Zookeeper wrote:

orangeplus wrote:

I haven't seen her wish anyone death, a common sentiment expressed by the right for it's enemies.

What, are you referring to that stupid bumper-sticker again?  How about Alec Baldwin on Late Night ranting about stoning Henry Hyde and killing his family over Clinton's impeachment?

You know what, you're right. I concede. In my experience I have never been threatened with death by a liberal, but have on many occasions (back when I wrote a blog of my own) by conservatives. I'm also from the deep south originally where killing liberal bumper stickers and the like are very common. I have lived in many other places, much more liberal places, and the same public face of violent retribution just simply doesn't exist. That doesn't mean it doesn't actually exist, it's just I don't see it. I don't read kos or any of the sillier liberal blogs, so I don't know what bullshit they say there. They may be saying their going to hang all the repubs from the lightposts and gang rape the bush twins (as I have seen written by right wingers about demos and Pelosi's daughter.)

Now I give fuck all for Alec Baldwin or any other celeb and didn't see the show where he said it. Regardless, he shouldn't have.

But as far as my experience goes, the right goes for the violent rhetoric first. Any cursory glance down littlegreen or freerepublic will prove that. The only thing slightly comparable on the left is the trots, sparts and other commies, of which only a handful remain.

Hell, just look at HS, who's threatened violence against people here?

Abortion Clinic Bombers?  erm.... are you directionally challenged?

And whatever you might say about ALF, EF or Anarchists, their violence (in this country) are directed against property, not people. It's still terrorism of a sort, but it's not intended to hurt people physically.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

headkicker_girl wrote:

Neither you nor Zookeeper has addressed the fact that Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and Coulter have made a good living off of spreading lies, half-truths and propaganda aimed at personally destroying people on the left.

You have the advantage that right-wing commentators are popular and therefore high profile and are easy to cite (though you have not given specific examples - just thrown their names out).  Political commentators play the same game on the left as on the right.  It's just that the right gets such better ratings...

headkicker_girl wrote:

Neither of you has addressed the fact that Palin is a fucking moron who is now spreading lies about Obama purely to scare other morons.

You cry about personal attacksand then persist in calling Palin things like "fucking moron".  And you don't even see how you are contradicting yourself, do you?  And again, which lies is she spreading?  Either answer the question or drop it.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Calling me names only supports my point about the right.

And your calling Palin a cunt and a fucking moron does nothing to demonstrate that you on the left do the absolute same thing.  Right.  Hate sure does blind...
First of all, I am speaking for myself.  I don't claim to be the voice of the left.

You don't have to be an official spokesperson to be a good example of what comes out of your side of the political spectrum.  Your complaining about the right is the pot calling the kettle black.

headkicker_girl wrote:

I have always maintained that I consider myself an idependent and used to have respect for McCain until he proved to be a whore willing to do and say anything to be elected.

I'm an independent as well.  I'm not a member of either party.  But that doesn't stop me from being honest and admitting that politically I'm right of center.  Are you saying you aren't politically on the left?  How many Republicans have you voted for in the past few elections?

headkicker_girl wrote:

Second of all, I did give examples.

Just throwing out names isn't the same as giving examples.  How about some specifics?  Or are you still saying Palin "lied" about Obama's association with Ayers?

headkicker_girl wrote:

Third of all, me personally calling Palin a cunt has nothing to do with any left-wing pundits who get national air time.

I never defined "The Left" as "pundits on TV and radio".  People on the left are just that: people on the left.

headkicker_girl wrote:

You keep claiming that the left doesn't get ratings.  There are plenty on the left who get ratings and have never stooped to the level of Limbaugh, et al.  I've never heard Olberman, John Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Al Franken, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, or anyone else on the left, who has national media attention, outright lie and characted assissinate against anyone on the right.

Again you use the bid "L" word without actually detailing the lies you are complaining about.  As for comparing the ratings of the folks on your list with the right-wing commentators, there's hardly any comparrison.  Stewert and Colbert aren't even commentators.  They are comedians doing fake news comedies.  But if you really want to include them in the list then I've seen Stewart depict both Bush and Cheyney as evil countless times (remember how this started out about "demonization"?).  Just last week Stewart compared McCain to Gollum from LOTR.  Al Franknen and Rachel Maddow?  I had to go to Google to figure out who Maddow even was.  Are you really saying Air America has good ratings?  They averaged a 1.2 share in the Winter of 2008.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Do you think it's appropriate that Palin is going around saying that Obama is hanging out with terrorists?

