Hilzoy on How We View Enemies
Hilzoy continues to be one of my favorite bloggers. When she opens her mouth (blogfiguratively speaking), I listen. As I did when she wrote Fighting words.
No one — not liberals, not conservatives — should forget that their opponents are human beings.
June 12th, 2009 at 8:30 am
fuckin’ a
June 12th, 2009 at 9:37 am
As a liberal, I tend to view whackjob conservative opinion as a warning to myself, “hey, I better make sure I have a firm foundation for my beliefs otherwise I’ll end up deluding myself.”
Having been a conservative and having best friends who still consider themselves conservative, I think that mentality is less open to critical evaluation of its own delusions.
The conservative mentality also seems more open to the dehumanization of its opponents.
June 12th, 2009 at 9:57 am
Just look at the definition of liberal and conservative in the dictionary and then decide which side you want to be on. I’m not a R or a D. Nor am I entirely liberal… my very R mother always says I am the most financially conservative of her four sons – I’ve never come begging for money for a bail out.
I don’t view wwnj as an enemy, just a angry deluded old man. Sad in some ways, but when he keeps pontificating about everything under the sun (which btw, does not go around the Earth ;-), it is fun to blow off some steam mocking that sort of bufoonery.
ymmv
June 12th, 2009 at 10:44 am
I’ve never been entirely convinced that, when addressing someone you don’t agree with, you are ever actually talking to that person, Ink. You seem to have a preconceived notion of what sort of person you don’t like and you just sort of project that upon whoever you happen to disagree with at the moment. Outside of SHCB, who’s fairly easy to read, I really don’t think you honestly know or care what anyone else on this blog says or believes about anything on the table, even if they come out and say it in black-and-white print.
June 13th, 2009 at 7:35 am
…or maybe Eric was exaggerating for effect? I found it interesting that just the second commenter below the article did just what she so loathes from the left.
June 14th, 2009 at 11:10 am
What if your opponents are lying bastards?
Bush, Rice et al vociferously proclaimed that no-one could have imagined that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons, nor that domestic flights would be targetted for such an attack, and the 911 Report even backed them up saying 911 succeeded due to a lack of imagination on the part of our defenders about using such attacks. Bullshit – the scenarios even envisioned WMD on a hijacked plane over NY city.
All were LIES (and shcb bought it all hook line and sinker): just now documents released from the National Archives show exactly those scenarios in the details of the war games the week of 9/11.
http://hcgroups.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/two-days-before-911-military-exercise-simulated-suicide-hijack-targeting-new-york/
June 14th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Are you asking what if your opponents are lying bastards in regard to this article or are you just segueing to another ridiculous 911 conspiracy scenario? But to answer your question, the more they lie and cheat, the more they become enemies and less they are considered opponents.
By the way I agree with her to a certain degree but I don’t buy into it completely. There is a level of gamesmanship in almost every human endeavor. We all exaggerate and we all make fun of those different than us, and we all have just a little bully in us, it’s just human nature. The question is where to draw the lines. In her example of Rush calling Chelsea the family dog, Rush probably went over the line, just as Letterman went over the line with Palin and her daughter. One big difference between the two was Letterman’s joke was premeditated, it was written, rehearsed, and transcribed to a teleprompter. This wasn’t something Rush came up with off the cuff or Biden let slip, they planned it. I did a quick search and couldn’t see where Hilzoy has come to the defense of Palin and her daughter, she has probably just been busy.
June 14th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
SCHB – “Bush, Rice et al vociferously proclaimed that no-one could have imagined that terrorists would use airplanes as weapons…”
We now know that was not a mistatement, it was a patent LIE. Cheney was in charge of those excercises. Why would they lie about a thing like that? Theirs is a failed script.
There is hard evidence of high explosives in the WTC: FACT. Means, motive and opportunity have all been established.
Forget about segues – Hilzoy’s comments are irrelevant when discoursing with pathological murderers and the people like you who defend them.
June 15th, 2009 at 4:58 am
I agree wholeheartedly these discussions are more productive if they are done in a more clinical manner, without the exaggerations, it is kind of human nature to turn it into a game where winning becomes as important as the discussion itself. It is up to the combatants to restrain themselves, some do it better than others. One of the shortcuts is to simply discredit your opponent, like you guys do with Fox News, talk radio, etc. rather than discuss the issue or the thought it is easier to just discount the whole network or genre. That is all This Eric character is doing, he is taking a shortcut. I understand his point, I’ve made it myself, but I explained it better and I didn’t villainize liberals for it, they don’t want soldiers to die, they just want wars the US is engaged in to fail, but the way that happens is for soldiers to die. It makes his point bigger to say they want them to die. And on that point I agree with Bok.
