Yep. Spam.
Patrick: Are you familiar with the work of Daniel Lazare? Specifically _America's Undeclared War_? Although _Frozen Republic_ is worth a look too. But, if you're not familar with it, _America's Undeclared War_ is dedicated to the premise that the US, from its inception is designed to be deeply hostile toward cities. Lazare is more than a bit of a bomb thrower, but I've found him very persuasive.
Just off on the side, I've been nursing for the last couple of weeks a new, half baked pet theory that the next big (and arguably the current big) cultural/polical split is going to be urban/urban values versus rural/suburban values. (I grew up in a town smaller than most ostensably rural people's highschool, but have determinedly chosen to live in several of the biggest cities in the country, so you can figure where I come down on that).
Basically, I'm tempted to start arguing that the central observation of what I'm going to call, in pathetic bid to get flamed to a crisp "urban polical thought" is driven by the knowledge that "We are all in this together" isn't in anyway an uplifting slogan; its just a observation about the nature of the universe, where as much of what I'm tempted to call rural/suburban thinking is driven by (what I judge to be) the delusion that you can choose who gets to be in your society. (again. Strong disclaimer: Half baked. Haven't fully thought it through. May be utterly indefensible.)
Lucy Kemnitzer: hey. Its you. Cool.
If there is still one available, I would't mind having one.
Mris: I think you've come close to hitting the problem on the head. One of the things I've noticed about a lot of the protest-as-primary-political activity crowd is that they are caught up in the romance of it all. Its not fun, exactly, but its terribly noble and all, and they are going to go out and get beat down by the establishment just like in 68, and won't that be a story to tell, about how they fought the good fight against an overwhelming force.
That internal narative tends to limit their ablity to interact with questions of purpose, which is a necessary first step in contempating tactics. They know protesting is good, therefore it must be able to have good effects, therefore if it does not have good effects it must be because the establishment is supressing our message, therefore we must make even more noise and show even more contempt for the establishment.
Me. Not in the "It has to be my way, or I'm going to stamp my feet and take my ball and go home" way of a Nader supporter, and I wouldn't have felt the world was out to get me and mine had it become evident that the bulk of the party felt someone else was a the person for the job, so that my not count.
John-Paul Spiro: http://everythingisruined.typepad.com.
Jon: You realize, of course, that Nader (Certainly in public, and probably in his own mind) will only point to such donations as evidence in support of his bizzare contention that he will draw heavily from dis-affected Republican voters.
Strangly enough, the thing that makes me really wish I'd seen Clarke's testimony was Jon Stewart opening The Daily Show tonight. Stewart... the only word for it is _gushed_. I kept waiting for the bit to kick in, before I finally relized that he was engaging in no-shit unremitting praise. It was remarkable.
Seriously, Patrick, you're missing out. Watch the Daily Show.
Mike Kozlowski: CCCP stands for Сою́з Сове́тских Социалисти́ческих Респу́блик. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (upon preview, it seems that the block of cryllic text I expropriated from wikipedia may not show up correctly. If this is the case, I apologize.
Doug Muir: Why do you think that that selling a t-shirt with CCCP on it is *not* going to encourage and then prey upon this apparently hip disengagement?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2004 | 12 |
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