You mean teachers aren't part of a demonic cabal that exists solely to indoctrinate children into whatever their parents are against, no matter what it is (demons are flexible that way)? Everyone knows they, along with Hollywood (Hollyweird to those in the know) and the Internet, are dedicated to undermining western civilization by teaching kids things they don't need to know, by exposing them to ideas that will allow them to build a better society than the one they inherited.
That's just wrong. Isn't it?
I wonder if the reaction against immunizations is nature's way of culling over-population, as the diseases do in the first place?
And thanks for the mention of the naval document: my last father-in-law was a chief gunner's mate in the Pacific and I'll have to look up a copy of this in his memory.
If you were writing fiction on this topic, the name Dempster Leech would be rejected as too Dickensian, too apt. But, barring a pseudonym, there is such a person.
Great story.
# 4the derailment of the economy was just a tactic to help with the next elections?
I wouldn't put any money on that but taking advantage of the opportunity provided by the disruption? Absolutely. Unless you mean a systematic effort to pump money into the top tiers and force everyone else down, but that's nothing new.
Imagine: there are some people out there agonizing over the prospect of an Obama presidency and a possible return of the Clinton years. All that peace and widely distributed prosperity . . . the horror.
One more thing: I heard on the radio this AM that in Michigan (perhaps other places as well), party operatives are culling foreclosure victims from the voter rolls, based on their now-invalid addresses. I leave it to the reader to guess with party a. stands to gain from removing these folks from the rolls and b. which party would even consider this as a legitimate reason for it.
So if you know someone who has recently changed residences, voluntarily or otherwise, remind them to check that they are still listed as eligible to vote.
Debra #39, why isn't it obvious? All rural dwellers are the true elites, in tune with Arcadia, living by the sweat of their brow which they mop with homespun kerchiefs clutched in their callused hands, all while breathing the pure air of freedom . . . .
There is a bit of dogwhistle politics there, with a leavening of nostalgia for a fictional past (do they not teach american history up to the dust bowl years anymore?). Rural/small town can be interpreted as conservative, white, devoid of bookstores, more than one movie theater (blockbusters only, please), and more churches than restaurants, especially furrin ones.
So per Wesley's comment, we're on our way to being to live our lives in our own personal bubble, where we filter out the stuff we don't like, and greedily guzzle the garbage that reinforces our worldview.
As in the movie theater example where a patron shares her received "knowledge" of Obama, by taking down her defenses with the people she gets email from, she is opting in to the lies. She doesn't even know it, but because it comes from someone she trusts or appears on a website, it has some credibility. Or perhaps she always loves gossipy stuff.
There is some daylight as even Faux News has turned on McThuselah's spokeshole more than once, but I suspect that just means Rupert has his thumb on the scale.
As Josh Marshall has pointed out, the hard right doesn't really care if these shenanigans break up the country, so long as they end up with the biggest chunk. They don't want to live in a country with liberty and justice for all if all includes women's libbers, blacks who think the rules apply to them, uncloseted gays or people of any color that isn't indisputably white. No wonder their VP pick is a secessionist from a very white state.
Why does John McCain hate America?
@18, this is the same guy who couldn't name the ten commandments on live TV. And the sheep line up to be sheared once more . . .
This is part of the overarching narrative of the "rugged individual" who doesn't need a community: during her reign, Mrs Thatcher said "A man riding a bus (to work) at age 26 may count himself a failure." As if London, New York, or Tokyo would be the dynamic money generators that they are without public transport . . .
I'm not sure what a small-town mayor in a state that would be even more desolate than it is without federal largesse knows about success or failure, or more to the point, accountability.
It baffles me how people don't see that the same goons who want their votes hate them, mostly for having to rely on their votes, but I wouldn't be surprised if they also hated them for being so ignorant and easily led. This is beyond "voting against your own economic self-interest." This is voting against your birthright, your cultural heritage, what makes America what it is.
