20
Boerish
Context. Then some depraved quotations of wicked peoples’ proffered historical analogies, followed by one not so immoral but very spooky in its accuracy:
WHILE politicians debate whether more U.S. troops should be sent to Iraq, just as important is how those troops will be utilized. In the Boer War, a “surge” of soldiers helped. In the Vietnam War, it didn’t. The difference is that the British had a sounder strategy.
I realize that more troops do not necessarily guarantee more success (as Vietnam proved), but a sound counterinsurgency strategy is manpower-intensive. The Boer War and other successful counterinsurgencies have shown that victory is more likely if more troops are sent and employed intelligently.
My fear is that, even at this late date, all we’re willing to do is just enough to stave off defeat for the time being—not enough to win. I hope I’m wrong.
Many supporters of the wars in question are happy to see as few convictions as possible. They worry that prosecutions will poison public sentiment. This concern is overblown. What matters most to most folks back home is whether their “boys� are fighting for a just cause and whether they are winning. If the answer to both questions is yes, the public will forgive a great deal of misconduct. Thus, celebrated war-crimes cases did not prevent American victory in the Philippines or British victory in South Africa. Nor was the My Lai massacre a turning point in the Vietnam War. By the time it was exposed in late 1969, support for the war was already in freefall because victory did not appear to be in sight.
[…]
Victory diminishes the significance of war crimes; defeat magnifies them into defining events.
cf Kim DuToit, who is sandpaper to Boot’s silk on basically the same point.
It is certainly possible to conquer Afghanistan. We simply kill everyone we see (without being too fussy about how), except those who go in “protected zones” (sounds better than Concentration Camps) where we strip everyone of arms and kill anyone who looks like Taliban. Eventually, we turn the country over to the people we like. They won’t have any trouble holding it, since we will have killed most of the people who disagree with them. This is the Boer War with better sanitation and a worse climate, and this technique always works if you don’t mind being fairly murderous. It would be a massive undertaking, though I imagine the Russians would be more than happy to help. And certainly it’s within our abilities if we care enough. But, again, what exactly do we get out of this?
History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. In assessing manning needs for Iraq, one would do well to look to prior conflicts of similar nature… one might look especially to the Boer War, in which a fractious, semi-fanatical culture was slowly ground into submission by an occupying force — several years after the seeming success of the initial invasion. If it sounds familiar, it should: and so the means of victory there offer an instructive thought experiment for Iraq today.
Make no mistake: those means were cruel. I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly. The British achieved victory over the Boers by taking their women and children away to concentration camps, by laying waste to the countryside, and by dotting the veld with small garrisons in blockhouses at regular intervals. The men who remained were hindered in their movements by the wire stretching from blockhouse to blockhouse (a phenomenon that the Morice Line experience has shown would be massively more effective now); they could either surrender or die. Absent women and children, the rules of engagement were lax. From implementation to victory took under 18 months. To accomplish this required over one-quarter million soldiers.
But ..but! To use that quote as evidence of its creator’s psychopathy is unfair, says its author (a blatant mischaracterization, a smear, agrees its ‘brave’ author’s admirer — do read that one, it’s hilarious):
Update: […]The point of the excursion into the Boer War example is not to make a policy prescription, but to conduct a thought-experiment[…]
Umm, Sadly, no!:
The fundamental strategic flaw in the American war effort has always been one of under-manning coupled with a too-soft approach to the civilian population in which the insurgency thrives. This last may seem grotesque in light of the recent Lancet study alleging c.600,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since 2003 (which, unlike most of my conservative colleagues, I suspect is not wildly off the mark), but the point is not to urge killing or repression of civilians for its own sake. Rather, the point is to do what it takes to win. In this case, with a popular resistance to occupation and ethnic divisions at play, the applicable counterinsurgency models are Algeria and South Africa. In the former, the French military was able to seal Algerian borders to virtually end the influx of weapons and men to the FLN; and they put more Muslims under arms for France — the harkis — than fought for independence. (Algeria was lost due to French politics rather than military events, so we may still look to it for pragmatic lessons on the latter front.) In the latter, the Boer War period saw the Afrikaner nation virtually united in its opposition to British conquest. The exploits of the Boer guerrilla columns were models for insurgencies in the subsequent century, tying down nearly a quarter-million Imperial soldiers in pursuit of a few thousand horsemen. The British did what they had to do to win: they separated the women and children from the men, and caused the veld to be strewn with barbed wire and blockhouses. It was massive, it was expensive, it was heartbreaking, and it worked. A decade later, South African units went into battle for the King in the First World War.
[…]Conceptually, the Algerian-style sealing of Iraqi borders coupled with Boer War-style civilian control measures are workable and even just.[…]
And:
From British history, we have the Indian Mutiny and the Boer War, both of which were thoroughly disastrous in their opening phases — and both of which were won by a doggedly determined United Kingdom and its Empire.
And:
It used to be a commonplace that one supported one’s country at war, whether one believed the war to be just or not. There were exceptions, to be sure — the New Englanders of 1812, the Copperheads, and the tiny band of anti-imperialists c.1898 spring to mind — but the rule of thumb broadly held. (And it should be noted that history ill-regards the patriotism of two of those three examples.) This wasn’t purely an American phenomenon: even after the horrors of the concentration camps on the Transvaal soured much of Britain on the Boer War, the belief that it had to be won remained stalwart.
Somewhere in the 20th century, the idea of victory as an end in itself was lost.
And, conclusively, this (Instayokel-approved, naturally):
TNR’s Lawrence Kaplan put forth a wonderful piece, back in fall 2003, on the willingness of the American people to endure military casualties in the pursuit of victory. It is a commonplace that this willingness is shallow in the post-Second World War era: Americans simply do not wish to suffer, and do not have the senses of patriotism, pride, and honor that buffered such suffering for earlier generations. It is true, I think, that these qualities are less evident now than they were in the past. The ability of a society to see through grinding conflicts like the Philippines Insurrection or the Boer War augers well for its future, lest it lose the mere capacity to conquer, and be susceptible to humiliation by any small power with no advantage save mental fortitude. It is indeed difficult to imagine now the methods that transformed the Philippines for us, and South Africa for the British, from bitter foe to steadfast friend being applied in Iraq. Would that they were. But patriotism, pride, and honor are nonetheless still present in the American character. It is the American political class that lacks them in corresponding measure.
[My Emphasis; sociopathy in the hard original.]
And, finally, after that great wailing wall in electrons of fascistic British policies the evil liberal culture won’t let our brave wingnut pundits implement or our sojers emulate, we get this bit of WTFery:
‘[E]xterminate all the brutes’ is hardly an apt description of British strategy in the Boer War….
Right, obviously not with the ’scorched earth’ and ‘concentration camps’ thing. What were we thinking?!
Anyway, shorter wingnut psychopaths: It’s really too bad that the politicians won’t go ‘Boer War’ on the Muslims, because that’s what the situation calls for.
Now it’s true that there are analogues to the Boer War. The following is AJP Taylor in 1949:
[…]The British, on their side, had expected the Boers to give way without a struggle; at worst, in Milner’s words, ‘an apology for a fight’ would be necessary. ‘A slap in the face’ would do the business.
Ahh, ‘a cakewalk’. Hubris. Yes, it rings a bell.
Though Boer hopes were disappointed, British hopes were disappointed also. The war dragged on for three years, and by the end the eclipse of Boer independence was of less importance than the deflation of British Imperialism. In fact, the Boer war had a more decisive effect on British politics than on Imperial history. It brought first the culmination and then the end of an arrogant, boastful epoch, in which British public opinion seemed to have abandoned principles for power[…]
Sorta like how the Iraq disaster has permanently destroyed the reputations of those who pushed the Project for the New American Century.
