Blogswarmed by Cyber Stalin's Soldiers of Orange

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream,
Wave after wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Have you heard the news?
The dogs are dead!
You better stay home
And do as you’re told.
Get out of the road if you want to grow old.

Pink Floyd- Sheep

Over the weekend a balls nasty napalm flaming hot civil war broke out at hallowed liberal blog Daily Kos and spilled over onto the much more open to free speeech (and more respectful in general) My Left Wing over a highly controversial post by an influential (and might I add absolutely correct) voice and it was ugly.

The opening salvo by longtime contributor Maryscott O’Connor started out with:

“Sometimes I am embarrassed to call myself a member of DKos.

This is one of those times.

There is a sort of groupthink, Lord of the Flies kind of behaviour at DKos over certain issues that absolutely makes me nauseated.”

 

The author, an outstanding writer in her own right went on to call into question the behavior of many of the members of the hottest left wing blog going regarding their witch hunt mentality (personally I compare it a drunken lynch mob fired up by some ranting demagogue in a beer hall) and crushing of certain dissenting opinions. The treatment by the head honcho toward the Democratic Party’s sacrifice of Paul Hackett was also addressed and it sent shock waves reverberating throughout the Kos-O-Sphere. I wrote a piece back when Hackett was thrown under the bus by the slimy corporate fucks in the DLC and believe me, it still makes me want to throw up. Sleazy bastards like Rahm Emanuel and the rest of the reprehensible Vichy accommodators whose mortal fear of derailing the status quo far exceeds their will to participate in a true democracy are the real reason why the Republican menace has been running roughshod and is hell bent on unleashing their jack-booted armies of brownshirted thugs….there is no fucking opposition! The DLC sold out the working class long ago and until there is a serious move by the Democrats and their progressive mouthpieces to address this we will forever be trapped in an endless cycle of “GOD, GAYS & GUNS” and other inflammatory social issues that distract from the looting and crushing of dissenters.

That being said, the shit hit the fan on DK and the fan was on high sparing nobody from getting showered by the spray. The mindless rush to attack the messenger reminded me of nothing short than the Bushist Gestapo pouring out of their megachurches after a particularly ‘uplifting’ Hellfire and Brimstone anti-liberal sermon, the loyalty as intense as the dumb bastards stormed the beaches oblivious to the thundering artillery and whithering machine gun fire in order to wage total war for their leader even if they are cut to pieces in the process.

Here is a sample of some of the comments from the both fronts of the battle and I am not listing aliases nor changing names to protect the innocent just listing some of the more provocative or otherwise inane comments, there were between both sites nearly 1,650 of them (and of course the ones hidden or deleted by the Kostapo):

“One of the reasons I'm almost never at dKos anymore...I got tired of wading through reams of bullshit, usually of the order either of "Right on!" or "Fuck off!", disguised as comments.” 

 

I certainly threw around my share of 'Fucks' during my tenure but there is no crying in baseball and blogging isn't for sissies. I will however try to watch my fucking language in the future.

“I have been ordered by the hit squads at Kos to take more than one diary down. I have been threatened with ‘expulsion’. I have been told that my writings have been ‘reported to Kos’; as if he were going to pull an O’Reilly and send his acolyte division out after me. More than one Kos member has targeted me repeatedly. My commentary on other sites regarding this issue has also been affected; with certain people taking after me there as well. “

 

Key Word: O'Reilly!

“Since being banned from Kos a couple of months ago for warning that there will probably not be an election this year, the only time I go there now is when someone recomends a diary there on another blog. There are enough star bellied sneetches in the party, thank you. Glad I missed the latest snootfest.”

Sneetches? And as far as this guy's prediction goes it isn't officially false until after Nov. 8th.

“Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me.Me me blah blah me me me myself.
Blah blah me blah blah blah me me me. Me me blah blah me me me myself.”

 

I shit you not about that one.

“Dkos is rotten through and through. If you cannot smell that,.,..after the refusal to allow posts about the election fraud, after the pie fight brouhaha, the July 4th masscre/tinfoil hat thing, the gradual diminutiion of intelligence in most of the posts and comments and the concomitant ascendency of some sort of pack mind there, the tacit acceptance of the reign of cyberbullies like DHinMI and HIS blogmates, the various tactical shuffles of the leadership in an attempt to stay...stay WHAT, exactly, other than totally false...the disastrous symbolic choice of Las Vegas (The absolute WORST symbol of the corporate Disneyfication of America that could have possibly been chosen as a place to have a left wing meeting here in MediAmerica, 2006.), the ummasking of Armando as a conscienceless and aggressively unapologetic lawyer for the DisneyCorpse-ish motherfuckers that are turning this nation into a population of mindless, TV addicted serfs, let ALONE the "appearance of impropriety" in the buddy buddy, wink-wink/nudge-nudge support/non-support of Warner...

