Finally, some cheerful news — President Obama is going to be one of Stephen Colbert’s final guests on The Colbert Report. This is going to be an interview for the ages!
Edit: Colbert says he’s honoured to be sitting down with the man who sat down with Bill O’Reilly. Hahahahahahaha!
6.
Belafon
I was trying to find a link to the image, though the vm they run IE in is a pain, so i googled the text. I ran across a different image that said “Dear Santa: This year I’d like Lego’s. Dad wants electronics. And Mom wants something called Channing Tatum.”
7.
Larime
Hey, John.
I’m the disabled artist who drew some art of the animals for you a while back. My wife is currently in the hospital after having major cancer-related surgery. Can I beg for a bleg? Info here: http://www.gofundme.com/sylvsfund
8.
Bob In Portland
I wrote in the last open thread that it can’t happen here because if it had someone at Balloon Juice would have gotten snarky about it. And no one did, so I guess it never happened. I didn’t see it in the NY Times. So I guess it never happened. Move along, good citizens.
@Bob In Portland: Huh, and here I thought that today you’d be commenting on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders. I guess that didn’t happen either.
16.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: The rule of thumb I like: if you’re going to write “judgmental” then write “colour.”
17.
shelley
Ugh, looks like another few days of cold, gray and wet. Hey,Weather Gods, don’t we have enough to be depressed about?
@shelley: It dipped below zero last night. Of course this meant the dog wanted to go out at 6:30 this morning and not do her business. I’m still trying to warm up.
@Gin & Tonic: I always get mixed up between gray and grey. I prefer grey.
21.
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: Went looking for judgmental vs judgemental and found this:
The spelling judgment is found in the Authorized Version of the Bible. However, the spelling judgement (with e added) largely replaced judgment in the United Kingdom in a non-legal context. In the context of the law, however, judgment is preferred. In the U.S. judgment strongly prevails. As with many such spelling differences, both forms are equally acceptable in Canada and Australia, although judgment is more common in Canada and judgement in Australia.[1] In New Zealand the form judgment is the preferred spelling in dictionaries, newspapers and legislation, although the variant judgement can also be found in all three categories. In South Africa, judgement is the more common form. See further at American and British English spelling differences.
22.
Mike J
@shelley: imgur most popular newest first or reddit /r/funny is almost certainly where he got it. I just saw it on imgur 10 minutes ago. No attribution there, so very difficult to add.
@Gin & Tonic: You must feel proud now that the US, Canada and Ukraine have come out publicly celebrating Nazis. In front of the UN too. Funny, though, that you don’t actually comment on the contents of the resolution. You’re not ashamed of being publicly pro-Nazi, are you? A little different than saying there are no Nazis in Ukraine. What’s your official position? That there are no Nazis in Ukraine but if you want to celebrate Nazis you’re ready to wave a flag in celebration?
You’re like a safety patrol guard back in grade school. Your purpose here is to keep the kids walking within the crosswalks. Oops, red light, so we won’t talk about this.
NATO didn’t and won’t get Crimea. So sad. Exxon won’t own Baku. By the end of the winter people will be freezing in their homes across Ukraine, but at least they can celebrate Bandera on New Years.
@Another Holocene Human:
But “judgment” should be preferred because it’s (slightly) shorter. (At least, that was the house style at my old newspaper.)
33.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, because when I want moral guidance about racism, genocide et al I go to the Jerusalem Post.
It’s been pretty obvious that since Israel got their membership in the Safari Club their standards have fallen. The beauty about fascism is that anyone can become one.
34.
NotMax
Grade D.
C- due to “dear and “santa” not being capitalized, omission of the comma at the end of the greeting, for that first “e” in “judgemental” and for use of a sentence fragment.
Drops to a D because of the fraud of standing there holding a pencil, intimating it was handwritten when it was obviously typed.
35.
Another Holocene Human
Last nights multi city protests were organized by the internet. Just saw the moaning about RW print media. The young people protesting don’t read that shit. A good thing.
I love how they have deliberately taken over streets. This is done as a message to the cops directly and as a way to demand attention.
Not only did Garner’s murder happen on the street, but the cops are the tyros of the street. They determine what vehicles may or may not be in the street, when persons may enter the street, who gets stopped and who gets permitted to go.
It’s been said that Americans don’t do street protest. It looks like a lot of young Americans have come into cities and are very much doing street protest.
It was really cool to see the masses out there after so many tiny, a few dozens of neighborhood people out there daytime street protests against police brutality in New York. This is what democracy looks like.
36.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: The one thing I hate about language is the inconsistencies. I don’t write “basment” just because I stuck ment at the end of base.
37.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: It’s been preferred and you might be onto something in terms of origins in the days of print setting, but it’s illogical and ugly looking and I am seeing that “e” more and more in our digital, www age.
It’s unfair to compare to colour because that “u” is superfluous unless you* are really invested as a Canadian in never writing like a Murican.
*that’s a generic/hypothetic you
38.
Mister Papercut
Stopped in the wee hours today to check on a dog I saw lying/sitting by the side of the road. Little shit pulled a Rosie on me and juked me out of my shoes and jumped into my car.
Looks like a large-ish chihuahua or mix, no tags, no chip, not neutered, very clean, smells like he may have been flea dipped or had a topical applied recently, and nails appear to have been trimmed/maintained by someone who knows what they’re doing. Oh, and there’s the matter of the large mass camping out on the side of his neck. *sigh*
So, dog experts, does it sound like I have a dumpee on my hands: Y/Y? Should I even bother trying to find the owner, beyond the Craigslist posts I made this morning?
39.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: It is always nice to hear from the East German judge.
BERLIN/NEW YORK (Own report) – The Federal Republic of Germany has refused to vote in favor of a United Nations resolution condemning the glorification of National Socialism and Nazi collaboration. Last week, the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly passed a resolution strongly criticizing the edification of memorials to Nazi functionaries and the stylization of Nazi collaborators as “freedom fighters.” Germany and the other EU nations abstained, the USA, Canada, and Ukraine voted against the document, with 115 nations voting in favor. Berlin and Brussels use the excuse of not wanting to support a resolution initiated by Russia. In fact, a vote in favor of the document would have caused hefty disputes within the EU, and between the EU and important allies. With growing frequency, notorious Nazi collaborators are being publicly honored in such EU countries as Hungary or the Baltic countries and in Ukraine, in some cases by officials of the respective governments.
Deep Concern
The UN resolution expresses its “deep concern about the glorification, in any form, of the Nazi movement, neo-Nazism, and former members of the Waffen SS organization.” As examples the document names erecting monuments and memorials and holding public demonstrations in the name of the glorification of the Nazi past but also by “attempting to declare such members and those who fought against the anti-Hitler coalition and collaborated with the Nazi movement participants in national liberation movements.” The resolution explicitly “emphasizes that any commemorative celebration of the Nazi regime, its allies and related organizations, whether official or unofficial” should be prohibited by UN member states. The resolution especially expresses its condemnation “of any denial or attempt to deny the Holocaust.”[1]
Nazi Glorification not rejected
Last Friday, when the Third Committee of the UN General Assembly put the resolution to a vote, the German Ambassador to the UN found himself unable to cast his vote in favor. All other EU nations also abstained, along with countries, dependent, in one way or the other, on the EU, such as Andorra, Bosnia-Herzegovina or Mali. Ukraine, the United States, and Canada voted pointblank against the resolution. The latter two countries are sheltering rather influential Ukrainian exile communities, characterized by former Nazi collaborators of the “Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists” (OUN). The reason generally given last Friday was that they did not want to support a resolution initiated by Russia. The Soviet Union – of which Russia had been its core – was the country accounting for the most casualties from Nazi terror – 27 million. However, had Germany and the other EU nations voted in favor of the resolution, it would have necessarily caused hefty disputes. Today, collaborators, who had joined the Nazis in the war against Moscow, are commemorated in several European countries.
In the Struggle against Russia
This is particularly true of Ukraine, where, since early 2012, German organizations have been working – and intensively so, since 2013 – to incorporate the Svoboda Party and its affiliated forces into an anti-Russian alliance of organizations. (german-foreign-policy.com reported.[2]) Svoboda honors the OUN and particularly its commander Stepan Bandera, who is very popular throughout West Ukraine. In 1941, Bandera’s militias actively supported Nazi Germany in its attack on the Soviet Union. Svoboda also honors the “Ukrainian Partisan Army” (UPA), which, in the wake of the German war of extermination, had participated in mass murders of European Jews.[3] In the course of the Maidan protests, both this party and other fascist organizations, receiving vigorous support from Germany, were playing a growing role. Consequently, since the end of February, Svoboda has had several ministers in the Ukrainian putsch regime. Today, fascist battalions are among the most resolute combatants in East Ukraine’s civil war. Some of their commanders have been elected to parliament in the Verchovna Rada on electoral tickets of the parties forming the future government. At the beginning of the month, an activist of the fascist “Right Sector” and deputy commander of the fascist “Asov Battalion,” had been named police chief of the District of Kiev. In their struggle against Russia, Ukraine is uninhibitedly developing the traditions of its anti-Soviet Nazi collaboration – at the side of Germany.
Freedom Fighters
Nazi collaborators are also being honored in EU member countries, for example, in the Baltic nations. Regular commemoration honor parades for the Waffen SS, sponsored by their national Waffen SS veterans are organized in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In Latvia, one of the most recent marches was held last spring, with approx. 2,000 participants – which, in proportion to the size of the population, would correspond to a demonstration of 80,000 in Germany. Observers point out that in Riga’s state-run Latvian “Occupation Museum” the Latvian Waffen SS militias are referred to as “freedom fighters” in the struggle against Moscow. Organizers of the Waffen SS memorial march are invited to schools to teach courses in “patriotism.”[4] The “All for Latvia” national alliance party, which has consistently been in the government since 2011, supports these memorial parades. The party recurringly raises the issue of the deportation (“repatriation”) of the country’s Russian-speaking minority. One of the party’s leaders had once declared that the Russian minority – nearly one quarter of the population – are “occupiers” or “illegal colonialists.” A critical appraisal of Nazi collaboration is not welcome in this country. As the historian Maris Ruks notes, Latvian scholars risk “setbacks in their careers, if they engage in too detailed research into the Holocaust.”[5] In the current confrontation with Russia, the Baltic countries are among the EU’s most aggressive forces.
Hitler’s Partner is being rehabilitated
Also in Hungary fascist traditions are becoming more prevalent. Showcase examples are the new memorials to the “Reich’s Deputy” and Nazi collaborator Miklós Horthy, which have been inaugurated since 2012. After changing the name “Freedom Square” to “Horthy Square,” in April 2012, in Gyömrö, near Budapest, a Horthy statue was erected in the village of Kereki in southern Hungary.[6] A Horthy commemorative plaque was installed on its premises of the Calvinist College in Debrecen in May 2012. Other memorials have followed. For example, in June 2013 in the East Hungarian village of Hencida [7] and in November of the same year right in Budapest. “Hitler’s Hungarian partner is being rehabilitated,” wrote German press organs back in 2012, attentively noting that, at Hitler’s side, Horthy had led Hungary “into war against the Soviet Union.”[8] However, currently, Hungary is not one of those countries taking a particularly aggressive stand toward Russia. The rehabilitation of Nazi collaborators extends far beyond Horthy. Since the 1990s, there have been many commemorative plaques dedicated to the ethnic, anti-Semitic writer, Albert Wass, who had been a loyal follower of Horthy and the Nazi Reich. His writings have been as accepted into the country’s curriculums as those of Jozsef Nyiro, who still in 1944 was active in the Nazi Arrow Cross Party.[9] Hungary’s “Jobbik” Party – which polled 20.5 percent in the April 6, 2014 elections, its greatest success ever – stands in the tradition of the Arrow Cross Party.
“Counter Insurgency”
This is hardly an exhaustive list of EU countries publicly honoring Nazi collaborators. In Croatia, for example, monuments to Nazi opponents were destroyed, while, streets were being named after Mile Budak, the fascist Ustasha’s leading propagandist and, for awhile, Croatia’s Foreign Minister during the period of Nazi collaboration. In Italy’s Affile, to the east of Rome, a mausoleum to the fascist war criminal, Rodolfo Graziani was inaugurated in 2012. Graziani, who had initially been engaged in “counter insurgency” in Libya, ordered hostages shot and used poisoned gas in Ethiopia. Toward the end of the war, he was having Italians executed for refusing to collaborate with the Nazi puppet regime in Salò. Had Germany and the other EU countries not refused to vote in favor of last Friday’s UN resolution, they would – had they taken the document seriously – be facing serious conflicts with one another and with their close allies, e.g. their partners in Ukraine.
41.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Larime: Best of luck to both of you. I kicked in a little. I hope it helps.
Cheers,
Scott.
42.
opiejeanne
@JPL: Today I ordered some candy to be sent to family members, and where it gave me the option of a message I checked Happy Holidays on the one being sent to a cousin married to the worst kind of wingnut. I don’t think she will care, but I’m hoping to explode his tiny brain.
43.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Bob, just so you know, I am fully aware that the DDR no longer exists. I was living in Germany in October of 1990 when the two countries unified. Beyond that, however, your monomania has caused you to completely miss what I was saying. It was a reference to the perceived tendency of Soviet and East German Olympic judges giving extremely low scores. Go back and read it again along with the comment I was replying to. It may not have been a great joke, but a joke it was – not a political commentary.
44.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: It made me chuckle, but then I’m not Bob.
45.
kindness
@schrodinger’s cat: Tunch might have been fat but he wasn’t a judgemental bastard. Well, he might have been but it’s John’s call to say that, not ours.
Good cartoon. Breaks the monotony of the intertubes lately.
46.
Harish
Hey J Cole remember the time you accused people suspicious of that Rolling Stone article on the UVA rapes story enablers of campus rape? Yeah turns out the article was making stuff up.
But hey, what’s a few ruined frat boys’ lives, right? I’m sure you’re equally likely to call your own frat boys rapists.
47.
CONGRATULATIONS!
So, dog experts, does it sound like I have a dumpee on my hands: Y/Y? Should I even bother trying to find the owner, beyond the Craigslist posts I made this morning?
I cannot think of anything more awful to do to a dog than dump it. They’re pack animals, for God’s sake. Dogs exiled from their packs die.
The owners are invariably the kind of gutless horrors that don’t have the stones to put the animal down themselves, so they just chuck the poor critter out the car door and drive on in the warm glow of their own beautiful minds, convinced that someone, somewhere, will do the right thing and somehow everyone will be happier. I wish, on the thankfully rare occasions I’ve had to deal with something like this, that I could believe that Hell exists.
48.
Omnes Omnibus
@Harish: Why don’t you check out the thread below this one…
@kindness: I loved that floofy white and orange kitteh, and I was kidding. No offense meant to the patron kitteh of Balloon Juice. I know that Tunch was not really judgmental but he had the superior disdainful look that many kittehs have, including my own Boss kitteh.
50.
Yatsuno
@Bob In Portland: Protip: posting either a huge chunk or the entirety of an artice = not cool.
@Belafon:
The problem really lies with English itself. French, say, has l’Académie française and an international body of Francophone countries. Malay, spoken throughout South-east Asia, benefits from continuing consultation between Malaysia and Indonesia. English is the most widely spoken language of our times; but precisely because of its global spread, it isn’t organised to keep itself consistent around the world. It would be nice if Britain and the US, the two most significant Anglophone countries, could get together and start a world body for International English; but could you get a planetful of English speakers to accept its authority?
53.
JPL
@opiejeanne: There’s an email going around that includes a song, stating that you should walk out of stores that don’t say Merry Christmas. If one feels that strongly, why are they commercializing X-mas by shopping.
It was a fine joke. I am jealous that you were there in 1990. I was in Berlin two summers ago (had previously been in ’82 and ’85) and it was a thrill to walk through the Brandenburger Tor and to have a snack at Checkpoint Curry.
but could you get a planetful of English speakers to accept its authority?
No, not a chance.
56.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: ’89-90 was a really interesting time to be living over there.
57.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: You’re correct. But it would have been nice if someone had said, “Hey, where’d the e go? You can’t release that.” Or at sometime, someone could have decided to make it consistent.
I admit I’d rather be internally consistent than historically consistent.
@Mister Papercut: @CONGRATULATIONS!: What CONGRATULATIONS said. It’s possible that the dumpers didn’t actually take the dog to the vet and it may be a benign tumor, but that’s kind of remote. If there’s a local rescue you could try calling to see if, given the circumstances, they could make room for the little guy. Especially if you aren’t in a position to take on a dog with potentially large medical costs.
But if you decide to take it on, let us know, because we maybe could do a fundraiser or something. What state are you in?
Edited to add: be careful of Craigs list, too many dogfighters troll the listings looking for bait dogs.
59.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Whoops. Wrong thread.
Cheers,
Scott.
60.
Iowa Old Lady
Question. I’m thinking of getting Mr IOL one of those wearable fitness monitors for Christmas. Would you regard such a gift as nagging or insulting? If I do get one, do you have recommendations?
61.
trollhattan
@Another Holocene Human:
I rue the day every tony suburban strip mall decided they were “Centres.” No, with a Cheesecake Factory and a Best Buy you’re a fvcking “mall.”
62.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: I knew you did! And it goes without saying that it’s “grey.” Isn’t consistency the hobgoblin of foolish minds? Or is it the last refuge of the scoundrel? I can never remember.
63.
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
Am getting wife.gov a Garmin Vivofit, mostly because it’s purple. She wants something to track her sleep, which is supposedly does, but wanted something purple. I no longer ask “why?”
Garmin makes good stuff in general, so if it breaks I have confidence they’ll be in business to fix it.
If, like G and I, you are someone who likes to make Christmas cookies but is too lazy to make or even roll out your own dough, Nestle has you covered this year:
Imagine that, a new space vehicle that didn’t blow up.
70.
trollhattan
@burnspbesq: Hodor! bin Hodor! keeps Hodor!ing all over himself. What’s an old-school pinko gonna do?
71.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Iowa Old Lady: Question. I’m thinking of getting Mr IOL one of those wearable fitness monitors for Christmas. Would you regard such a gift as nagging or insulting?
Not if he already works out, or even if he’s just expressed an interest in improving his condition, as whom amongst us has not. I use a Polar with a chest strap that is sometimes uncomfortable, but I’ve heard the wrist only ones can be somewhat unreliable wrt heart rate and thus calorie counting, Not sure if that’s still true. The Polar I use (about two years old) doesn’t have any kind of computer connection for record keeping, etc, which I understand is all the rage with the young people.
@trollhattan: Like the subdivisions with names meant to evoke the English (or New English) countryside. I wonder if “Downton Woods” has broken ground yet.
I’m holding out for the FitBit Charge that’s being released in February — it includes a heart rate monitor AND it comes in purple. Plus I get an extra 30 percent off because I never turned in my FitBit Force after it was recalled for nickel allergies. (I’m not allergic to nickel, so I didn’t have any trouble with it.) It probably does more than I need, but Purple!
Bob, I’ll bite, I’m bored. There are genuine neo Nazis in Ukraine. Given what the Russians have done to the Ukrainian people in the last few hundred years, are you really surprised that some Ukrainians want to emulate the most deadly Russian-killers in history? There are also genuine Russian true believers in Ukraine, they live there, they grew up there and if they say they are Ukrainian and in favor of closer ties to Russia, I believe them. To claim that all of the Ukrainian opposition to Russian hegemony are Neo Nazis is the same as saying that all opposition to closer ties to NATO is motivated by unreformed Stalinists. WWII is over. The cold war is over. It really is OK if you think that Ukraine should have closer ties to Russia. You could probably even construct an argument for that while still acknowledging that Putin is a dangerous world-class asshole. You aren’t doing that. You are claiming that everyone who opposes closer ties between Russia and Ukraine is a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. This argument makes you look dumber than a dumber-than-average stump.
Sadly, the US has a long history of overlooking (or even enabling) fascism during the cold war. Even past that time, the US has been all too willing to support regimes with a terrible human rights record if doing so will grant the USA some advantage. However this isn’t a situation where reasonable people are sitting down to a table to rationally solve an interesting hypothetical problem. It’s not a game. There’s quite a bit at stake, and real people are going to get hurt, whichever way this slow civil war goes. Because it is a slow civil war, and as a US citizen it is not clear at all how allowing Russia to dominate or even conquer Ukraine is supposed to be better for the average Ukrainian than if they were allowed to make their own state and govern it accordingly even if some people in that state have a creepy unsettling affection for the Nazis. Do you think the average Ukrainian would be better off living in a Russian client state? Say so.
The Neo Nazis in Ukraine aren’t some kind of fourth reich. Maybe they want to be. They idolize a loathsome regime and venerate a leader whose only use for the people of eastern Europe was as cannon fodder to fight Stalin. But Putin has given everyone there who isn’t a Neo Nazi and doesn’t want to be dominated by Russia, little choice. If they want to win their civil war, they have to fight alongside Neo Nazis. They aren’t strong enough to win without the help of Neo Nazis.
Maybe they are making a giant mistake and living under Russian domination would be a better outcome for the average Ukrainian, than allowing Neo Nazis to participate in fighting and governing. But if that’s so, it isn’t apparent to everyone else in the Ukraine who opposes Russia’s ambitions. And to prove that assertion, you’re going to have to do better than claiming that opposing Russian goals in the Ukraine means happily kissing up to Neo Nazis.
I’m thinking of getting Mr IOL one of those wearable fitness monitors for Christmas. Would you regard such a gift as nagging or insulting? If I do get one, do you have recommendations?
I was given a fitbit, but I have philosophical problems with it. It uploads all of the data to their website without copying it to your computer. The only way to see your data is to sign up for their website. To add insult to injury, you only get summary data unless you pay them more money to get a little bit more access to your own data. Even when you pay you don’t get access to all the data points they collect.
I hacked around for a little while on the open source usb drivers that I found online, but it didn’t appear that anybody else was working on them. I did get it to compile and handshake, but never dived into the data interpretation.
In short: I would never buy a device that takes data about me and denies me use of or even access to it. Fitbit fits my definition of evil.
80.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: “Brushing up on the umlaut?” Just try to tell me that’s not a euphemism for something really kinky.
81.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yer all a cult, I tell ya, you purple lovers…uh, lovers of purple! (which also include the kid along with the spouse).
You probably won’t be buying one at Radio Shack, as they seem to be headed down the final series of tubes. Friend sent me to this article, which illustrates why, from an employee’s viewpoint. A sample.
Stoned Craig was considerably more skilled with the talking picture frames we’d always have on display: you pushed a button on the picture frame, and it’d play a pre-recorded message. Craig loved recording them; there was a new message every day.
So that sets the table for this: a nice old lady is browsing around the store and comes across one of the picture frames. There’s a stock image in the frame, a little girl in a tire swing with an ear-to-ear grin.
From across the store I see her, praying that today’s affirmation is at least G-rated. She presses the button. The voice of Stoned Craig, which sounds just like Tom Waits, blares forth.
QUIT FINGERIN’ THE GODDAMN MERCHANDISE AND MAKE A FUCKIN’ PURCHASE!
The old lady busted out laughing, and I think she might have ended up buying the picture frame. If she did, that might have been the only sale Craig ever had a hand in making.
@trollhattan: I will never understand Shoppes. I call them shoppies for the sake of my sanity.
85.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
Once in a while someone must raise the voice of reason with Bob in Portland, if only to demonstrate the futility of expecting Bob to listen. I’ve had a go at it myself.
@gogol’s wife: I’d have to be a lot hungrier than I am to eat borshch. Stupid beets. Bane of my childhood, them and Brussels sprouts.
87.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helmut Monotreme: I like Brussels sprouts. I second your emotion on beets.
88.
Mike J
@Helmut Monotreme: The bar at MoMA has (had?) a beet based cocktail inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s Red Square.
I wasn’t really a fan.
89.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: why should I say Merry Christmas when it isn’t fucking Christmas? It’s the advent season, also Hanukkah is coming up. What the fuck it this two month long Christmas shit? It’s not religious.
Tribalistic fake Christians with tribalistic fake holidays. Who came up with monthlong Xmas before Xmas? Retailers. The real Christmas extended feast happens AFTER MIDNIGHT XMAS EVE which you’d know if you were a real Christian and not a fake Christian.
Real or fake the purity tests and thumb in the eye of church and state is obnoxious as fuck but I don’t know this just triggered my overall annoyance at the ignorance that typifies self righteous xtian tribalistic nonsense. Go back to church and your Bible, oh that’s right, Christmas season isn’t in the Bible. So there we are.
@JCJ: I might well have – if I knew what it meant.
92.
Another Holocene Human
12 days of Christmas — AFTER Xmas until EPIPHANY. Every one of these fake xtians don’t know that because retailers pull all that red and green vomit down as soon as they sellout of 80% of the clearance on 12/26.
Advent color is purple, not red, and it’s not merry. This may be Catholic but if you go back to Old Europe where these memebases originated the more pagan kinda not so jesusy cultural practices around xmas support this.
Only in America. What a country.
93.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Never liked Brussels sprouts until encountering them as a side dish at our best Italian restaurant. They’d been sauteed in butter and olive oil with pancetta and garlic until tender and slightly browned (probably blanched beforehand). Oh, mama, where have you been all these years?
Previously they’d always been stinky green spheres cooked to mush.
And beets. Hated them until as a grownup I discovered it is evidently possible to raise them in a way they don’t taste exactly like the dirt they’re grown in. Who knew?
94.
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think humor or nuance compute for BiP Bot 1000™
They’d been sauteed in butter and olive oil with pancetta and garlic until tender and slightly browned (probably blanched beforehand).
That sounds rather like the Brussels sprout recipe my s-i-l used at Thanksgiving. Yummy.
96.
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: that’s why i love me some sweet pickled canned beets and not crappy dirty field beets that have maybe dried out a bit, impossible to roast and not have come out bitter
strangely the greens are often delicious while the beet is inedible
Never liked Brussels sprouts until encountering them as a side dish at our best Italian restaurant. They’d been sauteed in butter and olive oil with pancetta and garlic until tender and slightly browned (probably blanched beforehand). Oh, mama, where have you been all these years?
I’m going to argue, that anything not actually poisonous would be pretty good when prepared in this fashion. Which speaks far more for the chef than it does for those nasty little lumps of mush.
98.
trollhattan
@Helmut Monotreme:
What can I say? Grew up in a Midwest German family where food was cooked to a point every bacteria and virus within a hundred yards was extinct, so a lot of, if not most food flavors were left for me to discover as an adult. Who knew lamb could be a color other than gray/grey?
99.
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: Probably true, but my comment does seem to have silenced him for now. Or perhaps it is coincidental.
100.
Origuy
I don’t think I ever had Brussels sprouts that I liked until I had the ones at Cascal, a Spanish place in Mountain View. They were marinated, roasted, and served with a garlic aioli and Manchego cheese. I’d have them again.
Oh, and I love beets. Borshch is good, too, especially if it’s the hearty Russian stuff, not just watery beet soup.
My Nexus 7 feels slightly sluggish since it updated itself to Android 5.0 a few weeks ago, e.g., changing to a different app or bringing up the on-screen keyboad takes a palpable couple of seconds, whereas before such actions were almost immediate. Thoughts, Dr. J?
I was once startled by what a friend was spending on Christmas presents, and she was startled that I was startled. I refrained from reminding her that it IS after all a religious holiday, because she was a friend and I figured she was stimulating the economy nicely and at about 4 times the rate we were. .
105.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Sounds like it needs some exercise. Maybe you should get it a gym membership for X-mas.
106.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: And with a Burlington Coat Factory you’re a soon-to-be-dead mall.
107.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: I have never seen a BCF that wasn’t in a stand alone building – often in the vicinity of a mall but never actually in it.
ETA: Just an observation from personal experience, not an attempt to contradict you or start an argument.
We have a mall that survived a BCF moving in after Mervyn’s went bankrupt. I’m not sure they’ll survive IKEA moving away, though all of the neighbors will be grateful not to have that huge pickup line snaking down the street anymore.
112.
Bob In Portland
@burnspbesq: And to you. Enjoy the armband, scumbag.
@Helmut Monotreme: Of course, the Ukrainians are incapable of being the Fourth Reich. They can’t even keep their country together before the imminent economic collapse. They weren’t even the Third Reich. They were just industrious helpers for the Third Reich, killing Russians, Poles and Jews for Germany back in the good old days, as Gin likes to think of them.
How about America? What do we have to do to be a Fourth Reich? Maybe spy on all the citizens. There was a good book a decade back about how the Third Reich used IBM punch cards to keep track of all the Jews, and it came in handy during the Holocaust. Does the NSA use IBM computers? How about if the US starts lots of wars for oil while lying to the people about the reasons for the war? That was a Third Reich thing. Is it a Fourth Reich thing? How about having the police kill black people? I know, the Third Reich killed Jews, Poles, Slavs et al, but there just weren’t many black people in Central Europe. Does law enforcement randomly killing black people qualify as the Fourth Reich-ishness? How about having poor people in factories around the world make shit for us for unlivable wages? Granted, it’s not like the complex at Auschwitz. There they killed some outright and then worked the rest to death. Our miserable factories, for now, are overseas so if people starve to death or die it’s not our fault. You know, privatize the misery.
Heck, we even have Reichstag Fires when we need to crack down on minorities or start wars.
The problem was never about Ukraine. It was about the US backing the fascist regime. You read the long quote from that German Foreign Policy that I quoted above? Little Nazis in little Nazi parades all over Eastern Europe.
Before you go too far down along the Putin trail, remember that Putin was offering a favorable deal to yet again bail out Ukraine from its corrupt oligarchs. Putin moved in Crimea when the US coup put the Nazis and oligarchs into power. He basically took back Crimea because Krushchev (sic) shouldn’t have given it away. His bad. No one died, most people there are quite happy not to be part of the current Ukraine. Granted, the CIA has been radicalizing the Muslim minority like the CIA has started radical Muslim movements in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Dagestan and Chechnya.
As far as Donbas, there is not a Russian army there. You know how the CIA armed and trained those “moderate anti-Assad forces” who morphed into ISIS? Essentially, that’s Russia’s involvement in Donbas, only we’re now using our bombers too. So if Putin shouldn’t aid the ethnic Russians in the east who were getting killed by the Nazi battalions, what should he have done? Let the killings proceed? If Russia actually went to war against Ukraine it would have been quick. The Nazis who didn’t scramble across the border would probably have gotten shot. Would the US have gone to war there? Unlikely.
You know, Russia has not recognized the independence of Donbas. Any idea why? Because a complete, non-hostile Ukraine is Russia’s best bet. And who knows, maybe when the current regime in Kiev collapses, and generally the veneer of democracy is the first thing to disappear when the military coup happens, there will all sorts of factions looking for help. I imagine Russia will be there to offer help to the moderates versus the Nazis. Maybe they can move the capital of Ukraine to Donetsk after the dust settles. (That was a joke.)
(What’s really funny, since I’m accused of not having a sense of humor, is that one of the new ministers that Poroshenko installed this week was from Shakaashvili’s old crew in Georgia. He was immediately made a citizen, but all meetings where he attends have to be spoken in Russian because he doesn’t understand Ukrainian. Remember when the coup first occurred that the first business of the fascists was to outlaw Russian as an official language. Isn’t that funny? The fascists are so incompetent that they have to get a foreigner who can’t speak their language to be a minister. Usually, they train them here and then send them over there. Isn’t that right, Gin and Tonic. Heh heh heh.)
Ah, but back to the US. The US, generally through the State Department, NGOs and the CIA, have been backing fascist regimes. I don’t think I’m stretching things to say that Israel and Saudi Arabia are working fascist states now. Would you consider our invasion of Afghanistan a democrat, non-fascist move? How about the conquest of Iraq?
What has been the point of our involvement in Afghanistan for the last 35 years, both when bin Laden was the good guy and the bad guy? If we’re not in Iraq for the oil what are we there for? If we’re not building up and knocking down radical Islamists in Syria, why are we there training and arming the miserable radical bastards?
Why do you think we overthrew the elected government in Ukraine and put the fascists in their government? Why do you think no one in our government says anything about the fascist militias shelling women and children in the Donbas? Or haven’t said anything about those hundred people burned in that building in Odessa?
So let’s at least be clear. I’m not worried about Ukraine becoming the Fourth Reich. I’m worried about America.
So if we eventually become the Fourth Reich, how will the useful idiots here at Balloon Juice recognize it? I hear whining about our law enforcement killing blacks, but apparently to suggest a fascist equivalent to burnspbesq warrants a fuck you. I know a lot of people here came around to being against our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures, and they now realize that the government lied to us about these wars. I’m sure there’s a few dimwit BJers who still think we invaded Afghanistan because Osama lived in a cave there but most are vaguely aware that we’re not getting the whole truth. As I recall the German invasion of Poland was officially about Poland invading Germany. And we invaded Afghanistan because….?
How about if US were controlled by right-wing oligarchs who subvert the political system like Nazi Germany was subverted? Would that make us a Fourth Reich?
I’m pretty sure the disconnect comes because the dimwits here don’t recognize when they’re being fed propaganda. How many responses to me start with obscenities about Putin? You even included a mention. Remember the good ol’ days when Saddam was the evil one? Or Osama? He was a real bad man. I remember when Castro was the designated bad man.
So did we overthrow the government in Afghanistan (twice, if you count when Osama and the Mujahadeen were the good guys) for freedom? Or oil? Did we decide that Saddam, who started out as the CIA’s favorite in Iraq, become a bad man and we had to go there to restore democracy? Or was it the oil?
I ask these questions because Syria and Ukraine hardly have enough petroleum to make it worthwhile for our war machine. And we knew that Assad was a bad guy because he used to torture people for us during the Extraordinary Rendition days.
So what’s it all about? Just because the bottomfeeders here can’t figure out why we’re waging war and overthrowing governments in a semi-circle around the Caspian Sea, wouldn’t you suspect that the people who said WMDs actually know the real reason? You don’t seem to be easily distracted by flag-waving.
Do we have to kill Jews in order to become the Fourth Reich? Do we have to speak German? (Sorry, Gin, speaking Ukrainian isn’t even necessary in Little Fourth Reich.
113.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, no argument. I have also had friends tell me that their malls are alive and well after the addition of BCF, but every time one moved into a vacated department store space the mall died not long after. Maybe the mall was already dying and this was a last ditch effort. In two malls, Huntington Beach and one near San Mateo, they were the only stores left in a deserted mall.
114.
Bob In Portland
@Helmut Monotreme: By the way, what are Russia’s ambitions? Did you read about them in the New York Times?
12 days of Christmas — AFTER Xmas until EPIPHANY. Every one of these fake xtians don’t know that
Bugs my wife bigtime too. When we have a tree, we put it up just before Christmas and take it down at epiphany.
116.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
The rent was real cheap. One can make good deals in real estate when everyone else is running away. Especially retail real estate.
117.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: I have an idea, Bob. Why don’t the Ukrainian people decide what they want? How might they do that, you ask? Well, how about holding presidential and parliamentary elections, with international observers to attest to their openness?
Oh, they already did that.
How’d the neo-Nazis do?
Oh, they got crushed.
118.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Russia’s ambitions? Novorossiya. They’re quite open about it.
You forget — in Bob’s world, every “Ukie” man, woman, and child is a neo-Nazi, so anyone who won an election is Ukraine is a neo-Nazi by definition.
Sure, it makes no sense in the real world, but it makes it a lot easier for Bob to maintain that “Russia good, Ukraine bad” worldview.
120.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Then why doesn’t Russia recognize its independence or why doesn’t Russia just absorb it? If Russia wanted it it would have taken it.
It hasn’t.
121.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): No, in my world the US spent 75 years cultivating the OUN residua. There are plenty of people in Ukraine who aren’t Nazis, obviously the Nazis can’t win an election, not even when the east and Crimea don’t vote. Still, for some reason directed by some unknown hand Nazis keep ending up in the government. Funny that way.
I’ll ask you, Mnem. Our country spies on its citizens. The electoral process is controlled by oligarchs. It starts wars all over the world and lies to its citizens about it. Authorities kill minorities in the streets.
The government lied to you about Afghanistan and Iraq, multiple times. Why isn’t your government lying to you about Ukraine? Because they would never lie to you about Ukraine? Or is it because the New York Times has assured you? What source do you find reputable that says the US is telling you the truth about Ukraine?
122.
Bob In Portland
Come on, Gin, tell us the Kremlin’s strategy. They just took Crimea. You can argue their reasons or the sacredness of Ukraine’s borders but you can’t argue that they took it. Granted, they had a large military installation there, but there wasn’t any dillydallying about it. And they’re not giving it back. And most of the people there are quite happy about it.
