I get tired of outrage — and you know that I’m not a principled Burkean objective anti-executionist — so this is more about proving that cleek was right than anything else.
That lefties are accusing the new pope of handing over lefties to the right wing junta for execution makes me adore the new pope.
— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) March 13, 2013
Big R
WHY CAN’T I HAVE HIM AS A SENATE CANDIDATE? I WANT IT, MOMMY, I WANT IT!
…Ahem. I mean, how principled Burkean third way bipartisan centrist of Erick.
Gravenstone
So where do we find a right wing junta willing to dispatch Erick von Erick?
JPL
@Big R: He’d win. I live in GA and if he won the primary, he’d win.
Baud
I agree with Erick. The new pope is simply to die for.
Anoniminous
So Erick Son of Erick is cool with torture and murder. That kinda figures.
Schlemizel
Mr. Erickson cannot shuffle off his mortal coil fast enough to suit me.
What a waste of DNA
Eliott Rosewater
Theories should have predictive value. So I propose the following hypothesis:
Assume all these “conservatives” are unprincipled hustlers who say things because it will make them money, or get them attention that will –eventually –make them money –or in some way, keep them sucking at the teat of our oppressed plutocracy.
Name a prominent “conservative” whose behavior can’t be predicted on this basis.
For graduate research in this area, I refer you to PY Barnum (“There’s a sucker born every minute) and Kurt Vonnegut’s “God Bless You, Mr Rosewater” and its discussion of the Money River.
Comrade Dread
While Jesus was given up by a trusted associate and a religious man to the government authorities to be tried in secret, tortured, railroaded into a show trial where the verdict was more of a political statement than one of guilt, and summarily executed by the State, I don’t think Erickson is taking away the right lesson from the gospels.
WWJD does not stand for What would Judas do?
Understandably, I don’t know if there is any evidence to support the allegations against the new Pope, and I hope they aren’t true.
Omnes Omnibus
@Big R:
Veruca? Why, Veruca Salt, I would recognize you anywhere.
Valdivia
I am so happy you are front paging this. When I saw it I just could not believe it. Aside from Cleek’s useful maxim is it that this generation of conservative assholes is so ignorant as to not understand what the Dirty War was like and what the Junta was like?
I linked to it in the previous thread but I would loop this documentary for these idiots to watch and learn. It’s about Chile but I can guarantee the story of what happened is not so different (watch for the interview with one of the men in charge of the secret prisons, you see the glee in his eyes when he talks about what he did, no words)
Forsetti
Juntas for Jesus.
Jethro Troll
I wonder if Erickson also adored the previous pope specifically because of Ratzinger’s youthful military/political affiliation.
Baud
@Valdivia:
You need to change your whole mindset when it comes to these people.
The Other Chuck
Remind me again why it’s impolite to refer to people like EE as fascists?
Omnes Omnibus
@The Other Chuck:
Because it is demeaning to fascists?
MattF
Well, murder and torture are traditional religious methodologies. What’s the problem?
Marmot
Updated daily.
Ted & Hellen
Why do you give this douche so much attention?
You’re not kidding anyone re your disdain for outrage.
Please.
Roger Moore
@Anoniminous:
As long as it’s Those People being tortured and murdered. If it’s some of Us, though, it’s totally uncool.
beltane
This is not Hayekian modesty I can believe in.
Violet
@Valdivia:
US conservatives at the time didn’t care. Why would today’s conservatives care? They just don’t care. And it happened in some other country…filled with brown people? Doesn’t even get on the radar of the crazy that is today’s GOP and associated wingnuttery.
muddy
I’m surprised his byebye note from when he left CNN didn’t burst into flame from the vile stench of hypocrisy wafting off the paper. Or keyboard, wev.
Roger Moore
@Valdivia:
The problem is that they’re going to be watching and learning the wrong lessons. They’ll just want to bring Pinochet’s methods here.
Valdivia
Not to highjack adn change topic here but if anyone is interested (and has the stomach) in reading about these years this book (about Uruguay) is well written and heart breaking.
There’s some good academic books about these regimes (specially this which has a great chapter about the Vicaria de la Solidaridad in Chile).
The Latin American right and how it has changed since then is the great ignored elephant in the room regarding the region and unfortunately there is little to no research on it. Opening for an enterprising academic (note to self).