The Boer war caused a bitterness in British politics[…] This bitterness had many causes. Every dispute in which [Joseph] Chamberlain was involved was conducted in a savage, scurrilous way (on both sides); the Boer war gave the cheap press its first chance to display its quality; most of all, the war had the bitterness of a family quarrel — not merely a quarrel within the Empire but a quarrel in England between politicians of the same party origin. Imperialism and anti-Imperialism were both advocated by men of Liberal background.[…]
Yup, yup. Neocons, being former Liberals or even former socialists, versus the Left.
Old Toryism, with its roots in the countryside, had little sympathy with the aggressive and optimistic spirit of Imperialism.
Even the Paleocons, then — the Pat Buchanans and Lew Rockwells and Justin Raimondos — had a Boer war era equivalent.
In August 1899 Salisbury passed this verdict on the coming war: ‘We have to act upon a moral field prepared for us by Milner and his Jingo supporters. And therefore I see before us the necessity for considerable military effort — and all for people whom we despise and for territory which will bring no profit and no power to England.’
Lord Salisbury, then, was speaking as one of that era’s ‘Realists’; more candid than ours to be sure, but every bit as beleagured.
Salisbury was dragged into the war by Chamberlain; and Chamberlain was dragged into the war by Milner. Certainly, Chamberlain wanted to establish British supremacy in South Africa; this he had hoped to do gradually, by persuasion and passge of time. But Chamberlain was fatally compromised by his association with the Jameson Raid, the greatest blunder in his career. The raid ruined the chance of the Boer moderates and made it certain that Milner would have to deal with Kruger and his associates, men as obstinate and violent as himself.
So far so bad: Salisbury is like our Colin Powell, dragged into war by Bush, Cheney and the rest of the neocons. The Iraq War ruined the chance of Muslim moderates within Iran, assuring that Bush will have to deal — meaning, now, backdown so crippled is the American military — with a nuke-armed Amadinejad from a position of parity.
[Milner] hated inefficiency and delay; most of all, he hated compromise. With German dogmatism he wrote on 16 August 1899: ‘They will collapse if we don’t weaken, or rather if we go on steadily turning the screw.’ Milner had a great vision of British South Africa, which would escape dependence on the goldmines by wise economic planning and by raising the standard of life of the native population: he destroyed this vision by his impatience with the Boers[…]
Milner was not just that era’s wingnut extraordinaire, he was its perfect neoconservative: the insistence that victory was only a matter of will, the (declared, at least) grand schemes for the good of the colonial subjects, his general and pervasive stubborness…
Milner made a mistake not uncommon among civilian politicians: he supposed that the soldiers would conduct the war as competently as he had brought it about. The early disasters could be repaired; what could never be repaired was the prestige of Imperialism, on which Milner and Chamberlain had staked their political existence. Even worse than the blow to prestige was the damage to England’s moral position [because of concentration camps, etc depravities] on the continent of Europe. No war has been so universally condemned by enlightened European opinion.
The ground conditions SNAFU and the politician schemers realized they hadn’t thought things through, hadn’t considered contingencies. Check. Policies and practices which scandalized world opinion. Check. Depraved policies and practices that make a mockery of one’s country’s ideals. Check and mate.
Yet it will not do for the later historian to react against this by idealizing the Boers […] Though the Boers fought to preserve their independence they were even more concerned to preserve other, and less admirable, things: their policy of racial exclusion; their share of the gold profits; and their tyranny over the natives.
Fifty years afterwards, it is clear that victory has gone to the worst elements on both sides. Milner got his war without achieving his vision; the Boers lost their independence without being won for progress and civilization […] The mining houses and the most narrow-minded Boers, Johannesburg and Pretoria, have joined hands to oppress and exploit the native peoples who are the overwhelming majority of the population[…]
[My emphasis]
This is analogous to the present and future of Iraq: the Bush crew will have got their fucking Imperial presence, their beloved permanent bases from which the precious, precious oil will be watched, hawklike; the rest of Iraq will be a permanent bloodbath; a formerly fairly-secular society will become even more radically fundamentalist, largely in reaction to our presence there.
Now many on the anti-War side then, unlike now, Perfessor Corncob, you smear-artist, did actively root for the opposition. Taylor calls them ‘pro-Boer’. Whatever; warts and all (as opposed to, let us say, the facial syphillis of the ‘pro-concentration camp’ side), they are our ancestors and they were vindicated:
The pro-Boers were wrong about the Boers; they were right about the war. The great underlying issue at stake was not whether the Boers stood for a moral cause but whether the British Empire stood for one.
So, actually, the pro-Boers were patriotic; the Jingos were not. Likewise the anti-war side is the patriotic one in this conflict, and for the same reasons; the 82nd Chairborne is not. Being ‘pro-Boer’ then or ‘anti-war’ now never was and is not treason because such stances confirm a fidelity to the principles of the dissenters’ country. Conversely, the pro-war side in both conflicts urged a course of depravity (concentration camps, torture, genocide) that actively subverts the country’s principles, sells its soul, has the effect of making it as bad or worse than the ‘enemy’. Pro-war is being about conquering another country; anti-war is about preserving our own.
Milner and Chamberlain had appealed from principles to power; the pro-Boers reasserted the claims of principle, and four years after the end of the war this despised minority recieved at the polls the greatest majority that any party had won since the Reform Act. Many men fought bravely in the Boer war, but none acted more bravely or served his country better than the politician who declared in the St. James’s Hall on 15 September 1899:
You may make thousands of women widows and thousands of children fatherless. It will be wrong. You may add a new province to your Empire. It will still be wrong. You may give greater buoyancy to the South African stock and market share. You may create South African booms. You may send the price of Mr. Rhodes’s Chartereds up to a point beyond the dreams of avarice. Yes, even then it will be wrong.
The outbreak of the Boer war were better passed over in silence, were it not for the occasion it gives for reprinting Morley’s words.
Sadly, I don’t think we have an analogue to John Morley — which might be a blessing considering the original article’s later treatment of the Indians. Still, it would be nice to hear that sort of oratory from a politician. I suppose there’s Dennis Kucinich. Anyway, if the Boer war analogy holds true we do have one thing to look forward to: The thorough and much-deserved electoral annihilation of the pro-war side. Can’t happen soon enough.
Update 3-16-07 This post on VDH’s ‘boerishness’ and this fantastic post at 3Bulls on the Boer War itself are great reads.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:15
PS to Tacky: If I find I’m outted anonymously, I’m assuming (since I caught you and Pasty both doing some google cache work within several minutes of each other, and you know exactly what I’m talking about, and when) that it’s one or the both of you, and will respond accordingly. Comprendo?
Oregon Guy said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:20
Shout it from the rooftops.
Kudos for your insight. Pity that every word is true.
bpower said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:31
lol, that’s some funny sh…
eh, I mean that’s a standard piece of historical analysis. This is what the wingnuts have done to you, they’ve won, they’ve out crazied your funny.
Bring back the Swankster.
Patkin said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:34
Y’know, it used to be they just wanted to drag us back to some cockamamie dream of 1950s America.
But it’s gotten worse, hasn’t it. The 1950s isn’t far back enough. Now we have to go to the Boer War for the Right Utopian Dream. Or maybe further! Medieval feudal society is whattheirfaces’ dream over at Blogs for Bush, isn’t it?
But the point is we can’t even go back to the 20th century anymore to fix what’s wrong with the universe for these people.
These people are swine.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:35
But dude, the RedState link is so funny I thought its inclusion made up for all the seriousness of the rest of the post! No? :(
El Cid said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:42
You know, I get the feeling that most people have no idea how many civilians the U.S. and its puppet client government died in South Vietnam while the U.S. attempted to exterminate guerrilla forces. Estimates (no one cared or wished to count — hey, imagine that) hold that perhaps 4 or 5 times as many civilians died in ‘our’ South than the North.
