And just in case you’ve forgotten, Terri Schiavo, drilling in ANWR? Distractions. I say ANWR is a distraction because nobody really wants to drill up there anyway. I doubt it’s profitable, given the opportunity cost, and the total oil capacity of the place wouldn’t begin to cover US consumption for a year. It’s a distraction from social security; it’s a distraction from congressional embarrassment. Keeping us focused on the unimportant things. Call me a media conspiracy lunatic if you want. Just don’t come bitching to me when our parents are begging on the street.
All hail the new feudalism.
I know ANWR’s probably not that big of a deal considering everything, but I’m outraged at the implied statement that I think it makes–that the environment is no big deal. We hear it all the time implicitly, so I don’t know why I’m so incensed–I guess I should be used to it now. Maybe if I heard the people who support ANWR “exploration” doing a little more verbal self-torturing (even if insincere) I wouldn’t be so outraged, but you never hear them admit anything even remotely untoward about it.
Sure, that’s what they’re counting on: the outrage. But we have to prioritize our outrage. It’ll only go so far. And instead of barking when they expect, we say “You’re an idiot; that solves nothing. It’s just like your plan to leave everyone’s grandparents starving on the streets with the next stockmarket downturn: a handout to big business which does little to nothing for everyday citizens.”
i personally think that Schiavo is a distraction from the fact that no one is buying Bush’s stupid “private accounts” bullshit and he wants a way to get his base back.
fucking neo-cons.
and i think bush is losing face on Iraq, or else, it’ll be announced that Schiavo is dead and then next think we know we’re invading Iran. It’ll be “Remember Terry” with red bumperstickers saying “life” on them while people drive their fucking Hummers past homeless shelters and children in sub-standard housing.
Fortunately for us, there are logistical constraints to military use that I suspect even Bush will not ignore. Spreading it so thin that we start looking like an easy target: bad idea.
Your image of hummers, bumper stickers and human neglect rings just a little too true to my mind.
spread it too thin so that the us looks like an easy target is what the game plan is, bankrupt a country, government fails and business steps in to preserve america, corporations take over publically this time
it sounds a bit conspiracy theory i know, but it’s already happened before elsewhere and it’ll happen again
why are you trying to distract me from my wall to wall terri/school shooting “stories”? i mean, give me a quality infographic about social security or the drug war or the military industrial complex and maybe i’d pay attention. 😉
I’ve been thinking that we ought to set up a system of real journalism, displaying real leadership, investigating claims, no agenda dictated from the board room. Hmmm.
Something like slashdot, maybe. But not lame. And put within easy reach of every american. And a unicorn. Definitely a pet unicorn.
whats this about a unicorn? it probably represents how gay and liberal the outlet is — and then there’s multi-colored horn. ;-P
merikkka definitely needs better news, but there’s little hope with our current system of government.
Yeah, one of the interesting claims that many people seem to believe is that non-profits emerge to compensate for government failure.
But a convincing case was made in my public management and leadership course last semester that that’s ass backwards. Humans organize naturally around problems, and in our modern socioeconomic milieu, that means nonprofits/ngo’s spring up, but sometimes the problem is too big for this spontaneous group problem solving, and then we have government handle it because it can do the job more effectively.
Hence why we have government health and anti-poverty programs, and so forth and so on. When we eliminate these government programs, yes, the non-profits and ngo’s will get more donations, but they still won’t do the job that the government did, and bad juju will happen. The small government idealogues have a great deal more in common with lenin and mao zedong than they’d probably like to think about. Cultish faith in an idea of government that may not actually work as advertised in reality.
This also explains why the government often works through/with other agencies. The hospitals, schools, etc, have experience working on the problem, they just need a boost, so the government steps in and gives it to them.
“The small government idealogues have a great deal more in common with lenin and mao zedong than they’d probably like to think about.”
Have you seen Billmon’s series on David Horowitz == Mao Zedong? Also, if you didn’t know, many of the actual neocons (the small intellectual cabal from the 60s I think, as opposed to the johnny-come-latelies we usually refer to by that name) are ex-Trotskyites.
http://billmon.org/archives/001752.html
All of his recent stuff is good, actually.