Anita Dunn is an interim White House Director of Communications. There's been a kerfluffle between her and FoxNews. It looks like she's going to lose, and I will bet that she gets thrown under the bus in a week or two as a result.
I've long suspected, amidst great heckling, that the American left is Maoist. They use many of the same tactics, and many of the same phrases. Why should this surprise anyone? Simone de Beauvoir was a Maoist, and her book, The Long March, is practically the blueprint of the feminist movement.
Julia Kristeva was a Maoist.
SDS was Maoist.
Anita Dunn is almost certainly steeped in that tradition. Generally, the left tries to hide this, but it doesn't fool me. Which is not to say that nothing fools me. Anita Dunn apparently gave this speech in front of a group of Episcopalian schoolkids in the DC area. Among the things she said (I got this off the Wikipedia page about her) in which she's giving the kids life lessons:
"The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Theresa -- not often coupled with each other, but the two people I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point which is: you're going to make choices; you're going to challenge; you're going to say why not; you're going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here's the deal: These are your choices, they are no one else's. In 1947, when Mao Zedong was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over. Chiang Kai-shek and the Nationalist Chinese held the cities, they had the army, they had the air force, they had everything on their side. And people said, "How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this, against all of the odds against you?" And Mao Zedong said, you know, "You fight your war, and I'll fight mine." And think about that for a second. You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok? It is about your choices and your path. You fight your own war, you lay out your own path, you figure out what's right for you. You don't let external definition define how good you are internally, you fight your war, you let them fight theirs. Everybody has their own path."
That phrase: path. Where have I heard that before? What does it evoke? Oh yes, the Shining Path of Peru. They were led by an obscure psycho-path and philosophy professor. Guttman, Gussman? Can't remember his name. At one time many academic Marxists would have known this group, and been for them in their fight against "capitalist oppression" in Peru. Now Ms. Dunn claims she was only joking with the students by using Mao's name, and seemingly referring to this Maoist guerilla group. I suppose we shall shortly see who gets the last laugh. I'll bet on Beck, and I'll bet anything that Obama too has "red" Mao's little red book, and took much of it to heart.
Why doesn't he just admit it so the rest of us can stop reading between the lines? Could this be also why he's refused to meet with the Dalai Lama? Are all the dots starting to connect? It may be that the entire left doesn't realize that their ideology is Maoist. Glenn Beck shall have to supply this information for them!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
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So Anita said:
"You don't have to accept the definition of how to do things and you don't have to follow other peoples choices and paths. Ok?"
It's kind of weird, since it seems she is advocating that the children learn to think for themselves, and don't become sheep. I don't think the children would understand the Maoist reference to include a class warfare, etc. And I don't see how they would see it as a call to clump together as a group to annihilate the upper class. Even though she makes reference to Zedong's goal to defeat Chaing Kai-Shek, she makes no reference to rallying the masses in order to do so. She advocates free thinking. That's a really stupid conclusion to her example.
(btw: how old were the students?)
Still it's no excuse. And to lump Mao Zedong in with Mother Theresa is just ridiculous. I don't recall Mother Theresa ever espousing that the proletariat rise up en mass and violently overthrow the bourgeoisie.
Yes, Anita Dunn deserves the bus treatment, but mostly for stupidity. I don't read her as sinister. But she is an incredibly inept spokesperson for Obamaism.
Let's see:
Anita Dunn is to Obamaism
as
Anita Bryant is to Radical Right
WW
the troubling thing about the quote is the way the two names neutralize one another
ok mao said i'll fight my war
what's 150 million people to me
loose change
mother theresa said OK i'll fight my war
and she went about pulling maggots out of the open wounds of tens of thousands of people and her sisters are still doing it
so i guess it balances things out
political paranoia will get you nowhere
glen beck knows far less than his unstoppable mouth leads people to understand
obama is madisonian with some african tribal chief nuances
many medical procedures which are used now as common place were initiated and utilized in the 3rd reich
of course the more modern robotix stuff is right out of startrek and ray bradbury
that should make us stop and wonder why
bush was nationalist isolationist and went about sealing up the borders as tightly as possible
hmnh
what does that remind us of
i think women have just as much right to sound completely stupid on the television as men
i'm glad i won't know much more about anita dunn
hey in the market place of ideas even bad ideas have a place
you know there's mcdonalds and then down the street there's ricks' cafe'
too bad the girl didn't quote from the
tao te ching
ah well
no end to the blather
jh
Check out this funny video:
Ronald Reagan makes fun (from beyond) of the FoxNews diversion as he sings to Gibbs and Dunn: "You Can't Hide Your F'n Lies (and the FoxNews War is a Thin Disguise)"
http://02e56fa.netsolhost.com/blog1/index.php/2009/10/21/reagan-sings-to-obama-from-beyond-you-ca
The Joey Panto Show
It is utterly Maoist to fire someone for quoting Mao. She's not endorsing vioence or class warfare or illegal activities. She's quoting a political figure. (And the juxtaposition is clearly ironic, 'tho irony is rarely a good strategy when talking to students.)
Let's put it all together:
Obama is called a threat to free speech when he declares he will not engage with Fox News any longer.
Beck is a defender of freedom by trying to get people fired for their free speech.
Can anyone say, "Idiot!"?
(And no, Kirby, very few people on the left are anything like Maoists. It's very unChristian of you to say such things. Judge not lest you be judged.)
The problem is what she said:
The third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Theresa
That's precisely like saying Charlie Manson or Hitler or Stalin is your favorite political philosopher.
Anyone with a shred of respect for a murderous thug like Mao shouldn't be allowed near any position of influence.
"Let's put it all together:
Obama is called a threat to free speech when he declares he will not engage with Fox News any longer.
Beck is a defender of freedom by trying to get people fired for their free speech."
There's nothing anti-free speech about trying to hold someone accountable for what they say. That's just taking someone seriously. In this case, a member of the administration is enamored with Mao, history's biggest mass murderer. If Obama doesn't have a problem with that, then he shouldn't fire her. But if he chooses not to, it isn't anti-free speech for the rest of us to look at this administration and loudly wonder about who influences them and what they are planning to do.
