So once again the question must be asked: What have we learned?
The question is on the subject of what America will look like if the "right" gains the control it so fervently seeks. And the answer is as plain as the day is short.
And in fact, comes when one just looks around and sees:
The revelation that Scalia and Thomas attend interest-conflicting righty confabs alongside the Kochs and Glenn Blecch;
The almost immediate results of the Supreme Court's heinous granting of corporations unlimited and anonymous funding of political candidates;
The regular dissemination of pseudo-history and pseudo-science in our broken public schools;
A media that is lodged squarely in the rectum of Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Military;
So much outsourcing of American labor to cheap foreign lands that it resembles a spigot left spewing by a careless brat or an unwatched child;
The spate of anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-black, anti-intellectual, anti-progress cant that gushes from the twisted mouths of so-called experts who have decided to throw in with the bullies that they themselves are no doubt terrified of;
The NO! NO! NO! coming from the Grand Old Party itself -- a bitter, obsolete Methuselah bent on ruining what it cannot control, unable to compromise, unwilling to see, hear or know the truth about itself and the world that is leaving it behind.
The "right" will not allow the answer to the question "What have we learned?" to germinate in people's minds because the people, undistracted by the "right"'s desperate tactics, will tell the simple truth: that an America which capitulates to the "right"'s assault on reason, on history and on reality will be America no more. It will be a massive and soulless strip-mall, peopled by myopic drones who have become lethargic in the face of Democracy's challenges and who prefer the easy armchair-quarterbacking of low-brow consumerism, content to let the very ones who blithely assure them that any form of control is a scourge -- control them.
The "right" has become the God they wish the masses to fear; indeed, become heaven and hell itself. As manufactured as all religions, this one -- fascisto-capitalism -- has real hardware behind it. No more need to walk on water or "heal" a leper: just give the rabble shiny, sexy baubles; things that blink and whirr at the swipe of a finger; social networks without any actual socializing; wars fought from a safe distance; life without consequences.
To answer the question "What have we learned?" is to come face to face with democracy's greatest crucible since finding purchase in the New World. And such answers have no place in a "right"-ruled country where truth itself is outlawed.
And after all we have recently witnessed and endured at the hands of the "right", the answer to "what have we learned?" is simple:
"Never to let them win."
Follow Steven Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/@TheStevenWeber
Didn't work out.
We have to stop these power-crazed people before they try something like that again. They must not regain control of the government and they must not be permitted to destroy it when they lose.
The short of it is, I think you're analogy is spot on.
You have a wonderful style...you are a joy to read.
this, right here............
"As manufactured as all religions, this one -- fascisto-capitalism -- has real hardware behind it. No more need to walk on water or "heal" a leper: just give the rabble shiny, sexy baubles; things that blink and whirr at the swipe of a finger; social networks without any actual socializing; wars fought from a safe distance; life without consequences. "
But then...I could C&P so many of the words above and make claim ......wow.
I know you don't do it for praise...but every now and then...you deserve praise.
Thank you for taking the time to come here time after time and hit it on the head.
Through performances, inspired by Improv Everywhere’s MP3 Experiment, we could simultaneously get back to the basics and take things to the next level. Each performance would highlight a particular value and have the following characteristics:
* Positive
* Creative and unique--use movement, action or an activity to convey our shared value
* Accessible
* Non-political (no political signage)
* Entertaining
* Short duration
* Fun to do!
* Occur in a public place (at a park, mall, beach, etc.)
* Recorded and uploaded to YouTube
Instructions for each performance could be provided via MP3, audio podcast, YouTube video, e.g.
http://www.youtube.com/user/ImprovEverywhere#p/u/13/kVuVhcdQs0k
http://www.youtube.com/user/ImprovEverywhere#p/u/12/yVs87qqVqEg
The highlighted values could include:
* Clean Air (e.g. blow up a giant bubble and keep it floating in the air to the song “The Air That I Breathe”)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ErDAOmxXMk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb7S8-Iewi0
* Clean Water (e.g. dance “the swim” with an aquarium net in each hand)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxgFwyIylHY
http://www.pet-bliss.com/acatalog/AquariumFishNetSmallImage.jpg
* We The People
* The Common Good
* Veterans
* Kids
* Animals
* Nature
These performances would help reassert our values back into the public consciousness.
- Tom
There is nothing simpler than the Gallup findings on the ideological inclinations of the American people.
Conservative: 42 percent. Moderate: 35 percent. Liberal: 20 percent. No fanciful new syndromes or other elaborate fictions are required to understand that if you try to impose a liberal agenda on such a demonstrably center-right country -- a country that is 80 percent non-liberal -- you get a massive backlash.
Self-sefined as handsome: 65 percent
Self-defines as healthy weight:65 percent
etc , etc , etc (apologies to Yul Brynner)
Maybe they should try this:
People who want to give up medicare?
People who want to forgo social security?
People who want food inspectors?
People who want public education?
The old computer adage works for polls: Garbage in , garbage out.
Hope not as many as the .....“The story of the last two years is as simple......" post ...ugh.
I think you are here with an agenda.
Are they paying you?
Can we at least get the Rightdress SCROTUS justices to wear their corporate sponsors logos on there robes------ like NASCAR drivers? It would return a little of the ethics that they've frittered away...
As for the Tea Party, are Americans to find out what candidates stand for in robo calls, or in commercial spots that are hitting below the belt or upbeat "I am not a witch I'm you". They do not give interviews a new twist in politics. They don't talk to the press well in all fairness Paladino did and it looked like something out of the sopranos.
If someone running for Senate does not know the first amendement yet says they will rule by the Constitution. Another keeps mixing up the ten commandments with the constitution. And of course some others want to take the country back with violence. If these candidates get elected we will know that they haved learned nothing.