Category: Political

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Political

Pundit one and LAX

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The mighty Glenn Reynolds has written another of his edifying columns out at Fox, this one on the LAX shooting.

As expected, he echos the other punditry’s concensus that the shooting was an act of terrorism. Hadayet was from Egypt, most likely hated Jews, objected to an American flag over his apartment and might possibly have met with an Osama Bin Laden associate in 1995. Therefore, this wasn’t the act of a man who went beserk, grabbed some guns, found a target and started shooting – this was the pre-planned, carefully thought out action of a terrorist.

What do you know, terrorism is occurring on the streets of America every day. Fancy that.

I’ll give him this, the Pundit One does have a different take in how to deal with these types of situations:

The clearest lesson of the Los Angeles International shooting is that diffuse threats like terrorism are best answered with diffuse defenses: lots of people, preferably armed, who are ready to respond in a hurry.

Lovely idea – arm a paranoid populace with guns and tell them they’re America’s first line of defense against terrorism.

Glenn Reynolds is nothing more than a thinking person’s chew toy.

Categories
Political

Bad boys

Seems as if Dick Cheney, fearless co-leader of the US, is being sued for artificially boosting stock prices while he was CEO of Halliburton.

This follows on the SEC’s investigation of Halliburton’s accounting practices. Not surprising – Halliburton’s accounting firm was Anderson.

I worked for Sierra Geophysics, a subsidiary of Halliburton in Seattle. SG was great. Halliburton was shit, closing down our productive and successful operation primarily because we were in the Northwest and got uppity at times.

Anderson was the company that recommended Halliburton close us down.

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do
What you gonna do when they come for you.

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do
What you gonna do when they come for you.

Diana King, Bad Boys, 1995

Categories
Political

How can we not be angry?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Today was not supposed to be an ‘angry’ day. I thought we’d covered the subject and were ready to move on. But then I checked the news. I read that the “earth is dying” (mentioned in previous weblog posting).

And then I read:

Bush rejected comparisons between the transactions that masked losses at Harken Energy Corp. and those of executives and accountants at such companies as Enron and WorldCom that have resulted in billions of dollars in red ink.

 

His own case, Bush said, “was an honest disagreement about accounting procedures.”

And then I read:

“I actually didn’t read the whole story,” he said. “But people shouldn’t speculate about the desire of the government to have a regime change. And there’s different ways to do it.”

And I’m angry all over again. Tell me: how does one respond to reports such as these with love or compassion?

I am angry, and through this anger, I am determined to ensure by any legal means necessary that Bush is not re-elected and that he and his cohorts are kicked out of the White House. And through this anger, I plan on doing everything I can until that time to ensure that Bush’s hypocritical and idiotic acts are exposed for what they are.

I am mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. And if my honest emotion is a reason for shaking your head in pity of my lack of control and inability to redirect said emotion into a more positive center, well then, you can just kiss my grits.

Categories
People Political

Two angry people

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Mike Golby is a man in his 40’s, Catholic, married with kids, who lives in South Africa. I’m a woman in my 40’s, non-religious, divorced, with no kids, living in the US. Outside of our age and the fact that we weblog, we two also share one other thing in common: we’re angry people.

Mike continues the discussion about anger from this weekend, and in particular, the responses to it:

Why did people automatically equate anger, i.e. ‘intense dissatisfaction’ with rage, i.e. ‘violent anger’, as defined by the OED? Why are so many people who seek a fuller, more productive life so brittle, thin-skinned, and reactionary?

Good question, Mike. It does seem that the more we as a society seek to eliminate anger, the more acts of unreasoning rage occur. In the last few decades, where once anger was considered an emotion not unlike any other, now it’s considered taboo. And in that same time frame, where once a worker killing a boss would be front page news for weeks, now it’s becoming commonplace.

And like you, Mike, I puzzle at the extreme reaction to the Hesham Mohamed Hadayet shooting. An entire airport security infrastructure is changing based on one person’s actions; we see terrorist plots and government cover-up all based on a shooting that, from all indications, is nothing more than an example of a person going beserk.

In fact, Hadayet doesn’t seem that different from Benjamin Smith a white supremacist who went on a racist killing spree in Illinois and Indiana. Yet Smith wasn’t called “terrorist”, and we haven’t added to the police that exist on every corner in the country. Nor is Indiana University an armed camp – I know, my brother teaches there.

Making Hadayet into a terrorist solely because it suits certain agendas makes me angry. I am angry.

What the hell has happened to my country in that anger, in any form, is ‘bad’, but Bush and Ashcroft detaining a man without giving him due rights under law – under law – is acceptable?

