I’m honestly not sure I believe it. I mean, they said they found the anthrax terrorist, too.

Yeah, it’s not like they fucked up the USS Iowa investigation, what with that elaborate homosexual suicide plot they came up with. And then there’s LaVena’s suicide, where she set herself on fire after she died. And, you know, there’s Pat Tillman’s death. And the Jessica Lynch story. And I know of at least one suicide in the Army where they ruled it suicide—-despite about a dozen bullet holes. Oh, yeah, and there’s Richard Jewell, too.

So, how does bind one’s wrists with duct tape and not leave the rest of the duct tape nearby? Or the writing utensil used to write the word “Fed"on one’s chest?

I’m suspicious as well, but I really don’t want to become one of those “Hillary Clinton choked Vince Foster to death on her penis!” ranters.

But if we assume this is true, then it does sort of reinforce my theory that the teabaggers are all bark and no bite. Not that I want them to bite, but they sure do like to talk about revolution and retribution and going galt and watering the tree of liberty and all that without actually doing any of those things.

Yeah, I’m not sure I buy it (it’s awfully convenient for everyone but the insurance beneficiary) but I don’t know enough about the case.  (And I’m sure in a couple months a fictionalized version will appear on CSI, at which point everyone will become an authority on what happened in the real case.)

But I’m not really comfortable with the “well, may not have been true but it was plausible” style of argument.  It sounds like the same sort of reasoning conservatives use when the news article they cite turns out to be from The Onion, but they want to continue to argue that their point is valid.  You can’t blame someone for what they didn’t do simply because you believe they *would* do that.

You know, that’s why we have federal investigators and why local yokels don’t always get to call the shots.  Now this matter is resolved, perhaps attention must be turned to the kinds of threats and terrorism that is going on in some areas and some useful federal enforcement brought to bear as well.

But seriously, the circumstances of the suicide as far as I understand it, is quite a production.  There are easier ways to do it, including death by methhead.

Also seriously, the last 15 or so years has had quite a few high level “accidents” and “suicides” outside of the usual places of privatized violence like gangsters, bad cops, and social violence like hate crimes.  Vince Foster was labeled a suicide by stupid republicans who believed what they wanted to believe. 

I don’t know what to think of this suicide, but there are too many suicides like David Kelley that are too suspicious.  And cops labelling murders as suicides in inconvenient (for various reasons) cases is a fairly common phenomenon, FBI or no FBI.

The multiple insurance policies purchased not long before his death makes suicide much more reasonable to me than any other explanation, and since none of us are there nor are we forensics experts, it’s probably better if we don’t speculate.

Let’s not forget that there was at least one prominent blogger on the right who not only assumed it was a murder, but who suggested it might be vengeance because Sparkman might just be a kiddy-diddler, based on even less than what Bill Frist used to diagnose Terry Schiavo’s brain activity. There were also the speculations that Sparkman had wandered into a meth-production area and had been offed because of it.

The right’s far from off the hook here, and there were a lot of them who were hoping beyond hope that this would turn out the way it did, but not because they actually believed it was unlikely one of their redneck allies had done it. They were shitting themselves because they were afraid someone had done it, and for the reasons that the conditions seemed to suggest. They were worried about being tied to the loonies they get support (and page views and money) from because they knew it was possible they’d sent a whacko round the bend. They were worried they had their very own Paul Hill on their hands. But they’ll never mention word one of any of that part of the story.

Ah well, egg on face. I’ve used this as an example of far-right violence, so now I guess I have to retract it. I would still like to know more of the details here. I feel somewhat frustrated that this particular incident has gotten so little press.

Believe me, it’s not like the police are not going to fuck up, but in general, suicide is usually easy to solve and easy to rule out.  We must remain strong against the urge to be paranoid conspiracy theorists.  We can be right without pulling on non-evidence from the shadows.  Leave the gallivanting in the forest of bullshit to the wingnuts; they’re the ones who need it.

AJones, different circumstances.  That girl pulled a stunt in order to sway a national election.  This guy committed suicide out of depression, and used a plausible scenario in order to protect his life insurance investment. The motivations behind the frauds are different. She was trying to hurt others; he was trying to protect others will hurting himself.

Atheist -

Isn’t it a good thing that there wasn’t a ton of coverage?  It’s not “shoot liberals” tshirts on some jackass that creates an atmosphere of fear - it’s 500 news stories and 2,500 blog entries about that the tshirt on the jackass that do.  So in this case, this wasn’t a real story and it didn’t get the traction that many other fear-inducing stories have.  That seems to be a win for everyone.

It’s not that simple.  Publicizing hate crimes is an effective deterrent for those who spread hate speech, because it forces the non-violent to consider how hate speech is not harmless, after all.  Think, for instance, of how much anti-choicers would love it if those of them that murder doctors could do so with a blanket of silence in the mainstream media.  They would probably commit more murders, because they could raise terror in doctors and, of course, off actual doctors, all without causing the public at large to see them as the hate-mongerers they are. 

Publicizing hate crimes exposes the bigots and haters for who they really are, and that helps reduce the number of hate crimes, because it shames people out of running around with bigots and haters.  That’s why anti-racism and other pro-equality groups promote candlelight vigils after a hate crime has been committed.  It’s a show to the bigots that the public opposes their hatred.

This reminds me of a story my best friend’s father told me about Southern law enforcement back when he was a kid:

The county dredges a lake looking for the body of a missing black man.  When they finally dredge up the body from the middle of the lake, it’s bound head to foot in large gauge chains.  The Southern sheriff comes over to examine the body, and says “yep, just like a n***** - steal more chains than he can swim with.”

Call me skeptical on the suicide finding ...

Was David Foster Wallace’s suicide political?

No, and neither was Sparkman’s.  That’s the point.  He drew on what he perceive to be a real threat in his community as cover.  Which demonstrates that the fear of hate crime against Census workers was at least strong enough that someone with non-political motivations borrowed the cultural milieu. 

