I'm sure the majority of liberals aren't running around spray-painting crap in an attempt to frame up conservatives. People doing stuff like that are probably rare cases of brain-addled extremists who have been prodded into repugnant action by a constant stream of hate speech. Who knows? All I know is that such people deserve to be spit out the bottom orifice of society.

But something that I consider to be JUST as reprehensible is the blatant, obvious attempt by Democrat party members to paint the protests with the same 'extremist' brush as our hypothetical misguided kooks. The kooks are just frenzied, hyped-up goofballs who need to be pitied and shunned. But the Democrat party members... Nancy Pelosi, Claire McKaskell, Arlen Spectre, Ben Cardin, Brian Baird, Steny Hoyer, and many others - right up to Barak FREAKING Obama himself have blasted the protesters in terms that are insulting, demeaning, and dismissive. These aren't citizen kooks, random bloggers, or talking heads. These are people who hold political power describing thier own consitituents as if they were the enemy.

What kind of example is that? If they want to defuse the anger, shouldn't they be honest, open, and forthcoming and willing to engage the people?

When these bozos start getting all defensive, snippy, angry, and insulting to the people who are challenging them, it doesn't make me think that these are poor, innocent Democrats that are the victims of mean old mobs of extremists...

...It makes me think that the citizens are hitting these Democrats RIGHT between the eyes with truths that the Democrats want to hide so they can pass this bill before anyone can stop it. And it also makes me think that the Democrats are a bunch of slimeball hypocrites - because they sure didn't have ANY problems with 'community activism' during the Bush administration, or during Obama's campaign. But now the they are on the other end they want to act like citizen participation is a nasty, ugly thing that needs to be suppressed. Shame on them, and shame on anyone defending them.

^ Naomi Wolf is one person in our movement. She does not have hordes of liberals hanging off her every word, picking up signs, and going to every Republican town hall yelling and shutting down any attempts at discussion with accusations of tyranny (and the people who tried that all got arrested, BTW).

Through the bulk of the Bush administration, our leadership, even down to the "respected blogger" level was telling people that we aren't under fascist rule, though there did seem to be troubling movement in that direction.

The Republican organization, on the contrary, said Obama would bring fascism and communism and socialism during the election campaign, and only stepped it up after it was over. Beck celebrated the election with a sweet little video, making Obama the star of a Soviet-style propaganda piece. This is Beck's introduction to his new show's format, now working entirely off the fascist playbook for propaganda.

Here's what one of the people who was constantly talking us down during the Bush years had to say about the Tampa protest. Now, she's actually raising concern about fascism in America.

You really need to listen to what the Limbaughs and Becks are saying. They're not just rattling off a context-free accusation of Nazism, they're going into great lengths to compare specific elements of Nazism to everything Democrats are doing, right down to what the organizers of these anti-health care riots are telling people.

Looking back at our Schiff discussion, it appears you were also holding up Naomi Wolf as a reason to ignore anything the left says about Republicans using fear and propaganda, because you think Naomi Wolf making specious claims in books, and saying things in interviews is the same as having the entire conservative media enterprise, and their elected representatives in government make outright false declarations is totally the same deal.

Don't you think that exposes a certain level of bias towards equivalence on your part?

I can't stand the Sea Shepherd Society/Paul Watson and I hate Whale Wars. Why? Because the Sea Shepherd Society is actually hurting their own cause and Whale Wars is glorifying it.

Let me explain. I lived in Japan for eight years and I saw that every time the Japanese whaling fleet was attacked by the Paul Watson's group sales of whale meat went up in Japan and the resolve to continue hunting strengthened. The sales of whale meat has been falling for years in Japan, to the point now where there is over 1000 tons of frozen whale meat, some of it going back 12 years, in government freezers. The government can't give it away, but they try. If this trend continues it just won't be financially viable for Japan to continue whaling.

I taught at a university in Japan and I would ask my students if they eat and/or like whale meat. The vast majority of my students (90%+) said they didn't eat whale meat (however almost all of them had eaten whale meat at some point, usually served to them in their elementary school lunches, of course provided by the government). Almost the same number said they didn't like whale meat. Then I would usually give them the above statistic and ask if Japan should continue whaling, again a big majority would say "No". However, when stories about the Sea Shepherd Society attacking Japanese whalers hit the news (and it hit BIG TIME), attitudes would change. Then most of my students would say Japan should continue whaling. This was not just found in a university setting either. Editorials and opinion letters to newspapers would echo the same feelings.

In direct response to the Sea Shepherd's attacks on Japanese whaling ships supermarkets, restaurants, street vendors, etc. would suddenly begin carrying whale meat. More schools would serve it in their lunches (kids don't get a choice of what they can eat at school, one meal for everyone), and a restaurant in Osaka made headline news when they began to sell 'whale burgers'. There was a line around the block for those burgers and many of the people in the line made it clear that they were there as a giant 'fuck you' to the Sea Shepherd Society for attacking the Japanese whaling fleet.

As I said above Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd Society are hurting their own cause. What they need to do is put more effort into better information campaigns within Japan. Record and photograph what's going on then use Japanese bloggers and YouTube to get the info out there. This worked very well when the Sea Shepherd Society and others documented the Taiji Dolphin Hunt:
http://www.seashepherd.org.uk/taiji/taiji_sscs_in_taiji.html
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

Many people in Japan were shocked to find out that Dolphins were being hunted by Japanese, and the hunt now gets regular news coverage in Japan which has led to Japanese themselves protesting.

