No doubt #1 above thinks Lauren Valle is “the perpetrator.”

The image of strength.

not to be violated, since that’s a key element of the image Paul needs to win with.

so no apologies.

We have the ultimate wingnut in my apartment building. Whatever Rush says, he believes and there can be no debate: we are currently under a socialist regime and any attempt to use logic or facts to refute it is shouted down either louder by this musclehead or he challenges you to fight him. I thought by the age of 45 I’d be done with bullies, but this guy obviously isn’t. You can tell that he can’t ‘lose’ anything or it takes away from his manhood.

@White Male: The “Candidate inside the building”, by issuing a milquetoast “both sides” bullshit statement, has condoned violence that was directly levied in “defence” of his political campaign. If no one can excuse violence against others, and Paul has excused violence against others, where does that leave us?

“White Male Construction Worker” (which really means “Overly entitled and bigoted prick who thinks he’s a Real American and everyone else isn’t”) warned us by his name that his opinion about this should be dismissed immediately.  Thanks!

I’m guessing that if the political affiliations of the victim and her stomper were reversed, we’d hear an earful from “White Male Construction Worker” screaming about how the violence was not only an indictment of the political candidate the volunteer worked for, but the an indictment of the whole “Democrat” Party, and everything that has occurred involving anyone to the left of Barry Goldwater since he lost to Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

Fortunately, that thought can be dismissed out-of-hand because it’s only based on several decades of experience as a watcher of politics in America — country of my birth and exclusive residence for my whole life…

Anyone got the over/under on what the troll in #1 really does for a living? I’m betting law student, but B-school is also a good option. It’s amazing how much certain people’s stereotypes about the working class are directly proportional to their own bigotry.

Unbelievable. Yesterday I was imagining Onion headlines where Profitt would demand an apology because Valle’s head got in the way of his foot as he was innocently walking along. And yet again, reality outpaces satire! I should be used to it by now, but I must have a few grains worth of hope for humanity that haven’t been curbstomped on yet.

if you issue half-hearted condemnations, they read that as support.

I would argue that they’re reading it entirely correctly.  The wingnut leaders want their followers violent and aggressive.  When they can’t find actual followers to do it, they aren’t above sending paid staffers to riot, as in the Florida recount scenario.  Violence and intimidation are tools of the right, and a feature, not a bug, of the conservative movement.  It serves numerous purposes - intimidating opponents out of dissenting, letting the leaders appear ‘moderate’ by comparison to the vicious thugs they’ve unleashed, directly accomplishing conservative goals such as shuttering George Tiller’s clinic, and making opponents look ‘weak’ by the Lord of the Flies standards that elevate violence and denigrate reason and compassion.

Violent, hateful thugs believe that they have the quiet support of leaders and their community, and if you issue half-hearted condemnations, they read that as support.

They don’t just read it as support for the violence, they also believe that the candidate “had to say that” because of [insert oppressed group here]‘s control of the MSM.  The candidate had to say something against the thug because of the vast forces amassed against white men, but secretly was probably high-fiveing his staffers over it and thanking God for putting such a great courageous thug here in America.  It reinforces that the violence is okay, but also reinforces that they are victims of [insert oppressed group here].  That, of course, will require more violence.

The stomper is now demanding an apology from his victim, which is the logical result of the wingnut “look what you made me do!” mentality. Which, I would like to point out, is basically the standard issue mind fuck that wife beaters and child abusers play on their victims, issuing a beating and then demanding an apology from the victim for driving them to it.

Also a classic line of the schoolyard bully—25 years after Back to the Future is Biff Tannen now a role model?

Or the brownshirts in the aftermath of Kristallnacht, who insisted that the Jews pay for the damage caused in the pogrom.

I could go on, but it comes back to Amanda’s point that blaming their own victim is a classic behaviour of psychopathic thugs.

it’s simply butt-brained to try to smear the candidate inside the building as if he condoned this isolated incident.

It’s the follow-up that counts. Do you even understand the nature of leadership? If someone were engaging in horseplay on your building site resulting in someone almost getting maimed, would you expect the foreman to wait until there was outside pressure before condemning the action, just because he was elsewhere at the time?

And speaking of follow-up, why hasn’t this particular thug and his comrade been charged yet?

stop thinking of everyone that calls himself white and is not ashamed of his race a problem….a problem to be dealt with.

I’m genuinely curious: why is your skin’s melanin content something to be proud of?

“It reinforces that the violence is okay, but also reinforces that they are victims of [insert oppressed group here].  That, of course, will require more violence.”

...and more violence, and more violence.  Ultimately what they really need is a “Final Solution” to the “Liberal Problem”, the “execution” of which will be fully justified by the horrific Obama-driven American turn toward Socialism that teabaggers/wingnuts can see clearly but is completely invisible to everyone else.

Maybe they’ll force us all to watch a Palin Family reality show at gunpoint.  That would certainly be punishment…

What upsets me the most is that this “Real ‘murkan” believes he deserves an apology b/c Lauren Valle started it. 

She was the instigator b/c she went to a public rally and attempted to exercise her First Amendment rights to tell a politician he’s bought and owned by corporations.  Paul and his followers were free to ignore her, to tell her off (crassly should they choose), or engage her in debate.

