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Consider the "tea party" phenomenon. Though authentic and laudatory, it is unfocused, lacking the connection to a concrete ideology that characterized the tax revolt of the 1970s, which was joined at the hip with insurgent supply-side economics.
Are the teabaggers both authentic and laudatory? Probably, as this doesn’t mean anything. Many confused people are genuinely pissed off about things that hopelessly muddle them… Well, congratulations. Whatever "insurgent supply-side economics" were, though, I’m sure I’m relieved not to be hanging my hat on that as far as intellectual repute goes. Neither am I buying this, especially:
About the only recent successful title that harkens back to the older intellectual style is Jonah Goldberg’s "Liberal Fascism," which argues that modern liberalism has much more in common with European fascism than conservatism has ever had. But because it deployed the incendiary f-word, the book was perceived as a mood-of-the-moment populist work, even though I predict that it will have a long shelf life as a serious work. Had Goldberg called the book "Aspects of Illiberal Policymaking: 1914 to the Present," it might have been received differently by its critics. And sold about 200 copies.
Right, Jonah Goldberg is gonna bring back the baraiiiiiins…Glad that’s not my "intellectual movement."Also, we learn that Glenn Beck is into Hegel, or something. There is no more cherished delusion of the American Right that they have an Intellectual Pedigree. Or, shorter Greater Wingnuttia:Brrrrraiiiiiinnnnns.
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sathersday nite!!!
Sathersday!
Having been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (funny!), I think that digging up and burning dead conservatives might be a good idea.
Thersaturday Night Live!
When Jonah Goldberg is your standard bearer for intellectualism, it is more than a safe bet that your movement is more than brain dead.
SaThersday!
What “older intellectual style” could the Pantload possibly hearken back to? Australopithecus garhi?
Evening all…
Ardipithecus ramidus. A whopping cranial capacity of 300-350 ccs.
When I read that Ahmadinejad said today that Barack Obama “made a big and historic mistake,” I thought he knew something about Obama’s plans for screwing over the American people on health care reform that we don’t.
Turns out the “big and historic mistake” that Ahmadinejad was talking about really isn’t that big or historic, and it probably wasn’t a mistake either…
dood — the stuff you think of to write about… bet you gave your mother gray before her time hairs
Thersaday, The Doc’s, and Suz!!!
ZOMBIE!
And brainnnnnzzzzzzz, too. You betcha. Also.
Jonah shoulda stayed in the whale, we’d ALL be better off.
Alas.
No worries. Ahmadinejad was just exercising the only real power he has: to make obviously silly statements at will.
She’s still confused…
The only way to separate a conservative from it’s brain is for said conservative to lose it’s ass.
Jonah ate the whale…
the zombies
That is not actually a brain, but rather a disorganized neural ganglia. It is why conservatism is so hard to kill.
dazed even
AEI on the WaPo OpEd page is only second today: the Discovery Institute got a slot on the NYT OpEd page: Nobody Likes Us? Who Cares?
I pay for that crap.
The totality of U.S./Iran policy is predicated on mistakes. I highly recommend the following article by Juan Cole.
The top ten things you didn’t know about Iran
Print is dead. Thank Jeebus.
Quote worth repeating:
Sorry, I’m a ‘Canes fan, it’s a nailbiter…
tax revolt of the 1970s, which was joined at the hip with insurgent supply-side economics.
Perhaps they meant “incipient” in the sense that Prop 13 (at end of the 70s) was followed by the after-thought of supply-side economics. But “insurgent” is much more studly and macho and tea-baggy, so who knows.
For these frauds, anything that they wish to be connected is “joined at the hip” (coincidentally, see Liberal Fascism)
Those were the days, my friend.
“Of course we will have fascism in America but we will call it Democracy.”
-Huey Long
why anyone would want to support hurricanes is totally beyond me. why hurricanes do terrible things to those poor folk. think of the fishes in those storm churned waters….
(light bulb)
oh… those hurricaines… nevermind
MY ‘CANES!
Maybe they meant insane.
I think Juan’s long article on Iran is great. Also, Immanuel Wallerstein this week on Iran and the US is interesting
hurricaines? what you get when the smugglers’ boats capsize..?
I think they were refering to the incipient psychotic fugue state known as the Reagan administration.
Won’t make a whit of difference, unfortunately, deception and denial playing such large roles in U.S. policy making.
i thought those were long island iced teas
Doughy has fungus for brains.
