Sensing a tremor in the liberal force field
Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast reports that some of Obama’s supporters among what is sometimes called the “elites” are losing that loving feeling, as evidenced by the goings-on at the Aspen Ideas [not an oxymoron] Festival.
We already knew about Mort Zuckerman’s disaffection with the president’s performance. But when Zuckerman addressed the Aspen crowd he didn’t pull his punches towards the president they had all once revered (and whom some, no doubt, still do):
The real problem we have”¦are some of the worst economic policies in place today that, in my judgment, go directly against the long-term interests of this country.
And Harvard’s Niall Ferguson praised the fiscal suggestions of (gasp!) Republican Paul Ryan.
But apparently the crowd ate it up, if the reactions of these two in the audience are any indication:
This was greeted by hearty applause from a crowd that included Barbra Streisand and her husband James Brolin. “Depressing, but fantastic,” Streisand told me afterward, rendering her verdict on the session. “So exciting. Wonderful!”
Brolin’s assessment: “Mind-blowing.”
If in fact Streisand and Brolin are experiencing their own mini-backlash against Obama, my guess is that it has to do directly with (as in Zuckerman’s case) the fact that their own money is threatened if the entire economy goes down the tubes. That sometimes has the effect of focusing the attention.
For those who still believe that Obama means well and is trying to help the situation (unlike those of us who think he is trying to destroy capitalism and the previous economic clout of this country in the world), it must be both puzzling and disillusioning, two qualities that were in evidence at Aspen. Silicon Valley’s Michael Splinter had this to say on the subject of the elusive recovery:
From an industry standpoint, [the administration’s approach is] below what a lot of people in industry have viewed as the solution to the jobs problem…When I talk to venture capitalists, their companies are starting to move their manufacturing operations out of the United States…Taiwan is lowering their rate to 20 to 15 percent in order to stay competitive with Singapore. These countries have made it their job to attract industry. You don’t get that sense here in the United States.
No, you don’t get that sense, do you—perhaps because attracting industry to this country is not the goal of this administration.
That’s a concept many appear to have difficulty wrapping their minds around. And one can even, perhaps, have a shred of sympathy for them. After all, here’s the logic under which they operate:
(1) Obama is exceptionally smart, perhaps even genius-like.
(2) Obama means well. He wants to provide more services for all, but at the same time he also wants to improve the beleaguered economy he “inherited” from the nefarious Bush.
(Plus the corollary: he doesn’t hate the rich, as long as they are liberals with their hearts in the right places, such as the crowd at Aspen.)
Therefore something just does not add up for these people, who could get out of their dilemma rather simply by concluding that either point 1 above is incorrect (the “fool” hypothesis) or point 2 is (the “knave” solution). But accepting either of those premises is a rather high hurdle to jump, especially for those who formerly revered Obama.
No wonder Brolin called it “mind-blowing.”
Mind blowin? paradigm shifts without a clutch generally are…
Michael Splinter’s phrasing is worth noting: By saying that “You don’t get that sense here in the United States [that the administration is trying to attract industry].”
He is either soft-peddaling the issue to avoid offending a listener or he has completely neglected reality for over a year.
The only way some of these idiots will get any type of clue is to actually be bankrupted by the government.
They all knew who Obama was when they voted for him, and they’re just now realizing that Obama intends 3rd world status for the U.S.
Enjoy the collapse lefties; you created it.
I believe the term is “cognitive dissonance”.
“Mental conflict that occurs when beliefs or assumptions are contradicted by new information. The concept was introduced by the psychologist Leon Festinger (1919 — 89) in the late 1950s. He and later researchers showed that, when confronted with challenging new information, most people seek to preserve their current understanding of the world by rejecting, explaining away, or avoiding the new information or by convincing themselves that no conflict really exists. Cognitive dissonance is nonetheless considered an explanation for attitude change.”
Sounds better than “what a bunch of jerks”.
These people deserve to have their wealth redistributed. I’ll see to it myself in my own ways.