They were NOT free to assault her b/c they disagree with her politics.  That’s violating her civil rights.  She disagreed with them about a political matter no less and that dissent is not only protected Constitutionally but listed NUMBER ONE in rights protected.

The fact that they worked for Paul makes it worse, but I seriously do not understand how people who claim they love the country can be so utterly confused about it’s most basic principals.

People are allowed to say almost anything, almost anywhere.  The proper redress is never violence.

Fuck it all.

You’re 100% correct that the non-apologies sound like standard wife/child beater bullshit, but they also sound an awful lot like “If you didn’t sit at the lunch counter, I wouldn’t have had to beat your head in.” Times change, ignorant, violent, bigoted thugs do not. You see it is all her fault for being there in the first place and exercising her first amendment rights. The first and second amendments only apply to white, far right wingnut republicans, not to everyone else. She should really try to remember that.

I’ve never met someone who bragged about being white who wasn’t a complete and utter gonorrhea pus smear.

You haven’t done much to disprove that notion.

One of the perpetrators has been charged. 

Paul deserves the condemnation b/c his first mealy-mouthed response was “both sides” got upset bullshit.  It was only after the blogosphere erupted pointing out he hadn’t condemned the violence that he bothered to make a second statement.

The fact that it took outside pressure to make him condemn the violence makes his condemnation look like a PR stunt—like he did it just to try to look rational.  His followers obviously believe that—why else is Proffit doubling down on the stupidity?  Valle deserved it!  She instigated it!

Remember that Valle and Proffit knew each other from previous events.  This was thuggery, and if someone hadn’t called Proffitt off b/c of the camera, who knows how much worse it could have been.

She has a concussion as it is.  He’s claiming it’s b/c he has a bad back and slipped.  AND she started it.  So, really, she needs to apologize for coming to a public political event to express her dissent and for jamming her head under his foot while being held prone.

Your hatred of whites and racism is duly noted.

So is your avoidance of uncomfortable questions. My fault, I’m sure.

Violent, hateful thugs believe that they have the quiet support of leaders and their community[.]

“Who will rid me of this meddlesome protester?”

“The attacks, not only upon my reasonable position, but on my person for actually holding an opinion that differs from theirs is stunning.”

...um, “attacks…on my person”?  WTF?

You say something unreasonable, you’re called out on it by me and others, and that’s an “attack on your person”?  Dude, get real.

Here’s some perspective:

Putting a woman on the ground and stomping on her shoulder and head? 
That’s an Attack on Her Person

One guy on a blog telling another guy on a blog that what he said was stupid? 
That’s just life. 

You came here and said something stupid.  We didn’t go on your blog.  You came here to my neighborhood and opened your yap.  And selected a user name that’s a 100-decibel dog whistle while doing it.

Get over it…

(BTW, I kinda think it’s interesting that you assume I must be Black.  Amusing…)

I don’t hate whites, Mr. Big Powerful Ultra-Manly-and-Not-At-All-Sexually-Attracted-to-Other-Guys Construction Worker.  As it happens, by a strange coincidence my parents, sister, wife and sons are all white.  And I love them.

I just hate you.

Your hatred of whites and racism is duly noted.

As long as you’re noting hatred of racism, put me down for that too.

Privileged Construction Worker needs to look up the words “privilege.”

BRB, gotta go hate myself. And commit systemic prejudice against a privileged majority.

One of the defenses to this assault was that the woman “lunged” at Paul and therefore was a threat to his person.  So, which is it?  Was he standing right there to witness the attack OR was he “in the building?”  If he was in the building, this completely negates the one tiny excuse these men had to put their hands on this woman, throw her to the ground, and step on her head.

Yo Bob the Builder! You should meet this guy named Stick Rule. He’d tell you to proudly own your racism, not try and hide it behind PC pretension. Don’t try to throw back accusations of racism against whites—that never works, and your heart’s not in it.

Just live your truth! It’s a new age, where you can stomp a liberal and demand an apology. Where you guys get to throw away your dog whistles forever!

“The cretin’s request for an apology is beyond the pale.”

...but not unexpected coming from someone who believes he was born a victim because he’s a White Male Conservative in a society that, instead of allocating 100% of all privilege to people like him, only allocates 90% of all privilege to guys like him.

So naturally he lashed out at a liberal woman, because she dared to say that Rand Paul isn’t the New Jesus of Libertarian Conservative Randism and the perfect cure for all the problems in the country.  She pretty much forced him to hit her, just like a wife with an abusive husband…

Blitzgal, other videos I’ve seen clearly show the candidate and his security team no further than 15 feet away from the thuggery and commotion.

Wait, Paul wasn’t inside the building. He was exiting a car in the vicinity. The car that the woman had to run around in her attempt to escape the thugs who recognized her from previous rallies and had targetted her for “removal” from the area. She was curbstomped infront of his car…

I get that it’s loud and kinda crazy around a candidate, but there’s a violent altercation taking place within a 20 yard radius of the candidate and he doesn’t feel the need to condemn violence if nothing else than in the spirit of self-preservation so that exiting a car doesn’t become a flash point for a riot at a later event…? color me confused.