Novorussya? If Russia wanted it, really wanted it as part of Russia, it would have been part of Russia already. You don’t think that Russia could beat the Ukrainian army and the little fascist militias? Hell, the rebels beat them.
Maybe Putin is such a sneaky guy that he’s waiting until the regime in Kiev collapses and take it all, but I’m guessing he really doesn’t mind the US being stuck with another failed state.
So maybe Putin is playing a waiting game. Ukraine has already cut its natgas rations in half and that probably won’t stretch things into the new year. So the question is whether the fascists have enough power to keep the occupants of the rump state in line until those IMF are put into play. That should make everything better.
I don’t even think you believe it either. You know better. Ukraine is just another failed state on the road to Baku.
123.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Proxy war is cheaper than real war. And with dupes like you, Putin can lie with impunity and say “Russians? What Russians?”
124.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Oh, and Mnem, stop pretending to put words in my mouth. If you want to be an apologist for fascism, then be my guest.
125.
Bob In Portland
By the way, Gin, I realize you don’t do well at answering questions, like why the hell you speak Ukrainian when even their ministers don’t, but what source for Russia wanting Novorussya? New York Times? Time Magazine? Slate? If everybody knows, then who is the source of the information?
126.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: If Russia were fighting a proxy war for conquest of Novorussya, why has Putin turned down Donbas’ request to be part of Russia? It could be done with a stroke of the pen and your little fascist gangsters wouldn’t have been able to do a thing.
Speaking of proxy wars, how’s things going with ISIS?
127.
Bob In Portland
Balloon Juice, where the Cold War never ended and where the smartpants kinda liberals are always a year or five late.
128.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: From the guy who writes about Cold War events more than all other commenters put together, that’s really rich. Let it never be said you don’t have a sense of humor. And it’s good to see the long-form posts again — for a while you were just doing drive-byes, and I was a little concerned.
I especially love how you claim I’m lying about your equation of neo-Nazis and Ukrainians and then once again accuse Gin & Tonic of being a neo-Nazi because he speaks Ukrainian in your very next comment. This is a spoof, right?
130.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Gee, I thought what I wrote wasn’t so baffling. And still you misunderstood.
By the way, what’s your source for Russia wanting to absorb Novorussia? Oh, that’s right. You can’t answer questions.
131.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: You know what’s really funny, Bob? People here managed to have a discussion of fascistic tendencies in the US yesterday. But we managed it without the conspiracy theorizing. Go figure. Also, did you figure out my joke from earlier or is your monomania still in the way?
132.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: You’re dishonest. Of course not all Ukrainians are Nazis. It isn’t even debatable. The government is neo-Nazi and encourages the glorification of Nazism. Or do you deny that? Do you still deny that we were behind the coup? Here, let me put words in your mouth. “When I was at the Bund meeting last Tuesday…”
How do you know you’re not being lied to about Ukraine? Articulate, please. Because you believe Kerry? Because you don’t trust bad man Putin like you didn’t trust bad man Saddam? You really are hopeless.
Here we go. Here’s the question, Mnem. Let’s see if your capable of answering it. What makes a country fascist? Is the US fascist? Thanking you in advance for your thoughtful answer.
I’ve given you plenty of sources over the last months.
How about your question to Mnemosyne? How do *you* know you’re not being lied to?
134.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Because conspiracy-theorizing is forbidden, or because in reality there are no conspiracies? I’ll answer your question when Mmmm and Gin answer theirs.
Meantime, when Dubya’s administration said WMDs was that a conspiracy? More than one spokesperson lied, so it was a group of people who lied to you. Conspiracy or not? Or do you think that Democratic administrations don’t lie? When we were told we were invading Afghanistan because Osama was hiding there, was that a lie? Or was there another reason?
If you are really so trusting no wonder why you always get tricked.
135.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Aha, I get it now. You can’t do nuance. The idea that people do both good and bad is beyond you. Got it now. FWIW last night, I was, I believe, the first one to raise the f-word. Just because I don’t buy into your CT world doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize fascist behavior when I see it. Oh yeah, by the way, your denigration of anyone who knows Ukrainian is anti-intellectualism in its purest form. Go think about that.
136.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: That’s not fair. Even your health minister can’t read that.
But, once again, another failure to answer questions. If you say you base Russia’s desire to seize Novorussya on a Ukrainian article, then you must discount the English-speaking media. Right? You realize that some of the guys at the NY Times who are writing those stories on Ukraine were the cowriting WMD stories with Judith Miller a decade back. So, yeah, you can’t trust them. How about NBC? Trust them? Or is it only Ukrainian language blogs upon which you rely?
By the way, why are you ashamed of how you learned Ukrainian? You see, I’m not asking you how or where, just why. I can imagine. People who are attracted to fascism have self-worth problems. Or maybe it’s just your employment. Here, let me do a Mnmmm on you and put words in your mouth:
“Well, Bob, as you’ve guessed my parents came over to America after WWII. They’re Ukrainian and they were on the losing side. The Nazi side. And I was raised to cherish Nazism. Granted, here in America you can’t be openly anti-Semitic. I learned Ukrainian in my family, studied it later at a CIA-funded Ukrainian center, you know, like that White Russian community in Dallas was funded by the CIA. It’s not just the CIA, though. The State Department have funds, and there’s plenty of private funding. More so now than back in the fifties when they were getting these programs started. I still believe what the folks believed. Ah, Bandera! They don’t make men like that anymore.”
@Bob In Portland: That’s in Russian, dude. It’s video of Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t speak Ukrainian, saying that “Novorossiya” was mistakenly given to Ukraine by the Bolsheviks. So I base Russia’s desire for Novorossiya on the words of Putin.
See, there’s the fundamental problem you’ve had all along. You always rely on secondary sources. I don’t.
139.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: My father, incidentally, spent most of WWII in a Nazi prison. Asshole.
140.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re an ignorant little twerp who can’t argue, only name-call. It’s people like you who never notice what’s going on around them. Then all of a sudden, hey, “They’re shooting black people!” Or, “Why is Iraq such a mess?” Or, “Why are we still in Afghanistan?” Actually, I’m giving you a little credit here, that you’ll eventually figure it out. How long until you realize they got you again?
So let’s ask again, oh witless one. Are there or are there not conspiracies? Discussing fascistic tendencies yesterday, you were talking about honest and aboveboard fascist tendencies, right? Because fascists, though loathsome, are always honest about their devilry.
Those 75 years of supporting Ukrainian fascists. That was all aboveboard too, right? You knew all about it, from way back when. But that was okay because Russians, right?
It’s easy for evil to win. They just have to have gullible little twerps like you to feed their propaganda. Heck, you might even volunteer to die somewhere. Good going, champ. Now go punch a hippie.
@Gin & Tonic: So Putin said Novorussya was mistakenly given to Ukraine. No shit. That’s still not war plans. And it still doesn’t answer my questions asked a few hours ago.
You just keep on being Mister Mystery Man.
145.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Bob, if you can’t figure out why I called you an asshole, you are dumber than dirt. Your absolute incapacity to notice any nuance is amazing. BTW, if you think that the conflict in Ukraine is the big fight against fascists, why the fuck aren’t you there? In Spain, we had the Lincoln Brigade. Why aren’t you organizing its equivalent? I think it is because you are an internet blowhard. I’ve put in time in the streets in my life. Have you?
146.
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Because then I’ll get some honest discussion from him? How about Omnes. Should he apologize to me because he called me an asshole?
If Gin and Tonic wants to open up and share with me why the son of a man who was imprisoned by Nazis now supports the Nazis in Ukraine I’d be glad to listen. I’m sure it would be an interesting story. But I’m pretty sure that random fact in Gin’s past, if it is a fact, is misleading.
And while he’s at it he can tell me how he came across speaking Ukrainian. As we all know, almost all of the Ukrainians who came over to the US and Canada after WWII were on the losing side.
By the way, I don’t remember you ever telling others here to apologize to me. Is it because Gin is very delicate?
147.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: I can answer that question. You are an asshole. I make no apologies for saying so.
148.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: I know why you called me an asshole. It’s what people do when their arguments collapse. If we were in the same bar you’d try to take a poke at me. It’s what losers do.
I think that the coup in Ukraine has been part of the US foreign policy to get hold of all that oil around the Caspian. I mean, why would we have spent thirty-five years in Afghanistan? But maybe you have an alternate theory. We’re fighting terrorism, right? No, really, that would make me laugh.
You know why I don’t have a sense of humor here with you? Because fascism isn’t funny. And ignorance is dangerous to everyone. And more people will die because of ignorant pricks like you.
@Bob in Portlandia. No, you should apologize because that is what a civil person does after writing what you wrote.
You know, it’s possible to have a disagreement with someone without demanding to know their personal history. And attempting to demonize someone who argues against you doesn’t make your argument any stronger. In fact, it makes you look like a kook.
Don’t be a kook, Bob. Apologize, and stop with the personal attacks. Your psyche and blood pressure will thank you.
There’s a number of accounts I’ve seen, at least three credible reports, on how they were in the displaced persons camp—the Allied forces set up displaced persons camps and picked up tens of thousands of these former allies of Hitler from countries all over the East—Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania. There weren’t Polish collaborators; I think most people know the Germans heavily persecuted and murdered millions of Polish residents—but Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia and so forth, Belorussia. They had them in these camps they built and organized them, where the Ukrainians were assassinating their Ukrainian nationalist rivals so they would be the undisputed leaders of Ukrainian nationalist movement, so they would get the sponsorship of the United States to continue their political operation, and they were successful in that regard. So when Bandera was out of the picture, Stetsko became the undisputed leader of Ukrainian nationalists.
152.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Why aren’t you on the streets in Ukraine? Come on, if your rhetoric is anything more than bullshit, you’ll do something. Let me know when you are on the streets; until then, you are a bullshit artist. Come on, pony up. I bet you are too fucking big a coward to put your money where your mouth is. Prove me wrong.
153.
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: You absolutely right. I shouldn’t put words in other people’s mouths like Mnem does, or Omnes. There, so sorry Gin. Better now?
154.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Why am I not in the streets of Ukraine?
You still miss what I’m saying. I’m American. I’m fighting fascism. Now put two and two together, genius.
155.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: No. No one misses what you are saying. People disagree with it. There is a difference. Bob, I don’t disagree that there is a fascist tendency in the US. I disagree that it is dominant or that it is winning. And I think that your hysterical approach to the issue is so fucking counterproductive that one can’t even comment on it because you are such a douchebag.
Of course not all Ukrainians are Nazis. It isn’t even debatable.
So what percentage of Ukrainians are NOT Nazis, Bob? One percent? Ten percent? If in your estimation the entire current government of Ukraine is made up of Nazis, that doesn’t leave you a lot of wiggle room to claim that you don’t think all Ukrainians are Nazis.
Your next line, by the way, is Some of my best friends are Ukrainians. It’s always the racist asshole’s next way to try and prove he’s not really racist.
157.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: You disagree that the US is now a fascist country? Okay.
158.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Very authorative of you. Thanks for keeping me in the dark.
159.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: A student of fascism would know that fascists are almost always a minority. Not all white people belong to the KKK but all white people in the US have been affected by racism.
Fascists still can’t win an election in Ukraine, but fascists continue to be appointed to the government.
The current Republican Party in the US is the equivalent to Mussolini’s Fascist Party. This was not always true. I have watched the migration of American politics to the right over my lifetime. There is now no real Left in American national politics. What caused it? Well, certainly the division of wealth has caused this drift, but fascism has ways of moving things along. Think tanks work to a degree but if you were a white person in the D.C. area when that black guy was shooting white people out of the trunk of his car you couldn’t help but feel the angst. Racist beliefs are helped by such remarkable events. That’s why it was so fascinating how many people involved in past “remarkable events” showed up during the OJ Simpson trial. I can’t think of a more effective racist propaganda campaign than his trial. It guaranteed the passing of the 3 Strikes Law in California.
Granted, I lived through the sixties when it was open season to shoot liberal politicians (much like the political assassinations of Weimar Germany). But things like that help to eliminate the competition in elections. Or Gary Hart with a woman on his lap.
