After Ukraine, We Need an American Spring...
We need some government, obviously, but at this point in American history, in order to save our nation, we need to get the state as much as possible out of our lives, to cut its functions with a meat cleaver to release our better impulses, to have the renewal of Spring.I wonder whom Simon hopes to wave into action with his cleaver. Are there enough wingnut preppers to take down Obama and deliver our nation into the hands of the European Union? Probably not, so Simon is ready for outreach:
Those already convinced of our cause — small-government conservatives, Tea Partiers, libertarians — should put aside their squabbles for now, join together and seek to be as inclusive as possible.With Nick Gillespie and that guy in the Ben Franklin get-up on board, how can the Boehner Orange Revolution fail?
UPDATE. Comments are very good. To Simon's ""The [American] people aren’t the problem. It’s the state," Chairman Pao responds, "Which is run by who or what? Loki? AD-45 Riot-Bots? Care Bears?" Nyet, comrade, the election was stolen, the people are with us and will rise at the signal of the meat cleaver! At Simon's Strange New Respect for libertarian convert/election loser Joe Trippi, Halloween_Jack muses, "Now if we can only pass Mark Penn off on them..." Shhhh don't tip 'em off!
Those already convinced of our cause — small-government conservatives,
ReplyDeleteTea Partiers, libertarians — should put aside their squabbles for now
I don't know, I hear the Conservative Peoples' Front has some real squabbles with the Peoples' Front of Conservatism.
Ukraine? They might at least wait for an uprising in a place that real Amurkins can relate to, say Georgia, and then call for a revolution to begin in fucking Stone Mountain or someplace.
ReplyDeleteto have the renewal of Spring.
ReplyDeleteIn the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but
then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
Is there enough tin foil for such a contingency?
ReplyDeleteSpringtime for Instapundit.
ReplyDeleteAh yes. Small government conservatives, Tea Partiers, and libertarians should be more welcoming towards... small government conservatives, Tea Partiers, and libertarieans. This little coterie can be inclusive in much the same way that the Ouroboros is well-fed.
ReplyDeleteIt's probably just a writing tic/ass-covering method, but I wonder what 'some government' we need and why 'at this point' the stakes are higher than ever. I'll take 'Enough to keep the teeming masses away from me' and 'because there's more of them than us and it's only getting worse' for $200, Alex.
ReplyDeletecut its functions with a meat cleaver to release our better impulses
Rodge, you might get more people on board if your calls for freedom didn't sound so much like a serial killer's inner dialogue.
Wonder how many are gonna get this one.
ReplyDeleteAt least well grilled snake actually tastes good.
ReplyDeletethe Ouroboros is well-fed
ReplyDeletehttp://0.static.wix.com/media/74f407_df2df47810baa540f14148912e0bf340.jpg_512
It's a haunting in Connecticut 2, Georgian funiture.
ReplyDeleteA million Hoverounds equipped with machine gun mounts and sidecars, each carrying a beer-bellied Militia dude (mullets present!), flying a Gadsen flag, and modified to run on sweet Texas crude oil. I'm gettin' wood just imagining it.
ReplyDeleteNot if the investment banks keep hiding aluminum ingots in New Jersey to game the market....
ReplyDeleteRoger,Roger, Roger... your idea of better impulses seem to be release your inner absolute jackass. You've been doing so for years, How's it working out?
ReplyDeleteAnd who says velvet paintings can't be classy?
ReplyDeleteI was a little disappointed that it wasn't an animated gif.
ReplyDeleteAren't we all?
ReplyDeleteWell, lessee, the current situation in the Ukraine has a bunch of neo-Nazis, fascists and other assorted nationalists trying to wrench the country away from a large Russian-speaking bloc. Is that what Simon is suggesting we emulate?
ReplyDeleteAll we need is the large Russian-speaking bloc, I guess.
So I'm not the only one who's planning on spending the night cowering under my bed after reading the meat cleaver/better impulses thing?
