This post is an update to our previous article (scroll down) about the Wilsons and their endorsement of Hillary Clinton. I predicted that fanatical Obama supporters would not be content simply to disagree with Joe and Valerie's position. Instead, I foresaw that the zealots would demonize two people who had sacrificed their careers to oppose the Bush administration.That prophecy came true.
While I still haven't worked up the nerve to check out the dreaded Cheeto, here's a sampling of how Josh Marshall's readers now see the Wilsons:
Screw him and his wife.
The Wilsons are just disgusting CESSPOOL dwellers
Hillary's second major Republican endorsement after Rush.
At least she doesn't trash Obama or mention that only white people care about ending the war.
I know they're hacks and are loyal to her husband...
they are a test case that suffering is not ennobling--if you love your reflection more than your country. Their behavior since has shown them to be limelight-loving partisan hacks
Joe Wilson was one of the expeditors of Bush I's Iraq turkey shoot and the subsequent "1,000,000 Iraqi dead are worth it" sanctions. And his wife was a friggin' CIA agent, for chrissakes, making the world safe for US vampire capitalism. Of course, they would support Ma Scorpion. That's what the Clintons do -- put a happy face on barbarism.I'll repeat something I said earlier: If the Obama forces feel that they have already won, why the sheer hatred?
Before I lost my library, I used to have a whole wall (not a shelf: A wall) filled from floor to ceiling with books about fascism. I know how the Nazis reacted (at least in print, in respectable journals) when they lost and when they won elections in the 1928-1933 period.
They were far more gracious and civilized than are today's progressives. Of course, Hitler and his media mouthpieces adopted a veneer of civility and Gemütlichkeit in order to appease a skittish middle class.
(Don't believe me? Hie thee to a good university library and study up for yourself.)
Some have castigated me for offering the opinion that current American progressives are acting like fascists. I owe an apology -- to the fascists.
Shame on Josh Marshall. Shame on the Democratic party. Shame on America.
(Note: Feel free to use the graphic on your own site, if you care to do so, but first click on it to obtain a larger, cleaner version.)
15 comments:
The Nazis didn't have the internet which eliminates message control. Maybe I've read some of the same books you have which have lead me to believe that their message coordination was better than the Republicans and the reported military analyst Psyops project coordinated from the White House was something the Nazis would have been proud of.
I like Obama and Clinton and am very unhappy with Hillary right now even though I voted for her in CA. My take is similar to Atrios who simply claims "Assholes, Assholes, Everywhere." with part of the comment saying, "As someone who was honestly relatively neutral for a lot of this race, I've thought the assholes were pretty evenly distributed, though we're getting into the sore winner/sore loser period which changes things a bit. Still it's important to remember that the outcome of the Internet Asshole Olympics really shouldn't have much bearing on who you vote for either now or in November."
I wasn't neutral and was actually a solid Clinton supporter. Have been since 1992. I would've loved to see Hillary get the nomination and Bill return to the White House (in a lesser role) but it hasn't worked out the way I was expecting. I'm not upset or weeping nightly as I happen to like Obama.
Basing our opinions on mostly anonymous postings to various web sites is dangerous and I would rather do it in face to face conversations. I can tell you that my interactions with people I can actually see have been positive on both sides of the Obama vs. Clinton battle.
I say forget about the various drones on political sites. Mainstream media will rule our lives for the next several election cycles if only because the majority of people still depend on it. Niche political websites will probably never achieve the influence of our current mainstream/corporate media. Hell, the mainstream media moderates all of their comments and controls the message to broadcast so that could be a win if the random commenters really get to you.
Apologies for the long comment but I'm worried that your hate of the random posters at various blogs as well as some named posters will discredit some seriously good work of yours in the past.
"The Nazis didn't have the internet which eliminates message control."
There could be better message control within the sites. Josh Marshall, if pressed, would no doubt claim that he is not responsible for the opinions of his readers. But he would not resort to that sort of rationalization if his readers routinely used racial obscenities.
