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Seals of approval

By Michael J. Smith on Saturday October 10, 2009 01:26 AM

We've been arguing here recently about the authorities and how we should think about them.

Providentially -- at least from my point of view -- the Nobel Peace Prize has just been awarded to the latest imperial mass-murderer-in-chief, Mr Barack Obama, for... for... for not being George Bush, as far as I can tell.

Perhaps Obie's barking minatory schoolmarmish accent falls more kindly on the Norwegian ear than Georgie's faux-yahoo drawl. Or perhaps the Norwegians feel flattered by Obie's lip-service to diplomacy, and international institutions, and due process. Who knows, a parliamentarian from a small inconsequential country like Norway might hope some day to have a photo-op with this nice new well-educated Emperor. Oh Gunnar, believe me, you matter -- hard to imagine Georgie the Frat-Boy Emperor bothering to work up quite that level of pious hypocrisy.

I love this mad slavish stunt on the Norwegians' part. It tends to the general discreditation of authorities, a project dear to my heart.

Not that the Nobel folks had much credit to dis- ; I seem to recall that they gave this same Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger and Shimon Peres. Oh and Theodore Roosevelt, back in the day.

Comments (29)

Aw, c'mon. The optimism! And they announce the prize in Norwegian. Points for that, at least.

I am PWOG:

Carter, Gore, now Obama, clearly the mainstream social democratic left in Europe sees the Republicans as an extremist party and the Democrats as a check on some of the more dangerous impulses of the United States.

Americans have weapons of mass destruction. I doubt even tiny American ultra left realizes how much their country scares the rest of the world. True, Obama is going to screw the Palestinians and keep bombing Afghanistan, but rich Europeans aren't going to see any of that. The only thing they see is how Obama pulled the anti-missile-shield out of Eastern Europe and seems a bit less inclined to Bomb Bomb Bomb Iran than McCain did.

I guess you'll all have to figure out how to say "pwoggie" in Norwegian.

Fortunately, PWOGGIE translates into any language. Dumbass pwogs like you, for instance, drooling over your God-Emperor because he shifted the missile defense scheme from Poland to Turkey, are fine examples of the dipshit pwoggie bloggie doggies that American liberals have become. (And, no, the fact that your conservitard cousins have gone equally batshit insane does not in any way excuse your mealy-mouthed delusional wankery.)

op:

Alan
did you sit on tacks again today ???

where's the suave cineaste
maven of the sub b film

pwog i am
is sincere if polemical "ultra left" ???

and my guess he is a realist
with progressive characteristics
and one I venture capable
of considering a class POV

i find nothing in this comment
to provoke a strenuous objection
he just recognizes the gesture as one toward a lesser evil
ie a marcus aurelius emperor
not a caligula

in my mind there is a distinction of substance here

but it doesn't recognize the synergy
the two cycle mechanism
the mutt and jeff of it all
lesser evil cleans up greater evils poops
and like the prisoner
who feels good because he's now
not in solitary
but out among the population again

this site can only dis-spell delusions
ie delusions like
obama is NOT an emperor good or bad
seems pwog i am
pretty clearly sees uncle hedgemonic
for what he is
evidence:

"I doubt even tiny American ultra left realizes how much their country scares the rest of the world."

whether to support the lesser evil
fully aware of the critters
substantial intent and synergetic function
or try to disrupt the lesser evil
is up to each soul to decide isn't it ??

MJS:

Now THAT is the Smithee we all know and love.

"A check on our more dangerous impulses."

So, Democrats are the hunk of potato you drop in a pot of soup to suck out the salt when you realize that you've gone overboard with the shaker? Again?

If the Nobel Prize looked like a big hunk of half-cooked potato, we'd all covet one. Admit it.

Certainly a half-cooked hunk of potato should be taken more seriously than the Nobel Prize.

Son of Uncle Sam:

The only cool thing about the Nobel Prize is the cash. Which makes it as cool as the McDonalds Monopoly game. Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were nominated at different times. Seems like the Norwiegans will kiss anyones ass that'll help take the salt out of the fish soup.

I am PWOG:

Dumbass pwogs like you, for instance, drooling over your God-Emperor because he shifted the missile defense scheme from Poland to Turkey

Which pisses off the Russians less and reduces the tensions between two countries with a few tens of thouands of nukes between them.

That's the logic (and or wishful thinking) of a lot of Europeans. Take it up with them. The exchange rate sucks but surely with charm like yours you make good money.