Pacifism has been so ingrained in the Japanese people since the end of WWII that using even mild violence to get what you want will assuredly turn the average Japanese person against you and whatever cause you are promoting, even if the cause is a 'good' one.

This fight will be won only if the Japanese people can be turned against whaling and make it too expensive for the Japanese government to continue to fund the whaling fleets, it won't be won by using the tactics of the Sea Shepherd Society.

Sorry for the long rant, but you can probably tell that I feel strongly about it.

I disagree. He said with his hick accent, you would have a lot of explaining to do.

No one would care if the bloggers didn't try and make a story out of it. Did anyone else in the room at the time gasp or do a double take to whisper? Probably not.

"Iran has executed its Tiananmen Square. Baharestan Square has become synonymous with barbarity, cruelty, massacre and inhumanity.

An Iranian blogger (whose URL I will not publish) live blogging from Baharestan Square in central Tehran today captures but brief glimpses of the unimaginable horror that took place today. Bus loads of protesters were stopped and unloaded from their buses by "black-clad police" and literally herded. When the massing was sufficient, as the barely controllably distraught Tehran caller to CNN described first hand, hundreds of the regime's Basij thugs poured out of an adjoining mosque and commenced a massacre with axes, clubs, guns and gas."

http://threatswatch.org/rapidrecon/2009/06/unimaginable-horror-in-tehran/

"Massacre at Baharestan Square in Iran
Protests continue in Iran today as thousands clashed with police – with one of the bloodiest confrontations happening in Baharestan Square. A newly posted youtube video of the clashes in the Teheran Square details the violence and utter chaos of the situation.

The video shows protesters carrying away a man, bloody from the torso up. It is unclear whether the man is alive. Another account of what many are referring to as the Baharestan square massacre appeared on CNN.

“All of a sudden some 500 people with clubs and woods they uh came out of [unintelligible] mosque and they pulled into the streets and they uh started beating everyone and they tried to beat everyone on [unintelligible] bridge and um throwing them off of the bridge. They beat a woman so savagely that uh, she was a drenched in blood. Her husband who was watching the scene he just fainted. At first people were brave that booed the security forces but they were beating people like Hell, this was a massacre.”

On Twitter, “Persiankiwi,” a regular poster who’s been documenting the protests since they began, says he has to remain on the run for fear of capture and torture. He says “in Baharestan we saw militia with axe chopping ppl like meat - blood everywhere - like butcher.”

http://www.fsrn.org/audio/headlines-wednesday-june-24-2009/4945

so, the first video you post was something 'I made this film with samsung digital camera IT100!!!'

and there's this blogger account:

http://handmade-diy-lovely.blogspot.com/ with the posts being written by a patrickdun9, full of samsung promotion

very suspicious, selflink and/or spam

*discuss

No problem. I thought it was relevant to today, given the recent events in Iran.

In reply to this comment by Duckman33:
Thanks again for the promote Krono.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
*promote

Thanks again for the promote Krono.

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
*promote

thanks y'all. it got on the front of digg too: utter retards.

for the stats junkies: 105,806 pageviews yesterday from 649 different sources and i don't even pay for a server as it's now hosted on blogger.

if only that happened every day.

This is a really serious issue. ..and as sad as the human story is, the problem is bigger than that. 60-70% of the primary forest in the Peruvian Amazon is under threat. Alan Garcia, the president of Peru, has suspended constitutional protection of this area to open it up to foreign timber, mining, oil, and agricultural use. He is responding to obligations in the free trade agreement with the US; so this is not just a Peruvian issue.

http://news.mongabay.com/2009/0606-oil_or_death_in_the_amazon.html
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/ben-powless/2009/06/peru-battle-lines-drawn-over-amazon
Petition:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/peru_stop_violence/?cl=250341655&v=3461

[quote]What is it about talk radio that's so attractive to conservatives?[/quote]

I would imagine the same thing that attracts neo-libs to shows like Olberman, Maddow, Maher, and others of their ilk. People congregate around those who are expressing view that are similar to their own views. People are generally willing to dance when a piper starts playing their favorite tune...

I listened to Rush a few times in the 2000 election cycle and his show is nothing like what is billed by the typical left-wing blogger. He was funny, generally insightful, and sometimes quite brilliant. I would expect that for conservatives, it is very much a matter of enjoying the act of listening to someone that shares your thoughts/feelings on a topic and who is able to do it in an entertaining fashion.

The prick asks the questions but won't answer any.

She's got more balls than he'll ever have.

This sort of ambush "journalism" on the parts of bloggers and O'Reilly is really just a veilled threat. It's sending a message. They're saying "If you say something we don't like, we're going to track you down and stick a camera in your face, then edit the footage to make us look smart and you look dumb."

It's the latest form of right-wing bullying. They have to resort to it because the truth is against them.

>> ^dag:
He hasn't learned not to feed the trolls. Makes him seem like a self-absorbed n00b. I'd like those 7 minutes and 18 seconds back.


Ridiculous.

You know how these smears work. They start on some shitty blog with an anonymous source, it gets linked to a few more places, then is suddenly on Limbaugh and O'Reilly and becomes "common knowledge".

I think Keith was right to rub this blogs nose in its own shit. If noone stands up for journalistic credibility, we're all doomed.

Your video, Olbermann Attacks Blogger Who Reported Rumors About Him, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Politics, Blogger, Rumors, WTF Moment' to 'Keith Olbermann, MSNBC, Politics, Blogger, Rumors, WTF Moment, cityfile' - edited by kronosposeidon