Thursday, December 17, 2009

AH, yes, this is the alleged free-market China — and the "national security and social stability" buzzwords — that the right wing so dearly loves. And just think, we've sold our soul (and our debt) to these guys.

Addendum ...

IN case you asked, I agree with Ron Reagan, although I would use plainer language: Lieberman is a lying, thieving scumbag. He is the best representative yet of the reality that we have the best Congress money can buy.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

IT'S interesting how the NYT's conservative pundit, David Brooks, sheds light on why hard-core right-wing populist Republicans so hate Barack Obama. Simply put, Obama isn't totalitarian enough.

Saturday, December 12, 2009

AN interesting post at The League of Ordinary Gentlemen about "conservatives as self-parodies." [Thanks, Andrew.]

Addendum ...

WELL, what do you know? The Norwegian press liked Obama's Nobel speech.

Quoting ...

FROM a speech given by Robert F. Kennedy at the University of Kansas on March 18, 1968:

Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product — if we judge the United States of America by that — that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts ... the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

THERE has been some notice lately of a commentary written by then-Vice President Henry Wallace at the request of the New York Times. The subject was American fascism and the essay was published in April 1944. A quotation:

The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity, every crack in the common front against fascism. They use every opportunity to impugn democracy. They use isolationism as a slogan to conceal their own selfish imperialism. They cultivate hate and distrust of both Britain and Russia. They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection.