“political boy stuff”, eh? And just what kind of “political boys” were the object of such a tussle?

Posted by: ralphieboy | Oct 4 2006 17:43 utc | 3

first raw story runs w/a story and link to a blog that outs the page. i went over and read it w/comments chastising the blog for outing the kid. they pull it. it stays up just long enough for a million people to read it. that poor kid. i don’t think i would want the universe to know details of my genitalia. not to mention that he’s outed and his professional career as a rethug is probably zilch. i guess i am relieved he was outed by one of his own.

Posted by: annie | Oct 4 2006 18:07 utc | 5

Good long read: Stan Goff: Sowing the Seeds of Fascism in America

This trend of ignoring the backgrounds of military inductees—driven by numerical necessity—is swelling the ranks of tomorrow’s vigilantes of reaction. People have the mental habit of assuming that the powerful control their own outcomes. They don’t. The militarization of police forces, white flight and urban abandonment, even the international system of dollar hegemony that the military backstops … these all develop with multiple determinations, more akin to weather than strategy, with the larger system taking on a character independent of the agents within it. Changing outcomes is not the same as controlling them.
My greatest anxiety for my two grandchildren is not that they will be the victims of a plot but the inheritors of inertia and a society of “good Germans,” while society dives into a long period of unanticipated macho warlordism … and, oh by the way, ecocide.

Posted by: b | Oct 4 2006 18:13 utc | 7

dennis hasert is a good ernst röhm

Posted by: r’giap | Oct 4 2006 19:09 utc | 9

Well, ralphieboy, we’re all fucked. I don’t think any of us have it in us to be a successful warlord. Just keep your head down and hope that your gang proves mildly benevolent.

Posted by: Rowan | Oct 4 2006 19:55 utc | 11

@ ralphieboy The skinheads will lose their dicks n other appendages is what will happen.
I don’t want to get into too much racial stereo-typing- cultural stereotyping perhaps but an interesting thing happened in an Auckland NZ ghetto a couple of years back.
During one Tory regime a while back a decision was made that rather than stick to the tradition of forcing property developers to give a percentage of house lots to the state for public housing at cost price, state or public housing would be developed seperately from private housing. The asshole alleged ‘centre-left’ governments which followed have made a few noises and have been less segratory with new developments, but have lacked the spine to really reverse the evil, therefore a lot of these enclaves are still extant.
This, unsuprisingly, has led to mini-ghettos around the bigger cities.
Tangata whenua tend to have their own ghettos built on the scraps of Maori land left around metropolitan areas, so that nowadays public housing is usually taken up by poorer migrants, which up until recently was pretty much restricted to those from the Pacific Islands: Samoa, Nuie, Fiji, Tonga, the Cooks et al or from the Indian sub-continent.
Now before the whitefellas turned up in the South Pacific huge swathes of the area were part of the Tongan Empire. Although by no means the most populous polynesian grouping, Tongans (for reasons I’ll explain another time) are on average considerably taller than other Polynesians, and can be a helluva lot more aggressive.
for example: My old secondary school used to reserve a few places in the senior classes for members of the Tongan nobility. They would be co-opted into the School’s First Fifteen. The rugby team where the Tongans could wreak havoc on the opposition. Jonah Lomu has Tongan heritage.
Anyway back to the story. A pecking order had developed amongst the young males in these state house enclaves. The Tongan heritage blokes stood at the top of the pecking order which went down through Samoans (the most populous polynesians) and at the bottom were those from the Indian sub-continent; many of whom had learnt their ‘place’ in the pacifica social stratum in Fiji, where Indian indentured labourers had been left behind by the English Colonialists. Unable to buy land or gain fair political expression, coming to NZ is one of the few escape routes for Fijians of sub-continent ethnicity.
Most families only live in a state house for long enough to get established and then they get their own house in one of the new developments, far from their workplace, poor fuckers. But I digress again.
NZ elected to take a bunch of Somalian refugees along with many of the Afghani refugees that Australian Prime Minister John Howard had refused entry to when their ship, the Tampa, a Norwegian vessel had rescued them from sinking.
Anyway after the refugees had done their 6 month orientation lag at the migrant resettlement centre they were moved out to state housing.
One afternoon a bunch of Somalian and Afghani blokes were playing soccer in the street when a carload of young Tongan chaps drove up to a relative’s house, running over the soccer ball and puncturing it.
When the recent arrivals queried this and suggested recompense was in order, the Tongan blokes looked over the complainants and saw skinny brown blokes not much diferent than those Indians who couldn’t (wouldn’t is more likely) fight their way outta the proverbial wet paper bag.
They laughed told the arrivistes to fuck off and went inside.
When they came out later, it was on for young and old.
Young men on both sides died, and it seemed that ‘turf’ war was inevitable.
Fortunately the Tongan community leaders got past their grief and indignation, they agreed to a series of ‘sit-downs’ with the leaders of the new communities, set up a mob from the race relations conciliators office.
Although these suburbs are as violent as they ever were there hasn’t been another major instance of inter ethnic strife. Indian friends tell me that they now find themselves much less likely to get stood over as well.
Sometimes I think that this attitude displayed by the refugees that day goes to the heart of western culture’s dislike of the people of the Middle East.
That is M.E. people generally (cause after all this post is one long generalisation) won’t eat shit on demand. None of the M.E. or even North African countries have been successfully colonised for a substantial period.
So Western Media portrays them as deceitful or corrupt as an excuse for the failure to subjugate.
The west grabs power by using proxies to subjugate those M.E. nations they need eg House of Saud and the meme about Arabs being corrupt is all pervasive and successful. After all how often is it that following the revelation of some particularly obscene act by USuk in the ME, some drunken racist will spew invective against the Saudi proxy colony in a sort of two wrongs makes a right rationalisation of the western perpetrators ‘goodness of heart’?

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 4 2006 22:17 utc | 13

Debs is dead @ 13
That is M.E. people generally (cause after all this post is one long generalisation) won’t eat shit on demand. None of the M.E. or even North African countries have been successfully colonised for a substantial period.
So Western Media portrays them as deceitful or corrupt as an excuse for the failure to subjugate.
Very excellent. And next they talk about “they” need to modernize. I read peeps who buy into this posture you describe, even on this site, supposedly with good intentions (assumiing such can have meaning in this context). But its a trap.
And if I can add, many of the societies that were actually colonized successfully did not realize what they were getting into. In their world-view, they thought they were getting into some sort of alliance. In short they were duped over time. Kind of like the Indian treaties that never worthed the paper they were signed on.
I’m guessing and I think you might agree that history (the crusades and other prior contacts …) meant the M.E. & North Africans as well as Ethiopia would be tougher to crack.
In a scary way, we are seeing history repeat itself. And so, how “modern” or smart are we after all. really.

Posted by: jony_b_cool | Oct 5 2006 1:23 utc | 15

Mercury #16: Amen. Why doesn’t Billmon have a regular column in a major paper instead of the dried-up crap they serve up?

Posted by: maxcrat | Oct 5 2006 2:04 utc | 17