Douglas Rushkoff on the RNC
Our pal Douglas Rushkoff posted an insightful essay about the RNC speeches.
I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).Read the rest of his essay, titled Hate Party, here.I usually don’t feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter’s intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their fists, and smiling the way gladiators do when going into combat against barbarians. And this is the incumbent party. The ones currently in power.
What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear: community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below. From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.
Last night, the Republican Convention made it clear they prefer war. They see the world as a dangerous and terrible place. Like the fascist leaders satirized in Starship Troopers, they say they believe it is better to be on the offensive, taking the war to the people who might wish us harm than playing defense. It is better to be an international aggressor - a bulldog with lipstick - than led by the misguided notion that attacking people itself makes the world a more dangerous place.
In their attack on community organizing - a word combination they pretended they didn't know what it meant - Giuliani and Palin revealed their refusal to acknowledge the kinds of bottom-up processes through which our society was built, and through which local communities can begin to assert some authority over their schools, environments, and economies. Without organized communities, you don't get the reduction in centralized government the Republicans pretend to be arguing for. In their view, community organizing as, at best, equivalent to disruptive and unpredictable Al Qaeda activity.
But it actually goes deeper than this. Consider how Republicans have so far justified their choice of candidate: he is a "great man." That America needs a "hero" in the White House to lead us in continued preemptive strikes against Bin Laden in Iraq (I know Bin Laden is not in Iraq, but Giuliani clearly implied he was). Only a leader with McCain's war record and paternal qualifications can help Americans muster and maintain the tenacity necessary to "drill baby drill," (even though this will have no influence on oil price or supply) and generate the requisite hate to "kill baby, kill." As I explained in Coercion, having a parent figure on whom to transfer authority allows people to regress to a more childlike state. This not only allows them to feel safe; if gives them the freedom to express their rage. Make no mistake - that's what we're witnessing. And this rage - not America - is the greatest threat to humanity's long-term chances for survival.
Republican party representatives are proud today that their convention has finally produced the "same level of energy and enthusiasm" as the DNC's last week. And while it may have produced the same level of excitement, the excitement was of a very different character. It's much easier to get people riled up but inviting them to hate a man - particularly one who they haven't been allowed to hate for traditional reasons. Giuliani's job - much like his job as mayor of NYC - was to give the Republicans in attendance permission to hate Obama and the potentially intelligent society he represents. It's not about city vs. country or educated vs. military. It's about thought vs. violence.
In the black and white world of those committed to war as an international relations strategy, voting "present" makes no sense - especially when the Illinois legislative process is willfully misrepresented. (Voting present is a way to preserve the bill without passing it in its current state. Far from an easy out, it is the hard path - requiring further negotiation to remove earmarks and other problems.) They would prefer the simple relief of a "yes or no" world, where the evil are punished and the good rewarded. For in such a world, we get to know who the enemy is and just hate them. I don't believe hate is the best way to motivate people to develop long-term solutions to problems. It is a tried and tested way to motivate them to short-term support of dangerous leaders. That much is certain. But if McCain and Palin are able to rouse the national hatred they will need to actually win this election, I fear they will have unleashed a force that they will be unable to control.
UPDATE: Doug's site is under a Denial-of-Service attack, so he's kindly given us permission to post the essay in its entirety above.
UPDATE: Rushkoff.com is back up.
"Community organizing is energized from below."
Remember the good old days of 1992, when the GOP stood for the decentralized power of "states rights"? Then states started decriminalizing marijuana . . . .
Of course back then they were also for a "balanced budget amendment" and term limits for congress, then they got a majority in congress and didn't try to pass any of those initiatives. Crass.
Rushkoff had a great article in Arthur a few months ago about the nature of the sub-prime mortgage crisis.
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Link's down; bummer.
No, Douglas, you're not nauseous; but Noaher is REALLY nauseous!