Just Some Fuckhead
I’m praying for the new pope. I can pray for Erick too.
jl
So, let me get this straight. This new Pope Francis guy has a murky record during the Argentinian dictatorship years, and some ‘lefties’ (like the AP?) bring it up. So, that makes EE adore the new pope, regardless of what the story is.
OK, the reasoning there is murky.
Oh, right. Cleek’s Law. Thanks DougJ.
And EE is the new reasonable moderate ‘understanding’ side of our extremist GOP? The new is old already.
MonkeyBoy
Politics as Trolling
where a position doesn’t have merits on its own but is worthy because it upsets the “enemies”. Limbaugh has perfected this art.
I really can’t recall examples of this happening on the left other than pro gay “activists” who would dress up or act super gay because it upset the straights.
Baud
@MonkeyBoy:
I think it happens all the time. What makes it different here is that that way of behaving has so come to dominate the culture of one of the two major parties.
Chris
@Anoniminous:
It’s difficult to overstate the extent to which our conservatives get off on the violence of antidemocratic regimes as long as they’re right wing.
“General Franco is an authentic national hero… [with the] talents, the perseverance, and the sense of the righteousness of his cause, that were required to wrest Spain from the hands of the visionaries, ideologues, Marxists, and nihilists that were imposing… a regime so grotesque as to do violence to the Spanish soul, to deny, even, Spain’s historical destiny. He saved the day…. The need was imperative… for a national policy [to]… make this concession to Churchill this morning, that one to Hitler this afternoon…. Franco reigns… supreme. He is not an oppressive dictator…. only as oppressive as is necessary to maintain total power…”
– William F. Buckley
“They are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”
– Ronald Reagan, describing the contras
And of course there’s always Charles Johnson, who was excoriated by his readers and his fellow bloggers for daring to point out that the Islamophobic cause was chock-full of unrepentant neo-Nazis and maybe that wasn’t a good thing.
The Ancient Randonneur
Clearly, Erick is not, nor was he ever, an altar boy. Damn shame.
karen marie
@Valdivia: I think people should take a step back in re the old accusation against Pope Frannie. From what I read, the accusation was made at a time when people were trying to discredit him. I find it disturbing that so many are so eager to accept it as true on no evidence whatsoever.
Chris
@Valdivia:
No. They don’t not understand. They understand, and they approve. Eric Ericson’s statement illustrates the mindset beautifully.
Donut
I guess Trike-Force’s Twatter csorta confirms for me that this pope was picked to deepen ties and alliances with evangelical Protestants and various religious nuts. My feeling was they would either go for broke with a nut who was knee deep in the pedophilia cover ups and forced birth and anti-gay bullshit, or just go for someone who would put a happy face on that shit in public, and tie the Church deeper to its extreme elements, anyway.
All of you Catholics who believe in and still respect the Church are kinda nuts, if you ask me. If the whole lot of you played in traffic today, I’d never shed a tear.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@karen marie:
“Pope Frannie”?
Ash Can
This isn’t just something that “pisses liberals off.” This is something that signals a sociopath. Erick Erickson is a disgusting person.
Valdivia
@karen marie:
I was saying something along those lines in the last thread. I think there is, given the position of the Church back then, a good chance it is all true. But I feel I haven’t seen enough yet .
I wrote a long answer to @Baud, @violet @Roger but it seems to have disappeared. The short of it was that yes these assholes were assholes singing the same song back then. Even if out of convenience they changed their tune in the 80’s (malvinas and throwing Pinochet under the bus because of the freedom agenda), a classic case of too little too damn late.
Scott S.
@Ted & Hellen: Republican Troll supports Republican pundit. Not particularly surprising.
GregB
@The Other Chuck:
The Other Chuck Says:
Remind me again why it’s impolite to refer to people like EE as fascists?
You misspelled fat shits.
Forkbeard
What, a conservative approvingly cites the murder of liberals? Color me surprised.
Chris
@Ash Can:
The only difference between people like this and the Westboro Baptist Church are the choice of targets. If the WBC stuck to saying “thank God for dead fags” in the direction of Fox News approved targets rather than soldiers, they’d be members in good standing of the right wing media/church complex.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris:
It is somewhat frightening that you might be correct.
Quaker in a Basement
@Anoniminous: Only if someone else does it for him. He may be bloodthirsty, but on the plus side, he’s lazy.
