In one of today’s blogosphere debates, Moonbattery has taken on The Democratic Daily for promoting some of the nutty conspiracy theories regarding 9/11. I can’t argue with Moonbattery‘s take on these “tinfoil-hat ravings” and this is consistent with many other posts there which exclude The Democratic Daily from the reality based community.
If only Moonbattery could limit themselves to debunking such conspiracy theories. Ok, I’d even forgive a few chuckles. Unfortunately Moonmattery is guilty of quite a bit of moonbattery of their own. They portray the views expressed at The Democratic Daily as representing the “raw insanity driving today’s Democrat Party.” As long time readers here know, I left The Democratic Daily months ago finding that some of the views there were out of touch with both reality and liberal thought. I’m clearly not alone in that assessment as both readership and links to the site have dropped tremendously since I left. Moonbattery is practicing serious moonbattery in suggesting that the moonbat views at The Democratic Daily are representative of liberal belief.
Moonbattery also uses this to smear John Kerry, citing Pamela as “Hanoi John’s official blogger.” Early in the campaign, Pamela did have occasional posts on the Kerry campaign’s official blog. However, during the campaign she was removed from this position, and even banned from posting at the campaign’s official forum. (To be fair to Pamela, the latter was partially a matter of problems with the forum administrator who had a bad habit of banning Kerry supporters who got on his bad side. He even banned me on one occasion, but the campaign quickly overruled that and reduced his authority. Pamela did remain banned.)
The reference to “Hanoi John” is not the only slur on John Kerry, who has absolutely nothing to do with the these conspiracy theories. Moonbattery could do a much better job at debunking moonbat ideas if they stuck to the facts as opposed to promoting their own moonbat theories on John Kerry and on “liberal profs” teaching history classes.
There is also more on this at Screw Loose Change, The Jawa Report, and Mein BlogVault
Update: Pamela has gone into her “poor innocent me” act in a post at The Democratic Daily accusing me of harassing her. What she doesn’t admit is that she launched two attacks on me in the past few weeks and has been smearing me for months. I have made it clear that I intended to ignore her as long as she ceased her constant attacks on me. I have also warned her of the consequences if she did not.
Pamela denies taking any controversial positions. Maybe in her mind our disagreements do not represent controversial positions, but most would see it differently. We’ve disagreed over her belief in astrology, her belief in ghosts, her support for anti-evolution writings, her dismissal of holocaust denial, and her defense of Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitism.
Pamela also writes, “I am deeply saddened that I feel the need to distance myself from my blog at this time…” If I only had a nickle for every time she has said she was giving up blogging, including when she began having the above noted problems with the Kerry campaign and virtually every time we’ve had a dispute. One of the advantages of blogging is that the views and actions of others don’t really matter. When I found The Democratic Daily intolerable to remain at, it was an easy matter to start my own blog and what goes on there barely matters (other than for ocassionally having to defend myself from Pamela’s attacks.)
Update II: Pamela insists on keeping this going with post after post. She has once again assumed her role of blog police, saying it is never right for a liberal blogger to criticize anything said by another liberal. As should be clear to readers here, I call them as I see them, even if it means disagreeing with a liberal or agreeing with a conservative when they are right. It is also rather hypocritical of Pamela to complain about my responses to Kos for his attacks on Kerry now when she similarly criticized Kos over this herself. As usual, Pamela just loves to twist the facts to portray everyone but her as in some way evil. To Pamela, the fact that I have disagreed with other liberals justifies any type of attack from her.
Most of Pamela’s nonsense is not worth the time to respond too, but one other item is so illustrative of the absurd way she thinks that I cannot help but to note it. Pamela writes, “Since Ron professes to not believe in astrology I question why this is in his Blogger profile: Astrological Sign: Aquarius, Zodiac Year: Sheep.”
The reason it is in my profile is simple. When I signed up for Blogger, the form asked for my birthday, or maybe even for my sign, and I filled out the form. Astrology for most is a meaningless diversion and if Blogger put it in my profile it wasn’t an issue. Most people can have a laugh reading their newspaper horoscope while realizing that astrology is bunk, but Pamela sure went ballistic when I first mentioned that opinion at The Democratic Daily. As to why an understanding of science, as opposed to promotion of pseudo-science, is important, see the post I wrote after the initial post here.
This does not mean we can’t find amusement with astrology and other forms of fortune telling. I did get a laugh from opening a fortune cookie at lunch last week. The fortune said I should take a trip to the west, and I have recently planned a trip to San Francisco and vicinity. Of course I understand coincidence while others may not.
Pamela also takes a portion of a comment from me out of context to attack in her last post, and makes up some nonsense about blocking her trackbacks, but again, that is just typical Pamela being Pamela. No truth or fair play is ever to be expected.
Update III: Will the laughs never end today? We even have a commenter (who just must be a friend of Pamela’s) who is responsible for a first here at Liberal Values. I thought I’ve been hit with virtually every insult imaginable (in comments which usually don’t make it through moderation). Today we have a new one as someone came here to both defend astrology and to call me a “poopie head.” I’m afraid that admitting to a belief in astrology pretty much excludes one from being able to meaningfully insult anyone.
As moonbattery is the topic of the day, I’ll also note that a reader has emailed a tip that Deepak Chopra is at it again. This time he babbles about quantum theory and consciousness. Fortunately the commenters at Huffington Post usually do a good of debunking his nonsense and I might just leave this to them. I don’t know if I can handle the polling results on belief in evolution, astrology, and Chopra in one day.
Update IV: More in the email bag. A reader from Northern California wishes me a good trip to his region and requests to point out that “not all Californians are astrology-believing moonbats.” I never doubted that, but will still pass on his recommended links. Check out The Astrology Defense Kit from the Astronomical Society of the Pacific and the section on astrology at Bad Astronomy.
Update V: Showing that liberals and conservatives can join together in common cause, The Jawa reports on how I “was attacked by Pamela” and comes to defend against “the Twoofers and their ancillary legions of astrologers, Holocaust deniers, liars, huxters, frauds, film school dropouts and pizza delivery boys.” Now I’m awaiting input from the Ewoks.
Update VI: Shouting The Loudest In the Blogosphere
Update VII: New evidence came out debunking 9/11 denialism, frustrating the conspiracy theorists at The Democratic Daily leading to new round of personal attacks. My replies are here and here.
Update VIII: World Net Daily Attacks The Democratic Daily Over Violence and Porn–What Irony
To be fair Ron, I wasn’t removed from the position of having “occassional posts” on the Kerry Blog, it wasn’t a paid position, and the campaign felt it was better to have all their bloggers working from headquarters. I posted remotely from CA. My “occassional posts” have me listed as one of the top 3 contributors to the Kerry blog and I did post “Guest posts” after the campaign decided they wanted all bloggers working from headquarters.
Also let’s not forget you were banned from the Kerry forum for defending me and another woman banned unfairly and the three of us were all reinstated at the same time.
Pamela, you do have a knack for rewriting history.
However you want to spin it, the campaign decided they did not want you writing for the blog and you were removed.
You were banned from the forum quite some time and your protests to the campaign were ignored. After I was banned for opposing the banning policy I complained and my banning was immediately revoked. You were not reinstated at the time I was reinstated as, after being reinsated, I continued to protest the bannings of you and others and more of you were subsequently reinstated.
Ron
The only re-writing of history comes from you. It is a well known fact that I continued to have published blog posts on the Kerry blog after the campaign made the decision to only have bloggers on staff post.
And clearly, it is well known in the blogosphere that I have maintained a very strong working relationship with the Senator and his press staff since the ’04 election, including working as an independent consultant in the last election cycle for the Senator’s PAC.
To assert that anything more than this is true is ludicrous. Certainly the campaign would have “removed” me from the Kerry blog and then continued to work with me all this time after the fact.
Pamela,
“It is a well known fact that I continued to have published blog posts on the Kerry blog after the campaign made the decision to only have bloggers on staff post.”
Perhaps in your imagination. This is certanily not what you were saying back when you were complaining about being dumped. That also doesn’t change my central premise that you do not speak for John Kerry when you promote conpsiracy theories. Maybe it is for the best that you have reach acceptanced, even if it means building up such fantasy defenses.
“And clearly, it is well known in the blogosphere that I have maintained a very strong working relationship with the Senator and his press staff.:
A matter of perspective. What you see as a very strong working relationship might be seen to other observers as throwing a few bones to a groupie.
it is a shame she continues to stoop to this backstabbing. I’ve lurked here since you the blog started and before at DemDaily. I wonder if what got Pamela mad was allthe blog reviews commenting on how poor her writing was compared to you. I’m so happy to see how much LibValues has grown, and not surprised by how much DemDaily has fallen since you left.
These blog wars do get tedious, but I understand sometimes you have to stand up for yourself.
Good for you. Don’t take anything more from that bitch.