To use a fictional but similar example: If you had a personal vendetta against an abortion clinic worker, wouldn’t you try to murder them in a way that imitates the way that anti-choicers shoot up doctors, and then pin it on the anti-choicers?  Why would such a strategy seem effective?  Is it because we live in a world where anti-choice protesters never slide into violence, or is it because we live in one where it’s so common that it’s the likeliest explanation every time a doctor gets shot?

See?

<i>So, how does bind one’s wrists with duct tape and not leave the rest of the duct tape nearby? Or the writing utensil used to write the word “Fed"on one’s chest? <i>

Easy, before you get to the scene, unroll the tape you need, stick it to your clothes, toss the roll away.*  Take the pen, write “FED” on your chest, toss pen away.  Drive to the scene, set everything else up, then place the tape around your ankles and wrists.  It’s this last step that seems the only hard part. There’s no reason EVERYTHING had to be done at that one spot..

* When I finished High School my first job was on an assembly line in Moraine, Ohio working for Frigidaire (then owned by GM).  My first job as an 18 yo unskilled worker; taping down the little door to the butter compartment in refrigerators.  I started by grabbing a single piece of tape from the roll, then turning back to the line and fastening it to the door.  Then an experienced worker showed me an easier way.  Tear off a LOT of pieces of tape, attached them to my sleeves, then I could stand in one place and fasten the door down as each fridge moved past me.  It saved a lot of motion and effort.  I still do that, stick little pieces of tape all over my clothes, when I do something like wrap Xmas gifts.  Amuses my wife to no end but it works, especially when your holding down a folded corner with one hand and fumbling for a strip of tape with the other..

From #10

We must remain strong against the urge to be paranoid conspiracy theorists.  We can be right without pulling on non-evidence from the shadows.

Excellent advice Amanda. Our brains, our patience, and our bullshit detectors all act in our favor, in the long run. We gain nothing from giving into paranoia. Especially in a time when we have very real things to fear. I thought this was a murder, and now it looks like I was wrong.

Amanda -

I agree with your logic on hate-crime coverage.  Idiot-thought coverage being treated the same way is where the problem arises and where the effectiveness of what you lay out starts to dwindle.  If the media and blogosphere cover the Michelle-Obama monkey picture with the same zeal and ascribe to it the same relevance as Matthew Shepard, as often happens, the more important of the two gets drowned out.  In this particular case, it appears that the media approached it with caution rather than set up the usual three ring circus.  Not sure why, but it proved prudent.  Duke rape trial cases and the “everybody run to their political camp regardless of evidence and start screaming” atmosphere’s created do more harm than good.

Kudos for holding readers to a non-consipracy theory reading of the findings in this case.

Thanks, atheist.  I can see clearly the temptation to be paranoid about this, especially in light of evidence that the cops fuck a lot of stuff up in prominent cases such as death penalty cases.  But the issue is way more complex than it seems.  I don’t see any motivation for the feds to cover this up, and if you’ve ever talked to anyone in criminal investigation, suicides are usually remarkably easy to tell from other deaths.

From #12:

It’s not “shoot liberals” tshirts on some jackass that creates an atmosphere of fear - it’s 500 news stories and 2,500 blog entries about that the tshirt on the jackass that do.

Mintim, there is some truth in what you have said. Often our media obessively focuses on some crime, thereby creating an atmospere of fear. As you point out, this is counterproductive.

My point is that if far right activists are using violent forms of political protest, I want to know about it and I think others should too. I don’t want obessive fear, but I do want some focus on what I consider to be an actual danger.

I know that I can personally give into suspicion and paranoia. I trust people, and society, less than most other folks I know. It is something of a trick to stay skeptical of what I hear without giving into paranoia. Paranoia is in some sense the other side of trust. To be skeptical is to be forever on the edge between those two realms.

In some ways, this development is even more depressing than the original.  One of the things that made the cops decide it was suicide was that Sparkman told several people that his cancer was back, but (AFAIK) he didn’t have health insurance or even any income beyond his wages as a Census worker.

What must it be like to realize that you’re better off killing yourself for the insurance money than you are bankrupting yourself and your child to get medical treatment?

I don’t think we should be trying to defend this guy.  I realize that plenty have people have committed suicide staged as a murder.  However, I wish he hasn’t staged it as such a political murder.  He could have just as easily staged it as a robbery-gone-wrong, but instead he chose a hoax that makes liberals look bad.  We always complain that “moderate” conservatives tolerate wingnut conservatives and don’t try to stop them.  It’s the same thing here.  We need to point out that this type of behavior isn’t acceptable because it reflects poorly on all of us.  Yes, I realize that a political message wasn’t his main goal, and this is very different than the “B” girl because of that.  I still wish he had done it differently.

Of course, the bigger tragedy is that he didn’t get help for a mental illness, but that’s not really news.  There’s still way too much stigma for mental illness, and depression is the one that probably gets it the worst.  It’s a shame that it’s so backwards, because I think depression and bipolar disorder are the only mental diseases that are life-threatening, but they are the ones that are rarely taken seriously.  Anyway, I could go on for pages about the way we deal with mental illness, but I don’t want to derail too much.  It’s a problem that so many of my family members have dealt with and it really pisses me off.

One of the things that made the cops decide it was suicide was that Sparkman told several people that his cancer was back, but (AFAIK) he didn’t have health insurance or even any income beyond his wages as a Census worker.

And he was still paying off the medical bills from his first cancer treatment. So, yeah, welcome to the American healthcare “system”.

Amanda’s problem is that she always blames fundies/right-wingers/anti-feminists for a situation, turns out to be embarassingly wrong, and then—instead of admitting to being wrong—twists the story around to support her previous wrong conclusions.

Bill Sparkman tried to stage a murder so his family could get insurance benefits. That seems pretty straightforward to me. You’re just trying to cover for your previous suggestions that he was murdered by right-wing terrorists. You’re reaching to find some way to blame them for his death.

You also tried to blame misogyny and rape culture for the Hofstra rape case, in which five men of color were falsely accused. You said the accuser was ashamed of her sexual desires, so she lied about having group sex. In fact, she most likely lied because she unexpectedly encountered her boyfriend afterward, and said “I was raped” so he wouldn’t know she had just cheated on him.

