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You are here: Home / If you're talking about destruction
If you're talking about destruction
by DougJ | July 21, 2011 8:26 pm | 104 Comments
This post is in: Good News For Conservatives, We Are All Mayans Now
I've said before that I think the main reason there hasn't been more teahadist terrorism is that most teatards are too old to get off the Barcolounger and blow shit up. But what if you could you be a terrorist without leaving the comfort of your own home, simply by causing a massive government default?
I know there are many moderate, pro-business conservatives who feel the same way about a government default that I do. Some have written about this quite eloquently — Howard Baker and the guys at OTB, for example. I mean no disrespect to them when I say this: for many conservatives, catastrophe is a feature, not a bug.
Polls have shown that most conservatives say they don't think default would be a big deal. I think the embrace of default goes deeper than that, though — even if default is cataclysmic, that cataclysm could be an opportunity to put the country back on the right track. Many conservatives are truly revolutionary and would embrace a Franco-style dictatorship as long as it promoted a commodity-backed currency, low taxes, and the proper reverence for Reagan/Rand/Burke/Jeebus/Founding Fathers, while abolishing sexting, deconstructionism, welfare, and low-rise jeans.
It's not just teatards, either, it's neocons too. You think Bobo wouldn't trade democratically elected officials for a $50 Edmund Burke coin?
No one wants to admit this, people want to say that the only reason conservative aren't afraid of default is that they think it'll just cause a day or two of long lines at the ATM. The truth is, many of them want a revolution, by any means necessary.
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Jim, Foolish Literalist
some do want 'creative destruction' (wasn't that a neocon buzz word of the early years in Iraq?) Others are bears of very little brain
* Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) took a very hard line on Congress refusing to raise the debt ceiling. Then he discovered his own state's credit rating is at risk. Now he believes lawmakers have "got to get this done immediately." (This gave me the best laugh I've had all day.)
From Benen's daily wrap up
As long as they don't have to work for it, or do anything much more than dress up like Paul Revere.
even if default is cataclysmic, that cataclysm could be an opportunity to put the country back on the right track
we see the exact same sentiment here, all day long.
fine, let it burn down! then they'll see just how crazy the GOP is!
I've reluctantly come to agree that a significant number of Rs actually want (whether they admit it or not) to see the country default. I'm not certain they are a majority of Rs, but I'm pretty certain we'll find out in about 10 days.
Moderate Republicans have been playing a too-cute-by-half game for a long time. They've benefited from the recklessness of the Tea Party types while keeping a distance with a wink and a nod. These seditious shenanigans will force them to take a side. There's no telling which way they will go.
khead
The G-fund is supposed to be the most solid thing on the planet. I'm gonna be pissed if someone fucks it up.
I think the embrace of default goes deeper than that, though—even if default is cataclysmic, that cataclysm could be an opportunity to put the country back on the right track.
I don't think that's a feature of conservatism, but of radicalism. (And maybe there is no difference).
I've certainly seen posts and comments on liberal blogs saying, in effect, "if only things were bad enough, we'd get real reform."
The real difference is that conservatives right now have power to make it happen.
scav
Revolution or Rapture?
I think we may have two crowds with slightly different sets of pompoms cheering here.
Ol' Dirty DougJ
Who here says that?
@Ol' Dirty DougJ:
your blog boss, for one. and commenters all day long.
OT, but NFL owners have approved the CBA. We won't have a functioning economy, but at least we'll have football. Yay!
I hate to step on Dennis's domain here, but taking two things here:
1) Nationally, the tea party only has support from seniors who want the government to not fuck up their entitlements.
2) Regionally, the tea party has support from damn near everyone.
Is it not reasonable to conclude that this isn't just the teatards Fort Sumter? From what I can discern, most of the bulletproof support for this is coming from an area drawn between AZ to VA extending south, with a handful of prominent folks from Wisconsin, of all places.
To be fair, John's post seem more like frustration rather than aspiration. But as I mentioned above (#6), I've seen lefty bloggers take the view of "tear it down."
