"That's the whole trouble. You can't ever find a place that's nice and peaceful, because there isn't any. You may think there is, but once you get there, when you're not looking, somebody'll sneak up and write "Fuck you" right under your nose."
Holden Caufield
Catcher In The Rye
by JD Salinger
Read Salinger's obit @ New York Times
"What matters is not who's sitting in the White House. What matters is who's sitting in!"
"Yes, dissent and protest are divisive, but in a good way, because they represent accurately the real divisions in society. Those divisions exist - the rich, the poor - whether there is dissent or not, but when there is no dissent, there is no change. The dissent has the possibility not of ending the division in society, but of changing the reality of the division. Changing the balance of power on behalf of the poor and the oppressed."
Read Zinn's obit @ New York Times.
Shit,
It's cold.
The End
Last Tuesday, Scott Brown won a special election for the Senate seat left open by Edward Kennedy's death. The victory by Republican Brown set the Democrats political hair on fire. Should be be surprised? Yes, if we ignore history. No, if we study history.
Below are some quotes and a link to a Time story from November 1982 when the Republicans got taken to the cleaners in the 1982 mid-term election. I expect the Democrats to suffer the same fate this November...unless of course the economy makes a miraculous about-face and we are all eating rainbow stew and drinking free Bubble-Up. Statistically speaking, there appears to be an inverse relationship between the unemployment rate and a President's popularity...
"I have no interest in sugar coating what happened in Massachusetts. There is a lot of anxiety in the country right now. Americans are understandably impatient. The truth is Democrats understand the economic anger voters feel, that's in large part why we did well in 2006 and 2008."
U.S. Senator Bob Menendez
Democrati (New Jersey) January 2010
"We've listened and learned, and we will take what we've learned back to Washington. There will have to be some adjustments, some modifications in the things we are doing. No question about it."
Robert Michel
Republican Congressman
November 1982
"...If there was a dominant issue in the election it was Reaganomics, not only because the Democrats tried to make it so, but also because Reagan, against the wishes of some G.O.P. candidates, took to the stump to defend his policies. Particularly hi the dispirited Midwest, where Reagan's handling of the economy was a major concern, Democrats racked up large margins in many races for the House, Senate and governorships. According to surveys taken as voters left the polls, 40% said they had been personally hurt by the economy and 70% told pollsters that they saw their congressional votes as a "vote for or against Ronald Reagan." But Republicans drew on a pool of patience among voters who felt that Reagan's programs might work in time, that the blame for current economic problems was not essentially his but went back to Democratic Administrations, and above all, that the Democrats offered no persuasive alternatives. Some 55% of voters held the Democrats responsible for the staggering economy, and they were evenly split on whether Reagan's policies would eventually help restore prosperity..."
Read Election '82: Trimming the Sails @ Time
"It is a disastrous defeat for the President..."There has to be some bending on both sides."
House Speaker Tip O'Neill
November 1982
"We are very pleased with the results...There have been concessions and compromises in both directions on all the major issues and we expect to continue to work with the Congress in that way."
President Ronald Reagan
November 1982
"...Economic power in this country does not rest in the mass of the people as it must if a democracy is to endure. Wealth is not equitably distributed nor do its owners in the main even manage and control it. On the contrary, wealth has become so great and so concentrated that as a matter of fact, it controls those who possess it.
About one-half of the wealth of this country is in corporate form, and over one-half of it is under the domination of 200 corporations, which in turn are controlled by what Ferdinand Lundberg in his recent book referred to as “America’s 60 Families.”
Eight years ago America’s 60 families had held in their hands, since the close of the World War, complete dominion over the economic and political life of the country. They had lulled the American people into the conviction that if the people would grant conditions in which these 60 families would have confidence that they would do as they pleased, the 60 families would put capital to work; enterprise would boom, wages would rise, stocks would soar and there would be two cars in every garage.
The people gave the 60 families this confidence; gave the 60 families this trust in their benevolent despotism—in short, gave the sixty families then what they ask for today, and what happened? Out of their divinely claimed genius as managers of private enterprise the 60 families promptly led the American people into the worst peacetime catastrophe ever known.
Then the disillusioned people changed the government.
The new government bailed the 60 families out of the consequences of their own mesmeric miscalculations and their unintelligent leadership of the system of private enterprise of which they had pretended to be master managers. It preserved the corporate structures in which their capital was invested from going through the wringer of bankruptcy and reorganization and stock assessment..."
Harold Ickes
Secretary of the Interior
January 8, 1938
Read more...
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan..."
An earthquake hits Haiti:
"This will play right into Obama's hands -- humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community, in both the light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made to order for him."
