Lines That Can't Be Crossed

Like a fart in a wind storm, thwap bleats out his opinion into the blog-o-sphere to contribute to the overall political consciousness.

Barack Obama is a monster. Barack Obama is a corporate shill. Barack Obama is an enabler of Wall Street corruption. Barack Obama wants to destroy social security and medicare. Barack Obama is an enemy of the unions and the working class. But, none of that makes him more intolerable to me than any other American politician. Mitt Romney is a racist, a sexist patriarchal asshole, a callous plutocrat, a homophobe and etc., etc., . But Barack Obama believes that he has the right to incarcerate US-Americans indefinitely without charges and he believes he has the right to murder any US-American citizen he wants to.

I don't care about how bad Mitt Romney is. That doesn't save Barack Obama from being an out-and-out enemy of democracy and human rights. Unless and until all people who care about democracy and human rights grasp the the minimal position that Barack Obama is completely unacceptable, regardless of Mitt Romney or the Tea-Baggers or Rush Limbaugh or Paul Ryan or Rick Santorum, or whatever, ... US-American democracy will be at a dead-end. If NONE of the choices are acceptable (and they aren't) then what then?

It's extremely lazy to believe that voting for Obama and the Democrats is the sane, logical choice for US progressives. If NONE of your choices are acceptable, if the SYSTEM is unacceptable, ... what then?

And, for us Canadians, ... what are we to do about stephen harper? As far as lines that cannot be crossed, demolishing the principle of responsible government (as harper did in his first prorogation), covering-up war crimes (as harper did with his second prorogation and with his bullshit vetting process that the NDP wisely chose not to legitimate) and with his tolerating of Bev Oda's forgery and lying and his refusal to share cost estimates with the people's representatives, and for his shrugging of shoulders with the contempt finding against him, and for his obvious orchestration of election fraud, ... stephen harper is not a legitimate political actor in this country. There is no good reason to support him for anything. There is no reason to discuss his bullshit policies and his bullshit government. They are usurpers. You don't pretend that usurpers are legitimate. You fight them. You don't mince words with their deluded or cynical hangers-on. You ignore them. You don't obey usurpers. You defy them. You don't analyze them. You try them and you imprison them.

I have been trying to connect with individuals and groups in Toronto to begin a focused policy of direct resistance to harper. But, just as in the USA, progressives need to go through an evidently massive process of mental realignment to get past the idea that things can be "business as usual" when dealing with the reality of illegitimate government.

For believing he has the power of life or death over his fellow citizens, Barack Obama has crossed the line from corrupt capitalist politician to despot.

For believing that both Parliament and democratic elections can be entirely denigrated and debased, stephen harper has crossed the line form asshole conservative moron to usurper.

There can be no further negotiation or debate.

UPDATED! Margaret Wente & Elite Immunity From Consequences

 Margaret Wente is a lazy, stupid person. As such, she has a great deal of animosity towards people who aren't lazy and stupid and so she writes column after column of lazy, stupid bullshit, mocking her betters and sucking-up to her enablers. (She is enabled by people for whom a debased political culture is the preferred environment for cheating and lying and general corruption.)

Wait a second? Did I say "she writes column after column"? That's incorrect. It turns out that Margaret Wente is so lazy and stupid that she can't even come up with fact-free, faulty arguments and snotty obnoxious drivel all on her own. It turns out, thanks to the efforts of Carol Wainio at Media Culpa, that stupid and lazy Margaret Wente is a serial plagiarist. To repeat: Margaret Wente is so lazy and stupid that rather than pulling bullshit arguments out of her own ass, she collects bits and pieces that other people pulled out of their own asses, smooshes them together with misappropriated facts she found elsewhere and connects them all with a few squirts of rancid diarrhea. [YOU KNOW THAT'S THE REASON YOU READ MY BLOG!!!!]

Now that Carol Wainio of Media Culpa has meticulously documented Wente's stupidity and laziness and plagiarism, Wente and some of her fellow travellers, are reacting in true “conservative” form. They're pretending that Wente is being victimized and they're slandering her accuser. Wente's own “apology” was par for the course for that lazy, entitled booze-hound. She's pretending that an attack on her plagiarism is an attack on her freedom of expression. She's pretending that a reader of her newsspaper who doesn't want to see blatant plagiarism and who writes in dutifully when a Globe & Mail columnist fails to meet the minimum standards for journalistic or literary integrity is an obsessive stalker. Maggie, Maggie, Maggie; if you didn't fail so often, Ms. Wainio wouldn't have so much to write about! If your employer had responded to Wainio's documentation of your failure by telling you to shape-up or ship-out, things wouldn't have turned out as they have. You and your employer brought this all down upon your heads and there's no sense in childishly and petulantly looking around in desperation for someone else to blame.