Caption for the image of Rudy: Surprise butseks!
after watching some of the RNC crowd gathering I was struck by several things. They are overflowing with hate. They are a narrow, overprivileged group, they represent no viable future.
@ # 2 - Have you read "Little Brother"? You know, the anti-authoritarian, anti-Bush anti-surveillance state novel by Cory Doctorow, arguably Boing Boing's biggest name?
What do you expect here?
Can i just say AGAIN... that the US has no left wing.
NOAHER, you are jumping at shadows there.
The US has never had anything that could be remotely described as a left wing.
Your political spectrum is taught outside the US by the use of one simple phrase.
"A rich and Varied Sameness"
The democrats are right wing but the republicans are so right wing that they make the democrats seem crazily liberal...which that aren't.
No, Douglas, you're not nauseous; but Noaher is REALLY nauseous!
*applauds ERROR404*
be grateful for a stupid foe. "noaher" is a "godsend".
Douglas Rushkoff sounds like he needs a hug. How can anyone go through life being that frightened? Perhaps if we wrap him in bubble-wrap and hold his hand it will make him feel safer.
Both Palin's and Giuliani's speeches were really underwhelming, it's true.
Looking forward to the site being back up. I couldn't agree more with the posted bit of it here, because I too felt the hate and disgust in that building (and they ARE the ones in charge now, as was mentioned). And the chants of USA, USA have me totally confused.
Fear, fear,fear, and more fear. Tightly wound, holier than thou, "drill baby, drill" yelling kooks.
If a terrorist attack would happen while Obama is in charge, they'll be yelling that we have to put them back in charge. If one happens while McCain is in the oval office, they'll claim that it would have been worse if the Dems had won.
Jesus was a community organizer.
Yeah, but at least it's American hate.
@#13 Unfortunately, I think both of their speeches were f'n brilliant to rally the troops. Palin's gonna make this a really close November.
so be it then. If the voters that are allowed to vote wish a third term of Bush, so be it. But if that is indeed the case, it WILL be the end of America. Finis.
@15 nicely put.
I think the true pity with the Republican party is how far they have strayed from their own ideals. Every time my Republican friends try and babble to me I point out that under an entirely Republican government we managed to grow the size of government faster and larger than in any time in history, strip away civil liberties, and tank the economy.
I would almost be excited to see Democrats come to power if I thought they were going to behave themselves any better. The democrats have been running in terror of their own ideals as well. You used to be able to count on the democrats to uphold civil liberties, fight for immigrant rights, and keep religion out of the government. You can't even reasonable expect these things any more from them.
As a lefty leaning libertarian, I can safely say that I find the entire political field pretty dismal. Personally, I miss the good old days of divided government. I would take a Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton at each others throats any day of the week over the misery of the past 8 years and the near equal misery of the next 4 to come.
Futrell, I think you and I heard different speeches.
Rudy Guliani, to me, sounded like a guy who too easily forgets that community organizers were critical in ending the gang wars of NYC - which then allowed him to be a mayor in a time of prosperity - nevermind the role they played after 9.11
And Gov. Palin sounded, to me, like a bulldog with lipstick.
I think the writeup (at least the quote here... article is down) is unfair if you watched the speeches. Rudy was laughing the whole time, hardly hateful just sarcastic and coming out swinging after the Repubs have been on the bashing end of the stick for most of the campaign. As for Palin, she probably gets a little leeway to be mean. Its not like the Democrats or the media have been very civil with her or her family (though noting Obama himself did take the high road on her daughter's pregnancy).
Nw th fscsm xtrpltn s jst slly. rlly thght Gdwn's Lw ws prtty wll knwn by nw. Comparing Guilliani to fictional fascists doesn't really make the argument different.
Th lst slly pnt s tht smhw mkng dgs gnst cmmnty rgnzrs s nt-pplst. Sarah Palin built her career on fighting corruption, sweeping out special interests, and reigning in oil companies in Alaska.
