“In the US when you’re a left-wing activist you’re off the radar.”*

Planned Parenthood poaching on NAMBLA territory. What could go wrong? (h/t LBascom)

Literature death watch.

Oh lord, even our smartphones are caught up in politics. Feh.

Stealing is Constitutional? Who knew?

Soon appearing at a gubmint school near you, the Fat Police. Will they be carrying age appropriate handcuffs?

David Thompson politely examines philosophy professor Jere Surber’s “argument” that academics in the Humanities naturally trend “liberal” because their nuanced understanding of the “complexities of history” — to which they lay claim as a function of having made it all the way through Georg Lukács’ History and Class Consciousness without once stopping to purchase a Diet Coke, presumably — leads them to an obvious intellectual endpoint: progressivism.

That progressivism — and the socialism and soft fascism required for its intellectual undergirding — keeps failing as it runs into the realities of the market (and the unintended consequences that result from attempting to subvert individualism in favor of a kind of state-monitored tribalism by way of increasingly intrusive legislation) seems never to trouble those like Surber; in fact, their idea of intellectualism, inasmuch as it brackets actual data in favor of privileging political and social desire, is not really intellectualism at all. Instead, it’s a rather wordy masturbation fantasy.

Which is why the proper response to Dr Surber would be to approach him outside the faculty lounge and say something like, “Tell me, philosophy boy… what is the sound of one hand clapping?”

– Then, when he hesitates, slap him across his face.

From there I recommend you go get yourself a pack of Hostess Snowballs and enjoy the delicious combination of sugar-coated coconut sliver, marshmallow, and soft cookie platform. Trust me: you’ll get more out of it than you would trying to argue the smug off a philosophy teacher’s face.

****
See also, Jonah Goldberg, here and here.

Oh look what was in my email this morning:

Darleen –

A few days ago, President Obama told a story about an OFA supporter in St. Louis who had volunteered during the campaign and organized her community for health reform, but recently succumbed to breast cancer.

She didn’t have quality insurance, so she put off crucial exams and didn’t catch it early enough. And while she fought cancer, she also spent her final months fighting for a chance at health reform so others wouldn’t go through the same thing.

(more…)

click image to watch video

When the Audi “Green Police” ad aired, real time comments in the Super Bowl thread show that some of us found the ad disturbing. The Left’s own objections to the ad are revealing.

This is a promotion of a view of ‘going green’ that suggests heading toward a police state, destroying liberty, rather than any sort of vision of a more positive future.

While Audi intended this advertisement to boost the Audi TDI Clean Diesel which was, mistakenly in my opinion, named “green car of the year”, this advertisement in the most prominent advertising venue of the year serves to promote a very destructive perspective on what might happen as the United States moves toward more environmentally-friendly policies and regulations.

Because, you know, more laws taking more choices from people just spells commitment to liberty!

[An aside – writer Adam Siegel goes slightly off the rails in imputing nefarious, subliminal messages to Audi because the term “Green Police” is a rather obscure nickname for a type of Nazi police during WWII. Make of that spin on guilt-by-association and intentionalism as you will.]

Audi itself has stated that they wanted to make a humorous ad because, amazingly, funny ads are remembered. What Audi missed is that trying to be funny about something a little too close, by history or circumstance, to the truth is bound to creep out the audience rather than to inspire guffaws. I recall my father’s unease with the old television show, Hogan’s Heroes. He just couldn’t find much “funny” with portraying Nazi’s as bumbling, sympathetic idiots.

Another writer, David Roberts, on HuffPo attempts to smear the Super Bowl audience and advertisers while lauding the Audi ad as offering a great message. What the Leftcult Roberts doesn’t realize is that he does reveal exactly why the ad disturbs the non-left.

Is it me or were the Super Bowl commercials this year unusually ugly, misogynistic, and, worst of all, unfunny? Some of America’s biggest corporations seemed to be trying to play to Teabag America, and the results were as bitter as the teabaggers themselves. […]

At first blush this seems like more teabagging — appealing to angry white men with the same old stereotype of environmentalists as meddling do-gooders obsessed with picayune behavioral sins.

