Moonbattery
The commentators at Daily Kos are in full-bore conspiracy panic mode over the suicide of the author Tristan Egolf.
May he rest in peace. We lived in the same town, and I crossed paths with Egolf a few times. I work with people who knew him very well -- who considered him among their closest friends. They are shocked by his death, but to them it does not seem out of context with the life he lived and the man they knew. I don't want to betray confidences or speak ill of the dead. Suffice it to say, a fiction writer battling depression is hardly an outrageous notion.
The closer you are to this situation, the less likely you are to hear conspiracy talk about his death. Like I said, I live less than a mile from the guy, and I didn't even know there was such talk until I went online. Then I learned that this wasn't a suicide and the real killer was ...
... wait for it ...
George W. Bush!
These Kos kids apparently aren't close to where I live. They're out in orbit past Uranus somewhere. And they see everything through their Chimpy McHitlerburton decoder specs. Here's a representative sample of their remarks: If you think I'm cherry-picking this stuff, go read the thread and see for yourself.
Egolf had a growing reputation as a novelist. I haven't read him, but they say he was good. Around these parts, he was better known for his involvement in the arts community and as a public prankster. He organized street-theater type protest stunts (only on the national politics level; local causes seemed not to interest him in that way). The kind of pranks that don't change the world, but piss people off and get attention.
His most famous stunt was in July. As President Bush's campaign bus pulled toward a local elementary school for a visit, Egolf and six other young men took position on a grassy berm by the side of the road and stripped down to thongs, then piled atop one another in what they later said was an imitation of an Abu Ghraib photo.
You might not have guessed that at the time. The township where this happened has 35 police officers, who spend most of their shift handing out speeding tickets and writing up reports of shoplifters at Wal-Mart. The group on duty that day, many of them young women in their 20s, were out on security detail on what was probably the biggest assignment of their lives. There were pro-Bush signs along the road and anti-Bush signs (some of the latter carried by my co-workers), and a lot of Amish families out to just see what all the hubub was about.
Then suddenly this group of young men begins to strip and pile up, in what might be a melee or a mass orgy or who knows what. The local cops decided it was a "disturbance," and cuffed six of them (one ran away) and sent them off to the district justice to be arraigned. They all were released on bail later that day.
Later, the county DA correctly decided there was no basis to the charges, and he dropped them. “While this office appreciates the position of those who were disturbed by the manner in which these individuals chose to protest, the District Attorney must follow and uphold the laws of Pennsylvania and of this nation," he said.
More Kos comments:
Other posters there picked up on the "Smoketown" connection.
That's priceless. Here's the skinny on it. Smoketown is straggle of buildings along route 340 (on the road to Intercourse!) about 15 minutes east of Lancaster, with an elementary school, and excellent ice cream shop, a taxidermy shop, a lumberyard, that sort of thing, and a rinky-dink airport. The school where Bush was going to speak last July was Smoketown Elementary. That's where Egolf and his gang intercepted the bus-cade, to try to get Bush's attention, or get on television or get arrested or whatever they were trying to accomplish.
Other than that, they had no connection with the place. And the wayward pilots who took off from Smoketown airport and blundered into restricted airspace didn't live there, either. They just took off from that airport (where they had to get help putting gas in the tank and where an official said, "I cringe every time they get in a plane").
But the fact that this poster had never heard of it until two stories peripherally involving George W. Bush caught his eye proves it's a conspiracy! Smoketown, center of the vast right wing conspiracy! LOL! I'm sure they'll love that at Coleman's ice cream shop.
A conspiracy that has to call attention to itself by recycling the same small town twice in a year, in a country of a million small towns, can't be worth much.
So if Egolf chose Smoketown as the scene of his little stunt, does that make him part of the conspiracy or a victim of it?
(Ah, but according to mr. paranoid at Kos, "By the way, it's possible some of these people DID commit suicide--driven to it by forms of mind control such as those in the notorious CIA program MK/ULTRA, or by less sci fi forms of harassment and thuggery." So maybe Bush waved his magic wand and made the Smoketown Six get naked for him.)
And if imitating Abu Ghraib abuses is so "effective" against Bush, why didn't Kerry try it. He could have let a foreign woman lead him around on a leash and ... oh, yeah; for some reason it didn't work for him.