If you cannot smell THAT?

Then I got yer diatribe, right HERE!!!”

 

Now THAT's a fucking diatribe!

“All this over a petty rivalry? Its clear that she who also tells people not to post in her diaries and calls them names and tells them to shut the fuck up doesn't really believe in people saying what they want. I think she just wants to instill doubt in peoples minds about people here to bring people over to her site cause it isn't getting enough attention. I don't see anything worth discussing here. with all that's going down in this world all people give a shit about is what she has to say about a blog? Now I know this country is fucked up beyond repair. how this got on the recommended list...wow.”

Nothing personal of course....

“Gazing in awe at the carnage*:

Un. Be. Lievable. It looks like WWIII in the comments and hidden comments section here. Congrats MSOC: you actually got an Armando flame war, a Kos flame war, and an MSOC flame war all on one thread (with a handful of trolls to boot!)!

Sorry I missed it.

FWIW, I almost never agree with Maryscott, but I'm tentatively with her on this one. Even the appearance of impropriety can do immeasurable damage to the netroots, and like it or not, we will be held to a higher standard.

Because people are looking for someone who upholds a higher standard.

Comment tentatively approved by Supreme Overlord Kos”


For some reason I particularly liked that one.

"It's the reason I did not post about my experience and take on YKos, which, as I've written here, was offensive to me. Unless big changes are made to include people of color and the poor, I'll never attend Ykos again. But, I refrained from posting my feelings because I just didn't want to deal with the "defenders."

Dkos is just at a certain level in the evolution of organization. It is the nature of organization, and MLWers will have to work very hard to keep it from happening to that extent here. But, that would be the exception to the general rule. There will be a hierarcy, intolerance of independent thought, group think, and purging, purging, purging. It's happened in every liberal organization to which I've ever belonged, and it's fucking depressing. Liberals tend to become fascistic in their own little fiefdoms. Liberals eat their young."

 

Meet the new boss.....same as the old boss!

“Agree with all comments except... the "influence" of the mighty Kos monster is still very presumptive, and very much in doubt...and frankly always will be...how do you verify his influence at the polls? I mean, Bush has been a much greater force for coalescing the reactive Democratic movement than Kos. As MSOC said, he, Armstrong and others were just lucky to be the sounding board in the time of the Great Reptublican Idiot.

Sure, if the Dems win something he can TAKE credit, but is it really his to take?

The liberal blogosphere is a great sounding board for the "disadvantaged", but its still nothing more than a reactionary liberal chat room with fascist tendencies...well DKos has apparently slipped into full blown cyber fascism, apparently...this site and nowhere excepted.

Thanks MSOC for being reborn and keeping it real for a few of us, at least! I remember well your days of consciousness raised at the Kos.”

 

DAMN!

"Not to seem like I'm denigrating another forum, but, frankly, the few brief visits that I've made to DKos have given me the impression that that is a blog that brooks ABSOLUTELY NO DISSENT WHATSOEVER, and that they're just about as bad as the right, in that respect. I'm also aware that many of my opinions would get me troll-rated, if not banned outright from DKos. At the same time, however, my opinions are not accepted on the RIGHT-wing blogs, either."

Now there's a great endorsement!

"Between you, edencho, and arthur, I've been about ready to put a bullet through my screen. And as I told Arthur, what a fucking waste of our time and yours this has been. We have much better things to do."

Open mouth, insert gun…pull trigger. You will feel much better.

Jesus Fucking Christ!!! Carnage is the not the word for this electronic abattoir, if you think that this was bad you should see some of the other ones!

The ‘Troll Police’ led by their mighty community Gauleiter Armando manned their swift boats and flailed away at their laptops, hitting the delete key to smack down dissenters as though they were swinging rubber truncheons. Look if you want community and you can put up with ignorant little piss-ants with large egos and itchy trigger fingers who enforce discipline then DK is the place for you. There are a lot of good stories and posts there by a lot of intelligent minded people, Frederick Clarkson for one posts there and any place where you can get exposure to his great work on the menace of the fundamentalist zealots in the religious right is a good place no matter what sort of riff raff that you have to tolerate to be there.