Hail, hail to Jim Moran of Virginia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJyS1WJNisM
“The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the presidency. It will be easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to an electorate willing to have such a man for their president.
The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince.
The republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president.”
some of Obama’s supporters among what is sometimes called the “elites” are losing that loving feeling
Yeah, well I still hope they are the “first up against the wall when the revolution comes”.
.
Hell, if the 70s are coming back, we may as well bring back that phrase
It’s often said that a conservative is nothing more than a liberal who ran smack dab into reality, like getting robbed. Please, Barbra, stay a liberal.
My wife just went to visit her family (sisters) who are overwhelmingly liberal. Interestingly her older sister (the host) let everybody know that there would be no discussion of politics or religion.
This was never the case before when it was assumed that everyone was of a similar (liberal ) view. The ship must be really sinking.
Today, President Obama officially made Donald Berwick his recess appointment to be the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
In a 2008 while speaking on the British health care system in the UK, Berwick said wealthy individuals must redistribute their wealth to those less fortunate for health care funding. Also during this speech, he told those in attendance that he opposes free markets.
“Any health care funding plan that is just equitable civilized and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent health care is by definition redistributional.”
http://tinyurl.com/2v2q4z9
Thru history petty bourgeois have always found a way to emasculate themselves and die.
Here, Dr. Zhivago so sensitive, so nuanced:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwoUFEI7VBs
Fact is that it was that kind of crappy twits who fueled the Bolshevik depredations …
Soon, time to fight …
The idiots better hang on to Obama for dear life. Millions of lives have already been irrevocably harmed. They’d be better off bankrupt than experience what traditional Americans are capable of if these tables turn.
Policies and consequences be damned.
When the time comes to vote, these morons will vote as they did before; against the rubes.
There is nothing more to it. No thought past it. Consequences of actions do not exist, or if they do, and are negative, the fault of some evil cabal.
Not logical consequences of an action.
When the tax increases kick in in January, perhaps Obama’s fans on Wall Street and in Hollywood will feel betrayed. Some might even feel stupid. Too bad that is after the mid term elections.
At the other end of the income spectrum we have the fools who thought Obama was going to pay their mortgage and fill their gas tank. I’m guessing they are a bit confused at this point.
I can understand why welfare mamas are happy with the coming socialism. They think they’re first in line to get a bunch of stuff for free, and they’re right.
But I will never understand why rich liberals vote for socialists and support socialist causes. Just whose wealth is it that they think is going to be spread around? Will they be exempt from socialized medicine? Will their own carbon not be taxed? It goes against human nature to act against your own and your children’s interest. Again, I don’t get it.
Buraq, please – please – make sure you hammer Barbra and Mrs. Streisand into the dirt with taxes. Tax ’em ’til they bleed from every orifice. Tax ’em ’til they squeal like Ned Beatty in Deliverance. Tax ’em until Barbra has to work street corners in fishnet stockings to get a crust of bread. And then tax ’em again. Tax ’em for paying taxes.
Doing this won’t make up for the damage you’re doing, Buraq, but it will go some small distance toward making amends.
The elite, from Ferguson to Zuckerman, are too powerful or proud to be outright worshippers. That duty belongs to the sheep, the initiate, the recent college graduate, the racist, the dim-witted but well heeled union rep, the community organizer, the total feminist, the government bureaucrat at the bottom.
But, the elites are not in the true inner circle (which has no value but power and control). Rather, the elites are believers more or less with considerable money, influence, intelligience, education, and naivete (as regards to evil) mixed in. And they are gutless cowards; only let them be threatened and they will quickly cave in and join.
Fortunately for us, Obama lacks the power. That he lacks the same goals and values of the elites is the tremor in the liberal force field, and little do they know how disparate are their hopes and dreams from Obama’s and what they would be subject to should Obama find all the power he and his handlers crave.
LisaM, I don’t think liberals actually think past the “I’m for the little guy” feelings stage. They should just be able to spout verbal support for the world’s downtrodden and then go unhindered back to their veranda for a double martini.