In fact, not giving these theatrical types any more public forum was one of the goals of the district attorney in this case. As he said when he dropped the charges, "Any attempt to pursue a criminal prosecution under the current legal standards imposed by our courts would no further the ends of justice, but would only serve to advance the agenda of six protesters through a very public forum."
And in fact the Smoketown Six arrested garnered far more attention than they would have if they had simply been left alone by the police. They've been in newspapers around the nation, and made multiple appearances on CNN. Egolf got himself an ACLU attorney. They were out on bail the whole time, basking in their status as counterculture heroes and doing things like organizing an anti-Columbus Day protest at which a speaker said a bust of the explorer outside the county courthouse ought to be smashed.
“This is what America’s all about," one of their lawyers said after the charges were withdrawn. “I’m glad that even in this conservative county, the Constitution is greater than public opinion. That’s what the Constitution is for — to protect the minority opinion from being silenced by the majority."
I was glad, too. Who wasn't glad? Well, Egolf, for one. He told our reporter he was disappointed that he and his fellow protestors won't have their day in court.
"This underscores everything we've been contending since it happened," he said. "We've reached a point in this country where if your views aren't appreciated, the police can just haul you off for bogus reasons and later drop the charges. That's not my idea of America."
OK, so they didn't want the charges to be dropped. They have a right to be tried for a crime. And the DA deprived them of that right. Whatever. And they're pissed. The group filed a civil complaint against the police who arrested them (case pending).
"We want to set a standard by which they can't do this to other people," Egolf said. "It's looking like Europe in 1938."
Yes, Europe in 1938 was where a gang of young Jews dropped trou while Hitler's motorcade rolled past, and for that they faced a $300 fine and got out on bail and then the charges were dropped. History calls that event "the Holocaust."
Ah, but back to Kos, where it doesn't matter if Bush actually squeezes the trigger or not, it's still all his fault!
At which point the whole thing veers off into a self-pity party for people whose only reason for continuing alive, apparently, is reading Daily Kos.
One wonders what sort of comfort anyone would take in the company of people who would reduce a man's whole life to a Shruby McChimplerburton conspiracy theory cartoon.
And there you have it: the ultimate reversal. It boils down to: "I'm a victim because I choose to tell my friends and family they're all a bunch of idiots. Pity me!"
May he rest in peace. We lived in the same town, and I crossed paths with Egolf a few times. I work with people who knew him very well -- who considered him among their closest friends. They are shocked by his death, but to them it does not seem out of context with the life he lived and the man they knew. I don't want to betray confidences or speak ill of the dead. Suffice it to say, a fiction writer battling depression is hardly an outrageous notion.
The closer you are to this situation, the less likely you are to hear conspiracy talk about his death. Like I said, I live less than a mile from the guy, and I didn't even know there was such talk until I went online. Then I learned that this wasn't a suicide and the real killer was ...
... wait for it ...
George W. Bush!
These Kos kids apparently aren't close to where I live. They're out in orbit past Uranus somewhere. And they see everything through their Chimpy McHitlerburton decoder specs. Here's a representative sample of their remarks: If you think I'm cherry-picking this stuff, go read the thread and see for yourself.
Hey! What's that 800-lb gorilla doing over there? Funny, how the most effective critics of this President just up and get killt at the most effective of times ... for the GOP.
[Me -- So the fact that he died at a time when paranoid Bush-haters have nothing to do but spin out the conspiracy theories makes this "the most effective of times ... for the GOP"?]
* * *
This is so sad. The Bush regime is horrible, but we can't let them kill us this way.
* * *
No doubt a few of the people who have written unflattering things about Bush and then killed themselves did, actually, commit suicide. ... But my presumption is that Bush's handlers whack people now and then, in part to remove critics who are eloquent and forceful, but also to keep the rest of us scared. These aren't just pigs in the old-fashioned graft 'n' corruption 'n' hypocrisy sense; these are completely amoral killers and thugs. ...
[Me: So scared you won't even flap your gums about it all afternoon on a public Internet site.]
