Where Is The Outcry?

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Sunday August 31, 2008 · 2:18 PM PDT

2008/08/31 · 14:18

I am surprised to find nothing here recommended to bring attention to the fact that police and federal agents in Minneapolis/St.Paul have been trampling all over the rights of potential protesters -- invading their homes, breaking down doors, coming in with flak jackets and automatic rifles, hand-cuffing people on the floor, confiscating journals and computers, in some cases arresting people who have no violent intentions and who have not been breaking any laws -- they've been targeting vegans for God's sake! It's basically just a big, ugly intimidating boot across the throat of anyone who might want to protest the GOP convention. Appalling police state tactics.

ailanthus

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Friday April 18, 2008 · 7:10 AM PDT

2008/04/18 · 07:10

It's perhaps a minor point, but when people criticize Obama's remarks in San Fransisco they tend to characterize his view as being, as Paul Krugman expresses it in this morning's column, that people "cling to religion out of economic frustration". Hillary gave it a similar spin (perhaps even innocently) in the debate Wednesday. I don't believe the point has been made clearly or forcefully enough that Obama was not saying that people cling to religion out of economic frustration. He was saying that people gravitate towards that within the political sphere which corresponds to that which gives their life balast, i.e. religion.

ailanthus

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Tuesday March 25, 2008 · 6:46 AM PDT

2008/03/25 · 06:46

Apparently the narrative has been set in stone. Hillary is a calculating liar who would sell her own grandmother for an enhanced shot at the presidency. And so the netroots, like a witless, bloodthirsty mob, is required to pillory her on Tuzla in a way that is sadly reminiscent of the way the traditional media went after Al Gore on Love Canal.

ailanthus

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Sunday November 25, 2007 · 8:11 AM PST

2007/11/25 · 08:11

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay on Napoleon, like virtually everything he wrote, sheds light far beyond its immediate point of focus, maintaining relevance even when Napoleon himself is regarded as little more than a cliché for overweening ego. It lays bare the universal character of a unique historical player. The lion’s share of the essay generously praises Napoleon’s many admirable qualities -- his intelligence, his industry, his attention to detail, his tireless energy, his incomparable will. Emerson holds that great man of action up as shining exemplar of all that the striving middle class aspired to be, now that the Revolution had blown the game wide open. He credits him with championing the proletariat while thumbing his nose at the effete aristocracies of Europe. Then comes a pivotal paragraph, which I happily quote at length after the fold:

ailanthus

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Sunday September 02, 2007 · 12:11 PM PDT

2007/09/02 · 12:11

Yes the plans are all in place. Yes Bush and Cheney are like Thelma and Louise holding hands in heroic ecstasy as they gun it towards the cliff. It all seems like a rock poised to roll down hill, obedient to the laws of physics. But the new physics is discovering laws that the old physics never dreamed of. The world is interconnected in ways our philosophers can only guess at. All is suspended in a chaotic solution of probability. But who is to say some new strange attractor won't emerge to stay the executioner's hand? Who's to say that life is incapable of delivering a surprise?

ailanthus

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Sunday August 20, 2006 · 11:56 AM PDT

2006/08/20 · 11:56

Elections go to the candidates who are carried along by the most compelling narrative. People vote for the story that grabs them. How often have we been told that the media locks in on a certain story about a candidate (Kerry is a flip-flopper; Gore plays fast and loose with the truth; Bush is a straight-shooter) and after that it only accepts interpretations of events that fit into the story line and declines to report on events that disrupt the established perception. George Bush won two elections because the myth of the Lone Gunman faced down the Eastern Dandy. Read More

Hillary, Inc.

ailanthus

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Tuesday July 25, 2006 · 7:00 PM PDT

2006/07/25 · 19:00

Several days ago I emailed my Senators, Clinton and Schumer, begging them to put some pressure on the White House to lean on Israel to stop bombing Lebanon. Yesterday I received, from Senator Clinton, the following heart-sinking reply. Read More

A TALE OF TWO PARTIES or THE POISONED APPLE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

ailanthus

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Wednesday July 12, 2006 · 3:46 PM PDT

2006/07/12 · 15:46

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity. -- Yeats, The Second Coming

It has always seemed to me that classic liberals are handicapped by their capacity to appreciate the other side's point of view (which waters down their conviction), while red meat conservatives are hampered by no such considerations. I'm told there is an extensive body of psychological research that suggests the two outlooks express two different stages of cognitive development.

The earlier stage, called in some circles "concrete operational", typically emerges during the latent period (ages roughly 7-14), and is characterized by identification with one's social role, and an unquestioning regard for the rules laid down by one's social affiliation. It lends itself to an ethnocentric, mythological worldview - my country (tribe, religion, team) right or wrong. God is on our side. Read More

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Where Is The Outcry?

Clarification Needed on "Cling-gate"

Open Season on Hillary

EMERSON, NAPOLEON, JESUS AND ME

Bombing Iran is not inevitable. Dammit.

Al Gore is The Lion King

Hillary, Inc.

A TALE OF TWO PARTIES or THE POISONED APPLE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS