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July 27, 2006

Amanda Marcotte 'fucking kikes are just RUINING my election party plans. Not like I hate kikes, really ...'

...at least not the one's who are smart enough to march lockstep hang with us beautiful people on the Left and not drag any of that icky, you know, jewish stuff into the open."

Granted, I don't hold a real high opinion of St. Amanda of Fornicatus in the first place. True, she can on occassion wield a right nasty keyboard, but like the Professor Irwin Corey of old, doesn't really say much. Or says things so outrageously wrong one laughs at her unconscious self-parody. Or says things so impossibly screwy and vile one sits there in awe ...

... and throws up a little in one's mouth.

However, if one could actually go into triple-digit red ink on one's account drawn on the Bank of Morality, then Marcotte douses herself with it like Karen Finley with a ten-gallon bucket of government-issue chocolate sauce.

Amanda is pissed (yeah..I know..big whoop) at mainstream media because she thinks they are too a'scared of dem nasty old Jooooos to condemn Israel for targeting innocent civilians.

There was a bit of a dust-up on Punkass Marc's post on how he thinks Ned Lamont is going to be politics-as-usual because of his refusal to criticize Israel openly for what seems to be obviously wrong, which is, of course, killing innocents with such a slim excuse. [...] The problem with that is when Israel does something so obviously odious as killing innocent civilians and holding them culpable for what an unsanctioned organization does, well, even just straightforward reporting is going to seem critical [...]
The problem is--if I'm free to say so without dredging up the operant conditioning debate--is that whenever the fear of having right wingers equate criticism of Israel with being an anti-Semite makes a liberal or even just a journalist engage in self-censorship, that emboldens the right and undermines our position. The short term gains (not getting deluded with email, avoiding the inevitable attempts of your opponent to ruin your reputation) are causing, or at least enabling, serious long term problems. And I would characterize this invasion as one of those problems.
See, for Amanda it's not about Israel's fight for survival. The word "Hezbollah" never even appears in the post. There's no recognition of the acts of war that Israel endured until she reacted...it's this invasion. It isn't even really about the "innocent civilians" Amanda ostensibly "cares" about. Cares about so much she doesn't know, or want to know, or acknowledge, the basic facts of the issue.

No. For Amanda it is all about Lamont and how those fucking Jews are raining on her parade. Those fucking Jews have so much power they can cow the NYTimes and Lamont into not getting with the program and dump on Israel and dump on Lieberman (that kike sleaze)!

This really is the moral dividing line. Some on the Left, while wrong on so many issues, still have enough moral decency to recognize and publicly admit that Israel is not wrong this time:

Many times in the past, the Israeli peace movement has criticized Israeli military operations. Not this time. This time, the battle is not over Israeli expansion and colonization. There is no Lebanese territory occupied by Israel. There are no territorial claims from either side...This time, Israel is not invading Lebanon. It is defending itself from daily harassment and bombardment of dozens of our towns and villages by attempting to smash Hezbollah wherever it lurks...There can be no moral equation between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah is targeting Israeli civilians wherever they are, while Israel is targeting mostly Hezbollah. Hezbollah's missiles are supplied by Iran and Syria, sworn enemies of all peace initiatives in the Middle East
The comments on her thread, by and large, engage in the same moral idiocy and degeneracy. They seem singularly incapable of grasping the concepts of right or wrong. Anti-semitic? Maybe, or maybe just a consequence of the perpetual immaturity that is endemic in the 'Reality-based Community'.

Maybe Amanda should just stick with attending N.O.W. events and worrying about sexist laundry baskets as part of the Patriarchal Conspiracy™ and leave the moral issues to the adults.

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Posted by Darleen at July 27, 2006 12:14 AM

Comments

Look, you've got the facts on your side. Must you weaken your impact by using such crude language? You aren't going to persuade many folks in the middle this way.

Posted by: Puddle Pirate at July 27, 2006 06:19 AM

actually, PP, I think I pulled my punches in the profanity department. Panda kids are all about teh crude language.

Posted by: Darleen at July 27, 2006 06:27 AM

It's not every day you can just drop a slur like that and then shift it off as someone else's words. Bet that felt good.

Posted by: aloysius watermelontail at July 27, 2006 07:55 AM

Just engaging in a little "shorter Amanda" schtick.

What? She has that trademarked?

She dumps on Israel, never mentions Hezbollah and the thrust of her post is that pro-Israel Jews and their followers exert "undue" influence.

Geez, like we haven't heard the ZOG argument before.

Posted by: Darleen at July 27, 2006 08:16 AM

Why do you bother with these long posts? Why don't you just have a link to everyone you hate and just put "ANTI-SEMITE" in the text? Because this is just a lot of wasted verbiage masquerading as an argument.

Posted by: Josh at July 27, 2006 08:34 AM

Wow. Never seen such a hateful post in all my life.

You know darn well she didn't post anything except complaints about a _country's_ actions. That doesn't equate to anti-semitism, and you know it... which leads me to believe the only reason you wrote this post was to make racial slurs and try to get away with it.

You can't engage in "shorter" anyone if you completely misrepresent them like this.

Shorter you: "I hate Jews but need them to help me kill Arabs, lets pretend Amanda hates them instead. Slurs away!"

Posted by: punkass marc at July 27, 2006 08:35 AM

Josh

Did Amanda make the charge that the NYTimes has been cowed into not "criticizing" Israel?

Did Amanda characterize Israel's actions against Hezbollah as being predicated on a "slim excuse?"

Did Amanda characterize Israel's actions as "odiously killing innocent civilians?"

Did Amanda ANYWHERE in her post make ANY comment about Hezbollah and its unilateral agression?

