I’m not sure why Faux News loves Maryscott O’Connor. But, Chris Bowers’ take on it is hilarious. Especially, the 16 Candles stuff.
I’m hoping that events in Israel will calm down soon. Once they bomb some stuff in Lebanon they should feel better. Right? Of course, bombing the Beirut airport is a little harsh.
Check out Jason Horowitz’s comical take on Holy Joe. Here’s a snippet.
Joe Lieberman was incensed.
He’d just been confronted at a campaign event for Irish supporters in his hometown of Stamford, Conn., by a woman who lectured him about his lack of commitment to the Democratic Party.
“She was a plant,” said Mr. Lieberman, complaining to two campaign staffers in the parking lot behind the Irish Tigín Pub. “It was a set-up.”
This, writ small, is what has become of Mr. Lieberman’s political career.
If you are happy that NARAL endorsed Lieberman, make sure to give them a call. DC: 202.973.3000 CT: 860.524.1086. Be polite.
Here are the results of the Alternet straw poll:
Gore, whose popularity appears to be growing with the success of his recent film, “An Inconvenient Truth,” received 35% of the vote, followed by Russ Feingold at 20%, and former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards at 11%. Wesley Clark received 4%; John Kerry and Mark Warner both received 2%.
The big surprise in this poll is that Hillary Clinton, whom many pundits suggest is the front-runner for the nomination, only received 7%. AlterNet Executive Editor Don Hazen, who oversaw the survey, said: “What’s particularly shocking about Senator Clinton’s weak showing is that 53% of those who filled out the survey were women, and these are highly educated, affluent women, for the most part.”
In the category of ‘too stupid to believe’:
LIFEBeat, the music industry AIDS charity, had scheduled a reggae concert for July 18 at New York’s Webster Hall headlined by Beenie Man and TOK, two of the most notorious “murder music” dancehall artists whose lyrics havcalled for the hanging of lesbians and burning of gay men.
Oh! And read this and tell me what you think about it.
progressive netroots or whatever they are labeling them as.
unfortunatley i am convinced a huge percentage of the people sitting on their computers all day do little more than bitch moan and complain.
i think most of the work, fundraising etc is being done by a small percentage of people, the rest have loud voices, but are mostly glued to their seats, monitors, and cheetohs.
why are you up so early?
isn’t totally a bad thing. For some people, for many reasons, it is one of the few ways that they can contribute to the process. I know that we have a lot of people who have various health problems. I would like to see focus on problem solving though once we have identified problems.
in 2 weeks i will have my 4th major abdomen opening surgery in 3 years….i have spent many months recovering in front of the computer when i couldnt do much of anything else…but i do more than read blogs and pick fights and waste lots of time….i constantly write emails and letters and make phone calls …activist work….eric in bidens office is sick of me calling to ask what the fuck is biden doing this week….im not talking about people who use the computer for activism…im talking about people who dont…and i suspect that is a very large majority….which is why the so called progressive netroots doesnt have as much power as it could.
which is a dynamic of every group….lots of noise from lots of people but very few who actually do any real work.
you can see it in the numbers….how many unique visitors a week at kos? how many comments? the diaries about nothing get many times more comments than the diaries that promote actual activism…how many diaries do you have to slog thru to find some with info you can act on? thats one of the reasons i like this site better than others…less bullshit diaries and more with useful info that stay up for a while so if i miss a few days as i always do on the weekends especially i can catch up easy on the important things….less is more.
a good example is atrios….i find that site completely unreadable….useless diary titles and tiny bits of info that dont tell me anything and i end up wasting a ton of time going thru links to see if its anything important….and then hundreds of comments of nothingness….can you imagine if these people spent a tiny bit of their time calling senators and writing letters to the editor instead of making hundreds of stupid, often angry comments?
when the people lead, the leaders follow…and the people including the progressive netroots arent leading….much…they have traded in cable tv for cable internet (i didnt have either until one year ago and wow there is so much bullshit on both it makes my head spin).
but i do take your point about for some people thats all they can do…is act thru their computers….we just need more actual action and less crap.
now everyone go call their senators before they leave for vacation.
again.
