Here Is The Enemy

February 24, 2005 11:00 AM

Discover The Network. I thought it was a joke, but it's not. I really enjoyed the intermingling of politicians/celebrities/academics with "known terrorists", "despots" and "bad people." And they use Touchgraphs in their network analysis, good web apps at work! [via]
posted by gsb (27 comments total)

Gawd, what a bunch of fear-mongering and smearing in order to undermine anyone who disagrees with Bush & Co. It doesn't even seem original anymore - it's so 2004.
posted by deliquescent at 11:07 AM on February 24, 2005

Come on...they're not even trying anymore.
posted by odinsdream at 11:09 AM on February 24, 2005

Hey, they forgot the "Breathes Air" network!
posted by malaprohibita at 11:17 AM on February 24, 2005

This is awesome. Its intelligence is rivaled only by its ambition and scope. The grasp of history is stupendous. I liked this line from the end of the section on Martin Sheen:

Sheen’s real name is Ramon Estevez; his father, Francisco Estevez, was a Spaniard who resided for a number of years in Cuba before settling in the U.S.

I don't know the dates, but I would suspect that despite what the site is trying to imply (Cuba=communist), that Francisco Estevez lived there during the bad old days when liberal in Cuba meant an American gangster.
posted by OmieWise at 11:26 AM on February 24, 2005

Good lord, Carol Gilligan is on there. How dare she do empirical research!

Barbara Schultz has an interesting entry that contains:

HRF decries the fact that the detainees will be tried by military tribunals, without civilian judicial review. (President Bush correctly demonstrated the need for such tribunals in his executive order of November 13, 2001; Bush recognized, as HRF chose not to, that the murder of 3,000 people on American soil constituted an act of war and issued his order accordingly.)

Ah, thanks! I didn't realize the need was correctly demonstrated...

The stretched and skewed photos are a nice touch. And it was nice of them to distinguish between civil liberties and civil rights.
posted by ontic at 11:35 AM on February 24, 2005

Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
David Horowitz
posted by OmieWise at 11:38 AM on February 24, 2005

I would imagine that anyone called anti-slavery (abolitionists) in the 1860s would have a category on this list too.
posted by Postroad at 11:44 AM on February 24, 2005

They missed some members of "the network." I don't see Skeletor there, for example.

It's the height of irony that Horowitz considers bin Laden and other Saudis part of "the network" of the left, when, in actuality, they have documented ties to the Bush family. Why do the facts hate America?
posted by thirdparty at 11:45 AM on February 24, 2005

Where is the fat little Dixie Chick?
posted by Armen Tanzarian at 11:57 AM on February 24, 2005

They missed some members of "the network." I don't see Skeletor there, for example.

That's funny. Plus everyone knows that Skeletor has business ties to Prince Adam.
posted by deliquescent at 12:03 PM on February 24, 2005

Under "ANTI-PATRIOT ACT" they forgot "Everyone who isn't a cowardly shit selling out their own liberties for a fraudulent facade of security."
posted by sonofsamiam at 12:09 PM on February 24, 2005

What thirdparty said.

It would be a nice informational tool if the connections they didn't like were in there too.

It does seem to be of interest as a high tech method of autogenerating propaganda, using the latest tools to lend the appearance of credibility to whatever the hell you want.

This is way more advanced than downloading a google search results page and changing the text and putting it on your server and confusing people into using your "search google"form that will return your adulterated page.
posted by 31d1 at 12:10 PM on February 24, 2005

Hmmm... John Podesta:

• President and CEO of the Shadow Party’s main think tank and spin machine, the Center for American Progress (CAP).
  
• Former Clinton Chief of Staff.
  
• Former antiwar activist of the New Left. Worked on Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern campaigns.
  
• Met Bill Clinton in 1970 through the antiwar movement.
  

An operative of the Shadow Party. What exactly is that supposed to mean?
posted by gigglesticks at 12:19 PM on February 24, 2005

How do dead people contribute to the "Network?"

Fuck David Horowitz and the copy of Ramparts he rode in on.
He is the scum of the scum of the earth.
posted by rdone at 12:44 PM on February 24, 2005

An operative of the Shadow Party. What exactly is that supposed to mean?

The Shadow Party...by [SURPRISE!!!] David Horowitz.
posted by rooftop secrets at 12:46 PM on February 24, 2005

For more information on the Shadow Party.

A brief summary: the Shadow Party is a leftist, activist, anti-American "juggernaut" secretly running the Democratic party. The strongest and most militant members of this secret juggernaut are college professors, media leftists like Alan Colmes, and powerful foreign politicians like John Kerry. The most frightening thing about the Shadow Party is that its ultimate goal is the downfall of the United States!

Seriously, though, when did right-wing conspiracy fringe nuts become somewhat mainstream?

On preview: rooftop beat me.
posted by crazy finger at 12:50 PM on February 24, 2005

The only legitimate context that I have heard the phrase 'shadow party' in was in reference to methods for circumventing the McCain-Feingold bill during campaign fundraising. But this is not what he's talking about. He's just talking crazy.
posted by rooftop secrets at 12:54 PM on February 24, 2005

Wow. One sentence on Dennis Kucinich's time as mayor of Cleveland (containing no useful details or context whatsoever), but four sentences, an entire paragraph, on a poem Kucinich wrote that the author didn't like.

Yep. Truly this is the best of the web.

[this is not good]
posted by davejay at 1:23 PM on February 24, 2005

Springsteen's entry is pretty great. I had no idea Little Steven was such a Svengali figure. No wonder he does such a great job playing a mobster.
posted by COBRA! at 2:43 PM on February 24, 2005

media leftists like Alan Colmes

I did not know that.
posted by dhartung at 6:54 PM on February 24, 2005

I did not realize that Horowitz was this far gone. Wow.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:27 PM on February 24, 2005

the Shadow Party is a leftist, activist, anti-American "juggernaut" secretly running the Democratic party

This must be using some strange new definition of "juggernaut" of which I was previously unaware. As far as I can see, there's been a distinct lack of unstoppability in the Democratic Party in recent years.
posted by Axaxaxas Mlö at 9:41 PM on February 24, 2005

...activists for leftwing agendas and causes, radical egalitarians, and opponents of American "imperialism."

Is American imperialism a good thing that red-blooded patriots should rally behind?

WTF?
posted by leftcoastbob at 10:07 PM on February 24, 2005

That is some sick propaganda. I hope liberals are catching on, we cannot afford to cede our responsibilities to resist the sleep-walking war-supporters. They are marching toward the precipice. They will not stop of their own accord. They've labelled Muslims a "Culture of Death", but they can't see how Christianity to them is a CULTure of Death as well. That's what happens when you worship the god of Abraham, who happens to be psychotic.
posted by VP_Admin at 11:43 PM on February 24, 2005

Who is David Horowitz? Should I have heard of him?
posted by salmacis at 1:47 AM on February 25, 2005

Horowitz is an interesting character. Ex-marxist, used to hang out with the Black Panthers, then things went Pear shaped and he turned his back on the Shadow Party.
posted by gsb at 5:22 AM on February 25, 2005

Is this the same David Horowitz who did that cheesy "Fight Back!" product-claim-testing show in the 80's? I've skimmed both biographs, but still I'm not sure...
posted by BigLankyBastard at 9:19 AM on February 25, 2005