And isolated incident or not, if it was perpetrated by people in my employment, at my event, then hells ya I’d be apologizing for it. What was that famous line again? the buck stops where? Why does Paul get to give a milquetoast apology for his employees violently assaulting anyone in his immediate presence? of course they will take that as approval.

Also, I too have a bad back. Broke it in the Army and it didn’t heal right. But if it hurts, I sit down, rather than have my friends find someone half my size to pin to the ground so I can rest my poor tired feetsies on them. Also, that sudden shove he gave her sure didn’t look like a back spasm caused it to me. Looked like just sheer meanness.

Why do we delete Stick Rule’s posts anyway? They’re beautiful. I can’t think of a better way to deflate passive aggressive disingenous fuckheads that are 90% of conservative commenters.

Between that news and video and this news (http://www.advocate.com/News/News_Features/Arkansas_School_Board_Member_Thinks_Fags_Should_Die//) I just don’t have much positive thought left for people in general.

Anger and hate are powerful emotions. Those emotions seem to stem from some kind of deeply lodged fear and maybe shame.  How the hell do we counter that?  Love? Compassion? Truly turning the other cheek and getting stomped more?  I want to believe that the true Christian (and Buddhist and Hindu and so forth) belief in peace and compassion will overcome, but I doubt it.

It’s not about skin, Mr. Construction worker. It’s not about sexual orientation. It’s about human beings treating each other with gentleness and kindness and respect, and I’m quite worried we just can’t do it.

Well, I’m a white male health care worker (nurse’s aide), and it would never, ever occur to me to mention any of those features in a post, much less use it as my nick, unless I didn’t have anything else in my life to be proud of.

Well, I am proud of my job, but it’s not that big of a deal.

“Errr. the only possible way my moniker could be a “dog whistle” is if you have an inherent bias.”

Huh?

How many other posters here have their melanin content as the first part of their screen name?  Or their gender?  Or the kind of Real American™ job they claim to have?

I don’t call myself “White Male Information Technology Worker”, although I could do so accurately.  I don’t want to wear those major facts of my existence on my sleeve because I want to engage in discussion with as little baggage as I can, besides the fact those things do not fully define me anyway.

Your name, whether you realize it (probably) or not (unlikely unless you really are that stupid) is pretty much 100% Reichwing Dog Whistle.  Sorry, but them’s the facts.

You could have, oh let’s say just for argument’s sake, called yourself “Dana”.  We would find out over the course of time that you live on the East Coast, are a supervisor at a concrete company, have a couple of daughters, at least one of whom is a PFC in the Army, are a staunch Catholic and very Anti-Choice, and your basic “America: Love It Or Leave It” conservative Republican.  But you didn’t.

You started out with a dog whistle…

Anger and hate are powerful emotions. Those emotions seem to stem from some kind of deeply lodged fear and maybe shame.  How the hell do we counter that?  Love? Compassion? Truly turning the other cheek and getting stomped more?  I want to believe that the true Christian (and Buddhist and Hindu and so forth) belief in peace and compassion will overcome, but I doubt it.

It may not work, but what other option do we have? Become like them? Thanks, but I’d rather lose and stay true to my principles than lose by betraying them.

“There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”

Peeps, please stop engaging with him. There is no point and it only riles up the anger and such in our own bodies and in his (which is possibly and likely his goal).

We can discuss the perpetrator, but paleeeeze….move on with Mr. Paul.

Paul, like most Republicans, had a moment of cowardice. He could bear to condemn violence and the perpetrator, because he didn’t want to alienate them. It was a failed of moral leadership, in the same way that so many republicans were too cowardly to condemn torture and theniraq war. And ultimately it causes people to develop moral problems down the road, leading to more violence. The perpetrator can be trusted not to use violence against his wife and children, nor can he nor Paul be trusted to stand up and condemn domestic abusers. That’s the consequence of their cowardice and moral failures.

The attacks, not only upon my reasonable position, but on my person for actually holding an opinion that differs from theirs is stunning. I think “MikeEss” needs to take a laxative and chill and stop thinking of everyone that calls himself white and is not ashamed of his race a problem….a problem to be dealt with. Maybe he’s black and has problems with whites. Who knows? (who cares?)

Reasonable position?  Really?  Reasonable?  They threw an innocent person to the ground and stomped on her head and throat.  The condemnation from the candidate should be obvious instead of the back door thumbs up he is showing.  The two-sided attack is worn out and is a fallacy to any argument, you can only control your actions and in this case the actions of your supporters in your presence.  This is a situation Rand Paul needed to deal with by saying how civil discourse is the best answer to physical violence but since the republicans and conservatives in general are running an end-around gambit to draw in the crazies it bears to stand that they are alright with this kind of violence as long as it riles the small majority of whites left in his country. 

As for race, whiteness is strictly a British/American Anglophile issue.  Nowhere else on this vast planet did you hear the world white to describe a person except in their presence.  Norwegians don’t call themselves white, they call themselves Norwegians.  I don’t claim to enjoy being white, I claim to enjoy my status an my ethnocentric beliefs but recognize they are secondary to the content of my character.  Claiming MikeEss to be black signifies that you clearly associate your race with your ability and tie this to everybody else as they come around.  You perceive the world as being just like you, mildly racist, not necessarily downplaying others on their race but using their race as an indicator of stance and justifies actions.  Which I see as slightly better than the overt racist but far from the best stance one can take in life. 

