Posts Tagged ‘gaddafi’

It all depends on what you call evil, the backwards world of Wonkette UPDATE: Fark?

Posted: March 6, 2011 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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The NYT talked a bit about Koch today and told about his philanthropic work:

Mr. Koch, a billionaire who is perhaps best known for his family’s contributions to conservative causes, got a standing ovation from scientists, Nobel laureates and politicians of various political stripes as he opened the new David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he gave $100 million to help build.

Yup $100 million for cancer research I was curious how the left would react. So I went to Wonkette to check it out

David Koch is super sad about how the mean poor/working people are upset because he’s funding and directing the destruction of government unions nationwide. This makes him feel bad! And even though the deeply secretive David Koch never does an interview, the New York TImes somehow managed to get him to speak, on the occasion of David Koch being honored for giving millions of dollars to a cancer research center, because he has cancer and wants to cure his own cancer, even though he owns an evil forestry empire that insists formaldehyde (a carcinogen) is not a carcinogen. See, when poor people get cancer, it’s because they suck. And when rich people who exploit nature and humanity get cancer, it’s time to send $100 million to some little people who can maybe take care of the problem.

Ok I wasn’t really curious, I excepted exactly this, and the comments were even more fun, take a peek:

Here’s one

The only upbeat part of that article is that David Koch has cancer. Everything else is just Koch-sucking.

and Barbara:

I’m really sorry about his prostate cancer. I hope that it doesn’t spread to his anus. If he has to have an asshole transplant, he will be the first person to have the transplant reject the donee.

doc zoom:

It would be inhumane to publicly rejoice at the news that a fellow human being has cancer.

I will therefore rejoice only in private.

And these are not exceptions, they are typical of the comments left. Remember if you disagree with the left politically and do something about it, you are evil and deserve a painful death..

Meanwhile after reading a bit of this nonsense I left the following comment myself:

Yeah tear off those name because if there is one thing that the world needs, is fewer people giving hundreds of millions for cancer research.

I’m sorry but you folks have become parodies of yourself

That comment was rated -31 (so far) and generated five replies one example:

Dear Teabag Troll. We’re happy meester Koch is giving some of his billions to cancer research instead of his usual global warming lovin’, union bustin’, big insurance savin’, Freedom Works sponsorin’ right wing “hobbies”. Just pointing out how he’s all about taking care of #1. Well those things and dinosaurs.. but then they gave him his oil.

Now you might wonder why I bothered? Well it’s because when I saw the reaction I thought of this article I blogged about before:

Monitor Group, a Cambridge-based consultant firm founded by Harvard professors. The management consulting firm received $250,000 a month from the Libyan government from 2006 to 2008 for a wide range of services, including writing the book proposal, bringing prominent academics to Libya to meet Khadafy “to enhance international appreciation of Libya’’ and trying to generate positive news coverage of the country.

And as Moneyrunner put it:

Professors sent to visit Khadafy included luminaries such as Joseph Nye, former dean of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard; Lord Anthony Giddens, former head of the London School of Economics; Francis Fukuyama political philosopher from Stanford University; and Benjamin Barber, who has written extensively about democracy.

The Monitor Group is not a small organization, boasting 1,500 employees and 29 office worldwide. It is particularly proud of its Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Network, Racial Diversity Network and Women’s Leadership Initiative. For some reason it did not choose to devote part of its website to its “Whitewashing Brutal Dictators Project.”

Well of course I’m sure that since Wonkette readers are so outraged over the Koch article I’m sure that even through the monitor group supports leftist causes they must me outraged over their accepting money from a person who sends jets to slaughter his own people. There has to be article after article and comment after outraged comment on the subject, Right?

Hey there is evil and there is EVIL

Wrong. The monitor group doesn’t rate an article, doesn’t rate a comment, doesn’t rate outrage, but be fair after all Koch is supporting Scott Walker who wants to make labor rules that are still more generous than federal rules or those in other states so he deserves to be opposed cancer research money or no, but as long as you are funding Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Network, Racial Diversity Network then taking money from actual dictators and mass murders. Hey its all cool.

This is the backwards world of the left, take a bow Wonkette and readers thereof. You make it so easy to show the left for what it is.

Update: Irony meter overload #1 Another replay to what I wrote from Gef05:

What’s interesting is you see our snark as self-parody.