Why Fox loves MSOC?
1-Because she is pretty. Good TV to have a pretty woman on.
2-Because she is…polite. She has so far proven that she won’t go ballistic.
3-Because there is underneath that polite, pretty front something else. A hint of danger. But as I said, so far she has proven that said danger is not “dangerous”. Just implied.
4-Because they are the enemy, and the enemy just LOVES schism in its opponent. EVERY enemy. Just like wondering whether Bush is telliong Cheney to go fuck himself. It’s human nature. And even though THIS particular enemy is barely human if at all, they still act like humans.
5-Because she is pretty. Good TV to have a pretty woman on.
Yes.
I know I said that before.
She is quite conscious of it, too.
DOUBLY conscious.
Bet on it.
AG
After reading your comment. It seems insulting to say that MSOC is popular becuase she looks okay. She is a great writer. Credit where credit is due.
but is her writing why Faux news loves her? Could be, but I kind of doubt it.
well, she’s also a popular person on the other side who’s independent enough to shift her position, to mature and dissent. wouldn’t the ‘netroots’ love a republican who would do the same?
as far as Bowers’ piece is concerned, i particularly loved this line:
No.
Only if the “maturing and dissenting” fits their agenda in some way. Not that she is wrong to dissent. I would be the LAST person to be able to get away with that statement. Just that at this particular moment, she fits into their game. Were she to “mature and dissent” in the manner of say Noam Chomsky or William Burroughs or Che Guevara or Malcolm X, she would disaappear so fast from Fox News that the video records of her appearances would self-destruct.
Well-meaning punditry is a delicate game.
Bet on it.
Johnny Cash was right.
We DO walk the line.
AG
P.S. Or, in the immortal worlds of Oscar Levant, “There is a thin line between madness and genius. I have ERASED that line.” At which point today…you are OUTTA here.
On the blogs OR on the networks.
Check it out.
Burroughs and Chomsky make for difficult examples because they’re not, nor would they ever have been, bloggers. MSOC’s maturation and dissent are occurring within a context, and of course that context matters. if she were to mature into someone who thought blogging was a waste of her time, for example, then yeah, she’d cease to be of interest.
all i meant was that she’s a relatively visible member of the opposition that’s dissenting relative to the opposition’s primary power. so, she’s of interest to them, just as a similarly dissenting republican would be of interest on dkos.
i also think she’s got a point. that also adds to her value to FAUX. well-known, attractive, articulate and making a valid dissent from within the ranks of the enemy. that’s five stars.
bet on it.
😉
…are not extensive.
Physical attractiveness apparently doesn’t mean much for the male “talking heads” (John Gibson’s no George Clooney), but it is much more important for women. Such is the nature of our sexist society, or at least the media part of it. It’s sad that a woman has to be “pretty” to go on television, though, because Barbara Ehrenreich and Molly Ivins aren’t as “pretty” as MSOC but much better writers and much more interesting thinkers. Plus I’m charmed by Molly’s lilting Texas accent!
The ability to speak in short “sound bytes” (as opposed to complex sentences joined together to form complete thoughts) is, of course, THE criterion to be a “talking head”. That’s the nature of the medium and why I find television so objectionable (and that’s why Chomsky resolutely refuses to be interviewed on most television programs, instead preferring to write his thoughts).
For example, a leftist guest might be asked a loaded question on Fox “News” similar to, “Can you please explain to our audience exactly why you oppose President Bush’s war on terror, which is an effort to protect American citizens from attacks like 9/11? And remember we’ve only got thirty seconds…”
What can you say of substance in thirty seconds?
As far as MSOC’s television appearances go, I think the reason Gibson keeps inviting her on is that she’s performed well according to the two main criteria (she’s pretty and she knows how to talk in sound bytes), and she meets one more very important criterion: she’s not a threat to anybody. If Gibson or his bosses thought that MSOC was actually causing a significant number of FOX viewers to throw down their remote controls in disgust and say, “Well, to hell with THIS! I’m voting DEMOCRATIC!” that would be the end of her television/radio career.
Or maybe I’m wrong, and Gibson and FOX aren’t as smart as they think they are, and MSOC’s helping undermine their agenda. I certainly don’t think her media appearances are doing the progressive movement nor the blogging community any harm, though, and she may be doing some good.
You write:
“Burroughs and Chomsky make for difficult examples because they’re not, nor would they ever have been, bloggers. “
Who says?
Chomsky?
Maybe.
Burroughs is gone gone gone. And he ain’t saying shit.
I am a Burroughs admirer…something of a long-distance disciple, truth be known… and I am a blogger.
And, uh…how about Che Guevara and Malcolm X? Are THEY “difficult examples because they’re not, nor would they ever have been, bloggers?”
Lord!!
You also write:
“If she were to mature into someone who thought blogging was a waste of her time, for example, then yeah, she’d cease to be of interest.”
Did you entirely miss what I was trying to say? It looks plain enough to me. Of course she would be of no particular interest to the major media if she started saying that blogging is a total waste of time…except of course in how they would use her as the Anti-Blogger for a while…but if she sat down in front of a Fox camera one day and seriously advocated armed resistance/revolution or claimed that Cheney and Rumsfeld were representatives of a superhuman group of Nova criminals that is out to loot and then destroy the Earth? She wouldn’t even make it to the next commercial.
Bet on it.
You CANNOT sell Burger King and Home Depot behind THAT kind of shit.
Chomsky? You cannot sell ConsumerWorld to a SLEEPING audience, either. He is brilliant, but he is also astoundingly dull.
Listen…Fox News has cast her as a delightfully dangerous redhead about whom the mediatranced-out men who watch that network can fantasize below their own radar. AND below their own belts as well.
On some level MSOC MUST know this, and hope to go in under the media radar to get to their brains as well as their balls.
A recent post from Maryscott O’Connor.
A three-year-old boy was examining his testicles while taking a bath.
“Mom,” he asked, “are these my brains?”
“Not yet,” she replied.
She is no dummy.
Not entirely, anyway…
She is trying to use the users.
And best of luck to her.
They say never try to con a con man.
Maybe…maybe not.
We shall see.
Later…
AG
the only point i feel compelled to respond to is the assertion that Chomsky is dull. not in my view, at all. given how well-attended his speeches have been for 30+ years, i’d guess that there are lots of people who share that view.
If there were a major network that couild make a profit on the miniscule audience that understands and can remain awake behind Noam Chomsky’s act, it would exist.
It does not.
The New York Review of Books Network.
Not on the broadest cable network.
Not even on radio.
All of his great energies are expressed through his intellectual center.
Greeat thought.
Bad TV.
So it goes.
AG
it’s what he’s saying that keeps him off tv, for the most part, not how he’s saying it… though of course if he looked like a supermodel and wore a bikini he’d make for ‘better tv.’
my point is that for many people he’s a very interesting speaker. speeches, in general, aren’t ‘good tv’ – so you’ve got to judge how boring he is relative to the means he employs. he’s no Al Sharpton, but he’s no John Kerry either, if you get my drift.
Exactly. The article is an attempt to undermine the influnece of the netroots by conflating Markos and Jerome, and their particular issues, with the entire movement. They are essentially saying that Markos’s audience is far to the left of him, which is true, and then saying that he must find a way to become respectable without alienating his audience, which is also probably true.
The question is, since we are not going anywhere, can we be sold out without consequences? And, also, are we really unacceptably radical or are we starting to exert ourselves and get tangible results (like in Connecticut)?