Wooooohoooo! NFL contest in Delaware
@khead:
The G-fund is supposed to be the most solid thing on the planet.
For a second there I thought you said, "G-funk" and I was all like Yeah-uhh!!
"Pay the doctors boyeeee!!"
@cleek. All things in context. I don't think Cole really *wants* default. He just thinks that if anybody *deserves* it, its the teabaggers and firebaggers. And I'd add a half-dozen or so wreck-list regulars at the GOS.
For a second there I thought you said, "G-funk" and I was all like Yeah-uhh!! Pay the doctors boyeeee!!"
Flashlight!
Kirk Spencer
DougJ, I'm sorry, but you're just realizing this?
See Turner Diaries. Notice the high overlap between tea party and militia movement.
Remember when Instadouche asked why don't we default cause all it would do is balance the budget? He got all butthurt when a bunch of actual economists told him what a dumbass he was. I think that's what most of these idiots think.
Actually, does anyone still read Instadouche, even just to mock him? It's like he's too big of an idiot to even bother with.
Smiling Mortician
Many conservatives are truly revolutionary and would embrace a Franco-style dictatorship as long as it promoted a commodity-backed currency, low taxes, and the proper reverence for Reagan/Rand/Burke/Jeebus/Founding Fathers, while abolishing sexting, deconstructionism, welfare, and low-rise jeans.
Don't disagree that they'd embrace this, but I think that makes them reactionary, not revolutionary. Not that it really matters what we call them while they're pissing on the embers of the system they destroy . . .
I said Flashlight!
Just look at that suit, dammit!
Trollenschlongen
The real giveaway as to the retardation of the Teatards (Teatardation?) is that this country is being administered in a more right wing style than it generally ever has been, taxes are lower than they almost ever have been, and this is STILL not enough for them, and they think they want a revolution. Please.
I want a real revolution, if it must come to that, but from the LEFT, for god's sake. Obama and congressional dems couldn't be anymore accommodating to non-insane right wingers, hell, they're right wingers themselves, and it is still never enough.
Corporate/government rule is upon us, it is the second Gilded Age for the rich; yet Obama wants to cut Medicare/Medicaid/SS because THOSE are the problem.
As I said above…Please.
Moderate Republicans have been playing a too-cute-by-half game for a long time.
Honestly, in elected,national office, are there more left than the Maine Sisters? And boar-tits could justly call them useless. There are a couple who are moderate in temperament, actually, one: Lugar, but he seems to be as weak as Snowe, while old man Grassley seems just as cranky and confused as McCain. I thought Murkowski might get mad and show a little independence just for the sake of revenge, but, no. I think Mike Castle and McHugh (? NYer who became Army Secretary?) were the last of the breed in he House.
@Baud:
To be fair, John's post seem more like frustration rather than aspiration.
yes, of course. but we only know that because we're familiar with his style. i don't think i know enough about anyone else who says it to know how serious they really are.
and that's kinda my point (though i know i totally bailed on trying to make it, back there): people say shit like that all the time. it's not always easy to tell who is really serious.
i'm not sure the teabaggers or "conservatives" who say it are serious, or if they even know what they're talking about. i'm sure some are and do – there's a little anarchist in everyone.
MattF
Important to bear in mind that wingers have no use for the Constitution and its pesky Bill of Rights, separation of powers, habeas corpus, and so forth, despite all claims to the contrary. The winger historical revisionism– that, e.g., the Founders were really all proto-evangelical Christians determined to create a theocracy is only the most obvious case of galloping cognitive dissonance about these questions.
They are, in fact revolutionaries– but it's that other kind of revolution…
@khead: Actually, I was going for a little G-Funk, but I can get down with some P-Funk.
Beta Magellan
When I look through this thread, I see a bunch of people who enjoy conjuring hypothetical disasters wallowing in self-pity.
DonkeyKong
Funny thing is, we've been here before, just not recently. William Tecumsah Sherman had this to say the last time the assholes in this country tried to burn it all down to get what they wanted.
"You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about. War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it… Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth—right at your doors. You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail."