It seems that you ultrlefties have more in common with the typical teabagger than with the typical European social democrat.

Maybe you can get Rush Limbaugh to wear a Che shirt after all.

I am PWOG:

whether to support the lesser evil
fully aware of the critters
substantial intent and synergetic function
or try to disrupt the lesser evil
is up to each soul to decide isn't it ??

Imagine you're Jacques, sitting at your cafe in Paris reading a newspaper.

Hmm. Polanski. What a shame. These American puritans have no sense of humor.

Hmm. Palestinians. Tisk. Tisk. Shame about that. I'll have to toss Human Rights Watch a Francs.

Somalia. Silly Americans. Rwanda. Damned Anglo Saxons. Afghanistan. Seems those crazy mountain men are always causing trouble.

A war between Russia and America. OH SHIT. McCain behind the president of Georgia and the invasion of South Ossietia. Oh Double Shit. Sarah Palin. Merde.

Obama. Clinton. Ah maybe they'll drop a few bombs to seem tough. But they're not insane.

It's basically the difference between Kim Il Sung and Brezhnev with the Democrats as Brezhnev. The Democrats will do some mischief here and there but at least they're not preparing for the rapture.

All apologies to Jacques if I have misrepresented his views.

MJS:

PWOG wrote:

It seems that you ultrlefties have more in common with the typical teabagger than with the typical European social democrat.
That is certainly true, thank God.

op:

pwog i am :

"no greater evil for u "
are we ultra's if not subjectively insane
like the tea baggers
objectively insane ??
are we only making a return to power
of the dark side squadrons more likely

folks like general jack d ripper ??

http://www.gonemovies.com/www/Drama/Drama/StrangeloveRipper1.jpg

Which is more insipid?

1. Pwog's affected indifference to the deaths and mutliations of Afghani women and children.

2. Pwog's imaginary friend "Jacque."

3. Pwog's utter piss-yellow spinelessness?

4. All of the above.

Please justify your answer in 4000 words or more using an Aldis lamp.

Al Schumann:

Poor PWOG. For decades, the "progressives" have had the money, networking, skills and sheer numbers to put the state into a meliorist tendency. They're important enough to the political class that they get pandering rhetorical strokes on a regular basis. At several points in the last hundred years or so, "progressives" have actually stood up for consumer rights -- an excellent start, but when push comes to shove, and it's time to give a good, hard meliorist push, they immediately turn into defensively reactionary authoritarian followers. All the talk of Overton Windows turns into sneering at the "ultraleft" and ridiculing the astroturf right wingers. All the talk of accountability turns to persistent ponyism and a fatuous, entirely ephemeral lesser evilism. They themselves, with no else to blame, have turned progressivism into an ideology of peevish, frustrated schlimazelism. There will be no meliorist state, thanks to them.

Smithee, I know, I know. That's less than 4000 words and there's not an Aldis lamp in sight.

op:

"reduces the tensions between two countries with a few tens of thouands of nukes between them"

delusion alert

nuclear tipped missile exchanges between us and putinville
are pure moon shine
and i suspect pwog i am knows that full well
and is just lazy enough
and contemptuous enough
to not stretch for plausible reasons
and just rely on
antique kold war pavlovianism

btw
the euro social democracy
is better characterized as "identical" to
pwog i am
ie best and perhaps only
motivated by sporatic humane spasms
spasms that all to quickly subside
into political dysthemia

On what basis does PWOG claim a difference between Zerobama and W on Iran?

Ain't it grand being clubbed for ultra-leftism by a partisan of the center-right?

Maybe PWOG can pilot the next drone attack on Pakistani children after he finishes trying to blame European coffee sippers for the criminal accessories in the Nobel racket.

I am PWOG:

"1. Pwog's affected indifference to the deaths and mutliations of Afghani women and children."

If throwing tantrums on the internet could save even one life, I'd type out "I HATE OBAMA" in all caps 100 times a morning until Chelsea Clinton takes over for him in 2016.

But you seem to have missed the point entirely. Trying to understand HOW people think doesn't mean you agree with WHAT they think.

In that sense, you remind me of the typical American after 9/11. Trying to get into the head of Bin Laden and figure out what he was thinking made you a terrorist.

I am PWOG:

That is certainly true, thank God.

Is there really a need for the Naderite ultra-left anymore?

Rense.com, Ron Paul, Alex Jones and the ultra right make the same points more effectively and what's more, they can actually get people into the streets.

