I’m not ready to make nice
By Thoreau
Greenwald has a post full of awesomeness. It starts off by saying that there ain’t a damn thing wrong with being disrespectful; critique the disrespectful person for the point he’s making (if it’s wrong), not for daring to diss Our Commander In Chief.
He then goes on to make some observations on what it takes to be considered “serious” in Washington. Nothing that hasn’t been said by Greenwald or the UO Bloggers before (including by your Blogger-in-Chief), but it needs repeating again and again and again:
The members of Congress who actively tried to stop this murderous invasion by traveling to Iraq and seeking to negotiate a deal for weapons inspections are the “crackpots.” By contrast, who are the sane, mainstream, Serious Republicans cited by Politico who are worried about their party being taken over by extremists? The people who cheered on the invasion of Iraq based on the need to root out imaginary WMDs and ties to Al Qaeda (e.g.: PNAC signatory Vin Weber, Iraq War cheerleader John Cornyn, John “Iraq causalties a small price to pay” Boehner). So everything Jim McDermott said turned out to be true and he’s the crazy-loser-crackpot-radical — just like that crazy, insane, traitorous former Marine Scott Ritter, who babbled insanities like this in the Fall of 2002, while super-sane-and-patriotic. war-justifying, tough-guy experts Jonah Goldberg and Peter Beinart laughed at him on CNN for being so naive and corrupt:
…
Our political culture is embedded with the notion that “war” is inherently right, good, important and Serious. Those who advocate it are deemed intrinsically more Serious than those who oppose it, no matter what the war is or what its justification might be.
Amen, brother Greenwald. And this is why I won’t back down and I won’t shut up. The bloody deeds of the past 8 years, sold to the public as revenge and thus profaning the memory of the people killed on this very day, were not merely questionable policy over which reasonable people might differ. These were not things that any remotely “serious” person should be advocating if the word “serious” is to have any non-farcical meaning. These were bloody and terrible and immoral things that must not be forgotten, must not be repeated, and must not go unpunished.
So I will not shut up. To quote from some tough Texans, I’m not ready to make nice, and I’m not ready to back down. I’m still mad as hell–AND FOR GOOD FUCKING REASON! I’ll shut up on the day that the perpetrators of these deeds are marched through the streets in chains and led to prison, and as they are led through the streets they are not cheered but rather cursed and spit on and pelted with trash by the crowd. THAT will get me to shut up. Nothing less.
Comment by VM —
September 11, 2009 @ 12:28 pm
indeed!
Comment by David —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
As Carlin said, “We LIKE War! We are a war-like people”.
And he was at least partly right. I’ve met more than a few people who think war is the solution for foreign policy conflicts and social ills and everything in between. Some of it is a romanticized vision of WWII, and some of it is a hatred of hippies, pacifists and other effete types. But it’s definitely there.
How else could voting against a war be seen as “wanting the troops dead” and voting to send them to battle be “supporting the troops”?
Comment by Poopyman —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:18 pm
Amen, Brother Thoreau!
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:29 pm
Hear, hear.
Comment by giant slor —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
Not sure if I agree that there’s nothing wrong being disrespectful, but there’s definitely something wrong with being disruptive, particularly during a major speech by the president. Combine disrespect with disruption and dishonesty, and you have a guy who was totally in the wrong.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:39 pm
giant slor-
Keep in mind that there’s a bit of a difference between a heckler who shouts out a quick jibe and somebody who tries to take over and give his own speech. The person who starts shouting a ranting speech is trying to take soapbox for himself. On the other hand, the person who punctuates remarks with “Liar!” is merely the mirror image of the person who approvingly punctuates remarks with “Amen!” or applause.
If it’s OK to interrupt a speaker with approving applause, it should be OK to interrupt a speaker with the occasional boo or charge of “Liar!”
Comment by dhex —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:41 pm
but there’s definitely something wrong with being disruptive, particularly during a major speech by the president.
phooey! shoes for everybody!
Comment by CaseyL —
September 11, 2009 @ 2:57 pm
It should be noted that shouting “Liar!” at the President during a Joint Session speech is specifically prohibited by Congress” own code of conduct. Requiring Congresscritters to abide by their own code of conduct is not unreasonable.
Waving silly pieces of paper, wearing idiotic tablets around one’s neck, and jeering (or, for that matter, applauding) are all OK.
