Headline of the Morning (Hippie Edition)

From the AP:

Hippie town's homeless attack portends trend

In Bushitler's America, even the hippies are mad as hell!

Comments

[JohnD]

Bushitler?

Your are one moronic fucking asshole, Gillespie.

[anarch]

I was about to ask for an explanation for such quickly rising hostility, but... never mind.

[Elemenope]

JohnD --

There are only two types of people in this world. People who thought the New Yorker Obama cover was stupid, and people who didn't get it. I'm willing to bet all the money in my pockets against all the money in yours that you belong to the latter group.

Because you have just displayed your amazing interpretive skills for us all. Brilliant.

[Matt Jenny]

@Elemenope: I thought the Obama cover wasn't stupid but clever (though not very much so) and yet I also think phrases such as "Bushitler" are insensitive, unhistorical and bordering on a trivialization of the crimes committed under Hitler.

[Jake Boone]

Bushitler?

Your are one moronic fucking asshole, Gillespie.

I smell an Edward.

[Art-P.O.G.]

Michael Stoops, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.

Whoa. So this guy's organization must be funded by donation.

[Abdul]

If it ever came down to it, I always thought the homeless would beat the hippies in a war. Looks like the hippies are trying some pre-emptive Pearl Harbor type shit.

[Art-P.O.G.]

I've always identified more with "the homeless" than I have with hippies.

[Reinmoose]

I knew it was those damned kids and their drugs and alcohol!
MADD should be all over this shit.

[jtuf]

This may sound radical, but I think Green's assailants caused the attack on Green. I hope the courts determine who attacked him and assign an effective sentence.

[anarch]

The New Yorker's hyperbolic cover lampooned the political Right's portrayal of Obama. The New Yorker cover's actual message was: "This is a gross exaggeration, to be discredited."

Gillespie's hyperbolic term lampooned those who conflate Bush with Hitler. Gillespie's actual message was [I trust]: "This is a gross exaggeration, to be discredited."

As is evident, if the strategy of exaggerating is unsuccessful in the case of a particular audience, it will be 180 degrees unsuccessful.

Now, can someone tell me why kids are increasingly lynching the homeless, or did I just answer my own question?

[Episiarch]

There are only two types of people in this world. People who thought the New Yorker Obama cover was stupid, and people who didn't get it.

You forgot to include the people who got it but pretended not to in order to drum up bullshit outrage.

[Elemenope]

@Elemenope: I thought the Obama cover wasn't stupid but clever (though not very much so) and yet I also think phrases such as "Bushitler" are insensitive, unhistorical and bordering on a trivialization of the crimes committed under Hitler.

It's a riff on hippies. HIPPIES, for chrissakes!

[Elemenope]

You forgot to include the people who got it but pretended not to in order to drum up bullshit outrage.

If you're referring to that hilariously bizarre extended exchange between joe, Fluffy, and ChicagoTom on the thread below, then yeah.

I thought personally that the cover was stupid but that Obama's campaign was being entirely too bitchy about it. If they had said nothing, or even just shrugged, the story would be dead and over by now.

[Matt Jenny]

@Elemenope:

Alright, I'm afraid I misinterpreted this. I want to apologize to Nick Gillespie.

[Episiarch]

If they had said nothing, or even just shrugged, the story would be dead and over by now.

Exactly, it wouldn't have even been a story.

But the Obamatrons, hearing the orders of their master, must now defend the faux outrage to the death. And the right-wing idiots for some reason have decided to do the exact same thing, so we get it from both sides.

ARRGGHH

This whole campaign just gets more and more idiotic. I dread what this is going to dissolve into by October.

[raidsmith]

Not surprising at all for Bolinas. A beautiful town full of crazy people. They hate outsiders. There is only one road into town, and every time a street sign is put up, they take it down. They added a $1 tax to gasoline, so right now, it's $5.50 a gallon. The sign the gas station bought doesn't even have a five in the dollar column, they had to write it in. The tax "goes back to the people of Bolinas", as I've had it explained to me.
To keep developers out, they placed a $15,000 - $20,000 tax on every water meter in town, a tax that has to be repaid by each new owner.
They maintain a social monopoly over the town by refusing to socialize with new residents. You have to be second or third generation to get anything done in that town.
About 8 years before being denied travel to the UK, Martha Stewart tried to buy property in Bolinas. The city council decided to not allow her to buy the property. I'm not sure if they kept the owner from selling, or if they threatened to zone the property out of existence, but either way, it was a property rights joke.
Like I said, beautiful town, and they have one of the most stunning tide pools on the Pacific coast. I take my kids every now and then to look at the anemones and other cool tide pool creatures. But we gas up before we enter town, we have to take a GPS, because all of the road signs get taken down, and we don't even try to talk to the locals. They look at you all Children-of-the-Corn. Really creepy folks.
But, even knowing all that, I'm surprised they stabbed up a homeless man.