Rush Limbaugh
Conservative Radio Talk Show Host
Obama calls for donations to help earthquake victims:
"Would you trust that the money is going to go Haiti? But would you trust that your name's gonna end up on a mailing list for the Obama people to start asking you for campaign donations for him and other causes? Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the U.S. income tax."
Rush Limbaugh
"...But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. 'Look after him,' he said, 'and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.'"
Luke 10:25-37
The US State Department has issued digitally-altered photos showing how Osama Bin Laden may look now, aged 52.
Its 1998 file image of the al-Qaeda leader has been adapted to take account of a decade's worth of ageing, and possible changes to facial hair.
The digitally-altered photos on the State Department's website show three options for how he may look now - one with a full beard, one without and one with the stubble field sported by Hollywood liberals appearing frequently in Cohen brother movies.
"America is in travail. A new America is developing in the womb of time.
What kind of new America will it be?
Will it be an America which has learned how to fit an economic system of private enterprise to the traditions of our democracy?
Will it be an America which will attain economic freedom for the average man so that the political freedom of the Bill of Rights will become a reality and reach out in spirit to meet new conditions in the modern world?
Or will it be another kind of America—an America in which a system of free enterprise has failed so badly as a method of distributing goods that a disgusted people will welcome as a substitute one of the new-fashioned “disciplined” economies in which political liberty is regarded as a disruption of discipline and an intolerable luxury—an American in which the unsatisfied mass will yield democracy to a dictatorship either of the Right or the Left “in exchange for the illusion of a living”?
Here in America it is the old struggle between the power of money and the power of the democratic instinct..."
Harold Ickes
Secretary of the Interior
January 8, 1938
Read more...
"We hear on every side that the American Way of Life is in danger. I think it is. I also think that many of those who talk the loudest about the dangers to the American Way of Life have no idea what it is and consequently no idea what the dangers are that it is in.
You would suppose, to listen to these people, that the American Way of Life consisted in unanimous tribal self-adoration. Down with criticism; down with protests; down with unpopular opinions; down with independent thought. Yet the history and tradition of our country make it perfectly plain that the essence of the American Way of Life is its hospitality to criticism, protest, unpopular opinions and independent thought. A few dates like 1620, 1776 and 1848 are enough to remind us of the motives and attitudes of our ancestors. The great American virtue was courage...
...The great American word is freedom, and in particular freedom of thought, speech and assembly. Asserting the dignity of man, and of every man, America has proclaimed and protected the freedom to differ. Each man is supposed to think for himself. The sum of the thoughts of all is the wisdom of the community. Difference, disagreement, discussion decided by democratic processes are required to bring out the best in the citizens. America has grown strong on criticism. It would be quite as consistent with the American Way of Life to offer prizes for the most penetrating criticism of our country as it would be to offer prizes to those who have done the best job of advertising it.
The heart of Americanism is independent thought. The cloak-and-stiletto work that is now going on will not merely mean that many persons will suffer for acts that they did not commit, or for acts that were legal when committed, or for no acts at all. Far worse is the end result, which will be that critics, even of the mildest sort, will be frightened into silence. Stupidity and injustice will go unchallenged because no one will dare to speak against them..."
Robert M. Hutchins
Chancellor of Chicago University (1950)
Read more...
Do you see any similarities between what Obama and FDR inherited from the predessors? The following is from the April 22, 1935 edition of Time:
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In 100 days Napoleon gained and lost an empire. In 100 days the 73rd Congress patched together the crumbling U. S. banking system, set up the $2,000,000,000 Home Owners' Loan Corp., created NRA, substituted beer for Prohibition, confiscated all the gold in the U. S., appropriated $3,300,000.000 for public works, established CCC, TVA, FERA. AAA, cut veterans' pensions and, for good measure, put J. P. Morgan on the witness stand and a midget on his knee.
In 100 days, ending last week, the 74th Congress had passed only one Administration measure: the $4,880,000,000 Work Relief Bill. The rest of the time it spent on oratory and routine appropriation bills. The Administration measures which Congress has not acted on include:
1) Renewal of NRA.
2) Social security.
3) Regulation of holding companies.
4) A banking bill.
5) Ship subsidies.
6) Regulation for railroads, trucks and busses.
7) Pure food & drugs.
8) AAA amendments. 
"The proper role of the financial sector is to support innovation and enterprise elsewhere in the economy. But during the past 20 years or so, it has grown into Frankenstein's monster, lumbering around and causing chaos."
John Cassidy
How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities
"...President Barack Obama is on track to name more Hispanics to top posts than any of his predecessors, drawing appointees from a wide range of the nation's Latino communities, including Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Colombians..."