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ntrstng pnts, bt f t ws sch sthng cldrn f htrd nsd th rn...thn hw wld y dscrb th ppl -tsd- th rn wh ttckd, thrtnd, ntmdtd, tc. dlgts wh trd t ntr th rn?
Wr thr vlnt rpblcns stlkng th DNC cnvntn lst wk, trshng lcl bsnsss, tc? N.
The authoritarian, warmongering, pseudo-Christian, avaricious representatives of the Republican Party would certainly be against regular people who make regular money helping out each other and organizing. These are the very bootstraps by which we can pick ourselves up. They think people like us deserve to be bootless.
Woo, is it November already?
NOAHER: What do you mean devolving - just more of the same.
ERROR404: The US is one of the few bastions of the existence of right wing politics at all.
Rushkoff: What they "hate" is NOT the community but organizers who look down on the people in their communities as being victims and unable to help themselves without government assistance provided through coercion of others.
What they love is the America that is free, where people help each other because that is the right thing to do, not at the point of the state gun of coercive force.
What they love is the community of free individuals a community of victims and their supposed advocates whose only modus operandi is to suck at the government teat and use the image of compassion to gain power over others.
History has been a long progression to freedom. Leftism is a regressive return to less freedom. Freedom is under attack and finally freedom lovers are fighting back.
@#14 its either "USA USA..." or "O BAMA O BAMA..." I don't think either one is that confusing or weird. Its just chanting to get psyched up. I guess you don't go to many sporting events?
@#2
Three posts, all defending the GOP. How many McCain Points is that worth?
no SP 23, didn't see any of those.
@#6 "Thy r nrrw, vrprvlgd grp, thy rprsnt n vbl ftr."
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I'm casting my vote for Eugene V. Debs. Enough of these shills.
#25, you mean after nearly a decade of corrupt oppression and war, freedom lovers are fighting back?
#15. Excellent point! Someone should make a bumper sticker.
Maybe Jesus would have done better if he'd been a "small-town mayor" ;-) It amuses me that Palin implies that sanctioned responsibilities are more important than results.
@29
did you actually look ar the people and faces on the RNC floor? NASCAR dads? Try their mortgage holders.
Google cache of the full text...
Hate Party
Douglas on 04 Sep 2008
I felt a bit nauseous watching the Republican convention last night. I’m very much a give-the-benefit-of-the-doubt kind of guy, so I try to listen to the arguments people make even when they’re made in over-the-top or patronizing ways. Sometimes it’s good to distinguish between the rhetorical devices and the underlying substance. Even people who use manipulative language sometimes have an important point beneath their persuasion techniques (ads against smoking, for example).
I usually don’t feel uneasy when I put those filters on, but last night - during the Guiliani speech - I realized I was no longer filtering a speechwriter’s intentional manipulation; I was trying to look beyond real hate. These folks were gritting their teeth, shaking their fists, and smiling the way gladiators do when going into combat against barbarians. And this is the incumbent party. The ones currently in power.
What is it they hate? Guiliani and Palin both made it pretty clear: community organizing. Community organizing is energized from below. From the periphery. It is the direction and facilitation of mass energy towards productive and cooperative ends. It is about replacing conflict with collaboration. It is the opposite of war; it is peace.
Last night, the Republican Convention made it clear they prefer war. They see the world as a dangerous and terrible place. Like the fascist leaders satirized in Starship Troopers, they say they believe it is better to be on the offensive, taking the war to the people who might wish us harm than playing defense. It is better to be an international aggressor - a bulldog with lipstick - than led by the misguided notion that attacking people itself makes the world a more dangerous place.
In their attack on community organizing - a word combination they pretended they didn’t know what it meant - Giuliani and Palin revealed their refusal to acknowledge the kinds of bottom-up processes through which our society was built, and through which local communities can begin to assert some authority over their schools, environments, and economies. Without organized communities, you don’t get the reduction in centralized government the Republicans pretend to be arguing for. In their view, community organizing as, at best, equivalent to disruptive and unpredictable Al Qaeda activity.