I really don’t want to get into your 911 stuff Knarly. But… it is evident from the article they are running any number of drills with many different scenarios all the time, as they should, when Cheney said we didn’t think they would use the planes as weapon, of course we thought they could we just didn’t think they would (which is what he said, would, not could) . Look, bottom line, we got beat on 911, they won, we lost, they were better than us that day, nothing more, nothing less.
June 15th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Knarly,
You are doing the same thing Bok is complaining about, just in a little different way. You are demonizing Bush and Cheney for no good reason, they aren’t evil, they are good men, they didn’t want 911 to happen. Just as Obama isn’t evil, he’s a good man, Clinton wasn’t evil, he has some rather glaring flaws, but he isn’t evil. They all want to basically do what is right for this country, they just have different views of how to get there, just as we do. Sometimes they win, sometimes they lose, sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong.
June 15th, 2009 at 6:22 am
Letterman is a comedian and sorry, but that joke was funny. Not only ’cause it hit Caribou Barbie, but A-Rod as well!
June 15th, 2009 at 7:57 am
I agree it was funny, the question is was it appropriate. He wouldn’t have said it about a Democrat because they don’t “deserve” it, they are in his protected class, and Bok didn’t use the Palin incident as an example even though it is contemporary, she goes back several years (I assume) and picks out a comment by Rush about the Clinton girl. She is basically doing what she is complaining about. Just leave the kids out of the jokes unless they have inserted themselves into the fray. Cheney having a gay daughter isn’t important, the Bush twins having a drink isn’t important, if Meghan McCain wants to assert her opinions she is fair game. When Chelsea Clinton starts stumping for her mother she is in play, leave her alone before that. If you don’t like Palin, fine, leave her kids alone, unless they decide they want to play. But you see her kids are fair game in you and Dave’s minds because you so dislike her ideology, that is what Bok is talking about, and on that point I agree with her.
June 15th, 2009 at 8:56 am
But when you try to make your child a spokesperson for unwed mother’s and parade her around a campaign trail and send her on a tour – she’s fair game, or in the ‘fray’, don’t you think?
And obviously you don’t watch late night tv very much, cause you’d know that them guys rip on everyone – Clinton’s, Bush’s, Palin’s – all of them.
Megan is fat, Chelsea is ugly and Bristol is slutty.
Do I think Megan is fat? No. Chelsea ugly? No. Bristol slutty? No. Actaully they’re all pretty hot and the first two are also very bright.
But do I like comedy and I laugh at all the jokes.
Just like I think Dennis Miller is funny, even though he bashes “my ideology”. He’s no Jon Stewart, but still, pretty darn funny.
If Palin wants to be president someday, she better get thicker skin up there in Alaska, also, you betcha.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
SHCB
The difference is the people are presented as demons here based on facts: these are the same people who authorized and encouraged (“This is your baby. Go do it.”) sadistic tortures:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175080/alfred_mccoy_back_to_the_future_in_torture_policy
There is proof that high explosives were used on 911, and ample examples of the Lies to cover-up, use of authority to delay and hamper a full investigation, and destruction the evidence.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:45 am
That is the gray area, when Palin uses her boy as a tool for reelection because he has a medical condition it’s not right, when she uses him to increase awareness of autism it is, but what if she uses him to do both at the same time? I think you error on the side of leaving the kids out of the fray. I don’t think what Letterman said was that far out of line just a little, but a little more than I think he should have done on his show, as a comedy skit in a club it would have been fine.
The girl gets pregnant, does that make her fair game? Now if the girl were out there giving speeches about morality it would be a no brainer, but to the best of my knowledge she isn’t, I think he should have passed on that joke but I certainly don’t think he should be fired as some on my side are saying, not even close.
You probably aren’t old enough to remember this but maybe you have seen it on reruns, when Henry Fonda died Saturday Night Live did a skit where they showed a coffin lid raising and lowering repeatedly and the tagline “The New Henry Fonda Workout” in reference to Jane Fonda’s workout video that was all the rage at the time. People went ballistic, “they couldn’t even wait a week!” they cried, I thought it was clever but it probably did cross a line they shouldn’t have crossed.
But back to the subject. I think this idea of why can’t we elevate the discourse and not do this or that is kind of like complaining about the weather, it makes for an interesting discussion on a slow news day but there isn’t much we are ever going to do about it.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:00 am
So, Bristol Palin isn’t ‘in play’? Maybe in the game you are playing in your own mind shcb, but here in Reality, she is touring the country as a spokesperson for Abstinence Only Eduction (gee that sure worked swell for her, eh?)
Oh yes, absolutely nothing ironic about an unwed mother (knocked up by a dumb hick) preaching abstinence… and her mother shrills for conservative Family Values while touring the country stumping for her 2012 campaign. Can I mention that neither of these two new parents have a high school education? This heres whachyer home-schoolin does fer ya (wink!)
Buncha right wing glass jawed babies… whaa whaa!
Watch Bill Maher take Obama to task and you can see pretty clearly that Obama isn’t being given a pass by any of the late night crowd (Jon Stewart has ripped Obama a few new ones when they were warranted, Colbert’s irony is lost on wwnjs0).
knarls – if we aren’t hit by a 9/11 level attack by 9/12/09 Obama is officially a success! Actually he has to have TWO 9/11s since bush’s didn’t count (he kept us safe, blah blah blah). Cheney and his band of assassins better git bizay!
June 15th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Sorry to interrupt this enlightening and important discussion about Palin jokes, but I am perplexed by the lack of discussion on this site about the current situation in Iran. Perhaps jbc is busy with other tasks and has not had time to put up an article about the protests. That is certainly understandable, as I imagine he has a life outside of this blog. However, I do feel that it is quite relevant to this site and hope that jbc will get something up soon. Election fraud seems to be a popular topic for discussion here; plus, the situation is largely being played out on Twitter, which adds a web 2.0/new media angle to the story. Furthermore, those of you who are interested in framing everything in terms of American politics, it is possible to look into what the internal Iran struggle for democracy says about the neocon policies of using external powers to force democratic government on Middle Eastern countries, specifically Bush and McCain’s rhetoric about Iran.
June 15th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Yeah, I’d agree with you Smith.
Lies is where one would expect some discussion about the Western press latching on to the challenger’s relatively unsubstantiated claims of election fraud and running with it ad nauseum to foment maximum outrage. A cynic would say some people have an agenda to create disharmony in Iran – deep politics and all that evil.
However, perhaps a more reasoned reporting is starting to surface:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html
June 15th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
I’m sure the Iranians would be delighted to hear that their complaints aren’t really their own, but are actually those of the Western media. I’m really not sure what you are talking about here. If anything, I’d say the Western media is more focused on domestic issues than on Iran. Australian newsites were giving coverage to a pregnant 12 year old, American newsites are discussing how mean Letterman was to Palin, the BBC is actually giving decent coverage to the events that are underway in Iran.
I am curious as to why you would dismiss the Iranians’ complaints about voter fraud, while at the same time much of the blog (I’m guessing you would be part of this group) spent so much time complaining about Diebold, and the 2000 election. Why are American complaints about rigged elections more legitimate than those of the Iranians?
I also find your attitude quite strange in light of your propensity for posting “9/11 Truth” links. You have repeatedly dismissed “reasoned reporting” about 9/11 from any and all publications. Why are the beliefs of the “Truthers”, all or most of which have been consistently debunked by engineers and scientists, valid and worthy of serious discussion, but the allegations of voter fraud in Iran, which have yet to be seriously investigated, are clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda?
June 16th, 2009 at 1:32 am
We have a new strawman champion! Congratulations Smith! ;-)
I did not say that the Iranians (whose candidate appears to have lost, and who hear him and others say it was fraud), are not complaining on their own. But you get points for the funny value of your intepretation! My comment was about how the media has championed those Iranian complaints – perhaps with Iranian ex-pats in mind – and their relatives back home in Iran. Just being suspicious tis all. That’s healthy.
I’d agree the media is more focussed on other issues than Iran. Iran is but one medium / big story in a huge world.
I do not dismiss Iranian complaints about voter fraud. My instinct is that it is a domestic issue for the Iranian poeple to sort out, and they do not need the CIA’s “help” again – the Shah was a terrible enough last time. (Did you wish that the Iranians came to “assist” in your fight for fair democratic results when calls of election fraud were made in America???)
