Here's yesterday's cartoon, ready for your comments should you have any. The guy's T-shirt in the last panel was stolen from bumperstickers I saw on a truck yesterday. The truck had a sticker pointing right reading "Liberals" and another one pointing left reading "Americans"--in other words, liberals ought to pass on the right where they will likely crash their cars. Amazing, after all that's happened, that there are still people who don't equate treason with conservatism.
OK, here's your comment. I hope it makes you feel good.
ReplyDeleteTwo counter-examples to your claim that Conservatism=treason:
1. Paul Craig Roberts: my second favorite political writer, after you of course. Recent comments on the US-China currency wars: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08102007.html
2. Ron Paul (here's a taste, on signing statements and the Constitution: http://www.house.gov/paul/tst/tst2007/tst070907.htm)
You may disagree with any or all of their positions, as reasonable people do, but I think you'll find them thoughtful and worthwhile.
Bush & Co are certainly treasonous, but hardly conservative.
uugghh, no one said that conservatism=treason.
ReplyDeletehere's the quote:
"Amazing, after all that's happened, that there are still people who don't equate treason with conservatism."
It's like, why do all idiots seem to lean right, when even an idiot should lean left? In this black and white world, why is conservatism immune? I have to ask though, if conservatism says that people can go without healthcare, then how is it not treason?
I told a friend how the US got the lowest rating for quality of life out of most industrialized nations (France, GB, Sweden etc.). All he said back was:
"France?, do you know what their GDP is?"
some desperate talking point from a radio show, no doubt. I think that the saddest thing in the world are poor conservatives. They honestly think that they will be rich someday if they only think like a rich person.(by rich I mean upper-middle class). So when you tell them they are not getting paid enough for their work, or that they should be getting better health care , they look at you like you just committed communism.
It's because Hearst and all the plutocrats from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries spent millions on propaganda spewing the message that 'capitalism' is the great equalizer and that anything to do with socialism was evil and un-American, just to make sure they protected their profits (and discouraged any Bolshevist-style revolution over here).
ReplyDeleteTo this day we are still reaping the benefits of that 'education'.
And yeah- what the HELL is any woman, black or poor white guy doing being a part of today's Republican party? Except that the GOP has the stranglehold on racism, sexism, gun-loving and religous zealotry... which kind of explains why non-rich morons (or 'morans' as I believe it's spelled these days) would follow that party's line of bullshit.
Evil Kumquat
PS. I thought the bumper sticker/T-shirt slogan was just their clever way of saying that liberals stand for everything that true 'Americans' don't?
Additional:
ReplyDeleteTed,
Another reason to keep the cartoon and column comments active is it should hopefully cut down your other blog posts from being hijacked by people wanting to comment on your published stuff, like it sometimes happened before you began posting them here.
Evil Kumquat
Actually, Europe as a whole has a higher GDP than the United States. They also have higher productivity ratings by country, at least France and Germany do, and they use the extra money brought in by making products extra efficiently to fund social programs.
ReplyDeleteBut about the comic. I don't know, we live in a "Daydream Nation" as Sonic Youth once said. It's all well and good if you're not too concerned about the rest of the world, not too interested in history etc.. except that we're seriously fucking up several places in the world right now directly through occupying armies. So people's inattention is having a direct impact on people on the other side of the globe.
That's the thing that makes stories about how there are officers in the military heavily into fundamentalist Christianity so frightening. Like I said, being in your home town and going to whatever Church you want is fine, but unfortunately these apocalyptic beliefs are now being played out on the world stage courtesy of the U.S. government.
I thought "Revenge of the Nerds" happened for a second after 9/11 when suddenly we had a big, whopping confirmation of the things that Chomsky et. al have been saying for years, but you see how well that turned out. Maybe in the future....
Bite your pet-Reality show. Priceless.
ReplyDeleteThe cartoon makes an interesting point...it certainly seems to make more sense for stupidity to be contagious than for obesity to be contagious. However, as panel 3 suggests, the media is a primary culprit as well: the mindless prolefeed of reality TV, professional sports, and celebrity scandal is undeniably effective as a means of keeping the masses distracted and complacent.
ReplyDeleteThat cartoon reminds me of the way some journalists and pundits acted as if George W Bush's stupidity was an asset and Al Gore's intelligence was a liability. I think the idea was that Bush's stupidity made him down to earth and relatable, while Gore's intelligence was intimidating. It was strange that people admitted that a man running for US President was unintelligent, and that it wasn't a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteI think there was a This Modern World cartoon on the subject, but I can't find it now. (It might have been about Bush and Kerry.)
