That's awfully white of you

Right-wing terrorism and its apologists

A visit to Free Republic is a lot like snorkeling in a sewer. Not advisable. Unfortunately, the freeper rabble has enjoyed the unaccountable spectacle of its extremism getting mainstreamed via Fox News, the teabaggers, and the Republican Party (which is now a wholly-owned subsidiary of its nutcase fringe). The terrorist outrage in Norway sparked a predictable reaction among the freepers. First, it had to be an attack by Muslim extremists (or “Islamofascists,” as the freepers like to say). Second, the right-wing racist apprehended as the prime suspect isn't “right wing” in the American way. Third, the prime suspect was secretly part of an Islamofascist cabal (you know, just the way Timothy McVeigh was!).

While scanning the comments on Free Republic and gritting my teeth, I saw a phrase that puzzled me: “lily white” used as a noun.

I suspect this man is a ‘lily white’. This tactical action is very typical of Arab thinking.

It is meant to turn us against one another, to weaken us from within.

The Norwegians will find out the truth behind these acts and our media will ignore the facts. Just you all watch what develops.

21 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 11:40:26 AM by SatinDoll (NO FOREIGN NATIONALS AS OUR PRESIDENT!)

Apparently the denizens of Free Republic have keen insight (or think they have keen insight) into typical Arab thinking. I held my nose and did a little more poking around. I found another use of the term. It was in a 2005 post about Joel Henry Hinrichs III, the suicide bomber at Oklahoma University:

JAYNA DAVIS: Report No. 1 - OU SUICIDE BOMBING CASE
phone call with Jayna Davis | 10-5-05 | dfu

Posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 4:51:42 PM by doug from upland

JAYNA DAVIS: Report No. 1 - OU SUICIDE BOMBING CASE

As FReepers are probably aware, Jayna Davis, indefatigable reporter and author of THE THIRD TERRORIST, is on the case of the OU suicide bomber. A local FReeper is giving her assistance. Here are some of the highlights of our discussion a short time ago:

1 - she has spoken to the feed store owner, Justin Ellison . . . Joel Hinrichs III exhibited strange behavior while in the feed store trying to buy ammonium nitrate . . . the store owner asked why he wanted it, and Hinrichs turned away and started mumbling to himself

2 - Hinrichs was dressed in a photographer's vest that was stuffed . . . a wire was noticed sticking out of it

3 - a plain clothes officer was in the store at the time and witnessed what happened . . . Jayna is not clear who got it, but someone got the plate number to track the guy

4 - they did a background check and he came out clean . . . Jayna reminds us that he was a “lily white,” just like McVeigh and Nichols

What are we to make of this? A comment on this post provides a little more information about how this term is being used by the extreme right:

Good work Doug... keep us informed.

One only wonders why it has taken so long. Of course he was “lily white” like McVeigh or others on police checks. That's the whole methodology.

This might actually spur us to win the war.
4 posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 4:57:51 PM by Robert Teesdale

Another freeper weighed in with what he admitted was a “factless supposition,” but it certainly didn't stop him:

Here's a factless supposition:

Assuming this is a Muslim event at its core, what if his handlers caught wind of the fact that the Norman PD was checking him out, and they made the quick decision to “set him up the bomb”?

I don't have any knowledge of how and why his bomb exploded, but if it's possible his handlers set it off, what do you think of this as one possibility? His handlers knew they needed a lily-white, and all of a sudden, he's under suspicion.

18 posted on Wednesday, October 05, 2005 5:07:20 PM by savedbygrace (“No Monday morning quarterback has ever led a team to victory” GW Bush)

In Free-Republic parlance, therefore, a “lily white” is someone with a clean criminal record who serves as a front man for a (probably Islamic) terrorist organization. As we saw above, SatinDoll has already pegged right-wing Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik as one.

There is, however, some divergence of opinion among the freepers. Unfortunately, those who disagree with the Islamofascist-catspaw theory are even scarier than those who agree. The dissenters shake their heads in token disapproval of the massacre and then nod their heads in expressions of sympathy—for the killer. Fasten your seatbelts and consider the following, which came after a comment that Breivik had been described as anti-Muslim:

If that were the case, his target would've been Norwegian Muslims. ....of whom there are millions.