If however you happen to be a free thinker who also happens to be an iconoclast then you had better stick with the lower profile blogs.

DK specifically forbids so called ‘conspiracy theorists’ and shows no quarter when inconvenient subjects may arise that show more than a lemminglike ability to follow along in parroting the official stories for many suspicious events.

This is their official statement:

Addendum

Some people have been confused by the above discussion. Let me make it perfectly plain. Diaries advancing 'Conspiracy Theories' are subject to ridicule and derision from the community at the very least. Repeat offenders can and will be banned.

Here is what kos has to say-
The conspiracists by kos
Fri Jul 08, 2005

Today I did something I've never done before (not even during the Fraudster mess), and wish I'd never had to do.

I made a mass banning of people perpetuating a series of bizarre, off-the-wall, unsupported and frankly embarassing conspiracy theories.

I have a high tolerance level for material I deem appropriate for this site, but one thing I REFUSE to allow is bullshit conspiracy theories. You know the ones -- Bush and Blair conspired to bomb London in order to take the heat off their respective political problems. I can't imagine what fucking world these people live in, but it sure ain't the Reality Based Community.

So I banned these people, and those that have been recommending diaries like it. And I will continue to do so until the purge is complete, and make no mistake -- this is a purge.

This is a reality-based community. Those who wish to live outside it should find a new home. This isn't it.

Update: I've been reinstating some of the banned accounts as they email me. Some people wondered why there wasn't any warning. There have been warnings from others -- repeated pleadings for people to ground themselves in reality.

It's telling that I have NEVER done something like this before. Because this has been an extreme situation. This isn't about disagreeing with what people are saying. If that was the case, everyone would've been banned by now. The myth of the "echo chamber" is just that. A myth.

But as for warnings, well, this has been my warning. I wanted it clear that I was serious, and I think that has come through. I am reinstating those who ask to be reinstated. But the message has been sent.

Straight from the Horse’s mouth and of course using the especially inflammatory Bush-Blair theory as an example…..hey assholes, you forgot to mention the UFOS! Never mind George and Tony’s alleged scheming, there are more important things that can be proven or are more easily questioned. The Downing Street Memo for example as well as the theft of the 2004 election that was addressed in the report by Congressman John Conyers as well as by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a major piece in a recent issue of Rolling Stone.

So therefore, if you question the evidence of voter suppression, disenfranchisement, machine rigging and outright electoral fraud that is DOCUMENTED but unfortunately falls under the dreaded ‘conspiracy theory’ definition on DK then you will be run and run quickly. I am not even going to there as far as questions with the official explanation of 9/11 or any of the other myriad of stories that are out there that people who actually are capable of thinking for themselves are easily able to see don’t add up due to the inconsistencies and contradictions. Do not expect any sort of meaningful conversation on the Project For A New American Century (PNAC) and the “New Pearl Harbor” that it so specifically mentions.

Posting on these topics is verboten on DK, they are deathly afraid of being saddled with the dreaded 'tin foil hatter' label that they immediately censor any comments that relate to Deep Politics (thanks to Peter Dale Scott for that term) which is that there are always illicit and duplicitous activities going on in the background.

So any posts on election rigging, market fixing, drug running, collaboration to give amnesty to Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of WW II to use them as intelligence assets and research scientists, lingering questions over the JFK hit, the PNAC or any questioning of official explanations gets your ass run in a New York second from DK even if you have links to back it up from official reports.

I guess that for many that it's better to remain an Ass Ostrich (my term) than a Tin Foil Hatter who dares to ask questions. Da KOS has made it very apparent that they need any sort of ‘conspiracy theory’ that could damage their cred like Kennedy needs another hole in the head.

The swarming of the Kossacks was so brutal that some of the blood spilled over onto other blogs:

Famous blogger Atrios hit it:

An Open Letter to the Daily Kos Community

Dear Kossacks,

It's not your fucking blog.

Love,

Atrios

Perhaps Bob Dylan said it best:

The Titanic sails at dawn...
And everybody's shouting,
"Which Side Are You On?"

And this one sums up the frustration:

“Jesus... now i'm ashamed this is absolutely unbelievable. For shame. for shame. I don't see much of a future for the political blogs... the heyday was over before it even began.”
 

