how to deal with mooks & online trolls in one simple step

As anyone who's put up with these assholes for even a moment knows, mooks & trolls need air to survive just like the rest of us.

The best thing to do is: Never respond to them and their childish baiting & lies. 

If they defame you, if they smear you, find out, document, and wait for later. If they've gone over the legal limits of our proscribed rights in society, the onus will be on them. The best thing to do is to never respond.

Hard, I know, and we all slip at some point. There are times to set the record straight too. But the fact is, these assholes exist in a fringe echo-chamber. Normal people don't listen to or buy into their lies. That's all you need to know in the end. Let them do all the talking, the defamatory scribbling--let them dig their own graves. It's about all they're good at.

Let the fuckers suffocate.

Hey, Ron Paul Fan boys...

Your boy got his ass handed to him by "bigger" losers than him. How does it feel? You're the lunatic fringe. You're mooks (look it up). America will never elect someone like him because they already have a long way back, the Republicans of the 1920s. That worked out well by 1929, this "we don't need regulations" nuttiness you fruitcakes hold like (like?) someone with brain damage. Without a doubt, you're going to look about as stupid as the Know-nothing Party one day. Ron Paul: a racist crank, like his moronic followers he doesn't give two-shits about. Thanks assholes, he's got your money once again, like he did with the racist newsletters years back. You're used to being used...up.

Oh, by the way: I'm going to be giving Libertarianism a good kick up the ass in my DC Madam book. Your conspiracy nut friends stuck their asses out too far trying to use her death for their anti-government agenda that has your name written all over it.

A.J. Weberman on Ron Paul

Ed.--This is a pretty good set of personal observations by a Jewish activist on Ron Paul and the people he surrounds himself with. I too stumbled upon Spotlight (a defunct anti-Semitic/right wing extremist paper), speaking for myself in the early 90s, and agree with his conclusion: Ron Paul is an authoritarian fascist and a race baiter, a demagogue, a liar. Paul is a sad reminder of the failings of American Populism just over a century ago too, the fixation on the gold standard-and-all...as well as the baggage of anti-Semitism.

Make no mistake: This man, and more specifically, the people who are his base, are an incredibly dangerous political phenomenon on the American landscape. Worst of all are his Christian Identity connections. His son Rand (named after Ayn Rand) has been put on the SPLC's watch list not long ago, and for good reason. These people are scarier than you think. The scariest part is that there are numbskulls on the left (really arch-conservative flakes) who are being swayed by him out of desperation and a desire for expediency, for immediate change. Yeah, we'd get change alright--an even greater acceleration of the move towards corporate tyranny and a more openly racialist state.

"Ron Paul - The Most Dangerous Nazi in America": http://www.slideshare.net/AJWeberman/ron-paul-the-most-dangerous-nazi-in-america?from=new_upload_email

Postscript: Again, I don't agree with all of Weberman's contentions, historical or otherwise, but the raw data is there. I do agree that Paul is a demagogue, a Christian Identity freak and a corporatist, a bad populist.

A message to Facebook contacts

My account was disabled today thanks to a number of factors, some of them backstabbing Libertarians who have a problem with freedom of speech. Contrary to being for "liberty," these little men (ever notice women are too smart for that shit?) have no tolerance for someone disagreeing with them and bruising their titanic egos, exposing their delusions of adequacy. The last time I got booted was over the Jaenelle Antas story (see label below) and her connection to a chair of the Libertarian Party of Indiana--the most successful Libertarian group in the 2010 elections at a whopping 2%--and Holocaust denier David Irving. For posting a link to the article, giving them a heads up, I was reported and removed. Does that sound like they have any respect for freedom of the press there? Never mind that: my page was literally inundated for many months after reestablishing a new profile under a different name, hacking, dirty trick, you name it, they tried it.

Many of them got wind that I was back on Facebook and came at me like the slack-jawed (mooks--look it up) zombies that I always thought they were. Ever notice many of them work in the IT world and at Radio Shack? I don't play nice with hateful idiots and I'm sure that these wimps were reporting me left and right (there is no center in America, face it) because I wasn't going to humor them like their friends and family who have to. The irony is that while I've been vociferous in my criticisms of both American Libertarians and Ron Paul on Facebook, I have never reported any of these people who hide in the shadows. What they don't get is that I accomplished what I wanted to on there on many, many counts. It doesn't matter. I'm just one person, certainly, but there's little doubt in my mind that I got people thinking about these vermin and the threat that they pose to democracy in the United States. They're the legendary people waiting in the wings for their time, they're a bigger problem than you think.

Anyway: I have had my life disrupted thanks to dirty tricks on Facebook by nameless, faceless people. God only knows who they are, but this is a relief to put it mildly, I wanted out long before this occurrence. This is a blessing in disguise to put it mildly. To all of my Facebook contacts, you can reach me either here (my email address can be found on my profile page here) or via my Twitter account. There will also be a stand alone website coming before long for the DC Madam book.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/MJanovic

On Ron Paul and his Trolls

He's a racist, but in the interest of brevity, ala Seuss, a few lines (no, not drugs):

I will not vote for him in a booth, I will not say he's long in the tooth. I will not say that he is sane, or that he is a weather vane. I say that he is a kook, and that he thinks that blacks are "spooks." He will not win on election day, so there is nothing more to say about this ossified ofay.

