Zug

The continuation of Skiing Uphill and Boregasm, Zug is 'the little blog that could.'

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Name: Ed Waldo
Location: of The West

I am a fictional construct originally conceived as a pen name for articles in the Los Angeles FREE PRESS at the 2000 Democratic Convention. The plume relating to the nom in question rests in the left hand of Hart Williams, about whom, the less said, the better. Officially "SMEARED" by the Howie Rich Gang . GIT'CHER ZUG SWAG HERE!

Friday, July 27, 2007

The Blogosmear, or It's WAR!

A Visit From Saint Michelle
T'was the week before August
and all were deployed
in hothouse Iraq
no lives yet destroyed

[WARNING: This is a long piece. Read at your own literary peril.]

The Battle of the Bulge is under way.

Parallel to the melt down of the Bush Administration (and their "High Noon" challenge to Congress, seemingly to FORCE a confrontation that the invertibrates of the two houses have been loathe to accept), a full-scale attack on the blogosphere and the left is under way, via The Usual Suspects.

The National Review is under a withering, focused attack via that horde of Zombie Kewpie Dolls from Hell that the Right has so carefully cultivated (see "Objective Journalism," Parts 1 and 2 for details).

And Bill O'Reilly has launched a successful attack on DailyKos.

Neither institution seems to appreciate the coordination and zealotry of the forces arrayed against them, which is, frankly, the story of HOW the Left lost control of this country following the election of 1980. No matter how many times you hit these imbeciles in the face, they still don't GET that it's BARBARIANS at the gate, and not some esoteric question of table manners and etiquette.

The progressives of the modern era don't seem to "get" that our current mess won't be solved by the extension of the pinkie whilst drinking tea. We go to the mattresses.

Part 1. The Eloi and the Morlock

Since I wrote this once before, no need to rewrite it. From the legendary Bruce Anderson's short-lived "AVA Oregon," Vol 1 No. 4, November 25, 2004:

What’s For Dinner?

According to Mr. H.G. Wells, the true postmodernists can be found in 802,701 A.D. Existing in a world freed from want, the Eloi live without conflict, disease, discomfort or pain, with everything they need to exist provided them. Wells’ THE TIME MACHINE creates a future world split between two races, the childlike Eloi and the creatures of the darkness, the underground-dwelling, ape-like, albino, machine-savvy, light-averse Morlocks.

The Eloi, the Time Traveler learns, were once the princes of Earth, the aristoi, but without challenges, their powers of reason have atrophied. They are simply childlike, ineffectual, helpless and nearly emotionless. The Morlocks, on the other hand, were the servants, dwelling in darkness, tending the machinery. But things changed. Without broccoli, or other vegetables, the Morlocks became utterly carnivorous, and, turning to the simplest food supply, took the Eloi as their domesticated cattle.

Sadly, Mr. Wells was slightly off in his calculations, by approximately 800,701 years. Today, we call the Morlocks 'Republicans' and the Eloi are similarly denoted 'Democrats.' But on most other scores, Mr. Wells was entirely on beam: After generations of rule, utterly controlling the national debate, the Eloi’s Prime Directive, 'Thou Shalt Not Offend,' became 'P.C.' while the Morlocks, living deep underground, plotted their ultimate takeover, as their rhetoric turned increasingly savage and filled with irrational hate.

Some say that the Morlocks turned away from reason to instinct, as did Mr. Wells’ creations, vaguely recalling their last triumphant control of the government, in the Eisenhower Administration, when their entire raison d’etre was the hatred of 'Communists,' 'Reds' and 'Pinkos.' The depths of this irrationality can, perhaps, be seen in their gleeful embrace of the concept of 'Red States' -- which would have seemed anathema to their forebears.

But, then again, the Morlocks are fueled by even older, half-understood hatreds and irrational grudges. The entire Republican leadership of the House, Senate and White House are [Dixiecrats] from the Old South, the loser in the long-forgotten Civil War, excepting the Morlock [then-Speaker of the House Dennis] Hastert, who comes from Illinois, that state that license plates itself 'The Land of Lincoln.'

But, in this case, the Morlock credo is 'With malice towards all, and charity for none.' Like their fictional counterparts, the new Morlocks feed on the ineffectual Eloi -- whose powers of reason seem to have withered entirely, after generations in unquestioned power, just as their ability to counter or contend with the Morlocks seems a mere memory of another stage in their devolution....

Part 2. The Attack on Kos, or The Eloi Fight Back


This appeared on the DailyKos front page yesterday:
Fox Attacks! Blogger Edition Hotlist
by mcjoan
Thu Jul 26, 2007 at 03:37:25 PM PDT

We are all under attack. Daily Kos might be the biggest target, but we're certainly not the only one. But we can fight back.