"Mainstream media will rule our lives for the next several election cycles if only because the majority of people still depend on it. Niche political websites will probably never achieve the influence of our current mainstream/corporate media."
You're kidding yourself. Moulitsas reaches a wider audience than does FOX News. And the last time I read one of those articles about the death of American newspapers, they ended on a "bright" note -- Huffington Post was doing just fine, and was poised to take over the job now done by the NYT.
Otherwise, thanks for a post that engaged what I had to say. I've been getting a lot of mindless insults lately -- stuff that makes the quotes above seem relatively kind-hearted
Some veteran politicians also see "something that's leading" Obama, whether they can explain it or not.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a longtime friend and supporter, said "nothing was ever the same" after Obama's Boston speech.
Durbin recalls pulling Obama into a vacant meeting room in Chicago's Union League Club, where both had spoken on a Friday afternoon in November 2006. He felt it was time for his young colleague to decide whether to run for the White House.
"There are moments in life when you can pick the time," Durbin said he told Obama. "But when it comes to running for president, the time can pick you. You've been picked. This is your moment."
A short time later, Obama launched his candidacy.
Here is a sampling of how Josh Marshall's readers now see the Wilsons:
"You don't have to like their pick for President to have some respect for both of them for what they did on YOUR behalf and on behalf of the people of the country. I'd wager they have sacrificed and genuinely suffered a great deal more as a result of their defiance of the Bush regime than anyone posting on this thread. But, because you don't like their pick for President (which isn't mine be a long shot)simply does not make it okay to denigrate, carp and generally attack them like a bunch of vile, nasty, sharp-toungued teenage girls who want to ostracize someone they no longer like. So grow up people and lay off the personal attacks on the Wilsons."
"As much as I admire the Wilsons, this is not credible because their candidate VOTED FOR THE GODDAMNED WAR THEY WERE TRYING TO PREVENT."
"I like the Wilsons for standing up for the truth. You have to remember that they did donate the maximum to the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign. They are heroes to the left for their valiant stand against the abuses of this administration. This does not mean they are liberals or progressives. They are moderates at best - but definitely good Americans."
Joseph, you are losing it. Sure there are some "progressives" who are immature, rude and generally jerks and assholes. But you go looking for the worst comments and then say they are representative of most progressives, who you then say are worse than the Nazis. Your graphic is more offensive than anything said by the progressive commenters. Many of the commenters defended the Wilsons, criticized comments like the ones you quote, or criticize the Wilsons in a fair and reasonable way.
Gary, you are the one who has lost it.
If you define that commentary as "fair and reasonable," you have fallen prey to Clinton Derangement Syndrome. And one day, if you have any humanity left in you, you will regret what you have said.
Look at these outrageous words, which you consider reasonable:
"because their candidate VOTED FOR THE GODDAMNED WAR THEY WERE TRYING TO PREVENT."
Outside of your careful selection -- my own selection was far more representative, by the way -- the comments in that thread stressed repeatedly that the war was Hillary's fault.
And elsewhere -- well, you know damned well what is going on. Over and over, the progs have blamed Hillary for the war. A few have suggested (I'm not kidding) that SHE started it, and Bush merely implemented her program.
The progressives did not say such things on TPM when John Kerry was running in 2004. A few grumbled about Kerry's vote on Kos and DU, but only a few.
The progs took John Edwards (who voted for the same resolution) at his word when he vowed that he would remove troops from Iraq. When Hillary vows the same thing, the progs inevitably say that she is dissembling.
Over and over and OVER, they say that she wants to continue the war. It's a lie, but they continue to repeat it, precisely because people like you are too cowardly to call them out on it.
The fact is, no-one in Congress voted for war.
They voted to authorize the use of th military if Saddam would not allow UN military inspectors to enter his country -- which he DID. Since the conditions for military action were never met, NO ONE VOTED FOR THIS WAR. EVER.
