the second republican debate was tonight. apparently i wasn't in the right kind of mood for it. instead of taking notes like last time, i found myself scribbling nonsense.
if i had twitter...this is what it would have said for the past couple of hours.
-------------------
pawlenty can dish it but he can’t take it.
don’t talk to ME about the constitution.
bachmann says crazy things. not “ron paul” crazy. just crazy.
shameless cnn plug. SHAMELESS. you should be ashamed.
ron paul is in his own little world. his talking points are from another planet. it’s called REALITY. if we make it through the night without him using the word “obamacare” i’m going to cry tears of joy.
i don’t see jobs as the most important issue in our country. lack of jobs is a symptom of other problems.
santorum just referred to “innovation” as something this country should build on. which is what obama said during the state of the union. MINUS TEN POINTS.
pawlenty said something i agree with. we tell the government what to do, not the other way around. preach. someone tell the government to stop reading my blog.
I’M WITH COCO. how hard is that to say, santorum?
my organic lowfat yogurt strawberry probiotic smoothie from trader joe’s didn’t come with instructions. am i supposed to shake this thing or not?
i just went to look something up on wikipedia and accidentally typed “wikileaks.” heh.
didn’t godfather’s pizza go bankrupt? well, it’s not around. sketch.
i do not personally support the space program at this moment in history. that seems like an insane way to spend money when you don’t…have any.
someone needs to ask a question about the unjust wars we’re waging all over the world. if i was in the crowd, i’d be a heckler.
why doesn’t anyone ever poll me?
social security. here we go. i want my money. give me my money.
bachmann – just compared obama and bush. well now i might pay attention to what she has to say.
separation of church and state?? i didn’t realize this debate was taking place in LEFT FIELD.
cain won’t appoint a muslim. i won’t vote for cain. decision made. this is where republican candidates lose me and other swing voters. be rational, or you’ll lose the election. you lose a lot of people…right here. if you want to win the election…stop talking about muslims like this. you will lose if you don’t stop.
the candidate who says being pro-life includes views of war may get my vote…something about a consistent view of pro-life…anyone…bueller…anyone…
immigrant lady seems to not be a fan of immigration. she’s certainly assimilated well into america.
“…i wouldn’t start a war in libya, i’d stop bombing yemen…” somebody get me a ballot.
“do you agree with congressman paul that we should stop bombing yemen, with targeted attacks on al qaeda operatives, or do you agree with president obama, a democrat, who authorized the attacks?” – my favorite question of all time.
things you should not do during a debate: paraphrase your grandmother.
can i vote for the guy in the audience asking why we have military bases all over the world? who’s that guy?
ron paul 2012.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
there we went, here we go again.
i went to a library booksale a couple months ago. i went with a friend. she picked up a book that sounded fascinating, and i told her she should definitely get it. she eventually put it back on the shelf, and i said "well, if you don't want it...i'm taking it." i wasn't going to fight her for it, but i wanted it.
books are not better than friends. books are not better than friends. books are not better than friends.
anyway, the book was:
Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist - Walter Bernstein
this guy fought with the united states military in world war two, and then came home...to be blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. he was a writer who couldn't find work because of all the hysteria surrounding hunting down communists.
i'm not going to go into the hysteria. i'm assuming that most people know about it. if not, there are plenty of books to read on the subject.
instead, i'm just going to put up some quotes from the book, and remind you that history repeats itself. there is nothing new under the sun. while it's tempting to look back on shameful periods of history and condemn them, it's a better idea to look at current events and wonder...
do past events illuminate current events? are there any similarities? have we given in to the same fear and hysteria? have we let the government and media fool us? do we just hear what they say and believe it without thoughtful criticism? do we find ourselves justifying things that are wrong?
has one enemy merely been replaced with another?
"He worried about the direction in which Truman was taking the country, instituting loyalty oaths for civil servants, creating a subversive activities board, proclaiming the Truman Doctrine to save the world from communism. Wallace believed the doctrine was a shame and would be used to curtail civil liberties."