But it actually goes deeper than this. Consider how Republicans have so far justified their choice of candidate: he is a “great man.” That America needs a “hero” in the White House to lead us in continued preemptive strikes against Bin Laden in Iraq (I know Bin Laden is not in Iraq, but Giuliani clearly implied he was). Only a leader with McCain’s war record and paternal qualifications can help Americans muster and maintain the tenacity necessary to “drill baby drill,” (even though this will have no influence on oil price or supply) and generate the requisite hate to “kill baby, kill.” As I explained in Coercion, having a parent figure on whom to transfer authority allows people to regress to a more childlike state. This not only allows them to feel safe; if gives them the freedom to express their rage. Make no mistake - that’s what we’re witnessing. And this rage - not America - is the greatest threat to humanity’s long-term chances for survival.
Republican party representatives are proud today that their convention has finally produced the “same level of energy and enthusiasm” as the DNC’s last week. And while it may have produced the same level of excitement, the excitement was of a very different character. It’s much easier to get people riled up but inviting them to hate a man - particularly one who they haven’t been allowed to hate for traditional reasons. Giuliani’s job - much like his job as mayor of NYC - was to give the Republicans in attendance permission to hate Obama and the potentially intelligent society he represents. It’s not about city vs. country or educated vs. military. It’s about thought vs. violence.
In the black and white world of those committed to war as an international relations strategy, voting “present” makes no sense - especially when the Illinois legislative process is willfully misrepresented. (Voting present is a way to preserve the bill with passing it in its current state. Far from an easy out, it is the hard path - requiring further negotiation to remove earmarks and other problems.) They would prefer the simple relief of a “yes or no” world, where the evil are punished and the good rewarded. For in such a world, we get to know who the enemy is and just hate them.
I don’t believe hate is the best way to motivate people to develop long-term solutions to problems. It is a tried and tested way to motivate them to short-term support of dangerous leaders. That much is certain. But if McCain and Palin are able to rouse the national hatred they will need to actually win this election, I fear they will have unleashed a force that they will be unable to control.
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a general aside here: BB seems to frighten some people. I have not seen so much astro-turfing and sock-puppeting by first-time posters since the beginning of the Tibet coverage. Way to go Boingers! You know you are doing something right when they attack you!
well Electric, why don't YOU run?
Bull dog with lipstick? Is this a reference to Palin's speech?
Palin mentioned a pit bull, not a bull dog. And the dog didn't wear the lipstick, the hockey mom did.
but if it was such a seething cauldron of hatred inside the arena...then how would you describe the people -outside- the arena who attacked, threatened, intimidated, etc. delegates who tried to enter the arena?
The ones in riot gear? Or the hippies?
amcann, as i have watched our freedoms erode these last 8 years, it blows my poor little mind that there are still idiots who still spew the kind of nonsense that you emit in your comment @#25. every time a republicrat takes the presidency, our economy and standing in the world in general takes a major shit. we are now at one of the lowest points in our history (except for the civil war). definitely the lowest in memory. how is four more years of this same tired crap going to help? i guess we should start printing the u.s. constitution on toilet paper and start handing out rolls to ALL our governing officials, so they can haz a little something to read as they do to it, what they are doing to us.
thank you for that valuable clarification ETI.
MDHatter - I guarantee you that Palin's speech, as "underwhelming" as it was to us folks who can see through the hate and jingoism, did more to get the Republican vote out, in particular the Republican Wife vote out, than any speech at the DNC did for the left's cause.
From a GOP point of view, I have to say both her and Giuliani's speeches were OVERwhelming home runs.
"Sarah Palin built her career on fighting corruption, sweeping out special interests..."
Except her own of course.
ETI - Semantics, ur doing it wrong.