He was trying to make the enablers of the Muslim invasion pay. His motive, while inexcusable, is not that hard to understand.
18 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 11:33:17 AM by Gumption

---

“His targets make no sense if he was after Muslims.”

His target was the next generation of Labour Party activists, i.e. the people who make the laws that allow for muslim immigration. In a sick way, it makes plenty of sense.

22 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 11:41:39 AM by I Shall Endure

---

Any comments on leftwing socialism being responsible for 200 MILLION deaths in the 20th century?

...cue crickets....

30 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 12:11:10 PM by newfreep (Palin/West 2012 - Bolton: Secy of State)

---

I was unaware than the camp in question was a youth wing of Norway’s Labor Party. So knowing that....yes, there is a grim logic to it.

47 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:50:26 PM by Mr. Mojo

We might consider giving Mr. Mojo the benefit of the doubt, since he could be giving a straightforward and dispassionate analysis of the terrorist's mental processes. On the other hand, he's on Free Republic.

Be afraid of these people. They represent where conservative American politics is heading, step by crazy heads-on-fire step.

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Teachers! And other union thugs!

A confused letter-writing campaign

The California state legislature is in Democratic hands, so it's trying to protect public-school teachers rather than firing them or stripping them of collective-bargaining rights. Political cartoonist Tom Meyer decided to portray this as selfish teachers hogging scarce resources in a time of emergency—at the expense of poor little children. (After all, every teacher saved is a student harmed.) Editorial cartoons aren't a good medium for nuance, but it was still a rather nasty effort by the normally moderate Meyer.

There was, of course, a flurry of letters castigating Meyer for his cartoon's ham-handed “teacher versus student” message. Just as predictably, there were a few that cheered him on. Here's one that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on July 19:

CTA's orchestrated outrage

I just received an e-mail from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the recent political cartoon run in your paper. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.

CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?

Like virtually all organizations with power, their primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important (many of which have nothing to do with education).

Kinsey Blomgren, Porterville

Porterville? That's right in the middle of Tulare County, down in the Central Valley—the reddest part of the Golden State. Mr. Blomgren is undoubtedly one of those teachers who knows things would be better if the California Teachers Association went away and left him to the tender mercies of school administrators, most of whom are unlikely to take undue advantage of unrepresented faculty members. Most.

Then I saw a letter in the July 20 edition of the Sacramento Bee. Gosh, it looked familiar:

The real outrage on cartoon

Re “Cartoon is ignorant” (Letters, July 18): I just received an email from the California Teachers Association suggesting that I express my outrage over the July 14 Tom Meyer cartoon depicting how teachers were protected in the recent budget. So here goes: I am outraged that every time the overpaid, self-serving, self-important CTA union bureaucrats get attacked, they try to turn it into an attack on teachers.

CTA does not represent students, period. For that matter, it does not even truly represent teachers. While every public school teacher in California is required by law to pay dues to CTA, only those members who pay extra to support political candidates of CTA's choosing are allowed to vote in CTA elections. Does that sound like representation to you?

Like virtually all organizations with power, its primary goal is securing more control over those issues they deem important – many of which have nothing to do with education.

—Kinsey Blomgren, Springville

Huh. It looks like Kinsey has forgotten he lives in Porterville. Or did he previously forget that he lives in Springville? On the other (third?) hand, perhaps he moved from one town to the other between bouts of letter-writing.

Not only is Mr. Blomgren uncertain of where he lives, he appears not to understand that unions are accountable to their members—and Blomgren prefers not to be one. He pays a representation fee because CTA is obligated to represent him in any grievances he might file against his school, but he has chosen not to become a full member and therefore does not have a voice in choosing the CTA leadership. His choice.

