...then they
Fight You, then You
Win."
Crossposted from
Dailkykos
So sayeth
Mahatma Gandhi, in describing the various stages of effective non-violent resistance to oppression. Using the strategy of moral persuasian Ghandi, like the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who followed him, successfully freed India from the yoke of British rule. Similarly we hear on dailykos and other various sites have taken up the no less difficult task of redirecting our ship of state away from war-mongering, rampant corporatism and
full-on totalitarianism.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Netroots as of this week we have just entered Stage 3 and so far our prospects of entering Stage 4 have all lights showing
green.
It's not as if last November's elections weren't a
serious hint that the way of things may just be shifting, today we will see a Congressmen openly call for the
Impeachment of Alberto Gonzales following his
horrific performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
This didn't happen because of the work of intrepid reporters of the major papers who continued to dig and dig until they finally reached down and pulled out the hidden nuggets of truth, it's happened largely
in spite of the lapdog media.
It's happened because of the blogs.
And now the cultural overlords and power whores of the right-wing have finally realized and admitted just who and what the genuine threat to their continued regime is --
it's the people.The first real hints that the Netroots had become a major target of the rightwing began not long ago when Bill Kristol claimed that Markos was "not respectable" just three years ago. (Which in turn conceeds that he
is respectible and respected now - which ultimately is the point and exactly why they have attacked him and us.)
The Daily Kos, Think Progress, and a host of other lefty blogs seem to be shocked that someone might question the respectability of Markos Moulitsas... Is {this} the kind of thing respectable people say?
We can see it as several republicans
blow-off their CNN Youtube debate. Y'see, these guys are just like President G.H.W. Bush 15 years ago who thought talking to MTV News was "beneath the status of his office" until he was finally and very grudgingly forced have a brief and terse interview with Tabitha Soren.
Novakula does a good job of
summing it up.
Appearing on Bloomberg Television this weekend, Novak said of the YouTube debate, “I thought it was really disgusting. ... The reporters were terrible but this was ludicrous.” Novak argued, “You know when we did away with the monarchy and went through democracy, there was a lot of fear that this sort of thing would happen. It took 200 years but we got there.”
That's right, what they truly crave is a return to a
Monarchy where our leaders are chosen, ordained and
guided solely by GOD, unconcerned with justifying or even explaining their actions to the lowly
serfs and commoners (
or Congress), those who should feel proud and honored to serve the needs of the new corporate aristocracy, to implement the bidding of their masters and betters no matter how
costly or deadly it might be to them personally. Authoritians such as these have little patience or faith in the ability of the unwashed masses to govern themselves via "democracy", hence they have invented the "Unitary Executive" theory to bring back the theocracy of their wet-dreams.
It doesn't matter if the Reich-wing likes or agree with us, right now the most important thing is that they have noticed us and have been forced to respond. They can't afford to ignore us anymore and they know it.
But now they've moved from snubs, this type of ridicule - to out and out attacks.
Now we have Tfucker Carlson just going out of his way to excuse two right-wing war-mongering shills against those "Hysterical Bloggers" like
Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald.
This afternoon on MSNBC, Tucker Carlson expressed sympathy for Brookings analyst Kenneth Pollack, who has been “slammed by the left” all day. “It’s worth pointing out that you were not an apologist for the administration,” said Carlson. “You’ve been really tough on them.” Carlson said that the response to the New York Times op-ed by Pollack and Michael O’Hanlon has been “over the top” by the blogosphere, which is “a pretty hysterical place anyway.” He went on to criticize a post by Glenn Greenwald, whose name he repeatedly mispronounced.
Yeah, right - Glenn Greenwald whose second a book "
A Tragic Legacy" debuted on the New York Times Best Sellers list in it's first week of release is just another "internet crackpot" Sure.
Carlson attempts to demean Greenwald by mispronouncing his name (a tactic I clearly am not above using myself - turnabout is fairplay), but his intent is obvious - "Who is this
nobody who dares to challenge the anointed elites? I didn't see him at the correspondent dinner with Karl Rove last month..."
Over and over, the theme and intent is clear. Just as Rove himself told Sheryl Crow and Laurie David - "
I work for the American People". Which clearly doesn't include
those two "low-life tree-hugging environut skanks", does it?
Or when elite CNN
Uber Doctor extraordinaire Sanjay Gupta petulantly berated that big fat oscar winner Micheal Moore for not having his "facts correct" while making
two mistakes in his own report and failing to prove that any of Moore's data was mistaken.
Step by step, the "Little People" are making a difference - the powerful and the privileged are getting more and more scared, more and more paranoid and more and more "hysterical" themselves.
The best example of course is the self-styled
Jihad by
Bully O'Leilly against Dailykos.
It is true that Billo was able to get JetBlue to cower and have their logo removed from the YearlyKos site, although they are still involved with the event -- however in return he's taken more than just a cosmetic hit with the
pullout of Lowe's from advertising on his program.
But as things continue it appears that O'Reilly may have just
stepped on his own dick and woken a very ferocious and hungry tiger, which unlike Billo himself -
isn't made of paper.
By attacking directly and openly, BillO has made a massive strategic blunder - rather than remaining in Stage 1 and ignoring us as he's been doing with Keith Olbermann for the past two years, he's skipped right past "Go" and gone right to Stage 3 with his attacks. Now the big orange eye of the Kos is fixed directly on Billy and it's not like he doesn't have a
ton of bones lying around
in his closet and elsewhere.
When it comes to accusing anyone else of "Hate-mongering" Bill O'Reilly is that last person with a leg to stand on as he clearly showed when he cut the mike of his own co-correspondent when she dared to "
tell him the truth."
During the July 26 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly claimed to have "exposed" the Daily Kos blog "as a hate website" and went on to criticize the decision by some Democratic presidential candidates to attend the YearlyKos convention. In response, Fox News contributor Jane Hall said to him, "You had hateful comments on your website about Hillary Clinton ."
O'Reilly then claimed: "No, I didn't. We took them off." He later added, "That's a lie, and I can't let you say a lie on this broadcast." After cutting Hall's microphone, O'Reilly again asserted, "I can't let Jane lie. We don't allow hateful comments on BillOReilly.com. When they come up and we find them, we take them off."
In fact, as of 5 p.m. ET on July 27, several comments about Clinton that were documented by Americablog (here, here, and here) remain on O'Reilly's website, including one that has led Huffington Post blogger Lane Hudson to ask for a Secret Service investigation:
No, they didn't take the comments off - nor did they take
these comments off --
Rosie is indeed a pig, a liar, a total sham. She makes me sick. Nothing she says or does can be justified by any reasonable American. The best thing that could happen to Rosie.. well I will keep that to myself.. but it would have something to do with her not existing any longer... : ) - 05 Jul 2007 - 10:53 AM PT
-- but they did ban John Aravosis of America blog for having exposed those comments to the light of day.
Tonight O'Reilly continued his attack claiming that a comedic picture of Joe Lieberman and President Bush is reason for the Democratic candidates to shun Yearlykos.
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