And since he's bound to lose, there truly is no more to say.

Wikileaks mirror: http://213.251.145.96/

WWW--Hit it, I am.

There are daily updates on the State Dept. cables at this point. This is much bigger than the Pentagon Papers. Regardless of what happens, no matter what foolhardy legislation gets passed to ban this whistle-blowing, Pandora's box has been opened and the lid cannot be closed, ever again.

For those of you out there who don't get how the dissemination of technology works--too bad--you cannot stop this, it's a done deal. The negative response from the mainstream media was to be expected. A healthy democracy requires that the public not be deceived. We have to know the machinations of power to remain free. Sad and pathetic then that so many Americans are knee-jerking right now on this and insisting as is their wont to remain ignorant, to remain in the dark about what their government is doing in the name of corporations.

That's how a slave that's been beaten into submission thinks...if you want to call it thinking. Seeing yet another Populist-opening, Ron Paul (in his role of "good cop" to his son Rand's dueling banjo "bad cop") has been advocating for such leaks and saying there need to be more groups like them. This is interesting since he must be anticipating the next round of leaks--if they actually make it out the gate--coming from Bank of America, and possibly even Goldman Sachs and other major corrupt financial players on Wall Street. I'm skeptical of his sincerity and view most of what he says and does publicly as political theater. Let's not make it a tragedy, shall we? In Paul's hands, it's likely to be tragicomic.

Paul can say such things because he knows he'll never have to follow through on them. Like Democratic representatives who constantly crow over sundry social-ills--knowing full well thhat the political context is wrong to expedite it and that they're not going to do anything about them of any substance--he's just sounding off as he usually does. Great, have fun with that one, but what about fixing our nation? That's called rhetoric, folks, demagoguery, and it makes one wonder where all the adults went.

Recall that Paul's not so far removed from Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman in his wackiness. Today he's talking about taking down the Federal Reserve with a parallel system of backing currency with gold when everyone should know there's not enough in the entire world to do it. As usual, he's trying to create a false impression. The reality is, he's no Robert M. Lafollette, one of the very few genuine progressive Republicans that ever was, the legendary Senator from Wisconsin.

If the GOP ever had a soul, it lost it when Lafollette died in 1925, giving into corporate interests over the role of government in American life, the very forces the senator at that time railed strenuously against. In case you didn't notice, he lost to people like Paul and the rest of them now occupying our government via the GOP's corporate-political nexus. Does that sound like a friendly crowd to you? Paul isn't exactly a friend of the working man and woman at all and doesn't believe in a social safety net, but neither do most Democrats these days since they report to the same bosses.

Where does the Wikileaks release of State Department cables covering 1966-2010 fit into to all of this? The warnings of Mark Twain, of Marine Corps General Smedley Butler that imperialism will be the ruination of the United States.

The State Department figures highly in all of this since they lobby relentlessly for American corporate interests overseas all of the time. It's their primary job besides formulating the policies to expedite this overall agenda and--this is key here--selling it to an American public that they do their best to keep in the dark. They have every reason to since most of us would reject that agenda outright if we were to know of it in real time. Yelling "national security" gets results and keeps the locals at bay. This abuse of secrecy is what makes the "sell" easier and why at least half of the public goes along with the dumbshow that's going to take the rest of us over the cliff.

Wikileaks is doing the work of an impaired corporate-owned press, and now the real scrambling begins. The battle for your mind has truly begun, to keep it ignorant so that their agenda can continue, one that's a direct threat to you and everyone you know. It began this summer when the State Department realized their post-9/11 sharing of information with military analysts had backfired, coming in the form of the whistle-blower PFC. Bradley Manning.

Make no mistake: Manning is a hero, this is a turning-point, an opening, and we had better start taking it. Read the cables and decide for yourself whether the State Department is acting in your best interests and why you don't want to know the facts contained within them.

Give them hell.

Is there really a Tea Party Movement?

No, there is not. There's a loose conglomeration of the reactionary right, conservative (whatever that means) senior citizens who have been mislead in thinking that their Medicare is going to be cut, closet racists who had no problem with eight criminal years of Bush II but don't like having a black president, tax protesters, gun rights activists, the rural and suburban unemployed, wacko evangelicals, Libertarians, disgruntled former Republicans, militia nuts, neo-Nazis, and a lot of other people I'd never invite over for a drink or a cookout anytime soon.

What the so-called "Tea Party movement" is constitutes reactionary, rightist populism. In other words, misguided, misdirected populist rage that's apparently not willing to be "co-opted" by the GOP let alone the DNC.