Ash Can
@Donut:
Don’t tell us, tell Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi.
scav
@Comrade Dread:
They’ll go with What Would Juntas Do? Because thats got the St Ronnie seal,of approval, plus the whole Flame-throwing GI Jesus riding Dinosaur he’s about to change into High-octane Gasoline for the worthy schtick.
The Dangerman
Is there anything that shows how “well” you’ve learned the message of Christianity better than gaining satisfaction from the killing of your political enemies?
srv
Has Dick Cheney converted to Catholicism yet?
Chris
@Quaker in a Basement:
Well, that’s kind of the general relationship between conservatives and fascists. Conservatives provide the money, the moral support, the political power, the connections in “polite society…” Fascists, in exchange, go out into the streets and do the actual murdering, torturing and skull-cracking. Eric Son of Eric is very clearly a conservative and not a fascist in that equation.
Jason
I don’t think he understands how English works, or what it is that he actually said.
Or he’s a liar trying to distance himself from his own words.
scott (the other one)
Dear Erick:
“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?” — Matthew 7:16
j
@Gravenstone: That nobody has emptied a 100 round magazine in his empty head makes me like gun control all that much more.
BUT, he will use “his wife’s shotgun” to ward off any threat.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2010/04/02/89848/erickson-acs-shotgun/?mobile=nc
Yeah, right.
What a macho-man pussy. I wonder how big the yellow puddle under him would be?
ellie
What the hell? He is repellent. To joke about the what the death squads did in Latin America is evidence that he has no soul or humanity.
Roger Moore
@srv:
Hell no. He’s unable to stand the sight of a cross, and holy water would burn him. Admittedly, he does like the idea of drinking Christ’s blood, but he wants to get it straight from the carotid.
karen marie
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: No? Too soon?
MattF
@Jason: He knew exactly what the reaction would be. Probably barely restrained himself from suggesting that it’s time for an auto-da-fe.
Valdivia
@Jason:
I am sure he got a lot of blowback so he is back pedaling. Idiot and also not willing to stand by what he thinks and believes.
And as a nitpick to Mr Erickson: the death squads were in Central America (see Guatemala, El Salvador, etc) the South American dictatorships used the Army, the police and the intelligence services. ETA: the death squads goal was to go around the country side killing rebel soldiers and rural populations, the military serving the Junta and the other dictators were torturing and imprisoning all sorts of lefties, the killing was just a side effect.
penpen
Trying to process this as some sort of joke or satire…
shortstop
Currently phonebanking and it’s killing me tonight. Y’all entertain me!
Chris
@Jason:
Both. They love saying overtly fascist things and then backpeddling away by saying “oh no, I didn’t [snerk] mean it THAT way, how could you [tee hee hee!] think I meant it THAT way?”
He’s now saying it’s hypocritical of lefties to support death panels but oppose death squads, and that all he meant was that the Archbishop opposed commies. Looking at the priests Francis is accused of having turned over to the junta, there’s not even the slightest thing to indicate that they were commies, just priests doing their job working in poor neighborhoods… which, I suppose, based on Glenn Beck’s revolted rejection of “social justice churches,” is all it takes to make one a commie if you’re on Eric’s side of the aisle.
Jay
I made some t-shirts containing the phrase, “Erick Erickson Is A Mucking Fonster.”
Can I get some takers?
scav
Execution. Tricky word that. Sooooooo ambiguous in meaning when applied to people. Was he being all 21st century and thing of computer code as part of the digital synergy of the NewGOPping?
Paula
Why do lapsed Catholics, Protestants, and atheists care more about the Pope than actual practicing Catholics in America?
MikeJ
Why do we care what a goat fucking child molester thinks?
Paula
Why do lapsed Catholics, Protestants, and atheists care more about the Pope than actual practicing Catholics in America?
MikeJ
Why do we care what a goat fucking child molester thinks?
jl
” here’s not even the slightest thing to indicate that they were commies, just priests doing their job working in poor neighborhoods… which, I suppose, based on Glenn Beck’s revolted rejection of “social justice churches,” is all it takes to make one a commie ”
EE is showing how the new ‘understanding’ reactionary conservatism works. He may simply have no idea what he is talking about. Heck, Argentina, El Salvador… , death squads, contras, junta generals, who can tell them apart anyhoos?
Paula
Why do lapsed Catholics, Protestants, and atheists care more about the Pope than actual practicing Catholics in America?
Chris
@Valdivia:
Isn’t it pretty standard for authoritarian governments to use a combination of legal and extralegal means in these sorts of things? I thought that was how it happened in Central America, unofficial death squads doing the really dirty stuff that you didn’t want on the official police and military’s hands, but with the police and military still playing an extensive role. Are you saying South American governments just never felt the need to add a death squad component?
penpen
I’ve got it, he was saying if lefties baselessly attack the pope with these outrageous smears then I know he must be doing something right. Whew, stroke averted.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@karen marie:
A bit too soon for me anyway. Runner up to
Ratzinger in the last go-round doesn’t suggest cuddliness.
PIGL
@Ted & Hellen: Because, you who are beneath contempt (fit only for a life of scrubbing out sewers with your own toothbrush), a leading figure of the conservative digerati is applauding the state-organised torture and murder of “lefties” by which he means all of us. All of us except his fellow-travellers here, such as yourself.
Valdivia
@Chris:
yes they didn’t really need to, as horrifying as it is to say. They believed they were ‘cleaning out the system’ and created a whole legal system to implement this (there is a reason these regimes are usually called bureaucratic authoritarians). the first order of business was to pass laws that made it possible for them to do this in the light of day. Also, hard to swallow, but a big majority of the middle class in urban areas had no problem with this (the movie Machuca, also about Chile, is great showing this). It is true that previous to the coup (both in Argentina and Chile) there were para-military groups confronting the left wing groups in violent street fights. But once they took over it was all ‘legal’. They had special units but there were no death squads.
It may be a differentiation that doesn’t matter–in the end they both were horrific. I just think where you have a civil war (Central America) and a coup/Junta (South America) the instruments and goals are different.
Baud
@penpen:
Too bad.
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: That sounds an awful lot like Europe in the 30s.
Zifnab25
Erick Erikson applauds the murder of political dissidents. Meanwhile, Rand Paul filibusters for 13 hours straight to condemns the President for failing to sufficiently spell out that he doesn’t plan to murder political dissidents.
Welcome to the modern Republican Party, gentlemen.
Chris
@penpen:
No. He knew exactly what he was saying, and knew that he could use that interpretation as his “oh no [LOLOLOL!] of COURSE I didn’t mean it that way!” escape clause when the outrage hit.
No benefit of the doubt from me. He knew exactly what he was saying and how it would read. Maybe he really believes in it and maybe he just thinks it’s funny to poke an open wound by joking about the lolzy police states south of the border. Either demonstrates him to be a worthless shit. But I’ve read too many comments from conservatives fapping to the majestic glory of various bloody dictators – Franco, Pinochet, Somoza, Pahlavi, even fucking Milosevic – to assume that he doesn’t really believe it.
penpen
@Baud: As in “stroke caused by excessive shock/outrage at wingnut expressing fascist sympathies and callous disregard for human life.”
Baud
@penpen:
If that were stroke-worthy, we’d all be dead already.
Jay in Oregon
@The Other Chuck:
Because the Vichy Villagers will not invite you to their dinner parties if you do.
Valdivia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes very much so. It’s easily lost in the Cold War mentality that this is what was happening.
I think there is a tendency in the ignorant mind of our conservatives to pool together all right wing govts and all left wing govts in Latin America, so as @jl: rightly pointed out who cares if they had death squads or juntas or whatever right? They were our sons of bitches and on the ‘right’ side of history.
But Central America in the 80s and South America in the 70s had as much in common as cocos and mangos. Very different societies, conflicts based on different class animosities and also different manifestations of how to terrorize your citizens.
Chris
@Valdivia:
Thanks for the clarification. Fascism thrives on middle class fear of the working class, which sounds like pretty much what happened here. The approval for extreme measures exists thanks to a deliberate decision not to know or find out what’s going on, and a both-sides-do-it sort of “well I’m sure those horrid Other People are being nasty too and it’s just a shame that their horridness is forcing our boys to behave like that.”
It’s not that different from the way much of the American middle class reacts to stories of police abuse in the inner cities or war crimes overseas.
Chris
@Valdivia:
Racial animosities too, right? I remember in a thread here last year that someone (probably you) explained that there was a much bigger share of Indio populations in most Central American nations than in South America, and as a result the conflict between right and left was much more racialized there.
ETA: I found the thread, right here (https://balloon-juice.com/2012/05/26/es-verdad-those-washington-bullets-again/) and yep, it was you. I remember following that thread on my android, which wasn’t really convenient to post from, but coming out of it really educated.