* * *
Too many coincidences for me. The guy who wrote "Fortunate Son" about Dumbya...killed himself. Gary Webb, who wrote "Dark Alliance" and had just written a cover story for a Sacto paper about a video game developed by the US Army...killed himself. Hunter S. Thompson, unregenerate Bush hater...killed himself. [Me -- if Nixon didn't kill him, nothing could] Iris Chang, who had already written one book that opened wounds over Japanese atrocities in WWII ("The Rape of Nanking") and was working on a new book about the Bataan Death March that would have made a lot of people think twice about the US proposal that Japan abandon Article 9 of its postwar constitution that limits its military...killed herself.
[Me -- !!!!!! That's such a desperate twist even the other conspiracy theories are embarrassed to be seen with it. If Dubya is killing people with knowledge of the way the Japanese fought World War II, his dad better get out of town.]
Egolf had a growing reputation as a novelist. I haven't read him, but they say he was good. Around these parts, he was better known for his involvement in the arts community and as a public prankster. He organized street-theater type protest stunts (only on the national politics level; local causes seemed not to interest him in that way). The kind of pranks that don't change the world, but piss people off and get attention.
His most famous stunt was in July. As President Bush's campaign bus pulled toward a local elementary school for a visit, Egolf and six other young men took position on a grassy berm by the side of the road and stripped down to thongs, then piled atop one another in what they later said was an imitation of an Abu Ghraib photo.
You might not have guessed that at the time. The township where this happened has 35 police officers, who spend most of their shift handing out speeding tickets and writing up reports of shoplifters at Wal-Mart. The group on duty that day, many of them young women in their 20s, were out on security detail on what was probably the biggest assignment of their lives. There were pro-Bush signs along the road and anti-Bush signs (some of the latter carried by my co-workers), and a lot of Amish families out to just see what all the hubub was about.
Then suddenly this group of young men begins to strip and pile up, in what might be a melee or a mass orgy or who knows what. The local cops decided it was a "disturbance," and cuffed six of them (one ran away) and sent them off to the district justice to be arraigned. They all were released on bail later that day.
Later, the county DA correctly decided there was no basis to the charges, and he dropped them. “While this office appreciates the position of those who were disturbed by the manner in which these individuals chose to protest, the District Attorney must follow and uphold the laws of Pennsylvania and of this nation," he said.
More Kos comments:
Now this young man, who just happened to have burned the Chimp in effigy last year...kills himself. If anyone wants to buy that all these creative, determined folks were itchin' to put a hollow point between their eyes, that's OK with me. Hope it's OK with them I think they're idiots pulling the wool over their own eyes. Not only did this promising multitalented artist/writer with a fiancee and young daughter (Iris Chang had a husband and young son) kill himself, but he was convicted [Me -- wrong, again. See above] for a protest against Abu Ghraib in a little town in Pennsyltucky that virtually no one had ever heard of until last week when a plane originating at its airport scared the peedoink out of Washington DC. Smoketown. Just a coincidence though. Nothing to see here, folks, move along.
Other posters there picked up on the "Smoketown" connection.
... Oddly, the plane that invaded White House air space on 11 May 2005 originated from the Smoketown Airport, here in Lancaster County. ...
That's priceless. Here's the skinny on it. Smoketown is straggle of buildings along route 340 (on the road to Intercourse!) about 15 minutes east of Lancaster, with an elementary school, and excellent ice cream shop, a taxidermy shop, a lumberyard, that sort of thing, and a rinky-dink airport. The school where Bush was going to speak last July was Smoketown Elementary. That's where Egolf and his gang intercepted the bus-cade, to try to get Bush's attention, or get on television or get arrested or whatever they were trying to accomplish.
Other than that, they had no connection with the place. And the wayward pilots who took off from Smoketown airport and blundered into restricted airspace didn't live there, either. They just took off from that airport (where they had to get help putting gas in the tank and where an official said, "I cringe every time they get in a plane").
But the fact that this poster had never heard of it until two stories peripherally involving George W. Bush caught his eye proves it's a conspiracy! Smoketown, center of the vast right wing conspiracy! LOL! I'm sure they'll love that at Coleman's ice cream shop.
A conspiracy that has to call attention to itself by recycling the same small town twice in a year, in a country of a million small towns, can't be worth much.
