The Guardian, the Examiner, and the Weekly

01.09.13 - 3:07 pm | Tim Redmond |

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As you can all imagine, I'm getting calls and emails, so let me clear it up: Yes, San Francisco Newspaper Co. has bought SF Weekly.

Yes, Todd Vogt is the co-owner of the Examiner, Guardian and now Weekly, but for the record, I am the editor and publisher of the Guardian.

No, there are no plans to merge the two weeklies or consolidate them or combine the editorial staffs. We will continue to do our best to be the progressive voice of San Francisco; the Weekly, I assume, will continue to do its own different thing.

And no, this doesn't mean that I'm going to suddenly be BFFs with Joe Eskenazi. We have our view of things; he has his. I fervently believe that we will continue to disagree, and the city will be served by the ongoing debate. (Unless Joe comes to his senses and realizes that I'm always right.)

Comments

har

You mean Suharto?

He was supported by the west a bit but was really his own man when it came to mass murder and whatnot. Just as the Afganistan commies couldn't give a shit what the USSR said.

The conspiracy mind is so interesting.

Posted by matlock on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 5:14 pm

Suharto and Pol Pot both engaged in politicide

Targeting their political opponents for extinction. Pol Pot went further in targeting ethnic Vietnamese in Cambodia, Cambodian Muslims (Chams), Thais and others for extinction, which is genocide. He also killed a FAR greater proportion of his own people than did Suharto. All of that doesn't make Suharto some great guy but compared to Pol Pot he's small potatoes.

Posted by Lucretia Snapples on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 5:38 pm

Suharto not genocidal? *Strongly* disagree.

And the East Timorese people would tell you the same.

Posted by lillipublicans on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 7:18 pm

Funny how the same people who minimize Suharto's crimes

were getting all worked up about Gaddafi not too long ago.

Gaddafi killed hundreds... maybe a few thousand in 42 years of rule. Hardly a blip compared to any US president.

Suharto managed to kill millions.

"Suharto and Pol Pot are in no way comparable"
Actually they're quite comparable. Pol Pot killed 1 to 3 million.
Suharto killed... about 1 to 3 million. I just did a quick search of several sources, and I was surprised to find out how high the number is. I thought it was a "mere" million or so, but when you add up the genocide in East Timor, the massacres of 1965-66, and all the other assorted murders of his long rule, he gives Pol Pot a run for his money.

"what Suharto did wasn't genocide"
As if it really matters to the people being slaughtered! But for the record, as lilli mentioned, the murder of the Timorese was genocide.

Notice, btw, that no one ever defended Pol Pot. And if I may note, Pol Pot's reign of terror only ended when Communist Vietnam invaded and put a stop to it... you know, the folks who defeated the American invaders... who incidentally massacred how many Vietnamese?.... oh, 3 million!

Well how about that? Todays history lesson is brought to you by the number 3 and the letter M.

So just to recap the "moderate" position...
Gaddafi -horrible murderer
Suharto -not so bad
USA -the most awesomest country in the world

If that's "moderation," count me out!

Posted by Greg on Jan. 11, 2013 @ 9:11 am

the Chomsky world view

Greg takes the view that everything in the world can be blamed on the USA somehow.

Gaddafi fought off his own people who were sick of him, some western and Middle East states helped out. If the locals are sick of him whats it to you? Thats the point there.

The Vietnamese could care less about Pol Pot's mass murder and didn't invade because of any selfless motivation to stop mass murder.

Although Suharto was a western client, he did his thing all on his own, he would have done his business with or without the approval of the western states. Kissinger is a scum bag through and through, his and Nixon's antics with the Kurds were horrid. But the supposed green light he gave Suharto is questionable, not that Kissinger new what Suharto was up to or if he did cared either way.

Greg has the same nuance of a far righter who automatically takes the side of any murderous killer as long as they are aligned with the USA.

This is the thing with the Chomsky left, they are like the Bircher right, nothing could happen purely on it's own, there is some secret conspiracy around everything in the world.

How the conspiracy mind works

1. Something could have happened a certain way
2. there is no proof that it didn't happen that way
3. It must have happened that way

Posted by matlock on Jan. 13, 2013 @ 2:04 pm

I call it "Dialectical Matlockianism"

Take the truth -- as explained previously by Greg -- pair it with some absolutely contradictory mendacity... stir well... and deliver a heaping serving to the powers that be.

Posted by lillipublicans on Jan. 13, 2013 @ 2:37 pm

Greg says that the...

... Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and put a stop to the mass murder as if they were doing some altruistic thing.

Not true in the least, they invaded and the mass murder stopped true. Greg seems to be giving them credit for the stopping mass murder as an end, when the motivation was putting in a more friendly government, which Greg applauded in the Vietnamese stopping the Americans from doing.

It's strange the straining that you people will come up with. Lilli seems to think that not passing everything through the conspiracy lens is subservience to the powers that be.