PS: How is construction going since the economy recovered and should have work….Or are you simply staying out of it to prove how terrible democrats are at making you pay 50 dollars a year in union dues?

Their actions may meet the legal definition of terrorism or interfering with civil rights. I am not a lawyer, but the stomper seems to have committed aggravated assault at the very least.

@40

Technically, many things dictate what name you can and cannot use.  Here, yes, there are limitations on what names you can use for many reasons.

However, the “PC crowd” isn’t dictating names for you in this thread.  They are laughing at you and pointing out how incredibly odious you seem to be by having chose it.  That isn’t dictating.  You can use it.  In fact some of us kinda like that you do, because it is accurate. 

(By the way, PC doesn’t mean what you think it does, unless you actually believe that most people in this country are absolutely a-ok with your “white pride” bullshit.)

WMCW I’d leave Paul out of it if he hadn’t been standing in the immediate vicinity* when the attack happened and if the attack hadn’t been perpetrated by someone in his immediate employ. If I am in error on those two facts then please correct me, if I am not I don’t see how on earth you can excuse Paul’s behaviour.

*note I have no way of knowing if he was aware of the attack, but he was made aware of it within a reasonably short period of time as he addressed the attack when inside. I don’t understand how a reasonable person wouldn’t at least aplogize for not being able to see and stop the attack (or similar wording that would paint him in the best of light…)

You’re free to use any ol’ name you want. We’re free to think you’re a dickhead. What is so hard to understand about any of this?

So, now the PC crowd dictates what name I can and cannot use? That about it?

YES. Now toddle along back to whatever Bastion of Freedom and Real America blog you crawled over from. I’m sure they can’t wait to hear all about the oppression you’ve suffered here. Bye!

“He probably didn’t realize is was a girl. I didn’t just by looking at the picture.”

Which is important why?  If she was a slightly-built male, instead of a fully grown woman (girl? WTF?), would throwing “him” down and stomping on “his” shoulder and head be okay?

As you say, “violence needs to be prosecuted”, but at least as important is setting a tone that makes that kind of behavior so far beyond the pale that only the most sociopathic would even think it was okay.  And a good start on that would have been for Paul to immediately, clearly, and unconditionally condemn it as soon as possible.

The fact Rand Paul didn’t do that is a great indicator of his lack of moral fiber and should be another reason for him not to be elected…

...warned us by his name that his opinion about this should be dismissed immediately.  Thanks!

It IS a big timesaver.

Please don’t feed trolls, folks. It’s like cuddling something the cat threw up on the floor.

Your hatred of whites and racism is duly noted.

Comment #19: White Male Construction Worker

Woooo!  We’re all race trators now!

Mikess—If it was a group of petite women throwing down and stomping on an athletic male, I don’t think it would make a difference. This isn’t about size and gender so much as numbers and violence.

WMCW—It is very odd that you chose that as a moniker. What were you trying to get across?

BTW, guys, quit throwing your efforts into Whitey McEnergySump there—it’s not like he’s a real poster, he’s just Yet Another Energy Sucking Troll (YAEST, almost like an infection).  He gets 25¢ from Karl Rove for every commenter he sucks out of the real discussion.

Sorry, Amanda, but he set me off with the first comment on this thread.  I felt the strong urge to dish out as much as I could in a probably futile attempt to get something to penetrate…

I meant “men” not “males.” Not sure why that came out.

As for White Male Construction Worker, here’s one thing I simply cannot get over—what wimps these macho guys are! I have been on liberal sites lo these many years, and I have seen the following scenario many times (apologies for the offensive language to follow)

RIGHT-WING TROLL : You know what you are? You’re all faggot, queer, nigger-lovin’ mud people who ought to be shot!

VARIOUS POSTERS: Wow! Are you stupid, or what!

RIGHT-WING TROLL: Waahh! You called me a name! You’re oppressing me! You’re all Stalin!

VARIOUS POSTERS: ??? Ah, dude . . .  it’s just talk!

RIGHT-WING TROLL: Waah! Waaah! You want to kill me, you do, all of you! Waaah!

Hairhead back here. And that’s it. I’ve seen it dozens and dozens of times. The instant you dare to disagree with them, or worse, snicker at them, they collapse into big, sodden, snivelling balls of whine.  I know I should be bored of it by now, but I still find it amusing.

“This isn’t about size and gender so much as numbers and violence.”

Excellent point.  This kind of behavior has to be made socially lethal.  There needs to be so much stigma attached to the use of violence (or threats of violence, or talking about “2nd Amendment Solutions”, etc.) as a form of “political speech” that it disappears from the public sphere.  (or becomes as close to extinct as possible…)

Amanda is wise. And funny. And descriptive!

White supremacists should be carefully ignored. What are you going to say to them that’s going to make them think?  They’re kind of proof against their own assertion that white people are naturally smarter.

Amanda is also prescient. My cat just threw up a Care Bear. I’m kinda scared.

