Howard Dean was right to be appalled by some of the activities at Democratic National Headquarters yesterday (leafleters blaming Israel for 9/11, etc.), but were they really surprising given the nature of the kangaroo court in progress? My prediction… if this continues in any way… is that Dean et al will have a lot of damage control to do because liberal Jews–who have been a mainstay of the Democratic Party for nearly a century–will soon be deserting that organization with the speed of refugees fleeing the Cossacks. Barney Frank, who participated in this absurd meeting, in particular should be ashamed of himself for enabling this nonsense. When Eason Jordan slandered the US military, Frank stood up against the calumny. He better do it now, loud and clear – or it’s hard to call him a liberal in any sense of the word.
What’s going on with the “liberal” (what in the world does that mean anymore?) wing of the Democratic Party. First Senator Durbin compares the US military to Nazis. Now this? Did these people have mass lobotomies? Enough!
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143 Comments
1. Charlie (Colorado):I dunno, Roger. How many morons have you banned for making anti-semitic remarks? Seems I remember at least a couple, and they haven’t been right-wing morons.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:01 am 2. Good Ole Charlie:Why is anyone surprised? If you follow matters to their logical conclusion, BushHate will lead you to do all sorts of crazy things.
When one charge does not work, up the ante until you find something that does work. It’s a bit like The Boy Who Cried Wolf: eventually you will find that these deranged folk would not recognize malfeasance if it bit them in the butt.
And as for the general public, they yawn and turn to see what’s on TV tonight.
I predict more and more of these follies as the Left gets less and less attention paid to their visions. Desparate times generate desparate accusations. Bogus breeds more and bigger bogus.
I’m beginning to yawn myself…
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:01 am 3. flenser:“We disavow the anti-Semitic literature, and the Democratic National Committee stands in absolute disagreement with and condemns the allegations,” Dean said in a statement posted on the DNC Web site.
They need to apologize for so much more that that, as becomes apparent in Dana Milbanks column on this make-believe kangeroo court.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/16/AR2005061601570.html
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:11 am 4. Buddy Larsen:There ya go, Howard! But, you wouldn’t have had the need to play statesman had you not prior put the gasoline, matches, crazy people and ‘prove-it-didn’t-happen’ nutjob allegations all together in an airtight jug and then shaken it ’til it blew up.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:23 am 5. Buddy Larsen:Conyers’ Muslim/American constituents must not be on board the Israel/Palestine efforts to stop the Intifada. If we wanted to play the same idiot game Conyers plays, then we could conclude that American Muslims are all bin Ladenites.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:30 am 6. chuck:The transition from left to anti-semitic seems pretty easy to make. I recall being surprised when I first saw some Nazi anti-capitalist cartoons, they were nearly the same as communist cartoons except the capitalists had longer noses. The only difference today is that Israel takes the place of the Jewish money changer.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:32 am 7. Buddy Larsen:Oh, to have a young firebrand Muslim congressperson standing up before the assembled media and talking truth. There is so potential there to lift the whole planet’s fortunes. Where is that person?
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:34 am 8. Rick Ballard:It is to be hoped that aspiring hisorians are taking careful note of the process of distintegration underway in the Democratic party. The latest amateurish production by the Dem Congressional Clown Caucus coupled with Dean’s half hearted denunciation (a whole hearted denunciation would have included the words “these people cannot be part of the Democratic Party”) deserve at least a footnote.
The interesting question is: “To whom is the performance art directed?” Who are the ConClowns trying to influence? I believe that the answer is to be found in analysis of potential donor groups. The largest remaining group of people willing to throw their money away on the Dem Party as it dies is best described as those who want only a minor adjectival change in the nature of governance. Those who would like to see “People’s” appended to the “Republic of the United States”. So, the ConClowns are performing for 1)The Fantasy 500 editors who control the production of agitprop, 2)The boards of the various “public interest” groups and charitable trusts focused on termite breeding, and 3)The infantile KosKidz who have been successfully indoctrinated by the MSE. One might add the remainder of the Hollywood Left still willing to write checks.
Those are the groups stupid enough to cheer on the pathetic performance art of the ConClowns. Some of them retain some residual power of influence and all of them are extraordinarily focused on retaining the little power that they now have and regaining the power that they once had.
It is both sad and hilarious to see a major party dying in this manner. In other times the hilarity would overcome the sadness. In a time of war and danger, sedition is not a laughing matter.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:37 am 9. Ray Zacek:Dana Milbank’s WaPo commentary points out that Conyers and the basement-based faux impeachment committee, like the emperor in the old tale, had no clothes on. Here are the Naked Liberals, stripped of coherence and denuded of ideas.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:37 am 10. TomTom:The docile acceptance of the American Left by US Jews has long puzzled and distressed me. If I as a non-Jew have been appalled by the covert and progressively overt antiSemitism for over a decade, what does it take to wake up American Jewry, which persists in its denial? Worse is the stupidity of the Left, which the educated Jews persist in embracing or tolerating. Somebody clarify this malady for me!
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:44 am 11. David Thomson:ìBarney Frank, who participated in this absurd meeting, in particular should be ashamed of himself for enabling this nonsense.î
Why hasnít Barney Frank spoken out? It is almost certainly because he realizes how far the situation has deteriorated. This incident probably is the tipping point which destroys the Democratic Party. Did I say destroy? Has it truly come to this point? Yes, I believe that this national political entity is ready for burial. Frank is probably sitting in a dark room in stunned silence knowing that he is about to make history. His next words will force him to even consider becoming a Republican.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:45 am 12. flenser:Dean implies that the problem was confined to “some members of the audience”. (Perhaps they were secret Rove plants?)
As Milbank points out, the “hearing” itself succumbed to the same insanity.
The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.” He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,” McGovern said. “The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.”
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who prompted the question by wondering whether the true war motive was Iraq’s threat to Israel, thanked McGovern for his “candid answer.”
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:47 am 13. David Thomson:ìWorse is the stupidity of the Left, which the educated Jews persist in embracing or tolerating. Somebody clarify this malady for me!î
ìThe enemy is always to the rightî may best explain this phenomenon. European conservatism was inevitably anti-Semitic. The liberal vision promised a utopia devoted to universal principles and the respect for all people regardless of race, ethnicity, and religion. Almost immediately, however, leftists persecuted Jews. The former Soviet Union is a quintessential example. Anti-Semitism was officially condemned—but widely practiced. Still, the promise remained. The Left at least provided hope.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:01 am 14. Mark_Belt:Roger:
The word “liberal” still means what it has always meant, even when applied to eighteenth century philosophers that are now considered conservative. The problem is that “Liberals” aren’t liberal–anymore than the DDR was democratic or the National Socialists were socialist. Although I left the Democratic Party and am now a registered Republican, I consider myself liberal in the classic sense of that term. Many who call themselves liberal or “progressive” are the most mean-spirited, intolerant, and reactionary people I know. I refuse to refer to them as liberals, but more appropriately as the Loony Left.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:03 am 15. Buddy Larsen:Flenser, the problem is that these are all half-conversations. They’re like discussing the WTC jumpers while hiding the fact that the buildings were on fire. OF COURSE the USA and Israel have similar interests–why wouldn’t they, they’re both UNDER ATTACK for cryin’ out loud!
It’s infuriating. It really is.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:06 am 16. Levans:It would be a very good thing if, like the freshman Senators who issued a statement critical of Durbin’s comments re Guantanamo, a group of Senators/Reps took a principled stance in exposing and criticising the anti-semitism boiling in the (appropriately) basement “hearing” and the accompanying office demonstration. Won’t happen, though. Moral insight and political courage are not common enough in these groups to outweigh the judgement that there is no sufficient political advantage in strongly attacking this festering evil.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:12 am 17. Kyda Sylvester:I feel like I’m trapped in a stifling theater forced to watch very bad farce. Conyers, Wilson, Waters, Moran–a cast of characters that speaks for itself.
Take note, Democrats, Dana Millbank is ridiculing you. That’s how low you’ve sunk.
The scariest part of this is not our unhinged “representatives”, although that’s scary enough. The scariest part is that this Ray McGovern person (any relation?) who said that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world” and that Israel should not be considered an ally is a former intelligence analyst. And we wonder why our intelligence is so shoddy. Joe McCarthy is somewhere laughing his ass off.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:32 am 18. flenser:Buddy
I’m not sure there is even that much truth in it.
If Israel had a say in the matter, I think they would much prefer that action be taken agaist Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Iran, in preference to Iraq. It may be that a generation down the road our actions in Iraq will have brought about a more just and peaceful Middle East, but the Israelis have more immediate concerns.
I don’t think it pays to focus too much on why the Democrats can make these kinds of anti-Semitic remarks. These remarks are inseperable from those they make regarding Bush and the Republicans. Once people have repeatedly displayed the fact that their belief systems are based on irrational bigotry, how can anyone act surprised when further evidence presents itself?
This mentality on the part of the Democratic party is hardly new. They have been expressing these same basic views as long as I can remember. According to the history books, the party has been thinking like this for it’s entire existence. The particular minority it wishes to scapegoat may change over time, but that is merely a tactical adjustment. The party could not exist without the idea that some convenient “other”, whether blacks, Jews, white men, or “Christers”, represents a danger from which the Democrats will save us.
And there is still a big market out there for what they are selling. Many people who are outraged at this kind of ant-Semitic nonsense stll think that it’s entirely plausable that “the theocons” are poised to take over the country and …. do somthing. Make us all wear polyester leisure suits, I suppose.
On some level there is a deep need for people to believe in sinister forces conspiring to get them. The Democratic party of today exists solely to cater to that need.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:39 am 19. Rick Ballard:Levans – and any one else interested,
Take pen and paper and – working only from memory – make a list of pols from either party for whom “principled” would be an applicable adjective. It won’t take long.
There is a very good reason why Congress and the pols who inhabit it have such dismal trust ratings with the American public. It is the same reason that the American military is held in such high esteem. One coin, two sides. That’s one of the reasons why Sen. Dick felt free to drag the military through the mud just as it is a very good reason for the ConClown performance artists to do the same.
We may hope for principled action by the people that we hire to perform governance but we should always plan to be dealing with people who make used car salemen seem ethical.
Btw – Mitch McConnell is principled – that’s one.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:45 am 20. ShrinkWrapped:“Worse is the stupidity of the Left, which the educated Jews persist in embracing or tolerating. Somebody clarify this malady for me!”
