Mirror, Mirror on the Wall
John Edwards may have fired two staff bloggers who stayed in their previous character.They hadn't changed a bit since he hired them, but he didn't fully understand what that implied. The NYT reports that messages the Netroots bloggers sent out to "liberals" were too much for Edwards.
Feb. 6 — Two bloggers hired by John Edwards to reach out to liberals in the online world have landed his presidential campaign in hot water for doing what bloggers do — expressing their opinions in provocative and often crude language. ... Ms. Marcotte wrote in December that the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of contraception forced women “to bear more tithing Catholics.” In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
She has also written sarcastically about the news media coverage of the three Duke lacrosse players accused of sexual assault, saying: “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”
Ms. McEwan referred in her blog to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” and repeatedly used profanity in demanding that religious conservatives stop meddling with women’s reproductive and sexual rights. Multiple postings use explicit and inflammatory language on a variety of issues. Ms. McEwan signed on with Mr. Edwards at the end of January with the title of Netroots coordinator, for campaign activities on the Web.
The underlying problem was that Edwards wanted the Netroots crowd on his campaign but didn't want them to represent themselves. He probably wanted the Netroots people to stand silently on his stage against a backdrop of bunting and vaguely patriotic organ music while he declaimed solemnly in the foreground. Unfortunately Edwards put them where they could unload what was coiled up in their minds. People have often assumed that the Internet has been unkind to the Left because it has allowed conservatives to evade Mainstream Media censorship. But maybe the game worked the other way round. Possibly the greatest function the MSM fulfilled was to sanitize the Left's own speech. To liberally apply the cut and paste and where necessary, the Memory Hole. The Internet has been bad for the Left because it allows its members to come through directly with the public.
posted by wretchardthecat at 2/07/2007 12:59:00 PM
32 Comments:
There are a lot of Lefties alert to this turn of events. After some thought and one or two drafts, they are leaving their reflections on their home-base blogs.
Here, for instance, is the current post on the topic of Marcotte's and McEwan's dismissal at Shakspeare's Sister. Check the comments; lots of interesting perspectives.
Reasonable? Hinged?
Not so much.
amac,
The interesting thing about the post at Shakespeare's Sister is the argument that the "Right Wing blogosphere" made Edwards fire the Netroots people.
The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps -- John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.
The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare's Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League's Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan "anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots," and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.
There is in this type of thinking a curious duality. The Right Wing is on the one hand, regarded as omnipotent. Creating monstrous weapons; assassinating Presidents; preparing a military takeover; orchestrating global conspiracies, engineering the deaths of billions, getting John Edwards to fire his bloggers by unexplained telepathic means. But at the same time it is pathetically weak. Unable to defeat any enemies anywhere. Always being "slaughtered" in combat with enemies -- who they are elsewhere killing in droves -- witness the Lancet report. Somehow the Right Wing has these special weapons capable of massacreing women and children by the million while mysteriously missing anyone who presents himself as an enemy. Or turning John Edwards into a Zombie. It's amazing.
But I've long since stopped thinking. "Ok. Now they'll snap out of it, they've gone so far." It's possible they'll never snap out of it. Not if a nuke, biological weapon and nerve gas weapon signed and delivered by Osama himself detonated in their living rooms. Not if aliens from the Coma Cluster materialized on their doorsteps. I'm still trying to come to terms with the implications of that possibility.
Roderick
And part of the reason, I'm guessing, is that Ann Coulter is actually aware of the difference between fantasy and reality and crosses over into sensationalism deliberately, in the way that a rock singer puts on platform shoes and garish makeup.
I think many left wing writers know what differentiates playing to the gallery and baying at the moon. But some, alas, do not.
wretchard,
This is a matter of religious conviction, albeit secular. They will NOT, cannot change, anymore than the followers of bin Laden. This may explain their mutuality of interest with the Islamists: a common hatred of the West and its institutions.
Here here. The Left has done a fine job of collectivizing their message and presenting it as one coherent voice. The internet often evades this self censorship and the true sentiments of wing bats shine through, much to the joy of those who detected more sinister motives behind all the happy talk. Politically correct speech is the muzzle for the wrong people and should not apply to the anointed ones.
"It's about getting someone in the kill zone, and trying to knock off John Edwards in the process."
Edwards in now learning the true power of the internet.
" Oh, and I see a massive outing of conservative campaign operatives coming. This is nothing less than a declaration of war.
arbitrista (formerly publius) "
Brace yourselves rightwingers.
The line is you can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
Never the less there are some ideas that get into the body politic and it takes centuries for them to work their way through.
Over at Freerepublic there is a post about a Norman Mailer book that's just come out.
Here's the opener:
Are some people born evil?
