Thursday, January 28, 2010

Dept. of It Takes One To Know One

Wingnut Liz Blaine, at Horowitz's NewsReal blog, hatefully attacks liberals for mourning the Death of Howard Zinn, and then whines about the assholes on the left who did the same to the mourners of Tony Snow.

Leftist Heads Explode Over Howard Zinn’s Death | NewsReal Blog:
Leftist Heads Explode Over Howard Zinn’s Death
2010 JANUARY 28
tags: Howard Zinn, Leftists, News, Progressives
by Liz Blaine


The hatefulness of the Left knows no bounds when a conservative passes away, but when one of their own dies the hallowed halls of heaven are awaiting their savior as they glorify the beloved path he walked. And woe to him who dares question the idol of their worship. Bits of gray matter are clinging to the shards of leftist skulls as they bemoan the passing of Howard Zinn, the Marxist anarchist known for his revisionist history.

Progressive fans are flocking to twitter and leftist media lamenting Zinn’s demise.

“This world has certainly lost one of it’s most profound voices today.”

“Howard Zinn’s passing is the greatest loss to America since Karl Marx.”

“The world is darker without Howard and his voice, now silent, will be missed by all ‘true’ Americans.”


Some tweeters suffer delusions President Obama should have used the State of the Union address as a platform to recognize Zinn, while over at the Nation leftist drivel is spewing like lava from Mount Kilauea as progressives lay blame for his death,

“Howard’s heart gave out after ‘our’ Supreme Court said Corporations were ‘people’ who, therefore, must be included in his ‘People’s History’ Books!"


Throw in a few voices of dissent and an eruption of expletive-enriched emotions splatter across the net.

“Why don’t you shut the f*** up, you ten cent creep? Have you no f***ing class whatsoever? Who the h*** do you think you are, anyway? You’re no thinker. You’re no contributor. You’re just some random creepy a**hole lurking on a web site.”


I don’t know about you, but I love watching progressive heads blasting sky high, so sit back and enjoy the show. Brain matter will be flying as they spasm over the loss of ”the true father of victimology.”

-------

Point? She's proving she's as hateful, heartless, and tiny a person as the people she's complaining about, and she knows it... No other explanation is possible.

Free clue, Liz. If it's wrong, it's wrong. Idiots like you, who bitch about how hateful it was when someone else did it, AND THEN DO A VERY SIMILAR THING,THEMSELVES, obviously think the rules they set for others don't apply to them.

Which in this case, doesn't surprise me. David Horowitz seems to gather hypocrites the way flies gather on shit.

Hateful is hateful, no matter which side of the aisle it comes from. But I believe the heartless reap what they sow...

And as an aside... What is it with these Horowitz folks that almost all (& generally ALL) of their links go to other pages in their own Horowitz universe? "I can prove that all liberals are dumb, because I said so over on this page of the site, and my fellow blogger said the same thing in this post, here." Horowitz, et al are the most self-referential group of bloggers I've ever run into, which suggests to me that they're full of themselves, and that they're hard-pressed to find other people--including other wingnuts--who actually agree with 'em. This isn't the first time I've made this observation...
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Twitter, too:
repsac3: : Heartless hypocrite wingnut @LizBlaine proves she's heartless hypocrite wingnut (Attack on Howard Zinn, RIP & mourners)

Liz Blaine: @repsac3 "Heartless hypocrite wingnut" - Oh, dude. That is so lame. Don't you have anything better? #badtroll

repsac3: : @LizBlaine: @repsac3 'Heartless hypocrite wingnut' /Don't you have anything better?/ No, that pretty much says it. Want different, act human

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 All I did was report the facts as they are printed. If you don't like the quotes, go tell your prog friends at the Nation.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine No, what you did was the same thing you bitched about libs doing to TSnow. Kicking folks mourning is just evil left AND right.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine If you want to speak ill of the dead, you can. But complaining about folks speaking ill of the dead in the post where you do it?

repsac3: : @LizBlaine That makes you a heartless hypocrite (to me, anyway... I see you have fans who think otherwise, which doesn't say much 4 them.)

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 I didn't speak ill of the dead. I called him a 'Marxist anarchist known for his revisionist history.' Show me differently.

No Liz, that's what you did... along with enjoying it, and getting all giddy over the fact that you were hurting others by doing so. (And of course, that's not speaking ill of the man... It's just the Horowitz clan's version of truth, right?)

Like I said, Liz, people like you reap what you sow.... Karma's a bitch.
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UPDATES: (More Twitter, and a good guess as to why Liz didn't link to the Nation.)

TWITTER (continued):
repsac3: : @LizBlaine sez: Other people who speak ill of the dead are hateful; But when I do it, I'm just speaking truth. http://ping.fm/F3TD2 (Link to this post... WARNING: Please don't use it if you're a Con, or you'll be here all day following the same link...)

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 I didn't speak ill of the dead. The only vitriol posted is either quotes or comments from leftists. READ! It makes you intelligent.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine I read. I reacted. If you're happy about what you posted, it's all good. I stand by my impressions and posts on the subject.

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 You are unable to support your accusations w/any citation from my work, yet you stand by them? Emotional reactions don't count.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine Folks at the post have already disputed your "facts" about Zinn. It's namecalling, & little more.

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 LMAO. Those idiots can't tell the author apart from the commenters. YOU LIE! (Interesting comment, given what I find later about some of her "liberal" quotes.)

repsac3: : @LizBlaine And if you don't think the timing/content of your post is heartless, I can't make you see it. You're gleeful over a dead Lib.

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 I only reported what you leftists posted. Get over it or tell your buddies at the Nation to STFU if they don't want to be quoted.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine The only quotes I'm interested in are yours, Liz. The progs you quoted (but didn't link, oddly) weren't being disrespectful...

Liz must've deleted this next one (Big surprise, considering SHE LIED!)
@repsac3 I linked them. Check the link for the Nation, it directs to the post there.
about 1 hour ago from web in reply to repsac3

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 And the last quote was most assuredly being disrespectful. There are others of similar nature in the comments at the Nation.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine I really shouldn't have to explain this, but I meant disrespectful to the dead guy & to those who mourn him.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine And no, the Nation link goes to David's Discoverthenetworks page for the mag. No such quotes there. http://bit.ly/9h72ow

repsac3: : @LizBlaine Found the page myself, and see why you didn't link it. The 'Marx' quote was posted by a Con troll, and the f*** quote was to him

Liz Blaine: : @repsac3 Re-read. Marx is cited throughout the comments. LMAO. You're REALLY trying though. Good night.

repsac3: : @LizBlaine Perhaps, Liz, but the one you chose was posted by a conservative troll. (Kinda hateful, if you ask me...)

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From TheNation.com; Goodbye Howard Zinn (Can't link to individual comments, but I offer names & dates/times. If you follow the link and read them there, the context--& particularly, who "pontificus" really is (a conservative troll)--becomes very obvious.)
Howard Zinn's passing is the greatest loss to America since Karl Marx.
Posted by pontificus at 01/27/2010 @ 6:24pm

Howard's heart gave out after "our" Supreme Court said Corporations were "people" who, therefore, must be included in his "People's History" Books!
Exxon/Mobil is *not* Howard Zinn !!!

Posted by wa3zgt at 01/27/2010 @ 6:56pm

Posted by pontificus at 01/27/2010 @ 6:24pm | ignore this person | warn this person

Why don't you shut the fuck up, you ten cent creep? Have you no fucking class whatsoever? Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? You're no thinker. You're no contributor. Your'e just some random creepy asshole lurking on a web site insulting the magazine, its authors, most of its readers, and what we generally believe in.

Posted by syfriendly at 01/27/2010 @ 8:05pm

Crazy disrespectful liberals, right?
Yeesh!
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UPDATE: She's still going...

Hypocritical - "I wouldn't mind watching your brain explode..."<- That's a hateful comment. I think I upset him. LOL http://bit.ly/9l4Dea #tcot #ocra #sgp
(Apparently, it's only hateful to enjoy exploding brains when said to Liz by a "voice of dissent," and not when said by Liz, to folks mourning the death of a man with whom she disagreed politically.)

and sad - Did you catch my latest article? Have a good laugh at the Left's expense -> http://bit.ly/9l4Dea #tcot #ocra #teaparty #tlot
(Like I said, this poor woman takes pleasure in mocking folks posting eulogies about a guy who died, simply because she disagrees with them. If that isn't heartless, I don't know what is...)