The progs would concede that point readily if Edwards were in Hillary's position, and you damn well know it.
The fact is, Obama has been all over the place on the war. He has NOT been consistent. In 2004, at the convention, Bill Clinton denounced the war and Barack Obama would not. The proof is on tape and you cannot deny it.
How do you explain the fact that, back when Edwards was still in the race, the progs routinely spread the fabrication that his voting record was farther to the left than Hillary's -- when the reverse is true?
Or look at Somerby's recent take on the flag burning nonsense. Obama and Clinton voted the same way -- but there is a widespread perception that they did not, and that Clinton is guilty of (I hate this word) "triangulating." Over and over and over, the media castigates her on this topic, while giving Obama a free ride.
I cannot tell you how many times I've seen progs say that Clinton supported Cheney's energy bill while Obama did not. The reverse is true.
What about the abominable cap on class action lawsuits (CAFA)? Obama voted for it, saying "We can do better than burdening businesses with cases of class-action abuse." Hillary opposed the bill. But on the progblogs, the perception is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE!
I've repeatedly seen progs claim that Hillary voted for the bankruptcy bill. She did not; her husband had heart surgery that day, which I think is a good excuse for not voting. But she had opposed it at every step until then.
Well, I could go on. The point is, gary, you have lost your ability to see what is right in front of you.
What I am talking about is not Obama's voting record or Clinton's voting record. (Although my duller readers will so conclude.) I am addressing the false ways in which progs PERCEIVE those records.
When, time and again, a political movement remakes reality to buttress a gut belief -- and I've just now given only a few examples of that process in action -- then we are seeing a political expression of the irrational.
And while the term "fascism" is notoriously hard to define, I think that any definition should include the phrase "a political expression of the irrational."
Turn the clock back to 1999-2003. It would have been easy for you or me to put together a similar compendium of vile quotes from the Free Republic or some other then-current right-wing site. Right?
Moreover, such an exercise would have been both worthwhile and useful. It would have shown how the right had degenerated into a quasi-fascistic mob -- as indeed it had.
Now, a conservative apologist of that period could have done as you have done. He could have picked a few more moderate Freeper quotes and said: "See? These reasonable people are in the majority within the conservative movement. True, SOME go over-the-top, but only a few."
To which I would have replied: "It's not a matter of 'some' conservatives going nuts. The entire movement has become brutish."
Cut to the present day. But as we do, let us flash a title card reading "Matthew 7:3-5."
Gary, it's not a matter of "some" progressives going round the bend. We are seeing something very dangerous here.
Perhaps fascism is just in its nascent state. Perhaps the beast will not fully formulate.
Nevertheless, I see what Ingmar Bergman called "The Serpent's Egg."
And I'm not just talking about the Hillary-vs-Obama contest. I've been troubled by the progressive movement for some time now, and my writing has long reflected that sense of unease.
I know a thing or two about the gestation of Nazism in the 1920s. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am probably even better read than you are on the subject, and I know that you are well-educated.
If you look at Feder's "25 point" expression of the Nazi program, roughly half of those points would strike most people today as progressive. The Nazis chose red as their color (in broadsheets and such) precisely because they wanted to appear as a left-wing organization. Remember, the NSDAP began as a LABOR party.
Don't think for a moment that the left cannot be fascist, or that fascism does not have roots on the left.
Today's bully boys may gather on websites instead of beer halls. Even so, the signs are there: The mob mentality, the dehumanization of the opposition, the unwillingness to examine critically the propaganda favoring ones biases, the giddy applause for the collapse of civilization. All of these things echo what was going on in Germany in the late 1920s.
And I'll be damned before I apologize for that graphic.
Strictly speaking you may be right that the wording of the resolution did not authorize the war, but in fact that is exactly what it did, and anyone with a brain knew what they were voting for. The one thing that MIGHT have stopped the war was a NO vote.
