LEARN? I rather watch poor people get blown up in my name!

So invigorating. Don’t you think it makes me look tough?

I hope we are all sufficiently recovered from our Saturday night revelries to be able to ignore the troll.

You could have done this much more concisely:

Dear American journalism,

STOP FUCKING SUCKING.

Your friend,
Jillian

Is that Newsweek cover actually for real? Holy shit.

Obama had better drop the pathetic attempts at “bipartisanship” and fast. It’s clear the GOP and the media scum aren’t having any of it.

Well done! Embarrassingly, I have not read a concise definition of socialism recently enough to be able to rattle it off – until now. But the definition I was carrying around in my noggin was pretty accurate.

Newsweek really is a steaming pile, isn’t it? I think you should keep the low-res graphic even if someone finds a better one. It’s fitting, somehow, for a magazine that delivers such a blurred idea of what’s going on.

Good screed. We ought to be more critical of our MSM, considering that if it weren’t for us, they, too, would be smeared with Cheetos dust and blogging in their parents’ basements. It’s time we took them to task for willingly misleading us.

So, yeah, let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane and review what our finest pundits had to say about the Iraq war (remember that?) six years ago.

Damn it, what the fuck? What’s worse is, having identified as “socialist” policies which are centrist at best, their commenters then go on to crack jokes about Soviet Russia AS IF THAT WAS THE SAME THING. Fuck the entire fucking universe, you idiots don’t fucking deserve socialism.

Dear Momma, I’ve been assigned to “Sadly, No”. I’ve heard some stories that I haven’t been able to confirm but I’m scared Momma. Sweet Jesus pray for me Momma!

Yah, the thing is, Newsweek actually knows what socialism is, and why the stimulus program isn’t socialism, and why nothing the Democrats are pushing is socialism.

But it’s more fun to lie, and the Republicans pay so very, very well.

I think what would really benefit American journalism the most would be if someone took every mainstream corporate journo, every corporate editor, every publisher of the major dailies and newsweeklies, the anchors, reporters, and producers on the news channels, put ’em in a rocket, and shot them into the sun.

Just start over from scratch, ’cause what we have no is irredeemably corrupted.

A half-assed stimulus plan, laden with pointless tax cuts, during the most dire economic crisis in decades. Yields this.

No matter what you do, Republicans and the media can always be counted on to bring the stupid. Lesson learned, I hope?

Also, from the article:

Having pumped the economy up with a stimulus, the president will have to cut the growth of entitlement spending by holding down health care and retirement costs and still invest in ways that will produce long-term growth.

Fuck you, you selfish piece of shit.

You don’t suppose the Republicans are worried Obama is going to impose ‘loyalty oaths’ as a condition for receiving government contracts?

Hey Republicans! This isn’t the the Bush administration, Most of your constituency will be eligible for the money too.

“No matter what you do, Republicans and the media can always be counted on to bring the stupid. Lesson learned, I hope?”

It had Goddamned well better be. This is only the beginning. If Obama’s response is more wretched, middle-of-the-road “Gee, fellahs, can’t we all just be friends?” mush, a la the usual DLC Triangulation Rag, then he – and the rest of us – are screwed. Problem is, he’ll deserve it…but we won’t.

Print is Dead!

But it’s more fun to lie, and the Republicans D.G. pays so very, very well.

It’s Donald Graham.

In America, we have many choices: the lefty left liberal media² (owned by a couple of billionaires who inherited their fortunes, Donald Graham and Pinch Sulzberger), and the righty right media (owned by the likes of Rupert Murdoch).

² The lefty left liberal media is actually right wing corporate Republican, while the Rupert Murdoch media is looney right wing corporate Republican. This is known as “diversity”. Enjoy your freedom from choice!

You might want to note this upstairs:

In many ways our economy already resembles a European one. As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.

Thanks for warning me. I have a doctor’s appointment this week and Newsweek is usually on offer in his office. If I picked up that issue it would surely confuse him to discover a patient complaining of an elbow injury projectile vomiting all over his waiting room.

We are all prostitutes

(The first record I ever bought.)

Obama had better drop the pathetic attempts at “bipartisanship” and fast.

Yup. Which is precisely what we should all be trumpeting in the general direction of da prez as well as our Dem senatrons and congressbots. I emailed all of them this morning. Of course, email sent to Pelosi via her link for people who don’t live in her district comes back as undeliverable, so . . . yeah.

Sean Hannity today proved that Barack Obama is a radical revolutionary socialist by pointing out that (10

You wrote a letter to someone you know can’t read? That’s not just useless, it’s mean! Especially since Journalism’s best friends can’t read either. I can’t really see the use of it.
But I shouldn’t say, so I’ll go back to looking at my magazine.

Okay, thanks WP…

…Sean Hannity today proved that Barack Obama is a radical revolutionary socialist by pointing out that

(1) his proposed salary cap on bank officials receiving “extraordinary” government assistance is just the first move in a Saul-Alinsky led model of revolutionary change, and soon all industries will be told by the government what they can pay and how they are to “redistribute the wealth”…

and

(2) Barack Obama used the word “change” all the time, and socialists like Saul Alinsky also used the word “change”, so, you know, you do the maff.

Wow, that cover would be funny if it wasn’t just so damn annoying.

I also hate the way they keep misspelling Newsweak.

Hannity is a class 3 roaming vapor.

Aneurin Bevan, that’s what makes it funny! I mean, this is basically a humorous site. Or maybe I can’t read either. Crap, I wish there was a way to communicate using pictures!

, you idiots don’t fucking deserve socialism

So true. And I bet we won’t even appreciate it when we get it. Awful, ain’t it?

Socialism for the rich!

Capitalism for the poor!

Privatize the profits!

Socialize the costs!

Print is Dead!

Oh, that’s very fascinating to me. I read a lot myself.

Call for the immediate incarceration/execution of all hedge fund managers because they are “enemies of the people”?
Demand that all CEOs be fired so that all companies can be run by democratically elected employee representatives from each sector of a company’s business (bonus points if he calls those representative councils “Soviets”)?
Tell all stockholders that henceforth, unless they actually work for the company they own stock in, all dividends they earn on their stock will be taxed at a 100% tax rate?
Arrest all wealthy Americans who attempt to move their assets to accounts in other countries?
Put those arrested Americans on trial in an overly public venue designed to make them look really, really bad?
Grow a big, bushy black mustache?
Have an inordinate fondness for brass band marches?

Wow, that sounds great, except for the part about mustaches.

Hannity is a class 3 roaming vapor.

He’s an ugly l’il spud, innit he?

