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POPSVintage Moonbattery: Copenhagen's A Battle To Humble And "Redefine Humanity" So this isn't the place for rationality. It's the place to reverse the Industrial Revolution. You do have to read this entire self-caricature, though, because there's just so much I couldn't include. There's an entire section on how the people who disagree with him - the bullies who call him bad names - are angry because he's just too decent. Then there was a part about how we have to reign in "adventurers," which a cynical person might read as a pointed version of banal Blue State nannyism. "I'm too priggish to have fun so you're not allowed to have any either." The Guardian (http://bit.ly/691nUu)
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POPSPalin's anti-intellectualism is dangerous A dangerous divide has been developing for some years between those who are comfortable negotiating the wide array of knowledge and information sources now available, and those who are not.
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POPSToo Darned Loud And while we’re at it, can we add an amendment to turn down the volume on TV news punditry as well? Sorry… flying too close to the sun.
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POPSDems Feel Michael Moore's Wrath But then things get interesting -- in building his indictment against the ill-fated marriage of Wall Street and Washington, Moore zeroes in less on Phil Gramm or other GOP string-pullers than he does on White House economic adviser Larry Summers, Robert Rubin and Sen. Chris Dodd. Especially Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat and chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Moore gets an on-camera interview with the mortgage officer who handled the special VIP loans provided to Dodd and other big names, which have dogged Dodd's reelection bid. Dodd had appeared to be clawing his way back onto safer political ground in recent months, as he filled in for the dying Ted Kennedy as chair of the Senate health committee. But if "Capitalism" packs them in in Wallingford and Danbury, watch out.
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POPSGOP Must Embrace 'The Vocal Majority' A populist movement is any that champions the rights and power of the people over elites. The Left has often embraced populism when it has suited them. President Obama got elected in part by adopting a soft economic populism. He made the implausible promise to cut taxes for 95 percent of Americans. And he campaigned with populist red meat like: “Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it…” And the Left has often framed their fight for universal healthcare in populist terms, as a campaign for everyday Americans against elite politicians in bed with evil insurance companies.
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POPSWhat does "Fascism" look like? 14 Characteristics 10. Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak . 11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero. 12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism , a qualitative populism, one might say. 14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
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POPSU2 Drummer: The Rich Need Hugs, Not Hate In general, all human beings need hugs, not hate. Even the haters need hugs. The U.S. isn’t Ireland, of course. But populism is clearly rising on both sides of the Atlantic. And when left-leaning super-groups start defending billionaires, you know maybe things have gone too far.
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POPSThe US Peasant Mentality the Glenn Beck show has been drearily fascinating of late. It’s not often that we get to watch someone go insane on national television …
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POPSAmerica the Lawless
That is what Obama wants to reverse. He is replacing the rule of law with the rule of men. This is a system that divides men into politically favored groups-the ones who are considered worthy of "empathy"-and politically unfavored groups, who can expect their rights to be trampled and ignored. All of this is being done in the name of helping out the "little guy"-but its real purpose is to make the little guy into the helpless pawn of government. It is a network of controls designed to prevent the little guy from rising and making a success of himself-and instead make him go hat in hand to a government official for every important need of his life, from buying a house to sending his kids to college, and pleading for "empathy." In practice, of course, this means a state ruled by anarchic populism and a petty corruption in which government favors are doled out according to one's political connections. If you want to see an example, look to life under socialist demagogues like Venezu
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POPS Why Isn't Socialism Dead? In a similar vein, Morales' mentor, Hugo Chavez, has also been preaching that to be rich is to be wicked, while to be poor is to be virtuous -- and though he may be quoting scripture to support his arguments, there can be no serious question that Chavez-style populism is simply socialism with a South American accent. And this leads to the question I want to address, namely, Why isn't socialism dead? The Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, has argued in his book, The Mystery of Capital, that the failure of the various socialist experiments of the twentieth century has left mankind with only one rational choice about which economic system to go with, namely, capitalism. Socialism, he maintained, has been so discredited that any further attempt to revive it would be sheer irrationality.
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POPSThe Real Culture War Is Over Capitalism 
, small business owners who don't want corporate welfare and bankers who kept their heads during the frenzy and don't need bailouts. They were the people who were doing the important things right -- and who are nowwatching elected politicians reward those who did the important things wrong. Voices in the media, academia, and the government will dismiss this ethical populism as a fringe movement -- maybe even dangerous extremism. In truth, free markets, limited government, and entrepreneurship are still a majoritarian taste. In March 2009, the Pew Research Center asked people if we are better off "in a free market economy even though there may be severe ups and downs from time to time." Fully 70% agreed, versus 20% who disagreed. The government has been abetting this trend for years by exempting an increasing number of Americans from federal taxation. My colleague Adam Lerrick showed in these pages last year that the percentage of American adults who have no federal income-tax liabi
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POPSSummer of Rage: The Anger Meme The preliminary data for 2008 show a marked drop in confidence in every American institution since 2000 except military ones and education. These figures are the stuff that nasty movements are made of.
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POPSGlenn Beck Says He Made A Mistake, Communism Isn't On The Rise, Fascism Is Moreover, fascism was always populist -- a very specific, producerist kind of right-wing populism. That's hardly what has proceeded from Obama and the Democrats, who if anything are looking more corporatist by the day. So when we look at the reality of fascism, both historically and in the present, the only serious likelihood of any coming strain of fascism is proceeding, as we might expect, from the populist corners of the right, especially as it indulges and encourages eliminationist rhetoric directed at various "liberal" and minority targets (Latino immigrants in particular).
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POPSWho Will Hire Our Bankers? In the last week I've talked to people who think it's a *great* idea to tax away bonuses of anyone working for TARP recipients. 'But what if it causes all the good people to leave?' I ask. 'Wah wah wah. Where will they go?' 'Here's where.'
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POPSWhy not a 100% tax on Politicians Book Royalties? Congress has no qualms about attacking portions of the private sector when it believes that it can turn such populism into votes at the ballot box. Likewise, We The People ought to be afforded a similar opportunity to hold our elected officials accountable. And since threats of confiscatory government taxes on "unmerited" or "windfall" income seem to be all the rage these days, I am simply proposing that all elected government officials who write books should be taxed at 100% on any royalty advances that they receive while in office -- while they are employed by us as our public servants. That's only "fair" ... isn't it?
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POPSRage Against Bad Captalism is Good
The "bad news" is really an opportunity for progressives, unions and Democrats to build a bottom-up populist alternative to the "greed is good" politics of Wall Street, which has infested both parties. Obama should privately welcome "populist rage" as a stimulus to reform. If he does not, he may see right-wing populism making a comeback as soon as 2010. Some progressives, including even Warren Beatty, think it's time to introduce a discussion of socialism, if only to point out that our present course is one of socialism for the banks and corporations. Obama himself says good things about Sweden's nationalization of banks, but quickly demurs that Americans are not "culturally" ready for such an option. At the Washington Post, Harold Meyerson, a democratic socialist in the tradition of Michael Harrington, prefers re-regulation to either nationalization or socialism at this point: "to avoid socialism (to whatever extent throwing public money at banks is socialism) you need liberalism (
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POPSUmberto Eco's defining characteristics of fascism CONTINUED... 11. In such a perspective everybody is educated to become a hero . 12. Since both permanent war and heroism are difficult games to play, the Ur-Fascist transfers his will to power to sexual matters. 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism , a qualitative populism, one might say. 14. Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak.
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POPSSmall Town America- The Myth The propaganda using small town America as a crutch, among now the disabled children and other devious slogans, is perpetuating the lies and deception that has taken place for over 100 years. Propaganda-Propaganda
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