise to power that has been slowly airbrushed from our collective
memories: the Nazis campaigned as socialists," more thorough observers of
history might instead just shake their heads. After all, the facts of
Mussolini's utopian/socialist origins and the Nazis' similar appeals to
socialism by incorporating the name are already quite well known to the
same historians who consistently describe fascism as a right-wing
enterprise.

What these historians record -- but Goldberg variously ignores or
minimizes -- is that the "socialism" of "National Socialism" was in fact
purely a kind of ethnic economic nationalism, which offered "socialist"
support to purely "Aryan" German business entities, and that the larger
Nazi cultural appeal was built directly around an open antipathy to all
things liberal or leftist. Indeed, whole chapters of Mein Kampf are
devoted to vicious smears and declarations of war against "the Left," and
not merely the Marxism that Goldberg acknowledges was a major focus of
Hitler's animus.

This became manifest in the Italian fascist and German Nazi
transformations from a faction of street thugs into an actual political
power that seized the reins of government, when fascists gradually shed
all pretensions or appeals to socialism and became violently
anti-socialist and anti-communist. But it was present all along; "the
Left" were the people who were beaten and murdered in the 1920s by the
squadristi and the Brownshirts; and the first Germans sent off to Nazi
concentration camps like Dachau were not Jews but socialists, communists,
and other left-wing political prisoners, including "liberal" priests and
clerics.

The same incoherence underlies what Goldberg imagines is his provocative
thesis: the notion that "modern progressivism and classical fascism shared
the same intellectual roots," and therefore that "fascism, properly
understood, is not a phenomenon of the right at all. Instead, it is, and
always has been, a phenomenon of the left." The core of this claim is his
insistent description of populism as a form of left-wing politics --
which, in many of its manifestations, it certainly was.

Yet Goldberg incorrectly claims that "populism had never been known as a
conservative or right phenomenon before" Mussolini. In fact, populism has
historically been a broad-ranging phenomenon that expressed itself in both
right- and left-wing politics, as Chip Berlet has described in some detail
in his 2000 book, Right-Wing Populism in America, which details its
history from Bacon's Rebellion to the Ku Klux Klan to the modern-day Posse
Comitatus and militia/Patriot movements. What distinguishes these
populists from their left-wing counterparts, as Berlet explains, is that
"they combine attacks on socially oppressed groups with grassroots mass
mobilization and distorted forms of antielitism based on scapegoating."
Yet, building on a false characterization of the history of populism,
Goldberg goes on to characterize such historical figures as Father Charles
Coughlin, the rabid anti-Semitic radio talker of the 1930s, and Sen. Joe
McCarthy as left-wing figures simply because of their populist
foundations.

More to the point, perhaps, is that discussing fascism's "intellectual
foundations" is a nonsensical enterprise in the face of the consensus of
historical understanding that anti-intellectualism is an essential trait
of fascism, a fact that Goldberg briefly acknowledges without assessing
its impact on his thesis. As Umberto Eco put it, the fascist insistence on
action for its own sake means that "it must be taken before, or without,
reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation." In this worldview, the
instincts of the fascist leader are always superior to the logic and
reason of puling intellectuals.

Probably the essential fascist statement is one that Goldberg in fact
cites unreflectingly -- Mussolini's famous reply to those who wanted
policy specifics from him: "The democrats of Il Mondo want to know our
program? It is to break the bones of the democrats of Il Mondo. And the
sooner the better." This remark's noteworthy anti-liberalism also seems to
elude Goldberg. And the notion that liberal humanism -- with its long
history of rationalism and reliance on logic and science -- has anything
whatsoever to do with the fascist approach is, once again, an almost
comical upending of reality.

Liberal Fascism is like a number of other recent attempts at historical
revisionism by popular right-wing pundits -- including, notably, Michelle
Malkin's attempt to justify the Japanese-American internment in her book
In Defense of Internment, and Ann Coulter's attempt to rehabilitate
McCarthy's reputation in her book Treason -- in that it employs the same
historical methodology used by Holocaust deniers and other right-wing
revanchists: namely, it selects a narrow band of often unrepresentative
facts, distorts their meaning, and simultaneously elides and ignores whole
mountains of contravening evidence and broader context. These are simply
theses in search of support, not anything like serious history.