So many BJers can recognize the results of fascism, I see the handwringing here on a daily basis, but most of you seem unable to understand the process. The KKKers may be fascist, but they’re not very powerful in the scheme of things. When we bomb a country based on lies so that a sector of our business community gets rich, well, that’s fascism, but BJers are also susceptible to propaganda. As long as BJers are angry at Putin they don’t examine what is happening in front of their eyes. Putin’s just another bad man, like Saddam, Osama, Assad, Khadafy, Castro, etc., etc.
That’s why I’ve tried, with no success, to steer the conversation about Ukraine to what America’s interests there are. Unfortunately, most BJers are not equipped to get beyond the obvious propaganda.
Ukraine is just another front in our government’s warlike fascist attempts to control the world’s energy. That is all. If “fascist” offends you, think of another word. The English language is malleable. I find it repugnant that there are militias crawling all over the Ukrainian countryside waving Nazi flags, but more Ukrainians will die from the IMF impositions and selling off the country’s industries and resources than the Banderistas could ever kill.
The seeds of America’s destruction are in the greed that spills out over our borders to every corner of the world. How long the empire lasts is debatable but it’s pretty clear that without an anti-fascist effort there is no hope here. Sorry you won’t be along for the fight, Mnem.
I disagree that it [fascism] is dominant or that it is winning.
Well, at least we’ve finally declared our positions. Racism is a tool of fascism. It’s worse now than it was. But apparently not bad enough for you to think that people would use racism as a fascist tool. In Weimar the Black Reichsfehr carried on a campaign of killing liberal politicians. In 1960s it was a stream of “lone nuts” who did the dirty work.
Most people can’t see past the field they’re plowing. That has always been the struggle for anti-fascists. That and lack of money.
161.
Bob In Portland
Hmm.
Is the militarization of the local police forces a fascist tendency? Apparently not.
Is the control of elective politics in the US by oligarchs a fascist tendency? Apparently not to Omnes.
How about all those wars over there? Is a belligerent foreign policy a fascist tendency? Apparently not to Omnes.
Is the rise of racism in America a fascist tendency? Not to Omnes.
Is the rise in the prison population in the US a fascist tendency? Not to Omnes.
Perhaps, Omnes, we need to hear your definition of fascism, in your own words. Maybe you can’t recognize it.
162.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: I know this may strike you as odd, but I feel no particular compunction to share my family history or the details of my relationship with my father with some random stranger on a pseudonymous blog, particularly with one who has spent nearly the last year calling me a Nazi. I’m strange that way.
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JPL
Today I went to four different stores and not one associate said Merry Christmas. Who do I report this gross indifference?
beltane
No charges will be filed against the cops who killed Darrien Hunt: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/05/1349651/-No-Charges-for-Cops-Who-Killed-Darrien-Hunt But I guess we kind of knew this so it’s not news.
Belafon
Not a happy cartoon, because it’s a political cartoon, but it’s good: http://luckovich.blog.ajc.com/2014/12/04/125-luckovich-cartoon-separate-unequal/.
Trinity
So much awesome.
SiubhanDuinne
Finally, some cheerful news — President Obama is going to be one of Stephen Colbert’s final guests on The Colbert Report. This is going to be an interview for the ages!
http://m.motherjones.com/mixed-media/2014/12/president-obama-appear-colbert-report
Edit: Colbert says he’s honoured to be sitting down with the man who sat down with Bill O’Reilly. Hahahahahahaha!
Belafon
I was trying to find a link to the image, though the vm they run IE in is a pain, so i googled the text. I ran across a different image that said “Dear Santa: This year I’d like Lego’s. Dad wants electronics. And Mom wants something called Channing Tatum.”
Larime
Hey, John.
I’m the disabled artist who drew some art of the animals for you a while back. My wife is currently in the hospital after having major cancer-related surgery. Can I beg for a bleg? Info here: http://www.gofundme.com/sylvsfund
Bob In Portland
I wrote in the last open thread that it can’t happen here because if it had someone at Balloon Juice would have gotten snarky about it. And no one did, so I guess it never happened. I didn’t see it in the NY Times. So I guess it never happened. Move along, good citizens.
schrodinger's cat
So Santa is Tunch? Who knew. Miss the floofy white blog kitteh!
schrodinger's cat
Someone seems to have gotten their Catmas present early, from the Russki Santa, no less.
shelley
Who’s the name of the cartoonist? Proper attribution, John.
Lavocat
Not to be too judgmental but you spelled “judgmental” wrong.
Iowa Old Lady
@SiubhanDuinne: We are so going to miss Colbert.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lavocat: Not in the Britosphere.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Huh, and here I thought that today you’d be commenting on the 20th anniversary of the signing of the Budapest Memorandum, guaranteeing Ukraine’s borders. I guess that didn’t happen either.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: The rule of thumb I like: if you’re going to write “judgmental” then write “colour.”
shelley
Ugh, looks like another few days of cold, gray and wet. Hey,Weather Gods, don’t we have enough to be depressed about?
Citizen_X
@Lavocat: Don’t judg.
beltane
@shelley: It dipped below zero last night. Of course this meant the dog wanted to go out at 6:30 this morning and not do her business. I’m still trying to warm up.
schrodinger's cat
@Gin & Tonic: I always get mixed up between gray and grey. I prefer grey.
Belafon
@Gin & Tonic: Went looking for judgmental vs judgemental and found this:
Mike J
@shelley: imgur most popular newest first or reddit /r/funny is almost certainly where he got it. I just saw it on imgur 10 minutes ago. No attribution there, so very difficult to add.
However, the comments had a link to the artist’s etsy, so now we know.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/RosieMadeAThing
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: You must feel proud now that the US, Canada and Ukraine have come out publicly celebrating Nazis. In front of the UN too. Funny, though, that you don’t actually comment on the contents of the resolution. You’re not ashamed of being publicly pro-Nazi, are you? A little different than saying there are no Nazis in Ukraine. What’s your official position? That there are no Nazis in Ukraine but if you want to celebrate Nazis you’re ready to wave a flag in celebration?
You’re like a safety patrol guard back in grade school. Your purpose here is to keep the kids walking within the crosswalks. Oops, red light, so we won’t talk about this.
NATO didn’t and won’t get Crimea. So sad. Exxon won’t own Baku. By the end of the winter people will be freezing in their homes across Ukraine, but at least they can celebrate Bandera on New Years.
Elizabelle
@Belafon:
That is an excellent cartoon. That is was as true in Emmett Till’s time as now is our shame.
Gin & Tonic
@Belafon: And I meant, of course, if you’re going to use “judgement” then use “colour.”
Mike J
@schrodinger’s cat:
grAy = American
grEy = English
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Here’s the Jerusalem Post’s article on the issue. A little more balanced than yours.
Mike J
@Gin & Tonic: Since the artist is from Leicester, she probably does use the word colour.
Another Holocene Human
@Lavocat: Both spellings are acceptable.
Another Holocene Human
@Mike J: English or WASP
cf: Grey Gardens
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: He’s consistently good. That image.
Amir Khalid
@Another Holocene Human:
But “judgment” should be preferred because it’s (slightly) shorter. (At least, that was the house style at my old newspaper.)
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Yeah, because when I want moral guidance about racism, genocide et al I go to the Jerusalem Post.
It’s been pretty obvious that since Israel got their membership in the Safari Club their standards have fallen. The beauty about fascism is that anyone can become one.
NotMax
Grade D.
C- due to “dear and “santa” not being capitalized, omission of the comma at the end of the greeting, for that first “e” in “judgemental” and for use of a sentence fragment.
Drops to a D because of the fraud of standing there holding a pencil, intimating it was handwritten when it was obviously typed.
Another Holocene Human
Last nights multi city protests were organized by the internet. Just saw the moaning about RW print media. The young people protesting don’t read that shit. A good thing.
I love how they have deliberately taken over streets. This is done as a message to the cops directly and as a way to demand attention.
Not only did Garner’s murder happen on the street, but the cops are the tyros of the street. They determine what vehicles may or may not be in the street, when persons may enter the street, who gets stopped and who gets permitted to go.
It’s been said that Americans don’t do street protest. It looks like a lot of young Americans have come into cities and are very much doing street protest.
It was really cool to see the masses out there after so many tiny, a few dozens of neighborhood people out there daytime street protests against police brutality in New York. This is what democracy looks like.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: The one thing I hate about language is the inconsistencies. I don’t write “basment” just because I stuck ment at the end of base.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: It’s been preferred and you might be onto something in terms of origins in the days of print setting, but it’s illogical and ugly looking and I am seeing that “e” more and more in our digital, www age.
It’s unfair to compare to colour because that “u” is superfluous unless you* are really invested as a Canadian in never writing like a Murican.
*that’s a generic/hypothetic you
Mister Papercut
Stopped in the wee hours today to check on a dog I saw lying/sitting by the side of the road. Little shit pulled a Rosie on me and juked me out of my shoes and jumped into my car.
Looks like a large-ish chihuahua or mix, no tags, no chip, not neutered, very clean, smells like he may have been flea dipped or had a topical applied recently, and nails appear to have been trimmed/maintained by someone who knows what they’re doing. Oh, and there’s the matter of the large mass camping out on the side of his neck. *sigh*
So, dog experts, does it sound like I have a dumpee on my hands: Y/Y? Should I even bother trying to find the owner, beyond the Craigslist posts I made this morning?
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: It is always nice to hear from the East German judge.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Just so you know what side you’re on. There is no East Germany anymore, except in your head.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Larime: Best of luck to both of you. I kicked in a little. I hope it helps.
Cheers,
Scott.
opiejeanne
@JPL: Today I ordered some candy to be sent to family members, and where it gave me the option of a message I checked Happy Holidays on the one being sent to a cousin married to the worst kind of wingnut. I don’t think she will care, but I’m hoping to explode his tiny brain.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Bob, just so you know, I am fully aware that the DDR no longer exists. I was living in Germany in October of 1990 when the two countries unified. Beyond that, however, your monomania has caused you to completely miss what I was saying. It was a reference to the perceived tendency of Soviet and East German Olympic judges giving extremely low scores. Go back and read it again along with the comment I was replying to. It may not have been a great joke, but a joke it was – not a political commentary.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: It made me chuckle, but then I’m not Bob.
kindness
@schrodinger’s cat: Tunch might have been fat but he wasn’t a judgemental bastard. Well, he might have been but it’s John’s call to say that, not ours.
Good cartoon. Breaks the monotony of the intertubes lately.
Harish
Hey J Cole remember the time you accused people suspicious of that Rolling Stone article on the UVA rapes story enablers of campus rape? Yeah turns out the article was making stuff up.
http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/us/rolling-stone-uva-apology/index.html?c=homepage-t
But hey, what’s a few ruined frat boys’ lives, right? I’m sure you’re equally likely to call your own frat boys rapists.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Mister Papercut: Shit. No, I think you’re done.
I cannot think of anything more awful to do to a dog than dump it. They’re pack animals, for God’s sake. Dogs exiled from their packs die.
The owners are invariably the kind of gutless horrors that don’t have the stones to put the animal down themselves, so they just chuck the poor critter out the car door and drive on in the warm glow of their own beautiful minds, convinced that someone, somewhere, will do the right thing and somehow everyone will be happier. I wish, on the thankfully rare occasions I’ve had to deal with something like this, that I could believe that Hell exists.
Omnes Omnibus
@Harish: Why don’t you check out the thread below this one…
schrodinger's cat
@kindness: I loved that floofy white and orange kitteh, and I was kidding. No offense meant to the patron kitteh of Balloon Juice. I know that Tunch was not really judgmental but he had the superior disdainful look that many kittehs have, including my own Boss kitteh.
Yatsuno
@Bob In Portland: Protip: posting either a huge chunk or the entirety of an artice = not cool.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Fascist.
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
The problem really lies with English itself. French, say, has l’Académie française and an international body of Francophone countries. Malay, spoken throughout South-east Asia, benefits from continuing consultation between Malaysia and Indonesia. English is the most widely spoken language of our times; but precisely because of its global spread, it isn’t organised to keep itself consistent around the world. It would be nice if Britain and the US, the two most significant Anglophone countries, could get together and start a world body for International English; but could you get a planetful of English speakers to accept its authority?
