Civility is not only wrong; it’s WHITE!
The drink’s on me, Dave. Literally
The verdict is in and it’s not just Maxine Waters who encourages harassing political adversaries. Antifa enablers like Capital Times emeritus editor Dave Zweifel have officially sworn off civility. You want to throw that drink in that kid’s face for wearing a Make America Great Again cap at a burger joint? Have at it!
After years of tut-tutting over micro-aggressions like the occasional disparaging political label, Mr. Zweifel has given his blessing for in-your-face drink throwing. Humiliating, hounding, heckling and harassing. As long as you target the right victims, those being those with whom he disagrees, which is to say, Republicans.
Talk about situational ethics! For years, my old boss wrote an annual sermon on civility. In an August 2017 column, he claimed that “the political low road runs through Wisconsin.” Given that the only two examples he cited came from the state Republican party, one could be forgiven for concluding that the low road took only the right lane. The party called one Democratic gubernatorial candidate “an out-of-touch con artist” and another a “phony.”
As we said at the time, “Wow! Rough stuff!”
“But this is the state of our politics today,” Dave sermonized back then. “We can’t discuss real issues without name calling. We can’t address society’s problems without vilifying someone who has a different view.”
That was then, this is now
Now that his people are assaulting Trump supporters, Dave Zweifel has come out four-square against civility. It’s over-rated. Today’s party line?
“Change-makers know civility isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
I need to applaud New York University history professor Thomas Sugrue for setting the record straight. Sugrue’s column, published by The New York Times, takes issue with what he calls “white America’s age-old, misguided obsession with civility.”
One marvels at how dexterously the race card is played! Civility is not only wrong, it’s white! Zweifel and Sugrue are channeling what has become consensus on the Left.
- The on-line magazine Slate makes “The Case for Incivility.”
- “F-bomb Trump” got Robert DeNiro hearty cheers at the Tony Awards ceremony.
- Kathy Griffin is cashing in on the image of holding Trump’s severed head with her “Laugh Your Head Off” world tour.
A little history, please
The usual suspects will make the playground claim that Trump started it. A little history, courtesy of “The Left Tries to Blame Trump for their Own Hate Mongering.”
Protesters regularly carried signs saying things like “Save Mother Earth, Kill Bush,” “Hang Bush for War Crimes,” “Bush = Satan,” “Bush is the only Dope worth Shooting.” They burned Bush and other administration officials in effigy countless times. Jonathan Chait wrote a 3,600-word word piece for the New Republic in 2003 on “the case for Bush hatred.”
Remember Graeme Zielinski’s heyday as official spokesman for the WI Democrat(ic) party who tweeted: “It’s Medicare’s 45th Birthday. Celebrate by punching a Republican.”
Not to mention the little Hitler mustaches that the Act 10 protestors drew on Scott Walker’s photo. The nooses. The death threats. Dressing out Tonette Walker “like a deer.” Mr. Situational Civility never condemned that hate speech nor did his newspaper nor did his political party. Which is why Leah Vukmir’s ad is spot on.
Silence is complicity
Thursday on her essential radio program, Our Ms Vicki McKenna related her own harassment that forced her, as a single woman and outspoken conservative, to flee Madison for a safer residence outside the city. The liberal radio jock announcing her home address. The Isthmus Forum thread subjecting Vicki to their porno movie fantasies.
The disruption of conservative Ben Shapiro’s speech on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Your Humble Bloggeur shouted down by social justice warriors at a school board committee meeting last month. Of course, they tried to smear Blaska as a white supremacist for supporting police in schools. The same people defeated democracy when they shut down the Dane County Board of Supervisors.
Nothing from Dave Zweifel, that ol’ change maker. Silence from The Capital Times, “your progressive voice.” Omertà from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin, Mark Pocan, Chris Taylor et al. Perhaps they were afraid of being called WHITE.
Blaska’s Bottom Line: With their self-righteous and petty acting out, our liberal-progressive-socialist acquaintances do appear intent, however unintentionally, on re-electing Donald Trump.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
89 responses to “The gloves are off; let’s rumble!”
Batman wrote (06/27/2018):
“Barr’s tweet was a slur but not racist according to Webster.”
Annoyingbob’s response 16min. later:
“Oh, you are serious. Black (woman), ape… You’re not joking…I suppose Michelle O’s arms threatened you, too.
Sorry, Batty, that’s pretty f-ing stupid racist.”
This exchange perfectly encapsulates bobo’s mentality.
Is bobo a well camouflaged troll or a super sized ego unable to admit flawed thinking?
Research indicates those are the only two choices.
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When you read my verbatim quote of President Trump’s in re Charlottesville and ABob’s translation (and mind reading apparently), who are you going to believe?
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I gave you a verbatim transcript of his comments with the press, wherein he said there were fine people on both sides. Nothing to translate or “believe” in it, besides truth and reality. Yet those are foreign and suspicious concepts to the Trumpsters. Your quote was a deflection and dishonest.
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Yes, he said there were fine people on both sides of whether or not to remove the Charlottesville monument to Robert E. Lee. The distinction is clear to any non deranged observer and therefore lost on you.
And the liar is the first to say what is untrue.
Stop projecting your hatred on the president. Keep it to yourself.
I’ll count the seconds until I hear the explosion on the far horizon.