Omnes Omnibus
@Valdivia: It probably isn’t just our conservatives who are guilty of losing track of what goes went on in the southern part of our hemisphere. Quite a few people came up as Atlanticists in viewpoint . Hell, I am one. I took a few courses in political development, but I focused on Africa in that regard. Aside from that, just about everything had a US/Euro focus. I don’t think I was alone.
PIGL
@Chris:
William Buckley actually said this?
I did not realise until just now that he was a full-bore fascist all along.
Mr Stagger Lee
O/T Ed Schultz is interviewing the bartender who outed Mitt Romney with the infamous 47% video.
jl
My recollection is that egghead neocons knew but did not care what the history was of different Latin American regions. I watched a documentary that had a clip of Jeanne Kilpatrick ridiculing the notion that events of 30 50 or 100 years ago could have anything to do with what was going on in El Salvador in the 1980s. And IIRC, Kilpratrick was trained as an historian.
I have no idea what EE knows or thinks he knows. But his tweet was a nasty drunken frat brat level prank and he can’t back pedal his way out of that, no matter how hard he tries.
raven
@jl: He didn’t just tweet it, I heard it on the radio.
PIGL
@karen marie: show me, please, who is accepting this as true? We are hating on Ewick the Ferocious, for hoping it was true because those hippies needed punching…and a good, sound having-their- eyes-gouged-out, gang-raping, electric-bedding and defenestrating from a helicopter into the South Atlantic.
Mnemosyne
@Valdivia:
There seems to be a book that talks about the complicity of the Catholic Church in Argentina that specifically discussions the actions of the new Pope, but of course it only seems to be available in Spanish. Feh. The Guardian article that someone linked to in another thread referenced it.
Kathy in St. Louis
If you have to wake up every morning and realize that you were just a fat, unhappy pr##k like Erik Erickson, you’d be an unhappy sould too.
And is there no limit to just how rude and nasty a semi-public figure can be anymore?
SFAW
@Kathy in St. Louis:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
He LOVES being a liberal-hating prick. He revels in being a prick in general. The only thing preventing him from shouting “I fucking hate liberals and want them all dead! DEAD DEAD DEAD!” at the top of his lungs, every day, 24 hours per day, is that he doesn’t have the stamina required for such an effort.
max
@Zifnab25: Erick Erikson applauds the murder of political dissidents. Meanwhile, Rand Paul filibusters for 13 hours straight to condemns the President for failing to sufficiently spell out that he doesn’t plan to murder political dissidents.
Obviously, the Vatican needs a DRONNNNNNEEEEEE!
max
[‘One that turns the water into wine. Remotely.’]
debbie
These clowns are unbelievable. I remember listening to Glenn Beck on 2010 Election Day. He said his goal that day was to make George Soros cry, which wasn’t going to be easy because Soros had spent WWII tossing Jews in ovens.
They’re nothing but sickos.
shortstop
More yeses than nos, more transfers than commits, and no one has told me I’m going to hell yet…a pretty good night so far, but Callfire’s definition of “punk” hold music and mine do not intersect…
Roger Moore
@The Other Chuck:
Because playing nice is much more important than being honest. That’s the core of the argument about the need for civility: calling somebody a fascist (bigot, racist, criminal, etc.) is a much worse offense against civility than being a fascist (bigot, racist, criminal, etc.).
SFAW
@shortstop:
Are you trying to say that Mantovani isn’t hard-core punk?
How about the Hollyridge Strings? They used to do warm-up for Johnny and Sid, right?
danimal
Too bad EE will run away from this in a cowardly wink-wink kind of way. He needs to be accountable for his words.
He’s pretty obviously saying it on purpose, and at the same time really doesn’t understand what he’s really saying. The gutter-level politics of this statement is really beyond the pale. He’s literally identifying with politically-motivated murders. It’s about as far from the gospel he claims as his own as night is from day.
Chris
@debbie:
It’s a widespread myth on the right that George Soros stooged for the goose-steppers, but it becomes much more egregious than it sounds if you do even a cursory Wikipedia search –
“Soros took a job with the Jewish Council, which had been established during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis:
“
They’re taking somebody who warned Jews who were being targeted for deportation to the death camps, and accusing him of having been a Nazi. Par for the course for them, but still beyond nauseating by any normal standard.