ReplyDeletePaging Substance McGravitas!
ReplyDeleteFor his inner absolute jackass? Pretty damn well, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding of the Ukrainian situation is that the neo-Nazis and fascists became the leaders of the opposition whenever Secretary of State was over there talking with them, and the rightwing noise machine was all "Obama administration is befriending anti-semites!!!"
ReplyDelete-- but the worst of the nazis was rebranded as a freedom-loving democrat whenever John McCain was photographed beside him promising him the full support of his US govt.-in-exile, and the noise from the right-wing switched to "Obama administration refuses to intervene!!!"
"I don't care how petty, scared, dissatisfied, insecure and ineffectual I may seem; in reality I am the exact opposite of those things. Just drop my marginal tax rate to 10% and I promise I'll be like Achilles and Jesus and Sun Tzu combined into one glorious person."
ReplyDeleteJust to make sure my understanding is correct, the right-wingers are led by Yulia Tymoshenko, who used to be the PM and was in jail until recently, and they're pro-EU and anti-Russia, and the sitting government is left-wing and led by Viktor Yanukovych, and they're pro-Russia/anti-EU? Is that accurate, anyone who knows?
ReplyDeleteThis puts the lie to the line about how "it ain't gonna suck itself."
ReplyDeleteWith Nick Gillespie and that guy in the Ben Franklin get-up on board, how can the Boehner Orange Revolution fail?
ReplyDeleteI thought the Orange Revolution was a Cheetos marketing ploy.
Well, that works too.
Well, I'm too lazy to swing myself under there, but yeah,.
ReplyDeleteI think that a meat cleaver would release Roger el-Simon's better impulses, or at least a large portion of his bodily fuids.
ReplyDeleteI guess you had to Be There
ReplyDeleteOh my lord, the bugfuckery:
ReplyDeleteBut in order to achieve this American Spring, those who favor a
diminished state must exercise discipline and kindness as never before.
They should avoid internal rectification campaigns (shooting their own,
looking for ideological perfection that doesn’t exist). We are not
communists. That’s what they do.
Hey, Roger: remember that government shutdown last October? How'd that work out for you guys? Think anyone on Capitol Hill picks up the phone when the caller ID says it's the Heritage Action clowns again? Just for practice, why don't you guys try impeaching Ted Cruz's idiot pie-hole and Rand Paul's hair before going after bigger game?
and seek to be as inclusive as possible.
ReplyDeleteSure, you go ahead and try that. Just understand that with this bunch, the possible inclusiveness is extremely limited.
Yes, they shall gather on the village commons, embrace each other in conservatism (in a manly fashion), put aside their differences and thrust open the gates of freedom at Ma and Pa Kettle's DVD's and hire NASCAR highlights.
ReplyDeleteThen they are gonna watch those suckers, staying up late and ordering pizzas. Just see if they don't.
They will try to be inclusive of each other's Cheetos
ReplyDeleteThat's the shorthand version, pretty much. The pro-EU stance is a bit iffy, though. I think there's been an expressed desire by some to hook up with the EU, but it's probably driven by a healthy minority who want to emigrate (having the EU's blessings would make that much easier than it is now) because life in Ukraine is not exactly a bowl of cherries these days. The demonstrations there over the years have always had an economic underpinning.
ReplyDeleteM'self, I think the neo-Nazis just want to stay and run the country, and if they can get away with it, purge the Russian-speaking part of the population, whom they still conceive of as Communists and Jews. If they come to power, there probably won't be pogroms, but there will be a concerted effort to dispossess them and force them, one way or another, back to Russia. This article pretty much sums up their political roots and they're not nice people. They probably are not the ones fully on board with joining up with the diverse, tolerant Nazi-unsympathetic EU, not by a long, long stretch.
Discipline and kindness. Yeah, that's why he's calling for an American version of a protest that left dozens of people dead and millions in property damage.
ReplyDeleteThey should avoid internal rectification campaigns (shooting their own,
looking for ideological perfection that doesn’t exist).