Say, Amanda, didn’t you blame right-wingers for the deaths of some puppies a month ago? Any follow-up on that? How are you going to twist that one?

Just because Amanda makes false claims with absolute confidence doesn’t mean she’s right.

I’m really starting to think Amanda isn’t actually that smart, informed, or insightful. If it rains tomorrow, it’s the teabagger’s fault. If an earthquake strikes—blame the Christian Right!

She’s more paranoid and superstitious than half the people she criticizes on here.

Sadly, for me it was the lack of any follow up violence.
Irrational anger that goes into a lynching doesn’t just go away.
It spreads like swamp gas and looks for other vunerable targets.

Hehe, a right-winger pretending to care about what’s true.

So, how does bind one’s wrists with duct tape and not leave the rest of the duct tape nearby? Or the writing utensil used to write the word “Fed"on one’s chest?

1. Write the word “Fed” on your chest before you leave the house.  The earliest report indicated that it had been carved into his chest, but it turns out that it was just written with a Sharpie marker.

2. Peel off just a section of duct tape and carry it in your hand.

It’s not that complicated.  This is horrible, but I’m with Amanda… I don’t think that trying to find a CT in this serves us in anyway.

And while I realize that police investigative work isn’t something we should always just take on faith alone, I see no reason in this particular case for them to orchestrate a cover-up.

What specifically would be in it for them?

Vince Foster was labeled a suicide by stupid republicans who believed what they wanted to believe

I think you’ve got that backwards.  Most people NOT obsessed with the conspiracy theories surrounding the Clintons accept that Foster’s death was a suicide.

It was kooks from the wingnutteria that kept trying to suggest something more nefarious, specifically that Foster was murdered and that Hillary Clinton had something to do with it, because she was supposedly trying to cover up an adulterous affair she was having with him.

Sparkman concluded that this was an effective disguise for his suicide because he’d been subjected to so many concerns about his safety working the Census. How realistic those concerns are is somewhat beside the point, since terrorism is about creating the perception of danger.

Exactly. Although I’d love to hear autocrat’s alternate (and I’m sure parsimonious and plausible) explanation for why this Federal census worker chose to write “Fed” on his chest.

It was kooks from the wingnutteria that kept trying to suggest something more nefarious, specifically that Foster was murdered and that Hillary Clinton had something to do with it, because she was supposedly trying to cover up an adulterous affair she was having with him.

The same kooks who’d insist with the same conviction that Hillary Clinton was a man-hatin’ lesbian. The aggressive stupidity is mind-boggling.

How does Amanda know he had “so many concerns about his safety” when he was working the Census? Did she know him personally, or is she just talking out of her ass?

In some ways, this development is even more depressing than the original.  One of the things that made the cops decide it was suicide was that Sparkman told several people that his cancer was back, but (AFAIK) he didn’t have health insurance or even any income beyond his wages as a Census worker.

What must it be like to realize that you’re better off killing yourself for the insurance money than you are bankrupting yourself and your child to get medical treatment?

It’s even sadder than that.

Because it has been found to be a suicide, neither of the insurance policies Sparkman purchased have to pay out a dime now.  So not only is Sparkman’s son without a father, he’s also probably going to have to rely financially on the charity of others for his upbringing.

The whole thing is just sad as hell.

And clearly the scenario wasn’t all that plausible, since they quickly ruled it a suicide. Re-reading statements from investigators, it doesn’t seem they ever even suspected it was murder by domestic terrorists.

One of the things that made the cops decide it was suicide was that Sparkman told several people that his cancer was back, but (AFAIK) he didn’t have health insurance or even any income beyond his wages as a Census worker.

And he was still paying off the medical bills from his first cancer treatment. So, yeah, welcome to the American healthcare “system”.

If that’s true, then this whole sad affair is still a pretty big indictment against rightwing ideology.  While it’s perhaps not the worst case scenario that it looked like in the beginning, how shitty is it that we live in a country that has a healthcare system so completely fucked up that people are being driven to kill themselves because they have become utterly hopeless about the financial blackhole that being sick has put them in?

I realize that his depression is probably the leading factor that pushed him over the edge, but his financial situation - which was hugely impacted by our totally unjust healthcare system - provided the ripest of conditions for this sort of thing to happen.  Even severely depressed people often have real life situational events that factor into their decision to commit suicide… and feeling financially hopeless is certainly that sort of factor.

Nobody should ever have to feel like they are going to be financially destroyed because just because they have unforeseen medical issues arise.  And yet so, so, so many do.

How does Amanda know he had “so many concerns about his safety” when he was working the Census?

Googling “census workers threats” certainly brings up some interesting links from credible mainstream source in this regard: conspiracy theories regarding data collection devices equipped with nefarious GPS functionality; an amateur music video on YouTube that includes death threats against census workers; the fact that census workers are specifically trained to deal with hostile and paranoid citizens to avoid violence; the fact that a U.S. Congressperson (Michele Bachmann) is taking the lead in demonising census workers.

I follow news about my profession on the Internet and the news, as do most people. And it seems there was some training regarding these issues for census workers. So it’s more likely than not that he was aware of general concerns for census worker safety, especially from “Libertarian” fantasists.

Still awaiting your alternate explanation for his writing “Fed” in red marker on his chest as part of his fake homicide scheme.

And clearly the scenario wasn’t all that plausible, since they quickly ruled it a suicide. Re-reading statements from investigators, it doesn’t seem they ever even suspected it was murder by domestic terrorists.

Right, they “quickly” ruled it a suicide.  They were so quick in determining this that it only took them a measly eleven weeks to make that determination.

The guy died on September 12th.  It was ruled a suicide on November 25th.  There was absolutely nothing “quick” about that determination.

Go fuck yourself, asshole.

It seems awfully plausible that this was suicide, but after all the crap from insurance companies in the last years (that it’s come to light) it also seems plausible that they decided to just rule it as such to save the insurance from having to pay out.  Isn’t that what they do?  Change the facts to make more money and avoid paying out what they are paid in?

