Sunday, September 06, 2009

Sunday Potpourri: McCarthy, Hockey, Bourno and Gretchen




Moments as displayed above are so so rare in our world. You don't have to watch the whole thing. Just skip to about the 6 minute mark to get Joe McCarthy in one of his last public attempts to condemn a young lawyer who might have but ultimately didn't work for this particular committee after the questioner, Joseph Welch, had previously realized the guy's one time association with an organization called The Lawyers Guild might at some point be used by McCarthy. Exactly as he imagined McCarthy did bring out the man's name to insinuate he was a commie. And beginning at about the 6:15 mark we get "the moment" ... Joe Welch says,
"Senator, may we not drop this? We know he belongs to the Lawyers Guild. Let us not assassinate this lad further Senator. You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last. Have you left no sense of decency?"
It is the moment that was the beginning of the end for McCarthy. After years of false allegations and innuendo which he'd began to prop up his foundering re-election campaign, someone finally stood up. The assembled public in the hearing room applauded. McCarthy died 3 years later, a broken and drunken shell of a man.

The post I made yesterday was not creative or original on my part in any way shape or form. It is the result of my discovery of what is called an "Internet Meme". I know pretty much nobody clicked on most of the links. If you had you would have seen a series of pages and articles that mirror what current McCarthy-analogue Glenn Beck has been perpetrating for quite some time. All the techniques he uses were brought to bear against him in order to make a point through parody and satire. You may consider it tasteless and/or ugly. I'll grant that it isn't pretty. But parody has little power if it is not offensive and/or outrageous.

I jumped on the bandwagon because Glenn Beck (unlike what I suspect many of my readers believe) uses the Joe McCarthy playbook line by line. He is soft spoken most of the time and uses his faux-outrage strategically while repeating assertions and innuendo that came from someone else; "I heard", "It's been said", "I don't personally believe this but", "I'm not saying he did this thing but there sure are a lot of unanswered questions" etc etc etc ... He continuously reminds his viewers of his patriotism and love for this country while all the while using a wholly unjust methodology to attack and defame anyone he considers as opposition. This meme therefore should be viewed as an attempt to be the "Joseph Welch of 2009". It is highly unlikely though that (what I consider a beautiful parody) will be the beginning of the end for Glenn Beck. It should be. But I doubt it will. He is no patriot. He is a vile pig.

I am happy though that the people that started the ball rolling (they didn't originate the rumor) gave me a big fat link in their evidence list calling the link "Hockeyvidence". It isn't often that I'm sitting home alone and laughing out loud about something but this whole meme gave me more than a couple of those such moments. The sweetest moment of course is that Glenn Beck and his lawyers are actually trying to supress this whole thing. Idiots.
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In the complete absence of any other Seawolf hockey news let me point you to the roster at GoSeawolves.com. The yearly pictures have been taken and posted. Curious to see a head shot of a rookie? Click the link above and you can do exactly that. This coming week I'll have profiles of the sophomore class and then the freshman class. Next weekend is the annual Seawolf Hockey Meet & Greet picnic, I'll be attending and then post the highlights here.

I'd assume that within the next couple of weeks we'll start seeing various prognostications all through the college hockey internet. The WCHA Coaches Poll is due at some point and bloggers everywhere will be picking UAA to finish 9th or 10th. The first two previews that I've seen pick UAA at 7th (Wisconsin Blog - No Alibis No Regrets) and 8th (Examiner.com's WCHA examiner Brian Pietrzak).

I communicated in some manner with both of the above and assured them they were underestimating the Seawolves. Both interactions were exceptionally polite: yes ... I'm not a total jerk to everyone all the time; just a partial jerk to certain people at intermittent times. Let us all not forget that the difference between last years 9th place finish and a 5th place finish for home ice playoff was 6 points ... that's 3 wins.
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I've decided to use the above line to better separate the various content in these Sunday Potpourri posts. It's better in terms of white space ... no? I recognize my tendency to drone on and on about whatever, so some visual cue for my readers to be able to skip over the droning about politics should be some sort of help. It's nothing huge ... but when reading Justin Bourne's blog, I realized that such delineation is helpful . I envy him so I figured some minor emulation couldn't be a bad thing. He uses a series of asterisks.

