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| 5/25 |
| 2007/5/16-19 [Politics/Domestic/President, Politics/Domestic/President/Clinton] UID:46658 Activity:moderate |
5/16 Interesting that Larry Flynt shows more class than most on motd
regarding Falwell's death.
http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_135185122.html
\- why exactly are we supposed to be shamed or impressed by
larry flynt. i think his reasoning is specious: "My mother
always told me that no matter how much you dislike a
person, when you meet them face to face you will find
characteristics about them that you like." ... so if you
meet somebody who is say a racist but tells good jokes and
cooks a mean steak you shoild try to focus on that? i wonder
if david duke is a good BBQer.
\_ He had a very long and bitter fight with Falwell. And was more
charitable to him in death than you are even though you've never
met him.
\- look, to me "charity" and "tolerance" toward a bigot is
no virtue. yes i am well aware of the the Hustler v. Falwell
case and i think it is quite an interest case because of
case and i think it is quite an interesting case because of
the inclusion of his mother, who was not a public figure.
since somebody mentions the hst nixon obit, my first thought
on hearing oh his passing was "he should be burned in a
trash can".
on hearing oh his passing was "he should be burned in
on hearing of his passing was "he should be burned in
/bin/trash". "he was an american monster".
\_ psb the Bengali, do you have a bigger penis than
Pujabis or other southern Indians?
\_ Fuck this. Falwell made his career on the backs of the less
fortunate or powerful, whom he routinely demonized. He was
slime, and the public fellating he is currently recieving
is in need of a counter. It's too bad HST isn't around - c.f.
his Nixon obit:
http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html
\- this is more like it:
http://www.slate.com/id/2166337/nav/tap2
[and rememeber among non-xtians, the jews are the best of
the lot in thwir view. people like pat robertson say even
the lot in their view. people like pat robertson say even
worse things about people of other religions]
\_ Gotta love the Hitchens. "It's a shame that there is no
hell for Falwell to go to..."
\_ Speaking of whom, did you catch his latest appearance
on the Daily Show? He looked even more drunk than he
usually does. |
| 5/25 |
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| cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_135185122.html Print clock May 15, 2007 3:05 pm US/Pacific Larry Flynt Statement On Death Of Jerry Falwell The Reverend Jerry Falwell and I were arch enemies for fifteen years. We became involved in a lawsuit concerning First Amendment rights and Hustler magazine. My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends. He would visit me in California and we would debate together on college campuses. I always appreciated his sincerity even though I knew what he was selling and he knew what I was selling. The most important result of our relationship was the landmark decision from the Supreme Court that made parody protected speech, and the fact that much of what we see on television and hear on the radio today is a direct result of my having won that now famous case which Falwell played such an important role in. The high court ruled public figures cannot recover damages for "intentional infliction of emotional distress" based on parodies. From Our Partners Advertisement Hustler publisher Larry Flynt. |
| www.slate.com/id/2166337/nav/tap2 Jerry Falwell on the floor of an obscure office in Virginia has almost zero significance, except perhaps for two categories of the species labeled "credulous idiot." The first such category consists of those who expected Falwell (and themselves) to be bodily raptured out of the biosphere and assumed into the heavens, leaving pilotless planes and driverless trucks and taxis to crash with their innocent victims as collateral damage. This group is so stupid and uncultured that it may perhaps be forgiven. left behind" that almost its only pleasure is to gloat at the idea of others being abandoned in the same condition. The second such category is of slightly more importance, because it consists of the editors, producers, publicists, and a host of other media riffraff who allowed Falwell to prove, almost every week, that there is no vileness that cannot be freely uttered by a man whose name is prefaced with the word Reverend. Try this: Call a TV station and tell them that you know the Antichrist is already on earth and is an adult Jewish male. If he had paid the paltry few bucks to make himself a certified clergyman, he could be jeering and sneering to the present hour. Falwell went much further than his mad 1999 assertion about the Jewish Antichrist. In the time immediately following the assault by religious fascism on American civil society in September 2001, he used his regular indulgence on the airwaves to commit treason. Entirely exculpating the suicide-murderers, he asserted that their acts were a divine punishment of the United States. Again, I ask you to imagine how such a person would be treated if he were not supposedly a man of faith. One of his associates, Bailey