Give it a try, ABob, what’s it gonna do, make you feel worse?
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The distinction was clear to sycophant supporters like you, but somehow not to his cabinet members or to most rational observers. The long overdue presser (he waited for days before speaking – now there’s some leadership) and questions were about the Nazi marchers and the counter demonstrators. Those weren’t the Daughters of the Confederacy supporting Robert E. Lee. It was Nazis vs. counter-Nazis. It’s sad which side you and your president are not on.
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Apparently you polled every single participant on both sides of that demonstration (conveniently labeling ANTIFA thugs as “counter demonstrators”) and discovered they fell into two (and only two) distinct categories: Nazi or Not-a-Nazi. Another example of the simplistic dualism of Leftist dogma. In this instance as in every other, there’s more than enough blame to go around, which is what I think Trump was trying to say. But since the Left believes it is never–and can never be–in the wrong, they became apoplectic on hearing Trump’s words.
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Sorry, in this case you’re either a Nazi or not a Nazi. The Not-a-Nazis came in many stripes. Some were Antifa, some were clergy, some were just everyday people. The Nazis were…Nazis.
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That “just everyday people” covers a very broad terrain. There’s no chance whatsoever that some on the other side were also just everyday people? (I realize that can only be a rhetorical question since the Left is incapable of admitting that those on the right are anything but Nazis or Nazi wannabes.)
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The leftist press has never understood why Trump was elected, so it’s no surprise that they don’t have a clue about how to prevent him from being re-elected. They continue to bash him relentlessly, and often dishonestly. But the only people they are convincing is each other. Here’s a tip: Middle America didn’t believe your attacks were valid before you went wacko, crazy radical and were still slightly honest about it. They sure don’t believe you now. Now, they will vote him in just to piss you off some more. So call ICE the new brown shirts, and call all conservatives Nazis. I’m sure it will work eventually. Just act a little more unhinged. Maybe get violent. It’s got to work, right?
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Sounds like a plan to richard and Bob, I’m sure.
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ABob @6:34, again.
YES the National Socialist Workers Party was far left as was the International Socialist Soviet Workers Party. The Left/Right spectrum as a half circle only works for half wits. Politics is a full circle with all you Socialist Totalitarians on the farthest Left, Nazis and Soviets barely one degree apart. Look at all they have in common; government control of healthcare, the economy, all market activity, no rule of law, no constitution, no God, no individual rights or property, no respect for borders.
Democracy is the opposite of Socialism. Which is why you so hate it.
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You need to go back to high school civics class. Half of what you said is just dead wrong. The Nazis were quite happy to work with a privately owned arms industry. Ask the Krupps.
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As with Bayer and AG Farben and Porsche and Mercedes Benz because they worked. They produced. Lenin had little of that infrastructure in 1917. If he had he would’ve wrecked it because he could. Hitler was at least smart enough to co opt them.
If that’s your distinction between them then we’re 98% in agreement.
Stalin and Hitler understood each other well and had a lot of mutual respect until the thieves fell out.
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Right, though I’m not so sure about the mutual respcect thing. I agree both were totalitarian, but we’re talking different economic systems. That’s why one is considered hard left, the other hard right. Hitler persecuted the communists and unionists (hello, left…) just as he did the Jews, gypsies, etc.
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Just to be clear Abob, the Nazis were only considered “hard right” by leftists who envisioned them as their opposites, rather than their close cousins. They were very much socialists in many respects, they just allowed private ownership when it served their purposes. When it didn’t, they just took over like any other totalitarian.
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Right, the trade unions did well in the Soviet Union. Oh wait, the workers owned the means of production and thereby made working conditions wonderful. Productivity soared, quality of life was great on the communes, and that, children is why there are so many happy Socialists and Communists to this day. Look around.
Besides the means of production here’s another difference; The National Socialists invaded half of Poland and massacred the Jews. The International Soviet Socialists stole the other half of Poland and massacred the Polish officer corps and the intelligentsia (many of whom were Socialists) at the Katyn Forest.
See the difference ABob?
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“…there are so many happy Socialists and Communists to this day.” Sadly, that statement is accurate when applied to academia, where many scholars/professors, especially in disciplines such as history, sociology, and literature, style themselves as Marxist critics. Of course, they’re all tenured so they can get away with anything. Funny how the so-called smartest people are often the ones who can’t recognize what’s under their noses–like the utter failure and intellectual vacuity of Marxism.
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Only the political extremes claim they are different.
They are not.
Here endeth the lesson.
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Speaking of geopolitical systems, any of you’s recall when the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and seeing all those oppressed West Germans streaming into the Commie Paradise known as East Germany?
Had @richard lesiak, @AnonyBob, @gene, or hankdog/old baldy been there, they would have rushed in en masse looking for all those hirsute, gender-bender, quasi-female shotputters that gave them unrequited stiffies during the 1976 Olympics.
The Gotch
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Why don’t any totalitarian governments have open borders? Because true Socialist countries only have one export………… anything with feet.
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You guys are really good at working yourselves into a lather over an argument no one is making.
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You made the argument that Nazis were not Hard Left extremists.
I refuted it.
You lost.
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No, you made a tortured equivalency argument about the political spectrum circling around an meeting. No one considers Nazis hard left besides the hard right, because they don’t want to own them. They do.
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