I've always hated Giuliani. A big part of why I voted for Kerry in 2004 was because the RNC left a voice message on my machine from Giuliani trying to get me to vote for Bush. If I used the words I want to use to describe how I feel about him, this comment would rightfully be disemvowelled.
And while I may agree with the argument in the article, I find it amusing that he begins by talking about how he prefers to give the benefit of the doubt to people, and then proceeds to treat them otherwise.
From a GOP point of view, I have to say both her and Giuliani's speeches were OVERwhelming home runs.
From a left independent whitebread american view, I found them highly alienating especially 9ulian1's. He's earned that moniker and his speech was all namecalling.
That said, Palin really is a good speaker with a surprising record and some real return to the 1940's ideas behind her, but to put it bluntly - Biden is not going to wear lipstick to their debates.
#26-
Oh, I've been to a few sporting events. Difference is, at games we chant the name of our team, or our "side", but aren't both parties American? I love my country as much as the next guy, but the non-stop flag-waving, Lee Greenwood singing, "we're the best country ever and can do no wrong" stuff of that convention is a little much for me.
I'll now wait quietly for my deportation papers.
@#33 Ahh yes look at all those big mortgage bankers
http://flickr.com/photos/newshour/2827074304/in/set-72157606895113447/
More typical capitalist robber barons
http://flickr.com/photos/newshour/2826237591/in/set-72157606895113447/
http://flickr.com/photos/newshour/2817998692/in/set-72157606895113447/
http://flickr.com/photos/newshour/2827075924/in/set-72157606895113447/
Once again comfortable stereotypes are nice and all, but...
@#30 posted by stupidjerk
I wish there was a real candidate like him today.
@#38 yup I mangled it, but you catch my drift
#15 - I think it was on CSNY's live "Four Way Street" album - "I don't know if I want America to remember or forget that Jesus was the first non-violent revolutionary" (1971) so you're in good company
#25 - one of Palin's claims to fame is increasing the federal money given to Wasilla to $27 million for a town of about 7,000 (at the time she was mayor). http://www.americablog.com/2008/09/palin-aggressively-sought-federal.html Is that what you mean by "government assistance provided through coercion of others."? or perhaps by "advocates whose only modus operandi is to suck at the government teat and use the image of compassion to gain power over others."
@#49 Eugene V. Debs is only good if you want to be crucified on a cross of gold Wm. Jennings Bryan is my man
Remind me, isn't Rushkoff the nut who thinks Moses had gay sex with YHWH on Mt Sinai?
I have to agree with Futrell on Palin. Here speech was excellent. Rudy just sounded like another attack dog to me, but Palin was impressive. 80% of her speech could have come from any Democrat candidate. So much so that at times, even the Republicans at the convention didn't seem to know whether to cheer or not ("down with Washington favoritism," "down with big oil companies"). Folks like mdhatter dismiss her at their peril. She just made this election a real race. I'm sure this wasn't lost on Obama.
"Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'."
if only!
#54, maybe they didn't cheer because they were intensely confused. A quick google search revealed to them that she worked long and hard to get an oil pipeline installed in the valley around Wasilla, then later as governor decided it was in her political interests to make them fork over some of those profits. Kind of like the Bridge to Nowhere, that she quite clearly and falsely claimed she turned down in her "fantastic" speech.
#25
How do you reconcile that with banning books, teaching Creationism in public schools, and elevating the rights of zygotes over those of adult women?Sigh. Teach Bible-thumping neocons to think abstractly, and they'll beat you with the dull end of the stick.
Enoch Root,
Did you seriously try to refute Takuan's point by posting images of visible minorities on the convention floor? I don't think Tak's point was especially well made, but I'm embarrassed for you.
You know, I'm generally not one to Godwin, but 9ulian1's speech bears a striking resemblance to the speeches of another well known orator who found hate a lot easier to rally the masses behind than any other emotion. Big lies work too. Huge whoppers that point fingers. It saddens me to say, but yes, that's where we seem to be.