Hmmm. Environmentalists are “stereotyped” by Americans who are just a bunch of Super Bowl watching, womyns-hating, scotum dippers (save for such fine fellows like Dave) and the Evil Corporations that pander to them.

Dave Roberts, paging Dave Roberts. Please pick up the Irony courtesy phone in the lobby.

And as far as “obsessed”? Sure, absolutely no truth in that one, is there?

The more I’ve thought about it, though, the more the teabaggy [my, Davey is sure obsessed with scrotums! … ed] interpretation just doesn’t quite fit. The thrill at the end, when they guy gets to accelerate away from the crowd, turns on satisfying the green police — not rejecting or circumventing them, but satisfying their strict standards. The authority of the green police is taken for granted, never questioned. If you’re looking to appeal to mooks who think the green police are full of it and have no authority, moral or otherwise, why would you make a commercial like that? Why offer escape from a moral dilemma your audience doesn’t acknowledge exists?

The ad only makes sense if it’s aimed at people who acknowledge the moral authority of the green police — people who may find those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion, who only fitfully meet them, who may be annoyed by sticklers and naggers, but who recognize that living more sustainably is in fact the moral thing to do. This basically describes every guy I know.

Dave actually stumbles on why the ad is so disturbing to people who value freedom – because we find no moral authority inherent in the use of the threat of violence against people who don’t separate their trash.

And that Dave doesn’t know anyone that would question that authority is even more disturbing. Dave would be that person in Iran who supports the roving Moral Police who arrest or ticket women who show a little head hair or are out in public without a male relative as a chaperon because, you know, those obligations tiresome and constraining on occasion … but it is in fact the moral thing to do.

Clue to Dave: morality presupposes choice. When you take that choice away at the point of a gun, you strip individuals of their moral agency. And while law and morality overlap (i.e. laws against murder, stealing, et al) the law is a necessarily (in a country founded on Liberty) small subset of morality. Adultry is immoral but not illegal. A law against premeditated dumping of known, dangerous toxins in a lake is not equivalent – morally or logically – with a law against incandescent bulbs, campfires and using more than one square of toilet paper.

There is a profound difference between environmentalists and conservationists, not the least of which is the nature of the relationship between Man and his surroundings.

When Man is considered as having less moral worth than a tree or, even as some insist, is but a plague on Gaia, one is in the company of radical Eco-theists, as ideological as any jihadist looking to institute Sharia.

Dave may welcome his new Green Overlord believing it ushers in an era of “prosperity, pleasure, and sustainability”, but those of Teabag America know better.

“Prosecutor, Charge Thyself,” WSJ:

Before he pursued statewide office in New York, Andrew Cuomo was Secretary of Housing and Urban Development during Bill Clinton’s second term. And lest you think his tenure is forgotten, the HUD Web site has an instructive item in its Archives section.

Entitled, “Highlights of HUD Accomplishments 1997-1999,” the document chronicles the “accomplishments under the leadership of Secretary Andrew Cuomo, who took office in January 1997.”

HUD’s Web visitors learn that in 1999 “Secretary Cuomo established new Affordable Housing Goals requiring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—two government sponsored enterprises involved in housing finance—to buy $2.4 trillion in mortgages in the next 10 years. This will mean new affordable housing for about 28.1 million low- and moderate-income families. The historic action raised the required percentage of mortgage loans for low- and moderate-income families that the companies must buy from the current 42 percent of their total purchases to a new high of 50 percent—a 19 percent increase—in the year 2001.”
It’s a sign of Washington’s continuing failure to examine its own failures that HUD still views such a policy as an “accomplishment.” It’s as if the Pentagon described Pearl Harbor as a victory.

We know that in the wake of Mr. Cuomo’s agitation, Fannie and Freddie’s purchases of subprime loans skyrocketed. Subprime and “liar” loans became loss leaders that eventually caused the two mortgage giants to fail—with taxpayers so far on the hook for $111 billion in losses and perhaps hundreds of billions more to come.