And, yes, that includes forcing people into concentra…, er “Strategic Hamlets” etc. Another brilliant attempt to copy British colonial policies.
But there is certainly a clear logic: if the U.S. and its puppet had been able and willing simply to kill every living human, there may very well have been fewer guerrillas. Unfortunately, I guess for certain types, both the actual goals of the U.S. and, you know, a few real world concerns that actual genocide in Vietnam might escalate directly to wars with Russia, or China, or both. Hearts & minds, you know.
In this sense, you have rightwingers who argue that ‘Iraq’ is NOT like ‘Vietnam’ urging that it *should* be. And then you have others arguing that it should be more like Guatemala, which was a genocide against an entire ethnic group, and it was done by our proxies, the Guatemalan army, and all ‘we’ had to do was tell them where and who to kill when we had a particular interest, and give them money and guns and diplomatic protection — but, hey, it worked good enough from Ronnie Reagan’s and the neo-cons’ view. See, THAT’s what I believe they mean when they talk about the “El Salvador” option; they’re just too timid to call it the “Guatemala” option.
Where was that bridge someone was building to the 21st century? Anyone bring a map?
Mudge said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:44
Britain, in spite of its horrible tactics during the Boer War, still was a civilized country with seemingly misguided yet civil proto-neocons. Nowhere in your article is a reference to rabid accusations of treason. Nor do I sense that John Morley was alone either in his beliefs or his eloquence.
Britain evolved as a result of the Boer War, yet it is currently used by the rabid as an example of a successful campaign. Certain of our citizens, and potentially the government, are devolving. Back to the Boer War.
Michael Dietz said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:44
Ole Perf:
It is certainly possible to conquer Afghanistan. We simply kill everyone we see (without being too fussy about how), except those who go in “protected zones� (sounds better than Concentration Camps) where we strip everyone of arms and kill anyone who looks like Taliban.
That’s some mighty fine “protecting,” Perfesser. “Anyone who looks like Taliban”–wouldn’t that be, oh, pretty much any Afghan male?
Eventually, we turn the country over to the people we like. They won’t have any trouble holding it, since we will have killed most of the people who disagree with them.
And we can be sure they’ll still all be “people we like,” because our herding them into “protected zones” and our barely-controlled slaughter of their countrymen and relatives will have had no effect whatever on their opinions or their relations with us.
The Ole Perf’s grasp of political psychology is really staggering.
Patkin said,
February 20, 2007 at 15:48
The Ole Perf’s grasp of political psychology is really staggering.
Well, that’s pretty much a given.
You aren’t gonna do well at political psychology if you can’t even comprehend human psychology.
Or human decency.
Or human ethics.
Or, well, you get the idea, The perfesser’s an armchair sociopath. I bet he faints at seeing actual blood.
bpower said,
February 20, 2007 at 16:13
Yeah, that’s pretty funny, in an old person falling down and breaking their hip kind of way. But really, it just makes me want to print Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” on a 2×4 and beat the shit out of the guy (whoever he was).
About the Boer War; when it’s history was taugth to us in high school in Ireland, it was usually shown as the beginning of the end of British Empire.
The whole idea of crushing the will of a populace reminds me of the final moments of 1984 (fuck me I love Orwell). Yeah sure, you can break the will of a man to control him, but you’re not left with a man, you’re left with a gibbering, piss-stained wreck wishing for a bullet to end it all. But I guess that would suit the Right Wing Authoritarians just fine.
Ann Althouseâ„¢ said,
February 20, 2007 at 16:14
HTML Mencken (if that’s your real name, Mr. Montalban):
You still do not have the common decency to call Glenn Reynolds by his real name! “Perfesser Corncob”! Really! I’m sure if you had breasts, you’d be flaunting them in the presence of some ex-president.
And you still allow people like me to steal Ann Althouse’s identity.
Oh the humanity!
No wonder moderates like me prefer the company of genocidal maniacs to your lack of couth!
Good day, Sir!
jenniebee said,
February 20, 2007 at 16:40
So the Boer War is the historical analogy du jour? What’s next? Halliburton = East India Company? Iraqi police force = Indian sepoys? Strapping Iraqis to the muzzles of cannons might just turn this around, so why don’t we get all those old cannons out of the Civil War National Parks (how ironic! how apt! National Parks might turn out to be good for something after all, but do liberals appreciate that we’re conceding that point now? Of course not, the unreasonable swine!) and send some ancient ordinance to Iraq where it might do some good.
Parallels abound throughout history; if you don’t see them everywhere, you’re just not trying hard enough. For instance: Maliki + Ahmadinejad = Washington + Bourbon, and the British would totally have won if they had just widened the theater of combat to include Calais, and maybe Paris (after all, the French countryside was just brimming with people who would have welcomed the Brits with flowers and Valenciennes lace - those thoroughly decent Robespierre and Marat fellows, for instance), but the poor Brits didn’t have the stomach for it and were stabbed in the back at home by that liberal, rebel-sympathizing, freedom-hating Edmund Burke.
Excuse me, I’m feeling a bit dizzy after that one…
Non Nato said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:23
“Somewhere in the 20th century, the idea of victory as an end in itself was lost.”
I think that idea was discredited by that quaint group of Germans whose battlecry was Hail Victory
Col. Klink said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:25
I love this Boer War shite. Indeed, your Majesty, the victory of England over our Dutch backed rivals gave way to a thousand flowering years of the British Empire. OK, it gave way to 10 years before a near fatal fall, 20 more years before terminal decline set in, and 70 years before all the parties involved in the conflict gave up the ghost and awarded the whole damn thing back to the locals. But man, was it ever worth it!
windy said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:29
It is indeed difficult to imagine now the methods that transformed the Philippines […] from bitter foe to steadfast friend being applied in Iraq.
To be fair, it’s hard to imagine applying the methods that transformed the Philippines from friend to bitter foe in the first place, simply because there are few countries on the market in the $20 million price range. What’s a discerning imperialist to do?
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:43
“Comprendo.” Ha. Thus the inept cosmopolitan. But then, there’s quite an ignorance on display when a fellow writes this sort of post and decides to name himself after Mencken. And “respond accordingly”? With….a blog post? Why, yes.
Truly, the archetype of impotence.
No worries, [HTML’s name]. Your full name may remain the common knowledge of just the greater [HMTL’s location, sort of], metro area for all I care: the rest of the world may continue to know you by your GI Joe code name. Because, of course, you have a unique right to avoid consequences that no other human does. You may pilfer wedding photos, try (and fail) to smear those you dislike, and pursue an idiot’s vendetta for years, all based wholly upon a would-be intellectualism gleaned from the bargain bin at Books-A-Million: but Lawzy, no one better inconvenience [HTML’s name]! Turnabout is not fair play!
Which reminds me: I do believe that the time may be approaching to spotlight a young ponce, desperate for the credibility online that he cannot find in his personal life, prancing about as Eric Draven….
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:53
Ding ding ding ding. Close but no cigar! Still, close enough to set things into motion….
But really, the ‘turnabout is fair play’? Still dishonest after all this time, Tacky!
Hey guess what everybody: Highlighting the depravity of one’s public words is *just like* outing pseudonymous people and digging into their private life. It’s the exact same! The Online Integrity, you know!
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 17:56
[HTML’s name]. I like the ring of it. And it rings true enough for [HMTL’s name] to edit post facto.
“I’m a hypocrite: I like to study people, but don’t like it so much when they study me.
Indeed!