"Being radical was considered a not totally unreasonable response to a system gone murderously out of control."
"It was my first example of what horror can be perpetrated in the name of security and how easy then to apologize for it."
"...history occurs twice, first as tragedy and then as farce..."
"We had the nature of the war on our side, an antifascist war, a just war. Everyone believed in it. We had been treacherously attacked; now we were fighting not only to survive but to defeat the forces of unambiguous evil. In this we had brave and gallant allies, not least among them the Soviet Union. No matter the different system; that was an internal affair. The enemy of our enemy was our friend."
"Truman proclaimed his doctrine: The United States would defend 'free peoples' anywhere in the world."
"They looked familiar, some even wore their old uniforms, but which ones had burned the cross? What had it taken to get them to beat up women and children, a few drinks fueling the menace of the Reds? They had fought and won a war against hatred and bigotry - to become this? I watched them parade, trying to match these hate-filled faces with those I had known."
"As always happens, what drew the headlines were the accusations, not the denials, and they had their desired effect, which was to create a climate of fear and suspicion."
"He announced that after investigation by the Westchester County district attorney, it was clear that 'Communist groups obviously did provoke this incident.' No further statement had to be made; notice had been served. The promise was in the sanctioned attack and the implied justification: Communist groups were to blame and Communist groups were whoever we said they were. They were the people we were against. In the case of Peekskill they were organizations openly supported by the Communists, but in other cases they could be just about anyone, which made them difficult to trap. They were slippery and sly; they used Aesopian language to conceal their real intentions; they were expert in deceit. And so we had our own experts to tell us who they were, and informers to back up the experts, and it did not matter if the informers had to be paid to inform or were caught lying or otherwise discredited; what mattered in this new climate were the accusations."
"There were rumors of government concentration camps already being set up for radicals when the time came. It had been done for Japanese Americans in World War Two. Detention camps were now sanctioned under the National Security Act. The U.S. Department of Justice had what it called a 'Security Index File of individuals to be apprehended and detained in connection with the Detention of Communists Program.'"
"The air turned smelly and poisonous. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives now had committees in full cry, hunting down Reds, pinkos and other affronts to the social order. A pliant press decried their methods but supported their aims, and rarely questioned their right to prosecute for political association."
"The Korean War was not discussable in any rational way. Probably no war is when it is going on. Either you accepted this one as unprovoked aggression or you were soon a pariah."
"The studios embraced anticommunism with the same calculated fervor they had recently reserved for Stalin. Hot or cold, a war was a war. There were good guys and bad guys. All the studios needed was to be told who was who. The government told them that."
"I plastered them over with belief in the rightness of the cause and the reassuring knowledge that at least I knew my enemy. He was right there in my face. The United States had started the cold war, needed it for imperial purpose, needed the terror of a blacklist to make that war seem necessary. Political persecution was becoming an acceptable norm. The law was being twisted in the name of anticommunism; government informers perjured themselves without fear of consequence."
"It had constantly to be enlarged in order to keep the threat real. There could be no such thing as a finite Red menace; evil cannot be seen as having boundaries. The impulse was religious even if the need was secular. The blacklist was the result of a politics grounded in fear and an economy dependent on military buildup. Based as it was on terror, falsehood and profit, it needed constant justification. Otherwise, there was the risk that like the physical universe, it might someday reach the limits of its expansion and collapse upon itself."
books are not better than friends. books are not better than friends. books are not better than friends.
anyway, the book was:
Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist - Walter Bernstein
this guy fought with the united states military in world war two, and then came home...to be blacklisted as a communist sympathizer. he was a writer who couldn't find work because of all the hysteria surrounding hunting down communists.
i'm not going to go into the hysteria. i'm assuming that most people know about it. if not, there are plenty of books to read on the subject.
instead, i'm just going to put up some quotes from the book, and remind you that history repeats itself. there is nothing new under the sun. while it's tempting to look back on shameful periods of history and condemn them, it's a better idea to look at current events and wonder...
do past events illuminate current events? are there any similarities? have we given in to the same fear and hysteria? have we let the government and media fool us? do we just hear what they say and believe it without thoughtful criticism? do we find ourselves justifying things that are wrong?
has one enemy merely been replaced with another?