I love SAT only questions

Obama : Socialist :: Liberman : Centrist :: Newsweek : Liberal

hint: they’re all to the (choose one: left or right) of the given term.

hint: right

I hate to say it, though, but if you read through the Newsweek essay in question, yes, there are some dumb ideological lines, but it actually is quite sane.

It basically says, “Look, stop playing this anti-government bullsh*t game — modern economies work because of government involvement, the fascination with Reagan’s fake anti-governmentalism is over, and whatever the American people say about ‘government’ being too big or whatever, they want what government provides.”

It’s actually an essay saying ‘stop the hissy fits about the word “socialism” because a lot of what right wing sh*t fitters use that word for is just a normal part of the functioning world.’

Don’t feel so bad, journalism. I can’t read Newsweek.

El Cid, i agree, but we grow tired of Nero and his ceaseless fiddling.

“Obama had better drop the pathetic attempts at “bipartisanship” and fast.”

Because vicious partisan bickering worked out so well for the GOP?

In reality (we are supposed to reality based are we not?) that won’t work. As viscerally satisfying as it would be. We needed those Republican moderates who crossed party lines and voted for Obama’s stimulus. Barak’s calls to the GOP for bipartisanship is the carrot.

The stick will come out later.

Have y’all seen Moyers, Greenwald & Rosen talking about, well, pretty much this very issue? Good stuff.

We needed those Republican moderates who crossed party lines and voted for Obama’s stimulus.

This has not happened.

HA HA HA! The jokes on you! I can too read, I just don’t want to. phtphptphtphptphpt nyaa nyaa nyaa naa naa

Morales enacts new Bolivian constitution

EL ALTO, Bolivia (AFP) — President Evo Morales on Saturday proclaimed the start of “communitarian socialism” in Bolivia as he enacted a new constitution that empowers the country’s indigenous majority and allows him to seek reelection.

Clearly Bolivia is just trying to copy our own Obama-led handover of our own nation to indigenous-led socialism.

Jillian:

Just sent you a larger image of the cover. Has watermarks, however.

And I’m very interested in your seven-bullet-point plan. Except the mustache & marching band parts. I hope B. O. doesn’t decide to grow a face-mullet. And you know it’ll be nothing but hoppity-hooper music anyway.

As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.
I eagerly anticipate my 50th birthday, when I will wake up with a taste for pate du foie gras and an instinctive command of the subjunctive tense.

Jillian:
Uh, no. Couldn’t mail it directly to you, you don’t exist!!

Here’s the link, then.

“Because vicious partisan bickering worked out so well for the GOP?”

I’d say it’s worked pretty well for them overall, yes. They were soundly thrashed in the last election, but not to the humiliating extent that they surely deserved. They’re far from beaten.

They still have the votes of the Pig People, and all they need in order to win next time – or to have the election close enough to steal – is for enough of the “normals” to turn away from the Democrats in disgust…which is exactly what will happen if we get nothing but non-stop bootlicking appeasment from them over the next 4 years.

I hate to have to tell you this, but sitting in an ever-widening pool of one’s own urine, with shit in your pants and snot on your face, wringing your hands and shrieking variations of “Th’ Repbl’cans ‘R Meanies!” and “Oh, I can’t fight back! I simply caaaaaan’tt!!!!” Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo!!!!” isn’t a sure-fire electoral winner. Ask Micahel Dukakis, Al Gore or John Kerry.

And who the fuck said a thing about sinking to the GOP’s current-day psychotic level?

Call for the immediate incarceration/execution of all hedge fund managers because they are “enemies of the people”?
Demand that all CEOs be fired so that all companies can be run by democratically elected employee representatives from each sector of a company’s business (bonus points if he calls those representative councils “Soviets”)?
Tell all stockholders that henceforth, unless they actually work for the company they own stock in, all dividends they earn on their stock will be taxed at a 100% tax rate?
Arrest all wealthy Americans who attempt to move their assets to accounts in other countries?
Put those arrested Americans on trial in an overly public venue designed to make them look really, really bad?

I find your views intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

I’m not on the contact form?

You can always reach me at Jillian1138 at geee!mail

PS neener neener neener

El Cid said,
February 8, 2009 at 21:24

I hate to say it, though, but if you read through the Newsweek essay in question, yes, there are some dumb ideological lines, but it actually is quite sane.

Oh, so then it’s just the screaming cover (which will be seen by exponentially more people than ever read the article) that attempts to gin up fear, prey on ignorance and foment a phony class war?

That’s okay then.

Ugh, Newsweak. What a pile of glossy asswipe.

Don’t forget this recent cover of theirs, either.

I hate to have to tell you this, but sitting in an ever-widening pool of one’s own urine, with shit in your pants and snot on your face, wringing your hands and shrieking variations of “Th’ Repbl’cans ‘R Meanies!” and “Oh, I can’t fight back! I simply caaaaaan’tt!!!!” Boo hoo hoo hoo hoo!!!!” isn’t a sure-fire electoral winner. Ask Micahel Dukakis, Al Gore or John Kerry.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the main problem is that Obama and pretty much everyone else on Capitol Hill with an opinion on Firefox is hamstrung by a local communications paradigm mostly buried in the 1970s. DC, like anywhere else rich, powerful old white men can generally expect free handjobs, is replete with faxes, regulations designed when long-distance meant Wheeling instead of Kabul, and whiny idiots who think any change to that is even worse than Kolyma.

The Democrats are probably going to lose this round, precisely because they are left by default with the terrible, decrepit leadership of Pelosi and Reid. But Obama and his immediate subordinates are masters of electronic observation – once they have the tools they won the election with back in their hands, they’re not going to make another mistake like Daschle or let the Republicans dominate the news cycle.

Also, it’s hardly like we have as much to worry about as Kerry or Dukakis – the Republicans these days are in the minority and lack public sympathy, and as such their grand gestures carry a clear undertone of impotence. Even with Obama out of the picture and Reid being as soggy and useless as usual, the GOP is still just using the soapbox to hang itself — unless it turns out that the public is really desperate for their representatives to give proper respect to the Taliban.

Jillian, you’re on the contact form, but as I couldn’t attach the photo to it, I sent it to jillian[at]sadlyno.com. My mistake, huh? Anyway, the link is there for all to see now.

And A. J. can too read. It’s just that discourse in This Great Nation of Ours™ is so deformed; so many words have been forced into evoking some gawd-awful horror that has nothing to do w/ what the words once meant.

Someone type “magazine cover?”

In this thread, we argue semantics.

Hey, if Obama’s going to fix the economy and improve everyone’s way of life, the news people can call his methods whatever they want. The only people that care about “socialism” as a dog whistle anymore are old and on their way out, so to speak.

Long story short: fuck ’em.

