Hey Squeeble

A caffeine rush hit this morning precisely as my playlist hit Dengeki Sentai Changeman. Hee.

Snagged from gridlore

This.. there's just no words.

"New Republic Calls for Death and Torture of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff

Author Tom Frank -- clearly from the Glass School of Journalism the New Republic has made famous -- described sitting in on an anti-war panel sponsored by the International Socialist Organization, the Washington Peace Center, the DC Anti-War Network and other groups.

After having heard the 100 plus attendees cheer sentiments like "Money for Jobs and Education Not For War and Occupation," Frank became so riled up, he unloaded a deranged harangue about the suffering he would like to rain upon people daring to organize against this war. After Stan Goff, a former Delta Forces soldier and current organizer for Military Families Speak Out, expressed sentiments like "We ain't never resolved nothing through an election," Frank's jag began. Clearly too doughy to do it himself, Frank started to fantasize about a Teutonic strongman who could shut Goff up.

Frank writes, "What I needed was a Republican like Arnold [Schwarzenegger] who would walk up to [Goff] and punch him in the face."

As the panel continued, every cheer and standing ovation seemed to set Frank deeper down a path of psychosis. After International Socialist Review editorial board member Sherry Wolf asserted that Iraqis had a "right" to rebel against occupation, Frank upped the ante in his efforts to intimidate anyone considering entry into the anti-war movement.

He wrote, 'these weren't harmless lefties. I didn't want Nancy Pelosi talking sense to them; I wanted John Ashcroft to come busting through the wall with a submachine gun to round everyone up for an immediate trip to Gitmo, with Charles Graner on hand for interrogation."

Later, when Wolf quoted Booker Prize winning author Arundhati Roy's defense of the right to resist, Frank was sent into such a state of panic, he once again dreamed of the mighty hand of state repression, writing, "Maybe sometimes you just want to be on the side of whoever is more likely to take a bunker buster to Arundhati Roy."

(big snip)

Therefore, this is a call for people to e-mail The New Republic and let them know what you think about humorous musings on killing Arundhati Roy or torturing Stan Goff. Let them know that a disgraced magazine will not intimidate us, especially one with the credibility of The National Enquirer. Let them know that we will publicly debate Tom Frank or any of their 20 something post-graduate hacks on the merits of this war anytime and any place. This is the only way to deal with darkness: shine as bright a light as possible -- right in it's face."

That last post

That's why I have to keep fighting. That atmosphere and any atmosphere where debate and resistance are cause for partisan hacks to call for people like me to be put to torture or death because we dare speak out means I quite simply have to fight.

A left knee injury in my senior year of high school kept me out of the Marine Corps. But I will be double damned if I'll keep my mouth shut when psychotic bastards like this are allowed to run roughshod over American political discourse.

I have to defend the country I love so very much. Whatever the cost, I simply have to.

On an entirely more pleasant subject

Kinky Friedman to run for governor of Texas. No, really.