Geoffrey Kidd @6, where did you find that? That's not a quote of the day, it's the quote of the century.
I read "Then he shot Trooper Phillips, as the brave officer attempted to run away" and immediately inserted the phrase "in the back" after "he shot."
As noted above, there are no words. if you can stomach it, hie yourself over to the newspaper that is willing to print his crap to see brave Vinnie's warlike mien. If it were up to me, I'd make him visit Colebrook and listen to the people who still live there. Not talk, just listen.
This -- LONDON (AFP) -- is all I needed to see. I worked at a Large Media Company and can remember a couple of questionable wire stories from AFP that put their stuff at the back of the queue: reputable (at the time anyway) agencies like AP or Reuters material could be used unverified, but AFP material had been found to be fact-deficient too many times.
"Beer is proof that god loves us and wants us to be happy."
If you haven't watched The Beer Hunter with the Real Michael Jackson, by all means do: beer is so much more thanjust a breakfast fooda cheap way for kids to get smashed. It exists in most cultures, in one form or another, and many of the styles we enjoy today came out of necessity (IPA used the preservative properties of hops to keep the stuff good on its was to the Subcontinent, for example). Mmmmm, beer . . .
bah, if the Geneva Conventions are "quaint" what does that make this much older document, an amendment to what has been called "just a piece of paper" by the person whose undertook a charge to uphold it?
I wonder if things have to get worse -- much worse -- before they get better, before the dead-enders who believe in kings and other divinities understand what the farmers and tradesmen of 232 years ago understood.
@131: Thanks for posting that. I had forgotten it. What a priceless way to be remembered . . .
@135: I suspected Japan's flag had not changed in any great degree. The loyalty of friendship is too precious to be trivialized, but I think it would be wise to consider who we call friends. I think friendship confers a sense of commonality of thought and values that Perlstein and Buckley cannot really have shared. If I had a friend whose reputation was tarnished with these ideas, assuming he no longer adhered to them, I would urge him to repudiate them and if he did not, I would have to wonder which he valued more, the friendship of people who really knew him or a reputation that was built on hatred and demagoguery.
I was puzzled/amused when he decided to learn a musical instrument in his later years. It's a great idea for anyone who is a lover of music, as most educated people are. And I can see how many people would take up the piano or perhaps the violin or the cello. Buckley chose the harpsichord, an instrument as obsolete as his ideas, or so it struck me at the time.
How does it go again? To stand athwart history, shouting STOP? That about sums it up.
cajun@104, I apologize for coming down like a ton of bricks on you there. the treason in defense of slavery crowd get my back up very quickly. You're plainly not of that stripe.
If you really want to get into this, drop into "the edge of the american west" which is written by a couple of young history profs who cover the history of the civil war/war of northern aggression/late unpleasantness pretty regularly. It's hard to refute that slavery was a key issue for the confederacy if it was specifically mentioned in its constitution. But I don't want to lecture: you can find what you need in various places.
On to the topic at hand, was Buckley sincere in his recantations? I don't know that he was all that vocal about them. And the kind of mind that can commit such offenses in print -- to claim that humans are divided into upper and lower classes, based on genetics -- has a lot of atoning to do. Of his 1400+ TV broadcasts, up until 1999, did he spend anytime refuting these ideas and challenging those who still hold them, even if they did so under his leadership?
#26: so long as you see "the cause" as treason in defense of slavery, we're on the same page. moving away from the south has allowed me to see that much more clearly. now when I see a rebel flag on a truck or cap, I wonder how a german WWII-era flag would look in Paris or London or a Japanese imperial navy flag in the philippines or china.
He comes across as the type who would never stint you another glass of his best port but would lash the slaves all the harder in the morning to keep the cellar filled with more of it. People who knew him praise his grace and wit, but he never showed that side to the people his ideas were harming. Which I guess is another way of saying he never sought to understand the problems of the day, as to learn from them might make him change his mind.
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| 2007 | 9 |
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