Good thing you thought leaders haven't been training them to scream 'RINO! Squish! Primary!' at any non-sufficiently wacko wingnut for the last 3 election cycles, eh?
I admit that, sight unseen (and this sounds dumb and shallow but it did stick in my mind), I wouldn't have guessed that the female ex-political prisoner would be the leader of the right-wing ambiguously-Nazi party. Maybe the situation just reminds me of Bhutto and Aung San Suu Kyi. Also of note, the "Fatherland Party" (oh dear) that Tymoshenko heads used the slogan "We Will Stop Them" in the 2012 elections. That's a bit...on the nose.
ReplyDeleteCompared to domestic politics, I know fuck-all about international politics of any sort. That said, it strikes me as not unreasonable to want to keep Vladimir Putin at arm's length, and for Ukrainians in particular to get a little agitated on the topic of Russia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Genocide And right-wing rabble-rousers, of course, love stoking fear and suspicion. Is there some possible way this ends well for both the pro- and anti-Russia factions in the Ukraine?
This article pretty much sums up their political roots
ReplyDeleteI was infesting a BalloonJuice thread earlier today, casting doubt on that same article. I mean, the first link I followed from it was supposed to back up the claim that
EuroMaidan protesters destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II
-- but the desecrated memorial was in fact one of those Stalinist tributes to the Heroic Russian Liberators. So I checked on a couple more claims and they were equally far-fetched distortions of the original reports. The author seems to have made his mind up about the situation in Ukraine and is nut-picking evidence to support it, or failing that, is happy to fabricate it.
the right-wingers are led by Yulia Tymoshenko, who used to be the PM and was in jail until recently, and they're pro-EU and anti-Russia, and the sitting government is left-wing and led by Viktor Yanukovych, and they're pro-Russia/anti-EU?
ReplyDeleteNot sure if genuinely Left or Right parties have much of a constituency there. Yulia Tymoshenko was originally one of Putin's mates, and one of the most successful looters of state assets during the Yeltsin wave of legalised piracy, but she did not play well with others (i.e. Yanukovych and his party of oligarchs) and decided that more profit lay in rebranding herself as an arch Nationalist and setting up her own party. She was President for a while, giving the Ukrainians a choice between her brand of EU-leaning kleptocracy and Yanukovych's brand of Russian-leaning kleptocracy; they opted for the latter, in the soon-to-be-disappointed hope that Yanukovych would at least be a competent crook.
Blumenthal is usually a lot better on the facts than that. But, that said, I don't think he's wrong about the neo-Nazis. That's the import of the piece.
ReplyDeleteIndeed, how long, oh how long, before aggrieved, conservative white men finally get their day?
ReplyDeleteSpringtime for Hitler analogies.
ReplyDelete(Oh hell, as if those were limited to a season.)
Whew. Chance favors the prepared.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds right.
ReplyDeleteInternal rectification? That sounds dirty.
ReplyDeletewankers
ReplyDeleteWe came to this place as individual monsters...racists...misogynists...violent fetishists...homophobes...and religious bigots; but we leave here a Mob, united in our hatred of everything and driven to a single purpose.
ReplyDeleteGoddam! I never thought I'd live to see the day!
That must be the fabled Nantucket Ouroboros
ReplyDeleteThey should avoid ... shooting their own, looking for ideological perfection that doesn't exist...We are not communists. That's what they do.
ReplyDeleteYeah. Right. Since they are instead Fascists they only shoot Others, not their own, which includes everyone not in perfect ideological sync.
Politics can be so confusing without clear distinctions between totalitarians.
The clerk at Sherwin Williams tried to pretend he didn't know how to mix me up a batch of Boehner Orange. It's a conspiracy of the homofascist interior decorators.
ReplyDeleteAll the best Bolshie ideas do, don't they?
ReplyDeleteUnless, of course, you simply prefer to watch.