As long as you have pathological assholes like Armando donning his Hitler hat and his lackeys and ilk controlling the discourse this is sadly coming true. Need of mainstream acceptance leads to self-censorship and agendas. As far as cred, hey show me some fucking electoral success instead of a lot of yappy, self-centered yada and sanctimonious bullshit and you’ll get my respect……I’m waiting! Absent winning shy don't you get busy in advocating for some fucking social justice in this country, take on the class war.....the little guys are getting their asses kicked on a daily basis while you people are more interested in puppy love and humping the leg of whichever Democratic Party charlatan happens to be serving free booze.

And Finally A Little Love:

“Thank you MSOC for this diary. It gave me the opportunity I needed to say my piece about the lynching of Edencho on dkos by Armando. The reason I am so angry about it still is because I was stupid enough to listen to him. I gave him authority he didn't have, and I have been chewing on this ever since. You gave me the opportunity to say my piece without ending up in dkos' troll heaven. I absolutely agree about the persecution hysteria at dkos, and I wonder about the mental health/maturity of some of the people there.

Thank you, again, for opening the door for me.”

 

And a sincere thank you from the bottom of my heart to that particular comment because a lynching it was, so severe that the only way that I could possibly retaliate was by dropping a daisy cutter.

Look, the piece that I wrote 'Peckerwood Nation' that caused this whole fiasco at least from my standpoint was admittedly over the top even for myself and although it was true in portraying a lot of the so called stereotypes it offended some really good people as well.

My biggest sin was in lumping everyone in the South in together with those bigoted yahoos who have had us all bent over a log squealing like pigs much like poor old Ned Beatty in Deliverance for the past several years and have been giving us the business without the benefit of a lubricant.

That was a tactical error on my part, quite honestly I didn't think that the fucking thing would be so controversial...it's been on my site since last August.

Anyway...I posted a disclaimer here on my own site on the post but since DK has banned me they have the original version that caused so much outrage.

Believe me I have paid for it, I have been targeted by a well-connected white supremacist group and now fear that one of those fascists could show up on my doorstep as well as banished by those whom I once felt shared respect for free speech....they certainly had me fooled.

The problem that I have in all of this is not in catching the shit, I expect that....it was in the dastardly nature of the lynching itself. My comments were hidden or censored when I tried to respond.

What the fuck is that?

Gutless! Maybe Ann Coulter can write her next book about y'all who stabbed me and others who tried to defend me in the back.

Dispatch From Lago: I am a real bastard sometimes. A phantom returned from the grave after an ugly lynching just like Clint Eastwood rolling into the town of Lago in High Plains Drifter with a wagonload of red paint and a hankering for vengeance.

Using the screen name ‘Abu Grabb Ass’ I briefly reappeared to engage the Troll hunters with several mean-spirited and tantalizing posts which was fun but my own itchy finger blew my cover too soon. I think that the one entitled:

ARMANDO BLOWS GOATS

 

Was just a bit too obvious and gave me away, I was banned within two minutes after that outburst when Armando picked up the super-user rune and smited me down.

Damn it….I’m down to 14 logins now!

Maybe it’s time for Markos M. himself to climb down from his ivory tower for a Night of the Long Knives style purge against his troll hunting goon squad.

It may offer up a new perspective rubbing elbows with the lepers once in awhile.

By Ed Encho

Hannity and Kos

Not that the chaos and tumult over my short tenure as a member of the online community at the liberal blog Daily Kos where I posted occasionally and drew an onslaught of rabid flamers is the cause of this but I would like to make the following observations, not out of anger, desire for revenge or for any other reason than to state that which is true.

1: Da Kos is as quick to affix people with the dreaded ‘conspiracy theorist/tin foil hatter’ label as any right wing media outlet. I brought up something about a certain notorious media mogul's past affiliation with the CIA and the Bush family and provided links to the story and it was denounced and scrubbed. I am also sure that any and all references to electoral fraud, the inconsistencies with the official story of 9/11, the JFK assassination and any other in the myriad of events with far too much remaining unexplained or left to coincidence and happenstance will be similarly treated. God forbid that the Democrats be affixed with the dreaded 'tin foil hatter label'.

2: Every time that I sought to defend my position in the ruthless flame wars of my so called GBCW (Good Bye Cruel World – cute but not very original) posting I had my comments rapidly censored. Now I know what it must feel like to be a guest on Hannity and Colmes or the O’Reilly Factor. The left (at least on that particular site) is equally adept and quashing free speech if it doesn’t fit into their own interpretation of such. And by the way, the grammar police are always out in force there...frustrated teachers or something. The 'Troll Police' also enforce their frontier style justice and are eager to lynch whoever they desire.