Consequences for one's own actions is supposedly a 'conservative” value. There's enough evidence now to see that that's complete bullshit. Wente's behaviour, both before and after her exposure as a lazy, corrupt, stupid plagiarist is just like so much other right-wing behaviour. It's all about the genuine decay of standards and the lack of accountability our elites have been indulging themselves in while everyone else has to sacrifice both their standard of living and their rights as human beings.

Stephen harper throws a temper-tantrum in front of the Governor General and he gets to defy the will of the majority of the people's representatives and avoid a vote of non-confidence. A democracy shredding precedent if ever there was one. He then gets found (unprecedentedly for any government in any Westminster-style Parliamentary system) to be in contempt of Parliament and he shrugs it off, arguing (falsely as he knows) that it was just a “politicized” decision arrived at by a committee dominated by partisan opposition politicians. This lie helps him to demonize his opponents in the eyes of his psychotic hard-core supporters and, it cheapens and debases the way everyone else regards Canada's federal parliament.Then he and his party blatantly attack the integrity of our electoral process and win a majority government via fraud. harper then stacks the oversight bodies with compliant hacks and, confident that hell will freeze over before his crimes will be exposed, rams through omnibus legislation hundreds of pages in length.  And then .... and then .... and then .... his shit-head fan base calls US the victimizers! The whole thing has been a "leftard" conspiracy from the beginning! The "coup" the demand for documents from Afghanistan, the demand for cost estimates for the prisons and the fighter-jets, the contempt of Parliament motion and the accusations of election fraud, ALL OF IT, is all an evil left-wing conspiracy to deprive the poor lil' harpercons of their election victory! Jesus Christ but the hypocritical sense of entitlement with these people! And the complete inability to register how harper's tactics are totally undermining the integrity of the entire democratic process in our country! The evil and the whining!

Or take Rob "respect for taxpayers" Ford! The buffoon wants us to believe that in 10 years as a Toronto city councillor he can't be expected to have known that 10% of the city's $10 billion dollars wasn't just completely unnecessary "gravy" that could be cut with impunity. The dunce goes from thinking there was $700,000,000 in retirement parties, meeting sandwiches, espresso machines and such like that he could cut and then, when he becomes mayor, the dunce is calling for arbitrary 10% cuts for every department and muses about closing women's shelters! And, after this titanic display of cluelessness and incompetence, his supporters still proudly call themselves "Ford Nation" and whine, whine, god damn it they whine -fucking-whine about the lefty-media conspiracy against their hero.

The stupid fuck speaks to and votes on an issue in which he has a direct financial interest (refusal to pay a fine ordered by the city's integrity commission) and he thinks he did nothing wrong! It's a firing offense but he says he just wanted to "clear the air" before city council voted on the issue that he had a direct financial stake in! This could cost him his job, but everyone is saying: "Oh, do we really want to have another election?" What's this supposed to mean? "There are penalties, but if you're a right-wing white-male with a support base of borderline psychopathic morons who will feel enraged if the rules are imposed upon you, then you get a pass?" What sort of precedent is that?

This hypocritical whining, this entitled belief that consequences are for other people, this revolting behaviour runs from the highest to the lowest levels. From harper, down to Ford, down to Wente, down to the blog-o-sphere.

Check out online idiot and troll Patrick Ross. Outs a blogger. Accuses said blogger of being a stalker and a child molester, using the blogger's real name. Gets sued for slander and libel. Too stupid and lazy to show up in court. Receives a default judgement of guilty and an order to erase the libels from the internet and pay $85,000. Does neither. Goes into hiding. Dragged before a judge again and claims that he's suicidally depressed. (All the while our suicidally depressed 31-year old is hooting and hollering online about further imaginary "victories" over other internet opponents.) Right.

Or, check out this blast from the past. A guy gets suspended from his job for making "racial comments" and returns with a rifle and shoots and kills his boss and shoots and grievously injures a co-worker before killing himself. Okay? Got that?

Online, members of Canada's online right-wing imbecile community admit to knowing the guy. They say he was a nice guy. Such a shame that "political correctness" has run amok and driven innocent white guys to murder-suicide. The crushing weight of "political correctness" causes normal people to SNAP! under the constant pressure and harassment from uppity minorities and their useful idiot pinko allies. Such a shame.

This WHOLE THING is the fault of "liberals" and "leftards."

Then it turns out the guy has a swastika tattoo. Then it turns out his co-workers said he had a hot temper. Then it turns out he was posting sexually explicit, racially charged photos to the staff bulletin board to embarrass a non-white co-worker.

You know how an employer should have right to hire or fire anyone they choose? That principle is out the window when it affects one of their own.

Then it turns out that as a young man, Mr. Swastika stabbed an 18-year old to death over "a spilled beer and a ripped t-shirt."

Once this information is introduced, without skipping a fucking beat, the right-wing imbecile community blames namby-pamby "liberal" justice system for not locking up this menace to society for the rest of his natural life and allowing him to roam free and kill again.

