Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

20 comments

  3. Jjc2008

    I am watching the ONE NATION rally on C-SPAN.  It pleases me to see the coalition of labor, education, community activists from all over coming together.  LABOR has to awaken and once again REMEMBER who they were BEFORE some of them were duped by Reagan. Educators have to fight back against the trashing of the Arne Duncans of the world.  Waiting for Superman is bs.  Education has issues but the unions are being scapegoated and too many progressives are buying into the myths. (Did you know that FINLAND, the #1 country educationally, has a large teachers’ unions; that teachers not admin or legislatures as in TX choose materials. At one time, when I started teaching, I got to choose reading texts for my class.  Math was district wide, as was social studies but materials allowed discretion.  Of course in Finland there are three teachers to each classroom; and teachers are given the same respect as doctors…just FYI  

    I am inspired by many of the young at the rally. I was inspired to hear Jesse again. I do believe that the very young, and some of us real oldies have more of the same goals than people get.   Sadly too many of the older citizens who happen to be easily duped conservatives have given a bad name to those in my age group.  Many of us in our 60s were all about the 60s……and worked back then for the same things being mentioned at the rally now.

    I hope more of those in between the very young and those my age jump on this band wagon.

  5. Shaun Appleby

    Why the ‘apologies’ to expats and foreign correspondents, we are probably among those most in favour of restoring sanity to American public discourse, for the sake of all concerned.

    It might come as no surprise that the snippets we get on our local mass media tend towards Qur’an burning, mosque paranoia, headless bodies in the Arizona desert and gay bashing or suicides.  Along with sound-bites of some of Obama’s more eloquent appeals to reason and sanity which in many cases seem intended for the overseas audience, or at least falling on deaf ears at home.

    Outside of the domestic, Overton Window shifted, American media market one could be forgiven for getting the simplistic impression that a stable leader is gently but firmly trying to talk a rhetorical lynch mob out of whatever outrage du jour has taken their fancy.  It is almost comical and does not reflect particularly well on American prudence or good will regarding the rest of the planet, even long-standing friends and well-wishers.

    As a former New Yorker I found the recent Village Voice piece, White America Has Lost Its Mind, timely and refreshingly straightforward.  It pretty much sums up the view from here, frankly.

  6. Shaun Appleby

    I never saw income inequality presented quite so dramatically as in this simple chart.  This has got to be a problem and the sheer magnitude of it is almost overwhelming (h/t to Paul Rosenberg at OpenLeft).

    No prizes for guessing how the Citizens United decision plus the sudden emergence of the Tea Party ‘phenomenon’ is suddenly creating disproportionate influences on US politics.  There is a lot of money sloshing around in the hands of a few privileged actors with very radical political agendas.  I fear we are in for a long, hard time:



    As Politico recently pointed out, every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to Fox News. Now, media moguls have often promoted the careers and campaigns of politicians they believe will serve their interests. But directly cutting checks to political favorites takes it to a whole new level of blatancy.

    Arguably, this shouldn’t be surprising. Modern American conservatism is, in large part, a movement shaped by billionaires and their bank accounts, and assured paychecks for the ideologically loyal are an important part of the system. Scientists willing to deny the existence of man-made climate change, economists willing to declare that tax cuts for the rich are essential to growth, strategic thinkers willing to provide rationales for wars of choice, lawyers willing to provide defenses of torture, all can count on support from a network of organizations that may seem independent on the surface but are largely financed by a handful of ultrawealthy families.

    Paul Krugman – Fear and Favor NYT 4 Oct 10

    And it is probably going to get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.

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