Look: I am eager to learn stuff I don't know--which requires actively courting and posting smart disagreement.

But as you will understand, I don't like to post things that mischaracterize and are aimed to mislead.

-- Brad Delong

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Everything that appears on this blog is the copyrighted property of somebody. Often, but not always, that somebody is me. For things that are not mine, I either have obtained permission, or claim fair use. Feel free to quote me, but attribute, please. My photos and poetry are dear to my heart, and may not be used without permission. Ditto, my other intellectual property, such as charts and graphs. I'm probably willing to share. Let's talk. Violators will be damned for all eternity to the circle of hell populated by Rosanne Barr, Mrs Miller [look her up], and trombonists who are unable play in tune. You cannot possibly imagine the agony. If you have a question, email me: jazzbumpa@gmail.com. I'll answer when I feel like it. Cheers!

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Quote of the Day


I love it when Paul Krugman agrees with me.


I sometimes like to say that modern conservatism isn’t an attempt to turn the clock back to the Gilded Age, it’s an attempt to roll things back to before the Enlightenment, with all that godless talk about numbers and evidence and all that. Doesn’t sound that silly now, does it?

Never mind Darwin — let’s go after Newton!

As I put it on March 24th:

My tentative conclusion is that the Koch Bros. or their equivalents in any time or place, will do everything they can to amass as much as they can, at the expense of everyone else. Whether this involves slavery, serfdom, indentured servitude, or "I owe my soul to the company Sto'e" is an accident of local conditions. The post WW II era in America (and possibly Europe) is an aberration in history.

What you see now is a vigorous attempt to roll back not only the new deal, but early 20th century progressivism, the 13th Amendment, the rest of the constitution, and the enlightenment on which it is based.

They want to take us back to the 12th century. This is not hyperbole. I am deadly serious.

The ever polite and retrained Mr. P.K. does not go far enough, though he is directionally correct.

For more of my elaboration, see here.


2 comments:

BadTux said...

Ya, we keep banging this drum, but all that seems to happen is that the millionaires in Congress make sure nothing happens. Yet idiot Americans keep voting for millionaires, none of those folks got appointed, every single one of'em got the majority of votes from their district. Boggles the mind...

-- Badtux the Baffled Penguin

Jazzbumpa said...

Fundamentally, all forms of totalitarianism have a lot in common. One aspect is rule by fear, another is keeping the proles ignr'nt.

Hence the attacks on public education.

But even more so, the highly consistent propaganda talking points from the right wing echo chamber.

Keep t'em ign'rnt and misinformed, get 'em all het up about abortion, hippies, and the nigras - especially that darkie-muslim-nazi-communist in the white house.

It's worked for 30 of the last 43 years.

WASF,
JzB