Yes, with YearlyKos (the Kos Convention, which all Democratic presidential candidates have accepted invitations to attend, in contrast to the Democratic Leadership Council, the DLC, whose invitation NONE of the candidates have accepted) almost upon us, JetBlue got into a well, let’s let that Kewpie Doll from Hell, Michelle Malkin distort it for you:

July 19, 2006

Just got word that JetBlue has asked the YearlyKos organizers to remove its name from the nutroots convention’s website. For its sponsorship deal, JetBlue apparently donated 10 travel vouchers to YearlyKos. I understand that there are no plans to revoke the vouchers. O’Reilly will be reacting to the decision tonight.

In a letter to O’Reilly, JetBlue says it is 'an airline' not 'a political organzation.' Glad to hear it.

Guess we can add that other wing back to JetBlue’s planes ...

"Nutroots," by the by, is the official Right Wing Smear term for us. We bloggers. We who have the temerity to write of Rightie wrongs. We, who might consider us civilized versus them what thinks kindergarten recess name calling is a legitimate debate tactic.

They ARE barbarians, and are not amenable to civility. And yet ...

And, having been choked by the 'Julia Child of the Morlocks' recipe, what does McJoan of DailyKos fight back with?

The folks at FOX Attacks are creating the tool to do just that--to build a database and a quick contact mechanism for all of FOX's local and national advertisers. You can help in the project by joining Fox Attacks' effort to not let Fox's lies stand. It's not a boycott, it's an effort to educate Fox's advertisers of just what it is that they are sponsoring. [ibid]

And What IS "Fox Attacks"?

Fight back! Become a Fox Attacker.

Fox is not a legitimate news channel. They consistently misrepresent facts, manufacture terror, and slander progressives.

We're fighting back by identifying and calling all of FOX's advertisers. All of them. Particularly local advertisers who probably have no idea the kind of hatred their money is supporting.

Already a FOX Attacker? Sign in here ?

This is not a boycott. We are simply calling advertisers and informing them about FOX. And making Bill O'Reilly's life a living hell.

Sign up, and get started now:

Sign in name (doesn't have to be your real name)

Hoo boy. That'll scare 'em. They intimidate your advertisers away, so you attack THEIR advertisers. (It's from Robert Greenwald's 2004 website for "Outfoxed" -- his laudably innovative documentary that allowed progressives to hold house parties and fundraisers over the DVD).

Except, like "Progressive Talk Radio," the battle is utterly one-sided. Rupert Murdoch was willing to hemorrhage literally hundreds of millions of dollars* before the operation turned any profits. In "Progressive Talk," the top rated show has perhaps 100 stations. The top Rightie talkers? Limbaugh 590 stations. Hannity over 500 stations. Michael Savage (née Weiner) is syndicated on over 400 stations by Talk Radio Network out of Grants Pass, Oregon -- an organization eerily coincident with Joseph Farah’s WorldNetDaily. Or, take a look at THIS page, with the NUMBER of stations under each host's photo.

[* "... News Corp spent $400 million to launch Fox News ..." ]

It never occurs to them that they can afford to carry someone like an O’Reilly WITHOUT advertisers as a sort of ideological loss leader -- good will from Rightie legislators on upcoming antitrust and media regulation legislation. EVEN if they stripped all the advertisers from, say O’Reilly, the impact on the News Corp.’s wide-ranging operations might well be nil.

That's fighting back? Well, one begins to understand, as a Progressive, how Lt. Col. G.A. Custer felt on a Montana hillside in the Summer of 1876.

Part 3. My Sordid Case.

We've been there. We’ve done that. Onward.

Part 4. Michael Moore Gets Subpoena’ed.

Michael Moore says he's been served with subpoena
John Byrne
The Raw Story
Friday July 27, 2007

Filmmaker Michael Moore revealed on Thursday's ‘The Tonight Show’ with Jay Leno that the Bush Administration had served him with a subpoena regarding his recent trip to Cuba made as part of his new film, Sicko.

Moore told the audience that he was notified of the subpoena backstage.

‘I haven't even told my own family yet," Moore remarked. "I was just informed when I was back there with Jay that the Bush administration has now issued a subpoena for me.’

Moore declared that the subpoena was unwarranted, saying, "this was a work of journalism.’

‘I was there to help them and now I’m going to face this further harassment from the Bush people,’ Moore said, according to a transcript. ‘Aren’t they busy with something else?’ [more Moore]

Part 5. The New Republic Soldiers On.

but me and my messmates
securely embunked
had no Earthly inkling
I was about to be punked.

It didn't take long for that Zombie Kewpie Doll From Hell to shift her attentions from embarrassing JetBlue, YearlyKos, and the unseen launch of the Attack of the Rightie Blogosphere (many of which, SURPRISE!, exactly correlate with the Rightie Attack Blogs that attacked me back around the Fourth of July).