Gee, and that’s pretty tame compared to some of the email I have received. 🙂
There comes a moment when skepticism shades into bigotry; when a purported committment to ‘scientific’ and rational debate and evidentiary processes shades over into witch hunting, and when the facade of reasonableness turns out to be just that: a facade.
Mr. Chusid has found that moment.
It’s more than ‘picking on girls’ — conflating a committment to equality with a rationale for loutishness — it’s an arrogant presumption that one’s ideology (e.g. ‘religion’ or ‘weltanschauung’) is so perfect and incontrovertable that it is permissible to laugh at the world-view of others. This is religious intolerance in its purest form, stripped of virtually all ideology.
Newton was an astronomer, astrologer and physicist. Where he was a scientist and where a crackpot who ‘believed in bunk’ is perhaps not so easy a line of demarcation as the bigot would have the reader believe.
I commend Mr. Ron Chusid to The Fated Sky: Astrology in History, by Benson Bobrick, and to Miss Manners’ Guide to Domestic Tranquility: The Authoritative Manual for Every Civilized Household, However Harried by Judith Martin. (Both are books.)
Because if we can’t get along in a working relationship (I didn’t say love, admire or like) with those with whom we disagree, then democracy is not possible.
Which rather makes his claim “Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought” exactly like Fox News’ “Fair and Balanced.”
Hart,
It is certainly scary when people smart enough to use a computer can make claims such as to equate a realization that astrology is bunk with bigotry.
Tolerance does not mean believing in anything regardless of its absurdity. You are of course free to believe what you want (which is the true meaning of tolerance, not as you misportray it). That does not mean that most educated people will not dismiss astrology as bunk.
Learning to dismiss superstitious beliefs such as astrology is a major advance from the period of enlightenment, which makes the statement on the blog masthead especially relevant here.
Sir, your lack of couth knows no personal bounds.
Let’s cut to the chase: you’re a poopie head.
That’s the first insult we all learned, and, the way you’re headed, you’re going to get there eventually, so there it is.
But don’t pretend that you’re defending liberty and enlightened thought. Your ill-conceived ad hominem mode of argumentation belies the claim.
Poopie head.
Hart,
“you’re a poopie head’
No surprise to see what level you are at considering your first comments.
“Your ill-conceived ad hominem mode of argumentation belies the claim.”
Do you even know what ad hominem means? Disbelief in superstition does not constitute an ad homen attack, while there are multiple true ad hominem in your comments. In fact, your comments consist of nothing more than ad hominem attacks without a single coherent argument to be found.
And a pompous ass.
Yes, yet another brilliant and witty come back from the person who objects to ad hominem attacks.
As I added in the Updates to this post, admitting to a belief in astrology pretty much excludes one from being able to meaningfully insult anyone.
A true pompous ass is someone such as yourself who makes a point of coming to the site of someone with different beliefs purely to hurl insults. I would never dream of coming to your blog to criticize astrology there. That is tolerance, not your idiotic belief that we must accept anyone else’s beliefs regardless of their absudity.
Until you develop the capicity to come up with some meaningful thoughts, I suggest that you stick to commenting at The Democratic Daily. The mentality there is much closer to your level.
Dr Ron:
These attacks just prove your point. Thanks for putting up a great blog, for showing that these “moonbat” views do not represent the views of other Dems or liberals, and for standing up for reason and sanity in this insane world.
Skeptic,
Still, it is a shame this all happened on the day when a big story is that so many Republicans believe in evolution. It does somewhat under cut the argument for the “reality based community” to see such support for consipracy theories and astrology. Fortunately these are minority views.
Ron, You’ve really lost it on this one. I thought I had seen it all these last 4 years, but this is really ghastly. You can’t respect someone because of astrology and ghosts? Are you serious?
Ya’ know, the Wise Men were guided to the Christ child by a star, and I believe a dead spirit walking around is called a ghost. Are people with Christian beliefs credible in your eyes? Who made you the crown head of holiness anyway?
And an occasional blogger? That’s what’s known as a bold-faced lie – as is your description of the problems on the forum. You know full well Pamela was attempting to stop the gay bashing and get rid of that group from the woman-haters web site. How dare you distort that. YOU didn’t have the courage of your convictions, that’s how you got yourself back on the forum.
Is there one person on the planet who isn’t a complete shithead. I’m seriously beginning to doubt it.
Sandy,
There was far more than astrology and ghosts involved. Those I could have overlooked if not for her constant back stabbing and backing of anti-Semitism. You should know as much as anyone what a back stabbing snake Pamela is.
