» NEWS For Those Of You Who Do Not Have Twitter<http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=5641>
*Home <http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?cat=1>* - by *BigFurHat<http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?author=11> * - August 26, 2009 - 03:50 America/Chicago - *31 Comments<http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=5641> * I’d like to share with you some of the buzz from last night’s event - the passing of that Kennedy. Obviously, it was a leading trend topic for most of the late evening and early morning. I tend to follow like-minded people so I wasn’t shocked to see a lot of outrageously “inappropriate” comments ticking down the page. Most people were trying NOT to laugh. I received a few private messages from people saying that they would love to retweet some of my own comments but were a little gun shy. Who they fear I do not know. After about 20 tweets just announcing his death, A_Smithee got the ball rolling with: “alright, someone’s gotta say it: “Mary Jo Kopechne was unavailable for comment.” Followed quickly by the sublimely snarky tweet from J_Waite: “My condolences to the people who loved Ted Kennedy.” StickeeNotes wrote: “RIP Obama’s vacation.” My first provocative tweet suggested he be buried “at pond.” JTlol (Jim Treacher), as usual, held nothing back with: “Why do I suddenly have a craving for Chivas Regal and a Polish secretary?” After that tweet came the chastising. Michelle Malkin, Andy Levy (always the self-imposed control freak, hall monitor), Randy Haddock (threatening to unfollow anyone with lack of respect towards Kennedy - buh bye Randy!) and tygerbaby led the chorus of “stay classy.” So Weaslecommander said, ”Staying Classy… I will NOT make jokes regarding the lack of need for embalming fluid.” I tweeted that “Teddy being the last Kennedy is like Shemp being the last Howard.” J_Waite said, “Screw it! Tweet whatever you want cons. If someone gets mad just say you were drunk. All should be forgiven.” Heres a running list of great tweets: Random thought: Taking the high road got us President Obama.-J_Waite / Sen Ted Kennedy, Former Oldsmobile Owner, Dies at 77/ Sen Ted Kennedy died tonight after a bout with brain cancer - Q_Element / Staying Classy …NO Jokes that a cremation would only require a match and a wick -WeaselCommander/ i will never understand how Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama knowing that Ayers wrote a book dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan.- somuchpain/ The Kennedy Family Curse is “er uh, get your dinghy out of our harbuh, you fackin lowlife.” -BigFurHat/ If they dedicate ObamaCare Bill to Ted, can we dedicate an anti-DUI bill to Mary Jo Kopechne? - s_dog/ But the man who, for me, put the entire evening in it’s proper perspective was Andrew Breitbart. This is great stuff: Rest in Chappaquiddick/ Kennedy laid groundwork for legitimizing media-killing of conservatives. What he did to destroy Thomas & Bork is unforgivable. Mary Jo, too./ For whom did Sen. Kennedy show compassion? Bork? Thomas? The Kopechnes? Please, this is not about politics. This is about decency./Pretending to care about poor & downtrodden (while institutionally using ill-gotten power to destroy them) is not a legacy to be proud of./ I’m more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified. Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it./How dare you compare Snow & Reagan to Kennedy! Why do you grant a BULLY special status upon his death? This isnt lib v con./At what level of indecency does this rule stop? Pol Pot? Manson? OJ? Scott Peterson? Im in need of a morality primer!/do your rules apply to all unrepentant, self-destructive, hypocritical manslaughterers? or just kennedys?/Look, this man was granted absolution for nothing. Class, life station played a part but PARTY was everything. GOP couldnt get away with it./T. Kennedy is NOTHING without elite media bias & hyper-enabling. IF a GOP possesses 1/100 of human failings of T. Kennedy he/she is TOAST./Thank you Clarence Thomas for showing extraordinary dignity in the face of this man’s indescribably mean-spirited torrent of partisan venom./This duplicitous bastard spit on GWB’s face when he reached across party lines. Twas a grade school trick. Even til the end, he was a prick./In this moment I cant but recognize absolute backwardness of media & society. Bush=EVIL. Ted Kennedy=SAINT. Im gonna keep fighin’, folks./I’m not attacking a dead person because he was a liberal Democrat. I have ZERO history of doing that. Ted Kennedy is special./If you cant say something nice about a person then say mean things about them instead. Especially if they are unapologetic manslaughterers./I’ll shut my mouth for Carter. That’s just politics. Kennedy was a special pile of human