TomTom
The following is a brief, schematic, psychological discourse, so be forewarned:
There is a significant intersection of the narcissism of too many baby boomers, the left, and anti-American/anti-Semitism (which the left & their allies in the world of Islamic fascism have conflated). I have posted quite a bit about this (some of the posts are linked on my site as “Best of”). The narcissist has an idealized image of himself and of those others who confirm to him his value. Those on the left have always believed, and continue to believe, they are smarter, wiser, and more caring idealists than more reality based people. These feelings, supported by other like minded people, are necessary to enhance and buttress their self esteem. For them to recognize that what they believe leads to horrors (recall how so many on the left could not believe that the Soviets were evil and closed their eyes to the Gulag and how so many now seem to wish that Saddam Hussein were still in charge in Iraq) would be devastating to their sense of themselves. Their rage would be turned inward because they could no longer justify turning it outward. It would lead to depression and despair. In order to avoid such a case, they must, in effect, deny reality. That is why they keep coming up with paranoid fantasies and appear to be spinning out of control. Whenever the facts go against them, they can only choose to change their minds & risk depressive despair (which is a near impossible task for most narcissists) or drift further away from reality.
As I said, the situation is much more complicated than this, but this is a start in explaining the psychology of the narcissist.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:47 am 21. Kyda Sylvester:Okay, here’s my list:
(Well, maybe that’s not entirely fair. Mitch McConnell is principled, as far as I know, and Norm Coleman. Anyone else?)
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:53 am 22. Buddy Larsen:Flenser, insofar as cherry-picking half-truths, I suppose that the tactic has been employed, at times in the history of the party, toward good ends. Labor laws against the robber barons, the New Deal against the depression, etcetera. But this latest is beyond the pale. If they insist on dropping jihadi terrorism down the memory hole, then the likely 911 culprit would be the DNC, so that they would have the always-munificent war issue with which to beat up a GOP administration.
Anyhoo, David Gelernter–who knows a thing or two about terrorism–says all this salaciousness is a direct result of a failure to teach history. Do I ever agree.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:59 am 23. Rick Ballard:Dr. Wrapped (I have difficulty with addressing you as ShrinkWrapped – perhaps I should see an analyst),
I have a limited understanding of the psycological dynamics that constitute narcissism but I do understand your application of the term to the symptoms that you describe. I believe your description to be accurate but I am puzzled by your extrapolation of symptomatic behavior to potential future action. My understanding of narcissists is that they will rarely venture beyond the tight circle of trusted admirers who provide them with unstinting and uncritical praise. They live in a closed world and will not venture into situations that provide the possibility of confrontation with potential for negative outcome. Negative outcomes for narcissists involve anything that might disturb their constructed self image. I’ll concede that they can be absolutely vicious when cornered and that they are capable of extreme cruelty to anyone who threatens their self image construct but my experience is that they will expend an extraordinary amount of energy in developing avoidance mechanisms in comparison to the energy that they are willing to expend in confrontation.
Simply put, they only really fight when cornered but are very dangerous when they are cornered. Much like a rat.
PS I very much appreciate and value the insights that you bring.
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:25 am 24. Swede:The Dems have painted themselves into a corner with their continuous over-the-top rhetoric against the Bush administration. By doing so they have affixed themselves to that segment of liberal society that feeds on hatred of and conspiracy theories about George W. Bush and Conservatives in general. These people have become the financiers of the Democratic Party. They demand these kinds of demonstrations to assuage their hatred. The more the Dems play to it, the more contributions they receive from the George Soros’ of the world, but in turn the more political control they surrender. The Dems are caught in this cycle of demagoguery – big money – more demagoguery – more big money. They are rapidly becoming bought and paid for by the intensely radical, deeply anti-American, socialists in heir midst. We could well be witnessing the death of one of the two great American political parties. We are certainly seeing its perversion. The Dems need good leadership to rescue this quickly deteriorating situation. Sadly, that leadership doesn’t appear to be manifesting itself. I don’t think most of them have yet realized what has happened.
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:30 am 25. Buddy Larsen:Hey you’re wrong, you stupid idiot criminal murdering fascist, we narcissists are NOT vicious when cornered!
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:34 am 26. Hermie:As the sounds of bigotry become louder and more vicious, the more people will turn away from the party of Dean and ‘KKK’ Byrd.; but what will be remaining will be the most dangerous remnants.
The campaign contributions from more sensible people will dwindle, but that means that the DNC will become more dependent on the money from far left groups and people like George Soros. Islamic PACS and others will dangle their checks in front of the DNC, who will gladly allow that money into their coffers, in exchange for indulging more bigoted antics and psychotic ramblings from far-left conspiracy nuts.
People like Sen Lieberman still have not realized that the party that they joined all those years ago, has become something far different and far more dangerous.
Dangerous? Yes. When you allow anti-Semites the time and facilities to spread their poison, it spills over to those who depended upon your good name to act in their best interests. When a US Senator remains silent about a supposed ‘Israeli conspiracy’, it is only a matter of time until a portion of the constituency starts believing it.
The Dems have allowed their party to be hijacked by the far-left. It may be too late to take it back, but it doesn’t mean that they should remain silent about it; even if it means being ‘disloyal’ to the party.
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:57 am 27. nopundit:Roger and all,
LGF pointed out a recent resolution introduced by Conyers in late May. Excerpt:
Resolved, That the House of Representatives
(1) condemns bigotry, acts of violence, and intolerance against any religious group, including our friends, neighbors, and citizens of the Islamic faith;
(2) declares that the civil rights and civil liberties of all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith, should be protected;
(3) recognizes that the Quran, the holy book of Islam, as any other holy book of any religion, should be treated with dignity and respect; and
(4) calls upon local, State, and Federal authorities to work to prevent bias-motivated crimes and acts against all individuals, including those of the Islamic faith.
Link: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15957&only=yes
Kenneth Greenlee
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:04 am 28. Buddy Larsen:Kenneth, looks like he changed his mind, doesn’t it?
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:06 am 29. c:Israel (and sometimes by extension the Jew) is not just a bogeyman du jour for some Dems. Support for the Palestinian “cause” in the Dem Party has been on the upswing here, most prevalent among the college kids but becoming more mainstreamed and legitimized. Of course, we know about the anti-Israel hostility in Europe, but even in Israel the Left is actively sympathetic to the Palis and working against its own government. Melanie Phillips on Israel’s Fifth Column: “…assorted Israeli leftists had been advising Mahmoud Abbas on how to advance the Palestinian cause, extract American concessions and apply pressure on Israel for his meeting with President Bush last month.
The rise of anti-Semitic/Zionist/Israeli political sentiment here in America bears watching very closely, especially as it seeps into and could saturate Democrat territory. The GOP has pretty well isolated the anti-Israeli Buchananites whose already small base in the party appears to be shrinking, but increasing numbers of young, urban, Muslim and African American Democrats would agree with the international Left’s condemnation of Israel and our policy in support of her.
Cynthia McKinney is my rep in Congress. Many of her Dem supporters here are rabidly anti-Israel and rather anti-Jew. To them, Israelis and Jews are the new white oppressors, and Arabs the sympathetic victims of Israel and America. Crazy, sure, but this view is gaining more ground than party leaders and the press (who feeds this perspective) would like to admit.
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:22 am 30. JenLArt:Howard’s nutz–he’s no friend of the Jews!
No-one remembers him saying when he was running for Prez that the U.S. needed to be more “evenhanded” in the Paleostinian-Israeli conflict, meaning less supportive of Israel?
Here’s a reference:
Howie on the Middle East 2003
Kerry had a similar position on the Middle East when he ran, I think, also.
(IOW, it was a far more pro-”Palestinian” position and far less supportive of Sharon and the “Zionist entity.”)
And while Dean condemned “anti-Semitic rhetoric” at this little shindig, he and the Dems have no problem using the word “neo-con” which is Dem code for “Jew.”
(It used to refer almost directly to Perle and Wolfowitz ’til they took other positions farther away from the Oval Office.)
Hillary has yet to explain why it was so necessary to kiss Suha Arafat while her hubby has never had to atone for his Camp David “talks” that basically launched the Intifada and for Yasser being the most frequent, and practically the only, foreign guest of this country at the White House during his 8 long years in office.
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:47 am 31. ptiusa:TomTom: Most European Jews woke up to Hitler only after the Wannsee Conference in 1942. And remember that Howard Dean himself has said that GWB was given advance notice about 9/11 by the Saudis (really, it’s interchangeable with Jews, Christians and the rest of Dean’s demonology) but did nothing about it so that he could invade Iraq and get the oil blah blah blah . . .
Jun 18, 2005 - 12:05 pm 32. truepeers:“Human progress renders the possibilities for evil more and more formidable. Culture can become an obstacle to grace.” – Henri de Lubac
Maybe the LLL’s problem is that they worship culture at a time when art has, in large part, shrunk down to pop culture and adults, needing grace, have left all that behind, leaving only those willing to engage in silliness. Or maybe the loony left just don’t get how to use pop culture to reproduce the values of high culture. They get M.Moore; the cons get South Park.
Jun 18, 2005 - 12:17 pm 33. Rick Ballard:Truepeers,
Can you give a bounded definition of what you believe LLL culture to be? Bounded in the sense that it is not simply oppositional. Is there a single mythopoeic figure left whose name continues to be honored? MLK won’t work, way too Christian, even if he was black. JFK – the patina is gone and he was never a liberal anyway.
Jun 18, 2005 - 12:36 pm 34. Buddy Larsen:Rick, FDR and Quentin Tarantino?
Truepeers, I agree with you, but have to tip my bias by saying that if you haven’t seen Team America twice (the second time for theme), then you can’t fully ‘get’ south park conservatism.
Jun 18, 2005 - 12:49 pm 35. Kevin P:Roger:
What you predict should be true but don’t be suprised if there is no mass exodus of the Jewish vote away from the Dems. 5 to 10 per cent is the most I can see in the near future. For a large segment of the Jewish community(especially among the non- religous) the democratic party has become their new religion. And the far left’s complete embrace of the Palestinian cause leaves little room for anything but hate for Israel.