“That’s what’s known as a bold-faced lie – as is your description of the problems on the forum.”
Don’t give me that bullshit. Everything I said is totally accurate regarding Pamela being removed as a writer for the official blog and being banned from the forum. This is all pertinent when blogs are quoting idiocy from The Democratic Daily and attributing such views to Kerry and all Democrats based upon an official association with the campaign which the campaign severed.
What does a supposed lack of having courage of my convictions have to do with me and the forum? Mike banned me for arguing that people like you and Pamela should not have been banned. I contacted Dick and he quickly overturned Mike’s decision and I continued to fight the banning of you and the others. Beyond that, I don’t know what type of twisted version you and Pamela are trying to pass off regarding the two of you being banned for an extended period of time. Remember, I’m the one who was fighting Mike over this in defense of you two and others in your position.
“You know full well Pamela was attempting to stop the gay bashing and get rid of that group from the woman-haters web site. How dare you distort that.”
I didn’t distort anything. I simply didn’t get into all of that as it was not relevant to the post. I did note in the original post that there were other factors involved in light of problems with the administrator of the forum. Actually I don’t really know all the specifics of what Pamela was doing as there were many stories going around. Regardless, you two were banned from the campaign’s forum for your actions and I opposed the banning of the two of you on principle. Getting back to the point of the post: Pamela does not speak for John Kerry and her support for 9/11 conspiracy theories does not indicate that he holds such views.
“Is there one person on the planet who isn’t a complete shithead. I’m seriously beginning to doubt it.”
Maybe if you didn’t jump to conclusions and looked at the facts you wouldn’t have such views of everyone on the planet.
Who farted?
Greetings from a Red shirt!
I picked up on this from the Jawa report…and after reading the comments, Ron, I can only say..man…you’ve saddled yourself with some pretty “interesting” people.
I would laugh except that people like “pamela” and “sandy” make it a heck of a lot harder for republicans, libertarians and liberals to communicate. They inject ill will, distorted facts (read LIES) and make wanting to find a solution to the problems we ALL face so much harder just by opening their mouths.
While I don’t agree with any liberal I know, I DO understand that we’re ALL Americans..and we have to work together to make this country work. That means compromise, not lockstep, like Pamela suggests.
I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY!…I think we should all keep this in mind when it comes to discussing politics. Its ok to disagree..but damn, those kinds of attacks are indicative of ignorant people.
Don’t let them get to ya.
Elliott,
“I can only say..man…you’ve saddled yourself with some pretty “interesting” people.”
We all met back in 2003 while among the first to back John Kerry for the nomination. Back then there was a whole group of us, but virtually none of them will have anything to do with Pamela any more. I should have just started my own blog after the election, but I took what seemed to be the easy course and wrote on blogs run by Pamela and Sandy for a while. Big mistake!!!
“While I don’t agree with any liberal I know, I DO understand that we’re ALL Americans..and we have to work together to make this country work. That means compromise, not lockstep, like Pamela suggests.”
The feelings about conservatives at The Democratic Daily was one of the factors of conflict. Pamela and some of the regulars who remained there typically engage in a “gotcha” tyoe of argument when someone comes disagreeing with them. They would hunt down any information on the commenter, and show any connections to conservative organizations or blogs, acting as if proving a connection to conservativism was in itself proof they were right and the person commenting was wrong.
The shit really hit the fan on this issue when a staffer for a Republican Senator expressed a position contrary to Pamela’s in the blog comments. Pamela tracked down his identity and posted information on him. The person requested that his identity be removed from the blog as he was afraid of negative repercussions for his career if his blogging became known in his office. When Pamela was gone I removed the identifying information. From Pamela’s perspective I was wrong to go behind her back, but I felt the ethics of the situation justified it.
“Don’t let them get to ya.”
That’s why I left Democratic Daily at started my own blog. One post with this nonsense hardly distracts from everything else I’m doing (both in the blogosphere and the real world). I’m certainly not going to apologize for disagreeing with Pamela on astrology, ghosts, consipracy theories, anti-Semitism, and judging issues on their merit rather than lockstep political affiliation.
If anyone cares, there’s multiple additional fart comments from Donnie McDaniel (another writer at The Democratic Daily). For now they are probably best left in moderation with the single one passed through to show what passes for discourse there.
Anybody still wonder why I left that blog and started this one instead?
Now I’m awaiting input from the Ewoks.
The Ewoks have your back, too. We will make sure of that. Thanks for the links, and good luck maintaining the lonely outpost of the old-school, sane liberal.
🙂