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:00
And by the way: no one — no one — who steals my private wedding photos, is asked nicely by third parties to refrain from using them, and refuses, and is warned again, gets to whine about folks “digging into their private life.” You crossed that line, [HTML’s name], braying all the way.
It bears repeating: “I’m a hypocrite: I like to study people, but don’t like it so much when they study me.”
Get ready, [HTML’s name].
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:00
Italics closed!
steve_e said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:02
Is that the real Trevino or just a parody?
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:05
So he’s not for genocide after all, as of now, because now he knows you live in America? Makes sense to me.
Outing someone’s home town but not their name clearly demontrates that Trevino could have thoroughly responded to the factual disembowelment he just received above but chose not to because he is above all that.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:12
You fucking moron. You posted those on your public site for all to see — on your site where you publish this pro-genocide garbage. I did not and would not post photos of your family. We edited the photo of you with the lightsaber. I didn’t take any pictures from a private site or any site for that matter, that is divorced from your writings.
SORRY you looked stupid with a lightsaber. SORRY you write shit that is easy to point to as depraved and insane. But then I dressed like The Crow for Halloween and took a picture and posted it to myspace; plainly an equivalent!
Geez, if you only knew what people have written to me, disgusted by your webstalking so much that they tell me things about the Carpatho-Russian Disocese and.. well, I shouldn’t say too much. Yet. Unless I have to.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:14
It’s the real Trevino:
New comment on your post #5099 “Boerish”
Author : Josh Trevino (IP: 71.4.63.67 , mail.pacificresearch.org)
E-mail : jstrevino@hotmail.com
URI : http://www.americanreich.org
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=71.4.63.67
Comment:
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:16
In response to “islmfaocist”: there’s no point, and frankly, I don’t really care too much whether I’m a sociopath or an angel in the eyes of this crowd. The standards for both are so deranged as to be meaningless.
I do care about a friendless freak from around [HTML’s location, still not quite right] who has pursued a vendetta against me for years, and finally crossed the line when he stole my wedding photos. Let me repeat that: he stole my wedding photos for use on this blog. And then has the temerity to bray about the sanctity of his pseudonymity.
Well.
[HTML’s name] is being offered a chance to back down, here: he’s never received as he’s given, and he will hate it if he does. I say if, not when, because he has an out: a simple, “Hey, sorry — I shouldn’t have appropriated your wedding photos,” without qualification, will stop the wheels, as far as I’m concerned. He can — and will — go on yelping forever about my moral unfitness for public life, and whatever to that. But he’s involved my family, in my eyes. And in doing so, he’s crossed the line mandating restraint.
This is an eminently fair offer, which the sensible man will take.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:18
You posted those on your public site for all to see….
No, [HTML’s name]. We’ve been over this, and we both know you’re lying by omission here.
Do the right thing.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:21
The thing about mutually assured destruction is that the better-known entity has more to lose.
Hmmm.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:24
Nah, you’re not going to get me to lie, Tacky. That’s not what happened. Be precise.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:27
private wedding photos posted on the Internet?
Odd definition of privacy there.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:30
This is the gospel truth. I will repeat it ad nauseum because it is the truth. Now if you want me to say ‘Im sorry’ for using the lightsaber picture, that’s one thing — but dont pretend that it was acquired in any other way than what I say in the link, because it wasn’t. And also don’t pretend that it is an attack on your family, because it’s not.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:33
Umm Tacky?
We all think you’re a sociopath.
Just so you don’t labor under any mistaken impressions there bucko.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:35
Well. You “repeat it ad nauseum” because the truth makes you a hypocrite.
There’s no meaningful “destruction” to be had here, of course. Neither of us can cost the other his job, nor his standing within his milieu. My own record is public, and I have the forthrightness to put my name to my work.
As far as may be seen, the only person with something to lose here is you: by your own admission, you are profoundly insecure and sensitive, and you would deeply hate to have anyone critique you in the manner in which you critique others.
It’s nothing to me, but as it means quite a lot to you, I suggest you do what’s needed to cast the wedding photos issue aside, so we can move on: you to a lifetime of complaining about me, and me to a lifetime of being infrequently annoyed by you. This is fair.
Coda: I’m a bit mystified at your references to the American Carpatho-Russian Orthodox Diocese. Full disclosure: it is my father’s diocese — which does, by the bye, make your threatened invocation of it an “attack on [my] family.” I attend, when I do, which isn’t especially often, a Greek church — and I converted in an Antiochian parish. I’ve only been meaningfully involved with ACROD twice: once when I wrote a piece for the diocesan newsletter in 2004 — which I’m not sure I was even credited for — and again when I was going to go to Istanbul under the Metropolitan’s aegis. The latter fell through.
Paul Curtin said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:35
Someone seems to think this is about the Bores, not the Boers.
Um, getting back to the post that this follows…
He forgets to mention the use of concentration camps and mass murder. I mean, worked on the Boers, not so well in Viet Nam.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:36
That’s cool, Billy. No worries there. I’m not here to correct that.
Patkin said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:37
This is an eminently fair offer, which the sensible man will take.
“This is a new blog you got here. Be a shame if something were to… happen to it.”
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:37
Tacky, maybe you SHOULD think about hiding your work behind a pseudonym.
Sociopathic racism and advocation of gneocide may not be acceptable forever, is all I’m saying….
TonyRz said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:41
S,N! just ate my comments. That’s a direct attack on my family, many of whom often use the web.
Jeff G said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:44
“Respond accordingly”? Please, Draven. Whaddya gonna do, accuse me of wanting to slap you with my COCK? Deliver another devastating “Adlerian” analysis of my character based on a handful of blog comments?
Take a deep breath, have a pulled pork sandwich, and consider what it is you’re saying here. I’ve about had it with your personal attacks.
If your bluster makes you feel manly, have at it. Revenge of the Nerds in cyberspace was always a predictable niche market, and you have filled it admirably.
But it’s time for you to separate your world from mine. Please. Because honestly? I’m running out of patience, and I’d rather not spend my days embroiled in blogfights.
Give it a rest. Move on. Do something else with your life.
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:46
I’ve never heard of anyone so panicked at the idea that their wedding photos might be exposed to the world. Is she ugly? Fat? Brown? A man?
Patkin said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:46
Oh good god, are they all going to show up now?
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:48
Sorry, ya cant get me to lie, Tacky, If you want me to say I’m sorry for making fun of the lightsaber thing, well okay (I’ll white lie, to keep Freepers and Pasty-ites from hunting me down with axehandles, or ‘bringing guns’ to my home as they threaten to do to the next Eschacon, or burning down my house, or all other things wingnuts are capable of doing since their words always fail — that is why so many Lefties remain anonymous/pseudonymous, you dumb shit), bit I wont say that the lightsaber photo is equivalent to stalking someone over long period of time until you find their myspace site which is entirely divorced from their public writings. Sorry, no can do that.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:48
Heck, he doesn’t have to do something else with his life in my book: he just has to do what he’s doing within the limits he demands from others.
The really good hectoring scolds are the personally consistent ones, after all.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:50
No, no, [HTML’s name]: as stated, without qualification.
And no, your silly MySpace site is not protected by a magic barrier made of unicorns and rainbows.
Kids these days.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:50
Gah, you again?
If your bluster makes you feel manly, have at it.
See? You don’t get it, do you? I’m not like you — I don’t worry about feeling ‘manly’. Now fuck off so I can deal with Tacky.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:52
The really good hectoring scolds are the personally consistent ones, after all.
Why is that? And how would you know?
After all Billy Bennett is STILL a professional scold, after losing more money in gambling than you’ve made in your entire life.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:52
I don’t worry about feeling ‘manly’.
This is probably for the best.
