December 2, 2012

By will or by accident?

Update: credit to ‘beemoe’

JHoward

The excerpt I originally posted:

Posted by JHoward @ 5:09am
135 comments | Trackback

Comments (135)

  1. mc4ever59 says December 2, 2012 at 5:28 am

    Is that you, Nostradamus?

  2. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 7:00 am

    that was back before we had the foxenfriends on our side standing with us shoulder to shoulder together we sing that with the power of conviction there is no sacrifice cause of it’s a do or die situation – we will be invincible!

  3. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 8:10 am

    I’ve been saying for years the so-called “New Left” of the ’60s was just warmed-over Old Leftism from the ’30s.

    Where did anybody think the ’60s kids picked it up?

  4. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 8:25 am

    The 60s kids were Red Diaper babies. Nothing new here.

  5. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 8:29 am

    OT (since the other thread is dead) on the fiscal cliff:

    …[Obama's offer is like that of] Michael Corleone, “My offer is this, nothing. Not even the money for the gaming license, which I would appreciate if you would put up personally.”

    Shamelessly stolen from neoneocon’s blog.

  6. StrangernFiction says December 2, 2012 at 8:35 am

    Well according to Medved it isn’t by will, as Barky would have just refused to bail out the banks if destruction was his aim.

  7. Robb Allen says December 2, 2012 at 8:40 am

    IIRC, that’s Dr. Suess’ work.

  8. serr8d says December 2, 2012 at 8:51 am

    It’s gonna burn down, and that’s a damned shame.

  9. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 8:52 am

    The 60s kids were Red Diaper babies. Nothing new here.

    Some were, the party elite as it were. The cannon fodder of the New Left, who unwittingly swelled the ranks of the American Bolsheviki, got it from college professors who came out of the Stalinist ’30s.

  10. StrangernFiction says December 2, 2012 at 9:13 am

    Whatever it is, this thing is not “some Bolshevik plot.”

  12. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 9:34 am

    Whatever it is, this thing is not “some Bolshevik plot.”

    I’d like to understand you more accurately than this comment allows.

  13. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 9:37 am

    Well, yes and no, McGehee. There were a number of British influences on the leaders of the New Left. Bertram Russell ran a salon of revolutionary thinkers until his death. There’s a statue of Marx (I believe) on one of the squares in London.

    A lot of the American thinking about socialism comes from the turn of the last century when Wilson became president. I hate to reference movies, but watch Warren Beatty’s Reds and it is a love letter to all the old Communists in America. Emma Goldman and many others influenced the thinking of the nascent union bosses. Rather than Boss Tweed, we got Jimmy Hoffa.

    The Civil Rights movement being perverted into the Black Panther party, the Nation of Islam and others are all part and parcel of opportunists seizing the language of the Left to cloak their thuggish ways. The Chicanos jumped on that bandwagon with Cesar Chavez in the 70s. I’m sure you remember the picketers in front of the supermarkets telling us all not to buy grapes that were picked by ‘slaves’.

    Like much of history, it’s a complicated tale with a lot of players. The fact that socialism/communism survives today is shocking given its many episodes of fail over the decades.

  15. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 9:58 am

    Leigh, you are right — but between the leaders on the one hand and the thuggish opportunists on the other, there was an influx of what we today might call low-information adherents who were recruited from non-ideological backgrounds when the newly affluent post-war middle class began sending their kids to college.

    They are what made the old Left the “New Left” in the first place, creating the attractive opportunity that brought in the thugs to which you refer.

  16. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 10:03 am

    I realize I do a lot of commenting here for humorous or rhetorical effect, but I’ve also been thinking about this stuff for a long time. And I tend to take nearly all authoritative histories of the movement in question with a grain of salt, for what I hope would be obvious reasons.

  17. JHoward says December 2, 2012 at 10:41 am

    Well according to Medved it isn’t by will, as Barky would have just refused to bail out the banks if destruction was his aim.

    Mike is wrong on much. In this instance he somehow misses that were the aim to reconstruct the monetary system and call a financial crisis the big banks are where you’d start. President Goldman Sachs is the best friend central global monetization ever, ever had.

    In other words, define “destruction”, Mike. I define it as the destruction of capitalism, an economy, property, and a fucking national future as anything even remotely resembling this former constitutional republic.

