coalition_unwilling

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Member since: Mon Aug 2, 2004, 03:31 PM
Number of posts: 14,180

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In the words of the great DUer Alcibiades_Mystery:

There once was a Sec of Defense
Whose prose was Excessively Dense
His Philosopher's Stone
Was an Unknown Unknown -
I'll Be Damned If It Made Any Sense

From the dusty DU2 archives:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2642693

Scroll down on the page for more great Rumsfeld limericks. I'm particularly partial to the ones by Orrex and alcibiades_mystery.

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Thu Dec 20, 2012, 03:12 AM (0 replies)

Further to your point about 'false emotions,' I don't recall seeing one media broadcast

much less a full-blown media meltdown when these 10 schoolgirls died:

Ten Afghan girls, aged from nine to 13, were killed on Monday when an unexploded bomb or landmine detonated as they were out gathering firewood near their village in eastern Afghanistan.

http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/17/unexploded-ordnance-kills-10-afghan-children/

Oh, wait, these were terrorists disguised as children

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Wed Dec 19, 2012, 06:37 PM (0 replies)

I think jurors who vote to hide a comment should be

required to state a reason.

Just finished serving on a Jury that voted 4-2 to let a post stand. The two who voted to Hide gave no explanation. They were voting to suppress speech and I think those so voting should have to provide their reasons.

At Tue Dec 18, 2012, 02:14 PM an alert was sent on the following post:

The Wasilla Grifter can go fuck herself with a rusty sewer pipe.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2023546

REASON FOR ALERT:

This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)

ALERTER'S COMMENTS:

As much as I despise Sarah Palin, DU does not benefit from this sort of post.

You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Tue Dec 18, 2012, 02:25 PM, and the Jury voted 2-4 to LEAVE IT.

Juror #1 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: No explanation given
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I have mixed feelings about this but, if we cannot use hyperbole and figurative language here on DU, we might as well shut the site down. DU probably does not "benefit" from this sort of post but, by that standard, 90% of posts would have to be hidden.
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: DU does not benefit from emotional and ugly postings, but this post, while rude, and perhaps hurtful to someone, does not rise to the over-the-top level of other distressing postings that do not get alerted.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: Sarah Palin has rejected feminism. Therefore she should be fair game for sexist insults.

Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.

In the interest of transparency, I was Juror #4

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Tue Dec 18, 2012, 06:34 PM (74 replies)

Ms. Murphy was 52 (my age). Let us hereby resolve that these dead

shall not have died in vain.

RIP

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Tue Dec 18, 2012, 06:30 PM (0 replies)

I just noticed that amongst all the 'blame the parents' and 'arm the teacher' threads

making the rounds today, there is not ONE SINGLE THREAD blaming the gun manufacturers and their shareholders.

I mean, seriously, don't the folks at Bushmaster and Glock bear some responsibility for Newtown also? We hold tobacconists responsible for the harm their products cause. Shouldn't that same logic apply to the manufacturers of WMD?

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Mon Dec 17, 2012, 01:28 PM (87 replies)

Does the Newtown Massacre have to be anyone's "fault"? Maybe it's

as simple as genetics run amok and, if there is fault to be assigned, it is to society for failing to educate its citizenry better about genetics (ETA: mental health, and the dangers of firearms).

Some 200 years ago, the poet Coleridge in discussing Shakespeare's Iago talked about his 'motiveless malignity.' While this phrase has traditionally received a gloss to mean 'evil' in the Judeo-Christian sense, if we strip out the religious hocus-pocus, perhaps we could say that the Newtown Massacre was an instance of 'genetic malignity'. Either way, the Newtown Massacre remains at its core ultimately unfathomable, much like Iago's crimes.

I'm really sick and tired of seeing the mother and father, individually or collectively, getting blamed for this. Anyone who's had mental illness in his or her family with a sibling or child knows that the best parenting in the world often doesn't mean jack shit one way or the other. (Lousy parenting may produce still more adverse outcomes, but that's another thread, I would say.) If the genes predispose someone to a particular affliction and the environmental trigger(s) present(s), the parenting of that person isn't going to mean much by way of prevention or amelioration.

Blaming the mother here smacks of misogyny in a major way, since she is not here to explain herself. Likewise, blaming the father carries just the faintest taste of misandry. Either one is way out of line, in my opinion, based on what we currently know.

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Sun Dec 16, 2012, 09:16 PM (38 replies)

Bringing race and economic class into the Newtown discussion

Lost amidst all the sorrow we rightly feel for the many victims of the Newtown Massacre is the reality that innocent children have been the victims of random shootings on an almost weekly basis here in Los Angeles since I've lived here (1994 and thereafter). These children are predominantly black or Latino and lower-class and, aside from the brief mentions on local news broadcasts, have never occasioned the 'stop-the-presses' full-blown meltdown that the Newtown massacre seems to have engendered.

And yet no one on DU would say for one moment that the lives of those black and Latino children are one bit less precious than the lives of the child victims of the Newtown Massacre.

I'd like for DU to understand that this type of violence that makes victims of children has long been a staple of minority neighborhoods here. I live in a racially mixed neighborhood in Los Angeles (Ladera Heights) and I can tell you for a fact that the black and Latino children I've met here (some of whom live in my building) are just as cute, precious and precocious as the children who died at Newtown.

I mention this not to criticize DU, nor to besmirch the memories of the victims of the Newtown Massacre. Maybe I'm just asking myself where the media coverage and the outrage was when the children of South Central LA were being gunned down. I can't help escape the feeling that there are some racial and economic class biases at play here. And that the public outpourings of grief and outrage themselves reveal some deep societal dysfunctions.

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Sun Dec 16, 2012, 12:46 PM (13 replies)

Thank you for the compliment - I accept it with a heavy heart. My wife

has been waxing profound in the last 24 hours:

"A society that consistently wages war creates a violent atmosphere that is bound to inform the behavior of its citizens."

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Sat Dec 15, 2012, 07:09 PM (0 replies)

All the money that has been squandered on security and law enforcement

since 9-11 and these security pimps can't secure or protect shit.

My wife just said that all the money that was spent on security should have been spent instead on mental health services. I can't agree more.

ETA: On more mature reflection, all the money that was spent on the security and military pimps is a reflection of this society's mental illness.

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Fri Dec 14, 2012, 06:00 PM (9 replies)

How low will ABC go? One of its correspondents just

breathlessly informed us all that "many parents in Newtown are having an early Christmas tonight."

Not one mention that this society is so completely and totally fucked in the head. That message wouldn't mesh with the ABC\Disney message of schmaltzy SHIT!

Posted by coalition_unwilling | Fri Dec 14, 2012, 05:51 PM (11 replies)

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