The flaw in that is that in determining whether or not a life insurance policy is to be paid out, the insurance company doesn’t get to make the decision about whether or not the death in question was a suicide.  The determination is made by law enforcement authorities, and insurance companies are bound to their contractual obligations based on the findings of law enforcement.

If the authorities had determined that it had been a homicide as was originally theorized by many, the insurance company legally would have been forced to pay the claim, and they wouldn’t be able to just find some loophole to get out of their obligation.

Where things sometimes get tricky in these matters is when drugs are involved.  I have a friend whose husband was a heroin addict, and died of a heroin overdose.  The insurance company haggled with her forever, because it took a while for the coroner to determine whether or not the overdose was intentional or accidental.  If it had been ruled intentional, it would have been classified a suicide, and thus they wouldn’t have had to pay out on the policy.  Since it was ruled an accidental overdose, they were bound to pay her the claim.  But the whole process wound up taking nearly a year and causing my friend a ton more grief.

Anyway, unless you think the insurance companies were secretly paying the Feds on the side to intentionally cover-up a homicide, the theory that the insurance companies conjured this up to avoid payment isn’t plausible.  While I suppose such a thing is possible, it really requires a lot of delving into the realm of conspiracy theory fantasy to believe it.

LOL

“I’m disinterested in paranoid speculation that law enforcement is covering this up”

And 5 of the first 7 conmments are deranged conspiracy-mongering.

“Amanda’s problem is that she always blames fundies/right-wingers/anti-feminists for a situation, turns out to be embarrassingly wrong, and then—instead of admitting to being wrong—twists the story around to support her previous wrong conclusions. “

You say that like it’s a bad thing. This endlessly amusing behavior (which by now occurs with lunar cycle-like certainty)  is my sole reason for reading Amanda’s stuff. Watching her totally step in it, then come (in her mind) out smelling like roses because, jeez, even facts that turn out to be the polar opposite of what she thought somehow just reinforce her preferred world view/narrative.

Of course, it could be sabotage. Once is coincidence, twice is happenstance, three times is enemy action. CONSPIRACY!

“This endlessly amusing behavior (which by now occurs with lunar cycle-like certainty) is my sole reason for reading Amanda’s stuff. “

I heartily second that, but as someone who does not identify with either the left or right wing, I feel the same joy when I read someone like Coulter or Malkin!

Yes, they did quickly rule it a suicide.

They also waited several weeks to even go public with the news that his body had been found, which means they weren’t in a race against time to find a killer on the loose. Usually, when authorities believe they have a homicide on their hands (especially one as gruesome as this, IF it had been a homicide), they immediately alert the community and start seeking information from it.

I’m sure Amanda was working herself into another orgasmic frenzy over another chance to scream about right-wing terrorists. As the poster above me says, she 1) Makes a false statement, 2) realizes everything she said was wrong, then 3) Instead of admitting the error, finds some way to force the facts to fit her paranoid worldview, 4) What do you know—she’s right about every single incident she’s ever blogged about!

I’m a liberal who reads this blog every day. I love Pam, and Jesse, but Amanda is simply a facts-optional hysteric.

Amanda’s problem is that she always blames fundies/right-wingers/anti-feminists for a situation, turns out to be embarrassingly wrong, and then—instead of admitting to being wrong—twists the story around to support her previous wrong conclusions.

That’s right—Dr. Tiller’s murderer turned out not to have any ties to pro-life organizations.  Inside your head, that is.  Here in reality where the rest of us live, Roeder has strong ties to many anti-abortion groups.

But, please, continue your persecution fantasies where Timothy McVeigh was a secret liberal and if anyone on the right kills anyone, that’s just proof that they were secret liberal plants.  They’re pretty funny ... well, until one of your buddies goes and kills two people as they watch a children’s play at their church and you run around wringing your hands and saying you have no idea why someone who obsessively listened to Glenn Beck would do such a thing.

And it doesn’t matter why he wrote “Fed” on his chest. Don’t you morons get it? Amanda’s argument is that staging this as a right-wing homicide was believable. But clearly it WASN’T believable, since the authorities didn’t fall for it.

I thought it was fishy from the start, since they waited almost three weeks to announce that a body had been found. The only people who found the “right-wing homicide” narrative plausible were paranoids and conspiracy theorists like Amanda.

Tiller’s murder was a case of anti-choice terrorism. All of the facts of the case support that conclusion.

That’s not true here, and it’s not true for many of the other bizarre accusations Amanda throws out on a regular basis.

Tiller’s murder was a case of anti-choice terrorism. All of the facts of the case support that conclusion.

But you said that Amanda “always” blames fundies and is always wrong.  So either Tiller wasn’t really murdered by a fundamentalist, or you lied in the same way you accuse Amanda of “always” doing.  Which is it?

According to one of the linked article, the autopsy found no sign of cancer. The bit about the hands being bound should-width apart would have done it for me had I read that when the case was found out.

Fine, she ALWAYS blames fundies/right-wingers, and OFTEN turns out to be wrong. Does that satisfy you, or are we going to play idiotic word games?

She was wrong about this case, and is wrong to twist the facts in a pathetic attempt to blame Sparkman’s death on right-wingers—while admitting depression is a “deadly disease.” She then goes on to claim that Sparkman’s set-up was believable. It wasn’t. She is wrong about everything here, but somehow finds a way to pretend she’s right.

Well, making a reasonable inference from the available facts is something that only certain types of people are allowed to do, if you get my drift, ginmar.

She was wrong about this case, and is wrong to twist the facts in a pathetic attempt to blame Sparkman’s death on right-wingers—while admitting depression is a “deadly disease.”

Just out of curiosity, where do you think Sparkman’s idea to stage his death to look like he’d been murdered for being a Census worker from?  Did he pull it out of thin air, or was there some talk about killing Census workers in the news that might have given him the idea?

And it doesn’t matter why he wrote “Fed” on his chest.

No? It seemed to matter to the suicide, who went to great lengths to make it look like a homicide. And it seemed to be a large factor in the coverage of the story, which was likely his intent. And I’m sure the police didn’t just decide to ignore its presence on his chest during their investigation.