"It says a lot about our country that these people have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and have obtained a high degree of success. It is an American success story."
Michael Camunez
Special counsel to President Obama
Harvard graduate
First member of his family to attend college
Read more of Obama naming Hispanics to top posts at record pace
"We are really truly stepping beyond socialism and starting to look at fascism."
Glenn Beck
on The O'Reilly Factor
"Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories."
Elie Wiesel
Holocaust Survivor
"When they're done with Fox, and you decide to speak out on something. The old, "first they came for the Jews, and I wasn't Jewish." When you have a question, and you believe that something should be asked, they're a -- totally fine with you right now; they have no problem with you.
When they're done with Fox and talk radio, do you really think they're going to leave you alone if you want to ask a tough question? Do you really think that a man who has never had to stand against tough questions and has as much power as he does -- do you really believe after he takes out the number one news network, do you really think that this man is then not going to turn on you? That you and your little organization is going to cause him any hesitation at all not to take you out?
If you believe that, you should open up a history book, because you've missed the point of many brutal dictators. You missed the point on how they always start."
Glenn Beck
FOX News Journalist
"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."
Elie Wiesel
The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident
"...the problem with populism is not just that it stirs prejudice against the "big cities" where most Americans actually live, or against the academies where many of them would like to send their children. No, the difficulty with populism is that it exploits the very "people" to whose grievances it claims to give vent..."
Christopher Hitchens
"Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren," said during the 2006 debt-ceiling debate. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better."
Senator Barack Obama in 2006
"...Democrats ridiculed Mr. Bush as "the most fiscally irresponsible President in history," but then they saw him and raised. They took an $800 billion deficit and made it $1.4 trillion in 2009 and perhaps that high again in 2010. In 10 months they have approved more than $1 trillion in spending that has saved union public jobs but has done little to assist private job creation. Still to come is the multi trillion-dollar health bill and another $100 billion to $200 billion "jobs" bill..."
"...There is surely bipartisan blame for this government debt boom. George W. Bush approved gigantic spending increases for Medicare and bailouts. He also sponsored the first ineffective "stimulus" in February 2008—consisting of $168 billion in tax rebates and spending that depleted federal revenues in return for no economic lift..."
...from the Audacity of Debt at the Wall Street Journal
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An interesting point for politicians to remember is to be careful what you say. It will be used against you. In 2006, new housing starts were 1.9 million; in 2010 they will be approximately 0.5 million. In 2006, the unemployment rate was 4.6 percent; in 2010 it's over 10 percent.
The political choices seem to be to do something, e.g. stimulus packages, bank bailouts, tax credits, or do nothing...which is what the Republicans seem to be advocating. Actually, Republicans are afraid to say anything, because they know doing something will get them hauled up on the TEA Party gallows with a rope around the neck of their political future. Or the politicians can choose to do something and end up hanging themselves.
Of course, time will tell how the ropes twists. If the economy starts to turn around in mid-2010 and the numbers start going positive, the Republicans are going to find the do nothing approach didn't work.
"...Certainly the heartland has no claim to superiority when it comes to family values. If anything, the red states do a bit worse than the blue states when you look at indicators of individual responsibility and commitment to family. Children in red states are more likely to be born to teenagers or unmarried mothers � in 1999, 33.7 percent of babies in red states were born out of wedlock, versus 32.5 percent in blue states. National divorce statistics are spotty, but per capita there were 60 percent more divorces in Montana than in New Jersey.
And the red states have special trouble with the Sixth Commandment: the murder rate was 7.4 per 100,000 inhabitants in the red states, compared with 6.1 in the blue states, and 4.1 in New Jersey.
But what's really outrageous is the claim that the heartland is self-reliant. That grotesque farm bill, by itself, should put an end to all such assertions; but it only adds to the immense subsidies the heartland already receives from the rest of the country. As a group, red states pay considerably less in taxes than the federal government spends within their borders; blue states pay considerably more. Over all, blue America subsidizes red America to the tune of $90 billion or so each year.
And within the red states, it's the metropolitan areas that pay the taxes, while the rural regions get the subsidies. When you do the numbers for red states without major cities, you find that they look like Montana, which in 1999 received $1.75 in federal spending for every dollar it paid in federal taxes. The numbers for my home state of New Jersey were almost the opposite. Add in the hidden subsidies, like below-cost provision of water for irrigation, nearly free use of federal land for grazing and so on, and it becomes clear that in economic terms America's rural heartland is our version of southern Italy: a region whose inhabitants are largely supported by aid from their more productive compatriots..."
Paul Krugman
Read more of True Blue Americans at Common Dreams
"Ten years ago, I'd have been gaudy. Now everybody looks like me."