As for this administration's war with Fox News, it is certainly their right to spout off if they like. But doesn't it worry you that they are trying to control the information that gets reported to people? It has an authoritarian flavor to it. Coupled with Anita Dunn, Van Jones, Ayers, Wright etc... it begins to show a pattern of veiled ideological extremism.
Just for the record, Beck didn't create this pattern, he's just been willing to point it out (unlike most of the media).
G.M. -- I'm hearing a smirk behind that claim. The juxaposition is so ferocious; it's clearly meant to have a sort of rhetorical force beyond the trite idea of "these area few of my favorite things." Sure, if Dunn really thinks Mao is a great political theorist, let's have a debate on the subject. But I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt. (Esp. considering that Mother Teresa is not a political philosopher to begin with. It seems to me Dunn is trying to jar the listener via antithesis.)
W.B.: First off, this is one example in Beck's war on Obama's minions. He went after another guy for admiring Marxist philosophy. Now sure, if someone defends murder and genocide, that person should be criticized. But Beck is clearly trying make the American people scared by equating any Marxist thought with murder and genocide. And he's trying to get people fired for their speech -- speech which is often, as in this case, not in any way connected with their jobs. No one attacks Catholic political operatives because the Church once engaged in murder and genocide.
And when it comes to Obama vs. Fox, this is not about controlling information. Whatever information Obama gives to ABC or the NYT is still going to be in the public sphere. He's simply refusing to engage with pseudo-journalists who willfully distort the stories. (And why should he cooperate with a network run by a Republican operative? That's like saying the US should cooperate by sharing plans with its enemies.) Obama is not withholding information; he's just not going to invite Fox to the information-sharing party.
Argument by antithesis? With schoolkids?
Please.
Here's the original link from FoxNews.
http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=10817863&referralPlaylistId=undefined
I don't think the age of the group, Wendy, is specified, but it is for a high school audience, and was done in June of this year. I am assuming she was speaking at a graduation ceremony for high school seniors, but don't know that.
It's just that it's June, and she's giving life lessons.
It doesn't seem to me that she finds anything wrong at all with Mao. And I think Mother Theresa and Mao are very easily conjugated because of their insistence on the Social Gospel.
Mother Theresa wouldn't have used a gun.
And for her, and her followers, I think Liberation Theology would probably be closer to their phrasing. Social Gospel is a Protestant phrase (googleable).
I think God is a capitalist.
The parable of the talents is certainly quite capitalist. We each get talent, and the notion is to develop and to use it in "useful labor" to quote a phrase from the first page of Smith's Wealth of Nations.
Most Marxists do not believe that "useful labor" is what legitimates wealth. That, again, would be a Smithian or Lockean idea.
Marxists try to get something for nothing. And in the process, they undermine the economy and lead to rack and ruin.
But, moreover, it's a bait and switch. In fact, we give up all our freedoms under Marxism, and in return we get Gulags and -- if we're really lucky and it's Tuesday -- goulash.
You know, I'm pretty happy to equate Marxism with murder and genocide.
Fox News ratings are actually up even further with this debacle. They are now advertising themselves as the one news group that gives you information that the white House doesn't want you to have.
Putin simply closed all alternative news stations.
In most communist countries there are no alternative news stations.
If you even tell a joke against the government you end up in that Tuesday's goulash.
I love this country! I hope Fox still gets to broadcast, and that Limbaugh gets to continue his rants, and that my humble little blog can remain open.
I'm only getting about 700 viewers a day, and I'm sure even MSNBC gets more than that, but I'm proud of my growing numbers. When I started this blog four years ago, I was getting five or six hits a day, and four of those were me checking to see if anybody had come yet.
Dunn's comments on Mao were improper; she either doesn't know, or doesn't care about the history of maoist atrocity. So, she's either stupid, or evil.
Yet by objecting to Dunn's DNC hack attack, we aren't thereby obligated to approve of the Foxsters, or GOP-Limbaughland. You forget Bush/Cheney led to most of this BS. BushCo created the backlash, with the Iraqi War, and they created the mortgage crisis (with help from some Dinkocrats). The right's incompetence, greed, and yes, zombie-biblethumping code ( represented on Foxco, as well) resulted in Team Obama.
Sort of Hegelian, dewd
J,
It started WAY earlier than that.
The latest date I would feel comfortable with is LBJ.
The system is BROKEd.
Kirby -- 700 hits a day is pretty good. Maybe you'll overtake Silliman one of these days. It's like 15x my hits on the blog.
I could agree with that. On the other hand, Fox is the only station that is willing to deal with Obamatons, and point out how Maoist so many of his hirelings are.
Fox broke the Acorn story, too.
Without Fox, who would be guarding the henhouse?
GM -- I think you need to post more often. You sometimes take a month off.
Silliman is a daily.
I try to post every other day unless one of my posts is drawing enormous commentary. I often want to see a post play out.
Ann Althouse gets tens of thousands of hits a day but she often posts ten or more links, with lots of hyperlinks, and her stuff is totally contemporary.
You post on stuff that very few people know anything about.
Curtis Faville does that, too.
Silliman has those enormous posts where he tries to pull in the whole left blogosphere. He's almost like a newspaper. I actually go there to get the news.
I am trying to focus on the question of the politics and religion of the avant-garde, and to change it from Marxism to Lutheranism.
Of course I've had zero success, but that's part of the fun. Give me an impossible mission, or a mission impossible, and I'm only too happy to waste my time on it.
On the other hand, I've attracted a core band of thinkers -- such as yourself -- and after all, even Jesus only had twelve disciples.
His disciples didn't talk back or diss him as mine do, and I wouldn't want that kind of authority anyhoo. I just want to create a lively conversation about what's going on in the avant-garde, but from a distinctly Christian viewpoint.