Amanda’s argument is that staging this as a right-wing homicide was believable.

The suicide seemed to believe that the word “Fed,” along with the duct tape, would be believable—the guy was clearly desperate, but he also put some thought and effort into the misdirection. And as the Google query I mentioned above demonstrates, there are plenty of right-wing nuts with a grudge against census workers, from gun-toting militia types to paranoid idiots like Bachmann who egg them on—right-wingers all.

But you go ahead and pretend it doesn’t matter—that’s one way of avoiding my question. Since I’m feeling charitable toward “life-long liberals” like yourself, I’ll give you a freebie: in the earlier thread, a number of commenters made the plausible suggestion that “Fed” might refer to DEA agents, since there’s apparently a big crystal meth problem in the area. So although he was a census taker, he might have been trying to misdirect the police toward violent drug-runners rather than violent “Libertarian” yahoos.

I’m a liberal who reads this blog every day. I love Pam, and Jesse, but Amanda is simply a facts-optional hysteric.

So she’s hysterical, eh?

You are simply a misogynist douchenozzle.

And 5 of the first 7 conmments are deranged conspiracy-mongering.

Are you claiming that Amanda endorses those comments, or that the commenters are sockpuppets for Amanda herself? Otherwise I’m not sure I follow your point. This isn’t Freeperland, where the only liberalism present is the propensity to ban comments that dare challenge the almighty word of Rush.

#55

In answer to your questions, no.

Just found it amusing.

Amanda does it all the time.

Read her post about the Hofstra rape case, in which she blames negative attitudes toward female sexuality for the fact that the woman falsely accused five men. Here is Amanda’s analysis of why she lied.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/C23/

Shorter version: Misogynist attitudes toward sexual women forced her to make false accusations in order to protect her name. It’s anti-feminists’ fault she lied!

But if you actually read the facts of the case, that doesn’t sound anything like what happened:

The boyfriend said he called her repeatedly, but she didn’t answer her cellphone, so he went to her seventh-floor dorm room at Estabrook Hall. Moments later she appeared. “As I was about to leave, she comes up and she has no shoes on, she is holding them in her hands. She looked like she just finished hot sex,” he said. “I said, ‘Where were you? What were you doing?’ She told me, ‘Nothing.’ I said, ‘What do you mean, nothing?’ Ndonye then dropped a bombshell. “I said, ‘Don’t lie to me, what’s going on?’ And she said, ‘Oh, I just got raped,’ ” he said. “It didn’t seem real to me. She was calm,” he continued.

She lied because she didn’t want to tell her boyfriend she’d been cheating.

There’s nothing worse than people who try to fit every incident into a pre-determined narrative that confirms their feminist/progressive/whatever worldview. That’s why I can’t take Amanda seriously.

“That’s not true here, and it’s not true for many of the other bizarre accusations Amanda throws out on a regular basis.”

Name ‘em and maybe even link ‘em?

Amanda wrote:
“But as much as the hate-mongerers will surely conclude they get 100% off the hook for this, they do not. Sparkman concluded that this was an effective disguise for his suicide because he’d been subjected to so many concerns about his safety working the Census.  How realistic those concerns are is somewhat beside the point, since terrorism is about creating the perception of danger.  Loud-mouthed threats aimed at government workers, right wing gun nut paranoia about “big government”, shirts with “jokes” about shooting liberals—-all these add up to an atmosphere of fear that made Sparkman believe that this murder scenario was realistic.  His fraud and suicide are evidence that creating a threatening, violent atmosphere is effective, and so no, the hate-mongerers are not off the hook.”

Dunno why you think her contention that SPARKMAN thought staging this a murder by some sort of fed-hating party or parties would be believed is damaged by LOCAL AUTHORITIES seeing through the staging.

If you want to say it’s conjecture, congratulations, it obviously is, but her theory fits the facts as reported and you continue to not post a better idea.

I thought it was fishy from the start, since they waited almost three weeks to announce that a body had been found. The only people who found the “right-wing homicide” narrative plausible were paranoids and conspiracy theorists like Amanda.

Fact-challenged much?

Since when does ELEVEN DAYS equal three weeks?

Sparkman died on September 12, 2009.  The story was first reported nationally on September 23, 2009, based on a simple Google News search that a five year old could do.

I have no idea when the first local news reports about Sparkman’s death occurred.

I suggest that when trying to present your ridiculous argument, perhaps you first learn some basic math.  21 days is nearly twice as long as 11 days, dipshit.

Just found it amusing.

I can definitely understand the entertainment value of the comments. After all, I find it amusing that she lets dull-witted right-wing trolls in here if only that it affords me an opportunity to screw with them.

Name one incident of violence against a census worker in the last few months and I might grant that his scheme was plausible.

For all we know, he could have been influenced by the hyped-up fear on the left about domestic terrorism.

Fine, they waited almost two weeks.

That doesn’t refute any of my previous statements—such as that when authorities TRULY believe a killer is on the loose, they immediately alert the public and start questioning members of the community who might have information.

You sound like a Nice Guy™, autocrat.

Why do you hate women?

Funny how to pretend to know me, DTG.

I’m a 25-year-old woman. Way to make gender assumptions based on my username and writing style, though.

Amanda would come across as a serious person if she simply said “I thought this was a case of domestic terrorism, but I was wrong.”

Instead, she starts babbling incoherently about an “atmosphere of fear” in which the staged homicide was plausible, even though it wasn’t.

Uh huh, autocrat. Sure you are. Besides, hating women is not just something men do. Look at Phyllis Schlafly.

  Dave, I’d answer you, but damn, all the shit flying here is making it hard to duck and write at the same time. I do love how the dipshits accusing Amanda of paranoia are demonstrating wonderful paranoia themselves.

I am a woman, but yes, that’s right—turn this into a conversation about hating women. Nice diversionary tactic.