This asshole honestly believes that only he and his fellow Randites are entitled to anything.  He honestly believes b/c Valle and her organization disagree with Rand they aren’t real Americans.  He honestly believes b/c she is was paid to do her protest that she (and the people of MoveOn) have no right to protest.

If they don’t agree with Paul, then they aren’t ‘with us’.  If you arent with us, you’re against us.  If you’re against us, well, you should shut up and take it or else you’re asking for a curbstomp. 

She wouldn’t have a concussion if she’d just stayed home in the kitchen.

Who knew what Ginni Thomas was stirring up?  This whole Cheney/Thomas “victims should apologize for embarrassing their attackers” meme needs to be exposed and stopped. 

I’m afraid it won’t, though.  Even traditionalist, chivalry-minded sexists seem to be okay with curbstomping an uppity, short-haired liberal woman from most of the comments I’ve seen.  Especially since she was paid.

What needs to happen more than apologies are trials. Multiple anything getting anyone of any sex down and stomping on them is felony assault and/or battery depending on the jurisdiction. The Paul staffers need to work on their manly act in prison for a while.

Lack of consequences are why people like them do things like this. Thus far the consequences are people saying mean things about them on blogs and being heroes to their cause. That isn’t much of a deterrent.

Of course if it had been a man this probably wouldn’t have happened. Paul and his followers hate women.

Of course if it had been a man this probably wouldn’t have happened. Paul and his followers hate women.

Um, I think it’s more a matter of they respect a man’s right to disagree only in so much as they expect a man would be better able to fight back.  That is to say, they are cowards who would not have done this to someone they considered might be a threat right back at them.

Well, there’s some good to the fact that Profitt’s being so chatty about the event that the police are investigating him about.  I for one invite Profitt to keep talking and talking and talking and talking in public about it.

I am so glad the local police are involved, but I hope the Department of Justice or Department of Homeland Security gets involved too.  This definitely meets the FBI’s definition of terrorism which says,

A terrorist incident is a violent act or an act dangerous to human life, in violation of the criminal laws of the United States, or of any state, to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. “

Of course, terrorism has been overused in our political discourse to where in wingnut land, looking at them the wrong way is considered terrorism.  Or wait, is it only Muslims who are terrorists?

“Or wait, is it only Muslims who are terrorists?”

...and Lefties.  Lauren Valle is a terrorist because she disagrees with Rand Paul.  Naturally the thugs who harmed her are heroes protecting America from Ultra-Radical Leftist Terrorists like Lauren Valle…

I’m thinking about changing my user name to SparklyRainbowJulieMcLoud. Just saying.

Of course, Lefties are the REAL terrorists.  Like EARTHFIRST who never killed anyone, just caused some expensive property damage.  Geez, if these rednecks want to meet some real left wing terrorists, maybe they should move to Nepal, or Peru, or Colombia.  Then they’d have something to really complain about.

The image of strength.

so no apologies.

Er, you Americans do realise that the character of Bob Heller from “Transmetropolitan” was supposed to be satire, right?

[He says, nervously]

Or their gender?

Well, my name is used for males 99.9% of the time so does that count? I’m not going to say 100% because there’s probably a girl out there named Ben somewhere in this country.

Hey - I never got to see White Construction Worker’s comments!

Can we at least leave those by White Police Officer, White Biker, and White Indian until I get a chance to mock them too?

Turning the other cheek only works when the other side has some shred of a conscience and shame over what they’re doing.

Had the Nazis ruled India instead of the British Ghandi and his followers would be a footnote.

White Indian

Ward Churchill?

@PIATOR, I think that was meant to be sarcasm. At least that’s how I originally read it…

Ben D., I basically agree with you but there have been advocates of non-violence that have argued that non-violence is so powerful that it could bring conscience to those that have none. Ghandi himself in/famously argued that Jews of Europe should respond to the Nazis by committing mass suicide and this would get the Nazis to understand the evil of their ways. Coincidentally, it would also get the Nazis what they wanted.

  There are times when violence is really an appropriate solution to a problem. These times are rare but they do exist.

Ward Churchill?

Goddamned ignoramus.

What do they teach kids these days?

Ah, Ward Churchill. I remember when the Right latched onto him…

Right: Liberal guru Ward Churchill said today…
Left: Who the fuck is that?

Now it’s more like

Right: Liberal guru Ward Churchill…
Left: A. You have no idea what he was actually talking about. B. He’s a lying piece of shit anyway and we don’t pay attention to him anymore.

no no no… white indian.

Ghandi himself in/famously argued that Jews of Europe should respond to the Nazis by committing mass suicide and this would get the Nazis to understand the evil of their ways.

I’ve heard about that Ghandi quote before, but was it before or after 1945? If he said that in the ‘30s its naive, if he said it after the full extent of the holocaust was known it’s downright insane. I think it should be pretty clear to anyone with half a brain after seeing photos of the extermination camps that nobody running Germany by 1945 had any kind of conscience whatsoever.

He’s a lying piece of shit anyway and we don’t pay attention to him anymore.

Really. I just think it’s funny when white guys say “hey! I’m a minority! I’m 1/80th Powhatan!” or something. I saw that all the time growing up. A lot of white people in the south that have been here since colonization are probably some fraction Indian by now, but it doesn’t fucking matter because nobody can tell!