SiubhanDuinne
Would some kind person state Cleek’s Law as written, or direct me to a site where I can find it for myself? Googled, and there was much of nothing. Checked the BJ lexicon, not a word. I know Cleek as the creator of the pie filter but I do not know what Cleek’s Law is and would very much like to become aware of all Internet traditions before the sun rises again.
SiubhanDuinne
Would some kind person Please state Cleek’s Law as written, or direct me to a site where I can find it for myself? Googled, and there was much of nothing. Checked the BJ lexicon, not a word. I know Cleek as the creator of the pie filter but I do not know what Cleek’s Law is and would very much like to become aware of all Internet traditions before the sun rises again. Thanks, hivemind of the Juicetariat.
Anya
@Mr Stagger Lee: I just tuned in. He sounds really articulate and principled person. I hope he’s prepared for the nastiness that will be thrown at him.
West of the Rockies
Do any of you ever get tired of this crap?
Scenario: Far-right wingnut makes outrageous comment, someone from the left predictably calls attention to it and voices disdain… wingnut chuckles and says, “Can’t you take a joke?” Rinse and repeat.
A progressive pundit/politician calls a wingnut on his/her racism/homophobia/related prejudice, the wingnut complains that those on the left are not nearly as tolerant as they’re supposed to be. Meanwhile, the MSM runs around like a chihuahua chasing its tail, looking for the next sexy, outrageous comment (rather than actually daring to weigh the positions and put forth some sort of informative assessment of matters).
I mean, isn’t this pretty much Breitbart expressing glee that Ted Kennedy had passed away to the collective high-fiving of wingers. Then when Breitbart croaks, heaven forbid anyone on the left do anything but genuflect and maintain a respectful silence.
I guess if this psycho-drama ever results in some sort of meaningful (progressive) change to the political drama, maybe it’s worth it… but on this particular day, the whole damn thing just seems stupefying to me.
shortstop
@SFAW: kill me now
West of the Rockies
@srv: Nah, he’s a Methodist. There are turds in every punchbowl it would appear….
debbie
@Chris:
Even worse, they think they’re funny when they say things like that.
Rob Lll
@Valdivia:
Great comment. My best friend in high school was Chilean and at his invitation I visited Chile for several months back in 1986, spending most of my time in Santiago with his family. Many of his relatives were vociferously pro-Pinochet. Some others weren’t and there were some…interesting dinner-table conversations (i.e., screaming matches) that I witnessed. It was a real eye-opener, to say the least.
I’ve visited Chile a couple of times in the past few years and it amazes me how different it feels since the dictatorship ended. Sometimes things really do change for the better, but those scars of that ea are going to be around for a long, long time.
Rob Lll
@Valdivia:
Great, informative comments. My best friend in high school was Chilean and at his invitation I visited Chile for several months back in 1986, spending most of my time in Santiago with his family. Many of his relatives were vociferously pro-Pinochet. Some others (mostly the younger ones) weren’t and there were some…interesting dinner-table conversations (i.e., screaming matches) that I witnessed. It was a real eye-opener, to say the least.
I’ve visited Chile a couple of times in the past few years and it amazes me how different it feels since the dictatorship ended. Sometimes things really do change for the better, but those scars of that era are going to be around for a long, long time.
maya
@srv:
Catholicism has to convert to Cheneyism.
maya
@SiubhanDuinne: It’s the link at the top of the post “cleek was right”.
SFAW
@shortstop:
sorry, kid, but you’ll have to get Ewick “Manly-man-except-when-he-needs-his-wife’s-shotgun” Ewickpwick to do it, because
A) I ain’t that kind of guy
B) Ewick’s into snuff porn (in addition to his goat fucking)
some guy
contra what was said above, the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance was most definitely a death squad and disappeared between 12,000 and 20,000 people, the actual number dependent on the source
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
The only way that’ll happen is if all those traitorous wingnut mofos collectively kick off from either stroke or coronary. Not a moment too soon, as far as I’m concerned.
And, yes, I do mean traitorous. Every fucking one of them.
JPL
Ed is leaving the 8 o’clock time show and working on weekends..
hmmm
so who is gonna replace him… ezra?
Donut
@Ash Can:
Neither of whom seeks to impose Catholic doctrine upon our nation’s lawmaking and administration? Ok, sounds good, no problem with that.
