Far East Cynic

Well, at least it has a name now.

I think John Cole got this one right:

  1. Her choice of “blood libel” reflects either an appaling lack of historical context or a cunning exploitation of anti-semitisim.

  2. Why is it anti semitic?
    Her contention is that the smears directed against her are a canard….
    At least she didn’t use the “Protocols of Zion”…
    By the way, I really doubt that most folks would understand what that means to a Jew and nor would they care.
    Unless of course, they wanted to make a political point.

  3. Historical context.

    My take remains extremly cunning choice of words designed to cause furor they incited or her lack of education and understanding of the power of choice of words.

  4. Richard, look up “Blood Libel” on Wikipedia and maybe it will be clearer. It’s every bit as bad as the Protocols, possibly worse.

    What I find really appalling about this whole incident is how quickly Palin (and the rest of the right, for that matter) played the Victim card.

  5. Silly Teabaggers. Oh, wait! Hold the phone! Who is it that simply cannot deviate from the message and always refers to them by that name? The easily led sheep from the left progressive friendly party made up of thoughtful dogooders.

    Palin is 10X smarter than Obama. She proves it every day.

  6. JRandom
    Thanks but I actually know what blood libel means,,,,I am Jewish so its in my DNA….
    I personally don’t find it insulting..
    Actually one could say The Protocols of Zion was/is a blood libel….the movie was a big hit in Egypt.

  7. ” Let us not assassinate this lad further, [Govenor]. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

    “Obama’s speech was intended to heal the nation and bring us together. Palin’s was to heal her reputation and to continue to divide the nation for her own political benefit. The speeches were completely accurate reflections of the character and aims of the respective orator.”

  9. My point about blood libel is that it was used as an excuse to persecute Jews for centuries – very bad stuff – just as bad as claiming there’s some Big Secret Conspiracy. I don’t think Palin and Glenn Reynolds knew what it meant when they started throwing it around. Ignorance, however, is not much of an excuse.

  10. So you cannot con them into accepting socialism so you decide to contempt them into accepting it? Polls aren’t looking good for those who are so filled with contempt.

    Thanks to people like you voting for socialists all these years my 7 year old’s “fair” share of the national debt stands at $33,000. Money you say she owes you. Don’t give the standard liberal retort. The TEA Party is about STOPPING THE SPENDING. We’ve certainly reached the point where none of us see any sacred cows. Gore them all! Leave many of them bloody and dead on the floor! Those are metaphors guys. Look it up.

    1. Anyone who just says ” stop the spending” without offering long term means to reform the programs and advance the country forward is not serious about cutting spending or the deficit. Its a stupid point of view. First you have to match inflows to outflows and not throw the baby out with the bath water.

      The United States does a lot of weird fucking things. First, they are one of the very few countries that has a legislated limit on what it can borrow, which is called a “debt ceiling.” Secondly, they elect a bunch of Tea Party Republicans, who are provably crazy, lying, stupid, or all three.

      After a year of hearing about fiscally responsible they were going to be once elected, the Teapublicans entered into the most extraordinary deal with the Obama administration. In return for a two year extension of the Bush tax cuts, the President would be given hundreds of billions of dollars in new “stimulus” spending. All told, Obama and the Republican leadership managed to throw away a cool trillion dollars – not a single cent of it paid for with spending cuts or tax increases.

      At the best of times, which these are not, it would be an awesomely dumb deal. Intelligent people aren’t widely known for disposing of vast sums of money in ways that will accomplish precisely nothing. Honest people do not then go about preening about their fiscal responsibility.

      And that’s why tea party people and those who support their stupid ideas have to be mocked repeatedly. The country REALLY does not want to go back to 1896-if for no other reason because we have no William Jennings Bryan.

  11. You don’t get me. The War College asked my little group at NSDM to come up with $5B to cut from the Defense Budget way back in 94. My group cut $54B without even breathing hard.

    Duh dude. I get it. To cut the budget one must cut the spending and the budget. You can cut the entire Department of Education. You can cut the entire Department of Agriculture and those subsidies. You can cut the entire Department of Energy. You can cut the entire Department of Commerce. You can cut all Foreign aid. Every single dime of it. You can cut the State Department budget to near nothing. They’re not buying influence, winning friends or wooing support anywhere.

    You can slash medicaire by 3/3rds.

    I have trouble with SS since the government has been stealing that money for generations with the promise of repayment.

    You can cut the entire Department of Defense Budget except the national guard. I think it would be good for all of Europe to learn to speak Russian for a generation or two and SE Asia can learn Chinese at not my expense.

    I don’t need a superhighspeedtrain from somewhere in central CA to somewhere else/nowheresville central CA. You can cut the Department of Transportation. It’s all pork anyway.

    You can cut the stimulus and the bailouts at $1T each. You can end jokes like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac which serve as nothing but very highly graft sinecures for friends of the regime.

    The Republicans uniformly held the line against spending didn’t they? Not one of them voted for Obama’s stimulus crap.

    You see?? Cut spending. Not another dime on AIDS in Africa. No more money subsidizing medicines from big Pharma.

    You can cut NASA and PBS and NPR and the National Park Service.

    1. And that is where you and I part ways- I have no desire to live in the country or the world your spending cuts would create……….

      “Fuck ’em” I got mine eh?

      Why not just stop the wars? Retrench from “Ft Apache Bahrain” and other places. Not only would it save money-might even save a few lives to boot. Then cancel the Bush tax cuts and you might even be able to have all those other things.

      You see, if you’re the kind of person who views being taxed to pay for social insurance programs as tyranny, there is no hope of convincing you of the utility of investing in your fellow citizens-who then become a more thrifty working class that contributes to your over all safety and well being. Instead you are just a poor, immoral being who clings to a version of history that did not, and cannot be allowed to, exist.

  13. Want to save Billions (that’s with the B) on Medicare yearly. Easy. Cancel/prohibit self referral for lab and imaging. But the party so fond of cutting and saving is consistantly oppossed to any such plan.

    Another example of the lack of and fiscal restraint among the batters.

  14. Prefer mine to yours where it’s your totalitarian jackbooted thugs who come around twisting arms and threatening jail terms for failure to provide service to the state.

    I started out with ASU Bahrain as my first homeport for a year back in 84. Look at it now and ask you what value for money you got from that? I spent another year there in 96 when the base had only doubled in size. I was back a couple of years ago and Holy Shit!

    You guys laugh at Ulrich but all I ever saw of the man was one of the web pages he had up where he talked about an 11 man naval staff that ran NAVEUR after WWII which oversaw something like 11,000 movements of amphibs, ships, planes, landing craft/day and how now it was a staff of thousands plus dependents overseeing the movement of up to 11 ships or airplanes a day. Not even counting the 6th fleet staff.

    You usually strike a balance. What do you guys think of the coming collapse in Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal? The other day I listened to NPR where they interviewed an Irish man and he laughed and said that at the current rate it would take Ireland a thousand years to pay off its national debt. What part of socialism doesn’t work do you fail to get?

  15. Sure Foggy, why not? Of course they were in the minority in the House and Senate since 2006. Was that a recent initiative? Who exactly held the majority?

    Are you familiar with the 3rd rail of American politics? I’m pretty sure that medicaire can be welded onto that rail too.