DocAmazing said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:53
Tacitus–
Don’t you have some online integrity to go police somewhere?
You’re sounding loopier by the minute.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:53
Nah. Not gonna lie or be blackmailed, Tacky. But go ahead; it’ll look great with that OI thing on your resume.
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:55
Oooh, the Throat Yogurt guy is in da hizzouse. Party wit’ the wingnuts, y’all!
Guess ‘handful of blog comments’ means he no longer supports genocide too, now that Mencken has been cleverly unmasked as a resident of America.
If only you had made this info public earlier, HTML, maybe no one would have ever advocated the US commit genocide at all, discounting a handful of blog comments of course.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:55
No one is asking you to lie, [HTML’s name]. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
But, as you prefer.
stickler said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:58
Mr. Tacitus may be depraved; obliquely endorsing the British methods from 1900 is pretty nasty indeed. They gave us the English term “concentration camp,” after all.
What’s even more aggravating about Mr. Tacitus is his shallow understanding of history. To use the Boer War as a positive example for a “thought experiment” is to expose oneself to endless ridicule, for all the obvious reasons Mr. HTML points out. Here’s another example: To argue that the USA “won” the Vietnam War (but for the Dolchstoß by Dan Rather, the hippies, and the Democratic Party) is to reveal that one hasn’t read very much about the Vietnam conflict.
If you pontificate on weighty issues, without having even a basic understanding of the historical examples you use, you shouldn’t be surprised if people point you out as a callow fool.
DocAmazing said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:59
Jesus Christ, it’s like the Modesto bus station in here, with these wingers muttering polysyllables to themselves as they shamble by wrapped in a blanket.
Jeff, Josh: giove it up. Ownership of a thesaurus does not make you smart, and outing pseuds so that your unbalanced readership can threaten their families does not constitute integrity.
steve_e said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:59
Oh Jesus, here come the shrieking warbloggers with their strident squeaks of protest. They can scrounge for pity in this thread. Let’s move on to another topic.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 18:59
Omigod, you have the same first name as Tacky!
No wonder you wanted to use a pseud.
Robert Waldmann said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:00
Hmm HTML your love of long quotations and actual knowledge of history reminds me of Brad DeLong. Yes that Brad DeLong. (I consider this high praise)
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:02
It’s cool, Tacky. You’ve left a hell of an evidence trail for anyone who wants to know what’s really happened RE: pictures. I know you won’t link to it, but I will.
Robert Waldmann said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:03
In fact, speaking of outing, I just had a fascinating idea. Maybe you *are* Brad DeLong and that post about Fuck fuck fuck the neoliberals was just a cover up.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:05
I don’t worry about feeling ‘manly’.
This is probably for the best.
True dat. It keeps me from ‘demonstrating my manhood’ by advocating genocide or threatening to slap people with my cock.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:06
Yes, Robert, that’s it! Gaaaahh! Like Myxllplyk I’m now cast back into the 8th dimension!
*POOF*
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:06
Ah damn, the link’s broken to the “American Reich” site. Think maybe iit’ll be fixed soon?
Calls for genocide followed by denials and retractions will just have to hold us til you get those nude photos of Prussian Blue up.
TonyRz said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:07
Dumb question: Is JT actually outing HM over and over, and getting edited by site admins? Or is he typing in the [] substitution himself?
kc said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:10
I see someone blew the Trevino whistle again.
You know, Trevino, no one would have had any idea that innocuous picture was a wedding photo. It just looked like a snapshot of a white guy in khakis, as I recollect, handling a lightsaber. No flowers, no bride, no cake. Why you insist on repeatedly referring to it as a WEDDING PHOTO is beyond me.
It’s almost as if you’re trying to draw attention to the WEDDING PHOTO.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:13
Tony, he’s outting me over and over. I’m doing the brackets to edit it when I see it.
Steve said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:19
I get it! The wedding photos were stolen, you see, but the Myspace page was fair game, since it “is not protected by a magic barrier made of unicorns and rainbows.” So you see, the two things are totally different, and obviously the difference is in Trevino’s favor. Obviously.
Trevino clearly regards himself as a skilled rhetorician, which invariably leads him to believe that his clever wordplay actually results in proving something. You can stick any cute label of your choice on something, but facts are stubborn. We’re back to this delusion that conservatives have the power to create their own reality, something I thought we dispensed with several years ago.
Tulkinghorn said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:19
Maybe pretending to be Han Solo is as close to marrying Carrie Fischer as he will ever get. He must have a picture of her in the slave outfit taped to the ceiling above his bed.
marc page said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:20
Watching “Conservatives” (the kinder term) painting themselves as “victims” has become so expected that it begins to lose its entertainment value.
Mr. Goldstein and Mr. Trevino are, apparently, in very bad moods these days. And is it any wonder? Not too long ago, these young men could dream that one day (after ‘making their bones,’ so to speak) they would be brought up to ‘the Big Show,’ the well-paid ranks of the Right Wing Political Machine.
But now that the majority of their fellow citizens have rejected their particular brand of madness, it is not likely they will be rewarded with newspaper columns, telelvision contracts, or government positions.
I am sure they do not look forward to ‘wandering in the wilderness’ from here to their disgruntled middle-age, ranting on the side-lines about how those damned Liberals ruined their lives.
So, it seems, rather than fade back into obscurity with what is left of their dignity, they will insist on kicking and screaming all the way, desperately trying for one last turn in the spotlight.
Dan said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:20
> cf Kim DuToit, who is sandpaper to Boot’s silk on basically the same point.
I imagine it’s been noted before, but someone please tell me DuToit is pronounced the way I very much hope it is.
Some Guy said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:21
Ugh. I can’t read any more.
What the fuck?! What the FUCK?! I.. how… when did they get this raging hard-on for the British Empire? Did they forget that there were reasons for why we freaking broke off from them? If their tactics were so goddamn effective, why have they been reduced to their own Isles when they used to span around most of the globe?
Jesus tapdancing Christ. They’re back on the “war crimes win wars!” meme. Which, of course, would have ment that the Axis would have fucking steamrolled the entire world in about a month.
Never mind the sad irony that the Pro-Mass Murder crowd sound just like the al Qaeda enemy they claim to be so much better then.
Tulkinghorn said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:23
No ‘t’ sound at the end in the French pronunciation, so get your dirty little Anglo-Saxon mind out of the gutter.
Jeff G said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:26
You brought me up here, Retardo. See your first comment.
And I invited you to leave me out of this. I don’t take kindly to veiled threats — particularly when they are unprovoked.
Now take a deep breath and don’t do anything stupid.
agum said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:27
Wedding photos!? Congrats to Josh T & Ben D, and thanks to the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts for making their love possible.
Wait, what? Josh’s extraordinarily tenuous defenses of plagiarism didn’t spring from the sweetest romantic loyalty?
Hmm. Guess you should have made those photos public after all.
marc page said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:28
And in the absence of an actual threat, Mr. Goldstein has always been able to imagine one.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:31
Yeah, Mencken, you said ‘CandyMan’ three times! It’s your own fault! Stop making Jeff post stupid things here!
Because, you know, block quoting someone from their blog is a threat. Obviously.
Kathy said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:33
I think I’ve figured it out:
These pundits sound “smart” because they use haigh falutin’ words like eschew and folly, and- well you get it. But the reality is they are stupid semi-literate people with access to the Sherlock thesaurus.
Jeff G said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:34
Sounds like, in the absence of proof, somebody’s going to try carpetbombing.
How “progressive.”
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:36
Umm, Pasty, the provocation is the google cache work you and Tacky did within minutes of each other. You know what I’m talking about. What — you thought it’d go unnoticed? Hardly. I just said what I did in the first comment to let you know for sure that I knew.