But if Congress decided that shouting at the President was OK, it would quickly become impossible for Obama to address Congress, since the GOP Caucus would do as their teabagger constituents do, and simply yell “Liar! Liar!” over and over again. American politics are already about as debased as they can get without lapsing into one big primal screech; I’d like to avoid that fate, thanks.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 3:02 pm
I spent 8 years hearing the acolytes of the party in power explain that we must always be respectful to Our Commander in Chief, and explain why it’s OK to bar people from a public event and herd them into a fenced-in “free speech zone” because their t-shirts were critical of the Dear Leader. I thought it was complete and utter bullshit, and so the last thing I’m going to do is get a case of the vapors because somebody shouted “Liar!” at the President. Fuck that shit.
Wilson is probably a hypocritical, idiotic douchebag, and if he broke some rule that’s binding on people in power then he can pay the damn fine or whatever. Civil disobedience can have consequences, as my namesake demonstrated, but I still applaud the sending of a message.
My only regret is that there aren’t more people who shout “Liar!” during political speeches. Lord knows we could have used it for 8 years, and just because there’s a Blue in charge instead of a Red, that doesn’t mean I’m going to change my stance on this.
Comment by John Markley —
September 11, 2009 @ 3:51 pm
The superior Seriousness of advocating war over peace is one manifestation of a larger phenomenon- namely, the idea that the government must always be doing SOMETHING in response to a (real or imagined) problem, and the more something the better. Respectable opinion never accepts the idea that the government should simply keep out, in either foreign or domestic matters.
Comment by Jim Henley —
September 11, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
May I just state that Mister Thoreau’s views in the main post do not represent the official policy of this bl – oh wait. They do.
Comment by Jim Henley —
September 11, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
Also, Happy Republican Thanksgiving, everybody!
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 6:39 pm
Oh, snap!
Comment by matthew h —
September 11, 2009 @ 6:47 pm
Not to mention Happy Ethiopian New Year. 2002!
Comment by Seward —
September 11, 2009 @ 6:59 pm
Thoreau is as usual kicking ass.
CaseyL,
American politics are already about as debased as they can get without lapsing into one big primal screech; I’d like to avoid that fate, thanks.
When was the last time a politician beat another politician with a cane? Politics and political speech by politicians in the U.S. is far more civil, even in tone, etc. than it has ever been.
Personally I would do away with these speeches before Congress; and indeed I would seriously consider doing away with all speeches by politicians that do not include an open period of questioning by the press and the people. There is no reason I and my fellow taxpayers should be paying for a politician to have an open forum where he or she is not immediately and directly questioned afterwards. I think that would make for a very popular constitutional amendment.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 7:01 pm
Either that or Thunderdome.
Comment by Seward —
September 11, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
Two politicians enter, only one leaves.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 7:07 pm
Seward, I wouldn’t use the 1850s as a model, considering how that decade ended (Civil War).
Comment by Seward —
September 11, 2009 @ 7:25 pm
BDB,
Well, when politicians start beating each other with canes I guess we know that we are in trouble, eh? And I do think it makes a reasonable comparison; as a society in general we are far “better” mannered and civil than has been the case in the past. The fact that most people regularly wash their hands, no longer pick their nose in public, and refrain from pissing in the street are just a few examples of this.
Comment by dhex —
September 11, 2009 @ 8:18 pm
When was the last time a politician beat another politician with a cane?
now i have images of ted kennedy trussed up in a hotel room and nancy pelosi in knee-high pleather boots.
thanks a lot.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 8:21 pm
“And I do think it makes a reasonable comparison; as a society in general we are far “better” mannered and civil than has been the case in the past.”
How civil our politics are tends to go in cycles, not a linear progression. The Civil War on one end where it literally devolved into mass murder, and the Era of Good Feelings on the other where there was, well, no disagreement at all.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
September 11, 2009 @ 8:37 pm
“Two politicians enter, only one leaves.”
Why even one?
Anyway, I agree with Thoreau. I also like Seward’s suggestion about banning political speeches unless they are followed up by a serious period of questioning by the press (assuming some press people could be found who would ask serious questions, which might be a problem).
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
No, this is wrong. Booing is perfectly appropriate, and is indeed the mirror image of applause. It demonstrates disagreement and disapproval for what has been said. Note that nobody is criticizing the Republicans for booing, nor any of the other Congressional factions that have booed during a speech.
Shouting “You lie!” is a personal insult to the speaker’s character. Its mirror image would not applause, but shouts of sycophantic compliments. That would be completely inappropriate during a presidential speech to a joint session of Congress as well.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 8:47 pm
And I suggest that we’d like to keep it that way, if you don’t mind.