Thank God cooler heads prevailed!
G fund
that's where most of my TSP is right now. jesus, if that shits the bed i'm turning out the lights and calling it a life.
Actually, I was going for a little G-Funk, but I can get down with some P-Funk.
FTFY.
All these people have been told for years by the likes of Glenn Beck that society is about to deteriorate into a Mad Max world. They've been spending all their money on ammunition, survival seeds, and converting their money to gold coins. And damnit, they want the the devastation they were promised, and if that Kenyan Marxist ain't gonna do it, they'll do it themselves.
I'm sure they already have their talking points about how its all Obama's fault and why that had to start shooting all the brown people with the AK-47's and M-16's they've been hoarding.
Ben Cisco
@khead: ahem.
That is P-Funk in the video.
@24 cleek
people say shit like that all the time. it's not always easy to tell who is really serious.
I agree. I actually think a majority of Republicans recognize that it's important to raise the debt ceiling. A lot of the resistance is (1) playing to their base, (2) fear of being seen as giving up leverage in negotiations, and (3) fear of being among the first to stick one's head out and being labeled as a Benedict Arnold.
Felinious Wench
The truth is, many of them want a revolution, by any means necessary.
Yes, yes, and yes. It's the point of the Tea Party, complete with Don't Tread on Me flags. They dress up as American Revolutionaries for a reason.
This is the goal. They're open about it.
stuckinred
Make sure you read this to all the left wing armchair revolutionaries as well.
Meanwhile President Obama, who is a maddeningly mainstream Democrat, is portrayed as some kind of wild-eyed radical of a type never previously seen in the halls of power.
What is the analog of the run on the banks that led up to TARP, for defaulting? Everyone has seen the pictures of the lines outside the banks from the 30s, and even the proto-teatards knew they didn't want that for themselves. The teahadists seem to think only Obama and Nancy Pelosi will be affected by defaulting. They really need to understand what they will personally lose.
TX Expat
@DonkeyKong:
Except these days the "assholes who want to burn shit down" are not just concentrated in the South. Teahadism is not a regional issue, it's everywhere.
Take a look at where the extremist class of 2010 are from: IL, CA, CO, WI, NY, NJ and so on.
I think we need to distinguish between regular people who truly don't understand what a default means (my sense is that most folks think of it as a governmental shutdown) thus don't get the enormous implications for the country and legislators (who are willfully ignorant). I think that there are a small percentage of true revolutionaries in the regular population (lazy or otherwise), but most everyone else is misinformed. The revolutionaries are in the elected class.
@Beta Magellan:
Not me dog!
"Sounds like someone wants to get…funky."
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cleek:
I think that a number of the teabaggers are serious about wanting a revolution, but they have no clue what it would actually mean. Because people did not experience the US from the 1890-1930s, and they don't read their history, they don't know how hard it was on most people. They seem to think that peeling back the New Deal will take them to the 1950s.
And that I think is a lot of our frustration: How do you show these people what will happen if we did what they wanted without destroying the country in the process?
artem1s
while abolishing sexting, deconstructionism, welfare, and low-rise jeans.
I wouldn't mind seeing low-rise jeans abolished too but I'm not willing to burn down the Levi's plant in order to get it done.
always love an Uncle Billy quote! Shorter version…I'm smarter than you and if you don't listen to me you're going to really regret it when US and I are tearing up your back yard.
Shit is always changin'.
This 1000x.
It is frankly shocking to me that this is not the biggest political scandal in American history. A radical minority is literally—literally–holding the nation's credit and economy hostage, attempting to extract as ransom a number of their longstanding ideological goals.
Teabaggers: Don't raise the debt ceiling!
Everyone else: If we don't, X will happen and it will be catastrophic to the nation.
Republican Party: So do what we want and that won't happen.
This is nothing short of economic terrorism. In a sane, just world, half of the elected Republicans in Congress should be hauled before a grand jury and indicted on RICO and extortion charges, or whatever else relevant they can make stick.