My personal message to them, as Marshall Jed Cooper once said "when you hang a man you had better make that he's dead" or something along those lines.

Blacklisting and Paranoia:

I have recommend he be banned and his diaries deleted.

He wrote diaries here so that the Right can use them to point out how "Crazy" Daily kos is.

by Armando

Blaming the messager:

this guy is a troublemaker

by buffalogirl

And too many more to list....it is sooooo Republican, but hatred eventually makes you become as bad as your enemy in many ways, it's the looking into the abyss thing, trust me I know.

3: Some of those righteous individuals who sought to defend my stand were also harassed:

Anyone who uprated edencho's comments, anywhere at dailykos should reconsider how they hand out their 4's

Stop recommending the trolls!

Talk about enforcing discipline! It’s like the House under Tom DeLay

4: There are some on the left who are every bit as nasty as their counterparts: The flaming and distortion of my words was the sport of the day for the Kostapo, the one that I liked best was some little laptop wielding fruitbag who took the following words from one of my own bloggings totally out of context to state that my ultimate goal was to destroy the Democrats by telling voters to:

1: Stay Home
2: Vote Libertarian
3: Vote Green

And advise everybody else to do the same….

Unfortunately the dipshit ignored the entire fucking post up to that point where I railed against the corporate shithacks of the DLC and their continued lack of opposition to the GOP juggernaut as well as their failure to mount any sort of defense against GWB's two fascist SCOTUS appointments to the high court's bench.

The left wing blogosphere suffers from one thing other than a giant inferiority complex. That itself is pretty justifiable considering how the right has consistently made hay out of them due to the abysmal lack of leadership in the so called opposition party. Their problem is their stubborn unwillingness to take the time to look at any of the excellent sites or seriously discuss the opinions of principled conservatives or investigative reporters who could offer some context and insight that they could use for direction. If you are going to fight at least show up with as much information as you possibly can have about your opponent. The opinions and research that I immediately seek out are from conservatives that the right-wing slime machine itself decries and denounces. The left misses out on a lot of quality by ignoring the work of Paul Craig Roberts, Kevin Phillips, Lew Rockwell and his great libertarian site, Alex Jones of Infowars, Lou Dobbs, Wayne Madsen and even loose cannon Pat Buchanan who makes sense....at times. They are all outraged over the fascism of the Bushists and neocons.

Endnote: I do want to thank those who were cool enough to defend my right to say what I wanted to even if it did cross the line and piss a lot of people off, you know who you are and you are welcome here. A special shout out to those who really get it:

Mary Scott O'Connor whose excellent 'My Left Wing' blog has no similar problems with free speech or those who are opinionated. I also occasionally post there.

This following comment was very well put and very much appreciated.

Troll cops...anti-troll cops. Sigh. Really, there's something kind of Republican about putting people into boxes like that. No offense, of course.

by alienabductee

 

I also want to apologize for offending people with 'Peckerwood Nation', this was a bit over the top even for me. If you were genuinely outraged by this diatribe I am sorry, I did not mean it as a blanket slur against EVERYONE in the south only those who fit into the stereotype and there are plenty of em! To everyone else I offer my sincere regret and assure you that I meant no injury to you or your families....honestly it got far more exposure than I expected.

There are a lot of good folks on KOS and it is blowing up to the point where the Republicans need to counter it....that is progress. My advice is to fight on against the right-wing machine but don't become lemmings by tuning out the independents.

And don't hitch your wagon to the DLC, use your megaphone to demand that we get the fuck out of Iraq IMMEDIATELY and then move the dialogue towards the CLASS WAR!

By Ed Encho

The Wall Street Journal: Gospel for the Moneychangers

"While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security"

-Ann Coulter (or maybe not)

 In today’s environment of corporate friendly, corporate owned newsless newspapers there is one paper that stands out as the top voice for big business: The Wall Street Journal. The Journal is the preferred reading material for the idle rich, the corporate buccaneers, ruthless capitalist punks and their wealthy sugar daddies who are the modern day successors to the ‘Robber Barons’ in the new Gilded Age. The WSJ while publishing the same information on the latest Bush administration snooping program into the financial transactions of millions to ostensibly track the money that could be used to fund terrorist activities. As if terrorist networks don’t highly suspect that their money trail is already being followed? Give me a fucking break, we are talking about professional jihadists and not woebegone losers like the ‘Cornrow Qaeda’ and their silly, overhyped plot to take down the Sears Tower.