Her brain-eating minions turned their attentions to an anonymous soldier's column in The New Republic. It is, perhaps, no accident that "Little Green Footballs" is tootled and trumphaled in sheerest braggadacio for its role in the rightie smear of Dan Rather's 60 MINUTES II document that led to Rather's dismissal, and the discrediting of the (true) story about how George W. Bush avoided military service in the Texas, Alabama and Massachusetts Air National Guard(s) even as he avoided ACTUAL military service in that war John Kerry served so disgracefully in.

These are MORLOCKS, kiddies. You cannot reason with them. And, as long as you think you can, they prey on you. Indeed, one begins to think that Wall Street Journal guest editorial by Ted Nugent, on July 3 (web-posted 12:01 AM July 4) was the Formal Declaration of War.

It began with a nasty fellow at the Rupert Murdoch/News Corp. owned magazine The Weekly Standard, named Michael Goldfarb, who launches an attack on his Weekly Standard blog on the credibility of TNR’s columnist, the anonymous soldier.

Within days, various nasty bloggers have ramped up the screeching just like they did on the Rather story.

And Goldfarb then cites THEIR citations of his story to show how IMPORTANT his story is. The serpent bites its tail.

Get this straight: None of these bloggers would ever bother reading The New Republic. The issue of the story's ‘integrity’ is a MOOT point to them. No: it’s an attempt to harass and intimidate, and a few days later, Goldfarb trumpets the intrusion of the ‘story’ into the MSM: an ABC story by Marcus Baram.*

[* from Media Bistro’s 'Revolving Door' June 29, 2006:
‘Marcus Baram has been named editor of the Intelligence column at Radar. He had been an editor at The Wall Street Journal.’ ]

Gee. The Wall Street Journal.

And then the flood. In the last 24 hours, the story has exploded into the press. CBS:

Jul 26, 2007
(Political Animal) SCOTT THOMAS....Have you been following the Scott Thomas story? He's a pseudonymous soldier in Iraq who wrote a couple of columns for TNR describing the ways in which war robs us of our humanity. One soldier dug up a skull and wore it on his head. Another one amused himself by running over dogs in his Bradley. Thomas himself mocked a woman who had been disfigured by an IED.

Conservative sites went crazy. Thomas didn't really exist. His stories were made up. The left hates the troops. Etc. etc.

The whole thing has been kind of weird. Needless to say, Thomas does exist (he went public this morning on TNR's blog) and so far nobody has any evidence that he's made anything up. ...

Here’s from one of WEEKLY STANDARD Goldfarb’s recommended blogs; a ‘milblog,

The Mudville Gazette:

But allow me to shock you: There probably have been dogs struck and killed by vehicles in Iraq. There probably have been people insulted in DFACs. And there are assholes in the US Army. The New Republic wants people to believe those assholes are typical soldiers. I suggest my bottom line comments from my first take on the story might be useful.

I for one would like to know whether "Scott Thomas" and his buddies are the sick little pieces of shit described in The New Republic or simply figments of some other sick little piece of shit's imagination.

I don't know the answer yet. Of course, if this guy is a soldier he's a pathetic excuse for the real thing, and he's going to face some repercussions for his actions. He either did what he says he did, and is an asshole, or he didn't and is fabricating stories, and is an asshole ... If he's actually in the military and he's lying, then words aren't sufficient to describe the sort of low life scumbag he is.

If he (or she) is not in the military and is simply demonizing U.S. Soldiers for fun and profit, then he (or she) is simply doing what so many reporters find irresistible these days - providing gullible Leftists with what they are eager to believe ... So lets make one thing clear. For the record - and for what it's worth - I hereby call on The New Republic to stop covering for this little dirt bag and turn him in to proper authorities. The New Republic's new "war hero" is not exposing bad behavior of others that's condoned by his seniors - he's confessing to that behavior himself. Since the New Republic won't release his identity, we can only conclude that either they support this sort of behavior by US troops or know that he isn't one. Neither option speaks well for anyone involved.

I further urge my fellow bloggers - and anyone else interested in the truth in this matter - to follow suit.

There is something chilling in this. The Righties were screaming for the ‘outing’ of this soldier by claiming that he didn’t actually exist. The implications that fuckwits like ‘Mudville’ in the military would ‘get’ ‘Scott Thomas’ whether via court martial or in a dark alley becomes chilling clear in retrospect.

These irresponsible catcalls from hell could well spell death, imprisonment or something in between, should ‘Scott Thomas’ turn out to be real. Certainly, the soldier’s desire for anonymity in his writings becomes grimly understandable.