What goes missing from Goldberg's account of fascism is that, while he
describes nearly every kind of liberal enterprise or ideology as
representing American fascism, he wipes from the pages of history the fact
that there have been fascists operating within the nation's culture for
the better part of the past century. Robert O. Paxton, in his book The
Anatomy of Fascism, identifies the Ku Klux Klan as the first genuine
fascist organization, a suggestion that Goldberg airily dismisses with the
dumb explanation that the Klan of the 1920s disliked Mussolini and his
adherents because they were Italian (somewhat true for a time but
irrelevant in terms of their ideological affinities, which were
substantial enough that by the 1930s, historians have noted, there were
frequent operative associations between Klan leaders and European
fascists).

Beyond the Klan, completely missing from the pages of Goldberg's book is
any mention of the Silver Shirts, the American Nazi Party, the Posse
Comitatus, the Aryan Nations, or the National Alliance -- all of them
openly fascist organizations, many of them involved in some of the
nation's most horrific historical events. (The Oklahoma City bombing, for
instance, was the product of a blueprint drawn up by the National
Alliance's William Pierce.) Goldberg sees fit to declare people like
Wilson, FDR, LBJ, and Hillary Clinton "American fascists," but he makes no
mention of William Dudley Pelley, Gerald L.K. Smith, George Lincoln
Rockwell, William Potter Gale, Richard Butler, or David Duke -- all of
them bona fide fascists: the real thing.

This is a telling omission, because the continuing existence of these
groups makes clear what an absurd and nakedly self-serving thing
Goldberg's alternate version of reality is. Why dream up fascists on the
left when the reality is that real American fascists have been lurking in
the right's closet for lo these many years? Well, maybe because it's a
handy way of getting everyone to forget that fact.

Liberal Fascism may come complete with copious but meaningless footnotes,
but it is in the end just a gussied-up version of a favorite talking point
of right-wing radio talkers that the real fascists are those nasty
liberals, those feminazis and eco-fascists. It may be all dressed up with
a pseudo-academic veneer, but the quality of logic contained therein is
roughly the same. If only it would vanish into the ether as quickly.

David Neiwert is a freelance writer based in Seattle and the editor of the
blog Orcinus. A National Press Club award winner for his reportage on the
radical right, he is also the author of three books, most recently
Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community.

Re: Liberals And Their Fascist Roots

Reverend Sun Myung Moon — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:13:51 GMT

On Aug 30, 2:13*am, RHF > wrote:
> On Aug 29, 8:02*pm, "Clave" > wrote:> "D. Peter Maus" > wrote in ...
>
> > <...>
>
> > > * National SOCIALIST German WORKERS' Party. Bolsheviks, with poor couture.
> > > And a taste for racial purity.
>
> > > * When they rose to power, the did what the oppressed always do: they
> > > implement the iron fist of tyrrany in the Name of The People.
>
> > > * But they were first, and always, Socialists.
>
> - I suppose you're just stupid enough to
> - believe China is a People's Republic too.
>
> "The People's Republic of China" (PRC)
> that what they call themselves . . .http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%...ublic_of_China
>

Nazi Germany must have been socialist because Hitler said so and most
Republicans believed him. Republicans always trusted what Hitler
said. That's why they liked him so much in the day.

Being a Republic, Communist China has 1.6 billion Republicans. Then
there's Saddam's Republican Guards. They're obviously in league with
Bush, Sarah Palin, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

East Germany was called the Democratic Republic of East Germany and
North Korea is called the Peoples Democratic Republic of Korea. It
makes sense that if they refer to themselves as Democratic, they are
free nations who hold elections.

Where on the map is The Nation of Islam? It must be a country
because they say it's a nation.

---

�As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they
have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be
too much of a good thing�
- Karl Rove

Re: (OT) Hurricane Earl MW DX opportunity?