Strawman alert: there is not enough evidence to say that American complaints are not more “legitimate than those of the Iranians”.
But there seems to be clear differences. American complaints about voter fraud were quickly ridiculed and shut-out of mainstream news media. American complaints about voter fraud were accompanied by dramatic and historical reversals in post-poll survey results and irregularities in the detailed tallies. American voter fraud complaints were well documented in advance with respect to the vast security problems of the machines.
The Iranian complaints about voter fraud just seem vapid next to those about the American vote rigging, yet they may still have merit, but I’d doubt it was decisive fraud considering how strongly the Iranian election followed the pre-election polling (see my previous post).
So the allegations of voter fraud in Iran are not “clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda”, although I give you credit for constructing such an extraordinarily tall strawman.
At this point, without hearing the results of the Iranian domestic investigation into the allegations, and based on what sounds like decent pre-polling practices by an independent NGO, it would seem much of it is bunk, but time will tell.
As for your biggest strawman, yes many crackpots appear active within the 9/11 truth community who lead to a discrediting of efforts to get the issue serious attention. Yet the facts speak for themselves. I’d hazard to say that more qualified engineers and scientists who have taken the time to seriously examine the evidence do not support your government’s version. See http://www.ae911truth.org/ and http://www.stj911.com/welcome.html for a sampling of the larger community of such engineers and scientists.
Before you make further false allegations about who has properly debunked whom, you would do yourself a favour to become familiar with some basic facts:
Proof of high explosives in WTC buldings: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
And a few simple facts to ponder: http://www.csi911.info/CSI911.html
June 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am
One would have to look at the source of that poll in Iran, conducted by the WaPo (gee, they sure are a neutral third party, right?) and assess if they are more like Rassmussen or that dKos sponsored poll (the latter being pretty darn accurate in the end, while the former not so much).
I don’t want to dismiss the subject, but we just aren’t getting enough direct information from Iran and all its people. Mousavi’s support (at least from the article you linked to) was mainly in the better educated and wealthier echelons of Iranian society. Having 40% of the populace support one guy and 60% the other guy means 40% are going to be disappointed. Heck look at our own recent election, it was much closer than 60/40, but also far more fair, monitored and ‘transparent’. The entire right wing of America has put the crazy pedal to the metal.
I find the GOP reaction to be typically hilarious. bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran and his cohorts spend most of their time saying how badly Obama is handling this that and the other thing, but have nothing constructive to say. The party of No continues its slide into irrelevance. Lets just give em a bit of a push shall we?
9/11 Truther theories seem increasingly baroque, however, I wouldn’t put it past Cheney and his patriot assassins to slaughter thousands for the greater good of the GOP.
smith, I have been asking shcb to stop listening to hate radio and try other news sources for years. Specifically the BBC as a decent place to start. Then just try other sources rather than extremist right wing web sites and ‘info’ like foxnews. I visit a variety of web sites to get any number of viewpoints. We don’t take the local paper (haven’t for over a decade), but every once in a while will buy the sunday paper (nowadays we’ll buy the local sunday rather than the NYT as the kids like the comics)
June 16th, 2009 at 8:51 am
ENK – A point of clarification: the Iranian poll was not commissioned by the Washington post, they just reported about it.
JBC – I have a response to Smith (1:32 am) which is “awaiting moderation” does that mean it is not visible to others?
June 16th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Anything awaiting moderation is not visible.
I went and looked at the post, but I don’t have approval power here.
I want to point this out, WordPress does not like a lot of links in a post. I ran my own personal blog for a while and if you enable the security in WordPress, it will automatically throw posts with more than two links into moderation. It’s either that or turning it off and watching ‘Great article, check out my site posts pile up.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:31 am
actually knarls I think it was from the WaPo
(from their article)
“By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years.”
true it wasn’t “Hi! This is the Washington Post calling and I’d like to ask you some questions about your political process! And do you need your carpet cleaned? Are you aware your factory warrantee on your car may be about to run out? etc”
June 16th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Enk – the writers are guest columnists from non-WaPo related non-profit organizations, so it was not a WaPo funded poll. That is alluded to at the bottom of the article with this:
Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups’ May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
… and another report about this poll I read gave the main funding source for non-profits who conducted the poll(s?) it was a Rockerfeller or Rothchild foundation or something like that. WaPo just lent them the soapbox.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Smith – since my response is stuck in moderation, I’ll repost in two parts. Here you go:
Congratulations Smith on becoming the new strawman champion! ;-)
I did not say that the Iranians (whose candidate appears to have lost, and who hear him and others say it was fraud), are not complaining on their own. But you get points for the funny value of your intepretation! My comment was about how the media has championed those Iranian complaints – perhaps with Iranian ex-pats in mind – and their relatives back home in Iran. Just being suspicious tis all. That’s healthy.
