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October 1, 2005
WB: Root and Branch
Comments
Makes sense. I love logic. This Jim Jonesian, “Ranch Davidian”, digital remake dubbed with enhanced sound isn’t missing a step. I suppose we can expect a MGM style ending.
Posted by: jm | Oct 1 2005 7:50 utc | 1
Writes a Republican: Contract Killers
Now the seamy side of all this explosive growth, the fundraising and lobbying scandals like those plaguing Mr. DeLay and Mr. Abramoff, poses a serious threat to Republican power.
Things weren’t meant to be this way. The K Street Project was a means to an end. The means was harnessing the political energies of the private sector and its agents. The end was a lasting Republican majority that would limit government and increase individual freedom and responsibility. But, as tends to happen, the means became an end in itself.
Young conservatives in particular will react to the new, post-DeLay reality in different ways. I know I have. First, looking at your party’s troubles, you see perverse confirmation of conservatism’s animating idea: that as the sphere of public decision-making expands, so do the opportunities for graft and wrongdoing. Next you note, with sadness, that while political power helped bring about some achievements – welfare reform, pro-growth tax cuts, an assertive, moralistic foreign policy – it may have also exhausted conservatism’s fighting spirit, lowered the movement’s intellectual standards and replaced a healthy independence with partisan water-carrying.
But then you take solace in the idea that the Republican Party has once again bested the Democrats, who after all took 40 years to sprout the warts of power.
Billmon, or b, (or whomever you are): It would be a great service,
if you would go back to b’s outing my sys address and purge it,
since it doesn’t reflect on any of the many fine folks who work at
Department of Fish and Wildlife, and since the damage has now
already been done. Poof … another one bites the dust, as they say.
I find it ironic that in re-posting the quasi-racist thoughts of some
others, that I would be identified with that darker evil, then outed,
in a so-called Whiskey Bar, ‘where all are welcome’.
Now I understand better Winston Smith’s inordinate fear of rats,
and the mass psychosis of preaching to the choir, ala Jonestown.
The world is multi-faceted, but we are all become multi-fascists.
Posted by: DoFW | Oct 1 2005 14:43 utc | 3
Life imitating art…
Actually has the same lawyer as Koresh!!!
What say ye, VISA?
“Priceless”
Posted by: stvwlf | Oct 1 2005 15:21 utc | 4
@DoFW?
I personally take no responsibility, pride, nor glee in the events that have occured in this outting/[mistake?]. As taint amie, (sp?) I found your discourse quite tenebrous, witty, and seemingly erudite. In my view the reactions were quite impulsive and swift. Alas, I have no power here. But I hope some kind of armistice can be reached.
We are all murderers and prostitutes –no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.-R.D. Laing
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 1 2005 15:26 utc | 5
It’s true that DeGeurin did represent Koresh in negotiations with the U.S. government during the Waco standoff. And he later represented some of the survivors when Uncle Sam prosecuted them for the deaths of the federal agents.
I’m no big fan of Dick DeGeurin. But on this score, he has to be given credit for defending the Branch Davidians–most of whom were innocent religious followers and not right-wing militia nuts screaming God and guns. Only a small inner circle around Koresh was in on the gun show activity.
And though Koresh was obviously out of his head, the feds’ handling of the raid and the subsequent prosecution of the Davidians was way beyond the boundaries of a civilized government.
I’m on the left of the political spectrum. But I’m also a scholar of religious studies (in an academic way and not in a theological way; nor am I much of a believer), and I have to say that the continued misunderstanding of those on the left about the power and pursuasion of religion is a huge deficit in our thinking.
Religion, even when invoked disingenuously or cynically to marshall public opinion, is not simply going to hang its head and go away. Its hold on the American psyche is absolute. So if you’re waiting for the religious to “snap out of it” and in a moment of Enlightenment clarity renounce their superstituous ways, don’t hold your breath.
Religious institutions in this country are surely in crisis, and have been since World War II. But religious sentiment is still very much alive, and growing stronger every day. Liberalism (real liberalism, not the neo-lib capitalist variation) needs more than ever to find a way to discuss religion in an authentic way if we don’t want to see the zealots take control of our government and school system–because that is precisely their plan.
DeGeurin is also the political advisor for Kinky Freidman, candidate for Texas Governor. It is thought by some that Kinky is a distraction for Democrats and that he may throw te election to Perry. Perry’s oponent is Chris Bell, the man who filed ethics complaints against Tom DeLay. Small world! What goes around ya know!
Posted by: Richard | Oct 1 2005 22:14 utc | 7
Amen, augie.
I am shocked, shocked that you would compare David Koresh to Tom DeLay. The only thing they have in common is being in Texas and having excellent legal representation.
But it is a snarky comparison and it cute. Factually and patently ridiculous, but cute.
I have heard the 911 tapes of the Koresh incident. Have you? I didn’t think so. I know of the man who answered the phone at the McLennan County sheriff’s department when Koresh called and begged the sheriff’s department to help stop the ATF/FBI shooting because of the children in the camp.
Have you met any of the survivors of the federal clusterfuck? I didn’t think so. I have. I met them at a panel discussion where I shook Dick DeGuerin’s hand. As a trial lawyer, he doesn’t concern himself with how his client got into the government’s crosshairs, he is concerned that the government act in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.