JPL
@opiejeanne: There’s an email going around that includes a song, stating that you should walk out of stores that don’t say Merry Christmas. If one feels that strongly, why are they commercializing X-mas by shopping.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
It was a fine joke. I am jealous that you were there in 1990. I was in Berlin two summers ago (had previously been in ’82 and ’85) and it was a thrill to walk through the Brandenburger Tor and to have a snack at Checkpoint Curry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid:
No, not a chance.
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: ’89-90 was a really interesting time to be living over there.
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: You’re correct. But it would have been nice if someone had said, “Hey, where’d the e go? You can’t release that.” Or at sometime, someone could have decided to make it consistent.
I admit I’d rather be internally consistent than historically consistent.
satby
@Mister Papercut: @CONGRATULATIONS!: What CONGRATULATIONS said. It’s possible that the dumpers didn’t actually take the dog to the vet and it may be a benign tumor, but that’s kind of remote. If there’s a local rescue you could try calling to see if, given the circumstances, they could make room for the little guy. Especially if you aren’t in a position to take on a dog with potentially large medical costs.
But if you decide to take it on, let us know, because we maybe could do a fundraiser or something. What state are you in?
Edited to add: be careful of Craigs list, too many dogfighters troll the listings looking for bait dogs.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Whoops. Wrong thread.
Cheers,
Scott.
Iowa Old Lady
Question. I’m thinking of getting Mr IOL one of those wearable fitness monitors for Christmas. Would you regard such a gift as nagging or insulting? If I do get one, do you have recommendations?
trollhattan
@Another Holocene Human:
I rue the day every tony suburban strip mall decided they were “Centres.” No, with a Cheesecake Factory and a Best Buy you’re a fvcking “mall.”
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Gin & Tonic: I knew you did! And it goes without saying that it’s “grey.” Isn’t consistency the hobgoblin of foolish minds? Or is it the last refuge of the scoundrel? I can never remember.
trollhattan
@Iowa Old Lady:
Am getting wife.gov a Garmin Vivofit, mostly because it’s purple. She wants something to track her sleep, which is supposedly does, but wanted something purple. I no longer ask “why?”
Garmin makes good stuff in general, so if it breaks I have confidence they’ll be in business to fix it.
burnspbesq
@Bob In Portland:
So far from the truth that no map will get you there from here.
Fuck you.
trollhattan
@Harish:
Did you happen to notice the ginormous thread immediately below this one? Spleen-venting is on aisle 7.
Another Holocene Human
If you missed it last night, I Can’t Breathe poem from the House floor:http://www.mediaite.com/tv/dem-rep-recites-i-cant-breathe-poem-for-eric-garner-on-house-floor/
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
If, like G and I, you are someone who likes to make Christmas cookies but is too lazy to make or even roll out your own dough, Nestle has you covered this year:
https://www.verybestbaking.com/products/11430/tollhouse/nestle-toll-house-rolled-ready-holiday-sugar-cookie-dough-sheets/
NotMax
Speaking (sort of) of cartoons and (even less sort of) tech, always liked this one.
trollhattan
NASA had a bit of the old mojo on display today.
Imagine that, a new space vehicle that didn’t blow up.
trollhattan
@burnspbesq: Hodor! bin Hodor! keeps Hodor!ing all over himself. What’s an old-school pinko gonna do?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Not if he already works out, or even if he’s just expressed an interest in improving his condition, as whom amongst us has not. I use a Polar with a chest strap that is sometimes uncomfortable, but I’ve heard the wrist only ones can be somewhat unreliable wrt heart rate and thus calorie counting, Not sure if that’s still true. The Polar I use (about two years old) doesn’t have any kind of computer connection for record keeping, etc, which I understand is all the rage with the young people.
@trollhattan: Like the subdivisions with names meant to evoke the English (or New English) countryside. I wonder if “Downton Woods” has broken ground yet.
Iowa Old Lady
@trollhattan: @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thanks. He’s very hard to shop for. I’m hoping this works out as a gift.
Mike J
Just performed open Nexus surgery. Sub 1mm screws holding in the usb port assembly. Urgh,
Happily, the case is snapped back together and the patient is charging comfortably.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@trollhattan:
I’m holding out for the FitBit Charge that’s being released in February — it includes a heart rate monitor AND it comes in purple. Plus I get an extra 30 percent off because I never turned in my FitBit Force after it was recalled for nickel allergies. (I’m not allergic to nickel, so I didn’t have any trouble with it.) It probably does more than I need, but Purple!
Helmut Monotreme
Bob, I’ll bite, I’m bored. There are genuine neo Nazis in Ukraine. Given what the Russians have done to the Ukrainian people in the last few hundred years, are you really surprised that some Ukrainians want to emulate the most deadly Russian-killers in history? There are also genuine Russian true believers in Ukraine, they live there, they grew up there and if they say they are Ukrainian and in favor of closer ties to Russia, I believe them. To claim that all of the Ukrainian opposition to Russian hegemony are Neo Nazis is the same as saying that all opposition to closer ties to NATO is motivated by unreformed Stalinists. WWII is over. The cold war is over. It really is OK if you think that Ukraine should have closer ties to Russia. You could probably even construct an argument for that while still acknowledging that Putin is a dangerous world-class asshole. You aren’t doing that. You are claiming that everyone who opposes closer ties between Russia and Ukraine is a Nazi or a Nazi sympathizer. This argument makes you look dumber than a dumber-than-average stump.
Sadly, the US has a long history of overlooking (or even enabling) fascism during the cold war. Even past that time, the US has been all too willing to support regimes with a terrible human rights record if doing so will grant the USA some advantage. However this isn’t a situation where reasonable people are sitting down to a table to rationally solve an interesting hypothetical problem. It’s not a game. There’s quite a bit at stake, and real people are going to get hurt, whichever way this slow civil war goes. Because it is a slow civil war, and as a US citizen it is not clear at all how allowing Russia to dominate or even conquer Ukraine is supposed to be better for the average Ukrainian than if they were allowed to make their own state and govern it accordingly even if some people in that state have a creepy unsettling affection for the Nazis. Do you think the average Ukrainian would be better off living in a Russian client state? Say so.
The Neo Nazis in Ukraine aren’t some kind of fourth reich. Maybe they want to be. They idolize a loathsome regime and venerate a leader whose only use for the people of eastern Europe was as cannon fodder to fight Stalin. But Putin has given everyone there who isn’t a Neo Nazi and doesn’t want to be dominated by Russia, little choice. If they want to win their civil war, they have to fight alongside Neo Nazis. They aren’t strong enough to win without the help of Neo Nazis.
Maybe they are making a giant mistake and living under Russian domination would be a better outcome for the average Ukrainian, than allowing Neo Nazis to participate in fighting and governing. But if that’s so, it isn’t apparent to everyone else in the Ukraine who opposes Russia’s ambitions. And to prove that assertion, you’re going to have to do better than claiming that opposing Russian goals in the Ukraine means happily kissing up to Neo Nazis.
Elizabelle
@Mister Papercut:
I found a missing dog once by posting signs with pictures at gas stations and convenience stores in area where pup went missing.
Can you do that? It’s a great way to reach people who might recognize the dog or owner.
And the pup sounds cared for, and a pet. Maybe an escaped pet …
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Well played, and entirely in the spirit intended.
A favorite clip lampooning commies.
“You tried to market a substitute. You called it Kremlin Cola. Even the Albanians wouldn’t drink it; they used it for sheep dip.”
NotMax
@NotMax
And – link fail.. Fix follows.
A favorite clip lampooning commies.
Mike J
@Iowa Old Lady:
I was given a fitbit, but I have philosophical problems with it. It uploads all of the data to their website without copying it to your computer. The only way to see your data is to sign up for their website. To add insult to injury, you only get summary data unless you pay them more money to get a little bit more access to your own data. Even when you pay you don’t get access to all the data points they collect.
I hacked around for a little while on the open source usb drivers that I found online, but it didn’t appear that anybody else was working on them. I did get it to compile and handshake, but never dived into the data interpretation.
In short: I would never buy a device that takes data about me and denies me use of or even access to it. Fitbit fits my definition of evil.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: “Brushing up on the umlaut?” Just try to tell me that’s not a euphemism for something really kinky.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Yer all a cult, I tell ya, you purple lovers…uh, lovers of purple! (which also include the kid along with the spouse).
You probably won’t be buying one at Radio Shack, as they seem to be headed down the final series of tubes. Friend sent me to this article, which illustrates why, from an employee’s viewpoint. A sample.
gogol's wife
@Helmut Monotreme:
Save your breath to cool your borshch. Reason and facts do not compute with this one.
Woodrowfan
@gogol’s wife:
good advice. shorter; Don’t feed the troll.
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: I will never understand Shoppes. I call them shoppies for the sake of my sanity.
Amir Khalid
@gogol’s wife:
Once in a while someone must raise the voice of reason with Bob in Portland, if only to demonstrate the futility of expecting Bob to listen. I’ve had a go at it myself.
Helmut Monotreme
@gogol’s wife: I’d have to be a lot hungrier than I am to eat borshch. Stupid beets. Bane of my childhood, them and Brussels sprouts.
Omnes Omnibus
@Helmut Monotreme: I like Brussels sprouts. I second your emotion on beets.
Mike J
@Helmut Monotreme: The bar at MoMA has (had?) a beet based cocktail inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s Red Square.
I wasn’t really a fan.
Another Holocene Human
@JPL: why should I say Merry Christmas when it isn’t fucking Christmas? It’s the advent season, also Hanukkah is coming up. What the fuck it this two month long Christmas shit? It’s not religious.
Tribalistic fake Christians with tribalistic fake holidays. Who came up with monthlong Xmas before Xmas? Retailers. The real Christmas extended feast happens AFTER MIDNIGHT XMAS EVE which you’d know if you were a real Christian and not a fake Christian.
Real or fake the purity tests and thumb in the eye of church and state is obnoxious as fuck but I don’t know this just triggered my overall annoyance at the ignorance that typifies self righteous xtian tribalistic nonsense. Go back to church and your Bible, oh that’s right, Christmas season isn’t in the Bible. So there we are.
JCJ
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, like you have never brushed up your umlaut?
Omnes Omnibus
@JCJ: I might well have – if I knew what it meant.
Another Holocene Human
12 days of Christmas — AFTER Xmas until EPIPHANY. Every one of these fake xtians don’t know that because retailers pull all that red and green vomit down as soon as they sellout of 80% of the clearance on 12/26.
Advent color is purple, not red, and it’s not merry. This may be Catholic but if you go back to Old Europe where these memebases originated the more pagan kinda not so jesusy cultural practices around xmas support this.
Only in America. What a country.
trollhattan
@Omnes Omnibus:
Never liked Brussels sprouts until encountering them as a side dish at our best Italian restaurant. They’d been sauteed in butter and olive oil with pancetta and garlic until tender and slightly browned (probably blanched beforehand). Oh, mama, where have you been all these years?
Previously they’d always been stinky green spheres cooked to mush.
And beets. Hated them until as a grownup I discovered it is evidently possible to raise them in a way they don’t taste exactly like the dirt they’re grown in. Who knew?
Another Holocene Human
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think humor or nuance compute for BiP Bot 1000™
Omnes Omnibus
@trollhattan:
That sounds rather like the Brussels sprout recipe my s-i-l used at Thanksgiving. Yummy.
Another Holocene Human
@trollhattan: that’s why i love me some sweet pickled canned beets and not crappy dirty field beets that have maybe dried out a bit, impossible to roast and not have come out bitter
strangely the greens are often delicious while the beet is inedible
Helmut Monotreme
@trollhattan:
I’m going to argue, that anything not actually poisonous would be pretty good when prepared in this fashion. Which speaks far more for the chef than it does for those nasty little lumps of mush.
trollhattan
@Helmut Monotreme:
What can I say? Grew up in a Midwest German family where food was cooked to a point every bacteria and virus within a hundred yards was extinct, so a lot of, if not most food flavors were left for me to discover as an adult. Who knew lamb could be a color other than gray/grey?
Omnes Omnibus
@Another Holocene Human: Probably true, but my comment does seem to have silenced him for now. Or perhaps it is coincidental.
Origuy
I don’t think I ever had Brussels sprouts that I liked until I had the ones at Cascal, a Spanish place in Mountain View. They were marinated, roasted, and served with a garlic aioli and Manchego cheese. I’d have them again.
Oh, and I love beets. Borshch is good, too, especially if it’s the hearty Russian stuff, not just watery beet soup.
