It's time to tell someone to "step back and talk to the hand" (warning, cursing and swearing ahead):
OK, look, Karen: 1) if you had a problem with Tex's swearing at you, you should have emailed him. He has email. Look on his site. BUT -- you came to MY blog and shat all over it. Hey, we made fun of you, but that's the risk you take when you publish the 5, 679th list of unoriginal, hackneyed, TIRED ASSERTIONS about the US that I have read since approximately 9:45am 11 September 2001. It's the same fucking shit everybody else in the America Sux crowd has been saying over and over, the same boring tune, and I'm sick of it, and I'm not going to stop saying so.
2) as far as I am concerned, neither I nor any other American owes you JACK SHIT. I don't have to be "polite" to you, not after the shitty things you wrote for an online publication about MY country, totally without any provocation whatsoever except that you are a little busybody who thinks your opinions are more important than anyone else's. Get this straight, chippy: the only reason you are free to "bravely" run about nude and pretend to be concerned about the the Oppressed™ is because people you probably would spit upon have been there to do the dirty work of protecting you from your country's enemies with weapons and warfare, and a lot of those have been Americans. Look it the fuck up.
And 3) please spare me the crocodile tears about the Evil Bush Cadre and his administration's supposed trampling of our civil rights here in the US. You don't give a shit about the civil rights situation in the US or any other country; on the contrary, you are filled with glee at every setback we suffer, and you and your ilk would rather see every cute child in the Third World™ be eaten by army ants than be helped by Americans. Besides, people like you can't wait to lock up everyone who doesn't think in lockstep with you in a gulag where they'll all be forced to look at you naked and read your childish scribblings. Which, let me reiterate, were not posted on a personal blog but on a professional publication, perhaps even for pay, and I am damned sure that it didn't go up without seeing an editor first. The hell you just spontaneously came up with your little list; don't even try to fuck with me on that. As for me, no one pays me to put this site up: I pay for every byte of it. I don't have to allow your diatribes onto my blog; I could delete every single word you have posted here and you would have no right to complain any more than you would if I threw you out of my house if you started pissing in the corner of the living room. I allow you to comment here solely out of my charity, and that charity is entirely arbitrary and can be withdrawn at any time. On the other hand, things posted on a newspaper (or its website) are fair fucking game. If you didn't want to get a negative reaction then maybe you should have thought a bit before you sent your copy in. Welcome to the real world, baby. No editors will hold your hand here.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 30, 2003 11:53 PMWHOA! Now THAT rocks! All rants are hereby summarily cancelled until someone tops this.
Posted by: Scott Chaffin at January 31, 2003 at 12:53 AMPerhaps it's this that twisted her knickers:
Squirrels to DownUnderians = Kangaroos to Texans
Since I ain't got to deal with 'em, (I think) I'd love to have them around.
Who knows or cares what Karen's major malfunction is? But in the meantime I'd like to reiterate: you get all the best trolls. First porn, then those limey poets, now this kiwi tart. I'm so lame.
Posted by: Scott at January 31, 2003 at 01:03 AMThank you! Your rant was very cathartic after reading a bunch of America-bashing crapola in the comments section of another blog tonight.
Posted by: susan b. at January 31, 2003 at 01:20 AMHeh. The funniest thing about these Save the World/I Feel Your Pain types is that most people in the world don't think they're that bright either.
I remember sharing a drink once with a gentleman in Mombasa once as we both made fun of yet another Concerned, Rich Westerner bumbling around feeling good about themselves while accomplishing jack squat. From what I've gathered in my travels, there's quite a bit of low-level contempt for these types as they're seen as latter-day racists. Though they've changed their words, their philosophy and outlook still stem from the "White Man's Burden" or "Great White Father" syndrome. For all this anti-Americanism these gits go on about, I'm amazed that they're completely ignorant of how they're viewed by a good chunk of the people they claim to speak for. On the other hand, it's widely known that Karen's Komrades aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer, so they're manipulated quite often for fun and profit.
That's not to say that all Westerners are like that. You can tell the genuine people from the Famine Tourists. How? The Famine Tourists leave after a week or two and go back to live in the lap of luxury the West affords, no doubt convinced they're compassionate people who really care. The genuine ones stay and live and are generally too busy really doing things to feel morally superior. They also tend to treat the people they're living with as real human beings, not children or noble savages or any of that other repugnant crap.
Posted by: Paul at January 31, 2003 at 01:28 AMThat's how I figured it. That reminds me of one of P.J. O'Rourke's stories about being in TheFormerYugoslavia somwhere (maybe before it was TheFormer) about a similar breed, the people who go live in a war-torn country because they are jaded and bored at home.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 31, 2003 at 01:50 AMThis may sound a bit strange Andrea, but I'd like to thank you for that stunning smack-down of ol' Karen. She hasn't bothered me personally, of course, because I don't blog, but her little bit of tripe has darkened the doorstep of several blogs I read. She casts aspersions on a whole country, yet can't deal with the blowback she gets for it. Fuck her. If I wrote some disjointed rant about how much I hate, for example, France, I'd expect a lot of "les Francais" to respond, and probably not in a very kind manner. Add to this the fact that Karen's post-coital-drip-like "essay" makes accusations that are totally baseless, and it makes it an even easier target for abuse. Once again, just in case anyone missed the point: a big "thank you" to Andrea and a hearty "go fuck yourself with a chainsaw" to Karen.