I have no problem with fair and reasonable criticism of either Clinton or Obama or the progressive political movement, even if I may disagree with it. Reasonable people disagree. People get worked up in political campaigns, and sometimes go too far, particularly if they are hiding behind a screen name. Also some people are idiots.
But you have it down to the progs are fascists. Perhaps the term "prog" will catch on, in the way that some one the right castigate "libs." Really I think that your graphic and prog=fascist equation is far more offensive and beyond the pale than anything you quote.
I yield to you on the origins of fascism. You read all those books and I have not. There is a liberal=fascist meme circulating on the far right, which I am afraid you are playing into. Certainly there are dangers to liberty on the left as well as the right. Have you read Naomi Wolf's "The End of America" by the way?
I know that you feel that you alone see the truth about all of this but I think that you have lost your bearings, as Obama said recently about McCain.
If President Obama establishes a leftwing fascist dictatorship I will reealuate my position.
Re "something that's leading" Obama, we can go back to his famous speech at the convention in 2004:
at http://rezkowatch.blogspot.com/2008/05/rezkowatch-factchecker-obama-and-plan.html
"It’s July 27, 2004, when Barack Obama, then Democratic U.S. Senate nominee for Illinois, was chosen to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
"The event 'took on the airs of a coronation,' Nicholas Stix wrote August 9, 2004, in EnterStageRight, adding
"|'The worshipful tone of establishment media Obama stories has made it clear that for the lords of the media-political complex, the Senate is but the beginning of the road for Obama, a road that many power brokers would like to see culminate at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.'|"
(more at link)
I'm a different gary in case it comes up just as "gary". I truly used to enjoy this site.
I wavered between Obama and Edwards before settling on Obama. But this is really pot-kettle territory, Joe. The invective on your blog is as bad or worse as anything I've seen elsewhere.
Everybody needs to calm the hell down, because let's face it, this race is over and Clinton will not be the nominee. Yes, we'll go through the rest of the primaries, and that's well and good. I'm perfectly content to continue the primary for the next few weeks until every state has had their contest.
But the level of hate is corrosive. You're not above the fray - you're part of the problem too. I've said some intemperate things myself. We're all human and capable of letting our passions get the best of us.
I'm hopeful that once this shit is over with I'll find this blog a place I like to visit again, because I've read some really good stuff here over the years.
Peace.
I wish it didn't have to be true, but your graphic hits the intended nail squarely and powerfully.
I was inspired to create my own humble collage of facts from my library:
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The Nazis intended to set up a global system of international Waffen-SS rule, had Hitler won World War II. ... a global imperial order, ruled through the mechanisms of military tyranny like those of the Roman legions which the Nazi Waffen-SS echoed.
Typical is Samuel P. Huntington's proposed parody of that Waffen-SS, his The Soldier and the State proposing national militias and citizen soldiers be replaced by international mercenaries.
This trend is also typified by utopians such as Obama’s senior foreign policy advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski (Hunnington's student).
At least 20 of the best known directors of the German cartels, made regular deposits in a special account labeled "Sonderkonto S." Whenever Nazi SS chief Himmler wanted money, the cartels would make deposits to this account and the money would be withdrawn to fund the SS.
Remember the way in which Adolf Hitler and his SS ultimately destroyed that German military which the financier imperialists who backed fascism and the plan of Hitler going East, to war with Russia, feared so intensely.
Globalization is nothing different than what the Venetians (later and now to morph into the anglo-dutch financier cartels) did, with the murderous Norman chivalry, who were the predecessors of the Nazi SS, throughout all of Europe.
McCarthyism's body count may have been vastly smaller than that of the Nazi SS and Gestapo, but the catalogue of ruined and scarred lives spanning several generations is proof that "it can happen here."
Under the control of Herman Goering, and ultimately, SS chief Heinrich Himmler, the Gestapo is the absolute epitome of evil, which sent millions of innocent men, women and children to their cruel inhuman enslavement or death.