It is a ghoulish comprehension. These bastards not only know that real human beings can be harmed, REALLY harmed via their Morlockian rhetoric, they seem to actually relish the possibility.

Here’s from Michelle Malkin’s ‘Hot Air’ videoblog/blog website, by Allahpundit

‘Scott Thomas’: A psychological profile;
Update: Rigorous fact-checking, says Foer
Update: Bryan weighs in on the whole ‘woman in a FOB’ question
posted at 1:02 pm on July 25, 2007 by Allahpundit

More exactly, a semiotic profile. The link is going around thanks to the author’s hard knock on TNR editor Franklin Foer at the end but the tasty part is in the middle where he dissects Thomas’s style. Verdict: He’s probably a grad student with military but not combat experience who fancies himself the Dangerous Guy with Chops. Heavy on the physical detail, devoid of emotional judgment, he needs you to know that (a) he’s been there and (b) he’s farking crazy, man, beyond good and evil, and he’s willing to use every ‘sinister’ stylistic affectation he can find to communicate those two facts. Which tends to suggest that he’s not beyond good and evil at all or else he wouldn’t be straining so hard to affect evilness.
Even so, it doesn’t always work out:

4) Physical detail is mildly slanted toward the refined senses (sight and sound) rather than the vulgar senses (smell, taste, touch, and kinesthesia); the refined-sense details tend to be more specific, and the vulgar-sense details tend to be alluded to more than specifically named. (I think this is caused by a lack of actual experience; in actual experience the vulgar senses are the strong ones, but in library research the refined senses are the ones easier to paraphrase to avoid being caught in plagiarism).

He’s a poseur, in other words, albeit perhaps one with enough experience to make a facially plausible case of combat duty....

Or, one more ‘reasonable’ Rightie site cited by Goldfarb:

Mackubin Thomas Owens (their Military anything-but-Commentator) at National Review Online:

Nonetheless, the ‘Diarist’s’ stories remind me of the sort of shocking and outrageous statements young men like to tell to credulous listeners. As the late Harry Summers, a veteran of two wars once remarked, such stories are intended to have the same impact as the sight of two Hell’s Angels French kissing in front of a group of bystanders: shock and awe. They also remind me of the predisposition of the American press to believe the worst about American soldiers, a predisposition that dates to the Vietnam War...

And we never saw it coming, as in my case, as in DailyKos’ case, because we HAVE NO WINDOW into the Right Wing Media world. When these stories finally appear, they appear fully grown and armored, like a leprous Athena from the Forehead of a diseased Zeus.*It is a coordinated attack, ginned up by a well-oiled smear machine. Do you doubt it? Check any of the citations in this article for cross connections, and be sitting down when you do.

[*case in point: Ace of Spades* another WEEKLY STANDARD reccommended post:

NYT Breaks TNR Lt. Stephen Glass Story, A Week After Everyone Else

Just noting it for the record; there's nothing here new or worthy of your time.

Well old news INSIDE the Right Wing Bubble of Derision, perhaps.]

And, since you’re probably not a regular viewer, Michelle Malkin has pretty much made herself a regular on O’Reilly’s FAUX NOOZ show. Will FAUX cover this ‘controversy’?

Was the Pope a Hitler Youth?

MRC/NB's Bozell on Hannity & Colmes About Magazine's Derogatory Soldier Tales
By NB Staff
July 24, 2007 - 22:26 ET

Brent Bozell, President of NewsBusters parent the Media Research Center, appeared Tuesday night on the Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes. Topic: Swirling questions about the accuracy of The New Republic's "Baghdad Diarist," writing under the pseudonym "Scott Thomas," a presumed soldier who has penned derogatory stories about the behavior of U.S. soldiers in Iraq running over dogs, ridiculing maimed Iraqis and playing with the skulls of kids.

Bozell pointed out how the New Republic only says ‘they know who he is with near certainty,’ which is like saying you're ‘almost pregnant.’ Noting that the magazine's editors now promise to look into the accuracy of the stories, Bozell wondered: ‘Ought not they not to have done that before?’

I will pass without comment the fundamental irony of FAUX NOOZ demanding that a jounalistic endeavor be able to quantify their reporting with facts. But from the same NewsBusters (‘Exposing and Combating Liberal Bias In The Media’) post:
The Weekly Standard's "Worldwide Standard" blog has the best day-by-day updates on developments.
An excerpt from Tuesday's posting by Michael Goldfarb ...

Well, DUH! The snowball was started and is being pushed BY (Murdoch employee) Goldfarb. No wonder it’s ‘the best’! How’s that for ‘liberal media bias’? More importantly, how incestuous is all of this?

When out in the blogosphere
there arose such a clatter
that I outed myself,
to put an end to the matter

But what had ‘Scott Thomas’ done?