Just getting around to my Sunday reading, and came across this nicely relevant nugget at teh Great Orange Satan (All hail, Dark Lord Kos!):

Yes, it’s hard to believe, harder to fathom, that only 1% of the American population received more than 20% of the entire national income. When candidate Barack Obama said inartfully that he wanted to “spread the wealth,” he wasn’t talking about socialism. He was talking about this issue, about the need to rebuild the middle class, which brought this country to the peak of its economic and global power in the 20th century, so that more people can earn a better share of the nation’s “pie,” and so we can make it as big as we possibly can, together. That’s not welfare. It’s not socialism. It’s how to build a healthy, diversified, and strong national democratic capitalist economy.

Jillian, linked you a watermark-free higher quality version of the Newsweek cover.

Also, while the use of ‘socialism’ to refer to nationalization generally is retarded, I do like Krugman’s phrase – ‘lemon socialism’. It’s part and parcel with the entire big-government-for-the-rich thing that has become the norm in Washington, and it’s particularly descriptive of what the Republicans have been agitating for at the expense of anything else.

So if your fucking up and being fired is likely to result in you starving, you should have known that before you took such a stupid risk. If your fucking up and being fired is likely to result in you selling your ninth home, it’s a national tragedy and we all need to bail you out before it’s too late.

El Cid said,

February 8, 2009 at 21:24

I hate to say it, though, but if you read through the Newsweek essay in question, yes, there are some dumb ideological lines, but it actually is quite sane.

It basically says, “Look, stop playing this anti-government bullshit game — modern economies work because of government involvement, the fascination with Reagan’s fake anti-governmentalism is over, and whatever the American people say about ‘government’ being too big or whatever, they want what government provides.”

It’s actually an essay saying ’stop the hissy fits about the word “socialism” because a lot of what right wing shit fitters use that word for is just a normal part of the functioning world.’

Fucking thank you. This is what needs to be said.

I can’t believe I’m here at S,N! telling people to stop with their kneejerk reactions.

Yes, it’s hard to believe, harder to fathom, that only 1% of the American population received more than 20% of the entire national income. When candidate Barack Obama said inartfully that he wanted to “spread the wealth,” he wasn’t talking about socialism. He was talking about this issue, about the need to rebuild the middle class, which brought this country to the peak of its economic and global power in the 20th century, so that more people can earn a better share of the nation’s “pie,” and so we can make it as big as we possibly can, together. That’s not welfare. It’s not socialism. It’s how to build a healthy, diversified, and strong national democratic capitalist economy.

I suspect that aspriational politics are on the way out, so “socialism!” is only really selling these days as a way of saying “uppity coloreds!” in polite society. The problem is that our leadership and pedagogy remain firmly third-world in outlook – we care about the ceiling, not the floor; our capitalist bandits have insisted that America is in excellent shape because we have several of the world’s richest men, but as Adam Cadre’s excellent essay on Katrina pointed out, so did Zaire — and like any other third-world kleptocracy, the only thing that can really galvanize the ruling elite into action is damage to the ceiling. The floor can be – and is – a yawning pit and no one cares.

@ the_millionaire_lebowski: I don’t disagree with Jillian’s point that the entire context of the Newsweek essay, as actually presented, is beyond stupid.

To me it seems precisely useful to allow an extended Hannity ragegasm with now 100% more literal proof of the librul medja’s commitment to SOCIALISM. Newsweek is one of those newsbite publications in which presentation is 9/10ths.

All of this is unfolding in an economy that can no longer be understood, even in passing, as the Great Society vs. the Gipper. Whether we like it or not—or even whether many people have thought much about it or not—the numbers clearly suggest that we are headed in a more European direction. A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone—a roughly 14-point gap, So according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In 2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1 percent in the euro zone—a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French.

This is sane?

This is typical, “I’m not quite as crazy as the wingnuts, so by comparison I’m sane. So listen now to my looney right wing framing.”

How much of that increase in U.S. government spending is spent on the military? Buellar?

So let’s just run the entitlement flag up the pole.

ittdgy: Yeah, it’s comparatively sane to a country which repeatedly discusses the subject of socialism in terms of “size of government.”

Newsweek and Time have always been centrist hawk dogmatic organs when Time wasn’t simply being Luce screaming rightists. Their tone is always dismissive of liberalism and leftism. So, yes, comparatively, this is quite a rational article.

If we take Newsweek‘s target audience into account, this article is nothing but helpful to anyone interested in economic recovery.

Yeah, Newsweek plays a lot of old standards for their old and standard audience, but at the end of it all it puts interventionist policies* in a good light.

Newsweek doesn’t have to convince us that interventionism is needed right now, they need to convince the >40, rarely-uses-internet, still-thinks-Reagan-wasn’t-so-bad types. This is exactly what the article set out to do.

Simply put, there is no better way Newsweek could have written about this subject, given their constraints.

So yeah, we can use this as yet-another “LOL media are stupid.” That’s fine, but we should keep the context in mind here. Just post, “LOL media” and move on. This article is not worth the vitrol in this post.

* …and it’s interventionist policies that are needed right now. If we disagree on this, then we disagree on more than just the intent of this article.

a gift certificate for your local Sylvan learning center.

Without my glasses, I read that as Sybian learning center, which I imagine would require a somewhat different sort of tutelage. Although, now that I think of it, journalism as practiced in the last 8 years by some of these specimens might be analagous to willingly getting reamed by something shaky.

John D. said,
“Because vicious partisan bickering worked out so well for the GOP?”

I’d say it’s worked pretty well for them overall, yes. They were soundly thrashed in the last election, but not to the humiliating extent that they surely deserved. They’re far from beaten.

—-

Bipartisanship Isn’t Weak & Partisanship Isn’t Tough

I think when many people argue against “bipartisanship” what they’re really saying is they want more blood on the floor. Well, they’re going to get that, but they may see it likewise apply to Democrats at the US Capitol, whose dysfunctions and power trips are legion and, if the ship of State were left only in their hands, they’d make a big ol’ mess of things, too.

Had Obama come out swinging at Republicans – as some have recommended – from Day One, his favorable-to-negative numbers would have still sagged at least as much, likely more so, as the inaugural bounce subsided. There would have been a greater chance that he would not have been able to bring three Republican senators – Specter, Snowe and Collins – along on the Stimulus, which is absolutely necessary to make the sixty vote cloture threshold.

More consequentially for the long run, he would have lost the moral authority to do what the next few days will bring: the jump-start of Organizing for America (300 of 3,200 house meetings nationwide begin today), a Monday trip to “fire up” the crowds in Indiana, a Tuesday visit to make public opinion “ready to go” in Florida (and a national media narrative set through both events), all leading up to Tuesday’s Senate vote on the Stimulus Bill and the subsequent House-Senate conference committee machinations. What the Obama camp knows – it proved this time and time again in 2008 – is that to exercise maximum force at the moment of decision means taking care to not peak too soon.