In some crucial sense, they're the opposite side of the coin to the progressive left, meaning the majority of the public when you look at the polls regarding social issues and the spending to combat social problems. The majority is for a leftward reformist model, not a rightward trend. Where does that leave these red-headed stepchildren of the right? As far as anyone can tell, an ineffectual demographic minority that, yes, gets it that Wall Street is the problem, yet doesn't like the idea of New Deal reforms and progressive taxation of the wealthiest.

You know: the dumb assholes who still cling to the American Dream.

There is an off-chance that some of these folks will have that "road to Damascus" conversion and actually see that their own interests are best represented in joining the antiwar and progressive left in the streets (as well as on the Internet), in joining together to stop the corporate assault on our rights, but so far it's a pipe dream. Instead, we all harp on more fringe elements of this demographic, and while that's not entirely misplaced in its importance, it's not all about the problem children, it's about the overall group that's been labelled as "Tea Party." Some have implied that many of these self-styled "Tea Baggers" could only attend many of these events by being small business owners, and indeed, there's a kernal of truth to this. But it's not the entire story, some are simply retired baby boomers.

I'm not really sure why the GOP would even want this disparate gaggle of the terminally confused, but what else do they have left as a base? Yet, as stated before, the demographic is fundamentally mistrustful of the entire political establishment and stubbornly resists being used, of being co-opted. Regardless of that, they have been used pretty effectively by both the GOP and DNC to assist in a creating a smokescreen so that bogus health reform could be passed. It doesn't surpise me that this pseudo-movement began with Texas congressional representative Ron Paul since it's as confused in its viewpoint and message as much as he is. To add to the confusion, the mainstream corporate media affixed the labels to them and let things fly, and fly they have, right out the window.

Is there really a Tea Party movement? I don't think so, and it's not going to decide any national elections anytime soon. What it will do, and has done, is to provide one more spectacle, one more distraction, from the worthwhile goals of reformists and the dreams in the hearts of American populists of every stripe. The Mesopotamian priests used the corruption of language to control the builders of the Tower of Babel--but it went bust, and no one could understand each other anymore, and the pillar that was the society of that time, the work towards real civilization, remained unfinished and the people disbursed. The show was effectively over. Funny that religion is part of the equation again, but if it's broken don't fix it when it comes to holding onto power.

To the "spoilers" crowd: I was right, you're always wrong

WWW--Face the facts: you lost the election for Ralph Nader by voting for an unknown quantity, Barack Obama, a kiss-ass corporate lawyer. He was never going to do the right thing, unless you mean right-wing, meaning in the service of money and power. Ten year olds saw this shit coming, it wasn't hard to miss. No, you fucked up, all of you, because you go for the name brand first rather than looking at someone for what they really are. He's like Lincoln alright, not FDR.

But none of this really matters. The system is going to keep crashing, again and again, dragging your asses firmly down to earth, grounding you whether you like it or not. I'm the kind of person who's going to get a lot of entertainment value out of this, watching smarmy, spoiled assholes suffer for a change. God knows it's going to have been earned.

To my delight, you're going to learn the hard way: what the the social contract means; what a society is for; why we must work civilly through the legal system; that the free market system was always a tottering mess that was poised for eventual extinction; what "dumbshow" means; how "conventional wisdom" tends to be utter bullshit; why civic duty is supposed to be non-negotiable; how greedy and empty you are; how stupid you are; why you suck; how conceited you are; how you have almost no intellect whatsoever; why Johnny can't read; how you don't even know the very short history of your own country; what it takes to get you off your lazy asses.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of so-called conservatives fit this bill, but so do most mainstream Democratic voters. So you hated George W. Bush? Welcome to the club, but that doesn't mean you're not the same kind of slob, the same kind of drooling asshole. Nope, you are the same kind of asshole, quit fooling yourself.

Nader voters didn't spoil anything, it was assholes like you who think you can just pull a switch and everything's fine, fixed. History never, ever works that way, it's an endless struggle between the majority and concentrated power. There are no breaks in this, no respite, it's eternal, hence the term "eternal vigilance" coming from people like Thomas Jefferson and Paine, but not James Madison. Democracy isn't a microwaveable pizza. You spoiled the elections, not us. You should have voted for Ralph Nader, the best deal on-offer in the realm of third parties, since voting for Ron Paul is completely batshit crazy.

"Radical Pirate Chic," a satire by an effete who wears ice cream colored suits (Matt Janovic)

“Queenie” was the first to saunter onto the aft deck, stepping insouciantly over the bodies of food and drink servers, piles of banned-in-the-USA flintlock AK-47s, broken unbreakable combs, and Bam-Bam’s toys. Her moves were getting the boys in the crew pretty hot, and they weren’t even over-hyped gangster rappers. The atmosphere was assuredly sultry, that was for sure. The armed Somalis running all over the place had boarded The Fountainhead several hundred miles off of the coast of Yemen, beating a flotilla of Babary Coast pirates to their quarry. Normally, it was “hands-up,” but something was amiss with the passengers of this particular vessel.