Well, he had reported that all was not peaches and cream in Iraq. And in the face of this unrelenting attack from the Right, The National Review’s Editor did what anyone who wants to jeopardize the life of their undercover reporter does:

Outs ‘Scott Thomas.’ (Oh, I suppose the tale that ST wanted the following statement posted might have credibility. But, knowing the Morlockian jeopardy the soldier might be put in, had I been the TNR editor, I’d have insisted that the soldier keep his big trap shut, and told Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, Brent Bozell, and ESPECIALLY Michael Goldfarb to GO FUCK YOURSELVES!

Ah, but that is not the Eloi Way.

07.26.07

A STATEMENT FROM SCOTT THOMAS BEAUCHAMP:

As we've noted in this space, some have questioned details that appeared in the Diarist "Shock Troops," published under the pseudonym Scott Thomas. According to Major Kirk Luedeke, a public affairs officer at Forward Operating Base Falcon, a formal military investigation has also been launched into the incidents described in the piece.

Although the article was rigorously edited and fact-checked before it was published, we have decided to go back and, to the extent possible, re-report every detail. This process takes considerable time, as the primary subjects are on another continent, with intermittent access to phones and email. Thus far we've found nothing to disprove the facts in the article; we will release the full results of our search when it is completed.

In the meantime, the author has requested that we publish the statement below. --The Editors

My Diarist, "Shock Troops," and the two other pieces I wrote for the New Republic have stirred more controversy than I could ever have anticipated. They were written under a pseudonym, because I wanted to write honestly about my experiences, without fear of reprisal. Unfortunately, my pseudonym has caused confusion. And there seems to be one major way in which I can clarify the debate over my pieces: I'm willing to stand by the entirety of my articles for the New Republic using my real name.

I am Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, a member of Alpha Company, 1/18 Infantry, Second Brigade Combat Team, First Infantry Division ... [more]

I suggest you read the comments to divine whether the mindset of this fake ‘controversy’ is a clear and present danger to poor Scott Thomas Beauchamp.

But, of course, this was pooh-pooh’ed by the screeching Right. And the Leftie blogosphere is ill-prepared and mostly unaware of it. As per usual, the victim of the Rightie slime campaign is exposed, without so much as covering fire. His survival chances just dropped about 75%.

But the Editor is going to rigorously RECHECK all the facts! Which means that TNR just lost. You can’t be civil with barbarians. The barbarian won’t like it, and you’ll end up smelling like a pig. The Morlocks successfully intimidated the beleaguered Eloi Editor. No matter WHAT he comes up with, it won’t matter now. And they’ve ginned the ‘Legitimate’ Media into acting like this is a story (205 Google News hits this morning).

And then they appeared
their masters called them by name,
O’Reilly, and Malkin, and
Goldfarb screamed blame.

But Michelle Malkin could smell fresh brains for supper, and evinced the Morlock equivalent orgasm:

‘Scott Thomas’ steps out of the shadows
Update: The blog of ‘Sir Real Scott Thomas’
Update: His MySpace page
Update The soon-to-be wife of Scott Thomas Beauchamp?
By Michelle Malkin
July 26, 2007 08:35 AM

(Privacy? You don't get no stinkin' privacy. We don't like what you wrote, so whatever we can dig up is fair game! What's HILARIOUS is that, on the same DAY, Malkin sniffs self-righteously about how she's NOT a hater. That's just HATEFUL of you, calling her that!)

Get it? They don’t just want to ‘out’ our soldier serving in the illegal war in 120 degree summer days. No. They want to dig into every nook and cranny to find anything to smear him. Since he’s serving in a combat zone, I guess the contempt of the Rightie blogosphere is going to make his life safer, right? That’s supporting the troops.

(Oh, and from those screaming that a resumption of the ‘Fairness Doctrine’ would be tantamount to censorship.) Without shifting gears, Scott Thomas Beauchamp has gone from a ‘fraud’ who doesn’t know what a ‘Glock’ firing pin is to a traitor, and (GASP!!!!) a PRIVATE!

(Nothing like a little class war from the Ubermenschen, eh?)

Here’s a little ‘proof’ that Beauchamp is AUTOMATICALLY suspect, from Goldfarb the schmeermeister his-own-self:

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Beauchamp: "An ideological battle that I never wanted to join..."

Just doing a little digging on Scott Thomas Beauchamp and we stumble across this piece from the Missourian:

‘Glenn is completely submerged in politics on campus. It is honestly impossible to think about politics at MU without thinking of Glenn,’ says Scott Beauchamp, editor-in-chief of Prospectus, a liberal campus news magazine. Beauchamp and Rehn met one year ago while campaigning for Howard Dean. (no close quote= sic)


Riehl World View has more on the connection to Rehn. But I'd encourage readers to read the whole article from the Missourian, there's a lot more there.