Would we be better off if such speeches resembled health care town halls that included a particularly large presence by teabaggers?
“Nazi! You’re a Nazi! Sit down and shut up!” Yeah, that might be fun, for ten minutes.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:03 pm
joe, normally I hate it when people do this to you, but I have to ask:
If, between noon on January 20 of 2001 and noon on January 20 of 2009, somebody had yelled “You lie!” during a speech by the President of the United States, what would you say?
My response would be applause. And I’m not about to flip-flop now.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:05 pm
However, I will flip-flop on the issue of shoe tosses. Those should be reserved for special occasions.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:21 pm
Are we talking about a Congressman during a speech to a joint session of Congress? I would have said it was inappropriate. I would have been embarrassed if it had been my Congressman, or a Democrat. I probably would have taken exception if anyone claimed that such an eccentric outburst was indicative of the character of Democrats generally.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:22 pm
That this isn’t immediately obvious to you makes me wonder whether I’d even want to have you at my dinner table.
There’s a time and a place for everything. Were you raised in a barn?
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
We’re not talking about the sort of courtesy that would be due to an ordinary, decent human being. We’re talking about the sort of courtesy due to a President.
If it’s OK to shout “Yes!” or “Hear! Hear!” then it’s OK to shout “Liar!”
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:26 pm
But, again, I do have limits: Shoe tosses should be reserved for special occasions.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:28 pm
I think, Thoreau, that you and quite a few of the people in your political milieu look at the fact that someone is an elected official, or otherwise entrusted with a position of authority, and believe that it becomes a virtue to be rude, combative, hostile, and closed-minded to whatever he has to say, merely be virtue of his position.
It isn’t that you don’t want to demonstrate some kind of royalist fawning, but that you’re going to make a point to abjure even the ordinary civility you’d demonstrate to a stranger asking you for change on a sidewalk.
This is not a healthy attitude for a democratic republic. The revolutionaries in Boston and Philadelphia idealized robust debate. Screaming “You lie!” from the seats at the president while he addressed Congress is not robust debate. It’s just crudeness, poisoning the atmosphere where healthy, robust debate is supposed to take place.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:32 pm
Unless and until that official does something to earn respect (and gaining a high position should not earn one suspect, but rather a default stance of distrust), that is exactly correct.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
“Screaming “You lie!” from the seats at the president while he addressed Congress is not robust debate.”
I like to call it “trolling”. That’s what the Town Halls were, really. It was off-line trolling.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:36 pm
Maybe you should have done the same to me when we had that pizza. After all, I was a government planner.
This is a form of bigotry, and an easy, self-indulgent shirking of the responsibility a citizen has to engage in the civic and political life of his community.
No, it’s not, those are not the same thing. The positive equivalent of shouting “Liar!” at the president when he was delivering a speech to Congress would be to shout “You’re a hero!” I can only imagine the derision that would drip from your pen if a Congressman did such a thing.
Once again, Wilson’s outburst was not an expression of agreement, or disapproval, of what the president was saying. It was a personal insult on his character. These people are supposed to go back to work together. Would you shout that at the head of the Geography Department while he was addressing the faculty and an official event?
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:38 pm
Franklin and Jefferson are rolling in their grave. You probably imagine your juvenile stance of defiance to be, somehow, an expression of their motivating sentiments.
This country is doomed.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:40 pm
“This country is doomed.”
That’s a bit much. Ever hear of the fire tongs incident on the floor of the House in the 1790s?
http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH41/Neff41.html
THAT would be disturbing. But we’re still here.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Your typical city planner doesn’t have torturers, spies, snipers, and other shady characters on his payroll. Unless Massachusetts zoning laws are far more draconian than I realize.
It’s a specific disrespect for an office that is far too imperial.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:42 pm
BDB,
Trolling, exactly. The problem is, it isn’t wrecking the thread of a post on a blog. It’s doing to the forum in which our society’s political affairs take place what a troll does to a comment thread. It’s doing to the discussions that determine our politics what a troll can do a discussion thread.
I suppose it’s a unique outcome of our incredible good fortune to have been born into such stable, healthy, safe, prosperous circumstances that people can be so irresponsible about the political system. Nobody in Rwanda would have any trouble understanding the problem with Joe Wilson.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:42 pm
I don’t blame the guys who helped design the office if they have some proud respect for it. Those of us with 220 years of hindsight, however, are justified in a bit more cynicism.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
Joe–
Yes, it is a testament to the strength of our political system that people can scream and shout and our system doesn’t collapse.