"He worried about the direction in which Truman was taking the country, instituting loyalty oaths for civil servants, creating a subversive activities board, proclaiming the Truman Doctrine to save the world from communism. Wallace believed the doctrine was a shame and would be used to curtail civil liberties."
"Being radical was considered a not totally unreasonable response to a system gone murderously out of control."
"It was my first example of what horror can be perpetrated in the name of security and how easy then to apologize for it."
"...history occurs twice, first as tragedy and then as farce..."
"We had the nature of the war on our side, an antifascist war, a just war. Everyone believed in it. We had been treacherously attacked; now we were fighting not only to survive but to defeat the forces of unambiguous evil. In this we had brave and gallant allies, not least among them the Soviet Union. No matter the different system; that was an internal affair. The enemy of our enemy was our friend."
"Truman proclaimed his doctrine: The United States would defend 'free peoples' anywhere in the world."
"They looked familiar, some even wore their old uniforms, but which ones had burned the cross? What had it taken to get them to beat up women and children, a few drinks fueling the menace of the Reds? They had fought and won a war against hatred and bigotry - to become this? I watched them parade, trying to match these hate-filled faces with those I had known."
"As always happens, what drew the headlines were the accusations, not the denials, and they had their desired effect, which was to create a climate of fear and suspicion."
"He announced that after investigation by the Westchester County district attorney, it was clear that 'Communist groups obviously did provoke this incident.' No further statement had to be made; notice had been served. The promise was in the sanctioned attack and the implied justification: Communist groups were to blame and Communist groups were whoever we said they were. They were the people we were against. In the case of Peekskill they were organizations openly supported by the Communists, but in other cases they could be just about anyone, which made them difficult to trap. They were slippery and sly; they used Aesopian language to conceal their real intentions; they were expert in deceit. And so we had our own experts to tell us who they were, and informers to back up the experts, and it did not matter if the informers had to be paid to inform or were caught lying or otherwise discredited; what mattered in this new climate were the accusations."
"There were rumors of government concentration camps already being set up for radicals when the time came. It had been done for Japanese Americans in World War Two. Detention camps were now sanctioned under the National Security Act. The U.S. Department of Justice had what it called a 'Security Index File of individuals to be apprehended and detained in connection with the Detention of Communists Program.'"
"The air turned smelly and poisonous. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives now had committees in full cry, hunting down Reds, pinkos and other affronts to the social order. A pliant press decried their methods but supported their aims, and rarely questioned their right to prosecute for political association."
"The Korean War was not discussable in any rational way. Probably no war is when it is going on. Either you accepted this one as unprovoked aggression or you were soon a pariah."
"The studios embraced anticommunism with the same calculated fervor they had recently reserved for Stalin. Hot or cold, a war was a war. There were good guys and bad guys. All the studios needed was to be told who was who. The government told them that."
"I plastered them over with belief in the rightness of the cause and the reassuring knowledge that at least I knew my enemy. He was right there in my face. The United States had started the cold war, needed it for imperial purpose, needed the terror of a blacklist to make that war seem necessary. Political persecution was becoming an acceptable norm. The law was being twisted in the name of anticommunism; government informers perjured themselves without fear of consequence."
"It had constantly to be enlarged in order to keep the threat real. There could be no such thing as a finite Red menace; evil cannot be seen as having boundaries. The impulse was religious even if the need was secular. The blacklist was the result of a politics grounded in fear and an economy dependent on military buildup. Based as it was on terror, falsehood and profit, it needed constant justification. Otherwise, there was the risk that like the physical universe, it might someday reach the limits of its expansion and collapse upon itself."
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