It's always the "liberals" fault. They never do anything wrong. They should never be punished. Investigating them is always a witch-hunt. Or kangaroo courts worthy of Stalin. Or obsessive stalking and nit-picking. Or whatever I'm sick to fucking death of this bullshit.

What the Fuck?

Except some concepts I'll get to in the unfinished piece here, I don't think Margaret Wente's sufferings are terribly important. It is a fun topic though, so that's why I'll write about this:

The incidents of plagiarism uncovered by blogger Carol Wainio on her Media Culpa blog, while certainly a legitimate topic for reporting, do not seem to me to be particularly egregious examples of the cutting and pasting of other people's intellectual property.

That said, Wente is an exceptionally bright woman, and it seems unlikely to me that she didn't know what she was doing when she borrowed these materials.

Nevertheless, it has to be pretty easy to unintentionally lift a sentence or two from another writer and pop them into something you’re writing simply because it's the most efficient way to explain a bit of background. I worry about this all the time when I write this blog -- and I often find myself backwards putting some piece of elucidatory prose just so guilty I won't appear of plagiarizing something I've drawn out of one of the many journals whence come my backward blog ideas.

I'm sorry, but what the fuck? "Wente is an exceptionally bright woman"???? Um, sorry. No. Wente is not "bright" or anything remotely similar. What she is is a fucking idiot. I stopped reading her (after suffering with her crapola for well over a year) because not only is she infuriating, her articles didn't even make any sense. (And now it turns out they're a mish-mash of plagiarized passages taken out of context or misinterpreted or gleaned from hack scholars and writers as disgusting as Wente herself is.)You know, I'm tired of this: "Don't underestimate Mike Harris." "Don't underestimate George W. Bush." "Don't underestimate Rob Ford." "Don't underestimate Ezra Levant." "Don't underestimate Ann Coulter."

No. These people are idiots and imbeciles who need a slap and their toys taken away from them, not rival intellectuals who need to be respectfully debated. It's past time that we gave them the slaps they so obviously deserve.

"The incidents of plagiarism uncovered by blogger Carol Wainio on her Media Culpa blog, while certainly a legitimate topic for reporting, do not seem to me to be particularly egregious examples of the cutting and pasting of other people's intellectual property."

Again, no. This is blatant plagiarizing, and if Climenhaga knows of other people who have been just as guilty but got off scot-free, that doesn't legitimate Wente's total lack of professionalism.

Let's remember what we're talking about here:

Gardner:  "Many NGOs working in Africa in the area of development and the environment have been advocating against the modernization of traditional farming practices," Paarlberg says. "They believe that traditional farming in Africa incorporates indigenous knowledge that shouldn't be replaced by science-based knowledge introduced from the outside. They encourage Africa to stay away from fertilizers, and be certified as organic instead. And in the case of genetic engineering, they warn African governments against making these technologies available to farmers."

Wente:  Yet, many NGOs working in Africa have tenaciously fought the modernization of traditional farming practices. They believe traditional farming in Africa incorporates indigenous knowledge that shouldn't be replaced by science-based knowledge introduced from the outside. As Prof. Paarlberg writes, "They encourage African farmers to stay away from fertilizers and be certified organic instead. And they warn African governments to stay away from genetic engineering. They want to freeze African farms where they are. It's a fantasy of what agriculture ought to be like."

Let's call it for what it is and let's have some goddamned consequences for a change!

Margaret Wente "Wrote" Three Columns a Week?

 There's a howler! Oh my! Such a workload! Writing 3 rambling and stupid diatribes a week, based on cutting and pasting other people's work and pulling facts out of your ass?  Sounds like BLOGGING motherfuckers!! Except when I write a post as long as one of Wente's columns I feel guilty because I've got a job to do. Wente's shit-assed blogging WAS her fucking job!

Payback's a bitch, ain't it Maggie?

Hedges vs. D'Souza ...

 Chris Hedges gets to confront the nauseating Dinesh D'Souza in a surprisingly extended moderated debate. Perhaps D'Souza is so disconnected from reality (and cosseted by wingut welfare) that he's incapable of perceiving when he's being utterly humiliated.

Video Magic

This guy looks like he's been through a lot ...

... what??? I'm busy again!

Kim Rivera

So, the harpercon cartel has decided to deport US war resister Kim Rivera. The harpercon government (and their brain-dead fans) believe that because you voluntarily join the US military you are bound, legally and morally, to participate in illegal wars and all the other war crimes that follow from that illegal act.

The harpercons believe that Canada should not harbour people of conscience who want no part in the mass slaughter of innocent people (well over 1 million by this point) and the pain and trauma of millions more who are either maimed, wounded, turned into homeless refugees, forced into prostitution or who have lost a loved one.

This is because the stupid, gibbering harpercons wanted to take part in that mass slaughter themselves. (Vicariously of course, because they're gutless, cowardly hypocrites, like most in the US political elite.)