[J sub D]

Cowardly youths behaving like pack animals. It's nothing new. It's disgusting and I doubt that the perpetrators will receive more than a slap on the wrist.

Sometimes our society looks really sick.

[anarch]

Sorry, Matt, retractions are against the rules here. 😉

[anarch]

OK, J sub, but why the reported increase?

[raidsmith]

J sub D:

All 4 were charged with attempted murder, and were given a $1,000,000 bond. The one juvenile is being charged as an adult.

[J sub D]

Gillespie's hyperbolic term lampooned those who conflate Bush with Hitler. Gillespie's actual message was [I trust]: "This is a gross exaggeration, to be discredited."

Like the moron in a thread yesterday blaming Bush for Nashville cops injecting drugs into detainees. Bush is an asshole, but when Obama gets elected, asshole cops and violent youths will still be with us.

[Episiarch]

OK, J sub, but why the reported increase?

When the head of an advocacy group complains about an "increase" of this or that thing that adversely affects what they advocate, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

It's like MADD saying that drunk driving is on the rise.

[Art-P.O.G.]

when Obama gets elected, asshole cops and violent youths will still be with us.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

[J sub D]

OK, J sub, but why the reported increase?

The society is getting sicker. Ask yourself, are people becoming more or less polite? With the coming economic downturn, expect things to get worse.

[Isaac Bartram]

I smell an Edward.

No, Jake, judging by his previous comments JohnD is serious.

I'm not sure that we need a village idiot, but if we do JohnD is our man.

[J sub D]

All 4 were charged with attempted murder, and were given a $1,000,000 bond. The one juvenile is being charged as an adult.

We can hope that, if guilty, they heavy hand of the criminal justice system will come down hard on them. I fear that a Marin county jury will refuse to convict them of attempted murder. Aggravated assault, 1 - 3 years, out in 9 months is a very real possibility.

[Warren]

Attacking people is a violent crime and perpetrators should be subjected to the harshest penalties under the law. That being said, homeless people are bums. Trespassing and loitering are also crimes.

[anarch]

Epi - When I was a kid, I never heard of setting fire to homeless people (who were then unsympathetically called "bums"); it would have struck me and those I knew, for all the brutality we tried to assimilate in imagination, as inconceivable.

Now one can easily stumble across, or seek, plentiful amateur videos of vicious behavior posted on youtube without disapproving comment.

No, I'm not advocating censorship; just seeking correlations.

On which topic, J sub - Do you happen to know whether civility decreased in America during the Great Depression?

[Elemenope]

...when Obama gets elected, asshole cops and violent youths will still be with us.

Nooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!

Fucking LOL.

On the other hand, I have yet to meet a person who believed otherwise.

[anarch]

Then and sometimes now, QED.

[jwh]

If I were from Bolinas (and I'm from no where near the west coast), what would truly offend me is the parallel Michael Stoops draws between their town and, of all places, CLEVELAND. I mean, really. If my little corner of paradise were compared to the Mistake by the Lake, I'd probably want to go out and kill someone, too.......

[Johnny Nowhere]

*when Obama gets elected, asshole cops and violent youths will still be with us.*

JsubD, you clearly underestimate the power of Obama's Wand of Change.

[Episiarch]

This town really does sound like a crunchier version of Children of the Corn, sort of like all of Vermont concentrated in one xenophobic little package.

[Chloe]

Lol! When Obama is elected the whole world will be filled with hearts and flowers, and everyone will have giant, fluffy blueberry muffins for breakfast everyday and wonderful pizza pies for dinner every night.

[Lamar]

If the hippie culture arose as a reaction against the uptight, male dominated, racist, insert -ism here culture of the 1950's, wouldn't it be possible that the uptight, male dominated, racist, blah blah blah-ist youth culture is a reaction against hippie parents?

[edna]

OK, J sub, but why the reported increase?

from 0.000010% to 0.000011%?

[Flyover Country]

And ponies. Everybody gets a pony.

[Elemenope]

JsubD, you clearly underestimate the power of Obama's Wand of Change.

It's like a Wand of Wonder, but without the really inconvenient random lightning bolts.

[/geek]

[P Brooks]

Hippietown!

"You don't really want to take that road, Mister; it might look like you can shave some time of your trip on the map, but I'd advise you to stick to the main roads, around hyahr."

This whole thing sounds like an episode of the Twilight Zone. Those kids are probably pissed off because their granola-cruncher mommies won't let them have dirt bikes.

[dhex]

we all know bush isn't hitler, right?

hitler actually won some military victories.

[rimshot]

[Episiarch]

I'd also note that sometimes I amazed by the amount of hate that can be generated by supposedly peace-loving hippies.

