Here are a bunch of my favorite funny and/or profound quotes, I find them
all over, like from people I know, TV, books, etc. There are occasionally quotes that I don't necessarily agree with but post to show how the other side thinks; I'll leave it up to you to figure out which ones. You'll have to excuse the complete disorganization, which is almost characteristic of this site. BTW, some of these might be considered offensive, so consider yourself warned. And just so she'll stop bitching at me, Tina was the one that came up with that name for this section.
New quotes are always at the top! Except with the favorites, the new ones there are at the bottom.
NOTE: The Favorites section will no longer be updated. When I redo this page of the site, that section will be eliminated entirely and the quotes contained therein moved to other sections.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: Many of the quotes here are unattributed, because for some reason I thought it was a good idea when I started this site. All of the newer quotes are attributed where possible, and I also slowly go through and attribute older quotes as I stumble on the sources. If you know the source for a quote that lacks one, feel free to contact me.
Nobody is totally useless. They can always be used as a bad example.
Word to the wise: Women want men with flat stomachs and fat wallets. My sex life still hasn't recovered from getting it backwards.
It's funny because it's true.
I'd rather be disliked for what I am than liked for what I'm not.
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up,
walk over or around it, and carry on.
The only thing standing between me and complete happiness is reality.
Sometimes my job sucks. Yet other times it sucks more. -Scott Carpenter
When I meet God, I'm gonna ask him one question: Why did you make me so unattractive, yet so horny? -Lindsay Acord
It's easier to fight for one's principles then to live up to them.
There are 2 kinds of guys: those who masturbate, and those who lie.
I'm sure the list of embarrassing ways to die has to be long indeed, but having a heart attack while masturbating to a picture of Hitler has to be way up there.
When the police asked why I killed the guy, I had to laugh; I didn't know either! -Rick Wiesner
Sometimes I get really depressed and I think life isn't worth living. Then I look around and see all the wonder and miracles around me and I realize life is worth living... just not *my* life. -Lili Von Schtupp
If you take life too seriously you won't get to laugh along with everyone else when you fail.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
All that evil requires to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
The most wasted day is one in which we do not laugh.
The more crap you put up with, the more you're going to get.
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
Laws are only words words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention!
Hate isn't the opposite of love. Hate can keep you warm at night, too. -Rob Fairchild
Religion and philosophy are essentially expressions of a fear that life has no meaning. A naked person waiting for me in bed is all the beauty I need to know the answer of the smarter ultimate question, which is whether or not life has value.
The best things in life require cleaning afterwards. -Rob Fairchild
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.
A sense of humor is the only thing that keeps intelligent people from hanging themselves.
What if the person you want to sleep with isn't the same as the one you want to wake up with?
You only have as much or as little power as you and everyone else thinks you have.
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lotteries, dating and religion.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
Life is short. Unless, of course, you're hanging by your eyelids from two metal chains attached to a crane, waiting for help to arrive, in which case time tends to drag a bit.
No problem is so small that it can't be solved with excessive violence.
I've recently returned after a relaxing stay in the beautiful island nation of Barbados. Reflecting on my time away, I have to say that extradition treaties really suck. -Brad Osberg
Power concedes nothing without a demand. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning.... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.... Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. -Fredrick Douglass
You probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.
I could, in theory, make up a God, claim that He commands people to be intelligent, compassionate, eat healthy foods, and help the poor every chance they get. With a lot of hard work, and even more luck (and some good scare tactics), I might convince a lot of people to believe in this God. The believers might very well make more of an effort to be compassionate, intelligent, healthy, and charitable than non-believers, but that doesn?t make my made-up God any more real than the tooth fairy.
If you really insist on behaving like an asshole, I honestly don't see how you can be surprised to wind up covered in shit. -Rob Fairchild
I'm not sure why it's good to compare something to the fun potential of "a barrel of monkeys." Like, "Scrabble is more fun than a barrel of monkeys!"
Actually a barrel of monkeys would have to be the most terrifying thing, ever. Imagine prying off the top of the barrel, only to see six pairs of eyes glinting from the darkness, fixated with fury upon you and nothing else. All you can smell is monkey semen, sprayed everywhere from hours and hours of their combined total masturbation. The monkeys are matted and sticky, cold and wet, the fresh air and light causes them to start screaming and howling at you. They're extremely hungry, and hideously angry, and you've just let them free.
That's when the lead monkey leaps into the air and starts smashing your skull with the very crowbar you freed him with.
Now what could be less fun than that? -Rob Fairchild
Medical science is a good thing, but I think hospitals should be much more wary of the laws of natural selection. For instance, if you show up with your penis in a bucket of ice, they should ask you "So, why is your penis in a bucket of ice?" before they decide whether or not to sew it back on. -Rob Fairchild
People always say they 'slept like a baby,' when you ask them how they slept, except that babies probably aren't the models of sound sleeping. Generally they drool an awful lot and wake up in 6 hours, soaked in their own urine. -Rob Fairchild
Lawyers deserve some credit. We complain that they're dishonest and greedy, but we're the ones who hire them. Lawyers clean up our messes, and at our behest they inflict misery upon anyone we consider an enemy. They exist because we can't live our lives decently. I'm not sure it's lawyers who are the problem. -Rob Fairchild
I think, therefore I am dangerous.
Some people are assholes. But science also tells us that you wouldn't know if you're one of them, so pipe down.
When you're having a bad day and it seems like people are trying to piss you off, remember that it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to extend your finger and flip them off.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Why do we kill people for killing people to show that killing people is wrong?
Life is good. Well, it's may not seem so good when you're living it, but I bet when you're dying and your life is flashing before your eyes, you think, "Man, I ate a lot of good stuff."
The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men. -Plato
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence.
All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the world to do the fighting for them. -Emma Goldman
Too many people are only willing to to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it's exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things *I* think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other's people's rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you're a man, you take it. -Malcolm X
Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends.
It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity.
What's stopping you from doing something so cool it renders you immortal?
(an essay written by a Charlotte Aldebron, a 12-year old schoolgirl, about the true importance of the symbol of our nation) The American flag stands for the fact that cloth can be very important. It is against the law to let the flag touch the ground or to leave the flag flying when the weather is bad. The flag has to be treated with respect. You can tell just how important this cloth is because when you compare it to people, it gets much better treatment. Nobody cares if a homeless person touches the ground. A homeless person can lie all over the ground all night long without anyone picking him up, folding him neatly and sheltering him from the rain. School children have to pledge loyalty to this piece of cloth every morning. No one has to pledge loyalty to justice and equality and human decency. No one has to promise that people will get a fair wage, or enough food to eat, or affordable medicine, or clean water, or air free of harmful chemicals. But we all have to promise to love a rectangle of red, white, and blue cloth. Betsy Ross would be quite surprised to see how successful her creation has become. But Thomas Jefferson would be disappointed to see how little of the flag's real meaning remains.
While some people think that dissent is unpatriotic, I would argue that dissent is the highest form of patriotism. In fact, if patriotism means being true to the principles for which your country is supposed to stand, then certainly the right to dissent is one of those principles. And if we're exercising that right to dissent, it's a patriotic act. One of the great mistakes made in discussing patriotism -- a very common mistake -- is to think that patriotism means support for your government. And that view of patriotism ignores the founding principles of the country expressed in the Declaration of Independence. That is: the Declaration of Independence makes it clear that governments are artificial creations set up to achieve certain ends -- equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness -- and when governments become destructive of those ends it is the right of the people in the words of the Declaration, to alter or abolish the government. -Howard Zinn
Student councils and class elections are the biggest smokescreen the school throws up, fostering the illusion that you actually have any say in the running of the school. Most students who run for these offices either take the charade too seriously- or they just think it'll look good on their college applications. -Michael Moore
I hope life isn't a big joke, because I don't get it.
(in reference to Bush's speech at the Ohio State University graduation ceremony, by one of the graduating seniors) I was quite upset ever since I read in the campus paper that Bush had been invited to speak at my graduation. That man signifies everything that is wrong in this nation: the abuse of power, the privatization of profit and the socialization of burdens, the destruction and dismantling of what I call progress without any consideration of the consequences, but most especially the Bush Administration's foreign policy and actions around the 9-11 issues.
For anyone who just needed a little bit of convincing that the world is a cruel and horrible place to live in and that this alleged post-9/11 baby boom is the exact opposite of the way to better society, I would like to point out that in Santa Cruz, California today (note: 5/31/02), a man bled to death in a convenience store from a gunshot wound to the head while other customers stepped over him to pay for their merchandise. [...] The main thought going through my head while reading this was somewhere around the lines of, "The only way I will ever be convinced God actually exists right now is if every single customer in the store who did that then had their lives ruined, preferably by the same robbers who shot the guy in some bizarre allusion to Spider-Man except they don't get to become super-heroes in the end and instead live out the rest of their lives with horrific, physical evidence of their complete lack of a soul, and maybe the loss of vision and/or sense of smell for good measure. -August J. Pollak
I was sitting outside one cloudy day, reminiscing on all the bad luck I was having. Everything was going wrong. Feeling bad, I looked up to the heavens with outstretched arms and said "Why me, Lord, Why me?" All of a sudden there was a clap of thunder and a bolt of lightning, and as the clouds parted, a booming voice came down from the sky, and said: "Because, Susan, there's something about you that just ticks me off!"
Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense. -Buddha
I am enormously proud to be an American. I would say that the things that our corporate-controlled government has done at best are shameful and at worst genocidal-but there's an incredible and a permanent culture of resistance in this country that I'm very proud to be a part of. It's not the tradition of slave-owning founding fathers, it's the tradition of the Frederick Douglasses, the Underground Railroads, the Chief Josephs, the Joe Hills, and the Huey P. Newtons. There's so much to be proud of when you're American that's hidden from you. The incredible courage and bravery of the union organizers in the late 1800's and early 1900's-that's amazing. People often get tricked into going overseas and fighting Uncle Sam's Wall Street wars, but these are people who knew what they were fighting for here at home. I think that that's so much more courageous and brave. -Tom Morello
To know that an act is right and not do it is the greatest cowardice. -Confucius
I fear Bush because he is rapidly eroding the constitutional rights of Americans and assuming dictatorial powers. Not only is he ignorant of the consequences of his insane foreign policy, he doesn't care. In the long run this will destroy your country. In a very short time in office he has made the U.S a declining economic power that relies on it's military to gain advantage. This is the classic pattern of a falling empire.
[A political e-mail list is] the all-time nerdiest thing I've ever been involved in, and I say that as a person who has been involved with public radio and marching band.
There are no sins against the gods, for mortals cannot be expected to know what the immortals would have of them. There are, however, sins against humans; for only the insane or the foolish can fail to know what their fellow beings require.
(Tommy Vercetti from GTA: Vice City) Nobody does whatever they want; they do what you let them do.
Let face facts, shall we? There is a very real possibility that this could also be the *last* day of the rest of your life.
I don't want to believe. I want to know. -Carl Sagan on religion
Personally speaking, the sexiest quality any woman can possibly possess is willingness. -Lev L. Spiro
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side... The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. -George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism [article link]
The current Israeli government is even more resistant to proposals for a viable two state solution than its recalcitrant predecessors. It may bend but not break unless Obama threatens a rupture of Washington's all purpose commitment to the Jewish state. There is nothing in his performance to date that suggests he has either the necessary conviction or courage to do that. On issue after issue, he has shown a strong reluctance to challenge established thinking and to confront powerful interests. Just the opposite. Retreat from positions boldly declared has become the hallmark of his administration. At times, the retreat follows brief skirmishes. At other times, it is preemptive -- prompted by skirmishes in the president's own mind. This is the singular Obama style evident on major domestic issues. The process begins with a firm statement of the problem, a clarion call for action, and a pledge to force change. Then, there is the period of eerie calm -- no plan is unveiled, no strategy executed beyond entreaties that the protagonists act in the reasonable manner the president has outlined. Obama makes brief public appearances punctuated by further proclamations of the imperative to act, still without any specifics or sustained effort. Whatever comes out of this muddle is declared historic and promising. In this case, so blunt and public was Netanyahu's rejection of the American proposal to do something on the key settlement issue that such a declaration is impossible. In the same vein, though, Obama rushed to say that the settlement matter is not so important after all, just a piece of a complex problem. Just as the "public option" was redefined as "just a sliver" of the overall package.
There is no virtue in this approach. It is classic avoidance behavior. Vintage Obama, as we have come to recognize it. He is a man of personal audacity, but little courage; one of that rare breed who say everything with strong conviction, but whose conviction is only genuine at the moment he speaks. -Michael Brenner [article link]
...as far as the big-time Democrats go, if a leader's words and actions seem stupid to you, it's probably because their goals are different than yours and they're just stringing you along. ...
The party leaders have their own goals, with maintaining control of the party at the head of the list, and they don't need to win every election. They don't necessarily want a bunch of unruly new Congressmen, especially not if they threaten to mess up the leadership's corporate strategy. They don't necessarily want new blocks of enthusiastic voters, who might make demands inconveniencing their big donors.
By and large, the Democratic leadership is perfectly happy to use gerrymanding and local deals to cede 40%-45% of the country to the Republicans. This makes the future more predictable and makes the leadership's job easier, and as the safe Congressmen settle into their assigned roles, it makes the party more controllable. The party pros absolutely hated the fifty-state strategy, and Howard Dean was immediately banished when Obama took over. -John Emerson [article link]
If you're not a centrist machine Democrat, never give money to any national or state Democratic organization. I really think that this should be an absolute principle. If at some point we're in a position where the Dems need us and come asking, then we can deal. But not while they're treating us with contempt. -John Emerson [article link]
If those who blamed me knew how many destroyed houses I walked over with those shoes that I threw, and how many times those shoes mixed with the blood of the innocent, and how many times those shoes went into homes where the honor of those who lived there was disgraced, then it was probably the proper response. -Muntazer al-Zaidi, Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush during a press conference [article link]
Oliver has the best roundup of this weekend's 9/12 rally in Washington DC, which had almost nothing to do with the September 11 attacks and almost everything to do with several thousand people really being angry that the president's black. At some point, this is going to escalate to a degree where TV news reporters actually have no choice but to point out how these rallies seem to be large collectives of angry white people complaining that there might be a chance someone other than them is getting a break. That might be fun. I dunno. -August J. Pollak [article link] (emphasis added)
[O]ur political mores demand vehement repudiation of petty acts of incivility (not all, but most) while tolerating and even approving of extremely consequential acts of indecency as long as they're advocated with superficial civility. Those who use curse words to oppose torture, wars and lawbreaking are evil and unSerious (The Angry Left); those who politely and soberly advocate morally repugnant, indecent policies are respected and Serious. As long as one adheres to Beltway decorum, one can advocate the most amoral and even murderous policies without any repercussions whatsoever; it is only disruptive and impolite behavior that generates intense upset. Beltway culture hates "incivility" (public use of bad words) but embraces full-scale substantive indecency (torture, lawbreaking, unjustified wars, ownership of government by corporations, etc.). -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict. -Martin Luther King, Jr.
Excessive secrecy is one of the prime afflictions of Beltway culture -- among both politicians and, especially, journalists. Secrecy is supposed to be anathema to journalism. The whole point of journalism is to uncover secrets, not to find new ways to preserve it. But secrecy is the prime currency in Washington. Your importance is determined by what you are allowed to know -- what you're allowed to access -- that the masses are blocked from knowing. That was the most amazing part of the Plame scandal: all of the Important People in Washington -- including journalists -- knew what happened, knew who the leakers were. But none of them told, including the journalists. It was their little Village secret. And they loved having their private scandal that only they knew about but not the "public." Whether someone had access to those secrets determined whether they mattered, and so the last thing they wanted was to have that secret exposed and have the masses know about it, because that would destroy their specialness. And that dynamic repeats itself over and over, where the most powerful people in Washington get together with the most influential journalists and constantly agree to keep everything secret, away from the masses, reserved only for those who matter. That's how Washington stays opaque and how it is able so easily to mislead. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Sometimes it's a bit hard to remember just how nutty the world was in those post-9/11 days. Suggesting that Bush was using the terror alert for political purposes would have made you a crazy person, the mere suggestion of it would've put you outside the bounds of acceptable discourse. -Atrios [article link]
There's little question that when people look back at this period in American history, it will be difficult to comprehend what happened in the Bush era -- and especially how we blithely started a devastating war over complete fiction, while simultaneously instituting a criminal torture regime and breaking whatever laws we wanted. But far more remarkable still will be the fact that, other than a handful of low-level sacrificial lambs, those responsible -- both in politics and the establishment media -- not only suffered no consequences, but continued to wield exactly the same power, with exactly the same level of pompous self-regard, as they did before all of that happened. Looking back several decades or more from now, who will possibly be able to understand how that happened: the almost perfect inverse relationship between one's culpability and the price they paid for what they unleashed? -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
As the 2006 election and these subsequent events conclusively demonstrate, mindlessly supporting and electing more Democrats for its own sake doesn't solve or even mitigate anything. Grounded in the premise that the Democrats are going to control both houses of Congress for the foreseeable future -- a premise virtually nobody disputes -- the primary objective has to be to alter the behavior of those who control the Congress.
Increasing the Democrats' margin of control doesn't achieve that goal. It does the opposite. Conveying to Democrats that you will support all of them no matter what they do, no matter how egregiously they trample on your values, only ensures that they will ignore your political priorities and values even more. Working to expand the margin of control Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel and Harry Reid already enjoy -- further entrenching them in power -- only ensures that they will be less responsive and accountable. Only by attaching a serious price to their enabling of these extremist, destructive policies will their behavior change. If they are rewarded with greater control and greater comfort for doing what they've been doing, then it's just guaranteed that they'll continue to do the same thing. Only if they suffer losses and have their power threatened from this behavior will the behavior change. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
If health care reform can't pass now, then a filibuster-proof Democratic majority isn't worth having. At that point you have to consider blowing up the party and waiting a decade or two to rebuild a new one that's able to address the country's actual needs. [or, I would argue, you could support such a party that already exists -ed.] -Jonathan Chait, The New Republic [source]
If the Democrats run for cover, if we become pale carbon copies of the opposition, we will lose--and deserve to lose. The last thing this country needs is two Republican parties. -Ted Kennedy, 1994 [article link]
[in reference to the claim from Democrats that they need to compromise health care reform in order to attract bipartisan GOP support] From the start, it's been obvious to everyone -- the Obama White House and Senate Democrats included -- that the GOP would not help Obama pass health care reform. Why would the GOP want to help Obama achieve one of his most important and politically profitable goals? Of course they were going to try to sabotage the entire project and would oppose health care reform no matter what form it took...
The attempt to attract GOP support was the pretext which Democrats used to compromise continuously and water down the bill. But -- given the impossibility of achieving that goal -- isn't it fairly obvious that a desire for GOP support wasn't really the reason the Democrats were constantly watering down their own bill? Given the White House's central role in negotiating a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry, its betrayal of Obama's clear promise to conduct negotiations out in the open (on C-SPAN no less), Rahm's protection of Blue Dogs and accompanying attacks on progressives, and the complete lack of any pressure exerted on allegedly obstructionists "centrists," it seems rather clear that the bill has been watered down, and the "public option" jettisoned, because that's the bill they want -- this was the plan all along.
The Obama White House isn't sitting impotently by while Democratic Senators shove a bad bill down its throat. This is the bill because this is the bill which Democratic leaders are happy to have. It's the bill they believe in. As important, by giving the insurance and pharmaceutical industries most everything they want, it ensures that the GOP doesn't become the repository for the largesse of those industries (and, converesly, that the Democratic Party retains that status).
This is how things always work. The industry interests which own and control our government always get their way. When is the last time they didn't? The "public option" was something that was designed to excite and placate progressives (who gave up from the start on a single-payer approach) -- and the vast, vast majority of progressives (all but the most loyal Obama supporters) who are invested in this issue have been emphatic about how central a public option is to their support for health care reform. But it seems clear that the White House and key Democrats were always planning on negotiating it away in exchange for industry support. Isn't that how it always works in Washington? No matter how many Democrats are elected, no matter which party controls the levers of government, the same set of narrow monied interests and right-wing values dictate outcomes, even if it means running roughshod over the interests of ordinary citizens (securing lower costs and expanding coverage) and/or what large majorities want. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
If one were to analyze matters from a purely utilitarian perspective, one could find ways to justify the White House's attempt to write a health care plan that accommodates the desires of the pharmaceutical and drug industries [mandates (i.e., 50 million forced new customers) plus government subsidies to pay their premiums plus no meaningful cost controls (i.e., no public option)]. All other things being equal, it's better -- from the White House's political perspective -- that those industries not spend vast sums of money trying to defeat Obama's health care proposal, that they not pour their resources into the GOP's 2010 midterm effort, that they not unleash their fully army of lobbyists and strategists to sabotage the Democratic Party. That's the same calculating mindset that leads the White House to loyally serve the interests of the banking industry that caused the financial crisis (we don't want to make enemies out of of Goldman Sachs or turn investment bankers into GOP funders). Indeed, that's the same mindset that leads the White House to avoid any fights with the Right -- and/or with the intelligence community and permanent military establishment -- over Terrorism policies (there's no political benefit to subjecting ourselves to accusations of being Soft on Terror and there's plenty of reasons to cling to those executive powers of secrecy, detention and war-making).
In essence, this is the mindset of Rahm Emanuel, and its precepts are as toxic as they are familiar: The only calculation that matters is maximizing political power. The only "change" that's meaningful is converting more Republican seats into Democratic ones. A legislative "win" is determined by whether Democrats can claim victory, not by whether anything constructive was achieved. The smart approach is to serve and thus curry favor with the most powerful corporate factions, not change the rules to make them less powerful. The primary tactic of Democrats should be to be more indispensable to corporate interests so as to deny the GOP that money and instead direct it to Democrats. The overriding strategy is to scorn progressives while keeping them in their place and then expand the party by making it more conservative and more reliant on Blue Dogs. Democrats should replicate Republican policies on Terrorism and national security -- not abandon them -- in order to remove that issue as a political weapon.
If those Emanuelian premises are the ones that you accept, if you believe that Obama should be guided by base concerns of political power, then you're likely to be satisfied with the White House's approach thus far -- both in general and on health care specifically. That would also likely mean that you're basically satisfied with the behavior of Democrats during the Bush era, and especially since 2006 when they won a majority in Congress, since that is what has driven them for the last decade: all that matters is that we beat the Republicans and we should do anything to achieve that, including serving corporate donors to ensure they fund Us and not Them and turning ourselves into war-making, civil-liberties-abridging, secrecy-loving GOP clones in the national security realm. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Celebrating the second amendment by carrying a loaded gun is like celebrating the first amendment by screaming profanities at children. -Greg Saunders
What defines Michelle Malkin's extremism is not her position on the issues--it's her take no prisoners attitude toward political discourse as war, and her total disregard for the truth, except for when it can get her into trouble. This is what she shares in common with an entire legion of similar figures on the right. It's not a question of whether Michael Moore or some other figure on the left is equally far from the center. Such figures simply do not lie pervasively and consistently the way figures like Malkin do.
There are many reasons for this, so I'll just mention one I haven't focused on for a while: lies are simple, truth is complicated. If you want to get your point across quickly, and vividly, so that people remember it, then just make it up.
Think about it. How much time does it take to tell someone that Obama's health care reform will kill grandma? Versus how much time does it take to refute that lie?
So long as there are no consequences for lying, then lying will be favored all the time, simply because of this strategic advantage, if for no other reasons...
Now, of course, Malkin does much, much more than simply lie. She demonizes, advocates for mass incarceration of political undesirables, and incites followers towards violence. But simply examining media figures for their propensities to lie is a very good first cut baseline to start judging them on. Truth be told, it's very, very hard to do the rest of the nasty stuff that Malkin does if you're not a habitual liar first. -Paul Rosenberg [article link]
No one can earn a million dollars honestly. -William Jennings Bryan
There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work. -Irving Kristol, godfather of neoconservatism
For [political philosopher and major influence on neoconservatism Leo] Strauss, as for Plato, the virtue of the lie depends on who is doing the lying. If a poor woman lies on her application for welfare benefits, the lie cannot be countenanced. The woman has committed fraud and must be punished. The woman is not noble, therefore the lie cannot be noble. When the leader of the free world says that "free nations do not have weapons of mass destruction," this is but a noble lie, a fable told by the aristocratic president of a country with enough nuclear weapons to leave the earth a desert less welcoming than the surface of the moon. -Earl Shorris [article link]
As journalists have become more affluent -- a trend to which I don't necessarily object -- they are more likely to hobnob with the big shots, send their kids to the same private schools, and hang out at the same parties. This undoubtedly affects their view of the world and the people they cover. -Howard Kurtz [source]
Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different. -Hart Pomerantz
The most galling thing about this financial crisis is that so many Wall Street types think they actually deserve not only their huge bonuses and lavish lifestyles but the awesome political power their own mistakes have left them in possession of. When challenged, they talk about how hard they work, the 90-hour weeks, the stress, the failed marriages, the hemorrhoids and gallstones they all get before they hit 40.
"But wait a minute," you say to them. "No one ever asked you to stay up all night eight days a week trying to get filthy rich shorting what's left of the American auto industry or selling $600 billion in toxic, irredeemable mortgages to ex-strippers on work release and Taco Bell clerks. Actually, come to think of it, why are we even giving taxpayer money to you people? Why are we not throwing your ass in jail instead?"
But before you even finish saying that, they're rolling their eyes, because You Don't Get It. These people were never about anything except turning money into money, in order to get more money; valueswise they're on par with crack addicts, or obsessive sexual deviants who burgle homes to steal panties. Yet these are the people in whose hands our entire political future now rests. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
[explaining why, in his book Your Relgion Is False, he includes Pastafarianism, a parody of religion] Part of me suspects that Pastafarianism is not a serious religion but was designed primarily to mock some of the more prominent religions. On the other hand, this suspicion is rooted primarily in the ridiculousness of the notion of a Flying Spaghetti Monster. Using this sort of ridiculousness as a criterion I could just as easily mount the same suspicion against any of the other religions in this book. As I have first-hand experience that those other ridiculous religions are practiced in earnest, I am forced to assume that the same is true of Pastafarianism, and I am forced to point out that Pastafarianism is (like every other kind of food-worship) false. -Joel Grus [source]
If we've learned one thing in this decade, it's how dangerous it is to allow elites to make decisions based solely on conversations they have with themselves. -Christopher Hayes [article link]
I also understand the term used often by our hero Ted Kennedy, that "the perfect is the enemy of the good". However, in this case, I'd like to turn that spin around and say that, in the instance of the public option, half-assed and inadequate is the enemy of the necessary and the acceptable. -Steve Steffens [article link]
Well, I think the argument you're making is politics is the art of the possible. But I actually disagree with that. I actually think politics is the art of creating the possible, and what's possible is what people believe is possible. -Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler [article link]
[Atheists] We do not insist a priori that gods cannot exist, we instead turn to all those people who insist that they do, and ask, "how do you know that?"
Would you believe that for all the fervor of their certainty, none of them have ever adequately answered the question? -PZ Myers [article link]
The most consistent finding in polls is that a majority of Americans have not thought very hard about public policy questions. -Ezra Klein
[in reference to this story on a (non-Jewish) journalist attacked by a mob of ultra-Orthodox Jews for violating the Sabbath by turning on her tape recorder]
This is something too many religious people fail to understand — you can practice your religion, other people can practice their religion, but you don't get to tell other people that they must practice your religion. If your crazy superstition says you aren't allowed to push a button on a certain day of the week, then don't. If your old myths claim that your god turns into a cracker when the right ritual is carried out, go ahead and believe that. If your dogma dictates that you should visit a certain magic rock before you die, then go ahead, make your pilgrimage.
But excuse us, everyone who doesn't have these wacky ideas has a perfect right to push the button, disrespect your cracker, or stay home and skip the crowds…and we also have the right to point and laugh at you. And if you are so intolerant, so irrational, and so vicious as to try and impose your foolishness on others, especially in such disgusting ways, then we have an obligation to use civic law and the power of the state to protect those others' liberties. -PZ Myers [article link]
We often get this vague claim that religion [as opposed to science] is a different methodology and a different way of knowing things, and that judging religion as a science is a category error. Very well: different way of knowing what? What are these different questions that they are asking, how do they propose answering them, and why should we think these questions are even worth asking, and that their answers are valid? They never seem to get around to the specifics.
I mean, religion might well be the only avenue for addressing the question of how many bicycles are being peddled by angels right now, but that's because it's an irrelevant question that doesn't affect our lives or the universe in any way, doesn't have any way of being answered, and is built around imaginary referents, "angels", for which we don't even have evidence of their existence. But if religion is a way of knowing, how do they know what the answer is? What is their methodology? How do they verify their answers? Why is it that every religion, and even every individual within a religion, comes up with different answers?
That's an example of a trivial question, but the same problems apply to the big questions central to their beliefs. How do we even know that we need redemption from sin? Is sin even a valid concept? They can't answer these questions in an independently verifiable way.
Even when they try to get specific, they are hopelessly vague. -PZ Myers [article link]
In his Sunday sermon, the pastor at my church urged us all to be more God-like. So today I dynamited a hydro dam and flooded an entire valley. -Ian Dauphinee
[from The Daily Show, 8/23/04 (source)] Jon Stewart: Here's what puzzles me most, Rob. John Kerry's record in Vietnam is pretty much right there in the official records of the U.S. military, and hasn't been disputed for 35 years. Rob Corddry: That's right, Jon, and that's certainly the spin you'll be hearing coming from the Kerry campaign over the next few days. Stewart: That's not a spin thing, that's a fact. That's established. Corddry: Exactly, Jon, and that established, incontrovertible fact is one side of the story. Stewart: But isn't that the end of the story? I mean, you've seen the records, haven't you? What's your opinion? Corddry: I'm sorry, "my opinion"? I don't have opinions. I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called "objectivity"—might want to look it up some day. Stewart: Doesn't objectivity mean objectively weighing the evidence, and calling out what's credible and what isn't? Corddry: Whoa-ho! Sounds like someone wants the media to act as a filter! Listen, buddy: Not my job to stand between the people talking to me and the people listening to me.
But remember: don't ever call [mainstream journalists] "stenographers." That's insulting and offensive. Rather, what they do is called "reporting," by which they mean: "We call people in power and write down what they say really accurately and then we faithfully repeat what 'each side says' without commenting on it or judging it (except where it's our Government's claims against some foreign country, in which case we state our Government's claims as fact)." -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. -Napoleon Bonaparte
I’m aware that some people feel that it’s a journalist’s responsibility to “give both sides of the story” and be “even-handed” and “objective.” A person who believes that will naturally find serious flaws with any article like the one I wrote about Goldman. I personally don’t subscribe to that point of view. My feeling is that companies like Goldman Sachs have a virtual monopoly on mainstream-news public relations; for every one reporter like me, or like far more knowledgeable critics like Tyler Durden, there are a thousand hacks out there willing to pimp Goldman’s viewpoint on things in the front pages and ledes of the major news organizations. And there are probably another thousand poor working stiffs who are nudged into pushing the Goldman party line by their editors and superiors (how many political reporters with no experience reporting on financial issues have swallowed whole the news cliche about Goldman being the “smart guys” on Wall Street? A lot, for sure).
Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it. Given all of this, I personally think it’s absurd to talk about the need for “balance” in every single magazine and news article. I understand that some people feel differently, but that’s my take on things. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
For all the chatter about "judicial activism" and that dreadful Roberts metaphor of "a neutral umpire calling balls and strikes," it is so striking how frequently conservative judges invalidate policies which conservatives dislike as a political matter. Here we have the conservative wing of the Court declaring illegal the employment decisions of local government officials, who used a political approach -- diversity -- which conservatives dislike on policy grounds. So often, the outcomes of the allegedly neutral conservative judges are completely consistent with (and aggressively advance) the political preferences of conservatives (Bush v. Gore being only the most obvious example). Indeed, few things are rarer than conservatives Justices invalidating policies that conservatives like politically, or upholding policies they despise -- the true test for whether one applies the law independently of political and outcome preferences. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
I often wondered whether we were doing a bit of a disservice to Bush and Cheney for constantly criticizing them for implementing the unitary executive theory so openly. For such a secretive regime, they were surprisingly honest about what they were doing. They said they believed the constitution meant for the president to be all powerful and above the other two branches and they acted on that premise. And the debate over that, once engaged, was pretty robust and very public.
This was in contrast to previous presidencies which pretended, as Obama is doing now, that they believed in the balance of power between the the branches even as they subverted it as often as they deemed necessary. It's not a partisan thing. Presidents of both parties have done this. Bush and Cheney were actually quite unique in their rare "principled" approach to the American security state dictatorship...
The irony, of course, is that the man who ran on transparency is actually turning out to be less transparent than the president he excoriated on the campaign trail for his secrecy. Bush and Cheney were pretty upfront about the fact that they believed they had the constitutional right to act in any way they saw fit, regardless of the accepted understanding of the constitution or congressional and judicial prerogatives. Bush declared "I'm the decider" and he meant it. This administration obviously believes it has that right as well --- it just pretends otherwise.
I suspect they understand that keeping the folks from losing that freedom loving, patriotic illusion of American exceptionalism is an important part of exercising American political power. And they're probably right. Bush and Cheney's biggest mistakes were in being honest about something nobody wants to know. -Digby [article link]
These blatantly contradictory statements aren't considered contradictions because of the core premises of our political culture: We don't really consider torture and mass pointless slaughter -- when we do it -- to be all that bad. Those who advocated, defended and ordered it are still highly respectable -- "honorable." Those who were so humiliatingly wrong that it cannot be adequately expressed in words still prance around, and are still treated as, wise experts, while those were right are naive and unSerious. The U.S stands for freedom, democracy and human rights -- even when we don't. People who advocate unprovoked wars of aggression, torture and mass violence are irredeemable monsters -- except when they're American or our allies. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
[Obama] seems to be working for the corporatists that got fed up with Bush's bible thumping. -RC, commenter on this article
[on Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan] ...by August of next year we'll withdraw every single one of our troops, leaving behind only memories and 50,000 troops. -Stephen Colbert
We don't have a left and a right party in this country anymore, we have a center-right party and a crazy party. And over the last thirty odd years, Democrats have moved to the right, and the Right has moved into a mental hospital.
