What's that you say? The link is dead? Indeed it is. Fortunately, as it happens, I happened to have a second browser open with the article; text below the fold.
Last week, CNBC correspondent Rick Santelli rocketed from being a little-known second-string correspondent to a populist hero of the disenfranchised, a 21st-century Samuel Adams, the leader and symbol of the downtrodden American masses suffering under the onslaught of 21st century socialism and big government. Santelli's "rant" last-week calling for a "Chicago Tea Party" to protest President Obama's plans to help distressed American homeowners rapidly spread across the blogosphere and shot right up into White House spokesman Robert Gibbs' craw, whose smackdown during a press conference was later characterized by Santelli as "a threat" from the White House. A nationwide "tea party" grassroots Internet protest movement has sprung up seemingly spontaneously, all inspired by Santelli, with rallies planned today in cities from coast to coast to protest against Obama's economic policies.
But was Santelli's rant really so spontaneous? How did a minor-league TV figure, whose contract with CNBC is due this summer, get so quickly launched into a nationwide rightwing blog sensation? Why were there so many sites and organizations online and live within minutes or hours after his rant, leading to a nationwide protest just a week after his rant?
What hasn't been reported until now is evidence linking Santelli's "tea party" rant with some very familiar names in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called "astroturfing") to bigwig politicians and notorious billionaire funders. As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape. To us, the uncanny speed and direction the movement took and the players involved in promoting it had a strangely forced quality to it. If it seemed scripted, that's because it was.
What we discovered is that Santelli's "rant" was not at all spontaneous as his alleged fans claim, but rather it was a carefully-planned trigger for the anti-Obama campaign. In PR terms, his February 19th call for a "Chicago Tea Party" was the launch event of a carefully organized and sophisticated PR campaign, one in which Santelli served as a frontman, using the CNBC airwaves for publicity, for the some of the craziest and sleaziest rightwing oligarch clans this country has ever produced. Namely, the Koch family, the multibilllionaire owners of the largest private corporation in America, and funders of scores of rightwing thinktanks and advocacy groups, from the Cato Institute and Reason Magazine to FreedomWorks. The scion of the Koch family, Fred Koch, was a co-founder of the notorious extremist-rightwing John Birch Society.
As you read this, Big Business is pouring tens of millions of dollars into their media machines in order to destroy just about every economic campaign promise Obama has made, as reported recently in the Wall Street Journal. At stake isn't the little guy's fight against big government, as Santelli and his bot-supporters claim, but rather the "upper 2 percent"'s war to protect their wealth from the Obama Adminstration's economic plans. When this Santelli "grassroots" campaign is peeled open, what's revealed is a glimpse of what is ahead and what is bound to be a hallmark of his presidency.
Let's go back to February 19th: Rick Santelli, live on CNBC, standing in the middle of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, launches into an attack on the just-announced $300 billion slated to stem rate of home foreclosures: "The government is promoting bad behavior! Do we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages?! This is America! We're thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July, all you capitalists who want to come down to Lake Michigan, I'm gonna start organizing."
Almost immediately, the clip and the unlikely "Chicago tea party" quote buried in the middle of the segment, zoomed across a well-worn path to headline fame in the Republican echo chamber, including red-alert headlines on Drudge.
Within hours of Santelli's rant, a website called ChicagoTeaParty.com sprang to life. Essentially inactive until that day, it now featured a YouTube video of Santelli's "tea party" rant and billed itself as the official home of the Chicago Tea Party. The domain was registered in August, 2008 by Zack Christenson, a dweeby Twitter Republican and producer for a popular Chicago rightwing radio host Milt Rosenberg--a familiar name to Obama campaign people. Last August, Rosenberg, who looks like Martin Short's Irving Cohen character, caused an outcry when he interviewed Stanley Kurtz, the conservative writer who first "exposed" a personal link between Obama and former Weather Undergound leader Bill Ayers. As a result of Rosenberg's radio interview, the Ayers story was given a major push through the Republican media echo chamber, culminating in Sarah Palin's accusation that Obama was "palling around with terrorists." That Rosenberg's producer owns the "chicagoteaparty.com" site is already weird--but what's even stranger is that he first bought the domain last August, right around the time of Rosenburg's launch of the "Obama is a terrorist" campaign. It's as if they held this "Chicago tea party" campaign in reserve, like a sleeper-site. Which is exactly what it was.
ChicagoTeaParty.com was just one part of a larger network of Republican sleeper-cell-blogs set up over the course of the past few months, all of them tied to a shady rightwing advocacy group coincidentally named the "Sam Adams Alliance," whose backers have until now been kept hidden from public. Cached google records that we discovered show that the Sam Adams Alliance took pains to scrub its deep links to the Koch family money as well as the fake-grassroots "tea party" protests going on today. All of these roads ultimately lead back to a more notorious rightwing advocacy group, FreedomWorks, a powerful PR organization headed by former Republican House Majority leader Dick Armey and funded by Koch money.
On the same day as Santelli's rant, February 19, another site called Officialchicagoteaparty.com went live. This site was registered to Eric Odom, who turned out to be a veteran Republican new media operative specializing in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns. Last summer, Odom organized a twitter-led campaign centered around DontGo.com to pressure Congress and Nancy Pelosi to pass the offshore oil drilling bill, something that would greatly benefit Koch Industries, a major player in oil and gas. Now, six months later, Odom's DontGo movement was resurrected to play a central role in promoting the "tea party" movement.
Up until last month, Odom was officially listed as the "new media coordinator" for the Sam Adams Alliance, a well-funded libertarian activist organization based in Chicago that was set up only recently. Samuel Adams the historical figure was famous for inspiring and leading the Boston Tea Party--so when the PR people from the Chicago-based Sam Adams Alliance abruptly leave in order to run Santelli's "Chicago Tea Party," you know it wasn't spontaneous. Odom certainly doesn't want people to know about the link: his name was scrubbed from the Sam Adams Alliance website recently, strongly suggesting that they wanted to cover their tracks. Thanks to google caching, you can see the SAA's before-after scrubbing.Even the Sam Adams' January 31 announcement that Odom's fake-grassroots group was "no longer sponsored by the Alliance" was shortly afterwards scrubbed.
But it's the Alliance's scrubbing of their link to Koch that is most telling. A cached page, erased on February 16, just three days before Santelli's rant, shows that the Alliance also wanted to cover up its ties to the Koch family. The missing link was an announcement that students interested in applying for internships to the Sam Adams Alliance could also apply through the "Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program" through the Institute for Humane Studies, a Koch-funded rightwing institute designed to scout and nurture future leaders of corporate libertarian ideology. The top two board directors at the Sam Adams Alliance include two figures with deep ties to Koch-funded programs: Eric O'Keefe, who previously served in Koch's Institute for Humane Studies and the Club For Growth; and Joseph Lehman, a former communications VP at Koch's Cato Institute.
All of these are ultimately linked up to Koch's Freedom Works mega-beast. Freedomworks.org has drawn fire in the past for using fake grassroots internet campaigns, called "astroturfing," to push for pet Koch projects such as privatizing social security. A New York Times investigation in 2005 revealed that a "regular single mom" paraded by Bush's White House to advocate for privatizing social security was in fact FreedomWorks' Iowa state director. The woman, Sandra Jacques, also fronted another Iowa fake-grassroots group called "For Our Grandchildren," even though privatizing social security was really "For Koch And Wall Street Fat Cats."