I still think that Jesus should be seen as the avatar of the avant-garde, not Marx.
Marx couldn't even walk on water. Who would follow a guy like that?
And why should he cooperate with a network run by a Republican operative??
You mean like Viacom-controlled, mega-media corp CBS? Like Fox, they're GOP operatives as well, just...kosher. Katie Couric, Oppressor! All networks are massive corporate endeavors. A few Olbermanns don't change that.
Hey Kirbly--the Jeezuss vs Marx thing is not only inaccurate, but trite. There are christian/catholic marxists, whether you like 'em or not. Google Camillo Torres. Even Hugito Chavez says he is a xtian.
Nietzsche would have called the Fox-Limbaugh hicks AND the Anita Dunn and Kossacks chandala, wouldn't he have. So would have beats--reading Spengler along with their frenchified gurus
J -- there's a huge difference between being owned by a corporation and being run by a Republican operative. While corporations have exploited their statuses as legal persons, they still cannot have a political identity beyond the individual political identities of their members. And plenty of corporations have learned that balanced politics means wider markets.
Fox, however, is run by a Republican operative who is known for giving his employees political marching orders. There's not a lot of difference between certain segments of Fox News and a Republican Party newsletter. (As a matter of fact, Fox has been discovered to broadcast as news unedited and uncited -- plagiarized -- Republican Party memos.)
I rather fancy that one foxster blonde with the mega-botoxed lips who brought us the Iraqi War news.
Ah yeahh hottay bring it the F. on........
I KNOW that there are Christian Marxists! My goodness. They're everywhere. It's called Social Gospel (google it), or else Liberation Theology (Chavez!), or what have you. Jesus told them he wasn't going to bring on a revolution. They were distinctly unhappy even then. They thought he would free the Jews from Roman control. But that wasn't his ballgame.
Still, many folks believe that it is.
Alan Colmes was pretty far to the left, and was on Fox for at least five years.
I rather miss him. He made good points, and kept Hannity in check.
But he was totally Social Gospel. Well, ok, no Gospel. He was just a socialist.
Socialists have good points, and they own almost the whole entire media except Fox.
Fox is the only station that isn't taking its perception of the news directly from the White House. I am sure this annoys them. It annoyed Stalin, too, when he found those darned Samizdat sheets. Off with their heads.
In France it's a bit more honest. Each newspaper is owned by a party and doesn't even pretend to play fair. National Public Radio never plays fair, but then it's another outlet for the White House crowd.
I think it's quite fair to have a Republican controlled vehicle.
Democrats control both houses, the White House, and 98% of the media outlets.
Republicans have only talk radio, and Fox, and WSJ. And of course the blogs.
But everyone is watching Fox. Apparently they get more listeners than all the other news stations combined.
It really is FAIR and BALANCED, at least if you lean a bit to the conservative side of things, as do I.
Without Fox, we'd have NEVER heard about the ACORN scandals. No other media outlet would have touched that story or shown those videos.
Fox is good for the country.
Who else is watching the henhouse, and looking out for us?
Most Marxists do not believe that "useful labor" is what legitimates wealth. That, again, would be a Smithian or Lockean idea.
Marxists try to get something for nothing. And in the process, they undermine the economy and lead to rack and ruin.
Locke's labor theory of value influenced Marx. As did Smith. He usually argues against Smith's love of the market, and shows, or tries to show, that management/producers/finance rips off labor. I don't generally defend Marxism (or even labor theory of value), but your synopsis is mistaken.
Of course, in Kirby-land Rupert Murdoch upholds the teachings of Jeezuss.
You're also overlooking the numerous anti-usury messages of the New Testament, including the parable of the Talents. That's a rightist preacher reading (common to baptissts, out west--) of the parable of the Talents--be thrifty, etc. Others read it from the servants' perspective: as in, servants of the world unite
I know how the communists read things.
I'm up to my neck in communists and have been for thirty years.
If you've met one communist you've met them all.
But each one thinks they've arrived at their thought all by themselves.
I think I might hit 1000 hits today.
It's weird. I'm a capitalist (counting coup) even though it's my debate with communist sympathizers that stokes my counts.
I'm just so bored by Marxism. For me, Lutheranism is quite fresh, like a lovely low breeze in early spring.
"If the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant an appletree this morning." -- Luther
Try to stack a single sentence by Marx or Hume against that sentence, and see if it stacks.
"No ideas without antecedent impressions" (Hume).
Had you been raised in a cave by maoist guerrillas, and never shown any Bibles, or Luthers, or Foxnews, but only the Little Red Book, you'd be saying the same about Mao
No, I came to Luther very late (I was over forty).
I did go to Sunday School until I was 12, but there was an enormous gap.
Perhaps it's the rubber band effect. You run and run, but ultimately your upbringing kicks in, and pulls you back to where you started from.
No apple falls far from the tree.
But Luther rolled quite a ways!
As did Baby Jesus!
You claimed above that Luther upheld free-will (Arminianism to some bee-lievers). You errored. Luther holds to a type of dualism, but people are not free; they are either controlled by Gott or Devil. Really, it's nearly akin to the ancient manichean BS. And that influenced calvin's thinking as well.
Much later Hegel tries to assimilate the greeks to the Lutheran schema, but he's mostly interested in german nationalism, and realized Lutheranism could help out.
Teutons were better off with Wotan. Kill DA WABBIT
It's true that capitalists rip off the workers if they can, but workers rip off their workplaces too if they can. Marx simply replaced one group of ripoffs with another. The capitalists at least made decent products. The only the communists produce is misery, but even they rip off the workers.
Worker states, like that of the Soviet Union, or that of N. Korea, completely forbid any freedoms. Marx suggested these ideas in the Commie Manifesto when he said that we'd have a one-party state which would of course "wither away."
And of course it never did. Just got worse and worse and worse, ripping off everybody in sight. Now Kim Jong-Il lives in baronic splendor while the workers starve to death around him.
Now Obama thinks he has a bright idea, and is trying to resurrect these ideas, which have been about as good for humans as smallpox.
