Tag Archives: name-calling

Step on up folks, He-Who-Shoots-From-Cover Indian name hits nerve with identity-obscuring internet trolls

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A little bird tells me there’s been a discussion on Facebook, an overnight marathon of name-calling about ME. Alias-extrovert Agent Doubt offered a beer or coffee to whoever could come up with the best quip to counter my Indian-name for Chairforce pilots and other US soldiers who wield disproportionate force: He Who Shoots From Cover. I guess this sobriquet hit too close to home for identity-concealing internet snipers too. In any case, it looks like Doubt’s outsourcing his creativity again, and sneaking the makings of a date on an unsuspecting winner.

Conspiracy theory is history of bastards

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The law has no problem accusing its challengers of being conspirators, the easier to convict and imprison them. There’s a young black man on death row in Texas who unwittingly drove a car from which a passenger leapt to commit murder. He had no foreknowledge of the crime, yet has been sentenced to death, tied to the homicide by conspiracy. There’s Jose Padilla, who’s been found guilty of conspiracy to support terrorism. No crime, no incident, no plan, no illegal act except conspiracy. This is the best they could get out of him after years of unconstitutional detention and psychologist-approved mind-crushing interrogation.

From the public side looking in however, none dare call what our rulers are doing as conspiracy. To look at the collusion, secret meetings, manipulating the economy, media talking-points, media black-outs, election fraud, non-transparent government, private sector grand larceny, and investigation cover-ups, and dare call it conspiracy, is to face being labeled a lunatic. Conspiracy theorists are called conspiracy nuts, but it’s the complicit media doing the name-calling.

The definition of conspiracy theory is also conveniently predefined to mean a plurality of theories, like so many implausible alternative versions of events. Leaving out the UFO-tabloid genre, every conspiracy theory I’ve ever studied, from Kennedy’s assassination to the truth behind 9/11, fits very neatly together. Secret LSD experiments and black helicopters: compare these to revelations emerging from FOIAs or whistle-blower leaks. What is too difficult to believe?

The theories share the same conspirators, because it’s the same conspiracy. They form the events which tell the same story. They represent the reexamination of modern history outside of the official narrative, because the authorized version omits what the ruling elite want you to understand of the dastard inhumanity of their hold on power.
Source materials for the history of our time

Lampwick and the original Lost Boys

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Trouble my friends right here in River CityWas Lampwick the archetypical dilettante? You know, dapper, cultured, erudite, jaded, amusing, but nihilist? The boys in Pinocchio who cut school to smoke, drink and play pool were turned into donkeys in the Land of Boobies. Sound like a fitting analogy for an effete lounge-oisie? Internet blogs can amuse us with cynical antics, they often feel to me like small plexiglass window-seats looking on protracted personal train wrecks in upholstered stalls.
 
I got quite preachy a day ago in a local salon maudit, a favorite site I should also say. I’ll reprint my lecture here because the question I asked in earnest, albeit tucked inside some name-calling, remains unanswered.

This discussion has illuminated for me the challenge of how to activate the hands in pockets crowd. You make light of self-righteous do-gooders who take themselves too seriously. I do wish my indignation was less serious. It’s not that left-leaners have arbitrary spiritual beliefs which are being offended, it’s that our common sense of humanity is being trivialized. Bankrupted farmers, child slaves, indentured laborers, you tire of hearing about such horrors, but still you drink your Starbucks, buy your chocolate, and plug into your iPods with a yawn. What tone do you expect from activists beside scolding?

I ask that question seriously. What tone would cause you to say to Coca Cola: we’re not going to tolerate you killing Columbian union leaders or stealing India’s water? If consumers don’t withhold their consent, they are as guilty as Coke. I’m sorry fun-lovers but life comes with responsibility. Your pursuit of happiness may have to wait a bit, the rest of mankind begs your assistance.

The social justice movement isn’t about enlivening your water-cooler conversation, it’s about prompting change. We’re trying to organize a bucket brigade to help our neighbors stuck in a fire. And we have to stop those among us who are starting those fires. If you are standing idle, making light of the message we are trying to spread as quickly as possible, in chorus with the establishment voices already demeaning us, I’d just as soon walk over you.

Quite seriously, what would light a fire under your gay asses?

Democrats Pelosi and Rangel defend Bush

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Chavez also called Bush a donkeyCan you make the argument that Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel are above all politicians, or diplomats shall we say, who like their political discourse to be civil? Hugo Chavez referring to Bush as a devil who behaves as if the world belongs to him may have been, in their minds, undiplomatic, shall we say?

That sort of logic would have Hans Christian Anderson’s courtiers reluctant to tell the emperor he had no clothes for fear it would be undiplomatic to make the emperor feel naked.

Pelosi resorted to name-calling herself, labeling the several-time democratically elected, survivor or two US coup attempts, liberator of Venezuela’s poor, Mr. Chavez, an “everyday thug.” Considering Chavez rose from poverty himself, Pelosi’s remark comes off bigoted as well.

There’s a simpler explanation. Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Charles Rangel are not what we want them to be. They are not in true opposition to the ruling party. Like their Democratic Party, they are imposters.

House Minority Leader Pelosi may have stood up for the American people once, not once-upon-a-time, but one time, having to do with the election. Charles Rangel I’m sure will champion something one day. But that is all, and it’s sufficient I guess. It gets politicians noticed by the press and gives the party apparent credibility. But, critically, it doesn’t allow a momentum of support to build because it’s only ever one diplomat at a time. When Pelosi speaks out about something, where are the others? When Boxer speaks out, where’s Pelosi? When Murtha speaks out, where are Boxer and Pelosi? Ad dystopium.

Who do you know around you that’s only a single issue person? Activists and scholars and intellectuals seem to be able to advocate for several things at a time. Good leaders certainly do to. So does your neighbor I bet. It’s inadvertent isn’t it? Can you picture an advocate of universal health care saying: oh, never mind about civil liberties? Have you met an antiwar protestor who is not also concerned about immigrant rights? It’s not just that social justice issues are interrelated, they have a common urgency and they affect us all.

Single episode politicians are imposters. They are not advocates for the people, they are but actors who speak the lines given them and no more. Something for the camera please, but do not upset the applecart.

Approach your local candidate, even for the teeniest, least promising office. Ask them to say something of consequence, even just to you. If they belong to a party, they cannot say a thing. That’s what it means to be accepted by the party and to have its endorsement. You can’t speak. And when you get to be House Minority Leader you get to tell others not to speak, even a leader of another nation. In this case the little boy who is saying you people are butt-naked and ugly too.