    Mike is wrong on much. But not having sufficient self-awareness he’ll just keep cashing the checks from all those preaching engagements. Doesn’t he have a radio show or something? Medved is to Savage, for example, what Noonan is to John Bolton’s moustache, Regis.

  18. beemoe says December 2, 2012 at 10:43 am

    Question Authoritatitivity!

  19. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 10:45 am

    WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO!?

  20. @PurpAv says December 2, 2012 at 10:46 am

    Whatever it is, this thing is not “some Bolshevik plot.”

    It should be obvious by now that we actually lost the cold war

  21. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 10:51 am

    The fact that socialism/communism survives today is shocking given its many episodes of fail over the decades.

    Not really. The keepers of the flame still worship at the Old Church, even as they continually reinvent new ones for public consumption.

  22. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 10:53 am

    David Horowitz and George Orwell have more honest tales of the movement in their respective times than anything you’d get from more “conventional” sources.

  23. Spiny Norman says December 2, 2012 at 11:12 am

    The fact that socialism/communism survives today is shocking given its many episodes of fail over the decades.

    That’s ’cause REAL socialism/communism has never been tried.

    /humanities faculty consensus

    ::snort::

  24. Spiny Norman says December 2, 2012 at 11:18 am

    I hate to reference movies, but watch Warren Beatty’s Reds and it is a love letter to all the old Communists in America.

    Which is why I laughed with joy when Chariots of Fire won Best Picture that year, despite all the hype pushing Beatty’s hagiography.

  25. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 11:24 am

    /humanities faculty consensus

    ::snort::

    Softy. They rate a scoff at the very least, if not an outright guffaw.

  26. beemoe says December 2, 2012 at 11:27 am

    The fact that socialism/communism survives today is shocking given its many episodes of fail over the decades.

    You only learn from your mistakes in a logic based system.

    In a religion if your prayers aren’t answered you just aren’t praying hard enough.

  27. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 11:45 am

    Whatever it is, this thing is not “some Bolshevik plot.”

    More Trotskyite, perhaps?

  28. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:16 pm

    In a religion if your prayers aren’t answered you just aren’t praying hard enough.

    That would depend on what you were praying for and to which religion you belong. God will always answer. He just may not give you the answer you were looking for.

  29. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 12:19 pm

    In the case of Marxists, the god in question is History, which has already promised them victory. Unfortunately it never said when.

  30. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    David Horowitz is a treasure. I love it when he makes a rare appearance on teevee and let’s some host have it right between the eyes. I think Bill O’Reilly will never have him on again after he made him look like the fool that he is. He has no use for characters like Medved and his softy stances. He’s a fearless friend of FIRE and to the Muslim Student Unions across the land. He’s a little old man now and he needs body guards to speak at the Ivies, if they even let him speak.

    I’ve read nearly all of his books and read Frontpage all of the time. It’s unfortunate that he is getting up in years and may not have time to complete all of his work.

  31. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    In a religion if your prayers aren’t answered you just aren’t praying hard enough.

    In my religion, it usually means you aren’t praying for the right things.

    Or the answer was “no”.

  32. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:23 pm

    Argh. Add the word “foe” in front of Muslim Student Unions, up there.

  33. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 12:24 pm

    Oops, shoulda refreshed.Cheers leigh.

  34. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 12:25 pm

    In the picture you have a “Red Daddy” (right behind Wallace) and now we have his “Red Diaper Baby” who’s still around with influence and power.

  35. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 12:31 pm

    The old CPUSA guys of the 30s were the ones who used their clout to reform the New Left which had splintered in the 70s. They brought it together under the banner of “Community Organizing” which is what we now have running the government. You could say that in Obama the USSR’s zombie, the CPUSA, won the Cold War in the end or at least is close to doing so.

  36. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 12:33 pm

    castries peabnut bubber rum?

    Nobody tells me anything

  37. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 12:41 pm

    Here is a larger version.

  38. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:45 pm

    Same to you and yours, Lee.

  39. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 12:46 pm

    The guy riding on the mule is Rexford G. Tugwell.

  40. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 12:47 pm

    hah I have another never heard of it Tom n Jerry virgin taking a crack at it

    how fun is that?