Lisa M.
Rich liberals–all liberals–are proof against the cause-effect thing. Bad stuff is exclusively the result of Bad People.
Ex. Talking to a woman about zerocare. I said some doctors might retire now, going John Galt, instead of working five more years because they aren’t going to make enough money at it.
“That’s because they’re greedy.”
I said she’d called them a name but challenged her how to explain how calling them a name would get them to keep working.
She refused to address the subject, having handled it completely, in her opinion.
She’ll vote for zero again, as will her deluded children.
It has nothing to do with policies and consequences and everything to do with one’s self-image as a superior person.
Except, as some have said, for the welfare mamas who see some objective good in it for themselves.
There will be fewer opportunities for them in the future, but, then, opportunities for people like that generally go unappreciated.
Obama is completely incompetent about business and economics, which is understandable given his inexperience. But to compensate for that lack of experience, you’d think he would have a successful retired businessman or two in his cabinet. But I’m not aware of a single cabinet member who has had a business career. Even the Secretary of Commerce is a careeer politician trained as a lawyer. Paul Volcker is probably the closest thing to a businessman in his inner circle, but even he spent most of his career at the Federal Reserve. Volcker may understand business, but as Chairman of the Federal Reserve he did not have to worry about how to compete in the market in order to make payroll.
Obama values radical retreads from the 1960s, not practical businessmen. In fact, I think he disdains business. He doesn’t believe the employer/employee relationship is arrived at via a fair bargain for both sides. He thinks business exploits the labor of its employees.
He should take a crash course and read more Hayek, Friedman, and Guilder and forget all the crap he’s read by Marx, Engels and Alinksky.
I was once asked to interview at a prominent Washington consultancy. The CEO started off (for some reason) by making clear he was a Streisandesque liberal Democrat, down with the people, champion of the little guy, tribune of the downtrodden, speaking truth to power, fighting for equality, truth, justice (social, of course), and the anti-American Way.
Then without another breath he segued into a rant about how I’d never be CEO unless I bought him out (at a substantial premium), that his word was law, he was The Man, everyone else was a pond snail, that it was his way or the highway, and that when he said, “Jump” everybody had better say, “How high, sir?” or they were gone, and they had better just like it and keep their mouths shut or else. (This is almost verbatim.) He didn’t mention anything about droit de seigneur, but that’s probably because he ran out of breath.
I watched this performance with growing fascination, considering my total contribution to the conversation to this point had been, “Yes, please, cream and sugar.”
Eventually Dr. Hyde returned, and we carried on with the rest of the day’s schedule, but two minutes into the interview it was functionally over.
“”Tax ‘em ’til they squeal like Ned Beatty in Deliverance.””
Lol 🙂
Tax ‘em til the Oscar statues are made from modified bowling trophies.
And such a tiny little mind to blow, too!
What would leftism’s comeuppance look like? Barbra blogging about how Sarah makes sense? MSM reporting how we dodged a bullet by repealing HCR? Even if Republicans take control of the house and get enough senate seats to ensure filibusters can’t be quashed, put the brakes on the Obamanable agenda and put forth a clear liberty oriented agenda, will the anti-American left ever be humiliated enough to STFU?
I think almost all of these people are going to end up supporting Hillary in 2012. I will have to see a lot more than this before I believe that they are actually having second thoughts about leftism.
(1) Obama is exceptionally smart, perhaps even genius-like.
and unless your like me and many others who are capable, learned, and most of all experienced in the real world…. you are taught NOT to question the authority EVEN if they are wrong. that one earns the right and such to be right from the state.
even if your wiling to question authority a little, you tend to ONLY work with the material they give you, and not look outside that to determine even if that is valid.