We’re not unique in this regard. I recall hearing about brawls on the floor of the South Korean Parliament before, and the Chamber of Deputies in France.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:44 pm
BDB,
It’s not really dangerous to our society for there to be an outburst, even a violent event.
What would be dangerous would be the acceptance of such things as normal and appropriate. Like Thoreau’s posts.
Fortunately, his is a fringe position. Just about everybody acknowledges that this was wrong, and can’t be allowed in Congress.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:46 pm
Um, Rwanda had a bit too many people marching lockstep behind the leaders of their various factions. They could have benefited from a few more people saying “Wait, this emperor has no clothes!” in public, before the propaganda got too intense and they bought it.
And, frankly, even we could have used a bit more heckling and disrespect in the previous 8 years. The worst things happened in an environment where nobody could be considered “serious” if they assumed the worst and everybody was supposed to “support our leader.”
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:46 pm
“What would be dangerous would be the acceptance of such things as normal and appropriate.”
Well, my position is that mild to moderate hissing or booing is OK (they’ve done this since forever during the SOTU, I can find video of the Democrats doing it with Bush), but not personal insults.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:47 pm
Shouting “You lie! is a personal insult directed at the character of Barack Obama, the man. It is different from shouting “Boo!”
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:47 pm
ESPECIALLY not when the insult is made over something so (a) stupid, and (b) disprovable. The fantastical statement about how this won’t add “one dime to the deficit” was ignored by the Republicans, but illegal immigrants? Yeah, that’s the ticket, cause it worked SO well last time.
If anything is scary, it’s having one of our political parties so margianalized and clueless.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:48 pm
The correct response to Wilson is not “OMG! He called the emperor a liar!”
The correct response to Wilson is “Dude, you spent 8 years marching behind a man who lied about everything and pissed away the treasury while getting a bunch of people killed, and now we’re supposed to believe that you’re an anti-authoritarian?”
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:48 pm
The shouting won’t make our system collapse, but the next step in the pushing and shoving.
The pushing and shoving won’t make out system collapse, but what’s the next step after that?
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:48 pm
Honest men aren’t allowed to wear the purple, joe.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
“Franklin and Jefferson are rolling in their grave”
Thoreau is more Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry than Franklin and Jefferson, I think.
Pingback by One more post on Joe Wilson § Unqualified Offerings —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:57 pm
[...] Promoted up from one of my comments downblog: [...]
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:58 pm
BDB,
Ditto. In Congress, it needs to be “This isn’t personal, it’s just business.”
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:58 pm
Hey! I’m a non-drinker!
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 9:59 pm
Also, ban cell phones from Congress during speeches, just like they do in schools and movie theaters.
God, I fucking hate twitter so much.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:00 pm
BDB,
The deficit doesn’t get at personal, emotionally-laden issues like race and class the way immigration and benefits for immigrants does. So the Son of Confederate Veterans didn’t get carried away when that Kenyan dude “lied” about that.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:04 pm
No, Thoreau. If the Congressman I have the most respect for in the world, with the best record of anyone who ever held public office, had shouted “You lie!” at the president, the correct response would have been to call him out for his inappropriate behavior. Like a dog that messed on the rug.
Questions about policy and political acts and party simply don’t matter here.
You know what else? Wilson should not have shouted “You lie!” even if Obama was telling a direct lie! Not like that, not in that forum.
Perhaps lawyers should start shouting momma insults at judges in court, too, when they think they’ve ruled wrongly on a motion.
Comment by BDB —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:05 pm
Too bad it will have way more impact on the future of me and my children should I have any.
I tried watching Senator Warner’s town hall online the other day. I was hoping there would be some good questions about how this thing was going to be paid for, how the cost controls would work, on what a “co-op” is exactly, etc., especially since Warner is one of the few people in Congress you can give even a little bit of trust to on fiscal issues.
Instead, he got questions/statements like “40 million babies murdered since Roe V. Wade”, “Are the liberal elites for population control?”, “When will we fortify the borders with our military and shoot the illegals?”, “What about ACORN?” (seriously, that was one of the exact questions).
The only halfway substantive issue discussed was tort reform. The rest was just KULTUR WAR noise.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:12 pm
BDB writes:
What kind of debate do you think Congress is going to engage in if the personal attacks on fellow members, etc. – things shouted out of personal pique, and done to tweak the pique of the people on the other side – are allowed on the floor of Congress?