    I need to work in a snorfle of this peabnut bubber thing first though while he “sends for eggs”

    chop chop on those eggs i have to be back at the spa in 30 to fill out my “sensitivity questionnaire”

    picachu is not in kansas anymore

  41. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 12:55 pm

    oh. The castries is more like a peabnut bubber baileys

    Not worth the calories at all

    its from St Lucia is what the bottle says

  42. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:56 pm

    Geoff, I am always amazed at all of the Fellow Travelers who are still shadowing the president, when he is a dem, or lurking in his Cabinet. I guess they keep a lower profile now or are more accepted (more likely) since the Red Scare and the HUAC trials.

    Wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if school kids actually learned American history without all the shading?

  43. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    Happy, shut up for awhile or find a different thread to prattle on, please.

  44. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 12:58 pm

    It’s amazing how much of that picture is today.

    I was struck with the sign on the wagon “Young Pinkies from Columbia and Harvard”.

    It was obvious in 1934 what was happening, but socialist wasn’t a dirty word then. WWII changed the character of the country, and socialism, Fascism, and Communism gained the reputation of a soulless, tyrannical police state.

    Communism survived, socialism softened but stayed in Europe, and fascism went underground. America was happy to have a government superior to that of those maniacs over there.

    The proggs lost momentum, but were able to start again with the boomer generation, on the foundation of the New Deal. The long march continued.

  45. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 1:01 pm

    communism is bad it really sucks I think I sure hope we only have a light case

  46. bh says December 2, 2012 at 1:03 pm

    Rexford G. Tugwell really sounds like a fictitious name from a novel back then, doesn’t it?

    Recognized Ickes and Wallace but not Richberg. Here’s his wiki.

  47. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 1:10 pm

    milton hershey’s middle name sounds very dickensian as well

  48. bh says December 2, 2012 at 1:11 pm

    Something that stood out to me was the last section:

    Richberg’s later life was marked by increasing conservatism and anti-labor attitudes, the practice of law, and writing. He attempted in 1936 to establish his own law firm in Washington, D.C., but this failed.[1] He joined an existing firm, which took the name Davies, Richberg, Beebe, Busick & Richardson.[8][41] He was frequently consulted by members of Congress for his expertise in drafting legislation, and played a major role in authoring the Taft-Hartley Act.

    That’s quite a transition. I wonder if he wrote anything about his changing opinions.

  49. bh says December 2, 2012 at 1:14 pm

    I see Compulsory Unionism: The New Slavery listed but I can’t find a free link to the text anywhere. Guess it was published in ’72 though so still copyrighted, I suppose.

  50. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 1:18 pm

    communism is bad it really sucks I think I sure hope we only have a light case

    I hate to be the one telling you, but capitalism is conquered. We live in a managed economy now. In fact, you live in a managed body now.

    The last hill the commies have to climb is capturing all religion to itself. It’s going to get ugly.

  51. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    religion would be wise to fortify itself against Corruption Most Foul by placing Sturdy Obstacles betwixt itself and Tawdry Politics

    but I been sounding that horn for awhile now

  52. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 1:24 pm

    My son has been watching a series about the Robber Barons. He’s quite taken with Cornelius Vanderbilt.

    Apparently, ol’ Vandy was the man and a foe of Richberg’s. What with trying to monopolize the railroads and all.

  53. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 1:31 pm

    the vanderbilts is why asheville is so snooty even though it’s basically just a buncha hillbillies and college kids

  54. bh says December 2, 2012 at 1:33 pm

    Your son might enjoy reading this biography of Rockefeller as well then, Leigh. I found it fascinating.

    It’s quite an education on a number of topics but the most interesting to me was how pervasive the ideas of cooperation and planning (those are the nice terms, of course) were in American business.

  55. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 1:34 pm

    religion would be wise to fortify itself against Corruption Most Foul by placing Sturdy Obstacles betwixt itself and Tawdry Politics

    Easier said than done, happy. Politics won’t keep its Russian hands and Roman fingers off our doctrine. We’re over here minding our own beeswax, tending to the sick and the lame. On top of feeding the hungry and teaching our little parochial schools, and here comes Politics (again!) trying to get a piece of the action even though we have a Treaty. Then, when we demur, Politics gets legal on us and tries to force us to do nasty, unnatural things we don’t believe in or condone.

    Dirty welshers are Politics.

  56. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 1:37 pm

    religion would be wise to fortify itself against Corruption Most Foul by placing Sturdy Obstacles betwixt itself and Tawdry Politics

    but I been sounding that horn for awhile now

    Indeed you have. Continually missing that it’s faith under assault, not politics.