(2) Obama means well. He wants to provide more services for all, but at the same time he also wants to improve the beleaguered economy he “inherited” from the nefarious Bush.
under equality and feminism at the fore of that, quality and merit went out the window, as did the idea of high standards… merit is rejected in favor of good intentions of outcome. you cant have equality of outcome if you have meritocratic society.
if we are not equal, then merit decides (over other things that we would find distasteful, like family, aristocracy, oligarchy, power, force, strength, etc), and the best man or woman wins regardless of the pastiche aesthetic of the outcome.
but we are all feminist now, and so we have completely decided to push EQUALITY. NOT equality under the law, where law is blind, but equality of outcome, a Marxist concept where we have to be treated unequally by law and society to achieve the goal.
means that the most we can look to is good intentions, as we cant look at outcome and merit, or else we become unequal. [and since the elite are also infallible, measuring is an unnecessary thing… ]
as i said, we love our cancers and dont know what they source… in this case, its an anchor against merit. you want to measure and show differences? then you want merit… and if you want merit, then you cant have feminism, and the other things who claim unequal outcomes are not due to merit.
cant have it both ways, which i guess is the point of anti-thesis…
their inability to own up and have good morals accepting mistakes and being human as the old culture told us god intended.
means that they have everything invested in their worldviews, and such becomes more important than the actual world. which is super funny in a infinte goof sort of way if you actually put their mish mosh together. suffering self inflicted angst from a world view which says everything is meaningless, they intend to grab the stearing wheel and control the meaningless future to nowhere, and do what? take it where? about all they have is a self constructed reality which they hold reality off to prevent it from breaking what they have with reality. which is too rude, dirty, filthy, uncooperative, nasty, and full of other people, and rules and things that make them work just to exist and never recognizes the greatness…
they are bounded in nutshells and are kings of infinite space…
as long as no one knocks on their nutshells.
in other news…
Juan Lazaro by Miguel Angel Sanchez was accountant for Shining Path… President Dmitris Christofias underlings let Metsos go. thought to have boarded the infamous MV Arctic Sea… [Anatoly Serdyukov said it was seized meaning its under whose control now?] Dmitry Rogozin…admits funny business… when seized from “hijackers” it had 6 Estonians, 2 Latvians, 2 Russians… Latvian Dmitry Savins was sentenced to 7 years for leading the hijacking. he implicated Eerik-Niiles Kross (notable). Cobo says there will be a lot more arrests of people in south florida.
Castro boasted to a visitor that he had 300 agents in South Florida alone. Oleg Gordeivsky
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/13/v-fullstory/1679205/dozens-of-cuban-migrants-picked.html
“In the medium term, beware of a potential Cuba-Nicaragua-Venezuela military triangle astride the approaches to Florida, the Mississippi, Houston and the Panama Canal, within [Russian] bomber range of America’s eastern seaboard. This would replicate the Soviet Cuba-Nicaragua-Grenada triangle smashed by U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1983.” David Smith, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
I have these malicious fantasies wherein some future Congress passes the healthcare analogue of Title IX, and mandates that the same quantity of healthcare resources be devoted to men and women.
Hey, the same logic applies, and fair is fair.
Beard.
I think that would be discrimination. Somehow.
But I agree that it is malicious. Or is it delicious?
Richard, both.
It’s obviously a non-starter, and proposed tongue in cheek. But, seriously, why would it be discriminatory?
Here’s the argument: women consume more healthcare services than men, and live longer. Clearly that is wrong, and we need to redirect more healthcare resources from women to men to close the egregious gap in longevity. Men have suffered from second-class healthcare status long enough.
That argument makes, doesn’t it? Replace “women” with “whites” and “men” with “blacks” and you could have a plank of a Dem platform.
Seriously, where is the flaw in this argument, if we accept the premise of Title IX?
I agree with rickl–I don’t think many leftists ever have second thoughts about liberalism (leftism). They merely look for a new boss from time to time, the better to head up the new utopia. Hillary? I know even some conservatives who grow wistful for her because they think she would at least show resolve internationally. I’m not so sure about that. Anyway, I once thought Obama would at least show resolve internationally, because leftist dictators often prefer to lead strong countries, the better to spread the faith. I’ve come to believe that vengeance may be at least as important to him as leftism; the first clue that I saw, anyway, was his graceless return of the Churchill bust.