Smith, once opined that "God does not hear the prayers of a Jew." This is one of the few anti-Semitic remarks ever made that has a basis in fact, since God does not exist and does not attend to any prayers, but Smith was not quite making that point. Along with his friend Pat Robertson, who believes in secret Jewish control of the world of finance, and Billy Graham, who boasted to Richard Nixon that the Jews had never guessed what he truly thought of them, Falwell kept alive the dirty innuendo about Jews that so many believing Christians seem to need. This would be bad enough in itself, and an additional reason to deplore the free ride he was given on television, if his trade-off had not been even worse. Seeking to deflect the charge of anti-Jewish prejudice, Falwell adopted the cause of the most thuggish and demented Israeli settlers, proclaiming that their occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was a holy matter and hoping that they might help to bring on Armageddon and the return of the Messiah. A detail in this ghastly narrative, as adepts of the "Left Behind" series will know, is that the return of the risen Christ will require the mass slaughter or mass conversion of all Jews. This consideration did not prevent Menachem Begin from awarding Falwell the Jabotinsky Centennial Medal in 1980 and has not inhibited other Israeli extremists from embracing him and his co-thinkers ever since. Trying to interrupt the fiesta of piety on national television on the night of Falwell's death, I found myself waiting while Ralph Reed went all moist about the role of the departed in empowering "people of faith." Here was the hypocritical casino-based Christian who sought and received the kosher stamp from Jack Abramoff. Like many fanatical preachers, Falwell was especially disgusting in exuding an almost sexless personality while railing from dawn to dusk about the sex lives of others. His obsession with homosexuality was on a par with his lip-smacking evocations of hellfire. Men of this type, if they cannot persuade enough foolish people to part with their savings, usually end up raving on the street and waving placards about the coming day of judgment. But Falwell, improving on the other Chaucerian frauds from Oral Roberts to Jim Bakker to Ted Haggard, not only had a TV show of his own but was also regularly invited onto mainstream ones. This is not just because of the wickedness that he actually preached, but because of the hole that he made in the "wall of separation" that ought to divide religion from politics. In his dingy racist past, Falwell attacked those churchmen who mixed the two worlds of faith and politics and called for civil rights. Then he realized that two could play at this game and learned to play it himself. Then he won the Republican Party over to the idea of religious voters and faith-based fund raising. And now, by example at least, he has inspired emulation in many Democrats and liberals who would like to borrow the formula. His place on the cable shows will be amply filled by Al Sharpton: another person who can get away with anything under the rubric of Reverend. It's a shame that there is no hell for Falwell to go to, and it's extraordinary that not even such a scandalous career is enough to shake our dumb addiction to the "faith-based." |
| www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch: Labor at the Crossroads First the Wedding; Now the Wake: Big Labor's New Unity Partnership by JoAnn Wypijewski; Report from Baghdad: How Did the Votes Add Up: by Patrick Cockburn. Tsunamis of Blood: Wolfowitz in Indonesia: by Joseph Nevins; ALSO Alexander Cockburn on Tsunami Aid: How the People Scored. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. com February 21, 2005 HST Says Farewell "He Was a Crook" By HUNTER S THOMPSON Editor's Note: How Thompson said goodbye to Richard Nixon is as good a way to remember the high priest of gonzo as any. AC/JSC MEMO FROM THE NATIONAL AFFAIRS DESK DATE: MAY 1, 1994 FROM: DR. HE WAS A LIAR ND A QUITTER, AND HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED AT SEA. "--REVELATION 18:2 Richard Nixon is gone now and I am poorer for it. He was the real thing--a political monster straight out of Grendel and a very dangerous enemy. He could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time. He lied to his friends and betrayed the trust of his family. Not even Gerald Ford, the unhappy ex-president who pardoned Nixon and kept him out of prison, was immune to the evil fallout. Ford, who believes strongly in Heaven and Hell, has told more than one of his celebrity golf partners that I know Iwill go to hell, because I pardoned Richard Nixon." I have had my own bloody relationship with Nixon for many years, but I am not worried about it landing me in hell with him. I have already been there with that bastard, andI am a better person for it. Nixon had the unique ability to make his enemies seem honorable, and we developed a keen sense of fraternity. Some of my best friends have hatedNixon all their lives. My mother hates Nixon, my son hates Nixon, I hate Nixon, and this hatred has brought us together. "I, too, am a family man, and we feel the same way about you." It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I