To Protect And Serve

You all know how much I love Falguni Sheth; she's really the perfect Salon contributor, seemingly engineered in a lab somewhere in the darkest recesses of Glenn Greenwald's Brazilian compound. Over the weekend she published a piece both at Salon and at some blog called "Translation Exercises" about how the "surveillance state" boogeyman that terrifies the shit out of professional liberals didn't work in preventing the Boston Marathon bombings. It was one of those rare occasions where even the basic premise of a column had me shaking my head because I couldn't quite fathom how the need to make hay out of a pet issue could so blatantly override basic logic and reason, that being: No, the various cameras and social networking tools that occasionally seem to indeed put us on the wrong side of the glass in Bentham's panopticon didn't prevent the bombing in Boston, but it damn sure helped lead to the very swift killing and capture of the guys who did it. But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of the political point you need to score.

In addition to the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the scary surveillance state, there were of course the requisite complaints leveled at the press and the general populace, who, in the opinion of Sheth, allowed themselves to be herded like sheep by the commands of the police and the feds. See, in the world of pissy far-left liberals, the dreaded "state" isn't made up of actual people and is therefore always to be eyed with suspicion; when the police instruct you to do something during a crisis situation in the name of trying to keep your ass out of the line of fire, you should immediately stand your ground and shout, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me, man!" Of course nobody's saying that you should blindly follow every order you're given for as long as you've given them, but it's stupid as hell to assume that everything the police tell you is part of their secret cabal aimed at keeping you imprisoned in your home indefinitely so that the state can institute martial law. That's Alex Jones territory, proof that the political spectrum isn't a line but a circle and the far ends of the left and right most certainly meet.

Anyway, all of that brings me to the picture above. It's of a Boston police officer named John Bradley taking milk to a family during the citywide "shelter in place" request last Friday. I'm not saying that every cop is a doll, but by the same token, not every cop is some dangerous thug -- in fact, the vast majority of them really are fine men and women committed to public service. They don't issue requests or commands just for the hell of it, particularly not in crisis situations; they're actually interested in keeping you safe. There's no shame in not being a contrarian asshole and just listening to what the cops and feds have to say instead of proudly boasting about how you're not one of the "sheeple" and will do whatever you want because you don't trust the man. In other words, there's no shame in not being an asshole like Falguni Sheth -- far from it.

There Ain't No Sanity Clause 2: Boston Boogaloo

Last week I posted a link to a Facebook conversation between a bunch of lunatic conspiracy theorists and a friend of mine, Josh Olson, who had proceeded to tear them apart piece by piece. These people were of course alleging Alex Jonesian nonsense in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, crap like the ever-popular "false flag" terrorism claims and the ridiculous and easily debunkable rumors of a "controlled explosion" on the day of the blasts.

As I said at the time, the world of the conspiracy theorist is where ignorance and arrogance meet, because these morons truly do believe that they're the only people who really know what's going on and the rest of us are the stupid ones, when in reality it's of course exactly the opposite. Under normal circumstances, it'd be best to ignore the Alex Jones crowd completely, because there's simply no arguing with someone who will not accept reality, who won't believe what their own eyes see and what their own ears hear and who are convinced that there's some dark secret lurking behind the veil of every single fucking thing they experience. But the problem is that, thanks to social media, these clowns now have a voice and thanks to the sheer volume of media outlets these days they have the ability to occasionally subvert respectable journalism and inject their insanity into the mainstream. Case in point: what happened last week at a critical news conference in the immediate wake of the bombings, when Info Wars "reporter" and raving dipshit Dan Bidondi hijacked the spotlight by bombarding Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick with questions about false flag terrorism and government cover-ups.

Anyway, the same people Josh took down last week are still at it -- and so I once again invite you to put on your tinfoil hat and immerse yourself in the mentally unbalanced "reality" of the people who believe not only that the Tsarnaev brothers were unwitting patsies set up by the government, but who actually think that the victims of the attack were wounded beforehand because they would've died had they lost limbs like that, and that, in fact, there may not even have been a bombing.

Pay special attention, by the way, to the craziest and balls-out stupidest person you'll ever come into contact with: Wren Tyree.

And once again marvel at how Josh won't tolerate any of that shit.

Facebook: Christine Robert: "What's the Agenda of the Person Feeding You 'Facts?"/4.22.13

Me of Little Faith

Today's column over at the Daily Banter once again has to do with religion, namely it seeks to understand why some turn to God in times of great tragedy while others, myself included, see tragedy as more reason than ever not to have turn to God.

Here's the opening:

"On the morning of September 11th, 2001, as the unimaginably horrific sight of bodies raining down from the upper floors of the World Trade Center was being beamed out across the country and around the world, my grandmother sat on the couch in my parents’ living room taking it all in. She was an elderly woman and a devout old-school Catholic, so with her eyes fixed on the televised images of the agonizing carnage unfolding in New York City, she reacted the only way she knew how. She swallowed back a despairing gasp, brought her hand up to nearly cover her mouth, and said, 'God love ‘em.'

I remember my reaction like it was yesterday."