excrement./Fun exercise: Explain Chappaquiddick to a ten year old. Answer their questions factually, dispassionately. Now find me one not horrified./If he apologized on his death bed, I will take it all back. Seriously. Good night. UPDATE: This is a commenter responding to Michelle Malkin’s call for respect towards Kennedy. On August 26th, 2009 at 6:23 am, Roland said: Roughly a quarter million people in the world will die today. Why in the world would I pick out this particular person to pray for? Because he was a celebrity? Or because he needs our prayers more than the good ones? Does that make sense? Seriously people. I do not understand the thinking. I will save my prayers for the countless faceless ‘little people’ suffering and dying all across the face of the globe today resisting evil in all of its deadly forms. Kennedy did not give a damn about any of you, and you know it. Neither does his family. - I think Roland has it right. The normally brilliant Malkin is a little off-key considering what Ted Kennedy was. Malkin can have her beliefs, they are valid. But she cannot be serious about asking other people to have respect for Ted Kennedy? Can she? The man can hardly be called ”a man.” On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 2:14 AM, "Lone Wolf" <[email protected]> wrote: > > Ted Kennedy and the decay of American liberalism > 27 August 2009 > > The death of Massachusetts Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy on Tuesday > marks the end of the Kennedy family’s role as a major force in > American politics. Ted Kennedy, who succumbed to brain cancer at age > 77, served 47 years in the Senate. He was the last significant > political representative of a family that loomed large in American > political consciousness for more than half a century. > > Ted Kennedy died some 46 years after the horrific events in Dallas > that ended the administration and the life of his brother, John F. > Kennedy, and 41 years after the assassination of his remaining > brother, Robert F. Kennedy. (Joe Jr., the eldest brother, was a navy > pilot in World War II. He was killed when his plane exploded in August > of 1944). > > The political careers of the Kennedys span the entire post-war period. > Their personal tragedies are intimately bound up with the maelstrom of > American politics and the explosive character of class relations in > the United States. The assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy not > only devastated the Kennedy family, they brought to close a whole > stage of American liberalism. > > John F. Kennedy represented, in all of its contradictions, the > Democratic Party as it emerged from Roosevelt’s New Deal. He was > elected to the US House of Representatives from Massachusetts’ 11th > congressional district in 1946 and to the US Senate in 1952. He > entered Congress only one year after Roosevelt’s death and the end of > World War II. His father, Joseph Kennedy, a millionaire businessman, > had served in the Roosevelt administration. > > When Kennedy began his political career, American liberalism was > already deeply compromised by its association with American > imperialism and its embrace of anti-communism. Its decline was covered > over for a period by the immense resources of American capitalism, > which enabled the Democratic Party to make certain concessions to the > working class. These, in turn, were bound up with its alliance with > the right-wing labor bureaucracy. > > The United States emerged from World War II as the dominant world > imperialist power. American liberalism adopted the technique of > combining idealist rhetoric with collaboration in criminal > interventions by the US State Department, the CIA and the military > directed against the international working class. > > Even as it presented itself as the global champion of democracy and > freedom, the Democratic Party depended for its electoral success on > its control of the “Solid South,” which was based on its defense of > racial apartheid in much of the US. > > These contradictions would play a major role in the mounting crisis > that beset the Kennedy administration and its successor, that of > Lyndon B. Johnson, whose Great Society program of social reform > collapsed under the weight of the disastrous war in Vietnam and > economic problems linked to the unraveling of the post-war economic > boom. > > John Kennedy’s political career spanned the halcyon days of US global > dominance and the beginning of the breakdown of that dominance. > Kennedy was elected president in 1960 as a Cold War liberal. In the > White House, he attempted to marry a program of moderate domestic > reform with a more aggressive projection of American power > internationally. His administration was quickly caught up in the > contradictions of American