K. Ron Silkwood said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:40
The blueprints of Treblinka have got to be around somewhere. Go with the classics.
HTML Mencken said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:43
Actually, no: it meant that despite your best tricks at washing your site (it’s really too bad I couldn’t have a laugh at you with regard to the Liberal Avenger comment scandal, since you’re the original comment-manipulator, though you’ve now cleaned those up to look real innocuous, clever guy; did you and Pattycakes arrange that?), I still have a shitload of incriminating links, enough to do 3 or 4 more comprehensive posts on your silly politics and personal ummm defiencies as demonstrated through violent and sexual threats. Now I could be lazy and NOT humiliate you any more than I already have (tick, tock , tick tock — A Pasty Boy Mystery: While The Cock Ticked), but if you decided to use what you dug out of my myspace, then you’d force me to work a bit harder. Unnerstand?
But I love it when you try to play the victim!
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:46
What a desperate pickle both these asstards are in now… So embarassed at being humiliated by their own direct quotes endorsing genocide as the only final solution that they will resort to digging for personal data to smear Mencken with, but neither can they actually denounce it on their own site without their mouth-breathing readers realizing they’re pussies who won’t stand up to defend their prior bloodthirsty insanity.
It’s a quandary… what will they do now? I predict more poo-flinging.
prozacula said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:48
Jeff ‘Protein’ Stain is a pseudo-intellectual hack that never got his phd. He was ‘that close!’, but stopped for some reason. After spending as much money as it takes to get ‘that close’, I really can’t understand why he didn’t just buck it up for one more semester and finish his thesis. Unless, of course, he’s lying out of his fucking pussy ass. My guess is that he got his master’s, and is now using whatever ‘work’ he wanked out during that 2 years as ‘proof’ that he was working on his phd.
Now, he stays at home while his wife works to support his blogging. He spends his days trolling lefty websites in an attempt to out them.
Tacitus, aka, the Grand Wizard of Torture/Genocide is a sad reflection of a real human. A real human piece of shit. His intellectual ‘prowess’ hovers right about the same level of your typical unibrowed corner poster. His depravity soars to levels unseen since the 3rd Reich. After advocating torture, internment camps and genocide, watching him out good ‘ol HTML is not much of a surprise.
And, You Fucking Loser Tacitus, the right does not own the patent on Mencken, even though you asshats think you can quote him without realizing how much Mencken would have hated your fucking guts. Have you ever actually READ Mencken, other than cherry-picking quotes that make you sound manly (raise the black flag, asshole?). Mencken would have eaten you for lunch, then shit you out on the pile of all the other intellectual lightweights who misappropriate the poor dead philosopher.
So, Jeff G - why don’t you go back to your sycophantic little JizzStain blog and make your piss-stained fearful posts about the scary brown middle eastern men?
And Tacky - why don’t you just fuck off and die already? Hell needs some more cordwood to keep the fires going, asshole.
Jeff G said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:51
Google cache work? What, you mean copying your photos? Well, I didn’t do that — I don’t have the tech savvy — but I certainly saw them, and I certainly do have access to them.
Is that a problem?
Because I seem to recall my photo appearing here on your site attached to the body of a French general. And when I first saw your MySpace page, you hadn’t yet made it private.
What do you fear, anyway?
Are you suggesting that you think it wrong to grab people’s photos and doctor them? Or is it just your photos that you hope to keep from receiving such treatment?
Let me give you a bit of advice: the best way to do so is to stop prodding people with a stick. You brought me up in this thread. So you can quit pretending you have some moral highground — particularly after you pored through my archived internet comments like some obsessive teenager working toward putting together the PERFECT Beyonce collage, all so that you could do your “Adlerian” analysis.
Face it, Retardo. You mention me here with a frequency that borders on the truly creepy. Move on.
Nim, ham hock of liberty said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:51
“And I invited you to leave me out of this. I don’t take kindly to veiled threats — unless I’m the one making them.
Fixed yer typo.
Karl Rove II said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:52
February 20, 2007 at 18:44
I smell poo…
Moronblogger said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:54
I’m running out of patience, and I’d rather not spend my days embroiled in blogfights.
Too much drinking on a thursday afternoon and not getting published to do, ya know.
prozacula said,
February 20, 2007 at 19:56
Jeff G - didn’t I and many others on this site, ask that you just fuck off already?
Fuck Off Already!
Don’t you have a diaper to change, a psychiatrist to see about your klonopin scrip, or a slightly sardonic short story to write? I hear Dumfuk College is having an open mic poetry night. I bet you would just SLAY them with your razor-sharp wit.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:02
Oh my. Well, the die is cast, etc., etc. It’ll be a few weeks — partly so you have some time to think things over when you’re not as hot about getting shown up — but barring a return to sense, it’s coming.
Cheers, [HMTL’s name]. Just remember that you sought the attention: and you can as easily deter it. “Hey, sorry — I shouldn’t have appropriated your wedding photos.” Think it over.
Oh, one aside:
Have you ever actually READ Mencken….?
Yeah. Do you know what he thought of self-proclaimed, bawling democracy-purists like [HTML’s name]
Again, cheers.
Scott de B. said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:04
Britain, in spite of its horrible tactics during the Boer War, still was a civilized country with seemingly misguided yet civil proto-neocons. Nowhere in your article is a reference to rabid accusations of treason.
It’s not in the article, but there were accusations of treason as strong and even stronger than what we see today. In 1900 was the ‘khaki election.’ The British populace decided to give the war supporters one last try. Analogous to 2004. Even though the war ended in ‘victory,’ the backlash in succeeding elections threw the imperialists out of power.
Spokane Moderate said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:05
You know what we need? Someone to pledge to uphold certain principles of online integrity. That’ll do it.
The Fucking Fury, Unleashed said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:07
Huh. So, when Trevino pulled the same thing in Billmon’s comments a few years ago, posting his real name, was that because Billmon had APPROPRIATED WEDDING PHOTOS MY GOD THE HORROR, or was it just because Trevino’s a brownshirt with a thesaurus? It’s a mystery…
Matt T. said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:08
Personally, I think it’s interesting Trevino has no problem with being called a pro-genocide sociopath with a shallow understanding of the history he uses to showcase his ugly opinions, yet his real beef is with some wedding pictures that made him look like a dork. Wow.
Nim, ham hock of liberty said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:09
“Oh my. Well, the die is cast, etc., etc. It’ll be a few weeks — partly so you have some time to think things over when you’re not as hot about getting shown up — but barring a return to sense, it’s coming.”
Smell the integritudiousness!
When you sandwich it in between stilted sentences and smear some turgid overblown rhetoric on top of it, it smells even better!
mikey said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:12
Jeez, it’s like sitting on top of a bunker and watching a couple of companies chunk mortars at each other. A lot of noise and smoke, but all anybody’s losing is sleep. Reckon y’all better fix bayonets and close the range or saddle up and hump home. ‘Cause this is nothin but silly…
mikey
islmfaoscist said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:13
Let’s just end the mystery right here.
Mencken’s home is at 1524 Hollins Street in Baltimore’s Union Square neighborhood.
Matt T. said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:17
mikey,
Eh, keeps ‘em off the streets. And it’s not like they got anything important to do.
Ann Althouse said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:22
I am teh real HTML Mencken.
kc said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:24
Cheers, [HMTL’s name]. Just remember that you sought the attention: and you can as easily deter it. “Hey, sorry — I shouldn’t have appropriated your wedding photos.� Think it over.
Again with the outing and the threats? What a sorry spectacle you’re making of yourself.
One day, probably tomorrow, you’ll think about what you posted here today and be profoundly embarrassed by it. It’s too bad for you you won’t be able to delete these comments the way you delete much of your online oeuvre.
prozacula said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:26
Oh, one aside:
Have you ever actually READ Mencken….?