Posted by: Xenophon at January 31, 2003 at 02:45 AMHardly fair to call her a troll, I think. You all went out of your way to read her stupid post in the first place, presumably in order to be offended by it.
As for that WebDiary thing, if you want to call that a 'professional publication', well it's not much of either. Ask Tim Blair.
And yeah, we never hear American bloggers disparaging the French :-)
Re: Anthony
LOL about American bloggers and the French: that's why I used them as an example; it's not to hard to imagine. As far as going out of our way to read her post to get offended...Karen did likewise with Tex and Andrea. This Webdiary thing sounds more like a newspaper's blog than anything else, but does it suffer from the tender ministrations of a copy editor, or are the diarists allowed to post any damn thing they want? I agree with you about Karen's troll-status. She left contact info, at least. She's an idiot, but not a troll...I guess she won't turn to stone in daylight, which is too bad.
Posted by: Xenophon at January 31, 2003 at 03:52 AMI'm just as sick and tired of the parade of graduates of Sheryl Crow's school of Geopolitical Thought. They lack the realism, the responsibility, and the maturity to ever consider approving of actions, any actions, in the real world. Actions which inevitably come with both plusses and minusses, and which have to be weighed against other options and the option of not doing anything at all. Often those options involve very substantial amounts of "minusses", occasionally involving harm or death to others, but nearly always the best option is still not a perfect option. These people are so intellectually and morally stunted that they cannot actively live in any reasonable world. They pretend they live in a world where diplomacy, talk, and "peace" solves all problems. They live in a world where you can have no enemies by .... deciding not to have enemies. These people honestly and truly believe this crap, and they apparently never see how inane it is. They are as disconnected from reality and the real problems of an imperfect world and its legion imperfect citizens as an aristocrat who is not capable of understanding even the possibility that the people could be short of food. "Let them have no enemies!" is as equally vacuous and detached from reality as is "let them eat cake!"
Posted by: Robin Goodfellow at January 31, 2003 at 04:31 AMIf there's a copy editor, I guess it's Margo Kingston. I think her plan is to publish a variety of opinions to get a lively debate going. In itself that's probably not a bad thing, however I find it crashingly dull. Maybe people read it, but I've never met one.
I still think it's funny that you all took the time to get annoyed by an ill-considered post in an obscure forum by someone of no importance from a fractured and irrelevant minority party in a distant country, especially since you all know that Australia will just end up doing exactly what the US tells us anyway. I think the real culprit is Tex for putting up a rather lame and pointlessly offensive fisk of the thing in the first place.
Ahh, nothing like a nice bracing cup o' rant in the morning. I am now refreshed and ready to face the day.
Anthony - you're probably right about the overall lack of impact of Miss Thang, but I'm thinking her drivel was more along the lines of "final straw" than important in its own right.
Regardless, it's still fun to read. And to rant about. Whee! But then, I'm a little odd.
Posted by: Tracey at January 31, 2003 at 08:21 AMAnthony: point one -- I never called Ms. Jackson a troll. If you have a problem with someone who called her that, take it up with them off my blog. Point two -- you are skirting close to telling me what to blog about; if you don't like what I have to say or my choice of subjects, then don't read my blog. Here's a helpful link. I'm sure you'll find blogs that are more to your liking eventually.
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 31, 2003 at 09:25 AMFor anyone who wants to see the particular barrel this fish is in.
www.karenjackson.org/images/various.html
Posted by: Tom at January 31, 2003 at 11:54 AMi agree with Anthony in that this idiot is just another idiot (from what i've read of her)(and if that is what he meant). but ranting about it when the comments came to this area of the blogworld seems fairly justified. if you don't want to be ranted about, stay in your own playpen; expect the criticism but ignore it.
wow. this "being told what is worthy of blogging about and what is not" thing hit the fan this week, hm? (reader of ain't too proud and aurophile myself)
hey, i posted about a squirrel today! please hit my lj and tell me that it was gratitous! please! roll
Posted by: chris at January 31, 2003 at 12:11 PMAndrea, fair enough, but I rather like your blog. It's got all the tasty LOTR which can't be beat!
My point is that, far from being "one of the Australian media's pet leftists" (and you did say that), Karen Jackson falls squarely in the "who?" category. That, and she's a rather soft target, being an obvious nudie nutjob.
As for telling you what to blog about, I was unaware I had that power. I'll use it wisely.