Daily Mail ^ | 7 Feb 2007 | Brian Masters
At the age of 84, America's grand man of letters Norman Mailer has lost nothing of his appetite for controversy. His latest novel, The Castle In The Forest, tackles the childhood of Adolf Hitler.
The book tells how two-year-old Adolf watched his father whip a dog with 'a look of remarkable intensity for one so small'. And how, as a six-year-old, he went into the woods by himself 'to work on the power of his voice. He would roar at the trees until his throat was sore'. Perhaps the most chilling passage is when Adolf causes the death of his younger brother, Edmund, by deliberately infecting him with measles by kissing him.
But above all, the novel poses a central question: 'When did evil enter Hitler's soul?' And it provides an unequivocal answer: at the moment of conception.
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To 18th century Americans this would have been an infantile discovery.
Why?
All the protestant denominations that founded the republic were calvinist.
Calvinists believe that people are NOT fundamentally good at heart but rather fundamentally bad. That's why the US government was created with all kinds of checks and balances built into it.
As pointed out in the article its the french revolution (rousseau) that came up with the idea that the men are basically good and that its society that's bad -- and society that makes men bad.
The calvinists believe that men have no righteousness of their own. (all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)Rather Jesus imputes his righteousness before God to those who believe in him.
The French have come up with the opposite formula. What they do-- and what the communists & democrats have learned to do-- is figure out their own worst evil and impute that evil to the opposition.
In Sum: Jesus imputes his Righteousness to those who believe in him.
French Dems, commies impute their evil to their opposition.
Romans 5:12-21 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
Death Through Adam, Life Through Christ
12Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come.
15But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many!
Charles,
"All the protestant denominations that founded the republic were calvinist."
I disagree with that; for the most part, the Middle and Southern colonies were not Calvinist.
Charles,
I haven't read Mailer's book, but it strikes me that if he admits evil into the world by one door, then he must logically admit good, or at least the negation of evil, in through another. Then the world in some sense becomes transformed by the addition of this new dimension, because it creates the possibility that meaning -- that good and evil, hatred and love -- are somehow real quantities like pounds and inches. Then we are in dangerous waters. Yet when you consider it, no more dangerous than the world we live in already.
Historically theoretical physicists have wondered whether the mathematical objects that featured in their theories were notational artifices or real quantities. Dirac found that his mathematics implied the existence of anti-matter. Only later did he come to believe that anti-matter physically existed.
It's possible to regard "good and evil" as a notation we need to make "sense" of the world and as a construct to perform mental operations. And we need not necessarily believe that it is "real", so long as things work out. But there is always the disturbing possibility that the quantities are "real". That would be a terrifying possibility, because then the world would not be the simple, sublunar place we see with our eyes, but something wonderfully and yet dauntingly more complicated.
The Illinois senator has decided to forego the public funds, said an official close to the Obama campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The move allows him to raise and spend unlimited private money.
Obama joins New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and for North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, both of whom recently decided to skip public financing of their campaigns. Edwards and Obama also say they won't accept money from lobbyists or political action committees.
Strategists from both parties estimate that the 2008 race could cost each nominee $500 million _ far more than the Presidential Election Campaign Fund can afford. It is financed through the $3 checkoff on federal income tax returns.
Presidential Run
exhelodrvr said...
Charles,
"All the protestant denominations that founded the republic were calvinist."
I disagree with that; for the most part, the Middle and Southern colonies were not Calvinist.
/////////////////////////
True the middle and southern colonies were not puritan/congregationalist. But the presbyterians at the time represented fully 25% of the population. They were calvinists. The anglicans/episcopalians were not calvinists but they had no trouble with the nicean creed.
The methodists and baptists would only become dominant majorities in later decades.
Also the german, swiss & dutch reformed churches were calvinist--as well as the french Heugonauts.
That said, I did overstate the case for all of the population of the colonies being calvinists. I think there's a good case to say they were the majority however.
wretchard,
returning to theme of your post, and your 2:39pm comment:
One reads at Shakespeare's Sister how the evil and powerful Right Wing Blogosphere forced Edwards to can these two Tourette's bloggers.
One of a very few temperate contributors to that thread points out that these powerful Cheneyesque forces should delight in having saddled Edwards with this pair of albatrosses. What a defeat that he's slipped free of them before they've ripened.
A pause. Then the cries of "Troll, leave this place!" begin.
In the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, if the accuser maintained a coherent, consistent story, it's because she is telling the truth about being raped. If she tells a erratic and self-contradictory set of tales, it's because she was traumatized by the rape, proving it happened.
If this is the disease, higher doses of cognitive dissonance seem like an effective remedy. At least for now.