ReplyDeleteAh, conservatives! Calling upon the "better impulses" of the faithful using language and imagery that essentially demand violent overthrow of the United States government.
ReplyDeleteOnce again: They're true patriots who love America but despise its government and most of its people.
But keep your hands off my medicare! Oh, and I expect those social security checks to keep coming, too!
ReplyDeletesmall government conservatives, Tea Partiers, libertarians- should put aside their squabbles for now
ReplyDelete...and continue to invest in Bitcoin.
Tea Partiers, libertarians — should put aside their squabbles for now, join together and seek to be as inclusive as possible.
ReplyDeleteOh sure...hmmm...
Atheists group blocked from CPAC
Only God-fearin' glibbertarians wanted at CPAC. Good ol' Ayn Rand types, you know.
~
P.S. DEMOCRACY SUX!!1!
ReplyDeletehttp://s17.postimg.org/mzml4tnb3/Roger_L_Simon_After_Ukraine_We_Need_an_Ameri.jpg
~
A word cloud of that sentence is pure Georges Bataille.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, it's just Roger L. Simon butching it up in the hope of getting Nick Gillespie to notice him.
ReplyDelete"Those already convinced of our cause — small-government conservatives,
ReplyDeleteTea Partiers, libertarians — should put aside their squabbles for now,
join together and seek to be as inclusive as possible."
Translation from the original Wingnutese:
"We've got to stop saying stupid shit long enough so that people will forget we're nuts and elect us. THEN we can get back to business as usual."
Only God-fearin' glibbertarians wanted at CPAC. Good ol' Ayn Rand types, you know.
ReplyDeleteWell, atheist Ayn Rand types would at least be consistent, and we obviously can't have that. Ye must serve both Jeebus and Ayn, because that demonstrates one's necessary psychopathic levels of hypocrisy and viciousness. Bonus points if you're an Objectivist Roman Catholic who refers to His Holiness Francis I as "this guy."
My perception was that the Neo Nazis were actually a fraction of the opposition, but composed a larger fraction of the protesters in Kiev due to their willingness, not to say eagerness to commit acts of violence. I'm not sure to what extent that is an accurate description.
ReplyDeleteI 'love' the implications for the Republic should the Rubicon be crossed, as this poster advocates.
ReplyDeleteSo the people who don't believe in a centralized political operations should all get together and act as one?
ReplyDeleteWhy is CPAC infringing on the religious freedom of this group?
ReplyDeleteThe are going to come together with discipline and kindness in order to promote their agenda of blatant gun-brandishing and discrimination against gays and minorities.
ReplyDeleteThat to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ...
ReplyDeleteIf men were angels, no government would be necessary ...
This view of the subject must particularly recommend a proper federal system to all the sincere and considerate friends of republican government, since it shows that in exact proportion as the territory of the Union may be formed into more circumscribed Confederacies, or States oppressive combinations of a majority will be facilitated ...
It is no less certain than it is important, notwithstanding the contrary opinions which have been entertained, that the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government.
... to cut its functions with a meat cleaver to release our better impulses ...
Hmm, no offense, Roger, but despite the compelling lyricism of your argument, I'm going to stick with the first two for now.
It's not infringing if they aren't religious. Or if they're one of the wrong religions. Or if they're technically the right religion, but have wrong opinions anyway ... Look, just keep your mouth shut and wave this wallet-size Constitution around, okay?
ReplyDeleteThat kindness part really gets me. The entire movement is dedicated to,and identified with, the most blatant, ugly, name calling, and meanness--these are the people who call the President's wife and children animals, who cheered the hypothetical illness and death of an uninsured cancer patient, and who identify with the rapist and not the rape victim every chance they get. Kindness has left the building. Kindness is running for her life.
ReplyDeleteAt this point isn't the copy of the Constitution they are waving about tank size, though the print is very, very, tiny and clustered in one corner.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, seasons are a land of contrasts.
ReplyDeleteYet again, a wingnut embraces the newly-libertarian Joe Trippi. Now if we can only pass Mark Penn off on them...
ReplyDelete"During the [internal] rectification of the Vuldrani, the Traveler came as a large and moving Torg. Then, during the third reconciliation of the last of the McKetrick supplicants, they chose a new form for him: that of a giant Slor! Many Shuvs and
ReplyDeleteZuuls knew what it was to be roasted in the depths of the Slor that day,
I can tell you!"
Oh, that's hardly a fair characterization. The Tenth Amendment and the second clause of the Second Amendment are in 24-point type. Blurry and misspelled type, but still.
ReplyDeleteNeeds MOAR Cossacks. With whips.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Orange Revolution was a Cheetos marketing ploy
ReplyDeleteSergei Prokofiev would like a word.
I hadn't heard that Jonah Goldberg was redecorating his colon office.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of government by meat cleaver, whyn't you start chatting up the good citizens of Rwanda, Roger? I'm pretty sure they could give you some tips on the whole revolution thing.
ReplyDeleteThe Love for Three Oranges
ReplyDeleteJohn Boehner, Sarah Palin, and Arnold Schwarzenegger sing about their favorite brands of spray tan?
[Deborah wants to give Nick his Christmas present]
ReplyDeleteDeborah Fifer: I have something to get you out of your midlife crisis.
Nick Fifer: That can only mean a full-body vibrator!
Scenes from the Scenes From A Mall Revolution.
"The people aren’t the problem. It’s the state."
ReplyDeleteWhich is run by who? Loki? AD-45 Riot-Bots? Care Bears? (Don't tell me you haven't had your suspicions about the Care Bears.)
'Forward he cried from the rear, and the front rank died.'
ReplyDeleteIf every ethnic, sexual, political, and religious group in America is eventually treated with respect and dignity, there will still be the atheists.
ReplyDelete"We need some government, obviously"
ReplyDeleteIndeed! Here in Georgia, "some government" means "the state overriding Atlanta's ban on anti-gay discrimination and installing LGBT Jim Crow laws without any public debate." Just a little gubmint is all!
Pat Buchanan has a piece up at Townhall entitled "Is Putin One Of Us?"" The Classic Comics condensed version of the piece is: "Yes... yes he is."
ReplyDelete"Rik, you just don't understand the timeless wonder of the whole thing!"
ReplyDeleteOnly Missouri Synod Lutherans need apply.
ReplyDeleteSounds better in (forced-exile-to-Siberia-by-Stalin-) original deutschspiel
ReplyDeleteI smell a sequel to the ultra-successful Atlas Shrugged series! Move over Road Warrior, we've got Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdumb. Even better, Mel Gibson is almost the right age to play the part of Lead Angry Old Codger.
ReplyDeleteWell, a careful parsing of Simon's turgid prose suggests that he means them to be kind to their ideological comrades in arms. It's not possible to have a coordinated attack on the sane people in the country without, um, coordination.
ReplyDeleteSort of like saying, "no, no, no Night of the Long Knives Tea Party Primary Challenges, okay?"
I'd settle for their day in court.
ReplyDeleteSo if the second time is farce, then the THIRD time is Jonah the Whale and farts.
ReplyDeleteWatching is good.
ReplyDeleteThose already convinced of our cause — small-government conservatives, Tea Partiers, libertarians — should put aside their squabbles for now, join together and seek to be as inclusive as possible.
ReplyDeleteThese are different people?
Needs MOAR SENDAK.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.booksofwondershop.com/images/products/detail/LoveofthreeOranges001.1.jpg
With a children's chorus on loan from Toddlers and Tiaras.
ReplyDeleteIn America, pussy whips YOU.
ReplyDeleteI am Incurious, Orange
ReplyDeleteThe Venn Diagram would be a single circle.
