Duck! and Gather

Archive for June 2009

Out of context, this seems like a reasonably interesting video. But in context, it’s moving and powerful. A regime would love nothing better than to find out who this poster is, and crush his skull. They’ve put up every roadblock they could think of up to stop this fellow from posting this video. But he still gets it out.

We’ve read these sorts of stories over and again in the past. But always, in the position of looking back toward a cold history.

But this time, history being made as I write this. I saw a poll on a site asking for a vote on what we think will be the future of Iran. 40% say the reactionaries will triumph, and crack down even harder. 40% say the reformers will prevail and bring light to this dark nation. 20% go ever farther than that.

What will decide the outcome of this nail-biter? The mood of the national army. And right now, nobody knows where that will be.

Amazing, these days in which we’re living.

  • In: Uncategorized
  • Comments Off on #iranelection is to Twitter what the Macaca Moment was to YouTube

Back in the summer of 2006, in the heat of the midterm elections, George Allen experienced his infamous “Macaca Moment” which was captured on video and posted on YouTube:

Up until that moment, Allen was considered not merely the favorite for the Senate seat for which he was running, but also for the Republican nomination for President in 2008. But that Macaca Moment derailed Allen’s political career altogether.

This dynamic revealed the truly profound power of YouTube. Up until that moment, YouTube was just the latest fad. A toy for the kids. But the Macaca Moment showed that YouTube reflected a seismic shift in all of public life, not to mention plenty within the private sphere too.

Well, the hashtag #iranelection is presently doing the same thing for Twitter. I think it’s a strategic mistake that Twitter hides that link behind a login requirement. Because the page behind that login gate is truly, historically profound.

Fortunately, Twitter is such a success story already that a growing cottage industry of third party tools and sites expands and embellishes the Twitter ecosystem. Here is a link to #iranelection allowing anyone to see what is going on there: http://wthashtag.com/Iranelection.

What is the #iranelection hashtag? Get on one of these links and find out for yourself. Check out history being made.

Gotta run. People are posting that the Iranian government is onto #iranelection now and is blocking it. Gotta see what’s trending. As I write, it’s 7:08 a.m. Tuesday morning in Tehran. Maybe some of the kids there are up and tweeting again. Hope they’re safe. See ya.

More threads on this James von Brunn Holocaust Museum shooting coming out today. One is that this story has gripped the national media and blogosphere.

One theme is that, back in April, the Department of Homeland Security issued a report warning of incidents exactly like this one. Indeed, before this one, there were a number of others, including the abortion doctor shooting, and some shooting of policemen in Pittsburg and Florida.

But it wasn’t until this incident yesterday, in Washington D.C., at the Holocaust Memorial Museum, with the death of security guard Stephen Johns, that the entire nation woke up. As we wake up the morning after this shooting, there can be no doubt in mind of anyone that right wing extremists are plotting against Obama as I write.

In other words, if and when Obama gets shot, it will be a surprise to almost no one in this country. And that is a great thing. Because it renders that eventuality much less likely to happen.

So this is why I ask: Did Stephens Johns die so that Obama could live? Did James von Brunn make it all the way to the age of 88 so that Obama could live?

For the last two years, von Brunn lived in the apartment of his son, together with his son’s girlfriend. The son and girlfriend actually charged von Brunn $400/month for rent. I found that fact fascinating.

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  • In: Uncategorized
  • Comments Off on James von Brunn is the Tip of an Iceberg

Boy, this is one unproductive day for me. Blog-o-rama. Many thoughts coming from this shooting today at the Holocaust Museum in DC. Here’s my next one:

I’m one of the people driving the up the viewer numbers on the stormfront.org discussion forums today. Probably the most important topic in those forums is one, originally posted back on March 20, 2004, entitled “White Racialist Treasure: James von Brunn“. Before today, that topic had drawn only 4 posts in total. But after the events of today, that topic now has 42 posts and counting.

One of the main themes of people posting today is the following: Why does the media focus on stories like this one, but then all but ignore horrific Black-on-White crimes? Reading through these posts, I have learned about a number of truly disturbing recent crimes against white people perpetrated by black people.

I’ll have to agree that these stories have been relatively “buried” by the media. To give an example, my Google personal home page lists the top 3 current stories on Reuters, and the top 3 current stories on the New York Times. I check these lists multiple times per day. I can’t remember stories about the horrific crimes mentioned by these Stormfront posters making their way into those two top-3 lists.

Why? Well, the Stormfront posters say that the reason for this is that the media is controlled by White-hating Jews.

I disagree. Instead, I’ll offer a different reason for this disparate treatment by the media. That reason is the following: the shooting in DC today was the Tip of an Iceberg; the crimes cited by the Stormfront posters are not. Tips of Icebergs are quite interesting; random human depravity is less so.

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OK. So I couldn’t summon the motivation to watch the whole 10 minutes of it either. But just skip forward to the last minute or so and you’ll get the flavor.

I found this fellow starting with a Google search for James von Brunn, and following the links. Mr. von Brunn has opened up a fissure in the firmament. Who needs the Southern Poverty Law Center and their list of Right wing nutjobs? The wackos are on the web!

Well, to end this post on a high, I did some searching to find info on Mr. von Brunn’s youngest son. Turns out this 88-year-old had a kid at 55. What a stud!

Anyway, that would make the kid 32 or 33 today. The kid’s name is Erik von Brunn. A little Googling, and ipso presto, we come upon a new blog written by someone named “Erik von Brunn”.

The picture of the fellow looks like somebody in his early thirties. Same guy?

I don’t know. But could be.

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I’ll confess. I’m really pleased with President Obama. Like over 60% of my fellow Americans, I approve of his performance thus far.

imagesIndeed, I think he’s a political master. I still believe this nation is on the verge of collapse, and that much harder times are coming. And with this belief, I’m happy to say that I’m thrilled that Obama is the president who will guide us through these coming dark days.

But my greatest fear is that Obama won’t be making the trip with us. History says that there will be one or more assassination attempts against him. We can only hope these future attempts will fail.

But it’s easy to ignore that prospect. I mean, there are few, if any, overt signs of plotting against Obama. Sure, once in awhile, some crackpot will be arrested for making threatening comments about Obama. But those incidents seem remote.

And then the shooting today in the Holocaust Museum in DC brings it all back to me. Let me back up for a second.  …

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for the money has gone too far

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