Although not exactly the same there was a similar unexplainable embrace of Communism by many Russian Jews during the revolution. the initial attraction was the promise of the communists to save the Jewish community from the pograms of the Czars. But even after the USSR had shown itself to be little different then the monarchy there were still many Jews that so embraced the cause of revolution that they had no problem with the obvious hate of the Jews from prominent Soviet leaders. In their desire to proove their revolutionary bona fides they often became viscous in their treatment of the jewish religous community.
Of course they eventually came to learn the hard truth that to an anti semite a Jew is always a Jew , no matter what he does. Even though many Jews seved lenin and stalin as slavishly as any other party member the old sick hate of the Jews never left those sick leaders and just like in czarist times being Jewish became a liability. And with the Doctors trials and charges of “cosmopolitinism” many joined the meatgrinder of the gulag. And for those younger people who don’t know this is the Gulag where people were actually tortured and killed, not the “new” gulag where people lose seep and have to listen to rap music.
IMHO I think many democratic Jews will delude themselves into thinking that they islamo-fascists will only kill Republican and Likud Jews and as good noble dems who love the Palestinians they will get a pass. Poor deluded fools.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:08 pm 36. ShrinkWrapped:“Simply put, they only really fight when cornered but are very dangerous when they are cornered. Much like a rat.”
Rick Ballard
In genberal, this is true. Most narcissists avoid reality that threatens their self esteem, because confronting reversals (narcissistic injury, in psychoanalytic parlance) leads to rage, which is internalized and causes depression. The problem is that narcissism shades into paranoia at the margins. We can see in the Democratic party, various paranoid fantasies are making their way into the mainstream of the party. Paranoia is a process which allows one to disavow one’s own rage & hatred and attribute it to the enemy. Then, violence toward the enemy is justified. Since the Jews/America/Bush/Republicans, are torturing & oppressing innocents/Palestinians/Muslims, the evil must be fought.
My concern is not that the bulk of the Democratic party will rise up in violent revolution; most of those who identify as Democrats are not terribly political and aware. If Howard Dean’s rants or the anti-Semitic comments from the “impeachment hearings” are not in the New York Times, they don’t exist and their readers do not realize how toxic & deranged their party has become. My concern is that just as in the 1960’s there were those on the margins of the left who believed the rhetoric and took it to heart, which essentially required a violent response, there are now those on the margins willing to take action, to aid and abet the Islamists here in a misguided belief they are fighting for the underdog against the evil oppressor.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:09 pm 37. Rick Ballard:Certainly FDR was iconic. He was also incoporated into the American culture for quite a long time but he faded rather abruptly in the ’60’s.
Truepeers raises a very interesting point concerning culture. Opposition to the war in Vietnam was supported heavily by the music of the time. Given my distance from pop culture I really can’t comment from experience but I don’t get the feeling that music has any political edge at all today.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:13 pm 38. Buddy Larsen:So, Shrink, The Deans and Durbins are in effect–in Terrye’s memorable analogy–serving booze to their alcoholic brother-in-law who gets mean when he doesn’t get what he wants.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:25 pm 39. Gary Rosen:For those of you asking why Jews are still voting Democratic, just hang on a while. A little more of this stuff and even the NYT won’t be able to suppress it.
If you’re wondering why it’s taking so long, a little historical perspective: it wasn’t too long ago (1992) when two of the most prominent faces in the Republican party were Jim fuck-the-Jews Baker and Pat gas-the-Jews Buchanan. Reagan had actually done quite well among Jews (undoubtedly aided by Jesse Jackson) but the Bush I administration was notably unsympathetic to Israel. Even as recently as 2000 what most Jews knew about Bush II was that he was his father’s son, while Gore was a longtime friend of Israel and the Oslo process was only just starting to implode.
Things have changed drastically in the last four years. Aside from the obvious geopolitcal events, the Republican party has successfully marginalized its Buchananite wing (not completely gone but very, very small) while the Democrats are cozying up to its leftist wing whose antisemitism is becoming more and more apparent. The biggest barrier to Jews becoming Republicans is the strength of religious conservatives in the party. For my own part, I can live with honorable people that I disagree with (evangelical and fundamentalist Christians). But I absolutely cannot live with antisemitism.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:32 pm 40. clarice:I think this article captures the situation nicely..http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4578 The Dems have joined hands with the anti-Semites and the Jewish voters have paid insufficient attention to this.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:32 pm 41. Xixi:Shrink Wrapped gets a BINGO.
I donated $100 online to a Republican in Minnesota for his 2006 Senate campaign in protest of Durbin’s comment and emailed the receipt to several Democrat Senators, explaining why. [Hugh Hewitt had the idea and link.]
In the process I got into email tag with a hired consultant to the Virginia Democrat Party. His whole take on it was like some academic college debate. He thinks security is counter to ideals of freedom and liberty. I told him that there can be no freedom or liberty without security first. You can’t discuss the rule of law if you throat’s been cut by a savage.
He never seemed to understand that we have a threat to our way of life. He just wanted to debate me as if I was opposed to freedom, etc.
I think I stumbled onto a reason why some Democrats are so stupid: they didn’t learn to think in college. They just memorized the 1968 thinking of leftist professors.
All they want is validation of their position. Narcissism is all it is. This consultant kept coming back to wanting me to validate his beliefs of freedom, rule of law, etc. and he acted as if my concerns for security were off-topic.
As long as Democrats pay for this kind of advice, they’re way out of tune with anybody who lives in the real world.
Durbin crossed the line here. What he did was not just partisan, it was unpatriotic. If other Democrats don’t take him down, they are as culpable as Durbin.
I wish there was a thinking Democrat out there. I can’t find one. We really do need a two-party system.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:33 pm 42. TomTom:There is a tide in the affairs of men (excuse the paraphrase), a cyclicality. We emerged from the Dark Ages, experienced the Reformation, Enlightenment, Renaissance, etc. But the past century has seen the turn to the nadir, which we have not yet reached. Perhaps the rise of (correctly named) Islamofascism, the persistent Old Europe delusional psychoses, transglobal totalitarianism, and the deep African abyss are all part of this tide, which lowers (or swamps) all boats.
I am reminded of the Brit who said in 1914,” The lights are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them relit in our lifetime”.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:36 pm 43. Rick Ballard:Thank you for replying, Dr. I was misinterpreting the pervasiveness of the group under discussion. If I am now interpreting correctly, you are postulating a group X which exhibits strong narcissistic tendencies. Within group X there will be a subset – group Y – which interpret the messages given by Dem party leaders as confirmation of paranoiac delusions that it holds. The nature of the delusion is such that it demands that violent action be taken in order to maintain the initial narcissistic delusion of self rightgeousness.
If I’ve got that right then I would agree 100%. I’m still not sure that specific action beyond support will be taken because the violence in the ’60’s was actively supported by the Comintern which took the time to identify, indoctrinate and actually train a number of the leaders of violence prone groups.
I could certainly see a Lee Harvey Oswald or a Timothy McVeigh showing up but I haven’t seen the makings of an SDS or Weatherman group – yet. The Dem leadership really is handing out full gas cans and matches indiscriminately and perhaps it would be beneficial for a group of mental health professionals to publish a public warning via new media outlining the dangers that you observe.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:48 pm 44. truepeers:Rick, no I canít think of a single figure, not even FDR (who is today criticized for his attitudes towards women, disability, Japanese-Americans, etc.); today the center of attention is very much the land of let a thousand flowers bloom, which, if I may be sarcastic a moí, would explain why Mao does not get as bad a press as he deserves, especially in comparison with his totalitarian contemporaries. But even Mao and his cultural rev. is not the unifying figure you search.
Anyway, itís ìlet a thousand flowers bloomî on both the left and on the secular right nowadays, and this, arguably, reflects an ascendance in the public, secular culture of the Jewish idea of privileging no central figure, in comparison with the Christian model figure who serves more and more individuals in their private imaginings and search for grace, rather than in public debate.
Since I think religious ideas (which are many and diverse) are at the core of everything we think ñ even modern scienceís emergence in the Christian west was hardly a coincidence – you will not, hopefully, misinterpret this as some kind of cheap smearing. It is just inevitable that I will come to think that what motivates much of the LLL, and much else, is a historically-specific intermingling of currents from, at least, the three major monotheisms. More specifically, we are today, as so often, talking about the obsession with the leftís various ideas about Jews and Judaism.
If I am right that the core idea today is let a thousand flowers bloom, let no one or figure stay long in the center of attention, where does this rather Jewish idea come from? Besides Moses. It comes, of course, not from an obsession with heroes but with victims. And while history is full of victims, it is clear that the major historical turning point in the emergence of a worldwide victimary culture was WWII, the Holocaust, and the maturation of the postcolonial age, civil rights struggles, etc. One of the reasons the Jews are such a conceptual problem for the left is that on the one hand they are the archetypal victim figures ñ the naked, starved, bodies in the camp photographs symbolize a people reduced to nothing and discriminated against simply on account of their ìracializedî bodies (and feminists would soon say ìgenderedî bodies). But at the same time the Jewsí survival and prospering both in the ME desert, as well as in American society and culture, suggests one or two contrasting possibilities about the ends of victimary thinking that the left doesnít want to hear too much about, since explaining a cultural phenomenon, especially a political ideology, tends to undermine it: 1) victimary status is a value in and of itself that is cynically desired on the road to gaining privileges in society, such that the fact of victimization and the desire to put it to use cannot be neatly distinguished by those who pretend to political purity. (IOW success depends on being a victim, as the Jews have demonstrated.) 2) the archetypal victims have shown too much dignity to play the victim game and have just wanted to get on with surviving and succeeding in this world. (IOW, Jewish success depends on not being a victim.)
Both possibilities can be and are realized as true, of course, since reality ñ i.e. human reality defined by the paradoxes of the sacred and sacrificial – need not conform to logical principles. Yet our poor friends on the left are obsessed with logical principles even as they suffer so many logical contradictions. They are once the highbrows of the universities, fighting the bourgeois and Christian middlebrows, and the defenders of popular culture. They are at once the inheritors of that branch of Christianity that seeks to build the kingdom here and now, and the inheritors of the pomo, and rather Jewish, refusal to let anyone the privilege of figuring the kingdom here and now. So much more to say on these themes, but Iíll throw this out for now to see if I am going anywhere you want to go.