El Cid, how can taking the increase in government spending in the last ten years as a “sign of becoming more French” while ignoring the fact that the money went into the War on Irackeystan and the Department of Homeland Security be considered honest?

the_millionaire_lebowski said,

February 8, 2009 at 22:59
Simply put, there is no better way Newsweek could have written about this subject, given their constraints.

So yeah, we can use this as yet-another “LOL media are stupid.” That’s fine, but we should keep the context in mind here. Just post, “LOL media” and move on. This article is not worth the vitriol in this post.

I don’t agree. Newsweek/The WaPoo spent 8 years of the Bush-Cheney regime happily posing as the left-wing liberal biased media, while enabling the entire castastophe. This leopard has not changed its spots.

They deserve brickbats, not credit.

Dear Smut Clyde

Not even the French have an instinctive command of the subjunctive tense. It has to be carefully taught over many years of repressive schooling.

…an instinctive command of the subjunctive tense.

..um, that’s the subjunctive mood (although it could be that your mood is tense). Would that it were not so.

The GOP strategy of using hate and bitter partisan politics does work short term. In the long run however I firmly believe it is a losing strategy. I don’t know that I can “prove” it, I just know that it is so. It doesn’t work in interpersonal relationships and therefore, because politics is almost nothing but the interpersonal, it will not work in the long run in political life either.

two jillian posts in two days! hooray!

i was on a bus in peru at five in the morning with a bunch of bolivian friends when we heard on the radio that the new bolivian constitution had passed. it was exciting.

It doesn’t work in interpersonal relationships and therefore, because politics is almost nothing but the interpersonal, it will not work in the long run in political life either.

Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?

Hate and bitter partisanship may not work in (healthy) interpersonal relationships. But we know it makes great theatre. And the republicans have understood for a very long time that as long as the media enjoy the show, politics is more about theatre than it is about the interpersonal.

They deserve brickbats, not credit.

Fine, whatever. I’ve already clarified how continually stupid and right-leaning Newsweek (and Time) are, so clearly I should be horrified at this essay, given that it’s relatively saner than what I expect from them.

The GOP strategy of using hate and bitter partisan politics does work short term. In the long run however I firmly believe it is a losing strategy. I don’t know that I can “prove” it, I just know that it is so. It doesn’t work in interpersonal relationships and therefore, because politics is almost nothing but the interpersonal, it will not work in the long run in political life either.

It’s a case of evolution being a heartless bitch, really. The intense amount of effort they poured into acting like Spiro Agnew was the thirteenth Apostle produced a movement whose highbrow was first Dick Cheney and then Rush Limbaugh: rarely capable of anything more substantial than putting a brave face on the projected quarterly earnings and treating being born with shit as a sort of hard-scrabble hardball. The old highbrows have largely ditched the party, and now it’s just floating around angry and uncomprehending, completely lacking anyone with long-term vision or self-insight.

Whatever they won in the 90s by turning entitlement, ignorance, and pompous assholery, these days they’re all little David Ritters ranting about the Democrat Party being promiscuous. When all you’re good at is brutal moral indifference while taking orders, you aren’t exactly going to be in a good position when there’s no one left but you to issue them.

C’est magnifique. That’s French for “effing great post,” Jillian.

Yep. The state of Journalism today, particularly journalism of the American persuasion, is an appalling travesty. It is nothing less than a corporate owned sinkhole of mindless groupspeak and propaganda, serving as a marketing arm for it’s corporate paymasters much more than an honest participant in a functioning democracy.

Journalism is invariably slanted, biased, carrying carefully crafted messaging and dishonest representations. Allowing the most base and vile concepts to be neatly packaged into coded “dogwhistles” an sent out to a public more interested in American Idol than the truth, a public more willing to invest their time reading People Magazine than primary sources.

In other words, this news about news is not news.

But here’s the thing. It’s not 1895, and while our corporate publishers are venal, they are not WR Hearst. Today, any person with an interest in the truth can find it. It requires much more effort, for that which is easy to find tends to be the most dishonest, or simply worthless. But if you have an internet connection, you can read both shoddy and very high quality reporting, you can cross reference stories and check sources for context and accuracy. You can read AFP, BBC, al Jazeera, NYT, and millions of blogs, websites and government papers.

You can identify the lies, the biases, the pieces that somehow, conveniently, never found their way into the news story. You can find them, and you can tell people. Educate, evangelize, mentor.

Journalism as we currently define it is dead, by it’s own hand. Killed by a self-inflicted shot of greed and hubris. But even as it lies bleeding out where it fell, the corpse is being colonized by something new, something richer and more vibrant, something harsh and honest and real time.

The time of the liars is passing. Now the question remains. Is it just too late for us?

mikey

El Cid, I’m not picking on you.

Certain things get me worked up more than others, just because of my personal knowledge of them.

For instance, the claim that the liberals and the poor people caused the housing bubble. As I am (currently as least) employed in the field of real estate finance, I KNOW this is a gigantic lie.

Also, anything to do with the WaPoo and it’s supposed left wing media bias.

Moving on to Time, you can read Joe Klein, House Liberal, most any day. Surely he’s not as insane as the other writers (take Mark Halperin, please!).

But what is Joe Klein’s function? To the left of JokeLine, be monsters!

(Shorter Joke: we followed the republicans, and they were right wing extremists and it was bad. And the opposite of right is left, so the leftists are extremists, too. So we shouldn’t listen to them, even though they were right, as in correct, in sharp contrast to the likes of JokeLine.)

this news about news is not news.

The Tao de ka-Ching. One hand fapping.

Hi mikey, that bit about Joe Klein was something I’ve been thinking about since the last time you were here.

In the words of one of SwampLand’s common taters:

sgwhiteinfla Says:
Saturday, January 10, 2009 at 1:31 pm

PNNTO asks a good question and we should all demand an answer
.

” There are those on the left who simply believe that Israel does not have the right to defend itself against a terrorist enemy that relentlessly attacks its civilians and refuses to acknowledge its right to exist.”
.
Who are these people?

.
Answer the man Joe Klein, King of Strawmen. Who are these people?

The answer is, Joke invented those people. Because to the left of JokeLine, be Monsters! Here’s one of them.

Sure.

Ok. Great. But what does that position GET you?

In taking that position, you then logically either have to utterly disregard EVERY SINGLE thing Klein ever says again forever no backsies, or you have to say that even if it is true it is irrelavent to my role as an educated consumer of current events and political opinion.