If you log into FreedomWorks.org today, its home page features a large photo of Rick Santelli pointing at the viewer like Uncle Sam, with the words: "Are you with Rick? We Are. Click here to learn more."
FreedomWorks, along with scores of shady front organizations which don't have to disclose their sponsors thanks to their 501 (c)(3) status, has been at the heart of today's supposed grassroots, nonpartisan "tea party" protests across the country, supposedly fueled by scores of websites which masquerade as amateur/spontaneous projects, but are suspiciously well-crafted and surprisingly well-written. One slick site pushing the tea parties, Right.org claims, "Right.org is a grassroots online community created by a few friends who were outraged by the bailouts. So we gathered some talent and money and built this site. Please tell your friends, and if you have suggestions for improving it, please let us know. Respectfully, Evan and Duncan." But funny enough, these regular guys are offering a $27,000 prize for an "anti-bailout video competition." Who are Evan and Duncan? Do they even really exist?
Even Facebook pages dedicated to a specific city "tea party" events, supposedly written by people connected only by a common emotion, obviously conformed to the same style. It was as if they were part of a multi-pronged advertising campaign planned out by a professional PR company. Yet, on the surface, they pretended to have no connection. The various sites set up their own Twitter feeds and Facebook pages dedicated to the Chicago Tea Party movement. And all of them linked to one another, using it as evidence that a decentralized, viral movement was already afoot. It wasn't about partisanship; it was about real emotions coming straight from real people.
While it's clear what is at stake for the Koch oligarch clan and their corporate and political allies--fighting to keep the hundreds of billions in surplus profits they've earned thanks to pro-rich economic policies over the past 30 years--what's a little less obvious is Santelli's link to all this. Why would he (and CNBC) risk their credibility, such as it is, as journalists dispensing financial information in order to act as PR fronts for a partisan campaign?
As noted above, Santelli's contract with CNBC runs out in a few months. His 10 years with the network haven't been remarkable, and he'll enter a brutal downsizing media job market. Thanks to the "tea party" campaign, as the article notes, Santelli's value has suddenly soared. If you look at the scores of blogs and fake-commenters on blogs (for example, Daily Blog, a slick new blog launched in January which is also based in Chicago) all puff up Santelli like he's the greatest journalist in America, and the greatest hero known to mankind. Daily Bail, like so much of this "tea party" machine, is "headquartered nearby" to Santelli, that is, in Chicago. With Odom, the Sam Adams Alliance, and the whole "tea party" nexus: "Rick, this message is to you. You are a true American hero and there are no words to describe what you did today except your own. Headquartered nearby, we will be helping the organization in whatever way possible."
It's not difficult to imagine how Santelli hooked up with this crowd. A self-described "Ayn Rand-er," one of Santelli's colleagues at CNBC, Lawrence Kudlow, played a major role in both FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth.
So today's protests show that the corporate war is on, and this is how they'll fight it: hiding behind "objective" journalists and "grassroots" new media movements. Because in these times, if you want to push for policies that help the super-wealthy, you better do everything you can to make it seem like it's "the people" who are "spontaneously" fighting your fight. As a 19th century slave management manual wrote, "The master should make it his business to show his slaves, that the advancement of his individual interest, is at the same time an advancement of theirs. Once they feel this, it will require little compulsion to make them act as becomes them." (Southern Agriculturalist IX, 1836.) The question now is, will they get away with it, and will the rest of America advance the interests of Koch, Santelli, and the rest of the masters?
My thoughts:
1) The smoking gun, to the extent that there is one, is the "chicagoteaparty" domain. But the timing doesn't work. No one in August knew that there were going to be massive bailouts and stimulus packages against which they could protest. On the other hand, if you think that taxes are going to go up, it's not crazy for founding-fathers-obsessed conservatives to start registering any domain that involves tea parties. That doesn't mean that they then orchestrated an elaborate ruse in order to give them an excuse to deploy the domain; it's just as likely that they simply leaped in when opportunity arose. Domain squatting is ubiquitous these days, particularly among political groups, and there are probably dozens out there now just waiting for the right catchphrase to make them relevant.
2) I don't see any evidence offered that Koch money funds FreedomWorks, or any astroturfing organization. They may--a lot of groups do it, including groups on the left--but there's precious little evidence of it in this article. Koch is pretty open about their connection with institutions like IHS, but from what I know of them, astroturfing doesn't really seem like their style. I've seen Koch in action at private events, and though I'll respect the privacy, I'll say that even in the company of other like-minded rich people, he displayed rather a mania for honest dealing. That's not to say that it's impossible that they do fund FreedomWorks--I'm not particularly conversant with the world of 501(c)(3) funders. But Freedomworks doesn't publish its donor list, and there's no source offered for the claim.
3) The accusation against Santelli is potentially libelous, which is, I assume, why the article disappeared this morning. If I were Santelli, I'd sue. Aside from the fact that I have absolutely no reason to question Santelli's sincerity, I find it pretty hard to believe that any private group would be willing to front enough money to make it worth a television correspondent's while to risk all his future salary payments.
4) I have no doubt that there has been involvement of various right-wing groups with the tea parties. So what? Groups--often funded by God knows who--coordinate protests. The article implies that the people who participated were therefore insincere. I know some of the people who went to these things, and trust me, they hate taxes and government every bit as much as they claimed.
5) The claim that Odom's name was "scrubbed" from the Alliance seems weak. Usually, when people leave an organization, the organization takes their name off the website. My name has been "scrubbed" from multiple sites by employers because, erm, I'm no longer associated with them. The implication of that paragraph is that Odom hasn't really quit, but is being paid to run a front group. But that's a big claim, and there's no sourcing offered.
6) Likewise, the Koch fellows program is not some dark secret. Koch funds interns to work at various market-friendly groups. The fellows application process may have been closed, or Koch may have chosen to stop funding interns at the Sam Adams alliance. But I doubt that they took the name down because it provided a shadowy link to someone who no longer works there.
I presume that the people who put this blogpost up thought they had a big muckracking scoop. But take out the innuendo, and nothing's sourced, not even to the level of "people close to the organization tell us" or "it is rumored"; they just assert major factst hat are not, so far as I know, in evidence. You can get away with that on a personal blog, because, really, is Santelli going to bother to sue you? But for a major media organization, things like this require a little more care. Investigative journalism is quite hard, and involves more than printing things you think are probably true, which is why people who are good at it, like Spencer Ackerman, are so valuable--and why organizations that do a lot of it have big legal staffs and experienced editors to make sure they can back up what they say.
This is the sort of thing that has always haunted media organizations that start blogs. It's bad enough if an employee says something that you, as an organization, regret. But paid staffers can also say things that put you on the hook for big payouts.
Of course, it will be very exciting for Playboy if it turns out their employees hit the jackpot. But given how thinly sourced it is--the entire thing mostly seems to rest on the ownership of two domain names--I wouldn't bet on it. And given that the article has been taken down, apparently, neither would they.