What we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture, and the pharmaceutical lobby, that's the Democrats. And they sit across the aisle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and Civil War reenactors who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans, and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He's not even a liberal. -Bill Maher [video link]
It’s difficult not to feel despair at the increasing banality of journalism in the US. A couple of days ago, I had the privilege of spending the evening with Lord Carlile of Berriew, who has served as the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation since 9/11. He has no binding authority, but he insisted that his power to "name and shame" gives him a great deal of actual influence over the content of antiterrorism legislation. And indeed, it seems clear that many of the UK’s imperfect antiterrorism laws would have been far less perfect but for his efforts.
I found Lord Carlile’s discussion of his "soft power" fascinating, so I asked him why he thinks the power to name-and-shame has almost no effect in the United States, where those who are named as the intellectual authors of repressive legislation feel no shame and suffer no consequences for their actions. He gave a very simple answer: journalists. I won't repeat some of the words that he used to describe just how pathetic he considers US political journalism, but it’s clear that he believes it has completely abdicated its duty to... call bullshit on the government. -Kevin Jon Heller [article link]
Mainstream-media political journalism is in danger of becoming increasingly irrelevant, but not because of the Internet, or even Comedy Central. The threat comes from inside. It comes from journalists being afraid to do what journalists were put on this green earth to do.
What is it about Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert that makes them so refreshing and attractive to a wide variety of viewers (including those so-important younger ones)? I would argue that, more than anything else, it is that they enthusiastically call bullshit.
Calling bullshit, of course, used to be central to journalism as well as to comedy. And we happen to be in a period in our history in which the substance in question is running particularly deep... Calling bullshit has never been more vital to our democracy. It also resonates with readers and viewers a lot more than passionless stenography...
I’m not sure why calling bullshit has gone out of vogue in so many newsrooms — why, in fact, it’s so often consciously avoided. There are lots of possible reasons. There’s the increased corporate stultification of our industry, to the point where rocking the boat is seen as threatening rather than invigorating. There’s the intense pressure to maintain access to insider sources, even as those sources become ridiculously unrevealing and oversensitive. There’s the fear of being labeled partisan if one’s bullshit-calling isn’t meted out in precisely equal increments along the political spectrum.
If mainstream-media political journalists don’t start calling bullshit more often, then we do risk losing our primacy — if not to the comedians then to the bloggers. -Dan Froomkin [article link]
...many people in the news media, especially at the managerial level, decided a long time ago that movement conservatism was The Future — and that the sensible thing, whether or not you yourself were a conservative, was to go with the wave...
And anyone who didn’t treat the right with great respect, who didn’t get with the program, was a flake, a moonbat...
Now, you might think that the way things turned out — the total failure of movement conservatism in government, and the abrupt, humiliating end to the Permanent Republican Majority — would lead to some soul-searching. But that’s not how human nature works. Instead, it became more urgent than ever to assert that those who didn’t get with the program were flakes and moonbats, not worthy of being listened to, while those who believed in the right to the bitter end were “serious”.
Thus we still live in an era in which you have to have been wrong to be respectable. You’re not considered serious about national security unless you were for invading Iraq; you’re not considered a serious political analyst unless you spent the last 3 years of the Bush administration predicting a Republican comeback; you’re not considered a serious economic analyst unless you dismissed the idea that the Bush Boom, such as it was, rested on a housing bubble. -Paul Krugman [article link]
What people, I think, misunderstand about Barack Obama is that this is a man who is a brilliant supporter of empire--who has figured out a way to essentially trick a lot of people into believing they're supporting radical change, when in effect what they're doing is supporting a radical expansion of the U.S. empire.
I think that it's a bit disingenuous for people to act as if though they were somehow hoodwinked by Barack Obama about this.
If people were playing close attention during the election--not just to the rhetoric of his canned speech that he gave repeatedly, and the commercials, and the perception of his supporters was that he somehow was this transformative figure in U.S. politics, but also to the documents being produced by the Obama campaign and the specific policies he outlined--you realized that Barack Obama was very much a part of the bipartisan war machine that has governed this country for many, many decades.
What we see with Obama's policies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the broader Arab and Muslim world, as well as his global economic policies, are a continuation of the most devastating and violent policies of the Bush administration--while placing a face on it that makes it easier to expand the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of the free market in a way that Republicans, I think, would have been unable to do at this point in history. ...
I think that Obama is showing himself to be a master of misdirection--almost like a magician. He'll say a few things in his speech that sound like they're new, like a totally different U.S. approach, but then he'll also at the same time roll out a policy that is further than even Bush took things. ...
So while the Cairo speech was interpreted by some people as sending a new message to the Middle East and the Arab world, the reality is that there was nothing in that speech indicating any shift whatsoever for the better in U.S. policy. It's just that we now have a president who can pronounce Arabic words and speak in complete sentences and carry a speech for about an hour, something which Bush was unable to do. -Jeremy Scahill [article link]
Politics is a life and death game that is mostly played by people who care more about the game than the life and death. -Jon Henke
When I was a kid and our dog got to be too hard to handle, we drove him out to the country and let him out of the car. I was very sad when we got home, so my mom cheered me up by telling me some farmer would surely give the dog a good home. I went back out to that area just last week, and once again felt that overwhelming sadness -- but I keep telling myself that my mom has probably fared as well as the dog did. -Shawn Stephens
...I think the one healthcare reform that would make a difference is to cancel govt health insurance for all senators, representatives, cabinet members, etc.
It's been proposed many times, but I do think it's long past time. Have the very senators and representatives who are against public health insurance spend the next few years trying to get healthcare on their own like the rest of us -- waiting months to see doctors, having to comb through lists of doctors too see which specialists you are "allowed" to see, spending countless hours on the phone with insurance companies fighting over individual bills -- I absolutely believe you'll have them socializing all of healthcare, no matter how much the goddamn lobbyists spend to woo them. For most of us in the ranks of the self-employed or -- heaven forfend -- the wrong age bracket, it's that infuriating. -Hunter [article link]
Our ability to render invisible the people we kill when cheering on our wars is one of the primary mechanisms which make it so easy to embrace that option. Glenn Greenwald [article link]
I’m really sick of people in the US talking about the “twitter revolution” in Iran. I especially hate when it’s US liberals who would NEVER get off their asses and away from their computers to protest anything in their own country. They’d never face down tear gas or baton-wielding thugs at home. Some of these liberals (you know who you are) were poo-pooing activists protesting at the Republican and Democratic Conventions and scorn activism in general. This whole commentary about the “twitter revolution” when it comes from these lizards is narcissistic crap. -Jeremy Scahill [article link]
You will notice that in all disputes between Christians since the birth of the Church, Rome has always favored the doctrine which most completely subjugated the human mind and annihilated reason. -Voltaire
A critique of liberal identity politics is not wrong on its face, but it almost always is unconcerned with the identity politics of power. Thus Sotomayor's focus on her identity as a "wise Latina" pose is seen as the disturbing result of multiculturalism run amok, not having been raised in a country where the tangible mechanisms of white supremacy were in full effect.
It isn't, for instance, the fact that Sotomayor was raised in an era where government-backed redlining was still legal, it's the fact that some students at Yale demanded a Chicano history course that's the issue. Likewise, it isn't the oppressive identity politics practiced by conservatives for the past 30 years that's disturbing, but Sotomayor's response to it. To be a true conservative is to be more disturbed by victimology, than actual victimizing. It is to claim to abhor evil--but to abhor the response to evil even more. -Ta-Nehisi Coates [article link]
It's funny how our tastes change as we grow up. I hated tomatoes as a kid but can't get enough of them now. And the same goes for spankings! -Stephanie S. Thompson
The IHOP waitress called it horseplay, but I doubt a pony ever came up with an idea as cool as my blindfolded waffle and syrup battle. -John Gephart IV
It's time, too, to stop the pretense that the "debate" over abortion consists of two equally extreme positions, and that wisdom resides in the mushy middle, where everybody disapproves of abortion except when they want one for themselves or someone they care about. There's only one set of extremists here, the one that uses language like "babykiller," " Nazi," "murderer," and "death mill," kidnaps and murders providers and clinic workers,burns and bombs clinics and drives cars into them, posts pictures of clinic workers and their families on the internet, and harrasses patients on their way to get care...
People mock the word "choice" --it's consumerist, euphemistic, wimpy, calculated. But one thing you can say for it: It honors the individual conscience. If a desperately ill pregnant woman wants to risk her life to give birth, if she wants to carry an anencephalic fetus to term so it can die in her arms, or have her rapist's baby, or become a mother at 14, or produce octuplets, pro-choicers are not going to compel her to abort. Pro-choicers don't go around lecturing girls and women that they will blame themselves forever if they have a baby they may not be equipped to raise well. They don't paint gory pictures of the horrors and dangers of childbirth to scare pregnant girls and women into ending their pregnancies with a quick and safe termination. They don't tell women Jesus is going to send them to Hell if they sacrifice their futures to the whims of a wayward sperm -- although they might mention from time to time that the Bible nowhere mentions abortion. Pro-choicers don't blow up churches or assassinate the leaders of Operation Rescue.
Only one side wants to force women to live by its so-called morality, and only one side murders and bombs to make its point. Only one side has a terrorist wing. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
But now I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth. -Umberto Eco
The steadfast, ongoing refusal of our leading media institutions to refer to what the Bush administration did as "torture" -- even in the face of more than 100 detainee deaths; the use of that term by a leading Bush official to describe what was done at Guantanamo; and the fact that media outlets frequently use the word "torture" to describe the exact same methods when used by other countries -- reveals much about how the modern journalist thinks. These are their governing principles:
There are two sides and only two sides to every "debate" -- the Beltway Democratic establishment and the Beltway Republican establishment. If those two sides agree on X, then X is deemed true, no matter how false it actually is. If one side disputes X, then X cannot be asserted as fact, no matter how indisputably true it is. The mere fact that another country's behavior is described as X doesn't mean that this is how identical behavior by the U.S. should be described. They do everything except investigate and state what is true. In their view, that -- stating what is and is not true -- is not their role.
The whole world knows that the U.S. tortured detainees in the "War on Terror." Yet American newspapers refuse to say so. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Keeping preventive detention and extrajudicial punishment illegal puts a brake on their use: it forces the government that would use these tactics to enter a legal gray area, to risk scandal and exposure, and to take all the responsibility for crossing the line. When a thing is illegal and has to be hidden from the general public, one assumes that governments will try to exhaust every conceivable alternative before resorting to its use, or better yet will avoid using it at all. But making it legal not only transforms preventive detention into a part of all of us, a conscious expression of who we are, it suddenly makes it an easy option for governments to choose.
If they don't have to hide it, and just throwing velvet bags over suspects' heads and carting them to Gitmo (or whatever replaces Gitmo) remains easier than crafting a case and building evidence and making a real arrest, the government will use the former technique more and more, until eventually it becomes routine. And next thing you know it'll become a basic fact of our society, this idea that our government snatches people off the streets and dumps them in faraway jails without trials. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night. -Tony Campolo, evangelical pastor [source]
God must hate common people, because he made them so common. -Philip Wylie
Conservatives complain of a liberal bias in the news. They call this a leftist conspiracy, when in reality there aren't many right-wing reporters for the same reason there aren't many left-wing owners of military surplus stores. -David Wong [article link]
It is well enough that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning. -Henry Ford
In some black communities [coming out as an atheist is] akin to donning a white sheet and a Confederate flag. In others, it’s ostensibly tolerated yet whispered about, branded culturally incorrect and bad form, if not outright sacrilege...
No matter one’s actual deeds, life path or personal mores, to be unquestioningly religious in some quarters is to be inoculated from criticism. Noting this historical irony in his blog “The Black Atheist,” Wrath James White states, “In these (black) communities you find more tolerance towards gangbangers, drug addicts, and prostitutes, who pray to God for forgiveness than for honest productive citizens who deny the existence of God. This, for me, is one of the most embarrassing elements of Black culture, our zealous embrace of the God of our kidnappers, murderers, slave masters and oppressors.” -Sikivu Hutchinson [article link]
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science. -Charles Darwin
[T]he kind of language that's decried as intolerant and insulting in atheist critique of religion is accepted with barely a blink in political commentary or restaurant reviews. -Greta Christina (paraphrasing Richard Dawkins) [article link]
Jacob's Joke maxim A cursory inspection of the world indicates that God or the gods should not be worshiped so much as blamed. -T.G. Browning
Small wonder that President Obama advises us to look forward, not backward--a convenient doctrine for those who hold the clubs. Those who are beaten by them tend to see the world differently, much to our annoyance. -Noam Chomsky [article link]
[in reference to cases of religious parents facing legal action for denying medical treatment to their children] These are cases of religion gone pathological, of belief so absurd and so deep that it denies truth and has overt negative consequences. Moderate Christian believers will read about this and dismiss it as irrelevant to their faith; sure, they'd pray, but they'd also get their children in to legitimate doctors who would give them effective treatment.
I have to say something that is heartfelt, and is also meant to offend. I do not absolve you mealy-mouthed moderates, I do not regard your beliefs as harmless. If Colleen Hauser or Leilani Neumann were in your church, you'd tell them to get medical care, but you'd also validate their belief in prayers. You would provide the soothing background muzak that says prayer is good, prayer is virtuous, prayer will connect you to the great lord who can do anything, prayer will give you solace in your time of worry. You would not raise your voice to say that prayer is useless, prayer is self-defeating, that while prayer might make you feel better while your child is suffering, that is no virtue. You pray yourselves. You think it is a noble and generous act for your representatives to prowl the corridors of hospitals, preying on the desperation of the sick. You abase yourselves before false hopes, and sacrifice human dignity on an altar built from the bones of the dead. You would spread the poison, piously excusing yourselves because you only want to administer sub-lethal doses.
You are Abraham's enablers. I hope you all feel a small tremor of guilt when you sit your own children down at bedtime to beg a nonexistent being for aid, when you plant the seed of futile supplication and surrender to delusions in their trusting minds. Damn you all. -PZ Myers [article link]
I am astonished at how ordinarily decent people whose hearts are otherwise "in the right place" beat about the bush when it comes to Israel and the dispossession and suffering of the Palestinians. And now I wonder about the nature of "decency." Do "objectivity," "moderation," and seeing "both sides" not have limits? Is moderation in matters of clear injustice really a virtue? Do both parties deserve an "equal hearing" in a situation of domestic violence -- wherein a woman is beaten up by a male who was abused by his father some time ago -- because he, too, is a "victim?" -Farid Esack [article link]
This happens all the time in our political debates. Rather than argue the substance of the issue, there is this virtually compulsive need to assert -- with no evidence -- that "the American people" believes a certain way and that anyone who believes otherwise is fringe and isolated. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I'm not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here…
I don't have to know the answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn't frighten me. -Richard Feynman [via Pharyngula]
[in reference to Obama's backsliding on civil liberties issues] The American people right now are actually not interested in this sideshow and this discussion. The American people are interested in looking forward -- nobody is concerned anymore with what the Bush administration was doing and did. We decided it was torture. Conservatives may or may not disagree. None of that matters at this point and time. -Erica Williams (of the Center for American Progress) [video link] [Note: Williams has recanted and apologized for making this comment, but it's still a fact that all too many "progressives" make arguments exactly like this, so I'm leaving this up as an example. -ed.]
The argument against torture is slipping away from us. In fact, I'm getting the sinking feeling that it's over. What was once taboo is now publicly acknowledged as completely acceptable by many people. Indeed, disapproval of torture is now being characterized as a strictly partisan issue, like welfare reform or taxes. -Digby [article link]
[in reference to Obama's plan for "kinder, gentler" military commissions] What makes military commission so pernicious is that they signal that anytime the government wants to imprison people but can't obtain convictions under our normal system of justice, we'll just create a brand new system that diminishes due process just enough to ensure that the government wins. It tells the world that we don't trust our own justice system, that we're willing to use sham trials to imprison people for life or even execute them, and that what Bush did in perverting American justice was not fundamentally or radically wrong, but just was in need of a little tweaking. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
I come from a land [South Africa] where people braved onslaughts of bulldozers, bullets, machine guns and tear gas for the sake of freedom. We resisted at a time when it was not fashionable. And now that we have been liberated everyone declares that they were always on our side. It's a bit like Europe after the Second World War. During the war only a few people resisted. After the war not a single supporter of the Nazis could be found and the vast majority claimed that they always supported the resistance to the Nazis. -Farid Esack [article link]
The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision. -Lynn Lavner
"I believe that the Bible is the literal word of God." And I say no, it's not, Dad. "Well I believe that it is." Well, you know, some people believe they're Napoleon. That's fine. Beliefs are neat. Cherish them, but don't share them like they're the truth. -Bill Hicks
People suck, and that's my contention. I can prove it on a scratch of paper with a pen. Give me a fucking Etch-a-sketch, I'll do it in three minutes. The proof, the fact, the factorum. I'll show my work, case closed. I'm tired of this back-slapping "aren't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. -Bill Hicks
I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. "I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs." "I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking." "Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!" "Shut up! Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control. Here's Love Connection. Watch this and get fat and stupid. By the way, keep drinking beer, you fucking morons." -Bill Hicks
There's a new party being born: The People Who Hate People Party. People who hate people, come together! "No!" We're kind of having trouble getting off the boards. Come to our meeting! "Are you gonna be there?" Yeah. "Then I ain't fucking coming." But you're our strongest member! "Fuck you!" That's what I'm talking about, you asshole! Fuck off! Damn, we almost had a meeting going. It's so hard to get my people together. -Bill Hicks
The whole image is that eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God's infinite love. That's the message we're brought up with, isn't it? Believe or die! "Thank you, forgiving Lord, for all those options." -Bill Hicks
Obama's political calculus throughout his life has been to avoid making enemies. He seems to believe that he can make lots of different interests happy - and on many issues, that's certainly possible. But on some issues, like health care, it's a binary fight: Either you appease the health industry and preserve the status quo they are making big bucks off of, or you take on the health industry and make real change. -David Sirota [article link]
We cannot have peace among men whose hearts delight in killing any living creature. By every act that glorifies or even tolerates such moronic delight in killing, we set back the progress of humanity. -Rachel Carson
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -Bertrand Russell
Do you get offended when someone says “I’ll pray for you”?
While I understand that 1) their praying for me does nothing but waste their own time and 2) they are trying do what they think is good, I replied that yes, I DO take offense.
I’ve been married to a theist for 18 years and have never tried to convert her. My daughter is an atheist, not from my drumming it into her, but through thought and contemplation. There is no need or desire for me to try to change anyone against their wishes.
But when someone prays for me, they are trying to change me against my wishes. Yes, of course it will fail, but as the old saying goes “it’s the thought that counts”, and this thought is negative. They are trying to convince their god to “open my heart” or whatever other metaphor they wish to use for “convert by force using your supernatural powers”.
Indeed, praying for someone is an act of religious intolerance. -Dave Silverman [article link]
Making fun of born-again Christians is like hunting dairy cows with a high powered rifle and scope. -P.J. O'Rourke
When you don’t believe in God or the soul or any sort of afterlife — when you believe that this short life is all that we have — then making the most of that short life, and taking advantage of the joyful experiences it has to offer, suddenly becomes a whole lot more important. It’s almost a moral obligation. The odds against you, personally, having been born into this life, are beyond astronomical. Are you going to waste that life by not giving yourself, and other people, as much joy as you possibly can?
Now, this doesn’t mean, as many anti- atheists claim, that without a belief in God or an afterlife, we can and would behave entirely selfishly and with no moral compass. It doesn’t mean that even a little bit. But it does mean than we can base our morality — including our sexual morality — on how our behavior demonstrably affects people in this life, and not on how it supposedly affects invisible beings in an unproven hypothetical life after this one. And it means that — as long as we don’t cause harm to people in this life — it is not only acceptable, but a positive and meaningful good, to engage in any activities that bring joy and epiphany and meaning to ourselves and the people around us. Including, and maybe even especially, sex. -Greta Christina [article link]
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. -Carl Sagan
Last week, conservatives were complaining Obama was establishing a socialistic fascist dictatorship. This week, conservatives are complaining Obama does not want to torture his opponents. -"MM," a Reader at Talking Points Memo
...[T]he reason the winger crowd can’t find a way to be coherently angry right now is because this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has. The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed, the response is always for the lower and middle classes to split down the middle and find reasons to get pissed off not at their greedy bosses but at each other. That’s why even people like Beck’s audience, who I’d wager are mostly lower-income people, can’t imagine themselves protesting against the Wall Street barons who in actuality are the ones who fucked them over... Beck has an audience that’s been trained that the rich are not appropriate targets for anger, unless of course they’re Hollywood liberals, or George Soros, or in some other way linked to some acceptable class of villain, to liberals, immigrants, atheists, etc....
But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit. Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger. And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish… can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff. And bound to get weirder, I imagine, as this crisis gets worse and more complicated. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
I'm pretty sure the Germans don't have the filibuster, but if they did, they'd have a word for the soul-wrenching misery you feel watching a press conference convened by a handful of preening, self-congratulatory "moderate" senators who have just succeeded in making a bill decidedly worse in deference to some incoherent, abstract notion of "moderateness."
We should have killed off the filibuster when we had a chance. It's got a sorry history: marshaled ignominiously to defeat civil rights and labor legislation. When it comes to the much-needed large-scale reorientation of the American social contract involved in passing universal healthcare and cap-and-trade, the fate of the nation rests largely in the hands of about five senators. -Christopher Hayes [article link]
Prayer seems to be helping everyone else in this room cope with their sadness, but I'm having problems mustering any petitions of my own. After all, if God is really listening to these prayers, if he really is an omnipotent manager, then why didn't he just prevent the killing in the first place? If comforting the victims families isn't too much to ask of God, why couldn't he have spared them the grief altogether? [...] [N]eedless to say, millions of believers have made peace with the issue using a variety of theological work-arounds... But I can't do it. For me, no amount of theological massaging can resolve the central issue - if God could have stopped the Virginia Tech killings from happening, he would have. I can't see any way around it. -Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple
At Liberty, I've met hundreds of people whose lives have been made better and more virtuous by their faith. But I've also seen a process whereby some reasonable, humble believers are taught to put their religious goals above everything else. This is how you get gentle Christian kids condemning strangers to hell in Daytona Beach, and it's how you end up with a group of Liberty students sitting around a prayer room talking about the ideological crops that can be reaped from a national tragedy. -Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple
The dirty secret of the neoliberal era is that these ideas [meaning democratic socialism] were never defeated in a great battle of ideas, nor were they voted down in elections. They were shocked out of the way at key political junctures. When resistance was fierce, they were defeated with overt violence - rolled over by Pinochet's, Yeltsin's and Deng Xiaoping's tanks. At other times, they were simply betrayed through what John Williamson called "voodoo politics": the Bolivian president Victor Paz Estenssoro's postelection secret economic team (and mass kidnapping of union leaders); the ANC's backroom bargaining-away of the Freedom Charter in favor of Thabo Mbeki's top-secret economic program; Solidarity's exhausted adherents succumbing to economic shock therapy after the elections in exchange for a bailout. It is precisely because the dream of economic equality is so popular, and so difficult to defeat in a fair fight, that the shock doctrine was embraced in the first place. -Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
Bush officials didn't commit these crimes by themselves. Virtually the entire Washington establishment supported or at least enabled most of it... As confirmed accounts emerged years ago of chronic presidential lawbreaking, warrantless eavesdropping, systematic torture, rendition, "black site" prisons, corruption in every realm, and all sorts of other dark crimes, where were journalists and other opinion-making elites? Very few of them with any significant platform can point to anything they did or said to oppose or stop any of it -- and they know that...
So when these media and political elites are defending Bush officials, mitigating their crimes, and arguing that they shouldn't be held accountable, they're actually defending themselves... They can't indict Bush officials for what they did because to do so would be to indict themselves. Bush officials need to be exonerated, or at least have their crimes forgotten (look to the future and ignore the past, they all chime in unison), so that their own involvement in it will also be cleansed and then forgotten. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
[T]he truth, which I think everyone in the political/media establishments knows in their hearts, is that the nine months or so between the summer of 2002 and the beginning of the Iraq insurgency were a great national moral test — a test that most people in influential positions failed.
The Bush administration was obviously — yes, obviously — telling tall tales in order to promote the war it wanted: the constant insinuations of an Iraq-9/11 link, the hyping of discredited claims about a nuclear program, etc.. And the question was, should you stand up against that? Not many did — and those who did were treated as if they were crazy.
For me and many others that was a radicalizing experience; I’ll never trust “sensible” opinion again. But for those who stayed “sensible” through the test, it’s a moment they’d like to see forgotten. That, I believe, is the real reason so many want to let torture and everything else go down the memory hole. -Paul Krugman [article link]
The trick to being a rebel at Liberty [University, the ultraconservative college founded by Jerry Falwell], I've learned, is knowing which parts of the Liberty social code are non-negotiable. For example, Joey and his friends listen to vulgarity-filled secular hip-hop, but you'll never catch them defending homosexuality. (On the contrary, Joey's insults of choice are "queer" and "gaywad.") And although they might harass the naive pastor's kids in the hall by stealing their towels from the shower stalls - leaving them naked, wet, and stranded - they'd be the first people to tell you why Mormonism is a false religion. In other words, Liberty's true social code, the one they don't put in a forty-six-page manual, has everything to do with being a social and religious conservative and not a whole lot to do with acting in any traditionally virtuous way. -Kevin Roose, The Unlikely Disciple
Open criminality is a cancer on democracy. It implicates all who know of the conduct and fail to act. Such compliance presents a practical crisis, in that a government that is allowed to torture will inevitably transgress other legal limits. But it also presents an existential political crisis. Many democracies have simply collapsed as the people permitted their leaders to abandon the rule of law in the face of alleged external threats. The turn to torture was rapid, for instance, in Argentina at the time of the Dirty War and in Chile after the American-directed coup against Salvador Allende. In both cases, that turn had little to do with a perceived benefit from the use of torture in interrogation. To the contrary, the very criminality of the act had a talismanic significance. It asserted the primacy of the will of the torturer. It made the claim, for all to accept or reject, that the ruler was the law. Such a claim is, of course, intolerable to democracy, which presupposes, as Thomas Paine wrote, that "the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other." -Scott Horton
If government is necessary, bad government, at least for conservatives, is inevitable, and conservatives have been exceptionally good at showing just how bad it can be. Hence the truth revealed by the Bush years: Bad government--indeed, bloated, inefficient, corrupt, and unfair government--is the only kind of conservative government there is. Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well. -Alan Wolfe [article link]
[in reference to this quote from Time's Joe Klein: "This is an extremely serious claim in the intelligence culture, where some operators are asked to behave extra-legally for the greater good of the nation."]
That's what government crimes are called in the eyes of our press corps: they're just acting "extra-legally" -- and not just "extra-legally," but "for the greater good of the nation." You should try that at home. Go rob a bank and when the police try to arrest you, just tell them: "I was just making an extra-legal withdrawal; what's the problem"? That's also how the media (and Democrats) constantly talked about Bush's illegal spying on Americans. What he did was never a "crime" or even "illegal" (even though the law criminalizes the very conduct he got caught engaging in with prison terms and fines); at worst, it was: "he was engaged in eavesdropping in circumvention of the FISA framework." That works, too, if you want to rob a bank: "I was just making a withdrawal in circumvention of the banking regulatory framework."
Similarly, Politico's Mike Allen -- in the same article where he granted anonymity to a cowardly "top Bush official" to do nothing other than smear Obama as a friend of Al Qaeda (and marvel at Allen's pathetic "justification" for doing that) -- proceeded to describe conduct authorized by the OLC memos this way: "aggressive interrogation practices critics decried as torture." I think I know how to speak Politicoese: the attack on Iraq was "aggressive diplomatic outreach critics decried as an invasion"; Lewis Libby's lying was "spirited and inventive story-telling critics decried as obstruction of justice..."
George Orwell mistakenly assumed that obfuscating language designed to glorify criminal acts would be invented and normalized by government. At least in the U.S., that function is outsourced to government's most loyal and eager servants: establishment journalists. A principal reason why the government has been able to engage with impunity in the extremism and lawlessness of the last decade is because most journalists refuse even to describe it as what it is. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
[in reference to increased cigarette prices causing people to contemplate quitting smoking] You read that right. Lung cancer, heart disease, rotted gums, emphysema, reeking clothes, sallow skin, impotence, shriveled lung capacity and the general skull-crushing obviousness of it all, combined with all manner of heart-wrenching ad campaigns for the past 20 years apparently couldn't do what a measly 62-cent tax increase could. WTF indeed.
It is, you could say, a simple regurgitation of the age-old American truism: there is no more powerful stimulant/deterrent in our society than the pocketbook. Not sex, not God, not a plea from your weeping child, not death itself, nothing comes close to changing human behavior faster and more effectively than forcing us to pay a lot for something for which we used to pay very little.
(Notable exceptions: Coffee, jeans, water. OK, follow-up truism: We are nothing if not wildly inconsistent). -Mark Morford [article link]
Science was never my forte, and heated debates over Darwinism, evolution, creationism and Intelligent Design never piqued my interest. As far as I was concerned, all that mattered was my belief that God created the universe and everything in it. How He did it, when He did it, and what complex processes were involved were beyond my extremely limited understanding. They still are. And what continues to matter most to me is that God get the credit for creation. -Marcia Segelstein [article link]
How come so many conservative Christians insist the only method of birth control that is 100% effective is abstinence? I can think of one documented case where even THAT didn't work -- and you'd think they'd all be familiar with it. -Chris Irby
This seems to be a common problem with liberal Christians: They keep wanting to redefine religion and its holy texts in such a way as to justify what they want to be true without realizing that the chief power of religion and holy texts resides in their being absolute dictates from gOd himself that do not allow for personal revision. If liberal Christians ever successfully make the case that the Bible doesn’t really mean what it clearly says, it can be interpreted to mean whatever anyone wants it to mean and their victory will be a Pyrrhic one. -Atheist Under Ur Bed [article link]
I don't think enough people have a fair understanding of just how many members of Congress are complete and total idiots. The gerrymandering of districts has a lot to do with it- I mean, when you can customize your voting base with laser-like precision, obviously a district of morons will elect one of their own- but I also think that sadly it's just because so many people don't care.
David Cross made a point once that it's not fair to say that all Republicans are racist, homophobic, greedy idiots... it's just the people Republicans elect to represent them in Congress. We'd have a much better Washington if people had to defend their electoral decisions in a little more detail. -August J. Pollak [article link]
Whoever said that money can't buy friends obviously never brought donuts to the office. -Wendy Weiner Runge
Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice which make philanthropy necessary. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice. -Henry David Thoreau
Because we hear so often that there are two sides to an issue, we've become accustomed to thinking there are two equal sides to most of them, especially the ones on which people scream the loudest. You can see this reflected in coverage of demonstrations, in which tens of thousands can march against the war, or for gay rights, and a chunk of the story will be taken up by quotes from 11 people with American flags or verses from Leviticus on their signs.
In Washington this fallacy is taken as gospel because there really are two sides to every issue, and both of them belong to lobbyists. Even if they are arguing nonsense, as they once did when they said that tobacco didn't cause cancer, as they still do when they say cigarettes are not marketed to the underage, they do it in nice shoes, sometimes at a cocktail party. Good grooming and mini-quiches make their arguments seem plausible. -Anna Quindlen [article link]
David Shuster was making fun of Glenn Beck's preoccupation with militia-style right-wing conspiracy theories yesterday on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and wondering why mainstream conservatives have so much trouble standing up to and denouncing this stuff.
There's actually a reason why mainstream conservatives never stand up to the far-right elements within their own coalition: they find them very useful.
It has ever been so. Harkening back to the days when Monarchists attacked the Enlightenment's pro-democracy thinkers as a plotting cabal of elites (which is where the old Illuminati conspiracy theories originate), the wealthy and those otherwise invested in maintaining the status quo in our civilization have always found these kinds of conspiracy theories a handy way of stirring up working-class resentment against progressive reformers.
That's why they'll be gaining in popularity as long as Democrats are in power: Because mainstream conservatives need them to make their wedge politics work. -David Neiwert [article link]
I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -Susan B. Anthony
Gross National Product measures neither the health of our children, the quality of their education, nor the joy of their play. It measures neither the beauty of our poetry, nor the strength of our marriages. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It measures neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our wit nor our courage, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worth living, and it can tell us everything about our country except those things that make us proud to be part of it. -Robert F. Kennedy
I respect animals. I have more sympathy for an injured or dead animal than I do for an injured or dead human being, because human beings participate and cooperate in their own undoing. Animals are completely innocent. There are no innocent human beings...
Some people seem shocked and say, "You care more about animals than you do humans!" Fuckin'-A well told!
I do not torture animals, and I do not support the torture of animals, such as that which goes on at rodeos: cowardly men in big hats abusing simple beasts in a fruitless search for manhood. In fact, I regularly pray for serious, life-threatening rodeo injuries. I wish for a cowboy to walk crooked, and with great pain, for the rest of his life. I cheer when a bull at Pamplona sinks one of his horns deep into the lower intestines of some drunken European macho swine. And my cheers grow louder when a victim is a young American macho-jock tourist asshole. Especially if the bull is able to swing that second horn around and catch the guy right in the nuts. -George Carlin [source]
Very little of the great cruelty shown by men can really be attributed to cruel instinct. Most of it comes from thoughtlessness or inherited habit. The roots of cruelty, therefore, are not so much strong as widespread. But the time must come when inhumanity protected by custom and thoughtlessness will succumb before humanity championed by thought. Let us work that this time may come. -Albert Schweitzer
Barack Obama has perfected a three-step maneuver that could never even be attempted by a politician lacking his rhetorical skill or cool cynicism.