Dear Lutheran Surrealist,
BTW: Excellent use of the word "kerfluffle" in the post. The word deserves more widespread usage. Since the whole Dunn/Fox News debacle has escalated, is there a word for an extreme kerfluffle?
WW
Kirby:
Back from a lovely week in Toronto ("Madama Butterfly" was up to the mark, the mineral collection at the Royal Ontario Museum was first rate, and the UT Robarts Library hasn't yet sent my second book on translation to their warehouse repository) a peu pres incommunicado. . . .
But, but . . . what's this? Anita Dunn, Maoist? Fool, yes . . . well, these "hip" Marxist-Maoists in the States (remember, Kirby, when it was a la mode for naive American students--ever greedy to steal other people's stuff--to sport "Mao jackets" and quote from the miserable, fetid, doggerel this [Hegelian] world-historical monster supposedly penned) are of little consequence unless they manage to subvert the traditional American system of "unofficial" checks and balances--which Obama seems bent on doing--then they can be dangerous, and by the time these pathetic ideological twits are called out, it's too late. Best get rid of these fools early. . . . We'll need another Sen McCarthy to ferret out the rest. . . .
Though I don't listen to M Beck, good work for calling out this cretin early enough to make a difference. . . . And good for Fox News, too, for they ask questions the other networks are too craven and lib-left complacent to voice.
Kirby, you might have added the truly dangerous and malignant Michel Foucault to your list of Maoists--and then, presumably, Blisset will attempt his usual leftist "problematising" ploy, for he clearly finds Republican "operatives" a greater danger to our republic than those who admire (and encourage school-children to emulate) the greatest political mass murderer the world has ever seen (Blisset may consult "Le Livre Noir du Communisme" [ed Stephane Courtois] for the documentation of this claim).
Thanks to "WB Picklesworth"'s remarks for his or her stalwart support.
Harold Bloom tells me I'm a Shakespearist anytime I try to write poetry, whether I'm aware of it or not.
Craig -- I'd rather be a Chaucerian or Pearl-poetian or Beowulf-poetian or Dantean or Homerian.
Who's the Maoist?
"This fool by folly rid, my peace is bought--
Thus God gave man a tongue to hide his thought"
Who?
Though I don't listen to M Beck, good work for calling out this cretin early enough to make a difference. . . .
Kirby.com, with an Ode to Brigham Dung.....say it trippingly, on the tongue
Kirby:
The couplet I quoted (source?)seems to have reached its intended audience in the persona of "J," this site's new stand-up philosophe who swings a pretty mean pig-bladder or "Puncheon" on stage in delivering his farrago of scoffing one-liners punkchewated by imaginatively-spelled foreign expressions. . . . It's fun just to sit back and watch J's words fly by. . . .
I'm just waiting for the attacks on Lee Atwater and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have approvingly quoted Mao.
Kristeva and Foucault both rejected Maoism upon seeing first-hand the realities, as opposed to the theories, behind a Maoist regime.
Other defenders of genocide: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Andrew Jackson. How come they can be my favorite political thinkers, then?
The inability of the Right to see irony is pretty hilarious to me. I bet the students at St. Andrews Episcopal read for tone better than Beck.
Not about aesthetics, pops. This is a blog, not a Iowa MFA program. Or as that poet Iggy Pop onace said--ah don't have time to make no apologies
You bless a sodbusting mormon piece of s**t..... like Glenn Beck, yr a punk. Im not in the Belle-lettres biz either, beat or trad.--but I'm pretty sure Kerouac would agree with that, regardless of his dislike of the new left.
I don't think anything's wrong with Mormons. Would prefer Romney in the White House at this juncture, and hope he or someone like him gets in there next time around the bend, if the White House still exists by that time.
Magical Underwear FTW!
I don't think anything's wrong with Mormons. Would prefer Romney in the White House at this juncture.
Bookmarked. In many areas of the west, mormon dreck controls the school districts and local economies. Were they to note you even discussing "beat lit' you'd probably never work in any school or college in Utah, AZ, NM, most of Colo, even eastside CA. You simply don't know what this game is about.
Blisset:
I'm waiting for the context and explication from you of Atwater's and Gingrich's purported remarks on Mao, for I doubt either would claim that bloated cannibal as his favourite political philosopher. Enlighten us by explaining your allusion. . . .
Kristeva and Foucault were little else other than inveterate rhetorical theorisers whose ahistorical and ascientific droppings were eagerly swept up and canned by their lit-crit epigone-coolies in the Cacus-dens lit departments became (in contrast, at least Piero Manzoni can't be accused of mislabelling HIS excretions!). Kristeva's, like Foucault's, mephitic hot-air lingo-balloons have been thoroughly exploded by Sokal and Bricmont for their sway-dough scientific puffery and meaningless meretricious verbiage, not to mention her psychoANALitic theorrhea (anyone who believes in--let alone preaches or collects shekels or "patients'" golden teeth from--that false Fraudian religion should have his or her head examined!). As for the miscreant Foucault, his last few yrs showed him at bottom the very quintessence of criminal malignancy and murderous savagery--quite the Maoist, ahem, "in the end." At any rate, Blisset, you're much better at "O altitudo!s" about the works you're reading and teaching than about lit-crit politics. . . .
"Pops" to J-pup:
For you, a blog's not so much about thinking, I see, but about stinking in a crowded room. . . . Eh, allora, ch'hai di nuovo, buffon? Che dell'usato piu noioso tu sei? . . . btw, pup, unlike Kirby, I'm not a fan of the "Beats," so, p-p-p-preposterous boy, trashing them means nothing to me, and right-wing radio jockeys can well defend themselves against the likes of(no, I didn't say "handle," so don't get excited!) of leftist glossolaliacs.
But then, J-pup, give us some more mispelled macaronics! . . .
chupame, JA-De belle-lettrist.