Posted by Michael Goldfarb at 04:30 PM.

(Ooooh. He was FOR KERRY! Traitor! Leftie! Al Qaeda sympathizer! The mindset of this bigot reveals himself by the ‘obvious’ point that we’re supposed to take away from his commentary and ‘reporting.’)

Yeah. Here’s some of the commentary, from a website Goldfarb touts in today’s blog, Little Green Footballs (that Dan-Rather-font-attacking blog)

New Republic Editor Continues Stonewalling

Howard Kurtz interviews New Republic editor Franklin Foer, and Foer has chosen to continue distorting and misrepresenting the controversy over ‘Shock Troops:’ Army Private Discloses He Is New Republic’s Baghdad Diarist.

As conservative bloggers yesterday continued to challenge the veracity of Beauchamp’s accounts, Foer said: ‘It is really unfortunate that someone like Scott, who was really only trying to tell his particular story, has become a pawn in the debate over the war and the Weekly Standard’s efforts to press an ideological agenda.’

Of course, it’s not about an ‘ideological agenda,’ and Foer knows that. This is a smokescreen, intended to cover up the real issue -- the veracity of the events described in the article. Foer’s reaction may play well to the Nutroots crowd, but it’s nothing more than transparently obvious misdirection....

I fear for Scott Thomas Beauchamp’s life. They have roused every kind of rage: army rage, bureaucratic rage, radio wingnut rage. And for what? For reporting the facts of his experience, as he saw them. He was a journalist in college, but the report has to be utterly discredited, along with its author, its publisher, and anyone who reads it. I don’t know why the hell TNR ‘outed’ their writer, but don’t be surprised if he vanishes into a Pentagon hell.

Because we can’t be allowed to see all those flag-draped caskets coming back. This is the ‘HAPPY’ War. The bloodless war. The ‘no sacrifices, no draft’ war. Shut that private up!

Revealing his name garnered Beauchamp no friends in Rightie Meanie Land (Another Goldfarb/WEEKLY STANDARD recommended blog entry!):

Private Beauchamp- Requiem for a dung beetle
Posted By Uncle Jimbo

UPDATE: It appears that even dung beetles have fellow travelers, clown prince John Cole of Balloon Juice disparages me, poorly. But you know me, I will savage him manana.

Because some people enjoy projecting their weaknesses on me, I do not advocate that anyone hurt the pissant, let alone frag him. Give me a break people, he slimed his whole unit as scum and I pointed out that he might should watch his ass. Really, 'Ya think? ...

And then ‘Uncle Jimbo’ quotes HIS OWN HATRED(!!?!)

So he is unmasked, kudos to JD Johannes who had him pegged down to Company level. I just wonder how the other members of A Co. 1/18 feel about how their buddy Beauchamp described them. And just to note, I had this to say about this POS when this came up.

  • Scott Thomas is a lying sack of shit. Every unit has a Scott Thomas, the whiny pissant whose brilliance is never recognized and who is always being abused by the chain of command for stuff that's not his fault. It would be normal to hear folks telling him to STFU and do his damn job.

Well just take a look at this little pissant's previous literary efforts, and I'll be honest I would pay good money to knock that freakin' smirk off his face.

For fun, check out HOW MANY times these blogs reference each other. This is coordinated. This is interlinked to the point of bloggish incest. And what integrated force is opposing them? The backbiting leftie blogosphere? DailyKos? Me? (Well, actually, YES, me). Who?

I know the tremendous loneliness of Scott Thomas Beauchamp. I spent the last couple of weeks in it. A handful defended me a couple of times. Most of the leftie bloggers picked up on the Media Matters talking point that I was a completely obscure liberal blogger (yes, but belittling me helps .... how?). I am equally certain that ‘Leftie’ defenses and comments will obligingly crap on JT Beauchamp’s prose, and engage in ‘civil’ conversations about Glock firing pins and the Uniform Code of Military Conduct, while they railroad Beauchamp into either a jail cell or an early grave.

And that’s just ONE front of this ‘War on Terra,’ (never mind the climate or clean air and water). There is a push to intimidate and silence the blogosphere. Perhaps to provide cover for the next link in the chains of fascism that this country is descending into. (Ask not for whom the chains are forged, Lefties. They are being forged for thee.)

Welcome to the battle of the bulge. The Morlocks are out for brains to eat, and if you’re reading this, probably brains like yours. Morlocks get very hungry with all that strenuous blogosmearing. Michael Moore, Scott Thomas, Daily Kos, Me, The New Republic, and there are more. The offensive (in both literal senses) is under way. Will we defend? Will we curl into a fetal position and whimper? I'll not hazard a guess. But if ever there were a time ....

(For some odd reason, WorldNetDaily has not devoted a word to the story, so far. But then again: so many targets, so little time.)

