Wow..another reminder that there ARE some really scary messed up people running around out there.

I heard in the not too distant past that the President of Costa Rica lived in a little hovel like the regular folks and could walk the streets without fear. It is remarkable indeed to think that a mere blogger, or news journalist, may face greater risk.

Someone recently was floating a rumor that President Bush was preparing to not allow or abide by any election for President in 2008. Someone please tell me that such ideas are not the height of looniness in these times and not intended to induce group psychosis where the most delusional among us would take it as a marching order . . as if it were the word of god for a call to direct action.

Just as we should celebrate the notion that the military is still subservient to the civilian rule we should recognize that the power of reason should rein supreme over calls for pro-active physical rebellion before the dreamed of evil act is ever taken. Has the military defied Bush? Is the military threatening to take over the civilian authority, whomever is in office?

Pick your topic, any topic, and the extremism along a bright line between good and evil by association, is such that Tom Metzger looks less and less extreme. Feed the public with enough invective and the truly delusional among us will surely pop . . . with predictable certainty.

The Portland (Militancy Squad) Mercury still posts a category of blog links under the heading "Our Enemies" as if that explains all that needs to be said on the matter. Is anyone willing to assume that their readers, never mind the authors, are wholly free from any folks that suffer genuine delusions? How about demanding that they fix that bit of hate in the same spirit as if insisted upon by the Southern Poverty Law Center. It is all too reminiscent of a doctor hit list, don't you think?

"Apparently he had different political views."

Wow, imagine that!

"President Bush was preparing to not allow or abide by any election for President in 2008."
At this point, I don't think anything is impossible.

"all too reminiscent of a doctor hit list"????
Uh, what?

Hula?,

Ask Planned Parenthood if a hit list (or enemies list) is funny.

Jenni for Novick (in the ad here) gleefully uses "forces of darkness" as somehow descriptive of dissent from The Progressive (whatever) cause.

I am just being anti-uncivil -- using a general standard of opposition to incitement to violence rather than selective.

Sound familiar? -- "We will us this judgment to try to deny these people financial resources for any future "

When it comes to such religious stuff (absolutisms) I am more inclined to favor polytheism and eliminating the biggest inhibitor to positive individual development of natural neural networks, fear. Look up Philip Agee and a piece titled "Terrorism and Civil Society" for how a seasoned mind might characterize competing characterizations of blatant propaganda. I won't for a second buy any notion that D-Progressives' are any less tied to multinational forces than the R's . . . . where fomenting internal division is a tried and true method of warfare with empirically proven results. Pawns will be pawns . . . I couldn't imagine anyone playing a game of chess without them.

The prospect of being polyabsolutist is just impossible to reconcile with reason . . . other than to reject any absolutisms of good versus evil generally.

I guess that is the best I can do to respond to "uh?"

Ask Planned Parenthood if a hit list (or enemies list) is funny.

Im sure they had their own lists when they were in business to "cleanse the population" of unsavory types in their formative years.

Pdxnag you have a great name because your posts would sound like nagging if only I could understand what you're trying to say. The "uh" is just that---a filler because I don't know what the H you're talking about. If anyone else can decipher this nonsense, fill me in.
Planned Parenthood (and doctors who perform surgical procedures for women) are subject to real and dangerous threats. I can not see how an online blog by a local media outlet incites real violence toward anyone on its "enemies" list.

The "uh" is just that---a filler because I don't know what the H you're talking about.

When you don't know what someone is talking about, there's no requirement that you comment at all.

That policy would keep you from doing something rash like characterizing something you don't understand as "nonsense".

You may well be the only one who doesn't get it.

Get it?

Ok, rr. Summarize pdxnag for me then and make it relevant to the topic.

If you read my original comment, I was dumbfounded by her analogy of the doctor hit list to the enemy list on the mercury's blog. And it still doesn't make sense.

As for the "When you don't know what someone is talking about, there's no requirement that you comment at all"---requirement,no. But option, yes. I like to try to understand what my fellow humans are saying. I'm trying real hard Ringo.