And more of that wingnut "class" that Donald Douglas and his fellow reactionaries are always talking about (""Yeah, yeah. I know. Both sides do it, right?" Right, Donald. Both sides do it. And ALL who do it are hateful assholes.):
JammieWearingFool: Marxist Crank Assumes Room Temperature: Chomsky, Affleck Hardest Hit

Saturday, January 23, 2010

E-mail To My Representative In The House Re: HCR

Representative Bishop:

I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider your refusal to quickly take up and pass the best version of health care reform possible. While I agree that the Senate version is far inferior to the House version (which itself was far inferior to what President Obama promised on the campaign trail), it is the best version that we're going to get in the foreseeable future.

By scrapping all of the work of the past year and starting over with only those provisions "which can pass both Houses with bipartisan majorities," the Democratic party is delaying--if not outright killing--reform, laying the groundwork for yet more compromise with the more conservative elements in your party and theirs--which we both know will lead to an even worse bill than we have now--and all but ending Democratic chances in the next elections. (When a party with substantial majorities in both houses and the presidency cannot pass their signature A-#1 bill after over a year of trying, the American public isn't going to care why... They're only going to care that you failed, and vote accordingly.)

Representative Bishop, the only way forward is forward. I urge you to give it some thought, take hold of and pass what amounts to the largest and most thoroughly baked portion of the health care reform loaf that is still available to the Democrats, and get on with the business of feeding those among your constituents who are most in need of health care reform.

A bird in the hand...

Don't allow the perfect...


Please act. We need you.

I look forward to your swift change of heart and mind.

[repsac3]


I followed up with a phone call to his office expressing as many of the same points as they'd let me, as well as calls to my senate reps, as many members of the NY House delegation as I could, and the offices of Pelosi, and Reid. While I'm not a corporation, I'm hoping that some of them will listen.

While I intended to contact my representatives about this issue anyway, I was very disappointed to discover that Congressman Bishop was among those who believe that back is the new way forward:

01/20/10
Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Tim Bishop (NY-1) sent the following letter to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi regarding a vote on the Senate version of health care reform legislation:

January 20, 2010

The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker of the House
Room H-232, U.S. Capitol
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Let me start by commending you and your colleagues on our leadership team for your remarkable work, both in shepherding landmark health care reform through the House of Representatives and in protecting so many policy positions important to the House in your negotiations with the Senate.

Now that we have reached such a crucial yet difficult juncture in our efforts to reform a broken system, I wanted to go on record on two issues of vital importance.

First, as you consider options on a way forward, I urge you not to bring the Senate bill as passed on December 24 to the floor for our consideration. The Senate bill is, in my judgment, flawed in several fundamental respects; I will cite two.

One, the excise tax on so-called “Cadillac plans” would subject a number of my constituents to this tax, including a great many who have foregone salary increases for stronger benefits. Further, the fact that it is not properly indexed will subject even more people to the tax in years to come.

Second, and as important, the Senate provision relating to FMAP would represent for New York a $5 billion swing; the House provisions with respect to FMAP would save New York $4 billion a year, while the Senate provisions would add $1 billion annually to New York’s yearly Medicaid expenses.

If the Senate bill does come to the floor for a vote, I will have no choice but to vote no.

There are many provisions of health care reform which can pass both Houses with bipartisan majorities and improve the quality of health care delivered to New Yorkers and all Americans. By taking immediate action on key insurance reforms and improving affordability, we can lay the groundwork to provide coverage for all Americans. I hope we can quickly craft legislation that incorporates these provisions.

Thank you for your attention and consideration.

Sincerely,

Tim Bishop
MEMBER OF CONGRESS

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Democrats: Even if you're afraid you're going down, go down swinging. Don't take a dive.

I learned there are troubles
Of more than one kind.
Some come from ahead
And some come from behind.

But I've bought a big bat.
I'm all ready, you see.
Now my troubles are going
To have troubles with me!


- Dr. Suess - I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew
(as recounted in Seuss-isms)

A quick message to Sen. Webb, Congressman Frank, and any/all other elected "left of center" politicians who have any thought of letting the election of Brown, the naked truck driver, weaken their resolve. If you stick to your guns and do what the American people elected you to do--including passing the best version of health care reform you're able--most of us will stand behind you. Allow the Republicans to kill it off without a fight, wasting all the work and spent political capital of the last year, and you might as well just hand the keys over to the Republicans now. Stand up & be the men & women we elected you to be. Reconcile the bills, or swallow hard & pass the Senate version, as is (& then fix the inevitable problems as they rear their ugly little heads.)