I'm dead serious. What they are doing right now is criminally irresponsible and malicious. And we need to ensure that we never allow them–or the country–to forget that betrayal. They need to be challenged to defend the indefensible every time they go before the press or appear on TV.
The Republican Party should be discredited and shunned by society until its elected officials answer for their domestic terrorism and are legally and legitimately removed from office.
The Populist
This bullcrap is affecting business. My business sells health products that usually have regular as rain customers (usually middle age/old age customers) and business has been downright dead for weeks now. I have to conclude this worry about the default is affecting these people and how they will spend their cash.
Obama handled the answer to the question, if SS checks will be sent out if the debt ceiling was allowed to expire, very poorly. I believe people are holding their money for anything other than food/rent/etc until they see an agreement.
This crap is hurting a lot of people like me who have our own bills to pay. Shoot.
Donkey Kong @28: That's really eloquent. Can you give a precise reference?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
some do want 'creative destruction' (wasn't that a neocon buzz word of the early years in Iraq?)
Back in the 90s Newt's office staff used to play TMJ's theme song because they liked the chorus that said, "to create you must destroy".
Oh and to add to my point…GOP go fuck yourselves for acting like this mess is GOOD. It is messing up the economy a lot more than you admit.
I especially love how Cantor flipped when he was asked about his wealthy constituents asking to pay more taxes. LOL, I bet they are businesspeople who see the folly in this nonsense. His responmse, typical Cantor, was to lie even more and feign concern for the middle class. Fuck these asshats.
OzoneR
Obama handled the answer to the question, if SS checks will be sent out if the debt ceiling was allowed to expire, very poorly.
Wait a minute, I thought he was supposed to use the bully pulpit to force people to see how horrible the GOP is, and one way to do that was to threaten that SS checks wouldn't go out. No?
There is a reason America was dominantly voting for the dems after this period. People need to get educated…
I get the same vibe from the anti-Obama crowd, Dougj.
These folks think disaster will work in their favor because it'll wake the public up to the evils of conservatism and hearken a new golden leftist age within a generation or two.
He should have framed it differently. While he had a point to SAY that he could not guarantee they would go out, it scared people in the wrong way and fed the GOP talking points machine.
I wish he would have just said that he would do his BEST to pay out everybody's SS checks. THAT is how he should have said it. Just sayin'…
Linda Featheringill
Some of those folks, like the governor of VA, apparently don't understand the meaning of "Union."
They don't understand that we are pretty much all in this together.
And I'm awfully sure they don't understand how collapsing foreign economies would be disastrous for the US.
Huh? If the anti-Obamaites get disaster I'd think they would believe it would make people go out and destroy Obama and all the evil he encompasses (not my belief, theirs).
I think DougJ and others sounding the alarms are right. It's not just the usual blather. For one thing, allegedly sane, responsible member of the grand old P are saying things that are crazy and obviously so. Lots of people in this country are really really upset and would be happy to see a radical change that takes us to a 'dark place' (quoting General Stuck). It's very hard to understand what's bothering them, since the reasons they give for being discontented are full of factual claims that are obviously, manifestly false. Instead of answering the question "why so angry?" their answers just raise a further question "why on earth do they believe what they claim to believe?"
Holy shit. My AC just decided to quit working.
I blame someone….. just not sure who….
Seeing as how 9/11 was wingnut Christmas (see: Glen Beck's 9/12 project). I would not be the least bit surprised to learn that a bunch of these morons think default would be the awesomest thing evah!
I heard some fella from some "coffee" movement that was a former tea partier on Thom Hartmann's show today. This was his sentiment, we are all in this together and he is doing everything he can to show his old comrades that even if you disagree with somebody WE ARE ALL AMERICANS. Forget the guy's name but he was a good interview.
If there is a central complaint about the Presidents approach to all this it is his insistance on bringing his 11th dimensional "I got this!" chess set to a headbutting contest.
Problem with their logic is that nobody will be shouting USA USA USA and waving flags everywhere. Their will be pain followed by some serious problems.
arguingwithsignposts
@khead: It's Obama's fault. If only he'd used his Bully Refrigerant!