Yeah. Do you know what he thought of self-proclaimed, bawling democracy-purists like [HTML’s name]
Again, cheers
yeah, asshole, I know what he thought of ‘democracy-purists’. He didn’t, you fucking moron. You won’t find that phrase, or anything similar, in anything he wrote.
what he WAS against was intellectual blowhards like yourself that advocate imperialism, enable fascist cronyism and bullshit wars for no reason.
He was against the puritanical bullshit you and your peers spew all the time, and would have mocked you for every word you have ever written.
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:31
….I know what he thought of ‘democracy-purists’. He didn’t….
Wrong.
bpower said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:37
Right Wing Authoritarians. This is what they are folks, everything else is just a symptom.
Apprentice to Darth Holden said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:38
Geez. The braintrust of the rightwing blogosphere has all the wealth and power of a piggybank.
How surprising is this?
Not very, actually.
The Fucking Fury, Unleashed said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:44
One day, probably tomorrow, you’ll think about what you posted here today and be profoundly embarrassed by it.
Are you kidding? He’s incapable of it. Like I mentioned above, he did the same thing to Billmon once, only then he didn’t pretend he was defending his poor besmirched honor; he just felt like it. Hell, he seems incapable of commenting without dropping full names, places of employment, birthmarks, etc.
In his free time, the whackjob bastard probably calls up random strangers in the phone book just to say in an ominous voice, I know who you are and I saw what you did!”
Steve said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:45
It’s interesting that Trevino has 14 comments in this thread, not one of which contains a defense on the merits. Oh, but there’s plenty of time to blather on about outing.
When all you can do in response to charges like these - established by your own writings, no less - is to vow retribution against the author, that really says it all.
Genocidal Wingnut Chaser said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:49
Cock-slappy and Tacky in the same thread? Oh, I must be dreaming….
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 20:58
As I’ve said: there is no moral compulsion to defend another person’s GI Joe code name. [HTML’s name] may ask his girlfriends to call him “Cobra Commander” in private — this would not be especially surprising — but that’s of no concern to me. Bottom line? Eminent left-bloggers like Duncan Black, Markos Moulitsas, [redacted by request of blogger in question], Tom Boggiano, Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Scott Lemieux, Amanda Marcotte, Matthew Yglesias, Brad Reed(!) [Bradrocket adds: That’s muh name, don’t wear it out!), et al., are quite fine with their names appended to their work. Whatever else one thinks of them, they have this honesty, and this confidence. And they’re doing just fine, thanks.
[HTML’s name] of [of HTML’s still not quite right location], is by comparison a quailing coward. Having shown that he thinks nothing is off-limits — even after being nicely asked once, and warned once — I won’t respond in kind. That’s his game, and he’s welcome to it. But I will, with pleasure, needle him in a manner that inspires his shrieking paranoia. That much, the fool has earned.
Clif said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:00
Somebody married Trevino? On purpose?
Josh Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:00
And with that, second time’s the charm — cheers to all.
Sincerely,
Josh Trevino of Sacramento, California
kc said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:04
Bejus, what a drama queen.
marc page said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:04
“Having shown that he think nothing is off-limits … ”
Mr. Trevino, that is exactly the point you are evading. It looks like most people here today are less interested in the tantrum you are throwing than they are in thinking about just what has gone wrong inside your head to cause you to advocate a murderous policy in which “nothing is off-limits.”
marc page said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:06
That is to say, publishing an embarassing photo of you seems to be some sort of ‘crime against humanity’ while mass murder is just “Reason[able]” policy — at least in your mind (such as it is.)
MCH said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:08
OT, but:
GOP donor hit with terror charges
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17241633/
WASHINGTON - A New York man accused of trying to help terrorists in Afghanistan has donated some $15,000 to the House Republicans’ campaign committee over three years.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari pleaded not guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to charges that include terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money laundering….
nolo said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:12
That Trevino kid’s not quite right in the head, is he?
themann1086 said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:13
Damn “democracy-purists” and their belief in freedom and equality…
marc page said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:16
By the way, Mr. Goldstein is now coyly telling his ‘readers’ that he may “quit blogging” at the end of March.
It is interesting how often he gets away with this sort of thing. He tells the poor things (now and again) that he just can’t go on and then sits back to sun his ego in the warmth of their pleas: “Oh no, Jeff, please don’t go … if you do, the Muslims and the Liberals will eat us.”
Jiggavegas said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:17
goddammit. That was a really excellent post completely derailed by the Goon Squad. *sigh*
But that reminds me of a funny story: My neighbor took my newspaper without asking, so I broke into his house while he was asleep and stole his TV. And his dog.
Hey, fair’s fair. Eye for an eye. He’s a coward for locking his door in the first place. Etc. etc. ad nauseum infinity eleven no takebacks.
Sharon said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:29
My goodness, (brushes dust off of her shoulders) What. A. Mess.
You know you’re lying about those photos Josh. There was a link to the photos on your website. Now STFU, get back to dreaming of genocide, and leave these good people alone.
Don’t make me pulll this blog over.
stickler said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:30
Jiggavegas, you misunderstand:
goddammit. That was a really excellent post completely derailed by the Goon Squad. *sigh*
Not at all. Mr. Tacitus proved, by studiously avoiding any discussion of his genocidal ravings, that he has no defense for his atrocious misreading of history. None whatsoever. All the furious hand-waving was supposed to distract the reader from the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of his original Boer War post.
As a distraction, it failed. Utterly. As a window into his frightened little world, though, it was instructive.
thelogos said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:41
Treblinka, nah too modern. Try maybe Corinth or another city-state that the Romans laid waste to (including salting the fields) or even get biblical with some nice bloodthirsty xtian wargawd myths.
Dan Someone said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:49
Well, that’s half an hour of my life I’ll never get back.
ahem said,
February 20, 2007 at 21:53
Pasty should really share his meds with Joshua von Stickenbuttzen.
On topic:
cf Kim DuToit, who is sandpaper to Boot’s silk on basically the same point.
Isn’t Kim America’s Most Loved Eugene Terreblanche Impersonator?
Josh said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:01
Eminent left-bloggers like Duncan Black, Markos Moulitsas, [redacted], Tom Boggiano, Jerome Armstrong, Chris Bowers, Matt Stoller, Stirling Newberry, Scott Lemieux, Amanda Marcotte, Matthew Yglesias, Brad Reed(!), et al., are quite fine with their names appended to their work. Whatever else one thinks of them, they have this honesty, and this confidence. And they’re doing just fine, thanks.
The fourth in your list specifically asked you not to use her real name. I have to give you chutzpah points for including her.
Bradrocket adds: I give you dumbass points for repeating her name when you quote Tacitus :-)
tigrismus said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:04
Private persons are entitled to respect for their privacy regardless of their activities online. This includes respect for the non-public nature of their personal contact information, the inviolability of their homes, and the safety of their families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted. The separateness of private persons’ professional lives should also be respected as much as is reasonable.
Public figures are entitled to respect for the non-public nature of their personal, non-professional contact information, and their privacy with regard to their homes and families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted.
Persons seeking anonymity or pseudonymity online should have their wishes in this regard respected as much as is reasonable. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior.
Violations of these principles should be met with a lack of positive publicity and traffic.
Josh said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:05
Er, make that third. Math is hard!
Lee Trevino said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:08
Has anyone seen my 9 iron?
justathought said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:11
The fourth in your list specifically asked you not to use her real name. I have to give you chutzpah points for including her.
not to mention that Boggioni was threatened with outing by Ace, or Patterico, so made his name known publicly.