Counterpunch and Democracy Now have started to suck ass. Antiwar.com and Infowars have many times their readers.

Perhaps it's time to pick up a rifle, a copy of the second amendment, and join your right wing masters at a Tea Party.

I'm even thinking of it myself. Enough meth and even the white trash hippos who show up at such shindigs start to look like Angelina Jolie.

Now back off or I will troll you some more.


Jacques

op:

pwog i am

actually wrote something i enjoyed

"white trash hippos"

but he chose the absolute worse drug for a courtship catalyst

must be a chemo-virgin

please troll us some more
we miss our troll pair from last spring

we're desperate
and you ..well your like those white trash hippos might look like to us
after 60 years in solitary

Ms X, does that potato trick really work?

(Was there ever a Naderite ultra-left? Seems a whole lot less likely than salt-sucking tubers.)

It seems that you ultrlefties have more in common with the typical teabagger than with the typical European social democrat.

*sniff* That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me!

Considering what typical European social democrats have wrought for the working class of their countries, I think I prefer the far-right. At least the far-right will leave me with the guns I need should it ever become necessary to fight them.

My favorite example of social democracy in action is the Hartz-Konzept of Gerhard Schröder's Germany. The object: welfare reform. So obviously the first step is to get the CEO of human resources at Volkswagen, a man who has never been poor a day in his life, to oversee the process.

He then constructs a system that is dizzyingly Machiavellian. For those who are the poorest of Germany's long-term unemployed, the Hartz IV recipients, they are obligated to accept any job offer, no matter how poorly paid, dehumanizing, or dangerous the work happens to be. If they refuse, their benefits (already poor enough as it is) get cut. Here in the U.S. we have similar "Welfare-to-Work" provisions which ensures that the corporate elite will have a constant source of poor, disempowered people to exploit.

This is why, when you tell me that I'm insufficiently like a European social democrat, I am flattered and heartened. I must be doing something right.

No doubt the teabaggers are the centerpiece of your demonology because they're not "people like us". BoBos scrambling to preserve their class privileges under the banner of social democracy is much closer to what a proper society should look like, right?

Maybe you can get Rush Limbaugh to wear a Che shirt after all.

I'll see if they make one in his size.

op:

casting off one comic mask after another

now we have utterly self conflicted hash

our one troll in 6 months
traduces his prior mask speak

now that's really
falling all over yourself
to be annoying

please before we're forced to ignore you
produce something besides misascriptions

more hippos less spuds

op:

the naderite ultra left

unsafe at any speed

Sean:

"I'm even thinking of it myself. Enough meth and even the white trash hippos who show up at such shindigs start to look like Angelina Jolie."

One thing you'll never catch Glenn Beck or anyone else on the right doing is referring to working-class white people who are fed up with being taxed to death as "trash." Then you're shocked when they prefer the plutocratic, warmongering, pro-Israel party that lets them keep their guns and dares speak their name in tones of respect over the one that doesn't. The right-wing even has a monopoly on words like "liberty" and "freedom." The only time you'll ever catch an Obot using those words is when they're apologizing for Obama's attacks on Pakistan.

Jesus, and there I was thinking consensual rape was a contradiction in terms.

op:

"One thing you'll never catch Glenn Beck or anyone else on the right doing is referring to working-class white people who are fed up with being taxed to death as "trash." "

yes they pander to the butt ends
of our extensive and diverse
white kulack elements
just
as the dems do to diverse
minority elements of color

neither delivers what all jobbled folks want
better jobs and higher wages

sean's point is one father makes here alot
the merit class party has unintended scorn for the white kulacks
and as the tax party if not the spend party
the class that has received the tax burden shift these last 40 years or more
oughta piss on the donkey's back side

i hope sean has noticed and is only seconding the stance taken here consistently..
but hey
pal
white trash hippos abound

StO:

The readers on vastleft's blog seem to have taken "merit baby" to be an attack on affirmative action...

MJS:

StO -- How delightful. Do you happen to have a link? I can't seem to find it.

StO -- How delightful. Do you happen to have a link? I can't seem to find it.

I think I've found it:

Massive Takedown of Persistent Ponyism

Having just scanned all the comments, I also liked the claim that there was sexism implicit in describing Melissa Harris-Lacewell as "she of the pretentious double-barreled name".

I guess the discussion in Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum of why few important women writers, with the exception of Ivy Compton-Burnett, choose the double-barreled surname must also be sexist. Here I was thinking it was just a brief and funny digression on the psychology of self-financed authoresses.

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