What neoconservatism is really all about

Glenn Greenwald hits it out of the park, again.

That really is the essence of neoconservativsm. It's nothing more noble or complex than a base belief that we have to wage as many wars as possible and kill as many people as possible until people are sufficiently fearful of the U.S. that they will comply with our mandates...

To neconservatives, everything that made the U.S. a respected superpower over the last six decades is all obsolete and worthless. To them, foreign policy experts from both political parties are responsible for 9/11 and the rise of Islamic extremism because they believe too much in diplomacy and restraint. They didn't wage enough wars and the wars they did wage weren't ferocious enough... People around the world need to know that they either comply with our instructions or fire and brimstone will rain upon their heads...

[Neoconservatism] is opposed to every guiding principle of American foreign policy under both political parties, and seeks to transform the U.S. into a rogue state which operates with no moral limits or ethical constraints, and for which unrestrained war is always the preferred option. All failures can be and are explained away by the fact that we just haven't killed enough people yet. It is homicidal madness, real derangement, masquerading as some sort of serious philosophy, and it is a true indictment of our political life that its advocates are taken seriously at all, let alone often listened to at the highest levels of our government.

Some things I have no interest in discussing with anyone ever again

• Valerie Plame
• WMDs
• John Kerry's war service
• Howard Dean
  
• Creationism
• Church-state separation
• Liberalism, Conservatism, Fascism
• Michael Moore
• "Fahrenheit 9/11"
• 9/11
• Patriotism
• Ann Coulter
• The "War" on Christmas
• Joe Lieberman
• Global warming
• Liberal weblogs
• Hitler
• Islam
• Bill Clinton
  
• The death penalty
• Stem-cell research
• Gay marriage

There's lots more, but this is a start. I'll add them as I think of them.

Useful infographics

Hey! Now I'm as informative as Fox News!

That wasn't hard.

Crapweasel of the Week

Apparently, any portrayal of 9/11 that doesn't emphasize rage against Muslims is not good enough for crapweasel right-wingers like John Podhoretz, who wrote this about Oliver Stone's "World Trade Center":

It is undeniably powerful, an immensely affecting and well-meaning real-life tale of two Port Authority policemen trapped in the rubble underneath the collapsed concourse between the North and South Towers.

Nonetheless, because "World Trade Center" tells a story of joyous survival rather than a story of death, it is a fundamental falsification of the meaning of 9/11 - even though the story it tells is true.

Just when you think they can't get any lower, they grab a shovel.

Oh and guess what he thought of "United 93"? He loved it, because the movie "showed it all - the monstrous terrorists, the confused responders and the unimaginable heroics." I for one am so fucking sick of right-wing crapweasels telling me what I should think about 9/11. How dare they.

Totally nucking futs

After the whole "looking forward to the pig" incident in Germany before the G8 summit, why should we be surprised that President Bush decided to give German Chancellor Angela Merkel an impromptu massage? Something like this would probably be considered wildly inappropriate at, say, a school board meeting. But for the leader of the free world, it's just a sign of the carefree fratboy insouciance we all love so much, right?

Gak.

Maybe on the way home, he can stop over in London and grab the Queen's boobs or something. Now that would make for some great TV. (Maybe he can make a honking noise at the same time. No, that's just too much to hope for.)

Let's face it, about 25 percent of the American electorate would have cheered Bush on if he had slashed Merkel's throat on live TV. That's just the world we're living in, folks. Enjoy.

UPDATE: As a commenter on Oliver Willis' site said, imagine the right-wing reaction if, say, Jacques Chirac had done something similar to Condi Rice.

The wingnuts were right!

I took a look at Joe Wilson's "Who's Who" entry, and I found this:



(Shamelessly stolen from Democratic Underground)

Poison

A question I've continuously wrestled with is this: at a time when the conservatives control virtually everything in our society, why are they so angry?

All you have to do is watch Bill O'Reilly's show. Or listen to Rush. Or read Coulter, Malkin, FreeRepublic, or Dean's World. They rarely evidence an emotion that isn't some variation of red-hot anger or contempt. At liberals, anti-war activists, environmentalists, feminists, gays, Muslims, college professors, AIDS workers, journalists, Europeans, or any politician left of Zell Miller. It's often anger at the powerless, like Cindy Sheehan. Why should someone so insignificant cause right-wingers to descend into frothing rage?

It's just endless. They have just about everything they could have ever wanted, but still they nearly burst a blood vessel on a daily basis. Why?

Personally, I think this is because they realize, deep down, that their world isn't built on solid ground. They know, but don't want to admit, that the rug could be pulled out from under them at a moment's notice. They're insecure, really, just like the junior high school bully who makes fun of the fat kid. They'll do anything to make sure they don't become the kid everyone else picks on. And people follow the bully because they have those same sorts of fears. Adolescent first strike policy.

But how long can this go on? How long before they choke on their own bile? A long time, from the look of things. Too long.

Quote of the Week

"It's true - Al Gore lost his home state in the 2000 election. But George W. Bush lost his home country."

-Al Franken, Air America Radio

Question for my conservative readers (if any)

What are the limits of Presidential power in a time of war? Give me specifics.

New blog to check out

I've long encouraged my good friend X Philius to write a weblog of his own. And in some good news for all of us, he's taken my advice. Stop on over to Mbululu when you get a chance - I predict great things.

Fox & Friends: Why do they hate our freedom?

I've long said that the most rabidly right-wing program on Fox News is the morning show, "Fox & Friends." This week they proved my point in spades, when hosts E.D. Hill and Brian Kilmeade both advanced what is apparently Fox's latest meme: creating an "Office of Censorship" (I'm not making this up) so journalists would be stopped from printing stuff the administration doesn't want them to print.

Why do they hate our freedom?

Although this is in equal measure saddening and maddening, it doesn't surprise me one bit. When the country gets enthusiastically behind an endless, amorphous war against an enemy whose only definition comes from the administration that started the war, this is what you get. And believe me, it's going to get *way* worse before it gets better. Strap in, people.