Probably beating a dead pit bull here, but please, explain to me again, how we are more free under the RNC? Tell me again, because something must have slipped right on past.
Is it that by turning regulation around the magic, invisible hand of free market makes this a better place? Really? Gee, that's great! Because, from my point of view, that corporate "freedom" has done nothing but help promote wealth primarily among the wealthy while the middle class shrinks like Alka Seltzer in warm water.
Oh, wait, or is it that the RNC tends to side with gun owners. My ability to own a gun must be protected at all times. I agree. If only I can afford the bullets.
Maybe it's for freedom of religion, yes? My right to worship as I please? Right? What if I'm a Zorastrian (just sayin') who happens to live in a predominantly Baptist area. Still work? Can I have my creation stories taught in public school? "Comparitive Creationism?" Why not? How about my Muslim friends down the street, or my Hindi doctor's?
Why are the left against freedom? Because they want to raise taxes and want bigger government? Tell me again, how the government shrank... oh, this is war, right. That said, going to don my old Civil Defense helmet and man the coastal batteries.
It seems to me that "freedom" is giving carte blanche to those who have more to acquire more at the expense of those who don't. I suppose that's freedom.
Prove to me, give me a bloody example, of how this has made my life better.
"Burn, baby, burn!"
Stokeley Carmichael
"Drill, baby, drill!"
Rudy Guliani
#59, I think the point was to post pictures of people adorned in 10 gallon cowboy hats (and paradoxically, a Lincoln lookie-likie). Apparently, mortgage bankers don't favor that fashion choice.
@60 Phikus - What is the comparison you are making? I'm not connecting the dots.
@52
William Jennings Bryan hates the theories of darwin!
FYI, Republicans don't hate community organizing -- they hate when someone attempts to pass community organizing off as legitimate experience while at the same time claiming that a state Governor is inexperienced.
G's speech was not hateful, it was critical. Ditto for Palin, who has dealt with her more than her share of bs this last week. (Kos, I'm talking to you.) If criticism is what passes for hate these days, well, I don't even know what to say to that.
And to those who will probably attempt to flame: I speak as an independent who has a long history of democratic votes.
Here's a suggestions for the whole darn country--today, engage in a friendly dialogue with someone who doesn't agree with you politically. Ask them questions. Find out why they feel what they feel. Don't judge. Share your story. You just might be surprised. (This goes for lefties AND righties.)
(Gosh. Does that make me a community organizer?)
What they love is the America that is free
Remind me again how many Republicans want to give gay people the freedom to marry the partner of their choice.
"What they love is the community of free individuals a community of victims and their supposed advocates whose only modus operandi is to suck at the government teat and use the image of compassion to gain power over others."
The government is often the only organization that has the money and clout to turn communities around. Furthermore, while there are normal cycles of ascension and decline in any community, the government policies and regulations have had a huge hand in gutting communities (while there's a lot of talk about suburbanization and how it's wasted cities, redlining and color coding killed them far better and earlier. Defacto color coding often still goes on today).
Who else is going to be willing to hold the reigns on plans that aren't going to come to fruition for 15-20 years? Who else has the authority to condemn buildings, change legislation, enforce codes, and approve/disapprove planning/building decisions?
Which is not to say that communities can't hold their own visioning and planning sessions, but without government buy in it can only do so much.
And, what incentive does non-local business have for community building? The mall and big box stores that have a 20 year building life span and kill all local independent business surely doesn't.
The local community often doesn't have the skill, authroity or knowledge to negotiate with developers. (Often political figures don't either *coughSyracusecough*) But they're slightly more likely too.
/MLA student.
P3N3NC3@64: Godwin's Law
New bumper sticker:
CARD CARRYING COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
At the same age Obama was a community organizer, Palin was a tv sports reporter.