The Republicans are not interested in working with you; they are out to kill you off and replace you with one of their own, even if that means keeping the status quo, healthcare-wise. Jim... Barney... Man the fuck up, and don't let it happen to yourselves, your party, or the American people. Don't go down without a fight. Big bats optional.

One more quote:
"If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties." - Ted Kennedy

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What Ted Kennedy would tell the Democrats - Ezra Klein
Pass the Damn Bill | Mother Jones

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

I see nothing racist about Harry Reid's comments, either.

Fresh off saying that chances are slim I'd ever comment on this conservative fellow's blog (See here, where I say, "Yeah, I read through some of it, and checked for new posts a few times, but chances are slim I'll ever comment there."), I'm writing a post here about his most recent post. And worse than that, I'm doing so because I agree with much of what he wrote.

(Damn... It's really hard to put one's beliefs and ideals before partisan rancor, sometimes. I find this guy pretty unpleasant--there's this whole feud thing we're having, primarily because he seems to enjoy calling me an asshole (in the deleted version, I was a "dickhead" and a "sicko" posting "bitchy rants," which both "made him unhappy" & "pissed him off"), along with disparaging my blogging, using a whole slew of other nasty little names & phrases, all because I don't happen to share his political persuasion (as far as I can tell, anyway... He's never been specific as to why I'm an asshole. All I know for sure is, he seems pretty certain I am)--and yet here I am agreeing with him simply because--in this Harry Reid situation, anyway--he's right...)

Here's the parts of the malcontent's post (I'm not making fun... That's his screen name) with which I have no issue:
No, I'm sorry but I don't see anthing racist about Reid's comments.
I can't stand Harry Reid, but his comments are not racist by any stretch of the imagination.
If the person to whom the comments were directed is not offended than neither am I.
...

I was not offended by Reid's or Lott's remarks. ...
And don't tell me about Trent Lott either, Trent Lott gave an offhand compliment to Strom Thurmond during a dinner in his honor. He never mentioned - or thought of - segregation or Jim Crow. Period. He was saying something nice about an old man. ...

Aside from being unable to "stand Harry Reid," (He wouldn't've been my choice for Majority Leader, but I there are far worse people, even in the Democratic Party), I agree with all of that, including the bit about Trent Lott. People sometimes make poor word choices and thus imply things they do not intend to say or imply.

I didn't like or agree with Trent Lott and I wasn't sorry to see him go, but I have no reason to believe he was a racist... When Lott said "When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over the years, either." , I believe he was just trying to say something nice about a 100 year old man, and neglected to consider that when Strom Thurmond ran back in 1948, he ran as a segregationist Dixiecrat. It is open to interpretation of course, but I believe he just hadn't thought his words through...

Reid, on the other hand, said what he said intentionally, and meant it. (Back in 2008, Mr Reid said privately that Mr. Obama could become the country’s first black president because he was “light-skinned” and had “no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”) I don't know whether or not I agree that a lighter skinned black has an advantage over a darker skinned black among the electorate--I don't want to believe it could be true these days (or ever), but that doesn't mean it isn't--but there's not a doubt in my mind that a candidate's dialect makes a difference--sometimes it helps, and sometimes it hurts. Reid was not stating that this is the way it should be; he was expressing the opinion that this is the way it was.

There is a difference between saying something racist and saying something racial. (Yeah, I caught Sharpton on CNN, and stole that line from him... The fact that he said it doesn't make it wrong, though...) There are differences between us all, and we have to be able to discuss them without falling into the trap of calling anyone who acknowledges that fact a racist (or when it's not a racial difference, a bigot). One's heritage comes with a set of stereotypical features at birth, and one's upbringing in the home & in society at large adds a "stereotypical" set of values and beliefs (and some more features, like dialect) to that mix. As a group, _______ people look and act differently than people who aren't _______. (Sometimes the differences are greater or less than others, depending on how those blanks get filled in, but whether they're filled in with the word "Polish," "Black," "Christian," "female," or "straight," there are differences. If there weren't, people would just be people, and there would be no need to differentiate between 'em.)

While there is a line--and sometimes a very thin one--between discussing those things that make people of a particular religious, ethnic, or social group "different" from the rest of us, and bigotry/racism, we need to be able to talk openly about who "we" are, who "they" are, and who we all are together (as a community, as citizens, and as human beings). What Reid said wasn't racist. It was just discussing race.