Jun 18, 2005 - 1:56 pm 45. Rick Ballard:paranoiac = paranoid
Never know when the dementia will kick in. Bsides, I’ve got a new bungee cord holding my Reynolds Wrap (with Larsen approved 3M bubble wrap liner) hat on. It takes a while to loosen up a bungee cord, so I’ve been distracted.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:00 pm 46. photoncourier.blogspot.com:In September 2003, Howard Dean said that the US should not “take sides” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was reported by The Washington Post:
http://photoncourier.blogspot.com/2003_09_01_photoncourier_archive.html#106320499943848317
This is basically saying that there is a moral equivalence between those who blow up pizza parlors and those who try to prevent such acts. While this is perhaps not as extreme as the recent moonbat festival, it’s the continuous animus toward Israel on the part of many highly-visible Democrats–including Dean–that has encouraged the worst of the extremists.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:00 pm 47. David Thomson:ìIf Howard Dean’s rants or the anti-Semitic comments from the “impeachment hearings” are not in the New York Times, they don’t exist and their readers do not realize how toxic & deranged their party has become.î
At this very moment, it only matters that Barney Frank and Joseph Liberman are very well aware of the situation. I think we can take for granted that both gentlemen are enduring an existential dark night of the soul. They are compelled to speak to their constituents in the very near future. Will they be able to justify remaining within the Democratic fold? The national Democratic Party died last November 2nd. It is now only a local party in some parts of the country. Who is going to bury the carcass?
Am I too pessimistic? Isnít there a chance for the national Democratic Party to save itself? Yes, but only if saner Democrats are willing to fight some very nasty battles. One is not permitted, though, to assassinate their political enemies. You can only attempt to marginalize them. How can this be accomplished when the radical Left is so financially solvent?
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:10 pm 48. richard mcenroe:Can we face the fact that those leafleters ARE the true face of the Democratic Party? This is how Democrats talk when they think they are alone with their own. When you see a Democrat, any Democrat, speak in public, you must realize that you are watching a bigot and antisemite with no respect for the democratic process and the people of this nation. Reject them. Reject them out of hand. Even the so-called “moderate Democrats,” for by their continued presence in the party over which they have exactly zero influence, they are merely acting as beards and spin doctors for the true bigotry and hatred that define the Democratic Party today. Deny them. I am. After thirty years as a Democrat I am changing my party affiliation today, and I will be e-mailing Mr. Dean to tell him why.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:19 pm 49. Buddy Larsen:XiXi, yes, if only to keep a credible eye on each other, two working parties are vital.
Gary, thanks for the straight talk. I’d never put Jim Baker in that light, tho now that you mention it, I can see it. My impression of the Jewish/Democrat link has always been that it was due to the traditional Democratic party being open to minorities, with a special WWII-based attraction for Jews, for whom the specter of the conservative core as being part of a continuum that at nadir was statist/corporate and hostile to minorities.
And in truth there WAS that northeastern WASP dominance, very strong only decades ago. But if there has been one political disappearing act in my lifetime (i.e. the true liberal Democratic party), there have been two; that old GOP, which is fading as fast as the relevance of the old WASP churches, that even now in Palestine have found a respectable outlet for a more refined form of bigotry.
Christian energy has passed to the evangelicals and non-legacy churches, who are small-holders, anti-corporate-statists, tolerant in the color-blind way, staunch supporters of Israel, do not tolerate anti-Semitism, and appreciate Jewish religion as the foundation/progenitor of their own ethical systems.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:20 pm 50. truepeers:“the obsession with the leftís various ideas about Jews and Judaism.” should have read “the left’s obsession with Jews and Judaism”
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:21 pm 51. photoncourier.blogspot.com:“liberal Jews…will soon be deserting that organization with the speed of refugees fleeing the Cossacks”…let’s hope so, but there’s another, more sinister historical model. There were plenty of German Jews who stayed because they remembered an earlier Germany, not the actual one in which they were living.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:25 pm 52. PeterUK:One could replace the Commintern with the Wahabis,and anti-westernism and anti-semitism as the new replacement for communism.It must be added that the really hardcore anti-globalists are already at a very violent level as are many animal rights groups.
There are quite obviously not a few organisations which are doing their damndest to hobble anything which will aid the West in this conflict.There are also fellow travellers and useful fools,it is not a large step from giving aid and comfort to active aggresion or participation,John Walker and Richard Reid were from the West.
Many disaffected young immigrants see it a a duty join the Jihad,a lot of students are so dislocated by leftist thinking that some campuses are another country.
It is time to separate the mindless political posturing from the deliberately subversive,because this is not a case of it may turn nasty,it already has.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:34 pm 53. Terrye:It is said that when the founding fathers signed the Constitution Ben Franklin said “Now we hang together”.
This is what the Democrats have lost. If push comes to shove they have no intention of hanging, they will turn the folks at Gitmo loose and sic them on the Republicans.
I think that they believe the Islamists are strange little brown people who can be taght to do tricks for the smart savvy sophisticated anti Semites of the Democratic Party.
Durbin took time out from debating a long overdue energy bill just to trash Bush and the military.
Exactly why do these idiots think we send them up there?
Personally I find the comparisons of Gitmo to the Gulag to be not only offensive but just plain stupid.
Meanwhile oil hits $58 a barrel. People do not like that.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:43 pm 54. chuck:PeterUK,
It must be added that the really hardcore anti-globalists are already at a very violent level as are many animal rights groups.
Boy, you got that right.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:53 pm 55. Rick Ballard:“the Jewish idea of privileging no central figure”
How do I square my understanding of the importance of the Messiah within Jewish theology with that statement?
“More specifically, we are today, as so often, talking about the obsession with the left’s various ideas about Jews and Judaism.”
I trace today’s left back to Hegelian historicism and the concept of Master/Slave that was transformed into Oppressor/Oppressed. Accepting arguendo
the Hegelian root, do you believe that Hegel had Jews in mind in developing the construct?
“One of the reasons the Jews are such a conceptual problem for the left is that on the one hand they are the archetypal victim figures, the naked, starved, bodies in the camp photographs symbolize a people reduced to nothing and discriminated against simply on account of their “racialized” bodies (and feminists would soon say “gendered” bodies).”
…
“2) the archetypal victims have shown too much dignity to play the victim game and have just wanted to get on with surviving and succeeding in this world. (IOW, Jewish success depends on not being a victim.)”
Yup, if they would just stay on their knees and be grateful, the Dems might be able to tolerate them. Goes double for blacks.
Your analysis is excellent as to this point, I would only add that historicism’s dependence upon stasis wrt the human condition was somewhat understandable in the 18th century while it is completely unintelligible in 21st century America. I alos think that it would be wonderful if lefties could spend some real “quality” time with Wahabbi/Salafist nutters.
Even better would be to have the DNC spend some time with them. Especially given our no ransom policy.
Jun 18, 2005 - 2:56 pm 56. Buddy Larsen:ELF specializes in burning down under-construction apartment buildings. Where is the young, just-getting-started demographic supposed to live? Ah, who cares! Burn, baby, burn! Howard Deanism all the way.
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:03 pm 57. Buddy Larsen:Victor Davis Hanson is on this topic.
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:23 pm 58. Kyda Sylvester:Given my distance from pop culture I really can’t comment from experience but I don’t get the feeling that music has any political edge at all today.
Then I guess you can be forgiven then for not knowing that there’s a new Bob Dylan out there. Presenting Bright Eyes and his latest hit When the President Talks to God:
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our womens’ rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he’s not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?
Not exactly Subterranean Homesick Blues is it?
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:27 pm 59. Terrye:I just watched the Beltway Boys and they said the Democrats are polling high and Bush is polling low and so their antics are helping and not hurting them..
what say ye?
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:34 pm 60. Tom Grey - Liberty Dad:Roger, I’ll bet you never read my:
Bush hate, Jew hate, Success hate.
The Left hates money making success; they hated Bush’s tax cuts before 9/11.
Roger, I doubt that Jews will mass desert the Dems for quite awhile. The religious Jews are NOT so happy with strong Christianity; and the non-religious Jews HATE strong Christianity. Since the Dems’ secular fundamentalists have driven the strong Christians to the Reps, the same Christian-right that makes you uncomfortable will be enough of an excuse to keep Jewish Dems Democratic. This will be especially true if the Dems lose big in 2006 and decide to embrace regime change FOR democracy, but done right (i.e. with a Dem in the White House).
Of course, Dean could help the fanatic Bush-hate Left take over the grass roots organization, and kick out any electable Dem moderates … so that no matter which Christian Rep corporate boot licker is selected, that one wins. And continues to export democracy.
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:39 pm 61. Buddy Larsen:Dylan’s claim to poetic fame was always that he could see through the propaganda. But, people get old and heroin does take a toll. Crosby and Nash tried to do a Yippie thing in the election run-up. Recapture the old magic. Oh, jeez, they were pathetic. Turn-away-from-the-screen pathetic.
The Beltway Boys info–surely there’s an explicatory caveat? Help.
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:49 pm 62. c:what say ye?
Prejudice and hate sell. It’s easier to scapegoat Bush, the military, Republicans, Israel and Jews who are on the front lines, than it is to join them and confront the fascist evil out there.
And in many hearts here, apparently.
Jun 18, 2005 - 3:54 pm 63. Rick Ballard:what say ye?
1.) A rather more significant poll was conducted on Nov. 2. The results of that poll will hold ’til the first Tuesday in November ‘06.
2.) My faith in CBS/NYT polls is sadly lacking.
3.) Ken Mehlman is beating Howlin’g Howie at fundraising by about 2.5/1 – Money being the mother’s milk of politics, I forecast a scrawny Dem baby in ‘06.
4.) If someone were willing to front the money, I can design a set of poll questions that will generate responses that indicate that a substantial majority of Americans believe that Mephistoles completed the purchase of the Democratic Party in 1992 and that party leadership since then provides undeniable proof of that fact.
Jun 18, 2005 - 4:13 pm 64. David Thomson:ìI just watched the Beltway Boys and they said the Democrats are polling high and Bush is polling low and so their antics are helping and not hurting them..
what say ye?î
Not to worry. This is not the political season. Most people care little about these matters during the summer months. And the real question is always this: what are the poll numbers of those likely to vote! In the cold, cruel practical world, the others really donít matter.
The Republicans hold power in the three main branches of elected government. President Bush just needs to continue carrying out his agenda—and everything will work out in the long run.
Jun 18, 2005 - 4:14 pm 65. Rick Ballard:Mephistopholes
I’ve got to get this bungee cord loosened up.