First: Denounce your presidential predecessor for a given policy, energizing your party’s base and capitalizing on his abiding unpopularity. Second: Pretend to have reversed that policy upon taking office with a symbolic act or high-profile statement. Third: Adopt a version of that same policy, knowing that it’s the only way to govern responsibly or believing that doing otherwise is too difficult. -Rich Lowry [article link]
So much wealth was being made in [post-Communist Russia] that some of the "reformers" couldn't resist getting in on the action. Indeed, more than anywhere else up to this point, the situation in Russia exposed the myth of the technocrat, the egghead free-market economist supposedly imposing textbook models out of pure conviction. As in Chile and China, where rampant corruption and shock therapy went hand in hand, several of Yeltsin's Chicago School ministers and deputy ministers ended up losing their posts in high-profile corruption scandals...
This points to a nagging and important question about free-market ideologues: Are they "true believers," driven by ideology and faith that free markets will cure underdevelopment, as is often asserted, or do the ideas and theories frequently serve as an elaborate rationale to allow people to act on unfettered greed while still invoking an altruistic motive? All ideologies are corruptible, of course (as Russia's apparatchiks made abundantly clear when, during the Communist era, they collected their abundant privileges), and there are certainly honest neoliberals. But Chicago School economics does seem particularly conducive to corruption. Once you accept that profit and greed as practiced on a mass scale create the greatest possible benefits for any society, pretty much any act of personal enrichment can be justified as a contribution to the great creative cauldron of capitalism, generating wealth and spurring economic growth - even if it's only for yourself and your colleagues. -Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
What always happens in a fascist shift is that the state will start by abusing people that no one in the mainstream really identifies with much. In Germany it was anarchists, communists, homosexuals…then what always happens is that there’s a blurring of the lines, and the noose starts to catch up more and more members of mainstream society, and it’s always the same cast of characters: us. -Naomi Wolf
I've notice that when life hands you lemons, it doesn't really hand them to you so much as shove them straight up your ass. -Nick Smith
I began the Bible as a hopeful, but indifferent, agnostic. I wished for a God, but I didn't really care. I leave the Bible as a hopeless and angry agnostic. I'm brokenhearted about God.
After reading about the genocides, the plagues, the murders, the mass enslavements, the ruthless vengeance for minor sins (or none at all), and all that smiting—every bit of it directly performed, authorized, or approved by God—I can only conclude that the God of the Hebrew Bible, if He existed, was awful, cruel, and capricious. He gives us moments of beauty—such sublime beauty and grace!—but taken as a whole, He is no God I want to obey and no God I can love. -David Plotz [article link]
I lost my job, and then lost my house, and then my wife left me. So, here I am in the park, drinking cheap wine early in the morning. This must be what the economists mean by the bad economy's Ripple Effect. -Wiley
Excellent black people have always been compensated for excellence. Always. The real equality is when we can have a black president as dumb as George Bush. That's when we're really equal. That's when the dream has come true. -Chris Rock, Jan. 20, 2009
James Michener said: 'If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might as well stay home.' The problem is, that’s how I feel about my home. -The Covert Comic
I don't get the popularity of the [near-death experience] "evidence". I had a friend once who told me that he had the most awesome experience on 'shrooms — he'd melted into a purple puddle that soaked into the earth, and he had spiritual sex with tree roots. I'm pretty sure that didn't actually happen, and I wouldn't use it to argue that human beings were capable of phase changes into a fluid state or that intimate congress with plants was fun and rewarding, but people use the same logic all the time in arguing that while they were in a brain-damaged state, befuddled by anoxia, their perception of the hallucinatory state afterwards is evidence that there is a heaven. -PZ Myers [article link]
My mother is so erratic. One minute she lectures that, as members of a family, we all must make certain sacrifices, and the next she's freaking out about my hooded ceremony involving the neighbor's cat. -Brad Simanek
One is guilty of the sin of "shrillness" [in the eyes of the mainstream media] if one: (a) argues that there is something fundamentally -- rather than marginally -- wrong with our political and media establishment and/or (b) fails to use suitably restrained, muted and respectful language when expressing those critiques. Thus, one is "shrill" if one says that George Bush committed felonies by spying on Americans without warrants and torturing people and should be treated like any other accused criminal (rather than saying: "Bush might have circumvented some legal constraints and gone a little too far in trying to keep us safe"). One is "shrill" if one says that establishment journalism, at its core and by design, is principally devoted to serving the interests and amplifying the claims of the Washington establishment (rather than saying: "Journalists could do a better job of reporting some stories"), etc. etc.
"Shrillness" – the first cousin of "Unseriousness" – is the conceptual instrument used to deter and (when that fails) demonize those who view the political and media establishment as corrupt at its core. It's a way of demanding that everyone just calm down, avoid impetuous and inflammatory language, and stop acting as though there's anything seriously wrong with our political and media elites:
Sure, they've made some mistakes; nobody's perfect. But it's not as though there's anything to get excited or angry about. And fine: there are some narrow disagreements among people of good faith and some small problems here and there that require some modifications -- little things like torture, chronic high-level lawbreaking, immunity for the political class (juxtaposed with the sprawling prison industry for ordinary Americans), rampant domestic spying, sky-high walls of government secrecy, full-scale economic meltdown, massive and growing inequities in wealth, endless wars, sleaze and corruption oozing from every Beltway pore, complete media complicity with all of it -- but there's no reason to get all indignant or agitated by it or act as though crimes are being committed or radical changes are needed or anything.
By definition, only people who are "shrill" would do that.
Under these circumstances, and with that definition, there are probably few worse sins than failing to be "shrill." -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Let Catholic writers take care when defending the cause of the proletariat and the poor not to use language calculated to inspire among the people aversion to the upper classes of society. -Pope Pius X, letter to the bishops of Italy, 18 December 1903
Someone please explain to me why we haven't had a revolution in this country yet, because I don't fully understand it -- given that our political and business elites both seem to have a death wish bigger than Marie Antoinette's...
My question was rhetorical, of course -- if we got through 1933 without a revolution, then presumably the system will muddle through its latest exercise in human misery, too.
What I was really wondering is how the American elites could feel so confident in their own entrenched positions that they could so blatantly ignore or defy reality -- as illustrated by the two Washington Post stories juxtaposed above.
The answer, I suppose is either that they have lived so long in the bubble of power and privilege that they no longer realize that moments like July 1789 or October 1917 can happen, or that they are supremely confident that populist rage can always be channeled to the right, where it can be easily controlled.
Either way, it amounts to the same thing: A total unawareness that at the end of the day, the only thing standing between them and the guillotine is sheer social inertia. -Billmon [article link]
[in reference to why few mainstream economists were able to predict the current recession/financial crisis, despite ample evidence] Well, I think economists have very little incentive to really think for themselves. If you just say the exact same thing as everyone else, there's not really a downside to it. So just think of the incentives. Think about economists the way economists would think about economists -- or should think about economists. People respond to incentives. And, in this scenario, their incentives are all just to repeat, say the same exact same stuff as Alan Greenspan and everyone else is saying, and don't think about it.
Because, if you step out of line, if you get out there and say, "There's a real big bubble. It's going to be real bad news. It's going to wreck the economy, and we're going to have the worst recession since the Great Depression," well, you're taking a real big risk. Because obviously you don't know for sure that you're right. You might think you're right, but you don't know for sure. And if you're wrong, well, everyone's going to laugh at you. You'll be humiliated. You'll be ignored. No one's going to take you seriously. You won't get promoted. Who knows? You could even get fired.
So, economists shouldn't be trusted to ever step out of line, they shouldn't be trusted to think originally, creatively, because there's no reason for them to. It's all risk and very little upside. So, what we should expect is that all these economists, including many highly paid economists, are going to say exactly what every other economist will say, whether they agree with it or not. It doesn't even matter, because that's the incentive structure. -Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research [article link]
You just know that journey of a thousand miles is going to feel even longer when that first step lands smack in a fresh, still-steaming pile of dog doo. -Brad Simanek
[The blacklisting of progressives from positions in the Obama administration] highlights how, regardless of election hoopla, Washington is the same one-party town it always has been - controlled not by Democrats or Republicans, but by Kleptocrats (i.e., thieves). Their ties to money make them the undead zombies in the slash-and-burn horror flick that is American politics: No matter how many times their discredited theologies are stabbed, torched and shot down by verifiable failure, their careers cannot be killed. Somehow, these political immortals are allowed to mindlessly lunge forward, never answering to rivals - even if that rival is the president himself. -David Sirota [article link]
Life is a series of lessons. For instance, when asked at an interview what my greatest weakness is, I will never again bring up strippers in leather. -Wayne Lloyd
I had a dream last night that I drank the largest Margarita in Texas. When I woke up, there was salt on the toilet lid and rim. Sure, it sounds gross, but at least now I have an explanation for the blue tongue. -P. Salyer
[in reference to this article, in response to claims along the lines of, "The majority of Mormons aren't like that"] It simply doesn't matter if a majority of Mormons are nice people - if the nasty ones are in charge, it's because the nice ones are allowing an extremist minority to speak and act on their behalf. And just stepping up and saying 'Most of us don't agree' is a rather impotent response while the ones you don't agree with (after being elected by majority vote) are beating children in your name. -asteranx [commenting at Pharyngula]
It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong. The good news: you’re being paid by the hour. -The Covert Comic
Just as they treated Bush with extraordinary respect in reaction to their heinous behavior during the Clinton years, the villagers are now preparing to treat Obama with skepticism in reaction to the failures that resulted from their fawning obsequiousness.
Oddly, these lurches always seem to disfavor the Democrats. -Digby [via Jamison Foser]
The chains men bear they forged themselves. Strike off their chains and they will weep for their lost security. -John Passmore
[in reference to attempts by theistic scientists to reconcile religious belief with acceptance of evolutionary theory] ...[T]hey fail for the same reason that people always fail: a true harmony between science and religion requires either doing away with most people's religion and replacing it with a watered-down deism, or polluting science with unnecessary, untestable, and unreasonable spiritual claims...
It would appear, then, that one cannot be coherently religious and scientific at the same time. That alleged synthesis requires that with one part of your brain you accept only those things that are tested and supported by agreed-upon evidence, logic, and reason, while with the other part of your brain you accept things that are unsupportable or even falsified. In other words, the price of philosophical harmony is cognitive dissonance. Accepting both science and conventional faith leaves you with a double standard: rational on the origin of blood clotting, irrational on the Resurrection; rational on dinosaurs, irrational on virgin births. Without good cause, Giberson and Miller pick and choose what they believe. At least the young-earth creationists are consistent, for they embrace supernatural causation across the board. -Jerry Coyne [article link]
When I die, I'd like to be scattered over my hometown. But not, like, cremated or anything. -Mitch Berg
[in reference to Obama's far-right positions on the Israel/Palestine conflict] If anyone is surprised by any of this, he has only himself to blame. On many occasions, Obama told you precisely what he believed and what he would and would not do -- and many people, out of a stupidly misguided "hope" or, much more contemptibly, out of a desire to acquire power for "their" gang of criminals, chose not to believe Obama's own words (or to disregard them)... [I]f you didn't believe what he said and preferred to believe he actually meant something else -- that something else being what you contend you believe -- that can only mean you thought he was a liar, which indeed he is. And yet many people still voted for him, even after concluding Obama was a calculating manipulator of the first order, one who was primarily interested in acquiring power and nothing else at all. -Arthur Silbur [article link]
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” -Rashid Khalidi [article link]
Europe has ceded dealing with the Israelis to the United States.
The people of the United States have ceded dealing with the Israelis to the US Congress.
The US Congress generally abdicates its responsibilities when faced with large powerful single-issue lobbies such as the National Rifle Association, the Cuban-American pro-boycott organizations, and the Israel lobbies.
So Congress has ceded Israel, and indeed, most Middle East, policy to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and its myriad organizational supporters, from the Southern Baptist churches to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs. The Israel lobbies take their cue on what is good policy from the Israeli government and the Likud Party.
So, US Israel policy is driven by . . . the Israeli rightwing. That is why Congress voted 309 to five to support Israel's war on the people of Gaza, with 22 abstaining. Juan Cole [article link]
If those who want fundamental reform in these areas adopt the view that they will not criticize Barack Obama because to do so is to "help Republicans," or because he deserves more time, or because criticisms are unnecessary because we can trust in him to do the right thing, or because criticizing him is to "tear him down" or "create a circular firing squad" or "be a Naderite purist" or any of those other empty platitudes, then they are ceding the field to the very powerful factions who are going to fight vehemently against any changes. Do you think that those who want the CIA to retain "robust" interrogation powers and who want the federal surveillance state maintained, or want a hard-line towards Iran and a continuation of our Middle East policies, or who want to maintain corporate-lobbyist-domination of Washington, are sitting back saying: "it's not right to pressure Obama too much right now; give him some time"? -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
...[F]or an American citizen to criticize Israel's wars without criticizing every similar or worse act of aggression is not to "hold Israel to a higher or different standard." The U.S. Government funds Israel's actions, specifically provides the arms for their various bombing campaigns and invasions, and continuously uses its U.N. veto power to protect what Israel does. American citizens therefore bear a responsibility for Israel's actions that is not the case for actions which the U.S. Government does not fund and otherwise enable. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Given the West Bank Fatah leadership's cooperation with Israel, one might have expected a change in the situation in the West Bank, but everywhere I visited the occupation continued as usual, sometimes enhanced. There is no reason for Palestinians—-or us—-to believe that an end to rocket attacks and suicide bombs would bring real change to Israel's continued occupation since neither has in the past. Rather, Hamas's violence provides a convenient, and unfortunate, excuse for Israel to continue what it has been doing all along: expanding and expanding, destroying any obstacle—-be it a home, an olive tree, or a boy with a rock-—in its way. -Anna Baltzer
There's usually no shortage of people willing to defend Obama's statements and explain what he really means. I recall, after Obama voted for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity back last August, reading in numerous places -- for the first time ever -- that the FISA controversy wasn't really all that important, that warrantless eavesdropping wasn't much of a threat, that Democrats had no choice but to support this bill lest they lose the election, that nobody will die or starve if the Government eavesdrops, etc. etc.
And yesterday -- after Obama signaled his reluctance to investigate Bush lawbreaking and explained that he can't close Guantanamo until there is a new "process" allowing "tainted" evidence to be used -- my comment section was full of people explaining why Obama can't possibly investigate (let alone prosecute) Bush officials for crimes, and that it's more important to keep Dangerous Terrorists imprisoned than it is to abide by long-standing principles of American law and Western justice which prohibit the use of "tainted" evidence (meaning, at least in part, confessions and other evidence obtained by torture), even though we have repeatedly been successful in obtaining convictions of Dangerous Terrorists in our federal court system both before and after 9/11. Some pro-Obama bloggers echoed those claims. [So much for all those promises from various progressives that they'd hold Obama's feet to the fire after the election! This is exactly what I said would happen - they're just going to find some bullshit way to rationalize everything he does. -ed.] -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Today I realized the hour I extend my life by working out an hour every day has already been spent working out. -Daniel Bokor
In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. As soon as operation Grapes of Wrath had begun the week before, he had written out a martyrdom will, indicating his willingness to die avenging the victims, killed in that operation--with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center...
On Tuesday, the Israeli military shelled a United Nations school to which terrified Gazans had fled for refuge, killing at least 42 persons and wounding 55, virtually all of them civilians, and many of them children. The Palestinian death toll rose to 660.
You wonder if someone somewhere is writing out a will today. -Juan Cole [article link]
But LaHaye, Wine, Falwell, and their associates magnify beyond all reason the control Humanism exerts. In my view the Moral Majority is a demagogic assembly of religious fanatics and, like demagogic politicians, needs a demonic scapegoat to rally its followers and to provide a simple, one-word solution for the serious problems disrupting America and the world. The Moral Majority has chosen the social-minded Humanists as its target and aims to destroy them. This malicious campaign is not unlike the wild witchhunt against Communism and alleged Communists in the heyday of Senator Joseph McCarthy. -Corliss Lamont, The Philosophy of Humanism
[In reference to the 2008-2009 Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip, and President-Elect Barack Obama's detachment on the issue, claiming through a spokesman that "There's only one president at a time" - in stark contrast to Obama's public positions on other issues. Obama's position here isn't hard to figure out - he's been a hardcore supporter of Israel's occupation in numerous instances since entering national politics. -ed.]
Perhaps Obama's inaction will finally put to rest the idea that he's a man who is seriously committed to justice or change. He's not. He's nothing more than an ambitious and well-spoken young man who's being used to conceal the genocidal operation of the imperial machine... The truth is Obama is a "cool guy" who doesn't really feel that strongly about anything. That's why Obama's moral authority has been gravely eroded before he's even been sworn in. The bloody streets of Gaza are an indictment of Obama not Hamas.
When people see the photos of the Palestinian children being extracted from the debris of bombed-out buildings in Gaza; they should ask themselves whether Obama could have saved a few lives by just speaking out. The fact is, he had a chance to defend the people who can't defend themselves, but chose silence and complicity instead. -Mike Whitney [article link]
People often ask, "If there is no afterlife, what is the purpose of this life?" — But wouldn’t it make more sense to ask, "If there is an afterlife, what is the purpose of this life?" -DanCorb [link]
Not many people in the west are aware of the devastating fact that killing Arabs and Palestinians in particular is a very effective Israeli political recipe. The Israelis are indeed confused people. As much as they insist upon seeing themselves as a 'Shalom seeking’ nation, they also love to be led by politicians with an astonishing record of unlawful murderous activity. Whether it was Sharon, Rabin, Begin, Shamir or Ben Gurion, Israelis love their 'democratically elected leaders’ to be belligerent hawks with their hands dripping with blood and backed by a solid record of crimes against humanity. -Gilad Atzmon
Terrorism is a normative term and not a descriptive concept. An empty word that means everything and nothing, it is used to describe what the Other does, not what we do. The powerful – whether Israel, America, Russia or China – will always describe their victims' struggle as terrorism, but the destruction of Chechnya, the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, the slow slaughter of the remaining Palestinians, the American occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan – with the tens of thousands of civilians it has killed … these will never earn the title of terrorism, though civilians were the target and terrorising them was the purpose. -Nir Rosen [article link]
There was, as Letelier wrote, an "inner harmony" between the drive to cleanse sectors of society and the ideology at the heart of the project. The Chicago Boys and their professors, who provided advice and took up top posts in the military regimes of the Southern Cone, believed in a form of capitalism that is purist by its very nature. Theirs is a system based entirely on a belief in "balance" and "order" and the need to be free of interferences and "distortions" in order to succeed. Because of these traits, a regime committed to the faithful application of this ideal cannot accept the presence of competing or tempering worldviews. In order for the ideal to be achieved, it requires a monopoly on ideology; otherwise, according to the central theory, the economic signals become distorted and the entire system is thrown out of balance. [Hence, free-market economic policies almost invariably tend to be implemented either under authoritarian regimes or in an authoritarian manner, with little input from the public. -ed.] -Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
I’m beginning to think that movement conservatism is, at base, a kind of psychological-sexual dysfunction. You know these guys are terrified of women’s sexuality. They’d have us women in burqas and condone stoning of rape victims if they could get away with it. They’d deny that, but in fact, what is the difference between denying a rape victim reproductive rights and stoning her for unchastity? It’s a difference purely in degree, not in kind, rooted in the same twisted views of women and sexuality. -Barbara O'Brien [article link]
The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
I think Intelligent Design as a whole is a zombie philosophy at this point — it's dead, its brain is rotting, and it has no glamor or appeal to most people anymore. It's still shuffling about, and it will continue to get mentioned now and then as people struggle to find some pretense of a non-religious motive for creationism, but really, we're all just waiting for someone with a metaphorical shotgun to put it down with a metaphorical blast to its metaphorical head. -PZ Myers [article link]
Like all fundamentalist faiths, Chicago School economics is, for its true believers, a closed loop. The starting premise is that the free market is a perfect scientific system, one in which individuals, acting on their own self-interested desires, create the maximum benefits for all. In follows ineluctably that if something is wrong within a free-market economy - high inflation or soaring unemployment - it has to be because the market is not truly free. There must be some interference, some distortion in the system. The Chicago solution is always the same: a stricter and more complex application of the fundamentals. -Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
A large part of the appeal of Chicago School economics was that, at a time when radical-left ideas about workers' power were gaining ground around the world, it provided a way to defend the interests of owners that was just as radical and was infused with its own claims to idealism. To hear Friedman tell it, his ideas were not about defending the right of factory owners to pay low wages but, rather, all about a quest for the purest possible form of "participatory democracy" because in the free market, "each man can vote, as it were, for the color of tie he wants." Where leftists promised freedom for workers from bosses, citizens from dictatorship, countries from colonialism, Friedman promised "individual freedom," a project that elevated atomized citizens above any collective enterprise and liberated them to express their absolute free will through their consumer choices... The Marxists had their workers' utopia, and the Chicagoans had their entrepreneurs' utopia, both claiming that if they got their way, perfection and balance would follow. -Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine
A God who kept tinkering with the universe was absurd; a God who interfered with human freedom and creativity was tyrant. If God is seen as a self in a world of his own, an ego that relates to a thought, a cause separate from its effect. he becomes a being, not Being itself. An omnipotent, all-knowing tyrant is not so different from earthly dictators who make everything and everybody mere cogs in the machine which they controlled. An atheism that rejects such a God is amply justified. -Karen Armstrong
You know, grandparents are happy with the stupidest things: macaroni picture-frames, Popsicle stick coasters, Play-Doh ashtrays. But just mention a Guns 'n' Roses theme wedding and it's bye-bye, inheritance. -Dakota Shepard
There's a saying: 'If 99 percent was good enough, gravity wouldn't work for 14 minutes every day.' I did the calculation, and it's actually 14 minutes and 24 seconds. Which can only mean that, for the person who wrote that saying, 97.2 percent was good enough. -The Covert Comic
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. -The New Testement, Romans 13 [link] [I quote this passage because it highlights one of the biggest reasons I dislike Christianity: not only has the church throughout history been a key supporter of authoritarian governments, but that support is actually built right into the doctrine. It makes sense if you think about it; to paraphrase Mikhael Bakunin (quoted below), submission to God's authority would naturally incline people to submit to earthly authority. This deference to power helps explain why the church has been on the wrong side of virtually every liberation struggle in its history. -ed.]
It is this, it seems to me, that is at the heart of what is wrong with most calls for "pragmatism." At every stage, the "impractical" purist hears that he should not withhold his support from the marginally preferable candidate under any circumstances. He is urged to be realistic, and so he and those like him do not insist that the candidate make strong commitments on policy positions that are deemed by someone to be out of the mainstream. The candidate pays some minimal lip service to the purist’s "values," and this is supposed to count for something. In the name of pragmatism, the purist decides that he has to support the candidate, because the candidate represents the best chance of advancing his views, but even before the election is held the purist has already given so much away in the name of pragmatism and realism that he and those like him have no leverage at all. Having yielded and given away their support in exchange for nothing more than lip service, the purists are scarcely in a much better position than before. They can take satisfaction in being on the winning side, but for the most part this means that they will bear the burden if the public turns against the candidate after he is elected and otherwise they will scarcely get much of anything. The purists-turned-pragmatists will receive the blame for enabling the administration in whatever it does, but they will receive no credit or acknowledgment that their support was important enough to merit meaningful concessions to their concerns. Having refused in the first place to exact a price for their support, they have made their support worthless and ensured that they will have no influence. -Daniel Larison [article link]
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged. -Noam Chomsky [article link]
[I]n a 2006 radio interview, Dick Cheney said simply that the use of waterboarding to obtain intelligence was a "no-brainer." Cheney at the time declined to refer to this practice as torture, preferring instead to describe it as "robust interrogation," and that reluctance has been echoed in the press. I myself was twice warned by PBS producers, in advance of appearances on The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, that I could use the word "torture" in the abstract but that I was to refrain from applying it to the administration’s policies. And after an interview with CNN in which I spoke of the administration’s torture policy, I was told by the producer, "That’s okay for CNN International, but we can’t use it on the domestic feed." -Scott Horton [article link]
People often say that humans have always eaten animals, as if this is a justification for continuing the practice. According to this logic, we should not try to prevent people from murdering other people, since this has also been done since the earliest of times." -Isaac Bashevis Singer
The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance -- self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day. -Robert A. Heinlein
You don't stick a knife in a man's back nine inches, and then pull it out six inches, and say you're making progress. -Malcolm X
Whenever people say "we mustn't be sentimental", you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, "we must be realistic", they mean they are going to make money out of it. -Brigid Brophy
But our political establishment venerates "centrism" and "bi-partisanship" as the highest religious concepts. Those terms are, in reality, nothing more than vehicles to insulate government officials and the political establishment generally from any accountability. Their only real meaning is that cooperation within the political establishment is paramount, regardless of political principles and the rule of law. Hence, investigations and especially prosecutions are scorned as terribly divisive and partisan, even when they involve crimes; good "non-partisans" and "centrists" eschew such unpleasantries, by definition. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
At their core, corporate media are deeply suspicious of progressive movements, and when these look like they might gain enough power to threaten the interests of their owners, you begin to hear a lot of media talk about bipartisanship and centrism. -Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [article link]
[in response to the meme going around since the election that black people can't use racism as an "excuse" anymore because Obama proves that one can accomplish anything with enough hard work]
The problem is: racism is not an “excuse,” it’s a condition of life, it’s built into the systems of finance, education, culture, and government that have evolved since Europeans brought Africans to North America and enslaved them, gradually displaced native peoples through invasion and genocide, and developed legal frameworks that excluded people of color from political, economic and social participation. People of color have fought back, they have struggled, and continue to struggle, winning rights, liberties and improvements in their lives along the way, educating white people enough so that, at the very least, a young bi-racial politician who didn’t act “too black” or “too angry” could raise $750 million dollars and fight for their votes.
I get what [Will] Smith, et al. are trying to do. Barack Obama is a role model, a positive representative of what young people of color can achieve if they work hard and make the right decisions... When they are confronted with racism, we want our kids to fight it, to confront “back” and to not tolerate it. And we don’t want it to affect their self-esteem.
But the election of Barack Obama did not magically undo the legacy of 500 years of racism and oppression. It was one more yellow brick on the road to Oz, to be sure; hopefully he will seize the opportunity to undo the social and economic affects of that legacy, while also addressing the class-based structure of our society that exacerbates racism. A few of the things mentioned in today’s cartoon — neglected neighborhoods, failing schools, predatory lenders and check-”cashing” establishments, poverty — afflict everyone in the working poor, a demographic that encompasses all ethnicities. Certainly people of color are hit harder by poverty and social injustice; and whites enjoy privileges that are more subtle yet no less advantageous. Nonetheless, as the middle class finds itself slipping into the ranks of the working poor, privileged folks like Will Smith or lesser privileged folks whom the economy has not (yet) punished should be wary of naiveté and assuming victim-blaming postures regarding the poor. Leave the “no excuses” lecture at home and keep fighting for social justice and equality. -Kevin Moore [article link]
The basis of all animal rights should be the Golden Rule: we should treat them as we would wish them to treat us, were any other species in our dominant position." -Christine Stevens
In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me-and by that time no one was left to speak up. -Rev. Martin Niemoller
ambiguous adj. Anything one wishes to misunderstand. -T.G. Browning
bipartisan adj. Taking bribes from either side of the aisle. -T.G. Browning
denial n. An emotional state wherein one refuses to acknowledge that the person speaking to them is infallible and possesses unique
insights into their private thoughts. -T.G. Browning
dog n. 1: A domesticated animal with all of the characteristics
required of any good citizen of any large, industrial nation. That is
to say, it will obey orders, eat what is available, speak when
commanded, shut-up when desired, work diligently for minimal praise,
foam-at-the-mouth when required, accept both a choke-collar and a
leash, get excited on demand and expire quietly when appropriately
drugged. 2: A domesticated animal found in most societies,
especially those that have a lot of jobs for anything that likes to
run around. Examples would be tracking (fox, deer, people,
explosives), herding (cows, goats, sheep, people) or pulling (sleds,
chew toys). Dogs are thought to be the oldest domesticated animal
which just goes to show that doing something right the first time,
certainly is no assurance of doing so again. Witness cats, ferrets,
llamas and children. -T.G. Browning
Whenever my young son cries too much, I show him his birth video in reverse and telling him that's what happens to kids who don't stop crying. -J. Murphy
There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life. -From UK bus advertisements by the British Humanist Association [article link]
Opinions are like genitals: if you force others to swallow yours, something is seriously wrong with you. -Marty Beckerman, Dumbocracy
Neil Cavuto [of Fox News]: "You are going to take votes away from John McCain, presumably ... [and] that would probably hand the White House ... to a Democrat. What do you say [to that]?" Bob Barr [former Congressman (R-GA) and 2008 Libertarian candidate for President]: "Well, frankly, I would worry about John McCain siphoning votes away from my candidacy, if I run, but I am not going to whine about that."
And, as with Negros, the foreign-born were on the one hand denied advantages and on the other scorned for being without them. Denied running water, they were said to be against bathing. Forced to live in dark and dilapidated tenaments, they were accused of shiftlessness and a lack of neatness. Denied the vote, they were charged with lacking public spirit. Confined to ghettoes, they were charged with clanishness, with being willfully un-American. Because most of them were laborers, they were held to lack intelligence. For years a ditch was regarded as the proper place for an Irishman; that is, if he was working and had a shovel in his hand. This view was later held as to Italians. [And now of course it's Hispanics. -ed.] -Richard Boyer and Herbert Morais, Labor's Untold Story
[in reference to a Washington Post op-ed by former Sens. Chuck Robb (D) and Dan Coats (R) advocating war with Iran] It's just objectively true that there is no country in the world -- anywhere -- that threatens to attack and bomb other countries as routinely and blithely as the U.S. does. What rational leader wouldn't want to obtain nuclear weapons in a world where the "superpower" is run by people like Dan Coats and Chuck Robb who threaten to attack and bomb whatever countries they want? Even the Coats/Robb Op-Ed argues that Iranian proliferation would be so threatening to the U.S. because "the ability to quickly assemble a nuclear weapon would effectively give Iran a nuclear deterrent" -- in other words, they'd have the ability to deter a U.S. attack on their country, and we can't have that. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children. -Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes
We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace. -Michael Franti
There is always a charge that socialism does not fit human nature. We've encountered that for a long time. Maybe that's true. But can't people be educated? Can't people learn to cooperate with each other? Surely that must be our goal, because the alternative is redolent with war and poverty and all the ills of the world. -Frank Zeidler, Socialist mayor of Milwaukee WI, 1948-1960 [article link]
[H]istorically, it has been third parties, not the major parties, that have supported and are responsible for the abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, public schools, public power, unemployment compensation, minimum wage, child labor laws. The list goes on and on. The two parties fail to address a particular issue; a third party rises up, and it’s supported by tens of millions of Americans, forcing the Republican and Democratic parties to co-opt that issue, or the third party rises and succeeds, which is why the Republican Party jumped from being a third party to being a major party of the United States of America. -George Farah, founder of Open Debates [qtd. by Amy Goodman]
After the initial embarrassment, I tried to laugh it off by comparing it to that scene from "American Pie." But he pointed out that he was my boss, not my dad, and that it was his wife, not an apple pie. I guess he would have laughed if we'd told him what I was doing when she stumbled in on me ten minutes earlier. -Andy Ihnatko
Here's my defense for eating meat: Mmmm. I rest my case. [When you cut through the rationalizations and other BS, this is what the argument against animal rights comes down to, I think; at least there's one meat-eater who realizes it. I'm not criticizing her when I say that; most vegetarians and vegans have been there at some point, where we've realized eating meat is wrong but haven't been able to kick the habit yet. In fact, that's pretty much where I am now in regard to veganism. -ed.]-Lisa from Reasonable Comics [link]
What is the difference between eating an animal for pleasure and beating an animal for pleasure? -Brad from Reasonable Comics [link]
[in reference to statements on America's relationship with Israel from the VP debate between Biden and Palin] They don't just consider Israel an ally. They don't just both support Israel. No, that's woefully inadequate. Instead: Biden has a "passion" for Israel and is its best friend, while Palin declares how excited she is that they "both love Israel."
They "love Israel"? I'm asking this literally, not rhetorically: is there any other country in the world where presidential candidates are required to -- or even could -- proclaim their "passion" and "love" for another country in a national election? And other than Israel, is there any country for which candidates for the American presidency could get away with proclaiming their "passion" and "love"? It's not exactly healthy or rational for someone who wants to lead one country to swear their fealty, passion and love for another. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
You can’t be a rational person six days of the week and put on a suit and make rational decisions and go to work and, on one day of the week, go to a building and think you’re drinking the blood of a 2,000-year-old space god. That doesn’t make you a person of faith…. That makes you a schizophrenic. -Bill Maher [via the Catholic League]
They accuse me of being a Catholic bigot. First of all, I don’t have it out especially for the Catholics. I think all religious are coo-coo. OK? It’s not just the Catholics. I’m not a bigot. Just because I wish for the demise of an organization that I think is entirely destructive to the human race, that doesn’t make me a bigot. I also wish for the demise of Hamas and the KKK. Not that on every score the Catholic Church is the same as those two organizations. I’m not a bigot because I root for their downfall. -Bill Maher [via the Catholic League]
But I think it is much more likely that there could be space ships from outer space, than what a lot of things people believe. People still believe, you know--excuse me I know I may inject religion into every show but UFO’s are a lot more likely than a space god flew down bodily and, you know, who was the Son of God and, you know, had sex with a Palestinian woman. -Bill Maher [via the Catholic League]
What's missing from most discussions about endangered species is that preserving other species is not an act of charity; it is essential to our own survival. "Endangered species issues are usually seen as humans versus nature--we act in favor of one or the other--and that's just not the case," says Aaron Bernstein, a fellow at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard and an editor (with Eric Chivian) of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. "Polar bears hold tremendous value to medicine, for example," explains Bernstein. "There is something about the metabolism of female polar bears that allows them to put on tremendous amounts of fat before winter but not become Type 2 diabetic. We don't understand how they do it yet, but this research is hugely important for the tens of millions of people who suffer from Type 2 diabetes."
