Why Do So Many of the Best Articles on the Economy Appear in Rolling Stone?

Here is a good, lengthy and in-depth article about how Grover Norquist and his fellow anti-tax crusaders hijacked the Republican party completely, leading to the relentless efforts to throw more and more breaks to the super-rich.

Die, Old Media, Die!

Atrios links to an editorial in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.  The point of the editorial is to take to task the originator of an on-line petition against Target's requirement that many of its workers come in at midnight on Thanksgiving to prepare for "Black Friday."  The editorial instructs Anthony Hardwick to "buck up" and be glad he even has a job.  This is where we are with traditional media outlets such as daily newspapers and network news shows, and don't even get me started on cable news.  They are happy to toe the corporate line, and do everything they can to put trod-upon workers–or #Occupy protesters, or anyone else pointing out the serfdom being thrust upon most of us–in their place.  Shut up and get back to work, or you'll get us all in trouble.

In contemplating the question, "What purpose do these entities (newspapers, etc.) serve?" I can see how they benefit their corporate masters, but the rest of us, not so much.  I'm sure they'll continue to see their circulation dwindle, and they'll continue to be bewildered about why that might be.

Respect

So, the big flap this week is the decision of Jimmy Fallon's band to play a snippet of "Lyin' Ass Bitch" by Fishbone as Michelle Bachmann came onto the set.  While I find her truly frightening/hilarious, I have to say that this is inappropriate for a presidential candidate, even one who has been proven time and again to have only a passing acquaintance with the truth.  Better would have been not to have her on at all, but if she is an invited guest, she should receive the same level of respect as any other high-profile politician.

How Did We End Up Here?

I used to have a rather negative opinion of the New Yorker's George Packer, mainly on the basis of his credulous support of Bush's excellent adventure in Iraq.  However, he has redeemed himself with a belated admission of having been wrong, and has written a number of incisive pieces on the War of Terror and other misbegotten artifacts from 2001-09.


I am working my way through a lengthy piece he wrote for the September 12 issue of the New Yorker concerning the apparently irreparable rips in the country's political fabric over the last ten years.  In discussing the vicious political attacks from the right wing on anyone raising reasonable, moderate questions about the strategy in Iraq, he writes this:

"From the start, important avenues of inquiry were marked with warning signs by the Administration. Those who ventured down them would pay a price. The conversation that a mature democracy should have held never happened, because this was no longer a mature democracy."

This comment strikes me as absolutely true, cutting to the point.  The US has completely abandoned even the pretence being a serious country.  The spectacle of the current Republican presidential debates merely offers an emphatic punctuation on what has been undeniably true since at least the time of Clinton's impeachment.  We are governed by a crop of elites who have no interest in charting the difficult course the country faces in the new century.  All they seem to care about is scoring cheap political victories and enriching themselves and their wealthy patrons.  


Our elites have given up on the country.  What about the rest of us?

The Best Thing I Have Seen for a While

A very different kind of Rage Comic.

Here's the link to the original Reddit.

Joe Walsh Respects His Constituents

Anyone who voted for this assclown should hang their heads in shame.

You Gotta Get Mad

The OWS phenomenon has been interesting to watch, especially how ineffective the predictable attempts to ignore, ridicule and demonize the protesters have been. From that I surmise that for many, the pressing fear of unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy, unaffordable illness, etc. has sharpened their thinking so as to render the usual right wing noise machine relatively less effective.  Too many people have experienced, or know someone close who has experienced, the disastrous effects of this prolonged economic quagmire wrought by an elite that has relentlessly lowered taxes on the rich, cut social spending, and removed the few regulations that protected the commonweal.

I think the next step for progressives should be to ratchet up the rhetoric against the Republicans and Blue-dog Democrats, their mega-rich asshole patrons, and their media enablers.  These people bear the responsibility for the impoverishment of millions, and its time for them to start worrying about angry mobs with torches and pitchforks.  You might retort that lowering ourselves to the level of the O'Reillys, the Coulters and the Hannitys is only going to further degrade the political discourse in the country, but I have news for you:  it's already degraded past the point of redemption.  Plus, tell me, has the cool, rational voice most often employed by liberal voices worked out so well?  At this point, we need our elites to internalize the idea that they could well have a starring role in a remake of the French revolution.  We have to pound them in the media every day, blaming them for everything.  We have to get mean.  We have to get mad angry.