I think it's probably a rational choice by Blomgren. The “political candidates of CTA's choosing” are never going to be right-wing politicians who attack public schools (like the one Blomgren teaches in down in Tulare County) and Blomgren would be doomed in his attempts to garner majority support among his fellow teachers for a reversal of CTA policy. One might as well try to organize chickens to endorse Colonel Sanders.

Thus Mr. Blomgren's complaint about “representation” is rather pointless. He has embraced what is certain to remain a minority viewpoint within his profession. He can rail against CTA all he likes, but it's not an anti-democratic organization. It's also not an anti-Democratic organization, which may be Blomgren's real complaint.

I won't deny that unions have sometimes descended into thuggery and strong-arm tactics, but that's pretty rare. Modern-day examples are not easy to find. (The pointing and screaming by Wisconsin's teabaggers is pure anti-union propaganda.) Fortunately, there's a dead giveaway for when unions start to go bad: They endorse Republicans.

Addendum

Today (July 22) a thoughtful letter-writer shares an informed perspective of the California Teachers Association and its role in representing anti-union faculty like Mr. Blomgren:

Clarifying CTA rules

Re “The real outrage on cartoon” (Letters, July 20): Whether or not the California Teachers Association does a good job of representing teachers and students is a matter of opinion for another letter; however, there are some problems with the facts in this letter.

First of all, every public school teacher is not required by law to pay dues. In each district, the teachers must vote to form a union, then vote whether they want to affiliate with CTA. Even then every teacher only pays dues if they vote for an agency “fair pay” agreement. Not all districts have unions, and not all local unions join with CTA; some affiliate with AFT or only have a local union. Secondly, CTA members are still voting members even if they opt out of paying for political action.

—Steven Smith, Rocklin

If he still balks at joining CTA so that he can vote for the union's officers, Blomgren could always consider moving to one of the idyllic “Right to Work” states where he could cheerfully work with lower pay and less job security. I hear Texas is hiring. He should wait awhile, however. God is still smiting Texas with a heat wave in disapproval of something or another.

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Christian truth: same as lies

Coral Ridge slowly dies, 
but still lies

Remember D. James Kennedy? The late pastor of Coral Ridge Ministries affected a mock-scholarly manner in his televised sermons and speeches, giving comfort to his flock—a congregation of right-wing Christians who resented and envied the legions of academicians arrayed against them. In Kennedy they had their own semi-intellectual, who poured out the balm of reaffirming mock erudition. He employed all of the tools of the trade: misrepresentation (as in quote-mining), fable spinning (as in the notorious Huxley fabrication), and condescension (“The fool has said in his heart there is no God”).

In the absence of its dear leader, Coral Ridge is a shadow of its former self. Jennifer Kennedy Cassidy, however, continues to try to breathe some life into the stiffening corpse of her father's church-plus-state lobbying group. In addition to endlessly recycling the audio and video archives of the Rev. Kennedy's lectures, Kennedy Cassidy and the other members of the Coral Ridge board of directors uses the ministry's old mailing list to send out a regular stream of political alerts and contribution solicitations. The alerts are exactly what you would expect from a group aligned with the nation's extremist right wing: the horrors of “Obamacare,” the evils of Planned Parenthood, the flaws in the theory of evolution, the threat of the gay agenda, the need to “defend” marriage, and the tyranny of activist judges (but only if they're liberals).

This week's e-mail brings a typical example: “What the President says vs. what the President does.” It's another boring attack on health care reform. Nevertheless, out of habit I briefly perused its contents. (It's always good to know what the enemy is up to, even when it's as moribund an enemy as Coral Ridge.) I was struck by the message's use of a quotation from Al Sharpton, a figure seldom accorded much credence among the ranks of the Christian right:

I am asking you to pray for our President. His worldview clearly leads him toward decisions that have the effect of dragging America into Socialism. We are not the only ones who believe that his policies are socialistic—even presidential allies like Al Sharpton quipped concerning the President’s health care policy:

“The American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama ... Let’s not act as though the President didn’t tell the American people. [He] offered the American people health reform when he ran. He was overwhelmingly elected running on that and he has delivered what he promised.”