How am I paranoid? Because I don’t immediately assume every incident is the work of nefarious right-wing terrorists? Here’s another where Amanda accuses right-wingers of attacking animal rights activists (with no evidence):

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/further_signs_that_the_warfare_has_gone_ugly_and_tribal/

Where’s her follow-up? Where’s the proof that the puppy mill protesters were attacked by right wingers? Or was she being dogmatic and paranoid yet again?

Read her post about the Hofstra rape case, in which she blames negative attitudes toward female sexuality for the fact that the woman falsely accused five men. Here is Amanda’s analysis of why she lied.

That post is not about the Hofstra rape case.  That’s about Carrie Prejean.  The word “Hofstra” isn’t even mentioned in there.  I believe the gang rape Amanda was referencing was this one in California.  Are you claiming that the girl who was raped by 10 men as a group of another 10 stood around and watched somehow lied about it when they found her unconscious and airlifted her to the hospital?

No, this is her Hofstra post. I copied the wrong link, but I summarized it accurately.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/comments/once_again_sexists_choose_punishing_a_woman_over_their_own_self_interest/

Shorter autocrat: I like to eat my own poo. Watch me do it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…..

Yes, autocrat, clearly Amanda supported every word of the accuser’s story:

I’m not a true crime junkie, but I’ve done my time on Crime Library.  And sometimes you can just tell when a story is too pat. The accusation that ropes were involved set off alarm bells for me.  That struck me as unlikely, because rapists in these situations often don’t use more force than necessary to subdue someone, and cornering one woman in a bathroom with multiple men is more than enough, especially if she’s drunk.  But that’s just my two cents.  I may also be full of shit, but that was my gut feeling.

So the fact that she pointed out that the story was false and used it as a jumping-off point for making a larger point about how she feels it reflects the way women in this society are shamed for wanting “wrong” sex means that she threw all of her support behind the accuser?

I never said she believed the accuser’s story. I said her analysis of why she lied smells like bullshit. To me, it’s obvious she lied to avoid being caught cheating. Go back and read my previous comments.

There’s a reason Amanda isn’t nearly as successful as someone like Jessica Valenti. Valenti’s work actually sells. Why? Because she’s reasonable and fair, doesn’t engage bizarre theories in which right-wingers and fundies are to blame for every random incident, and she’s not hysterical. Think about it. And compare the Amazon rankings for Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism” to Marcotte’s flop, “It’s a Jungle Out There.”

“There’s a reason Amanda isn’t nearly as successful as someone like Jessica Valenti. Valenti’s work actually sells. Why? Because she’s reasonable and fair, doesn’t engage bizarre theories in which right-wingers and fundies are to blame for every random incident, and she’s not hysterical. Think about it. And compare the Amazon rankings for Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism” to Marcotte’s flop, “It’s a Jungle Out There.””

Unless I’m a book publisher, I couldn’t imagine something I care less about. Personally, I read Amanda’s writing and not Jessica Valenti’s because Amanda is consistently interesting to me. (I haven’t read either book, though.) Sometimes I agree, sometimes I don’t. I don’t consider it some kind of sin to have a take on something that I don’t buy.

“Instead, she starts babbling incoherently about an “atmosphere of fear” in which the staged homicide was plausible, even though it wasn’t.”

It reads pretty coherent and babble-free to me. I see you still haven’t posted how you think the authorities not falling for Sparkman’s apparent ruse means that Sparkman didn’t think it was a good ruse.

Name one incident of violence against a census worker in the last few months and I might grant that his scheme was plausible.

There have been threats of violence by anti-government types (or, more specifically, anti-government-headed-by-a-n*gger types) over the past year.

And while threats don’t translate into action most of the time, we only have to look to the terrorist threats made by anti-choice movement and the terrorist assassination of Dr. Tiller to see that “not most of the time” does not equal “never.” This is especially the case where high-profile national figures like Oxy-Boy and Falafel urge these morons on.

such as that when authorities TRULY believe a killer is on the loose, they immediately alert the public and start questioning members of the community who might have information.

How do you know they didn’t do this, with either the more deranged members of the Teabagger “community” or the “community” of meth dealers? And here’s something interesting about cops you may not know: they don’t always give the public all the details of their preliminary or on-going investigations, especially when there’s suspicion that terrorists are involved.

My only familiarity with Amanda and Jessica’s writings is, respectively, Pandagon and Feministing. But if I go by those, I suspect that Jessica has a wider appeal because she’s more simplistic.

Autocrat obviously finds Amanda’s points too nuanced and complicated to follow, which supports my hypothesis. (It’s OK, autocrat, somebody has to be below average.)

It’s interesting how “liberals” like autocrat always obsess about the feminist analyses of cases of false rape accusations, which are rare to begin with. It’s as if they believe any accusation of rape (false or true) is an easy thing for a woman (especially one of those “slutty” ones) to make.

What I find interesting is the number of trolls this post has inspired. (Assuming they aren’t all the same person.) I have to think they were expecting a different reaction, and not getting it, now need to try to pick fights over other things.

Actually, I wouldn’t describe Amanda’s writing as “nuanced” since the conclusion is always the same: Every random incident just happens to fit perfectly into her worldview! (Even if the facts suggest otherwise)

That’s pretty much the opposite of “nuance.”

No.  What would make the murder scenario “realistic” would be scientific, statistically significant data that (1) murders committed out of right-wing political convictions are common and (2) such murders are actually caused or significantly encouraged by listening to loud-mouthed anti-government rhetoric.

You may want to follow my link in #45 since it sounds like you didn’t hear about the Knoxville murders.

What must it be like to realize that you’re better off killing yourself for the insurance money than you are bankrupting yourself and your child to get medical treatment?

THIS. Over and over again. I like Amanda’s post and I know this topic has been well covered here. I just wish the MSM would cover it with that kind of honesty.

I wouldn’t describe Amanda’s writing as “nuanced” since the conclusion is always the same: Every random incident just happens to fit perfectly into her worldview!

I bet you think it’s real lucky that your feet grew just the right size and shape to fit your favorite pair of shoes, too.

Why are we feeding trolls?