SWMBO
Hope this restores everyone’s faith:
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/jibbers_crabst
Iowa Old Lady
@Mike J: I’ll look around at the alternatives too. Thanks for the input.
Steeplejack
@Mike J:
My Nexus 7 feels slightly sluggish since it updated itself to Android 5.0 a few weeks ago, e.g., changing to a different app or bringing up the on-screen keyboad takes a palpable couple of seconds, whereas before such actions were almost immediate. Thoughts, Dr. J?
opiejeanne
@JPL: I have long wondered that.
I was once startled by what a friend was spending on Christmas presents, and she was startled that I was startled. I refrained from reminding her that it IS after all a religious holiday, because she was a friend and I figured she was stimulating the economy nicely and at about 4 times the rate we were. .
Omnes Omnibus
@Steeplejack: Sounds like it needs some exercise. Maybe you should get it a gym membership for X-mas.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: And with a Burlington Coat Factory you’re a soon-to-be-dead mall.
Omnes Omnibus
@opiejeanne: I have never seen a BCF that wasn’t in a stand alone building – often in the vicinity of a mall but never actually in it.
ETA: Just an observation from personal experience, not an attempt to contradict you or start an argument.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@trollhattan:
You’ll be grateful when the flying purple people eaters finally show up. Just sayin’.
Mike J
@Steeplejack: I haven’t seen any slowdowns with lollipop, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t experiencing it. Sometimes it’s pretty subjective.
It does seem to boot a lot slower, but since I rarely turn it off that hasn’t mattered.
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
“One eye!”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@opiejeanne:
We have a mall that survived a BCF moving in after Mervyn’s went bankrupt. I’m not sure they’ll survive IKEA moving away, though all of the neighbors will be grateful not to have that huge pickup line snaking down the street anymore.
Bob In Portland
@burnspbesq: And to you. Enjoy the armband, scumbag.
@Helmut Monotreme: Of course, the Ukrainians are incapable of being the Fourth Reich. They can’t even keep their country together before the imminent economic collapse. They weren’t even the Third Reich. They were just industrious helpers for the Third Reich, killing Russians, Poles and Jews for Germany back in the good old days, as Gin likes to think of them.
How about America? What do we have to do to be a Fourth Reich? Maybe spy on all the citizens. There was a good book a decade back about how the Third Reich used IBM punch cards to keep track of all the Jews, and it came in handy during the Holocaust. Does the NSA use IBM computers? How about if the US starts lots of wars for oil while lying to the people about the reasons for the war? That was a Third Reich thing. Is it a Fourth Reich thing? How about having the police kill black people? I know, the Third Reich killed Jews, Poles, Slavs et al, but there just weren’t many black people in Central Europe. Does law enforcement randomly killing black people qualify as the Fourth Reich-ishness? How about having poor people in factories around the world make shit for us for unlivable wages? Granted, it’s not like the complex at Auschwitz. There they killed some outright and then worked the rest to death. Our miserable factories, for now, are overseas so if people starve to death or die it’s not our fault. You know, privatize the misery.
Heck, we even have Reichstag Fires when we need to crack down on minorities or start wars.
The problem was never about Ukraine. It was about the US backing the fascist regime. You read the long quote from that German Foreign Policy that I quoted above? Little Nazis in little Nazi parades all over Eastern Europe.
Before you go too far down along the Putin trail, remember that Putin was offering a favorable deal to yet again bail out Ukraine from its corrupt oligarchs. Putin moved in Crimea when the US coup put the Nazis and oligarchs into power. He basically took back Crimea because Krushchev (sic) shouldn’t have given it away. His bad. No one died, most people there are quite happy not to be part of the current Ukraine. Granted, the CIA has been radicalizing the Muslim minority like the CIA has started radical Muslim movements in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Dagestan and Chechnya.
As far as Donbas, there is not a Russian army there. You know how the CIA armed and trained those “moderate anti-Assad forces” who morphed into ISIS? Essentially, that’s Russia’s involvement in Donbas, only we’re now using our bombers too. So if Putin shouldn’t aid the ethnic Russians in the east who were getting killed by the Nazi battalions, what should he have done? Let the killings proceed? If Russia actually went to war against Ukraine it would have been quick. The Nazis who didn’t scramble across the border would probably have gotten shot. Would the US have gone to war there? Unlikely.
You know, Russia has not recognized the independence of Donbas. Any idea why? Because a complete, non-hostile Ukraine is Russia’s best bet. And who knows, maybe when the current regime in Kiev collapses, and generally the veneer of democracy is the first thing to disappear when the military coup happens, there will all sorts of factions looking for help. I imagine Russia will be there to offer help to the moderates versus the Nazis. Maybe they can move the capital of Ukraine to Donetsk after the dust settles. (That was a joke.)
(What’s really funny, since I’m accused of not having a sense of humor, is that one of the new ministers that Poroshenko installed this week was from Shakaashvili’s old crew in Georgia. He was immediately made a citizen, but all meetings where he attends have to be spoken in Russian because he doesn’t understand Ukrainian. Remember when the coup first occurred that the first business of the fascists was to outlaw Russian as an official language. Isn’t that funny? The fascists are so incompetent that they have to get a foreigner who can’t speak their language to be a minister. Usually, they train them here and then send them over there. Isn’t that right, Gin and Tonic. Heh heh heh.)
Ah, but back to the US. The US, generally through the State Department, NGOs and the CIA, have been backing fascist regimes. I don’t think I’m stretching things to say that Israel and Saudi Arabia are working fascist states now. Would you consider our invasion of Afghanistan a democrat, non-fascist move? How about the conquest of Iraq?
What has been the point of our involvement in Afghanistan for the last 35 years, both when bin Laden was the good guy and the bad guy? If we’re not in Iraq for the oil what are we there for? If we’re not building up and knocking down radical Islamists in Syria, why are we there training and arming the miserable radical bastards?
Why do you think we overthrew the elected government in Ukraine and put the fascists in their government? Why do you think no one in our government says anything about the fascist militias shelling women and children in the Donbas? Or haven’t said anything about those hundred people burned in that building in Odessa?
So let’s at least be clear. I’m not worried about Ukraine becoming the Fourth Reich. I’m worried about America.
So if we eventually become the Fourth Reich, how will the useful idiots here at Balloon Juice recognize it? I hear whining about our law enforcement killing blacks, but apparently to suggest a fascist equivalent to burnspbesq warrants a fuck you. I know a lot of people here came around to being against our Iraq and Afghanistan adventures, and they now realize that the government lied to us about these wars. I’m sure there’s a few dimwit BJers who still think we invaded Afghanistan because Osama lived in a cave there but most are vaguely aware that we’re not getting the whole truth. As I recall the German invasion of Poland was officially about Poland invading Germany. And we invaded Afghanistan because….?
How about if US were controlled by right-wing oligarchs who subvert the political system like Nazi Germany was subverted? Would that make us a Fourth Reich?
I’m pretty sure the disconnect comes because the dimwits here don’t recognize when they’re being fed propaganda. How many responses to me start with obscenities about Putin? You even included a mention. Remember the good ol’ days when Saddam was the evil one? Or Osama? He was a real bad man. I remember when Castro was the designated bad man.
So did we overthrow the government in Afghanistan (twice, if you count when Osama and the Mujahadeen were the good guys) for freedom? Or oil? Did we decide that Saddam, who started out as the CIA’s favorite in Iraq, become a bad man and we had to go there to restore democracy? Or was it the oil?
I ask these questions because Syria and Ukraine hardly have enough petroleum to make it worthwhile for our war machine. And we knew that Assad was a bad guy because he used to torture people for us during the Extraordinary Rendition days.
So what’s it all about? Just because the bottomfeeders here can’t figure out why we’re waging war and overthrowing governments in a semi-circle around the Caspian Sea, wouldn’t you suspect that the people who said WMDs actually know the real reason? You don’t seem to be easily distracted by flag-waving.
Do we have to kill Jews in order to become the Fourth Reich? Do we have to speak German? (Sorry, Gin, speaking Ukrainian isn’t even necessary in Little Fourth Reich.
opiejeanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, no argument. I have also had friends tell me that their malls are alive and well after the addition of BCF, but every time one moved into a vacated department store space the mall died not long after. Maybe the mall was already dying and this was a last ditch effort. In two malls, Huntington Beach and one near San Mateo, they were the only stores left in a deserted mall.
Bob In Portland
@Helmut Monotreme: By the way, what are Russia’s ambitions? Did you read about them in the New York Times?
Jebediah, RBG
@Another Holocene Human:
Bugs my wife bigtime too. When we have a tree, we put it up just before Christmas and take it down at epiphany.
Ruckus
@opiejeanne:
The rent was real cheap. One can make good deals in real estate when everyone else is running away. Especially retail real estate.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: I have an idea, Bob. Why don’t the Ukrainian people decide what they want? How might they do that, you ask? Well, how about holding presidential and parliamentary elections, with international observers to attest to their openness?
Oh, they already did that.
How’d the neo-Nazis do?
Oh, they got crushed.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Russia’s ambitions? Novorossiya. They’re quite open about it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Gin & Tonic:
You forget — in Bob’s world, every “Ukie” man, woman, and child is a neo-Nazi, so anyone who won an election is Ukraine is a neo-Nazi by definition.
Sure, it makes no sense in the real world, but it makes it a lot easier for Bob to maintain that “Russia good, Ukraine bad” worldview.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Then why doesn’t Russia recognize its independence or why doesn’t Russia just absorb it? If Russia wanted it it would have taken it.
It hasn’t.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): No, in my world the US spent 75 years cultivating the OUN residua. There are plenty of people in Ukraine who aren’t Nazis, obviously the Nazis can’t win an election, not even when the east and Crimea don’t vote. Still, for some reason directed by some unknown hand Nazis keep ending up in the government. Funny that way.
I’ll ask you, Mnem. Our country spies on its citizens. The electoral process is controlled by oligarchs. It starts wars all over the world and lies to its citizens about it. Authorities kill minorities in the streets.
The government lied to you about Afghanistan and Iraq, multiple times. Why isn’t your government lying to you about Ukraine? Because they would never lie to you about Ukraine? Or is it because the New York Times has assured you? What source do you find reputable that says the US is telling you the truth about Ukraine?
Bob In Portland
Come on, Gin, tell us the Kremlin’s strategy. They just took Crimea. You can argue their reasons or the sacredness of Ukraine’s borders but you can’t argue that they took it. Granted, they had a large military installation there, but there wasn’t any dillydallying about it. And they’re not giving it back. And most of the people there are quite happy about it.
Novorussya? If Russia wanted it, really wanted it as part of Russia, it would have been part of Russia already. You don’t think that Russia could beat the Ukrainian army and the little fascist militias? Hell, the rebels beat them.
Maybe Putin is such a sneaky guy that he’s waiting until the regime in Kiev collapses and take it all, but I’m guessing he really doesn’t mind the US being stuck with another failed state.
So maybe Putin is playing a waiting game. Ukraine has already cut its natgas rations in half and that probably won’t stretch things into the new year. So the question is whether the fascists have enough power to keep the occupants of the rump state in line until those IMF are put into play. That should make everything better.
I don’t even think you believe it either. You know better. Ukraine is just another failed state on the road to Baku.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Proxy war is cheaper than real war. And with dupes like you, Putin can lie with impunity and say “Russians? What Russians?”
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Oh, and Mnem, stop pretending to put words in my mouth. If you want to be an apologist for fascism, then be my guest.
Bob In Portland
By the way, Gin, I realize you don’t do well at answering questions, like why the hell you speak Ukrainian when even their ministers don’t, but what source for Russia wanting Novorussya? New York Times? Time Magazine? Slate? If everybody knows, then who is the source of the information?
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: If Russia were fighting a proxy war for conquest of Novorussya, why has Putin turned down Donbas’ request to be part of Russia? It could be done with a stroke of the pen and your little fascist gangsters wouldn’t have been able to do a thing.
Speaking of proxy wars, how’s things going with ISIS?
Bob In Portland
Balloon Juice, where the Cold War never ended and where the smartpants kinda liberals are always a year or five late.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: From the guy who writes about Cold War events more than all other commenters put together, that’s really rich. Let it never be said you don’t have a sense of humor. And it’s good to see the long-form posts again — for a while you were just doing drive-byes, and I was a little concerned.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
I especially love how you claim I’m lying about your equation of neo-Nazis and Ukrainians and then once again accuse Gin & Tonic of being a neo-Nazi because he speaks Ukrainian in your very next comment. This is a spoof, right?