Posted by matlock on Jan. 13, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

I coined the term "matlocky" (basically the same as "malarkey")

to point out that matlock, despite surface appearance, *repeatedly* makes up "facts" -- even to the point of being silly -- and should be given no credibility.

This is what Greg wrote:

"Notice, btw, that no one ever defended Pol Pot. And if I may note, Pol Pot's reign of terror only ended when Communist Vietnam invaded and put a stop to it... you know, the folks who defeated the American invaders... who incidentally massacred how many Vietnamese?.... oh, 3 million!"

So, matlock, after you say something like "Greg says that," or "So, you think" -- or anything remotedly like that! -- the next thing you invariably do is lie.

Posted by lillipublicans on Jan. 13, 2013 @ 7:23 pm

Oh, and you know who else the US supported?

Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.

Oh yeah, you can look that up too. Just type in google something like "did the US support Pol Pot" and you get tons of material. In fact all you have to do is type in "did the US support..." and you immediately get links about all the support we gave to the Khmer Rouge. Pretty sickening stuff.

Why did we do it? Because Vietnam opposed the Khmer Rouge from the start, and it was an "enemy of my enemy is my friend" kind of thing.

Some friends we got there!

And your version of why the Vietnamese finally invaded is also incorrect. You make it sound like a war of aggression -"to install a more friendly government." No, that's America's MO. That's not exactly what happened here. What really happened was that so many refugees were fleeing America's ally Pol Pot, into Vietnam, that it was becoming a strain for the Vietnamese. Pol Pot feared a Vietnamese invasion to topple his government, so he actually launched a preemptive strike. He went in and massacred a border village in Vietnam. Something like 3500 people. *Then* the Vietnamese finally invaded and put a stop to that shit. And America opposed the invasion, for all the wrong reasons.

What the Americans did in Vietnam was completely different. Only an amoral scoundrel would blithely declare that "it's all the same." Vietnam was in no way a threat to the United States. What the US did in Vietnam was a war of aggression, pure and simple.

But to you the two are totally equivalent. It's a variation on your perpetual sophomoric theme that you pawn off as high philosophy.
World renowned scholar Noam Chomsky is equivalent to far right lunatic John Birchers... progressives are equivalent to pro-lifers who shoot abortion providers... and defending your country against a murderous regime spilling bloodshed over the border into your own country, is equivalent to a superpower going across the world to invade and occupy another nation. In the first case, the murder of millions was stopped; in the second, millions were murdered as a *result* of the aggression -oh yes, I can see how you'd think the two are TOTALLY equivalent!

You would, because you have no moral compass.

Behold the twisted morality of matlock! Now it becomes clear exactly what you mean when you peddle this garbage that progressives-are-equivalent-to-right-wingers-it's-all-the-same-except-I'm-the-only-one-who-has-the-real-truth.

What a piece of work you are, matlock!

Posted by Greg on Jan. 13, 2013 @ 9:06 pm

Anarcho-Syndicalism

Look it up, Marcy. There's more to the word "libertarian" than what you heard that one Ron Paul rally that one time.

Posted by Hortencia on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 5:52 pm

For example, you call Wiener

For example, you call Wiener a "moderate" ...

Yeah, I'm sick of that too, because he's a conservative pretending to be a "moderate."

Posted by Guest on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 1:57 pm

Noper, Wiener is a centrist

He just looks right-wing if you are hopelessly left-wing.

Posted by guest on Jan. 10, 2013 @ 2:23 pm

guest in re: [pedantic]

"behavior of those who know they are losing a debate and are looking to deflect and distract."

shut that orifice at once you cortically deficient philistine before I break your fingers and piss in your ears!

Posted by Guest on Jan. 14, 2013 @ 11:13 am

Well, OK, if you put it like that then

how can I refuse?

Posted by Guest on Jan. 14, 2013 @ 11:25 am

What is lost today.

I am saddened by this monopolization of information in an age of exploitation and reduction of the working class or more particularly for SF the "servant class" as rich techies and venture capitalists once again despoil and exploit this cities legacy as a creative and humane source of values.

The Guardian doesn't guard like it used to and now it doesn't even have to really try. The "Game" is now rigged between two players, the so-called "moderate" Chronicle and the so-called "progressives" who are everyone else. Whatever the Chronicle decides IS moderate and is thus the norm and what the other three speak of now defines the left, perhaps now in various degrees of acceptableness.

We are now and have been in a shell game rigged by the rich and powerful. The less fortunate and older generation do not always have access to the blogs or e-newspaper rivals and are expecting the newspapers of their youths to continue to follow the rigid ethics of the Morrows and Cronkites of memory. They will probably not even notice.

This sale is a loss to our collective good but only a minor one for we have lost far more without complaint. I read all the local papers and every time I wonder at the silence they have all become.

Good luck Mr. Redmond. He who sets the agenda decides its result. That agenda is now today a bit smaller and more tightly controlled. Just like me.

Posted by Mike, a cab driver and native of SF on Jan. 15, 2013 @ 2:09 am