I read Klein. I read Yglesias. I read Ackerman. I read a WHOLE bunch of folks. Do I always agree? Of COURSE not, but what they all have is the ability to make me consider a given issue, perhaps in a new light. I still come to my own opinions, but I do it having listened to the broadest mix of voices I could without including those that are simply insane.

This benefits me in trying to understand the world. You certainly have the option of adopting a different approach…

mikey

Hang on! I already was a socialist. But my vision involved more shooting the rich and less giving them my money. One of us has got teh socialism wrong.

I’m not criticizing your understanding of the world, mikey.

I am saying that most Americans get a choice of right wing corporate media, and far right wing corporate media. This is presented as “the Left” and “the Right”.

And we are all the poorer for it. Because too many people in this country have no effing clue, and that’s how Bush and Cheney took us down the sewer.

Now the question remains. Is it just too late for us?

It might be. I guess we’re going to find out.

Now the question remains. Is it just too late for us?

In the long run, it’s too late for all of us.

Funny and true except for the bullet pointed list of “socialist” attributes. Jillian could have eschewed the cheap demonization and instead pointed to the policies of actually existing socialist parties in Europe who have even been in power without executing a single executive.
The part where Marxists (and their non-Marixt socialists, despite the conflation) supposedly think that banking is not “prodctive” isn’t quite right either.
That said, nothing that the Dems have proposed is socialism and US journalism is teh suxor!!11! Will they ever figure out that politics is not a fucking sporting event?

should have said “there are non-Marxist socialists” famous movements include Owenists, Fourierists, St. Simon

Smiling Mortician said,
“Wouldn’t it be nice to think so?”

It’s more than a hunch on my part. There is a good deal of evidence to suggest that being an asshole is not a successful strategy for life. By extension then, and maybe it’s unjustified but I think it’s worth while to do so, in the political sphere the same principles should also apply. Take diplomacy, you know, that radical idea that a better way to get what you want from another country is to talk to them instead of waging war. I think that’s a good example. Diplomacy works between individuals, we call it “manners”. and it works between nations. None of this means you don’t deal out punishment for bad behavior.

Alec said:
“It’s a case of evolution being a heartless bitch, really. ”

Evolution isn’t what it used to be. Are you advocating Social Darwinism? Because that’s what it sounds like to me. The modern understanding of evolution is shifting away from the hard determinism of the past. So it is not out of line to think that perhaps co-operative and mutually dependent societies are in fact superior to the right wing ideal of individual monads each pursuing their own rational self interest only. That path sounds like the kind of advice you’d get from a paranoid schizophrenic. Oh, that’s right, that’s what Nash is.

lol on appropriating Keynes’ famous phrase in this thread, M. Bouffant

You’re probably right, MB.

I prefer the da doo ron ron.

Splendidly vicious takedown. Keep it coming.

In other words, this news about news is not news.

Heh. Makes me think of the old Russian comment about their ‘newspapers’, “There’s no truth in News (Izvestia), and no news in Truth (Pravda).”

“It’s actually an essay saying ’stop the hissy fits about the word “socialism” because a lot of what right wing shit fitters use that word for is just a normal part of the functioning world.’”

Yeah. But this?

The U.S. government has already—under a conservative Republican administration— effectively nationalized the banking and mortgage industries. That seems a stronger sign of socialism than $50 million for art. Whether we want to admit it or not—and many, especially Congressman Pence and Hannity, do not—the America of 2009 is moving toward a modern European state.

Nationalizing the banking and loan industry is not “moving toward a modern European state.” It’s moving way beyond it. This is not the normal and prevalent state of affairs in a modern European state.

Jillian, will you marry me? My partner doesn’t mind.

Windy—doesn’t “the modern European state” have strong government controlled central banks? Wouldn’t a nationalization of US banks put us in the position to recreate the European model?
Would you mind expanding a bit, please?
IMO there doesn’t seem to be much value in letting bankers siphon off profits and large salaries given that they have failed so spectacularly in providing the value that they are reputed to provide, indentifying who to lend money too and at what price.
Nationalize them now.

in the political sphere the same principles should also apply

I don’t disagree with this at all, noen. I’m just skeptical about whether they DO apply. The republicans have managed for quite some time now to be successful via assholery — if one defines success as maintaining power and influence in the absence of . . . well, pretty much everything but assholery, I guess.

…the world (unfortunately) contains some very plausible assholes.

Plausible Assholes, band name, etc.

We either have to resign ourselves to hanging around waiting for people to die, or come up with some way of un-ossifying their brains, because, for the love of Aerial Pasta, people, screaming about socialism is soooooo 1950’s.

Puhleeeeeeeze!

Which is why Republicans want to continue pounding public education into the ground like a tent peg.

When the Plausible Assholes meet the Enormous, Mendacious, Disembodied Anus In a gladiatorial match, my money’s on the EMDA.

Evolution isn’t what it used to be. Are you advocating Social Darwinism?

I think you misunderstand – I’m simply saying that, because wingnut welfare was free and easy and getting the wrong guy up your ass could turn you into an effective unperson (c.f. Buchanan going from a potential President to a worthless nobody after he pissed off the neocons) – there was, after a fashion, a strong selection for vicious, unthinking, venal authoritarians. The problem here is that that heavy over-selection for people who responded to the right people saying ‘jump’ with ‘which way’ produced something which was unsustainable as a culture.

And because culture isn’t biology, the upshot of this has been a lot of people who would normally generally wind up in the Republican camp – essentially anyone who isn’t a stupid white man born before 1960 – haven’t.

Because that’s what it sounds like to me. The modern understanding of evolution is shifting away from the hard determinism of the past. So it is not out of line to think that perhaps co-operative and mutually dependent societies are in fact superior to the right wing ideal of individual monads each pursuing their own rational self interest only. That path sounds like the kind of advice you’d get from a paranoid schizophrenic. Oh, that’s right, that’s what Nash is.

I’d argue that mutualism and selfishness aren’t mutually exclusive by any means – it’s just advantageous for the bug-fuck wealthy in the short term to pretend they are; that and the triumph of aggressively reductionist economics, including the disappearance of econometrics and an obsession throughout the political spectrum with the behavior and outcomes of the individual. But that’s another subject entirely — I was simply saying that when being a doubleplusgood Party man means getting paid seven figures a year to complain on the radio, there are certain fairly severe selective pressures in that direction.

We either have to resign ourselves to hanging around waiting for people to die, or come up with some way of un-ossifying their brains, because, for the love of Aerial Pasta, people, screaming about socialism is soooooo 1950’s.

My favorite part is how aggressively it gets connected to black people by our racist brigade – a slur so old it originally worked the other way around, a way of convincing laborers they wanted nothing to do with the then-less-radioactive socialist movement because some of them were black-a-moors.