-Confirmed (via parental force) in the Church in 1987, and stopped attending the Church in 1987
Citizen_X
@West of the Rockies:
Ted Kennedy died a natural death after a long and fruitful life. Breitbart died–again, naturally–after years of indulging himself in rage and god knows what other substances. I’m glad the fucker’s dead, I’ll say it, but no one did that to him.
Neither of those people were tortured, raped, and tossed out of a helicopter over the ocean. But that’s what that scumbag Erickson is cheering.
SiubhanDuinne
@maya:
Well duh. The one link I didn’t click. Thanks.
:: retires sheepishly to see if one more glass of wine will help ::
danielx
@Valdivia:
You proceed from two false premises: 1) that the current generation of conservative assholes* does not understand what the Dirty War was Like, and 2) that they don’t understand what the Junta was like.
They understand both those things just fine, thank you, and the idea of political dissidents (commies, of course) being arrested, drugged, loaded on to C130s, flown out to sea and dropped out from 10,000 feet suits them just fine too. Likely causes their little soldiers** to stand at attention, in fact. They’re all for bloodshed, as long as it’s not theirs.
*Among them being Erick Son Of Erick, of whom I am ever more strongly reminded of the description ‘prick with ears’ every time I see his picture.
**h/t Jesus’ General – who is not doing too well, if you can send some good thoughts his way.
ChrisNYC
@West of the Rockies: I tire of the head of the Charlotte GOP Ladies League said x stuff, but not of EE slamming. Erickson is delicious to go after for something like this because he is SO DESIROUS of mainstream money/cred. See, e.g., his “farewell to my dear liberal colleagues at CNN, that Begala, great person, helluva guy” post. I love love love that he’s covering his ass already because he’s worried that his fundamental beliefs are showing.
West of the Rockies
@Citizen_X: I don’t think the planet is diminished with the death of Breitbart either. Maybe Erick is trying to ascend the totem pole of wingnut pundits to achieve the notoriety that Andrew did, but I don’t see that happening. I don’t know if it’s because Breitbart vaguely resembled the marvelous Billy Connolly, but he seemed to have more fans in wingnuttia that Erick can hope to gain (even with his wretched Redstate blog). Of course, if anyone on the right dare say anything against E.E., s/he’ll be accused of being a RINO.
West of the Rockies
@SiubhanDuinne: I find that one more glass of red makes most things better!
John Dillinger
Imagine if a liberal had died like Breitbart did, after a night of cruising bars while his wife and four young children were at home. The stories practically write themselves.
West of the Rockies
@SFAW: Unfortunately, SFAW, the wingnut media grows new vile pundit-piglets like a shark grows teeth. There’s a never-ending supply of raging bloviators to misinform and rile 27% of the nation.
Anya
@JPL: I hope MSNBC will give Joy Reid her own show.
Brantl
Christ, what a dick.
Chris
@West of the Rockies:
Best comment I read about Breitbart’s death: “a dead asshole is still an asshole.” I recall it every time someone like him bites the dust.
low-tech cyclist
Erick, son of Erick: predictably despicable.
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
When I wrote “all,” I don’t think I qualified it temporally. Twenty minutes or 20 years from now, makes no difference to me. Their collective expiration would – except for the loss felt by their loved ones – be of major benefit to America and all mankind.
Mister Papercut
@JPL:
Keith Olbermann. Wildcard, bitches!
In seriousness though, I’d love if it were Melissa Harris-Perry.
West of the Rockies
Don’t know if this was already covered here at BJ, but I just read at Daily Kos that no Republican accepted our president’s invitation to watch a private screening of Lincoln at the White House with Spielberg, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones, and James Spader attending. All were too busy evidently. (Obama never reaches out to Repubs, don’tcha know?)
Hell, I’d probably have accepted an invitation from W. to watch an airing of Ishtar at his Crawford, Texas ranch in the company of Eddie Deezen, Gilbert Gottfried, Fran Drescher, and a gassy chihuahua — and I hated the fucker!
SFAW
@West of the Rockies:
The Rethugs just thought it was poor form for a blackity-black President to rub it in that the slaves had been freed.
The South shall rise again! (Funded by blue-state tax dollars, of course.)
All those Rethug assholes need to get smacked upside the head by someone’s grandma. Repeatedly.
ETA: the cover story was that they didn’t want to be seen palling around with two Harvies, a double-named elite, and a Nun/union organizer.
