President Obama has just given America’s complete and unconditional endorsement to the Middle East tradition of using a perpetual cycle of violence to conduct a philosophical debate. Thomas E. (AKA T. E.) Lawrence, in his book “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” informed readers that revenge is an integral part of the Muslim culture. When American political pundits say that the death of Osama bin Laden gives closure to the attack on the World Trade Center, that is about as astute as hearing a rookie sportscaster saying that a three run rally in the top of the first inning erases the necessity for playing the next eight and a half innings.
When the images of the attack on the World Trade Center were shown, crowds in the Middle East were reported to be holding spontaneous joyous celebrations in the streets of various cities in their countries. Americans were outraged and considered such a reaction inappropriate.
Sunday, after Americans were told that Osama bin Laden had been killed by Navy Seals, Americans responded with jubilant crowds expressing approval at various diverse locations mostly the sites of sporting events.
Presidential candidate Obama promised that he would deliver change. Apparently he has delivered on that promise. America has embraced the methods and conduct they once considered barbaric and unacceptable.
The fact that Americans at sporting events participated in spontaneous displays of euphoria when they received the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed, will only goad Al Qaeda into a much firmer resolve to deal out a brutal payback attack. Does a bull attack the matador’s cape? The lower echelon of al Qaeda’s cadre has just been dealt an insulting challenge which they won’t ignore.
T. E. Lawrence informed his readers that the Muslim culture is also noted for its patience regarding a response so that if they don’t send a suicide bomber into action on Wednesday, that doesn’t mean that they won’t ever strike back; it just means they will pick the time and place and proceed at their leisure.
The irony for Democrats is that by fully and unreservedly endorsing the violent assassination of Osama bin Laden, President Obama has committed members of his political party to Bush’s Eternal War on Terrorism.
Initially some Democrats (and a few rogue online columnists) objected to Bush’s use of invasion, torture, and excessive collateral civilian damage but now with the Obama move to commit his Party to the Bush agenda, he has made any efforts to promote antiwar sentiment become a despicable example of disloyal cowardice.
Shifting the Democrats into the cycle of perpetual retaliatory events is an irreversible move of the “you can’t put toothpaste back in the tube” type. The Peacenik point of view will become as relevant to the contemporary political arena as are the beliefs of the flat earth society.
Al Qaeda is now compelled to retaliate and when they do, the average American (who was seen rejoicing in the news at Sunday night sporting events) will demand a bigger and more horrific response to the al Qaeda answer to Osama’s assassination. At that point history will take on the hall of mirrors look and there won’t be any turning back.
The fact that one of Col. Qaddafi’s sons was killed in a recent NATO airstrike will mean that as he has previously (when his step daughter was killed) the Libyan leader will unleash his own subsidized violent retaliation.
Any new terrorism activity that is unleashed inside the United States will have at least two potential sources in the Muslim world. If something happens, bloodthirsty Americans will demand a quick act of generic revenge and not a comprehensive investigation to determine the specific group that did the deed.
America’s security forces have been rather successful using entrapment gambits for ensnaring young gullible guys, but from here on, things are going to get progressively rougher and meaner.
Was the old movie comedy routine about two guys engaging in a slapping contest based on a real life macho contest? If so, that example of slowly increasing hostility could become a valid metaphor for a series of increasingly violent retaliation moves.
Any speculation about what could possibly have been done to avoid the now inevitable eternal cycle of increasingly bloody retaliator moves is totally irrelevant.
Alternate fiction history can be interesting and entertaining but it is an exorcise in futility. What would have happened if the Seal team had shot Osama with a paintball gun and then said: “We could have killed you just now, but we want to break the pattern of the eternal cycle of violent retribution killing.” But they didn’t. They shot him dead.
Whatever infinitesimally small chance that might have had to work is irrelevant. Osama was assassinated and the United States will be seen as accepting the ground rules for a never ending series of alternating retaliations.
Punditry about “closure” will only serve to increase the level righteous indignation in America when (not “if”) al Qaeda retaliates for the assassination of Osama or Col. Qaddafi seeks revenge for the killing of his son. That, in turn, will only compel America’s subsequent answer to be an absolute requirement for any President of either party.
At that point George W. Bush’s assertion that he had started an “Eternal” war and that it has been fully endorsed by the Democrats courtesy of President Obama will be irrefutable. Attempting political commentary that runs counter to both the Republican and Democratic Presidents’ agendas would be completely idiotic and an example of wasted effort. Consequently subsequent columns written by the World’s Laziest Journalist may be about irrelevant, inconsequential, and perhaps even innocuous topics.
A segment of the lyrics to one of Waylon Jennings’ songs seems to be appropriate for the closing quote: “ . . . waiting for something to happen – hope it doesn’t happen to me . . .”
Now the disk jockey will play the Zombies song “How We Were Before,” CCR’s “Bad Moon Rising,” and Dick Dale and the Deltones 1963 release “We’ll Never Hear the End of It.”
We have to go attend a “More war; Less social services” rally. Have a “Revenge is sweet” type week.
Right-Wing Sock Puppets Pretending to Be Liberals Assault Progressive Websites
Ignorant, peevish, narrow-minded, misinformed, livid, intolerant, they are an army of everything that’s wrong with America, denizens of a weird trickster God who speaks to them with words they don’t completely understand, or tints their natural interior wrath with righteous anger conferred by snake-oil preachers or haughty cable charlatans either crass or crazed, or just slyly in it for the money, or all of the above.
This minority wouldn’t matter much except they are whipped into a frenzy and ‘played’ by cynical manipulators like Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck who, in turn, wouldn’t have much impact without the billions of dollars spent to spread their fetid message from such right-wing corporatists as Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch and the Koch brothers.