Between that and McCain evidently laboring under the delusion the only reason women see the doctor is the Vibronatron, something of a coherent picture emerged. The Republican Party: fighting the battles of the McKinley administration – today!

The modern understanding of evolution is shifting away from the hard determinism of the past.

Oh, no, no, no!!! Believe me, you don’t want to go there (Scientists, Creationists, and IDiots everywhere – you think the trolling you’ve got now is bad! – let’s stick to politics, for the love of [whoever]!

doesn’t “the modern European state” have strong government controlled central banks? Wouldn’t a nationalization of US banks put us in the position to recreate the European model?

well I’m not an economist but don’t the central banks correspond to the federal reserve /treasury? So I’m not sure how buying up crappy ‘regular’ banks would help your government build a stronger central bank.

Those European countries that have had state-owned ‘regular’ banks have largely privatized them during the last decades afaik. Exceptions to this trend were the ’90s crisis when countries like Sweden temporarily nationalized them, and the current crisis where some countries like the UK are thinking about doing the same thing. So I’m not sure what Newsweek thinks that the US is ‘moving towards’.

Smiling Mortician said,

in the political sphere the same principles should also apply

“I don’t disagree with this at all, noen. I’m just skeptical about whether they DO apply.”

Ok, I understand where you’re coming from. I also have my doubts. I am basically making an analogy and well… I could be wrong. For me I was very impressed by Obama’s tactics during the primaries and the general election. There were many times when I was really worried. Yet Barak prevailed, that has really impressed me. So I give him 60-40 odds. I have a feeling that’s too low.

alec said:
“I was simply saying that when being a doubleplusgood Party man means getting paid seven figures a year to complain on the radio, there are certain fairly severe selective pressures in that direction.”

Sure, I guess that I was making a different point then and we are probably misconstruing each other. I’m saying that I have this sneaking suspicion, a hunch, a belief, that “bipartisanship”* is a wining strategy that trumps even Rush Limbaugh’s selective pressure.

*I take bipartisanship to mean building alliances, building a network or a coalition. I think it’s a mistake to characterize it as always “giving in to the GOP”. From what I understand, Obama will be getting out his big stick and thwapping a few heads, Dem and GOP.

Well done, Jillian. This talking point drove me up the fucking wall during the campaign, and it’s even more loathsome now that the press is running with it. Everything to the left of feudalism is socialism, it seems, and I’m sure we’ll hear another round on how getting a tax refund is welfare – unless you make more than $100,000 a year.

I’m saying that I have this sneaking suspicion, a hunch, a belief, that “bipartisanship”* is a wining strategy that trumps even Rush Limbaugh’s selective pressure.

Theory good. Execution, necessarily flawed.

Here’s the problem. In America today, the opposition is neither loyal nor viable. What’s worse is they aren’t willing to delude themselves about their political viability, so they play the game from the basis of losing spoiler.

If your committed constituency represents less than 30% of the electorate, you not only don’t have to provide a reasoned basis for your positions, you absolutely must NOT. Instead, you have to continue to present proposals based upon failed and discredited ideological theories, and you have to be willing to look stupid by going on national TV and defending these ridiculous proposals.

In that environment, anything that looks remotely like “bipartisanship” is a fools errand, and should be rejected out of hand for being irrational and unsupportable.

The Obama administration should refuse to have any substantive dialog with the Republican minority until they can show some rational basis for their proposals. Because we know all about the results of trying to implement their ideology as policy, and it’s led us to the brink.

The time for patience is at an end….

mikey

So believing in free trade, strong national defense, low taxes, and racial equality makes you —– an asshole?

But those are ALL LIES.

Free trade? Hey, how’s that working out for Any Fucking Body these days? Yeah, let’s stick to an ideology that perpetuates poverty and destroys the American and European Economies because we like the heft of the books.

Strong national defense. What? A trillion dollar military, not counting all the hidden costs of perpetual warfare to prop up a policy that contributes nothing and represents all the failures of the last sixty years? Maybe you need to try to figure out what a “strong national defense” would look like outside of MI Complex procurement boondoggles. I’d encourage you to look up the “fighter mafia” for a counter-example.

Low taxes. Dood, c’mon, are you just PHONING it in? 1.3 TRILLION dollars in tax cuts for the weathy over the last eight years, and look where we are. At some point, you’re going to want to stop looking like a congenital retard.

Racial equality. What. The Republican party? Yeah, lemme know how your polling goes with blacks, hispanics, asians and anybody else who isn’t white and christian.

I’m sorry. Idiocy is a disqualifier. Thanks for playing.

Go away…

mikey

My suspicion is that the Democratic Party is gradually becoming a coalition/caretaker party, with the Republicans existing more or less purely as a front for wealthy jackasses.

The Democratic caucus runs the gamut from fundie land developers to the Florida freshman who ruined a perfectly good meaningless hearing by forcing Paulson to actually answer for the massive financial bailout. That’s what was meant by ‘bipartisan’ thirty or forty years ago – and the leadership almost universally tacks farther right than the Republicans themselves did in Charlie Halleck’s day.

And there’s another problem in selective-pressures terms: because the Democrats have been so successful in recent elections, to be a powerful Republican you essentially have to come from a completely uncompetitive district. This was true even before ’08 – besides Bush, the only Republican candidate whose electoral background was remotely competitive was Nixon ’60 – but these days, the Republicans of note are all gasbags whose profoundly conservative constituencies will reelect them so reliably that they’re more motivated by right-wing circlejerking than electoral politics.

If the Dems come out of ’10 badly (I see no reason for them to – in fact, if the Appalachian states are simply lagging behind the national trend, the Dems would be within sight of enough numbers to pass amendments by themselves – there might be an actual place for bipartisanship. As it stands, the diversity of opinion and interest in the Democratic Party is fairly extreme already, and with the Blue Dogs still being relatively important as swing legislators there’s next to nothing but repeating Limbaugh’s talking points word-for-word like the goddamn Manchurian Candidate the Democrats are missing internally.

In the long run, what I expect to happen is that this will change – America will spend a little while being effectively a one-party state, but that won’t work out for long. The leadership is too conservative, will be too desperate to coddle defectors and new arrivals, and will severely misunderstand what people who leave the Republican Party want out of them (hint: it’s rarely what the Republican Party is currently delivering). The divide between the opposition caucus and the mainline party will be severe enough, and the Democratic primaries important enough, that we’ll eventually either develop jungle primaries or a new party system.

The big question is who the opposition will wind up being. It will almost certainly be to the Democrats’ left, but how that comes out is a mystery from here. Probably either left-populist or left-libertarian; the former is likely if things go on like they are now, and the latter is certain if the Broders and Newsweeks get their awful way and browbeat the White House into continuing to act like the President is God.

