Category Archives: Political Commentary

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Heroes Of WW II

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…continue to pass from our presence. Nancy Wake has died at ninety-eight:

Working as a newspaper reporter, Wake found herself in Vienna where she saw Jews being whipped in public by Nazi SS troops. In 2003, she described to News Limited’s then-London correspondent, Bruce Wilson, one of the horrors she witnessed in 1938.

“The Germans and Austrians had set up a kind of Catherine wheel and tied these Jews to it, and as it went around they were beating them and throwing things at them,” she said.

“I thought . . . what had they done, poor bastards? Nothing. So I said, ‘God almighty, it’s a bit much and I’ve got to do something about it’.”

It’s an amazing story. There should be another movie made about her, to reacquaint younger people with her exploits.

Humor, Political Commentary, Satire, Science And Society

Sometimes It’s Just Too Simple

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Scientists discover possible cause of the current heat wave:

“Our measurements indicate the massive amount of energy this thing gives off is able to travel 93 million miles and reach our planet is as little as eight and a half minutes,” said Professor Mitch Kivens, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology. “While we can’t see them, we’re fairly certain these infrared rays strike Earth’s surface, become trapped by the atmosphere, and just heat everything up like a great big oven.”

“We originally thought that if this star was producing temperatures of 100-plus in the South and Midwest, it must be at least 100 degrees itself,” Kivens added. “But it turns out it’s far, far hotter than that, with a surface temperature of nearly 10,900 degrees Fahrenheit.”

Kivens and his CalTech colleagues said this intense radiation, which results from constant nuclear reactions converting hydrogen to helium in the star’s core, could also account for why the orb in the sky is extremely bright and difficult to stare at directly.

Remember, correlation is not causation.

Business, Economics, Political Commentary

Can A Capitalist Market Economy…?

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…support a socialist welfare state?

Not for long.

[Update a few minutes later]

“…everyone knows that when you’re using your MasterCard to pay your Visa bill, it’s the person who doesn’t want the limit raised who’s the real source of the problem.”

Yeah, let’s blame the Tea Party.

[Update Monday morning]

Greece could have used a Tea Party, no?

Hey, they blamed the Tea Party for Jared Loughner, too. They always blame the Tea Party, because they don’t like the Tea Party, and they want Americans to dislike it, too, so they can continue with business as usual until the last possible moment. And if Greece had had a Tea Party, all the apparatchiks would have called it crazy and destructive too, because it would have threatened their short-term interests, which, as has become clear, is all apparatchiks think about…

Well, not all, but certainly it’s the highest priority. To hell with the grandkids.

Plus, “Tea Party Downgrade”? They can’t possibly sell that:

Let’s take a walk down memory lane. What did the Democrats do with respect to federal debt during the four years they controlled both Houses of Congress? Here is a summary of the deficits the Democrats racked up during that time:

FY 2008 — $460 billion
FY 2009 — $1,410 billion ($1.4 trillion)
FY 2010 — $1,300 billion ($1.3 trillion)
FY 2011 — $1,600 (estimated) ($1.6 trillion)

Of the $14.5 trillion national debt, nearly $4.8 trillion–one-third of the total – was incurred during that four-year period when the Congress was exclusively controlled by the Democrats. Moreover, and equally important, during that time the Democrats did nothing to assure the markets that they have a long-term plan to deal with the country’s burgeoning debt. On the contrary, for more than two years the Congressional Democrats have refused to adopt or even to propose a budget! If you are looking for the reason why rating agencies have lost faith in the ability of our government to get its spending and debt under control, you need look no farther.

But they will remain desperate to continue looking, or blame it on the only people who are actually interested in really reducing the deficit. Because the view in the mirror is far too ugly.

[Bumped]

[Update a while later]

“If the car is speeding off a cliff & you blame the passenger for wrestling with the wheel & trying to hit the brakes, #youmightbealiberal.”

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Creepy Quote

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…du jour:

“The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led.” No, that isn’t an historian explaining the rise of Mussolini. It’s the Emory psychologist Drew Westen, writing wistfully about the leader he wishes Obama would be.

Somehow, this reminds me of my visit to the Holocaust Museum.

I came across the following striking quote, by a woman in Germany who had attended one of Hitler’s rallies:

How many look up to him with touching faith! As their helper, their saviour, their deliverer from unbearable distress…

I was so relieved that I live almost eighty years later, and that our society had grown beyond that kind of primitive thinking — that the president is responsible for the personal well-being of every citizen, and every sparrow that falls in America, like a demigod. I mean, obviously, any responsible leader today, confronted with such idolatry would use it as a teachable moment about the nature of our Republic, rather than basking in the worship, as Hitler did, to gather more raw unchecked political power unto himself.

I also found interesting the description of how the Nazi authorities encouraged and organized public rituals, ceremonies, meetings and other public events. I could see how this kind of activity might solidify public support behind otherwise less politically palatable notions felt important by the state.

Of course, one of the most disturbing tactics, used not only by the National Socialists, but also the fascistic international socialists in the Soviet Union, was the continual rewriting of history to glorify the state, and make it out to be the victim of past failures and treachery, and misguided policies. Some of the examples they gave were almost as though modern leaders were continually talking, fantastically, about how we got into our current economic problems through deregulation and tax cuts, and (non-existent) laissez-faire policies, rather than overspending and overregulation, and continuing government interference in the free market, often at the behest of corporations.

Not to mention the treachery of Standard and Poors.