You're no Bricmont. No philosopher. Just another poetaster doin' the usual "TS Eliot sends secret notes to Goebbels" along with Kirbystein. My points on LDs well-documented. Then you were probably memorizin' the cliffsnotes to Racine or somethin' while some of us read Twain's Roughing It, not to say the Federalist Papers..
Now, let's have the Ode to Fox and the LDS from the Kirby.com regs!
Haven't seen more from J-pup than a smattering of sceptical philosophism apparently gleaned from scribblings on walls of pub loos where "panta rhei."
Perhaps someone can hand him out of the muddy philosophe's ditch, but only if he renounces Hume's cornball psychologising (like memory as "decayed sense" and such attendant drivel) and the itch to strut guffaw at right-wing talk-jocks, Southern evangelicals, and hallucinated belletrists.
(Now addresses J-pup):
So where's your published philosophical paper or book, so we supposed "poetasters" can savour some real philosophical meat, O Metrodorus of our age?
Hume's cornball, eh Signore Putoli? Someone forgot to tell that to Carnap, Quine, and analytical philosophers as a whole.
I'm not a Humean per se anyway but there's not much need to continue the philosophical discussion. Or for me to point out your smarmy Ad Auctoritas.
This was about Fox news and the LDS. However, we might apply a bit of Humean analysis, even verification, to Joseph Smith 's claims--golden plates, angels, lost tribes, "spirit stones" , Jeezuss walked the Americas, et al.
And the result of that verifying (or evidentialism, as Clifford would say). Joseph Smith's visions of Moroni, and all the rest of the crypto-masonic BS of the LDS falls in the class of BOGUS-- possibly one of the greatest farces of American history (as Sam Clemens thought as well).
JA: Sokal debunked Kristeva's use of a few scientific terms. Her readings of literature often hold up, 'tho I don't love her style. And as for Foucault, well, Boswell and Johnson also knowingly infected all of their lovers with STIs, so ... In any case, Foucault's lifestyle has nothing to do with (a) his supposed Maoism or (b) the quality of his historical writings.
There are plenty of articles already in the pajama-ridden world of the blogosphere on Atwater's and Gingrich's quoting of Mao. Here's CNN on Gingrich:
"Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog group, points out that former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, also a Fox News contributor, quoted Mao in a 1995 Roll Call profile.
"'War is politics with blood; politics is war without blood,' Gingrich said, citing Mao."
Nice to have you back, Jacques. I was dismayed to feel that I was being outflanked on the left, but now I know the conversation will be more than even. Thank you for showing up! This J has fired up everyone to the left of me. Curiously, Tom has vanished. One good thing: dissension in the ranks between J. and Brett, allowed for a crucial delay!
Last night on Fox Anne Coiulter said she often cited Mao and thought it was ok what Anita Dunn did. But a. I don't see any irony here (why should she have irony? -- I see none here).
And b. she says this is her top philospher and she often quotes him.
Mao is a big big big part of the left, from Foucault to others (Foucault to my knowledge never denounced Mao -- Lacan did not, Derrida did not,
-- although Kristeva did, and is now fully conservative, along with moi.
She thinks Charles de Gaulle was the great man of her century.
Wendy, there are two versions of kerfluffle. One is kerfuffle, which is a scuffle in Scotland, and is actually a rather serious brawl. Then there is kerfluffle. The extra -l apparently adds the notion of a very slight disturbance, barely a breeze.
I confess that I found the term on Ron Silliman's blague and have pressed it into service.
A donnybrook would be an all-out melee.
Donnybrook apparently derives from an Irish fair in which free-for-all brawls were quite common. They use that term when both sides in baseball go out to the pitcher's mounds and it becomes team boxing with bare fists.
Hockey has more of those, but since they are all padded up the injuries are rarely serious.
A becnh-clearing brawl in basketball is also termed a donnybrook.
The Irish and the Scotch eruptions in the Civil Order are amazing. Why they should have their own terms is beyond me.
I'm going to ask my wife if in Finland they have similar terms. Finland back in the day had a very violent history. There was a time when almost every male over twenty had knife wounds across his face from scuffles.
You don't know what the Left is, KO. I'm not a postmodernist. Not even a Democrat. In fact, I've read a bit of Dr. Bricmont--and you're certainly not in Bricmont's posse (or Sokal's).
Bricmont opposes Bush, neo-cons, and American imperialism. He quotes Marx and Spinoza favorably, along with Darwinian evolution, and quantum physics. He's not a believer either (nor is Sokal, I don't believe). I'm sure he detests the clowns of Fox, and GOP.
Politics is a bit more complex than you or Frere Jacques make it out to be: not just Fox vs the maoists. There are secular moderates, and conservatives (like Hume, a Tory)--I didn't defend Dunn, anyway. Nor do I defend Foucault & Co. That doesn't mean one sides with Fox bozo-bots, LDS, or a Hagee chanting for WW III from the Book of Revelation.
Holy Blood Red Heifer, batman
J., you have a bizarre view of the center and the right. There are all kinds of secular conservatives (fiscal conservatives, for instance), in addition to people like Hagee (even McCain tried to distance himself from Hagee). Enormous numbers of church members -- almost half of every mainline church -- vote to the left side of things.
Get a clue.
Stu for instance, is down with you on almost every topic. You are to the right of him on gay ordination, in point of fact.
Brett is a Bible believer, but he's to the left of you on almost every aspect.
Where do you stand with regard to Lyme Disease? THAT is the bellweather topic du jour.
That, and the golden lion tamarin monkey's disappearing habitat on the coast of Brazil (perhaps I can post on it Monday!).
Meanwhile, there are probably a few things that all of us could agree on:
1. Sexual slavery is wrong.
2. North Korea is a mess.
Etc.
Of course we can't go there or the blog will go silent.
You need to get a clue on Fox, on Beck, on MormonCo. Defend the Constitution, if anything, before the neo-cons, and khrustian-republicans. Defend it against the marxistas as well.
Capichay?