Yet you are unable to see the irony in a man spending millions to say “this carcinogen is no carcinogen” while donating money to cancer research.

Just please go away and play with your own kind. (emphasis mine) Somewhere where the rest of us don’t have to tolerate your lack of thought or your hatred for your fellow man.

The “hatred for the fellow man stuff” is funny and it prompted one more reply from me:

Where is the hatred thing coming from? I don’t know you or any of the people here? Why should I hate any of you?

I just think you’re very very wrong on this topic and other and a lot of the people here are kinda angry. I see it a lot on the left when I cover events and it’s really amazing to see how people kind of lose it .

But hey its a free country, you’ve got to get it out of your system somehow and it makes for good fodder for the blog and the radio show so I should be grateful.

And BTW as an American, in America, you are all “my kind” even Yankee Fans.

Irony meter overload #2 There is another place where Walker is being compared to a dictator:

So in this clip covering the protests in Wisconsin we have the requisite comparisons to Egypt, but PRESS TV also finds someone willing to call Gov. Walker a dictator. Have a look at the photo they’ve used in the background of their set and tell me which dictator they have in mind

Side by side with Iranian TV, solidarity all!

Irony meter overload #3 When Bobby hates you; you stay hated:

He went on to say that he had just visited a high school with [former Florida Governor Jeb] Bush. The crowd booed and hissed.

Booed and hissed? In Obama’s face? Just as he’s talking about the things that drive us together as opposed to the things that drive us apart?!

Did Obama’s own supporters ever take his Tucson speech seriously? And yet his opponents were supposed to moderate their politics at his behest.

Obama may be their guy but there are limits to the famous tolerance of the left.

(BTW the Bobby quote is from old Joe Kennedy he complained how JFK was kind of soft, but Bobby was his boy. I found the quote in Tip O’Neil’s autobiography Man of the House. Should be required reading right and left.)

Update 2:: One of the Wonkette people teased over the lack of comments last night. Alas they didn’t wait for today’s Instalanche.

Update 3: somebody decided to put my comment up on Fark and it generated hundreds of comments. It was suggested that I go over there because apparently I’m being hit pretty hard there. To that I say: So?

I posted on the wonkette thing because I found it interesting and illustrative of the left, and I found the reactions to my comments even more illustrative of the same. The reactions on Fark simply reinforce the point I was making.

I find it all quite amusing.

So fark guys, welcome, feel free to take a look around and come back if you want.

Without intervention Gaddafi wins

Posted: March 5, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news, war
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During today’s show in the 2nd hour we talked about Libya and the prospect of Gaddafi. Unlike last week when the question was: “Will Gaddafi still be there next week?” This weeks question was: “At the end of the month where are we, civil war still on, rebels win or Gaddafi wins?

The general consensus was that the war continues. I however maintain that unless the international community acts by the end of the month Gaddafi will have won the war. In a two-hour show with other topics to deal with its harder to explain in detail, but here are my reasons:

1. There are dictators and there are dictators:

A lot of people made the mistake seeing that because Egypt fell without excessive bloodshed Libya would as well. They made the mistake of confusing an American Ally with troops trained by Americans and supplied by Americans with a lone wolf who is opposed to America. Mubarek was in fact a dictator but because of American training and American influence there were lines that he and his troops would not cross. Gaddafi is a wholly independent dictator. The only influence we had was his fear of George Bush which removed his WMD’s from the picture years ago. Anyone who thought Gaddafi was unwilling to kill his own people hasn’t followed Gaddafi.

2. Money talks:

Libya has been awash in petro dollars for decades and Gaddafi has invested it wisely, in terms of staying in power. Weapons, ammo and mercenaries are bought and paid. Additionally thanks to the use of millions of dollars spread around the international and academic community, professors who found it easy to critique the US found it even easier to make excuses for Gaddafi.

3. Realpolitik:

The international community has known for decades what Gaddafi is and what he does, why then the sudden desire to have him removed and the condemnation that have been ringing out? Well reason #1 is they believed he was on the way out and wanted to be sure to be on the winning side (they didn’t pay attention to item #1) but now that the winning side is not clear-cut you are hearing an awful lot of talk but very little action this is right out of Yes Minister

Part of the exchange ties down exactly what I think is going to happen:

Bernard: “What are we going to do to help them?”