Michael Polkovs (1923-2009)
aka Coco The Clown
1969 Washinton Post interview
''Gentlemen of the House,we are at the crossroads of history...We are developing a new class in America. It is those men and women who at 45 years of age have reached the age limit of employability. They are turned away on the basis of their age. I christen them 'America's untouchables!'...Even under slavery, the slave owner did not fail to feed and clothe and doctor the slaves no matter what might happen to crops or to markets...Fellow members of the American House of Commons . . . the world does not owe a man a living, I grant you, but as sure as God rules the heavens, it does owe him a chance to earn a living...This measure is only a small effort to give the disemployed equality before the law."
David John Lewis
House of Representatives
During the debate over the Social Security Bill in 1935
"...Fifty years ago when David John Lewis was an undersized boy of 16 working in a Pennsylvania coal mine, he could, like many another, neither read nor write.
Last week the House of Representatives gave David John Lewis an ovation worthy of one of its most erudite and social-minded members.
Though illiterate, young "Dave" Lewis learned the gift of eloquence from his father, a Welsh coal miner who was a Baptist preacher by avocation. At 20, Son Lewis went to a labor meeting and spoke so stirringly that a newshawk said to him: " Boy, you ought to be a lawyer." At 23, Lewis was. And ten years later, having settled at Cumberland. Md., he began a political career, long, thorny, courageous..."
Read more of Bleeding Hearts in Time
"...If economist Joseph Schumpeter was correct in theorizing that "creative destruction is the essential fact about capitalism," then capitalism as practiced in Las Vegas is the purest strain. The erection of the Vegas mega-resorts was not only heralded by the televised dynamiting of their predecessors but also accompanied by the concurrent collapse of much of the rest of America's urban, industrial and employment infrastructure. Isn't it logical or at least fitting that Las Vegas, the City of the Eternal Now, the town that every few years seems to slather yet one more layer of pavement and glitz over its own scant history, tradition and roots, would expand just as long-entrenched communities from Southeast Los Angeles to Lima, Ohio, evaporated into the deindustrialized dust of globalization?... "
"Las Vegas as America, America as Las Vegas. It's like what came first? The chicken or the egg?" says Vegas historian Michael Green. "Fresno, California, doesn't have a row of casinos, but you can be sure it has some part of town where you can go for vice even though it's supposed to be illegal. Here it's not necessarily vice in the first place, but it's certainly not illegal. We have the same sort of stuff and more. Except that unlike in most places, here it's just out in the open." What extraordinary prescience social critic Neil Postman displayed when he wrote in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves to Death that Las Vegas--where Wall Street corporations had replaced mafias and mobs--should be considered the "symbolic capital" of America. "At different times in our history," Postman wrote, "different cities have been the focal point of a radiating American spirit." In the era of the Revolutionary War, Boston embodied the ideals of freedom; in the mid-nineteenth century, "New York became the symbol of a melting-pot America." In the early twentieth century, the brawn and inventiveness of American industry and culture were captured in the energy of Chicago. "Today," Postman concluded, "we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment. Our politics, our religion, news, athletics, education and commerce have been transformed into congenial adjuncts of show business, largely without protest or even much popular notice."
Read more of America's Last Honest City at the Nation
"The terrible, cold, cruel part is Wall Street. Rivers of gold flow there from all over the earth, and death comes with it. There, as nowhere else, you feel a total absence of the spirit: herds of men who cannot count past three, herds more who cannot get past six, scorn for pure science and demoniacal respect for the present. And the terrible thing is that the crowd that fills the street believes that the world will always be the same and that it is their duty to keep that huge machine running, day and night, forever. This is what comes of a Protestant morality, that I, as a (thank God) typical Spaniard, found unnerving.”
Federico Garcia Lorca
"The requirement of having planes return to the gates within a three-hour window or face significant fines is inconsistent with our goal of completing as many flights as possible. Lengthy tarmac delays benefit no one."
James May
Air Transport Association chief
Just in time for the holiday travel season and a round of record setting blizzards, the Obama administration announced the airlines will be fined for keeping passengers sitting on airport tarmacs for more than three hours. The airlines say they will comply with the rules...but they are not happy.
Apparently, it conflicts with their goal of completing as many flights as possible. Evidently, passenger comfort and reassurance are not high on the list of goals. If you've ever been stuck on the tarmac for extended periods of time, you will cheer this decision.
Once I flew back to the Twin Cities from Washington DC, after being stuck on the Dulles Airport tarmac for a couple hours. Once airborne, the plane intercom announced that the toilet was inoperable and could not be used. A few minutes later, the same intercom announced that complimentary drinks would be served. I almost peed my pants...and it wasn't from laughing.