The Times story on the monitoring of international banking transactions handled by SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) while initially not treated as much of a big deal was then seized upon by the Republican slime machine as yet another story in which to tear the country apart by affixing the ‘treason’ label to critics and dissenters, most specifically the New York Times. Just in time for the 4th of July, what better time for divisive “you are with us or you are with the terrorists” blasts of fiery rhetoric to allow the fascist GOP to wrap themselves in ‘Old Glory’ which in to crib a term from language (hey Coulter does it) of Senator Bill Frist and modify it slightly, “lost today” and loses every day that it is reduced to being used as a Republican turd wrapper. Speaking of A.C. here is a good piece on the anorexic, horse faced, plagiarizing skank courtesy of a story in the Buffalo Beast.

The echo chamber began to churn with the wonderful potential of taking down the NY Times as a red meat offering to the basest of all bases that are the GOP diehards and dead enders by sending out the pitchfork wielding knaves to launch a coordinated assault against ‘The Old Gray Lady’ for it’s alleged constant barrage of ‘liberal bias’ (Hitler once said something along the lines that the bigger the lie the more people that will believe it) even though the Los Angeles Times and the Wall Street Journal published similar stories….why is it that there is never as much outrage over the WSJ’s over the top ultra-conservative bias? Well the good little soldiers like the insidious Peter King of Long Island were all too willing to lead the attack by leveling charges of treason against the NYT, going so far as to even suggest an inquisition by the Republican congress and Bushist lackey Senator Pat Roberts whose nickname should be ‘Stonewall Roberts’ for his complicity in obstructing any serious attempts by his Senate intelligence committee to investigate the criminality of the ruling junta in it’s assault on “that goddamned piece of paper” the U.S. Constitution. The attack was quickly joined by pinheads like Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the electronic demagogues and the angry army of activists that are the right-wing slime throwers in the blogosphere.

Frank Rich of the accused traitor New York Times put it very well in his latest outstanding piece in yesterday’s Op Ed column entitled:

‘Can't Win the War? Bomb the Press!’(you will have to get a subscription to Times Select or check out an actual copy of the Sunday Times to get the whole piece but here are a few choice paragraphs….unlike Coulter I always give credit to the original author)

OLD GLORY lost today," Bill Frist declaimed last week when his second attempt to rewrite the Constitution in a single month went the way of his happy prognosis for Terri Schiavo. Of course it isn't Old Glory that lost when the flag-burning amendment flamed out. The flag always survives the politicians who wrap themselves in it. What really provoked Mr. Frist's crocodile tears was the foiling of yet another ruse to distract Americans from the wreckage in Iraq. He and his party, eager to change the subject in an election year, just can't let go of their scapegoat strategy. It's illegal Hispanic immigrants, gay couples seeking marital rights, cut-and-run Democrats and rampaging flag burners who have betrayed America's values, not those who bungled a war.

No sooner were the flag burners hustled offstage than a new traitor was unveiled for the Fourth: the press. Public enemy No. 1 is The New York Times, which was accused of a "disgraceful" compromise of national security (by President Bush) and treason (by Representative Peter King of New York and the Coulter amen chorus). The Times's offense was to publish a front-page article about a comprehensive American effort to track terrorists with the aid of a Belgian consortium, Swift, which serves as a clearinghouse for some 7,800 financial institutions in 200 countries.

It was a solid piece of journalism. But if you want to learn the truly dirty secrets of how our government prosecutes this war, the story of how it vilified The Times is more damning than anything in the article that caused the uproar.

Sorry, that’s all that you are going to get here…you will have to seek out the rest on your own. Suffice it to say that the wrath of the entire anti-American fascist Republican establishment was loosed in a coordinated assault on the Times. De-facto President Dick Cheney as always led the charge with so much venom and vitriol that I am surprised that he didn’t blow out an aorta:

"What I find most disturbing about these stories is the fact that some of the news media take it upon themselves to disclose vital national security programs, thereby making it more difficult for us to prevent future attacks against the American people," Mr. Cheney said, in impromptu remarks at a fund-raising luncheon for a Republican Congressional candidate in Chicago. "That offends me." (NYT 6/24/06)

Leave it to ‘Dirty Dick’ to throw down the fear card that he has done so effectively in order to further his nefarious agenda ever since the stench of burning flesh from the WTC attacks was still in the air and bodies were being pulled from the rubble. Cheney is a man on a mission with a maniacal drive to overturn the constitutional intent of the founders by reconfiguring the presidency into a position where the chief executive would be able to wield dictatorial powers more in line with a king than a president. This is a man with vendetta and a thirty-year hard on for retribution against the press and the congress ever since the pullout from Saigon and the ouster of Richard M. Nixon from the White House. This is addressed in another outstanding piece in last week’s edition of the New Yorker on David Addington (Scooter Libby’s replacement) by Jane Mayer. ‘The Hidden Power’ offers a glimpse behind the scenes into exactly what goes on behind the scenes in the House of Cheney and the hardball tactics of the dark master and his minions in getting payback for the rat-fucking of Nixon by carrying out a vendetta against the checks and balances of the system. This is a great article and I would strongly recommend checking it out, and while you're at it you might as well read Seymour Hersh’s latest on the plans to attack Iran: :

The Hidden Power by Jane Mayer
Last Stand by Seymour M. Hersh

 But I digress, this post is primarily about the Wall Street Journal and the unique dynamic of their hard news department versus the White House adjunct on their editorial page. The GOP jihad against the press this past week is great at illustrating just how different that the two sections are. The WSJ editorial page like the good little attack doggies that they are lashed out at the dastardly liberals at the New York Times with a huge, hectoring diatribe on Friday that referenced the works of an obscure legal scholar and then proceeded to launch a scathing and caustic attack on the credibility of the Times that included the following statements:

"We recount all this because more than a few commentators have tried to link the Journal and Times at the hip"

 And:

"We suspect that the Times has tried to use the Journal as its political hitshield precisely because it knows that our editors have more credibility on these matters"And then the coup de grace:

"The problem with the Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We sure don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that the Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it"

Translation: HANG THE LIBERAL FUCKING TRAITORS!!!

 Jesus, who in the fuck wrote that shit? Karl Rove? I absolutely love the comment where the WSJ editorialists seem to say that they are more reliable than the NYT and in a sense they are probably right, they have consistently been there to carry the water for the Republicans whenever controversy or the ugly spectre of truth reared its head. This vitriolic attack was so over the top that John Harwood a senior writer for the WSJ was forced to explain the "shocking" nature of the editorial on Meet The Press, here is the story on this from Editor & Publisher.

The WSJ is the ‘mighty wurlitzer’ of globalist corporate propaganda and is as indispensable to hard core neo-liberal free market fanatics as the availability of cheap overseas sweatshop labor is to their bottom lines. Crony Capitalists revel in the in depth coverage of corporate maneuvers and gossip of impending mergers and acquisitions that are predominant features of the Journal. The slavering devotion to promoting the ill advised policy of cutting taxes on the rich while increasing spending dramatically to ‘starve the beast’ is a dogma which the Journal promotes with missionary zeal while preaching to a choir of elitist, Chivas sipping, Lexus driving, Ayn Rand worshipping, gluttonous greed mongers. Gordon Gekko was a piker compared to the predators that have evolved since the golden era of Reagan deregulatory greed and rampant scandals on the street, they are far more sophisticated and the rise in technology has made the grand financial game both more intricate as well as easier to conceal. The truly great technical minds don't work for international terrorist organizations or the law enforcement squads tasked with sniffing both they and corporate plunderers out, the true geniuses work on Wall Street where they manipulate the world markets like the true maestros that they are.

However, to broad brush the entire paper due to it’s target audience of the capitalist vultures who have no qualms over their profiting off of the screwing of the American working class, profiteering off of bloody foreign wars or booking gains made possible by the exploitation of sweatshop child labor toiling under barbaric conditions in third world shithole factories is not the point here. The Journal actually does have a fairly decent news operation that steers clear of the cheap and sleazy celebrity garbage that threatens to turn other papers into nothing more than toned down versions of the National Enquirer and other cheesy check stand tabloids.

To honestly look at the Journal it is necessary to look at each of its three major components independently rather than the paper as a whole.

The Good: The Journal’s actual news, although lacking in overall content is generally well written and researched and targeted at a far higher intellect than the incredibly bland and dumbed down McNews of the only national paper with a higher circulation: USA Today which is written to appeal to those with the cognitive level of sixth graders. The news section is generally filled with stories that involve corporations, regulatory information, serious domestic and international news that has the potential to affect investor decisions but that is to be expected by a paper that specializes in financial news and business information. It is definitely slanted towards those with a right wing bias but the actual journalistic qualities are of a high standard. The news department does a credible job on the stories that they do choose to cover at length but the majority of the paper to no surprise is dedicated to business news, pro corporate public relatons spin and of course the most in depth stock and financial section in print.