So if Egolf chose Smoketown as the scene of his little stunt, does that make him part of the conspiracy or a victim of it?
(Ah, but according to mr. paranoid at Kos, "By the way, it's possible some of these people DID commit suicide--driven to it by forms of mind control such as those in the notorious CIA program MK/ULTRA, or by less sci fi forms of harassment and thuggery." So maybe Bush waved his magic wand and made the Smoketown Six get naked for him.)
And if imitating Abu Ghraib abuses is so "effective" against Bush, why didn't Kerry try it. He could have let a foreign woman lead him around on a leash and ... oh, yeah; for some reason it didn't work for him.
In fact, not giving these theatrical types any more public forum was one of the goals of the district attorney in this case. As he said when he dropped the charges, "Any attempt to pursue a criminal prosecution under the current legal standards imposed by our courts would no further the ends of justice, but would only serve to advance the agenda of six protesters through a very public forum."
And in fact the Smoketown Six arrested garnered far more attention than they would have if they had simply been left alone by the police. They've been in newspapers around the nation, and made multiple appearances on CNN. Egolf got himself an ACLU attorney. They were out on bail the whole time, basking in their status as counterculture heroes and doing things like organizing an anti-Columbus Day protest at which a speaker said a bust of the explorer outside the county courthouse ought to be smashed.
“This is what America’s all about," one of their lawyers said after the charges were withdrawn. “I’m glad that even in this conservative county, the Constitution is greater than public opinion. That’s what the Constitution is for — to protect the minority opinion from being silenced by the majority."
I was glad, too. Who wasn't glad? Well, Egolf, for one. He told our reporter he was disappointed that he and his fellow protestors won't have their day in court.
"This underscores everything we've been contending since it happened," he said. "We've reached a point in this country where if your views aren't appreciated, the police can just haul you off for bogus reasons and later drop the charges. That's not my idea of America."
OK, so they didn't want the charges to be dropped. They have a right to be tried for a crime. And the DA deprived them of that right. Whatever. And they're pissed. The group filed a civil complaint against the police who arrested them (case pending).
"We want to set a standard by which they can't do this to other people," Egolf said. "It's looking like Europe in 1938."
Yes, Europe in 1938 was where a gang of young Jews dropped trou while Hitler's motorcade rolled past, and for that they faced a $300 fine and got out on bail and then the charges were dropped. History calls that event "the Holocaust."
Ah, but back to Kos, where it doesn't matter if Bush actually squeezes the trigger or not, it's still all his fault!
For each of those dead writers - whether it was suicide or being suicided doesn't matter. The fault lies with the men who have murdered them - with a bullet, or with a vision of the future so fucking horrible that live was intolerable. It's the same damn thing.
At which point the whole thing veers off into a self-pity party for people whose only reason for continuing alive, apparently, is reading Daily Kos.
It is absolutely infuriating to me that the lies just keep going on and on and I am wondering now, is it because we have so much more access to information ? And so, that old comfortable ignorance has been displaced for some (not all) of us?
And knowing many people who are online and use it for nothing but e-mail or IM, what are they thinking?
Or not thinking.
(sigh)
* * *
I can empathize ... unfortunately for me. As Thomas Paine said, "These are the times that try men's souls." We need the strength of the founders of this country to endure and prevail through this travesty of a government.I think I have found a measure of the strength I need here on dKos to fight the great fight against the f-ers. If there is no other reason for dKos's existence, it is emblematic as the oasis for the weary warriors in the grass-roots. We commiserate, we regroup, and we go on more determined and strong than when we started.I only wish Tristan Egolf could have found dKos and have gotten strength and relief among the community here.
One wonders what sort of comfort anyone would take in the company of people who would reduce a man's whole life to a Shruby McChimplerburton conspiracy theory cartoon.
This place has kept me sane for a long time now.I truly thought that it was some kind of aberration in me that said "NO NO This can't be happening AGAIN". Former friends have said that I am insane, I must be drinking, I must be paranoid. It's not a pretty picture to have to tell people you care about that they are irresponsible idiots.
And there you have it: the ultimate reversal. It boils down to: "I'm a victim because I choose to tell my friends and family they're all a bunch of idiots. Pity me!"