How about on comment threads – what happens to the discussion when the personal aspersions towards other people on the thread are introduced? Useful discussion of real issues? I think the answer is, the issue under discussion gets reduced to how the participants can put the other side down in personal terms.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:14 pm
You know, Thoreau, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Joe Wilson are just people seen on TV, to you and me.
To each other, they are coworkers. There needs to be some office decorum. They have things to do.
I guess if you don’t care about whether those things are done, my point isn’t terribly compelling, and the whole thing should just be the Jerry Springer Show, because it’s more entertaining.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
How about this compromise, joe:
Joe Wilson, being a politician, is every bit as much of a scumsucker as the rest of them, and so he should treat them as equals.
The rest of us, however, have both the right and the responsibility to heckle and mock at all times.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:34 pm
Quite happy with the level of discussion surrounding the health care bill during August, were you?
I’m glad we, as a society, got the vital matter of whether the Nazi Socialists were going to form death squads to kill grandma for not being productive enough. How wonderful for our political discourse that people exercised their “rights” and “responsibilities” in the manner they did.
This isn’t about feelings about the individuals who hold office. Politics isn’t just a reality TV show, where you decide you like or don’t like Puck, or feel superior to all of them. There are more important things going on, and the formal process of our republic’s operations shouldn’t be a circus.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:49 pm
Hey, may comment got eaten!
Thoreau, you are just dead-wrong about this:
What does Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouting an insult at Barack Obama have to do with combatting the tendency of people to march in lockstep behind the leaders of various factions?
Do you know anything about the Rwandan genocide? It was set off by the assassination of a president, and the run-up was characterized by loud, public denunciations of politicians from the wrong party and wrong ethnic group. Rwanda rand with personal insults directed at politicians in the weeks before the genocide. You have it exactly backwards.
There’s a happy medium. That George Bush demanded too much personal respect doesn’t mean Barack Obama is entitled to none. Don’t you see how disrespecting Obama is a continuation of the worship of Bush? You’ve had a great deal of fun indulging in royalist terminology; you know who says the most disrespectful things about the new king? The old king’s staunchest supporters, who want the pretender thrown out and the True Chosen of God installed in his rightful place.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 11, 2009 @ 10:52 pm
It may be that I misunderstand the history behind the Rwandan genocide. I’ll concede your point there, and if it should turn out that you are wrong we have Seward around to argue history so nobody else wants to
And I don’t see how any person who has read this blog for more than 15 minutes could conclude that my general contempt for Presidents–all Presidents–is a continuation of Bush worship.
Yes, I’m aware that Wilson is a Bush worshipper, but you’ll note the post I put up above: I called him out on his worship of a previous President, rather than saying “How dare he!” when he went after the current President.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 11, 2009 @ 11:18 pm
.Not your contempt, Thoreau. Wilson’s.
You gave a hearty hurrah to Wilson’s actions based on some alleged opposition to the imperial presidency that was never there in Wilson’s actions.
You should have done both. Just because Wilson went after a president doesn’t mean it was a good thing to do. Not like that, not shouting a personal insult during an address to a joint session of Congress. It’s not a playground.
Comment by Jim Henley —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:10 am
Joe:
I thought you guys were married?
Comment by Joe Strummer —
September 12, 2009 @ 10:47 am
I probably would have taken exception if anyone claimed that such an eccentric outburst was indicative of the character of Democrats generally.
Holy crap? Democrats have a general character? Are they a race of feckless dimwits who traveled to this country just to make a better life for themselves in the service of business interests?
Comment by Joe Strummer —
September 12, 2009 @ 10:50 am
This is not a healthy attitude for a democratic republic. The revolutionaries in Boston and Philadelphia idealized robust debate. Screaming “You lie!” from the seats at the president while he addressed Congress is not robust debate. It’s just crudeness, poisoning the atmosphere where healthy, robust debate is supposed to take place.
Yeah yeah. There’s a lot of bullshit crammed into this little paragraph.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 11:25 am
I remember when an old guy was rude to the provost, then the chemists yelled at each other and th dean fired their chair.
The massacres started a few days later. 2,500 students were killed before ROTC stepped in.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 11:38 am
So it’s sort of like the torturer defenders – hey, it can’t be that bad.
Do we really need the hostility to rise to the level of a massacre before we’re willing to acknowledge it’s a bad way for our politics to unfold?
The founders didn’t feel that way.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 11:41 am
Oh, OK. Just as long as you’re not letting any sort of partisan rooting interest dictate your response.