DEFCON 88 — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 22:32:14 GMT

IIRC, during a hurricane the FCC allows AM (MW) stations that normally
reduce power and/or use a directional pattern at night to broadcast
full omni-directional power. Thus, hurricanes can result in MW DX that
you otherwise wouldn't hear. I'm not sure how far away from the
hurricane this rule applies.

Re: Liberals And Their Fascist Roots

Nickname unavailable — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:25:24 GMT

On Sep 2, 2:04*am, RHF > wrote:
> On Sep 1, 10:01*pm, Nickname unavailable > wrote:
> - *ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> -
> - *YOU TOOK A PAGE RIGHT OUT OF HITLERS HAND
> - BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> Odd that Quoting "Hitler" {Idolizing} seems
> to be your thing : While decrying Fascism
> and the NAZIs and railing against 'The Jews'
>
> - "Re: (OT) : 'Nickname Unavailable' Another Preacher of Hate . . ."
> -
> - *"And of course, just as National Socialist ideologues and leaders
> - motivated the mob, so do Republican ideologues. As I noted above,
> - Republican objections are not generally issued as cogent and well-
> - thought-out rebuttals of liberal positions but as ad hominem
> attacks,
> - character assassinations, and even suggested violence. This is true
> - not only of the rank-and-file but of the leadership"
>
> 'Nickname Unavailable' Another Preacher of Hate . . .http://groups.google..com/group/rec....9ef22e5b719128
>
> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for The Jews and Blame Them
>
> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for The GOP and call them NAZIs
>
> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for Conservatives and call them Fascist
>
> Nn Ua - preach, Preach. PREACH That Hate !
>
> may the 'god' of us all heal you of your hate
> peace and love ~ RHF
> *.
> *.

see you did it again.
> 'Nickname Unavailable' Another Preacher of Hate . . .http://groups.google..com/group/rec....9ef22e5b719128
>
> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for The Jews and Blame Them
>

i never did.

> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for The GOP and call them NAZIs
>

its what they are, after all, you are using nazi tactics right now.

> Nn Ua - Preach That Hate for Conservatives and call them Fascist
>

if it walks like a duck, what is it?

> Nn Ua - preach, Preach. PREACH That Hate !
>

nazis use tactics like calling liberals fascists, which is impossible,
then when i point it out, you try to turn it on me.

> may the 'god' of us all heal you of your hate
> peace and love ~ RHF
> .

hitler was considered a good christian, just as you imagine yourself
to be.

see, you did it again.

these are your polices,
"And of course, just as National Socialist ideologues and leaders
motivated the mob, so do Republican ideologues. As I noted above,
Republican objections are not generally issued as cogent and well-
thought-out rebuttals of liberal positions but as ad hominem attacks,
character assassinations, and even suggested violence. This is true
not only of the rank-and-file but of the leadership"

(OT) Breaking: Oil Rig

cuhulin@webtv.net — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:33:20 GMT

has exploded 80 miles South of Vermillion Bay, wherever that is? 12
people in the water, one person is missing.Two Helicopters are
searching.
cuhulin

Re: Liberal Fascism and the ComuSexual

Kurt@Click.com — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 14:23:04 GMT

On Wed, 1 Sep 2010 22:34:39 -0700 (PDT), Nickname unavailable
> wrote:

> ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>
> YOU TOOK A PAGE RIGHT OUT OF HITLERS HAND
>BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No--it was the "heritage foundations"

Re: IBIQUITY FINALLY UNDER INVESTIGATION - LMFAO!!!!

Richard Evans[_2_] — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:53:44 GMT

DigitalRadioScams wrote:

>
> YOU ARE ****ED, STRUBLE!!!!!!!
> LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

Reading briefly through this thread, I'm not sure that he is F***ed
legally, unless he was making claims that HD radio provides good sound
quality, but even then things get difficult when you try to actually
prove that it doesn't.

HOWEVER. If this creates a lot of publicity about the problems of
HD-Radio, ten perhaps HD-Radio sales will become even more F***ed than
they already are, which may be the beginning of the end for HD-Radio.

Richard E.