Mistah Breitbart He Dead.

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So Andrew Breitbart is dead.  Someone else claimed that Bette Davis said, when Joan Crawford died:  "You should only speak good of the dead.  She's dead, that's good."  I concur.

Fredoglake has a post up in which Lisa Derrick, who knew the guy, kind of says nice things about him.  Most, but not all of the commenters seem to be taking the line:  so young how sad.  Salon gives a of nice little obit ending with the lovely family man bullshit.  Blah blah blah.

I am not the kind of person who thinks the death of everybody is a tragedy.  To that person and his immediate family, probably.  But not always and not to everybody.

In Breitbart's case he was a man who used what skills and influence he had to destroy people's lives and to destroy and try to destroy organizations whose reason for existence was to help the poor and less fortunate.  What he did and what he stood for was evil.  That is what he was to the world as a human being.  In his life he chose to make a stand for everything that is wrong in this country at this time. Why should I feel any kind of sympathy for that kind of evil person?

Or if I my paraphrase Mark Twain:  But he is dead now and I hold him no particular grudge.  In fact if  I could send him a fan to help him where he is now, I would do so.

Or since I am getting all literary and the Firedoglake poster is defending Breitbart because he was nice to her:

The Hangman at Home by Carl Sandburg

WHAT does the hangman think about
When he goes home at night from work?
When he sits down with his wife and
Children for a cup of coffee and a
Plate of ham and eggs, do they ask
Him if it was a good day’s work
And everything went well or do they
Stay off some topics and talk about
The weather, base ball, politics
And the comic strips in the papers
And the movies? Do they look at his
Hands when he reaches for the coffee
Or the ham and eggs? If the little
Ones say, Daddy, play horse, here’s
A rope—does he answer like a joke:
I seen enough rope for today?
Or does his face light up like a
Bonfire of joy and does he say:
It’s a good and dandy world we live
In. And if a white face moon looks
In through a window where a baby girl
Sleeps and the moon gleams mix with
Baby ears and baby hair—the hangman—
How does he act then? It must be easy
For him. Anything is easy for a hangman,
I guess.

UPDATE -- 3/5/2012

I've had a couple of further thoughts.  If I didn't make it clear enough although Breitbart was a scum I am incredibly disgusted with the "liberals" who seem to need to make sure that they are not considered old meanies for saying nasty things about him.

A second thought is that he would have had no real power if there was anything like even a single back bone to pass around the various "liberal" organizations.  Acorn was defunded with overwhelming votes in congress, including most of the democrats.  Shirley Sharrod was fired by Obama and repudiated by the NAACP before anybody bothered to check out the realities of her speech and what she did for the white farmers.  Finally, who was the slimy democratic congress who was sending pics of his prick around who bailed at the first mild wind (with the assist of the democratic establishment) while diaper David Vitter is still a senator?  Breitbart would have been nothing if the liberals who are in "power" hadn't caved to him at every opportunity. 

Another Kind of A Book Report

Sometimes I write something so many times in my head, that I think I've really written it down where it is possible for other people to see it.

In looking back over my previously posts for the period that I could have done it I don't think I've mentioned the book I read about the great influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. I had read a few things about the epidemic before, but the book The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John Barry was the most in depth of anything I've ever read about it. It is kind of a strange history since he spends at least half the book giving the history of medicine in the world and then in the United States up to that point. It is a description of the development of medicine and its change into a truly scientific profession. Which hadn't occurred, at least in the United States until shortly before World War One. It is interesting in one way because the climax of the story, the epidemic, was not in the end really defeated so much by the heroic doctors or their new scientific discipline. Instead it just burned itself out like most plagues in the past.

One guy Barry really doesn't like was Woodrow Wilson and the system of crushing dissent that he put in place for running America during World War I. As he describes it and if truth be told as I've read about it in other places, it was a nearly totalitarian system of enforcing compliance and ensuring that there would be no dissension and no overt opposition to the war. The system that booked no bad news about the war helped ensure that the epidemic would spread more easily and quickly, since newspapers were forbidden to write about it for the most part and people who talked about it and its danger were often reported to the authorities as unAmerican defeatists.