And you could point it out and explain why it’s wrong any time you wanted, but you just don’t want to.
Comment by Joe Strummer —
September 12, 2009 @ 11:59 am
Just as long as you’re not letting any sort of partisan rooting interest dictate your response.
I’m not. And so we’re clear: Republicans are a race of corrupt, violent morons who came to this country to wage endless war.
And libertarians are, well, I’ve used the words feckless and dimwitted, but I guess they apply to libertarians as much as anyone, who knowingly and willfully embrace “free market principles” so they can get theirs, everyone else be damned.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
Yes, you are. A partisan interest can be negative just as easily as positive.
You’re letting the fact that you really hate Democrats shape your response to Wilson’s actions.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:26 pm
Coincidentally, Howard French has an article about the Rwandan genocide in the current New York Review and it’s probably the case that if you’ve relied on the traditional US accounts of that period, you’ve missed out on some things–
link
I don’t get the impression that calling fellow politicians “liars” had too much to do with it. I mean, fellow politicians are liars most of the time and from what I’ve seen on TV, people get pretty raucous to Prime Ministers in Britain and it’s been years since they had a decent-sized civil war.
The background to the Hutu slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, btw, includes a Tutsis genocide against Hutus in Burundi in 1972, and the slaughter of Tutsi civilians by Hutus was followed (and accompanied by) a slaughter of Hutu civilians by Tutsi. Shouts of “liar”, so far as I can tell, had little to do with it.
I don’t want scenes of physical violence in Congress like the good old days, but we suffer from far too much deference overall. Bush was more than a liar–he was a war criminal. The fact that he is unlikely to be brought to justice is what is outrageous about our system, and the chumminess that politicians usually show each other is part of why that is the case.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
You have not seen, and will not see, an MP shouting a personal insult at the PM. Such an act would be cause for a censure.
There is the tinder, and there is the spark. You might have noticed that there was not a genocide going on between 1972 and 1994, and that it started up.
Here’s some reading about the background to getting it started up again.
http://migs.concordia.ca/occpapers/radio_pr.html
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:35 pm
Yes, Bush was a criminal. Have you seen the police and district attorney shout “You’re a liar!” at any criminals during court appearances? I haven’t. I’ve seen them act in an professional manner, demonstrating the decorum appropriate for criminal proceedings in a court of law. Because we’re not barbarians, and the official proceedings of our government are not the Jerry Springer Show.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:39 pm
Of course, one of the standard arguments against prosecuting Bush is that it would turn us into a banana republic, where losing an election meant you might be held accountable for the laws you broke and prosecuted. (People making this argument usually leave out the part about lawbreaking and accountability). The concern is that we have this nice relatively civil political class and if a Republican President were prosecuted as a war criminal, it might cause bitterness or worse, lead to people clinging to power illegally to avoid prosecution or whatever. And besides, most Presidents are guilty of war crimes or of supporting war criminals overseas, which can sometimes be a crime, I gather. So who knows how far it could go?
So they have a point–prosecuting a President for war crimes is going to cause much greater uproar than having a Presidential speech turn into something more like a British Prime Minister’s question time. Still, perversely, I favor prosecution, perhaps even more than I support the right to yell ” liar” in a room full of politicians.
Comment by Donald Johnson —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:46 pm
We don’t live in a decent society that functions according to the rule of law, Joe, so this is why I can’t get too excited about Wilson. A decent society would prosecute its high-ranking war criminals and ours does not. It does, however, get real excited, as Glenn Greenwald says, about the rudeness of someone who shouts “liar” during a Presidential speech–in fact, they get more excited by that action than about the question of whether or not the accusation is true.
I actually do support orderly debates and avoid the sorts of blogs where most of the comment section is full of childish insults, but Wilson’s actions are so far down the list of things wrong with our political culture that I’d say the concern shown about it is just further demonstration of what’s wrong with our political culture. If we had any sense of proportion, people would be talking about the sorts of things that upset Glenn, not this relatively trivial crap. Congress isn’t the Jerry Springer show–it’s a place where people tell dignified lies justifying the invasion of a country that had not attacked us.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
There will undoubtedly be a cost, in terms of our political class’s ability to get on with their day-to-day work, to prosecuting the previous administration.
It’s worth it.
On the other hand, a Congressman shouting a personal insult at the president as he is delivering an address to a joint session of Congress – as opposed to saying it in an interview afterwards, or booing during that portion of the speech, or simply publicizing the “facts” that made Obama’s untrue in Wilson’s eyes – accomplishes what, exactly?