capitalism both at home and abroad. > > Initially indifferent to civil rights, Kennedy became embroiled in the > political reverberations arising from the mass mobilization of African- > Americans in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and early 1960s. > He was assassinated in November of 1963. > > The Kennedy administration ended as events in Vietnam were driving it > toward a military escalation and full-scale war, a policy that was > undertaken by the Johnson administration. > > The presidential bid of Kennedy’s younger brother Robert as a belated > opponent of the Vietnam War also ended in gunshots in June of 1968. In > a turn of events pregnant with historical irony, Robert’s death paved > the way for Richard Nixon, who had been denied the presidency by John > Kennedy in 1960, to win the White House eight years later. > > The coming to power of Nixon was a turning point for American > liberalism. It marked the end of the period when the Democratic Party > represented a force for even limited social reform. > > Edward Kennedy, the youngest brother, won election to the US Senate in > 1962. His political career was permanently scarred by his personal > recklessness, which exploded in the tawdry episode in Chappaquiddick > in July, 1969, which involved the death of a Kennedy campaign aide. > More important, however, were vast changes in American politics and > the Democratic Party that gathered strength in the 1970s. > > Following the debacle of the McGovern campaign in 1972, the Democratic > Party moved sharply to the right. Underlying this development were > profound changes in the global economic position of American > capitalism, signaled by the breakup of the post-war Bretton Woods > monetary system and the ending of dollar-gold convertibility in August > of 1971. > > In 1976, the Democratic Party turned for its presidential candidate to > Jimmy Carter, a conservative southern governor. The uneasy > relationship between Carter and Kennedy broke down later in the 1970s, > leading to Kennedy’s bid to unseat Carter and win the Democratic > presidential nomination in 1980. By then, Kennedy himself had shifted > in a conservative direction, as epitomized by his vocal support for > deregulation of the airline and trucking industries. > > The Democratic Party, underscoring its turn to the right, rejected > Kennedy. His oft-quoted “the dream shall never die” speech at the 1980 > Democratic National Convention was, in fact, the last hurrah of > American liberalism. By then the program of American liberalism had > long since become hollow. Lacking any political substance, it > increasingly assumed a demagogic character. > > Following the half-hearted presidential campaign of Minnesota Governor > Walter Mondale in 1984, the Democrats turned in 1988 to a little known > conservative governor, Michael Dukakis, and a conservative southern > governor, Bill Clinton, in 1992. > > After 1980, there was little substance left in Kennedy’s professed > devotion to social reform, despite his becoming the perpetual target > of right-wing Republican attacks, which demonized him as an > unrepentant liberal. From then on, Kennedy became what could be called > a political minimalist—eschewing any serious attempt to enact major > social reforms. > > The American political establishment as a whole had shifted far to the > right, as embodied in the free market nostrums of Reagan. These > provided the political justification for a relentless assault on the > living standards and social position of the working class, which > continued under the Clinton and Bush administrations and continues > today under Obama. > > In death, Kenney is being eulogized as the “Lion of the Senate” —a > master legislator and advocate for the common man. While the personal > tragedies of the Kennedys evoke in the public a certain sympathy for > Ted Kennedy, the fact remains that his name is not associated with a > single serious social reform. He spent his final decade sponsoring > bipartisan measures of a right-wing character, such as George W. > Bush’s “No Child Left Behind Act”—an attack on public education—and a > punitive bill targeting undocumented immigrants that failed to win > passage in Congress. > > Kennedy supported Obama in the 2008 election, in part out of animus > toward Bill Clinton, whom he privately despised. The dark irony of his > life is underscored by the fact that his signature political cause, > which he promoted for nearly 50 years—universal health care—has been > turned by Obama into a cover for a ruthless drive to gut health care > for millions of working Americans. A bill to slash health care costs > for big business and the government was being debated in Congress as > Kennedy lay dying. > > Barry Grey > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