Sharpton's words are presented within quotation marks, as if they represent his actual, literal remarks. Could this really be an accurate transcript of what Sharpton said? And, if so, what's hidden behind the discreet dot-dot-dot of the ellipsis between the first two sentences?

Let's find out!

The original video from Fox News has been posted in several places. (But don't bother looking at Bill O'Reilly's judiciously edited and truncated transcript.) Geraldo Rivera was interviewing Al Sharpton live immediately after the U.S. House of Representatives passed health care reform. Rivera asked Sharpton if Nancy Pelosi deserved the real credit:

Sharpton: I think that the president and Speaker Pelosi get credit. I think that this began the transforming of the country the way he had promised. This is what he ran on.

Rivera: Some would argue to socialism.

Sharpton: Well, first of all, then we'd have to say that the American public overwhelmingly voted for socialism when they elected President Obama. That's not accurate though. The president promised the American people health reform when he ran. He was overwhelming elected running on that and he has delivered what he promised.

How interesting. Apparently the words “that's not accurate” weren't considered significant.

This is just one more depressing example of how completely Chris Rodda got it right when she titled her book “Liars for Jesus.”

Addendum: A political mondegreen

Our personal data interpreters occasionally fail us. An anonymous commenter prompted me to give Sharpton's words another listen. Did he really say “that's not accurate“ while mocking the notion that the president's health reform initiative is some grand socialistic démarche? No. I stand corrected. He actually said, “Let's not act as though the president didn't tell the American people” that he would enact health reform. There was some confusing overtalking by Rivera, but Sharpton returned to his point that Obama made national health care a key plank in his campaign. The administration's healthcare initiative was an Obama priority all along, and not a sudden departure into supposedly radical reform politics—let alone a stealthy socialistic plot (unless Medicare was, too).

The point is still made, although it's not as sharp as I first thought it was.

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No comment needed

GOPUSA Eagle advertisers slow on the draw

Today's e-mail brings the latest issue of The Eagle from GOPUSA. The subject line is “From Tragedy to Pathetic Left Wing Attack.” It's all part of the right wing's duck-and-cover response to the unfortunate coincidence that someone in Arizona decided to put the GOP's eliminationist rhetoric into practice. They're hoping and praying that the “even-handed” national media will dutifully blame both sides for unseemly political rants, somehow missing the fact that “second amendment remedies” is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the teabagger crowd.

It's too bad that no one thought to proofread The Eagle more carefully before sending it out. Sure, they were careful to include the photo of the accused assassin with long hair (he's a left-wing commie hippie, you know) instead of a more current short-hair portrait (looks like a Young Republican!), but they overlooked the gun imagery in the advertisements of their sponsors. Oops! But hey, what father wouldn't want to discourage his daughter's potential dates by wearing a T-shirt with a rifle and cross-hairs logo? All in good fun!

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Right-wing lies about Gabrielle Giffords

A first-hand account

Last summer's visit to the family homestead was replete with political nonsense, as I have already recounted elsewhere. However, I didn't relate one incident that seemed redundant and less significant at the time. Now I think otherwise.

As he is wont to do, my father bombarded me with supposed examples of left-wing stupidity, all of them borrowed from hate media outlets like Fox or talk radio or randomly forwarded extremist e-mails. One of them involved “a stupid congresswoman from Arizona.” (Yes, it was Gabrielle Giffords, but Dad did not remember her name at the time.) He chortled as he reported that this dumb Democrat wanted our troops to use knives and rocks to “stab and club” the enemy in the war on terror so as to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Bombs and bullets are so environmentally unsound, don't you know?

“That's ridiculous,” I said. “No one ever said any such thing.”

Dad's hair-trigger temper flared up.

“I saw her say that on video!” he declared.

“I don't believe you,” I said.

He quickly decamped to his computer to find the proof (just as he had earlier in the morning when he trotted out the “Obama is a Muslim” canard). He slipped away quietly to do something else when he couldn't find what he wanted. I was spared the time-wasting exercise of pointing out (yet again) that he was either misinterpreting something or getting suckered by a clumsy video cut-and-paste job.



