Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, September 24, 2010

Markos on The American Taliban

By John Ballard



Here's Markos.
You go, guy!





Here's the link to the FP article he mentioned.

On the ninth anniversary of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, applying these labels to right-of-center America may seem provocative and harsh. After all, even the most grotesque Islamophobia in the United States is not guilty of the horrors enacted by the Taliban, in Afghanistan and beyond. More than any other sin, the Taliban tolerated Osama bin Laden, defended his right to stay among them, and refused to hand him over after he boastfully acknowledged his role as the chairman and CEO of al Qaeda's war on America.


But consider the alternative: What if we didn't present the Quran-burners and mosque-attackers as part of a fringe movement of ideologically driven extremists? Then of course, the only other possibility is for us to accept that International Quran Burning Day and the controversy over the Park51 community center both in different ways signify mainstream America's growing discomfort with Islam. Simply put, if the Islamophobia of an American fringe is in fact not on the fringes, but in the mainstream, then the United States has an Islamophobia problem.



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5 comments:

  1. Ron BeasleySeptember 24, 2010 at 9:50 AM

    You know I think I might have been the first on to use the phrase American Taliban way back in 2005.

    ReplyDelete
  2. John BallardSeptember 24, 2010 at 10:54 AM

    I think so. And the trend is getting worse!

    ReplyDelete
  3. hidflectSeptember 24, 2010 at 3:16 PM

    Yeah, it annoys me that this Markos guy is talking like he invented the phrase. But that's why he's a success. He hustles. The fact that his product (punditry) coincides with his political beliefs isn't any reason to assume he's more ethical than any other "self motivated achiever". Every time I find myself shaking my head at the monitor or TV wondering how the hell that fat wierdo Newt Gingrich gets on, I just remember, "He hustles". It's an amoral quality best assisted by an immoral character but not always.

    ReplyDelete
  4. T. GreerSeptember 24, 2010 at 3:40 PM

    Did he just say that Foreign Policy is a "serious" publication?

    ReplyDelete
  5. John BallardSeptember 24, 2010 at 4:25 PM

    Ya'll quit picking on that kid. I like him.

    ReplyDelete

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