I think it's too late for that now, however; Playboy either needs to stand by the article and put it back up, or explain why they took it down--and why they put it up in the first place.
Full disclosure: It's pretty much an open secret in DC, but given the content of the article I'm discussing, I think I ought to mention that I live with Peter Suderman, who once worked for Freedomworks. Other than giving me the name of the right employee to email to make inquiries (no word back yet), I haven't asked him about his former employer, and he hasn't told me anything. I debated whether to write about this, but since I'm not actually defending Freedomworks, I think it's kosher.
Update: Apparently Koch used to fund Freedomworks' predecessor group, Citizens for a Sound Economy. That's still a long way from a Koch-directed plot to inundate our nation's metros with tea.
Update II: . . . but apparently there was some rift between Koch and CSE, and according to my sources, Koch may have stopped funding them long ago.
I dunno, why else would people be protesting a $3 trillion increase in federal spending? Must be one of those shadowy conspiracies.
Looks like John Amato at Crooks and Liars swallows the story hook, line and sinker.
Yeah, this looks like bullshit.
Besides, all of you libertarians were out there raising hell in the streets and planning a new insurgency when the government bailed out enormous multinational corporations too, and not just when it was consumers.... Oh shit, wait-- you didn't? You mean libertarians weren't out there planning tea parties when it was the ruling class that got bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions?
Wow. I'm shocked. Shocked.
"but apparently there was some rift between Koch and CSE, and according to my sources, Koch may have stopped funding them long ago."
The Kochtopus seems to experience quite a few rifts.
Note for all you lefties out there: Real libertarians hate the Koch brothers as much as you do.
Freddie, out of curiosity, why do you choose to ignore the fact that those libertarians have an alternative explanation for their choices?
One of my greatest disappointments on becoming an adult was the discovery that adults are as dishonest, petty, and prone to bad faith as children. Probably more so, given that they are less ignorant.
Strange as it may seem, the time is rapidly approaching when I say the hell with it all and withdraw from politics altogether.
Freddie, I suggest you opccasionally monitor Lewrockwell.com. The paleolibertarians were screaming and railing against the bankster bail-outs from the beginning. It's only Meagan's cosmotard, libertartian-lite crew that was supporting government intervention.
Schiff, Woods, Rockewell, Paul, Block, Faber, and Rogers, all loudly denounced bailing out the banks.
Freddie, this is a bailout of banks and speculators with some incidental benefits for "consumers." I can't for the life of me understand why liberals are tying themselves onto it. I'm a liberal but above that I'm a renter who might one day like to own and doesn't at all appreciate my taxes being wasted on a doomed effort to keep a bubble propped up.
As to the actual article, Santelli is a joke and the article was libelous on its face, but the funniest thing in this is McArdle suggesting that no one could possibly have foreseen huge bailouts coming in August. When did Bear Stearns collapse again? Was I just hearing crazy man voices in my head when I heard everyone and their mother constantly speculating that Lehman was going to collapse last summer?
I'm starting to feel like you should just rename this blog SCEPTICAL. And just quote various liberal/MSM stories and write that in big letters underneath.
Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy your writing but the tone is so samey-samey I just skim your posts these days.
"Strange as it may seem, the time is rapidly approaching when I say the hell with it all and withdraw from politics altogether. "
That point is in my rear view mirror. Limited government is impossible because the State always uses it's rule-making power to change the rules that limit its power.
This whole thing is silly. I don't watch a lot of CNBC, but my impression is that this is what Rick Santelli does. His role is to interject a let-the-markets-do-their-job argument into the mix of on-air editorializing at CNBC. Isn't he always screaming from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange? That's my impression. Anyway, charges of astroturfing are weak and only sound good within an echo chamber. If you want to convince someone outside of the echo chamber, better to deal with substance.
That point is in my rear view mirror.
But you're still here. There's a good change I won't be.
Rob writes: "Strange as it may seem, the time is rapidly approaching when I say the hell with it all and withdraw from politics altogether."
We'll be keeping a seat warm for you on the Statler and Waldorf side of the Muppet Show.
Snark from Freddie notwithstanding, CATO and Reason did criticize the Wall Street bailouts from the beginning. They didn't organize tea parties, but nor are they now. To refer to them as "corporate libertarian" is a patently false smear, as they are consistently against corporate welfare of all types.
But you're still here. There's a good change I won't be.
Gave up on the Portland property market and started shopping in east-central Montana, I take it?
Politically, I'm done, except to advocate an entirely stateless society. I wish Dr. Paul luck, but I won't be voting for him or anyone else ever again.
Economically, it's a different story. There are certain predictable consequences from the various government interventions. Monitoring establishment morons helps me gauge the profit potential of betting against them.
Guys like Freddie lie about libertarians with great frequency because guys like Freddie don't want to engage in honest debate.
Bearded Spock writes: "Politically, I'm done, except to advocate an entirely stateless society."
Bah, you just need to pick fewer, smaller fights that you actually have a chance of winning, even if only in a very modest sense. For me that fight is immigration, and, to tell you the truth, this economic crisis was a gift from God on that front.
All Freddie does is engage in honest debate.
My wife is nagging me to move to Nashville, where apparently we can afford to pay cash for a monster estate complete with wild turkeys. I keep countering with Jacksonville, NC, which would allow me to pursue a career I've been nagging her to authorize for 7 1/2 years. But this is less a physical than a mental displacement.
On the other hand, maybe I'm just crabby this morning because the gym was crowded so my run got cut in half.
BTW, BS, if you need some gun advice, email me. I should be easy to find from the info in this thread.
"Bah, you just need to pick fewer, smaller fights that you actually have a chance of winning, even if only in a very modest sense. For me that fight is immigration, and, to tell you the truth, this economic crisis was a gift from God on that front."
I never quite understood how people who believe in free trade would make an exception for the free trade of labor. I have no problem with Mexican immigrants. In fact, I'm married to one.
Now, if you are going to argue that immigrants use up our welfare funds and social safety nets, then my response would be to eliminate the welfare, not immigration.
Rob Lyman, don't go! You're one of the sane commenters dedicated to reason. I don't want to be all alone here with StinkyFlowers, OverEmotionalSympathyForThePoorGuy, and AnarchoMirrorUniverseVulcan.
(Also, how can we e-mail you for gun advice when we don't know your e-mail address?)
I guess I'm more chipper because I had a great run this morning!
Best regards,
Colin Fraizer
I never quite understood how people who believe in free trade would make an exception for the free trade of labor.
Because people are not interchangable economic units like knee mills; for good or ill, they bring their culture, habits, and propensities with them. In a democracy, they also get to vote.
I realize your solution is to eliminate voting. Welcome to our universe, visitor from an alternate dimension.
I personally have no problem with Mexican immigrants. I have a problem with the bogus ethnic grievance lobby and socialist politicians who cater to them.
Bearded Spock writes: "I never quite understood how people who believe in free trade would make an exception for the free trade of labor. I have no problem with Mexican immigrants. In fact, I'm married to one."
I don't believe in free trade, and I'm not a libertarian. I'm a reactionary, a traditionalist, and I'm not keen to import a bunch of people who don't share my values or who have historical bones to pick with me and mine.