feel lonely. As long as Nixon was politically alive--and he was, all theway to the end--we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instinctsof a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by thehead with all four claws. That was Nixon's style--and if you forgot, he would kill you as a lesson to the others. Nixon was a navy man, and he should have been buried at sea. These come in at least two styles, however, and Nixon's immediate family strongly opposed both of them. president's body would be wrapped and sewn loosely in canvas sailcloth and dumped off the stern of a frigate at least 100 miles off the coast and at least 1,000 miles south of San Diego, so the corpse could never wash up on American soil in any recognizable form. The family opted for cremation until they were advised of the potentially onerous implications of a strictly private, unwitnessed burning of the body of the man who was, after all the President of the United States. Awkward questions might be raised, dark allusions to Hitler and Rasputin. People would be filing lawsuits to get their hands on the dental charts. Long court battles would be inevitable--some with liberal cranks bitching about corpus delicti and habeas corpus and others with giant insurance companies trying not to pay off on his death benefits. Either way, an orgy of greed and duplicity was sure to follow any public hint that Nixon might have somehow faked his own death or been cryogenically transferred to fascist Chinese interests on the Central Asian Mainland. It would also play into the hands of those millions of self-stigmatized patriots like me who believe these things already. If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. These are harsh words for a man only recently canonized by President Clinton and my old friend George McGovern--but I have written worse things about Nixon, many times, and the record will show that I kicked him repeatedly long before he went down. I beat him like a mad dog with mange every time I got a chance, and I am proud of it. Let there be no mistake in the history books about that. Richard Nixon was an evil man--evil in a way that only those who believe in the physical reality of the Devil can understand it. He was utterly without ethics or morals or any bedrock sense of decency. Nobody trusted him--except maybe the Stalinist Chinese, and honest historians will remember him mainly as a rat who kept scrambling to get back on the ship. It is fitting that Richard Nixon's final gesture to the American people was a clearly illegal series of 21 105-mm howitzer blasts that shattered the peace of a residential neighborhood and permanently disturbed many children. Neighbors also complained about another unsanctioned burial in the yard at the old Nixon place, which was brazenly illegal. "It makes the whole neighborhood like a graveyard," said one. Many were incensed about the howitzers--but they knew there was nothing they could do about it--not with the current president sitting about 50 yards away and laughing at the roar of the cannons. The funeral was a dreary affair, finely staged for TV and shrewdly dominated by ambitious politicians and revisionist historians. Billy Graham, still agile and eloquent at the age of 136, was billed as the main speaker, but he was quickly upstaged by two 1996 GOP presidential candidates: Sen. Pete Wilson of California, who formally hosted the event and saw his poll numbers crippled when he got blown off the stage by Dole, who somehow seized the No. Dole's stock went up like a rocket and cast him as the early GOP front-runner for '96. Wilson, speaking next, sounded like an Engelbert Humperdinck impersonator and probably won't even be re-elected as governor of California in November. He set the tone for the day with a maudlin and spectacularly self-serving portrait of Nixon as even more saintly than his mother and as a president of many godlike accomplishments--most of them put together in secret by Kissinger, who came to California as part of a huge publicity tour for his new book on diplomacy, genius, Stalin, HP Lovecraft and other great minds of our time, including himself and Richard Nixon. Kissinger was only one of the many historians who suddenly came to see Nixon as more than the sum of his many squalid parts. He seemed to be saying that History will not have to absolve Nixon, because he has already done it himself in a massive act of will and crazed arrogance that already ranks him supreme, along with other Nietzschean supermen like Hitler, Jesus, Bismarck and the Emperor Hirohito. These revisionists have catapulted Nixon to the status of an American Caesar, claiming that when the definitive history of the 20th century is written, no other president will come close to Nixon in stature. "He will dwarf FDR and Truman," according to one scholar from Duke University. Nixon was no more a Saint than he was a Great President. He was a cheap crook and a merciless war criminal who bombed more people to death in Laos and Cambodia than the US Army lost in all of World War II, and he denied it to the day of his death. When students at Kent State University, in Ohio, protested the bombing, he connived to have them attacked... |