  57. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 1:38 pm

    Son of a Bitch!

    Cheers again leigh.

  58. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 1:41 pm

    Thanks, bh. I’ll let him know.

    He says he’s also watched a segment about the Rockefellers and finds that whole era fascinating. Especially, as you say, the spirit of cooperation between all of the Bigs.

  59. beemoe says December 2, 2012 at 1:43 pm

    Religion and politics have been inseperable since birth. What you have now isn’t politics attacking faith, you have politics attacking a faith different from their own.

  60. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    Great minds, and ours too, Lee. ; )

  61. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    Who has their thumb on the server? It’s pokey as hell today.

  62. StrangernFiction says December 2, 2012 at 2:01 pm

    you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.

    Like a serial killer leaving a clue.

  63. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 2:03 pm

    Anderson Cooper is a Vanderbilt. His mom is Gloria Vanderbilt.

  64. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 2:08 pm

    But what’s it from, Strangern? I don’t see it in the post, and near as I can tell my comment was the first to refer to Bolsheviks.

  65. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 2:09 pm

    Religion and politics have been inseperable since birth. What you have now isn’t politics attacking faith, you have politics attacking a faith different from their own.

    Believers put their faith in God first, family second, country third.

    Proggs want everyone to put the State as god first, and corrupt the concept of family so that we are all children of the state first.

    Believers can’t do that and remain believers, so they resist.

    As has been pointed out before, Progressivism is a religion, and an aggressive, jealous one to boot.

  66. serr8d says December 2, 2012 at 2:25 pm

    Ran across this video today, which may or may not grab your attention.

    Concepts such as life and death are mere intellectual constructs. And any speculative spiritual ideas of an afterlife that takes place in a realm where the rigid mechanical underpinnings of this reality come to an end are equally fabricated.

    It’s fascinating, at least as a thing needing analysis.

  67. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 2:30 pm

    Here is one that is available used by the same author on a very similar subject. “Labor Union Monopoly, a Clear and Present Danger” by Donald R. Richberg. there is also this unusual item.

  68. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 2:32 pm

    It’s worth remembering that Whittaker Chambers was convinced he had joined the losing side when he abandoned Communism.

  69. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 2:33 pm

    Quantum physics is fascinating. It’s too bad I don’[t understand much about it other than the broad brushstrokes.

    Is time a continuum? My son and I talk about time travel a lot (he’s Mr. Apprentice with the Physics and Astronomy) and he tells me it’s not possible to travel backward in time.

    Kind of throws a wrench in a lot of scifi stories.

  70. LBascom says December 2, 2012 at 2:35 pm

    It’s fascinating, at least as a thing needing analysis.

    Analysis here.

  71. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    Whittaker Chambers risked everything to throw Alger Hiss under the bus. Not many have that kind of courage.

  72. bh says December 2, 2012 at 2:38 pm

    Thanks, Geoff. Probably wouldn’t buy any of them but maybe I can pull one of them up through the library system. Might be interesting to take a quick look at.

  73. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 2:41 pm

    religion would be wise to fortify itself against Corruption Most Foul by placing Sturdy Obstacles betwixt itself and Tawdry Politics

    Religion should stay in the closet while a hundred freak flags fly.

  74. StrangernFiction says December 2, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 2:08 pm
    But what’s it from, Strangern? I don’t see it in the post, and near as I can tell my comment was the first to refer to Bolsheviks.

    ————————————

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/01/29/obama_gop_demonized_health_care_like_some_bolshevik_plot.html

  75. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 2:44 pm

    yes the reason I didn’t do the Biltmore was

    well to be honest #1 was cause they wanted to make a 2 whole day blue haired old lady THING out if it but also #2

    the whole Biltmore scam involves taking monies out of my pocket and putting some portion of that in Anderson Cooper’s trusty trusty trust fund

    I just… I’m just not evolved to the point yet where I can feel good about that sort of violation of my person

  76. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 2:48 pm

    Concepts such as life and death are mere intellectual constructs.

    Try to stop thinking and see what happens.

  77. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 2:51 pm

    Ok the thing about spreading the Tom n Jerry gospel is you just have to say ok yeah just like that but take the alcohol up a couple notches and price it however you have to

    It is what it is

    But this is just my second time the first guy nailed the alcohol the first time no problem

  78. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 2:52 pm

    out *of* it I mean

  79. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 2:55 pm

    That’s ’cause REAL socialism/communism has never been tried.