What you're saying makes sense from an economics perspective (comparative advantage is interchangeable with transplanting the means of production), but from a societal perspective, it is, as Auster eloquently put it, a path to national suicide.
Rob, if you leave the level of sane discourse on this blog will drop to the point that the comments will no longer be worth skimming through.
Which is not to say that you shouldn't leave -- you gotta do what you gotta do and that -- just to say that at least some of us will no longer find this blog as interesting with you gone.
No offense intended to Megan, I'll still read her posts, just that the comments have been drifting towards the noise and away from the signal for some time now and Rob's been one of the key folk resisting that.
Also so happy to have the Suderman thing revealed. Not living in DC I'm not privy to its open secrets but ever since there started to be hints about living situations I've been trying to piece it together...
Alright, alright. That was a bit douchey.
I think the larger point stands; I just think that it's weird that a philosophy of liberty finds itself bent towards the protection of the overclass and the powerful again and again. And I don't think that's mere coincidence. But I certainly didn't say that in a constructive way. Sorry about that.
"I realize your solution is to eliminate voting. Welcome to our universe, visitor from an alternate dimension."
"I'm a reactionary, a traditionalist, and I'm not keen to import a bunch of people who don't share my values or who have historical bones to pick with me and mine."
You must be blind if you don't see that you are hopelessly fighting a rearguard action against the media/academia axis that is constantly gaining ground at your expense. You will lose this war of attrition just as surely as Lee did. The word "Conservative" just means resistant to change, but the only constant in this universe or any other is change.
Freddie writes: "I just think that it's weird that a philosophy of liberty finds itself bent towards the protection of the overclass and the powerful again and again. And I don't think that's mere coincidence."
This is just dawning on you now? You must be kidding.
Assuming that you're really serious about this, let me break it down for you in very simple terms: freedom and equality are diametrically opposed. Nearly all modern political thought can be conveniently explained upon these lines.
Libertarians favor freedom at the expense of equality. Liberals favor equality at the expense of freedom. Anyone who tells you that you can have both is either stupid or trying to trick you.
Freddie,
I appreciate you admitting the fault in your earlier comment.
I think the thing you're missing about libertarians (or, at least about ones I know) is that the principle is more important than the outcome. Most libertarians believe (as do I) that maximizing freedom will lead to better outcomes overall, but _that's not the point_. Even if you could come up with a system in which freedom were sacrificed for a better sum utility, we'd choose freedom.
I suspect that would be hard to do even if the market weren't darned efficient because freedom is a big component of my utility function. 8-)
Based on your blog comments, you seem to view everything through the "who benefits?" lens. That certainly can be useful, but I think it leads to results-oriented reasoning. (I like results, but I want a good _process_ too!)
Best regards,
Colin Fraizer
I'm with I'm with Rob. I'm glad to know that Peter Suderman is the dude. (Why does TMZ not cover the Atlantic's bloggers?)
Big question which Google couldn't find for me: how tall is Mr. Suderman?
--CF
Bearded Spock writes: "You will lose this war of attrition just as surely as Lee did. The word "Conservative" just means resistant to change, but the only constant in this universe or any other is change."
Maybe we'll lose, maybe we won't.
If we lose, the ratchet effect is better than putting up no resistance. If Britain followed Enoch Powell's advice, maybe they could have staved off their own national identity problems for another 50 years or so. That's about the time I hope to have left on this earth, and I'd prefer to make those years as pleasant as possible.
Colin Fraizer writes: "Big question which Google couldn't find for me: how tall is Mr. Suderman?"
Here's a better question: how old is Mr. Suderman, given that he was writing for the University of North Florida's student newspaper as late as 2004.
"If we lose, the ratchet effect is better than putting up no resistance. "
Henry David Thoreau wrote that any machine requires resistance and the best way to fight it to be anti-friction. I'm heading to Galt's gulch to hunker down and ride out the storm. These fuckers will burn themselves out sooner or later. When that happens, I plan to help pick up the pieces of civilization and stitch it back together sans State.
Even assuming this douchebag rebellion is anything other than phony, I seriously doubt Mr. Santelli will sue anyone. For starters, as a CNBC "reporter" he's as much an actor as a journalist and 9/10 of what's said on that show wouldn't pass a lie detector test. How's he going to prove his sincerity in court?
As for this being completely staged from start (his on-air rant) to fruition (the 'tea party', the website, the t-shirts, etc)- well damn, lady; say it ain't so! Something originating on television that's fake?
I wish it was as easy to pick up beautiful women in bars as it is to convince Megan McArdle that all the canned outrage coming from Republicans is anything other than B.S. Proof?
"Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
Dick Cheney to then Treasury Secretary Paul Oneil.
What a difference an election and Democrat as president make.
the only constant in this universe or any other is change.
Last I checked, the fine structure constant was holding steady at 1/137. That said, an orderly retreat is usually better than a rout, and occasionally a suicide charge turns out not to be quite so suicidal. Or didn't they teach you about Leyte Gulf in the Navy?
Blegh, I dislike martial metaphors.
I just think that it's weird that a philosophy of liberty finds itself bent towards the protection of the overclass and the powerful again and again.
How can this possibly be surprising to someone whose political philosophy is mostly premised on the notion that government interference is necessary to protect the little guy from the big guy? It seems like a necessary implication of your own economic theory.
"didn't they teach you about Leyte Gulf in the Navy?"
You seem to be making my point for me.
From Wikipedia:
Leyte Gulf is also notable as the first battle in which Japanese aircraft carried out organized kamikaze attacks. Also worth noting is the fact that Japan at this battle had fewer aircraft than the Allied Forces had sea vessels, a clear demonstration of the difference in power of the two sides at this point of the war.
The IJN failed to achieve its objective, suffered very heavy losses, and never afterwards sailed to battle in comparable force. The majority of its surviving heavy ships, deprived of fuel, remained in their bases for the rest of the Pacific War.
Don't get me wrong, I'm rooting for you guys, but nothing short of divine intervention in human affairs will allow the conservatives to win the culture wars.
How can this possibly be surprising to someone whose political philosophy is mostly premised on the notion that government interference is necessary to protect the little guy from the big guy? It seems like a necessary implication of your own economic theory.
I'd just like the default stance for libertarianism not to so often elide perfectly with the desires of the most powerful or moneyed. I don't think most libertarians want to support corporate or affluent interests against the poorer or less powerful. But I think being opposed to liberalism often leads them in that direction, as does seeing communism around every corner.
I just think that it's weird that a philosophy of liberty finds itself bent towards the protection of the overclass and the powerful again and again.
This is a basic misconception. Consistent advocates of a free market are not protecting the overclass and the powerful. To the contrary, the overclass and powerful fear nothing more than a truly free market, because having made it they would now rather be exempt from competition. What's weird is that people who advocate using government to help the little guy against the overclass are so willfully blind to the fact that they are really serving the interests of the overclass, by erecting barriers to entry that serve to entrench the power of the overclass. Rich fat cats can afford to comply with arbitrary and expensive regulation; little guys who want to be independent and compete can't.
nothing short of divine intervention in human affairs will allow the conservatives to win the culture wars.
1) Why rule that out?
2) The consensus on a number of issues, from abortion to guns, has been shifting away from the '68 consensus. The hard right won't get its way, but the hard left won't, either.
3) I had in mind the charge of the Johnston, which (with help) turned back what would have been a devastating blow (not decisive overall, but very serious). Sometimes you do what is right even if there's no hope, and occasionally you win.
guys like Freddie don't want to engage in honest debate.
Posted by Will Allen | March 2, 2009 2:22 PM
Oh, the irony.
I don't believe in free trade, and I'm not a libertarian. I'm a reactionary, a traditionalist, and I'm not keen to import a bunch of people who don't share my values or who have historical bones to pick with me and mine.
Amen, brother. The day we let the Irish in was the day America died. /snark/
I'm always willing to engage in honest debate; the only things off limits are my previous alcoholism, and - related to that - my brief period of transvestism.
Both were strictly in accordance with libertarian beliefs - and the latter would be compulsory if liberals had their way, I'm sure.
Calling All Nerds.
"Amen, brother. The day we let the Irish in was the day America died."
Yeah, I'm sure that the Protestants at the time were really pleased with that too. It's not like their ancestors founded the country for their benefit rather than that of the Irish...
And it's not like the Protestants had anything to do with the Irish coming over.
Do you descend directly and purely from the Mayflower, Staash? A purebred inbred?
"1) Why rule that out?"
Because I'm a Deist. Ruling out divine intervention pretty much defines my religious beliefs.
"2) The consensus on a number of issues, from abortion to guns, has been shifting away from the '68 consensus. The hard right won't get its way, but the hard left won't, either."
Abortion has been enshrined in constitutional law by Republican-appointed justices. The Heller decision protects almost nothing. It's not about right and left. It's about the rough beast, slouching toward totalitarianism to be born.
I'm heading to Galt's gulch to hunker down and ride out the storm. These fuckers will burn themselves out sooner or later. When that happens, I plan to help pick up the pieces of civilization and stitch it back together sans State.
Doesn't quite tally with your glee at paying off your car loan, BS.
Abortion has been enshrined in constitutional law by Republican-appointed justices. The Heller decision protects almost nothing.
A hearty "so what?" to both of those points. The culture is what matters in culture wars, not SCOTUS.
Freddie,
If you want alliance with real libertarians, you will need to advocate remedies that are not fundamentally unlibertarian. Taking one's rightful property and giving it to another simply because that person is not as well off or powerful won't pass muster with a libertarian.
You would have to show that the property in question was unjustly taken in the first place, and from the person/s you are returning it to; and by unjustly taken, I mean you have to show that the property was taken in violation of a negative right.
It seems "Freddie" spent as much time doing his research as the authors of the Playboy article did (Note: Marc Ames's "newspaper" eXile was found guilty of libel in 2001 in a suit filed by hockey star Pavel Bure)
It'd have taken Freddie just couple minutes to see if the main group in the article, FreedomWorks, did or did not oppose previous bailouts.
Their sites NoWallStreetBailout.org and AngryRenter.org, each with about 70,000 Americans signed on to protest the bailouts, and both set up last year to oppose the Bush bailouts, would have made it clear they did, never mind their chairman Dick Armey's National Review article "My Vote: NO" from last September against the first bailout.
I know education may not be what it used to be, but come on...
Yeah, the real irony is in sticking up for the "little guy" by throwing in with Leviathan, all because Leviathan is manned by people who buy votes. The littlest guy is the dumb sap who hasn't managed to get rich, but won't get with the program and conform to the consensus view. He's gonna' get crushed, and to a lot of people who purport to be for the "little guy", that's just fine.
Freddie, sorry for my very hostile rsponse, but my patience has worn thin with the use of plainly false assertions. For instance, if I read another assertion as to the current mess, a mess which resulted from the bursting of a giant speculative bubble which was initiated and inflated every step of the way with full government assistance, as being an example of the failure of a free market, well, I guess I'll just shake my head as to the depths of dishonesty among our public intellectuals, for nothing more than cheerleading for one's preferred tribe.
James writes: "Do you descend directly and purely from the Mayflower, Staash? A purebred inbred?"
This is the most predictable (and probably among the stupidest -- no low hurdle) non sequiturs used by immigration enthusiasts; Why the hell does it matter if I descended directly from the Mayflower or not? I am a citizen, and I vote. I am under no obligation, moral, economic, or otherwise, to extend these same rights to non-citizens.
I'd certainly like Bill Gates to generously offer me Microsoft stock at 1983 prices, but I'm not going to take him to task for denying me an opportunity that he had.
"Doesn't quite tally with your glee at paying off your car loan, BS."
Por que no? We don't want any repo men sneeking around the gulch, do we?
"Note to Spock: Rothbardians do not define 'real libertarians.' "
Just drink your cosmopolitan and keep telling yourself that, David.
"The culture is what matters in culture wars, not SCOTUS."
Yeah, good luck with that. What metric(s) are you using to gauge your "progress" in the culture war, Mr. Lyman? Church attendance? Legitimacy rates?
Just curious.
For instance, if I read another assertion as to the current mess, a mess which resulted from the bursting of a giant speculative bubble which was initiated and inflated every step of the way with full government assistance, as being an example of the failure of a free market, well, I guess I'll just shake my head as to the depths of dishonesty among our public intellectuals, for nothing more than cheerleading for one's preferred tribe.
Will, you idiot. F&F were privatized! SoV and RW said so, and have links to a bunch of media outlets that also said so to prove it!
I am a citizen, and I vote. I am under no obligation, moral, economic, or otherwise, to extend these same rights to non-citizens.
Emma Lazurus' poem does not obligate you personally, but it DOES reflect the better angels of this country's founding and growth. I think nativism is as silly now as it was when Irishmen were its targets.
As for economics, I think you're wrong if you don't see the economic benefit of the types of immigrants we've seen over the past few decades: Low-wage workers more willing, or at least more able to perform certain tasks than native Amuricans; and highly-educated, entrepreneurial types, willing to take ply their skills here.
Without free movement of labor, you have a less efficient economy.
But, by all means, pluck out the Tienda down the block if it offends thee.
I'd just like the default stance for libertarianism not to so often elide perfectly with the desires of the most powerful or moneyed.
Do Libertarians support protectionism to protect powerful and moneyed local producers then? Did Libertarians support the government bailout of the automakers? Do Libertarians support Farm subsidies? Do Libertarians support eminent domain use that benefits developers, a la Kelo vs. New London?
I'm sorry, I think you're being awfully selective when you make that assertion.
What metric(s) are you using to gauge your "progress" in the culture war, Mr. Lyman? Church attendance? Legitimacy rates?
- The Respect for the Traditional Family Index
- Christmasses Not Warred Upon (Year over Year)
- Percent of Heterosexual Marriages Unthreatened
Staash,
it wasn't in relation to immigration now, but re Irish and original settlers.
But clearly you aren't particular old school, otherwise it would have been stated, I'm sure.
Yeah, good luck with that. What metric(s) are you using to gauge your "progress" in the culture war, Mr. Lyman?
Poll numbers, especially among the young, who are trending somewhat more conservative than their elders. We will not--and I wouldn't want to--return to the 1950's but the Boomers were an anomaly in more ways than one, and their excesses carry the seeds of a backlash.