The Bad: A financial stats section that is a speculator’s dream and that wholly encourages the raging Laissez-Faire cancer that has eaten away the backbone of American prosperity. Former Fed Reserve Chairman and WSJ cult figure Alan Greenspan was treated with reverence and the current climate of market manipulation is praised to the extent of being something just below holiness. Despite the finest financial section in the land the Journal must bear some responsibility for pimping the neo liberal ‘free’ market worship that is laying waste to America in the name of unfettered global capitalism. The WSJ is to the speculators and high rollers what the racing form and tip sheet are to bookies and gambling addicts. The commonality is that both are degenerate gamblers in the same manner that a desperate crack addict offering cheap blow jobs for a daily fix and a ‘high class’ thousand dollar an hour prostitute are both whores.

While extolling the virtues of Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand the WSJ fails to mention the obvious contradictions between the selective interpretation of the much ballyhooed ‘Wealth of Nations’ and the realities of modern day society. Smith would definitely not be a proponent of the unrestrained ‘free market’ of today and it’s grossly disproportionate favoritism of the wealthiest of the wealthy and unaccountable corporations and their wholly owned subsidiary on the Potomac. In fact Smith’s treatise, due to the period in which it was first published was completely unable to forsee the detrimental and corrupting effects on the free market by high tech, transnational corporations and the individuals who guide them with no regard whatsoever to the continuing stability and health of the local community which must should in theory be the benefactor of trade, provided that the ownership has a vested interest in such a community. The perverse concept of total laissez faire economics actually lessens the ability of the markets to be either free or fair and when coupled with an inherently corrupt political system in which the largest of corporations are able to throw money around by the bushel like a rancher feeding slop to pigs to eliminate regulatory oversight and stack the deck in their favor it is anything but a free market and the small business owners as well as the consumers are the ones who are getting the shaft. Most Americans don’t even get the benefit of a reach around by the ‘invisible hand’ while being buggered by the unfettered ‘free market’.

The reason that I have labeled this particular function of the WSJ as ‘the bad’ is that it perpetuates the very forces that are destroying the American dream as well as laying bare the extremely unpleasant fact that unregulated capitalism is a failed economic system destined to one day (the sooner the better) assume it’s rightful place in the family plot of doomed ideologies next to the grave of totalitarian communism.

The Ugly: The one part of the WSJ that is the grossest and sleaziest by far is the Editorial Page which is probably the most overtly biased in the land not owned by either Rupert Murdoch or Richard Mellon Sciafe and which serves as a direct mainline from the think tanks and GOP propaganda mills to the targeted segments of the public who treat the Journal as the gospel itself. The Op Ed section is chock full of slanted and just plain nasty viewpoints dripping with poison pen vitriol that is designed to prop up whatever extreme right wing figures or organizations happen to be under fire at any particular time and to ALWAYS, no matter what happens discredit the hated liberals and act as a defender for political and corporate malfeasance or the extreme right.

It is the on the Op Ed page where the Journal crawls into the gutters and slimes around with the slugs with what is without a doubt the meanest, most subjective and dishonest staff of propaganda producing hacks this side of FOX News. Whether they be loudly whining about the evil bogeyman of dreaded liberal media ‘bias’, bashing progressive social programs and sane foreign policy the house columnists are geared towards promoting the same policies of divisiveness that their beloved Republican party touts, for their system to function according to their desires it is of the utmost importance to create phantoms in order to keep the poor pitted one against another so as they never realize the gross inequalities of the system itself. The worst nightmare of the elitists is for people to start grasping the unpleasant realities and to begin to question and to organize for that will be the beginning of the end for their beloved neo-liberalism and crony capitalism. Nowhere was the propaganda of the WSJ Op Ed section more blatant and outright deceptive as in their labeling of the poor, who pay no taxes as ‘Luckie Duckies’, a two word think tank created marketing phrase that utilized the twisted, through the looking glass logic that the poorest of Americans who had insufficient income to be liable for any sort of taxes were somehow the most fortunate of all.

Overall, the Wall Street Journal runs slightly (but not much) to the left of Benito Mussolini, a man whose ‘corporatism’ was fawned over by Fortune Magazine which featured Il Duce on it’s cover in the 1930’s as an example of a pro business leader, of course this was before fascism became a dirty word and well before it became businiess as usual on Wall Street and in Washington.