I left the United States on Sept 25, 2001 and returned on Nov 7, 2002. When I got back, I was amazed at how much the country seemed to have changed. Part of the reason, I suppose, is that we were being pushed into an ill-advised invasion of another country and it was NOT ok to question our leaders. Even the media were beating the drums. “With us, or against us” was something of a reality, even though it was a bit too much for any of them to say out loud (Bush’s words just rang in everyone’s ears). It wasn’t until around the end of 2005 or even in 2006, when it was becoming ok to say that the US probably lied our way into an illegal war of choice – to say publicly what so many were thinking and knew to be true -, that I started to recognize my country again.
Now yer talkin’, aka “the quicker picker-upper.”
This nature film explains much.
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/dugong/
As Gramsci noted, control of information flow and discourse is at the heart of elite domination.
Lots of folks questioned the rush to war, it just didn’t get talked about by Big Media.
my education has suffered as my girls grew up
Gawd, I saw a Reagan bumper sticker today on the car in front of me. Something like “Reagan was Right!” On the other side of the bumper was a pro-life sticker. I wanted to lose control of the brake and just ram that car ever so slightly….but I didn’t.
Clearly they just ran out of space on that sticker. It was supposed to say, “Reagan Was Right…of Torquemada!”
Zombie Reagan has eaten all the conservatives brains. They really weren’t that stupid before him (just as evil and malevolent, but not as stupid).
Took awhile to figure out how best to accomplish it in a comparatively free society but that control has now been nearly perfected by the ruling class. Much of it has to do with keeping the populace ignorant and easily distracted by shiny objects.
That or “Reagan Was Right…over the Edge!”
Media consolidation.
See, that’s what insurance is for…
Well, Clinton moved the ball forward by deciding that the Ds would be better off with corp contributions.
Disguised as laissez-ass capitalism.
That started well before Clinton in the late 1970s when the Dem strategists were trying to figure out how to overcome the GOP fund raising advantage.
Speaking of “The Edge,” Javaris James turned in a stellar performance tonight.
Politicians who questioned it were painted as foolish, naive, and WEAK, and many of them were bullied into voting for the Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of United States Armed Forces Against Iraq. The Resolution passed the House by a vote of 296 to 133 (about 80 of the 200 Democrats voted in favor) and passed the Senate by a vote of 77 to 23 (with 29 of the 50 Democrats voting in favor).
That was Oct 2002. From then on, it was a steady march to war. I remember being careful not to say what I really thought unless I knew the people I was speaking to very well. If I didn’t know well every person in a room when I spoke, I felt like I had to be very careful about saying what I really thought.
I’ve learned a lot from weebl myself…
Which polished off the brief period between election cycles when pols occasionally attempted to accomplish something for the voters.
Laissez-faire has always stood for overt theft by the rich and powerful.
I know they are reputed to wobbl.
IMO, you can’t criticize the Rs for doing what the Rs normally do. Of course, they’ve gone OTT, but whose fault is that? I put the whole responsibility on the Ds, who not only didn’t play the normal role as opposition party, but joined their former opponents, against the voter. It’s the Ds who are the problem, not the Rs.
weebles wobble but they don’t fall down
Clinton perfected it. The consummate whore.
Sounds so much nicer than larceny.
You betcha.
Thanks, I’ll have a (virgin) Long Island Iced-Tea. “g”
Won’t argue with that. He really was a moderate Republican in most regards.
I believe “deregulate” is the more recent euphemism.
Yep. Translates as “legalize the the ability of the rich and powerful to steal whatever they want without interference.”
Much like the current president.
i thought LIIT was the anti-virgin
You on Long Island? I grew up in Babylon, LI. Visited twice this past summer.
Why do you pay for that crap?
Or, perhaps worse than a moderate R. Where is selise when we need her?
Under Clinton, Glass-Steagall was abolished. I was on Wall St. at the time, and I wondered what might happen as a result. I was a chemistry major as an undergraduate and subsequently switched to economics. The death of Glass-Steagall was like a controlled experiment, and guess what?
Then there was the Madeleine Albright foreign policy: what’s the point of having a military if you don’t use it, and it was worth 500,000 Iraqi children’s deaths to contain Saddam Hussein.
Yep, a real moderate.
I fear that you are correct. The evidence is certainly pointing that way.
Yep, remove the alcohol and you’re left with an empty glass. Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.
What to do when Zombies attack
kidneeeeeeeys!
By the standards of today’s Republicans, that is still moderate.
Not unless you are referring to a long, land-locked (unless you count Lake Michigan), island in the Midwest.
And the vegan zombies:
FAVVVVAAAA BEEEEAAAANSSSS
I’m a level 5 vegan, won’t eat anything that casts a shadow.
Here’s my own review of Michael Moore’s new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story, if anyone’s interested.
I think I was reacting to the notion of “Liberal Fascism” by recalling all the Fascist Fascism of the neo-cons and their methods in our recent history.
Clinton was a major proponent of the rachette. Keep moving right.