ReplyDeleteThere's music they can use from TLFTO:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XwjKIYYIGk
His second link is to a photograph of neo-nazi & white-supremacist graffiti sprayed onto the plinth of a toppled Lenin statue. But he describes it as a banner, flown by the statue-topplers themselves:
ReplyDeletedemonstrators have hoisted Nazi SS and white power symbols over a toppled memorial
In his third claim he turns one of those Stalinist triumphalist statues of Red Army occupiers, now vandalised, into "a memorial to Ukrainians who died battling German occupation during World War II".
His fourth claim involves the recollections of three Russian & German members of "An Anarchist group called AntiFascist Union Ukraine" who did not find themselves welcome in Kiev. You will not find that group outside of Blumenthal's essay, because it's actually called "AntiFascist Action Ukraine"; it seems pretty moribund if their website is any guide.
After that I lost interest in his honesty and credibility.
America needs a Spring. Not an icky Arab Spring, more like a Prague Spring, with fresh nappies and lots of talcum powder, not too heavily scented.
ReplyDeleteThe grown ups have had it their way for too long. It’s time to bust out of these jammy-jams and climb down from our high chairs and claim our rights as the Big Bold Babies we are. Just tell the people that run our lives, “you’re not the boss of me!”
To ensure this Spring Sprungs, we need to put aside our different shaped soothers and share our toys, just for now, so that the babysitter doesn’t scold us in that Big Government Anti-Spring voice. We need to speak in unified goo-goo ga-ga; put aside our drooling differences and stop crying when we shit our diapers. With no gloating, no heavy lifting and no unpleasant bending of any kind, we can take on the big meanies who are ruining this great playpen we call America.
These disparate groups span the political spectrum from ivory to egg shell.
ReplyDeleteAnyone want images? I have an image here.
ReplyDeleteJulius Caesar was electorally very successful, and the Senate reactionaries couldn't stand it, which is partially why they propped up Pompey as their extralegal military strongman first.
ReplyDeleteNowadays, the reactionaries howl about what a lawless dictator Obama is, while disparaging the popular vote and calling for armed rebellion. Fortunately, all they've got are Randius Pompousass Paullus and Ted Sesquiculus Crux.
The people are the problem? Time to dissolve them and appoint a new people?
ReplyDeleteThose squabbles are their only joy in life.
ReplyDeleteAnd they lost Christus Gluteus Maxima Maximus, to the dismay of some on the left.
ReplyDeleteAnd now that Dennis Leary is a producer, all we need is a director. Maybe Ted Nugent?
ReplyDeleteAnd don't forget: We need federal womb inspectors, as well as federal bedroom monitors to make sure nobody is doing things with their things that Republicans would not approve of.
ReplyDeleteOnce we had silver-white winters which melt into springs, but spring will be (oddly enough, due to climate change) a little late this year.
ReplyDeleteat this point in American history, in order to save our nation, we need to get the state as much as possible out of our lives
ReplyDeleteWe must be freed from the burdensome tyranny of potable water supplies!
That's what I told the mistress. "Honey, I know you're late but I belive it's just this climate change thingee."
ReplyDeleteShe spat playfully.
Soylent Green, s.c.
ReplyDeleteIt's the obvious solution.
~
The [American] people aren’t the problem. It’s the state
ReplyDeletel'état....ce sont eux!
Kosinski was a true genuis. I mean, to presuppose Palin so exactly...
ReplyDeleteOf course, this means we need to get the state as much as possible into regulating the lives of people we don't like.
ReplyDeleteThe blahs, the messicans, ladies, etc.
~
Galt's Gulch is in west Virginny!
ReplyDeleteIf the opportunity to defeat a commie Muslim foreign usurper who was going to destroy the country and sell our daughters to China (twice!) wasn't enough to make them work together, what makes you think this will?
ReplyDeleteAt this point the blood of tyrants might be the cleaner watering source for liberty trees.
ReplyDeleteThough whatever Republican things do is fine with Republicans.
ReplyDeletePerhaps there is no obvious candidate for dictator but they certainly are blessed with a plethora of choices for the modern reprise of Crassus.