It takes a pretty short view of history to think it runs in only one direction.
DB Cooper writes: "I think nativism is as silly now as it was when Irishmen were its targets."
Back then the country was still unsettled and there were a lot of jobs that required little more than having a warm body and willingness to work. The country has changed a lot since then, and the fact that we're even debating the merits of low-skill immigration when we have a welfare state and nearly 10% unemployment in certain areas of the country sounds positively insane to me.
The high-skill question is one that I remain open to persuasion on, and I concede the points about economic efficiency. However, we need to make sensible trade-offs between economic prosperity and cultural cohesion and sovereignty. I really take issue with those who think the latter two are worth nothing, or deserve to be destroyed for whatever historical/intellectual grievance.
Lastly, I think your "better angels" represent an idealistic, naive liberalism that is to blame for a lot of our current social problems, but I'll save that one for another time.
"It takes a pretty short view of history to think it runs in only one direction."
You were the one who brought up the '68 consensus, thus framing the conversation. By all means, let's widen the scope, but you have problems with your definitions when we do that. Progressives used to be Republicans, for example (TR Roosevelt, etc) and classical liberals were the free-market, natural rights advocates.
If you are defending a family and Christianity oriented culture with limited government values, then you are defending a graveyard. I wish it wasn't so, but I have to accept reality.
Who leads the conservative movement? The thrice divorced fat guys like Gingrich and Limbaugh? The gambler Bill Bennet? The Jewish scold Laura Schlesinger who slept her way into talk radio and has the naked pictures online? Former commie neocon chickenhawks like Medved or O'Rourke?
Gimme a break.
You're still confusing politics with culture. The local pastor who preaches moderation and the high school teacher whose parents divorced and left her hanging are far more influential than those losers. A family-oriented culture is still within reach.
Morals have been reformed in the past, and they can be again. Limited government may well be dead, but at some point the mess has to collapse; we'll see what happens then.
"Charles G. Koch Summer Fellow Program" through the Institute for Humane Studies, a Koch-funded rightwing institute designed to scout and nurture future leaders of corporate libertarian ideology"
That is almost laugh out loud funny, but I actually find it insulting. My experience as a Koch Fellow couldn't be farther from Playboy's simple-minded characterizations -- in fact, I was exposed and encouraged to explore more vaired and diverse traditions of ethical, political, and social philosophy than ever before. In fact, I am confident that participants and lecturers at IHS programs hold a far more diverse range of ideas and conceptions of social philosophy, the role of government, and the nature of a just society than the "open-minded" and "progressive" staff at Playboy. As a Koch Fellow I confronted hidden biases, re-examinded ingrained fallacies, and re-shaped my conception of human action and human history. I came to DC that summer as a liberal curious about libertarianism, and I left about as far from a right-wing apologist as one might be.
I can say with all honesty and joy that it was one of the most stimulating and intellectually challenging experiences of my life.
It seems the Playboy authors have overlooked a curious paradox: they defend the status quo, the state, and the actions political sphere, indeed they are the conservative voices advocating coercion and control, and yet they parade as liberal revolutionaries. What sort of revolution places increased power in the hands of the established political elite?
Playboy staff: please read at least one book by FA Hayek and one by Robert Higgs before you put your silly pens to paper again.
Freddie,
You say the same things about libertarians over and over again.
You are then presented with the same corrections over and over again.
Yet you continue to make the same assertions over and over again.
Why not just accept that your selective monolithic view of libertarians simply doesn't hold up?
Hey, we libertarians sure as hell *were* fighting the bailouts. Where the heck were you?
Libertarians certainly are not Republicans. Get it straight.
Spock: nothing short of divine intervention in human affairs will allow the conservatives to win the culture wars.
Rob Lyman: Why rule that out?
I think you gentlemen have hit upon the solution to the culture wars - stop fighting and let God sort it out. (Yeah, I know, it's not quite caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius, but work with me.)
Presumably, anyone who believes God cares about this stuff thinks God agrees with them. So if all believers would just have faith that God will prove them right (and smite their enemies, if necessary), and leave the unbelievers (who seem disproportionately on one side of the equation, making for less conflict) to futilely attempt to impose the will of Man over that of God, just about everyone should be satisfied. Then we can redirect all that effort to curing cancer and stuff.
Which reminds me of an old joke: A priest, a rabbi and a televangelist ran a fundraiser together, and at the end had to divide up the spoils between charitable works and operations. The priest said "let's draw a circle, throw all the money up into the air, and what falls inside the circle we donate, and what falls outside we keep." The rabbi said "no, let's draw a circle and throw the money in the air what falls inside we keep and what falls outside we donate." The televangelist said "I know: let's throw the money into the air, and what God wants, he'll keep."
A couple of points:
freedom and equality are diametrically opposed. Nearly all modern political thought can be conveniently explained upon these lines.
I think it's slightly more useful to think of a triple constraint. Free, equal, diverse. Pick any two. This explains so-called anomalies like scandinavia.
As for the long term historical trend of liberty gradual retreating from the onslaught of state enforced "equality" (except for the well connected and politically powerful). This goes back well before the dreadful year of 1968. 1914 is quite possibly the turning point. Or 1897 (the British government long term bond reached a low point of 3% in real, gold backed terms. Interest rates then started to rise as the world empires started to spend in the build up to 1914.)
So the slow, fighting retreat has been long, and retreated a long way. But has the fight been worth it? I would say some major, major disasters have been avoided on the way. Simple surrender in the 1920s and 30s could have lead to communism. Real, old school, gulag, concentration camp, firing squad type communism. Or fascism, which is the same thing with the serial numbers changed. You can't argue that fighting against the cool, new, progressive ideology of the 1930s didn't slow the retreat to at least the point of retreating in a different, not so bad, direction.
You can't argue that fighting against the cool, new, progressive ideology of the 1930s didn't slow the retreat to at least the point of retreating in a different, not so bad, direction.
Advancing. Advancing in a different direction. There, that sounds better.
And liberty has made real gains since 1914, although economic liberty perhaps not so much.
"liberty has made real gains since 1914, although economic liberty perhaps not so much."
Tell that to the million men in prison for simple possession.
I don’t think that statement is even close to being true.
"I don’t think that statement is even close to being true."
We were discussing western culture, which includes all western nations, not just the U.S.
You can't argue that fighting against the cool, new, progressive ideology of the 1930s didn't slow the retreat to at least the point of retreating in a different, not so bad, direction.
Advancing. Advancing in a different direction. There, that sounds better.
And liberty has made real gains since 1914, although economic liberty perhaps not so much.
Yeah, it "sounds" better, even if it's totally untrue.
Economic *and* Personal Liberty have repeatedly taken it in the sphincter since 1914. A steep progressive income tax and a central bank with all credit creation in the hands of the state are the 2nd and 5th planks of the Communist Manifesto, and both of them were instituted in this country *4 YEARS BEFORE* the Bolshevik Revolution.
And don't give me the same tired crap that central banking and progressive income taxes are "more broadly progressive", not just Communist. John Maynard Keynes was a Fabian Socialist, and funded by the same Communists/Illuminists who launched the Federal Reserve, and under the rubric of "The League of Just Men", hired Marx (a hack journalist) and Engels (a wealthy businessman) to write the Communist Manifesto itself.