I have an acquaintance who is is lawyer for several large unions. He argues that the U.S. is a righty society (easy way to explain unions’ defeats). I counterargue that it isn’t, as documented in polls, which turn out progressive despite overwhelming propaganda to to contrary. He can’t explain unions’ failures in that light. I can. Unions, the ONLY hope for ordinary folks, are corrupt. I soooo wish it weren’t so.
What does that mean, ratfood?
One of the strangest assertions of the Fascist neo-cons was the bs about Bin Laden being the leader of Islamo-Fascism.
Very wise. Though shadows are high-carb.
The unions got seriously coopted during the 50s and early 60s when the corporations were still sharing some of the wealth with the workers who actually produce economic value and when union leadership was wooed by the powerful. Even before that there was the widespread (though not universal) problem of mafia infiltration.
ADDED: An even bigger problem for the unions has been to outsourcing of manufacturing jobs which was their greatest strength. The Reaganite union busting and weakening of labor laws also undercut them.
Means I’m not above making rather dated references to episodes of The Simpsons. Alas, I learned everything I know from watching cartoons.
Like Costner, in Waterworld? *G*
KNEW you’d got there . . *G* A great tune, and band. Argent, ya know . . .
They look pretty lean…
Heading out, splendid evening to all.
Better than watching Fox News.
g’nite rat and all other leaving sleepyheads
Night, rf. Think I will toddle off as well. Take care all.
Gots to coach soccer for the kid in the early AM. Niters, my friends, and Suz rawks
I agree with all you say. The workers, and derivative of them, the unions. are under the most severe pressure and temptation imaginable. Not surprising that they don’t succeed. Sad and disappointing, nonetheless.
I’m out too. Nighters.
g’nite thers and thanks (blushing)
Well played, Rat, and nicely struck! *G*
Or maybe cauliflower; the zombies won’t notice the difference, because cauliflower looks like brains to them.
ohhhhh we could cover the cauliflower with garlic sauce and take out the vampires at the same time
Add some tomatoes for color. Make them think it’s blood.
(Things you pick up from reading. Even if it’s fiction.)
add in some linguine ….
Add in some SMART (cunning) linguine and you’d draw the perv crowd if you know what I mean and I think you do.
I’ve been youtubing Cranberries, for a couple of hours now . . . god I love that Dolores O’Riordan. And Her Music.
Srsly, talk about intense, deep and multi meaning songs. Sigh. Even my new hip is old school anymore.
But for you folks out there, just run the youtube table on Cranberries.
And google their To The Faithful Departed cd, and then youtube each and every song.
Damn, and Zombie, and How, too . . . ok, back to yer regular Puppy Channel. ;-)
i was going in the nice chianti and fava bean direction. (laughing) smart is a whole nutter thang
‘K, lemme help on that Cranberries list:
Forever Yellow Skies
I’m Still Remembering
Bosnia
I Just Shot John Lennon
Zombies
How
Will You Remember
Nothing Left At All
And every other youtube of theirs. *G*
Here’s a hoist of Merlot to Dolores O’Riordan, bless her voice and soul.
Harumph!
It’s all about the slurpin . . .
And now, I’ll mind my manners and leave the perv stuff to others . . . ;-)
It IS late night, ain’t it . . ????
Damned Merlot, almost aphro like . . . ;-)
welcome “knoxville” … i felt the same way .. didja know John Duncan [R-TN] was the only R in the house to vote against the AUMF ??
[i’m postin’ from old weisgarber m’self … :)]
You’re responding to my comments @ 35 and 52, right?
I wasn’t trying to say that there weren’t people who spoke out and spoke loudly. There were. The problem was that the right very successfully framed the debates so as to marginalize those people who spoke out and spoke loudly. The divide between PATRIOTIC and UNPATRIOTIC reigned, and the majority of people who opposed the invasion and the whole premise that got us into it were easily marginalized as being on the wrong side.
What I wrote @ 35 – it wasn’t until around the end of 2005 or even in 2006 that it was becoming ok to say publicly and almost as a point of fact that the Bush and co probably lied us into an illegal war of choice – was I think what most people who opposed Bush were feeling.
It was best reflected in the fact that no respectable journalist was comfortable enough to say openly that the invasion was misguided or that it was a war of choice – one that would have been better not to have started – until, well, around the end of 2005 or even in 2006, i.e. not even when it was becoming obvious that there were no WMD was it entirely ok for most Americans to say it, but only well after it was obvious that the war was going badly.
Why do human beings still judge the rightness of a cause in relation to the success of those who implement the strategy to achieve the goals of that cause? Had Rumsfeld been at all competent and had the invasion been more successful, would the whole thing have been any more right or worth all the costs?
No.