ReplyDeleteThat's because God makes so many of us.
ReplyDeleteYes, the state is so "eux." If only the Constitution had provided "nous, les gens" some nonviolent mechanism for changing the people who run the state from time to time, short of a bloody revolution. Oh well, I guess the Founders couldn't be trusted to think of everything.
ReplyDeleteEspecially if you're the one holding the channel changer.
ReplyDelete"That to secure these rights, we need some government, obviously..."
ReplyDeleteThe "kindness" part really makes a lot more sense if you picture Simon saying it while brandishing a meat cleaver.
ReplyDeleteKindness has fled into the hedge maze with writer and recovering alcoholic Jack Torrance Roger Simon in pursuit.
ReplyDelete"Listen, son", said the man with a gun "there's room for you inside".
ReplyDelete"Not a Spring like the Arab Spring, of course, which was and is a nightmare beyond anyone’s wishes...."
ReplyDeleteOf course not, because, first of all, nothing A-Rab can be any good, and, secondly, the toppled dictators were mostly pro Western toadies.
"... but something more like the original Prague Spring that remade the Czech Republic into the vibrant country and society it is today."
Something tells me this guy has no clue as to what "the original Prague Spring" was. It started in the Spring (duh!) of 1968, and it ultimately failed, and thus did not remake the "Czech Republic" (which did not even exist at the time, as the Czechs and Slovaks were united in one country, Czechoslovakia). Moreover, the Prague Spring was a top down attempt by the Communist leader of the government, Alexander Dubcek, to reform the country within the Soviet bloc and while keeping to a socialist path (ie "socialism with a human face"), not a bottom up revolt like either the Arab Spring in Tunisia or Egypt or even, arguably, the recent events in the Ukraine. Ultimately, events started moving too quickly for the Soviets, and they crushed the movement, which did not offer military resistance.
I think the author is actually referring to the Velvet (or Gentle) Revolution of 1989, which did succeed, and which eventually led to the division of the country and the remaking of Czech government and society. Of course, the events of the Velvet Revolution took place in the late Autumn and early Winter of 1989, not the Spring.
Not a big deal, perhaps, but I think it does show a laxness, an unwillingness to do even minimal research, even as one calls for revolution and so forth...."Follow me to the barricades, even though I am both ignorant and stupid...." is not the most persuasive thing I have ever heard.
In 1968 when the Warsaw Pact tanks crossed the border into Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague Spring, Roger feckin Simon was sitting in a flat in London, watching the Chicago Democratic-party convention on TV and wishing he was there. According to his 2007 reinvented biography, anyway. He'd gone to Europe in search of life experience and inspiration for a novel; a few borders away, history was turning on its axis; but it turned out that Simon was more interested in the minutiae of US internal politics.
ReplyDeleteDo not expect historical facts to intrude upon his solipsism.
The march was also used as the theme for the old-time radio drama The FBI in Peace and War, which ran from 1944 to 1958.
ReplyDeleteJeez, that makes him all the more ridiculous.
ReplyDeleteI thought maybe he was some young guy, for whom 1968 was ancient history. But no, he was actually an adult, in Europe, at the very time that the Prague Spring was crushed (August 21, 1968...a week or so before the DNC in Chicago), and, from your link, he does actually seem to be at least somewhat aware of the significance of "'68" in Europe.
And yet he still can't distinguish Dubcek from Havel or the Prague Spring from the Velvet Revolution? WTF?
Those already convinced of our cause — the People's Front of Judea, the Judean People's Front, the Judean Popular People's Front, and the People's Liberation Front of Judea — should put aside their squabbles for now, join together and seek to be as inclusive as possible.
ReplyDeletePlus, didn't they just tell us that they didn't need no stinkin' government to protect them and their families and their wealth? They got their assault rifles, right? And that's all they need, while us members of the "dependent class" need police and courts and prisons and such. That being the case, with even the minimal, "night watchman" State not necessary or wanted, why do they need any government at all? Once again, they should simply move to Somalia, where they can build a compound and man the ramparts 24/7, and never, ever, ever have to worry about no damn gubmint again!