And I heard them to shriek
between conniption fits
we hate you all and
to all a Happy Apocalypse.

America is a nation waiting for a John Brown. Let’s hope that it’s a longer wait than I fear it will be.

Courage.

[NOTE: This represents -- to the best of my knowledge -- the first rhyming of
conniption fits and apocalypse in the Western canon. - HW]

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Mission (Kinda) Accomplished

[Note: Mr. Williams has been on vacation.]

In a moment of historical shame that the tissues of rationalization can only obscure for a brief season, the University of Colorado released the following press release yesterday, transparently a lie:

CU Regents Dismiss Ward Churchill
July 24, 2007

BOULDER-The University of Colorado Board of Regents today voted to accept President Hank Brown's recommendation to dismiss Professor Ward Churchill from the faculty of CU-Boulder for conduct that fell below minimum standards of professional integrity.

The vote concluded nearly two and a half years of an extensive faculty review process to investigate charges of research misconduct against Professor Churchill. More than 20 tenured faculty members from CU and other institutions served on three separate panels. Each panel conducted a thorough review of his work and faculty involved found evidence showing Professor Churchill engaged in research misconduct, and that it required serious sanction.

"The university has an obligation to ensure its faculty's work is above reproach, said CU President Hank Brown. "Academic freedom requires academic integrity, responsibility and accountability."

The record of the case shows a pattern of serious, repeated and deliberate research misconduct that fell below the minimum stand of professional integrity, involving fabrication, falsification, improper citation and plagiarism.

The university's review of Professor Churchill focused on his professional activities, not his statements about victims of September 11, 2001. Professor Churchill, like every United States citizen, has the right to make controversial political statements. Early in the investigation, the university determined his speech was protected by the First Amendment.

Right. Nothing to do with the witch hunt launched by David Horowitz' various "foundations" and publications and the Right Wing Smear Machine. The "controversial" political statements whose careful re-casting (a process with which this writer is intimately familiar) led the Governor of Colorado, a significant number of legislators, and a large chunk of the Denver media to scream for Churchill's head.

Yesterday, they got it. And, aided by the University's press release, they got it AND they got cover for WHY they got it. Allegedly, "plagiarism," and we're shocked, SHOCKED! to find out that gambling has been going at Rick's!

Were outright plagiarism a crime, then what are we to make of the 80% of the news that comes STRAIGHT off of press releases* like the one the University of Colorado ginned up to put them in the best light possible?

[* "Here's something that might surprise you: Seventy-five to 80 percent of ALL news comes from press releases and stories that the media gets from businesses and individuals just like you and me! Without press releases and articles, they wouldn't have much news to print, and they'd be hard-pressed to stay in business."]

The Ministry of Truth has spoken, and yet, while any five-year-old knows that University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill was fired for that smear, any lawyer, TV commentator and "news" reporter will tell you that this was all about "plagiarism."

The Ministry of Truth must be pleased.

Here's what the AP said:

Colorado professor Churchill fired
By Dan Elliott
Associated Press
July 25, 2007

BOULDER, Colo. - The University of Colorado's governing board on Tuesday fired a professor whose essay likening some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi leader provoked national outrage and led to an investigation of research misconduct.

Ward Churchill vowed to sue, saying "New game, new game," after the Board of Regents' 8-1 vote was announced.

Three faculty committees had accused Churchill, a professor of ethnic studies, of plagiarism, falsification and other misconduct. The research allegations stem from some of Churchill's other writings, although the investigation began after the controversy over his Sept. 11 essay.

"The decision was really pretty basic," said university President Hank Brown.

"The individual did not express regret, did not apologize, did not indicate a willingness to refrain from this type of falsification in the future," Brown said.

Churchill's essay mentioning Sept. 11 victims and Nazi leader Adolf Eichmann prompted widespread demands for his firing, but university officials concluded it was protected speech under the 1st Amendment.

Brown recommended in May that the regents fire Churchill after faculty committees accused him of misconduct in some of his academic writing.

The essay that thrust Churchill into the national spotlight was titled "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens."

And here's what Ward Churchill actually said, verbatim, if you were actually curious, since this case is all about what Right Wing Talkers SAY that he said, and not about what he ACTUALLY said.

The "little Eichmanns" statement alludes to a well-known observation on the nature of evil (well-known among the literate, that is):

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book written by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Hitler's rise to power, reported on Adolf Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker. The book Eichmann in Jerusalem is the result of this reportage.

Essentially, Arendt states that aside from a desire for improving his career, Eichmann showed no trace of anti-Semitism or psychological damage. Her subtitle famously referred to the "banality of evil," and that phrase is used quite abruptly as the final words of the final chapter. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial, displaying neither guilt nor hatred, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" ("He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." p. 135).

