This is one repulsive example of carpetbagging, I have to say:

All of these people, and the thousands of others in Madison, came there for a single purpose – one that they ultimately didn’t have the power to complete, but one which will sustain them through the long legal and electoral fights ahead. But by coming together, they became a part of something bigger than themselves. They kicked off a new alliance, made up of youth and labor, activists and non-activists, public workers and private workers, a great mass of people striving for basic rights and fairness. They have a clear mission and agenda, one that is expanding by the day. The reason this movement is built to last is that it’s not based on a person – it’s based on an idea. A principle. A belief in certain basic rights and fairness.

You can see the parallel to the community here at FDL. People from disparate backgrounds and experiences come together every day to discuss, agitate, educate, strategize or just offer up the ol’ one-finger salute. They’re here because of an idea, a principle, a value. And they want to be part of a greater community of like-minded people.

The spirit of Madison is on display here on a rolling basis. And everyone has a role to play, a way to engage more deeply in the community. By becoming a member of FDL you can get not only discounts on progressive events and activities, but ways to interact at a greater level with our writers and editors. More than anything, membership will foster ways to get involved. Just like I saw in Madison.

This is just sick. Raising money for an unrelated quasi-news infotainment site, one that, I might add, has often been wrong about facts on the ground (like when David Dayen announced the Capitol would be open a few weeks ago while the DOA kept it closed, illegally I might add), based off of the work we do here in Madison. I’m sorry, but this is beyond unacceptable behavior.

If people want to help out here in Madison there’s a lot they can do. Donate money to Ian’s Pizza on State so they can feed us. Donate to other organizations that bring us water and fresh fruit and vegetables (Willy Street Co-Op has been sending us stuff, for example). Donate to keep the ‘People’s Microphone’ going. Pack a bag and help us occupy the Capitol. I’m sorry, but whatever you think of FDL, and I think less of them by the day, they are not part of this. This is just opportunism at its most base and despicable.

Can I just say that this ‘Pouting Baby’ stuff is the stupidest, most infantile (no pun intended), embarassing, hackneyed, amateurish garbage I’ve ever seen any quasi-news entity do? Ever?

The fact that adults willingly read this on a regular basis and mistake it for wit could be used to successfully condemn our entire species to eternal damnation, so it’s a good thing no such fate exists.

I had a very revealing conversation with Marcy Wheeler of Fire Dog Lake the other day, and haven’t been able to talk about it here due to being super busy with the protest stuff.

Basically, it boils down to this:

1) She will not admit she was unbelievably wrong about Toyota’s electronics in the wake of the NHTSA report, because:
A) Not a single auto expert works for the NHTSA
B) There are still lawsuits pending, however:
I) If the lawsuits are resolved in Toyota’s favor, they don’t count, because:
a) Marcy Wheeler talked to some disgruntled former Toyota service people in 2007, and
b) she can read Toyota’s corporate mind and just knows that they have secret chip problems, and
c) she isn’t providing any evidence for any of these assertions

Follow that? I know it’s pretty amazing. This is what always gets me about Marcy Wheeler’s ‘reporting’ and one of the things that drove me to abandon FDL, save for David Dayen’s work and a bit of the community blogging. Wheeler is free to make whatever fact-free, paranoid, borderline racist/nativist accusations she wants, so long as they’re against typical liberal bugaboos (corporations, Republicans, foreign companies). Sometimes they turn out to be true; just as often, they’re baseless. Her fans ignore the misses and exaggerate the hits, and thus, a star is born. About half of her posts actually take the form of her asking for indulgence as she ‘goes into the weeds’, aka, raves fantastically about her latest pet conspiracy theory.

It looks more than a bit like apophenia, honestly. She sees elaborate conspiracies everywhere. In the Bush era, this was slightly more likely to turn up ‘results’, simply because they engaged in so many conspiracies at once.

That’s not praiseworthy for Wheeler, however; it’s just a sad commentary on the Bush government.

Anyway, when I confronted her about her Toyota fixation from last year, now conveniently forgotten, she engaged in the delusional self-justification I described above for a bit.

Image of Twitter conversation up on Flickr. Roughly arranged in chronological order; timestamps are visible anyway.