We know what Fox News and the Washington Post (for that matter) would like to do with us. They’d like to marginalize us and put us back in our box. That is not going to happen. But a schism is coming. We all know it. The trick is not to let it hurt the entire movement or be hijacked by the right.
Anyone that wants to get with Schumer and Emanuel should do it now, because they are not going to cease being the greatest obstacles to change.
Booman, I know Republicans who are to the left of Moulitsas.
What about Simon’s point that your friend Chris apparently doesn’t trust people with lower user ID numbers? That’s a bit odd…so if we could get Senator Kennedy to register as a commentator at MyDD.com tomorrow, Chris wouldn’t trust anything Kennedy had to say on certain issues because he’d have a high user ID?
it was a joke.
Humor, especially inside jokes, don’t come across too well on the Net. Inflections and facial expressions are missing.
Say, there’s an idea for a fundraiser…auction off low user ID numbers on Ebay. I’ll get a second job and save up enough money to get a coveted double-digit user ID, thereby achieving instant credibility! <snark>
I don’t know. I got the humor without any emoticons. But my user ID is 8962, so I am still trusted.
Yeah, but somebody with a user ID of 7804 emailed me and told me you’re NOT to be trusted.
When in doubt, go with the low user ID number.
Besides, I’m older than you–MY “user ID number” is 1962 (year of birth), so I’m far more trustworthy.
because if they did they would probably freak out, they may have led many of their veiwers to her website (and they have painted her in lovely truth teller colors) where they will now “Read Stuff” that is really really liberal and promotes thinking about issues in different ways. What if a seed germinated? I can’t believe Murdoch has risked this, but then again I can’t believe that Hillary had a sit down with him either.
She’s colorful. She’s a character. she’s theater.
Any insult was aimed at Fox, not MSOC.
They are enamored of her DESPITE her talents.
Were she a frumpy looking nun from Topeka…unless of course she was SPECTACULARLY frumpy, like that PBS nun who discusses art…they would have no interest in her whatsoever.
Bet on it.
And I’ll tell you something else.
The first time that she violates the unspoken code of good-guestism and actually says something that truly threatens the status quo, she will disappear from Fox like a bad memory.
She knows this.
ALL successful pundits know this. On all networks.
INCLUDING those who post on blogs.
What? You think Commandante Markos invented banning?
AG
Faux News loves MSOC because she knows how to rant and she’s a redhead. Irish and all that 🙂
The Lebanon airport and what Israel is calling an “Act of War” is scary 🙁
NARAL endorsed Lieberman?
NARAL endorsed Lieberman?
Yes, unfortunately they did. That’s what happens when you rely exculsively on Lieb’s voting record, a frequent netroots argument I got tired of refuting years ago when Markos himself was arguing for Lieberman on just those grounds while insisting that the DLC was irrelevant.
Naturally Kos was all over NARAL’s endorsement like a fly on shit and the blog owners follow their leader, particularly the ones who have never, ever considered donating money to or supporting in any way an organization advocating for women.
It must be difficult for Markos. When NOW early on endorsed Lamont it barely rated a mention and he’s used to painting NOW and Planned Parenthood and NARAL with the same broad, hostile and stubbornly ignorant brush.
Just got off the phone with NARAL. I had to leave a message as their political director was not available.
I’m furious that they endorsed Mr.”Rape Victims Can Drive Around to Find a Hospital that will Give them Emergency Contraception” or maybe I should I call him “Mr. Bi-Partisanship is more important than fighting against misogynists Roberts and Alito.”
Someone should call and get them to explain their endorsement criteria.
Is it based only on abortion, or is the candidate’s position on other family planning issues involved?
Do they have a policy of endorsing the incumbent when there is more than one pro-choice candidate involved? (Their endorsement of Chafee in Rhode Island, as well as my experiences with developing our local PPFA voter’s guide, leads me to believe this is the case.)
Not that I think they did the right thing here by any means…
Someone should call and get them to explain their endorsement criteria.