Churchill's allusion to this well-known book and its thesis (and its subtitle) was taken, you might recall, and amplified by the Right Wing Smear Machine so that ALL that is remembered is something about Ward Churchill comparing people in the Twin Towers to Nazis! So much for metaphor. So much for literacy.

The AP Story states:

That essay argued that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were a response to a long history of U.S. abuses. Churchill said those killed in the World Trade Center collapse were "a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire" and called them "little Eichmanns."

Eichmann was top-level Nazi who carried out the Holocaust.

Churchill had been out of the classroom since spring 2006 but remained on the university payroll.

And a firestorm of hatred has been directed in Churchill's direction ever since 9-12-2001. 2142 days and counting, as I write this. And, even though we haven't caught up with bin Laden in the 2143 days since Nine-Eleven, they've FINALLY managed to nail Ward Churchill, Colorado teacher. Here's a little souvenir from that odyssey of smear:

Professor Ward Churchill is a Traitor
Thursday, March 03, 2005
By Bill O'Reilly

Professor Ward Churchill is a traitor, in my estimation: that's the subject of this evening's "Talking Points Memo".

... But justifying terrorist attacks on your fellow countrymen? If you do that, you're a traitor. And Churchill's doing it. Even Jane Fonda didn't go that far. And I believe what she did during the Vietnam War was treasonous. Ms. Fonda gave comfort to the enemy and made life more difficult for American POWs and for American soldiers in the field. She also failed to condemn the staggering human rights violations in Vietnam and Cambodia after the U.S. pulled out of Southeast Asia.

But even Fonda didn't justify the murder of U.S. civilians as Churchill is doing. There's nothing more I can do regarding this guy Churchill. The man has defined himself and there's no doubt about where he stands. Now it's up to the University of Colorado to deal with him.

Clear-thinking Americans have already rejected Churchill's hatred. And no person should confront the man in any way. Shun him. Don't insult the freedom Americans have died for by doing anything else.

This story is not about Churchill anymore. It's about the people who enable him. What say you, University of Colorado?

And that's "The Memo."

Well, the University of Colorado has finally said what.

Yesterday it slickly announced Churchill's formal firing (he was removed from the classroom or any "teaching" position in 2006; the firing was a mere formality, in practical terms). And the counter lawsuit will now go on.

Churchill is rather a prickly sort to defend, but do we really HAVE to have perfect victims to speak out against injustice? Against censorship? Against academic and media intimidation? Is THAT why the Right has been unified in its desire to crucify Ward Churchill for his speech (that "speech" CU explicitly stated Churchill had "the right to make controversial political statements," even as it slit his throat for those statements)?

But was Ward Churchill really fired for "plagiarism" and other charges? Nobody believes it, except, perhaps, for the Denver media and the CU board of regents.

And all that is remembered, at the end is the careful misreading of Churchill's essay that was the beginning of this odyssey into the Vindictiveness of the Right Wing Smear Machine. What Churchill himself said was lost a long time ago.

The story is, finally, ONLY about what the Right Wing talk shows SAY that Churchill said, and never about what Churchill himself ACTUALLY said. That is the genius of the smear machine. And the pièce de résistance? The Colorado Regents release a firing statement stating that Churchill is not being fired for the reason that they're actually firing him.

The concerted campaign to crucify Ward Churchill (paralleled by the David Horowitz campaign to muzzle "leftist" professors on campuses across the land) can be pooh-pooh'ed by our "little Joe McCarthys" as IRRELEVANT, since Churchill was fired for other reasons. See? The CU Press Release says so, right here! Churchill has "has the right to make controversial political statements." It says so right there, after it says that he's being fired. But NOT fired for those statements.

Good ghod.

Having been on vacation since Bastille Day, I was gratified to see this piece of "news" that appeared on Tuesday, the day before Churchill's formal termination:

Methinks Bill O'Reilly Doth Condemn Too Much
Stephen Silver
July 23, 2007

... After Ann Coulter said she "hopes the terrorists kill" John Edwards, Hannity and guest Brent Bozell changed the subject to "liberal hypocrisy" because a liberal blogger named Hart Williams had called for the murder of conservative musician Ted Nugent, and that "no liberal has condemned him."

Why hadn't they? Probably because while Ann Coulter is a major media figure who appears on television almost nightly, Hart Williams is an obscure blogger who I'd imagine most liberals had never even heard of. The reason they hadn't condemned him was because they were simply unaware of him. Perhaps O'Reilly, Hannity and Bozell would be happy if every liberal in the country helpfully issued a list, every morning, of every other liberal he wished to condemn.

What I actually said has vanished from memory entirely. Déjà vu, eh?

And Brutus is an honorable man.

Courage.