“Really, do any of you pirates have air-conditioning? I mean—really—it’s unacceptably balmy here in…where the hell are we? Who’s got a map? Not that I could find where we are on it, “exhaled the washed-up diva. Her face had seen better days, and so had her career, but she still had the gams and she was loaded in every sense. Perhaps this pirate fundraiser could get her more exposure in the mainstream media, she pondered. How that was going to happen off the coast of Somalia was anyone’s guess.

A teenage Somalia pirate angrily pointed his assault rifle at her and started yelling at the top of his lungs. Where were the canapés?! No, this GOP fundraiser wasn’t going as planned, let alone according to schedule, but at least the collapse of the voting base was still coming in on time (these were hard times for issue-baiters). If they couldn’t politically demonize these pirates, maybe they could bore them to death, or even join them. It seemed redundant. Who was responsible for this mess? Who did the booking? Who could they scapegoat when the usual victims were pointing guns at them without a nigger-beating cop or a gullible and bigoted public for thousands of miles?

Had Karl Rove planned it, or was it Bebe Rebozo? Nobody knew who Bebe Rebozo was, so it didn’t matter. A Republican junket had gone off-the-rails again (and again, and again…), and they were all looking like the ruthless, scurvy dogs they always were. At least they could glean their Vitamin C from some of the cocktails, but the food was rapidly running out, if not being looted or immediately consumed by the starving Somalis. But these good people were taking it in stride; they weren’t going to let anything ruffle their feathers, not even objective reality. Maybe a saber-or-two up against a throat might; or maybe a bullet in the arm, a leg, or the trunk, but not from a randy corsair or some buggery dog from the Spanish Main.

“Quick, quick,” many of them were thinking, “where is a copy of The Wealth of Nations for a Confucian-like consultation?” They couldn’t make a move without it--or a functioning nervous system--so it was going to be hard going for the foreseeable future. Were there ever Chinese pirates? Sure. But, after all, every fear hides a secret desire, and besides, the booze and grog were flowing, there were tons of Black teenagers (albeit training guns on them all), and the drugs were on the way. How was this different from a party at the Westin or Watergate? Right: the CIA wasn’t here.

“Those Somali pirates were just teenagers, and our Black Muslim president MURDERED them, that dirty racist mulatto—that tragic mulatto. I know, I know, it’s not as though I’ve ever shown much empathy for those Negroes—publicly--but I do have a yen for them black teenagers!” said a shaking, sweating Rush Limbaugh.

Withdrawal and the rhythm method weren’t part of the Republican lexicon, but the monkey on his back was getting vicious, barbaric, and it had to go. Rush called it “Joe,” but its real name was “Sam.” Hey, don’t ask me--I don’t write ‘em, ask the fat man. In a moment’s notice, the well-muscled simian sprang across the foredeck, gingerly and lovingly ripping the faces off of every suburbanite that motioned to pet him. Just as suddenly, he grabbed for a vegetable tray, but was violently rebuffed by violence. The chimp didn’t look very amused by this unacceptable state of affairs, and began effortlessly throwing pirates overboard. The “hosts” didn’t seem too amused either, pointing their flintlock AKs in Limbaugh’s undulating, porcine face, forming an aesthetically pleasing semi-circle that would’ve looked natural in a Fritz Lang film. One of the young pirates dropped his saber and started to dance in a delightful pirouette. This Republican Party wasn’t amounting to very much, but at least it had some camp value.

Limbaugh began shaking, pulled a microphone from nowhere, and spat out: “Look, look, we can do business…I’ve contributed greatly to your people in the Caribbean, I understand you people—as crazy as that sounds—I understand you. Wait exactly one minute and thirty-three seconds, and I’ll say something crazier.” The Somali pirates were not amused, and began rifling through his pockets, finding pornography depicting young black men in various states of undress, several bottles of Viagra™, Oxycontin™, and a key of heroin and some Havana cigars in a diplomatic attaché case affixed with the Seal of the Department of State. That was when the real party began. It was time to get fucked-up, and that’s exactly what the skeletal Somalis did (wouldn’t you?).

With superhuman swiftness, they began whipping-out their grubby shooting works, grabbing cafeteria trays and any flat, reflective surface that they could get their mitts on. Now the Republicans finally saw their quarry, and an opening; they knew how to play this game. The old divide-and-conquer routine was coming, and they all knew it. It was at that point that a doddering old country doctor from Dallas came forward, brandishing a flaming (Christopher) cross, speaking utter nonsense (the nomenclature of American politicians, Libertarians and businessmen). Everyone was seriously fuuuuuccccckkkkkkeeeddddd uuuuuuuuuuuuup--even Ted Nugent, who appeared to have become a switch hitter.