I don't know, is the public afriad of smart people? Can you not be a "normal" person if you're smart? I'm reminded of being back in school, where smart people were ridiculed, apparently because they spent their time learning instead of smoking or drinking or whatever.
I'd like to see the rest of panel #1's diagram :D
ReplyDeleteSo, according to the last panel, I must be a liberal because I am not an American. Therefore 95% of humanity must be liberals as well as a consequence of being non-Americans. Thereby making Liberalism the overwhelming predominant philosophy of humanity, and relegating Consevatism to the fringe.
ReplyDeleteOr, as Mark Twain once said, "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
Enough of my demonstrations of intellectual obesity!
What are the economic drivers for intellectual obesity? One would have thought that a Capitalist economy would perform far better with workers who are intellectual fit (to prolong the metaphor).
In my own "profession" of computing, we hold up bad examples to ridicule at sites such as Worse Than Failure. However, "professional" computer societies promote intellectual obesity through examples such as IEEE Ready Notes, or through cookbook approaches such as Design Patterns.
The cost of labour reproduction (cf "Capital" by K.Marx) is far higher for an intellectually fit worker than for an intellectually obese one. The latter can probably do hundreds of Google&tm; searches in the time it takes the former to understand the problem.
Hence the need for the pundit class of "experts". They provide solutions to classes of problems. Everyone else just Googles&tm; them and reproduces the results. This is far cheaper and thus creates more output than the master craftspeople.
You are not going to change the culture of intellectual obesity by individual examples any more than a gourmet restaurant has of putting MacDonald's&tm; out of business. This is how the economic system works.
Uugghh?
ReplyDeleteThanks for grabbing the quote, Angelo. Now look up the word "equate".
i think the cartoon would have been more effective at the end had you used the term "nerds" instead of "dorks." nerds are smart. dorks are not always smart.
ReplyDeleteAs if that was the problem with the first comment lrl.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe I'm explaining this again:
Ted did not say conservatism=treason. Setting a political philosophy equal to a criminal act would be uncharacteristically imprecise. Remember that stupid memorial to the "Victims of Communism"?
But nice dodge lrl. I think what you chose to focus on was very telling. Now that you know exactly what I was saying, do you agree? Or can I just expect another straw man. geeeeewhizzz. There, you can comment on that you uncharitable dolt.
Angelo,
ReplyDeleteYour calling me "uncharitable" is a clever move, considering you lead your first post with "ugghh".
At any rate, thank you for the rhetorical hair-splitting. I'm sure if Ted were bent about it he would have said something, but thanks just as well, and really, I'm glad you care.
I think everyone but you understood the point of my post, which is that describing Bush & co as "conservative" dishonors the term.
lrl, is your first post not hair-splitting in the extreme?
ReplyDeleteIn trying to protect the nebulous term 'conservate', you incorrectly quoted Ted as saying "conservatism=treason", calling it a "claim". It is not the first time someone thought they could oversimplify Ted's work or put words in his mouth. A lot of people still think he said Tillman was an idiot. There was also the whole Ann Cuntler affair.
But getting back to conservatism and BushCo.
Fiscal conservatism Grades:
Tax Cuts: A+
anti-regulation: B
pro market: A
small government: D
Proving that the government sucks: A+++
Spending: F-
Cut social programs: A+
Damage Public Education: B+
Social Conservatism Grades:
anti-abortion: A+
pro-death penalty: A+
anti-gay rights: A+
anti living wage: A+
heritage of christendom: A+
other crap: A+
Anti-liberal: A+
'Conservatism' is a lame, catchall term. In its purer form it is associated with doing nothing. A wise man once proposed that no major advancements in the history of our country can be attributed to conservatism. Well, despite some of his shortfalls, I think Bush definitely qualifies as a conservative in the accomplish nothing capacity. Sure, he does not fit your ideal, but who does? Even Reagan was a spendthrift. May be turn-down-the-thermostat Carter?
We don't care that 'true conservatives' want to distance themselves from Bush. We don't want 'true conservatives' either. When the corporations send experts to tell a 'conservative' president that invading Iran will be good for markets in the long run, he'll do it.
1. There were no quotes, it was a paraphrase, as long as we are nitpicking.
ReplyDelete2. I think it was a fair paraphrase, but if Ted has a problem with it, I'm sure he will let us know. Thanks for serving as the pit bull of pedantry though. I won't respond to any more nonsense on the subject.