Jun 18, 2005 - 4:22 pm 66. truepeers:“How do I square my understanding of the importance of the Messiah within Jewish theology with that statement?”
The importance of the Messiah depends on the fact that he appears to Moses as a paradox and not as a concrete figure like Jesus.
When G-d (Orthodox Jews will not even write the word) reveals himself to Moses, not directly but via the burning bush, and Moses asks for his name, he is only given the paradoxical “I am what I am” (variously translated). Note that this is more a definition than a representation of God. Instead of a name or a figure, which could be used to invoke the return of the divine presence – such as every primitive religion had – monotheism begins with this paradoxical definition of the divinity. In a world of many divinities we can use names to distinguish the various Gods, but if some people come along whose Yahweh has now become a paradoxical definition, what they are trying to do is less distinguish their god from yours, and more pronounce themselves as the discoverers (via Moses) of a human unity. Arguably, the basis of antisemitism is that this discovery of the one God depends on his discovery, first, by a particular people.
To fully appreciate this historical development, one has to remember that primitive peoples do not speak in declarative sentences – they do not attempt logical or paradoxical definitions of this or that, including their Gods. They use invocations, imperatives, and ostensive gestures to refer to the sacred. The idea that God could be represented by a paradoxical declarative sentence, “Ehyeh asher ehyeh”, commences a new era in human self-understanding, or so it is argued.
Only once in history can a particular people pretend to discover the universal God; anyone else who tries the same thing is only mimicking the Jews in an unoriginal way. Thus we have antisemitism; and monotheism evolves by universalizing itself via Christianity and Islam. But, I was suggesting, the Jewish sense of a special relationship to the divinity, such that one’s history of success or failure becomes read as a revelation of the one God’s will, is reflected (at least in part) in our own pomo victimary age when history becomes understood – not that a secular history can really be understood in these terms at all – as being revealed in the stories of the latter-day victims of latter-day Egyptian pharaohs (but also the Christian model, Christ’s definitive revelation of sacrificial behaviors, is powerfully at play here). We no longer have public figurations of the divine, but we put victims on center stage as quasi-sacred declarations of history’s meaning and direction.
Thus I conclude postmodernism is in a mimetic relationship with Judaism in a number of uncomfortable ways. Yet in Judaism one is ever waiting for the return of the Messiah, precisely with the expectation that he will not return yet and that we cannot make this world in his image; we can only await his progressive revelation to us via the lessons of our history. As Kafka put it “The Messiah will first come when he is no longer needed, he will first come on the day after his arrival, he will not come on the last day, but on the last of all.” If the postmodern left could reproduce such a patient spirit of awaiting, I would have much more respect for them. Arguably, there are a few who approach this, but the majority, it seems to me, want to build the state and other institutions of this world to reflect their victims’ critique. Whatever that entails – their nihilistic attitudes towards power and responsibility have become a real problem.
As for your Hegel question, Rick, I’m not sure what to say. As a product of western civilization, how could the Old and New Testament stories not have influenced him? But how conscious he was of making the parallels you suggest, I have no idea. Anyway, fwiw, I see the left’s Hegelian-Marxist inheritance as being relatively more Christian than Jewish in its influences (not that a secular “religion” is a real religion at all) and in conflict with their relatively Jewish postmodernism.
Jun 18, 2005 - 4:44 pm 67. Terrye:David:
I have noticed that Democrats do well in generalities and suck in particulars.
Perfect example, so far they do not seem to be suffering from their refusal to deal iwth Social Security. Well they did not suffer from their inability to deal with Islamic terrorism either, until 9/11 that is.
I heard Pelosi saying that we could wait half a century to deal with social security. Nobody really believes that but it is kind of like hearing someone say, “You? Fat? Nahhhh go ahead and have another piece of pound cake.”
People know it is not true, but they like the sound of it. That works up to a point. So Dems may poll higher but they have not won national majority since 1976. They are a minority party in the Congress and the State Houses. For a party that polls well they sure do suck at winning elctions.
Bush has set a high standard for his second term, He could have coasted after Afghanistan but he did not.
And I also have my doubts about any poll put out by CBS/NYT.
but the price of gas is a problem.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:04 pm 68. David Thomson:ìbut the price of gas is a problem.î
It isnít a major problem. All of the other economic indicators are very good. The stock market keeps going up and the unemployment rate keeps going down. You must understand that we are a bunch of statistical weirdoes. How many other ìnormalî Americans are spending their early Saturday evening exchanging opinions on a blog? Most people are not paying attention. Only those who are likely voters give a damn. Things change virtually overnight when election day is imminent. Start taking polls seriously after Labor Day 2006. Your concerns are premature by about 14 months.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:22 pm 69. Buddy Larsen:Whoosh–you guyz is doing some heavy woik today. Truepeers, I get it–as well as I’m Mable–the ever-receding, ambiguous nature of PoMo being linked with the remote, unseeable Old Testament God, but, I wish you’d point out that the one is all about hiding meaning, and the other all about revealing it.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:26 pm 70. Tom Holsinger:IMO most American Jews are in the position of many (if not most) German Jews under late Wilhelmian Germany. They consider themselves to be Americans of Jewish descent, so anti-Semitic threats and acts are deemed not really to be about them. Assimilation has kicked in big-time.
The only thing which can convince them otherwise is physical assault or the palpable fear of it.
Note the denial of threat by most German Jews under the Weimar Republic and early Nazi regime. IMO the same thing has happened to most American Jews.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:32 pm 71. ed:Hmmmm.
“When you see a Democrat, any Democrat, speak in public, you must realize that you are watching a bigot and antisemite with no respect for the democratic process and the people of this nation.”
Actually I don’t believe this is true at all. I think a large number of Democrats don’t think this way at all. But I do think many of the elites in the Democratic Party, and many activists too, do think in these terms. For them ideology and power, in that order, is everything.
It’ll be interesting to see if the dormant portion of the Democratic Party awakes.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:35 pm 72. c:Your concerns are premature by about 14 months.
Perhaps, David. Still, the groundwork for the upcoming election cycles is being laid now, and this last election was too close for some of us to take much comfort in good economic indicators and the seeming self-destruction of the DNC. Dean’s and the Dem prescription for gaining power seems to be to radicalize the party, preferably out of view; to demonize the opponent- Repubs and not the Islamists, mind you, and in front of cameras and the world; and to present itself as “centrist” and populist to the electorate in the next election cycles. The disgusting hate they sow will not suddenly dissipate, whether they win or lose in ‘06 and ‘08, and I think they have a good chance at winning the WH next go around b/c of war, domestic reform and world transformation fatigue voters could be feeling by then. A post ME war Clinton redux, maybe with a General Clark thrown in on the ticket for (pretend serious) military and international(ist) cred. Wesley did the taxes on a ski condo we jointly owned, but I wouldn’t pull the lever for him ever. Others will, though- he and Hill will look positively saintly and stately compared to the rest of the Dem demagogues, and too many moderate voters will reward them for it, I think.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:37 pm 73. truepeers:Buddy, you have a way of summing things up that I and anyone who reads my lenghthy posts would die for, well, almost. I thought I was getting at that loss of meaning by calling them nihilists…. Anyway, I’m off to do some honest physical labor now and I’ll be chewing over your little gem.
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:41 pm 74. Kevin P:Roger:
There is never any hole that is too deep to climb out of, even for a politician.Although he will never hold a major political office the recent ascent back to respectability by Pat Buchannon is a site to see. Especially since he gets most of his respect from the left these days.
After his Republican Convention speech in Texas there was no man more reviled by the left then PB. Bigot, hate filled, homophobic, anti-semite, and anti female were just some of the love notes the left bestowed on Pat.His isolationist views were considered a relic of a pre-progressive era.Even his Deep Throat rant the other day brought a bigot charge from the LAT last week. Yet Pat’s isolationist anti-Israel foreign policy idea’s have made him a favorite of the MSM and many far left outlets. He has gone from knuckle dragging drooling caveman to foreign policy wiseman in just 2 decades. And Pat hasn’t changed a bit. The far left has come to him.They don’t like his abortion views but when it comes to foreign policy they are like two young lovers, cooing and necking each other. John Conyers and Pat Buchannon, who would have thunk it?
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:44 pm 75. Buddy Larsen:The average person drives 2000 miles/month, at 20 mpg, that’s 100 gallons. The difference between 1.50 gas and 2.00 gas is fifty bucks a month. not catastrophic, tho $600/yr to lower income folks, usually the youngest and oldest adults, means something. It’s hurting WalMart, for sure. But, no one’s to blame, the resource is inching into scarcity. Price will force some conservation, good for the world as a whole. We’re seeing the closing of an anomalous era of cheap energy. The way for a Deanocrat to use gasoline price to win elections is to offer to invade Saudi Arabia, and take it all for ourselves. Will Americans go for that? Dean’s people might. Depression in the rest of the world? What rest of the world?
Jun 18, 2005 - 5:47 pm 76. Buddy Larsen:Charlotte, you’re kidding, Wesley Clark does taxes?
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:00 pm 77. c:Not happily
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:06 pm 78. c:I should add that it was good of him to do them.
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:09 pm 79. Buddy Larsen:uhh…you Do know he’s from Arkansas, don’t you?
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:12 pm 80. c:We’re in trouble now!
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:13 pm 81. Buddy Larsen:yes…you may have to handle Bill.
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:26 pm 82. Terrye:I drive 600 miles a week because of my [effing] job. So I think about the price of gas everyday.
Well it is too soon to tell who will win what, but I think the thing that pisses me off the most is the fact that someone like Durbin can bitch about “torture” at Gitmo and seemingly earn for the days of Saddam’s regime at the same time.
If there was a regime that used and employed torture it was Saddam Hussien’s.
But then again if Galloway can bemoan the loss of the Soivet Union and call the US a rogue state for not getting permission from the UN to invade someone I guess any expectation of logic is a waste of time.
the fricking hypocrites.
Whatever else happens in Iraq, Saddam Hussein will never give the order to poke out some child’s eyes. And that is a good thing.
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:38 pm 83. Terrye:earn = yearn but I am sure you all figured that out.