Norman Mailer...Jack Abbott...Richard Adan.
The Executioner's Song, a great work of nonfiction.
wretchard:
It may seem unheard of right now, but I wonder what would happen if Mr. Soros's control over the Democratic Party were directly challenged.
(If the United States truly needs de-Nazification as Mr. Soros suggests, we could start by deporting a man who was responsible for confiscating the property of Hungarian Jews named -- George Soros!)
One day, I think Mr. Soros, moveon.org, DailyKos, and that entire gang will eventually be regarded as a shameful association most politicians will try to shed. Much like memberships with the Ku Klux Klan after the Klan declined. In the 1930's, lists of Klansmen were quite useful as leverage against politicians who had made the mistake of aligning themselves with the Klan.
Just as Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Ku Klux Klan were banished from the halls of power, so too must the influence of Mr. George Soros. If the Democratic Party actually seeks to govern the United States in the future, it needs to cobble together a governing majority and that will not be possible so long as it is dependent upon people like Mr. Soros.
There is a bitter schism between liberal hawks who admire the courage of Joseph Lieberman and Tony Blair and those of the hard left who seek to excommunicate liberal hawks from liberalism.
Is it possible for Democrats to challenge the power of Mr. Soros or will it be necessary for liberal hawks to form a new political party because the power of Mr. Soros within the Left has now become unassailable?
Wretchard:
It's possible to regard "good and evil" as a notation we need to make "sense" of the world and as a construct to perform mental operations. And we need not necessarily believe that it is "real", so long as things work out. But there is always the disturbing possibility that the quantities are "real". That would be a terrifying possibility, because then the world would not be the simple, sublunar place we see with our eyes, but something wonderfully and yet dauntingly more complicated.
////////////////////
Ephesians 6:11-13 (New International Version)
New International Version (NIV)
11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.
God, creator of all, omnipotent, were not his works perfect? How did sin enter? The first step to sin is temptation? Did God create sin? ‘Do not eat from the tree of life” is this a temptation? Telling an innocent child who has had no experience in pain, or disappointment nor been taught obedience? One has to wonder why she (they) can not have something when all was given to them as in “you shall have dominion over all” at the first moments on awareness? Where did evil come from? The early Hebrew writings say nothing of “Satan/Lucifer” Genesis from the Hebrew books speaks of voices whispering to Adam and Eve not one serpent. Is not the conscious the voice of your soul? Those with out conscious are with out soul?
Persons and groups who can't do simple arithmetic should not be allowed to think they can make their miscalculations and be allowed to propagate their error.
Wretchard said:
It's possible to regard "good and evil" as a notation we need to make "sense" of the world and as a construct to perform mental operations. And we need not necessarily believe that it is "real", so long as things work out. But there is always the disturbing possibility that the quantities are "real". That would be a terrifying possibility, because then the world would not be the simple, sublunar place we see with our eyes, but something wonderfully and yet dauntingly more complicated.
************
But the Scripture saith, "Woe to those who call good, evil, and who call evil, good."
And I think it almost necessarily follows, Woe to those who have been duped by the Left into agreeing to posit that Good and Evil might merely be constructs.
C'mon, Wretchard, you know the maxim: that those who don't believe God and His revealed truth, will believe anything.
I hope you aren't going wobbly on this issue. And I don't use the term "wobbly" as merely a construct.
Its a great episode. Political correctness, deconstruction and relativism has terrible corruptive power, but a pact with Gramsci is like a pact with old Nick - you gain temporal power, but He infects your soul. Having philosophically fiddled too long with the notions of reality, the reality based community itself has no idea what is real anymore.
It makes them deluded, dangerous, but ... dumb.
Re: "In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception."
I'm a bit late to this discussion, but I think it's still important to note that Marcotte's vulgar language did not, in fact, describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. What her language described was the conception of Jesus; the Immaculate Conception in church doctrine refers exclusively to the conception of Mary, Jesus' mother. She was born without sin so as to be a worthy vessel for bearing the Son of God. I've not seen this pointed out in any of the places where I've been reading about the matter, and it makes me think that there are quite a few people--even Catholics--who are actually ignorant of the truth of church doctrine.
Wretchard,
Remember that the gulags were filled with prisoners who believed that if they only had one more chance to talk to "Koba" (nickname for Stalin) that they would be freed; that this was all a terrible misunderstanding. Even as they were led out to the killing field they cried out for that last conversation with Koba!
Marcotte and McEwan have not been fired. They are back on with Edwards, according to an official Edwards statement. And they have apologized for what they wrote: they didn't mean to insult anyone's religion after all!
"...I wonder what would happen if Mr. Soros's control over the Democratic Party were directly challenged."
Who would want to spend the money?...for that?
uzi3case:
Who would want to spend the money?...for that?
Good question. The problem, as I see it, is that a considerable proportion of Democratic voters would vote for a yellow dog so long as the dog was called a Democrat. ("Yellow dog" Republicans also exist in many places.)
The greater the number of people who vote in lockstep, the greater the prize for anyone with the money and/or organization to wrest control of that "brand label".
If liberal hawks join the Republican Party en masse, the GOP would wind up with yet another faction within its ranks -- a faction that would legitimately be regarded as "Progressive Republican". The two other alternatives are to either found a new political party (and hopefully convince Senator Lieberman to join) or (against all odds) challenge the Leftists in the Democratic Party for control over the party.
Could you really imagine Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson as a Republican, except as a Republican whose progressive politics would drive most conservatives to distraction?
summignumi "Where did evil come from?"
Well, since you ask ...actually, the Bible is rather clear on the ultimate source of evil:
ISA 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. " KJV
I've pondered and studied many years on that verse (and finally came to peace with it).
God does not equivocate, you know. After all, how could the Creator of the All ...not have created all?
God is in charge. I'm a Calvinist. He chose to take the risk of giving us freedom. In that freedom is the possibility of evil. You can't separate them.
I learned this painful lesson as reflected in my first poem. It didn't start as a poem, it started as guilt, in terrible pain. I was guilty for the death of an innocent.
This poem is what resulted when I erased all the words that didn't fit, and learned about the danger of freedom.
The Death Of Alice
(killed by freedom)
Alice the final chapter
By Presbypoet © December 1996
The member of our household who expressed her love the most
DIED December 14, 1996, at 7:20 AM
Alice Died because :
I gave her FREEDOM,
FREEDOM to leave protected safety,
to die.
Twas FREEDOM killed her,
but FREEDOM let her live,
live a JOYFUL LIFE.
If I had protected her,
She might have lived longer, but less JOYFUL,
She would have lived, but not LIVED.
Alice had freedom to make her own choices,
She was never sick, was able to run in the yard,
lie on the grass, dig holes,
and race me to fallen peaches.
The danger of freedom she enjoyed,
let Her have freedom to show Her LOVE to me,
by coming FREELY to me.
You can’t PROTECT without restricting FREEDOM,
the trick lies in somehow anticipating real DANGER,
while allowing FREEDOM.
When the RAIN falls,
you must remember the JOY that came,
because you chose the DANGER.
It hurts Alice is gone,
Even tho, when I see GOD,
I will see Alice.
From my heart,
An Alice hole is missing,
missing from my heart.
I will always remember her softness,
when She ran to meet Me, to share Her LOVE,
and take a carrot.
In DEATH,
I remember LIFE,
To embrace LOVE & LIFE,
I must SEE…DEATH,
Imbedded IN LOVE & LIFE
The more we LOVE,
The more we HURT,
When She is GONE.
Rejoice in the HURT,
That shows us the LOVE,
When She is GONE.
When I think of PAIN,
I think of RAIN,
THAT FALLS ON US.
We don’t want the RAIN,
or the PAIN,
THAT FALLS ON US.
Do you follow GOD,
To stop the RAIN?
How will you cope,
when HE lets it RAIN.
GOD gives us FREEDOM.
FREEDOM to go,
but FREEDOM to come to LOVE,
FREEDOM to come to HIM.
We can choose LOVE,
only in our FREEDOM.
Without FREEDOM,
LOVE cannot exist.
I thank GOD,
for showing Me:
WHEN I SEE HIM,
I WILL SEE ALICE
and Her LOVE for me.
Help me GOD to SEE,
LOVE for me
Not fearing to LOVE, family, friends,
or GOD.
LORD, help me show LOVE
to others near me,
so they will not fear
to fall in love with me.
LORD, thank you for the message,
You sent through Alice,
of DEATH & LOVE & SORROW,
of PAIN & TRUST & YOU.
Written December 1996, from pain & loss,
By Presbypoet
What's all this talk about constructs?
God created the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.God told Adam to leave it alone. Adam rebelled and sinned. He was not deceived. He sinned.
Jesus died to pay the price for my evil sins and Adam's evil sins.
Save me Jesus. Don't let me go to judgement on my merits because I have none. Save me from the 2nd death. Don't let me perish in hell forever with Satan and his angels.
You must be born again in Christ.
Constructs?
It is given unto a man or woman once to die and then the judgement. In Christ we pass out of judgement into life. Do not go to judgement. Only the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ suffice to cover my sins. As a man HE paid the price for me. HE is my kinsman redeemer.
Thank YOU Jesus.
Boo hoo Amanda...
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
the world is Bush's fault
.
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