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-Oscar Wilde		 Brilliant at Breakfast title banner "The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself."
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Sunday, April 05, 2009

The carnage that angry white men leave in their wake
Posted by Jill | 7:03 AM
John List, who murdered his family in 1971 and then disappeared for eighteen years was just ahead of his time, it seems. An out-of-work accountant who couldn't hold down a job, he couched his slaughter in the terms of religion, as mercy killings to dispatch his family on the HOV lane to heaven before earthly temptations could ruin their chances.

Angry men resorting to murder when the things they have been led to believe about this country turn out not to be true in their own lives is nothing new, but male anger seems to be on the rise, fueled by the economic collapse and match-lit by right-wing hate talk radio. A friend of mine recently broke off a primarily e-mail and phone relationship of some 3-1/2 years after her beloved exploded at her over the telephone. They'd been discussing for a year finding a short-term rental together to see if their meat world relationship would be as successful as their virtual one had been, but the guy had always found a reason to wait. I found out about this in the context of the incident in Binghamton on Friday, in which a Vietnamese immigrant who felt "looked down on" shot thirteen people, and the one yesterday in which a dishonorably-charged Marine and wingnut who feared that Barack Obama would take away his guns (gee, I wonder where he got that idea?) killed three police officers in a domestic standoff.

My friend had always described her intended as a "manly man", who liked to hunt and build things. I'm quite certain that he is at least part of the reason she refused to talk about politics around the middle of last year and stopped even asking me if I believed that Barack Obama was sufficiently loyal to this country because of his background. This guy had recently suffered a number of health and financial setbacks that I won't detail here, and when you combine a tendency towards right-wing beliefs that include paranoia about Barack Obama, an affinity with guns, financial and health problems, and what was apparently otherwise a fairly even-tempered person exploding on a hair trigger over the telephone, I couldn't help but have the sense that my friend has perhaps literally and certainly figuratively dodged a bullet here, as heartbroken as she may be at the moment. Because we are in a recession, job opportunities are scarce, and the very white guys who sat silently while George W. Bush talked of preferring being a dictator, and swept up everyone's telephone and internet activity, and put protesters on no-fly lists, locked up Americans indefinitely without charges or trial, now suddenly have their panties in a twist because we have a black Democrat as President and Glenn Beck is telling them that said black Democrat will take their guns away.

I mean, after all, what kind of country is this, when an angry man can't blow away a few people in order to blow off some steam?

Richard Poplawski isn't the first nut who apparently got his marching orders from the bloviating of right wing talk radio hosts and nutcases like Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann. Let's not forget Jim Atkisson, whose talk radio-fueled hatred for liberals drove him to bust into a Unitarian Universalist church earlier this year and kill a bunch of people. (And while you're clicking on the above link, add Spocko's Brain to your bookmarks, because he's been on the hate radio case for a long time.)

Guys like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh make blood money. These are preposterously wealthy men -- as wealthy as many of the Wall Street types who are the popular villains du jour -- who earn their wealth whipping angry men like Richard Poplawski and Jim Atkisson into a frenzy, and then when men like this murder their families, or three police officers, or thirteen people trying to learn or teach English, take their words as marching orders, they wave their hands in front of themselves, shake their heads and say "But I'm just an entertainer!"

Of course there is a right to free speech in this country, but incitement to riot or violence has always fallen outside the purview of free speech rights under the "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" notion. Perhaps Beck and Limbaugh and the even more extreme purveyors of right-wing hate radio do have the right to spill their bile over the public airwaves (though I would also argue that I am part of that public as well and fewer of MY side's voices are being heard over them), but when mainstream politicians from the Republican Party start using the same rhetoric, and accepting the leadership of these so-called "entertainers" as doctrine, their bile ceases to become "entertainment" and becomes marching orders.

We've already seen a rash of shootings such as those we've seen this weekend. Most weeks bring at least one report of a despondent man killing a few people. Usually it's his own family (and in fact there seems to be yet another one in the news, this time in Washington state).

This country is full of walking time bombs with guns, and we have now had three successive days in which they have used said guns to deal with their anger, an anger that has been building for over three decades, as Republicans gained political power by stoking the fires of fear and loathing and ignorance. It goes back as far as Richard Nixon with his enemies list and Spiro Agnew's dismissal of intelligent people as "effete snobs." It continued with Ronald Reagan's evocation of "welfare queens" to whip the right into a frenzy about undeserving black people getting their hard-earned tax dollars. It crescendoed with Willie Horton and the blatant appeal to racism of Jesse Helms' "white hands" ad. It continued during the Bush Administration with the fear that everyone brown of skin was a Muslim terrorist and with the scapegoating of undocumented immigrants as being the sole cause of our economic problems. And all that time, the hatemongers of the right, now aided and abetted by talk radio hosts who will say in print interviews that anyone who believes what they say is an idiot but who continue to spew their bile over the airwaves without such caveats, continue to whip these guys into a frenzy.