@41:
" They seem to think that peeling back the New Deal will take them to the 1950s. "
Never heard it put that way. But I think it captures the way the (thankfully) very few but (not so thankfully) very proud teabaggers in my family think.
Something about that way of thinking does not quite add up… hmmm… wonder what it could be?
I meant the left-wing anti-Obama crowd up there. Gah.
I think DougJ and others sounding the alarms are right. It's not just the usual blather. For one thing, allegedly sane, responsible member of the grand old P are saying things that are crazy and obviously so.
Me thinks Boehner would make a deal tomorrow if he didn't sense his party would destroy him.
I fear that the very tea party these corporate and monied interests created has turned into a monster they can no longer control. The Idiot party is more apt than tea party. They don't do anything with any sense of responsibility. They just talk out their asses about the things they THINK are real even if it's been debunked a million times over.
Gotcha…just curious :)
you know, there's no difference between Gore and Bush, and a second Nixon term will be the end of the Republican Party.
Funny, when you bring up the growth in the 50s it's always accompanied by the facts of how that was accomplished. These people get all butthurt as if you dare attack their god given beliefs or something :(
Judas Escargot
@Cat Lady:
The teahadists seem to think only Obama and Nancy Pelosi will be affected by defaulting. They really need to understand what they will personally lose.
They seem psychologically incapable of understanding this.
It's as if the chlorine of Rapturism has finally mixed with the ammonia of radical "individualism" to form something more toxic and destructive than either.
Two decades ago, I used to enjoy tweaking Randriods by making the case for Ayn Rand's actually being a Soviet agent, sent by Stalin to hasten America's demise by making it more Capitalist (contra FDR's attempts to save it). Silly as it sounds, under Marxist theory, the argument can be made: Infect pop culture, convince the American people to vote themselves into laissez-faire, and watch as pure Capitalism collapses under its own weight as Marx predicted, paving the way for scientific soshulism in the former US.
I never seriously believed this –just enjoyed the results– but lately I find myself wondering if the "memetic warfare" argument isn't inadvertently true.
Tomorrow? Try three weeks ago.
The Populist:
Exactly. They think Obama will get blamed and then after a few years of President Bachmann the left will be totally energized and sweep itself back into power.
I think this was the right thing to do. It's pretty clear to me that a lot of these tea party types are on SS and Medicare. They are obviously stupid as shit, so they need to be reminded from time to time that these entitlements don't come from magical unicorns.
Davis X. Machina
Self-government is hard work. Monarchy is easy — let someone else do the job. Find someone who actually likes that politics stuff.
A lot of Obama-bully-pulpit-green-lantern thinking on the left is driven by exactly the same (entirely human) impulse.
Our own Kay is a very busy, very tired, very salutary counter-example.
It's pretty clear to me that a lot of these tea party types are on SS and Medicare. They are obviously stupid as shit, so they need to be reminded from time to time that these entitlements don't come from magical unicorns.
It's just too bad so many of them seemed to take it as "Obama will hold seniors and soldiers hostage until he gets tax hikes"
cmorenc
This reminds me of a smaller-scale cataclysmic outcome many environmental/green types of folks have fondly dreamed of for years: the catastrophic failure of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River and the restoration of the Eden-like beauty of the Glen Canyon section of the Colorado River which it drowned when the dam's gates closed in 1963. To them, it's an analogous sort of abominably dysfunctional intrusion inflicted by the federal government's overreach that the New Deal and Great Society Programs seem to arch-conservatives, and as momentarily destructive and even hurtful as the cataclysm would be, they think within a decade it would have a cleansing result. I confess to be guilty of these sorts of thoughts myself about Glen Canyon Dam, but the point here is that this does give me at least some tepid understanding of the sort of radically idealistic state of mind many of these wingers have about resizing the reach of the federal government.
Self-government is hard work. Monarchy is easy—let someone else do the job.
The essence of the McConnell "solution", with a frosting of cheap, opportunistic cynicism.