Of course, I could be wrong. I have been before. But for the moment being, I still maintain that there’s far too little to be gained by bipartisanship to justify it. The Republicans aren’t actually interested in compromise or cooperation; they’re just trying to score points, and if the Democrats passed a bill comprised exclusively of tax cuts they’d still be touring the squawking circuit calling them socialists for cutting taxes for the upper middle class instead of only corporate executives. As the Slovaks say, he who wants to fight will find a cudgel.

Racial equality. What. The Republican party? Yeah, lemme know how your polling goes with blacks, hispanics, asians and anybody else who isn’t white and christian.

To this day, I still find it bitterly amusing that the Republicans were so transfixed with racist bloodlust that they managed to turn the most reliably Republican ethnic and religious minority (Arabs and Muslims) completely against them.

The critical thing, I think, is that a lot of people are basically on the fence, or identify with the party primarily as a self-identity thing more than ideologically. This is why, in general, the people who poll negatively about the President are roughly the same as the people who polled positively about Bush in his final, miserable days.

A lot of people are Republican because they don’t know anything else. The people who go to the polls convinced that they’re the last thing standing between the flower of American womanhood and relentless guido buttfucking? 15%, 20% tops.

It’s still far too many people far too concerned with spic dick, but the arc of the universe does bend towards anal.

Hmm, I seem to remember somewhat more than 47% of the electorate voted for McCain. Or are we going to play a game where we pretend committed Republicans should be compared to anyone snookered into voting Democratic last time round?

Play whatever game you wish. Remember whatever you wish. You’re still an (appropriate term).

Every couple of months, I feel tempted to renew my Newsweek subscription (which I let lapse about three years ago). Thank you for reminding me why I shouldn’t.

That’s some awesome sarcasm…the whole “Obama is a socialist” bullshit has been driving me batty for months, and you wrote a fabulous response.

Thank you.

Mikey gets yet another cookie. You have to eat your mental spinach to stay healthy. The difference between well-informed and well-indoctrinated is being able to switch, without warning, to intelligent discussion of the Other Side’s positions and current concerns.

Homework: “Hey, I read up on Obama’s economic dream team and my ass is bleeding freely. Is it possible I’ve been punked by a Stephen King magical black man? Is it even remotely possible that the physician with the gold-coin jones, or the midget with the ultra-hot red-haired wife, might have not only had a point, but still have a point, like Captain Krugman (peace be unto him)?”

And I’m sorry, but if you read all your news in English, you’re still missing a hulking great chunk of the big picture. The NYT, like Al Jazeera, has an overseas edition which is required to ease off the batshit stupidity. Reading the International Herald Tribune is not the way to get a fuller picture of current events.

Look, what’s wrong with socialism?
And, for the record, socialism and communism are not the same thing.

Beautiful post.

My sense is that AJ is more aliterate than illiterate – it can read but chooses to just look at the pretty pictures instead.

The folks defending the Newspeek piece need to wake up & smell the abbatoir. Take a good hard look at the subtext. Why does the article say America is becoming more French as opposed to more Japanese, or more Swedish? Looks like a dog-whistle to the readership-segment that’s still eating “Freedom-Fries” & boycotting Merlot & Brie just like Bill-O told them to … & missing the boat on getting what socialism really means isn’t a minor quibble at this point, it’s semantic effluent with a smiley-face pasted on. Knowingly purveying “reasonable” bullshit to people who don’t know any better may be fun – & even profitable, for a while – but it’s also increasingly lethal in a world where it translates quickly into policy.

I’m just surprised they didn’t use an Obama “O” with a hammer-&-sickle in the center – guess they’re saving that cover for the midterms, eh?

The real reason AJ can’t read Jillian’s letter is that it’s now in a drug-OD-induced coma – that’s what happens when you do 8 or 10 big fat rails too many trying to forget your lost integrity . As information gets more abundant, noise gets harder & harder to sell – & AJ is a noise-aholic.

Psychadelic Santa….that is what in essence I was trying to say.
The reflexive demonization of socialism by liberals, in order to show that they aren’t tainted with that “insanity” is totally Stockholme syondrome-ish. The right hates socialists and liberal equally, and conflates them, there will be time enough for mutual slander when we actually run things (I dream), but why feed the beast that claims that everyone to the left of Cheney is an unAmerican ___________

Windy—“well I’m not an economist but don’t the central banks correspond to the federal reserve /treasury? So I’m not sure how buying up crappy ‘regular’ banks would help your government build a stronger central bank.”

The central banks don’t really correspond to the Fed.

Buying crappy regular banks wouldn’t help at all; it is a horrible plan and makes me fear for the competence of Geithner. Summers was a well known “neo-Liberal” who helped push the privitazation not just her but around the world through the IMF, and I expect nothing different.
Nationalizing banks, though, is not buying them. We don’t have political leaders who are radical enough to make the necessary changes I am afraid, so buying their assets is the likely course of action.

Yeah. But this?

The U.S. government has already—under a conservative Republican administration— effectively nationalized the banking and mortgage industries. That seems a stronger sign of socialism than $50 million for art. Whether we want to admit it or not—and many, especially Congressman Pence and Hannity, do not—the America of 2009 is moving toward a modern European state.

Nationalizing the banking and loan industry is not “moving toward a modern European state.” It’s moving way beyond it. This is not the normal and prevalent state of affairs in a modern European state.

Well, in reality, we have already effectively nationalized the risks of the banking and mortgage industries. The rewards? Not so much. I wouldn’t call that socialism by any measure, particularly those quotes above about egalitarian compensation. I don’t know what you might call the thing that such behavior is moving toward, or past, but it ain’t a “modern European state”. I can think of a few European states from about seventy years ago that might have treated capital as favorably and let it have the sort of hand at the wheel that we do today, but I’ll let Godwin rest in his hole for now.

Shawn, if it makes you feel any better, I actually am a socialist. I caucus with liberals because, well, I live in the fucking United States. If I didn’t caucus with them, I’d have even less of a voice in political affairs than I would otherwise.

I bust on socialists with jokes about big black mustaches and stuff because I bust on everyone. It’s just how I deal with stress. Frankly, I think an eliminative tax on stock profits is a fabulous idea – stock is a form of theft, and this would be a great way to eliminate it. As far as I can tell, a position like this makes me something of a moderate socialist – probably to the left of France’s PS, or Canada’s NDP, but better able to work with them than I am the American Democratic party. But what choice do I have?

