Over the course of the last couple of months, David Neiwert has been writing a series of articles entitled “Rush, Newspeak and facism” on the potential for fascism in the United States. He’s a journalist who has extensive experience in this field; his articles are well worth your time. I don’t really have anything to say about these, which makes me a bad blogger, but sometimes you just have to pass along the important links. ...
Really, it’s like fish in a barrel. Via A Whole Lotta Nothing.
The evidence is in; some people really want an excuse to hate. So OK, Dixie Flatline. Hate away. Put yourself in that dangerous little corner of the human psyche. What happens when you cage yourself is simple; on Sundays, the tourists walk by and take pictures and discuss your strange case. Consider me a tourist. Here’s my discussion. In your rant, cloaked in the pretense of rationality, you claim that the loyalties of American Muslims must be suspect. You claim that we must watch them closely; the implication, bitter as quinine in your mouth, is that there is no other way to be safe from the threat. ...
One of the common worries expressed by anti-war protestors was the possibilty of backlash during the war. We were forced to close our embassy in Pakistan yesterday, and all US citizens are advised to leave Pakistan. Why? Seems there are intensifying protests over there, and things are getting violent. Meanwhile, the Instapundit thinks Iraqis who are happy to be liberated are my worst nightmare. As Unqualified Offerings notes, my worst nightmares involve things like militant Islamic coups in Pakistan, a nation that has a number of nuclear weapons. Iraqi citizens happy to be liberated? That’s a good thing. ...
Another useful resource this week: the BBC’s reporter diaries. The Agonist is also good — Sean-Paul is doing a good job of keeping up with the news. His head will explode within days, no doubt. Turkey has OKed US overflight, finally. There was a lot of back and forth about this, mostly related to whether or not the US was going to let Turkish troops into Northern Iraq. Turkey wants to make sure the Kurds don’t form their own state, and will do so by force as necessary. No word as to what the final deal was, but Turkey reasserted that it would send troops in after they announced they’d open airspace. That’s not good. ...
Two things. First, Amiri Baraka is an idiot and a pig and quite possibly a racist. (Although, you know, do some research (original). “It is a narrow nationalism that says the white man is the enemy… Nationalism, so-called, when it says ‘all non-blacks are our enemies,’ is sickness or criminality, in fact, a form of fascism.” You’ll never guess who wrote that. Still, set that aside: once you start with calling people a whore during your lectures, you get slotted into the idiot and pig categories. At the very least.) ...
Because I think it’s worth highlighting the extremes of human dignity, I link to the speech Lieutenant Colonel Tim Collins delivered before battle. This type of man is one reason why I wish both our soldiers and British soldiers well. “We go to liberate not to conquer. We will not fly our flags in their country. We are entering Iraq to free a people and the only flag which will be flown in that ancient land is their own. Show respect for them.” And: ...
Michael Swanwick is keeping a list of SF authors opposed to the war. Linked for my reference (via Making Light).
The Chicago Tribune reports that many of the recent pro-war rallies were sponsored by Clear Channel. Clear Channel is currently lobbying against proposed regulatory changes that would limit its ability to expand. This doesn’t diminish or negate the sentiments expressed by those attending, but it sure raises some interesting questions about Clear Channel.
Weird little Cheney interview. He says, referring to terrorism, “[T]he United States and the president have been forced to come to grips with issues that our allies to date have not yet had to come to grips with…” And I really don’t understand that. Has he somehow missed the Red Army, or more recently the Chechnya terrorists who took over a theater in Russia? Shining Path ring a bell? Or, hey, how about the IRA and the Basque separatists? It seems very clear to me that many European nations on both sides of the debate have seen more than enough terrorist activity to get a very clear idea of the issues.