[Episiarch]

hitler actually won some military victories

Not much fun in Stalingrad.

[robc]

Question for some of you (this seemed the appropriate thread):

I havent seen the New Yorker cover in question. I havent read anything about the whole kerfaffle. Does that make a "less informed" voter or a "more informed" voter? (Im going with "more")

To be more on topic: I hate hippies.

[dhex]

kultur war is a hell of a drug, epi.

[Episiarch]

kultur war is a hell of a drug, epi.

Indeed, it seems to be the major fuel of both parties.

[Citizen Nothing]

I kind of like hippies, as long as I don't have to live among them. They're picturesque.

[P Brooks]

They're picturesque.

Don't photograph them without permission, or you might get twenty lashes with a love-bead cat-o-nine-tails.

[R C Dean]

JsubD, you clearly underestimate the power of Obama's Wand of Change.

Ewwww.

[dhex]

Indeed, it seems to be the major fuel of both parties.

of all kultur, even.

i mean, i enjoy poking fun/crying at the odd feministing commentariat who seems to exist in parody land, but on the other hand there are legions of otherwise entirely secure male conservatives who are genuinely threatened by the outre niche of a niche. hell, i think that rush "you holdin' man? you know anybody who's holdin'?" limbaugh made half his career on that.

1 2 3 4
we don't want your kultur war
5 6 7 8
a line that rhymes would be real great

[Citizen Nothing]

"Don't photograph them without permission"

So they really are like Bizarro World cops.

[dbcooper]

but on the other hand there are legions of otherwise entirely secure male conservatives who are genuinely threatened by the outre niche of a niche.

Wait until title IX for science arrives. You can't get more radical than that.

[some fed]

[In 2008] 13 [...] have been killed across the country, [...]on par with last year's, in which 28 [...] were killed, up from 20 in 2006. Nonfatal attacks also [were] up from 142 in 2006 to 160 in 2007.

That is the most laughable batch of statistics I've heard in weeks. Any of those numbers could easily be short by an order of magnitude based on the obvious difficulties of tracking such figures.

Furthermore, how does any sane person take the attempted murder of a wandering hippie-aspirant in an isolationist, '60s-throwback, Californian backwater for an indicator of a national trend? I'd have been satisfied that it caught the reporter's attention for its sheer bizarreness, but the reporter had the gall to seek out a self-proclaimed advocate brazen or benighted enough to see a trend.

Excuse me, but I have to finish a report on how the rise in accidental deaths involving musical instruments is indicative of the danger posed by country music in America.

[J sub D]

On which topic, J sub - Do you happen to know whether civility decreased in America during the Great Depression?

Hell if I know. I'll bet (a little) it did for out of towners.

[GG]

when Obama gets elected, asshole cops and violent youths will still be with us.

And they may be one and the same!

"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set," [Obama] said. "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded."

[dhex]

Wait until title IX for science arrives. You can't get more radical than that.

coming on the heels of the one-world soybean diet, it's going to be a bummer for sure.

[NeonCat]

Was it hippies, or in the immortal words of Patton Oswalt, "the asshole children of hippie parents"?

@ anarch re: civility in the Great Depression

Well, there were still plenty of lynchings going on, and I would not be surprised if there were acts of violence as portrayed in Grapes of Wrath and Faithless.

When times get hard, so do people.

[mk]

Excuse me, but I have to finish a report on how the rise in accidental deaths involving musical instruments is indicative of the danger posed by country music in America.

We expect to see a link when you are done.

[lordsomber]

Bizarro World Easy Rider!
Okay, who plays Wyatt and Billy?

[B.P.]

I can go one headline better, from today's Rocky Mountain News: 5 Hippies Arrested in Brawl.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/jul/17/rainbow-family-brawl-spurs-arrests/

Read about a Rainbow Family attack with a shovel and a possible stabbing. In Ward, CO, our own Bolinas, but more Children-of-the-Corny.

[Brandybuck]

"Bushitler" is the word you use to marginalize your position. It's use is not cleverness, but mere social signalling to the far left. By using the word "Bushitler" you are guaranteeing that most people will associate you with deranged moonbattery. You might as well be wearing pink stoles and carrying a pro-PLO banner.

[Brandybuck]

There was an incident just last month in Cleveland. It's no longer a big city thing."

Cleveland's not a big city? WTF?

[bigbigslacker]

"from 0.000010% to 0.000011%?"

Edna, do you realize the rise you are shrugging off is a staggering 10%. At that rate, all the homeless hippies will have been assault by...uh, next week or something. I never was very good at math.

What we need are more laws against sarcasm. I was about to use Dead Kennedy's Kill the Poor as an example of sarcasm that could be mis-interpreted. But, opps, they weren't being sarcastic. I don't think they even meant it as hyperbole. Well, whatever, when I figure it out they should ban it.