I think we should all change our screen names so everyone knows how proud we are of our melanin/genitals/money-making abilities.

slingshot:

I am not changing my screen name to modest/average/none.

I think we should all change our screen names so everyone knows how proud we are of our melanin/genitals/money-making abilities.

And if you’re coming up short in all three?

Um, just as a hypothetical of course.

- PiaToR (Huge, I tell you - HUGE!)

Well, my name is used for males 99.9% of the time so does that count? I’m not going to say 100% because there’s probably a girl out there named Ben somewhere in this country.

Well, I always read “Ben D.” as “Bendy” anyway…

I think we should all change our screen names so everyone knows how proud we are of our melanin/genitals/money-making abilities.

I used to do that…change my name to go along with our current meme.  It was simple, you just typed it in the box and could change it on a whim.

Since registration, it doesn’t matter that I log in as “Caren”, the whole giant name follows me around.  At least it protects me from the name-jacking trolls.

BTW was white male construction worker sticky? I guess he’s not some computer-programmer hotshot after all…or maybe he’s just a bored unemployed 20 year old.

Ghandi’s quote was in 1946, before he realized that his noviolence movement had been appropriated for power grabs.  The entire quote is on wikipedia, and the context is clear:  If they’re going to kill you anyhow, you should organize around it, and make it into a political statement.

It is a little naive, but he took nonviolence to its logical ends.  Obviously the same number of people would have been killed… But perhaps it would have put a stop to the idea that military might is a way to gain lasting power.

Sticky would never deny being racist. He also seemed just a little too smart to be johnmccay/paulsalata. He may have been a brand new troll.

that should be white male seemed a little too smart.

I’ve thought for a long time that Ghandi’s situation in pre-Partition India was pretty unique, and leant itself to be addressed by non-violent protest because of those unique qualities, qualities that don’t exist in many other similar situations of oppression.

For one thing, the British never made up a very large percentage of the population in Greater India.  If the overwhelmingly vast majority of citizens somewhere do something (or don’t do something), there is an automatic strategic impact. 

Compare that to African Americans during the ‘60s.  They made up about 10% of the population, overall, with higher percentages in some areas of some states.  If you’re a small bus company who makes a significant percentage on Black customers, then a boycott can harm you.  But for the nation at large, the impact of Black boycotts would be minimal.

Ultimately success with the Civil Rights Marches in the ‘60s depended on making moral pleas that were largely accepted by the majority, lots of bad “optics” on the part of the fire-hoses-and-dogs cracker racists, and the luck of having a strong liberal president in place, with a Congress he could bully, at the right moment.

Similar to African Americans in America, Jews in Europe were always a minority (but a much smaller minority).  In the Nazis they had an opponent who strictly controlled the Media and a German populace that was pretty much immune to appeals for proper treatment toward Jews.  While Jews had large enough numbers in some areas to make a serious impact by their absence (German atomic weapon development?), they were a minor factor in many/most areas.  They really were never in a situation to use Ghandi’s Non-Violent Protests effectively.  If they had decided to off themselves in a mass protest, the Nazis would have celebrated and moved on to their next political goal…

Was stuck watching Fox News in the middle of the day in a hospital waiting room today.  Ugh.  They were trying HARD to push the “we have more footage that shows there’s more to the story!!!!!” thing, only sometimes bothering to say that it was of her pushing a sign at Rand Paul.  Because the “we have more footage that shows the real story” is the important part, not how the footage in question would make the average person go, uh, yeah?  The footage that they’re showing of the actual stomping?  Gave me an involuntary shudder every time they showed it, even though the words were so strongly downplaying it.

No one else around me reacted in the slightest.  Well, not to that footage.  The one of the audience saying the Pledge of Allegiance after being specifically told that it was not appropriate?  Got lots of hell yeah!s Was trying hard not to draw attention to my mutinous self, but when one guy said, “That’s why we say it before every ball game!”  I couldn’t help but say, you must not have ever been to a ball game.  From the rant that set him off on, he was only vaguely aware that The Pledge and The Star Spangled Banner are not the same thing.  Apparently, his grandfather serving for 44 years gave him the right to be disruptive in a public setting if he wants.  (Never said anything about him or anyone else not having the right to say it, just that it’s not said at ball games, and I’ve never been anywhere in my adult life where it was said, much less commonly so.)  Had to bite my tongue to avoid mentioning that my great-whatever-grandfather was in the Revolutionary War, or spending crap loads of money out of my own pocket to send to supplies to the troops when my brother was in Iraq.  Wasn’t going to go there.  Getting the Fox spiel from the high strung blonde lady on tv was bad enough, didn’t want to hear much more in person.  In person is so much worse.

Well, that, and the majority of majority not-black states already supported civil rights, Mike.

But against the Nazi party - it didn’t gain majority until after it was in power and using violence to meet ends.  Ghandi’s point is that an effective use of nonviolence on a major scale could change the overall view of might makes right.

I’m not saying it would result in less deaths, but it hasn’t been proven to be full of the fail you’re insinuating.