The CDC/Disease/funding problems present a completely different issue. New strains of TB.Hep C. Swine flu. Weird, air-borne pathogens . Probably concocted by Foxnews neo-cons in secret labs of the Illuminati.
Most humans catch Lyme disease from ticks out in the woods. So avoid Bambi-land, Kirby the Khrustian surrealist
Yup, J-Pup, didn't think you'd trot out a bib with your name on it (sad and "inconvenient ruth," or just empty pockets, yo?). Though Blisset's stammering responses (especially in touting the post-human Foucault's patent pseudo-histories--real socio-medical historians like Roy Porter's worth his salt) hardly persuade, at least he attempts to address a question or remarks put to him. And since, Pup, you're the one pitching for jaunty, free-form exchanges on Kirby's blogsite, it generates a smirk to hear you bleat on about sticking to YOUR subject agenda of gratuitously abusing Fox News (now they don't pretend to be ecclectic philosophers like some-what-I-could-mention, nor are they Obama butt-kissers, as are nearly all on the alphabet-soup networks, the odious-lib smarm of the NYT--apart from the crossword--the WaPo, the LAT, et alia) and Mormons ("LDs" [sic]--I don't share their beliefs, but I've certainly no raging animus against them, as some-what-I-could mention). At any rate, your heavy-as-lead belief in disbelief (as the sublime reactionary monarchist philosopher, jurist, and diplomat Comte Joseph de Maistre has it) is somewhat touching and deserves the tender condescension owed to any injured puppy.
Of course I well knew long before I read "Intellectual Impostures" that Sokal and Bricmont were political leftists rankled at the disgraceful leftish post-mod rubbish served up to aco-"lites" in the lit-crit racket. More protean post-mods'd be something else entirely if they hadn't written embarrassingly sway-dough-scholarly disses, articles, and books (mostly in subsidised U-of-somewhere presses stuffed with pretentious fard and written for tenure rather than for readers--still, at least they had SOMETHING to publish--wink, nudge--in lieu of being retrained as useful citizens--glad to hear, Kirby, that Kristeva's relented here, for like most of the offal post-mods offer up, trying to find anything intelligible or of interest there, in the words of the Cambridge philosopher, Stephen Logan, is like trying to strain Niagra through a sieve) they can't quite disown, since they scammed their way into sway-dough academic careers in commensurably sway-dough departments "specialising" in everything from eco-Marxism and queer body studies to "feminist rhetoric."
And I didn't savage Hume in general (he's an important alarm-clock for Kant and very much worthy of the title "philosopher"), only his psychology (even English-clunkier than Locke's), which in general, despite its endless Lacanian exact-science-just-round-the-corner ploys, hasn't taken any viable forward steps since Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas, save in the pages of great novelists like Mme de Lafayette, Stendhal, Flaubert, Proust, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Joyce, et alii.
BTW, J-Pup, authoritatively, it's "ad auctoritatem," not "Ad Auctoritas [sic]" (object in the accusative case)--and for that, no, no, it's OK, no charge--but I trust, says your Oxford tutor, you can afford a used Wheelock, can't you?. And whose verification principle do you fancy (Mein Gott--Ausgeschlossen!--I hope not Ayer's!) and what's to verify your verification principle, O Eighth Ancient Sage?
At any rate, Pup, glad you've left off stalking here and started talking here on Kirby's illustrious world-historical blogsite--you're most good to wind up and spin--like Ixion on his wheel. But we await your next Fichtean sun-clear report, our pipsqueak Nietzshe, our Answerer, bro' of Max. . . .
Why would we defend the Constitution? That's so out of vogue these days.
Besides, the Constitution was pretty much ruined by Washington when he put down Teh Wiskee Rebellion.
Town-Destroying Bastard.
This is just too good to pass up: Limbaugh's now reporting as news the moronic nonsense of bloggers who are duped by fake news stories:
http://buzz.yahoo.com/buzzlog/93122?fp=1
Apparently, Limbaugh is refusing to apologize, saying that the fake pages from Obama's college thesis "felt right" even if they are total hoaxes.
And JA, my job is not to defend Foucault. I could care less about him and his work. But I'm tired of hearing the same cliched half-truths trotted out about his Maoism or his murderous AIDS rages.
Jacques Pup-puto all upset about something? Appeal to authority, to tradition. Auctoritas in latin (sometimes, given as Ad Verecundiam . So what--not about grammar). That's a fallacy. One many belle-lettrists are fond of. That you can spew dogma from your favorite vichy cleric of 13th century, or repeat his name ad nauseum doesn't make it an argument. Philosopher you are not.
One doesn't need a PhD to point out the deceptions, corruption and BS of Fox or LDS, or vichy frenchy-anti-rationalists. I know RNs, if not people from tech-schools, at least as intelligent as the average literary fraud.
Btw, Jacques-pup--(and others) . Im not one of yr pomo palsies. 195 lbs, 5-11, bench 400 lbs. Ready to go? Step in a ring, tough guy. Say some merde to me in person. Allons
Anita Dunn. Where do these people come from?
Anyone quoting Mao-Tse-tung as a guide to conduct, at this late date, is really living in the past.
There were many in the West who thought during the 1950's and 1960's that the Communist Revolution in China had the potential to accomplish great things. Well, it did accomplish a few things, but personal liberty and freedom went by the boards. It wasn't until China embraced capital investment, trade and economic growth that it began to pay dividends to its citizens. There is no question that, on balance, Maoism was the wrong path for that country.
Which is not to say, however, that American liberals have adopted Mao as a theoretical model. That's nonsense. Believing that the working class should be the core beneficiary from growth and prosperity isn't a Maoist notion. Belief in the curtailment of unbridled capital and corporate greed and power isn't a Maoist notion. The 20th Century was the battleground in which the best and worst aspects of the industrial revolution were mediated. Unfortunately, for the time being, capital is on the ascendancy. You and I have almost no power, whereas capital has a lot. That's why we have unemployment, bad health care, poor pension coverage, a degraded environment, and a growing underclass characterized by widespread crime and ethnic conflict.