Also, I said what I said earlier because I don’t like appeals to authority when it comes to politically charged violence.  It’s a bad idea to do that given the general high levels of (unspoken of) political violence in this country, and “conspiracy theorist” is a classic “because, SHUT UP” answer.  I also *found out* about the ruling reading this post, and I had to look at other stuff to get a good enough feel of what the evidence said.  I guess Sparkman’s elaborateness came from his mental condition.

I always love the use of the word ‘hysterical.’ It’s just so….there, and so bright and big and shiny. It’s a big happy sign that I can now ignore some frantic dude backpedaling and flailing for all they’re worth.

It seems to me that if the government were to cover something up here, they would have ruled this a homicide as opposed to a suicide. That would have given them a plausible excuse – I mean, beyond the t-shirts and threats and guys showing up at political rallies with guns – to publicly investigate the tea-baggers. Some of the rightists might even have been inclined to help with the investigation if they were suitably convinced Sparkman was killed by a loose cannon in their own ranks.

Suicide for the insurance money? That’s tragic - but at least there isn’t some deranged nutcase out hunting for more victims.

And now for a blast from the recent past:

Was Census Worker Bill Sparkman A Child Predator?

Update: Before any more people start going bonkers that I’m accusing Sparkman of anything, take a breath. I’ve done a fair amount of crime blogging mixed in with politics over time. One doesn’t rule anything in or out without some firm answers. People feel free to speculate about Meth labs and pot fields but none have been reported in the area, yet. All I’m doing is looking at any and all possibilities.  You’d think a moonshiner, or Meth head would have just buried the guy. Why hang him and invite the Feds into it by writing Fed on his chest? Why strip him naked and bind and gag him, which has serious sexual overtones?

I have no idea what happened, but from the reporting I’ve seen, neither does anyone else. If he adopted a boy as a single man, or was married and split with the wife and kids, who knows. But I never assume I know a story or motive until I know it. Right now we don’t. I’m simply speculating on one possible alternative, however impolite….

The condition of the body and his being naked also seems curious. Why strip someone down to their socks only to kill them? Finally Sparkman’s bio and work history suggests at the least he was not just your average guy. No teaching degree, no full-time means of employment and no wife or kids so far as I am aware. But he certainly did gravitate towards children.

(DEMENTED LINK)

Ooooooh, snap! I’d say any schadenfreude from the right should be tempered with the knowledge their own talking heads were also willing play the speculation game - except that speculation Sparkman was killed for being a census worker fit more of the facts available at the time than did speculation that he was killed for being a fucking child molester.

There’s a reason Amanda isn’t nearly as successful as someone like Jessica Valenti. Valenti’s work actually sells. Why? Because she’s reasonable and fair, doesn’t engage bizarre theories in which right-wingers and fundies are to blame for every random incident, and she’s not hysterical. Think about it. And compare the Amazon rankings for Valenti’s “Full Frontal Feminism” to Marcotte’s flop, “It’s a Jungle Out There.”

Marcotte is more strident than Valenti and less likely to accept that people on “the other side” are acting in good faith. But uninteresting? Now you’re just spewing bullshit.

The reason Valenti’s books sell more than Marcotte’s is the same reason Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore consistently outsell people like Kay Arthur or Nancy Campbell: The latter don’t soft-peddle their beliefs to attract a wider readership. (Valenti is also an established author, whereas Marcotte has published only one book so far.)

Seriously – are you suggesting that popular opinion is the best way to gauge quality? Clearly you’ve never crossed paths with a Twilight fan or a devotee of the wildly (and inexplicably) successful Left Behind franchise. (Or how about The Secret – that Ebola-infected turd of a book currently ranks 183rd overall in Amazon book sales.)

From #89

Marcotte is more strident than Valenti and less likely to accept that people on “the other side” are acting in good faith. But uninteresting? Now you’re just spewing bullshit.

In a way, I think that’s why I like this blog. I’m tired of pretending that assholes are actually nice. I’d rather just be honest.

In a way, I think that’s why I like this blog. I’m tired of pretending that assholes are actually nice. I’d rather just be honest.

See, I actually agree. That’s why I keep coming back. I’ve learned a lot from Marcotte’s writing over the years, and I’ve eaten crow more than once. This blog has had a serious effect on how I approach certain moral issues.

On those rare occasions when a troll swings by and accuses Marcotte of bad writing or uninteresting observations, I know what I’m hearing is bullshit. This isn’t even a matter of opinion; it’s a matter of fact: Marcotte’s writing is, in the very least, good by every technical measure. It’s also interesting enough to generate an assload of controversy.

I have nothing against Valenti, but “OMG, Valenti sells more LOLZORZ!1!!” isn’t anything like a legitimate argument about the quality of Marcotte’s work. They’re different people with different styles and different levels of access to mainstream publishers.

Autocrat’s puling amounts no little more than, “Nobody likes you ‘cause you’re a bitch. If you were less bitchy, maybe you could move more merch. Oh, and every time you write something, it matches your world-view. That’s bad. Couldn’t you at least pretend to be fair so people like me feel less threatened?”

Just for fun, here are some current sales rankings from Amazon.com

•  Sarah Palin’s cage-liner of a book is ranked number one right now
•  2, 6, 8, 10, and 16 are books from the Twilight series
•  3 is Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
•  11 is Arguing with Idiots by Glenn Beck (because if anyone knows about weapons-grade idiocy, it’s him)
•  Bill-O has yet more cage lining at number 44

/me blinks…

awww shyte, it’s corwin to the rescue.

Let me know when you’ve mastered the elements of punctuation, ‘k thx!

While Valenti and Marcotte are about the same age, Valenti’s work seems to be aimed at a younger audience. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy or gain from reading both of them, but while one could argue making reading Valenti a prerequisite for reading Marcotte, Marcotte would never be one for Valenti. I’m certainly happy to have both of them as well as many other feminist bloggers and authors advancing our cause out there, but calling Marcotte lesser than Valenti is playing right into patriarchal ideas of what a feminist should be. Probably 90% of my mother’s friends and 75% of the women my own age (which is around the same as Marcotte and Valenti’s) would say, “Jessica says she’s a feminist, but at least she wears feminine clothes and lipstick and heels and married that nice Golis boy, unlike that Amanda who could be pretty if she wanted to but insists on wearing those pants and sweaters all the time. She really needs to do something with her hair. And she says she and Marc are just going to live together and not get married! We’ll see how much feminism helps her when he runs off with some younger chickie in fifteen years and the judge says she isn’t entitled to anything.”  Couch it all you want in who is a better writer or feminist thinker. They both are important feminist voices of my generation. But one has a tougher fight. There are skirts and heels in my closet and lipstick in my bathroom, but it’s Amanda’s blog and podcast that I check out first.