Here’s a high quality image of the front cover:

http://www.newsweek.com/media/63/090207_COVER-coverlarge.jpg

president is the new black

Noo-oh-ooo! Does that mean half of europe isn’t totalitarian communist countries after all!

What about the goddamned revolution, then, and the rise of the worker to kill the oppressing capitalists! Aren’t we about to win after all! Help!

I don’t think you read the article. The main thrust of it was to remind people that as the ratio of government spending to GDP narrows in the coming years, we will have the Bush administration to thank for the circumstances that brought it about. This is a special moral conundrum for people who claim to despise socialism (without understanding what it means) and admire George W. Bush (or think that he was anything less than a catastrophe). Obama’s role is incidental and still to be determined. Your reactionary response to that cover, which is a reference to a popular fill-in-the-blank, stock phrase, is understandable, given the ubiquity of idiots who are going to try to claim that Obama turned us toward socialism, but I think you missed the point.

I wish we all were Socialists. It would make the country a much happier place.

I’m reading a book about the bombing of Wall Street in 1920. Oh, what happy times.

How do I know if I have ever been in a subjuntive mood? Would I like it?

“Call for the immediate incarceration/execution of all hedge fund managers because they are “enemies of the people”?”

Shit! Maybe I am a socialist. This sounds entirely reasonable to me.

immediate incarceration/execution of all hedge fund managers because they are “enemies of the people”

Would this boost to public moral & ethical hygiene deter other just-as-venal afficionados of perfidious fuckery from joyfully taking their places?

Sadly, Nyet!

The main thrust of it was to remind people that as the ratio of government spending to GDP narrows in the coming years, we will have the Bush administration to thank for the circumstances that brought it about. This is a special moral conundrum for people who claim to despise socialism (without understanding what it means) and admire George W. Bush (or think that he was anything less than a catastrophe).

Ohoh. That was a good point.

The situational conundrum could be described like this: that when Bush would use the power government never gave to the president in order to save the free market – that is what enables radically socialist policies. Since it actually legitimised using government power to enforce moral goals. Such as freedom and liberty, war in Iraq, and Cola for everyone (specially in the new Christian Free State in the Gulf).

While when Obama arguably is trying to argue against using power to enforce policies based on their moral rightness, and instead require Congress to debate the issues in their lunch- break from all the lobbying meetings, then he’s ensuring that the momentum of the Bush- years continue towards socialism.

In other words, what is actually happening here is that: moronic american wizzards are dreaming up yet another example of where their every move and direction will – with inevitable force – change the world, and topple mountains, and oh my gawd, and stuff. And rewrite the history books, and invent the wheel again. And that will be hailed as an accomplishment, because that’s what the wizzards declare.

Whether that’s the result of a tragedy of the wizzards’ own making, or whether it is something they’re genuinely proud of having done (which may or may not be the same, admittedly) – is irrelevant. It’s obvious who the main character is – am I right, huh? Amirite! It’s the US of Fucking A. And that’s that. All it does must be observed with caution, lest not history must be destroyed from thinking the wrong goddamn thing.

Problem is this – the US isn’t socialist. It never was. It’s citizenry has no culture for even the thought (although I imagine some are starting to imagine now, for a variety of reasons). This is also the reason why “Socialism” is known in the US as exploiting others in the name of the state: Because that’s how government works. That’s what alliances are about. Caring for others, or having a social conscience, or even a moral conscience – or even a duality where you’re aware of the moral choices you’re breaking – fuck it. Altruism might be admirable, but nothing makes people’s blood boil as much as succeeding where other people fail. Specially if it’s because you can write them off as “little people”, who aren’t worth as much as successful ones.

That may sound harsh, but when you’ve talked with enough people in the democratic party, then you will know that to be the damned truth. In other parts of the world, you would be considered either extremely naive, or supremely egotistical. But that’s just normal in the states.

So instead of socialism, where the state is an instrument for ensuring a minimum of some sort for everyone – An equal opportunity for all to succeed, if you excuse the abuse of a more familiar phrase. Instead of that, the state is an uncontrolled and unauditable business designed for farming money. Money which people fight over with any and all means, because there’s no control on it.

And the point is that regaining some modicum of control over what Congress is doing, and requiring it to actually argue properly for where money goes – something as mentioned Obama is actually attempting – that does not make the country socialist. Neither does it make the country socialist if that attempt somehow succeeds, and all appropriated money from the tax had a receipt. It would simply make sure that the it continues to be an elected body of representatives who fight for the inevitable pool of money the taxes bring in.

Except that now people – who care to pay attention – actually has a say in what to do, since they now can actually vote for what they see.

And if we disregard those who think the entirety of the US population will vote in droves for socialists if they had any power, and that power in the hands of the people is intrinsically anti- capitalist – some people argue this: that what Obama “really” wants, is to enact socialist policies like health- care. Of course – what he has suggested is to require certain services to be available if businesses are to be allowed to run insurance and health- care. Furthermore he suggests a proposition that will ensure all people should afford some minimal variant of that package.

So the argument, if anything here made sense, should be about whether it is socialist or not to enforce standards of this kind on businesses. And whether it’s a proper market- economic tactic as long as you make sure at least some people are starving, have no house, and have no health- care. Conversely – is there a principled difference by ensuring subsidies for banking and other large businesses, than it is subsidising schools and health- care? How come there’s a total acceptance for enforcing moral rights, but not actual rights?

But that argument never comes (unless it’s ruled unconstitutional in the courts). Because low and high, and rich and poor, and wizzard and commoner are engaged in an elaborate battle to believe themselves to be exploiting the other for their own gain. The little guy thinks he’s benefitting from having the high and wise speak for them. And the wizzards think they’re doing the country and the world a favour for farting artistically. But in reality it’s a game to exploit the other guy as much as possible. It’s always been, and it’s a philosophy that’s grounded so deeply it’s simply not going to go away – particularly not as long as it’s forbidden to discuss it.

So yeah – you’re headed for socialism about as much as Bush is headed for a one way trip to Mars in a remote- controlled space- ship. It’s not going to happen by accident, for fuck’s sake.

Everybody yells about “socialism” and even Matt Miller, in “The Tyranny of Dead Ideas,” takes special care to say we’re “not going to be like Sweden,” oh no. To which I say, what’s so freakin wrong with being more like Europe: high living standards, health care for everybody, rationally constituted military establishments, mass transit worthy of the name, etc. What’s not to like? Why shouldn’t we want to be like Sweden or Germany or France or Belgium?

Don’t take this the wrong way, but what about thinking about your own unique situation first?

As an actual socialist, of the libertarian variety (zomg libertarian socialism oxymoron head a splode), I find it at once hilarious and bizarre and annoying when a blatantly centre-right hawk can be labelled “socialist” and so many people believe it.