"Hanging out" present tense?  Where did she say he is doing that?  She has criticized his past association with a known terrorist.  I addressed that previously with nothing but facts.  You seem to have missed that.  But I'm sure that if a former terrorist bomber had hosted a coffee for McCain's first run for office, served together with him on a board, contributed money to one of his election campaigns and or been a guest in McCain's home nobody in the Obama campaign would have said anything about it.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Is it appropriate for a fucking nutbag who goes to a church where she was offered protection from witches to be trying to bring the issue of Jeremiah Wright back up?

Pretty wild stuff all right.  Good thing nobody ever caught Obama's pastor on tape talking about anything supernatural (pastors should never do this).  That a church leader actually prayed for her invoking protection against supernatural forces is surely worse than if her pastor had shouted "God Damn America!" and provoked no objection from her. 

headkicker_girl wrote:

Your brethren keep bringing up Michael Moore as if he's some sort of trump card.  I stated in my earlier post that the left was guilty of exaggeration, but you still have not offered up anyone on the left who has blatantly lied to destroy the character and reputation of anyone on the right.

You keep trying to steer the subject away from demonization toward making false claims.  If you really want to concede the point just say so.

a concession is not an apology.

Dmtdust wrote:

When is property crime/vandalism 'Terrorism'?  Doesn't that application truly degrade the word?

Only for the confused.  Bombing government buildings is terrorism.  That nobody got hurt doesn't really make them any less terrorists.  If somebody trying to apply political pressure blew up your house while you were out you'd probably agree it was terrorism even if nobody was home.

Dmtdust wrote:

How is drug dealing 'Terrorism'?

I hadn't heard that it was.  Who's saying it is?

Zookeeper wrote:

With regard to Earth First, ask any logger whether their acts are violent.  Try cutting into a spiked tree with a chainsaw some time.  Loggers have been maimed as a result of Earth First's acts.  I don't know if they are still spiking trees but when they were doing it they knew damn well the danger they were creating for loggers.

Bullshit. No logger was injured by an EF spike. Chainsaws are built so that if they fail they will not injure the operator. Second, you don't spike at chainsaw level, you spike up high so that the person cutting the tree down doesn't notice it and remove the spike. The purpose of the spike is to damage the blades at the saw mill, which is much more expensive than a single chainsaw. The purpose of spiking is to make it expensive to clear cut forests not to protect an individual tree or injure loggers.

And in general, they don't spike trees. By and large EF won the battles for the forests, clear cutting doesn't happen anymore in the US.

orangeplus wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

orangeplus wrote:

I haven't seen her wish anyone death, a common sentiment expressed by the right for it's enemies.

What, are you referring to that stupid bumper-sticker again?  How about Alec Baldwin on Late Night ranting about stoning Henry Hyde and killing his family over Clinton's impeachment?

You know what, you're right. I concede. In my experience I have never been threatened with death by a liberal, but have on many occasions (back when I wrote a blog of my own) by conservatives. I'm also from the deep south originally where killing liberal bumper stickers and the like are very common. I have lived in many other places, much more liberal places, and the same public face of violent retribution just simply doesn't exist. That doesn't mean it doesn't actually exist, it's just I don't see it. I don't read kos or any of the sillier liberal blogs, so I don't know what bullshit they say there. They may be saying their going to hang all the repubs from the lightposts and gang rape the bush twins (as I have seen written by right wingers about demos and Pelosi's daughter.)

Now I give fuck all for Alec Baldwin or any other celeb and didn't see the show where he said it. Regardless, he shouldn't have.

But as far as my experience goes, the right goes for the violent rhetoric first. Any cursory glance down littlegreen or freerepublic will prove that. The only thing slightly comparable on the left is the trots, sparts and other commies, of which only a handful remain.

Hell, just look at HS, who's threatened violence against people here?

Yeah! RT told me once that she was going to tramp on my nutsack with spike heels.

Last edited by Bigcat (2008-10-06 15:55:00)

Zookeeper wrote:

orangeplus wrote:

Zookeeper wrote:

With regard to Earth First, ask any logger whether their acts are violent.  Try cutting into a spiked tree with a chainsaw some time.  Loggers have been maimed as a result of Earth First's acts.  I don't know if they are still spiking trees but when they were doing it they knew damn well the danger they were creating for loggers.

Bullshit. No logger was injured by an EF spike. Chainsaws are built so that if they fail they will not injure the operator.

I won't claim to be an expert on the engineering of chainsaws.  But I do know that lumbermen do get maimed on the job.  If chainsaws are somehow engineered in a way that prevents the operator from being injured when a heavy metal shard is encountered then OK.  I'm going by what I recall from a 60 Minutes report 15 or more years ago.  Regardless, would you feel safe cutting into a spiked tree with a chainsaw?

orangeplus wrote:

Second, you don't spike at chainsaw level, you spike up high so that the person cutting the tree down doesn't notice it and remove the spike. The purpose of the spike is to damage the blades at the saw mill, which is much more expensive than a single chainsaw. The purpose of spiking is to make it expensive to clear cut forests not to protect an individual tree or injure loggers.

Again, that may be the practice today but it isn't consistent with the report I saw years ago.  There were those who spiked lower.  Whether because they were lazy and didn't want to climb up high to drive their spikes or because they were hoping to damage a chainsaw I don't know.  But it was known to be dangerous and they did do it.

Loggers get injured all the time from all sorts of reasons, it's a large industrial area, it's dangerous business. It's also in the logging operators interest to blame it on protestors. In fact it's doubly in their interest to not have to take responsibility for poor control, improper training and inadequate safety procedures.

You can look it up in the Monkey Wrencher's Guide or go back and find some of the flyers EF made back in the day telling people how to do it. Hell, you can even find video of Edward Abby demonstrating how you go about spiking from the late 70s.

I don't know what they showed on 60 minutes, but whatever 60 minutes showed, they got their information second hand from people with a vested interest in how it should be portrayed. I, on the other hand, was on scene for it ~15 years ago and people who committed such acts were very careful about how they went about it since it meant the difference between an attempt murder charge or a criminal damage to property charge. The most important thing for them to do was to spray paint all the trees so you couldn't tell which had been marked to save or cut and to remove all traces of surveyor's flags. The goal, as I said, was to increase the cost of doing the cutting and making it all not profitable, not to hurt people physically.

It's getting pretty bad when even I lose my taste for arguing about politics.

tojo2000 wrote:

It's getting pretty bad when even I lose my taste for arguing about politics.

I agree.  Now we've wandered off into a discussion on the mechanics of chainsaws.  I'm done.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Zoo -- I gave examples.  Coulter calling Edwards a fag, Limbaugh stating that Obama is 1/2 arab, Hannity saying that Obama supports killing babies.  I could probably come up with more, if I tried.

Gotta give you Coulter.  That is indeed her gig.  Limbaugh?  If someone is ignorant enough to think Nigeria is one of the Arab nations in North Africa that makes them ignorant, not necessarily a liar.  Obama's father was a Muslim from Africa.  I can imagine someone ignorant of African geography making the bad assumption that if his African father is a Muslim he's most likely an African Arab.  As for Hannity, what do you think he was talking about when he said Obama supports killing babies?  Pro-lifers consider an unborn baby to be a baby none-the-less.

headkicker_girl wrote:

I love how you try to make some distinction between "demonization" and "lying"

Well, if you look back that's where I jumped in.  You said your problem with the right is that they demonized the left.  That's what I took issue with.  I didn't jump in over whether or not people on the the right lie.  There's plenty of lying from both sides - especially in an election year.  My statement to you when you said that was "Oh, this is a problem just with the right?  The left isn't at least as bad?  Thanks for the objectivity." 

headkicker_girl wrote:

"Demonization" is subjective -- most of what you call demonization is merely opinion;  lying is objective.  Either something is true or it isn't.  Obama does not "pal around with terrorists" as Palin put it, and if you read the article, she makes the statement as though it's in present tense even though Obama's relationship with Ayers has been thoroughly explored.