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All hail the New Party, eh?
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Gary (the one named Buell):
"There is a liberal=fascist meme circulating on the far right, which I am afraid you are playing into."
Well, I make a distinction between liberals and progressives. That's a distinction no-one on the right (and few on the left) would ever make, of course. But I would agree with a prog = fascist formulation.
HOWEVER:
I would also say that the far right degenerated into fascist thought. That process started about twenty years ago.
Which means that the poison now seeps into the organism from ALL sides.
"If President Obama establishes a leftwing fascist dictatorship I will reealuate my position."
That will never happen. What he will establish, should he prevail in November, is a failed presidency.
At which point, the Cult of Obama will end.
The one aspect of the Democratic party in which my faith remains unwavering is its ability to turn on its own.
But what happens THEN...?
What truly frightens me is that a Cult was encouraged in the first place.
We have seen the progressives overtaken by Libertarians, and we have seen the Ayn-Progs (how's THAT for a ghastly neologism?) take over the debate within what passes for the left in this country. These progs do not favor the prosperous American civilization into which you and I were born. They disdain the bipartisan liberal consensus that reigned between Roosevelt and Reagan.
The right has even greater contempt for that era.
Instead, we have entered into a new era, with a new politics -- Messiahs versus Demons. Irrationalism. Bloodlust. Appeals to the mob.
And a whole generation is growing up thinking that this is how political discourse ought to be.
And that's where the danger lies.
Step back from the chess board, Gary, and think a few moves further. Perhaps you'll see what I see.
McCain wins the presidency; McCain fails. Or: Obama wins; Obama fails.
What then?
What will happen to this country if both right and left feel betrayed and alienated? Have lost faith in reason and democracy?
Perhaps now you understand why I think the Kos/DU/TPM phenonmemon is far more important than the more immediate question of who wins the nomination.
As long as the poison of fascism was all on the right-hand side of our body politic -- as long as the debauchery was confined to FOX and Rush and the radio rightists -- I felt that the spread of political rabies in this nation could be held in check.
But now that the left has become every bit as bad...
"If President Obama establishes a leftwing fascist dictatorship I will reealuate my position."
How about if Obama gets the nomination, gets his scandals covered in the press, loses the election for the Democrats while the nation has already attacked Iran, millions of U.S. citizens have lost their homes to foreclosure, and the word "hyperinflation" is appearing more and more frequently in front of everyone's eyes?
You and hundreds of millions of other Americans will be "reevaluating their position."
Too late.
But you stoop to blaming all the problems on the one "failed" candidate who might have attacked the problems with progressive and liberal remedies along the lines of FDR.
http://www.raabcollection.com/detail.aspx?cat=2&subcat=38&man=261
It is hard to imagine a more significant political letter of Roosevelt, and it is certainly the best we have carried. In it, he: explains his philosophy (and the engine behind his creation of the New Deal), saying that leadership requires “vision;” hopes that social security, his most important program, will be even more perfected through time; defends (and defines) liberalism and progressivism; says that states must work with the U.S. government to solve the enormous problems still facing the nation; is cognizant of the role of California as a laboratory for the nation; and relates Wilson’s political axiom about opponents having no positive agenda.
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Hi, Joseph.
I just caught up to Joe and Valerie's ad for Hillary Clinton earlier in the morning. But I had no idea of the TPM attacks on them. These are disgusting comments. Barry's new coalition is cause for worry.
After Bowers' kooky rhetoric about out with the Bubbas and up with the creatives, I don't recognize the "Left" blogosphere anymore. Scary people... proving that "hope-change-unity" is just sloganeering and Orwellian at that.
Here's the numbers, with red-blue maps, for:
Obama vs. McCain
Clinton vs. McCain
http://my.opera.com/Vorlath/blog/2008/05/09/who-is-the-safe-choice-for-the-white-house
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