And as we hear more of these stories, more and more men who have been told by right-wing talk show "entertainers" and the politicians who love them that their world of privilege is being stolen out from under their noses, will deal with the fact that they've been lied to by taking a few lives.

(UPDATE: More from David Neiwert, who has also been covering the eliminationist rhetoric bandwagon for years and whose book on the subject is about to be released.)

UPDATE #2: What Blue Girl said.)

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Thursday, October 16, 2008

And they said Howard Dean was angry?
Posted by Jill | 5:55 PM
This guy is certifiable:


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Monday, October 06, 2008

John McCain's Nastiest Moments
Posted by Jill | 6:00 AM
We already know how nasty Sarah Palin is, but John McCain has managed to hold on to his reputation as War Hero Unfairly Smeared By George W. Bush despite his appalling record and increasingly lunatic policies.

Melissa has compiled a list of John McCain's Greatest Nasty Hits. Here are a few of them; the rest are here.
• Accusing the Democrats of being sore losers and obstructionists motivated by partisan "bitterness" just because they had the temerity to not treat Condoleezza Rice's confirmation as Secretary of State as "a foregone conclusion."

• Accusing Vietnam veteran and Congressman Jack Murtha of being "too emotional" to be rational about the war.

• Sending then-freshman Senator Barack Obama what Matt Stoller called "remarkable" and one of "the single most bitter, nasty letters I have ever seen from any Senator."

• Threatening to leave an appearance before the AFL-CIO's Building and Construction Trades Department because members of the audience challenged his statements on immigration, organized labor, and the war. He also questioned their work ethic and skills, telling them "You can't do it, my friends," when some accepted his hypothetical job offer of $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

• Threatening to commit suicide if the Democrats won a majority in the Senate.

• Using the racially-charged and highly inappropriate term "tar baby."


When you put together John McCain's anger management problems and Sarah Palin's lunatic apocalyptic fantasies, you wonder why any sane person would vote for them.

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Sunday, September 07, 2008

Today we call it "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"
Posted by Jill | 9:29 PM
John McCain's anger management problems didn't start when he came home from Vietnam; they've always been there:
At age 2, McCain's tantrums were so intense that he'd hold his breath for a few minutes and pass out. His parents would dunk him in cold water to "cure" him, he wrote in his memoir, "Faith of My Fathers."


Behaviors that are symptomatic of ODD:
Frequent temper tantrums
Argumentativeness with adults
Refusal to comply with adult requests or rules
Deliberate annoyance of other people
Blaming others for mistakes or misbehavior
Acting touchy and easily annoyed
Anger and resentment
Spiteful or vindictive behavior
Aggressiveness toward peers
Difficulty maintaining friendships
Academic problems


Just think about it: Our next president, unless the media gets off its collective knees and Barack Obama stops talking about how successful the surge was and what an honorable man John McCain is, may very well be a hothead with a religious nutball as his Vice President.

(h/t)

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Saturday, August 30, 2008

No wonder John McCain likes Sarah Palin
Posted by Jill | 10:21 AM
She's a mean-spirited, nasty piece of work -- just like him. From the Anchorage Daily News, January 27, 2008:

The governor's appearance on KWHL's "The Bob and Mark Show" last week is plain and simple one of the most unprofessional, childish and inexcusable performances I've ever seen from a politician.

Anchorage DJ Bob Lester unleashed a vicious, mean-spirited, poisonous attack on Senate President Lyda Green last week while our governor was live on the air with him.

When we played the tape on my show the day after it happened, we received 130 calls. Even some Palinbots were disgusted.

[snip]

Early on in the conversation before Palin started to crack up, Lester referred to Sen. Green as a jealous woman and a cancer. Palin, who knows full well Lyda Green is a cancer survivor, didn't do what any decent person would do, say, "Bob, that's going too far."

But as the conversation moved on, Lester intensified his attack on Green.

Lester questioned Green's motherhood, asking Palin if the senator cares about her own kids. Palin laughs.

Then Lester clearly sets the stage for what he is about to say by warning his large audience and Palin. He says, "Governor you can't say this but I will, Lyda Green is a cancer and a b----." Palin laughs for the second time.

[snip]

But there is more. Lester then describes Green's chair as big and cushy. A clear reference to the senator's weight. Palin laughs a third time. She's just having a grand old time.