See, I don't call Amanda an anti-semite, I even said "maybe" about the commenter I linked to.

But she definitely has a broken moral compass when it comes to Israel...the JEWISH state ... which she holds to a total different standard then she holds Hezbollah. YMMV.

Josh...I pointed specifics of her "post." You may not like that I point them out, but they are there.

Argue in her favor, if you'd like.

Posted by: Darleen at July 27, 2006 01:10 PM

Did Amanda characterize Israel's actions as "odiously killing innocent civilians?"

Just to take this one specifically, she's entirely right about this. Innocent civilians are, in fact, being killed. Given that I don't see how Hezbollah comes out weaker as a result of the Israeli bombing -- I see them getting stronger when the Lebanese refugees come back to their blown-up houses and dead friends, and blame the people who actually dropped the bombs -- I'd have to say that the bombing is in fact rather odious.

As far as the comments on people being cowed into not criticizing Israel go, I think Matthew Yglesias had this right:


annoying and even maddening as hard-core Israel-bashers may be, there's nothing especially intimidating about a group of powerless and marginal email-senders and comment-writers. Israel's hard-core supporters in the United States, by contrast, are extremely powerful and in the habit of mounting broad-brush smear campaigns against people they dislike.

American Jews, by contrast, have much more lattitude to criticize Israeli policy and American Israel policy without getting labeled anti-semites. This, I think, is a bit part of the reason why you see a lot more commentary on this topic coming from, say, Josh and Max Sawicky and myself than you do from the blogging goys.

I wouldn't say that "Israel's hard-core supporters in the United States" consist mainly of Jews. The demographic we're talking about here is people with intense anti-Muslim sentiments. Many of them are Christians. Throwing around allegations of anti-Semitism is politically effective in silencing the opposition, so that's what they do.

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at July 27, 2006 01:47 PM

(The paragraph beginning "American Jews" and ending "blogging goys" should have been blockquoted as well, it's part of the Yglesias quote. )

Posted by: Neil the Ethical Werewolf at July 27, 2006 01:49 PM

Paraphrasing someone's comments as referring to Jews as "kikes" is surely calling them an anti-semite.

Congratulations on pointing to specifics in her post. What you haven't done is show that those points are anti-semitic. Try to do it in your own words, rather than a long blockquote from some nut at Townhall.com.

Posted by: Josh at July 27, 2006 02:41 PM

Josh

Did you click on my links? Cuz in the above post not one of them is from Townhall.

Infact, I guess I should have pointed it out more prominently the last blockquote is both from the LATimes and is an article by a prominent Israeli LEFTIST, Amos Oz.

Posted by: Darleen at July 27, 2006 05:52 PM

Excellent post Darleen.

I do disagree with one point. I don't think For Amanda it is all about Lamont. I think for Amanda it's all about Amanda.

Oddly, I seriously doubt that anyone in Israel gave 'her election party plans' a moments, even a second's thought when they decided to DEFEND themselves against the terrorists hezbollah.

I bet they don't even know she exists. And hezbollah likewise, probably didn't take her plans into account when they decided to start this mess.

I agree that the left is unbelievably immature and just like teenagers, their whole world is about themselves. They are utterly self-absorbed. It's all about THEM and their plans and their immediate needs.

They REALLY don't get it. They really don't understnad that the entire world isn't just like their own little well-to-do neighborhoods.

If they weren't so dangerous to the well-being of our nation they would be kind of funny.

Posted by: beth at July 27, 2006 07:24 PM

The point, Darleen, is that you've never made the case that criticism of Israel implies anti-semitism. When I've asked you to, you just linked some loony at Townhall.

Posted by: Josh at July 28, 2006 07:53 AM

Wow. Never seen such a hateful post in all my life.

Really? As someone who doesn't make camp in one section of the blogosphere or the other I can't tell the difference between this post or a typical post at Pandagon or your blog. The narcissism of small differences or something.

You can't engage in "shorter" anyone if you completely misrepresent them like this.

See above. No one side should reserve the privelege of re-interpreting someone else's statement to make it mean what you want it to mean because it justifies your suspicions of what the real subtext is. If you don't think this happens on just about every politically oriented blog you're either lying or naive or lying.


As far as the accusations that "At least one of them used it as an excuse to bust out a racial slur she probably wishes she could use more," I don't think that's valid because Amanda makes statements like

Unsurprisingly, a number of white men have come out to express, essentially, “I wouldn’t be mad if you called me a ‘nigger’, so no one else should either.”

on a regular basis, doing the same thing pretty much. AFAIK, no one's made the same accusations towards her as they did about Darleen, because they understand her intentions were ironic, which is another privelege each side claims to hold in reserve.

Anyway, the whole "parody" was a frickin' trap and I'm actually disappointed that the targets in question fell for it. Not because anything Darleen said may or may not be accurate or true, but because a little bit of self-awareness goes a long way in strengthening your position and affecting real social change.

Posted by: little bo peepshow at July 28, 2006 02:20 PM

And what amuses me the most about this whole kerfuffle is that stylistically Amanda is playing the Ann Coulter role and Darleen had a distinct Al Franken quality about her.

No offense.

Posted by: little bo peepshow at July 28, 2006 05:53 PM

Jews smell like liverwurst.

Posted by: Fred at August 1, 2006 04:41 PM

White person of fair hair, straight nose, and light eyes, is it not the wolly haired, hooknosed, black eyed mongrel the cause of all your suffering?

The jew is not a symbiotic paracite, he's just a paracite. Drive him from your lands now!

Posted by: Heebish God at August 8, 2006 11:22 AM