And someone mentioned (in Talking Points, IIRC) that the State Department Paper on the investigation of one of the recent Blackwater Incidents was written by a Blackwater employee. Somehow the idea of contracting-out the investigation of possible malfeasance by Blackwater _to_ Blackwater doesn't instill much feeling of confidence in me -- concerning either State's integrity or its competence. Maybe the KeyPhrase for this decade will turn out to be "What were they _thinking_?".
I'm ill. It's just everything -- the war, the loss of civil rights at home, religious intolerance, everything.
I'm sitting in Michigan (home of the DeVos's) where the previous Republican governor, who got 12 years to screw up our state, slashed taxes while he spent and spent and spent State money. He took us from a huge State surplus to a huge State debt and then the recession-that-just-won't-end-for-Michigan set in. Would have been nice to have that surplus as a rainy day fund, or to use it to really push Michigan's economy away from manufacturing and in new directions. Now our Dem governor has got to pay the bills. Do people remember that it was Engler who shoved our State to the edge? No, they blame Grandholm for raising taxes. Republicans also ran a weak field when term limits prevented Engler from running again.
I mention this because I'm seeing at a State level what will probably be happening at the Federal level in a few more years.
Did people suffering under McCarthyism feel this hopeless about the country's future?
Did people suffering under McCarthyism feel this hopeless about the country's future?
Well, no, but conservatism wasn't cool then. People calling themselves conservatives at that point were considered as loony as people openly calling themselves socialists would be today.
There's been a mainstreaming of the surface argument - that the market will run every last thing better than a government, which just ain't true in my opinion - and then, with the mainstreaming of that surface argument, there's this new semisecret, semiopen thing, big government conservatism. Instead of tax and spend liberalism, borrow and spend conservatism.
The more conspiratorially inclined say conservatives are fiscally irresponsible because if they bankrupt government, government can't exist anymore; that the incompetence is a deliberate if astoundingly cynical back way to accomplishing what conservatives couldn't do politically.
Me, I don't know. I think the Russians had their conversation about whether or not they should be a superpower ended for them. We're swallowing real hard and asking whether we should be a superpower, and there's a real human interest in being part of superpower.
It's too bad we decided to invade Iraq while a particularly impetuous and jingoistic bunch of people hogged the mic in this conversation, but I think we'll find, one way or another, that we can't sustain an American empire.
Thank you for that breakout at Majikthise (http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2007/10/some-more-detai.html). I don't watch TV news very often, but what I saw on NBC, yesterday, made me kind of sick. (This (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20922865/) may give you a rough idea.)
"Conflicting reports ...," no comment." The subtext I got from NBC's coverage was: who knows what's really going on? The truth must be an average of conflicting reports (as usual). That may be all that TV network news viewers get to know about Blackwater until someone makes more noise in Congress. No back story. Nothing about Louisiana. No list of specific incidents. (They did run a short soundbyte of Hillary Clinton declaring that she's sick of Republican cowboys. But I think that probably came across to most viewers as just more Democratic electioneering.)
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 05:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:34 pm (UTC)I'm sitting in Michigan (home of the DeVos's) where the previous Republican governor, who got 12 years to screw up our state, slashed taxes while he spent and spent and spent State money. He took us from a huge State surplus to a huge State debt and then the recession-that-just-won't-end-for-Michigan set in. Would have been nice to have that surplus as a rainy day fund, or to use it to really push Michigan's economy away from manufacturing and in new directions. Now our Dem governor has got to pay the bills. Do people remember that it was Engler who shoved our State to the edge? No, they blame Grandholm for raising taxes. Republicans also ran a weak field when term limits prevented Engler from running again.
I mention this because I'm seeing at a State level what will probably be happening at the Federal level in a few more years.
Did people suffering under McCarthyism feel this hopeless about the country's future?
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 02:01 pm (UTC)Well, no, but conservatism wasn't cool then. People calling themselves conservatives at that point were considered as loony as people openly calling themselves socialists would be today.
There's been a mainstreaming of the surface argument - that the market will run every last thing better than a government, which just ain't true in my opinion - and then, with the mainstreaming of that surface argument, there's this new semisecret, semiopen thing, big government conservatism. Instead of tax and spend liberalism, borrow and spend conservatism.
The more conspiratorially inclined say conservatives are fiscally irresponsible because if they bankrupt government, government can't exist anymore; that the incompetence is a deliberate if astoundingly cynical back way to accomplishing what conservatives couldn't do politically.
Me, I don't know. I think the Russians had their conversation about whether or not they should be a superpower ended for them. We're swallowing real hard and asking whether we should be a superpower, and there's a real human interest in being part of superpower.
It's too bad we decided to invade Iraq while a particularly impetuous and jingoistic bunch of people hogged the mic in this conversation, but I think we'll find, one way or another, that we can't sustain an American empire.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 04:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 05:33 pm (UTC)TK
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 07:33 pm (UTC)If that means anything, which he thinks today doesn't, but at the time he thought was cool subversion of the religious rightists.
Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 07:30 pm (UTC)Love, C.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 09:36 pm (UTC)"Conflicting reports ...," no comment." The subtext I got from NBC's coverage was: who knows what's really going on? The truth must be an average of conflicting reports (as usual). That may be all that TV network news viewers get to know about Blackwater until someone makes more noise in Congress. No back story. Nothing about Louisiana. No list of specific incidents. (They did run a short soundbyte of Hillary Clinton declaring that she's sick of Republican cowboys. But I think that probably came across to most viewers as just more Democratic electioneering.)