Jun 18, 2005 - 6:40 pm 84. PeterUK:Apparently the poor dear Democrats are the victims of a Rovian plot.http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=855529&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:07 pm 85. Iron Teakettle:This is not new. This dirt came out out the day after 9/11. How cynical will you allow me to be? The “Golden Apes”, i.e. the oil-rich mid-east reactionary despots, have a lot of money to spend for anti-Jewish propaganda (I do not say anti-Semitic because they are Semites too). Chase the money. Look at who contributed and how much to these jackasses.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:12 pm 86. Terrye:Iron:
I wondered the same thing myself.
And McCain Feingold made it worse.
Yes, Peter, Karl Rove is responsible for the fact that Dean and his party say stupid things.
Maybe that is why they do as well in the polls as they do, they offer a kind of bizarre comic relief.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:19 pm 87. Yehudit:“Oh, to have a young firebrand Muslim congressperson standing up before the assembled media and talking truth. There is so potential there to lift the whole planet’s fortunes. Where is that person?”
Kamal Nawash. Except he didn’t win the election this time.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:28 pm 88. Rick Ballard:“Golden Apes” is as offensive as any of the sedition spouted by Durbin. Comes from the same place with the same intent. Bigotry is bigotry. Get in line with Conyers et al. if you want to spout that crap.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:37 pm 89. David Thomson:ìStill, the groundwork for the upcoming election cycles is being laid now, and this last election was too close for some of us to take much comfort in good economic indicators and the seeming self-destruction of the DNC.î
My optimism is fueled by the diminishing importance of the MSM. Their influence by August of next year will not be enough to effectively help the liberal Democrats. Red staters know where to get accurate reporting and analysis. They daily visit the new media outlets like this very blog.
One should not pay too much attention to general public polling. Itís often a complete waste of time. My bet is that the polling of likely voters in red states today would give President Bush and the Republicans a lead of 5% or better. What about the blue states? They may only be getting bluer. Iíve basically written off many of these people. Our host, for instance, resides in California. This state is very blue—and will remain so for a very long time into the future.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:39 pm 90. PeterUK:Terrye.
The problem is sorting out the idiots,political opportunists,true believers from those bought and paid for.I would reckon ther a not a few journalists ,officials and some politicians on the take.
As Prince Bandar said “We find that if we look after those leaving office,those coming into office make note of this” to paraphrase.
Unfortunately in the shadow of McCarthy and the climate of moral relativism it is going to be a hard row to hoe sorting it out.
Jun 18, 2005 - 7:40 pm 91. Buddy Larsen:Yehudit’s link is very interesting…especially the “press corner”. This fella sounds for real. Kind of heartbreaking, the entry in the press corner, where he speaks of his “Free Muslim Day” event in DC attracting a mere few dozen participants. I think I’ll send him a few bucks and keep an eye on him. Really, this war can only really end through a mass rejection of jihad by Muslims. And, itmay have to come from America, from American Muslims. Too bad this country has to grind gears and spin tires just to keep the guy next door from trailing off behind the feel-good pipers. Be nice to be united, and thus able to focus on how to finesse this jihad psychologically.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:06 pm 92. Buddy Larsen:Rick’s right, teakettle. If we dehumanize, we can’t rhetorically separate ourselves from those who spit “pigs and monkeys”. Words are important. Call them what they are, vile murder-buyers, but not “apes,” because, well, they’re not apes.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:14 pm 93. Kyda Sylvester:From Peter’s link:
I sincerely hope the Democrats continue to heed the advice of people like Lakoff (I understand every Dem member of Congress was given a copy of Lakoff’s book. has anybody out there read it? is there any indication they’re following its lead?). He’s basically telling them that if only they had a well-oiled propaganda machine equal to Rove’s, Howard Dean wouldn’t talk stupid.
but the price of gas is a problem.
Everyone’s going to have to get used to it, I’m sorry to say. We’ve been leading a priviledged life energy wise all these years and that’s over for the foreseeable future.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:22 pm 94. Buddy Larsen:That VDHanson link above warns specifically against the damage we do to moderate Muslim morale by our lumping the whole religion in with the jihadis. Even beyond the ethical question–and we all know how frustration works–just on purely strategic grounds alone, it isn’t smart to help your enemy consolidate his base. Far wiser to isolate–and this starts in our own minds–the core zealots, divide them from their hiding ground among a populace as much as possible. For example, calling his racial/religious brethren “apes”–even tho you mean the blood-moneymen–will do nothing to help, will only hurt, Kamal Nawash, the ally we have in Yehudit’s link.
Or, am I wrong, would it be better to stay inside a rage? Maybe so, I don’t know, just babbling here.
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:26 pm 95. Kyda Sylvester:An inside view of the Jewish/Democrat nexus from the writing team of Mason/Felder:
Jun 18, 2005 - 8:32 pm 96. Rick Ballard:Buddy,
Wahabbi/Salafist/Islamofascists, funded by Saudi princelings and sheiks covers the waterfront fairly well. It also leaves out the 98% of Muslims who are, if not innocent bystanders, at least not active whacko head choppers.
I don’t mind calling a personal excavating implement a spade but dehumanizing speech is best reserved for animals – and politicians of both parties.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:12 pm 97. David Thomson:The Democrats must be able to garner at least 60% of the Jewish vote to win the presidency. It is my guess that they will be lucky to get 50% in 2008. Also, the Democratic Party must attract at least 85% of the black vote. If Condi Rice is on the GOP ticket, she will attract a minimum of 20%. This dooms the Democrats.
I would like to see the vast majority of voters abandon the Democrats. Still, all we really need is a small increase in the totals to ensure victory in the electoral college.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:15 pm 98. flenser:c
Are you charlotte, in deep cover? Did Buddy blow your disguise?
Buddy
The rosy glow in which the Democratic party has enveloped itself has gotten even to you. The “anti-robber baron” laws which you speak of were passed by Republicans, among them John Sherman of Sherman Antitrust Act fame.
Kyda has pointed out just how much help FDR gave to Jews when they needed it. She might have also mentioned how the Democratic party of the time treated black’s, especially in the South. From Jefferson on down, it’s always been “do as I say, not as I do” with these people.
Regarding “moderate Muslim’s” – I think the consensus here is that you are right, we should attempt to bolster the non-jihadi elements.
The danger is that even we who should know better can start to believe the MSM spin, and accept the image they project of a Muslim world united in opposition to us. We would not be able to last in the region with as few troops as we have there unless many Iraqis and Afghanis were well disposed to us.
Back to, I guess, the main topic; Tom Holsinger has the best take I think. For many, younger, American Jews, anti-semitism is not something real. To whatever extent they are aware of this kind of activity in the Democatic party, they will simply shrug it off. Anyone who has not gotten the picture intellectually by now is not going to get it. It will take some emotionaly cathartic event to shift the holdouts.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:35 pm 99. Buddy Larsen:Well, hell, flenser, thanks for destroying my redemption-cycle narrative.
Jun 18, 2005 - 9:52 pm 100. rickl:Kyda 03:27 PM
Buddy 03:49 PM
OK, now you’ve got my attention. I’ve been reading Roger’s blog for ages now and have never commented. The quality of the comments section here is light-years above any other site I know of, with the exception of Belmont Club. Most of the time I simply don’t have anything original to contribute, so I’m content with just reading and learning. At long last I’ve got something to sink my teeth into!
Kyda, the musical landscape for the last 40 years or so is strewn with the dessicated corpses of “new Bob Dylans”. Meanwhile, the old one just keeps chugging along. I just saw him last Thursday night. He played at a minor league baseball park in Camden, NJ, and he and his band burned the place down. People left there absolutely giddy with big grins on their faces. I’ve seen him at least 30 times through the years in every kind of venue imaginable and this was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen. He was smiling and laughing and was obviously enjoying himself. And the band rocked like all hell.
If you really want to hear the “new Bob Dylan”, I suggest you pick up a copy of his most recent album, “Love and Theft”. OK, it’s four years old. (Its official release date was 9/11/01, incidentally, for what it’s worth…). He’s been too busy touring nonstop to record another one, although I’d say he’s about due. But far from being a nostalgia act, over the last decade or so he’s been making some of the best music of his career, both studio and live. He just turned 64, and if Thursday was any indication, he’s just getting warmed up.
While the majority of people think of him for “protest songs”, the truth is he pretty much gave that up around 1964. (It’s too much of a digression to go into here, but in my opinion, the left has reviled him ever since for going off the plantation.) I don’t know what his political views are and he doesn’t wear them on his sleeve, so it doesn’t matter. For most of his career he’s actually been the living embodiment of Laura Ingraham’s “Shut Up and Sing”.
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:02 pm 101. Rick Ballard:Flenser,
What Tom described and you reiterated is the result of Gramscian success. The MSM and MSE have been in their hands for forty years and they have consistently obliterated a view of history that corresponds to reality. Along the way they’ve also obliterated logic and substituted pomo linguistics without any rational basis. Nothing means anything so anything can be said but nothing can be believed. Fortunately, the students so assiduously trained in pomo theory have proven to be as intellectually crippled as the movement that indoctrinated them.
Had technology remained as moribund as did leftist intellectual efforts, the leftists would have had a success that would have required quite a few more decades to overcome. Instead, new technology has spawned a new media that is insusceptible to Gramscian penetration.
And so, just enough of the EU constitution is made public for it to be rejected, admittedly for the wrong reasons but the hustle still failed because too much information became available. Yesterday the EU budget talks had to be suspended – again, simply too much information was available.
Jun 18, 2005 - 10:10 pm 102. Yehudit:Buddy, I was at that rally. The attendance sucked but the speeches were incredible, and they are preserved on C-SPAN, which you can link to from the FMAT home page. I suggest sending the link to any moderate Muslims you know who might want to know they are not alone.
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:40 pm 103. Zev Sero:The Messiah is important in Judaism not for who he is, but for what he does. He’s a saviour, not a Saviour. He’s not a “son of God”, but an ordinary person who does a job of work. And after he does it, he remains the mortal king of a realm that is idyllic but perfectly natural; no supernatural “Kingdom of Heaven” – that comes later, not through the efforts of the Messiah himself, but through those of a whole world that is able to make those efforts because of the peace that he brought.
(see Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings and Their Wars, chapter 11)
Jun 18, 2005 - 11:50 pm 104. Kyda Sylvester:Rickl–
Is there a name for people who have been to 30+ Dylan concerts? Like Deadhead or Parrothead? Are you a Dylanhead?
Although I certainly can’t boast such credentials as yours, I was at Newport in ‘65 when Dylan went electric. That was pretty cool. The last time I saw him perform anything was at the Oscar’s and to be honest I could hardly understand a word he was singing (did like the song though).
For the record, I’m not in the market for a “new” Dylan and even if I were this Bright Eyes creature could hardly fit that bill–I mean, have you ever seen such crap in your life?! He can’t become one of those dessicated corpses soon enough. The state of contemporary music must be even more wretched than I imagined.
Pop in again some time, why dontcha.
Jun 19, 2005 - 1:24 am 105. marc:Conyers used the Downing Street memos as the bais for his forum.
Turns out those memos are probably fake.
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/06/britain-downing-street-memos-fake.html
The Sunday Times (UK) “Smith told AP he protected the identity of the source he had obtained the documents from by typing copies of them on plain paper and destroying the originals.
The AP obtained copies of six of the memos (the other two have circulated widely). A senior British official who reviewed the copies said their content appeared authentic. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the secret nature of the material.”
Using copies of memos, destroying the originals, using un-named sources to authenticate the copies and whose best guess is they “appeared authentic” – sound familiar?
Jun 19, 2005 - 2:49 am 106. HA:I NEVER thought I’d say this, but Bravo Howard Dean!
Jun 19, 2005 - 4:40 am 107. HA:Roger,
What’s going on with the “liberal” (what in the world does that mean anymore?)
If you base the meaning of “liberal” on the actual policies advocated by those who claim the label, it means Gramscian Marxism.
Today, those who claim to be “liberals” while completely invert that word’s meaning want to implement policies that use the coercive power of government to redistribute resources according to their arbitrary ideals of “social justice.” They want us poor, ignorant, and dependent on government programs. They also want to undermine American national sovereignty in favor of transnational organizations.
The means to achieve these ends is through cultural warfare that will destroy Americans faith in our own society. These so-called “liberals” smear America as a country of racist, sexist, homophobic, militaristic robber-barrons being manipulated by those evil, conniving J-E-W-S into war of global conquest to satisfy our voracious appetite for oil so that we can destroy the environment from the comfort of our SUV’s.
But whatever you do, don’t question their patriotism.
Jun 19, 2005 - 4:55 am 108. HA:I think that Jewish identity with the Democrats is a legacy of the Diaspora. For centuries, Jews were dispersed among many nations. Whenever things started going haywire anywhere, nationalist demagogues would whip up anti-Semitic hysteria as a distraction. There’s nothing like Jew-killing to solve problems. I think the result of this is that Jews were conditioned to adopt an anti-nationalist culture.
During the Nazi era, Jews that survived fled to America and Israel. Now, the vast majority of Jews live in two sovereign nation-states rather than being widely dispersed among dozens. However, the cultural adaptations that Jews made during two millenia of Diaspora have now become maladaptions in an environment where the survival of the Jewish people depends on the sovereignty of two nation-states.
Times have changed. Nationalism used to be the greatest threat to Jews. Now, Jews depend on nationalism. Most socialist don’t really hate Jews. They hate nationalism, and therefore they hate Zionism which is nothing more than Jewish nationalism. Unfortunatley, these socialists are ignorant fools (thus explaining their socialism) incapable of understanding that they have found common cause with authentic Jew-haters. Over time, Jews will adapt to this new political environment and will leave the Democrats.
Jun 19, 2005 - 5:29 am 109. photoncourier.blogspot.com:Re the question of why so many Jews continue to support the Democrats…it’s difficult for most people to realize that something with the same name and visible identity may in fact by a very different thing from what it used to be. Here’s a passage from Burke that is relevant. Excerpt:
“Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in practice.
Seldom have two ages the same fashion in their pretexts and the same modes of mischief. Wickedness is a little more inventive. Whilst you are discussing fashion, the fashion is gone by. The very same vice assumes a new body.”
More of this passage at:
http://www.sheilaomalley.com/archives/004497.html
Jun 19, 2005 - 7:10 am 110. PeterUK:This is the kind of thing the left are good at,from The Belmont Club,
“Acting on a request from the North Vietnamese, students in a so-called anti-war organization in the United States researched public records and formulated biographies on Americans captured in Vietnam. After reading Lt. Rowe’s biography, his Viet Cong captors became furious. They marched him into a cramped bamboo hut and forced him to sit on the damp clay floor. Several high ranking Viet Cong officials were staring down at Lt. Rowe. They held out a piece of typed onion skin paper.
“The peace and justice loving friends, of the National Liberation Front, who live in America, have provided us with information which leads us to believe you have lied to us,” they informed Lt. Rowe. “According to what we know, you are not an engineer . . . you have much military experience which you deny . . . You were an officer of the American Special Forces.”
Lt. Rowe sat dumbfounded, unable to comprehend that his own people would betray him.”
Jun 19, 2005 - 7:27 am 111. triticale:Hey you’re wrong, you stupid idiot criminal murdering fascist, we narcissists are NOT vicious when cornered!
Just don’t trap one on the bank of a reflecting pool such as the one in Washington, DC.
Jun 19, 2005 - 7:36 am 112. PeterUK:It would be interesting to know who those students were and where they are now.This kind of thing needs to go on their CVs.
Jun 19, 2005 - 7:43 am 113. Rick Ballard:Shrink Wrapped has written a very good letter to his Senators. I eagerly await the response of Sen. Shumer and Sen. Clinton. I think I’ll plant an acorn today so that when the responses arrive I will be able to read them while sitting in the shade of an oak tree.
Jun 19, 2005 - 7:45 am 114. rickl:Kyda:
I just spent almost an hour writing a reply to your 1:24 AM comment, and my cat deleted it just as I was about to post.
Yes, I guess it was kind of long-winded. But it was a GREAT post, just take my word for it.
Anyone want to adopt a cat?
Jun 19, 2005 - 8:29 am 115. rickl:Kyda:
Ah, well, it was off topic anyway. Roger, we need a Bob Dylan thread.
Jun 19, 2005 - 8:34 am 116. c:Another off topic, but since flenser asked:
I am not Charlotte. Buddy just insists on calling me that, for some reason
Reverted to the initial I used to use b/c I’ve a bad habit of returning email, talking on the phone and contemplating unification theory while I post comments, and they come out unedited 98% of the time to the shame of all good charlottes everywhere. Think my distraction has something to do with p-branes, which don’t seem to afflict the rest of you. Also, I had hoped to stop a particular person in RL from following too closely what I do and say. But, oh well on that score!
Good point you made about how our troops and contractors are far better liked by Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan than the media would allow. More news consumers need to read Chrenkoff, our terrific mil bloggers, those brave Middle Easterners online and of course Roger if they want less filtered and manipulated reports on what’s going on over there. Maybe PJ Media should put together TV and radio ads, even billboards, getting the word out for people to go online and to their portal for more accurate news and analysis.
Regards,
c, char, carlotta, charotte, hey you
Jun 19, 2005 - 9:45 am 117. Buddy Larsen:Great music, glad to know he still puts on good live, touring still is a great counterpoint to those lyrics Kyda copied…he’s not gone daft, obviously. The lyrics wouldn’t be a kowtow to the marketplace, I’m sure. So, I don’t get it. I guess your cat must agree with me, I’m glad he’s not a Liberal–cats are always suspect. “Time Out of Mind” is great, proves the “later” Dylan, up there with the old stuff. Well, the times can never be the same, but, technically up there with “Blonde” and “66″.
Yehudit, thanks for the tip and suggestion–it really is a good idea. Most of the deployed troops are trying to bridge the gulf, we need to follow their lead–the word coming back is that it is worth the effort.
Zev, I thought about Maimonides while reading Truepeers yesterday…I’ll bet he (Truepeers) knows him. He is quite an interesting bridge between the two religions. So much yet to learn, alas, thank goodness.
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:07 am 118. flenser:This, by Paul Johnson, has probably already been linked to and discussed. I haven’t been around much of late so I would have missed it. But it’s on topic and well argued, even if I don’t completely buy the whole thing.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article.asp?aid=11906035_1
(Found the link at photoncouriers blog)
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:13 am 119. Buddy Larsen:“C”, your writing style is too distinctive to hide–as is the sensibility. Also, both Charlotte and c have the same grotesque congressperson, and both have allowed as to being Houston natives. And of course the letter ‘c’. Just call me Closea Clousau Cluoseu the guy Peter Sellars played in Pink Panther. But, sorry, I’ll keep the secret if you try again.
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:15 am 120. c:How about “ch”?
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:18 am 121. c:Buddy, This is all too much about me and name. I was mostly trying to avoid ‘posted by charlotte’ for reasons having nothing to do with the good people here or ‘deep disguises’. I would have come up with a more interesting life if I were trying to fool any of you who comment here. It’s just that there are other people who read this site and who aren’t quite the detective you are.
Speaking of which, Happy Father’s Day, everyone. Sent The Big Fix and Interior Desecrations to mine.
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:35 am 122. rickl:Hi Buddy,
By the way, I always love your comments. You really have a gift for turning a memorable, concise, and damn funny phrase. Which I don’t. My comments, when I make them, tend to be rambling and overlong.
It turns out that I misintrepreted Kyda’s original comment. I thought she was slamming Bob, but she was referring to a new song by someone/thing calling him/her/itself Bright Eyes. I haven’t heard it myself, since I try hard to ignore the absolute vacuous horror called contemporary popular music.
Anyway, like I said, Bob’s doing just fine. One thing that has struck me, seeing his concerts in recent years, is the age distribution among the crowd. The audience members include everyone from gray-haired 60’s veterans all the way down to college kids and even teenagers. (I’m right about in the middle.) It may be that some of the kids are just there to see firsthand the musical legend they’ve heard so much about before he dies, but I tend to doubt it. I think the majority of them are there because they know they’ll hear some terrific music.
I like to think that some of the older members of the audience haven’t seen him in years, and want to relive their youth. They go to see the Great 60’s Folk/Protest Icon Voice Of A Generation. If so, they are in for a rude awakening. Some of his older songs are rearranged to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Who knew that songs from the quiet, semi-acoustic John Wesley Harding album could be transmogrified into full-bore, kick-ass, pedal-to-the-metal hard rockers?
By the way, “Time Out Of Mind” is my favorite Dylan album. That reveals more than I want to about my love life, however.