Symmetry
(James)Dobsonian Republican:
Supports Christian theocracy
Prayer in School (and everywhere else)
No Darwin
Science is wrong
God Hates Homosexuals
Islam is our enemy
God is on our side
The United States is Christian Nation
Expression of art(including music) that is non-Christian is wrong
.
.
.
Ali Khamenei (Supreme leader of Iran):
Islamic theocracy
Prayer several times a day everywhere
No Darwin
Science is wrong
God Hates Homosexuals
The West is our enemy
God is on our side
Iran is an Islamic Republic
Expression of art(including music)that is non-Islamic is wrong
.
.
.
.
Symmetry
@#59 how cynical, and no, I just searched flickr for a pool of photos and then took the first several that had individuals or groups
@#66 Excellent point
@#63 I have never been to a bank in Texas so setting aside that state. I don't think I have even seen a bank employee with a cowboy hat or an Abe Lincoln stovepipe (though that would be awesome)
very scientific
@#74 I guess as scientific as "They are (all)..." statements about any large heterogeneous group of individuals.
FYI, Republicans don't hate community organizing -- they hate when someone attempts to pass community organizing off as legitimate experience while at the same time claiming that a state Governor is inexperienced.
Do you hate people who try to pass off not showing up for Guard Duty repeatedly as experience? Or running a baseball team? or sinking an unnaturally overcapitalized oil company? Or being elected in your home state while your father is president?
Seems to me y'all on that side of the fence don't mind that sort of experience, not one bit.
Excuse me if I set the bar too high.
(looks at watch)
Still waiting... again, tell me how the GOP makes me more free...
@FUTRELL #42: I'm voting the platform of "two terms is already too many", but I have to agree that Palin's speech totally kicked butt. Out of the park.
Janine Turner is so totally going to play her in the Lifetime TV movie.
Cupcake Faerie @71: Yes maybe, but the part about Iranian science being a mirror image of Christian Fundamentalism isn't necessarily the case. Jim Al-Khalili is professor of physics at the University of Surrey and reports on the religious restrictions (or lack of) on Iranian research here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/31/genetics.ethicsofscience
"At the Royan I spoke to one of the imams who sits on their ethics committee. He explained that every research project proposed must be justified to his committee to ensure that it does not conflict with Islamic teaching. Thus, while issues such as abortion are still restricted (it is allowed only when the mother's life is in danger), research on human embryos is allowed.
"In this country the Catholic church has branded research on human embryonic stem cells immoral and says tinkering with life in this way is tantamount to playing God. So I was taken aback by the Iranian imam who pointed out, quite rightly, that all that is produced in this research is just a clump of cells and not a foetus, and so what was all the fuss about?"
Darwinism is a different matter, Muslims have the same problem as some Christians with that.
Enoch Root,
Maybe I am a cynic, or possibly just a little dense, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out any other coherent point that you might of been trying to make with those photos, so you'll have to forgive me.
That being said, the Republican party of today has some brass ones to be hauling around a Lincoln impersonator at their convention.
"UPDATE: Doug's site is under a Denial-of-Service attack..."
that's not a hateful response at all, no sir. remember kids, it's always good to attempt to deny people the right to express themselves when they disagree with you.
sum.zero
@79
recently saw fundmentalist xtians have a new theory to refute gravity. I am not joking.
Geocentrism! Teach the controversy!
of 2,380 RNC delgates, 36 were black.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303962.html?referrer=digg
Douglas says, "Like the fascist leaders satirized in Starship Troopers, they say they believe it is better to be on the offensive, taking the war to the people who might wish us harm than playing defense."
Unfortunately, Robert Heinlein did not mean to satire war in Starship Troopers. His political views are well laid out in that book. It was made satirical by accentuating those viewpoints in the Paul Verhoeven film, but no, Heinlein really felt that way. Which only goes to show that far flung viewpoints either left or right command the surreal.
ps. I am a big, big Stranger In A Strange Land fan, however. Jumbotronic Religion is awesome!