"I was dumbfounded by her analogy of the doctor hit list to the enemy list on the mercury's blog."

They're both enemies lists. One hopes and expects that the Merc's is more laugh-inspiring than violence-inspiring, but I can see why he'd draw the analogy.

Ok, rr. Summarize pdxnag for me then and make it relevant to the topic.

The relevance is plain. Your obtuseness is impenetrable; your original comment and your subsequent ramblings are evidence of that.

The ease with which you are dumbfounded is a bit unsettling. One hopes you aren't part of the problem.

...and Alan, that's too many agreements for comfort.

Love,

rr

"Alan, that's too many agreements for comfort."

I'm sorry, I didn't realize this was a comfort zone. :-)

The list of subjective rationales for precisely the same conduct is near infinite. It becomes problematic to explore motivations as an excuse for pro-uncivil conduct where there is harm, just as it is to criminalize pro-uncivil conduct where their is no harm (at least not yet).

"Phil Busse wants to educate the nation's future rabble-rousers. The former managing editor of The Portland Mercury and one-time mayoral candidate has started a summer program for aspiring activists and media professionals. "

Is there any question whether an enemies list has a tendency toward promoting incivility? Maybe Mr Busse would like to make blogs and newspapers more like newsgroups. Maybe Mr. Busse would like to bring the ethics of newsgroup discussions to the wider "real" world, where the ease with which someone can hit the post button one can instead act out like it was all just a (harmless "child's") video game for adults.

Jon,

I believe that women's freedom is the single most significant structural societal adjustment that can be made to reduce the frequency of occurrence of warfare. (Net reduction in untimely deaths.)

Will warfare solve the problem of overpopulation as a last resort to the lack of any natural enemy other than ourselves, where birth rate and technology are like economic substitutes for one another? Women who are free choose to have fewer kids and become gadget making/using nerds to boot. What would convince any woman, against her self interest, to bring ten kids into the world other than subservience or some mystical sense of duty? (Compelled idle time would not be a sufficient excuse, except from a man's subjective point of view.) I could make an argument that the eugenics charge is one where PP would be under the thumb of men just as are/were the women who's life's are/were little more than chattel to carry out men's varied objectives. I don't know The answer but I do know that in the balance of a woman's freedom to that of potential life that a ban on RU-486 would be consistent with treatment of women as no better than slaves, relative to men's power to control them both.

Wow, rr, I am so in awe of your vocabulary. Yeah, because I can't understand multisyllabic words.
It's the ideas that don't make sense to me, not the words that make up the ideas. But I am amused by your diversion tactics-- calling me, basically, retarded because I fail to see how someone considers the violence-inducing intent of PP "hit lists" and a list of blogs that the Mercury doesn't like/doesn't agree with/makes fun of. Does someone really think the Mercury intends those on it's enemies list will be attacked/bombed/killed? Really?

I amend the last sentence: "its enemies list"

Is there an equal or greater certainty that they would intend the contrary? From their words alone?

You're right. The Earthly Minions of Emperor Klaktu, Men Who Look Like Kenny Rogers, Any Dumbass Still Using MySpace, and The Stranger (the Mercury's sister altweekly) should be instituting some counter surveillance for all of those rabid, rage-filled, strongly armed Mercury readers who were just waiting for the formal, endorsed greenlight to create mayhem.
Be afraid. It's the same BS our government feeds us. And it's a shame people like you take this stuff seriously. There are far more important things to worry about in this world.

I have always been gullible. I take people at their word.

Until you've heard from a seven year old girl who recently learned its meaning you may not know to what extreme. "Ron, you believe everything I say (careful pause) you're gullible." I reply "You're right, I am gullible."

Each person demonstrates their own character by their own words and deeds and not by way of definition or coercion of others. Is there a lesson? Are you credible?