(Amanda, I mean no offense about your appearance. I just put myself in my mother’s head for a second there to imagine how you and Jessica are received by mainstream society.)

What’s the reason we allow life insurance companies to make suicide exceptions? Do we really think enough people will be tempted enough by the money to kill themselves?

Actually, the standard exclusion period after a policy starts is two years,  the reasoning being that nobody would wait a whole two years to kill themselves to enrich their beneficiaries.

Oh hey, Corwin:

1)A group I/we don’t like has been involved in an incident . They must have done everything we said , because….They’re Bad Guys.
2)As information -especially information from a verifiable source triclkles and then floods , the complaints segue from “I don’t believe it,” to trying to find a tangential incident that could lend some credence to a similar charge .
3)Eventually, a sullen silence broken by occasional complaints of a “Who’s to know it’s not a cover up ?”, ensues.

Initial media reports only covered the sensational details that Sparkman had been bound and hanged, and that the word “FED” had been scrawled across his chest. The term made at least some sense because Sparkman was on the job as a census worker when he died.

We concluded that if it walks like a duck, looks like a duck, and sounds like a duck, it’s probably a duck. The right, meanwhile, urged caution – not because some detail of the original story (as reported to the public) didn’t fit with murder, but simply because they had political reasons for distancing themselves from the crime. (The right isn’t known for caution when it comes to stories that would reflect poorly on some talking point from the left. It took about two milliseconds before the rightist portion of the blogosphere started calling the Ft. Hood shooter a Muslim terrorist. Drudge and his cronies weren’t terribly willing to extend good faith to leftists during the Ashley Todd “incident” either. She came up with an unlikely story, carved a ‘B’ into her own face…backwards, and was still adopted by some credulous people as proof that the political opposition is made of brutal haters.)

Then we hear, ultimately, that Sparkman died by suicide – a finding so at odds with the original reporting that the first thought in practically everyone’s mind is, “Yeah, sure. ‘Suicide.’ Sparkman wrote FED on his own chest, duct-taped himself up, then hanged himself. That’s an awful lot of talent, right there!”

As key details finally emerged, however – for example that Sparkman was on his knees, that his hands were duct-taped in front, and that he had taken out multiple life insurance policies s on himself a few weeks earlier – it became clear that suicide was a distinct possibility. So now, on to your “pattern”:

1. They must have done everything we suspected because…um…the initial reports were that Sparkman had been hanged, and the word on his chest was a big, flashing ‘motive’ sign.

2. Stragglers new to the findings stumbled into the thread, shocked by the audacity of this particular suicide, and posited a conspiracy – something that, if they hadn’t read any updates on the case, might seem plausible. After it sunk in that this was indeed a suicide, that left a few questions:

a) Why did he do it? (He was depressed and wanted to give his family something in death that he could never have provided in life, etc.)

b) Why did he do it like that? (Because he thought it would WORK.)

c) Why did he think that would work?

(Why do you think Sparkman thought that would work, Corwin?)

CONT…

CONT…

3. This thread isn’t exactly filled with sullen silence. It’s currently 97 entries long. Here are just a few of them:

The first four comments were some variation of, “Wow. I’m not sure I believe it.” One of those posts contained past examples of flubbed investigations.

The fifth comment was an interesting point by AJones.

Then came Ms. Kate, a regular, who said this matter is now resolved, and called for more investigation of potential terrorist threats.

Incertus, another regular, accepted the suicide verdict and went on to point out that the right wasn’t entirely blameless in this feeding frenzy either.

Atheist offered a complete mea culpa: Ah well, egg on face. I’ve used this as an example of far-right violence, so now I guess I have to retract it. I would still like to know more of the details here. I feel somewhat frustrated that this particular incident has gotten so little press.

Amanda then went on to offer a clear and simple explanation for why Sparkman’s suicide touched off so much anger and controversy: No, and neither was Sparkman’s.  That’s the point.  He drew on what he perceive to be a real threat in his community as cover.  Which demonstrates that the fear of hate crime against Census workers was at least strong enough that someone with non-political motivations borrowed the cultural milieu.

Mintim offered this: Kudos for holding readers to a non-conspiracy theory reading of the findings in this case.

Catgirl, another regular, wrote this: I don’t think we should be trying to defend this guy.  I realize that plenty have people have committed suicide staged as a murder.  However, I wish he hasn’t staged it as such a political murder.

The autocrat showed up and shat on the thread with nonsense like this: I’m really starting to think Amanda isn’t actually that smart, informed, or insightful. If it rains tomorrow, it’s the teabagger’s fault. If an earthquake strikes—blame the Christian Right! [Yeah – because it was totally paranoid and simple-minded to perceive Sparkman’s death as a politically motivated murder when he intentionally staged it to appear thus.]

Now how about answering my question: Will Dan Riehl get a pass for suggesting that Sparkman was murdered – because, yes, he too thought it was a murder – for being a pedophile?

From #92

My point should be obvious. Dishonesty in political friends is ignored-kind of like a Silent But Deadly
fart by the university Chancellor .  Anything tha can be morphed into an attack on an opponent is heralded .  Now, a quick question;DO you think a story by the NAtional Enquirer or on this blog has more credibility?  No fair using calculators . And a Happy thanksgiving to you and yours.

Corwin, do you realize that you don’t write clearly? I guess you’re accusing us of ignoring bias by our fellow left wingers against the far right. What any of this has to do with Hillary Clinton, Bosnia, or the National Enquirer is not really clear. What I think you ignore is the very real derangement of the right wing now.