But human dependence on other species is even broader. "We need [ants] to survive, but they don't need us at all," notes naturalist E.O. Wilson in a quote Bernstein and Chivian include in Sustaining Life. Without ants (and countless other underground species that will never be the subject of impassioned environmental appeals) to ventilate the soil, the earth would rot, halting food production. Without trees and other elements of a healthy forest, water supplies would shrink. Take away coral reefs and you destroy the bottom of the marine food chain. Global warming is on track to make as much as one-quarter of all plant and animal species on earth extinct by 2040, threatening general ecosystem collapse. To study the natural world is to realize, in the words of the environmental axiom, that everything is connected. What we do to the polar bears, we do to ourselves. -Mark Hertsgaard [article link]
The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy. -Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope
The difference between a man saving the world and a woman saving the world is that a woman wouldn't brag about it in a bar afterward while trying to pick up someone. -John Kendrick
Severalpeople, including me, wrote yesterday about many of the cynical motives behind opposition on the Right to the Paulson plan [to bail out the financial industry by essentially handing Wall Street $700B with no checks or oversight], but there is an element of authenticity to that opposition as well. One can look at these economic disputes in terms of "Republican v. Democrat" but, when it comes to economic policy, that is often unhelpful because the core leadership factions of both parties are funded and controlled by the same corporate interests. The same framework shapes foreign policy as well... Often, and certainly now, the more relevant dichotomy is "Plutocrat (or 'kleptocrat') v. Populist," and there are angry populists in the rank-and-file of both parties -- meaning the ordinary voters -- who haven't shared in the very limited and increasingly unequal prosperity created by corporate control of our Government... [W]hile cultural wedge issues have divided ordinary American on the Left and Right, there is a growing, angry populism among both factions against the dominant Washington establishment elite that is so transparently running the Federal Government on behalf of the tiny group of corporate elite which funds and owns them. The backlash against the Paulson plan on both the Left and Right is a function of that same anger and resentment. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
[from a story on Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello, in reference to his job out of college as scheduling secretary for California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston] Once, a woman called up crying that Mexicans were moving into her neighborhood at an alarming rate and asked if he could tell the Congressman. When Morello called her a racist and told her to go to hell, he was rebuked for four days straight. "That's when I realized," Morello exclaimed, "if in my job I can't tell a racist to go to hell, I'm not in the right job." -ZP Heller [article link]
I get that candidates are going to run slightly shady campaigns. I get that, because I’m not an idiot and that’s just politics as usual. I can learn about the shadiness of their campaigns by watching their commercials. They’re going to lie. It’s your [the media's] job to get the truth and to hold someone accountable when they lie, not just weakly point out ‘Hey, that might possibly be construed as slightly perhaps being not so forward in the field of truth. Let’s take a poll to see how the American people feel about possibly perhaps being lied to maybe.’ Don’t just point it out, do something about it.
Have you ever been fucked violently in the ear? And then your friend comes in and, instead of helping, starts telling you what the guy’s balls look like? That’s you. You’re that friend. I want you to protect me from getting fucked, and all you’re saying is “Balls, balls balls.”-Daniel O'Brien [article link]
It's not that all Christians are crazy, it's just that the religion seems to give certain types of crazy people a chance to shine. These are the ones who can't worry about the homeless because they're too busy doing things like decoding secret gay propaganda in cartoons. -Ian Fortey [article link]
I was pretending that my computer mouse was a real mouse, and that the two buttons were his little butt cheeks. But then I went to use the wheel and got totally grossed out, so I don't think I'll pretend that any more. -Nick Danger
Religionists have a built in "persecution complex." The hypocrisy
goes like this. It's OK for them to make fun of the thousands of
gods worshiped by other religions, but poke fun at or deny their
god, then they act like they're being herded into cattle cars and
taken to a concentration camp. Reason #10 why I loathe religion. -Pat from the Illinois Atheists list
Seek justice from tyrants not with your hat in your hand, but with a rifle in your fist. -Emiliano Zapata
It is better to die standing on one's feet, than to live on your knees. -Emiliano Zapata
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher. -Ambrose Bierce
ID abbr. Stands for Intelligent Design which is the amusing conceit
that a superior being actually employed all of its advance knowledge,
skill, intellect to design the wisdom teeth, prostrate and appendix. This is, of course, perfectly reasonable if one assumes the aforementioned superior being has a nasty sense of humor and the character of a malign thug. -T.G. Browning
I was talking to a friend of mine the other day, she is a restaurant manager and we'd never really talked about politics at all, but something came up and she said, 'Atheism and anarchist theory were the first things that gave me any hope in this world. They were the things that said we had the power within us to make things better. Everything else said we were either evil or helpless to fate.' -Cindy Ovenrack, Doris Zine [via Greta Christina]
Quite typically, the very idea that media corporations and their "journalist" employees are -- first and foremost -- eager to avoid offending those in political power and that they (therefore) particularly fear alienating the Right is something that, even after the last eight years, causes people like Time Warner employee Ana Marie Cox to scoff and cackle in disbelief, followed by empty-headed giggling at her own self-defensive "jokes". What is painfully self-evident to so many people -- that establishment media outlets exist to serve and curry favor with those in power -- is something that produces shocked disbelief from most of those in that "profession." They actually continue to believe that they're tough, independent-minded, adversarial checks on political power. The strength of that delusion -- the total inability to engage in even the most minimal self-reflection or self-criticism -- is one of the principal reasons why reforming the establishment press is virtually impossible and the creation of competing alternatives is the only real solution. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Americans have an unhealthy desire to see average people promoted to positions of great authority. No one wants an average neurosurgeon or even an average carpenter, but when it comes time to vest a man or woman with more power and responsibility than any person has held in human history, Americans say they want a regular guy, someone just like themselves. President Bush kept his edge on the “Who would you like to have a beer with?” poll question in 2004, and won reelection.
This is one of the many points at which narcissism becomes indistinguishable from masochism. Let me put it plainly: If you want someone just like you to be president of the United States, or even vice president, you deserve whatever dysfunctional society you get. You deserve to be poor, to see the environment despoiled, to watch your children receive a fourth-rate education and to suffer as this country wages – and loses – both necessary and unnecessary wars. -Sam Harris [article link]
Rudy Giuliani. There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and 9/11. There's nothing else! -Sen. Joe Biden [video link]
People like me, lucky enough to go to fancy schools, get taught that from a very early age that we can do anything, and that whenever we have an idea, people are going to want to listen to it. But there are millions of people in this country who go through life with people--their bosses, or spouses or parents--saying "Who cares what you think?" And one of the most profound effects of union organizing is to help people believe that others should care what they think... American capitalism has been good at a lot of things--creating wealth, pushing forward technological innovation--but it doesn't have a very strong record of providing dignity. We need a labor movement in this country because people deserve a living wage and healthcare, but we also need it more than ever because people have a right to feel like they matter. -Christopher Hayes [article link]
It's a funny thing about this election: in his campaign speeches, Barack Obama often includes a riff that steps through the great progressive social movements of the last few centuries--union organizing, women who reached for the ballot box and civil rights marchers who faced down dogs and firehoses. Watching the scene unfold in the intersection, where the young protesters danced to an instrumental version of Like a Virgin while being charged by increasingly angry police officers on horseback, it occurred to me that everyone likes protesters when they've been dead for a hundred years, and their radical agenda (like, say, the eight-hour work day, or women having the right to vote) has become normal and moderate. But when the protests are actually happening, not so much. -Christopher Hayes [article link]
We on the left, those who should be out there fighting for universal health care and total and immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, sit like lap dogs on the short leashes of our Democratic (read corporate) masters. We yap now and then, but we have forgotten how to snarl and bite. We have been domesticated. And until we punish the two main parties the way big corporations do, by withdrawing support and funding when our issues are ignored, we will remain irrelevant and impotent. I detest Bill O’Reilly, but he is right on one thing—we liberals are a spineless lot... The Democrats, who promise to end the war in Iraq, create jobs and provide universal health care, ignore these promises once election cycles are over. And we never make them pay. They gave us NAFTA, the destruction of welfare and increased military spending, and we gave them our vote... These politicians, including Obama, must begin to feel heat. They must learn that there is a cost to be paid for working on behalf of corporations and disempowering citizens. -Chris Hedges [article link]
Poe's Law: Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing. -Urban Dictionary [article link]
[in response to the "atheism is arrogant" meme being being pushed by Pastor Rick Warren and others]
Let me get this straight. You think the Creator of the Universe cares personally about your life, and that you know, with absolute certainty, what he wants for all of humankind. While I think that we’re basically alone, not very special, and are just fumbling through our random existence trying to do the best we can. And I’m the arrogant one? -Daniel Miessler [article link]
A Southern physician, Samuel Cartwright, argued that many of the slaves -- in America -- suffered from a form of mental illness, which he called 'drapetomania', diagnosed as the uncontrollable urge to escape from slavery. In the second half of the 20th-century, this illness, in the Third World, has usually been called communism. -William Blum
God is often likened to a loving father: He gives you life, He provides for your every need, and He silently watches over you while you and your boyfriend are having sex. -The Covert Comic
Oh, come on. If we only had sex with people we actually respected, most us would even have to give up masturbating. -The Covert Comic
Funny how times change. Had I clubbed two women and set fire to a large, foul, hairy beast 250,000 years ago, I'd likely have been chosen leader of my tribe. But just because I happen to be born at the wrong time, nightclub security called the cops and next thing you know, I'm Diablo's cell bitch for a few years. -Jerry L. Embry
[in reference to the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates] I would be with a bunch of Kennedy fans watching the debate and their comment would be, “He’s really slaughtering Nixon.” Then we would all go to another apartment, and the Nixon fans would say, “How do you like the shellacking he gave Kennedy?” And then I realized that each group loved their candidate so that a guy would have to be this blatant - he would have to look into the camera and say: “I am a thief, a crook, do you hear me, I am the worst choice you could ever make for the Presidency!” And even then his following would say, “Now there’s an honest man for you. It takes a big guy to admit that. There’s the kind of guy we need for President.” -Lenny Bruce
Though it is taboo to even say it, let's just admit it: if American politics and culture still react to the mass public at all, they react almost exclusively to the upper-middle professional class, and to almost no one else. That's not a good thing at all - in fact, it's pretty awful. But it is absolutely true.
For example, many historians believe antiwar pressure during the Vietnam War only started changing public policy after the draft lottery was created and upper-middle-class parents began worrying about their kids being sent off to battle. Business misbehavior was rarely a congressional focus when CEOs were cutting blue-collar wages. But when Enron's collapse hit the stock market and undermined the retirement savings of the upper middle class, lawmakers raced to pass corporate accountability legislation. Housing affordability and predatory lending received little attention in Washington when only the working poor couldn't pay the rent. But only now that mortgage defaults are roiling Wall Street is the problem deemed a crisis. -David Sirota, The Uprising
Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal. -Karl Popper
When we say [conservatives are] 'market fundamentalists,' we're acting like they're willing to accept market outcomes. [In reality, conservatives have] rigged the deck. They've made sure that certain people come out ahead, that income flows upward, and that other people are put at a disadvantage -- and these things are built into the rules of the system. -Dean Baker [qtd. in this article]
[in reference to the desecration of a communion wafer by atheist blogger PZ Myers, for which he received a large volume of hate mail (and some death threats) from Catholics]
I won't mince words. Myers is an evil man. And as evil men, particularly evil intellectuals, tend to be, he is also a mad man as are most of his acolytes and followers.
Myers and Co. are enmeshed in these lies because they have chosen evil. It is evil--archetypally evil--to desecrate the Eucharist. It's the sort of stuff archetypal bad guys in the movies do. It's completely unnecessary gratuitous evil. -Mark Shea [article link]
We find the actions of University of Minnesota (Morris) Professor Paul Myers reprehensible, inexcusable, and unconstitutional. His flagrant display of irreverence by profaning a consecrated Host from a Catholic church goes beyond the limit of academic freedom and free speech... Attacking the most sacred elements of a religion is not free speech anymore than would be perjury in a court or libel in a newspaper... The freedom of religion means that no one has the right to attack, malign or grossly offend a faith tradition they personally do not have membership or ascribe allegiance. -an odd interpretation of the First Amendment from a statement by the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy [article link]
When my son turned 21, I thought we would do some manly ritual like go to a strip club and get wasted together, father and son, but he said all he wanted was some Tang. What a boring bachelor party that was. -Tidewater Joe
Rock and roll will never die, but that doesn't seem to stop it from begging me, for the love of God, to smother it with a pillow before VH1 reruns that damn Osmonds movie again. -Bob Van Voris
Why is it that when christians come to me with a computer problem, and I tell them to try prayer to fix it, that they won't even consider that as a plausible option. -Master_Rux [link]
These kind of fat jokes are rebellion for the gutless — offensive enough so that people can pretend to be daring, but not so offensive that they’re risking pissing off anyone who matters. Fat jokes today are what Polish jokes were in the 1970s. -Barry Deutsch [article link]
One of the most common claims about atheists (other than we're evil sinners) is that we hate god. The usual reply is that you can't hate something that doesn't exist. Well, yes and no. There is no being "God" that I direct my hatred toward, but I can hate the concept of such a god.
I hate the concept of a god who would create imperfect humanity, tempt them when they don't know the difference between good and evil, and then punish them and their descendents forever because they disobeyed when they didn't even yet know what that was. I hate teh concept of a god who would condone genocide and rape. I hate the concept of a god who would have rebellious teenagers and gay people stoned. I hate the concept of a god who would have the power to create the universe, but not the motivation to intervene in it to prevent suffering. I hate the concept of a god who would punish someone infinitely for a finite crime.
I hate what the concept of a god does to people. I hate how it makes them kill others who do not believe the same things as they do. I hate how it stifles their intellectual curiosity. I hate how it represses their natural sexuality. I hate how it wastes their time and their lives.
So yes, go ahead and accuse me of hating god. If theists were to prove the existence of god tomorrow, their job would not be done. The mere existence of a god (which is so unlikely anyway) does not mean that god would be worthy of worship. Don't tell me about god's plan, unless god's plan is to hide all evidence of himself, allow massive suffering, and just see what happens. In that case, god is just a big kid with ants and a magnifying glass. And we would all be justified in hating him, IF he existed. -Microbiologychick [article link]
For a group of people who are often dubbed "radical" by the mainstream media, most of the Green Party positions don't seem very radical at all. The beliefs espoused by the four candidates, as well as other delegates and observers, sound exactly like the kind of platforms that would be supported by the average Nation subscriber or Keith Olbermann fan. With the exception of some vague talk about how environmental policy and U.S. disengagement could lead to peace in the Middle East, the Greens steadfastly support almost all of the policies that Democrats vainly plead with their candidates to pursue. It does beg the niggling question, is it the Greens or the Democrats who are throwing their votes away every election year?
[...]
Despite some protests to the contrary, [2004 Green presidential candidate David] Cobb ran an unofficial "safe states" campaign and generally tried not to get in Democratic nominee John Kerry's way in swing states like Ohio, but Kerry blew it anyway. If Barack Obama wins the election this November, the Greens will have to continue building their party from the ground up, seeking to construct an expanding base from victories in school-board and city-council elections while pushing for spots in governors' mansions and state legislatures. If Obama loses, however, 2008 will represent the third consecutive election the Democrats should have won handily, and his rush toward the center on important issues like the FISA reauthorization and federal funding of faith-based initiatives may seem like a proven failure of a strategy trotted out for another embarrassing loss. Such consistent, catastrophic defeats would almost have to inspire reorganization on the left, and it could leave the Green Party in good strategic position. At the very least, it would be hard for Democrats to argue that voting Green is a waste of a ballot, when voting Democrat for twelve straight years netted left-wing voters next to nothing. -Bryan Miller [article link]
Critical political debates are at least as often driven not by the GOP/Democrat dichotomy, but by the split between the Beltway political establishment and the rest of the country. ...[A]ll of these assaults on our core civil liberties and the rule of law are not Republican attacks with Democrats fighting against them. They are attacks launched by the political establishment against the citizenry, and they ought to be responded to as such. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
When I was first running for Congress and it was the year of the woman, women all over the country were saying, "We want our seat at the table." And when I got to Washington, I saw that policy was really made in a room, at a table. There were real seats at the table. Well, imagine what has happened to public policy making now.
There is a real room, with a window and a door and there's two seats at the table. The window is for us to look through while our representatives make policy for us so we can see what they're doing. At the table, one seat is for the Democrats and one seat is for the Republicans. Now, we don't know who did it, but one of them put a lock on the door and slipped a key to the corporate lobbyists who can come and go at will and whisper what they want to the Democrats, and then whisper what they want to the Republicans, and the result is that we the people, who pay for those seats and determine who sits in them, want one thing, but because the corporate lobbyists can come and go at will, our values get overridden and our representatives give us something else. That's how we end up with everyone saying they're against the war and occupation, but war and occupation still gets funding. -Cynthia McKinney, 2008 Green Party presidential candidate [article link]
Don't expect me to keep a count of the major party flip flops from now to November. I'm sure there will be many. But, in the end, that's not the important issue to understand. What is more fundamental to understand is this: the other political parties find themselves in this flip-flop predicament because they have to appear to share our values while they serve someone else's. -Cynthia McKinney, 2008 Green Party presidential candidate [article link]
I never thought I would say this, but I think it might, in fact, be time for the United States to be held internationally to a tribunal. I never thought, in my lifetime, that I would say that, that we have become like Serbia, where an international tribunal has to come to force us to apply the rule of law. I never imagined that a Congress, a Democratic-led Congress would refuse to take actions, even with the preeminent institution of the Red Cross saying, this is clearly torture and torture is a war crime. They are still refusing to take meaningful action. So, we've come to this ignoble moment where we could be forced into a tribunal and forced to face the rule of law that we've refused to apply to ourselves. -Jonathan Turley, constitutional law professor at George Washington University [article link]
Given the situation of Iraq more than five years after the invasion, to speak of this urge to surge and its results as "success" or as "good news" is essentially obscene. Think of Iraq instead as a cocked gun. It's loaded, it's held to your head, and things are improving only to the extent that, recently, it hasn't gone off. -Tom Engelhardt [article link]
Good rule of thumb for gauging the success of a bachelor party: If the wedding is still on afterwards, it could have been better. -Scott E. Frank
[In reference to the recently-passed FISA bill, which gave the Bush administration almost everything it wanted on warrantless wiretapping and for all intents and purposes granted immunity to telecom companies that participated in it. The bill passed with support from many Democrats - including Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL).]
What is most striking is that when the Congress was controlled by the GOP -- when the Senate was run by Bill Frist and the House by Denny Hastert -- the Bush administration attempted to have a bill passed very similar to the one that just passed today. But they were unable to do so. The administration had to wait until Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats took over Congress before being able to put a corrupt end to the scandal that began when, in December of 2005, the New York Times revealed that the President had been breaking the law for years by spying on Americans without the warrants required by law...
Will Democrats ever learn that the reason they are so easily depicted as "weak" isn't because they don't copy the Republican policies on national security enough, but rather, because they do so too much, and thus appear (accurately) to stand for nothing? Of course, many Democrats vote for these policies because they believe in them, not because they are "surrendering." Still, terms such as "bowing," "surrendering," "capitulating," and "losing" aren't exactly Verbs of Strength. They're verbs of extreme weakness --- yet, bizarrely, Democrats believe that if they "bow" and "surrender," then they will avoid appearing "weak." Somehow, at some point, someone convinced them that the best way to avoid appearing weak is to be as weak as possible. -Glenn Greenwald [article link
A 'Shrapnel Ceiling'? An analysis of terror attacks over the most recent five-year period reveals that female suicide bombers inflict less than 30% of the casualties attributed to their male counterparts. Is this glaring discrepancy the result of systematic inequalities in training and access to infrastructural support for female terrorists, or are the most lucrative terrorism targets being reserved primarily for suicide bombers who are men? -The Covert Comic
As an American conservative, while I oppose the invasion of privacy, I support the privatization of that invasion. -The Covert Comic
If you want to pull the major party that is closest to your way of thinking to the way you’re thinking, you must – you must – show them that you’re capable of not voting for them. If you don’t show them that you’re capable of not voting for them, they don’t have to listen to you, I promise you that. I worked within the Democratic party; I didn’t listen, or have to listen, to anything on the Left while I was working within the Democratic party, because the Left had nowhere to go. -Laurence O’Donnell, political analyst [qtd. in the movie An Unreasonable Man]
[in reference to the declaration by NPR's Mara Liasson that only Obama's "left-wing base" wants to withdraw from Iraq ASAP, despite a large amount of polling data showing the opposite, that it's actually a pretty mainstream position] This is the standard propaganda tactic of establishment media stars like Liasson, and she's hardly unique -- in this way or in any other. This is how they manipulate public opinion and coerce political officials to disregard the views of most Americans in favor of the fringe, establishment view. The views of the establishment pundit class are automatically labeled "the Center" even when they're rejected by majorities of "the American people." By contrast, views that are actually held by majorities but which the pundit class dislikes are demonized as those of "the Left." Thus, they argue, political candidates, in order to win elections, must embrace the views of the establishment and reject the view of most Americans. That's how a candidate "moves to the Center."
[...]
The fact that Mara Liasson feels perfectly comfortable going on television and baldly uttering a clear-cut falsehood -- that only "the left-wing base" favors unconditional withdrawal while "the American people" only want to leave Iraq when "facts on the ground" allow it -- demonstrates how pervasive this deceit is. She likely isn't even aware that what she's saying is false. The establishment class is so self-absorbed, so inculcated with faith in their own wisdom, that they automatically think that whatever they and their comrades believe is, by definition, what "the American people" believe, even when all empirical data proves that the opposite is true. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Today's uprising faces its own form of opposition from the politicians, pundits, and business executives who make up this nation's ruling class. There may be less physical brutality, but the stridency from the Establishment is just as pronounced - and the tactics may be more effective in their sophistication. David Sirota, The Uprising
If there's a lesson of the Howard Dean campaign, it is that the younger generation's definition of "progressive" is anyone who rips apart the other side. Dean was a moderate, yet he became the progressive candidate for president because people get off on stridency. -Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), qtd. in The Uprising by David Sirota
As hungry and desperate as people become when they are stranded, I can't imagine that the other castaways didn't at least discuss how satisfying a plate full of barbecued Gilligan might be. -Brad Simanek
Plenty of Beltway institutions already existed for the purpose of cheering on any and all Democrats no matter what they do. If that's all that blogs are supposed to do, then there is no need for them. From the beginning, blogs have been devoted to opposing Democratic complicity and capitulation -- to protesting the lack of Democratic responsiveness to their supporters -- every bit as much as opposing GOP corruption and media malfeasance. That role is at least as important as the others. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
Even though she didn't have cable, had never seen the show and didn't know the characters, my girlfriend made me take her to see the "Sex and the City" movie. She couldn't figure out how the girls got their mutant superpowers. Turns out she had never seen "X-Men" either. -Ken Advent
The four-year-olds at my son's birthday party mistakenly thought it was a pinata, but I was actually just hanging Curious George in effigy. -Bob Van Voris
[in reference to the Fifth Commandment, "Thou shalt not kill"] When you think about it, religion has never really had a big problem with murder. Not really. More people have been killed in the name of God than for any other reason. All you have to do is look at Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Kashmir, the Inquisition, the Crusades and the World Trade Center to see how seriously the religious folks take "Thou shalt not kill." The more devout they are, the more they see murder as being negotiable. It's negotiable, you know, it depends. It depends on who's doing the killing and who's getting killed. -George Carlin [video link]
Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here… like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. Fuck Hope.' -George Carlin
It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. -George Carlin
The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They've got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying – lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that. That doesn't help them. That's against their interests. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago. You know what they want? Obedient workers – people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork but just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, reduced benefits, the end of overtime and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And, now, they're coming for your Social Security. They want your fucking retirement money. They want it back, so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it all, sooner or later, because they own this fucking place. It's a big club, and you ain't in it. You and I are not in the big club. -George Carlin [video link]
I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -George Carlin
[From Seinfeld, "The Race"]
[Coleman's Department Store]
KID: I want a racing car set.
KRAMER: Ho ho ho ho A racing car set! (whisper) Those are assembled in Taiwan by kids like you. And these Coleman pigs, they sell it at triple the cost.
KID: But I want a racing car set.
KRAMER: You see kid, you're being bamboozled. These capitalist fat cats are inflating the profit margin and reducing your total number of toys.
KID: Hey, this guy's a COMMIE!
MICKEY: Hey, kid, quiet. Were did a nice little boy like you learn such a bad word like that? Huh?
KID: Commie!, Commie!, Commie! . . .
MICKEY: Santa is not a Commie. He just forgot how his good friend stuck his neck out for him to get him a good job like this. Didn't he Santa!
When I was back in college it was thrilling to see a woman's bra hanging from my doorknob. But now that I've been married for more than 20 years, it's kind of lost its luster. Now it just means the damn door isn't going to close properly. -Donald Johnson
Why is it that with all the advancements in technology over the last century, we're still using the advent of sliced bread as our comparison high-water mark? -Doug Sykes
Certainly, no evangelical or even fundamentalist today lives as Christians did in the centuries right after Christ was crucified -- no one, for example, is putting adulterers to death, as the Bible advises (Deuteronomy 22:22 and Leviticus 20:10). Among other practical problems, that would wipe out at least half of the country's Republican politicians and destroy the spiritual leadership of the evangelical community. -Jeremy Adam Smith [article link]
Now I know what you’re thinking, Bill. You can’t be saying that the Catholic Church is no better than this creepy (radical Mormon polygamist) Texas cult. For one thing, alter boys can’t even get pregnant. But really, what tripped up the little cult on the prairie was that they only abused hundreds of kids, not thousands all over the world. Cults get raided; religions get parades… If you have a few hundred followers and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you Pope. -Bill Maher
I was watching Andrea Mitchell… talking about debates, and she said, 'A sighing Gore, a sweating Nixon, a seemingly bored Bush, those unfortunate, unscripted moments that voters sometimes remember most.' And I thought, yeah, they remember most because you show it on a loop on your media 24 hours a friggin' day! That's why they remember it most! It's not the voters who — it's what the media pick — the media picks out a few moments and they show it over and over again. And then people go, 'Well, Gore sighed; he's toast.' -Bill Maher, on the media's influence on voter's perceptions
He went to Vietnam because as a young man, he thought that was the right thing to do. He saw what was going on in Vietnam, came back, threw his medals away, changed his mind. Is it wrong that a guy goes to the slaughterhouse and comes back a vegetarian? Isn't that what thinking people do? -Bill Maher, re: Senator John Kerry as "flip-flopper"
If I thought the Lord was speaking to me I'd check myself into Bellevue, and I think you should too. -Bill Maher on Larry King Live, in response to a called-in question if he would become a believer if the Lord spoke to him
If you can look at the war in Iraq, the melting environments and the descent of America into "idiocracy," and still think our biggest problems are boobies during the Super Bowl and the "war on Christmas," then you don't have values, you have issues. -Bill Maher
Whenever you combine a secretive compound, religion, and weirdos in pioneer outfits, there's gonna be some child fucking going on. -Bill Maher
The people who are to blame are the Democrats for not having the Ralph Nader platform. Ralph Nader is right. I would welcome the Democratic Party co-opting Ralph Nader instead of blaming Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader's big issue is that America, our democracy, is being slowly strangled by the influence of corporations and lobbyists and money in politics. And that is the root of all our problems. Nothing in this country ever gets done without somebody getting paid off. Everybody talks about how everything changed after 9/11. No, nothing really changed after 9/11. We don't really have adequate protection of the homeland because it's still a matter of pork-barrel politics. -Bill Maher
I have a high state of resentment for the conformity in this country. If you're not married and having children, it's like your life is empty or you're a communist meanie. -Bill Maher
Women cannot complain about men anymore until they start getting better taste in them. -Bill Maher
This week, an ailing American bald eagle was found to be dying from mercury poisoning. Republicans immediately tried to blame it on the eagle's lifestyle choices. But it's worth noting that also this week, the White House threatened to veto limits on mercury pollution. Now, pure evil would be if George Bush sat around the White House saying, "Let's poison eagles!" And even I don't believe George Bush would do that. Cheney would do that. And even he is not pure evil. Dick Cheney doesn't hate poor children and caribou. They're just in the way. -Bill Maher
Perhaps the most amazing thing to me about the belief of many that George Bush lied to the American public in starting his war with Iraq is that the liberal columnists who have accused him of doing this merely make this point, and then go on to the next paragraph in their columns. Only very infrequently does a columnist add that because of it Bush should be impeached. If the charges are true, of course Bush should have been impeached, convicted, and removed from office. That's almost too self-evident to state. But he deserves much more than impeachment. I mean, in America, we apparently impeach presidents for having consensual sex outside of marriage and trying to cover it up. If we impeach presidents for that, then if the president takes the country to war on a lie where thousands of American soldiers die horrible, violent deaths and over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, including women and children, even babies are killed, the punishment obviously has to be much, much more severe. That's just common sense. If Bush were impeached, convicted in the Senate, and removed from office, he'd still be a free man, still be able to wake up in the morning with his cup of coffee and freshly squeezed orange juice and read the morning paper, still travel widely and lead a life of privilege, still belong to his country club and get standing ovations whenever he chose to speak to the Republican faithful. This, for being responsible for over 100,000 horrible deaths? For anyone interested in true justice, impeachment alone would be a joke for what Bush did...
If Bush, in fact, intentionally misled this nation into war, what is the proper punishment for him? Since many Americans routinely want criminal defendants to be executed for murdering only one person, if we weren't speaking of the president of the United States as the defendant here, to discuss anything less than the death penalty for someone responsible for over 100,000 deaths would on its face seem ludicrous. But we are dealing with the president of the United States here. -Vincent Bugliosi [article link]
Some days you’re the dog, some days you’re the fire hydrant. And some days, when the matter transference machine malfunctions, you’re the dog and the fire hydrant, screaming in unimaginable pain. -The Covert Comic
When I was a little boy, like a lot of kids at that age I had a special friend who was imaginary. But time passes, and you grow up and realize all your friends are imaginary. -The Covert Comic
[in reference to John McCain] It is dangerous for a democracy when a presidential candidate can lie with impunity, change positions on a whim, and physically and verbally threaten others and virtually none of it is reported by a besotted media eagerly awaiting the next moment when he might slap their backs in friendship. -Cliff Schecter, author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don't Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn't
My support for divestment comes from my belief in the way change happens. I used to think it was about convincing Jews and Israelis to come to their senses, but take the Israeli population-- they are sympathetic, but that's not enough to make things happen. I think circumstances need to be created that render the status quo not only "unpleasant" (as many Israelis would call it now) but "difficult" or even "painful" (not necessarily physically) before you see change happen. Boycotts and divestment are nonviolent ways of pressuring Israel to comply, not simply hoping it will or asking for it to happen. I think we need to use the same framework in addressing mainstream Jewish people in the U.S. The change will not be voluntary. Remember the Martin Luther King quotation: "Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed." If we focused as much on Palestinian rights as pleasing the oppressing community in this case, we could have justice already. I think we need to acknowledge that it will not be comfortable; we need to be ready to step out of our comfort zones, even to be called "anti-Semitic." -Anna Baltzer [article link]
I watch what I do to see what I really believe. -Sr. Helen Prejean
I read that children in America’s inner city schools confront death and hopelessness on a daily basis. It’s good to know they’re finally teaching existentialist philosophy in America’s inner city schools. -The Covert Comic
A wise saying in a trying moment is like bread during a famine: better keep it to yourself, or people will tear you apart. -The Covert Comic
I heard [Edward Peck, former US Ambassador to Iraq and deputy director of ROnald Reagan's terrorism task force] on an interview yesterday did anybody else see or hear him? He was on FOX News, this is a white man, and he was upsetting the FOX News commentators to no end, he pointed out, a white man, an ambassador, he pointed out that what Malcolm X said when he was silenced by Elijah Mohammad was in fact true, he said Americas chickens, are coming home to roost.
We took this country by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, Arikara, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism.
We took Africans away from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism.
We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel.
We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenage and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard working fathers.
We bombed Qaddafi’s home, and killed his child. Blessed are they who bash your children’s head against the rock.
We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to pay back for the attack on our embassy, killed hundreds of hard working people, mothers and fathers who left home to go that day not knowing that they’d never get back home.
We bombed Hiroshima. We bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon and we never batted an eye.
Kids playing in the playground. Mothers picking up children after school. Civilians, not soldiers, people just trying to make it day by day.
We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff that we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America’s chickens are coming home to roost.
