Bob Belvedere writes:
L’Audace: I Will Not Be Silent Today
08 JUNE 2012 @ 09:05
by bobbelvedere
[WARNING: Language]
When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a German will get to him eventually. The hell with that idea. The hell with taking it. My men don’t dig foxholes. I don’t want them to. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. And don’t give the enemy time to dig one either. We’ll win this war, but we’ll win it only by fighting and by showing the Germans that we’ve got more guts than they have; or ever will have. We’re not going to just shoot the sons-of-bitches, we’re going to rip out their living Goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We’re going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket. War is a bloody, killing business. You’ve got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours. Rip them up the belly. Shoot them in the guts. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt off your face and realize that instead of dirt it’s the blood and guts of what once was your best friend beside you, you’ll know what to do!
I don’t want to get any messages saying, “I am holding my position.” We are not holding a Goddamned thing. Let the Germans do that. We are advancing constantly and we are not interested in holding onto anything, except the enemy’s balls. We are going to twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all of the time. Our basic plan of operation is to advance and to keep on advancing regardless of whether we have to go over, under, or through the enemy. We are going to go through him like crap through a goose; like shit through a tin horn!
From time to time there will be some complaints that we are pushing our people too hard. I don’t give a good Goddamn about such complaints. I believe in the old and sound rule that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder WE push, the more Germans we will kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that.
—General George S. Patton, Jr., somewhere in England, 05 June 1944.
I am not going silent today.
We are on the offensive and I believe in relentlessly pushing onward and never granting our enemies the luxury of time to regroup or even catch their fetid breaths.
Over at her site, Michelle Malkin makes the case for observing the National Day Of Blogger Silence:
…In honor of the National Day of Blogger Silence called by Ace of Spades, this blog is going dark. But far from shutting up, I’ll be spending the day calling, e-mailing, and tweeting members of Congress, GOP leaders, journalists, and influencers to ask them what they are doing to defend the First Amendment rights of bloggers. This is a day of action, not inaction.
Let me be clear: I think the contacting-members-of-the-Congress aspect of their protest is an excellent idea. My disagreement lies in the idea that our silence will do any good.
–Stacy McCain tries to make the case for observing NDOBS.
I agree with the following sentiments expressed by some of my Friends In The Ether…
–Mike, That Mr. G Guy:
Keep up the heat. That “Day of Silence” idea is not a good one in my opinion. You’re giving them what they want.-Commentator novaculus is spot-on:
I think the “Day of Silence” is unlikely to have the desired effect. Silence is just that, silence. And what Bertt Kimberlin wants is for people to stop talking about him and his bloody criminal past.
Another day dedicated to blogging about Kimberlin and his most recent activities would be more effective. This time the emphasis should be on his associates and his financial supporters.
Kimberlin and his crew are the human equivalents of cockroaches. Shine a light on them, and they will scurry back into their filthy holes.Keep shining that light, keep it intense: termites die in the light.
–Jeff Goldstein is worth quoting at length:
Now, I know Ace has called for a National Blogger’s Day of Silence on Friday, and I can appreciate the idea and its motivation. But on this I agree with datechguy: why not instead of going silent don’t we all gather together and pressure the NAACP, the Justice Department, and the major media outlets to answer questions about their indifference and silence over the intimidation of a black political activist by a gaggle of lily-white thugs being bankrolled by rich white Democrats?After all, isn’t this a similar dynamic to other infamous civil rights battles here in the US — the kind that people like Holder and the NAACP and many progressives constantly refer to and pretend to have championed?
I thought Holder was all about helping “his people”?
– Or is what comes to count as “his people” less about color and more about the kind of plantation politics that tends to go along with a person’s color — with those of color who stray from the Democrat’s plantation no longer given cover and support, being as they are inauthentic and so undeserving of identity group protection?
And if that’s the case, doesn’t that lay truly bare the whole identity politics movement favored by the left for the politically-motivated and partisan progressive ruse it’s always been — one that has itself only been sustained by thuggish attempts to normalize the left’s rules of political correctness, to turn the idea of “tolerance” on its head so that what comes to count as legitimate speech is only that speech that hasalready been socially pre-vetted by the left’s very caring and tolerant thought police?
That is, doesn’t this whole saga provide those of us who champion free speech a golden opportunity to expose the tyrannical heart of progressivism, whose goal it is (as I’ve been writing about here for years) to deconstruct the very idea of free speech, refiguring free expression as expression first pre-approved by the left— with all other speech either “harassment” or “hate speech”? The brush strokes that color the left’s ideological worldview are showing. The “progressive” manipulation of speech and the institutionalization of their (necessarily authoritarian) linguistic assumptions are sitting naked before us here. All we need do, at long last, is point it out.
Going silent is certainly one potentially powerful method of protest. But I can’t help but think that this is precisely the kind of thing progressives and their thug henchmen bankrolled to intimidate and harass us, either through direct threats or through various iterations of lawfare, want to see happen.
So perhaps as an addendum to a day of blogger silence, we promote of day of blogger activism in which we vocally and en masse petition the Justice Department, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the NAACP, and all the various black activist groups and “civil rights” leaders (I’m looking at you, Al and Jesse) to open a serious investigation into the Kimberlin people and their tactics — and then we follow that up by pressuring the mainstream press and whatever investigative journalists may be left to follow up on it, as well as pestering our “conservative” media outlets to better cover the story.