Read the Rest Here

Serially Stupid Strikes Again

Before anyone else drops it into my e-mail, yes I've seen David Sirota's new column running over at Salon, what's really his masterpiece. There's little doubt that an essay called "Let's Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American" would be anything but shamefully repugnant troll-bait of a grade impressive even for Sirota, and that's exactly what the piece is.

No, I'm not going to link to it and no I'm not going to comment on it at length, because that's what he's desperately looking for: people to pay attention to his idiotic antics, his pious public self-flagellation aimed not at absolving him of his white liberal guilt but of showing it off and wallowing in it because his martyrdom is what makes him such a great person. It's fucking tragic that a liberal -- someone who claims to care intensely for his fellow man and who purports to provide a contrast to the callousness of the American right -- would be the one to write the most offensive full-length response to the Boston Marathon bombing, to make the most cynically conspicuous leap into partisan political point-scoring under the guise of fearlessly saying what needs to be said, and to do it the soonest after the bodies had begun to cool.

This is why Sirota is a piece of crap. This is why, as I've said many times before, he doesn't deserve to be taken the least bit seriously.

Fuck him.

There Ain't No Sanity Clause

Cesca eviscerated the Alex Jones-fueled conspiracy theorizing that immediately cropped up in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing in his piece at Banter this morning. He did it by presenting actual, you know, facts.

I on the other hand didn't even bother. I just called those circulating and buying into wild tales of false flag terrorism, "controlled explosion" bomb drills, and TSA sporting events crackdowns fucking lunatics -- since that's what they are.

The thing about conspiracy theorists is that they're impossible to make see reason because the more you shoot holes in their inane rants and nonsense beliefs the more they become convinced that you're just part of the conspiracy. Or you're just another one of the sheep who refuses to see what's really going on. Or some shit.

Best of all, they truly do think they're the smart ones. That's the beauty of a conspiracy theory: It allows the most ignorant, delusional and just plain fucking stupid among us to believe they're secretly the only ones with a clue as to what's really going on. The world of the conspiracy theorist is right where idiocy and arrogance meet. You've known people like that almost your whole life, likely dating all the way back to the special breed of ironically pompous social outcast of high school, and they've always been worthy of laughter and mockery.

With that in mind, I give you this link. It's going to make your brain hurt, sure, but watch as a friend of mine, Josh Olson, just rips the shit out of the person submerging herself neck-deep into Alex Jones's morass of horseshit. Remember, don't drink the Kool-Aid -- and namaste.

Facebook: Christine Robert: "As Yet Unreported"/4.16.13

Quote of the Day, Jr.

"Why were two bombs set yesterday? Why did they hurt so many people who were just out to enjoy the beautiful day and take refuge in beauty of the human body’s endurance and athletic prowess? Why were they set up to hurt -- not just physically but psychically -- so many people who were visiting Boston from around the world? Time may give us some answers to those questions, but it may also withhold them until we are ready -- finally -- to see what those answers are. I fear that what we will find is that the hate reflected in the destruction of so many lives is nothing but a mirror of our own -- of hate reflected in American domestic and foreign policies that have engendered so much destruction -- for (GITMO prisoners) Samir Naji, Shaker Amir and their fellow prisoners and families, and the destruction of so many innocent families around the world."

-- Falguni A. Sheth, a professor of philosophy and political theory at Hampshire College and a self-described writer about politics, race, and feminism, writing for Salon today

Well, I have to give Salon credit: It managed to make it through 24 whole hours before publishing a piece that conflates the Boston Marathon bombing with U.S. foreign policy and essentially blames us for it. That's progress, I suppose.

Incidentally, if you're unfamiliar with the work of Falguni, she was behind this gem from a couple of months ago. In other words, she was practically engineered in a lab somewhere to be the perfect Salon contributor.

In Memoriam

8-year-old Martin Richard, who was killed yesterday in the Boston Marathon bombing along with two other people.

He was right.

No more.

Ripped Apart

Today's Daily Banter column wonders whether we'll ever be able to truly come together as a nation again. Because while there are plenty of people who are trying to remember what the tragedy in Boston is really all about, there are so many others for whom this is yet another excuse for hucksterism, partisan hackery, and conspiratorial lunacy.

Here's the opening shot:

"I always feared this day because I always feared being proven right. A couple of times since the election of Barack Obama and the consequent collective freak-out of the American Right — a freak-out so mind-boggling and profound that the extent and potency of its shockwaves continue to surprise, despite how used to it we should be by now — I’ve openly wondered how our nation might react if we were hit with another terrorist attack."

Read the Rest Here

Also, very worth mentioning here is Cesca's column at Banter today, on the despicable ridiculousness of Alex Jones, who of course hijacked and exploited this horrific event, using it as an excuse to spew his special brand of horseshit all over his delusional acolytes. One of those acolytes, Dan Bidondi, turned yesterday's Deval Patrick press conference into a circus by shrieking about "false flag" terrorism and how our civil liberties are being threatened, or something, and you'll be interested to know that he's also responded to Cesca's piece in the comments section. The results are -- entertaining.