If "each person demonstrates their own character by their own words and deeds and not by way of definition or coercion of others" then you have no reason to be worried about the Mercury's enemies list until someone takes action and says "The Mercury made me do it." If that was the case that person has some obvious mental deficit that makes them highly vulnerable to perpetrating violent acts without real cause and that's a whole other issue, really along the lines of taking directives from talking dogs.

Also, you can be enemies with someone without being violent toward them, though that's a hard thing to believe in our current culture. If their list was titled "People/Blogs/Non-entities We'd Like to See Firebombed," that might be a more legitimate reason to be concerned about violence toward people on that list. Simply stating something or someone is your enemy does not mean intent to harm-- two different concepts.

"of others"
should have been
"by others"
meaning introspective focus notwithstanding . . .

"Simply stating something or someone is your enemy does not mean intent to harm "

Such would lead to the conclusion that the reference itself is pointless. Nobody wants to be pointless or aimless?

Much of the Mercury is pointless, if you haven't noticed.

However, if you can't make the distinction between a label (enemy) and a directive ("Kill my enemy!) then there's nothing more to say.

Why do I feel like I've been rolled by a troll?

If you are intending to use troll as a term of endearment then . . .

However, if you can't make the distinction between a label (enemy) and a directive ("Kill my enemy!) then there's nothing more to say.

The point, which you've assiduously avoided acknowledging, is not whether Ron can distinguish between a label and a directive; it's whether others can be relied upon to do so.

Not everyone is privy to the inner workings of the minds of the Merc and its adherents as you, apparently, are. Ron's points are valid and timely.

...and if you're looking for a troll, check out that shiny thing on the wall.

"whether others can be relied upon to do so"

Bring out the thought police.

RR, you and Pdxnag are going to be quite busy if you're going to rail against negative labeling of anything. I'd hate to live in a world like yours, with a head full of paranoia.

Also, rr, it bears repeating: a person who would attack another person based on the ambiguous "enemy" list of a local blog has some obvious mental deficit that makes them highly vulnerable to perpetrating violent acts without real cause and that's a whole other issue, really along the lines of taking directives from talking dogs.

Aren't you now belittling the saliency of concern? My concerns in the eighties were important enough for me to seek answers to the questions of the day to the great detriment, or with near total disregard, of my "career" or anything remotely resembling my long term self interest. Start from the proposition that people, including politicians, actually believe they are motivated by good intentions. Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, or the big-issue ("far more important things to worry about in this world ") stuff, is not motivated by idle curiosity. It is a quest, where frustration is always on the boiling point. You may wish to belittle your own concern so as to win one argument point, but don't trample on the level of concern I have had and still have. Don't throw in the towel just yet.

Thought police???

No, just a reasonable consideration of the possible (probable) consequences of one's actions. We all live in the same civilization, friend (if civilized it is). A concern about those consequences is, indeed, a benchmark of civilization itself.

To characterize such concerns as paranoia is telling in and of itself.

As for your "talking dogs" metaphor, stretch just a bit further and you'll realize that, far from being "...a whole other issue...", it is THE issue of Jack's post.

...I think.

For you to extrapolate impending violence from an arbitrary, benign list takes a lot of negative energy...you get out what you put in.

Suppose you and I were at a table in a bar chatting politics or sweet nothings and then some guy that was clearly agitated came in. He's the guy who is clearly looking for a fight for any reason or no reason at all ("arbitrary" clearly but certainly not "benign"). Would I be a fool to conclude that he will not explode upon the first person that catches his attention . . . that he will just mossy out in good time provided no one "provokes him?" If I were to say "boo" what sort of energy level must I have at the ready to survive? At least as much as would be directed at me.

Suppose instead the agitated guy comes in and announces with unmistakable clarity "I've been looking for you?" It is an unmistakable invitation to a fight, not discussion.

The list already puts some folks on the radar. And the propensity to invite a duel has already been established by the person or persons who control that list. See my post containing a removed comment responding to the water bucket brigade. The defense of claiming after the fact that it "was a joke" is hard to consider credible, just as it would be for carrying a real looking water pistol into a bank.

Boo.