The problem wasn’t merely that HUD under Mr. Cuomo was raising the volume of risky loans for which taxpayers were guaranteeing. HUD was also encouraging a dangerous decline in underwriting standards at these government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Says former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Edward Pinto, “HUD commissioned much research aimed at forcing the adoption of more flexible lending standards by the GSEs.”

In 1999, the Urban Institute published a HUD-commissioned study of Fannie and Freddie’s credit guidelines. Among its findings: “Almost all the informants said their opinion of the GSEs has changed for the better since both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made substantive alterations to their guidelines and developed new affordable loan products with more flexible underwriting guidelines.”

Keep in mind that Mr. Cuomo was doing this Fan and Fred cheerleading even as his colleagues in the Clinton Treasury were publicly raising red flags about their too-rapid expansion. Had Larry Summers, who was then Treasury Secretary, and Republican Paul Ryan, prevailed in their reform attempts, Fan and Fred wouldn’t have been able to pile up so much rotten debt and turbocharge the housing boom.

In 2008, Wayne Barrett wrote in detail in the Village Voice about the changes Mr. Cuomo also wrought at the Federal Housing Administration, encouraging bigger loans with smaller down payments.

Mr. Barrett wrote that Mr. Cuomo “made a series of decisions between 1997 and 2001 that gave birth to the country’s current crisis. He took actions that—in combination with many other factors—helped plunge Fannie and Freddie into the subprime markets without putting in place the means to monitor their increasingly risky investments. He turned the Federal Housing Administration mortgage program into a sweetheart lender with sky-high loan ceilings and no money down . . . .”

Mr. Barrett summed up Mr. Cuomo’s tenure in the Clinton cabinet by noting that “the country will be living with his HUD mistakes, ill- or well-intended, for a long time to come.”

Even if one believes the allegations hurled by the New York Attorney General at Bank of America—and there is much reason to doubt them—Mr. Cuomo has arguably done far more harm to taxpayers and investors than the defendants have. Before he is handed the New York governorship by Democratic and media acclamation, voters deserve a full accounting of Mr. Cuomo’s complicity in the mortgage meltdown.

[my emphasis]

Naturally, political animals like Cuomo will look for the easy target to scapegoat. The problem is when we allow them to get away with it — to, in essence, re-craft the narrative to insulate them while casting about for places to lay blame.

In a world where truth is increasingly allowed to be equated with perception (hi, Nishi!), the manufacturing of consent — of an agreed upon narrative enforced and patrolled by the group in power that society concedes to be “truthful” based on its having forged a majority consensus — is an ever-more desirous option: not only does it circumvent the need for internal logic or the objective assessment of fact in making its implied argument; but it is relatively cheap, in that it relies almost entirely on rhetoric — a commodity most easily marshaled by those in power to reinforce the status quo.

Quips Terry H (who sent along the WSJ link), “As Jeff Jarvis famously observed: anyone can print the facts, its lessons we are after.”

Indeed. Because the facts can sometimes get in the way of telling a good story — and we can’t have something like reality nudging its nose under the Utopian tent of progressivism, can we?

What hath the FIRE economy and weak leadership wrought?

MORE than half of Chinese people questioned in a poll believe China and America are heading for a new “cold war”.

The finding came after battles over Taiwan, Tibet, trade, climate change, internet freedom and human rights which have poisoned relations in the three months since President Barack Obama made a fruitless visit to Beijing.

According to diplomatic sources, a rancorous postmortem examination is under way inside the US government, led by officials who think the president was badly advised and was made to appear weak. [...]

“We should retaliate with an eye for an eye and sell arms to Iran, North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Venezuela,” declared Liu Menxiong, a member of the Chinese people’s political consultative conference.

He added: “We have nothing to be afraid of. The North Koreans have stood up to America and has anything happened to them? No. Iran stands up to America and does disaster befall it? No.”

Decades of Ponzi economics and gutting American production to send jobs overseas, and then the cherry on top: The Amateur Administration.