    “120 years of failure and 100 million bodies proves nothing! Rejoic comrads….the Utopia is just around the next srimulous bend.” – (brought to you by Laika the spcae dog, beaming truthiness to the world since 1957)

  80. beemoe says December 2, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    You can’t make a utopia without breaking a few eggheads.

  81. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    StrangernFiction says December 2, 2012 at 2:43 pm

    Ah. Well, who pays any attention to that guy anyway?

  82. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 3:11 pm

    Poor Laika. Been in space longer than I’ve been on the Earth.

  83. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 3:12 pm

    yes the reason I didn’t do the Biltmore was

    well to be honest #1 was cause they wanted to make a 2 whole day blue haired old lady THING out if it

    Last time I was in Asheville my then-fiancee and I didn’t go to the Biltmore estate was, it’s expensive as hell. So we spent our money on Scottish crrrrrap and cat souvenirs and lunch at McDonald’s instead.

  84. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 3:20 pm

    I figured it wasn’t exactly priced to sell when they didn’t print the prices in the brochure

  85. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 3:21 pm

    but still you live in god’s own special heaven there in Georgia except for the ticks

  87. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 3:26 pm

    - Laika is the master source for the dog whistle messages to all the earth bound comrads Leigh.

    - When Lefturd BS circus finally comes to an end he has an offer from Progressive insurance. Flo’s going to be upset.

  88. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 3:29 pm

    Quantum physics is fascinating

    Leigh, I have this series of lectures on DVD and highly recommend them. The site has them as streaming video.

  89. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 3:32 pm

    Also here on Youtube.

  90. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    Georgia’s nice, but I’m a Western guy. I belong where salsa is a beverage, not mayonnaise.

  91. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 3:38 pm

    - Iranian sanctions vote: Congress 94, Obama 0

  92. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    you should move Mr mcgehee I have no suggestions really other than Reno is neat to consider cause of its proximity to all things western plus the elevation differentials you have there are kinda magical in how it makes it to where you can select your weather for the day

    Plus you can buy stuff for a song and then you own it

  93. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 3:48 pm

    but the country music’s, they do not ring as true in the Nevada as in the Georgia cause of, as you know, when I first saw a bikini top on her she was popping right out of the south georgia water not the south nevada water

  94. happyfeet says December 2, 2012 at 3:51 pm

    *musics* not music’s

    it’s not Samsung’s fault it’s some specific app P put on what makes the words it thinks you want not what you actually type

  95. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 3:57 pm

    “Laika is the master source for the dog whistle messages to all the earth bound comrads Leigh.”

    Aha! I knew it, BBH. It’s a good thing you have the code book. You can keep us clued in.

    Geoff: Thanks for the tip on the dvds. Gift problem for Junior solved! Of course, he’s getting his driver’s license on Thursday, so he may never be home to watch it.

  97. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    you should move Mr mcgehee

    I would, but not to a state that insists on re-electing Harry Reid. It’s a pity too because before I left California I loved to get over the mountains to Reno and that area — and not even for the gambling and whoring so much as just the wide open spaces. But my horizons have been broadened and I’ve learned that gambling and wide-open spaces can be found in all kinds of places. And if I was to end up in the right place I could still just drive to Nevada for the other thing.

    But alas, I lack the resources as yet to live wherever I damn well please. I didn’t even buy a Powerball ticket, what with knowing who would get such a huge chunk of it and what they’d do with it.

    And the music, it used to be called country and western. Chris Ledoux may be gone but he is not forgotten.

  98. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 4:54 pm

    Obama admin: By the way, we’re going to need insurers to pay to use our exchanges

    Wouldn’t it be great if everybody just refused to play along? Insurer’s refuse to pay to use the exchanges, employers refuse to pay the fine/penalty/tax for not offering insurance, individuals refuse to pay the fine/penalty/tax for choosing to not carry insurance?

    Maybe we should stop being Breitbart, and start being Barnhardt.

  99. newrouter says December 2, 2012 at 4:58 pm

    Wouldn’t it be great if everybody just refused to play along?

    works for illegal mexicans

  101. bh says December 2, 2012 at 7:03 pm

    Maybe we should stop being Breitbart, and start being Barnhardt.