In any case, I don’t think Hillary would be much more than same song, second verse; second verse, same as the first. They’re all of a lot, these wizards.
As far as I’m concerned, the evidence is on an the argument is over:
Obama does not mean well; he means harm.
There is ample evedince for that; and zero evidence that he means well. He never even actually says he loves America, let alone does even the forst thing good for it.
The only other possibility is that he is a remarkably weak man who is being led and told what to do by others. There is some plausibility to that since he has no track record of accomplishment except running for President and all the speaches he gave would have been, or could have been, written by others and he then told what to say and what to do.
Obama’s best case is that George Soros is the de facto President, carrying out his life’s desire of killing America.
It’s really bad and there is going to be hell to pay. The only question is how much hell.
Occam’s Beard:
Not to get way off topic but it looks like your fantasy is being fulfilled:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/health/30women.html
I’m too lazy to dig around for stats tonight but a quick scan finds mixed results on costs of health care for men vs. women. These stats are generally provided by insurers, which makes them inherently suspect. It looks like some insurers have been charging women disproprortionately higher premiums than men, and not taking into account other health care factors. The percentage higher for premiums for women seems to vary widely by state.
These disparities are considered discrimination by some (not me without more research). I see so many other problems with the existing health insurance system and Obamacare that are more significant than possible gender discrimination based on fluffy numbers. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.
Dizzied, while it’s not a serious fantasy, it is making a serious point.
I’d just like to inject a note of reality and objectivity into public policy discussions, and not simply rely on hosing white men as the controlling principle.
There are only two possibilities: either gender is an acceptable segmentation variable for actuarial purposes, or it is not.
If it is, then women should pay less than men for auto insurance (fewer accidents), but more for health insurance (higher costs), and receive less for a given annuity (same sum spread over greater expected longevity).
If it is not, then women should pay the same premiums as men for auto insurance (subsidizing male morons), health insurance (getting subsidized by men), and annuities (also getting subsidized by men).
I don’t care which decision we make, but we must stick to one or the other. This choosing whichever one favors women in any given case is bogus.
Swings and roundabouts; sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you.
Rich liberals – especially those who actively participate in business swim in a see of capitalist rules. The see the rules as normal.
The reason why they are liberals is because they think all the excess wealth they see can be used to make other happy and middle class if not wealthy.
But when the entire system is under stress, they expect that maintenance of the system to be paramount over their liberal beliefs. The system makes their beliefs possible.
But now they have elected Obama, and to their surprise they discover that Obama doesn’t believe in the system at all, and isn’t interested in maintaining the system. They can’t believe it. It looks to them like incompetence, which it is more or less. Leftist beliefs don’t match reality, so when they are applied to life, they look incompetent.
Hillary would be a disaster. Worse than the disaster we already have. Obama radiates softness. Hillary would be the screeching banshee from Hell.
Her performance as Secretary of State is poor. She brings nothing to the table. Let’s all forget about Hillary and consign her to being a footnote in history.
Dizzied.
Women are charged higher rates for health insurance and disability income insurance because they have more claims than men. They have lower rates for life insurance because, on average, they live longer.
The reasoin it would be discriminatory is that every action which disadvantages a minority, or reduces and advantage over non-minorities in the direction of being even is called discriminatory.
Being non-discriminatory is discriminatory.
Think you’d know that by now.
Maybe I’m getting a little tinfoil-hattish here, but I can’t help wondering if there isn’t some “good cop-bad cop” going on.
Obama wrecks the U.S. economy, and puts unaccountable, unconstitutional czars in place to continue the wrecking behind the scenes and under the radar.
The economy melts down and he takes the heat for it.
Hillary waltzes in and promises to fix everything. She’s also an Alinskyite, don’t forget. Millions of people are destitute and desperate, and beg for the government to save them. (More socialism.) The MSM supports her. Four or eight more years of hard-leftist government.