I should say here that I'm not a reader. I'm happy that you guys are readers or my fetish for writing would be a complete waste of time. I read for purpose. I look for Seawolf news and/or blog posts and/or forum references and I read them. But outside of that I don't have some list of must read blogs etc that I hit regularly (Donna ... I read your blog every day). The one other exception is Bourno's blog. He is and will become a regular columnist for more and more reputable and widely read publications. He will make a tidy living and a name for himself while doing so.
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Billy Mays is still on TV. Geeeeaawd. Have you ever bought anything from any "direct marketing" TV thingy? I haven't. Ever. Anything. And I won't. If WalMart doesn't have it then it must not be worth buying, right?
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Gretchen Mol. I'm not obsessed with her. But inevitably, when looking for eye-candy-like pictures to post here I end up with her on a browser tab or two. Why? I don't like blonds. Ok. It isn't right to say I don't like blonds. It's more appropriate to say that I'm naturally attracted to brunettes. And yes ... I could certainly find younger, sexier and/or more current "babes" to post here when I think you guys are deserving (i.e... anytime I've made you sit through my commie manifestos) but there's something about Gretchen (other than her being the very definition of "sex on legs") that makes me less able to close the browser tab. Oh lookie ... Gretchen as a brunette!


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Fear not. The season fast approaches. There'll be less of the useless bullshit that you don't want to read and more hockey talk with each passing day.

8 comments:

DC said...

You're the best Donald. Lucky for you, I'm posting every day, too!

I don't read yours every day, but I read every post. Except the political parts!

Donald Dunlop said...

Your civics malfeasance is duly noted.

Anonymous said...

Yes...how dare Glenn Beck speak the truth. Actually quote Van Jones and show real footage of past speeches of
Jones and the other czars.

Do you not find it amazing that no
other media source does their job?

Donald Dunlop said...

Van Jones? LOL.

This reaction against Glenn Beck has nothing to do with that minor political issue. It has to do with the broader topic of justice and responsibility.

You could replace "Glenn Beck raped and murdered a young girl in 1990" with any number of subjects that Glenn Beck has used to complete the "I believe", "I don't know this for sure but" etc sentences that he constantly uses to insinuate wrongdoing by whoever he is talking about.

It's about birth certificates and death panels and crying "racist".

You are right that no media source does their job. That's because they're on 24 hours a day and they have to fill those hours with some sort of shit ... so they invent shit. They create shit. They lie. And then they carp at each other about the shit the other invented, created and lied about. Beck is the worst of the worst. He uses EXACTLY the same tactics as Joseph McCarthy used.

Fear: "Folks they are trying to tear down this country I tell you."
Insinuation: "Lots of people are saying that Barak Obama wasn't born in the U.S." or even the more subtle "As far as I know Barack Obama was born in the U.S"
Transference of Responsibility: "I didn't make this list folks" or "These symbols on this old building mean there is a Socialist-Facist" conspiracy afoot"

As a country we once (i.e McCarthy) roundly defeated this sort of bullshit. Putting up with it again from some nut-job conspiracy freak from whacked-out-ville is PITIFUL in the extreme.

Why do you think so many people use Comedy Central's Jon Stewart show as their primary news outlet? He's on like for half an hour 4 times a week. Because that's all the political news that is required to cover the stumblebum carpetbaggers that the sheep of this country elect to represent them. And Stewart is the ONLY one that tells the truth.

It's a traveshamockery.

The Van Jones thing is interesting for only one reason. A media guy went after a politician because an organization that the politician once ran is now leading an effort to get advertisers to act responsibly and not support a show that propagates lies? Jones was stupid to accept a governmental post. Game over. Minor issue.

I think my weekend's posting painted a pretty clear picture. I think it's a civics lesson that obviously many people in this country need to learn. The sort of "dialogue" (I hesitate to call it that) in which Glenn Beck engages is NOT WELCOME.

How can anyone not see that it is pandering of the worst kind to the worst base instincts of the least informed.

Anonymous said...

Former Seawolf Brad McCabe is playing club hockey for OU. Scored a couple goals and got a couple of assists this wknd.

Anonymous said...

Club hockey? What a waste of talent.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for your candor Donald, it is not lost on me. I don't know how many times I’ve watch Glen Beck looking for his proof or evidence only to come up empty handed. That piece you did on him is priceless; I could have sworn Glen Beck himself wrote it except for the part about him being the one in question. Now Glen Beck is applying McCarthy's greatest technique, attack anyone who questions YOU.

PS: I stick around for The Colbert Report too just to see the looks on people’s faces when he says straight out what they are implying.

Haven said...

Nice post...............
Thanks for sharing ......

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