“When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”

-Sinclair Lewis, “It Can’t Happen Here”

Wikipedia (emphasis mine):

The precursor to the SA had acted informally and on an ad hoc basis for some time before this. Hitler, with an eye always to helping the party to grow through propaganda, convinced the leadership committee to invest in an advertisement in the Munchener Beobachter (later renamed the Volkischer Beobachter) for a mass meeting in the Hofbräuhaus, to be held on 16 October 1919. Some 70 people attended, and a second such meeting was advertised for 13 November in the Eberlbrau beer hall. Some 130 people attended; there were hecklers, but Hitler’s military friends promptly ejected them by force, and the agitators “flew down the stairs with gashed heads.” The next year, on 24 February, he announced the party’s Twenty-Five Point program at a mass meeting of some 2000 persons at the Hofbrauhaus. Protesters tried to shout Hitler down, but his army friends, armed with rubber truncheons, ejected the dissenters. The basis for the SA had been formed.

“All opposition must be stamped into the ground” -Maxim of the SA, according to Wikipedia

Joe Miller hires active-duty military as “security” men.
Rand Paul has goons who see nothing wrong with stomping someone into the ground.

All they lack is a Hitler.

The typical SA member was a young male in his early 20s. The typical teabagger is 55+ on a medicare scooter with diabetes. Big difference.

Not to mention the SA leaders wer hardened World War I vets, as were members of other right wing paramilitary organizations like the Steel Helmets. I don’t think very many teabaggers have seen any time in the trenches recently.

Ghandi’s nonviolence succeeded because he knew the British had no stomach for genocide, that the people who engaged in massacres were the exception, not the rule.  In the end, the British would go home once controlling India was no longer profitable.

MikeEss is right, a mass suicide of the Jews would not have stopped Nazism.  I’ve always wondered what would have happened had Hitler not been the insane megalomaniac that he was, and had abided by the 1938 Munich Accords.  If the Nazis had not embarked on a course of military conquest, would the world have pulled together and fought a war to stop the Holocaust if it were confined to Germany?  I’m not so certain they would have.

Joe Miller’s “security” men weren’t on medicare scooters.  I’m not as sanguine as you are about the capacity for violence of these people.

Given that the Allies didn’t quite get the extent of persecution the Jews endured until the discovery of the camps in 1945, I’m not sure they would have even heard of the Holocaust, or if they did, dismiss it as atrocity stories.

I also like the fact that the head-stomp was justified because Profitt has a bad back.

I have a bad back, you fuckers.  I was in hospital with a life-threatening infection because one of my disks decided to kamikaze.  I’m still using a crutch.

By this logic, I should be allowed to shoot someone.  And it just so hapens I’m drawing up a list…

Slackajawea, ultimately it comes down to: “She’s not one of us, therefore she deserved it”...

And MikeEss distills it down to purity of essence.  Yes, in a nutshell.

Crissa, I’m pretty sure that Gandhi’s statements re mass suicide were made during the 1930s. It had as much to do with internal Indian politics as anything that happened in Europe. There is a lot of focus on Gandhi as a sort of non-violent activist and mystic but people forget that he was also a politician and a fairly cunning one at that. He wanted one Indian state rather than a Partitioned state* and tried to keep Muslim Indians in good graces as much as he could. Suggesting that Jews mass off themselves rather than pressuring Britain to say let them immigrate en mass to a certain place in the Middle East, which the UK controlled, was one way he tried to do this.

  *Muslim Indians demand for partition turned out in hindsight to be a bluff that gone horribly wrong.

MikeEss is pretty much right about the ability of Jews to use non-violence against their persecutors. Our numbers have generally been too low to use it.

Ben D, it was ignored by the Allied Powers during the war because they were intent on winning the war and they thought stopping the Holocaust by bombing the rail lines to some of the concentration camps wasn’t the best use of their air power.

They knew what was going on, not the general public but those in power damn well knew the extend of the Holocaust from reports of refugees and the like.

I’m not trying to go all punk rock on y’all, but that was not a curb stomping. It was assault & battery. It was completely inappropriate. But it did not approach the violence that is curb stomping, which is a whole nother level of scary violence. It’s actually kind of offensive that people are referring to it as such and I wish they would stop. Curb stomping is “bite the curb” and entails a much higher intent to cause and risk of serious injury than the half assed moves Profitt pulled. He might’ve been fantasizing about curb stomping, or practicing his swing, but he did not actually curb stomp.

Curb stomping is “bite the curb” and entails a much higher intent to cause and risk of serious injury than the half assed moves Profitt pulled. He might’ve been fantasizing about curb stomping, or practicing his swing, but he did not actually curb stomp.

As I’ve seen pointed out elsewhere, the term has different definitions.

It’s close enough for me.

I’ve always wondered what would have happened had Hitler not been the insane megalomaniac that he was, and had abided by the 1938 Munich Accords.  If the Nazis had not embarked on a course of military conquest, would the world have pulled together and fought a war to stop the Holocaust if it were confined to Germany?  I’m not so certain they would have.

Hitler’s problem wasn’t just megalomania.  He was determined to completely remake Europe, partly by exterminating all undesirables, partly by pretty much leveling everything else.  He would never have been content to stay in Germany.