Jun 19, 2005 - 11:02 am 123. Kyda Sylvester:Yes, indeed, happy Father’s Day one and all. Rich Lowry has a few good words on the subject of fathers and fatherhood. Feminists and other assorted lefties have tried hard, in some respects successfully, to marginalize your role through the years, but we know how vital it is to the health and well-being of our society. So, on behalf of every little girl who ever gazed at her daddy through adoring eyes and every boy who ever believed that there was no greater hero on earth than his dad, Fathers, here’s to you. Enjoy your day.
After following Peter over to Wretchard’s to read about Lt/Col Rowe, I feel compelled to stand with Howard Dean: I hate the left and everything it stands for. It’s time to start Swiftboating these guys. Start putting names out, names attached to deeds. These assbites have had far too easy a time for far too long.
The incomparable Mark Steyn unloads both barrels at Senator Dick this morning:
Just so.
And rickl, I’m sure it was great (repeat after me: edit, copy). If Roger ever does have a Dylan thread, I’ll tell you about a local urban legend.
Jun 19, 2005 - 11:59 am 124. Buddy Larsen:Okay, Charlotte, whenever I see “ch” I’ll know it’s not you. But, I’ll wish it were–you’re great fun and many will miss you. “ch” will be fun, too, whoever the hell she is. (*groan*)
Rickl, thanks for that, made my day! Last time I saw Dylan on TV, it was the Oscar performance a few yeras ago, he’d been out of view for awhile–and he knocked the place down, an absolutely great performance. Yeh, i guess “Time” does sorta place its fans low down the love-optimism scale. But, you know, art gets your misery out there where ya can at least enjoy it!
Jun 19, 2005 - 12:11 pm 125. ettolrahc:rickl,
Even some teens are “discovering” Dylan these days. Mine loves him and is writing her own sixties ballad music, strumming and mumbling like he did, with a little Simon & Garfunkel and PP&M thrown in. Reminds me of A Mighty Wind, which was mighty hysterical.
Regards,
Jun 19, 2005 - 12:48 pm 126. Kyda Sylvester:A Mighty Wind wasn’t the best out of that crew (Best in Show takes that honor IMO), but it was mighty funny especially for anyone who lived those times.
Jun 19, 2005 - 1:24 pm 127. WichitaBoy:charlotte,
I’m totally confused now on who’s charlotte and who’s c and who’s ch. If you’re out there, please keep posting. We miss you!
rickl,
Glad to see you. Welcome!
Jun 19, 2005 - 2:18 pm 128. Buddy Larsen:My fave for that crew was the Sychronized Swimmers–which was just a skit, I think. Schearer was trying for the Olympics in the sport, but he “didn’t swim so well’…belly laff skit.
Jun 19, 2005 - 2:40 pm 129. Buddy Larsen:Charlotte, WB, is like Major Major Major (Bob Newhart in the flick) in Catch-22. If someone came in to see him, the aide in the anteroom was to say “He’s not in.” If the caller wanted to know when he IS in, the answer was “Only when he’s not in.” Major got his name via being born with the surname. His dad, sense of humor, named him “Major”. Then, when he went to war, he rose to the rank of, natch, Major.
Jun 19, 2005 - 2:59 pm 130. c:Wichitaboy,
You’re too sweet! But I don’t even know what we’re talking about, anymore- How am I like Major Major Major? I don’t mind anyone knowing I’m ‘in’, but just didn’t want the ‘posted by…’ records. Anyhoo, I’d prefer to be more like General Jen General in that famous book whose name I can’t seem to recall… And I was just joshing about the ‘ch’ and “ettolrahc’. Do I spend too much time with teens and my cats, perhaps?
I liked the line in Mighty Wind about the importance of model trains, which I won’t mangle here.
Jun 19, 2005 - 3:17 pm 131. Kyda Sylvester:The synchronized swimming sketches Martin Short and, and, and Harry Shearer?? did on SNL were also a riot. Why is synchronized swimming so funny?
Jun 19, 2005 - 3:40 pm 132. Buddy Larsen:c, more like Bob Newhart’s performance–deadpan, funny–not like the character. I spoke unclearlyly.
Kyda, it’s the nosepieces?
Jun 19, 2005 - 4:11 pm 133. chuck:Hmmm,
I was never a great fan of Dylan, or anyone else for that matter, but I did meet a daughter of the folks who ran Maggie’s farm. And yes, Dylan did spend some time there.
Jun 19, 2005 - 10:15 pm 134. jerry:The reason that “Jewish” voters will not abandon the Democratic Party any time soon is that most people we identify (or they self identify) as Jews have long ceased having any connection with Judaism. At best they are Jews of convenience when an ethnic identity is needed. Jews who maintain their religious identity already have abandoned the Democrat Party as a block and vote across the political spectrum with a bias toward Republicans. Unfortunately, the vast majority of ìJewishî voters fall in the former rather then the latter group. Their political attitudes are far worse then the Jews of pre-Nazi Germany. German Jews thought of themselves as Jews who went to synagogue instead of Church. All to many faux Jews in American today think of themselves as ìProgressivesî [read socialists] first, last and always.
Jun 20, 2005 - 10:03 am 135. markus:Roger, how about an update and an acknowledgement that Barney Frank sent out the following press release, and, moreover, posted it on his website on Friday morning, 8:24 AM Pacific Time TWENTY THREE HOURS AND FORTY EIGHT MINUTES BEFORE YOU POSTED YOUR DIATRIBE.
from http://www.house.gov/frank/
posted 06/17/05 11:24 AM EST
FRANK REPUDIATES ANTI-ISRAEL BIAS
Congressman Barney Frank today expressed strong disagreement and disappointment with remarks made at an informal Congressional hearing on Thursday which sought to blame the State of Israel for the Bush policy on Iraq. Congressman Frank attended part of the hearing, which was frequently interrupted by a long series of votes that were being conducted on the floor of the House. He was not present when any references to Israel were made.
ìThe notion that United States foreign policy is somehow being manipulated by Israel is not only gravely mistaken, it is redolent of the sort of conspiracy theories imputing hidden powers to the Jews that have plagued the world for far too long. Congressman Moranís question which gave prominence to the role of Israel as one of the possible major factors behind the invasion, and the answer by witness Raymond McGovern which not only blamed Israel for the war in substantial part, but objected even to Congressman Moranís citing Israel as an American ally, are both refuted by the evidence discussed at the hearing itself. It should be emphasized that the hearing was called in major part to discuss the Downing Street minutes that were released, and nothing in those minutes in any way supports the allegation that this was all an Israeli plot.
ìI believe now and believed at the time that the Bush Administration came to power wanting to invade Iraq, and used the September 11th tragedy as a political justification for doing so, not because of some secret deal with Israel, but because of the foreign policy world view of those in charge of Bush Administration national security ñ who of course did not include the nominal Secretary of State, Colin Powell. In fact, part of the political bargaining between the Bush and Blair administrations that resulted in total British support for this unwise war was the endorsement by President Bush for the first time in his administration of a serious effort to bring about a peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, which was not entirely to Israelís liking. The latest step in the evolution of that policy was a decision by President Bush ñ over the objections of many in Congress, which I did not share ñ to provide direct aid to the Palestinian Authority. I believe that this was a constructive measure by President Bush in pursuit of an overall peace, and it hardly fits the notion that Israel is the master string-puller of the United States government.
ìFinally, the handouts distributed by some who attended a television version of the hearing making scurrilous, wholly inaccurate accusations of Israeli complicity in the September 11th attack are obviously contemptible, and would ordinarily be beneath notice, except for the fact that some newspaper accounts have cited them, and that calls for those of us who oppose this war and continue to oppose it to be clear in our repudiation of such vicious defamation.”
Jun 20, 2005 - 11:37 am 136. Bostonian:Thank you, Markus, for the update.
It’s good to know Barney Frank is not part of this nonsense.
I think your use of the word “diatribe” is misplaced. The Democrats as a whole deserve every bit of this criticism.
Jun 20, 2005 - 1:43 pm 137. markus:Bostonian — yes, I probably could have made my point more effectively without the “d” word.
That said, your use of the word “update” is also misplaced. I’m not providing any new information. I’m providing information that was prominently displayed on Barney Frank’s home page 23 hours before Roger’s comment that Frank should “be ashamed of himself”. Roger could have easily accessed this information, but declined to do so, most likely because it would have further watered down the outrage factor of this post — not only does the chair of the DNC quickly speak out against antisemitic slurs, but an actual member of Congress participating in the event in question does so as well.
Jun 20, 2005 - 3:31 pm 138. Tom Holsinger:Jerry,
That’s half of what I meant. Flenser got the other half.
It’s not merely that American Jews are in denial about the reality of anti-Semitism, but that most of them no longer consider themselves to be Jewish. That’s why I said, “Assimilation has kicked in big-time.”
Since they are no Jewish (in their own minds), how could anti-Semitism be about them?
Jun 20, 2005 - 4:24 pm 139. Tom Holsinger:markus,
Roger Simon is a writer, not a journalist. He doesn’t have paid fact-checkers. He has no duty to make last-minute fact checks.
How is your statement here not evidence that you are acting out the political bias you so readily assume in others?
Check out Shrink Wrapped’s post about narcissism above.
Jun 20, 2005 - 4:30 pm 140. Roger:I acknowledge I should have checked for a statement by Frank before posting, but I must say, reading it over, it is pretty thin gruel. I also think those involved in this kangaroo court of reactionaries (that includes Frank) bear some responsibility for what went on.
Jun 20, 2005 - 4:41 pm 141. Luther McLeod:marcus
Then you could have politely made a comment informing Roger that he may have been in error, and that there was more ,up to date, information to be offered. In addition, it would be interesting to know how you read Roger’s mind and determined that he purposely declined (which assumes of course, that he knew)to offer the additional information/update.
Jun 20, 2005 - 4:41 pm 142. Buddy Larsen:Also, Markus, you added to the record yourself just above. Open forum. Why do you have to find someone to blame, someone victimizing you? Just post your words. Just like you did. You’re on record. Simple.
Jun 20, 2005 - 6:46 pm 143. Luther McLeod:Rhetorical question for markus I know, Buddy. But the time is here for people to own up to who they are. For me, I make an occasional drunken post, I may on occasion also make a cogent post. I am what I am. Short story, stand behind your words, even if they are just digital/pixels. They still count. In other words, as Rick postulates, put your name on it. it does make a difference.
Jun 20, 2005 - 7:29 pm