But beneath the second-tier video fictions of James O’Keefe and Andrew Breitbart, and the hollow-headed bleating of the various ozone-inhabiting creatures who will never be president like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin, and even in the shadow of the disingenuous theocratic mushpile that is David Barton’s twisted view of our history, exists a well-funded Republican netherworld of PR propagandists and marketing hucksters busy dreaming up unethical new ways to undercut Obama and the Democrats.
One of these is Doug Goetzloe, an anti-tax right-wing talk show host and former Young Republican who heads up Advantage Consultants. Here is the copy from one of his ads advising his conservative clients to ‘flood the zone’ on progressive sites:
“Are you ready for a blog attack?
“Get ahead of your opponent with Professional Blog Warriors.
“Be prepared to ‘flood the zone’ with comments from professionals who are ready to put your talking points on the blogosphere 24/7.
“Whether it’s defense or offense, Advantage Consultants has a dedicated team of experienced blog warriors ready to advance your candidate or campaign.
“Why wait for the attack? Launch your attack with a battery of blog and forum comments aimed at all media and blog sites in your district.
“Contact us today and let us show you the Advantage in professional blog warfare.”
Then there’s Chip Griffin, head of the now defunct NetVocates that planted comments as Advantage Consultants does back in 2005, and is still a Republican activist and PR man who was once associated with the far-right TownHall.com. Griffin is no doubt back on the scene as a sock-puppet master for the 2012 elections — it’s what he does for a living.
A poster named TomCADem recently made these points at Democratic Underground:
“However, what is often ignored are right wing/corporate funded political operatives generating attacks on Democrats from the ‘left’ while giving Republicans a free pass. Of course, these operatives do not announce their intentions, but instead simply launch attacks on Democrats from the left while largely ignoring the far more extreme positions of Republicans or suggesting that there is no difference between Democrats and Republicans. However, occasionally, such operatives are caught engaging in these fraudulent acts.
“The question in 2012 with Republicans and corporate American intent on taking back the White House, killing unions, and privatizing Medicare, [is] how far will Republicans and corporate propaganda groups go in their efforts to organize sock puppet attacks on Democrats from the left in order to undermine support for Democrats among liberals?”
– Posted in “‘Liberal’ Sock Puppets – Right Wing/Corporate Operatives Attacking Democrats From The ‘Left’,” April 26, 2011.
How far? The GOP is desperate to enact their anti-democratic corporate agenda as quickly as possible as they know the general public is catching onto them — they will go as far as mountains of corporate money and a total lack of conscience or ethics will take them.
Some on the progressive side are already well aware that the GOP is, and has been at least since 2005, mounting a large and well-funded campaign to plant phony ‘progressives sick of the Dems’ comments on various liberal sites to split the vote. Their masters know the psychology well: a percentage of the population, no matter what their politics, is ‘suggestible,’ meaning if they read a string of comments excoriating ALL Democrats as frauds and liars, that will become their opinion, if nothing to the contrary is offered. These ‘suggestibles’ are not necessarily stupid, but they do readily conform to whatever opinion is dominant. That’s why the GOP, through their paid operatives, flood progressive sites with so-called ‘former Democrats’ and ‘angry progressives’ who do nothing but harp on how horrible the Democrats and Obama are. It’s insidious and underhanded, but look at who’s doing it — the party of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. All of them were elected on a promise of jobs and better times, only to use their office to reward the wealthy with tax cuts and lucrative contracts privatizing public services at the expense of middle-class families who work for a living.
At one time, some of the ‘tells’ of the right-wing ‘sock puppet’ troll was their use of terms such as ‘DemoRATS’ or ‘Demonrats’ for Democrats, and their repeatedly calling Obama ‘Obummer,’ ‘Obomber’ or ‘Obomba.’ But they’ve mostly changed that language as actual progressives began to notice those repeated constructions and the fetid and simpleminded opinions attached to them. Some current ‘tells’ are when they don’t mention the GOP at all, or claim both parties are just as ‘evil,’ or try to shut down the conversation with insults, or push readers to vote for any third party, or say that they’d rather vote for a Republican than a Democrat, or make statements with no factual basis, or refer you to a right-wing website to ‘confirm’ their assertions.
Incidentally, there is no comparable effort by the left: if you try to post comments opposing the GOP or corporatists at right-wing sites, in most cases you will quickly be banned from posting there and your comments removed. They aren’t about to let the other side play their game on them, even if we had the money to fund such slimy baloney and the inclination to do so.
Our only protection against such ersatz assaults is to use our heads and common sense: if someone is a little ‘too’ enraged at Obama and the Democrats, be suspicious, especially if they never talk about Republicans. Ask them a couple of polite intelligent questions on the comment thread’s topic; if they respond by condemning or insulting you for questioning them rather than engaging you, they’re likely a sock-puppet troll; it’s in their nature to consider any question or disagreement as tantamount to treason. Also, if they keep reposting basically the same idea in one comment thread, they’re probably a sock-puppet troll; they’ve been instructed by their masters that repetition works. And don’t be swayed if they accuse you of being a ‘shill’ or ‘troll’ for questioning them — they are trained to do that.
Finally, always remember: you can pretend to be a progressive, but you can’t pretend to be smart, and these paid ‘blog warriors’ decidedly aren’t.
“The key point is that ever since the Reagan years, the Republican Party has been dominated by radicals — ideologues and/or apparatchiks who, at a fundamental level, do not accept anyone else’s right to govern.”
– Paul Krugman, “The Politics of Spite,” NY Times, Oct. 5, 2009.
Copyright © 2011 RS Janes.