“Read the whole thing”. h/t Zero Hedge, where as usual, Durden has a broader perspective.

And the people, they rejoiced!

Crittenden hits the right note in response:

Anyway, Obama’s half-day televised bipartisan makeup session sounds more like a gimmicky setup. Something between a Survivor Tribal Council and a Hail Mary pass. After that back-and-forth with GOP House newbies, he figured out he scores more points with vapid showiness than he does when he actually tries to accomplish something.

The GOP would be well-advised to dismiss it for what it is and demand that the president approach serious matters seriously, rather than with a quickie reality TV session. Or better, just dismiss it as a gimmick, inform him the clock’s running out on that game already, and let him dangle through the mid-terms. However …

…However, the GOP continues to play the Left’s game. Virtually no one who’d bother watching such a contrivance is watching to make an informed decision on health care “reform” to begin with.

Instead, they’ll be tuning in for the made-for-TV drama — or rather, melodrama — from which our increasingly unserious media will extract only the most staged set pieces (parents crying; tales of insurance companies refusing treatment) and regurgitate it in sound bites on the local news, with the counterpoint being some silver-haired GOP fat cat smirking and saying something offhanded about the free market.

The message? Obama cares — while the GOP likes to watch children die if their corporate masters can make a buck off of it.

Listen: I understand that conservatives still believe — or at least, continue to hold out hope — that debates over issues are just that, and so they are eager to bring their case to the American people.

But portraying the villain in a televised stage-play about the evils of the market and the compassion of the Democrats, Who Are Only Fighting For You! is the exact wrong way to go about this.

The last thing we need is dramaticized government spectacle. And were I advising the GOP, I’d remind them that we live in a country that votes, increasingly, with its heart and not its head — and that if the election of Obama teaches us anything, it is that the heart is quite easy to manipulate when the people doing the manipulation have the scruples of a pack of lawyers, or a gaggle of union bosses.

YMMV.

From St.Mandy of Our Womyn of Perpetual Petulance:

Over this:

What kind of fetusphobe is it that is also insanely jealous of the obvious love between a mom and son?

Oh, wait, Amanda has company

The Women’s Media Center, which had objected to Focus on the Family advertising in the Super Bowl, said it was expecting a “benign’” ad but not the humor. But the group’s president, Jehmu Greene, said the tackle showed an undercurrent of violence against women.

“I think they’re attempting to use humor as another tactic of hiding their message and fooling the American people,” she said.

OOoooo!! Hidden messages!

Intentionalism, anyone?

(h/t Hot Air via B Moe)

*********************************
via TSI comes this hoot-fest

The idea that Focus on the Family – an organization that believes in reparative therapy for LGBT people, that likens abortion rights to the Nazi holocaust, and that has shadowy connections to open hate groups – gets this kind of a mammoth public forum is an absolute disgrace.

ZOMG! SHADOWY CONNECTIONS!! Strip ‘em of their First Amendment rights RIGHT NOW!!!

As for the ad, Pam Tebow speaks about the choice to ignore her doctor’s advice and risk her own life. She has every right to stand on a soap box with her hunky, Heisman winning son, and tell other women about the benefits of ignoring your doctor. But the idea that CBS would provide the platform for such a message without so much as a medical disclaimer, is simply wrong.

Because, you know, Planned Parenthood, securers of abortions for the under 15 set and advancer of claims abortion doesn’t involve babies, is the epitome of science and sound medical advice.

Wait…that rant is written by Dave Zirin. Sorry, penis person, you have no standing in this debate.

Promoted from the Pub

I’ve written before in comments about how, through bureaucratic means, the “New Left” seized power in the Democratic Party. The Left has always been excellent at working committee meetings. They excel at being “Committeemen”. This is about how they managed to pull off an brilliant internal coup.

(more…)

Up early for your predictions and trash talk. I really don’t have a team to root for, but I’ll be watching mostly for the commercials. The Tebow 30-second testimonial has engendered far more publicity (and sheer weirdness from the pro-abortion side) then it would have gotten if it were merely ignored by those gnashing their teeth at CBS.