Ron Paul misspoke: “Ya’ll need to hire some more pirates to deal with these here pirates, it’s worked before! I’m a Medical Doctor, and as we all know, we’re experts in foreign policy,” he droned on. The Somalis began nodding-off, and it wasn’t from the heroin. “…But there’ll be MONEY in it.” At those words, the young, Black, and gifted Somali pirates began gathering around the doddering redneck from the failed and theocratic Republic of Texas, now occupied by federal troops after a failed insurrection. The Doc was right for once in his miserable life: the pirates began rifling through his pockets, and when they were done, he was unceremoniously thrown overboard with a volley of RPG and Kalashnikov rounds following him.

“You’ll never take me alive!” he said, frantically clutching and wrapping himself in an American flag as he took several dozen rounds in the trunk. Absolutely everyone on the ship applauded for ten-minutes-straight.

“He was right!” chuckled one of the bilingual pirates, and I don’t mean “bi” in that other respect.

The rest of the pirates thrust the RPGs and flintlock AK-47s into the air in a defiant cheer. It was time for MORE sailor’s pay, and there were plenty more passengers to loot and…you know. They all spread-out across the main deck and filtered down to every level of the luxury cruiser, it was a spectacle that Michael Bay or any number of kiss-ass Hollywood producers would have drooled over, and it didn’t require any set up or union guidelines. Had there been video cameras, it would have been a reality TV show. Once the press arrived, it would be, and the surviving passengers could snap-up the distribution rights in-perpetuity.

But Harvey Weinstein was all ears, and had been hiding in the engine room eating blintzes and snorting coke off of a starlet’s taint. He motioned from his new hiding place in a lifeboat from beneath the tarp-coverlet to one of the Somali sentries running past: “Hey—you—fuck nut! Get over here! Gonna make you a star, asshole [SNUFFLE!].” The sentry was interested, though mainly in the peculiarly positioned starlet and the cocaine.

Meanwhile, on the foredeck, Limbaugh and others were finding escape in watching one of the few operating television sets that had been left unplundered by those scurvy dogs. “Socialists!” yelled the pathetic gaggle still gathered around the sweating, porcine reincarnation of National Socialist Gauleiter, Herman Göring. George W. Bush was onscreen at that moment. In the end, anyone who tried to escape reality by watching television was shot by the pirates.

“Are there any real socialists left?” queried Chuck Norris. He didn’t have that dumb animal look most rednecks have, so his rank was higher, but not much.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Chuck?!” chortled Limbaugh.

“Well…I don’t know. We just keep calling everyone who isn’t an actual socialist a socialist. I mean, how times have any us referred to Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders as one? He actually is one, y’know? Don’t you think red-baiting is over? If only I had the martial arts abilities that I do in my movies, we’d be out of this mess in no more than seven edits or wipe-dissolves!” Like the still-decaying Queen Victoria, Limbaugh was not amused.

“I decide who’s what—either a Republican or a socialist!” exploded Limbaugh. Food was flowing out of his mouth as he said it, and his pupils were dilated, as always. Finally, belatedly, he too was thrown overboard with the same treatment Ron Paul got from the angry Somalis. More were to follow, with the end result being the entire decimation of the original passengers and crew. In short order, the Somali pirates had commandeered the ship and set the navigation computers for New York City. A midshipman was perplexed and asked their ostensible leader, “Why New York City?”

“That’s easy,” said the pirate captain, “We’re all going to work on Wall Street with the phony credentials we’ve gotten off of these dead assholes. Soon, we’ll all be embedded permanently in several key lending-firms, with little-or-no accountability. That’s where the money is….”

The End

?

Coming to this space soon: "Radical Pirate Chic," a satire of Tom Wolfe's famous article!

J to the Powah of 7--There will be humor...wenches, grog, and the occasional flintlock AK-47 and RPG for all!!! Arrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! Can someone find me a schooner in Somalia? Starring Ron Paul and a cast of millions!

On Alex Jones, the Philadelphia shooter, and the red-headed step-children of the left

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania--It would be unfair to lay all of the blame for the shooting rampage of Richard Andrew Poplawski in Philadelphia this week on Alex Jones (or even Glen Beck) alone, but he and the rest of the reactionary right noise machine own a good chunk of it. It's not begging the question since the unbalanced and ignorant spree killer was an avid reader and consumer of such extremist dreck.

This wasn't about someone "getting into it" with their family over a dog urinating on a rug, it was about a sick young man with a small mind who found inspiration from right-wing demagogues, some of whom erroneously get lumped-into being part of the progressive and populist left. But Poplawski wasn't part of that political stream and had direct connections with the white supremacist "Stormfront" white supremacist group and was an avid reader of Alex Jones, among others on the rightist fringe.

While it's true that Poplawski was influenced by various texts, Jones figures highly in the story, and the role of anti-government conspiracy theories play a significant part of what led an ignorant and antisocial personality to focused and violent action.