Did you know that the federal government sat in the Hilton hotel in Waco and told everyone from reporters to cocktail waitresses what they had planned for Koresh? Did you know that it was a reporter that leaked the story to Koresh? Did you know that the local D.A. had an arrest warrant served on Koresh for attempted murder at the compound and not a single shot was fired? Why? Because the McLennan County sheriff did it right. I didn’t think so.
What is wrong with liberal writers, and I am one, is that they are just as capable as being asses as conservative writers. What could DeLay possibly have in common with Koresh? What a childish, simplistic comment to make. It puts me in an awkward situation of having to appear to defend DeLay.
As for Kay Bailey “Breck Girl” Hutchison, Earle’s prosecution team announced “ready” in open court and weren’t. They fucked up. Case dismissed. The government cannot rewrite the rules of criminal procedure and expect to get a judge to rule in favor of the government no matter how much you hate the defendant.
If Ronnie Earle doesn’t have the goods on DeLay, then I hope the U.S. Constitution and Dick DeGuerin prevail. Frankly, I hope DeGuerin kicks Earle’s ass. And I hate Tom DeLay. If he is going down, we have to make damn sure the government doesn’t walk all over DeLay. It disturbs me that DeLay, a cockroach crawling on the body politic is more important than justice to you or anyone else in this matter. Again, how conservative of you. Why you are sounding rather like Ken Starr and Bob Barr and Tom DeLay.
P.S. I know that you don’t give a “flying fuck” about what I think, but I think that is essentially how I feel about what you think.
Jaye,
Evidently, you misunderstood my comment to Billmon’s post.
I didn’t make a comparison between Koresh and Delay. I simply responded to Bill’s drawing the surreal connection between the two–Dick DeGeurin.
As for knowing a bit about the Waco debacle, I too have shook DeGeurin’s hand, at his house, here in Houston, at the wake of a mutual friend. And we discussed the many Waco victims and their lawsuit against the government.
I also taught a course at St. Lawrence University in New York, the spring of 04 on the Branch Davidians, and attended a panel chaired by the FBI and the American Academy of Religion in Atlanta in the fall of 03.
I have heard all the 911 tapes, and seen the FLIR surveillance video, showing the FBI storming the compound and firing incendiary devices into the buildings.
It’s obvious the government botched the whole thing. But there is also audio of Koresh talking about gasoline, rags and matches. Whoever started the blaze, no one, not even Koresh, deserved to die in the ghastly fire, especially the women and children trapped in the basement under the kitchen.
The point of my comments, however, wasn’t to parse the injustice at Waco, but to simply remind liberals that religion is a real force to reckon with in the social sphere, and until liberals can discuss religion with the public without lapsing into parody, the working class in this country will continue to defect to the conservative moment.
@jaye
How amerikan to decide if someone isn’t the worst smell in the shithouse they aren’t a turd.
The little bit of knowledge I have of Branch Davidians is almost entirely that taken from Australian and New Zealand news crews that went over to Waco to cover this weird mob before ATF went postal. They were there because some very silly Kiwis and Australians had joined his mad sect.
Koresh and those closest to him struck me as being typical of any other manipulative political or religious leader. In other words sociopaths not unlike this Delay character.
Of course they didn’t deserve to be murdered in their own homes but in saying that we shouldn’t imagine they were nice or good people.
Just more assholes that regard the rest of humanity as a crop to be harvested to meet their own needs.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 2 2005 1:28 utc | 10
Methinks DoFW doth protest too much. As he wasn’t using any of his aliases to post his racist rants accompanied by any prefacing remarks disaccociating himself from them, pointing out the context in which he found them or otherwise providing any context for posting such a stream of offensive, racist drivel then his efforts to spin his outing aren’t particularly credible. Instead of trying to blame others for the fact that his schizophrenic posting activities resulted in personal misfortune he’d be better addressing the root causes of whatever it is that compelled him to act in such a bizarre manner. b was perfectly within his rights to point out the double game that was being played and the self-pitying responses to date from the liberal/conservative/democrat/rebel/racist/Bushite shill are indicative of someone who simply can’t bring himself to examine his own actions honestly. There was nothing noble or honorable about posting what amounted to nothing more than a racist, class-based attack on the unfortunate people of New Orleans and DoFW’s newfound interest in integrity is as nauseating as the original posts were. if DoFW wishes this site to be a Trojan Horse where he can (not so) secretly deposit his manure then he should perhaps think about making his own stable where deceit and hypocrisy are hailed as virtues and perverted into some faux-martyrish whine about free speech and the promotion of diversity. As for the difficulties he encountered at his workplace, why, he did it all to himself. That’s how it goes, DoFW, no sympathy and no cigar and certainly no martyr’s crown for you.
Posted by: Hatchet | Oct 2 2005 1:29 utc | 11
I have to say, this thread is a pretty good example of why I stopped allowing comments on my blog.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 2 2005 4:44 utc | 12
well, billmon, you were blogging before Tena developed concept of “Open Thread”, so everything all jumbled together; at a time when America had just launched another goddamn massive war during the worst Presidency in History of the Republic. Shoulda callled it “Where My Head Explodes”…
Posted by: jj | Oct 3 2005 3:22 utc | 13