But whatever we decide, I’m in.
If we don’t want to continue losing more slowly, now’s probably as good a time as any to stop simply counterpunching and start taking the fight to the leftists. Because the truth is, their tactics only work so long as we tacitly agree to play within their rule set.
Once we agree to ignore their paradigm, the whole facade crumbles — and what you’re left with are a bunch of twisted would-be tyrants who haven’t a chance in hell of controlling a free people who insist upon their own liberties.
Extremely well put, but, unlike Jeff, I’m not ‘in’ because of the reasons I’m stating throughout this post. I think, in fact, that Jeff ends up providing a damn good reason not to go silent in his last two paragraphs.
-In Jeff’s Comments section, Squid writes:
When you’re trying desperately to get your message out, and are met by stony silence from a media complex bound and determined to ignore you, going silent is the last thing you want to do. If you want your word carried far and wide, then make yourself impossible to ignore, not easier to ignore.
The intimidation of a black political activist and his family [ie: Ali Akbar] by a gaggle of lily-white thugs bankrolled by rich white Democrats” is a legitimate story. We need to keep hammering away until the networks have no choice but to cover it. Sit-ins are for physical demonstrations, where sympathetic pictures can help you. And as Lileks once observed, it doesn’t count as censorship when you put the duct tape over your mouth with your own hands.
I will (continue to) take part in bringing this matter before my Congressdrones… and ones actually like to do something, unlike Berman and Sherman and the CA Senate Bobbsy twins.
I’m not sure I see the point of silent Friday. Remember the Great Gay Strike of, what was it, 2009, 2010? Remember the devastating effect it didn’t have?
I think I might spend the day posting the addresses and contact information of every organization that allegedy roosts under Velvet Revolution’s umbrella, instead… at least those of them that aren’t empty letterheads.
–Matt at Conservative Hideout:
I seem to recall a day a year or two back when illegal immigrants were going on “strike,” and no one noticed? Frankly, that is what the bad guys want anyway. While a day of silence has some nice symbolism, there is no real positive impact for it. I think some more positive (and non-violent) action that builds on our strengths, not our silence. More posts are better than no posts, so if people have some ideas, or likes Mr. McEnroe’s, drop a comment and let’s see what can be done. In the end, constructive action is better than no action.
… If the old media hasn’t picked up this story yet, who is naive enough to believe a day of silence is going to mean anything.
Congress can put pressure on to investigate the non-profit funding. Other than that, what’s the federal role here? If the SWAT-ing was interstate, they have jurisdiction, but they work under Holder.
“Writing your congressman” over stuff they don’t really have much operational control over isn’t going to accomplish much.Exactly. We have to get the facts out to the people of The United States — go over the heads of The Establishment.
And we have to keep investigating and connecting the dots because, in my opinion, I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads all the way to The White House. Methinks it would be fitting to refer to Brett Kimberlin, Neil Rauhauser, Brad Friedman, et. al. as The Plumbers.
The goal of the left is to silence us, to keep our voices to break through the media silence on issue after issue. It has been our success at this that has driven them to try to silence us.
So in order to protest the attempt to keep our voices silent, we are going to…do what they want?
Remember this is the same MSM that ignores the largest march in DC every year, it will be no trouble for them to pretend bloggers who challenge their narrative don’t exist. For them that’s the good old days.
I think a much better idea would be along the lines of “Every Blog About Brett Kimberlin day” where the story dominated Memeorandum to the point where it was impossible to go to Memeorandum without seeing it.
I think an even better plan idea would be 100 bloggers calling each of these media outlets, and then perhaps more local papers to see if they are going to cover it, I think calling the NAACP the congressional black caucus and seeking comment would be more effective. I think a headline at Memeorandum that says…
“NAACP silent on attempt to intimidate black political activist through family”
…just might draw a few eyeballs, then perhaps we can contact the British Press and see if THEY will cover it.
THIS.
Most of the Republican members of the Congress and their staffs will not notice such an act — they’re too busy to know or care. Most of them hold us in contempt to begin with and buy into the idea that we sit around in our pajamas ranting and raving.
Besides, do we want the national government getting involved in any Internet issues. No, or course not. There are, it seems to me, only two things we want the Congress to do: (1) investigate the federally-regulated non-profits and (2) spread the word when they are on TV and radio.
Our goal, since we have to be very suspicious of putting our fates in the hand of the courts [considering what we’ve seen in Maryland, which is far too typical, believe me], has to be to shine so much light on these Leftist thugs that we permanently blind the bastards.
I like Ace, but he can seems to be unable sometimes to stop thinking like a member of the Establishment. The old rules no longer apply. This is Total War [the Left sure as Hell is fighting it that way].
The toughest goal for us is to figure out how to fight the Immoral Left without we, ourselves, losing our souls in the process, like so many in The West did during World War II.
Going silent is so Eisenhower; we need to be Pattonesque at all times.
L’audace, l’audace, toujours de l’audace!
Rogues, would you live forever?
Thanks for spreading the word.