Kind of interesting at several levels. First, is that Wilson was from Virginia originally and did believe in the Lost Cause I suspect. What makes that interesting to me, since I've just read them, is that Grant in his Memoirs mentioned several times how much more difficult it was for the North with a free press to prevent anti war sentiment from being spread, while the South, which Grant insisted, had a censored press was more able to limit such dissent (something Grant seemed to envy). I wonder if Wilson learned this at his father's knee?

Second, is how most people were willing to agree to this kind of suppression. When one grows up reading the books I have read, it is hard to remember that these books were written by the people who were being suppressed by the vast majority of this country and who were more than willing to go along with the government's crushing of dissent. One always, I suspect, imagines himself as standing up against the kind of oppression, In the situation as it is coming down how would one act, I wonder? Or to be honest, the question I am most concerned about is how I would act.

Third, I suspect that Obama is licking his lips in the hope that he will be able to use the Espionage Act that was passed at the behest of Wilson to crush dissent during the First World War to smash Wikileaks and imprison Assange and Manning for life. I am sure he would like to get around to screwing with us lesser types too.

I went over to one of my fake progressive blogs just to see how the comments were going there or perhaps to get my fair share of abuse. Although this time I did manage to avoid commenting, for which I am vary proud. However, they were ecstatic about the arrests involving the people protesting Manning's condition. And of course once again Manning's imprisonment really isn't that bad and the people protesting weren't really hassled that much. Oh yeah, Daniel Ellsberg isn't that great a guy and what he did wasn't all that brave. There was also a massive justification post for Libya, but I'll leave that for another time.

Wow, these are people who claim to be liberal or progressive. I would guess that they would be the ones who if they lived in Germany in the 1930s would insist that National Socialist did have socialist in its name. Or in the alternative, those who lived during the First World War and would report their neighbors for not being enthusiastic enough. Worker bees I guess.

DADT

A couple of more thoughts about the repeal of DADT. First, the blind pig analogy. It really isn't possible for Obama and the congressional democrats to always fuck up all the time. And when there is a happy confluence of the wishes of the military industrial complex, the neo-liberals and their desires for more colonial wars, no money lost for billionaires and a major constituency actually withholding their votes; then perhaps something good can come out of this administration.

Then there is my other thought, (if I can be forgiven from fixating on the Millennium books) is the torture scene of Blomkvist from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (can't find it on Y0uTube) where the sociopthic serial killer offers Blomkvist a glass of water while taking a break from torturing him to death and Blomkvist thanks him. The guy then says: "See it is so simple, I offer you something that doesn'tt matter and you think that maybe I won't kill you now." Of course, he has every intention of killing Blomkvist and is openly contemptuous of Blomkvist's weakness in thinking that now maybe he will be ok. Just saying, not to imply that Obama is a sociopathic serial killer or that liberals are willing to take any offering from him as evidence of his humanity, or anything.

Things Can (And Apparently Will) Always Get Worse

Geeze. I was going to lay off WikiLeaks for awhile, but I guess they insist on being attacked by "my" government. Just a little something from Greenwald again, and from yesterday.

More and more depressing news. I suspect that the kind of stuff I post or even the kind of stuff Greenwald does will be left alone. We just kind of nibble along on the edges, obviously WikiLeaks hits them where they hurt. I also suspect that they are going all out at this point to make a point for anyone else who might want to shed a little light on the vile internal working of our government and its minions (minions including other countries and large corporations).

In passing I find it depressingly interesting that the law most frequently cited is the 1917 Espionage Act. It is a law from one of the most reactionary periods of Twentieth Century American History. It was intended to aid in crushing dissent against one of the more unpopular wars in American history. It did a fairly good job of it, Debs served almost five years for a speech he gave against that war.