Ever since then, the whole story of America has been of an ignominious slide into welfare and warfare statism, paid for with unconstitutional funny money created from thin air -- because NOBODY would actually pay for all this crap if it had to come out of their own pocket. Especially the parts that turn the State's powers of the purse *and* the power of the sword against its own citizens.
Yes, simple possession. The same Teabag proto-communists were doing the "drug war" thing, making money from addiction on one hand, and police power on the other, in India and China over 100 years before they started doing it in Indochina in the 50's, 60's and 70's, Colombia in the 80's and 90's, and Afghanistan today. On the date of Gordo's State Visit to foment a "Global New Deal", I think it is a particularly auspicious occasion to proclaim: "F**k the English!"
Which brings us right back to the bailouts, which (300:1 someone said?) have been universally opposed by We The People, but it doesn't matter, because Congress lost control of the purse *before* this vaunted period of so-called "Advancement of Freedom".
The plus side of all this is that the entire worldwide fiat funny-money edifice is going to collapse *this year*, because it has reached its mathematical end. I look forward to the reintroduction of Constitutional Money and the Rule of Law.
Who the hell is Koch, anyway? Would that be ex-NYC mayor Ed Koch?
Playboy?
Wasn't that some tame skin mag?
Are they still publishing it?
"Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."
Dick Cheney to then Treasury Secretary Paul Oneil
Deficits as a percentage of GDP do matter. This is why economic growth is important. Look at the trend graphs.
Do you remember how McCain was starting to gain traction against Obama last fall and then -- then -- the stock markets first started going down much faster than normal? Suppose Saudis and other like-minded multi-trillionaires (and Soros?) decided to influence the election by selling their stocks. Heck, if they wanted to make a campaign donation they could use a chunk of their money to buy and then sell, again and again, making a truly untraceable monetary contribution to their favorite candidate. They would stop when enough of their money had been lost -- that is, "spent" -- for them to feel that they had done their bit to establish "world peace". If you have been following carefully the news coming out of the middle east since the Iraq war gave westerners more of an inside view of how things happen there, you can't help noticing that these types of conspiracies are how their authoritarian political systems work (which is one reason why arabs are so quick to assume similar goings on in other societies, not realizing that the lack of tribal loyalties in those other societies make this sort of conspiracy a chancy business at best.) Organizing a massive stock-market sell-off to help BHO would be child's play for them.
It's natural to assume conspiracies and see them everywhere and in everything, especially in your political antagonists, when that's your own modus operandi. Go on then, use the terms astroturfing and echo chamber repeatedly because they're terms and practices you invented. Pot, I would like to introduce you to Kettle, I do believe you two will get along.
What I meant to say is, are you trying to tell me that Playboy has articles?
I just don't get it. When seemingly everything the Left does is orchestrated by Soros, A.N.S.W.E.R., moveon.org and a synergy of the above with elected Dems and the nutroots, why would anyone even care that there could be synergy on the Right? Or is that simply forbidden? I doubt the synergy is what Playboy threatens but who really gives a?
It's like the Left can be endlessly organized and orchestrated and if 2 single things on the Right happen at the same time, it's an Evil Conspiracy. This is purely insane. Me, I like sauce for the gander, hoist by their own petard, etc. Man, the Left can endlessly dish out what they can't take for a second. They are the most shovel-ready of all.
Looks like Playboy is trying to supplement its pictorial material for the one-arm magazine reader with stimulating textual content for Democrats.
From the article: "right around the time of Rosenburg's launch of the "Obama is a terrorist" campaign. "
What a crock.
Milt Rosenberg-- right wing? As if.
And to characterize it that way? He interviewed Kurtz regarding the Ayers connection. Somehow that morphed into a "launch of the 'Obama is a terrorist' campaign."
They have no shame and no brains.
"Limited government may well be dead, but at some point the mess has to collapse; we'll see what happens then."
Anarchocapitalism is the next paradigm. Technology to realize it (energy independence, peer-to-peer communications) needs to be in place, though.
I predict will have an anarchocapitalist functioning global society within 15 years.
From the article, “So today’s protests show that the corporate war is on, and this is how they’ll fight it: hiding behind “objective” journalists and “grassroots” new media movements.”
Uh huh, tell me again, how did Obama get elected.
"Uh huh, tell me again, how did Obama get elected."
Obama is the founding father of the Tea Party movement and future historians may regard him as the founding father of anarchocapitalism (intentionally or not [smirk].)
Hey, he wrote the book on how to do all this (well, actually Glenn Reynolds did, but he was first to implement it.)
Can't put the genie back in the bottle, Barack. First you wanted revolution, now you're the institution. It's no fun to be "the man."
"Simple possession"
This refers to drugs that "just appear" out of nowhere. They were never sought out from any supplier, nor were they ever meant to be passed on. They were never meant to be used, merely "possessed". They in no way contribute to any criminal activity or help or assist the drug trade.
Looking at the bio of the authors I wonder, are they plants of the Russian government. They started their publication in Moscow during 2006, a time when Russia was controlled by former KGB head Vlad Putin. They also left Russia during August of 2008. The timing of this article is very suspicious, it came during a time when Obama was attempting to cede power over European protection to Russia. These authors should answer these questions in a reliable publication.
"Looking at the bio of the authors I wonder, are they plants of the Russian government. They started their publication in Moscow during 2006, a time when Russia was controlled by former KGB head Vlad Putin. They also left Russia during August of 2008. The timing of this article is very suspicious, it came during a time when Obama was attempting to cede power over European protection to Russia. These authors should answer these questions in a reliable publication.
Posted by EL Rider | March 3, 2009 10:15 AM "
Get your record straight, fool. The Exiled was founded in Russia way long ago, in the late 1990´s. It was what you could call a free media, with no links to the regime. In fact they were known for exposés on the infights of the differente Kremlin factions. And they were expelled for it.
If you want to distort facts, make it at least plausible. But again, I doubt that you have the brains...
I don't believe in free trade
Me either. We have to stop importing tungsten. If there is not enough in the USA we must do without.
Doing without will wreck our economy you say? Who cares? I don't believe in free trade.
If we really need tungsten we should steal it. I don't believe in free trade.
As veteran Russia reporters, both of us spent years watching the Kremlin use fake grassroots movements to influence and control the political landscape.
They are clearly not veteran American reporters or they would know that in this country this same practice is used extensivly by our own left.
I guess the abiding fear in the Democratic party is "Oh my God! They are starting to do what we do!"
For better or for worse, we're not.
You mean libertarians weren't out there planning tea parties when it was the ruling class that got bailed out to the tune of hundreds of billions?
I'm having trouble keeping track of all the twists and turns here.
You seem to be saying that the bank bailout last fall was "for the rich". But the Democrats voted overwhelmingly for it, unlike the Republicans. In fact Barack Obama voted for it.
It's almost like the real party of the "ruling class" is the Democrats. Of course I know that can't be right, but I'm hoping you can explain.
Signed, A Confused Democrat
"Doing without will wreck our economy you say? Who cares? I don't believe in free trade."
