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1/31/2005
A CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
CATEGORY: General

As you may or may not already be aware, members of the Watcher’s Council hold a vote every week on what they consider to be the most link-worthy pieces of writing around… per the Watcher’s instructions, I am submitting one of my own posts for consideration in the upcoming nominations process.

Here is the most recent winning council post, here is the most recent winning non-council post, here is the list of results for the latest vote, and here is the initial posting of all the nominees that were voted on.

This week, the winning Council post comes to us via Wallo World where in a long, thoughtful post, the writer discusses the President’s innauguration pledge to spread liberty. Much to think about here.

The winning non-Council post is from Guardian Watchdog and deals with Zarqawi the Beheader and his feelings on democracy. Gee…I thought these islamofascists didn’t care about us because we were free; I thought it was because George Bush was such a meanie. At least that’s what all those empty headed internationalists are always telling us.

If you’d like to enter a post in this week’s Watcher’s vote, follow the instructions here.

By: Rick Moran at 3:41 pm | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

THEY CAME. THEY SAW. THEY VOTED
CATEGORY: General

A few days back I did a post on imagining what it would be like to be an Iraqi citizen at this time in their history. Here, courtesy of John Hawkins, is a roundup of observations from Iraqi’s themselves.

Zeyad from Healing Iraq:

“The turnout in Iraq was really like nothing that I had expected. I was glued in front of tv for most of the day. My mother was in tears watching the scenes from all over the country. Iraqis had voted for peace and for a better future, despite the surrounding madness. I sincerely hope this small step would be the start of much bolder ones, and that the minority which insists on enslaving the majority of Iraqis would soon realise that all that they have accomplished till now is in vain.

While that may sound like wishful thinking, the terrorist beheaders have clearly now placed themselves firmly on the wrong side of history here. And with the Coalition continuing to roll up al Zarqawi’s terrorist network, it may be just a matter of time before the jihadists are reduced to sporadic, ineffective, but still bloody suicide attacks with no chance of doing anything except making themselves more hated by the indigenous population.

This from Alaa The Mesopotamian:

“I bow in respect and awe to the men and women of our people who, armed only with faith and hope are going to the polls under the very real threats of being blown to pieces. These are the real braves; not the miserable creatures of hate who are attacking one of the noblest things that has ever happened to us. Have you ever seen anything like this? Iraq will be O.K. with so many brave people, it will certainly O.K.; I can say no more just now; I am just filled with pride and moved beyond words.

So are many of us, Alaa.

Some voters apparently derived immense satisfaction from casting the ballot, seeing it as payback to the murderous thugs who controlled Iraq for more than a quarter of a century:

‘’Now I feel that Saddam is really gone,’’ said Fatima Ibrahim, smiling as she headed home after voting in Irbil, in the Kurdish northern region. She was 14 and a bride of just three months when her husband, father and brother were rounded up in a campaign of ethnic cleansing under Saddam. None have ever been found. (From the AP)

Bagdhad’s mayor, who wants to erect a statue of George Bush in the city, had this to say:

...Baghdad’s mayor was overcome with emotion by the turnout of voters at City Hall, where he said thousands were celebrating.

“I cannot describe what I am seeing. It is incredible. This is a vote for the future, for the children, for the rule of law, for humanity, for love,” Alaa al-Tamimi told Reuters.”
(From Wired News)

At Iraq the Model we get an explanation for the name of their sometimes poignant, always informative blog:

I still recall the first group of comments that came to this blog 14 months ago when many of the readers asked “The Model?”...”Model for what?” Take a look today to meet the model of courage and human desire to achieve freedom; people walking across the fire to cast their votes.

Could any model match this one!? Could any bravery match the Iraqis’!? Let the remaining tyrants of the world learn the lesson from this day.”


Recently, I’ve seen a number of “experts” on TV pooh-poohing the idea that the “tyrants of the world” would see this election as anything that could threaten their own hold on power.

If this were so, how come the governments of Syria and Iran have done their damnedest to prevent yesterday’s vote from happening? Do they just enjoy meddling in the affairs of another country? Maybe they like the pictures from al Jezeera of suicide bombers blowing up innocent human beings.

Or maybe they’re scared witless at the prospect of having a functioning, multi-party democracy next door. After all, it just won’t do for their own people to get the silly notion into their heads that the same thing could happen there.

At least Democrats in this country agree with them.

Finally, from Ali at Free Iraq, we hear this:

I entered the school and the supervisors showed me the way to were I should vote. They and the ING guys were so polite and gentle. I cast my vote and got out, not in a rush at all. This is my Eid and I felt like a king walking in his own kingdom. I saw the same look of confidence and satisfaction in the eyes of all people I met. As I left one of the guards said to me as he handed me back my cellular phone,”God bless you and your beloved ones. We don’t know how to thank you. Please excuse any inconvenience on our part. We wish we didn’t have to search you or limit your freedom. You are heroes” I was struck with surprise and felt ashamed. This man was risking his life all these hours in what has become the utmost target for all terrorists in Iraq and yet he’s apologizing and calling us heroes. I thanked him back and told him that he and his comrades are the true heroes and that we can never be grateful enough for their services.

Ali’s story brings up something we didn’t hear much of yesterday; the outstanding performance of Iraqi soldiers, police, and national guardsmen. They stood at their posts the entire day knowing that they were targets.

I wonder if Ted Kennedy, Michael Moore, and the rest of the naysayers on Iraq could do the same?

By: Rick Moran at 5:36 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

1/30/2005
ELECTION REACT
CATEGORY: General

Here’s a roundup of a few reactions to the Iraqi elections:

The Captain has a breakdown of turnout numbers by region:

Nationwide: 72%
Baghdad: 80%
South: 92%
Najaf: 80%
Karbala: 90%

The Baghdad number jumps out immediately. The city has a large Sunni minority and a large number of followers of radical Cleric al Sadr who just a few months ago were killing our boys in Najaf. Chrenkoff has this statement from a Sunni cleric trying to spin the fact that apparently more Sunnis than expected turned out to vote:

” ‘The associationÂ’s call for a boycott of the election was not a fatwa (religious edict), but only a statement,’ said Association of Muslim Scholars spokesman Omar Ragheb. ‘It was never a question of something religiously prohibited or permitted. We never sought to force anyone to boycott’.”

Uh-Huh.

Arthur also breaks down the Sunnis into four main groups:

Talking of “the Sunnis” in the context of the vote is a big generalisation, of course. The Sunnis of Iraq are not a monolith, and arguably could be divided into four different groups, each with its own attitude towards the election: 1) moderate, anti-terror Sunnis who are actually voting; 2) Sunnis who want to vote but by virtue of their residence in terrorist strongholds are too intimidated to; 3) Sunnis who have done the math and couldn’t be bothered to vote because whatever happens, on January 31 they will not be in control of the country; and 4) Sunnis who ran, or directly or indirectly benefited under, Saddam’s regime and are therefore hostile to any changes that see them lose their previous status.

Pretty reasonable assumptions there. The concern, of course, is over international legitimacy. I believe that number comes in at anything over 40%. Anything less, and there are legitimate questions.

Powerline
writes of simple faith:

The process by which we succeed in Iraq (if we do) can be thought of as a series of events by which one party keeps faith with the others. First, we kept faith with the people of Iraq by remaining in force to rebuild the country after we toppled Saddam and carried out our search for WMD. Then, the Shiite majority kept faith by rejecting the radical elements when they rose up against the occupation. We then kept faith with the Shiites by scheduling elections and seeing them through as scheduled. And today, the Iraqi people kept faith by turning out and voting.

This is precisely why the reason for the triumph these elections represent will go over the head of the lefties. We’re speaking two different languages here. Words like “faith” have no meaning to people who only believe in what they can see and touch. Don’t get me wrong. I am not talking about God here. I’m talking about the ability to reach outside of yourself and latch on to something that transcends the physical senses. It’s one thing to “believe” in something or someone; as in I “believe” in George Bush (or John Kerry for that matter). It’s quite another thing to say “I have faith in George Bush.” Faith requires a leap beyond logic, beyond the self into the realm of the sublime.

I don’t think that came out exactly the way I intended. I hope I made the point.

Meanwhile, Iraqi bloggers are really upbeat, I mean, to them this must be Christmas, New Years, St. Patricks Day, and the Fourth of July all rolled into one. This from “Iraq the Model” courtesy of Charles Johnson:

We had all kinds of feelings in our minds while we were on our way to the ballot box except one feeling that never came to us, that was fear.

We could smell pride in the atmosphere this morning; everyone we saw was holding up his blue tipped finger with broad smiles on the faces while walking out of the center.

I couldnÂ’t think of a scene more beautiful than that


Finally, Bill and INDC rounds up some misleading wire service headlines:

Scanning a minority of the headlines of a google news search gives us a tedious glimpse of the political unconsciousness of Fifth Columnists:

Bloody dawn to Iraq democracy
Australian, Australia – 25 minutes ago

Iraq vote bloodied by attacks
Swissinfo, Switzerland – 2 hours ago

Iraq poll marred by violence
ABC Online, Australia – 4 hours ago

What’s the real story here? That two dozen people died in a country that’s a regular victim of terrorism? Or that perhaps 8,000,000 people stood up and demanded Democracy, shedding a half-century of brutal oppression and defying the threats of terrorists? What it would take to wring a positive headline out of those editors is beyond me.


I realize “If it bleeds, it leads” is gospel in the MSM but Jeez! Even the NY Times and WAPO had optimistic, almost giddy reports.

As I said in my first post early this morning, I’m going to withhold final judgment on how successful these elections were until some hard numbers come in, probably on Tuesday. But early reports are very encouraging. And if the Iraqi people can maintain this kind of enthusiasm, the transition to a democratic state may be realized despite the certainty that the insurgency will continue.

My guess would be that the insurgents will now concentrate all of their efforts in trying to start a civil war between the Shi’ias and Sunnis. Only by turning Iraq into another Lebanon can the Sunni’s have a chance to dominate the government again.

By: Rick Moran at 3:40 pm | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

NO NEWS IS…WELL, NO NEWS
CATEGORY: General

While mainstream media sites and righty bloggers are posting like mad on the vote in Iraq, lefty blogs and media sites have taken on the appearance of the three monkeys…see no election, hear no election, and speak no election.

Kos is posting about new media consolidation rules. He actually praises the Bush administration for trying to prevent the further consolidation of news outlets. No election stories on the front page.

The Skankette is living down to her reputation with this post on Condi Rice being related to a drag queen named “Vaginal Davis” who claims that the Secretary of State is sleeping with the President. She reports that Ms.?(Mr.) Davis has some inside information on the President’s “equipment.”

Atrios has an open thread where commenters (outside of some conservative trolls) seem more concerned with getting laid on Saturday night than the historic nature of the Iraqi elections.

While generally speaking, I’m all for getting laid one would think that on a political site like Eschaton they’d be talking more about the size of the Iraqi turnout than the size of some woman’s breasts.

Talking Points is blogging social security. Ole’ Josh can’t seem to bring himself to talk about elections that just a few months ago he was urging to be postponed indefinitely.

The moonbats at the Democratic Underground are ecstatic that Howard Dean was endorsed for DNC chair by FOB Harold Ickes. Mr. Ickes was notorious for being Bill Clinton’s hatchet man and chief political “fixer” in the White House. He was largely credited with turning the debate on Monica Lewinsky away from perjury into a case of infidelity.

All I can say to the DU moonbats is…be careful what you wish for.

Predictably, The Nation has done its level best to deligitimize the elections, even going so far as saying you can’t have an election while Iraq is occupied.

I guess this would mean that the post-war elections held in Germany and Japan were bogus, not to mention elections held in Kosovo back in the 90’s.

Come to think of it…elections in the American South in 1866 and 1868 were held while US troops were occupying the southern states.

I love it when the left tries to change history to suit its own agenda.

By: Rick Moran at 6:20 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

THIS IS SUCCESS?
CATEGORY: General

I desperately wanted the Iraqi elections to succeed. In my own mind, I thought that a turnout of 65-70% overall with more than 40% turnout amongst the Sunni’s would be a pretty good barometer of success.

Alas, it would appear that the overall turnout won’t hit 60%. And the Sunni’s? Fox news just reported from Mosul, a Sunni stronghold, that they had ballots at one polling place for an expected 3000 voters and had given out only 300. We won’t know for several hours what the estimated turnout was and probably not for a week what was the actual number of Iraqis who went to the polls.

Round one to al Zarqawi and his supporters in America specifically, Ted Kennedy, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry who all devoutly wished for the election process to fail.

This was the first round in a series of elections in Iraq. These elections determined who would sit in a temporary National Assembly. This assembly will have until October 15 of this year to draft a constitution at which time there will be another election in December to ratify that constitution. Then, early next year, there will be elections for a permanent National Assembly and a separate election for President.

One can only hope that the security situation will improve-especially in Sunni dominated areas-so that future elections can have better participation. For now, my guess is that the world will give the nod to this election being legitimate, but just barely.

We’ve got to do better next time.

UPDATE:

Initial reports may have underreported the turnout. Some cities in the southern part of the country have reported turnout as high as 90%. And while many of the righty bloggers have already proclaimed success, I’m going to withhold judgement until at least Tuesday when we get some firm numbers-especially from the Sunni districts.

By: Rick Moran at 5:46 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

1/29/2005
ANTI-AMERICANISM EXPLAINED
CATEGORY: General

“Chuck Lumley: As we sit here and idly chat, there are women, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men, and we are making money from that.”

Bill Blazejowski: “Is this a great country, or what?”

(Night Shift with Henry Winkler and Michael Keaton)

Yes, Billy Blaze, it IS a great country. Just ask Professor Ward Churchill:

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple. As to those in the World Trade Center . . .

Well, really. Let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire – the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved – and they did so both willingly and knowingly. Recourse to “ignorance” – a derivative, after all, of the word “ignore” – counts as less than an excuse among this relatively well-educated elite. To the extent that any of them were unaware of the costs and consequences to others of what they were involved in – and in many cases excelling at – it was because of their absolute refusal to see. More likely, it was because they were too busy braying, incessantly and self-importantly, into their cell phones, arranging power lunches and stock transactions, each of which translated, conveniently out of sight, mind and smelling distance, into the starved and rotting flesh of infants. If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it.

The men who flew the missions against the WTC and Pentagon were not “cowards.” That distinction properly belongs to the “firm-jawed lads” who delighted in flying stealth aircraft through the undefended airspace of Baghdad, dropping payload after payload of bombs on anyone unfortunate enough to be below – including tens of thousands of genuinely innocent civilians – while themselves incurring all the risk one might expect during a visit to the local video arcade. Still more, the word describes all those “fighting men and women” who sat at computer consoles aboard ships in the Persian Gulf, enjoying air-conditioned comfort while launching cruise missiles into neighborhoods filled with random human beings. Whatever else can be said of them, the men who struck on September 11 manifested the courage of their convictions, willingly expending their own lives in attaining their objectives.


There’s much, much more here and I’ve linked to the essay the good Professor wrote on September 12 entitled “Some People Push Back:” On the Justice of Roosting Chickens

Despite the fact that anyone with half a brain knows that what Churchill wrote is so full of BS that one could fertilize a country the size of… well, France, the essay reveals an anti-Americanism based on outrageous exaggeration, hyperbole, gross mis-information, and a willingness to indulge in fantasy for the purpose of self-aggrandizement; in short, Anti-Americanism as a kind of “Theater of the Absurd” where up is down, black is white, and politics are played out on the grand fantasy stage of the self-absorbed.

Wretchard posts a thoughtful piece analyzing this same phenomenon. He links to an article in “Policy Review” which posits the idea that “9/11 was the enactment of a fantasy—not an artistic fantasy, to be sure, but a fantasy nonetheless.”

In trying to explain this fantasy mindset, the author, Lee Harris, relates a conversation with a friend about a long ago demonstration against the Viet Nam war where protestors, blocking the highway, would be defeating the purpose of their demonstration because they’d lose the sympathy of the very people they were trying to influence:

My friend did not disagree with me as to the likely counterproductive effects of such a demonstration. Instead, he argued that this simply did not matter. His answer was that even if it was counterproductive, even if it turned people against war protesters, indeed even if it made them more likely to support the continuation of the war, he would still participate in the demonstration and he would do so for one simple reason—because it was, in his words, good for his soul. What I saw as a political act was not, for my friend, any such thing. It was not aimed at altering the minds of other people or persuading them to act differently. Its whole point was what it did for him.

And what it did for him was to provide him with a fantasy—a fantasy, namely, of taking part in the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors. By participating in a violent anti-war demonstration, he was in no sense aiming at coercing conformity with his view—for that would still have been a political objective. Instead, he took his part in order to confirm his ideological fantasy of marching on the right side of history, of feeling himself among the elect few who stood with the angels of historical inevitability.


It’s easy to see, with this kind of intellectual approach, how such outrageous things could be attributed to President Bush, conservatives in general, and the United States in particular. The spectacularly ridiculous notion that the Bush Administration is seeking to tear up the Constitution, or is seeking dictatorship, or is even responsible for the 9/11 attacks themselves, comes from this fantasy world created by the American left and emulated by their ideological cousins in Europe.

Lest one think this mindset, especially in Europe, is solely the result of President Bush’s policies, here’s what an American who lived in London until recently had to say about that:

When Bill Clinton was in the White House I attended a Human Rights Conference at my local synagogue in St JohnÂ’s Wood. During the tea break I asked a man at one of the booths for a leaflet. Instead of welcoming me and asking for a donation, he had detected my accent and duly launched into a loud and red-faced screeching session about the evils of the American Empire and of the ‘NazismÂ’ and ‘FascismÂ’ promulgated by the United States. A black man came over and began shouting about America having ‘invented slaveryÂ’ and soon a delicate elderly lady joined the fray to bellow about the Zionists running America (did she mean Robert Rubin, Dennis Ross, Sandy Berger—after all, it was the pre-Wolfowitz/Perle time zone) and the ‘genocidesÂ’ perpetrated by Americans since the days of William Penn.

More recently, this same gentlemen had experienced another such display of anti-Americanism on a bus where several passengers screamed epithets at an elderly American woman that left her in tears.

But why? How can otherwise reasonably intelligent people actually believe that the United States is bent on world domination, or “controlled by Jews,” or is to blame for all the evils that inhabit this troubled planet?

I believe it is this “fantasy,” born out of a combination of desires to be, as Harris says above, on “the side of the angels” and, at the same time, a self re-inforcing information loop where hyperbole and exaggeration feed upon themselves until belief is suspended, logic buried, and anything becomes possible in a fantasy world created specifically to raise the self to a privileged position above the mundane world inhabited by the rest of humanity.

The right, of course, is not immune from this kind of fantasy. Fundamentalist Christians have similar delusions about their status as it relates to their moral superiority. There’s a monumental difference however, between the fantasy lived by leftist anti-Americans and conservative Christians: Fundamentalists are ridiculed, scapegoated, and generally derided by the mainstream press while leftists are given uncritical access to the huge megaphone that spouts their “theories” and conclusions about America in 10,000 different news outlets. The resulting avalanche of “news” that Bush is evil, or that America is killing 500,000 Iraqi children, or that Abu Ghraib was the norm not the exception, blasting incessantly day after day, results in an acceptance that well,...if it’s on the news it must be true.

Part of the problem is that the line between reporting the news and offering opinions have been blurred to the point that in a 24 hour news cycle that most of us in the west are exposed to, oft repeated opinions become, in the minds of many, the truth. And in this self reinforcing echo chamber, it’s easy to see how people can leap to the most unreasonable and illogical conclusions about America and about the President. And this cascading effect leads ultimately to fear and loathing; which was the purpose of the purveyors of these exaggerations in the first place.

Professor Churchill and his ilk are stuck in the past…a past they see as glorious. A past, as Powerline’s Paul Mirengoff notes:

“... is defined by 1930 era views on social security, 60s views on the state of race relations and the use of military force, and 70s views on feminism. Cosmetically at least, this state of affairs constitutes a reversal of roles from 1996 when the Democrats claimed they couldn’t “stop thinking about tomorrow,” while Bob Dole promised to be “a bridge to the past.”

Is this the result of the left being out of power and, because of the War on Terror, being marginalized by American voters because they can’t be trusted to fight it?

Perhaps. The normal grips and handholds that make up the mud wrestling of politics in a democracy aren’t relevant anymore to the left. The don’t seek to win, they seek the destruction of their opponents. It’s a tactic that smacks of desperation. By broadly smearing their opponents as “Nazis” they seek to inflate their own egos by, once again, being on the “side of the angels.”

There will always be people like Professor Churchill, whose diatribes against the US have, instead of landing him in jail or a concentration camp, made him a celebrated figure in leftist circles.. This, of course, gives the lie to the left’s constant caterwauling about how the US is turning into some kind of totalitarian dictatorship. The more outrageous your criticisms of America, the more popular you become to a segment of the left that glories in their hatred of this country.

One can only come to the conclusion that these people must be stopped. If not, the future of freedom and rational discourse in the US will be threatened. We simply can’t allow people with no grounding in the real world to control the levers of power.

That way leads to madness.

By: Rick Moran at 5:48 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (1)

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1/28/2005
APOLOGY
CATEGORY: General

I’d like to apologize to all my readers for not posting yesterday.

It was only the second time since I began this blog September that I didn’t post while being in town. As an excuse, Significant Otherhawk took me out to dinner and the Riverboat for my birthday which was Tuesday. She didn’t get back in town until late Tuesday so that’s why we put it off until Wednesday.

Needless to say, getting home at five in the morning at my age meant that the whole next day was shot to hell.

Getting old sucks. If you can avoid it, do so at all costs.

By: Rick Moran at 8:19 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (2)

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IMPORTANT NOTICE
CATEGORY: General

Recently, I’ve received several emails pointing out that this site is way too one sided in its coverage of politics. I must confess that these charges caught me a little off guard. After all, the name of this site IS Right Wingnuthouse.

No matter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that readers should have the benefit of some penetrating analysis from the other side of the political spectrum. With that in mind, I’ve asked my neighbor Marvin Moonbat to sit in once a week and do a post on life from the perspective of a left winger. Now, Marvin makes it a point to ignore me when he sees me around town (I think he believes he’ll catch something if he gets too close to me) so I had to resort to the ancient yet honorable technology of “letter writing” to make the offer.

NOTE: For the benefit of those of you too young to understand, a “letter” involves taking a piece of paper writing your message on it, putting the paper in something we call an envelope, using your tongue to “seal” the envelope by licking the glue found on the flap so that no one else can read it, and then putting the letter in a mailbox, which if you’re observant, are those metal containers found on many street corners. The letter is then picked up by someone who works for a failing, quasi-government agency called the “United States Postal Service” where after being sorted, separated, and organized, it’s delivered by someone known as a “Letter Carrier.” (We used to call them the “Mailman” until they realized that women could perform outdated, outmoded, useless jobs at the same level as men.) I know it sounds crazy but, trust me, it works.

Here, reproduced in its entirety, is my letter to Marvin:

Dear Marvin,

My name is Superhawk and I live across the street from you. In case you’re wondering who I am, I’m the guy whose car used to have that bumper sticker “Bush in’04” until you so kindly removed it. I didn’t mind losing the bumper sticker but did you have to take the ENTIRE BUMPER?

I’d also like to apologize for standing in front of your house on the day after the election and laughing for 6 hours. That was cruel, juvenile, and uncalled for. Two hours would have been plenty.

Anyway, I’m writing to see if you’d be interested in writing a weekly column on my blog Right Wingnuthouse. The idea would be to give the perspective of someone from the other side of the political spectrum. Please keep your postings short (less than 1000 words) because, while I’m interested in being fair, I wouldn’t want to go overboard or anything.

Reply soonest this addy; (email address withheld for security reasons).

Sincerely,

Superhawk


Marvin emailed me that he’d be glad to do it. Here then is Marvin Moonbat’s first post.

WHAT IS THE REALITY BASED COMMUNITY? (By Marvin Moonbat)

Hi! My name is Marvin. I’m 25 years old and an undergraduate student at University of Illinois-Chicago. I realize that some of you wingnuts will think it strange that I’ve been in college for 6 years and not graduated yet. Typical nazi bullsh*t! It’s not that I’m stupid or anything. I just haven’t found myself yet.

My first major was in Philosophy. Whew! Am I glad I dropped that! All that reading and thinking and thinking and reading gave me a headache. Then, I switched over to comparative Cultural Analysis. This was fine until my girlfriend Chloe made it clear that the only way she’d continue to sleep with me is if I agreed to go with her after we graduated to the Amazonian rain forest and live with the Cofan tribe and protect the environment from being raped by corporate conglomerates bent on world domination.

That was fine until the summer of my third year, we took a trip to visit the Cofans sponsored by “People Against the Rape of the Rain Forest By Corporate Conglomerates Bent On World Domination” at which point I realized this wasn’t the life for me. No indoor plumbing, no internet, no TV, and sleeping outside in a tent under 60,000 yards of mosquito netting was a real pain, dude. I mean, you ever try to have sex when there are a gazillion bugs trying to eat their way through your mosquito netting? It kind of distracts from the experience, if you know what I mean.

Boy! Talk about 3 years blown to hell! After that, I got into the Eastern Studies program. This was great! I “went native” for a while eating Pakistani food and wearing a Kurta. I even toyed with the idea of converting to Hinduism until I realized that the path to achieving Nirvana was frankly, just too damn hard. I mean, all that meditation and doing good works just seemed a little too much. Needless to say, that experience pretty much soured me on all religions. Another two years shot to hell.

Now I’m studying Comparative Lit. It’s pretty easy. All you have to do is read books and damn western civilization. If all goes well, I’ll graduate this year…with honors of course.

I thought for my first post, I’d try and define what the Reality Based Community is so that all of your Shrub lovers out there can know what you’re missing:

1. The Reality Based Community (RBC) stands for a rational approach to politics. That’s why we’re so adamant proving that this last election was stolen by the Republicans (hereafter referred to as Nazis). Any fool can see that Bushitler and Karl Rove stole the election by rigging the vote in Ohio. And why can’t you wingnuts see that the Chimp’s best friend, Diebold Corporation, who made the electronic voting machines, hacked into the machines and changed the votes of people who voted for Kerry? See? This is why we’re reality based.

2. We in the RBC support the Constitution completely…except for the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments. We also support a broad interpretation of the Constitution. After all, the damn thing’s over two hundred years old. What did the dead white European males who wrote the screed know about the oppression of the masses? What did they know about using the power of government to take care of everyone? What did they know about evil businessmen who rape the environment and are bent on world domination? Nothing! That’s why we in the RBC oppose any attempt to interpret the Constitution in any way that would limit the power of government to do good.

3. Finally, the RBC is for peace. That’s why we oppose the Smirking Chimp’s war of imperial conquest in Iraq. I mean, sure we got rid of Saddam but how bad REALLY was he? I saw that Michael Moore documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11” and it didn’t look too god awful a place to live what with kids flying kites and Saddam so popular and all. Besides, everyone knows we went into Iraq for the oil. We need oil and Saddam had it. It’s as simple as that. Which is why I can’t understand the price of oil right now. If we have all this Iraqi oil, why is it so expensive? My guess is that the oil companies told Bush that they needed to keep the price up so that the executives could make enough money to buy their wives real nice Christmas presents. Makes sense to me.

Well, that’s part of what we believe. In the coming weeks I’ll be writing about other things that we in the RBC believe. If you want to drop me an email, send it to elvenstar522 at AOL dot com. Maybe I’ll publish it next time.

MARVIN MOONBAT WRITES A REGULAR COLUMN FOR THE HOUSE EVERY FRIDAY.

By: Rick Moran at 7:58 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (3)

1/26/2005
JUST IMAGINE
CATEGORY: General

Just imagine what it would be like to live in Iraq at this critical moment in their long and fascinating history.

From before mankind organized itself into nation states, Iraq has been a cradle of civilization. And now, the people of this long-suffering, war torn land are about to participate in their first free elections.

It’s not coming easy.

As US officials have been predicting since June, the closer we get to these elections, the level of violence escalates to an almost unbearable level. The terrorists, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, are upping the ante everyday; not by attacking Americans but by killing Iraqi citizens who dare express a desire to participate in these elections.

Just imagine.

That’s what I’ve been trying to do these last few days; imagine what it would be like to be an Iraqi citizen at this time in their history.

I’m not very brave…at least I don’t think I am. That probably makes me no different from you or your typical Iraqi citizen for that matter. So I ask you…what would you do?

Knowing that there are literally thousands of terrorists out there gunning for you as you stand in line to vote on Sunday, would you be brave enough to risk serious injury or even death to exercise your right to vote?

This isn’t the first time I’ve tried to imagine something like this. I remember back in the 1980’s when there was horrible violence in El Salvador and Nicaragua, I tried to imagine what it would be like to live in those countries and patiently stand in line waiting…waiting…hoping that the men with guns would pass this polling place by; hoping that the troops and observers could somehow protect me from people who only wished for more death, more chaos, more destruction.

And I remember being absolutely amazed that more than 75% of the eligible voters in BOTH of those countries turned out to vote despite the threats to their lives and the lives of their families. The result? Today El Salvador and Nicaragua are functioning multi party democracies; an extraordinary achievement considering the level of murder and mayhem that existed at the time.

So what is it about voting that could instill such courage even enthusiasm in the hearts and minds of people who don’t know when they go to cast their ballot whether or not they’re going to come home alive?

Perhaps its the overwhelming almost atavistic desire to take control of one’s own life and destiny. Perhaps its a belief in something greater than oneself; country, family, God, or community. Maybe it’s something as simple as wanting to thumb one’s nose at one’s oppressors.

One thing’s for sure; whatever reason Iraqi’s go to the polls on Sunday-and from all reports the turnout is going to be incredible-their motivations are going to be a lot different than the 60% of us who voted in the last election. After all, we don’t have to worry about getting shot or blown up when exercising our fundamental right as citizens. Voting in America is something we do because we feel like we have to, or because that was the way we were brought up, or more rarely, because we believe in a candidate or a cause that moves us to the polls as a thirsty man to water.

Iraqi’s on the other hand seem imbued with a desire to bring order out of the chaos, to change their daily lives so that they can walk out of their door and not be afraid, to have a say in who governs them.

But most of all, like all people everywhere, they want peace.

Only then will they be able to raise their families, plan for the future, dream of a better life for their children, live, love, and be free to realize the potential for happiness that should be every human beings birthright.

They’re going to vote on Sunday. They’re going to vote because they can imagine that future.

Can you?


UPDATE:

Welcome to all “American Thinker” readers! This essay is cross posted at a brand new conservative group blog called “The Wide Awakes.” Stop on by and sample some great posts by some excellent writers.