3. The point was, and is, that "conservative" is a highly abused term. Bush, Pat Robertson, and Trent Lott can call themselves "conservative" all day long, and you can call them that too, but it don't make it so.
Ted already wrote a fine book to rehabilitate the term "liberal." I hope we can agree that "conservative" is fair game.
4. You asked who would be my ideal conservative. (Did I paraphrase accurately?) Whether or not anyone is "ideal" is irrelevant to the discussion, but I supplied two names of conservatives I respect, Ron Paul and Paul Craig Roberts.
If you had bothered to check them out you would probably find that you agree with them a lot more than you expected. But you already know everything.
Just to make it that much clearer, here is Ron Paul addressing the House of Representatives on October 10 2002, THE DAY OF THE HOUSE VOTE ON THE IRAQ WAR RESOLUTION:
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2002/cr091002.htm.
That is what conservatism stands for, at its finest.
Oh, and unlike Hillary and Edwards, to name just two prominent Dems, Rep. Paul doesn't have to "distance himself from Bush" on this.
5. You cited an unnamed source as saying "no major advancements in the history of our country can be attributed to conservatism." As if that makes it true. The Bill of Rights is a singular example of proper conservatism -- codified limitations on the power of the state over the people.
Calling Bush 'shit' disgraces the term. Conservatism is no diferent.
ReplyDeleteWe all know what conservatism is. We know Bush is not approved by pure conservatives. Ron Paul only looks smart because he's standing next to BushCo. It was the same thing with McClintock in the Calif. Recall election. I loved him because he was straightforward and did not bullshit. He knew how to reason…compared to Arnold. But it is the real meat of conservatism that I find so vile. We can't allow ourselves to aim so low simply because real conservatism is a zillion times smarter than the current madness. I have to despise Ron Paul because he votes for things that I find harmful and cruel:
He was the co-sponsor of a bill that would allow prayer in public school (decided by the state,county or city).
Voted YES on making the Bush tax cuts permanent.
He supports "Don't ask don't tell", "free trade", and a "return" to free market health care.
He's against foreign aid, the UN and NATO.
He has voted against funding same-sex adoption.
He not-so-secretly hates public education.
He's against birthright citizenship and amnesty (why? Once they are citizens, they make a fair wage…oh, wait, that’s right, he’s against fair wages).
Voted YES on eliminating the “Paris Hilton” Estate Tax
Voted NO on increasing minimum wage to $7.25.
Voted NO on establishing "network neutrality" (non-tiered Internet).
Voted NO on restricting employer interference in union organizing.
To do the opposite of coining a phrase, the list goes on and on…
One could argue that true conservatism has never actually been put into practice. One could say the same of Marx's designs. Reasonable people need to reject politicians like Paul even if half their platform is awesome, because the other half is totally un-acceptable. His policies aim to make a perfect capital machine in the long run, while indirectly killing millions of people. Even an idiot would have voted against Iraq.
. . . Voted NO to the Iraq War Resolution on principled grounds.
ReplyDelete"Even an idiot would have voted against the war" . . . and yet, so many voted for it.
Your priorities are funny, given that in the thread above this one you suggested that civilian American citizens deserve to die because of their culpability on the war.
Let me quote you directly, so there's no parsing of a paraphrase:
angelo (that's you, no?) said . . .
"The people who brought us into these useless wars have made killers of us all. The longer we let it go on, the more we deserve to die. "
If "civilian American citizen" knowingly contributes money to an organization known to engage in acts universally defined as terrorism, they can be gassed, poisoned or shocked to death. Of course, this would be after being raped with a flashlight and getting their genitals shocked. I may not like it, you may not like it, but it is how our country works right now.
ReplyDeletelrl, Ted used the colloquial term "conservative" in the context of the preceding anecdote about the overly-simple bumper sticker about "liberals". He was clearly using it as the opposite word to "liberals". Why are there no bumper stickers saying conservatism is un-American? I suppose he could have said "fiscal conservatism=treason" because fiscally conservative policies do kill so many Americans and are so un-American. So I guess I concede that he could have meant that. Still, with any luck, someone will google upon the "conservatism=treason" and Ted will be on TV again.
btw, comment on the cartoon next time instead of cheer-leading for lame political ideologies. I would hate to see this place become a troll's paradise.
Thanks for explaining what is and isn't fair game for commentary, and for describing which ideas are unwelcome and “un-American.” You've just shown us all how much you value free inquiry.
ReplyDeleteIs that what you teach your students?
lol. glad we agree.
ReplyDeleteZCrK2Y Your blog is great. Articles is interesting!
ReplyDelete