I believe in managed trade. There's a difference between that and full-blown Juche.
in the Republican rightwing machine, from PR operatives who specialize in imitation-grassroots PR campaigns (called "astroturfing")
I think they meant David Axelrod and when reading the Playboy peice I couldn't help notice the projection with all the phony websites and Townhouse like connections sponsored by Soros - it sounds like a day in the life of the nutroots leftosphere.
I guess the abiding fear in the Democratic party is "Oh my God! They are starting to do what we do!"
What SteveM said.
Good lord, El Rider can't even read a masthead. The Exile was founded in 1997. The current website was founded after Ames got booted out of the country for pissing off Putin.
Libertarianism is good and wholesome, it's just that most of the people who call themselves libertarians aren't...hell, they aren't even libertarians for the most part.
Oh, and the teaparties with their dunking of tea bags into pots of water is about the lamest protest ever imagined.
"Oh, and the teaparties with their dunking of tea bags into pots of water is about the lamest protest ever imagined."
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
At stage 2 already? Fasttracking this mutha...
The idea that no one could have predicted massive government bailouts back in August is absurd, because there were a number of people predicting that this was the direction of the US economy.
Peter Schiff is the most famous, but there have also been others.
The Madoff and other banking scandals were reported to the SEC and FBI at least as far back as 2004 in some cases, and apparently were a bit of an "open secret" in some circles.
"Simple possession"
This refers to drugs that "just appear" out of nowhere. They were never sought out from any supplier, nor were they ever meant to be passed on. They were never meant to be used, merely "possessed". They in no way contribute to any criminal activity or help or assist the drug trade.
Yeah, they "just appear" when the crooked cop plants them, or when they come in DEA-owned planes returning from delivering weapons, and cash to be laundered.
Really, though, "simple possession" is collateral damage in the bogus "drug war", and a curtailment of freedom which wouldn't happen if these same criminals posing as "government servants" weren't making billions and reshaping society into a socialist nightmare at the same time.
I believe in managed trade
Me too. The government needs to control who people are allowed to by from and what they are allowed to buy.
If the government decides that buying tungsten from foreign countries is bad it should be able to outlaw the practice for legal importers and give the business to smugglers.
The same way we handle drugs.
Putting politicians in charge of the import/export sector of the economy is the wisest thing we can do. Especially when you consider the inadequate amounts of bribery politicians are currently allowed to collect.
If the government decides that buying tungsten from foreign countries is bad it should be able to outlaw the practice for legal importers and give the business to smugglers.
Right. And uranium. Why shouldn't Iran and North Korea be able to buy all the uranium they can afford? Or even ready made nuclear tipped ICBM's from Russia?
That's the free market in action.
I came to DC that summer as a liberal curious about libertarianism, and I left about as far from a right-wing apologist as one might be.
Then it sounds like the Kochtopus had its intended effect on you, it being about as far from a right-wing organization as it's possible to get. It's not especially libertarian either.
Im an investigative reporter at a large MSM organization, and as such, I intuitively bristle at suggestions that something is "libelous." In actuality, In America, libel is a very, very difficult hurdle to climb for a plaintiff and all too frequently, is used merely as a threat to shut off reporting that is deemed a nuisance or otherwise objectionable.
Let me season my order of crow.
This is damn near central-casting libel. Ames and Levine seem to rock and roll over the line on multiple levels: Presumption of malice upon the subject and inaccurate and sloppy supporting evidence.
what would be the dealbreaker for them is the issue of how long did they allow Santelli or Koch to form a reply, and how much of the "evidence" they provided the subjects. my guess: little or none. Assuming this is the entire article, I dont see that the subjects had much say.
This is why media's collapse is met with glee. I am ashamed to be in the same field as these two assholes.
Followup to the original article and response to this blog entry is here: http://exiledonline.com/cnbc-bitch-slaps-santelli-into-line-freedomworks-admits-it-organized-grassroots-tea-parties-jon-stewart-cancels-santelli-megan-mcardle-queefs-on-our-founding-fathers/
LOL! Megan is a tool or a dupe or both. This was of course a right wing plot to inject into the mainstream media that these demonstrations were all "groundswell". After eight long years of right wing media psyops, it is quite clear that the operations have never ended. I also notice Megan did quite a bit of cherry picking of the Playboy blog in her defense of those poor, defenseless Koch brothers. Maybe the Playboy blogger has a libel suit against Megan. I wonder....
To mcgruder: If you're really in the MSM, what the hell are you doing defending the corporate bigshots against your own colleagues in journalism? You're the reason why media sucks, pal. You want to defend the establishment and marginalize anyone who gets a story right. This Santelli expose resulted in Santelli being outted as a fraud, and Freedomworks admitted to Megan that they organized the "grassroots" campaign. That's what good journalism does. What have you ever done? Disgusting, absolutely pathetically disgusting.
Guilherme Montenegro 11:07 am
Learn to figure out sarcasm you fool.
LOL! Megan is a tool or a dupe or both. This was of course a right wing plot to inject into the mainstream media that these demonstrations were all "groundswell".
LOL!!! Of course!! Who can doubt it when "Vinnie from Indy" vouches for it?
Another funny thing about Ames and company. If you post comments that are critical of them they change them around into something bizarre. I posted a reasonable critique of the lefts ability to deal with criticism and they replaced it with this...
"Seriously, I wish I was black. Actually, I wish I was a black woman. Sometimes I dress up as one. Does that make me weird?"
So this is how Ames and his crew deal with criticism. I wonder if Playboy pulled his piece because the figured that if he would rewrite a critical posters comments that he might do other less savory journalistic things. Like fake his sources and facts.
Santelli should explain how he ended up in possession of the "tea party" domains that were registered last Summer. What is his connection the companies who paid for this? Why did he use the word tea party? It is not a bogus story to ask if he is associated with a group or corporation pushing an agenda. Should Playboy really have not asked that?
I won a 2007 Sammie from the Sam Adams Alliance for my activism in 2007. I led numerous grass roots property tax protests and established the Indiana Tea Party protests. It was my idea to do gather neighbors for the first big protest. I rode my bike from house to house in the historic Meridian Kessler neighborhood of Indianapolis, where the most horrific property tax bills were sent. What started as a plan to increase awareness of the FairTax among my neighbors, turned into a year of protests and rallies.
.
The Sam Adams Alliance awards presentation was attended by real activists.
.
I promise the media coverage we enjoyed was because I worked night and day to attract it. Our blog tracks our work from the first big protest. I networked the project 100% grass roots, was unpaid, and landed us national news coverage.
.
www.hoosiersforfairtaxation.com
Mark Ames is one of the biggest blowhards on the Internet. I was about to say "in journalism" but you can't even really give him that much credit—He's more like a specialist in self aggrandizing hit pieces and satirical, annoying blog posts published under pseudonyms.
He created quite a big Internet following with his big mouth when shielded by Russian legal jurisdiction, but even under Russia's weak libel law he was successfully sued a few times before the Russians finally wised up and kicked him out, so it's no surprise that his big U.S. debut has had to be retracted and disowned.
The guy's like half schizoid or damaged or something. I even doubt the sincerity of his alleged progressiveness or liberalism. Some of his writings are so far beyond misogynistic, there's no way he could really be progressive. Posing as a bleeding heart was probably just the most expedient career move.