Violence begets violence. Hatred begets hatred. And terrorism begets terrorism. A white ambassador said that y’all, not a black militant. Not a reverend who preaches about racism. An ambassador whose eyes are wide open and who is trying to get us to wake up and move away from this dangerous precipice upon which we are now poised. The ambassador said the people we have wounded don’t have the military capability we have. But they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them. And we need to come to grips with that. -Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sept. 16, 2001 [source]
If democracy is so good, why do we have to go to other countries and try to jam it down their throats with a gun? Stay here and make democracy work. If it’s good you don’t have to force it on others, they’ll steal it. -Dick Gregory
...even a superstitious man has certain inalienable rights. He has a right to harbor and indulge his imbecilities as long as he pleases, provided only he does not try to inflict them upon other men by force. He has a right to argue for them as eloquently as he can, in season and out of season. He has a right to teach them to his children. But certainly he has no right to be protected against the free criticism of those who do not hold them. He has no right to demand that they be treated as sacred. He has no right to preach them without challenge. - H.L. Mencken
To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem. -Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
atheist n. 1: Someone not to be trusted with moral questions because they have no morals by the common agreement of religious people. 2: A Christian who makes the mistake of wondering how the bloody hell Noah got over 40,000 pairs of critters onto an Ark in less than a century of time and before the advent of modern geography, steel supertankers and anti-psychotic drugs from Smith-Kline. 3: An intemperate, foolish, egotistical zealot, addicted to the false prophet of rationalism. -T.G. Browning
martyr n. 1: Any person with two pounds of C4, copper wire, and a switch plus the sense God gave radishes. Islam apparently gives Ph.D.s in radishes. 2: A person with poor reaction time. -T.G. Browning
McCarthy’s Law maxim The fault lies not with our stars, but with the Communist Party. -T.G. Browning
Mother Teresa pers. Catholic nun on the fast track for canonization. She’s already been beatified with one miracle (thanks to prescription drugs and misdiagnosis), and an even dozen should be forthcoming in a few years time, if the current pope and the late pope John-Paul II have anything to say about it. Of Albanian extraction, she was a big fan of Charles Keating, “Baby Doc” Jean-Claude Duvalier, and end of life treatment of often agonizing diseases with prayer, homilies, and keen observations that excruciating pain constitutes the kisses of Jesus. Oddly, many dying people requested less spiritual kissing and more analgesics. -T.G. Browning
Remember: Reverence for life includes reverence for firm, young, naked life. -The Covert Comic
When I awoke in a puddle of my own vomit after a night of Halloween candy binging, I suddenly realized why no one would ever market creamed-style candy corn. -Stephanie Thompson
Just counting the zeroes on the $3 trillion price tag of the Iraq War is enough to induce hyperventilation. But what does $3 trillion really mean? It's difficult even to comprehend a number that big. Well, try filling your shopping cart with what the cost of the Iraq War could buy: healthcare for every American? A new home for every subprime borrower now facing foreclosure? An Ivy League university? You haven't even gotten started. -Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel prize-winning economist
What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women -- not merely peace in our time but peace for all time. -John F. Kennedy (1963)
Women are hard to figure out. They love lingerie and they love garage sales, but they don't seem to like getting garage-sale lingerie as a gift. -Brad Osberg
stoic adj. What one is when one is subjected to less than one desires and complains only half as much as one wishes. -T.G. Browning
It's amazing Larry, Moe and Curly remained friends all those years. If one on my friends kept hitting me with a hammer on purpose, I'd likely stop hanging out with him. -Anthony Myers
I can't decide who's the bigger geek, the person who used "FF0000" for the vanity plate on their red car, or me because I knew that FF0000 is the hexadecimal value for red. -Bill Hewins
I tried to tell my son how important it is to work hard, do well in school, avoid drugs and serve in the military. I told him if he doesn't do those things he might end up being president, and then no one would like him. -Jim Evarts
My own view, frequently expressed (for example in the The Selfish Gene and especially in the title chapter of A Devil's Chaplain) is that there are two reasons why we need to take Darwinian natural selection seriously. Firstly, it is the most important element in the explanation for our own existence and that of all life. Secondly, natural selection is a good object lesson in how NOT to organize a society. As I have often said before, as a scientist I am a passionate Darwinian. But as a citizen and a human being, I want to construct a society which is about as un-Darwinian as we can make it. I approve of looking after the poor (very un-Darwinian). I approve of universal medical care (very un-Darwinian). It is one of the classic philosophical fallacies to derive an 'ought' from an 'is'... If we look at more recent history, the closest representatives you'll find to Darwinian politics are uncompassionate conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, George W Bush, or... Richard Nixon. Maybe all these people, along with the Social Darwinists from Herbert Spencer to John D Rockefeller, committed the is/ought fallacy and justified their unpleasant social views by invoking garbled Darwinism. Anyone who thinks that has any bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of Darwin's theory of evolution is either an unreasoning fool or a cynical manipulator of unreasoning fools. -Richard Dawkins [article link]
There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be President. -Kurt Vonnegut
Parenthood is amazing. At this time last year, I was just an actuary. Today, I'm an actuary whose meals are routinely interrupted by needing to digitally cram ointment in another human being's ass-crack. -Brad Simanek
Someone has to die so that President Nixon won't be -- and these are his words -- 'the first president to lose a war.' We are asking Americans to think about that, because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? -John Kerry, 1971
Since woman's greatest misfortunes has been that she was looked upon as either angel or devil, her true salvation lies ... in being considered human, and therefore subject to all human follies and mistakes. -Emma Goldman
While they innocently stand in line in slaughterhouses throughout the world waiting for their lives to be violently destroyed, innocent and frightened animals desperately try to communicate with humans. If you listen carefully you can hear them now. Please let me live, please do not kill me. What did I do wrong that you want to kill me? -Arthur Poletti, from the book, God Does Not Eat Meat
Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the millions, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative-and fatal-health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they cold eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out cards praying for "Peace on Earth." -Preface from Old MacDonald's Factory Farm by David Coates
If a company's most valuable resource is its people, how come the employees aren't locked up, but the toilet paper is in a reinforced steel box with a lock, bolted to the stall? -Mark Severin
And to take a good look at ourselves. A first observation is that we can easily overestimate our national conscience. A major part of the protest against the war springs simply from the fact that we are losing it. If it were not for the heavy cost, politicians like the Kennedys [Robert and Edward] and organizations like the ADA [the liberal Americans for Democratic Action] would still be as complacent about the war as they were a few years ago. -I.F. Stone, 1968
[in reference to neoliberal Newsweek columnist Fareed Zakaria] Like the rest of his well-paid cronies in the media Establishment who rail on populism, he expects us to believe - without a shred of actual factual proof or "reporting" - that the poor farmer in the developing world is eager to be thrown off his land by subsidized multinational agribusiness companies; thrilled that the protectionist provisions in America's trade policy make medicine prices unaffordable for him and his family; upset that any American political leaders would talk about protecting his labor and human rights so as to prevent ongoing exploitation; and in awe of that supposedly great economic and political utopia known as Mexico - a place where economic inequality, poverty and political unrest runs rampant.
This is the "expertise" of Fareed Zakaria - the Very Important Person who helps dictate the terms of debate on international economic issues. And this is why that debate is so divorced from reality. -David Sirota [article link]
A cult is a religion with no power. -Tom Wolfe
Thousands of people who say they "love" animals sit down once or twice a day to enjoy the flesh of creatures who have been utterly deprived of everything that could make their lives worth living and who endured the awful suffering and the terror of the abattoirs (slaughterhouses). -Dr. Jane Goodall
If they’re ever filming a hunting show, and a guy shoots at an animal and misses, and then oil starts bubbling up from the ground where the bullet hit, I just hope the director has the good sense to keep the cameras rolling – because something tells me he could have a major hit reality series on his hands. -The Covert Comic
The more vulgar apologists for U.S. and Israeli crimes solemnly explain that, while Arabs purposely kill people, the U.S. and Israel, being democratic societies, do not intend to do so. Their killings are just accidental ones, hence not at the level of moral depravity of their adversaries. That was, for example, the stand of Israel's High Court when it recently authorized severe collective punishment of the people of Gaza by depriving them of electricity (hence water, sewage disposal, and other such basics of civilized life).
The same line of defense is common with regard to some of Washington's past peccadilloes, like the destruction in 1998 of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan. The attack apparently led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, but without intent to kill them, hence not a crime on the order of intentional killing -- so we are instructed by moralists who consistently suppress the response that had already been given to these vulgar efforts at self-justification.
To repeat once again, we can distinguish three categories of crimes: murder with intent, accidental killing, and murder with foreknowledge but without specific intent. Israeli and U.S. atrocities typically fall into the third category. Thus, when Israel destroys Gaza's power supply or sets up barriers to travel in the West Bank, it does not specifically intend to murder the particular people who will die from polluted water or in ambulances that cannot reach hospitals. And when Bill Clinton ordered the bombing of the al-Shifa plant, it was obvious that it would lead to a humanitarian catastrophe. Human Rights Watch immediately informed him of this, providing details; nevertheless, he and his advisers did not intend to kill specific people among those who would inevitably die when half the pharmaceutical supplies were destroyed in a poor African country that could not replenish them.
Rather, they and their apologists regarded Africans much as we do the ants we crush while walking down a street. We are aware that it is likely to happen (if we bother to think about it), but we do not intend to kill them because they are not worthy of such consideration. Needless to say, comparable attacks by Araboushim in areas inhabited by human beings would be regarded rather differently. -Noam Chomsky [article link]
[in reference the storming of the US embassy in Belgrade by Serb protesters angry over American support for Kosovo's independence] [G]iven that the Serbs are Eastern Orthodox Christians, will the Republican Party and Fox Cable News now start fulminating against "Christofascism?" -Juan Cole [article link]
Imagine, for a moment, what the world looks like to Iran. The country is surrounded by powerful states with nuclear weapons—Israel, India, Pakistan, China and Russia. Across one of its borders stand some 170,000 American troops (in Iraq), across another are more than 50,000 NATO troops (in Afghanistan). The United States has been bitterly opposed to the Iranian regime for three decades. The current American president has made clear time and again that he regards the Tehran government as evil and wishes that it would fall, and Congress set aside $75 million last year to "promote democracy" in Iran. Now, if you were in Tehran, wouldn't you buy some insurance? And in the world of international politics, a nuclear program is the ultimate insurance policy. -Fareed Zakaria [article link]
I thought it would be fun doing a bondage-and-discipline session with Wonder Woman. Unfortunately, her "rope of truth" made it impossible to acknowledge her as my master without having to be truthful about the fact that the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution prohibit master/slave relationships. -Kevin Freels
[T]orture does migrate, and there are some good examples of it both in American and French history. The basic idea here is that soldiers who get ahead torturing come back and take jobs as policemen, and private security, and they get ahead doing the same things they did in the army. And so torture comes home. Everyone knows waterboarding, but no one remembers that it was American soldiers coming back from the Philippines that introduced it to police in the early twentieth century. During the Philippine Insurgency in 1902, soldiers learned the old Spanish technique of using water tortures, and soon these same techniques appeared in police stations, especially throughout the South, as well as in military lockups during World War I. Likewise, the electrical techniques used in Vietnam appeared in the 1960s appeared in torturing African Americans on the south side of Chicago in the 1970s and 1980s, and, as I argue in the book, that wasn’t just an accident.
So torture always comes home. And the techniques of this war are likely to show up in a neighborhood near you. -Darius Rejali [article link]
He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. -Thomas Paine
There is a very real and perverse possibility that the NFL will face tougher sanctions for spying on practice squads and covering it up than the telecoms and this President will face for spying on the citizenry and lying about it. -John Cole [article link]
Begrudgingly, I have to give credit to the Republicans for being much more open in the primary process. The Democrats engage in this merry dance of triangulating, backtracking on their previous votes, refusing to actually take a definitive stand on anything, and generally just talking about platforms and policies that are worded like the closing statements of lawyers defending serial killers. Republicans just come out and say they're fucking nuts and want to destroy you. -August J. Pollak [article link]
From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. -George Orwell
In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. -George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"
In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a ‘party line’. Orthodoxy, of whatever colour, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. -George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. -George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"
Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. -George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language"
If you don't believe that kids can think, or should think, it seems unlikely that you will educate them in a way that may help them do it better.
If young people are not trained to think and pay attention to language - and in particular to the language being used to form their ideas and opinions - it seems obvious that they will be more susceptible to the techniques of advertising (repetition, volume, reductive sloganeering, and so on) than to the more challenging processes of reason, common sense, and logic. Clarity of thought and attention to nuance are essential tools in subverting propoganda. And surely it's not only a few paranoids who have noticed that systematically under-educating a population is one way to insure future generations of men and women qualified to work at the McDonald's or serve on a corporate board without stepping out of line, or asking too many questions, or asking the wrong questions, or knowing what questions to ask. -Francine Prose, What Orwell Didn't Know
Barring a rash of immaculate conceptions, you've got to think we're on our last generation of on-line gamers and role playing geeks. -Steve Bacon
All sunglasses, no matter how expensive, pretty much look the same after you sit on them. -Ivy Rosier
Note to employees: The statement "Think outside the box" does *not* constitute permission to leave it. -The Covert Comic
To put the point the other way, which will hopefully penetrate the wall of resistance erected by so many people: the only reason you aren't in a concentration camp right now is because Bush hasn't decided to send you to one -- yet. But he claims he has the power to do so -- and there are almost no voices of any prominence to dispute the contention... Given the hysteria that followed 9/11 -- and the hysteria that would certainly follow another terrorist attack in the U.S. of the same or even greater magnitude -- protesting against round-ups at that point would be entirely futile, and would come far too late. -Arthur Silbur [article link]
[when asked what he thought of Western civilization] I think it would be a good idea. -Mahatma Gandhi
After all these years in public life, the only time Hillary Clinton sheds a tear is when her own political career is on the line? I didn't notice her crying when kids started coming home from Fallujah in rubber bags because of a war she voted for. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
A feminist is a person who answers "yes" to the question, "Are women human?" Feminism is not about whether women are better than, worse than or identical with men. And it's certainly not about trading personal liberty - abortion, divorce, sexual self-expression - for social protection as wives and mothers, as pro-life feminists propose. It's about justice, fairness, and access to the broad range of human experience. It's about women consulting their own well-being and being judged as individuals rather than as members of a class with one personality, one social function, one road to happiness. It's about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, the "family," men. -Katha Pollitt
[John] Edwards and his campaign point out that they've been fighting uphill: out-fundraised and outspent in Iowa six to one (probably closer to three to one, when independent 527 expenditures are figured in) and constantly contending with a press corps that, in the words of one Edwards staffer, "has never found a place for us in their story." These disadvantages are compounded by the shortcomings of Edwards's message. He almost never, unprompted, says a word about foreign policy; his pugilism can get the better of him (as when he took a cheap, sexist shot at Clinton for tearing up); and his stump speech, sharp and focused and righteous as it may be, is also so full of pathos it prompted something close to muted despair in me every time I heard it. Watching Nataline Sarkisyan's family give a raw, emotional account of their daughter's death in a hospital after Cigna waited too long to approve a liver transplant, I felt like someone had driven a railroad spike through my sternum. I couldn't imagine calling voters or knocking on doors or even going to polls. And I don't think it was just me. Unlike at Obama and Clinton rallies, where the crowds cheer at the slightest provocation, during most of Edwards's stump speech you can hear a pin drop. It's a bit like attending a funeral for the American dream. -Christopher Hayes [article link]
Even though the vast majority of believers apply rational thought processes in most areas of their lives, there is a corner of their minds, especially for religious conservatives, in which they refuse to shine the light of reason. Every scrap of information they process is run through religious filters. If it does not threaten to undermine the religious scaffold around which they’ve built their lives, then normal reasoning processes can be applied safely. If a bit of information contradicts the scaffold, then it must be rejected. Religious liberals, on the other hand, frequently bend the scaffold so that it will accommodate new information. Whatever process one applies, the fact remains that there are points at which reason and religion conflict. How one handles those conflicts determines the extent to which religious belief is harmful. Sometimes the harm is confined to believers. Other times, however, that harm spills over and affects others, believers and nonbelievers alike. -The Chaplain [article link]
The facts do have a liberal bias, and conservatives have reacted to that by building an alternate reality, the creation of which is aided by the pseudo-scholars at shops like [the American Enterprise Institute]. Fox is balanced, the rest of the media is biased to the left; Wikipedia has a liberal bias, so they set up Conservapedia to balance it; 99.9% of the world's climatologists believe man-made global warming is a huge problem, so Exxon-Mobile funds a network of climate change deniers to offer an "alternate" view. For over 30 years, scholars at think-tanks like AEI and Heritage have been the ostensible antidote to the liberal academy. The truth, of course, is that they're corporate-funded hacks whose ideologically-driven "research" would never hold up to peer review. They exist to muddy the waters, and they do it quite well. -Joshua Holland [article link]
Whenever this issue of compensatory or preferential treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree, but he should ask for nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. For it is obvious that if a man enters the starting line of a race three hundred years after another man, the first would have to perform some incredible feat in order to catch up. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Americans love our rich. We love rich people the same way we love porn. Most of us aren't getting enough money or sex, so we enjoy watching those who are getting it on a regular basis. Just seeing them or reading about their excesses reminds us that one day we might just get lucky, too. There is no other explanation as to why we lavish attention onto The Donald and his issue. Bloomberg, Romney, remember Ross Perot? A big part of their appeal is their enormous wealth, which we can't help but respect. -Annabelle Gurwitch [article link]
Those who claim the United States is "winning" in Iraq must define exactly what they mean by "winning." Does "win" mean we have a pro-U.S. government successfully running Baghdad without American military assistance? Or does "winning" mean the U.S. stays in Iraq until 2018 or 2025 or 2085 or longer? Or does "winning" mean the Iraqis accomplish some form of lasting "reconciliation" among the various political, tribal, religious, ethnic, and class factions? Or does "winning" simply mean that more Iraqis die in the fighting than Americans? What exactly has the United State accomplished in Iraq? In other words, I wonder what Kristol, Barone, Pollack, and O'Hanlon think the U.S. has gotten for all of those taxpayer billions and American lives thrown at that country... The current status quo in Iraq could lumber along in the form of what we used to call "low intensity conflict" for decades or even centuries. -Joseph A Palmero [article link]
I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God. And thats what we need to do is amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than trying to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view of how we treat each other and how we treat the family. -Mike Huckabee article link
I'm really pissed off that this year's presidential ballot offers no candidates who are against education, healthcare, families and children. -Brian Perbix
Just as I was about to slip some more company pens and note pads into my pocket, that small inner voice stopped me, saying, "Jerry, don't do that. It's wrong." Then it added, "Why don't you kill everybody here instead?" -Jerry L. Embry
My grandmother taught my mother how to drive, and she, in turn, taught me. Luckily, my mother didn't also pass down the knowledge of how to get pregnant in the back seat, because some family traditions should just fade away. -Jenn McNanna
As the screaming woman in front of me lunged through the small opening in the Plexiglas, trying to claw the eyes out of the server who she claimed skimped on her sprinkles, I began to regret having stopped for a treat at Drama Queen. -Brad Simanek
[from the book Nuremburg Diary by Gustave Gilbert (source), recounting an exchange with Hermann Goering, Luftwaffe commander and high-ranking Nazi] We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."
"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."
"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
See, we're lucky here in America. We live in a free market society. Think of it as a ladder. No matter what rung you're born on, you have the exact same opportunity as everyone else to get to the top. Sure, you might say that some folks have less distance to climb than others, or that many of the lower rungs are slippery because they're covered with garbage and your high school didn't have an AP Ladder Climbing Class, and the rung right above you is out of order and your landlord keeps saying he's going to fix it and never does and all the while the guy who hangs out on the corner of your rung is constantly trying to get you high, and you're wondering if maybe you could get a little help up the ladder? Well, Mister, all the help you need is at your fingertips, if your fingertips are touching your ankles. I'm talking about bootstraps. -Stephen Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You!)
Now some people might say it's callous not giving food stamps to poor people. They would say it's just another example of class warfare. Well, there is no class warfare in this country. The Upper class has such a tactical advantage that if the Lower class makes a sudden move we'll have a class massacre. -Stephen Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You!)
I want to be certified as an abortion clinic, so pro-life activists will have to stay at least 150 feet away from me. -The Covert Comic
Some people come from nothing to being wildly successful and their response is, 'I did this on my own.' I came to a different conclusion. I believe that I did work hard, and I think people should work hard, but I think my country was there for me every step of the way. -John Edwards [article link]
I guess what I like most about being sarcastic is the knowledge that, even if people don't understand my sarcasm, at least I'm helping them feel better about their lives. -The Covert Comic
[in reference to Mitt Romney's recent major speech on his Mormonism, interpreted by many in the mainstream media as a call for religious tolerance but in reality an attempt to reassure Christian evangelical voters, many of whom consider Mormonism heresy] There was one significant mistake in the speech. I do not know why Romney did not include nonbelievers in his moving portrait of the great American family. We were founded by believing Christians, but soon enough Jeremiah Johnson, and the old proud agnostic mountain men, and the village atheist, and the Brahmin doubter, were there, and they too are part of us, part of this wonderful thing we have. Why did Mr. Romney not do the obvious thing and include them? My guess: It would have been reported, and some idiots would have seen it and been offended that this Romney character likes to laud atheists. And he would have lost the idiot vote.
My feeling is we've bowed too far to the idiots. This is true in politics, journalism, and just about everything else. -Peggy Noonan, former Reagan speechwriter [not exactly a radical leftist or militant atheist] [article link]
Both the American public and the Iraqi public want us to leave Iraq. However, both the American government and the Iraqi government want us to stay. So we're staying. This is called "democracy promotion." -Kevin Drum [article link]
There are two types of conservative... There are the predator cons. These people, probably because of some variation on obsessive compulsive disorder that has focused itself on money, are willing to harm others, to steal from others in order to enrich themselves, and they're so sociopathic that they can still sleep at night.
I think a lot of the larger and more very well-paid CEOs fall into that category. That's why they're paid so much. There is something to supply and demand. So the question arises: Why would any corporation have to pay somebody $200 million a year? It makes no sense. You think that there'd be a huge supply of people who would do the same job for three million a year. Take someone like old "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap who went to Sunbeam and then a series of companies. He made himself famous for going into companies and laying off 10,000 people and then just moving on to the next company and doing the same. I personally believe that it takes a sociopath to do that.
Sociopaths are people who are not capable of experiencing the emotions of others, a person who thinks they're the only real person in the world and everybody else is a cardboard cutout. I think the supply of sociopaths who are high-functioning, are able to graduate from college, understand business, can pass as normal people, and who have management and leadership skills, is actually pretty small. When you figure that the percentage of sociopaths in our population is, according to most studies, between two and five percent, the percentage of high-functioning sociopaths is going to be very, very low. You've got the Ted Bundy variety of sociopaths, and then you've got the CEO variety of sociopaths. So I think we need to acknowledge that some of these conservatives are actually predators. They're sick people. -Thom Hartmann [article link]
Of course character is important in choosing a president; of course personality will always play a role. The problem isn't that journalists think character and personality matter, it is that they are spectacularly bad at assessing these traits, and even worse at predicting how the candidates will govern as a result.
Remember: During the 2000 campaign, the journalists and pundits told us that George W. Bush was the honest one. The straight-talking Texan. They told us this over and over and over again, until many Americans believed it. They told us that George W. Bush could unite the country, unlike the divisive Al Gore. Heck of a job, Dowd.
The argument that journalists should focus on things like facts and policy isn't based on the premise that character and personality don't matter. It's based on the simple fact that the American people are far better at assessing character and personality than Chris Matthews and Maureen Dowd and Matt Drudge and Mark Halperin. And it's based on the fact that NBC and The New York Times have the time and resources to determine if the candidates' statements are true and consistent and logical -- but voters don't.
That's where we need journalists: to help us sort out what the candidates have done, what they say they'll do, how likely it is to work, and who will benefit. We don't need them to speculate about why they chose to wear brown shoes or three-button suits or what the music on their iPods says about their character. We can figure that out on our own. And we don't need them to tell us who is likely to win; we need them to tell us information that will help us decide who should win. -Jamison Foser [article link]
illegal adj. A term rendered largely meaningless via a mechanism called selective enforcement. -T.G. Browning
The idea of scat porn makes me very uncomfortable. Sure, naked women are appealing, but I can do without the improvised jazz-singing part. -Kim Moser
It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. -Voltaire
Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him. -Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H
Political scientists have known for a long time that while people respond positively to the idea of limited government in the abstract, when it comes to specifics people love big government and most, if not all of what it does. They want a government that will educate their children and put out forest fires and pay for their million-dollar cancer treatments and make sure that big chemical companies aren't poisoning their water and keep them from having to eat cat food after they've busted their asses working for 50 years. They expect cheap student loans and meat inspections and smooth highways, and even the lowest of "low information" voters know they're not going to get that stuff from the private sector.
Much more importantly, most people won't vote for politicians who honestly endorse a scorched earth, slash-and-burn libertarianism. Just ask Congress's loneliest (and most frustrated) man, Ron Paul, R-Texas, the Republican Party's only real libertarian...
For decades, Republicans have dealt with this reality with bullshit social issues, flag-waving demonstrations of patriotism that give even the worst of their economic victims a sense of self-respect and, most of all, by facing the American people squarely and just lying to their faces.
The Big Lie -- the deceit that's won them so many elections -- is that they can offer government that's just as big, but Americans won't ever have to pay for it. All the services you want and half the taxes! Eat ice-cream all day long and never put on a pound! Who wouldn't vote for such a utopian crock? -Joshua Holland [article link]
...[I]f the conservative movement has any political lesson to teach to those who disagree with its motives and goals, it should be that sometimes only a willingness to be radical really brings about change. -Kim Phillips-Fein [article link]
The real bad thing with the antiwar movement was that the Democrats got elected and the entire apparatus of the non-profit so-called peace groups basically was taken over by Democratic Party operatives who used the energy of the antiwar movement to further their own legislative goals. And even though the Democratic Congress was elected almost specifically to end the war, they haven’t done it, even though they could have. We got sold out, basically. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
[I]f the misbegotten Iraq war proves anything, it is the foolhardiness of allowing an autistic clique that reads its own newspapers and watches its own cable news channel to decide, without outsider input, where to expend American blood and treasure -- that is, to decide which looming threats to stress and which to downplay or ignore. -Stephen Holmes, The Matador's Cape: America's Reckless Response to Terror
Atheist - n. A person to be pitied in that he is unable to believe things for which there is no evidence, and who has thus deprived himself of a convenient means of feeling superior to others. -Ambrose Bierce
I think the act of looking at religion as just another hypothesis about the way the world works -- and asking it to defend itself with evidence and logic just like any other hypothesis -- is a radical act. All by itself, completely apart from any of the specific arguments against religion's accuracy and morality. The mere act of shoving religion into the marketplace of ideas, and expecting it to fight it out with all the other ideas about why things are the way they are... I think people who are deeply attached to religion have every reason to be afraid of that. I think that act has more potential to eventually dismantle religious beliefs than any of the specific arguments leveled against those beliefs. -Greta Christina [article link]
The media’s the most powerful entity on earth... The press is so powerful in its image-making role, it can make a criminal look like he’s the victim and make the victim look like he’s the criminal... If you aren’t careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. -Malcolm X
Although we honor Gore's singular contribution as a citizen crusader, we also remember that as a politician he was often eager to settle for watered-down compromises. It was Vice President Gore, after all, who allowed glacier-sized loopholes for US polluters when he negotiated the final terms of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, and it was the Clinton/Gore Administration that pandered to the timber industry. The author of Earth in the Balance helped tilt the scales toward big business during the Clinton years, when free-trade agreements flourished and global environmental standards dropped significantly.
Gore didn't mobilize support for effective climate change legislation until he left office. It is a telling commentary on the corrupting influence of our political system that only after he was freed from big-money pressures and cautious consultants did he find a way to speak out on the issue with a sense of moral conviction. -The Nation editors [article link]
The very different ways the battle over phthalates [an additive in plastic toys with concerns about its toxicity] has unfolded in Europe and America reflect the vastly different approaches taken by the EU and US governments to protecting citizens from chemical hazards. Here, concern about a product's safety is not enough to justify regulation; irrefutable evidence of harmful effects--a scientific standard that is elusive at best--is required, as is a cost-benefit analysis weighing the "benefits" to society against the "costs" to industry of making the change. The EU, in marked contrast, operates according to the "precautionary principle." As Robert Donkers, who served as the EU's environment counselor in Washington until September, explained to me, "Unlike in the United States, we don't wait until we have 100 percent proof. Rather, if there's fear, scientific suspicions that [a chemical] could cause irreversible damage in the future, we don't want to wait. By the time it's proven, it could be much too late." This was the perspective of [California] Assemblywoman Chan and the advocates of her bill [which would have banned phthalates]; the risks of doing nothing, they argued, were far greater than the risks of doing something. But that argument would not immediately hold sway in Sacramento. After heavy lobbying by the industry, Chan's bill was defeated by one vote...
For phthalates, the United States looked at the time children may be exposed and determined it was not long enough for concern. The Europeans looked at phthalates' toxicity and decided to limit a potential route of exposure: toys. -Mark Schapiro [article link]
How do we explain the fact that most people's stated philosophical and theological systems are rooted in concepts of justice, equality, and the inherent dignity of all people, yet we allow violence, exploitation, and oppression to flourish? Only a small percentage of people in any given society are truly sociopaths, engaging in cruel and oppressive behavior openly and with relish. Feminism helped me understand the complex process, which tends to work like this:
* The systems and structures in which we live are hierarchical.
* Hierarchical systems and structures deliver to those in the dominant class certain privileges, pleasures, and material benefits.
* People are typically hesitant to give up such privileges, pleasures, and benefits.
* But, those benefits clearly come at the expense of those in the subordinated class.
* Given the widespread acceptance of basic notions of equality and human rights, the existence of hierarchy has to be justified in some way other than crass self-interest.
* One of the most persuasive arguments for systems of domination and subordination is that they are "natural."
So, oppressive systems work hard to make it appear that the hierarchy -- and the disparity in power and resources that flow from hierarchy -- is natural and, therefore, beyond modification. If men are naturally smarter and stronger than women, then patriarchy is inevitable and justifiable. If white people are naturally smarter and more virtuous than people of color, then white supremacy is inevitable and justifiable. If rich people are naturally smarter and harder working than poor people, then economic injustice is inevitable and justifiable. And, if human beings have special status in the universe, justified either on theological or biological grounds, then humans' right to extract from the rest of Creation whatever they like is inevitable and justifiable.
For unjust hierarchies, and the illegitimate authority that is exercised in them, maintaining their own naturalness is essential. Not surprisingly, people in the dominant class exercising the power gravitate easily to such a view. And because of their power to control key story-telling institutions (especially education and mass communication), those in the dominant class can fashion a story about the world that leads some portion of the people in the subordinate class to internalize the ideology. -Robert Jensen [article link]
One hundred seventeen consecutive losing games of computer solitaire is nature's way of saying, "Get back to work!" -Richard Skora
People at work used to think I was strange for not drinking coffee -- until they caught me snorting lines of coffee grounds, that is. -J. Hutter
[Rudy Giuliani] lies with staggering impunity. But here's the thing: he does it with such conviction and such seeming authority that people who are not inclined to study the matter will believe him -- will in fact be utterly convinced that Giuliani is speaking the gospel truth, and they will prove almost impossible to shake from this conviction. -Michael Tomasky [article link]
Women are like diamonds: The ones you see on TV are always nicer than the ones you can actually afford. -Brad Osberg
If you're not willing to vote based on real beliefs, why should your representatives be expected to act on them? -J.R. Jones
All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy. They have internationalist aims, and at the same time they struggle to keep up a standard of life with which those aims are incompatible. We all live by robbing Asiatic coolies, and those of us who are 'enlightened' all maintain that those coolies ought to be set free; but our standard of living and hence our 'enlightenment,' demands that the robbery shall continue. -George Orwell [article link]
The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it. -Edward Dowling, editor and priest, Chicago Daily News, July 28, 1941
To pro-Bush war supporters, the world is forever stuck in the 1930s. Every leader we don't like is Adolf Hitler, a crazed and irrational lunatic who wants to dominate the world. Every country opposed to our interests is Nazi Germany.
From this it follows that every warmonger is the glorious reincarnation of the brave and resolute Winston Churchill. And one who opposes or even questions any proposed war becomes the lowly and cowardly appeaser, Neville Chamberlain. For any and every conflict that arises, the U.S. is in the identical position of France and England in 1937 – faced with an aggressive and militaristic Nazi Germany, will we shrink from our grand fighting duties in appeasement and fear, or will we stand tall and strong and wage glorious war?
With that cartoonish framework in place, war is always the best option. It is the only option for those who are noble, strong, and fearless. Conversely, the sole reason for opposing a war is that one is a weak-minded and weak-willed appeaser who harbors dangerous fantasies of negotiating with madmen. Diplomacy and containment are simply elevated, PC terms for “appeasement.” War is the only option that works. -Glenn Greenwald [article link]
One of the most disconcerting aspects of the endless war the United States is fighting now is that it started because Iraq was there: it appeared to be a made-to-order target for an easy invasion that would have great symbolic (indeed, philosophic) significance for the thinkers around Bush. After 9/11, the capture of the terrorists who plotted the attack and the destruction of the Taliban government in Afghanistan that gave them shelter just hadn't seemed a weighty enough challenge for these would-be supermen. "There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts—and bombing caves is not something that counts," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a confidante of Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, told NEWSEEK in November 2001. -Christopher Dickey [article link]
The trouble with SCHIP from Bush's point of view is that it works too well. In providing necessary health care for kids, it would lead people to say, "Why not more?" You can see where that line goes. So he's chosen to fight it out over 12-year-old kids. -Paul Krugman [article link]
Americans too often teach their children to despise those who hold unpopular opinions. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, and so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it and out of place - the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else's keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan. -Mark Twain
All work and no play make you your boss's wet dream. -Tom Sims
Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone. --John Maynard Keynes
[in reference to this comic] I guess there's a chance that some of you reading this might not have pets with leaky butts. I do, and let me tell you it's no fun. Every time we take our cat to get her butt squeezed the doctor tells me she can show me how to do it at home. She suggests it would save me some money. There are certain things I am willing to do at home to save money. For example, I ask my wife to cut my hair. Something I won't do is reach into my cats asshole and wring out its butt juice. I'm willing to pay a professional for that. -Gabe, Penny Arcade
I bet the reason chipmunks are always darting back and forth in utter fear is because they're afraid of being mistaken for that one chipmunk who slept with the preacher chipmunk's virgin daughter and robbed the Chipmunk Bank. 'Cause, dude, they all look the same. -Amber Martinelli
In our discussion of the inevitability of time, I brought up the fact that the students' parents would all eventually die. However, I certainly didn't expect them to whine and cry and act like babies. Friggin' kindergarteners -- grow up! -Lori Petterson
[in reference to efforts to give telecom companies retroactive immunity from lawsuits relating to their participation in Bush's warrantless wiretapping] This provision is not primarily about protecting patriotic businessmen, as Mr. Bush claims. It's about ensuring that Mr. Bush and his aides never have to go to court to explain how many laws they've broken. It is a collusion between lawmakers and the White House that means that no one is ever held accountable. -The New York Times [article link]
[from this interview on Democracy Now! with then-Representative (now Senator) Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-described socialist]
AMY GOODMAN: And if people ask, “What do you mean, ‘socialist’?” what would you say?