I’d agree the media is more focussed on other issues than Iran. Iran is but one medium / big story in a huge world.
I do not dismiss Iranian complaints about voter fraud. My instinct is that it is a domestic issue for the Iranian poeple to sort out, and they do not need the CIA’s “help” again – the Shah was a terrible enough last time. (Did you wish that the Iranians came to “assist” in your fight for fair democratic results when calls of election fraud were made in America???)
Strawman alert: there is not enough evidence to say that American complaints are not more “legitimate than those of the Iranians”.
But there seems to be clear differences. American complaints about voter fraud were quickly ridiculed and shut-out of mainstream news media. American complaints about voter fraud were accompanied by dramatic and historical reversals in post-poll survey results and irregularities in the detailed tallies. American voter fraud complaints were well documented in advance with respect to the vast security problems of the machines.
The Iranian complaints about voter fraud just seem vapid next to those about the American vote rigging, yet they may still have merit, but I’d doubt it was decisive fraud considering how strongly the Iranian election followed the pre-election polling (see my previous post).
So the allegations of voter fraud in Iran are not “clearly bunk being touted by conspiracy theorists looking to promote an agenda”, although I give you credit for constructing such an extraordinarily tall strawman.
At this point, without hearing the results of the Iranian domestic investigation into the allegations, and based on what sounds like decent pre-polling practices by an independent NGO, it would seem much of it is bunk, but time will tell.
As for your biggest strawman, yes many crackpots appear active within the 9/11 truth community who lead to a discrediting of efforts to get the issue serious attention. Yet the facts speak for themselves. I’d hazard to say that more qualified engineers and scientists who have taken the time to seriously examine the evidence do not support your government’s version. See http://www.ae911truth.org/ and http://www.stj911.com/welcome.html for a sampling of the larger community of such engineers and scientists.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
and part two:
Before making further false allegations about who has properly debunked whom, please do yourself a favour to become familiar with some basic facts:
Proof of high explosives in WTC buldings: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCIEJ/2008/00000002/00000001/35TOCIEJ.SGM
And a few simple facts to ponder: http://www.csi911.info/CSI911.html
June 16th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Ahhh, correction noted, thx Knarls. my error
The NAF sounds like they are a bit Center/Right, though I am all for that over wwnj approaches to our problems (we’ve had way too much of the wwnj approach the last eight+ years).
The CPO looks like a non-partisan polling outfit (tho my research is pretty shallow on these two orgs)
June 17th, 2009 at 9:56 am
In line with Hilzoy’s theme, these two writers provide compelling arguments with an abundance of “moderation”:
Let’s hold Bush officials accountable for torture
The ACLU’s executive director joins with a military officer to ask for a special prosecutor for torture
By Anthony Romero and Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld
Torture is a crime and the United States engaged in it. Those are two indisputable facts. Given the mountains of evidence already in the public domain, any effort to deny or soften that harsh and devastating reality is either disingenuous, uninformed or a result of the human instinct to avoid painful truths. But one of the things that allows our democracy to endure is that time after time, no matter the misdeed, we have been willing to look ourselves in the mirror, acknowledge our wrongdoing and hold ourselves accountable.
Continued: http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/06/17/torture/
June 18th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Yet there seems to be a backlog of Bush admin crimes to investigate, so why don’t we start near the beginning?
And so, and also as if in direct response to Smith’s derision of “Truthers” (perhaps he favours “Liars”?), today we have this:
29 Structural & Civil Engineers Cite Evidence for Controlled Explosive
Demolition in Collapses of All 3 WTC High-Rises on 9/11
http://www.ae911truth.org/downloads/29_Structural-Civil_Engineers_2009-06-17.pdf
June 19th, 2009 at 8:18 am
For fucks sake. No one here cares or believes this.