Fear Leads to Violence

You don’t have to be Yoda to understand that fear leads to hate and ultimately to violence.  This post by Amanda Marcotte over at Pandagon is worth reading in its entirety: I do think there’s value in talking about the use of inciting language, like Sarah Palin is fond of doing, but I have to [...]

On Obama, Gay Marriage, and Prop 8

A Quick Hit: The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn’t have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. Now their son opposes Gay Marriage.  Prop 8 has been struck down, but this battle brings the fight to White House.  Obama must weigh [...]

Bloggers and Iran’s Fear

Iran is afraid of bloggers, and is instituting the death penalty to harshly curb their rights. Via BoingBoing: New legislation has been proposed in Iran that could make blogging a crime punishable by death. Cyrus Farivar has a story on today’s edition of the PRI radio show The World: Iran considers harsh penalty for some [...]

Discourse and Assassination: McCain/Clinton vs Obama

Hillary Clinton’s assassination quote is far more problematic than I originally thought. Frankly I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in the light of what I felt where more serious offenses, but I think I was wrong to do so. Kevin noticed some interesting trends in terms of how people responded [...]

McCain: Let Hamas Decide For You

The problem with McCain’s fear mongering, from a practical rhetorical perspective, is that it invites searing counterpoints. The Taijiquan classics state one should be without hollows or projections, and this applies quite well to rhetoric. McCain said (Huffington Post, emphasis mine): From The Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb: McCain spoke with bloggers this morning on a [...]

Political SC Church Crosses Line on Obama

Pastor Roger Byrd crossed the line between Church and State in a classless way, by repeating the more vicious lies from the GOP’s whisper campaign against Barack Obama (WYFF): Pastor Roger Byrd said that he just wanted to get people thinking. So last Thursday, he put a new message on the sign at the Jonesville [...]

Natural Relations and Fear

Sush has posted a really thoughtful thread on what meanings one might find behind the phrase Unnatural Relations (emphasis mine): In that way I’ve always thought of human sexuality as transcending “natural relations”, because we have made sex about more than fulfilling a lust or procreating. Sex, to me, is about two people learning to [...]

Anti-War Protests and Working in DC

This morning in my “General” folder in Outlook (that’s where all the company-wide email goes by default), I found this email from our “Office Manager” noting there will be protests, and concluding with: Building management plans to operate the building on a normal business throughout the day on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. They will, however, [...]

The Sally Kern Video

She’s saying what other Republicans are thinking. My friend Kelly emailed this to me.  Then I saw it pop up and up on Pandagon, and on C&L.  And of course its accompanied by commentary like “is this person bat-shit crazy, or is this nutjob bat-shit crazy?”.  That this is somehow outrageous.  It isn’t.  Let’s look [...]

Hillary’s Fear Ad and Obama’s Response

Hillary’s latest ad is badass. The essential equation is “Won’t somebody think of the children” + fear. The straight up honesty involved in such a tact is refreshing. Hillary Clinton is going to manipulate the shit out of you running for office, and if elected, will continue to do so. How very McCain “liberal conservative” [...]

Media Trying to Resuscitate Clinton

She is the media’s candidate, the annointed front runner.  And she’s going down in the face of sincerity, optimism, and practical wisdom.  Barack Obama is winning, and desperate to prop up their favorite, the media is playing hard and fast: Oftentimes, the write-ups read as if she received the night’s lone standing ovation. “And at [...]

Why They Call it Homo Phobia

There are a number of issues that arise around the notion of sexuality and gender that, honestly, could use a healthy debate. Issues like should a Church be allowed to practice discrimination? (4Simpsons): 4. Apparently churches shouldn’t be able to discipline according to the Bible A gay Christian who won a claim against the Church [...]

McCain the Warlord

With all the talk of the “independent vote” McCain is snapping up, it’ll be easy to get swept up in the media glow and view the man as a sane, reason-governed paragon of virtue. As a compromise candidate for a Republican field racked by distasteful failures and disunity. John’s stance on war is not sane. [...]

Lying US into Iran

US Officials edited video and flat out lied in an effort to make Iran appear to be a danger to us.  Via Johnathen Schwarz at TMW: Are you the kind of weirdo who thinks Congress should investigate when the Pentagon essentially fabricates a video of U.S. ships being “threatened” by Iran? Just because it could, [...]

Risk vs The Fear Vote

Republican candidates, especially Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, have followed in George Bush’s bloody oratorical footsteps. They craft their messages using fear in the same way cigarette companies used free cigarettes. Instead of hook ‘em while they’re young, its hook ‘em while they’re old and afraid of damn near everything.  Fear campaigns target everyone, but [...]