She was curb stomped and didn’t deserve that violence. The guy who stepped on her needs to be charged, because he’s not law enforcement and wasn’t saving someone’s life or something else that could justify his actions. And Paul really should come out and criticize violence in an evenhanded way.

At the same time, I’ve seen the other video of the appearance, and she wasn’t innocent. She charged up to the candidate’s car and tried to shove something through the window, then tried again. The curb stomp video is the reaction to her third attempt to get at the candidate. Political theater is one thing, but when you start putting people in fear that you’re a whack job, their responses may become disproportionate. I’m surprised Paul’s security people didn’t make a more vigorous response.

Put it another way, someone who did what this lady did to Barack Obama wouldn’t be deciding whether to file a lawsuit or not, they’d be trying to learn how to eat through a tube.

Alkaloid, as my noble bride pointed out to me, the guys were ALL much bigger than her, if they wanted only to restrain her, they could’ve done so without all of them wrestling her to the ground like they were on Spike TV at night.

You’re a lickspittle for tyranny, and I only mean that in the nicest sort of way.

And Paul really should come out and criticize violence in an evenhanded way.

He did just that, and “even-handed” is exactly the problem here: he’s attributing the violent, thuggish behaviour (behaviour that he implicitly encourages in his “militia” rhetoric, by the way) to both sides. That’s complete BS.

I’m surprised Paul’s security people didn’t make a more vigorous response.

I guess you’re more willing than I am to trust the judgment of untrained thugs who aren’t professional security people.

Put it another way, someone who did what this lady did to Barack Obama wouldn’t be deciding whether to file a lawsuit or not, they’d be trying to learn how to eat through a tube.

Or perhaps not. Again, Secret Service bodyguards are what we call trained professionals. I’m not sure how you don’t understand the difference between that and this street-brawling campaign co-ordinator, given that you think he should be charged because he’s not law enforcement.

Put it another way, someone who did what this lady did to Barack Obama wouldn’t be deciding whether to file a lawsuit or not, they’d be trying to learn how to eat through a tube.

Comment #106: Alkaloid

Alkaloid is either ignorant of or highly dismissive of the training that federal agents receive in crowd control and working with the public in high density areas.

But that’s par for course to apologists.

You’re probably right that Secret Service people would never have let her get that close. Rand doesn’t have Secret Service, though, he has just ordinary security. Saying that violence comes from both sides is not BS, however. Left-wingers have shot Presidents. So have right-wingers. Right-wingers have gotten thuggish in demonstrations/rallies and have roughed people up. So have left-wingers. Left-wingers have done appalling things to people’s homes, vehicles, campaign signs, headquarters. So have right-wingers. I understand the desire to be on the side of the angels, fighting the demons, but in fact it’s all just people.

You’re probably right that Secret Service people would never have let her get that close. Rand doesn’t have Secret Service, though, he has just ordinary security.

Ordinary trained and bonded security. If he’s skimping on people who don’t have the proper threat assessment skills (and I highly doubt that he is), it’s his own fault.

Saying that violence comes from both sides is not BS, however.

He’s implying that that the violence (not the more horrifying property damage) is happening now, during this election, to minimise the egregiousness of this incident. It’s BS.

Oh, and look, here’s another 55+ (wayyy +) white male assaulting a young female protester. Do I even have to note the party to which he and the Senate candidate he’s “protecting” belong?

He honestly believes b/c she is was paid to do her protest that she (and the people of MoveOn) have no right to protest.
Comment 60—Caren

Calls to mind the standard February Rosa Parks story always omitting that it was a planned protest.

Eastern WA used to skew Repub, not be totally Repug.  Then again, WW is central not eastern, so I don’t know if the commenter on the link @111 knows what they are talking about.

Walla Walla is about as eastern as you can get without being in Idaho and about as south as you can be without being in Oregon. In general though they don’t skew AS red as the rest of eastern Washington being as it’s a college town. (Anecdata, my sister and her wife reside there, both working at a Catholic hospital where their domestic partnership is not an issue.)

It is getting more Repug here, and it’s frightening. Clint Didier (ex-football player for the Redskins) ran against Rossi in the primary officially as a Tea Cracker candidate with a full-on endorsement from Sarah Palin. With the large Hispanic population on this side of the state there is a lot of immigration backlash, plus a very large community of conservative religious folks (Mormon and Roman Catholic).

Dino Rossi has made the People for the American Way’s “Rogue’s Gallery” list for dangerous right wing candidates: <a > I bet this won’t work because links hate me</a>. He’s only barely come off ahead of Democrat Christine Gregoire in the last two governor elections.  Patty Murray is only a couple of points ahead of this smug bastard in the polls.

Anyone in a saner area have room for 3 kids, 3 dogs, 2 cats, and a pissed off random central Washington liberal?

RealistMom I hate to break it to you but you’re already in the saner area.

Links hate you because you’re leaving out quotes. The http:// part, everything from http: to #washington inclusive, needs to be in quotes.

Oooh, thanks Alkaloid, I’ve drifted in and out of HTML using quotes or none and most of the time it hasn’t been picky which format I use. Will remember that for this site.

And damn.. er, anyone in Arizona or someplace else horrible need to camp out on my back acre? XD