ReplyDeleteThe situation in the Ukraine is pretty complex, with folks that we would not want much to do with on either side of the barricades.
ReplyDeleteLeaving that aside, though, as well as what US policy is, was or should be viz a viz the Ukraine (my vote is for staying out of it), I wonder if dumbshit Simon even realizes that neither the protestors (now in power) nor the recently deposed government favor anything even remotely like his "we don't need no government" stance. Whether closer to the EU or Russia, the Ukraine has no tradition and no history whatsoever of any kind of extreme "libertarian" bullshit. Everyone there, on both sides of the barricades, accepts and wants a more active government than this clown. And that is true in the Czech Republic too, which he also purports to admire. Whatever the folks on the barricades and in the line of riot police were fighting for, it was not for what he wants.
I wish! What these "small-government conservatives, Tea Partiers, libertarians" types have really enjoyed is the idea that fags n' dykes can be shunned in the public sphere legally. Which is central to their point.
ReplyDeleteSo long as those freaks from the People's Judean Front are kept at bay, I don't see the problem.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I could tell through the old-man-shouts-at-clouds fustian of his prose, the take-home message was that (a) in 1968 Simon was as young and cool and idealistic as everyone else, and would have joined in at the barricades in Chicago except that he had other commitments in London; and (b) Chicago was wasted on the people who were at the barricades; they should have been thinking about the Holocaust rather than this "revolution" frivolity.
ReplyDeleteOh, and (c), the Chicago students were naive and self-deluding, not like the 1968 Simon with his uninterest in or unawareness of May in Paris and August in Prague.
Eh...not exactly. Chauncey Gardner wasn't a narcissist, an egomaniac, or an evil bitch.
ReplyDeleteAnything else, any attempt to tie it in to any other topic, to make comparisons, to attempt to draw lessons, and so on, is fraught with peril.
ReplyDeleteYou lucked out by missing the perhaps months-long Sadly,No! vs foreskin restoration enthusiasts flame war that grew out of a simple passing mention of the Foreskin Holocaust.
i got it, but i'm from jerzy...
ReplyDeleteI would gladly go on a Blind Date with this comment.
ReplyDelete"...to cut [Government]s functions with a meat cleaver to release our better impulses"
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Mr Simon is game to tell us precisely which of his "better impulses" the Gubmint is currently preventing him from "releasing".
.
Yup, missed that one by a mohel.
ReplyDeleteThe impulse to get on the bus, gus? To make a new plan, Stan?
ReplyDeleteOh, right, different Mr. Simon.
Or at least the barrel.
ReplyDeleteThat does seem to be the gist of it.
ReplyDeleteOuch!
ReplyDeleteThat would SEEM to be a contradiction, except that it isn't the actual America that they love.
ReplyDeleteIt's a fictional America. You know it when you see it... it kind of looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting.
The ironic thing is that this ever-dwindling group of white, aggrieved conservative people who despise minorities...
ReplyDeleteare themselves becoming the minority. It's exactly what they deserve.
True, true. But he did get the clulessness to a tee (hee.)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if dumbshit Simon even realizes that neither the protestors
ReplyDelete(now in power) nor the recently deposed government favor anything even
remotely like his "we don't need no government" stance.
All that Simon cares about in the Ukraine imbroglio is that an elected president was removed from power by the side who lost the election, after they made enough of a fuss and managed to bribe enough of the parliament over to their side. That is all the parallel he needs. The frothing loons watched the Orange Revolution and the Rose Revolution in Georgia and have been thinking enviously ever since, "Why can't we do that here?", though their Colour-Coded Revolution would presumably be 'white'.
If Simon confines his activities to calling on other people to revolt rather than involving himself personally, that's consistent with his 45-year history of Yellow Elephantism.