    It’s definitely worth batting the idea around at least. Ideally, governors figure out a way that state citizens/business entities could act within those states’ attorneys’ general published guidelines. Might make it a little easier to get the ball rolling.

    [Someone with an edumacation check those plural possessives for me. My "those states' attorneys' general" gives me the heebie jeebies.]

  102. Mike LaRoche says December 2, 2012 at 7:10 pm

    Hey bh, congrats on Wisconsin getting another Rose Bowl berth. Should be a great game against Stanford.

    Meanwhile. Texas Tech is heading to the Meineke Car Care Bowl (formerly the Houston Bowl) to play Minnesota.

  103. bh says December 2, 2012 at 7:16 pm

    Thanks, Mike. If only there could be massive Big Ten sanctions against other powerhouses every year.

    Heh, this will crack you up. I actually googled to see if you were joking about the Meineke Car Care Bowl or not. It’s real, I see… so may the best team hoist the historic Golden Muffler aloft in victory!

  104. Mike LaRoche says December 2, 2012 at 7:24 pm

    Heh, I wonder if the winning team gets free oil changes and tire rotations for a year.

  105. bh says December 2, 2012 at 7:38 pm

    Wait, free car work for amateur athletes? Sanctions!

  106. Pablo says December 2, 2012 at 7:41 pm

    Geoff B, you are a googling beast. Gracias.

  107. bh says December 2, 2012 at 7:43 pm

    Btw, Ernst might have hinted at this above but is that supposed to be Trotsky printing the words in the left foreground?

    I’m pretty much going off facial hair.

  108. slipperyslope says December 2, 2012 at 8:03 pm

    Golly, people have been predicting the exact same thing for 80 years and it still hasn’t happened. Guess that prediction was wildly wrong.

  109. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Golly, slippy is still a brainless troll.

  110. bh says December 2, 2012 at 8:08 pm

    Thank goodness that ss is here to set us straight.

  111. newrouter says December 2, 2012 at 8:11 pm

    Golly, people have been predicting the exact same thing for 80 years and it still hasn’t happened.

    golly stupid peeps missed hitler,stalin mao, pol pot and et al for 80 years but they still get a trophy because they are so “insightful and good hearted”

  112. JD says December 2, 2012 at 8:27 pm

    Sloppyslurpee is a twatwaffle.

  113. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 8:29 pm

    - Slippystupid and his merry band of insipid deniers are going to ‘protect’ the middle class right out of existance

    (and then claim it never happened, because Utopia is a no-reality zone.)

  115. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 8:48 pm

    I’m pretty tired of SS stinking up the joint. Someone open a window so he can fall out of it.

  116. slipperyslope says December 2, 2012 at 8:50 pm

    Democracy Death Watch – Day 28,825 – Status: Democracy still in effect.

  117. newrouter says December 2, 2012 at 8:56 pm

    Status:Democracy still in effect.

    thanks for telling “chicago thug rule” is still in effect. yo merry CHRISTmas!!11!!

  118. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 8:58 pm

    Slippy self-reveals as not knowing what the word “democracy” means. World fails to be shocked.

  119. leigh says December 2, 2012 at 9:01 pm

    He’s kinda stoopid, McGehee, and his reading comprehension hasn’t improved either.

  120. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 9:03 pm

    For whichever link it was, the pleasure is all mine Pablo.

  121. slipperyslope says December 2, 2012 at 9:06 pm

    So when you guys talk about us being on the verge of tyranny, you mean, like, in the next 500 years or so.

  122. JD says December 2, 2012 at 9:11 pm

    Seek help, slurpee. Your stalkery infatuation is creepy.

  123. Spiny Norman says December 2, 2012 at 9:13 pm

    Slippyslop is concentrating on the last line, but all the rest of it is all too true. The “Spend! Spend! Spend” bit (the main point of the cartoon) didn’t work in the 1930s and it ain’t working now.

    Barry’s re-election is something like Groundhog Day: if Phil sees his shadow on February 2nd, we get 6 more weeks of winter. The electorate saw its shadow November 6th, so we’re likely getting 6 more years of recession.

  124. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 9:23 pm

    - The Left is stuck on stupid, and the only thing that will show them the man with the gold makes the rules is when reality bites them on the ass.

    - Which, I could care less when someone is just too blinkered to get it. Whats not cool is everyone else will have to suffer as they learn about life.

    - Ignorance is bliss, until it isn’t anymore.

  125. McGehee says December 2, 2012 at 9:44 pm

    I do think “verge” is incorrect. It implies we’re not there yet.

    Go away, slipperytyrant.

  126. BigBangHunter says December 2, 2012 at 10:14 pm

    - Businesses are already cutting back and withholding investment at the company level. That signals additional softening of investment group monies.

    - At some point there simply won’t be any incentive for growth. The numbnuts have to destroy the entire economy before they’ll finally get it. I thought when twinkies got nailed they’d start to wake up. Nada.

    - Stupid is as stupid does.

  127. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 10:49 pm

    I was choppin’ down a palm tree and a friend stopped by to ask if I would feel as lonely if he helped me swing the axe

    I said no, its not a case of being lonely we have here
    I’ve been working on this palm tree for 87 years

    I said no, its not a case of being lonely we have here
    I’ve been workin’ on this palm tree for 87 years

    He said go get lost and walked toward his Cadillac
    I chopped down the palm tree and it landed on his back.

    Some things just take awhile then, — boom.

  128. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 11:30 pm

    On another site someone mentioned a page from a book which has something that seems to fit.

    This notion of the Lie is distinct from ordinary political falsehoods or the Machiavellian manipulations of political leaders. It is derived from the function of ideology as the principle of legitimacy in totalitarian regimes.

    In this context the Lie is comprehensive and utterly destructive. Ideology creates reality by ceaselessly demanding that everyone embrace the lies of the regime: there is no truth other than that proclaimed by the regime.

    Leszek Kolakowski locates the distinctiveness of totalitarian regimes in precisely this: “This is the great cognitive triumph of totalitarianism: it can no longer be accused of lying, because it has succeeded in abrogating the very idea of truth.”; Again, the perpetuation of the Lie in the West was critical to the longevity of the Communist project.

    As Furet notes, “The capacity to mythologize its own history is one of the most extraordinary performances of the Soviet regime. But that capacity would have been less effective if it had not encountered a credulous tendency that is part and
    parcel of the culture of European revolutionary democracy,”!

    Everything old is new again, or this time we’ll do it right.

  129. Ernst Schreiber says December 2, 2012 at 11:40 pm

    If that Furet in the bit quoted by Geoff, is François Furet, then Geoff is more right than he knows about everything old being new (yet) again, as François Furet was at one time the premier historian of the French Revolution.

  130. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 11:51 pm

    It is Ernst. according to the footnotes it is from “The Passing of an Illusion“.

  131. geoffb says December 2, 2012 at 11:54 pm

    Page 144 in that edition.

  132. newrouter says December 3, 2012 at 12:22 am

    , like, in the next 500 years or so.

    ask the moe film guy

  133. JHoward says December 3, 2012 at 5:32 am

    Golly, people have been predicting the exact same thing for 80 years and it still hasn’t happened. Guess that prediction was wildly wrong.

    The government(s) is a quarter quadrillion upside down, the entire nation’s entire economic output for nearly twenty years.

    There are riots in the street against “capitalism” and a constant stream of legislation aimed at some degree of economic manipulation or another, typically at the behest of a crony corporation. We call them “reform” and “stimulus”.

    All currencies and markets are manipulated if not managed outright by central policy, policy increasingly enacted by the fiat power of the pen and not by a representative congress.

    The nation lives closer to the brink of poverty every day while its government strips rights and properties away from the masses to replace them with dole and dependency. And the Press is wholly complicit, right down to the agitprop.

    But no, this isn’t bankruptcy, anti-constitutionality, anti-capitalism, and tyranny.

    Mostly what this is in the context of this thread, slope, is your proving yourself subscribed to it all, but mostly the spin. That may be why folks find you so useless to the topic.

  134. JHoward says December 3, 2012 at 5:40 am

    Slippyslop is concentrating on the last line, but all the rest of it is all too true.

    The last line is too. The ruse is convincing folks it’s not, the Press’s job, even if only at this point by the allusions of redefined words and phrases like democracy and elections and economic recovery.

  135. JHoward says December 3, 2012 at 5:58 am

    So when you guys talk about us being on the verge of tyranny, you mean, like, in the next 500 years or so.

    Taunting the instructors is no remedy for ignorance, slope.

Leave a Reply