Beyond making some people shout “Woot woot woot!” like the audience of the Riki Lake show.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:51 pm
Do you imagine that will get better, or worse, if behavior like Wilson’s comes to be normal and common on the floor of the House, Donald?
Think about those comment threads which feature boorish behavior. The discussion of issues, the positions people argue, the respect for truth and decency – do you find that those things are more responsible and respectable and elevated on such threads? Or less?
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 12:55 pm
Would you shout “You LIE!” at the head of accounting if he said something you disputed at a staff meeting?
What do you think would happen next?
How do you think things would be at the office that afternoon, and the next day?
How about if the boss said nothing, and he retorted?
How about the next staff meeting – how do you think that one would work?
These people have to work together. This concept of appropriate decorum isn’t something I made up to bash Wilson Wednesday night.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:01 pm
Joe, Please don’t treat “the founders” as a monolith. Samuel Adams literally tarred and feathered tax collectors.
Some of them would have disapproved of Wilson, another segment of them would have been a-ok with it.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
He didn’t tar and feather tax collectors from his own, democratically-elected government.
I don’t think Congressmen should treat the president the same way they treat the enemy.
I suppose one can always find an example of an individual who believes anything. Nonetheless, the people who actually served in Congress immediately after the founding of this country did not shout personal insults at the president during official, formal events.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:05 pm
None of them. It would have been grounds for censure and rebuke even then.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:12 pm
“Nonetheless, the people who actually served in Congress immediately after the founding of this country did not shout personal insults at the president during official, formal events.”
I wouldn’t make a blanket statement like that.
(http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/EH/EH41/Neff41.html)
The 1790s were a very nasty, partisan period. The Federalists even ended their party meetings with a toast to “The future one and only Party in the United States”.
Now, that kind of behavior shouldn’t be emulated, but I’m just saying it did in fact exist.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:14 pm
Oh, and in the 1790s it is very likely that instead of the Speaker of the House shooting death daggers through his eyes at a Congressman calling the leader of his party a “liar”, he probably would have challenged him to a duel or beat him later on.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:15 pm
BDB,
You might have noticed, he was rebuked for his actions.
People are going to get ticked off and lose their heads. We’re human.
That doesn’t mean such behavior should be allowed, or applauded.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:16 pm
No way! I was watching the History Channel, and…
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:17 pm
“None of them. It would have been grounds for censure and rebuke even then.”
Yes, true enough, and you see that in the article I linked. The fracas between Congressmen Lyon and Griswald was met with a reaction of horror. But my point was that kind of behavior existed, even then, among the people that served in the first Congresses.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
“No way! I was watching the History Channel, and…”
Griswald hid a secret treasure map written by Nostradamus under his House desk? He later became a lumberjack in the Northwest Territories?
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
joe, suppose that during one of Bush’s State of the Union addresses a contingent of Democrats had started chanting “War Criminal! War Criminal! War Criminal!”
I would have immediately changed my voter registration from “Undeclared/Screw all of them” to “Democrat, fuck yeah!”
What would your response have been? Shock and indignation? A case of the vapors?
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:23 pm
Why won’t they just re-run the old World War 2 documentaries?
“Ah, the Luftwaffe. The Washington Generals of the History Channel.”
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Thoreau,
I don’t believe you. You’ve spent the past eight years rolling your eyes at Code Pink, just like everybody else.
So, what’s changed?
I probably would have responded more strongly than my eye-rolling at Code Pink, because a Congressman isn’t just some random protester off the street, but someone who is expected to work with his colleagues.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:26 pm
Yes, Thoreau, why aren’t you in Code Pink?
If that’s what it takes to earn your political loyalty.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
I guess for the same reason MTV stopped showing music videos–because you can get them all on YouTube and Google Video commercial free whenever time you want now. So they decided to become the 5,000th reality show channel on cable. HBO has more history than the History Channel now.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:28 pm
1) I don’t recall posting much on Code Pink.
2) I did send $ to Cindy Sheehan’s campaign.
3) Rhetoric that’s ineffective from one quarter has an entirely different meaning if it were to come from, say, people who have the power to introduce Articles of Impeachment.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:30 pm
As to what’s changed, you might notice that in the past year or so I’ve put up posts where I’ve said that I’m way past the point of treating war supporters and torture apologists as “serious” people worthy of civil debate. There’s a time to sit down and say “Intriguing point, but I must offer a spirited rejoinder, good chap!” and a time to say “I’m through with you, this shit is wrong.”
Thinking back, there probably was a time when I was unimpressed by Code Pink. Now, I wish there were more people who would just say it straight.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:32 pm
Really? Their noble, anti-authoritarian “direct action” wasn’t enough to earn your loyalty?
I don’t recall Cindy Sheehan interrupting any presidential speeches.
Effective? Wilson, like Code Pink, is a laughing stock.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:33 pm
“I don’t recall Cindy Sheehan interrupting any presidential speeches.”
She tried to attend a SOTU, and was banned on some technicality. So she never really had a chance to.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
What BDB said.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
Which means that a claim of equivalence between supporting her, and supporting Joe Wilson, doesn’t hold up.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:35 pm
I still dislike Cindy Sheehan and think she is borderline insane, though, even if her heart is in the right place. That woman isn’t stable and not a good face for people against the war.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
“Effective? Wilson, like Code Pink, is a laughing stock.”
Yes. Well, the Republicans think they are acting just like the Democrats acted when they were out of power except more so, and by doing this, they will get back into power. It’s a political cargo cult.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
The reason the woman is unstable is that her son was killed as part of Bush’s insane policies.
I cut her complete and total slack for that.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
Heck, she didn’t even shriek at speakers while they were giving stump speeches in corn fields.
Which, btw, I’m totally cool with. The crowd of citizens gathered at a Congressman’s stump speech aren’t bound by the same rules as Congressmen attending a presidential address in the House chamber.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
I think she’s not terribly sophisticated politically, and has been very poorly served by the professional radicals she’s made her inner circle.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
“The reason the woman is unstable is that her son was killed as part of Bush’s insane policies.”
If you read her history, she was loopy before that. I feel sorry for her, but she’s not the kind of face you want leading your movement.
Comment by Thoreau —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:38 pm
joe, here I am praising Cindy Sheehan in a thread where I started by calling for the previous administration to be cursed and spit on as they go to prison for war crimes, and you’re insinuating that I’ve changed my tune on respect for authority because a Red insulted a Blue.
It’s really quite funny.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:39 pm
“has been very poorly served by the professional radicals she’s made her inner circle.”
Yeah, hanging out with the “Free Mumia” crowd won’t get you very far in this world.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:40 pm
No, I’m not.
As happens so often to me, you’re reading whatever I say as a having a partisan agenda, when there is none there.
I haven’t written a word attributing your change of heart to partisan purposes. I merely noted the inconsistency in your stance.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
She played a valuable role, driving a stake through the heart of the Republicans’ claim that you cannot oppose the war and support the troops.
It’s difficult to remember today how widespread and commonly accepted that meme was in, say, 2003.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:42 pm
Which makes me seriously wonder what the Republicans think they’re going to get by hanging out with the Teabagger crowd besides ushering in a one-party state.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:43 pm
I know you, Thoreau.
I know you’re not a Red.
I wouldn’t make such a claim. I’d look like an idiot if I did.
Comment by joe from Lowell —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:46 pm
The Republicans (or, rather, the movement conservatives who now make up that party) are the Iraqi Sunni of American politics. They’ve spent many years being told that they are far more numerous than they actually are, and that they are the only true expression of their society – so many years that they’ve come to believe it, and it’s going to take a series of pretty brutal ass-kickings before they get it through their heads that they’re a minority.
They’re hanging out with the teabaggers, because they think the teabaggers represent America.
Comment by BDB —
September 12, 2009 @ 1:51 pm
Dumb. There’s a wide swath of America that wants a balanced budget, generally lower taxes, entitlement reform, a reduction in our debt, and end to Kultur War B.S. at the federal level, and a responsible, realist foreign policy that puts American interests first (instead of esoteric bullshit like “world democracy” or “re-making the Greater Middle East”).
If the Republican Party re-made themselves in that image they’d have my vote and I dare say a majority of the American people in 2012. Instead they want to talk about ACORN and Teh Messican Hordez.
Comment by Eric the .5b —
September 12, 2009 @ 6:02 pm
Thoreau:
Joe:
Bigotry…against the various Presidents and/or politicans in general.
Odd – I thought we were supposed to leave outraged complaints of bigotry towards the rich and powerful to Objectivists.
Comment by gah —
September 13, 2009 @ 8:03 pm
Can someone please encourage Joe from Troll to start his own blog instead of taking over every third thread on other people’s blogs? It’s fucking tiresome.