In a few years, the private health insurance industry will collapse, leaving single-payer government run health care as the only option.
And so on, throughout the economy. Obama lays the groundwork, and Hillary reaps the rewards.
The point is that Leftism ultimately triumphs.
Like I said, maybe a little tinfoil-hattish.
Frankly, I’m afraid so. There doesn’t seem to be any love lost between those two (remember Obama surreptitiously giving Hillary the finger?). Think two scorpions in a bottle, or Patton and the Russian general toasting with their arms intertwined. Their selfless collaboration for any purpose is hard to believe.
Further, I wouldn’t impute diabolical cleverness to either of them. Recall that Hillary was a lock for the nomination until the Reds packed the caucuses for Obama. Hillary’s failure to answer that strategy – and still less, to anticipate it – does not bespeak diabolical cleverness on her part.
For Obama’s part, well, where to start? Nothing he’s done bespeaks great cleverness, or even run of the mill savvyness (see, e.g., the Skip Gates fiasco).
I see Hillary as driven strictly and solely by personal ambition, and Obama to be driven by a yearning for validation, and the need to supplicate his master(s), presumably Soros & Co., who have put him in his present position.
This just in, re Hillary and her Presidential aspirations:
Despite having expected this, I need a drink to dispel my despair for the Republic.
First, attracting industry is not the goal of the Obama admin. But neither was it the goal of the Bush II, Clinton, Bush I, or even of Ronald Reagan’s admin. Politicians have been eschewing manufacturing for a long time, if possibly for varied reasons (say one to destroy unions, the other more on a corporatist level) placing their faith in finance and technology, assuming we would always have access to the little peon nations for that. Or, at least, that when the dam broke, they would be out of office securely pensioned or dead.
Second, one of the best things about an economic fall is those people who deserve it the most will feel it the most. Babs can’t make money like she once could, and when a billionaire (more a multi-millionaire’s) fortunes die, he can’t simply go “make more”. Like the pampered French poodles that find themselves on the sidewalk, a hard life for some is nearly impossible for others. To this end, I have some hopes in a collapse. Beyond, it was these types of people who helped significantly in the formulation of the quota in chief, others, public policy, and many of the other negatives that have lead us down this one way road. They deserve it more than any and, as I suggested, will feel the pinch like few others even know how to feel it.
*grumbles*
Nice post though. Depressingly delicious, with $2,000 billion fewer calories!
I assume this should have read, “You’ll never guess which Cabinet member gets the best reviews.” There’s only one female Secretary of State, so by definition she would simultaneously receive the best and worst reviews of her class, of which she is the sole member.
Journalists spend years learning their craft of wordsmithing.
rickl . . .
I don’t think you’re tinfoilhatish.
It really doesn’t take much effort to be a social activist. Read Saul Alinisky, if you haven’t already, and you’ll see that his ideas are pretty simple. And they work.
To paraphrase Whatshisname, the famous Greek philosopher, if you use a long enough lever, you can move the earth. That’s what George Soros and his monied crazy ilk are doing. Money always talks.
There are plenty of crazy nihilists out there who want to destroy America. I’ve met quite a few of them. They cannot be reasoned with because their psyches are messed up due to parental issues or white-guilt issues.
Hillary fits into this category. She’s a monster-in-waiting.
Niall Ferguson doesn’t sound like an economic liberal to me. This link is to a video of him debating Krugman:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/213269-paul-krugman-vs-niall-ferguson-you-decide
Also he was for a long time an editorial writer for Conrad Black’s Daily Telegraph in London.
Status trumps all. Right now the liberals are having doubts — maybe even serious and sincere doubts about their Affirmative Action President.
But come November . . . they’ve been convinced over years that voting liberal is high-status. Voting conservative is “bourgeois” = low status. Liberalism is virtuous and high-status. It makes you a better person, whitens your teeth, and gets you laid.
At BEST they’ll “forget” to go vote, or maybe preserve their liberal status by going “edgy” and voting for some Green Socialist non-candidate. But you could literally hold a pistol to the skull of the average liberal in a voting booth and they would be unable to make the muscles of their arm press the lever for the Republican candidate.
“Obama means well”???
Obama’s, well, mean.
OB, you’ve been on a roll.
A propos your Washington interview: I had similar one right on the day election-’04 results were coming in.
I came to a Madison-Sq. Park’ big architectural firm with my portfolio and prepared presentation only to be given an almost-exclusively a monologue by a Partner on the subject of [expected] glorious victory by Dems. On historical inevitability of said victory, due to objective truth of Marx’ teachings (at that point I was having strong de ja vue ) and how next day after the Event the lion will start sleep with the lamb, the “unfortunates” will be compensated, so on. The radio was on throughout the interview, giving the results from districts – and he cheered with every + score for Democrats.
Then, in the same excited tone Mr. Bleeding Heart informed me that in his firm there is no overtime pay but employees are expected to work over 60hrs a week, “for the good of our Clients”; that he considers it a good practice when his employees pursue further professional degrees – paid by them and with no decrease in working hours; that promotions are given to those who works/designs for charities of his choosing (like Habitat for Humanity)- in their spare time, of course.
By the end of the interview I knew there will be no follow-up one.
Trimegistus–“status trumps all.” Indeed. “Progressivism” is much less a coherent political philosophy than it is a claim to a certain level of social status.
Incidentally, status-fixation has much to do with the anti-manufacturing sentiment that Doom mentioned. See my post faux manufacturing nostalgia.
we need to redirect more healthcare resources from women to men to close the egregious gap in longevity. Men have suffered from second-class healthcare status long enough.
I have explained oppressor oppressed dialectical rules more than once.
please try to apply them or else you just ramble on in an echo chamber not getting what they use to compute some freaking rule.
its like watching a bunch of people trying to figure out the rules of whist, chess, or contract bridge by watching, and every time you explain the rules to them, they go no no… i got it, and then pretend to be gorillas int he mist and get coins among other ignorant pretending to be intelligentsia (as that’s where the power is and so they are copying).
ther ARE rules to all this…
and afte two years of telling them and then watching everyone fumble in the dark, its pretty frustrating.
EVERYTHING in that paragraph above was long ago thought of, decided, and addressed as to hwo to handl it and what rules work and dont work.
WHY?
beacus its a freaking movement of control,and none of the termites are allowed to think for themselves. also, its like a chess game where you can rewrite rules and they work unless you get called to the mat on them.
i have quoted the french phlosphers more than once that embody the thing, and of course chastized for being too long and so on.
personally.
i am coming to the conclusion that the majority don’t want an ANSWER as they are too entertained and feel too much enjoyment in the idea of endless unresolved false commiseration as a process.
WHY?
because they don’t latch on to answers or even try to, they instead favor non answers that never resolve and so “keep the party going” as the party is the fun part and actually accomplishing, and all that is the hard part and that which resolves the party to an end. [and i mean party as in gathering for the purpose of interpersonal enjoyment and fun]
the rules were established in the mid 1800s…
we here in the year 2010 refuse to learn a thing about those who are in antithetical opposition!!!!
its like we are going to go hunting for huffalumps and woozles… because that is an endless process where all ideas are equal and there is no resolution but the endless fun of the never ending hunt.
Problem is that we are not stuffed animals in Christopher robins imagination. we are actual flesh and blood in a wood full of real tigers and real deadly traps, and endless non resolved processes are antithetical to survival.
taking a step back and looking this all over, you all remind me of the Monty Python meaning of life skit where they surmise a mosquito has put a big hole in a netting and tore off a mans leg (as they ignore any real reason, like a tiger). meanwhile the progressives remind me of the Spanish inquisition skits..
If you combine them, the useful ids and ots discussing the problem will be completely surprised by the open and incompetent progressive inquisition.
without their method of resolution, the later wouldn’t surprise anyone given that they publish plans and books describing them (and using them as teaching materials which they follow)
its like we are in school and the answer of the test is not critical, so we flake off and dont care that johnny has the teachers edition with the answers and methods because we are having too much fun making stuff up to have it all blown away by the downer nihilistic reality.
