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richardf8Is torture abroad and abuse at home.
A California Gallery owner was assaulted for displaying a painting of the torture.
This is what patriotism means in Amerikkka boys and girls: You can punch someone in the face if they present unpleasant ideas to you.
Torture abroad and abuse at home. That's compassionate conservatism.
A California Gallery owner was assaulted for displaying a painting of the torture.
This is what patriotism means in Amerikkka boys and girls: You can punch someone in the face if they present unpleasant ideas to you.
Torture abroad and abuse at home. That's compassionate conservatism.
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 04:52 pm (UTC)The police are investigating, the article says, and the business seems unfortunate -- as does her choice of artistic subject. But her comment about not realizing it was connection to reactions to Abu Ghraib seems disingenuous.
In any event, there is nothing here to suggest "totalitarian states" or government (or even population support) for these incidents.
What would you do if there WERE real evidence of a major problem? The "cried wolf" syndrome could be problematic, could it not?
I ask only that you consider this incident carefully and objectively, and see if your broad generalizations are appropriate.
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 08:25 pm (UTC)You are either not paying attention, or else you are willfully refusing to connect the dots.
1) "Unfortunate subject matter" or not, in a free society artistic expression should not be met with violence.
2) "Old Italian Neighborhoods" or not, they are not alone. Ted Rall, whose subject matter I am also sure you would regard as "unfortunate," also receives a fairly steady barrage of hate-mail, including threats of violence and death. I would post a link, but the most recent barrage has expired from his blog. (I had linked to it earlier). Then, of course, there are the sentiments expressed by vaious and sundry trolls in the Liberal community and expressions in the Conservatism community.
What we are seeing, in the long-simmering simmering threats and now first example of actual violence, are the regurgitations of people who have supped full of the ideological poisons of propagandists like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Noting that the river is rising is the first step in preparing for a flood. It is irresponsible not to cry wolf when you have heard the howls, seen the scat, and are observing the first lamb being carried off.
No totalitarian regime was ever put in place overnight, or without popular support. Police investigations aside, in order for this to have happened, it has clearly become the case that our taboos against threatening and assaulting people based on the art they display have been eroded by the liberal=traitor metanarrative to the point where displays that would once have been met with a mere picket line are now met with actual violence.
To imagine that it is not worth noting that such a cultural change has taken place, is a display of willful denial.
In weighing your words, I also must not fail to consider that, given the zeitgeist, you are in little danger of meeting Ms. Haigh's fate. You speak from a perch of relative security, safe in the knowledge that your political utterances are not likely to get you assaulted by a God-loving, red-blooded, American "patriot." I have no such sense of security.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 08:55 pm (UTC)What does that tell you about "totalitarian regimes"? By your logic, the actions of a few individuals aer indicative of the direction of the country, and I have seen such suppression of positive statements on many occasions. Close to me, in fact, is the famous fence with the "Support Our Troops" messages that is continually defaced by gentle persons who do not want that message displayed.
The "taboos" against threatening or assaulting people? Such threats and assaults happen every day, and have for more than two hundred years here. Ted Rall can indeed put up his own web site -- and has, of course -- and he can say whatever he wants. But it is the right of his employers to run his work, or not in their media -- they are paying for it.
The attacks on soldiers and their families, from physical assaults to the craven attacking of their children and spitting on their spouses, is sad indeed. But I do not extrapolate from these incidents that the US is turning into a communist country.
I would, frankly, like to see less involvement by the socialist organizations in our affairs -- but I think this is where you and I differ.
Besides -- we don't even know if the incidents alleged above are even true. More than one such person has fabricated stories of attack to gain sympathy or notoriety, and one person who recently claimed such attack was seen in video damaging her own car, I understand.
So, it might be true -- who knows? But the anger of a few individuals is not the actions of the populace, let alone the government.
You're aware of the public unrest in the first few years of the nineteenth century, I imagine? That was far more significant than what you describe here. We have three hundred million people in this country, more or less. Your pattern is not evident, and expression of everything from death threats to President Bush to every sort of insult for our country and our policies is able to proceed without people "vanishing away in the middle of the night". Even things that are, in fact, against the law are being broadly tolerated.
The police stolidly protect the protesters when they demand and hope fot the blood of every US soldier, and express solidarity with al-Qaida and with the insurgents. And when they burn Mr. Bush in effigy. Try that sort of thing in a degree of "totalitarian regime". Voltaire's wish is certainly true here, and his eloquent expression of it quite descriptive.
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 10:04 pm (UTC)Ah, this is a game that two can play.
Were a person to show up at a protest carrying a sign supporting the US or George Bush, that person would be attacked and beaten by "peace protesters" and the sign destroyed. I have seen a great many of these incidents on videotape.
How, for example, can you be certain that these "attacks" were not staged for the benefit of your camera by the Bush Supporters. How do we know they did not show up on the anti-war side expressly to diminish the credibility of the left?
The answer is that we can't know. We can believe, we can assert, but we cannot know. That is indeed the tragedy of consciousness - we are separated from reality, and none of us can ever know the whole of the truth.
So if your argument comes down to "but how do you know it's true?" I'm afraid I must reflect it back at you. One of the problems with politics these days (and probably always) is that it comes down to what you choose to believe. And people are far more likely to kill each other over beliefs than facts.
You choose to believe the president. As a result you can find mounds of evidence to support your beliefs, all of which you consider credible. I choose to disbelieve him, and as a result I can find mounds of evidence to support my beliefs, all of which I consider credible. And when we present our evidence to each other, we say, in two part harmony, "but your sources are not credible."
That leaves us only our beliefs, and that is why the tone of politics has become more dogmatic than pragmatic. Rebublican and Democrat, Conservative and Liberal, these things are less platforms than they are creeds. And people will commit all sorts of atrocities to defend their creed.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-30 10:40 pm (UTC)We've just seen Michael Moore lie about "persecution" on the part of Disney for the purposes of promotion, as he later admitted.
We have this woman who has made statements to a reporter, and to friends, and it may well have happened. But it is not supportive of the end-of-the-world radical change that you suggest is happening, even if true.
It does reflect on the fact that our society includes the occasional idiot, but this is no surprise to either of us.
I don't subscribe to the relativism you propose. The facts are what they are.
===|==============/ Level Head
no subject
Date: 2004-06-04 05:10 am (UTC)Iraq painting that triggered assault may hang at SF City Hall (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/06/03/state2006EDT0174.DTL)
Makes me happy to live in the liberal Bay Area -- somehow I don't see something like this happening in Houston.