Yeah, that Treviño, he’s a real
cracked assclassy act.Gentlewoman said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:13
Let me get this straight.
HTML posts excerpts of, among others, Tacitus, advocating genocide as a tactic in Teh Great War on Terror or Teh Epic Clash of Civilizations or whatever the wingnuts are calling it this week..
HTML shows, using historical and political references, the similarities of the Iraq disaster for the USA to the disaster that was the Boer War for the British Empire.
In a comment, HTML mentions that he knows that Tacitus and Jeff G are up to their old tricks of Online Integrity Offensiveness.
And then…Tacitus (with an assist in the form of a mini-tantrum from Jeff G, which, like most of his tantrums, can be dismissed), comes here to comment, repeatedly, NOT to defend himself against the charges of advocating genocide and being an all-round immoral and dishonest nitwit, but to post (I assume) HTML’s real name and location.
Tacitus, you probably actually believe you are a Christian. In this, like most of your heinous and disgustingly immoral ideas, you are profoundly mistaken.
I don’t know how we are going to live with these people once our country comes to its senses and votes them all out of power. I really don’t.
They are morally insane. I can’t think of any other way to describe them.
Spokane Moderate said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:14
tigrismus, that’s a pre-2/19 mindset. We cannot afford such thinking in a post-2/19 world. Integrity will inevitably lead to islamofascism.
billy pilgrim said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:21
Totally class acts. All the way from their self-righteous male pattern baldness to their genocidal ingrown toenails.
Thomas said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:25
That list of bloggers is really something, isn’t it? It’s hard to imagine someone like Trevino even successfully making his pets like him.
Jason said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:33
Criminitly, over a hundred posts and nobody’s talking about the original post anymore.
Which was fucking brilliant and stomped the targets into mush.
That’s why they don’t want to talk about it.
kingubu said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:40
Wait, wait, wait… Did I just actually see Tacky Tush use the term ‘democratic purists’ to suggest that unflinching commitment to democracy was a bad thing?
Let’s review: we have prose poems to the desirability of genocide and disdain for democracy when it leads to outcomes he doesn’t like. All he needs to do is mix in a little “enemy within” rhetoric and he’ll hit the One Day Mein Kampf trifecta.
Herr Doktor Bimler said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:46
Trevino: “History never offers exact parallels, but it does have useful lessons. In assessing manning needs for Iraq, one would do well to look to prior conflicts of similar nature… one might look especially to the Boer War[…]”
But ..but! To use that quote as evidence of its creator’s psychopathy is unfair, says its author…
“[…]The point of the excursion into the Boer War example is not to make a policy prescription, but to conduct a thought-experiment[…]”
The funny thing about this whole Boer-War imbroglio was the disclaimer from Tacitus that he wasn’t actually advocating anything similar, like rounding civilians up into concentration camps. Apparently the only reason he had described the British tactics was that he had recently read a book on the topic and wanted to show off his knowledge.
Then the imbrogliation quickly degenerated, with Tacitus complaining to his detractors over at Lawyers Guns & Money that they should keep quiet because they weren’t qualified historians. I never worked out how he knew that they weren’t qualified historians… possibly their disagreement with him was the proof of their ignorance.
RobW said,
February 20, 2007 at 22:49
Having shown that he thinks nothing is off-limits…
This is especially priceless. The wanker’s all upset because [who gives a fuck] is not showing the proper restraint in his commentary. This, after the wanker writes a post praising the horrible lack of restraint by the British Empire.
The guy tells us this: “I have stated previously that I endorse cruel things in war — to eschew them is folly.” And goes on to describe all the wondrous things the British did in their brilliant lack of restraint.
But [who gives a fuck] has apparently crossed some kind of moral line, one that should never be crossed by anyone civilized, because he re-posted a pic (that the fool had placed on his own site) that made him look like a dork.
See, in online personal/political beefs, there’s this thing called decency and it is sacrosanct. Violate that code, and you reveal yourself as completely lacking in ethics.
In a war, however, such concerns are irrelevant and potentially disastrous if they restrain one from indiscriminate slaughter, mass murder, genocide, etc.
If one should disagree with that horrible philosophy, one must not be sarcastic in doing so, for that violates the Blog Ethical Code somehow, and one must be punished.
Certainly, the argument Tacky made can’t be refuted or defended on its merits. Why bother, since it’s so much more fun to start this bullshit flame war.
That, and his “argument” has already been pretty thoroughly destroyed by [who gives a fuck]’s original post and the pile-on by commenters. It’s like arguing with a Scientologist- they never defend their position, but they always attack critics.
His attempt to hijack H.L. Mencken for the wingers is particularly funny, though. I’ve read a bit of HLM; it is not possible to pigeonhole the guy into any ideology. He pretty much despised everybody, and I suspect that’s why everybody loves him today.
His only consistent position was against anyone who places ideological interests ahead of human ones, and he reserved special scorn for those whose politics is reactionary, not based on any coherent thought but just mindless fear.
Here’s a few choice quotes, of relevance today:
“Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
“When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost… All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” (emphasis mine)
“Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.”
Interesting that Trevino referred to Mencken’s contempt for democracy, (”Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”) since it seems the only thing Mencken considered worse than democracy was religion:
“Christian — One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.”
“Creator — A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.”
“Sunday — A day given over by Americans to wishing that they themselves were dead and in Heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in Hell.”
And idealism: “An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.”
Or both…: “The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.”
Lest you think he reserved his contempt for Democrats… :”In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for. As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.”
Ok, that’s all. Submit!!
Regulararmyfool said,
February 20, 2007 at 23:05
When I was on guard duty in Vietnam, I was killing time in the day room before my walking post.
Two short timers, both intelligent and college graduates were playing cards and talking.
The next thing I knew they were arguing about some 17th century philosopher and then … one pulled a knife, the other picked up a rifle and locked and loaded.
I now have a little perspective.
People, life is too good for this really stupid crap.
Herr Doktor Bimler said,
February 20, 2007 at 23:07
Somewhere in the 20th century, the idea of victory as an end in itself was lost.
And to echo what Non Nato said upstream, the idea of Total War wandered off into the long grass at about the same time.
kingubu said,
February 20, 2007 at 23:13
Herr Dok: the idea of Total War wandered off into the long grass at about the same time.
Is that another pot joke? Sheesh.
America's Morning said,
February 20, 2007 at 23:18
Gentlewoman completely nails the incredible hypocrisy and intemperate idiocy, but just to put a little addendum to what she says… Guys, guys… if online existance drives you to constantly write things you are ashamed of the next day, if seeing people whose views differ from yours drives you into enraged behaviour that you’ve openly pledged online to try and stop doing and yet cannot help repeat all the same… and if you have periods of extreme lethargy, where you feel you just cannot bear the terrible terrible pain of it all… then guys, you have a genuine illness there. It’s not the fault of other people, and if I’m honest, I feel somewhat sorry for you, because it’s not really your fault either. Your time online has unbalanced you, and made you ill.
And illness isn’t amusing. You aren’t going to improve your own life, let alone the entire world, by engaging in these shameful destructive fights online… Constantly trying to lash out and “hurt” HTML will change nothing… because the rage you feel today will be back again tomorrow. It’s coming from nowhere but inside yourselves. Step back and take some “me” time huh, guys? Because look at what happens when you don’t… the very same damned if you do, damned if you don’t arguments get used against yourself… Why bother printing your name, and location, when you know people will use it to find nerdy pictures of you… just as you yourselves are rummaging about trying to do the exact same thing to others in turn? You are effectively engaged in self destructive behaviour, even if you believe you are struggling against the vast masses of external demons. Give it up guys… for your own sakes, if nothing else.
Dobby said,
February 20, 2007 at