“He was really into politics and really into the First and Second amendment. One thing he feared was he feared the gun ban because he thought that was going to take away peoples’ right to defend themselves. He never spoke of going out to murder or to kill,” said Edward Perkovic, who described himself as Mr. Poplawski’s lifelong best friend.
Mr. Poplawski’s view of guns and personal freedom took a turn toward the fringes of American politics. With Mr. Perkovic, he appeared to share a belief that the government was controlled from unseen forces, that troops were being shipped home from the Mideast to police the citizenry here, and that Jews secretly ran the country.
Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s. ("Suspect in officers' shooting was into conspiracy theories," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 04.05.2009)

Thanks Texas, keep on delivering, we might just let you secede. Poplawski didn't need to "speak" about murdering or killing, as actions speak louder than words, but it's obvious that Perkovic is the same kind of flat-head, and might not be the only questionable acquaintance of the shooter.

With Poplawski gone, Perkovic himself deserves closer scrutiny. Yeah, sure, Poplawski was "into politics" alright--extremist parapolitics--which is speculative-at-best and has no academic endorsements for all the right reasons. One of the key ingredients in Poplawski's rampage was the conspiricism of the fringe right, coming directly from demagogues like Alex Jones, but also "mainstreamed" ones like Glen Beck (public opinion polls aren't reflective of the Fox News agenda). Three policemen might be alive today otherwise. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that any of this will dissuade Jones's followers since they're resistant to reason (but not Reason magazine), or any of the gun-toting nuts out there who are going to react similarly in the intervening months. Oddly, none of this is mainstream thinking, yet there it is, right out in the open.

But Alex Jones often gets a free-pass from some on the left (our red-headed step-children--put down the pipe), and he shouldn't since he was once affiliated with the far-right militia movement and his associations with people you wouldn't want over for dinner, ever. Who are they? Who is Alex Jones...really? To know someone, you need to look at their friends and their allies and how closely their public statements and views correspond.

As recently as March 24th, 2009, Jones was featured on a Fox News panel with Judge Andrew Napolitano, Ron Paul, and Lew Rockwell. (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33154_Video-_Napolitano_with_Alex_Jones_Ron_Paul_Lew_Rockwell_Etc) Who is Judge Napolitano? He's a former federal prosecutor and mid-level state judge from New Jersey, avowed Libertarian, and nowadays--don't laugh--a Fox News commentator. He's also an alumni of Princeton's and Notre Dame's Law Schools, and was a "television judge" for a time on "Power of Attorney." While Napolitano is rumored to have connections of his own to white hate groups (probably through Ron Paul), he definitely has admirers in their ranks, evidence of which can be found on forums of the Aryan Front and others.

Presidental candidate Ron Paul? We know about him, and like Alex Jones, he's getting a free pass from the gullible on the left (and right, for other reasons) because he's come out against the war in Iraq and sounds vaguely populist and progressive. That's because he's smarter than the people he's been swaying since his first Libertarian candidacy for president in 1988. His views have changed little since that time and they are extremist in a profound sense. But Paul and his associates know how to repackage themselves as "populists" and how to appear "progressive" and "left," which is scary. They need to--again, the majority doesn't agree their core-beliefs. The same goes for so-called "mainstream"--an oxymoron if there ever was one--Libertarians, a group that needs to seriously reassess their party and the rest of its membership.

From the late Molly Ivins:

Dallas' 5th District, East Texas' 2nd District and the amazing 14th District, which runs all over everywhere, are also in play. In the amazing 14th, Democrat Lefty Morris (his slogan is "Lefty is Right!") faces the Republican/Libertarian Ron Paul, who is himself so far right that he's sometimes left, as happens with your Libertarians. I think my favorite issue here is Paul's 1993 newsletter advising "Frightened Americans" on how to get their money out of the country. He advised that Peruvian citizenship could be purchased for a mere 25 grand. That we should all become Peruvians is one of the more innovative suggestions of this festive campaign season. But what will the Peruvians think of it? ("Molly Ivins October 10," Forth Worth Star-Telegram, 10.10.1996)

In short, Paul is recommending that well-off Americans at that time engage in capital flight, which is hardly a "left" position, but parallel with that of the mainstream Republican Party as well as extremist tax resisters and Wall Street. It's certain that he feels the same now, and that's not a populist argument by any stretch--it favors the rich--the people we can presume he really serves. But this is really going easy on Ron Paul, so we'll get to the "meat."

There have been many accusations over the years levelled at Paul that he's a white supremacist. Some of this comes from his own connection with the militia movement, one he shares with Alex Jones and many other allies of the Austin-based parapolitical demagogue. But Paul's grandstanding on these issues begs-the-question of whether it even matters whether he believes what he says.

It doesn't matter, but Paul shows all the tendencies of the immovable American crank and the racialist throwback, as found in his open opposition to the Emancipation Proclamation, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and much-much more in the racial arena. He appears to be a true believer of the extreme right, a curious physician.

Paul's connections to the South Carolina-based "Partiot Network," also an organ of the right-wing tax resistance movement, but really a conglomeration of anti-government gun-toting extremists with connections to the Christian Identity movement. Former KKK leader David Duke, has spoken and written kindly of Ron Paul (posts have been removed since the summer of 2007, and no comments on Paul can now be found on his site, but it's likely that captures are out there), and Paul has spoken of cross burnings in Texas (and the rest of the nation) as "protected speech." That's not reflective of the law in most parts of America, and certainly not the attitudes of the public.

And then there's the fact that GOP Representative Paul was the lone "nay" vote recognizing the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an act that not only proscribed integration of American educational institutions (and several other types), but in the workplace and in "public places."The bill itself also includes provisions that also protect white Americans, specifically regarding the protection of the rights of women generally.

Paul just knows full well that African-Americans would never vote for him so long as they were in their right mind, not a worrying issue for his core of virtually all-white, extremist, supporters. But Paul's not talking to Blacks--obviously--but to people who irrationally fear and loathe them and anyone not like themselves:

Last week, Congress hailed the 40th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The heroic Ron Paul was the only member of Congress to vote No. Here is his statement. ~ Ed.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society. ("The Trouble With Forced Integration," by Ron Paul, M.D., lewrockwell.com, 07.03.2004)

These were Paul's groan-inducing statements on the floor of the House back in the salad days of the Bush II administration, when it still appeared that there could never be an African-American president. There was no other reason to do this except to pander to the racialist right. Things change in the modern world, and rapidly.

Yet, the historical record doesn't jibe with these revisionist interpretations of American history, especially with Paul's loss to every single candidate in the 2008 presidential elections, the opinions of the American public gleaned through numerous opinion polls, the stunning victory and broad mandate of Barack Obama, and the fact that Black Americans gained the right to vote from federal civil rights legislation under necessary federal protection from some of the grandparents of Paul's ridiculous supporters. We won't even go into his and their views on the American Civil War, evolution, the separation of Church and State, and so on--it ain't pretty.

But it's not as if the GOP weren't working overtime from at least 2000-on (with several lame attempts dating back between 1958-to-1981) to scuttle the voting rights of African-Americans in several key states, states populated with people whose views are similar to the "Paul" strain. Paul's viewpoint on cross burning isn't just mistaken, it's patently racist and not supported by the law as protected speech, but really a historically-proven invitation to violence meant to instill terror--everyone knows in America that burning a cross on any property is meant to intimidate its prospective victims; it's symbolic violence in its purest form.

This kind of intentional instilling of fear in a targeted population is as close to terrorism as one can get, but Ron Paul supports it, and a lot of other things that the American public doesn't accept anymore. Because of this, he and his kind have to couch their extremist beliefs in the garb of progressive populism, but it's anything but that and his coalition bears a closer resemblance to South American paramilitary groups, lynch mobs, and international neo-Nazis with a sprinkling of the gullible. Who else figures-in the constellation?

Lew Rockwell, Libertarian speaker, and all-around nutcase who worked as Paul's congressional chief of staff from 1978-1982. He and Paul both advocate secession and question the validity of a "cohesive" America as a nation state, which is decidedly extremist and runs parallel with numerous right-wing groups, notably the militia groups that Paul is associated with. Libertarian "Reason" magazine (my pals, they quoted me once--I logically fired-back abuse) has claimed that Rockwell has ghostwritten for Paul in the past.

Rockwell's support of the militia movement is still going strong, as evinced by a series on "militia organizing" by the nutcase William S. Lind, ostensibly the "director" of "The Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation," posted on Rockwell's site (where else? Ron Paul-connected sites and Fox News, disclaimers to the contrary.):

We tried in our discussions to identify and find remedies to typical militia weaknesses. One weakness seen often in militia history is that units degenerate into mere social clubs. To prevent this, all companies would participate in annual play-offs in the form of free-play exercises against other companies. The winner would advance to the next level. Our hope is that these competitions would become big deals in communities across America, spurring the militiamen on to greater efforts.

Another typical militia weakness is doctrinal stagnation. To counter this, the militia would have its own General Staff, made up of the kind of "military dinks" who have been into military history and war games since they were kids. The General Staff would oversee doctrine, training and the regular round of free-play exercises. It would not vet individual militia members, since this would create centralization, but it would have the power to dissolve companies that performed poorly, became social clubs or got taken over by MS-13 and the like. ("Organizing the Militia, by William S. Lind," lewrockwell.com, 08.11.2005)

That's great, but what would that doctrine be, and where does the urgency to organize militias emanate from? The notion that the federal government is nothing but "evil," "the problem" (a conservative argument, not a genuinely leftist or progressive or populist one), and will eventually have to be met with force, is held by Jones and many of the individuals he not only associates with, but openly allies himself with. It goes without saying that there are legitimate concerns regarding government surveillance--most notably after 9/11, but an ongoing problem from the 20th century that has had ample conservative support--and it gives demagogues like Jones and his compatriots plenty to yell about.

That their own peculiar take is calculated and wrong is a given, hence the need to make them sound vaguely populist so that their far-right extremist agenda is more palatable.