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Gee, I thought what I wrote wasn’t so baffling. And still you misunderstood.
By the way, what’s your source for Russia wanting to absorb Novorussia? Oh, that’s right. You can’t answer questions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: You know what’s really funny, Bob? People here managed to have a discussion of fascistic tendencies in the US yesterday. But we managed it without the conspiracy theorizing. Go figure. Also, did you figure out my joke from earlier or is your monomania still in the way?
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: You’re dishonest. Of course not all Ukrainians are Nazis. It isn’t even debatable. The government is neo-Nazi and encourages the glorification of Nazism. Or do you deny that? Do you still deny that we were behind the coup? Here, let me put words in your mouth. “When I was at the Bund meeting last Tuesday…”
How do you know you’re not being lied to about Ukraine? Articulate, please. Because you believe Kerry? Because you don’t trust bad man Putin like you didn’t trust bad man Saddam? You really are hopeless.
Here we go. Here’s the question, Mnem. Let’s see if your capable of answering it. What makes a country fascist? Is the US fascist? Thanking you in advance for your thoughtful answer.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: Source? Here.
I’ve given you plenty of sources over the last months.
How about your question to Mnemosyne? How do *you* know you’re not being lied to?
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Because conspiracy-theorizing is forbidden, or because in reality there are no conspiracies? I’ll answer your question when Mmmm and Gin answer theirs.
Meantime, when Dubya’s administration said WMDs was that a conspiracy? More than one spokesperson lied, so it was a group of people who lied to you. Conspiracy or not? Or do you think that Democratic administrations don’t lie? When we were told we were invading Afghanistan because Osama was hiding there, was that a lie? Or was there another reason?
If you are really so trusting no wonder why you always get tricked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Aha, I get it now. You can’t do nuance. The idea that people do both good and bad is beyond you. Got it now. FWIW last night, I was, I believe, the first one to raise the f-word. Just because I don’t buy into your CT world doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize fascist behavior when I see it. Oh yeah, by the way, your denigration of anyone who knows Ukrainian is anti-intellectualism in its purest form. Go think about that.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: That’s not fair. Even your health minister can’t read that.
But, once again, another failure to answer questions. If you say you base Russia’s desire to seize Novorussya on a Ukrainian article, then you must discount the English-speaking media. Right? You realize that some of the guys at the NY Times who are writing those stories on Ukraine were the cowriting WMD stories with Judith Miller a decade back. So, yeah, you can’t trust them. How about NBC? Trust them? Or is it only Ukrainian language blogs upon which you rely?
By the way, why are you ashamed of how you learned Ukrainian? You see, I’m not asking you how or where, just why. I can imagine. People who are attracted to fascism have self-worth problems. Or maybe it’s just your employment. Here, let me do a Mnmmm on you and put words in your mouth:
“Well, Bob, as you’ve guessed my parents came over to America after WWII. They’re Ukrainian and they were on the losing side. The Nazi side. And I was raised to cherish Nazism. Granted, here in America you can’t be openly anti-Semitic. I learned Ukrainian in my family, studied it later at a CIA-funded Ukrainian center, you know, like that White Russian community in Dallas was funded by the CIA. It’s not just the CIA, though. The State Department have funds, and there’s plenty of private funding. More so now than back in the fifties when they were getting these programs started. I still believe what the folks believed. Ah, Bandera! They don’t make men like that anymore.”
Or not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: My god, you’re an asshole.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: That’s in Russian, dude. It’s video of Vladimir Putin, who doesn’t speak Ukrainian, saying that “Novorossiya” was mistakenly given to Ukraine by the Bolsheviks. So I base Russia’s desire for Novorossiya on the words of Putin.
See, there’s the fundamental problem you’ve had all along. You always rely on secondary sources. I don’t.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: My father, incidentally, spent most of WWII in a Nazi prison. Asshole.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re an ignorant little twerp who can’t argue, only name-call. It’s people like you who never notice what’s going on around them. Then all of a sudden, hey, “They’re shooting black people!” Or, “Why is Iraq such a mess?” Or, “Why are we still in Afghanistan?” Actually, I’m giving you a little credit here, that you’ll eventually figure it out. How long until you realize they got you again?
So let’s ask again, oh witless one. Are there or are there not conspiracies? Discussing fascistic tendencies yesterday, you were talking about honest and aboveboard fascist tendencies, right? Because fascists, though loathsome, are always honest about their devilry.
Those 75 years of supporting Ukrainian fascists. That was all aboveboard too, right? You knew all about it, from way back when. But that was okay because Russians, right?
It’s easy for evil to win. They just have to have gullible little twerps like you to feed their propaganda. Heck, you might even volunteer to die somewhere. Good going, champ. Now go punch a hippie.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sure he’d be proud of you now.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Hey Bob. You need to apologize to G&T for this.
Regards,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: You know nothing.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: So Putin said Novorussya was mistakenly given to Ukraine. No shit. That’s still not war plans. And it still doesn’t answer my questions asked a few hours ago.
You just keep on being Mister Mystery Man.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Bob, if you can’t figure out why I called you an asshole, you are dumber than dirt. Your absolute incapacity to notice any nuance is amazing. BTW, if you think that the conflict in Ukraine is the big fight against fascists, why the fuck aren’t you there? In Spain, we had the Lincoln Brigade. Why aren’t you organizing its equivalent? I think it is because you are an internet blowhard. I’ve put in time in the streets in my life. Have you?
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: Because then I’ll get some honest discussion from him? How about Omnes. Should he apologize to me because he called me an asshole?
If Gin and Tonic wants to open up and share with me why the son of a man who was imprisoned by Nazis now supports the Nazis in Ukraine I’d be glad to listen. I’m sure it would be an interesting story. But I’m pretty sure that random fact in Gin’s past, if it is a fact, is misleading.
And while he’s at it he can tell me how he came across speaking Ukrainian. As we all know, almost all of the Ukrainians who came over to the US and Canada after WWII were on the losing side.
By the way, I don’t remember you ever telling others here to apologize to me. Is it because Gin is very delicate?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: I can answer that question. You are an asshole. I make no apologies for saying so.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: I know why you called me an asshole. It’s what people do when their arguments collapse. If we were in the same bar you’d try to take a poke at me. It’s what losers do.
I think that the coup in Ukraine has been part of the US foreign policy to get hold of all that oil around the Caspian. I mean, why would we have spent thirty-five years in Afghanistan? But maybe you have an alternate theory. We’re fighting terrorism, right? No, really, that would make me laugh.
You know why I don’t have a sense of humor here with you? Because fascism isn’t funny. And ignorance is dangerous to everyone. And more people will die because of ignorant pricks like you.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Lost yet another argument, eh?
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Bob in Portlandia. No, you should apologize because that is what a civil person does after writing what you wrote.
You know, it’s possible to have a disagreement with someone without demanding to know their personal history. And attempting to demonize someone who argues against you doesn’t make your argument any stronger. In fact, it makes you look like a kook.
Don’t be a kook, Bob. Apologize, and stop with the personal attacks. Your psyche and blood pressure will thank you.
Regards,
Scott.
Bob In Portland
This.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: Why aren’t you on the streets in Ukraine? Come on, if your rhetoric is anything more than bullshit, you’ll do something. Let me know when you are on the streets; until then, you are a bullshit artist. Come on, pony up. I bet you are too fucking big a coward to put your money where your mouth is. Prove me wrong.
Bob In Portland
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: You absolutely right. I shouldn’t put words in other people’s mouths like Mnem does, or Omnes. There, so sorry Gin. Better now?
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: Why am I not in the streets of Ukraine?
You still miss what I’m saying. I’m American. I’m fighting fascism. Now put two and two together, genius.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob In Portland: No. No one misses what you are saying. People disagree with it. There is a difference. Bob, I don’t disagree that there is a fascist tendency in the US. I disagree that it is dominant or that it is winning. And I think that your hysterical approach to the issue is so fucking counterproductive that one can’t even comment on it because you are such a douchebag.
Mnemosyne
@Bob In Portland:
So what percentage of Ukrainians are NOT Nazis, Bob? One percent? Ten percent? If in your estimation the entire current government of Ukraine is made up of Nazis, that doesn’t leave you a lot of wiggle room to claim that you don’t think all Ukrainians are Nazis.
Your next line, by the way, is Some of my best friends are Ukrainians. It’s always the racist asshole’s next way to try and prove he’s not really racist.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus: You disagree that the US is now a fascist country? Okay.
Bob In Portland
@Gin & Tonic: Very authorative of you. Thanks for keeping me in the dark.
Bob In Portland
@Mnemosyne: A student of fascism would know that fascists are almost always a minority. Not all white people belong to the KKK but all white people in the US have been affected by racism.
Fascists still can’t win an election in Ukraine, but fascists continue to be appointed to the government.
The current Republican Party in the US is the equivalent to Mussolini’s Fascist Party. This was not always true. I have watched the migration of American politics to the right over my lifetime. There is now no real Left in American national politics. What caused it? Well, certainly the division of wealth has caused this drift, but fascism has ways of moving things along. Think tanks work to a degree but if you were a white person in the D.C. area when that black guy was shooting white people out of the trunk of his car you couldn’t help but feel the angst. Racist beliefs are helped by such remarkable events. That’s why it was so fascinating how many people involved in past “remarkable events” showed up during the OJ Simpson trial. I can’t think of a more effective racist propaganda campaign than his trial. It guaranteed the passing of the 3 Strikes Law in California.
Granted, I lived through the sixties when it was open season to shoot liberal politicians (much like the political assassinations of Weimar Germany). But things like that help to eliminate the competition in elections. Or Gary Hart with a woman on his lap.
So many BJers can recognize the results of fascism, I see the handwringing here on a daily basis, but most of you seem unable to understand the process. The KKKers may be fascist, but they’re not very powerful in the scheme of things. When we bomb a country based on lies so that a sector of our business community gets rich, well, that’s fascism, but BJers are also susceptible to propaganda. As long as BJers are angry at Putin they don’t examine what is happening in front of their eyes. Putin’s just another bad man, like Saddam, Osama, Assad, Khadafy, Castro, etc., etc.
That’s why I’ve tried, with no success, to steer the conversation about Ukraine to what America’s interests there are. Unfortunately, most BJers are not equipped to get beyond the obvious propaganda.
Ukraine is just another front in our government’s warlike fascist attempts to control the world’s energy. That is all. If “fascist” offends you, think of another word. The English language is malleable. I find it repugnant that there are militias crawling all over the Ukrainian countryside waving Nazi flags, but more Ukrainians will die from the IMF impositions and selling off the country’s industries and resources than the Banderistas could ever kill.
The seeds of America’s destruction are in the greed that spills out over our borders to every corner of the world. How long the empire lasts is debatable but it’s pretty clear that without an anti-fascist effort there is no hope here. Sorry you won’t be along for the fight, Mnem.
Meanwhile, the Gold Rush is on.
Bob In Portland
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, at least we’ve finally declared our positions. Racism is a tool of fascism. It’s worse now than it was. But apparently not bad enough for you to think that people would use racism as a fascist tool. In Weimar the Black Reichsfehr carried on a campaign of killing liberal politicians. In 1960s it was a stream of “lone nuts” who did the dirty work.
Most people can’t see past the field they’re plowing. That has always been the struggle for anti-fascists. That and lack of money.
Bob In Portland
Hmm.
Is the militarization of the local police forces a fascist tendency? Apparently not.
Is the control of elective politics in the US by oligarchs a fascist tendency? Apparently not to Omnes.
How about all those wars over there? Is a belligerent foreign policy a fascist tendency? Apparently not to Omnes.
Is the rise of racism in America a fascist tendency? Not to Omnes.
Is the rise in the prison population in the US a fascist tendency? Not to Omnes.
Perhaps, Omnes, we need to hear your definition of fascism, in your own words. Maybe you can’t recognize it.
Gin & Tonic
@Bob In Portland: I know this may strike you as odd, but I feel no particular compunction to share my family history or the details of my relationship with my father with some random stranger on a pseudonymous blog, particularly with one who has spent nearly the last year calling me a Nazi. I’m strange that way.