MazeDancer
@TX Expat:
Teahadism is not a regional issue, it's everywhere.
Not a week goes by that I don't come to understand the Civil War more clearly. When my anger at these crazy people destroying our country with their stupidity and hate bubbles up so high, even pacifist me wants to wipe 'em all off the planet.
If geography had all the right wingers in one place and all the progressives in another, the risk of violence would be greater. We can't physically cut each other out of the nation. It's the "everywhere" that, in some ways, keeps the peace.
It's the "everywhere" that, in some ways, keeps the peace.
Until it explodes, then it's the "everywhere" that turns us into Rwanda.
Anyone who A) Does not want higher taxes, and B) Wants to keep their expensive entitlements, and C) Is "deeply concerned" about the debt they are leaving to their grandchildren should not be kept alive. I'm not saying we should kill them, mind you, I'm just saying that someone who wants to wreck the financial future of my family should not be kept alive using the fruits of my labor.
The weirdest transformation of political terminology isn't what's happened to the word 'liberal' since John Stuart Mill—it's what happened to the word 'republican' The present GOP is interchangeable with the Bourbon faction in early 19th c. France.
All they want is the Restoration — they certainly have no interest in governing. When the king comes into his own again, 'politics' can return to its God-intended form: courtiers jockeying around the Throne for grace and favor and preferment, for pensions and governorships abroad, and royal monopolies. The king is the government—even, or especially, when a feckless king reigns, and the ministers do all the heavy lifting.
Parliament can become again what it was meant to be, a gentleman's club that bestirs itself occasionally to vote credits for the king's wars.
So yeah, Republicans are monarchists.
Heliopause
Be fair, Doug, many of us on the left are disciples of George Carlin and also have a morbid fascination with catastrophe.
Speaking of Kay (if you're around) I hope you didn't just miss, as I did, the OH House minority leader talking about the your pal Johnny The K
When fascism comes to America it will come wrapped in a Gadsden flag and waving a fife.
Tonal Crow
The irony, it's shifting earth's magnetic field.
Steeplejack
"First they came for the inhabitants of Sol 3, but I didn't say anything, because I wasn't a Terran. . . ."
Anyway, I thought your sun went supernova, so don't get on your high horse (or appropriate cultural metaphor) with us.
@J:
Lots of people in this country are really really upset and would be happy to see a radical change that takes us to a 'dark place' (quoting General Stuck). It's very hard to understand what's bothering them, since the reasons they give for being discontented are full of factual claims that are obviously, manifestly false. Instead of answering the question "why so angry?" their answers just raise a further question "why on earth do they believe what they claim to believe?"
I think that most of it arises from decades of Kool-Aide abuse. Republicans have told each other (and themselves) that Democrats are evil — so vociferously, and for so long — that they not only believe it despite all the data to the contrary, they believe it as an article of religious faith. The belief is, quite literally, beyond reason.
Scratch a Teahadist, get a Bolshevik.
dead existentialist
@ https://balloon-juice.com/2011/07/21/if-youre-talking-about-destruction/#comment-2683878
We need to talk.
Comrade Kevin
The players' union still needs to approve it, which apparently is not a given.
Republicans have told each other (and themselves) that Democrats are evil—so vociferously, and for so long—that they not only believe it despite all the data to the contrary, they believe it as an article of religious faith. The belief is, quite literally, beyond reason.
I'm currently having a discussion about this with a friend of mine whose family lives in ruby red Mountain Brook, Alabama. She identifies these problems
i don't really get it either. but i do know it's mostly based on monetary issues and keeping as much of it as possible. and currently it's mostly based on un-truths they're told via Fox News.
i'm not quite sure how to fix this problem. Selfishness and greed is a problem that can't be educated away.
No, it's regional. CA has 53 districts. We sent one GOP freshman and that was previously held by a R. Illinois sent 5 out of 19 districts. NY sent 5 out of 29. NJ sent 1 out of 15.
Alabama has 6/7 total seats as R. South Carolina, 5/6. Texas, 23/32. Tennessee 7/9. Even Florida, 19/25.