The incident passed without further comment, but I did a tiny bit of Google research when I got home and shared the information with my father:

Date: August 15, 2010

There's an interesting contrast, Dad, between what you thought Congresswoman Giffords said to General Petraeus and what she actually said. Perhaps you got your information from Glenn Beck, who played just the clip where she's asking about energy sources and Beck mocks her for asking the general about "sustainable energy".

Beck clip

When you see a more complete clip, however, it shows that Giffords wanted to know if the army's facilities had sufficient alternative resources in case their supply lines were threatened. It's not a silly question when you include the part where Giffords mentions that "supply lines have been increasingly threatened either by enemy action or through international crises," the part that Beck left out. Here's the whole thing:

Gifford clip

You'll see that Petraeus takes the question entirely seriously, and not just because he's trying to be polite to the congresswoman. He has a good answer about reducing power consumption at the army bases and improving the efficiency with which they use their supplies.

This is why Snopes.com labels the original story mocking the congresswoman as false. So does TruthOrFiction.com.

And here's what Giffords herself says about protecting our military's "umbilical cord":

Gifford campaign post

By the way, where's the part where Giffords asks the general to reduce carbon emissions by using knives and clubs instead of guns and bombs? It's nowhere to be seen. Looks like a made-up quote being passed around on the right-wing blogs as propaganda. Google demonstrates that lots of people have reprinted this claim as if it's true, but YouTube has no clip of her saying it and there's no congressional record showing that she said it. Under the circumstances, it looks like a lie.

I thought you would be interested in knowing that.

-Z-

But Dad wasn't really very interested. This is what I got in return:

I did not get that from beck because I am seldom home when he is on. I heard a news clip on radio.

I know that liberals are elite and feel that they should control the country because we do not know how. however the Idea that the redistribution of wealth is not a Marxist ideology can not be denied. and that is what is going on. He spent much of his youth in Indonesia as a Muslim and I'm sure taught to hate America because that is what they do. and with a name like he has anyone facing reality should realize that he is not one of us.

He has a law degree, that does not impress me, a part time senator, a commune organizer. These are not qualifications to run the country, he never ran a business or managed anything.he is completely inept But he knows that he wants to change this country for a capitalist to a Marxist and for that he is doing a good job. Behind closed doors and back room deals. What happened to transparency and all the openness that we were promised and all I hear are lies and more lies, I guess the end justifies the means, I'm familiar with that too. Some Liberals are starting to see the light I hope you do too.

Best wishes always.

What can you do about that kind of bone-deep ignorance, prejudice, and misinformation? Perhaps nothing, but I gave it one more try:

I'm merely pointing out to you that a lot of your information is based on falsehoods. That should give you pause.

The notion that Obama hates American is really ridiculous. He didn't work so hard to become the nation's leader because he wants to be in charge of something he despises. He's spent all of his time in office so far trying to clean up the mess left by his predecessor, and it hasn't been an easy task. He spend part of his youth in a predominantly Muslim country. That's hardly the same thing as spending it "as a Muslim." One of the schools he went to in Indonesia was a Catholic school. That doesn't make him a secret Catholic either. Or does it? Maybe Protestants should be frightened.

The scare tactics about Marxism are also pretty absurd. The bar sure has been lowered for being considered a socialist these days. The one industry temporarily taken over by the federal government during the big recession was the automobile industry. Though not many people are talking about it, that rescue worked just fine, the auto industry paid back its loans, and the companies are being run by their own boards of directors again instead of by some federal "czar" (as the news media likes to call them). That's pretty lousy Marxism, to let an big industry get away like that.

-Z-

Predictably, my rebuttals had no impact at all. Soon thereafter he sent me the e-mail that called me a liar and created the breach that remains to this day. For Mom's sake, we operate under a flag of truce, but I am firmly resolved not to waste any more time trying to talk sense to an irrational right-wing extremist.

In closing, here's an illustration from a fringe-element website in Arizona. Its politics are so far out that a moderate like Giffords is deemed worthy of being depicted as an Obamanoid-communist dunce. Nice work, jerks.

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