The least just and more unreasonable the government's position on any issue the more intense will be their attempt to destroy any dissent. So the United States has now officially and openly, joined the governments of Burma and China. Congratulation on us.

And I would argue, I expect to see them succeed more times then they fail.

The Air Castle That Was Blown Up

So my last post on WikiLeaks most recent leaks until Assange gets taken before some Swedish tribunal for something hopefully resembling the last scene from The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. But in Googling the title I see that the Swedish title is more accurately translated as: The Air Castle That Was Blown Up, perhaps even more apropos. OK, OK, but the damn thing is playing out so closely to that movie that I just cannot get over it.

I watched Greenwald and Aftergood (what a great name) debate the WikiLeaks thing on Democracy Now (yesterday streaming on the computer thingy). First, Aftergood who has a (kind of) organization that pushes for (apparently) more openness in American government seemed to be really jealous. Here he has worked for years within the system and he is barely noticed. I had heard about his organization, but not a lot. He had apparently going through FOIA requests and the proper court channels gotten some information, but none that appeared to really get a lot of interest outside the belt way types. He was angry about what WikiLeaks had done and how they had done it.

In fact Aftergood (insert own sarcastic comment here) simply lied and said that WikiLeaks had published a blue print for a nuclear bomb, the only one ever publicly published. That was simply, apparently not true. Then he went on to argue that some of the leaks shouldn't have been leaked although others were apparently alright. One of the leaks that he chose to mention that was bad and shouldn't have been leaked, was the one which revealed the German politician who gave the U.S. Ambassador detailed notes about what went on in the formation of the current German government. Since the German was essentially a spy for the U.S. it reveals a terribly America centric point of view and another way Aftergood would be more than willing to censor what the average citizen knows.

Essentially, it is an argument that someone must always stand between the people and their government's secrets. The Wise Men (mostly men) know what the hoi poli need and should know. We're just arguing about who those Wise Men should be. Clearly Aftergood believes that he is one of those Wise Men.

A second point, though. I've been wondering whatever is causing the completely unrestrained rage which has been expressed by the ruling class of at least this country, if not the world. The ruling class as I mentioned before being the media types (perhaps; they at least are given to think they are part of that class and encouraged to believe it), elected types, appointed types, wealthy types, and it now appears the educational types (those who hope to move on to jobs in the government or think tanks). They are the Wise Men (even if some of them are women). Assange is not (nor are you, by the way).

This unrestrained rage does seem to be kind of strange coming as it does at the release of diplomatic cables rather than at the release of the military stuff of a few months ago. I do not mean to imply that there was no anger at WikiLeaks and real rage from those in power, but it didn't seem to take hold as it seems to be this time. It is certainly being pushed more aggressively by the media than it was before, and I think that might be because the media are starting to realize that WikiLeaks is making them look like the ineffectual bumbling handmaidens of the rulers that they are and that they always knew they were, but were able to deny it to themselves up to this point maybe.

Another reason for this completely uncontrolled rage is the sheer number of cables that make the writers look like middle school children back biting each other: "She's so fat," etc. It is one thing to be shown to have killed people for no good reason, but that you have the power to do it, it is quite another to be shown to be merely petty.

Don't Touch My Junk

Reading a post on Greenwald's blog about the "Don't Touch My Junk" guy. The interesting thing is that it takes off from an article in The Nation which essentially smears the guy.

And strongly defends Obama. In reality The Nation has been nothing, but a well kept "leftist" piece of democratic infrastructure since at least 1996. Why do you ask do I say 1996?

Because I remember reading an article which was an attack piece on Dole at the time. The article attacked Dole for waiting to be drafted rather than leaving college and joining and then attacked him for not being appropriately wounded. He happened to get seriously wounded by being hit by an artillery shell (as did most) rather than heroically leading an assault on ........well something or the other.

They also were willing to cut and run on the single payer idea early on.

Oswald Garrison Villard would be very disappointed.