From Atrios/Kos/Stoller’s lawyer’s public comments to the FEC urging them to leave bloggers the hell alone already, via Atrios:
We also recognize the concern, as expressed via the comments being submitted by the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet and others, that to expand the media exemption to include bloggers would diminish ‘the privileged status the press currently enjoys.’ Curiously referring to bloggers’ desire to equal treatment as ‘demands’, the IPDI portends that such an expansion would destroy campaign finance regulations and/or reporter shield laws.
So… extending a right or privilege to an arbitrarily undesirable group of people somehow “diminishes” that right or privilege for those desirables who already have it?
Where have I heard this before?
June 3rd, 2005 at 11:23pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Media,
Politics,
Republicans,
Wankers
This week’s quote:
Why do you suggest anything to Walter? Are you the spokesman for society, come to put your stifling finger in his eye?
– Bucket Of Blood, courtesy of the shadowy and mysterious Codename V.
This is easily my all-time favorite Roger Corman movie. I know it’s sacrilege to say this, but I think most Corman is just kinda… lame. Not even so-bad-it’s-good, just… lame. Especially when compared to other masters of so-bad-it’s-good, like Troma and Full Moon and Fred Olen Ray.
Anyway, controversial and contrarian tastes aside, Bucket Of Blood is a bit of a departure for Corman, since it has no cheesy monsters or lame special effects. Just a pathetic, not-very-bright beatnik/artist wannabe named Walter, who becomes an overnight sensation in the beatnik/artist community with his shockingly realistic sculptures, which look uncannily like clay or plaster slathered over a dead body. This is worth seeing solely on the basis of the florid and overwrought beat poetry and general hepness on display, of which the above quote is but one small sample.
Look! A cat!
Curious Eek.
June 3rd, 2005 at 06:29pm
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Friday Quote & Cat Blogging
I have finished the main body of Jonathan Rabb’s The Overseer, but I’m going to attempt to tackle the nifty bonus at the end; namely, the (fictional) On Supremacy treatise itself.
One the most pivotal and chilling elements of The Overseer is education, which the Shadowy Republican Cabal uses in secretive camps to indoctrinate and train an elite cadre of loyal killers and operatives. Here is a sampling of the educational techniques – again, there are some eerie echoes of themes that we hear today. This excerpt describes a class of 6- or 7-year-olds who have just read Cinderella:
In quick succession, the children shouted out a long list of [Cinderella’s stepsisters’] infractions, the most poignant from a shy boy who had waited until all the others had quieted down to speak.
“They made her feel very bad and said that nobody liked her.”
A silence filled the room, several heads turning toward the boy as the teacher, in her most motherly tone, added, “And that’s probably the worst thing, isn’t it? To make special people, like Cinderella, feel that they don’t belong, that they’ve done something wrong. And people who do that shouldn’t be our friends, should they? And we don’t have to like them, do we?” A chorus of nos. “In fact, sometimes it’s all right not to like certain people. People who scare us, or hurt us, or make us feel bad about ourselves. People like Cinderella’s stepsisters, who knew how special Cinderella was, but who did everything they could to hurt her. It’s important to know that you have to watch out for those people. And you shouldn’t feel bad if you begin to dislike them. Dislike them so much that you begin to hate them.”
It’s a little over the top, but I can’t help but think of the Right’s “woe is poor little ol’ me, oppressed and condescended to by those mean know-it-all liberal elitists, they’re all traitors who should be deported or shot” narrative, and it suddenly becomes not so hard to believe that they received an indoctrination like this.
June 3rd, 2005 at 12:35am
Posted by Eli
Entry Filed under:
Books,
Republicans