Like I said, I’m pretty sure it begins and ends with the voting record of the incumbent. In NARAL’s case their sole purpose is defending abortion rights.
I do agree that NARAL should not be endorsing a politician who enabled the Alito confirmation or, in Lieberman’s case, a politician who denies our constitutional protections against the excesses of religious fanatics, Catholic or Protestant.
They do have the right and responsibility to denounce religious right wing-nuts like Casey and Langevin, however. As do we all. And I do not believe that tearing down NARAL, NOW and Planned Parenthood in favor of an ill defined ‘netroots’ is a good plan.
I agree with you…thanks for making my points clearer. 🙂
I think it’s time for me to NARAL too!
Extraordinarily influencial. I think the mainstream media was SHOCKED to find out that many normal folks are so informed and intelligent.
At issue are two questions: how influential will the netroots be in elections, and will it help or hurt Democrats at the ballot box?
The second question is silly, the only reason there is any chance the netroots could hurt Democrats is because media outlets insist on endlessly repeating their narrative that members of the netroots are loons who should be ignored. We’re talking about millions of normal people who happen to be interested enough in politics to get involved in some small way. It’s disgusting to see the media slime a large group of people who should make up the core of their reader-/viewership.
The U.S. is ultimately responsible for Israel’s actions. It’s time to cut our funding and end the catastrophe of our Zionist project.
that Fox News considers Netroots arguing a danger to a liberal website. I know that the new age republicans we currently deal with are deeply fearful of debate and consider it destructive and nuclear, but if Markos or Mary Scott or even Booman were fearful of debate God knows none of them would have ever ventured into these waters and most likely most of us wouldn’t even be here this morning because there do tend to be flames and debates on progressive liberal websites.
indeed make them feel better, I’m sure those numbers will grow. In one family alone, seven children were martyred.
But would the US taxpayers be as pleased with their purchase in the long term if there were to be one?
So how much better will that make Israel feel? Torn into three parts seems a bit harsh indeed. One would think that two would be sufficient, even for the folks who write the checks.
Here are links to some Israelis and American Jews who will not feel better.
Jews Against the Occupation
Not in Our Name Project
Guush-Shalom
B’Tselem
Neturei Karta
pieces of babies bodies
blown apart
hanging from olive trees
look away quick
be glad they are not
ours
look away quick
there is nothing
I can do
look away quick
get very busy
don;t watch, don’t listen
look away quick
so I can stand
even knowing of this
From CNN:
can we say that this is George’s backdoor plan in process?
healthy troops or healthy equipment to pull of attacking Iran with anything other than bombs and I guess he could use that “nuke” thing in spite of everybody.
Well, it looks like the attack on Iran is being prepared, then. I always thought the Israelis would stay out of it, but I guess their government figures it has nothing to lose.
Several things are going on right now:
That was written by Michael Ledeen, a leading neocon strategist. Looks like it’s World War Three. Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Israel…it’s pretty hard to find a country on the Arabian Peninsula where the neocons don’t want to stir it up.
National Review War Mongering
months back to put together a serious war plan for Iran. I’m sure it must have included those little nuke things…..then we had the revolt of the generals, but Bush kind of does whatever the hell he wants when he wants. I wouldn’t be shocked if something snapped. We are probably going to be lucky to get this son of a bitch gone before a nuke goes off somewhere on the globe. He’s so fucking stupid and so far sunk in the polls, for all anybody knows he’s going to shoot for setting up Armageddon because he wants Jesus to come and suck him up in the rapture so he never has to face history! Friggin freak! If he heads to the middle east soon we’ll know he’s headed for Jesus’ landing pad.
Well, several scary things I’ve observed about the war planning process during the Bush years:
So while an attack on Iran seems madness to most, to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, cloistered in their own version of reality, it seems to make perfect sense. The green-as-grass Israeli PM, Olmert, is in way over his head and is being used by the American neocons and the hawks in the Israeli government.