REP. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, I think it means the government has got to play a very important role in making sure that as a right of citizenship, all of our people have healthcare; that as a right, all of our kids, regardless of income, have quality childcare, are able to go to college without going deeply into debt; that it means we do not allow large corporations and moneyed interests to destroy our environment; that we create a government in which it is not dominated by big money interest. I mean, to me, it means democracy, frankly. That's all it means. And we are living in an increasingly undemocratic society in which decisions are made by people who have huge sums of money. And that's the goal that we have to achieve.
I have credit my mom for my unique and amazing personality. After all, she's the one who dropped all that acid while she was pregnant. -Jerry L. Embry
Resistance to tyranny is man's highest ideal. -Emma Goldman
[Remember this whenever you hear a Friedman-wannabe neoliberal spouting off about "freedom" and remember that they mean something very different by it than most Americans do. -ed.] The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force F-15. And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. -Tom Friedman, The Lexus and the Olive Tree
[in reference to a plan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to strip a law protecting gays and lesbians from workplace discrimination of reference to the transgendered in an attempt to make the bill more likely to pass, a move that has caused many GLBT rights groups to withdraw support for it]
As a gay man, I don’t mind saying, I have no interest at all in becoming a “first-class citizen” if it comes at the expense of someone else’s status. I’ll happily take my chances with the current law before I’ll passively support the hideous assertion that gays and lesbians are kind of ok now, but transgendered Americans are still very much not ok. That folks can’t see why that’s so offensive to many gay folks suggests to my mind they don’t see why the current lack of protection is offensive to us either. It’s not about us. It’s about what’s right.
What this boils down to, quite frankly (no pun intended), is that I trust the motives of the transgendered community in this battle much, much, much more than I trust the motives of those among general public who are coming around and now ready to condescend to suggest I might be worthy of some of the same civil liberties they take for granted. In other words, if the sh*t hits the fan again, I’d rather stay aligned with the folks who’ve shown me constant, genuine support, regardless of how small a minority they may be, than be worried my new allies are still harboring bigotry and might turn against me again. -"Edward" [via Ampersand]
Thursday, October 4 [2007]: Displaying his ongoing commitment to reasoned discourse, Limbaugh puts up a picture on his website of Josef Stalin sporting Media Matters' logo on his chest. Because posting audio and transcripts of Rush Limbaugh so people can see what he says is pretty much like heading up one of history's most brutally repressive regimes and murdering 20 million or so people. Just about, anyway. -Paul Waldman [article link]
The Bush administration and the Republican Party are often criticized for refusing to aggressively use the "soft power" of international diplomacy. But alas, the attacks are misguided... The GOP may be diplomatically immoral, but it is not diplomatically inept. Whether ensuring permanent war in Iraq or economic oppression in Central America, Republicans do, in fact, know how to get what they want. It is what they want that is the problem. -David Sirota [article link]
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I'm the third Antichrist Nostradamus predicted. I know one thing for sure: My mom would be pissed, 'cause she always wanted me to be a dentist! -John Smiley
Honestly, nothing should surprise us anymore. But if we can't be shocked, we can at least have the decency to be outraged. -Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women [article link]
I recall a relative of mine arguing in favor of extensive war in the Middle East, saying that if we didn't bomb the Arabs into submission, they would come over here and "fuck us in the ass." That's a direct quote, by the way. I remember that line well because I had no real come back to it. I mean, what do you say to that: "To the contrary, they won't fuck us in the ass"? Not exactly Oxford debate material. -Dennis Perrin [article link]
While I don't really have a clear answer when I get asked, "WWJD?" I have to think that "Start a multi-million-dollar marketing campaign with bracelets and bumper stickers" probably isn't the answer. -David O'Shea
One of the most frequent talking points you hear in opposition to hate crimes legislation is that giving specific consideration to crimes committed against people on the basis of some specific part of their identity amounts to "special rights" and some kind of preferential treatment... The prosecution of hate crimes requires special consideration because when someone is targeted for her/his race, nationality, sex, gender, sexual orientation, religion, it has the potential to affect everyone who shares that identity across the entire nation.
A whole community isn't suddenly considered unsafe because a husband murders his wife, because we recognize the difference between domestic violence and community violence. That murder wasn't random; it was specific. The victim was chosen for a reason. It doesn't make the crime any less horrific, but it doesn't reverberate. It stops with that murderer and that victim.
Hate crimes are the opposite of that; we recognize that when someone is targeted just because s/he is black, for example, that can make all black Americans feel that much less safe, irrespective of the safety of their physical community, because their race community has been attacked. In a hate crime, it doesn't matter which black person/gay person/woman/Jew/quadriplegic had been there; it's so nonspecific that it inevitably reverberates. Suddenly blacks/gays/women/Jews/quadriplegics are staying indoors a little more, feeling a little less able to go out after dark alone...lives of people not directly touched by the crime are affected--and that's why hate crimes legislation is needed, so that freedom can be equally experienced by everyone. -Melissa McEwan [article link]
[Ayn] Rand has played this role of greed-enabler for countless disciples. According to the New York Times, Atlas Shrugged, her novel that ends with the hero tracing a dollar sign in the air like a benediction, stands as "one of the most influential business books ever written." Since Rand is simply pulped-up Adam Smith, her influence on men like Greenspan suggests an interesting possibility. Perhaps the true purpose of the entire literature of trickle-down theory is to liberate entrepreneurs to pursue their narrowest advantage while claiming global altruistic motives -- not so much an economic philosophy as an elaborate, retroactive rationale.
What Greenspan teaches us is that trickle-down isn't really an ideology after all. It's more like the friend we call after some embarrassing excess so that they will tell us, "Don't beat yourself up: You deserve it." -Naomi Klein [article link]
[from this Campus Progress interview] Jesse Singal: It seems like it’s hard for a country to function well and have intelligent debates if it doesn’t have a clear sense of what constitutes expertise. But as we’ve seen time and time again with Iraq, the people who are most wrong are handed the microphone again and again. How do you account for this phenomenon where people like Bill Kristol are repeatedly held up as experts and people who are most right about the war, like Robert Scheer of the LA Times, are ignored and have in some cases have even lost their jobs? Glenn Greenwald: There are people like Scott Ritter who were as right as anybody, but who are marginalized and impossible to find in any mainstream publications. We have a foreign policy establishment that holds itself out as being this passionate, apolitical pool of geopolitical experts, and in fact they’re the opposite. They are a highly politicized and ideological group, and they’ve uniformly embraced the idea that the application of U.S. military force is inherently justifiable, is inherently a good thing.
Anybody who disputes that is deemed to be an unserious person, someone not worthy of listening to. And the fact that the people who question those premises and challenge that hawkish ideology prove to be right, and those who embrace that ideology prove to be so devastatingly wrong, over and over, hasn’t changed that in the slightest. That ideology still prevails and the same orthodoxies are still enforced, and the only way to be heard within that mainstream community is to embrace this very militarized worldview — and the way to ensure you will be castigated and excluded it is to challenge it.
I often wonder if the voices in my head ever get frustrated because I'm just too damn lazy to climb that clock tower. -Brad Osberg
Today at work, I was walking down the hall with a tape gun in my hand, and I gave in to the overwhelming desire to tape everything and everyone I saw. I guess it's a good thing it wasn't a real gun. -Deadeye Dave
I hid my cat in the mailbox as a joke for the postman. The summer heat must have gotten to her, though, as she was dead when he opened the door. Guess the joke was on me! -Nick Danger
Here I must reveal a trade secret and risk puncturing the mystique of intelligence analysis. Generally speaking, 80 percent of the information one needs to form judgments on key intelligence targets or issues is available in open media. It helps to have been trained - as my contemporaries and I had the good fortune to be trained - by past masters of the discipline of media analysis, which began in a structured way in targeting Japanese and German media in the 1940s. But, truth be told, anyone with a high school education can do it. It is not rocket science. -Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst [article link]
As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers-that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: follow the money.
When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one, etc., etc. – none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth, costs not born by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing. -Robert Higgs [article link]
At the end of the day, Washington's strategic class is frozen, unable to concede defeat because to admit that the U.S. project in Iraq has failed is to admit that in the 21st century, the most powerful country in the history of humanity can be humbled by a small dysfunctional state whose armed forces it destroyed more than a decade earlier, a country that it spent 12 years slowly and leisurely strangling under some of the harshest sanctions in history before shocking and awing it a second time, dismantling its government and hanging its erstwhile dictator in the process.
To admit that is to beg the question of whether maintaining all that costly hard power is really worth it in the first place. Leaving Iraq means begging the question of whether America is comfortable with its neocolonial policies, and that's a debate that Bush -- like every imperial-minded U.S. president since Thomas Jefferson -- wants desperately to avoid. -Joshua Holland [article link]
Once this truth is acknowledged, it is easy to understand why the philosophy of animal rights is uncompromising in its response to each and every injustice other animals are made to suffer.
It is not larger, cleaner cages that justice demands in the case of animals used in science, for example, but empty cages: not "traditional" animal agriculture, but a complete end to all commerce in the flesh of dead animals; not "more humane" hunting and trapping, but the total eradication of these barbarous practices.
For when an injustice is absolute, one must oppose it absolutely. It was not "reformed" slavery that justice demanded, not "reformed" child labor, not "reformed" subjugation of women. In each of these cases, abolition was the only moral answer. Merely to reform injustice is to prolong injustice.
The philosophy of animal rights demands this same answer - abolition - in response to the unjust exploitation of other animals. It is not the details of unjust exploitation that must be changed. It is the unjust exploitation itself that must be ended, whether on the farm, in the lab, or among the wild, for example. The philosophy of animal rights asks for nothing more, but neither will it be satisfied with anything less. -Dr. Tom Regan [article link]
There's a powerful political faction in this country that's determined to draw exactly the wrong lesson from the Katrina debacle - namely, that the government always fails when it attempts to help people in need, so it shouldn't even try. "I don't want the people who ran the Katrina cleanup to manage our health care system," says Mitt Romney, as if the Bush administration's practice of appointing incompetent cronies to key positions and refusing to hold them accountable no matter how badly they perform - did I mention that Mr. Chertoff still has his job? - were the way government always works.
And I'm not sure that faction is losing the argument. The thing about conservative governance is that it can succeed by failing: when conservative politicians mess up, they foster a cynicism about government that may actually help their cause.
Future historians will, without doubt, see Katrina as a turning point. The question is whether it will be seen as the moment when America remembered the importance of good government, or the moment when neglect and obliviousness to the needs of others became the new American way. -Paul Krugman
I'll bet cops get really annoyed when they get stuck in traffic behind some guy who's driving way too slow because there's a cop behind him. -Wade Huggins
It's strange how you can never drink the last swallow of soda in the can, but your toddler can always spill it on the carpet. -Scott Charles, Sr.
The cruel deception of diaper makers is that names like Pampers, Huggies and Luvs in no way prepare you for the horror you find inside. -Brad Simanek
Every week it's the same damned argument. I say our toddler is old enough to use a cup, but my wife says he'll stop drinking out of the toilet when he's ready. -Kevin Wickart
The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference. -Richard Dawkins
marketing n. 1. In business, the highest calling of the huckster. 2.
In government, deceit, hypocrisy and misrepresentation as an art form.
3. The art of selling the inexplicable to the uninterested for an
ungodly amount.
marketing ploy n. Scam. -T.G. Browning
That’s the brilliance of conservatives’ Catch-22 formula, after all: They create problems that they then use as rationales for the very ideologies that created the problems in the first place. How many times have we heard conservatives cite an underfinanced government program’s failure to fulfill its mandate as a rationale to further cut the budget of the program, thus making it even more impossible for that program to succeed? -David Sirota [article link]
Why is God considered an explanation for anything? It's not - it's a failure to explain, a shrug of the shoulders, an 'I dunno' dressed up in spirituality and ritual. If someone credits something to God, generally what they mean is that they haven't a clue, so they're attributing it to an unreachable, unknowable sky fairy. Ask for an explanation of where that bloke came from, and odds are you'll get a vague, pseudo-philosophical reply about having always existed, or being outside nature. Which, of course, explains nothing. -"Ben" [article link]
My cousin from West Virginia and his wife are coal miners. Guess what: It turns out there's a Mile *Low* Club, too. -The Covert Comic
If you're ever staring down the barrel of a gun, I think it would be funny to blow on the end of it, tap it a few times, and say, "Hello? Is this thing on?" Sure, it could cost you your life -- but, hey, who knows when you'll get another chance to use that gag? -Scott E. Frank
At this point, you'd have to be blind to miss the pattern. Every prominent progressive leader who comes along is openly derided in the media as fake, dishonest, conniving, out-of-the-mainstream, and weak. We simply can't continue to chalk this up to shortcomings on the part of Democratic candidates or their staff and consultants. It's all too clear that this will happen regardless of who the candidate or leader is; regardless of who works for him or her... Meanwhile, any conservative who comes along is going to be praised for being strong and authentic and likable. Ask yourself: What prominent Republican is routinely portrayed in the media as a phony the way Al Gore and Hillary Rodham Clinton are? [The media's treatment of John Edwards re: "Haircutgate" lends further credence to this statement, as this quote's author has noted elsewhere. -ed] -Jamison Foser [article link]
The rule of law makes us stronger by ensuring that decisions will be tested, studied, reviewed, and examined through the processes of government that are designed to improve policy. And the knowledge that they will be reviewed prevents overreaching and checks the accretion of power.
By the same token, whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable, it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded. -Al Gore, The Assault on Reason
We now begin to see that what we call Christianity - and what we identify as Christian tradition - actually represents only a small selection of specific sources, chosen from among dozens of others. Who made that selection, and for what reasons? Why were these other writings excluded and banned as "heresy" What made them so dangerous? -Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. -Ambrose Bierce
The Pope traditionally prays for peace every Easter and the fact that it has never had any effect whatsoever in preventing or ending a war never deters him. What goes through the Pope's mind about being rejected all the time? Does God have it in for him? -Andy Rooney
Any creative encounter with evil requires that we not distance ourself from it by simply demonizing those who commit evil acts. In order to write about evil, a writer has to try to comprehend it, from the inside out; to understand the perpetrators and not necessarily sympathize with them. But Americans seem to have a very difficult time recognizing that there is a distinction between understanding and sympathizing. Somehow we believe that an attempt to inform ourselves about what leads to evil is an attempt to explain it away. I believe that just the opposite is true, and that when it comes to coping with evil, ignorance is our worst enemy. -Kathleen Norris
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking. -H. L. Mencken
Nearly all peoples have developed their own creation myth, and the Genesis story is just the one that happened to have been adopted by one particular tribe of Middle Eastern herders. It has no more special status than the belief of a particular West African tribe that the world was created from the excrement of ants.” -Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. -Thomas Jefferson
This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves. -Robert Ingersoll
It's pretty funny seeing Bush's former worshippers suddenly pretending as if they never really liked him, and if Bush was never really a conservative... Now that the conservative trifecta in government has led our country to ruin, and destroyed Bush's presidency, the culprit isn't Bush's solid record of conservative governance. No, the boogeyman, as always, is those damn liberals.
As Digby once perceptively noted: "Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (And a conservative can only fail because he is too liberal.)"
Of course, conservatives also believe that kangaroos got to Australia by building rafts after the Great Flood (though to be fair, there is still some debate over this matter).
So the best we can do is to remind people that an ideology that says "government can't work" cannot possibly run a government that works, no more so than "2+2" can equal "5". To remain consistent, conservatives must run a shitty government. Horse lawyers need to be appointed to head important disaster management agencies. Graduates of wingnutty law "schools" need to be placed high up at the Justice Department. All governing must be subjugated to that most important principle -- keeping Democrats from retaking our government, lest they actually run it effectively.
And when a conservative does his job and trashes government, praise him to the high heavens. That is, until the American people start turning on him. Then cut him loose, call him a "liberal", and turn to your next "daddy figure" (as Atrios put it) to foist onto the American people.
Will that be Fred Thompson? Giuliani? Gingrich?
We all know by now that not a single one of those Republicans on stage last night will call themselves a "Bush Republican". The big question is whether they'll let Bush speak in Minnesota at the Republican National Convention in 2008.
Talk about a delicious dilemma for their side! -Markos Moulitsas Zúniga [article link]
Do you believe that compromise, triangulation will bring about big change? I don't. I think the people who are powerful in Washington -- big insurance companies, big drug companies, big oil companies -- they are not going to negotiate. They are not going to give away their power. The only way that they are going to give away their power is if we take it away from them...We can't trade our insiders for their insiders. That doesn't work. What we need is somebody who will take these people on, these big banks, these mortgage companies, big insurance companies, big drug companies. That's the only way we're going to bring about change. -John Edwards
Say what you want, but depression does have its benefits. For instance, I used to have a fear of flying, but now when I get on a plane, I really don't give a crap if it reaches its destination. -Ian Dauphinee
The future is going to suck when everybody gets a lawyer robot. Unless, of course, the court system is discarded in favor of lawyer robot gladiator duels to the death. -John Gephart IV
I try to live each day like it's my last. It's a pretty good way to live, except for the bad check fees. -Anthony Myers
Growing up, my mom always claimed to feel bad when a bird would slam head-first into our living room window. If she *really* felt bad, though, she'd have moved the bird feeder outside. -Rich Johnson
It took some doing, but I'm finally in the Guinness Book of Records as the first blind guy to go over Niagra Falls in a barrel. The hardest part was putting my eyes out. -Jerry L. Embry
Jurgis had come there, and thought he was going to make himself useful, and rise and become a skilled man; but he would soon find out his error - for nobody rose in Packingtown by doing good work. You could lay that down for a rule - if you met a man who was rising in Packingtown, you met a knave. That man who had been sent to Jurgis's father by the boss, he would rise; the man who told tales and spied upon his fellows would rise; but the man who minded his own business and did his work - why, they would 'speed him up' till they had worn him out, and then they would throw him into the gutter. -The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
[from an interview with Sam Harris on Campus Progress] Ben Adler: We’ve run a lot of articles on CampusProgress.org about how you can be a good Christian and accept homosexuality, or reproductive freedom, or evolution. What do you think? Sam Harris: It’s a bit of a paradox. On one level I want to support these people and I argue that we do need more interfaith dialogue, more religious moderation. So religious moderation is the goal on one level, and it’s certainly better than religious fundamentalism.
But religious moderates are just reliably deluding themselves about as to where their moderation is coming from. Their moderation is not coming from looking more closely at their holy books. It’s not coming from God. It’s not coming from a plausible reading of their texts. It’s coming from the hammer blows their religious tradition is suffering from modernity. It’s coming from a collision with science and secular politics and a larger world of discourse, which is eroding the basis for their religious certainty. The reason we’re not burning religious heretics on street corners under the name of Christendom, Christianity now, like we were in Europe for five centuries, is because Christianity has been mastered and subjugated by post-enlightenment discourse to a significant degree.
[article link]
I think that racists and those who discriminate just don't get the big picture, because at the sub-atomic level, we're all pretty much the same. -Hugh Green
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. -Oscar Wilde
I think it's important for us to stand our ground and take our licks rather than what's sometimes our habit, which is to cave and then whine about it afterwards. -U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) [granted, I don't think his actions thus far in the Senate and on the campaign trail have really matched this, but it's still a statement I agree with -ed.]
White-boy angst: You're full of the anger one can only feel when one is a perfectly comfortable, unoppressed member of a class of people who have never been in anything but a position of power. It's quite the bummer, but it does make you eager to beat the stuffing out of anyone who crosses your path. -in-game description for an effect in Kingdom of Loathing [source]
[in reference to the Libby pardon] Anyway, all of this proves yet again how profoundly anti-American members of this administration (and their supporters) truly are. And it seems like an appropriate time to retract the argument I made some months ago against impeachment...
Actually, I haven't flip-flopped on the basic argument: I still think impeachment is all but impossible and I still believe that there would be little taste for cleaning up the rest of the rat's nest after the fact. None of that matters, however, because this administration needs to be held accountable somehow. There are no other ways to do that -- the Constitution was pretty specific -- and they've left us no choice but to try.
At this point, I think they need to be impeached, whether or not they are actually removed from office, for two reasons. The first is to keep them tied up so they have something to keep them busy aside from shredding the Constitution, bombing them some Arabs and lining their cronies' pockets with lucre. Keep 'em busy. Maybe keep 'em from bombing Iran. The second reason is simple: future generations, yet unborn, demand it. Some of the worst thugs in this administration are vets of the Nixon administration -- well-schooled in the ugly brand of politics that drove him -- and I am increasingly of the belief that had Ford not pardoned Nixon -- had Nixon truly been held accountable -- we might not have seen such unchecked extremism as we've experienced in recent years. This bunch of Repubs -- and, let's be clear: entirely too many like them on the other side of the aisle -- are the epitome of elitists. They believe, simply, that they should stand above the law. When you take some of their fellows and you frog-march them down to the penitentiary for a while, it can have a salutary effect on your future governance.
(A third and much less important reason is that I'd like to travel abroad without wearing the Maple Leaf all over my body -- without going in Canadian drag.) -Joshua Holland [article link]
[in reference to claims by two Anglican bishops that destructive flooding in the UK was caused God's anger over damage to the environment and "moral degradation" (read: increasing tolerance for gays)] Now just hold on a minute here. God left thousands of innocent Britons homeless-- to say nothing of other recent flood victims from Texas to Pakistan -- to make a point about something those people had nothing to do with? A point no one, except a handful of clergymen, seemed to get? If God is powerful enough to cause floods, why isn't he powerful enough to target his smitings to, say, the annual meeting of Exxon shareholders or Friends of the Incandescent Light Bulb? Surely God is aware that environmental catastrophes hit the most vulnerable hardest. The CEOs and superconsumers in their 4000-square-foot mansions have insurance, to say nothing of Hummers in which to make a quick escape to their condo in the city.
As for the gay thing, if a human being somehow managed to flood whole neighborhoods, destroying the lives of multitudes, and when asked why replied that he was furious, just furious, at growing tolerance for homosexuality, we would think he was insane. And he would be.
So maybe God exists, but is clinically mad. That would explain just about everything. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
The whole gay marriage thing is pretty stupid. Why would anyone ever want to get married to someone who isn't even pregnant? -Anthony Myers
Whatever happened to "don't do the crime if you can't do the time," which allows tough-love conservatives to cheerfully sentence petty criminals to incarceration? Suddenly, no prison time for perjury and obstruction of justice is termed by this president to be a "harsh" penalty, because I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby will suffer enough with his reputation "forever damaged." Poor baby... Once again, we have an example of politicians championing the slogans of law and order -- until the criminal is one of their own, at which point they suddenly become bleeding-heart liberals eager to ease the pain of the misjudged underdog. Blame the victim for Libby's troubles; it was that outed CIA agent, Valerie Plame, who made him do it. Who told her to be married to a guy who dared to publicly criticize Libby's boss? -Robert Scheer [article link]
The trouble is that once you see it, you can't unsee it. And once you've seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There's no innocence. Either way, you're accountable. -Arundhati Roy
[in reference to the occupation of Iraq] The only way we'll lose is if we leave, so if we never leave then we'll never lose. -Stephen Colbert
For now, immigration reform has died an inglorious death in the US Senate, beaten to death by John Cronyn, Republican from Texas, and others of his party who seem to think that behind every effort to facilitate the entry of foreigners seeking employment in this country, and to legalize the status of nearly 12 million hardworking immigrants already here, lurks an open invitation to criminals, terrorists and other undesirables from whom the country needs protection. Given this decidedly unflattering view of the character and motivation of America's immigrant population, it comes as no surprise that Senator Cronyn and others in his party of family values also see no reason to provide additional visas for foreigners who seek to be reunited with close family members already in the country as US citizens or lawful permanent residents, another stumbling block to passage of compromise legislation. -Ellen Chesler [article link]
[in reference to Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire, the recent Supreme Court case limiting the ability of people to sue for pay discrimination] So, one moral of this Court's ridiculous story is that we'd all better start fine-tuning our mind-reading skills. That way, we'll know the moment when our bosses decide to pay us less than the guy in the next cubicle, and off to the EEOC we'll merrily go. -Kim Gandy, Presiendnt of the National Organization for Women [article link]
Groups like the Cato Institute and Americans for Tax Reform, which are funded by some of America's wealthiest corporations, have for years pushed to eliminate all corporate taxes. They claim 'the federal government takes 35 percent' of corporate income for taxes, that such a rate is the fourth highest in the industrialized world, and therefore oppresses U.S. companies and hurts the economy. Yes, it is true, the official corporate tax rate in America is 35 percent. It is also true, however, that because of lax enforcement, loopholes and evasion, most corporations never come close to paying that rate. As the Government Accountability Office reported in 2004, 94 percent of corporations pay less than 5 percent of their income in taxes, and corporate tax payments are at their second lowest level in 60 years – lower than in every other industrialized country other than Iceland. -David Sirota, Hostile Takeover [article link]
Exercise is like a religion for me. I go to the gym twice a year, and even then, I grumble about it. -Ian Dauphinee
Talk about wasted technology. Until they also perfect pee-at-the-pump, you still have to go inside the store. -Kevin Green
Okay, so there's no "I" in "team" -- but there *is* one at the very beginning of "incompetent management." -Bad Macaw
You know it's been a rough day for your girlfriend when she takes the ice cream out of the freezer, then removes the lid and throws it directly in the garbage. She's given up all pretense that she might leave some ice cream to put back afterwards. -Andy Blau
So much for that gambling hotline promising "no lectures, just help" -- how much help can they really be if they aren't going to float me an emergency loan with my bookie about to post? -Brad Simanek
They tell me that I am a danger to the security of the region. Yet for years, I have worked with Israelis. I have Israeli friends. I always emphasize the fact that on this land it is possible to live in peace. How am I dangerous exactly? -Ahmad Abu Haniya, a nonviolent Palestinian activist who was until recently was held by Israel as an "administrative detainee," the Israeli version of an enemy combatant [for more info on administrative detention in Israel, click here]
Nietzsche said: "A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith doesn't prove anything." And therein lies the question: Should we believe a guy who took casual strolls through lunatic asylums? -The Covert Comic
[in reference to Gonzales v. Carhart, the Supreme Court decision upholding the federal "partial birth" abortion ban] ...[A]nother thing this decision demonstrates is how deeply antichoice disinformation has penetrated the worlds of power and influence. Kennedy's regretful woman comes straight from the antichoice playbook, in which women who choose abortion are invariably bewildered, heedless, misled, manipulated and in need of guidance from wiser heads. When Kennedy refers to the gynecologists and obstetricians who perform abortions as "abortion doctors," he's repeating antichoice language intended to impugn the professionalism of these physicians and make it easier to disregard their judgment about how best to care for their patients. Abortion doctors! What do they know? The ban itself--calling the procedure "partial birth abortion," as if the fetus were days from being born (it's actually performed in the second trimester); singling out a method and using the emotions it arouses to violate the trimester distinctions of Roe and the pre-viability and post-viability distinction of Casey is part of the antichoice strategy to shut down legal abortion one restriction, one legal precedent at a time. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
The biggest problem of cryogenics isn't whether future advances in technology will enable you to be unfrozen and brought back to life 10,000 years from now; it's whether 250 consecutive generations of security guards earning $6.50 an hour will remember to check the thermostat every night. -The Covert Comic
A sure-fire way to win "best costume" at the next Halloween party is to have somebody embed a real chainsaw blade into your shoulder. Timing is crucial, though -- you don't want to pass out from loss of blood after 10 minutes, long before the costume judging begins, like I did. -Vince Grewe
What is peculiar about the Palestine conflict is that the world has listened to the party that has committed the offense and has turned a deaf ear to the victims. -Arnold Toynbee
In this world of non-stop reality TV, I often find myself yearning for some good old-fashioned scripted larceny, comedy and intrigue. Thank God for C-SPAN. -Brad Osberg
I guess I should be grateful that the therapist from the stress hotline talked me out of bringing a gun to work today, but I gotta say it's a bitch trying to make arrests with a banana in my hand. -Col. Klink
If it walks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck and knocks you out with a single karate kick to the head, it probably is a duck -- an awesomely BADASS ninja duck! -Brad Hamer
I find that a very slow recitation of the Lord's Prayer works wonders when I'm about to lose my temper. As it turns out, that takes exactly the same amount of time as it takes for the tequila and pills to kick in. -Michael Cunningham
When I first met Vinnie, I thought he was a living ad for birth control. -someone in the movie Casual Sex?
I think it would be really cute to remake the movie "Gladiator," only this time with babies. And the end -- when L'il Emperor Commodus stabs L'il Maximus, who dies and joins his murdered family -- would be the cutest part, 'cause they're *babies*! -Bob Van Voris
I wonder if the guy who invented the expression "smoother than a baby's bottom" had kids, because if he didn't, you gotta be concerned about how he tested his hypothesis. -David Kass
When George Washington and Abraham Lincoln posed for their portraits that ended up on U.S. currency, do you think the engraver urged them to "make this one count because it's the money shot?" -Kim Moser
There's something odd about a political movement that demands accountability in public schools under the auspices of "educating" America's youth, but at the same time, insults anyone they think has "too much" education. -The Misanthropic Bitch
[in reference to the shootings at Virginia Tech] The part of this I really do find the most truly, unfathomably disgusting are the people who are already, much as they did following the 9/11 attacks, declaring a kneejerk declaration that this all wouldn't have been a problem if everyone on the VT campus was allowed to carry a gun. I truly fail to understand how people with the motor skills required to speak and type can actually believe something like that. If you want to debate gun control, by all means. But to suggest that there would be no potential complications to a situation where a madman with a gun was running around, and everyone else also had guns and knew nothing about the situation except they should kill whoever they see with a gun, is a failure of understanding of the human condition at its highest level. It's not an assault on the Second Amendment to suggest our militia, whatever your definition you think that means, isn't being that well-regulated these days.
As Duncan noted already, there is nothing we can do to stop people who want to kill people from killing people if they really, really want to kill people. What we have to do is find out why people want to kill people and try to help them not want to. If that's naive and simplistic, I'd rather be naive and simplistic with hope for the future than naive and simplistic with a paranoia-induced terror requiring the purchase of as many devices to kill people as possible. -August J. Pollak [article link]
There is a nasty conspiracy theory going around that your country is run by Jews — a cabal of Jews who set the domestic agenda and run the media. Would you like to put that to rest now? -John Oliver from The Daily Show, to Dan Gillerman, Israeli ambassador to the U.S. [video link]
Admitting you have a problem is the first step toward getting medicated for it. -Jim Evarts
Four years into a war fought to eliminate a nonexistent threat, we all have renewed appreciation for the power of the Big Lie: people tend to believe false official claims about big issues, because they can't picture their leaders being dishonest about such things. But there's another political lesson I don't think has sunk in: the power of the Little Lie - the small accusation invented out of thin air, followed by another, and another, and another. Little Lies aren't meant to have staying power. Instead, they create a sort of background hum, a sense that the person facing all these accusations must have done something wrong. -Paul Krugman
CNN would give a show to a Klansman if it they could sell enough advertising. All of the hypocrisy swirling around the Don Imus “controversy” is driving me nuts. The media as a whole (especially CNN & Fox) have no place to criticize Imus for the offensive things he said. That’s why they hire loudmouths like Imus in the first place. We’ve seen this same cycle repeat itself ad infinitum and if it’s not Imus, it’s Glenn Beck, or Nancy Grace, or Howard Stern, or those pinheads at Fox News. When all of the forced apologizes have been doled out and the boycotts lose steam, everyone knows this is a net positive for the entertainment news industry because people are going to tune in just to see what the racist asshole in the cowboy hat says next. -Greg Saunders [ article link]
Man, the white man thinks he's losing the country. You watch the news: "We're losing everything. We're fucking losing. Affirmative action, and illegal aliens... and we're fucking losing the country." Losing? Shut the fuck up. White people ain't losing shit. If y'all losing, who's winning? It ain't us. It ain't us. Have you driven around this motherfucker? It ain't us. Shit, there ain't a white man in this room that would change places with me. None of you would change places with me. And I'm rich! That's how good it is to be white. -Chris Rock
One of the monumental ironies of religious discourse can be appreciated in the frequency with which people of faith praise themselves for their humility, while condemning scientists and other non-believers for their intellectual arrogance. There is, in fact, no worldview more reprehensible in its arrogance than that of a religious believer: the creator of the universe takes an interest in me, approves of me, loves me, and will reward me after death; my current beliefs, drawn from scripture, will remain the best statement of truth until the end of the world; everyone who disagrees with me will spend eternity in hell... An average Christian, in an average church, listening to an average Sunday sermon has achieved a level of arrogance simply unimaginable in scientific discourse - and there have been some extraordinarily arrogant scientists. -Sam Harris, Letter to a Chrsitian Nation
...[W]e should remember why American health financing is in its current mess. It's not because Americans are medical moochers -- we visit the doctor and hospital less often than do people in other rich nations, despite having poorer overall health on many measures. It's not because we burden employers with regulations -- the United States is the only rich country where there isn't a basic requirement of coverage. And it's not because our insurance is overly generous -- ask the millions of uninsured and underinsured whether they feel coddled. The problem is that health security in the United States is hostage to the choices of insurers and employers, rather than to the choices of the American people. If and when that finally changes, affordable, quality health care for all Americans will no longer be a pipe dream. It will be the American dream. -Jacob Hacker [article link]
I agree with the libertarians that freedom from government intrusion is a good thing - reproductive freedom, for example, and freedom from goverment censoring boards. But other freedoms matter as well - freedom from the threat of hunger and poverty, for example. Freedom from having a political process dominated entirely by the wealthy and by corporations. Freedom from discrimination. None of these freedoms, however, seem worth protecting to libertarians. -Barry Deutsch [article link]
The danger of creationism is that, like the pseudo-science of Nazi eugenics, it allows facts to be accepted or discarded according to the dictates of a preordained ideology. Creationism removes the follower from the rational, reality-based world. Signs, miracles and wonders occur not only in the daily life of Christians but in history, science, medicine and logic. The belief system becomes the basis to understand the world. Random facts and data are collected and made to fit into this belief system or discarded. When facts are treated as if they were opinions, when there is no universal standard to determine truth, in law, in science, in scholarship, or in the reporting of the events of the day, the world becomes a place where people can believe what they want to believe, where there is no possibility of reaching any conclusion not predetermined by those who interpret the official, divinely inspired text. This is the goal of creationists. -Chris Hedges [article link]
I still think one of mankind's greatest inventions is that little brown strip that appears in the bottom of my underwear to tell me when it's time to wash them. -Michael F.
