The Creek's been dammed (updated)

There are terrorists in America. They want to completely overturn the way we live, and they hate people who use the freedoms so many of us take for granted.

Chris Clarke kept a blog. He's moderately liberal (at least to my mind). If you want to know what sorts of things he wrote in Creek Running North you'll have to use the The Wayback Machine because he pulled it, root and branch, after he found a horse's head on his doorstep. [Wayback Machine no longer needed, the site is back up]

Not actually, but a commenter made a credible enough threat against his family's dog that they decided the better course of valor was to retire from the fray. I'm not passing judgement. [Chris Clarke's explantion] I've gotten death threats in the past (the first was back around 1989, something I wrote in college got someone fired up. It's a shock, that first one, becuase one can't really believe it; that sort of thing happens to other people) I did what most journalists do, reported it to the police, and chalked it up to a crank. Since then I've gotten a small handful. None of them credible enough to worry about, much.

Because anyone who really wants to can kill me. They don't need to threaten me first, and the simple fact is that lying in wait with a rifle and a scope will do for pretty much anyone. So I can quit, or I can deal with it. But it takes a different kind of coward to threaten an innocent bystander, and one more craven to threaten a dumb beast.

The point of that is to inspire terror; a sense of hopelessness. The same things which make killing a person possible, are more true for animals.

I wish I could say I was surprised at this. I'm not. The big names on the "Right" have been ginning up this sort of thing for years. Coulter, Limbaugh, Savage, Dobbs, Malkin, Horowitz, O'Reilly, et al., have been beating the drums of hate for years. That those who listen to them are taking it to heart is no shock. What's amazing is that more people haven't started doing it before this.

The second-string hate-mongers, the Yoshida's of the world, have been more active; posting addresses, and pictures, and hoping nothing actually happens to the "traitors" they've identified.

These talking heads say "The Left" is unhinged. They point to obscure academics, and little known bloggers and hold them up as the "soul" of the left. But they are paid millions (or tens of millions) for their rants. They have apologists, people who say they are "humorists", or that they represent, "the fringe," and no "real" conservative gives them any credit.

Which explains the best sellers, the TV shows, the radio broadcasts with the President, or the blog interviews with the SecDef, and the repetition of the corrosive memes the spout from "the fringe" by those who are in the "mainstream."

From Limbaugh saying liberals (save a few "type specimens" kept to show the evil they represent) should all be killed or deported, to Coulter saying the only way to talk to them is with a baseball bat, to Hannity calling us traitors, to Malkin saying we are unhinged; and the lot of them saying we have no morals, to vicious cowards threatening dogs; to muzzle a voice they disagree with, that's the trend.

It's not only the predicatble, but the desired, effect of this sort of rhetoric.

So a voice has been stilled, bottled up, because terror works, and those who won't argue a case on the merits are willing to resort to the club.

(no subject)

What do Tyrone Power, Jimmie Stewart, Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Henry Fonda, Mickey Rooney, John Huston, Frank Capra and John Ford have in common?

They all served in uniform during WW2, and all of them had existing careers which had already made them, if not famous, not anonymous either.

Other stars were too old to enlist, but spent time travelling to the front (or near front) to entertain the troops.

What do Jonah Goldberg, Ben Shapiro,Joe Scarborough, Nathan Taylor, Paul Gourley, Jess Beeson and a slew of others have in common?

They support the war, vocally, and with gusto; but they refuse to enlist.

They explain it with simple things, Goldberg, for example, says he can't afford the salary cut. Oh, yeah, that's a winner with me.

I single Goldberg out because he has, recently, decided that we made a mistake in invading Iraq. That's a new flash.

On the other hand, as he said in his LA Times column this past week, that doesn't we ought to pull the troops out. Nope, we're committed now, and even if it was a mistake, we can't be seen as lacking in will, nope, we have to stay the course. This means, of course, that more people are going to get killed (this month looks to top one hundred more dead, and a lot more than that wounded).

Goldberg is a chickenhawk.

I don't mean to say that one can't support the war without enlisting. No.

Glenn Greenwald defines chickenhawk thus, Something more than mere support for a war without fighting in it is required to earn the "chicken hawk" label. Chicken-hawkism is the belief that advocating a war from afar is a sign of personal courage and strength, and that opposing a war from afar is a sign of personal cowardice and weakness. A "chicken hawk" is someone who not merely advocates a war, but believes that their advocacy is proof of the courage which those who will actually fight the war in combat require.

I would add (and it's part of how I chose this list, which excludes people like George Will, Rush Limbaugh, Michaels Reagan and Savage as well as pretty much all the talking heads out there, the Coulters, O'Reillys and Hannitys of the world. Andy, "soldiers are my lackies and can't have feelings, much less care about getting killed, Sullivan is in class by himself) that those who are in such places of prominence, are saying this is the most important fight since WW2 (and perhaps of all time) and yet have things more important to do than put their money where there mouth is.

Goldberg, in his peurile attempt to defend his position (the war was a bad idea, and it's been screwed up, so much so that he doesn't really support it, but we can't quit) is asking people to die for that mistake. He, like the rest of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders can't be bothered to do bear the risk himself, but neither can he find the cojones to actually be against the war. So he asks more soldiers to die, more families to bear the grief, all so he can refuse to face the fruits of the field he was so vigorously sowing.

So, to Jonah Goldberg, for egregious bloviation, in the face of common sense, and with a willingness to run from the consequences of your actions, above and beyond the call of duty, I hearby award you a Chicken Head to the Kombat Keyboard Badge, of the Keyboard Kommando ( Signifying Second Award)