A perfect example of watching people flounder:
Monty Python (The meaning of life) – A rather nasty bite.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu13UrF3UDU
here is the whole skit…
not just the netting part. sorry
Monty Python – The Meaning of War (Tigers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCkFhafk26A&NR=1
its wonderfully apropos…
while chaos is in the world around… they are distracted, ignorant, and all completely confident that their musings must be right with absolutely no empirical anything. never really ruffled.
[personally the dr that examines the leg reminds me of Hux]
wonderful…
Monty Python Communist Quiz sketch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ9myHhpS9s&NR=1
Bonus…
G6loq Says:
“The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails us.”
This is one of my big picture fears. Obama might go… but if your building a factory… do you want to do it in a country that elected someone like him? Or a country that allowed a ‘leader’ to do so many illegal things (ie, the system failed to restrain)? If the risks are ‘only the same’ as some Asian countries, well, they have lower taxes and expenses… We used to be able to offer stablity over those so that on balance we had a shot in being considered…
LondonTrader: Yes, I’m aware of Ferguson and his work in general. The point I was trying to make (and perhaps did not make clear) was not about Ferguson but about the fact that he was invited there to speak at all, and the positive reactions of the liberal crowd to his message.
Artfldgr, this:
was a joke, you know, for to laugh. It was a parody of liberal argumentation and faux concern. I understand the oppressor/oppressed dialectic; I was satirizing it.
Sorry that wasn’t clear.
I dunno. Babs is a communist. She’s been a communist all her life. Maybe her romantic notion of communism just won’t materialize, and she’s finally waking up?
Maybe Brolin and Babs were “blown away” because the speakers obviously ditched their blind-faith in Lord Obama. Scary!
I’m having a hard time beleiving Streisand is no longer a bubble-dwelling elite communist.
Sorry occam..
i seldom look to who wrote what…
i am a content person. 🙂
sad part is that many would think that your logic that is fine, would stand up in the illogical world of liberal areas of law they have modified…
Artfldgr, no probs. In fact, it’s funny and telling that my parody was on its face indistinguishable from a serious liberal position. /g
OT: I placed a hold at the local library on Stanton Evans’s book re McCarthy and blacklisting, and found I was seventh on the list. Good sign, methinks!
I think the dominant motivation was to appear avant-garde, even at the cost of looking fickle and/or reactionary. Never underestimate the shallowness of performers. (Or perhaps I should say, never overstimate the profundity of performers. Their prime directive is to appear chic. All other considerations dwindle into insignificance.)
If we are forced to get serious about “redistributing” wealth then I vote we start with these hypocritical morons. Surely the contents of Barbra’s bank account will go further in bulking up the treasury and bribing Barry’s voters than mine…
If we’re going to have wealth redistribution let’s have REAL wealth redistribution starting with George Soros and working down through the Kennedys, Kerrys etc. and on to Hollyweird…
And if we are forced into a revolution let’s make it a french revolution. Wonder if old George would like a hair cut…?
Could this possibly be the Clintons at work, not only blessing a liberal take down of Obama (and opening a possible 2012 run by Hilary if Obama is deemed too unpopular to run again) but giving a pass to the MSM to unsheathe their daggers and, while stabbing the Dope in the back, giving Hilary a boost in the polls?
There is nothing here of interest to conservatives, at least as yet.
I dunno, Steve. If Barry and Hillary decide to slug it out, who wins?
America, methinks.
Occam’s Beard,
Hilary can’t slug it out with the Dope as she is intent on proving herself the loyal supporter of his agenda. She and Bill must rely on surrogates, like “disenchanted” liberals and the MSM, to make the case that they were right when they pointed out his lack of experience. He has to be induced to step aside. Only then can she step in by acclamation to the role of presidential candidate in 2012. Stranger things have happened and are continuing to happen. Timing is everything on this one!