Valdivia
@Chris:
Yes racial composition of society was a very big element in central america in a way that it couldn’t be in Argentina (they had killed them all under Santa Rosa) or in Chile (but it was in South American countries like Bolivia or Ecuador where the indigenous populations have been in play in every political conflict). Related to this was the issue of land reform: extremely big issue in countries like Guatemala as a trigger for the civil war while the issues in Argentina and Chile were much more urban-centric and global: nationalization of copper industry in Chile, the rise of a lower class that clamored for representation and a piece of the pie (in factories, education, etc). While we can draw parallels (cold war communist fear) between all these countries, analytically is better to think of them in two distinct groups (authoritarian military junta vs civil war)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Very true. And it ads to the often simplistic explanations and analysis we get even in the ‘mainstream’ media about the region (let alone the conservative outlets)
Valdivia
@Mnemosyne:
Verbitsky is famous and quite good. I will see what the local media is saying and report back tomorrow. I tend to think the newspapers will have at least a few articles also given that the last Military Head of the Junta was convicted this week.
@Rob Lll:
I can only imagine what that was like! If you can check out the documentary (it used to be on netflix streaming) because it really makes what you say very clear.
There is also a new movie about the plebiscite against Pinochet–brilliant and worth watching, called No.
@danielx: yes, sometimes I fool myself into thinking they have analytic capabilities.
PurpleGirl
@Violet: Argentina is not filled with brown people. Or even half filled. Argentina did a fairly complete job of killing the native inhabitants and they didn’t rely on imported slaves as workers. There may be some brown people now but no where near the native populations in other countries. While I agree that conservatives may not care about non-white people, I do wish we could be more precise in our characterizations of populations.
ETA: I have cousins in Argentina on my mother’s Italian side. If they have any color it’s due to sun tanning.
Valdivia
@PurpleGirl:
very good point, glad you made it.
ps hi! :)
PurpleGirl
@Valdivia: Hi.
It’s one of my pet peeves.
Violet
@PurpleGirl: I’m aware of that, but my point, rather inelegantly made, was that to the standard Republican, anyone south of the Rio Grande is “brown”, whether or not they are. For example, there isn’t much nuance in how US wingnuts talk about Mexicans, despite Mexico being home to people of a wide variety of skin tones, from the descendants of upper crust Spanish to the native Incans and Aztecs (among other native groups) and everyone in between.
Americans in general are crap at knowing much about other countries.
Rob Lll
@Valdivia:
“No” is a terrific movie — I actually saw it at a screening here in LA a couple of months ago with the director in attendance. Surprisingly funny film too, although the video they filmed it in did leave me a little queasy.
The same director did an earlier film called “Tony Manero”, about a serial killer/John Travolta-circa-“Saturday Night Fever” impersonator in 1978 Santiago. Disco, murder, dictatorship — just about the blackest comedy I’ve ever seen. I think that’s streaming on Netflix too.
Bruce S
That Righties are accusing the new Pope of grinding Erick Erickson’s testicles into peanut butter makes me adore him.
Okay, I made that up. But one can dream…
Mnemosyne
@Rob Lll:
If you like pitch-black comedy, track down a copy of a Spanish film called Muertos de Risa, about a Martin and Lewis-like comedy team that comes to hate each other so much that each of them dedicates their lives to ruining the other person in a series of escalating schemes.
Thematic to the thread, the relationship first goes sour when one of them arranges a practical joke that makes the other think he’s about to be arrested (and probably murdered outright) by Franco’s secret police. The relationship understandably goes downhill from there.
Yutsano
@Violet: I just know I would love to eat my way through Buenos Aires. And tango wherever I could. After the hip surgery and PT of course.
cleek
@SiubhanDuinne:
cleek’s law:
Today’s conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily.
g
Way to go, Erick Son of Erick! Defend death squads!
Matt
@Valdivia:
If you loop a documentary about RW death squads for Ewick and co., best bring some tissues – there’s gonna be a lot of JIZZ on the ground otherwise.
wellstoner
Why are Right Wing jokes always, always about death and killing? @Baud:
Cthulhu
@Schlemizel:
One of my favorite lines….”All those sperm, and THAT was the fastest one?”
Procopius
@Valdivia: Of course they are so ignorant. They don’t have the faintest idea. They think the Generals saved Argentina from Communism although they have no idea what really happened. Heck, they mostly don’t even have any idea what “Communism” is. Oh, yeah, they think Pinochet and The Chicago Boys saved Chile, too.