Symmetry required it: 2012 american general election thread #2

hey, clusterfuck summary corner is only three threads down...

what about the part after Fred Phelps had finally been kicked out of his church and a new, tolerant template for Westboro activity was voted upon and agreed to, and then gays engineered a coup to put Fred Phelps' son in power?

the current protests don't seem to have much to do with autocratic regimes or their backers, though, unless the protesters are being super hipster coy about their motivations for murdering people

they're pissed at the west for messing with them repeatedly and in various dismissive/disrespectful ways - whether its this stupid video, attempting to help them by bombing their cities, or financing and supporting dictators - I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

i don't entirely buy the blowback explanation in this instance.

libya has a lot of religiously motivated militias running around that were not on board with Qdf (when he was around) and are less on board with liberalization -- reports are out there of these dudes attacking sufi shrines as idolatrous, similar to what has happened in mali.

so it only makes sense if you're in that worldview; "US is meddling in my country, US is releasing satanic videos"

just for reference:

http://i45.tinypic.com/2ex6el1.png

wow

Richard Engel was saying last night that, at least in Cairo, the protest was made of just a couple hundred people and just blocks away life was going on as normal. Maybe this is the case in all the locations?

(They could be larger today, though. I haven't been following.)

i don't know if it ultimately means much, either, and of course i was way too quick to suggest the capitalism bogeyman. i do think, though, that we've barely begun to experience the repercussions for our history of colonial abuse.

be srs there are no repercussions for colonial abuse

i agree that there's lots of general purpose anti-western outrage on display, but i think it's a terrible mistake to politically legitimize it in blanket terms by trotting out a generic list of supposedly exculpatory western sins. to the extent that protests specifically target real wrongdoing in concrete terms, they're valid, imo. otoh, to the extent that they seem to express a bigoted mob's murderous wrath in response to what i consider an absurdly trivial (and frankly stupid) provocation, i don't have much inclination to step back for sake of the bigger picture. that approach strikes me as nihilist. it seems to excuse absolutely any expression of anger so long as it is directed at the evils of "the west", no matter how ugly, harmful or misconceived.

yeah, agreed on the ridiculous provocation part for sure, and that the violence at these protests is deplorable goes without saying. it'd be nice if a giant regional protest could be coordinated in response to one of the 3.2 x 10^234 things the U.S. administration has actually done wrong

PBS had a brief interview with a protestor in Tahir Square who said he wasn't there to raid the embassy or attack the US, he was just there to demand everyone involved in the video to be publicly executed.

While I think that capitalism/the west/colonialism has played a big part in driving these people to religious fanaticism, they're still doing this out of religious fanaticism.

demanding a filmmakers execution does not make one a religious fanatic

I dunno demanding public executions of people because they offended all of Islam is pretty fanatical to me. Obv cultural prisms are different etc.

just like demanding roger clemens' execution doesn't make one a baseball fanatic. you just reaaaaally hate roger clemens!

im sayin, i barely watch baseball anymore

Yeah Morbs calls for Tarantino to be executed on the regular, but I don't think he's a fanatic . . . Wait, hang on, let me think about this

he definitely not religious

Romney has already managed once again to come out on both sides of the issue of the movie, btw: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/14/so-romney-agrees-with-the-u-s-embassy-in-egypt/

Mitt Romney: Well, I haven’t seen the film.  I don’t intend to see it.  I, you know, I think it’s dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say.  And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong.  And I wish people wouldn’t do it.  Of course, we have a First Amendment.  And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do.  They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.

George Stephanopoulos: We’ve seen General Martin Dempsey call Pastor Jones to say, “Please don’t promote this film.” You think that’s a good idea?

Romney: I think the whole film is a terrible idea.  I think him making it, promoting it, showing it is disrespectful to people of other faiths.  I don’t think that should happen.  I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment – the good judgment – not to be, not to offend other peoples’ faiths.  It’s a very bad thing, I think, this guy’s doing.

that seems like a reasonable take, expressed idiotically. he condemns the filmmaker and film, but makes the important caveat that free speech protects such things.

Voltaire he is not

Yes, but the point is that it's pretty much exactly what the embassy in Egypt said

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

a statement which Romney's already publicly condemned.

yeah isnt that exactly what the embassy tweet said?

xpost

embassy needs a blog

guys: http://news.yahoo.com/judge-strikes-down-wis-law-limiting-union-rights-214923391.html

oh hell yes

Romney has already managed once again to come out on both sides of the issue of the movie, btw: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/14/so-romney-agrees-with-the-u-s-embassy-in-egypt/

Mitt Romney: Well, I haven’t seen the film. I don’t intend to see it. I, you know, I think it’s dispiriting sometimes to see some of the awful things people say. And the idea of using something that some people consider sacred and then parading that out in a negative way is simply inappropriate and wrong. And I wish people wouldn’t do it. Of course, we have a First Amendment. And under the First Amendment, people are allowed to do what they feel they want to do. They have the right to do that, but it’s not right to do things that are of the nature of what was done by, apparently this film.

George Stephanopoulos: We’ve seen General Martin Dempsey call Pastor Jones to say, “Please don’t promote this film.” You think that’s a good idea?

Romney: I think the whole film is a terrible idea. I think him making it, promoting it, showing it is disrespectful to people of other faiths. I don’t think that should happen. I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment – the good judgment – not to be, not to offend other peoples’ faiths. It’s a very bad thing, I think, this guy’s doing.

― a shark with a rippling six pack (Phil D.), Friday, September 14, 2012 6:48 PM (36 minutes ago)

romney pretty much otm?

Yes, but the point is that it's pretty much exactly what the embassy in Egypt said

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims — as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

a statement which Romney's already publicly condemned.

― a shark with a rippling six pack (Phil D.), Friday, September 14, 2012 11:56 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so messing around w/ princeton.edu's electoral map i realized that Obama could lose FL, VA, IA, WI AND NH and still get to 270 - assuming he gets OH, CO & NV. Willard should probably just stop wasting everyone's time.

assuming/godwilling the math for mitt is still bad in a month, what is there to fall back on? i mean in terms of like, for mccain, surrogate groups resuscitating the reverend wright ads, &c. i assume there's some desperate dog whistle thing that mitt would have on standby but i can't think what it is.

racism?

theyve been pushing welfare flimflam hard for a the last month, thats abt as dog whistley as you can get, second guessing a lie abt the obamas response to the lybian consolate attack, bringing paul ryan on board, romney camps been in full panic mode fora while now

Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish campaign ineptitude from campaign panic mode.

In this case maybe it's both?

But despite all those flaws and problems, the Republicans still have Fox News, nonstop ads from Karl Rove and others, and their talk radio army with Rush and others, who can reach undecided voters who don't pay attention to the mainstream media and blogs and forums

there are barely any undecided voters, but they're not people who are listening to rush limbaugh etc.

The Republicans could run an empty cereal box and still get 43% of the vote. That's a pretty good base to work from.

I'm having a conversation with a couple of black friends on fb about the racial component of the Van Duzer bear hug. I thought the hug itself was a little disrespectful, though Van Duzer seems like an okay guy by all accounts. However, they're reading a racial component into it that dates back for generations rooted in silly white superstitions about rubbing black baby's heads for good luck and so on. I can see how this is connected to that.

I think the caveat here is that this is campaign season, and Obama's staff probably thought "Amazing photo op!" If it had been last year or next year, Van Duzer would've gotten a firm "What the fuck are you thinking? No!"

the problem is their empty cereal box still has to say all kindsa crazy shit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=l2J61379sEs

d'oh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2J61379sEs&feature=plcp

That's a few weeks old. Had ZERO traction afaict.

It's a shame, it's just a shame, that some people are too lazy to go that last 5%...

(I know the zing is that they're using slave labour, but the rest of that video has been capitalism's post-No Logo get-out, that even slave labour improves the local conditions, if only we could give them more jobs we would be the true heroes here)

assuming/godwilling the math for mitt is still bad in a month, what is there to fall back on?

Hoping that the debates involve putting Barack Obama in front of a mike and his numbers going down, despite all historical precedent.

Or, waiting for him to say anything that you can whip up into some bullshit and put on tv 24 hours a day in five key states.

*mic

Well, yes.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/15/santorum-smart-people-will-never-be-on-our-side/

Without the church and the family, there is no conservative movement, there is no basic values of America there is no basic values of America there is no basic values of America there is no basic values of America there is no basic values of America.

Known unknowns etc.

Mitt Romney’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Campaign.