...Including raging at bankers exploitin' the downtrod; but the interesting thing to me about this pair of stories, a bit on the Horrors Of Bankers from The Nation that would fit right into a German newspaper from about 1934 and a huffy hand-wringer from HuffPo about how the Administration -- their guy's the Administration! -- isn't beating up banks nearly hard enough or with the proper degree of venom, is the way in which they demonstrate how the wheels are coming off the well-oiled Great leader machine.
There is no "there" there and far from finding it worrisome, I take a measure of reassurance in it. I don't think Americans are entirely immune to Five-Year Plans, Great Leaps Forward or the sudden urge to reclaim the Sudetenland but we're pretty resistant to it. For me, the saving grace of both the traditional Left and their foes on the Right is there's plenty of conflict and chaos under each side's "big tent." It does much toward keeping them, if not honest, at least confined to smaller-scale wickednesses than would otherwise be the case.
I thought you might be interested in this. It's not very far from your location. http://steamcentral.com/2009/09/04/southern-railway-401-nears-completion/
ReplyDeleteI hear ya!
ReplyDeleteThe .gov shoulda never bailed out those firms, but for them whose jobs were saved thereby: "Welcome to the working world, fellas! You are now all GS-13's. Please see Pamela for your assigned cubicles. What's that? Quitting? Excellent! The more of you who quit, the faster the firm can repay its TARP debt."
WV: "luterium" - what pure lutes are made of.
I'm not too sure about the "Smaller scale wickedness" In fact I think the very process you mention (while wonderfully resistant to their idea of "Progress") makes for MORE expense, the bill footed by- you know- you and me. But otherwise, yes, checks and balances and all that. Me, I'd like it fine if a legislator- if he didn't have 95% approval from his consituency to vote yea or nay on a bill- would have to give up a finger or toe to be allowed to vote. Talk about term limits!
ReplyDeleteCheck your mail when you hasve a moment, too.
"Reclaiming the Sudetenland" might not be a bad thing. It would at least reflect some nationalistic pride and fervor in a pussified nation.
ReplyDeleteBut, I do fear the Five Year Plans and Great Leaps Forward, not only because they were a product of an oppressive communist regime, but because they were necessitated by the manifest incompetence of the party to run society.
If I hear one more bleating liberal screaming about the obscenity of profits I am going to start the revolution by myself!
Hey Ed ... who the h-e-double hockey sticks do you think lives in the American equivalent of the Sudatenland? You guys tried that in 1812-14 ... and we've all agreed that fracas served more to confirm each others' sense of nationalism ... without huge numbers of deaths on either side. (Mind you, you should have followed our lead and left Fort Detroit burned to the ground.)
ReplyDeletePernicious territorial expansion is a bad thing!
Of course, we might get your gun laws. So ... okay ... but only on that condition.
Regards.
Sorry, George. I didn't mean territorial expansion of that scale. We'd certainly not want Quebec, but Sasketchewan could be attractive in the summers...
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of something more symbolic like a small island or two. Just a bit to tweak the patriotic juices and rekindle a bit of jingoism.
Let's see, we're getting your healthcare and apparently your gun laws are coming...You can have Fort Detroit back!
Seems to me like our Sudetenland is really our two coasts. Let's take them back from the libs before we set our sights on Canada.
ReplyDeleteSudetenland is doubly appropriate. First, it was a mountainous area at the western end of Czechoslovakia. Second, like our own Left Coast, there was a very high percentage of Fascist sympathizers.
ReplyDeleteQuite a number of Roma and Czech performers managed to make it out of CZ ahead of the takeover, and it was a hot topic among those who wondered if they would ever see their home again. Most died in exile.
(And if anyone tells you a Gypsy fortune teller knows her stuff - the oracles were the ones who chose to gamble on the decency of the NAZI's)
I was interested to see this, today, www.thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/26/commentary/op-eds/doc4ae4b917c18ed241678853.txt, since it agrees with my thinking.
Not, to be sure, for the same reasons.
Stranger