Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Aug

A Good Mob is Hard to Find

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A good mob is hard to find

Paul Krugman, in his most recent column in the New York Times, has become yet one more liberal participating in the project of denouncing those who are protesting the policies of Barack Obama. To see liberals reach for their guns of derision so quickly to shoot down the form of protest that they invented is amusing, to say the least. Krugman, labels these conservative activist groups as “townhall mobs,” and he makes the typcial liberal maneuver to say that these protests are discredited by the fact that they aren’t real “grassroots” movements. I find it fascinating that liberals, who are quick to fasten themselves to theories of postmodernism, are so suddenly worried about authenticity.

After all, many of liberalism’s claims to fame (multiculturalism, moral relativism, deconstruction) are all based on a premise that authenticity is an elusive ideal that if pursued too aggressively will lead to violence and fascism. So now the cultural gatekeepers of authenticity are observing forms of social protest from conservatives and saying, “unlike our fabricated, contrived, and orchestrated social protest groups like ACORN, PETA, the Sierra Club, the ACLU, Code Pink, the AFL-CIO etc. these conservative protest groups are not legitimate, because they are fabricated, contrived and orchestrated.” If you follow this logic through to its conclusion, a reasonable observer would have to conclude that if authenticity is what gives the stamp of legitimacy to a social movement, then the major liberal movements of social protest are an exercise in inherent fraudulence.

Krugman concedes that some of these protesters appear to genuinely angry, but he can’t figure out why.

Krugman says:

There was a telling incident at a town hall held by Representative Gene Green, D-Tex. An activist turned to his fellow attendees and asked if they “oppose any form of socialized or government-run health care.” Nearly all did. Then Representative Green asked how many of those present were on Medicare. Almost half raised their hands.

Now, people who don’t know that Medicare is a government program probably aren’t reacting to what President Obama is actually proposing.

He then concludes that these people are just being racists. I must applaud Krugman for his authentic liberalism. There is nothing more authentic than a liberal trying to read something like race into every issue.

In response to Krugman’s anecdote, where he implies that people on Medicare shouldn’t be opposed to it, I would have to suggest that this is the problem with entitlements in general. Once an entitlement becomes entrenched in society, a politician can always pull this trick on his constituents. Maybe Krugman and Gene Green should pay more cognizance to the fact that even people who are enrolled in Medicare are still opposed to it. This seems like a good question, and unfortunately for Krugman, the answer probably isn’t because they are a racist mob.

Maybe Krugman, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, could take a look at the current budget projections for Medicare, and ask the question of why Americans would be against an expanded government role for health care. Given the fact that Medicare is an abject economic failure by all standards, one has to wonder why someone who claims an advanced knowledge of economics would be holding this program up as something that should be supported.

Ultimately this leads me to say that I am not an ardent supporter of these town hall protests. Conservatives don’t need to go shout down their representatives like a bunch of mindless liberals. I would like to hear politicians like Gene Green answer one simple question:

“Mr. Green, every year I get a statement from the Social Security Administration that tells me that Social Security and Medicare on a fast-track fiscal train-wreck. Given the undeniable fact that the federal government has proven to be grossly incompetent in managing these massive failures, why should average American citizens support an expansion of the government’s role in health care?”

If the answer to the question is the same meaningless Obama drivel that we have had to listen to for almost two years now, then maybe I undervalue a good mob.

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Jul

Cigarette Butts Between the Cobblestones

Posted by: admin

The Iberian Peninsula: the edge of the earth

at least 500 years ago when the world was flat.

People came to Iberia to be in the sun and the water that

Sticks to the air

They could gaze at the ocean or the hills at their back,

And build cities or boats to kill their claustrophobia.

But it’s hard to be claustrophobic in a two-dimensional world,

for everyone knows that the world is flat.

So you make concrete edifices and call them home,

and you stack them and stack them and stack them

like a pile of cinder blocks.

Then you can live inside your cubism painting.

You can hang your clothes to dry outside your window,

or in other words,

Wash them in the humidity.

New World cotton blows in the wind and gives life to sun-bleached plaster,

The weed plantations that grow in the cracks between the cobblestones are the only sign of life

in those roads that have been there since the world was flat

with cigarette butts lodged in their cracks.

The buildings stand as cobblestone extensions of the cobblestone roads

to give them dimension.

As if they could build a cobblestone road to extend to the sky,

All that they accomplished was to extend their gutter

and the inalienable right to live on top of each other.

These gutters or roads all lead to the ocean.

They can sit there and stare and smoke their cigarettes,

that came straight from the new world;

and they can stare at what might lie beyond their comfortable lives that they have always known.

They can build boats and sail off of the face of the earth

Then they’ll return with slaves and cigarettes, so they can fill the cracks between the cobblestones.

Then they can build up an empire to give their lives worth.

But every great empire is built upon the priceless broken shards,

the artifactual evidences of greatness,

of another great empire,

for everything gains value as it increases in age.

So the cobblestones and the gutter walls lead to the ocean, and its wide-open space

to lands that weren’t so afraid of a change

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Jun

Talkin About My Generation

Posted by: admin

Recently there was a story on the front page of Yahoo about the 31 year old in charge of dismantling G.M. Where I have been quick to criticize Obama in many ways, I actually see this as a good thing. The article was headlined to make me think “What, he is replacing experienced CEOs with grad students?!?” However, after I read the article I decided it is a good thing, so way to go Obama.

Generation X Coming of Age

Obama is quick to blame everything wrong with the country on George W. Bush. This is a fine political move to make for him, but I think he should take it a step further. Why not blame all of the country’s problems on Baby Boomers? Some historians label Baby Boomers as the “Me Generation,” and probably for good reason. The world has yet to see a rival generation that has selfishly amassed so much wealth for itself at the expense of their forefathers (WWII and the Great Depression) and its children (Generation X is pretty much considered the screwed generation).

On a recent comment on a blog called Askcherlock. The owner of the blog, a Baby Boomer, was contemplating the current problems facing social security. In response to a comment I made, the owner said this, “You work all your life with certain expectations and plan for them, then someone changes the rules in the endgame. What’s up with that?” To this I reply that the increasingly dysfunctional America that we see today is largely a mirror image of the generation that has been writing the rules for the last 10-20 years: The Baby Boomers. Since they are largely the architects and recipients of some of the biggest entitlement grabs in human history, I can’t say that I sympathize with Cherlock or Baby Boomers in general. Cherlock might as well have said, “Our generation created rules that secured as much wealth for ourselves as possible at the expense of everyone else, and it turns out that our rules defied economic logic, so now we have to face the reality of this, which means the rules might change in a way that contradicts the lie we have been believing in our whole lives. Not Fair!” I have about as much sympathy for Baby Boomers worrying about the Social Security Trust Fund as I do for those who invested with Bernie Madoff. Caveat Emptor.

I hope that Obama screws this important constituent just as he has many of his other constituents. I am hoping that he puts together a team of Gen-Xers to solve the budget problems facing Social Security and Medicare. My generation has been told our whole life that this money wouldn’t be there when we need it, so I am sure a capable team of Gen-Xers, with their wealth of experience of being screwed by the previous generation, can emapthize with themselves and come up with a solution that for once gives Baby Boomers what they deserve. Picture Rick Wagoner.

Brian Deese

Christian Bale

On another note does anyone else think that Brian Deese, the 31 year old dismantling GM, looks like Christian Bale, the 35 year old dismantling his acting career? Brian Deese? Sounds a lot like Kyle Reese.

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