buzz twang

Those who follow Doonesbury know that the character of Duke was based on none other than the late Hunter S. Thompson. And, it made for some great satire. As a tribute to the Gonz, here is a classic series from the archives… Trudeau at his best, most satirical and some twenty years after their original run, relevant and timeless. Enjoy.

After some considered thought on the obvious, it was decided to finally lay the Neck down quietly. It wasn’t a difficult decision.

I’ve been a part of a number of really fantastic communities since the early 90′s, and they often morph and burn out. Jakeneck was initially Mobius’ idea and a place for he and his friends to convene and talk about the world and the things in it. And, it was for a time, great.

But, things fall apart. It’s the nature of all structures, even an online community. For about five years, from 1995 to 2000, I was part of an AOL community known as the Hollywood Cafe. It was a chatroom hidden inside a somewhat defunct and relatively difficult to find Keyword and the room was frequented by film industry types- actors, directors, writers, shooters, producers, agents and wannabees. It was the place where the definition of “snarky” was defined. Hell, the “Dorks” invented it. It was the meanest, funniest and most fun place I’ve ever known on the internet. It was absolutely addictive. It was irreverant and it was nasty. And, eventually, it died out, the victim of a number of disagreements and the fact that the Time Warner takeover of AOL meant that a number of places hidden on the servers, such as the Hollywood Cafe, were slowly eliminated. Truth be told, it went on a bit too long anyway. It became a frustrating parody of itself. But, it was filled with stars for a time.

And, I consider Jakeneck to be as great an experience, if not greater, for it was about the real world, real people and real problems.

I’ll miss the Neck, but am eager to see what will inevitably rise from the community of the internet to take its place…

While the right-wing blogsphere and media get their shorts in a twist over an obscure professor’s statement that referred to the victims of 9/11 as “little Eichmann’s”, a little story from the real world goes relatively unnoticed. One has to ask: “Where’s the outrage?”

From Haaretz:

Five of Adolph Eichmann’s Nazi assistants were recruited and employed by the Central Intelligence Agency after World War II, according to recently declassified intelligence documents. …

The revelations cast a negative light not only on American intelligence activity but also the U.S. Army’s conduct in Germany at the conclusion of the war. The military made efforts to recruit members of the SS and the Gestapo into its ranks despite simultaenously waging a campaign of de-Nazification over vanquished Germany, a process which included arresting and trying Nazi war criminals.

The documents also reveal in great detail CIA efforts to recruit Reinhard Gehlen, who was the Wermacht’s chief intelligence officer for the eastern front during the war.

The documents are availble to view online at the National Security Archives. (c/o The Memory Blog)

Kevin Drum does a nice job of breaking down how the right-wing echo chamber took an unknown professor from the midwest and elavated him to evil entity. This was then picked up by the right blogsphere and used as “evidence” that all Liberals are evil. A snip:

It’s fascinating how a trivial story like this managed to spread so far, isn’t it? The right wing machine pushed, the New York Times responded, and then the rest of the press followed. Within days, the previously insignificant Ward Churchill had become a household name and a virtual poster boy for lefty nihilism based on something that no one on either the left or right had cared a whit about in the three years since he wrote it. Truly an object lesson for us all.

At The Gadflyer, Paul Wadman states:

The moral of the story isn’t just the Times’ unrivalled agenda-setting power. Obviously, there are conservo-drones in the basement of Heritage or AEI or FOX whose job it is to scour the wires and every little news outlet searching for cases where somebody – preferably a professor or someone associated with the entertainment industry – says something unpatriotic, freedom-hating, or just plain stupid. This item can then be fed to all the nodes of the Noise Machine, enabling them to vibrate with outrage for days on end.

This has been the Republican strategy dating back to Richard Nixon: nurture resentments, feed anger, particularly that of white working-class men. Keep them pissed-off enough at the “elites” (not the elite of money and power, of course) and they won’t notice that you haven’t actually done anything for them. Tell them not to pay attention to the man in the White House, or the party controlling Congress, or to those who rule the business world. It’s these nobodies you should be angry at!

You have to hand it to the likes of Limbaugh and O’Reilly, though. One might have thought that with absolute Republican control, they wouldn’t have anybody to be mad at anymore. What can you bitch about when your guys are running the show? Well, it turns out there’s plenty to bitch about, if you look hard enough.

It will at some point backfire horribly on them. Keep your eyes peeled. Watch your back.

Anthony Lappe at GNN gets it right in this article on why Ward Churchill is wrong.

Had a discussion with a well known right-wing blogger who is convinced that people such as Churchill are respresentative of the entire Liberal movement in the US. Which is nonsense of course. The right-wing blogger believes that such entrenched old school belief systems as represented by Churchill and failed groups such as the SDS are still the norm. To which I have to respond.

Personally, I have a certain amount of contempt for the failed liberal movements of the past. I’ve always felt that way. That movemnt was divisive, unorganized, unfocused, and anti-everything. And, ultimately, they failed in so many ways. They helped stop a war, then they pretty much sat down and decided to make money. There’s nothing wrong with making money, if you do it properly, but, the dream seemed to get lost along the way, and the moral focus became clouded.

My feelings in this regard were cemented in 1987 when I went to a concert that was to raise money for Gerde’s Folk City which at that time was on West 4th Street. The landlord had raised the rent and the place was going to shut down unless some money could be raised. (Money was procured, but the bar still closed. That’s another story.)

So, a concert was held, and it was pretty impressive. The lineup included the Violent Femmes, Suzanne Vega, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, The Roches, Odetta, Frank Christian and a bunch of others. Some old, some new. I was interested in seeing the Femmes, the Roches and Baez, who were all really tight, relevent, and current in their songs and in their politics. And, although the event was to help “Save Folk City”, there was also an attempt to supercharge the atmosphere with politics. It was the mid 80′s, Reagan was at his zenith. But, most of the audience seemed really indifferent and uninterested.

Baez does her usual stellar set, and seemingly sensing the apolitical vibes, decides to close it with a rendition of U2′s “Bad”. Well, the crowd booed. It was rather embarrassing, especially to anyone who knows the lyrics to the song, which obviously, none of the old folkies did. I realized right then and there that all those old Liberals were indeed “asleep” and not “wide awake”.

Then, as if to cement that perspective into my meatmass, Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary) did his set and concluded with “Puff the Magic Dragon”. It was one of my favorite songs as a child, The audience went apeshit. Considering how they had greeted the previous numbers of a political nature with a bit of disinterest, it was a bit odd to say the least. They were all swaying with their arms in the air, like it was an anthem.

I thought I was going to be sick. It was entirely sad and so very very lost. It was as if all the meaning had been stripped from the struggles of the past. They were steeped in denial and forgetfullness and a certain amount of bitterness.

And, ultimately, Ward Churchill is part of that lost tribe. And, I know that is not the Liberal ideal that I believe in, nor do I think most Liberals believe in those failed movements either.

Times have changed. Change is coming.