Unfortunately, high taxes won't fix most of these problems.
But attempting to demonize the "Left" as Maoist is a tired ploy. That's like my accusing all Rightists of being KKK'r's, or White Supremacists--a similar nonsense.
Actually, Fox News's picking up on stray remarks like the Dunn thing is perfectly in character.
Trying to score generic points by selecting out choice exceptional examples is a fool's game. No serious political thinker does this. And in the end, it's what people do that matters, not what they say.
Trying to get minority school children to believe in themselves is a worthy effort. Ordinary American citizens were once the colonial "children" of the King of England--but they got uppity. Good thing, I'd say.
It's "Allons-y," J-Pup, and "ad nauseam," not "ad nauseum [sic]" (again, no charge, but you've already used up your freebies--and btw, cast your lazy ungrammatical eyes over your posts and see if you've not appealed "ad auctoritatem" or "ad verecundiam"--it's called a "tu quoque," Spud); clearly the 101 classes (in anything) you talked of earlier may be a bit advanced for you, but there's always GED English at your local community college. . . . Nevertheless, as the master rhetorician and teacher Quintilian has it, some are fit only for the fields, so apply yourself well to your crayons and Big Chief note pad and try to avoid biting your tongue when block-printing your monosyllables.
And while Plato and Aristotle set the age of philosophy at fifty years, I'm not sure you'll ever be prepared for the dialectic if you can't manage the entry-level grammar of the trivium, let alone the liberal arts curriculum. Then again, if your last semi-literate bully-boy screed is indicative of your character ("ethos" in Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics," where he judges the young to be incapable of wisdom, since their lives consist of a series of disconnected emotional episodes--take note, Spud!), perhaps the dialectic of fists and pistols better suits you, though I think that wouldn't cut it much with the RNs and technies I know. Best fist down some beers and apply your dialectic solely to your fellow drooling pub-mates. Better yet, since you're within your own reach, perhaps you might try out your idiosyncratic form of dialectic on yourself, such as occurs in the 18th c. Chinese novel, "The Dream of the Red Chamber," in which an offender must present himself before a magistrate and beat himself up. Why, you could be both slap and cheek, as in Baudelaire's "Heautontimoroumenos." . . .
While it's been a bi'o'foon winding you up to the trash-talkin' bullcrap boastin' point, Pup, I think further direct exchanges a gaspillage enorme de mon temps. . . .
No, Faville, the Communist Revolution in China most notably accomplished more than a "few things"; it achieved the deaths of thirty million people at the hands of a fanatical tyrant (whose fanaticism was only checked by thoroughly idiosyncratic personal corruption), according to conservative scholarly estimates (again, "Le Livre Noir du Communisme," Faville--if you've the stomach for it). . . . Still, it's consistent with the lib-left deference to the almighty omnibus principle of "diversity" to have your chirpy defences of Maoism follow paeons to the courageous "heroes" of the Taliban that our troops are fighting.
btw, Faville, I chose "that" over "whom" intentionally, though all these fanatical terrorists are capable at least of reason and salvation--they might even get into Yale someday. . . . And with the "world turned oopside doon" Obamaite buffoons and university "diversity" loons running this country at present, they might even be tearfully welcomed into our universities. . . .
Who cares Jacques Pup? I said step in a ring, vichy-pup. What's yr answer to that, satanist
Oh, dear.
Note also Jacques-Pup's skillful vichy (or is it israeli) manipulation. Note Kirby ended his Anita Dunn rant with a praise of Fox, neo-cons, Beck, LDS. Do you defend the mormon church? If so, then you defend Joseph smith's lies, deceit, and over a century of corruption and abuse. Not to say Fox's documented errors.
Jacques-Kissinger-pup turns it into a italian verb lesson. Who the F. cares.
Oh dear is right.
(hands the boys rulers so they can get the cod-swinging over with)
Go Jacques! J's a weirdo. Kirby, why are there so many weirdos that flit on through here?
--not nearly as weird as Kirbystein's favorite poets. Why not like move into Bible Studies/theo biz, KO? Take Phreres Jacques and the rest with you. Maybe...work on banning the books you formerly taught.
My name is Kirby, my brutthrerrs and sissterrs, and I formerly taught Beat Lit... a product of the Devil... Can ah ah get a witness...
Prefering like reason, evidence, historical accuracy to BS, hysteria, Foxnews agit-prop, the LDS, conservative sentimentalism: weird.
I'm reminded of the people in the Seattle Mariners stands screaming things at the players. Whether using the N. word, or whatever else.
Now J. is calling us "Jewboys," and threatening to beat us up.
Oh my goodness.
At the Mariners games we called them "bleacher creatures." They are part of the underbelly of America, and part of the underbelly of the left which is also part of the underbelly of the right. It's sad.
We do hope that they continue to balance one another.
If one or the other were ever to get total control, life would be over for everybody else under their new Cultural Revolution.
First thing killed if J were to get in would be any kind of freedom to practice religion, especially if you're connected to the OT, but the NT people would be next. A long list of people to be offed.
Finally, only the absolute version of rationalism would remain: himself. And then he would probably kill himself for having been so irrational.
Em, in this case we may also be dealing with someone who's taken too many steroids. Pumping all that iron. It causes behavioral problems.
Besides, Beck is well on his way to being the most popular newsman in America. At this point, only O'Reilly and Hannity, and possibly Greta Van Susteren, are ahead of him.
Stossen's moving up in the pack.
Juan Williams on the outside, but gaining.
Geraldo's good, but he's only on Saturday nights.
Nyet.
On one hand you purport to teach, and even promote beat literature and surrealism (and feature a pic of Andre Breton, Trotskyite on your blog). On the other hand, you support the agenda of the Mormon Church, Glenn Beck, Foxnews, the GOP and the neo-cons. If not an actual contradiction, a pronounced inconsistency--and ethical lapse.
J - 'most of Colo'?
Not teaching the beats?
I haven't read any further (will, but had to comment on this right away).