Dick: “Nothing,”

Bernard: “But what if St. Georges appeals to us?”

Dick: “Then we give them every support, short of help.”

and this earlier part of the exchange explains why:

Sir Humphrey: “…facts complicate things, all that the press, the people and their elected leaders want to know is who are the goodies and who are the baddies”

Dick: “The problem is the interests of Britain nearly always involve doing deals with people the public think are the baddies…”

Sir Humphrey: “and not helping the goodies occasionally when it doesn’t help us.”

As it has become apparent that the rebels will not win an easy victory we can count on the international community to stall until they figure out who will win, then take that side.

4. The apology tour redux:

One of the side effects of the American apology tour is the determination that the US is going to stay out of the way. This more than anything else was the basis of the Nobel Peace Price for President Obama. President Bush’s push for democracy put an awful lot of people in a spot where they had to take positions on things they would rather not. The prize for President Obama was for not putting people in that awkward spot. Combine this with the president Obama’s political background (his allies are charter members of the blame America first school that considers any American military intervention as a sign of imperialism) and any kind of intervention becomes awkward. We will undoubtedly hear the “right” words from the president but it is unlikely that it will be more than that. The only possible exception is if he starts paying an excessive political price for inaction. The person here to watch is Sarah Palin. If she makes pronouncements concerning the rights and the protection of the Libyan people and they catch on, watch the White House react so the president doesn’t appear to be less of a leader than the former governor who is supposed to be not a serious political threat.

5. If you come for one of us, you come for all of us:

As the US has moved into the background, China and other nations have moved forward. China has already taken steps to make sure the Jasmine Revolution doesn’t take off of the ground. Hugo Chavez is backing Gaddafi and Iran is making noises about interference. All of these nations are dictatorships and either produce oil, control access to oil or have huge economic clout. It is in their interest for any kind of revolutionary spirit to be stopped. When it was Egypt they let it go, after all it was an American ally, but with revolts and the idea of democracy spreading the danger becomes to great to them, so presto, their oil and economic clout is used to stall or prevent intervention by the international community. (see #3).

6. Preparing for the worst:

This article from Der Spiegel online shows that Gaddafi has carefully planned ahead for just such an eventuality as this one:

Libya’s air force is made up of roughly 18,000 men and women, most of whom are staunch supporters of the regime. The elite military branch recruited from followers who were 100 percent loyal to the regime, and members of Gadhafi’s Gadhadfa tribe and its closely allied Magariha tribe were given preference during the selection process for recruits. They have shown a blind obedience to their commander in chief. Only a handful of pilots and officers have switched sides to join the opposition.

As for the rebels:

For now, it is also unclear just how many of the 45,000 ground troops have defected to the opposition. The fact that entire regiments have apparently deserted in eastern Libya appears to have been something that Gadhafi correctly anticipated. Gadhafi has never trusted his army, because it was primarily made up of conscripts, many of whom belonged to tribes opposed to his own. “Gadhafi has retained significant elements of the army and lost the elements he was always afraid he could lose, those affiliated with tribes he had targeted,” George Joffé, an expert on North Africa at Cambridge University, told the New York Times.

Bottom line, unless the west is able to resist the pressure or unless he is taken out personally I don’t see how Gaddafi loses this fight, declarations of republics not withstanding.

Update: In case it’s not clear, this is not what I want to happen, this is what I think will happen.

This is a bad sign

Posted: February 26, 2011 by datechguy in middle east, opinion/news
Tags: , ,

Did anyone besides me catch this bit from an article about the Libyan revolution:

Armed men in green armbands, along with uniformed security forces, checked those trying to enter the district, where graffiti that said “Gadhafi, you Jew,” “Down with the dog,” and “Tajoura is free” was still scrawled on walls. They turned away motorists who were then stopped at a second checkpoint by armed men in uniform. Those officers searched cars and checked IDs of drivers and passengers. Emphasis mine

Like the Egyptians before them the Libyans like all people deserve to be governed by a government of their own choice and not by a dictator. It is however a bad sign that “Jew” in an execration of choice.

Then again with a revolution in process, a dictator who may have stockpiles of mustard gas I suspect the last thing on Libyan minds is going after Jews.

I hope.

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