That's more a case of exaggeration than anything else.  When an opponent has a relationship with someone like that (even if there's no evidence that the relationship has been kept current) they say "he pals around with [people like that]."  And again, if a similar association could be found in McCain's past you know damn well the Biden wouldn't have hesitated to make the same types of remarks.

headkicker_girl wrote:

Obama does not advocate killing babies.  These are outright lies stated by the right as if there were facts.

It's a lie to you because you don't consider a baby to exist until one second after it has exited the mother.  You don't believe that jamming a pair of scissors into the child's head as it is crowning to be the killing of a "baby".  Believe it or not some people do.  Some people even don't wait until a few seconds before birth to regard the child as a "baby".  I guess this falls into the category of one of those subjective things you were talking about.  Tell me, would you call somebody a liar if they said Palin and McCain want to see women undergoing dangerous back-alley abortions?

headkicker_girl wrote:

While Limbaugh didn't go to the best college, he is educated enough to know how to check facts.  He was deliberately lying to make the "association" that Obama is 1/2 arab and a terrorist sympathiser.  By the way, Obama's father was Kenyan.

Well, there you go.  While I may not have gone to the best college I'm educated as well and have traveled to three African nations (one of them Arab) and I got that one wrong.  I hope you won't say I was intentionally lying.  I don't expect radio personalities to do a quick Wikipedia search before each odd quip they make when on the air.  Was it something he published or just said to a caller?

headkicker_girl wrote:

Actually, the Obama/Biden camp stayed away from "associations" until today when they started fighting back by bringing up the issue of McCain's association with the Keating 5.

I had heard the association made weeks ago.  Are you as appalled that they would criticize McCain for his past associations as you are that the McCain campaign has criticized Obama for his?

headkicker_girl wrote:

Being pro-choice is not the same as being pro-abortion

You know of course that's an old argument that people continue and will continue having for the non-foreseeable future.  I bet if a candidate said they were against Roe vs. Wade you would say they were against abortion.

headkicker_girl wrote:

and yes, I would call someone a liar if they said McCain and Palin are in favor of back alley abortions, but that's exactly how the right would twist it around.

The left would and you know it.  I've heard that very assertion from the left about the right countless times.  Don't tell me you haven't heard words like "They want to see a return to the day of back-alley abortions" before.

headkicker_girl wrote:

By the way, you don't know my personal view of abortion because I've never made an argument on this board one way or the other, so you are making assumptions.

Nor do you know mine.  I'm willing to bet you are in favor of abortion being kept legal.  Am I wrong?

Jesus, why do I keep looking at this thread? I try to hide my eyes, but I can't...

headkicker_girl wrote:

ptah13 wrote:

I've never seen anyone like HKG, though. Takes the cake. I know hillbillies with more class.

Like I really give a fuck what some backwater motherfucker thinks of me.  You don't even have the good sense to leave Indiana, and you want to talk about class? 

And again, this is so utterly typical of the right...personal attacks without substance, credibility or truth, aimed at inflaming the emotions. 

Neither you nor Zookeeper has addressed the fact that Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly and Coulter have made a good living off of spreading lies, half-truths and propaganda aimed at personally destroying people on the left.   

Neither of you has addressed the fact that Palin is a fucking moron who is now spreading lies about Obama purely to scare other morons.

Calling me names only supports my point about the right.

Ya know Headkicker, though I really don't agree with most of the arguments you make I'm still able to respect them...  I do take offense however whenever you attack someone's state of origin....  This time it's Indiana and that kind of elitist approach really doesn't do the left any good....  You've disregarded my homestate of Wyoming as insignificant time and time again when it produces over 40% of electricity in the U.S....  Wyoming is also in the top 3 U.S. states for disposable income and per capita income...  I keep seeing the urban left disqualifying everyone but themselves as having any value when that is far from the truth...  Whenever I hear the elitist left describe their skewed version of what they think rural America is like it's almost laughable....  I'm sure that the urban left would absolutely love to drain the oil, coal and methane industry of the money that has given my home state such a high standard of life, bankrupting them and giving the money to some unemployed jerk off with no social value whatsoever...  That's what's so fucking hilarious about the left, they are so caring and so giving as long as it's with someone else's money...