The only reason you see freshmen out of states like NY is that they had so few Republicans to begin with (even now they only have 7/29 Rs) and short of creating new seats in the south, there was really no way to squeeze more reps out of there.
karen marie
The Populist: You're talking about this guy, Shane Brooks.
Wrong! What the racist / retards want is a return to a mythologized past that never was. And, of course, to remove that black man from the white house.
Because it really is all about race and a deep seated fear of change.
Mr Furious
I love the fact they all want to go back to the salad days of the fifties, yet they fail to grasp that the reason things were good was income taxes on corporations and wealthy were orders of magnitude higher, and a much larger percentage of the country's workers belonged to unions.
Result? Their utopian American middle class. All as a result of progressive policy and demand-side economics.
No matter what happens in the near term this has two possible endings: they die out and demographics change or we have a second civil war. I am hopeful for the first but resigned to believe that myself or my children will have to deal with the second. Fortunately I have guns.
Except in the south. In the south, every solid middle class family could afford to hire help. Those were the salad days. No properly finished white girl need to learn how to cook or do laundry or even to change a diaper. That was the aristocracy that they deserved, and a decade later those black housekeepers demanded real wages and could strive for better jobs.
Housewives in the south now need to get jobs, or do housework, while their mothers or grandmothers got the spend the day playing bridge and having their friends properly catered to.
Hedges Ahead
Maybe all of the conservatives have read 'Interface' by Neil Stephenson. That was the one where the shadowy Network made a Manchurian presidential candidate out of a stroke-suffering Illinoisan governor, for the sole reason of creating a POTUS that would continue to pay off the nat'l debt, payments toward beings the Network's main income (3% of GDP is really nothing to sneeze at!). It's also the book that gave us the micro-traunches of demographics for political studies, everything from "post-confederate gravy eater," "burger-flipping history major," "stone-faced urban homeboy," to "bible-slinging porch monkey,". Really something for a book written in 1994.
@cmorenc: That's from a different era of environmentalism, I have to say. Considering that global warming presents the next catastrophe on the horizon, I don't see good enough reason to oppose hydropower projects.
James E. Powell
@fubar:
What the racist / retards want is a return to a mythologized past that never was. And, of course, to remove that black man from the white house.
That is pretty much it with a large chunk of Republican supporters. The clearest tell is the way in which their opinions move so quickly and so solidly to whatever position is identified as "anti-Obama."
bjacques
@97 Hedges: Interface was an awesome book. Try to find Cobweb if you can.
bob h
The Republicans have become so extreme that the Democrats now represent the conservative, steady as she goes opinion.
Mr Furious @ 94: now there's an op-ed that would write itself…
"Teabaggers, you want to go back to the good old days of the 50's?? No prob – let's start with Eisenhower era tax rates and 50%+ union membership"
This was more or less the premise behind the original "Manchurian Candidate" – that if McCarthy was spending so much time accusing everyone of being a commie, it could only be to draw attention from the real commie plant, e.g. himself.
I don't think anyone really believed that either, they just thought it was an entertaining way to pay back the Red Scare crowd in kind. Funny, though. And the theme of wealthy capitalists colluding with the communist enemy out of greed came back in quite a few movies and TV shows (the early James Bond films, for one).
Juicetard (FKA Liberty60)
@stuckinred
Make sure you read this [The Sherman war quote] to all the left wing armchair revolutionaries as well.
Is there any such animal left?
I would pay good Ameros to sit and chat with a living, breathing example of the species Sochalisticus Americanus
Does it have to do with the sorts of analyses and goals held by said person, or more to do with behavior and attitude patterns?
If it's the former, glad to meet you. If it's the latter, I'm sure you can find a blog or two or 8,000 to help out.
After the Apocalypse | Man Are We Screwed says:
[…] us left on earth would have to deal with the creative destruction. But that's a good thing. Ol'Dirty Doug J/Balloon Juice: Polls have shown that most conservatives say they don't think default would be a big deal. I […]
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