By: Rick Moran at 11:53 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)

SENATOR KLEAGLE
CATEGORY: General

Why is the irony of a United States Senator, a Democrat, a former (as far as we know) KKK official opposing the nomination of the first African-American female Secretary of State lost on the moonbats?

I mean, it’s so outrageous, so incongruous, so…so…perfect! The only Senator in history to vote against BOTH black Supreme Court nominations as well as the 1964 Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts is now leading the charge against that black devil-woman Condi Rice. It’s made to order for some hilarious spoofs on the former KKK Kleagle.

The situation begs the question…what if Byrd were a Republican? Here’s an imagined exchange between Senator Byrd (R-WV) and the press:

Reporter: Senator, in your capacity as Kleagle for the Klu Klux Klan, did you ever lynch a black man?

Byrd: Depends what y’all mean by lynchin‘. Now, there was a few tahms that the boyz and ah got all likkered up ‘n raised some hell with them nig…the nig…um, ya know, the darkies and a coupla tahms we jes’ maght ‘ave, um…ya know accidently, sorta got a rope twisted upside the head of a nig…a nig.. some pore ole boy who got all tangled up with a tree an we sorta fergot to, um, ya know, uhhh take ‘em down after we was jes funnin with ‘em, ya know…


How about this spoof from the Unpopulist (via Ace):

Top Seven Phrases From Sen. Byrd’s Condoleeza Speechin’

“...the melon patch of unilateral action…”
“...the chicken wings of imperial hubris…”
“...uppity…”
“...mongrel…”
“...Deon Sanders…”
“...lots of black friends…”


More seriously, here’s a quiz for you:

Which U.S. Senator is a former member of the Ku Klux Klan?

Which U.S. Senator wasn’t just a member of the KKK but was a “Kleagle”—an official recruiter who signed up members for $10 a head?

Which U.S. Senator said he joined because it “offered excitement” and because the Klan was an “effective force” in “promoting traditional American values.”

Which U.S. Senator wrote the following, three years after he claims to have ended his ties with the KKK: “The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia” and “in every state in the Union.”

Which U.S. Senator also wrote that he would never fight “with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”


All of which brings to mind a song from the early 1970’s recorded by John Denver when he was with The Mitchell Trio. It’s called “We’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood Klu Klux Klan:”

Is there a Klavern in your town?
If not, then why not start one now.

Why you’d never recognize us
There’s a smile upon our face
We’re changin’ all our dirty sheets
and cleaning up the place.
Yep since we got that lawyer
And that public relations man
We’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood Klu Klux Klan

Yes we’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood, Klu Klux Klan
Ever since we got that lawyer and that public relations man
‘Course we did shoot one reporter
But he was just obscene
‘Cause ya can’t call us no filthy names
What does “Anglo-Saxon” mean?

Now we’re out to show the Congress
That we’re oh so nice and neat
Why we didn’t even take the fifth
‘Cause we drank that all last week
And ya never hear of shootin’s
Or hangin’ people high
“Cause we’re learnin’ to respect the law
And to have an alibi

Oh we’re your friendly, liberal, neighborhood Klu Klux Klan
Ever since we got that lawyer and that public relations man
So we’re sorry that we hung them
But they did have quite a tan
And it sure confused your friendly liberal, misunderstood
Your friendly neighborhood Klan that says
“What’s wrong with the hood?”
Your friendly, liberal neighborhood Klu Klux Klan.


UPDATE 1/28:

Jay Tea at Wizbang puts everything in perspective succinctly and with aplomb. He congratulates the Bush Administration on their forebearance:

Not once did they mention the irony of the first black woman to be nominated to such a high office being opposed by two white men—one a former Ku Klux Klan leader, the other a man who left a woman to drown in his car in a desperate attempt to avoid responsibility and save his political career.

But that’s right. The Democrats are the party that supports women and minorities. Unless, of course, they’re uppity enough to be conservative
.

Kennedy’s foray was almost as funny as his criticism of “waterboarding” during the Gonzalez hearings. Why is it that this kind of irony is lost on the liberal mind? Because in order to understand irony, you must have empathy for your fellow man. Liberals don’t feel empathy. They have nothing but contempt for the people they brag about “protecting.” What they have is a smug, self-righteous, santimonious superiority that translates into a moral certitude about the “goodness” of their positions.

It’s not empathy. It’s bald faced hubris.





By: Rick Moran at 6:39 am | Permalink | Comments & Trackbacks (0)