Palin was clearly enjoying every second of Lester's vicious attack on her political rival.

But it gets worse.

Lester asks Palin point blank: "Do you have any idea of what you did, to make Lyda Green dislike you, hate you?" How does Palin respond? Does she do the right thing? What you would expect from a mature leader, a governor and say, "Bob, Lyda doesn't hate me."

No, she responds like a 13-year-old and says, "Um, you know once and a while I try to figure that out but I can't figure that out."

The Palin camp says the governor did call Green and apologize. That was the right thing to do. But the governor's statement shows the apology a half-hearted one.

The statement in part reads: "The Governor called Senator Green to explain that she does not condone name-calling in any way and apologized if there was a perception that the comment was attributed to the Governor."

But there's strong evidence Palin did condone Lester's name-calling. At the end of Lester making fun of Green as a mother, calling her a cancer, twice, and saying she has to go; after calling the senator a b----, making fun of her weight, and accusing Green of being jealous and hateful; after all of that, Lester ends the conversation offering to visit Palin.

How does Palin respond? "I'd be honored to have you."

The statement released by the governor's office also called Palin's action bad judgment.

But bad judgment is when you stay up late the night before a big test, order steak at a Chinese restaurant or wear blue jeans to a black tie affair.

What the governor did was wrong.

Not only did she sit by and watch a decent public servant get thrashed in front of tens of thousands of people, she actually enjoyed it.

This is our governor, for goodness sake.


And if John McCain has his way, she will be the Vice President of the United States.

Listen for yourself:





But of course John McCain is going to see nothing wrong with this, given his track record:





(giant super-sized h/t)

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Thursday, August 28, 2008

John McCain = 4 more years of secretive, unaccountable government
Posted by Jill | 1:52 PM
It's somewhat surprising that with even many people who should be on his side leery of John McCain's anger management problem, Johnny McCranky should allow the dark side of his personality out to a publication that's historically been friendly to him.

From a TIME interview with James Carney and Michael Scherer:

I wonder if you could define honor for us?
Read it in my books.

I've read your books.
No, I'm not going to define it.

But honor in politics?
I defined it in five books. Read my books.

[Your] campaign today is more disciplined, more traditional, more aggressive. From your point of view, why the change?
I will do as much as we possibly can do to provide as much access to the press as possible.

But beyond the press, sir, just in terms of ...
I think we're running a fine campaign, and this is where we are.

Do you miss the old way of doing it?
I don't know what you're talking about.

Really? Come on, Senator.
I'll provide as much access as possible ...

In 2000, after the primaries, you went back to South Carolina to talk about what you felt was a mistake you had made on the Confederate flag. Is there anything so far about this campaign that you wish you could take back or you might revisit when it's over?
[Does not answer.]

Do I know you? [Says with a laugh.]
[Long pause.] I'm very happy with the way our campaign has been conducted, and I am very pleased and humbled to have the nomination of the Republican Party.


So...is he senile and simply parroting back talking points given him by Karl Rove? Is he being unnecessarily testy and combative, or is this part of what we've seen in George W. Bush for the last eight years -- a man who feels entitled to the office, who feels he doesn't have to answer to anybody, a man who refuses to answer questions?

At the Democratic National Convention this week, we've heard a lot of how John McCain means more of the same failed policies. But it's more than that. It's four more years of the same arrogant, secretive, unaccountable view of the executive branch.

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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

"John McCain is Angry"
Posted by Jill | 5:16 PM
There's your meme, Democrats. It worked when applied to Howard Dean in 2004, why not apply it to a guy who has real, actual, documented anger management issues?

Apparently even "some" in the GOP are worried about John McCain embracing his dark side, and apparently, Karl Rove:

In recent days Senator John McCain has charged that Senator Barack Obama “would rather lose a war in order to win a political campaign,” tarred him as “Dr. No” on energy policy and run advertisements calling him responsible for high gas prices.

The old happy warrior side of Mr. McCain has been eclipsed a bit lately by a much more aggressive, and more negative, Mr. McCain who hammers Mr. Obama repeatedly on policy differences, experience and trustworthiness.

By doing so, Mr. McCain is clearly trying to sow doubts about his younger opponent, and bring him down a peg or two. But some Republicans worry that by going negative so early, and initiating so many of the attacks himself rather than leaving them to others, Mr. McCain risks coming across as angry or partisan in a way that could turn off some independents who have been attracted by his calls for respectful campaigning.

The drumbeat of attacks could also undermine his argument that he will champion a new brand of politics.


Of course, that is all dependent on the media doing its job and pointing out that John McCain is now playing the same dirty, ad hominem attack politics that George W. Bush did. Will Americans fall for it again?

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