Of course, I didn't agree with everything the malcontent said in his post. Briefly, here are some of the points with which I did not agree.:
The sad truth is that blacks will make excuses for Reid's comment because they willingly wear the blinders that make them see only the notion that it is impossible for a democrat or liberal to be racist in any way. Blacks are the most gullible ethnic group on earth. And their heroes called the liberals epitomize double-standardness.

"Blacks are the most gullible ethnic group on earth." Wow. I'm just speechless.


How is it when Joe Wilson shouted "You lied" that everyone called him a racist. He was disrespectful, sure, but there was nothing inherently racist about saying those words. Yet, he took a lot of heat about being racist for some unknown reason. People assumed some inferred meaning behind his words. Now you have Harry Reid saying words that are clearly of a racist tone and he gets a free pass.

I have no idea whether or not Joe Wilson's a racist, but if he is (or ever was), it isn't because he yelled out "You Lie!!". (There is some question about his affiliation with the "Sons of Confederate Veterans," a group that the Southern Poverty Law Center says has many pro-segregation members, however. I've neither the time or inclination to explore this further, but I urge anyone interested to do so. In the meantime, I'll assume that Jow Wilson is just rude, but not a bigot.) And that line about "...Harry Reid saying words that are clearly of a racist tone..." Doesn't that contradict what the malcontent said in the title & first paragraph of his post? Yeah, I think so too...
And who gives flying Crap about what a pile of RACIST SHIT like Al Sharpton thinks?
The civil Racist leaders in this country are hitting an all time low, when they whine and snivel about not getting their way. Then they pull this two faced malarkey. ...

If I ever catch the likes of Sharpton any where near my children, the big bad White boogie man will be the least of his worries.


Not a big fan of Sharpton--not everything should be looked at and dissected from a racial standpoint--but I don't think he's a racist, either.
The Dems condone it because they say they have done so much for the African American community. If they have done so much why are so many African Americans families still living in poverty. i would guess a much more higher percentage than any other group except for maybe native Americans. Who are also very dependent on govt handouts. Are you seeing a common theme here. People who rely on govt handouts or anyother handouts for that matter live in poverty. when you become self reliant and self sufficient is when you are able to achieve success. And that my friends is why poor people from all over the world risk getting killed to come here.

I don't know... To me that says "Poor people are poor because they're poor, and if the rest of us would just let them suffer the effects of their poverty, the poor will get off their lazy asses & become rich."

[The Democratic party's] failure to hold their own accountable is laughable. In the last two years since then candidate Obama declared they have given passes to Bill Clinton twice, Joe Biden, and now Harry Reid while attempting to pull the race card on any political oppenent that opposes them.

Again, if what Harry Reid said wasn't racist--and the malcontent says it wasn't--then how is it he believes the Democratic party is giving Reid a pass?

Each of these Democrats made foolish statements involving race. But I think that to varying degrees, they all fall into the same "racial, not racist" soup as Reid and Lott, above.
Now, let's talk about Robert Byrd the Democrat KKK member. Using your logic, all Democrats who ever complimented Byrd obviously approved of his KKK membership and by extionsion the lynching of blacks that the KKK did.

Byrd (and Thurmond, above) are a different story... They most certainly WERE racists, back when it was far more acceptable to be so than it ever should've been. I cannot say what was in their hearts, but I'd like to believe that they both saw the error of their ways and renounced their racist beliefs. However, I think that malcontent's argument against whoever "you" is, is flawed. To make an apples to apples comparison to the Thurmond situation, where one could even possibly be implying approval for the KKK or lynching, one would have to compliment Byrd for all the work he did for folks while in that "anti-communist social organization" back in the 1940's. Congratulating Byrd for being the longest serving senator in US history, for example, (or something similarly unrelated to that time or those activities) is a whole other kettle of fish.

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Previous commentary on similar subjects:
Angie Harmon plays the race card 3/31/09
Racist Music Just a Download Away on Mainstream Music Sites 2/25/09
Free Speech, Imus, and the Free Market 4/26/07
Black Caucus: Whites Not Allowed 1/31/07
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I'm working on a piece on another blog that discusses race, racism, and bigotry. When it's complete, (or should I have any additional thoughts or links) I'll update, below.