What the hell has happened to my country that people support a president based solely on his ‘War on Terror’ without regard to any other of his actions and lack thereof?

What the hell has happened to my country that people get incensed because the Pledge of Allegience is declared unconstitutional based on the words ‘under God’? To make matters worse, these same people then have the audacity to say that this country was created on a platform of Christianity, and we should all accept this – my country was never based on the principles of separation of Church and State.

This really pisses me off.

How far will we go in selling our rights, our sense of decency and humanity, our membership in the world, our very souls, just to call ourselves safe?

Mike is an angry person. His anger speaks out every time he writes about injustice. Anger threads throughout his words, and forms a platform for his writing.

And we need more angry people, not less.

Update Make that three angry people.

Categories
Political Social Media

Verbal weaponry in the war against terrorism

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I knew something was up when I kept getting all these hits from Josh Trevino’s weblog. Seems Josh has been using me for an adjective again.

(I do seem to generate all these strong feelings, don’t I? How nice to know that I generate such love/hate – leaves me all warm and tingley all over, as if I’ve been rubbed down with a loofah sponge, or licked with a particularly rough tongue.)

Since Josh was kind enough to open up a conduit to this weblog from the bible totin, gun packin, flag wavin, war lovin, All American crowd, I thought that now would be the ideal time for me to roll out the first installment of The Bird’s Tips to being a Good American: Verbal Weaponry in the War Against Terrorism.

Before proceeding with the tips, it’s essential that you keep one thing in mind – a Good American has a duty to find and root out evil; to correct the misinformed; to stifle disagreement; and to do all that’s possible to prevent the weakoning of America’s resolve in this our War Against Terrorism.

Now, pay attention:

—

Tip 1: Never whisper when you can shout

Never use clash, when you can use near-riot. Never use near-riot, when you can use riot. Try to work violence into the mix if you can.

Whatever degree of adjective is used by the neutral, up the ante by adding at least five decibles (plus or minus) of noise when describing the event.

Don’t leave your audience confused about possible viewpoints and opinions – if you yell loud enough, they won’t be able to hear themselves think, a state preferred for Good Americans.

Tip 2: Never retreat – Attack! Attack! Attack!

When your opponent uses reason, use passion. When your opponent disagrees, no matter how gently, use extreme prejudice and take him or her down. Grab the person by the privates, trash them, bash them, and make them bleed. Verbally, of course.

If you respond mildly to another’s writing, your reading audience may assume that the person has a legitimate opinion. This might lead to your audience listening with an open mind. Do not allow this! Good Americans do not have Open Minds.

An Open Mind might lead to people questioning the government’s current actions, and other subversive, dangerous activities.

Tip 3: Degrade and Mock

The most effective weapon against respect is to degrade and mock. This is also an effective way to make the opponent seem less human, and therefore less sympathetic.

If you feel you’re losing the battle, resort to a personal attack, and don’t forget to add a sneer to your voice – do a good job and you get bonus points.

Tip 4: What facts?

Why use fact when innuendo will do?. Nothing better than a cold rumor presented as argument stated as heresay published as fact.

As a precaution, use one of the following phrases to cover your butt:

– could be
– rumor to the effect
– a reader passed this one to me but I haven’t been able to substantiate it yet
– someone ought to look into this
– it seems to me
– where there’s smoke…
– I was there

And if you’re caught out, say “…I’m just a weblogger expressing my opinion”. Works everytime.

Tip 5: If you’re not Pro, you’re Anti – If you’re not with us, you’re ag’in us

This one is my personal favorite because it’s practically indefensible. If a person says, “Well, I don’t support all of Israel’s moves”, you label them anti-Semitic or pro-terrorist. If the person doesn’t support Bush or Ashcroft, you call them a bleeding heart liberal and anti-American. If the person just plain disagrees with you, call them a moron or an idiot (interchange these or people will catch on that you’re using a script – note this is interchangeable with Tip 3).

And if the person says “I want to understand all the issues”, then you bring out the big guns and say (all together class, you know what’s coming):

Moral Equivalency!

Since no one knows exactly what “moral equivalency” is, they can’t fight the term, and you can’t be sued. Slick, eh?

—

That’s it for the tips. Study them. Use them.

Sadly for all Good Americans, there is one defense against all of these verbal weapons, and this was provided by Mike Sanders, a long time ago, in a universe that’s now far far away:

It is impossible to be objective about ourselves. Others can see things that we never can. If we want to improve our writing and thinking it is helpful to be judged by others. If what they say is valuable, we can apply it. If it is without merit, we can ignore it.

Remember: Only You can prevent Moral Equivalency