As a graduate of a state university in CO that had a highly Coloradoan population (this isn't Boulder, land o' newbieColoradoans we're talking about...relatively conservative Fort Collins) your claim is simply ludicrous!
I have my creative writing professors with the purple hair and my Beat Generation Writers prof. to prove it, and the entirety of CU and CC... and Naropa Exists in Colorado, which means the Mormons can't have that much influence.
And all of my friends from Grand Junction seemed to be well-read RE: Beats.
Why you're going all anti-Mormon here is weird. No Mormons around!
We did have a Mormon commenter here for a while. A dude named Lucky. Seemed like a good dude, a solid military guy, but I don't think he was MENSA level genius like the rest of us, so he couldn't quite keep up, and I think he had a real young kid, so definitely had better things to do.
Wherever J goes from here, though, I think Lutheran Surrealism will have been a good experience for him - you seem to think that everyone who disagrees with you on a certain topic is of a certain kind, and that if they disagree with you on One topic they must have a big clump of dogmatic views.
That is so not the case here.
Though it's also fun having you around, because somehow you're making me, Jacques, and GM agree with each other.
Funsies!
And J - you're pretty misguided in your understanding of Kirby's view of the Beats.
Again, you are making presumptions and accusing, all without educating yourself.
Do a search for 'beats' or 'ginsberg' or 'burroughs' on this blog, and read what Kirby's views are.
For one, he thinks that Ginsberg destroyed America, even if he was pretty good with a turn of phrase.
And he's a Lutheran Surrealist - THE Lutheran surrealist, by the way - taking the ludic/nonsensical approach of surrealists and combining it with the law/order/common-sense/morality of Lutheranism. It's really kind of a fun and novel thing!
So Kirby teaches Beats, sometimes...and you find this to be hypocritical?...So you're saying that one should only teach that which one whole-heartedly agrees with? You are such a Satanic Sexual Predator of a Hitlerian-Vampire.
Evil.
The whole idea of literary criticism is to pick on poets, especially those you revile. Success as a poet means taxing the limits of the existing theological order. The critic's job is to discredit the poet enough so that window dressing suffices as reform.
Why you're going all anti-Mormon here is weird. No Mormons around!
Glenn Beck is in the LDS, Brettski (note Kirby praised him)
And I meant the west, and Colorado as a whole, genius--especially Western Slope. Not Loveland, or Naropa-land. There are quite a few LDS-bots in Boulderberg (and let's ask some Boulder beat or 'head types about Kirby's love for Beck/FOX/GOP, assuming some remain after the frat boys and GOP rah rah types took over the town)).
I totally like Jews and Mormons.
I see nothing wrong with either group.
Neither one is spreading diseases, and both groups are law-abiding.
Jews are incredibly funny and well-read on average.
At any rate, I like the writing of the Beats, as Brett has said.
I wrote a book about Corso.
Corso was a wonderful poet, but he was a sad demolition as a man.
He too was abandoned as a child.
This really hurts kids!
J. needs to take a deep breath, as does Curtis.
They get too hysterical, and start to think in straight lines.
We like to think in terms of the ellipse, and in swirling motions that barely make any sense even to us.
You're hysterical in your praise...of the Elect.... of Norman Rockwell-land, er, Norman Podhoretz-land, and the bourgeois, the law, the conservative biblethumpers.
Most WASPs consider themselves part of the Elect--that's protestant tradition. Alas, you should have paid attention to a few bon mots of Pound's Cantos, like where he places the Reformer (aka Calvin) in a rather nasty section of Hades (maybe one of the resident Danteans could mapquest it, but looked like Malebolge land). Po' Calvin, in the ice-sewer.....
Poets consider themselves to be a kind of select, or elect, few.
Pound ended in the loony bin where he belonged.
He was a disgrace to our nation.
The Protestant Reformation brought a lot that was good to America.
Pound was just a traitor like the people at MSNBC.
Yeah, J, but Glenn Beck's Glenn Beckness isn't so much about his being Mormon as his being Glenn Beck.
He could be baptist or Buddhist and still have the same problems.
But he's really good at what he does. I think he's the most brilliant performance artist of his times. I don't think he even thinks what he says he thinks (a year ago he said our healthcare system was a disgrace, now he says it's the best in the world!!!), but he says it in such an engaging, interesting, ludicrous way.
It's entertainment! And, like a broken clock, he's right twice a day.
Colorado, by the way, went Obama - and it wasn't the LDS vote that got us there! There Are Mormons here, but far more hippies/bluegrassers/cowboys/fundamentalists/pot-smokin'mountainfolk/Catholics.
They don't have control over anything, really, here in Colorado.
But they exist, and so that's bad? Weird.
A couple of Mormon Missionaries found something that had fallen off the top of my car (a packet of important-looking papers). They spent a lot of time tracking me down to return it. I was afraid that when I met them to get it, they'd start their sales pitch, but nothing of the kind!
Yay Mormons! I mean, they're wrong, and they have a history of doin' some dumb thangs, but they have strong families and a sense of kindness.
Conservative social beliefs that I don't agree with - but otherwise, top notch fellers!
And I haven't seen this Jewboy comment that J made - where is it? That IS pretty lame of you, J.
Pulling a Michael Richards on us, eh? I guess my previous theory has been proven correct:
Never trust a letter.
-B
Glenn Beck is almost pure non-stop hilarity.
He's having the time of his life on screen.
He's a lot funnier than any of the Tonight Show types.
He was a drunk for most of his life, but he's trying to recover. He has incredible paranoid moments. I love him.
Harris Faulkner is coming along, too, on Fox. At first she was only getting a few comments here and there. Now I notice that more and more she's on daytime news shows.
Eventually she's going to open up and then we'll see who she is, kind of like Juan Williams and Anne Coulter and the others. I love how crazy the Fox News personalities are.
Crazy like a Fox.
MSNBC tries, but sadly, they're not having any fun at all and strike me as squirrelly neurotics.
Enjoy your politics, people.
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