Reading through the piece I find a glaring omission in its theme, one which if considered, strips the speeches of much of what the author perceives as hate. This is the possibility of exceptionalism, that a man or a nation might rise above the common to greatness.
By this omission the community is a pre-determined good, since it involves no individual standing alone. And a community organizer is a worthy title, as opposed to a community leader or a community founder. To organize something implies that it exists on its own, and need not be shaped or led, merely organized.
By this omission the military position of the US must be based on aggression, or on fear, or on greed, and cannot be because of a legitimate evaluation that the interests of Americans be more important to the American government than the interests of people in general. There can be nothing exceptional about this country, and it is hubris to think otherwise.
By this omission a hero is as unwanted an extreme as a villain, since a hero allows people to concern themselves with their own affairs, what Rushkoff calls a "childlike state"
Most pointedly, by this omission the natural tendency of human beings to seek release from toil and access to leisure becomes the original and unforgivable sin. The mentality of the Republicans threatens human survival, says Rushkoff, because if you are not willing to work at advancing humanity until you drop dead, if you are not willing to show infinite patience with those that your initial evaluations say are evil, if you ever actually seek to achieve a value instead of endlessly trying to determine what values you should have, if change for change's sake (meaning you can never hold on to anything forever) does not appeal to you, you have turned to the dark side.
All men are created equal, but they don't stay that way. There are other options besides evil and mediocre. There are feelings beyond hate and duty-fulfillment. Understand but this, and the joy, the togetherness, and the love present at the Republican National Convention become self-evident.
The same joy and togetherness that is currently staging a DDOS attack on the author's site, rather than debating him in as eloquent a fashion as you have.
DOS attacks? Rabid verbiage here?
WTF America?
VAGABONDASTRONOMER@77: Being in the GOP makes you free in many ways: It makes you free from paying your share of taxes if you are in the richest 1% of the country. It makes you free to be a racist or hate homosexuals these days, even though it has been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt to be a fatally flawed and stupid, backward way of thinking. It makes you free to thump the bible whenever you please, while doing exactly the opposite of what Jesus would do, in every circumstance. It makes you free from environmental or corporate responsibility on this planet and in this country that allowed you to flourish. It makes you free from actually doing anything productive that might be in your job description, as long as you are a cronie of someone in power and tow the party line. It makes you free from responding to, or allowing volunteers to respond to national emergencies, preferring to whitewash them instead. It makes you free from having to think, even if you are a Federal Judge or media pundit: All your decisions and talking points are made for you. It makes you free to spend the government into bankruptcy, bloating it into Orwellian proportions and disfunctionality while denying the most basic of human services like health care and education to everyone who can't afford to pay through the nose. It makes you free to hate illegal immigrants and build walls and fences to keep them out, while simultaneously exploiting them for their cheap labor and lack of benefits. It makes you free to gut the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights to suit your own megalomaniacal objectives, intruding big government deeper and more intimately into everyone's lives. It allows you to be all about the rights of the unborn, and yet do nothing to help the victims of rape; nothing for childcare for unwed mothers or people living in poverty to feed and clothe their children. It allows you to spy on ordinary Americans illegally with retroactive immunity from prosecution. It makes you free to make up any shit you want to get us into a pointless and unjust war with no end in sight. It makes you free from oversight if you are a private contractor in the employ of the US Government, able to massively overcharge the federal treasury and under-deliver any time you like. It makes you free from competition for bids on your contractor work, if you are a war profiteer. It makes you free from accountability if you are a mercenary band, murdering innocent civilians or otherwise doing the dirtiest jobs federal agents won't even touch. In short, it makes you free from the rule of Law, the Spirit of Justice, and everything this civilization once stood for. Yes, this is the freedom the GOP has created.
http://rushkoff.com/ is now working fine.