Alex Jones's public pronouncements concur with this agenda, and as stated earlier in this piece, he has roots going back to the militia movement in the early-1990s. It's all about the "New World Order," and other paper tiger arguments that have very little basis in political, let alone human, reality. But there's just enough there for them to exploit, and exploit it they do which is what makes them all demagogues. The biggest part of the problem is that ignorant progressives and antiwar activists have been falling for it and still are. This is because they're as ignorant as Poplawski and probably harbor arch-conservative attitudes of their own.

This writer makes no bones about it: I hope that this Philadelphia shooting spree brings real enforcement of existing gun laws and an expansion of them as well as downing demagogues like Alex Jones, Ron Paul, Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lew Rockwell, and all the rest. With self-fulfilling actions like those of Poplawski this week, and the gun problem along the Mexican-American border, it appears inevitable.

There's another fact about Alex Jones, Ron Paul, and Stormfront in the story of Richard Andrew Poplawski: contrary to Jones's protestations that he isn't with them, many of them come very close to endorsing him on their website. This suggest a strong ideological connection, if not outright pandering. In the case of Ron Paul, they endorse him unequivocally. But if you really want evidence that Alex Jones and his compatriots are right-wing nuts and demagogues, just read their writings and watch and listen to their media appearances. But what is Jones saying about Pittsburgh? It appears that he's saying and writing nothing so far.

But Jones wasn't going to respond to the criticisms himself, so he tapped his hack writer, Kurt Nimmo, to do it:

...In the meantime, we can expect the Obama libs [Ed.--I voted Nader, thank you very much.] to continue their demonization of those of us who not only value and support the Second Amendment – the very cornerstone of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights – but also those of us who realize government invariably plots against liberty and eventually enslaves the masses, as a glance at the last century reveals. ... It should be expected that the government will exploit the recent shootings in order further their propaganda and realize their master plan of an unarmed and helpless populace. It really is sad the liberals are helping them in this effort by offering themselves up as useful idiots. ("Lib Blogs Kick into Frothing Overdrive in Reaction to Pittsburgh Shootings, inforwars.com, 04.04.2009)

That's funny, I'm a philosophical socialist who voted for Ralph Nader in the 2008 presidential elections, but does that matter when you're trying to discredit your critics? It does. Nimmo and Jones like accusing their adversaries of using "Stalinist tactics," yet there isn't one mention of the fact that Poplawski was an enthusiastic reader of Jones's site anywhere in his meandering article that must be read to be believed for its acrobatics and wild leaps of logic. What do you expect in the world of the paranoiac, the demagogue? Stalin would be proud.

Additionally,Nimmo creates a straw man argument that Poplawski's comments on the Obama administration came from Edward Perkovic, when the information really came from an acquaintance named Aaron Vire. Poplawski's neighbor, Tom Moffitt, has also stated that the young man expressed comments along the same lines as the accounts of Perkovic and Vire. That's three testimonies thus far that Poplawski was afraid his guns were going to be taken from him, specifically by the Obama administratoion, with more to come.

The title of the Nimmo article should tell you all you need to know about Alex Jones and the people he calls "friend," and that these people really are dangerous to the rest of us--not that the cops appear to care since many of them share the same extremist interpretations of the Second amdendment. But somehow, they're "victims," they'll tell you...again and again, and again. Incredibly, Nimmo makes a case for government-backing of the very kinds of groups that he and his boss are ideologically-aligned with. Far be it for the radical right not to claim they're "victims" when they clearly are not. They've been in the vanguard of state repression for a very long time, and they know it.

That anyone on the left would listen to them speaks volumes about the individuals who even begin to listen to them for a minute.

To say that they're arch-conservative and not genuinely progressive, populist, or "left" should be obvious, but they suffer from the same complex as a Richard Poplawski: just enough knowledge to be a problem, a serious pain-in-the-ass. Poplawski's killing of the four Pittsburgh police officers is being called an "ambush." That it was, and with the echo chamber emanating from Jones's site and Fox News, he had ample ammunition to justify his own actions in his own small and twisted mind.

Fascism tends to come from below, not above. Welcome to stutopia. Now open a history book, stop listening to lunatics, and get a clue.

"Lib Blogs Kick into Frothing Overdrive in Reaction to Pittsburgh Shootings, inforwars.com, 04.04.2009: http://www.infowars.com/lib-blogs-kick-into-frothing-overdrive-in-reaction-to-pittsburgh-shootings/

"Stormfront Radio supports Ron Paul, Youtube, 09.17.2007:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yafeVz8eP0U

"Organizing the Militia, by William S. Lind," lewrockwell.com, 08.11.2005: http://www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind72.html

"The Trouble With Forced Integration, by Ron Paul, M.D.," lewrockwell.com, 07.03.2004: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul188.html

"Molly Ivins October 10," Forth Worth Star-Telegram, 10.10.1996: http://www.creators.com/opinion/molly-ivins/molly-ivins-october-10-1996-10-10.html

"Suspect in officers' shooting was into conspiracy theories," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 04.05.2009: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09095/960750-53.stm