Republicans believe the elimination of the commons will make Americans free in ways they aren’t today. We will soar once we are freed from the chains of public education, crossable bridges and drivable roads, from the curse of clean air and clean, drinkable water, from the prison-house of effective disease control and safe pharmaceuticals.

A variety of links to articles/interviews/speeches/videos on current issues that may be of interest.

When an official Chinese web site can with a straight face call the Dalai Lama a Nazi, it’s easy to see that American Gullibility, as celebrated in Melville’s The Confidence Man, for instance, is no longer ours alone.

Believing that President Obama is a Muslim is no different than believing the Dalai Lama is Albert Speer in a shemdap, although it must be pointed out that the demonization of Islam implicit in the former is itself depraved and ignorant.

The word public, as in public schools or public option, has become a dirty word in, uh, public life. The question is, can a nation survive once it has abandoned not just moral notions of the public good but the positive notion that there is a public?

The War on Thinking is fought on many fronts by a diverse army of selfish elites and bitter, know-nothing Palinites. The entire American advertising industry and the mediasphere it paid for are implicated. Thoughtful people don’t buy pet rocks, a perfect symbol of American consumer products.