Originally the term "cowboy" was probably an insult. And most likely a few early cowboys protested, saying, "I'm not a 'cowboy,' I'm a mounted livestock management professional." Those guys were probably shot. -The Covert Comic
Arrogance has been the most consistent hallmark of George W. Bush's presidency. His administration's philosophy has been consistent: We can do any damn thing we want. We can invade Iraq. We can blow off the Geneva Conventions. We can listen to your private phone calls, Mr. and Ms. America. We can arrest anybody we want, hold them as long as we want, and we don't even have to tell them why, much less file formal charges or hold a trial. We can even defy the laws of science, or at least ignore the ones that annoy us, like that whole greenhouse effect thing. We can pose with the troops for photo-ops when they come back from war grievously wounded, and then basically forget about them. And we don't have to explain ourselves, either. The nerve of anyone to even ask us. -Gene Robinson
[at the end of a long report on Israeli actions in a West Bank town] I apologize if these reports of detention, raids, human shields, and the obstruction of medical treatment seem repetitive. I tell them
not only because I believe they each deserve to be heard, but more
crucially because with enough reports the seemingly arbitrary
harassment can no longer be dismissed as isolated incidents or
simply unfortunate side effects of conflict, but must be recognized
as unspoken policies of the Israeli Army. If the intention is
security for Israeli citizens, these policies are not only
ineffective but counter-productive in my opinion. If the intention
is to scare the people of Nablus, then this is terrorism and should
be recognized and condemned as such. -Anna Baltzer
Can anyone help me figure this out? Every month or so, my wife becomes very irritable and for a few days wants nothing to do with me. Call me naive or superstitious, but I think she maybe turning into a werewolf. -Wiley
I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it. -George Carlin
What we have to remember about America's half-baked propaganda machine is that, dumb as it is, it always keeps its eye on the ball. The war in Iraq is lost, everyone knows that, but there are future wars to think about. When a war goes wrong, the reason can never that the invasion was simply a bad, immoral decision, a hopelessly fucked-up idea that even a child could have seen through. No, we always have to make sure that the excuse for the next war is woven into the autopsy of the current military failure. That's why to this day we're still hearing about how Vietnam was lost because a) the media abandoned the war effort b) the peace movement undermined the national will and c) the public, and the Pentagon, misread the results of the Tet offensive, seeing defeat where there actually was a victory.
After a few decades of that, we were ready to go to war again -- all we had to do, we figured, was keep the cameras away from the bloody bits, ignore the peace movement, and blow off any and all bad news from the battlefield. And we did all of these things for quite a long time in Iraq, but, maddeningly, Iraq still turned out to be a failure.
That left the war apologists in a bind. If after fixing all of the long-held Vietnam excuses Iraq could still blow up in our faces, that must mean that we not only misjudged Iraq, but we were wrong about why Vietnam failed, too. Now, if we're ever going to pull one of these stunts again, we're going to need to come up with a grander, even more outlandish excuse for why both wars were horrible, bloody failures. -Matt Taibbi [article link]
Rico's Raelian Revelation obs. The only difference between a religion and a cult is clout. -T.G. Browning
Youngerman's Concern maxim Faith and purity are inadequate substitutes for Kevlar and good cover. -T.G. Browning
Standing in the back of the church, clad in my beautiful designer gown, looking at the expressions of awe on the guests' faces, it occurred to me the bride might be really upset that we both showed up wearing the same dress. -Kimberly Ciesiolka
The message from Washington, D.C. to all of us out here in the heartland is very clear: Our government is the exclusive gated community of Big Money interests, their appointed pawns in Congress, and a select group of self-declared "experts" in the media and at think tanks (which are, of course, funded by many of those same Big Money interests). Inside this gated community, actually listening to or shaping policy on behalf of the vast majority of Americans is considered either laughably outdated or disgustingly unsavory. This is why we have a House lawmaker [Rep. Stephanie Herseth (D-SD)] running to reporters attacking efforts to end the war as "overreacting to public opinion." This is why we have a Vice President who goes on national television declaring that what the public wants "doesn't matter." This is why the largest newspaper in America continues to publish a columnist [David Brooks of the NYT] who says voters shouldn't decide elections. This is why, months after being elected to the majority on an antiwar mandate, we have a congressional Democratic Party that still refuses to do anything to end - or even slow down - the war. Because underneath all the platitudes and rhetoric, Washington, D.C. is a place that hates democracy. -David Sirota [article link]
I don't care how optimistic you may be, a diaper is never half empty. -Cornelius Robinson
[from The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins]
David Mills, in his admirable book Atheist Universe, tells a story which you would dismiss as an unrealistic caricature of police bigotry if it were fiction. A Christian faith-healer ran a 'Miracle Crusade' which came to Mills's home town once a year. Among other things, the faith-healer encouraged diabetics to throw away their insulin, and cancer patients to give up their chemotherapy and pray for a miracle instead. Reasonably enough, Mills decided to organize a peaceful demonstration to warn people. But he made the mistake of going to the police to tell them of his intention and ask for police protection against possible attacks from supporters of the faith-healer. The first police officer to whom he spoke asked, 'Is you gonna protest fir him or 'gin him?' (Meaning for or against the faith-healer). When Mills replied 'Against him,' the policeman said that he himself planned to attend the rally and intended to spit personally in Mills's face as he marched past Mills's demonstration.
Mills decided to try his luck with a second police officer. This one said that if any of the faith-healer's supporters violently confronted Mills, the officer would arrest Mills because he was 'trying to interfere with God's work.' Mills went home and tried telephoning the police station, in the hope of finding more sympathy at a senior level. He finally connected to a sergeant who said, 'To hell with you, Buddy. No policeman wants to protect a goddamned atheist. I hope somebody bloodies you up good.' Apparently adverbs were in short supply at this police station, along with the milk of human kindness and a sense of duty. Mills relates that he spoke to about seven or eight police officers that day. None of them was helpful, and most of them directly threatened Mills with violence.
[This is an actual unmodified letter to the editor which appeared in the Peoria Journal Star, in case you're unconvinced of the harm that religious dogma does to our society. Alas, I didn't happen to take the date down - all I remember is that it was from mid-2007. -ed.]
Global warming has never been proven. The North Pole is losing ice but the South Pole is freezing over. I believe that the Earth needs a balance. God is correcting the balance so the Earth doesn't wobble out of orbit. God said He would never flood the Earth again and He is in control. The liberals just want control.
Ken Juchems
Pekin
Christian values should dominate our government... Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office. -Beverly LaHaye, Concerned Women for America
megakill n. During slow news days or imploding public scandals, the amount of coverage CNN and Fox News will assign to a news story, often non-stop and very similar to being inside an infinite loop in a computer. -T.G. Browning
The time to ask ‘Cat got your tongue?’ isn’t when someone’s being silent; it’s when they’re screaming incoherently with a line of blood dribbling down their chin. -The Covert Comic
I wonder how people would feel if they saw animal ‘fashion models’ parading down a runway dressed in human skins... Because if people like that sort of thing, I’m in possession of a video that could make some serious money. -The Covert Comic
[Chris] Bowers wrote an impassioned piece on MyDD expressing his frustration with Obama's habit of setting up unnamed left-wingers as foils to his own sober moderation. (In front of a New York magazine reporter, Obama told supporters that he's "not one of those people who cynically believes Bush went in only for the oil.") "Why," Bowers asks, "is it necessary for Obama to preface his opposition to the war by saying he isn't like some crazy, left-wing stereotype that he never names or quotes?" -Christopher Hayes, quoted out of context [article link]
Because Tom Friedman keeps saying "just wait another few months" on Iraq, many have started referring short-hand to "Friedmans" as time periods of doing the same thing that people in Washington perpetually ask the public to accept as our country goes down the drain. A "Friedman" is the political version of the mantra from the movie the Money Pit where the builder keeps telling Tom Hanks to wait "just another two weeks" before everything is OK. Now, as President Bush this week asks Congress to reauthorize his "fast track" authority to negotiate trade deals with no labor/enviro/human rights standards, the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party is on the Hill begging Congress to accept the demand in order to let our current trade policy "work" for a few more Friedmans. -David Sirota [article link]
Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own? -Bertrand Russell
Can a single man force a nation to fight a war it does not want to fight, expand a war it does not want to expand - possibly to other countries? If he can, is that nation any longer a democracy in any meaningful sense? -The Nation editors [article link]
When I turned 40, I decided to clean up my act and gave up drinking and smoking. Man, it was tough -- there's no way I'd have gotten through that period without my heroin. -Kevin Freels
I think of all the personal, potentially embarrassing questions a teenage daughter might ask her father, the scariest has got to be, "Daddy, why are you watching that stupid Olsen twins movie on TV again?" -Chris MacEachen
I look to nature to find which diets actually work. I suggest the squirrel diet, because you almost never see a fat squirrel. It's easy: Just lose 99 percent of the food you hid around the house. -Carolyn Mansager
[in reference to College Republican chickenhawks] The thought of enlisting isn't even an issue of avoidance... it's not even something that crosses their mind. -August J. Pollak
It's encouraging to know the makers of Soylent Green would be forced by today's FDA guidelines to include the phrase "Ingredients: People" in the nutritional disclosure. However, I sense most shoppers would just see "Now with no trans fats!" splashed on the front and drop a few cans in their carts anyway. -Brad Simanek
So what will happen if Bush's new plan "succeeds" militarily over the next six months? Sunnis will become less secure as their militias are dismantled. Shiite militias will lower their profile on the streets and remain as they are now, ensconced within the Iraqi army and police. That will surely make Sunnis less likely to support the new Iraq. Shiite political leaders, on the other hand, will be emboldened. They refused to make any compromises - on federalism, de-Baathification, oil revenues and jobs - in 2003 when the United States was dominant, in 2005 when the insurgency was raging, and in 2006 when they took over the government fully. Why would they do so as they gain the upper hand militarily? -Fareed Zakaria
I think "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a wonderful philosophy, but I'll bet it just confuses masochists. -Kent Davidson
[Senate majority leader Harry Reid's] strategy [endorsing escalation of the occupation of Iraq] is as obvious as it is opportunistic: This is a Republican war, goes the thinking, and the Dems will give the Republicans all the rope they need to hang themselves in '08. This seems a deeply cynical position, when you consider that the Pentagon just announced that attacks on American and Iraqi targets are at their highest levels, with a 22 percent leap from just this summer. The difference between taking a position and positioning oneself is what determines leadership; if the Dems fail to provide real leadership on ending this war, they will deservedly lose the next election. -Robert Scheer [article link]
If experience has taught me anything, there are two words to remember when staging a live nativity scene: no dingoes. -Bob Van voris
How long a minute lasts depends on what side of the bathroom door
you're on.
The next time you feel like complaining, remember: Your garbage
disposal probably eats better than thirty percent of the people in
this world.
I worked at a factory owned by Germans, at coal pits owned by Frenchmen, and at a chemical plant owned by Belgians. There I discovered something about capitalists. They are all alike, whatever the nationality. All they wanted from me was the most work for the least money that kept me alive. So I became a communist. –Nikita Khrushchev
citizen n. Any person over the age of 18 and gullible enough to
believe that the main purpose of government is to govern, not tax. -T.G. Browning
habeas corpus legal term (from Medieval Latin, literally produce the
body) One of the legal foundations of law as practiced in Europe and
North America. Some modern legal experts, including former
Attorney-General John Ashcroft, whose legal scholarship is
unquestioned in timid circles, have taken the position that the word
habeas should be used in the sense of manufacture, rather then
deliver. The current Attorney-General, Alberto Gonsales is of the
opinion that the constitution of the United States only allows the
revocation of the right of habeas corpus, not the existence, thereby
establishing a catch 22 situation for posterity and official amusement. -T.G. Browning
sweet sixteen: TV show. A display of diseased decadence wherein a Paris Hilton wannabe is given full sway to exhibit her puerile petulance for roughly thirty minutes. This show is probably the best argument for class warfare in existence. -T.G. Browning
If we were to judge the United States by its penal policies, we would perceive a strange beast: a Christian society that believes in neither forgiveness nor redemption. -George Monbiot [article link
It's also the role of elections in properly run Western democracies to remind people that things won't really change at all. You can set your watch by the speed with which the new crowd lowers expectations and announces What Is Not to Be Done. Nowhere is there an item on the Democrats' "must do" list saying, "Reverse plunge toward fascism, Restore habeus corpus and the Bill of Rights." Pelosi says impeachment is off the table. "Bold new vision" these days means Pelosi pledging a drive to notch up the minimum wage. -Alexander Cockburn, in reference to the Democratic victory in the 2006 midterms [article link]
Catholics and Communists have committed great crimes, but at least they have not stood aside, like an established society, and been indifferent. I would rather have blood on my hands than water like Pilate. –Graham Greene
"Free market" and "free trade" are both marketing phrases. There is no such thing as a "free market" because every corporation in America profits thanks to subsidized public goods like education, roads, the electric power grid, and (albeit, too permissive) regulatory management of the stock market, which imposes stability and deters dishonest behavior. So-called "free trade" is a mirage -- nothing is free about a global trading regime that has iron-clad protection for capital investment and corporate intellectual property, and thrives on controlling and suppressing wages of workers, particularly in China. -Johnathan Tasini [article link]
Why not change horses in mid stream? It's not like you're going to get any wetter. -The Covert Comic
Just my luck -- judging by the itching and the rash, I think I'm allergic to prostitutes. -Wiley
A man doesn't realize what evil he's capable of rendering with his bare hands until he reaches day six of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" as sung by Muppets. -Brad Simanek
There's class warfare, all right, but it's my class, the rich class, that's making war, and we're winning. -Warren Buffett
When I'm in doubt, I always ask myself, "What would Jesus do?" I should have also reminded myself that this isn't Galilee and handing out free fish to everyone would cost me my job at Long John Silver's. -Brad Simanek
If the IRS wanted to put something really useful on their website, how about a list of countries that *don't* have an extradition treaty with the U.S.? -Brad Osberg
For over a year now, polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe President Bush deliberately misrepresented prewar intelligence. Executive branch officials who deliberately mislead Congress and the public intending to influence congressional action have committed a federal crime. That means that roughly 100 million Americans believe Bush has committed a crime, yet most, like Kitty Genovese's neighbors, are just passive bystanders -- although not, I believe, due to indifference.
Indeed, many of us are just watching it happen because we feel powerless to stop it. Hundreds of thousands of people have, in effect, called 911, but not even Democrats in Congress have been willing to answer the phone. It is not that they don't have enough information; it is, our Democratic representatives say, because it is not good political strategy.
The proposition that it is not good political strategy to insist that government officials obey the law is highly debatable. More important, strategizing in the face of an ongoing crime is wrong. Ask any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes and the response would be, "Of course not." But that is exactly what's happening right now. -Elizabeth de la Vega [article link]
Race may be a fiction... but so what? Somehow, realtors know which houses not to show "black" people, car salesmen know to charge "blacks" more and cops can spot a "black youth" blocks away... Even if they wanted to, most blacks can't walk away from their identity. Too many nonblacks want to keep them there. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
Atheism is not a philosophy; it is not even a view of the world; it is simply an admission of the obvious. In fact, "atheist" is a term that should not ever exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non astrologer" or a "non-alchemist". We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs. An atheist is simply a person who believes that the 260 million Americans (87 percent of the population) claiming to "never doubt the existence of God" should be obliged to present evidence for his existence-and, indeed, for his BENEVOLENCE, given the relentless destruction of innocent human beings we witness in the world each day. -Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation
Faith is a cop-out. It is intellectual bankruptcy. If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits. -Dan Barker
While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organisation. -L. Susan Brown
Never get in a shit fight with an idiot. Even if you win you're covered with shit, and the idiot thinks it's funny. -via Dan Kalnes
How does a country deal with the fact that some of its most revered historical figures had certain moral values and political views virtually identical to Nazis? Here's how "respectable" politicians, pundits, and professors play the game: When invoking a grand and glorious aspect of our past, then history is all-important. We are told how crucial it is for people to know history, and there is much hand wringing about the younger generations' lack of knowledge about, and respect for, that history. In the United States, we hear constantly about the deep wisdom of the founding fathers, the adventurous spirit of the early explorers, the gritty determination of those who "settled" the country -- and about how crucial it is for children to learn these things. But when one brings into historical discussions any facts and interpretations that contest the celebratory story and make people uncomfortable -- such as the genocide of indigenous people as the foundational act in the creation of the United States -- suddenly the value of history drops precipitously and one is asked, "Why do you insist on dwelling on the past?" -Robert Jensen [article link]
The argument that we are failing in competitiveness because of regulations is incomplete. We’re failing in competitiveness because of failed business models and the lack of smart investment in technology. General Motors is not failing because of regulations but because it hasn’t produced good products. -Eliot Spitzer, New York Attorney General and governor-elect
You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, ‘you are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough to open the gates of opportunity. -Lyndon Johnson
"The state can't give you freedom, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free... -Utah Phillips
Bill Hicks: You do a commercial, you're off the artistic rollcall forever, end of story. Ok? You're another corporate fucking shill, you're another whore at the capitalist gangbang, and if you do a commercial, there's a price on your head, everything you say is suspect and every word that comes out of your mouth is now like a turd falling into my drink... [Jay Leno] selling Doritos on fucking TV, what a fucking whore, and not even when he needed the money, either. I mean, if you're a young actor, ok, I'll look the other way. But, guy makes three million a year, he decides to hawk Doritos to make more money. You don't got enough money, you fucking whore? You gotta sell snacks to fucking bovine America now? [...] And yes, I have been offered commercials, so I'm not jealous. And I turned them all down because, I'm not a salesman. And I don't need money that is built on blood. Audience member: Who offered to you? Bill Hicks: Well, in England I did this, this is really classic England, I got offered, this is the product, ready? "Orange Drink." I'm going, what's the name of it? "Orange Drink!" [...] I said, "Yeah, you've really got my act down good, guys! That'll be great: 'You know, when I'm done ranting about elite power that rules the planet under a totalitarian government that uses the media in order to keep people stupid, my throat gets parched! And that's why I drink Orange Drink!'"
So, anyhoo, how 'bout that President of ours, huh? This week continues the observation from the comedy spectacle of the year that was Bush's Rumsfeld-go-bye-bye press conference that, quite inarguably, he lied his ass off for political purposes. To accentuate this, he actually said, directly to a reporter asking about it, that he lied his ass off for political purposes. And the media, much like our protagonist, feels it is still an unholy sacrelidge to consider the possibily that, perhaps, the President lied his ass off for political purposes. -August J. Pollak
Perhaps what the nation has liked most is not what Obama has said or done but what he is. In short, Obama is a black man who does not scare white people. This is mostly not Obama's fault. He is who he is. He has a life to live, a job to do and a book to promote. He cannot be held responsible for a white paranoia that - outside the music, sports and entertainment industries - demands: If you have to be black, then please don't be too black. -Gary Younge [article link]
I decided not to take my company up on that life insurance offer. My wife has incentive enough as it is. -Tidewater Joe
Better to be asked what drug you're on, than what drug you're off. -The Covert Comic
Religion is the one area of our discourse in which people are systematically protected from the demand to give good evidence and valid arguments in defense of their strongly held beliefs. And yet these beliefs regularly determine what they live for, what they will die for, and - all too often - what they will kill for. Consequently, we are living in a world in which millions of grown men and women can rationalize the violent sacrifice of their own children by recourse to fairy tales. -Sam Harris [article link]
There's no sense beating a dead horse -- but if you've reached the point where you even seriously consider that abusing a dead animal might improve your lot in life, I say go ahead and give it a shot. -Anthony Myers
The major parties could conduct live human sacrifices on their podiums during prime time, and I doubt that anybody would notice. -Dave Barry
Debt, n. An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the slavedriver. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Ocean: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Politics: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ so long as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
...if ANYONE should be touting the Environmental Line it's Conservatives. What part of Environmentalism ISN'T essentially conservative??? "Conservation". "Efficiency". "Zero-Waste". "Minimal imputs and outputs". It's fucking ECONOMY. -Charlotte Ashley
If churches don't have to pay taxes, they also can't call the fire
department when they catch fire. "Sorry Reverend, that's one of those
services that goes along with with paying in. I'll use the fire
department I pay for, YOU can pray for rain." -Bill Maher [video link]
It's a truism that most American Jews are liberal Democrats. For decades, neoconservatives have argued that they are bucking their own interests in staying true to these values and should join the Republicans, where, together with right-wing conservatives they will insure that support for a fair settlement for the Palestinians will remain as low as taxes on the extremely wealthy. So far, these arguments have had almost no effect on Jews, who supported Democrats as loyally as any single constituency in the last election. But the argument has worked on the leaders of many Jewish organizations. What we are left with, therefore, is a paradox. American Jews are liberals; they support Democrats. But Jewish organizations strategize with Republicans on how to smear these same Democrats, supported by the funds of these same liberal Democratic Jews. -Eric Alterman [article link]
To speak of "limits to growth" under a capitalistic market economy is as meaningless as to speak of limits of warfare under a warrior society. The moral pieties, that are voiced today by many well-meaning environmentalists, are as naive as the moral pieties of multinationals are manipulative. Capitalism can no more be "persuaded" to limit growth than a human being can be "persuaded" to stop breathing. Attempts to "green" capitalism, to make it "ecological", are doomed by the very nature of the system as a system of endless growth. -Murray Bookchin
The creepy spectacle of watching one warrior after the next insist that we must risk other people's lives and bomb more people so that we don't feel girlish and scared and submissive is repugnant enough, in itself, to have to witness on a daily basis. But the fact that these same people are the ones whose deep, irrational fears of The Terrorist override virtually all other considerations, and who demand that we change our nation and relinquish all of the values and liberties which have always defined it and which make it worth fighting for, all because they believe that doing so is necessary to allow them some marginally greater chance of avoiding death, renders their accusations and warrior dances -- on top of everything else -- an exercise in the grossest and most absurd hypocrisy. -Glenn Greenwald
While more strippers and more beer are undoubtedly a good thing, I've found it's much easier to convince your boss that you deserve a raise if you just leave that part out. -Davejames
A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore if God did exist, he would have to be abolished. -Mikhail Bakunin
If the capitol building were on fire, the Democrats would be talking about possibly installing a firehose sometime next week, and the Republicans would be saying that we shouldn't do anything because there's no scientific consensus that fire damages buildings. -Rich Whitney, Green candidate for Illinois governor
This principle is just axiomatic -- the fact that someone is accused by the Bush administration of being a terrorist or suspected by the administration of working with terrorists does not, in fact, mean that they are a "terrorist." There is a distinction between (a) being accused or suspected by the Bush administration of working with Al Qaeda and (b) actually being in cahoots with Al Qaeda and being a "terrorist." -Glenn Greenwald
quoted out of context phr. Correctly quoted but generally incompletely so, if characterized by scientists, consumer advocates or
evangelically enhanced public advocates. If so characterized by
creationists, politicians, faith healers, police spokesmen, religious
figures, mafia bosses, or wandering gypsies, the quote is not only
accurate, complete, and unambiguous, but also remarkably easy to
understand. -T.G. Browning
The President of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to someone through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim anymore ludicous or offensive. -Sam Harris
Each of the material comforts I enjoy, each thought which I have had the leisure to acquire, has been bought with the blood, suffering, or toil of millions. -Petr Lavrov, 1868
[T]here is... overwhelming evidence that most people don't take time to read their own Bibles. People will listen to their pastors and to Christian radio broadcasters. They will skim through easy-to-read pamphlets and perhaps look up the one or two verses printed therein, but they don't actually read their Bibles and make up their own minds on issues such as abortion. They merely listen to others who quote a verse to support a view they heard from someone else. By definition, most Christians, rather than reading for themselves, follow the beliefs of a Culture of Christianity -- and many of the Culture's beliefs are based on one or two verses of the Bible, often taken out of context. -Brian Elroy McKinley [article link]
The candidate can choose one of two platforms, but remember - no substitutions. For example, do you support universal health care? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro-limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion. Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegantly reflects the bichromatic rainbow that is American political thought. -Jon Stewart, "America: The Book"
"My country right or wrong" is like saying, "My mother drunk or sober." -G.K. Chesterson
If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace. -John Lennon
Our only crime consisted of decreeing our own laws and applying them to all without exception. Our crime is having enacted an agrarian reform which affected the interests of the United Fruit Company. Our crime is wanting to have our own route to the Atlantic, our own electric power and our own docks and ports. Our crime is our patriotic wish to advance, to progress, to win economic independence to match our political independence. We are condemned because we have given our peasant population land and rights. -Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, democratically-elected president of Guatemala, during a United States sponsored coup of his country in 1954
"Islamo-fascism" looks like an analytic term, but really it's an emotional one, intended to get us to think less and fear more. It presents the bewildering politics of the Muslim world as a simple matter of Us versus Them, with war to the end the only answer, as with Hitler. If you doubt that every other British Muslim under the age of 30 is ready to blow himself up for Allah, or that shredding the Constitution is the way to protect ourselves from suicide bombers, if you think that Hamas might be less popular if Palestinians were less miserable, you get cast as Neville Chamberlain, while Bush plays FDR. "Islamo-fascism" rescues the neocons from harsh verdicts on the invasion of Iraq ("cakewalk... roses... sweetmeats... Chalabi") by reframing that ongoing debacle as a minor chapter in a much larger story of evil madmen who want to fly the green flag of Islam over the capitals of the West. Suddenly it's just a detail that Saddam wasn't connected with 9/11, had no WMDs, was not poised to attack the United States or Israel -- he hated freedom, and that was enough. It doesn't matter, either, that Iraqi Sunnis and Shiites seem less interested in uniting the umma than in murdering one another. With luck we'll be so scared we won't ask why anyone should listen to another word from people who were spectacularly wrong about the biggest politico-military initiative of the past thirty years, and their balding heads will continue to glow on our TV screens for many nights to come. On to Tehran! -Katha Pollitt [article link]
What are you implying Jon? That O’Reilly and Geraldo are narcissists enthralled in their own overblown egos - projecting their own petty insecurities on to the world around them, inventing false enemies for the sole purpose of bolstering their sense of self-importance, itty bitty Nixons minus the relevance or a hint of vision? How dare you!" -Stephen Colbert
What do you think the Devil is going to look like if he's around? Nobody is going to be taken in if he has a long, red, pointy tail. No. I'm semi-serious here. He will look attractive and he will be nice and helpful and he will get a job where he influences a great God-fearing nation and he will never do an evil thing ... he will just bit by little bit lower standards where they are important. Just coax along flash over substance ... Just a tiny bit. And he will talk about all of us really being salesmen. And he'll get all the great women. -Aaron Altman, from the movie Broadcast News
Consumers of news lack the time, expertise, and, in many cases, ability to determine which of two contradictory statements by competing political figures is true. They often lack the resources to determine if, for example, President Bush's claim to have "delivered" on the promises he made in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is true. That's where news organizations should -- but, with depressing frequency, have not -- come in. They have -- or should have -- the expertise and the time to assess those claims, and to report the facts. That's what readers, viewers, and listeners need. That's what journalism should be all about. -Jamison Foser, Media Matter for America
liberator n. One who lifts the yoke of oppression from a people and
holds it aloft in the bright, brief glare of media scrutiny before
replacing it with a new one of personal design. -T.G. Browning
law n. 1. arch. Any code of conduct comprised of formally agreed upon community standards of morality, enforced by implacable, unreasonable, and exempt authority. 2. A statute; what the powers that be figure you need in order to be safe, secure, docile, and quiet. Particularly quiet. 3: A blunt object occasionally found at the scene of a mistrial.-T.G. Browning
logic n. The study of the principles of reasoning, insofar as one can hammer them into something one already believes. 2. A systematic
method whereby one establishes the truth and validity of one's current
beliefs. See justify.-T.G. Browning
Much as I'd like to see all these miscreants brought to justice, I tend to think the emphasis on bad bosses is a little misguided. The problem isn't particular bosses, but what I call Bossism -- the hierarchical system that governs all known bureaucracies, both public and private. Giving one person huge power over others is like a giving a three-year-old a hose: not everyone will get soaked, but the chances of coming out dry are slender. -Barbara Ehrenreich [article link]
The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief. They know the lies the victors often do not acknowledge, the lies covered up in stately war memorials and mythic war narratives, filled with words of courage and comradeship. They know the lies that permeate the thick, self-important memoirs by amoral statesmen who make wars but do not know war. -Chris Hedges
Should the plural of 'doofus' be 'doofuses,' or should it have the Greek ending 'doofae?' To me, 'doofae' doesn’t really fit, plus it sounds totally stupid. So I'm assuming 'doofae' is the correct choice. The Covert Comic
I would not lead you into the promised land even if I could, for, if anybody leads you in, someone else can lead you out. -Eugene V. Debs
You know what bugs me about abortion, though, is even people who are pro-choice waffling on the idea of abortion. You know, pro-choice people are like, "You know, we're not pro-abortion, we're pro-choice. We just don't believe the government has a right to tell us what we can or cannot do with our own bodies. We're not pro-abortion, we're pro-choice." Hey, just say it, just fucking say it: People suck, there's too many of them, and they're easier to kill when they're fetuses than when they're grown up. Just say it! People suck! -Bill Hicks, from the album Salvation
Here's one of my most fundamental beliefs: the criminal law should not be used to enforce morality. I am a strong believer that the criminal powers should be reserved for protecting the public from harm, whether that's the robber in the alley with the cudgel and the big bag with a dollar sign on it, or the corporate crook laying waste to the environment. In criminal law, this is referred to as "the harm principle." In other words: if there is no public harm in the activity, it might be just to have some law or regulation governing the activity, but it shouldn't be a criminal offence. To do otherwise, in my mind, simply enforces morality with the biggest hammer the state has, clogging courts and wasting the overtaxed resources of the police and the prosecutors in the meantime. And, of course, putting people in risk of a permanent criminal record, and possibly worse, for committing an offence whose main harm is that it upsets people. -Rob Fairchild
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. -Alexis de Toqueville
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. -Upton Sinclair
Do you realize that there's actually people in the world who did not think Bush and Quayle were conservative enough? This is the Republican Party that's been hiding out in South America since 1944, I think. -Bill Hicks
The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco. There may be a reason for this. Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. -Garrison Keillor [article link]
Even if meat is murder, I don't think we should call hamburgers 'murderburgers,' because something tells me this would only make people eat more of them. The Covert Comic
Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have property against those who have none at all. -Adam Smith
Every state must have its enemies. Great powers must have especially monstrous foes. Above all, these foes must arise from within, for national pride does not admit that a great nation can be defeated by any outside force. That is why, though its origins are elsewhere, the stab in the back has become the sustaining myth of modern American nationalism. Since the end of World War II it has been the device by which the American right wing has both revitalized itself and repeatedly avoided responsibility for its own worst blunders. Indeed, the right has distilled its tale of betrayal into a formula: Advocate some momentarily popular but reckless policy. Deny culpability when that policy is exposed as disastrous. Blame the disaster on internal enemies who hate America. Repeat, always making sure to increase the number of internal enemies. As the United States staggers past the third anniversary of its misadventure in Iraq, the dagger is already poised, the myth is already being perpetuated. -Kevin Baker [article link]
We should not be required to prove our case [in Iraq ] beyond a reasonable doubt, as if the defense of a nation were akin to the tawdry O.J. Simpson trial. When thousands, perhaps millions, of American lives are at stake, we must require not a higher standard of proof, but a much lower threshold — a subjective judgment. -John Gibson (Once again, I post this just to show how the other side thinks. In this case, a great example of truthiness at work.)
It is also ridiculous to claim that conservatives don’t like government or that they don’t run it well. It is true that conservatives don’t like big government social programs, but that is because they want to redistribute income upward and big government social programs are designed to provide security for the entire population. But conservatives are enthusiastic supporters of the big government policies that send income flowing upward, and they are quite effective in running the sectors of government that bring about this end... The reality is that the nanny state conservatives want a big role for the government in the economy and they are very effective in managing the government when it comes to having it do the things that they care about. They might not do a good job in saving the people of New Orleans from a hurricane, but saving poor people is not the agenda of the nanny state conservatives. Their agenda is making sure that no one mass produces copies of Windows without Microsoft’s permission. Enforcing this type of monopoly, and other interventions that distribute income upward, is the role for government preferred by the nanny state conservatives, and the government performs these functions very well under their watch. -Dean Baker, The Conservative Nanny State
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy? -Mahatma Gandhi
Never be deceived that the rich will permit you to vote away their wealth. —Lucy Parsons
What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be an equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal, who had warned his victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him, and who from that moment onward had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not encountered in private life. -Albert Camus
The Democrats... don't want to be anything other than better caretakers for that museum of human history. They don't try to imagine a fundamentally better world, because they actually believe that there isn't one. They're buffoons straight out of Voltaire, running on a platform of "Our mild improvements to this best of all possible worlds." -Matt Taibbi
The federal government's lethal ineptitude [re: Hurricane Katrina] wasn't just a consequence of Mr. Bush's personal inadequacy; it was a consequence of ideological hostility to the very idea of using government to serve the public good. For 25 years the right has been denigrating the public sector, telling us that government is always the problem, not the solution. Why should we be surprised that when we needed a government solution, it wasn't forthcoming? -Paul Krugman
The administration's philosophy seems to be that the best way to discourage risky behavior is to take away the safety net... I suppose that if we replaced air bags with sharpened spikes on dashboards, people might drive more carefully—but it still doesn't seem like a great idea. -Nicholas Kristof
Freedom, n. Exemption from the stress of authority in a beggarly half dozen of restraint's infinite multitude of methods. A political condition that every nation supposes itself to enjoy in virtual monopoly. Liberty. The distinction between freedom and liberty is not accurately known; naturalists have never been able to find a living specimen of either. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
civil disobedience n. The art of rendering rabid super-patriots, rednecks and right-wingers while selling copious amounts of advertising. -T.G. Browning
The right wing thinks we can still drill our way out of this, if only the nature freaks would allow them to. The "green" folks thinks that we can devote crops to the production of gasoline substitutes, even though a scarcity of fossil fuel-based fertilizers will sharply cut crop yields for human food. Nobody, it seems, can imagine an American life not centered on cars... Can we bust out of this narrow tunnel of fantasy? Can we imagine living differently? -James Howard Kunstler [article link (scroll down to the April 24 entry)]
The newly-publicized gospels of Thomas and Judas once again show a differing mindset between Atheists and theists. An Atheist sees this as new evidence -- stuff to be considered, like a new piece of scientific data - about how the bible was formed and assembled two millenia ago. Christians are quick to launch press releases stating that nothing, including hard evidence, would ever change their mind about their mythos. -Dave Silverman
Still, every year since 2002, this sad anniversary [of the Oklahoma City bombing] reminds me of a question I still haven't heard answered: Why wasn't April 19, 1995 the "day that changed everything"? -David Neiwert
The minimum that most minimalists want leaves in place just the institutions who protect their interests. That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. -Coyote in Green Mars (1992) by Kim Stanley Robinson
It is in the nature of revolutions that they consume their most passionate advocates. The vanguard's ideals are replaced by the faction's brass knuckles. The chain of events that Robespierre set in motion led to his death by guillotine in 1794. Trotsky fled from Stalin and met his fate with an ice pick to the head in Mexico in 1940. The dynamics of political revolutions in a constitutional republic such as the United States are nonviolent, but the parallels between political insurgencies remain. One group comes to power pledging reform; the reformers' newfound power attracts a troop of opportunists and hangers-on; the opportunists eat away at the reformist impulse from within. -Matthew Continetti, The K Street Gang
It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. -John Hindraker [I post this not because I agree with it, obviously, but because it demonstrates how modern conservatism really is a personality cult around George W. Bush. -ed.]
If you cut out all the passages [of the Bible] where Jesus talks about helping the poor, helping the least among us... you’d have the perfect box to smuggle Rush Limbaugh’s drugs in. -Al Franken
The Bush administration has followed a disturbing pattern in its approach to the war on terror. It has been perpetually willing to sacrifice individual rights in favor of security. But it has been loath to do the same thing when it comes to business interests. It has not imposed reasonable safety requirements on chemical plants, one of the nation's greatest points of vulnerability, or on the transport of toxic materials. The ports deal is another decision that has made the corporations involved happy, and has made ordinary Americans worry about whether they are being adequately protected. -The New York Times
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. -George Bernard Shaw
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume. -Noam Chomsky
[Money shouldn't equal free speech] because I'll guarantee you this, if you're in a debate, and one side is arguing reasonably and the other side is handing out $10,000 a person, that debate team will typically win. -Jon Stewert
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them. -Karl Marx
If you look at the course of western history you'll see that we're slowly granting basic rights to everyone. A long time ago only kings had rights. Then rights were extended to property-owning white men. Then all men. Then women. Then children. Then the mentally retarded. Now we're agonizing over the extension of basic rights to homosexuals and animals. We need to finally accept that all sentient creatures are deserving of basic rights. I define basic rights as this --the ability to pursue life without having someone else's will involuntarily forced upon you. Or, as the framers of the constitution put it, the ability to have "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." By what criteria can you justify denying basic rights to any living thing? Realize that by whatever criteria you employ someone could deny basic rights to you if they objected to your species, sexual preferences, color, religion, ideology etc. Would you eat your housecat, or force a mentally retarded child to ingest oven cleaner? If not, then why is it ok to eat cows and test products on sentient animals? I believe that to knowingly commit actions that cause or condone suffering is reprehensible in the extreme. I call upon you to be compassionate and treat others as you want to be treated. If you don't want to be beaten, imprisoned, mutilated, killed or tortured then you shouldn't condone such behavior towards anyone, be they human or not. -Moby
I actually get hit on more in Washington DC, by Republicans that are drunk than I do by porno fans in Vegas. -Mary Carey
To bring aid to the sick, protection to the victims of discrimination, and a better life to those who suffer, we must pray that those in power are afflicted with the worst possible diseases, tragedies, and circumstances in life. As soon as it's their ass on the line, we're all on the way to being saved. -Michael Moore
I'd like to teach Iraq about Democracy because we're so experienced with it. First they should know that after 100 years they should free their slaves. Then after 150 years they should give their women the right to vote. Oh, and of course when they start it all they should begin with some genocide and ethnic cleansing. -Kurt Vonnegut
We're terrible animals. I think that the Earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should. -Kurt Vonnegut
I do feel that evolution is being controlled by some sort of divine engineer. I cant help thinking that. And this engineer knows exactly what he or she is doing and why, and where evolution is headed. That’s why we’ve got giraffes and hippopotami and the clap. -Kurt Vonnegut
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that’s Moses, not Jesus. I haven’t heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break! -Kurt Vonnegut
Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas. -Kurt Vonnegut
Here’s what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on. -Kurt Vonnegut
True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country. -Kurt Vonnegut
Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out…and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel ... and in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" — with his mouth. -Mark Twain
In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination. -Mark Twain
The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: "It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war." Then the few will shout even louder…Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it ... Next, statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. -Mark Twain
The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also. -Mark Twain
It is often argued that religion is valuable because it makes men good, but even if this were true it would not be a proof that religion is true. That would be an extension of pragmatism beyond endurance. Santa Claus makes children good in precisely the same way, and yet no one would argue seriously that the fact proves his existence. The defense of religion is full of such logical imbecilities. -H.L. Mencken
When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental — men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost... All the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron. -H.L. Mencken
The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. -H.L. Mencken
No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have researched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. -H.L. Mencken
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. -H.L. Mencken
State Senator Robert Hagan (D-Ohio) says he will introduce legislation to ban Republican couples from adopting children. According to Hagan, "credible research" shows that adopted children raised in GOP households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities." Hagan agrees there is no scientific evidence backing his claims about Republican parents — just, as Hagan notes, there is none backing State Representative Ron Hood’s (R) bill banning gay parents from adopting. Hood claims children purportedly suffer from emotional "harm" when they are adopted by gay couples. Hagen admits he created his proposal to mock Hood's proposed ban on gay adoption in a way that people would see the "blatantly discriminatory and extremely divisive" nature of the bill. The GOP House leadership does not support Hood’s proposal. -via the Progressive Democratic Council of Kendall County
Funny that Bush wants to fight the Islamic fundamentalists abroad but tries to turn the United States into a country with a gentler and kinder version of the very same values. Funny that he wants to have wars against them but votes en bloc in the United Nations with them when it comes to taking women's rights away or shunning gays. -Echidne
The disadvantage the pro-choice faction is laboring under is that very few people now remember the pre-Roe era personally. Very few people have personal experiences of someone bleeding to death in a hotel room, of women being kicked out of their homes for becoming pregnant, of the double-standards that let a pregnant woman be lectured at in a church while the man who got her pregnant sits smugly in the choir. All stories that I have been told by older relatives. Young women today have not heard such stories, on the whole, and they have Roe v. Wade to thank for it. But it is hard to be grateful for something you take for granted, hard to see how the world would change if Roe was no longer there to be taken for granted. Hard, but we still have to find a way to tell these stories, to make it clear what is at stake at least for the poorest women if states like South Dakota become the rule. -Echidne
[in reference to the UAE ports scandal] So why did this latest case of sloppiness and indifference finally catch the public's attention? Because this time the administration has become a victim of its own campaign of fearmongering and insinuation. The administration successfully linked Iraq and 9/11 in public perceptions through a campaign of constant insinuation and occasional outright lies. In the process, it also created a state of mind in which all Arabs were lumped together in the camp of evildoers. Osama, Saddam — what's the difference? But more to the point, after years of systematically suggesting that Arabs who didn't attack us are the same as Arabs who did, the administration can't suddenly turn around and say, "But these are good Arabs." -Paul Krugman
It is a distinctive characteristic of an ideology that it resists refutation. If the foundations of an ideological position are knocked out, new foundations will be found, or else the ideological position will just hang there, defying the logical equivalent of the laws of gravity. -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I believe, the chief task of philosophy, and the task that makes philosophy a worthwhile activity. -Peter Singer, Animal Liberation
What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. -Christopher Hitchens, in reference to religion
It is often said, mainly by the 'no-contests', that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies? -Richard Dawkins
[Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), when asked what he thought about George W. Bush's 2006 State of the Union address] It shatters the myth of white supremacy forever.
Just as I'm opposed to political fascism, I'm opposed to economic fascism. I think that until the major institutions of society are under the popular control of participants and communities, it's pointless to talk about democracy. -Noam Chomsky
One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. The P.S.U.C. militiamen whom I knew in the line, the Communists from the International Brigade whom I met from time to time, never called me a Trotskyist or a traitor; they left that kind of thing to the journalists in the rear. The people who wrote pamphlets against us and vilified us in the newspapers all remained safe at home, or at worst in the newspaper offices of Valencia, hundreds of miles from the bullets and the mud. And apart from the libels of the inter-party feud, all the usual war-stuff, the tub-thumping, the heroics, the vilification of the enemy—all these were done, as usual, by people who were not fighting and who in many cases would have run a hundred miles sooner than fight. […] Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him. -George Orwell
I suppose I can understand the callous, selfish disregard of the conservatives. It is their pride in it that passes me by. -Rack Jite
If the mating game worked fine when women were ignorant and helpless and breaks down when they smarten up, that certainly tells us something about marriage. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
We have to work on our vocabulary. "Minorities": a high-class way of calling you a nigger to your face. "Get away from my car, you minority!" -Dave Chappelle
Posting the Ten Commandments is as effective as posting "Employees Must Wash Hands." -Jon Stewert
True compassion is more than throwing a coin to a beggar. It demands of our humanity that if we live in a society that produces beggars, we are morally commanded to restructure that society. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Talking of patriotism, what humbug it is; it is a word which always commemorates a robbery. There isn't a foot of land in the world which doesn't represent the ousting and re-ousting of a long line of successive owners. -Mark Twain
bankruptcy n. Legal justification by corporations for the theft of millions of dollars via cancelled contracts with workers. See United Airlines. See Delta. See Delphi. -T.G. Browning
terrorist adj. Anyone with a loud voice who is not a member of the
current power structure and is too poor to purchase justice at the
going market rate. -T.G. Browning
Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot consider themselves nobler, better, grander, more intelligent than those living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others. The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that from early infancy the mind of the child is provided with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. -Emma Goldman
We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that she will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations. Such is the logic of patriotism. -Emma Goldman
The chief, overarching argument of the conservative movement, in essence, has been that liberals are the sole and primary cause of everything that is wrong both with America and with the world at large. What kind of reasonable discourse is possible, really, when that is the starting point of the conversation? -David Neiwert
In a world as interconnected and complex as ours, the simple act of buying a t-shirt has far-reaching effects: sweatshop labor, environmental destruction, media brainwashing, corporate corruption, support of Third World dictatorships, depletion of fossil fuels, cruelty to animals, wars over resources, the list goes on. And many of us don't think about any of this when we take our items to the counter and hand them our credit card. -Axis of Justice
There's nothing better than waking up to your girlfriend giving you a blowjob. Unless, maybe, it was your wife giving you the blowjob. Or maybe your wife watching *her* girlfriend give you a blowjob. Better yet, your wife and her girlfriend *and* your girlfriend all fighting over who gets to give you a blowjob and they all decide to tag team on the blowjob. The common theme, though, would be getting a blowjob. -Nick Smith
I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom. -Noam Chomsky
Every person who ever had a plan to do anything, and went and did it, or who laid his plan before others, and won their co-operation to do it with him, without going to external authorities to please do the thing for them, was a direct actionist. -Voltairine de Cleyre
laziness n. When the poor are not working
leisure time n. When the wealthy are not working -Justin Rezzonico, quoted in The Dictionary of Republicanisms by Katrina vanden Heuvel
The establishment people tell us that if the workers wanted to share the profits, it was called communism. When management wants to share profits, it's called a bonus. -Phil Donahue
Some religionists seem to delight in ascribing to "God" the credit for having made apple trees in fields of green, under a blue sky; but where is their creator when we remember that there are tapeworms in the world? I think I would be embarassed to have to admit that I believed in an "all-wise God" who made tapeworms. -Fred Woodworth
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. -Noam Chomsky
Propaganda exploits a strong human tendency: the automatic and strong tendency to believe what we're told. Believing what one's government tells one is relatively easy. It takes no effort at all. Disbelief, on the other hand, seems to run contrary to human nature. We are, it would seem, inherently lazy in such matters. It actually requires considerable intellectual and psychological effort to disbelieve what our leaders tell us. Added to that is the commonly applied social stigma that comes with disbelief. Disbelievers -- may God save them -- lack patriotism, a sin seen by most Americans as being on the order of patricide. -Richard L. Franklin
To the fervent proponents of ruthless corporate capitalism I say: make a millionaire CEO live as a poor sweatshop worker in Indonesia for one month and then ask him about the merits of the world economic system. -Vassilis Epaminondou
PATRIOTISM, n. 1) The inability to distinguish between the government and one's "country"; 2) A highly praiseworthy virtue characterized by the desire to dominate and kill; 3) A feeling of exultation experienced when contemplating heaps of charred "enemy" corpses; 4) The first, last, and perennial refuge of scoundrels.
PATRIOT, n. A dangerous tool of the powers that be. A herd member who compensates for lack of self-respect by indentifying with an abstraction. An enemy of individual freedom. A fancier of the rich, satisfying flavor of boot leather. -from The American Heretic's Dictionary
Agricultural technology is built on the assumption that world hunger is caused by a scarcity of food and a lack of technology, and that therefore new technologies are needed to produce more food for the world's growing population. However, hunger is caused not by scarcity, but by free market economic policies that undermine food security and local self-reliance and create a system of institutionalized economic justice. These policies, whose effects are worsened by economic globalization, allocate food not to the needy, but to oligopolistic global markets where one dollar equals one vote. Agro-biotechnology will only exacerbate this situation. -Carmelo Ruiz
Actually, I've met very few conservatives in my life. Mostly what I meet are liberals who don't want to pay for the services they expect the government to provide and who don't want to feel like "girlie men" when they tell people who they voted for and want to be able to tell racist and sexist jokes without feeling guilty about it. So they vote Republican, tell their jokes, and rant and rave like hell when their streets don't get plowed and their sewers back up and their grandmother's social security check is late and their cousin comes home from Iraq without a leg and the Army charges him for the loss of his gun. -Lance Mannion
You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're there, and that you want out ... You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun. -Florence Kennedy
Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It's because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time. -George Carlin
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him whose. -Don Marquis
Some observers claim to have found something paradoxical in the fact that the Thatcher regime combines liberal individualist rhetoric with authoritarian action. But there is no paradox at all. Even under the most repressive conditions... people seek to act collectively in order to improve things for themselves, and it requires an enormous exercise of brutal power to fragment these efforts at organisation and to force people to pursue their interests individually... left to themselves, people will inevitably tend to pursue their interests through collective action - in trade unions, tenants' associations, community organisations and local government. Only the pretty ruthless exercise of central power can defeat these tendencies: hence the common association between individualism and authoritarianism, well exemplified in the fact that the countries held up as models by the free-marketers are, without exception, authoritarian regimes -Brian Barry
Whiny, bitching, cry-baby conservatives love to prattle on and on about the "liberal media." To be fair, except for FOX News (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, John Gibson, Neil Cavuto, Steve Doocy, E.D. Hill, Brian Kilmeade, Brit Hume), Clear Channel, Laura Ingraham, Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh, Hugh Hewitt, Ann Coulter, Newsmax, G. Gordon Liddy, Michael Reagan, Michael Savage, The New York Post, Sinclair Broadcast Group (WLOS13, Fox 45, WTTO21, WB49, KGAN, WICD, WICS, WCHS, WVAH, WTAT, WSTR, WSYX, WTTE, WKEF, WRGT, KDSM, WSMH, WXLV, WURN, KVWB, KFBT, WDKY, WMSN, WVTV, WEAR, WZTV, KOTH, WYZZ, WPGH, WGME, WLFL, WRLH, WUHF, KABB, WGGB, WSYT, WTTA), David Horowitz, Rupert Murdoch, PAX, and MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, they're right. -Maddox
Look, politics, and debate in general, tends to discourage thinking in absolutes... But I'm hard-pressed to see how there aren't absolutes in [the torture issue]. You either support torturing people or not. If you support torturing terrorists, than to not be a hypocrite you also have to support actually proving they're terrorists, not using torture to find out if they're terrorists, thus making it okay to torture them. -August J. Pollak
I'm a friendly enough sort of chap, I'm not a hostile person to meet. But I think it's important to realize that when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. -Richard Dawkins
The establishment people tell us that if the workers wanted to share the profits, it was called communism. When management wants to share profits, it's called a bonus. -Phil Donahue
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. -Noam Chomsky
Actually, I've met very few conservatives in my life. Mostly what I meet are liberals who don't want to pay for the services they expect the government to provide and who don't want to feel like 'girlie men' when they tell people who they voted for and want to be able to tell racist and sexist jokes without feeling guilty about it. So they vote Republican, tell their jokes, and rant and rave like hell when their streets don't get plowed and their sewers back up and their grandmother's social security check is late and their cousin comes home from Iraq without a leg and the Army charges him for the loss of his gun. -Lance Mannion
By the time Richard Milhous Nixon goes on trial in the Senate, the only real reason for trying him will be to understand how he ever became president of the United States at all ... and the real defendant, at that point, will be the American Political System. -Hunter S. Thompson, 1973
[in reference to the withdrawl of Harriet Mier's Supreme Court nomination] It is clear that, absent an unambiguous pledge to overturn Roe, the right holds women nominees to a different standard. They do it because they fear a woman justice will feel empathy towards other women making the agonizing choice of whether to have an abortion. They fear that a woman justice would not be willing to use criminal sanctions to regulate other women’s decisions. -John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress
It's no longer possible to count the times I've heard someone say that idiotic thing about guns not killing people but people killing people. Sure. But it's only true in the same way as saying that it's not airplanes that take me across the Atlantic but people. Without the planes I wouldn't get there very fast and without the guns the people who do the killing would have a much harder time to kill. -Echidne
Have you noticed how the soundbites are somehow distributed through Wingnuttia? Suddenly all wingnuts talk about the same thing, be it Social Security or something Bill Clinton did in 1958. Often I can see why the topic is up for renewed chewing but equally often I can't see where they get a particular topic from. So I am semi-convinced that all wingnuts have little wires to their brains, and every Monday morning a message is sent about what to write and talk about that week. -Echidne
...{W]hat is hilarious is this sudden turnaround of many of the wingnuts. It was only a week or two ago that they told us how no nominee should answer questions about how they will decide, say, Roe vs. Wade -related cases. Now the very same wingnuts want guarantees that Miers would decide them the way the wingnuts want. It's the way little children argue. -Echidne
Why do they call it 'sobering news,' when it causes you to get drunk? -The Covert Comic
It's noteworthy, to say the least, that lawyers who represent the interests of regular folks are routinely attacked by the president as the cause of everything from ballooning health care costs to male-pattern baldness. But lawyers who spend a lifetime litigating on behalf of wealthy corporate clients, as Miers has done, are somehow "distinguished" and worthy of the nation's highest court. That inconsistency speaks volumes about the priorities of this administration and the values the president wants to see represented on the Supreme Court. -Bill Shein
Nobody who has wealth to distribute ever omits himself. Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed [This was obviously written in reference to the Soviet Union under Stalin, but I think it applies equally well to capitalist societies where corporate executives just "happen" to value themselves above their workers.]
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. -Rebecca West
The best thing about telling a woman up front that you're a pervert is never having to apologize for masturbating in her fridge. Or in her shampoo bottle. Or on her cat. -Nick Smith
If Harriet Miers becomes a Supreme Court Judge she will be the third female on the bench ever. Women are the majority of Americans but almost as rare as hen's teeth in positions of great societal power. To many on the right this is quite acceptable, and any attempt to change it amounts to affirmative action, interpreted as appointing someone incompetent just because the person is not a white Christian male. White Christian males are assumed to be competent because they are the default option: almost all past Supreme Court justices were white and Christian and male, so these characteristics are fine. On the other hand, someone who is not white, Christian or male is automatically under suspicion as a "diversity hire". That this person might be competent must be proven, and proven separately for each case. -Echidne of the Snakes
According to the conservative wingnuts at the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the superiority of Wal-Mart's Katrina response shows that the private sector is simply more effective than the government. Well, yes, oddly enough, when you starve a government by draining its resources and electing officials who don't believe in it, nothing seems to work. -Liza Featherstone
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -George Bernard Shaw
No other offense has ever been visited with such severe penalties as seeking to help the oppressed. -Clarence Darrow
Whenever a religious person challenges me about religion and morality, they always insist that, as an atheist, I should not be afraid of committing some horrible crime -- no eternal consequences and all that. My response is always, "if the only thing keeping you from driving into a McDonalds and mowing down a bunch of people with an automatic weapon is your religion, then I'm glad you're religious." -Mr. Upright
To dream of being Superman is only crazy if you're Superman. -The Covert Comic
It's much harder to be a liberal than a conservative. Why? Because it is easier to give someone the finger than a helping hand."
"Live and let live" would be my motto if there weren't so many fucking assholes who want nothing less than a world in which everyone lives the way THEY want them to. So my motto is, "Fuck them." -Maryscott O'Conner
If your father is a dangerous zealot who describes homosexuals as "sinners" who practice "selfish hedonism," you have a moral duty to become a lesbian. Congratulations to Alan Keyes's daughter Maya, who did just that. Now, if you can just get yourself impregnated by David Crosby and then immediately get an abortion, I think we can drive Daddy right over the edge. -Bill Maher, "New Rules"
The big oil companies must stop running ads telling us how much they're doing for the environment. We get it: You rape the earth, but you cuddle afterward. It's insulting - like a serial killer dumping a body by the roadside and then adopting a highway. -Bill Maher, "New Rules"
Know your enemies. The National Rifle Association posted a list of antigun organizations on its Web site so NRA members would know who's against the NRA. The list includes: the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Surgury, the American Trauma Society, the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, the Children's Defense Fund, the COngress of Neurological Surgeons, the National Association of School Psychologists.
Hmm. What could all these organizations have in common? Oh yeah! They're sick of cleaning up after the NRA!-Bill Maher, "New Rules"
Stop claiming [conservatives] have an "agenda." It's not an agenda;
It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass. The American people aren't clamoring for a cap on medical malpractice awards. If a surgeon leaves an Altoids box in my chest cavity, I want to see him in debtor's prison. -Bill Maher, "New Rules"
It's a strange GOD that creates a Universe of 100
billion galaxies each with 100 billion stars just so he can wait 14
billion years for a small primate to evolve and worship him.
What is so intelligent about that? -Erik Shutvet
WASHINGTON, DC - A genie freed from a battered oil lamp by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia granted the conservative jurist a strict constructionist interpretation of his wish for "a hundred billion bucks" Monday. "Sim sim salabim! Your wish is my command!" the genie proclaimed amid flashes of light and purple smoke, immediately filling the Supreme Court building with a massive herd of wild male antelopes. When Justice Scalia complained that the "bucks" had razed the U.S. Supreme Court building, trampling and killing several of his clerks and bringing traffic in the nation's capital to a standstill for hours, the genie said, "Your honor, your wish is a sacred and unalterable document whose interpretation is not subject to the whims of society and changing social context." The Onion
The Republicans have managed a nifty trick over the last twenty-five years. They have worked ceaselessly to make government less effective, while at the same time deriving political benefit from inadequate government. The Republican attack on good governance involves the cutting of necessary funding, the wholesale transfer of critical government capabilities to the private sector, the stocking of government agencies with inept, corrupt, and obstructionist appointees, and the sellout of regulatory agencies to the industries they're supposed to observe. In a fair world, all of this would result in the Republican party taking some degree of blame for bad governance. In this world, the exact opposite seems to happen. Government fails by design. Government failure feeds into an anti-statist narrative that allows the Republicans to further slash funding, to further gut federal agencies, and to further cripple the capacity of the government to do anything useful. -Robert Farley
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. -Bertrand Russell
Rising unemployment was a very desirable way of reducing the strength of the working classes... What was engineered - in Marxist terms - was a crisis in capitalism which recreated a reserve army of labor, and has allowed the capitalists to make high profits ever since. -Alan Budd, chief economic advisor to Margaret Thatcher, 1992
However spectacular its effects, the wreck of Enron is a far more ordinary matter than such moralizing makes it appear. This is not the result of sin; this is the way markets work. It is simply what happens when regulatory oversight is systematically shut down, bought off and defunded; when business journalism becomes salesmanship; when investment banking becomes salesmanship; and when political power is a prize that goes to the highest bidder. There can be little doubt that the kind of microscopic scrutiny that Enron is now undergoing would uncover similar accounting and compensation scandals at many other companies in America. And it is well-known that industry lobbyists routinely craft the legislation that is supposed to regulate their industries. Credit-card lobbyists write the bankruptcy laws; broadcasting lobbyists write the telecommunications laws. It's not because they're greedy, it's because they can. -Thomas Frank [article link]
The assumptions that one's political positions are crafted from a reasonable assessment of reality and history is false as most of us know. Political positions are mainly the result of personal psychological repsonses to social trama as well as privilege (class), shaped by organized institutional actors. What this means is that political positions are not changed by rational language, thought or actions, but rather through emotional situations, personal experiences, and affiliations with groups. When one's experiences which have shaped your emotions are in-line with your logic or thinking process one feels
content; when not, cognitive dissonance will most likely lead to the rejection of reality over faith every time. -Talmadge Wright
Everyone at work was very surprised when they found out that I smoke. They'll be even more surprised when they find out I only smoke when I drink. -Jenn McNanna
It's a supreme irony to me when I hear conservatives waxing poetic about stem cells and potential lives cut short, particularly when many of these same Republicans are staunchly against educating our youth about embryos and babies happen. Or helping young and unprepared parents once the child is born.
Or when many of these same conservatives have no problems cutting short the lives of innocents who happen to live in war zones. Who is it who believes that some lives are worthless?
Or when these folks send men barely old enough to shave and women just beginning their adult lives to die in a hot war against a country that had few terrorists of its own until we got there.
Or when they complain about extending a helping hand to the already born among us who have made poor choices and messes of their lives. Or to the victims of simple bad luck and timing.
It's a supreme irony that stem cell research may have far reaching impact on the lives of the next generation, and in a very positive way, as opposed to the future impact of our current economic, international, and environmental policies. It's ironic that many conservatives want to curtail one of the positive things we're working on and have no difficulty supporting the negative things.
I find it ironic that people who give lip service to individual rights and demand personal responsibility from the the little guy don't ask for the same thing from men like DeLay or Bush or Rumsfeld. And that they don't seem to care if corporate America is held accountable for anything except keeping the paychecks coming.
And isn't it ironic that liberals get blamed for supporting birth control and abortion, when it's the conservatives who don't want our kids to know where babies come from?
If we agree to agree that all life is precious, why is some of it so cheap to some of our leaders? Why in our race to embrace our common humanity do we ignore mistreated prisoners, innocent victims and the unfortunate among us? We don't get to pick and choose what lives are sacred and which are not. We don't get to feel all self righteous about one and sneer at the other. -"Dr. Guitar," a poster at the DeKalb COunty Democrats Blog
The true axis of evil in America is the genius of our marketing combined with the stupidity of our people. -Bill Maher
The fact that people murder each other over the pettiest things, and yet almost never jump on their cheap, filthy, noisy roommates and wrap a plastic bag around their heads until they stop kicking is a true testament to the importance of having someone to share the cable bill with. -R.B. Fairchild
The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than blacks were made for whites or women for men. -Alice Walker
When grilled by reporters over his reaction to the Supreme Court's ruling in two pivotal cases involving display of the Ten Commandments, [American Atheists Communications Director Dave Silverman] adroitly cited his 'Three Reindeer Rule' for religionists and other First Amendment obfuscationists. He likened the decisions to what invariably takes place during the 'Christmas' season when municipalities and other governments, inevitably in collusion with Christian religious groups, drag out musty displays of 'the Nativity' and erect them in public parks, foyers and other government venues. Referring to the Commandments rulings (which permit such displays if they are generously mixed with secular symbols or documents), Mr. Silverman noted: 'If you have a nativity scene with three reindeer, automatically it becomes a non-religious statement.'" -the American Atheists mailing list
The Democratic party leadership's persistent and bizarre campaign of self-condemnation and Republican bootlicking is one of those things that, on its face, makes very little logical sense. It makes cultural sense; we have come to expect that the cultural figures we call the Democrats will respond to electoral failure first by sniveling and finger-pointing, and then by puffing up their chests and telling their dates they know how to handle themselves in a bar fight. From the Republicans we expect just the opposite; beaten at the polls, they immediately start cozying up to snake-handlers and gun freaks and denouncing school lunches as socialism. It is impossible to imagine a Newt Gingrich responding, say, to LBJ's Great Society by concocting its own expensive plan to feed the poor black man � but we fully expect that a Democrat who loses an election will suddenly start to reconsider his opposition to pre-emptive invasion and Reaganomics. -Matt Taibbi
Conservatives often base their argument for the status quo on a fictional character I like to call the Unique Individual. The UI -- let's call him Mr. Bootstrap -- is the 0.2%er. He beats the odds. He's the exceptional single parent. He's the ghetto-escapee. He's the recovered addict-cum-sucessful business owner. He's the Walmart worker who "made it big." The UI does indeed exist, but progressives have failed to point out that not every working man can be a UI. It's statistically impossible under our system. Yet, millions of Americans are chasing after Mr. Bootstrap, goaded by the misinformation of conservatives and fallaciously convinced that if they just work hard enough and sacrifice a little more, that they will become a UI. They waste a lifetime trying to beat the odds without ever stopping to ask just what the odds are or why the system is set up so that "happiness" is only achieved by the odds-beating few. It's progressives' job to make people ask, "Why is the UI held up as the model when 99.8% of us will never be one? Why are we chasing the dream we are?" -"bettsoff," a commenter at AlterNet
When people visit to this country, from nations around the world, they walk away with a sense of disconnect. They see how puritanical we are, as a nation, about drugs, sex, and religion- some even call it stultifying, and chalk it up to our puritan founders. What confuses them, in relation to our relative conservatism on such matters, is the violence of our culture. We don't allow four-letter words on our TV, we send anyone caught with a few grams of pot to prison, we appoint an attorney general that spends thousands of tax dollars to cover up a naked breast on an abstract statue, and in many of our states, alcohol and pornography are saddled with a "sin tax." But, you can walk into one of a few thousand wal-marts, and buy a gun, with the most cursory of investigations. -Eric Blumrich
The danger of the Internet is, one wrong click and you're suddenly viewing pornographic images that are completely different from the kind you wanted. -The Covert Comic
A nation's success or failure in achieving democracy is judged in part by how well it responds to those at the bottom and the margins of the social order... The very problems that democratic change brings -- social tension, heightened expectations, political unrest -- are also strengths. Discord is a sign of progress afoot; unease is an indication that a society has let go of what it knows and is working out something better and new. -Sandra Day O'Connor
All religions have flaws. They all can be argued to the point where logic forces the proponent to claim "well, you just have to have faith". Since Atheism never requires faith and cannot be disproven logically (despite countless tries), it has no flaws. Atheism is perfect. -Dave Silverman
If there was ANY proof ANYwhere AT ALL that any god ever existed, I wouldn't be an Atheist. I'm stubborn -- not stupid. -Dave Silverman
[In reference to a scandal surrounding a college in NYC appointing an atheist to chair its sociology department, specifically the contention that his opposition to religion would bias his judgement of job candidates] Predictions of bias, absent any evidence, are just a backhanded way of attacking his beliefs. You might as well say no Southern Baptist should be chair, since someone who believes that women should be subject to their husbands, homosexuality is evil and Jews are doomed to hell won't be fair to female, gay or Jewish job candidates. Or no Orthodox Jew or Muslim should be chair because religious restrictions on contact with the opposite sex would privilege some job candidates over others. But nobody ever does say that. As long as a believer ascribes his views to his faith, he can say anything he wants and if you don't like it, you're the bigot. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
If we [meaning Canadians -ed.] lose the ability to be �competitive� with �economic giants� like the US and Britain, GOOD. Are you listening to yourselves?! Are you seriously contending that the US and Britain are the ideals of economic models? The model is: very few rich are extremely rich because of all the hard work put in by a large working-poor class. Did I miss anything? Cause I don�t think I did. WE DON�T WANT TO BE THAT KIND OF COMPETITIVE. Why doesn�t anyone ever compare us to Holland, Germany, Australia, or some other realistic comparison? We�re a country of 25 million people. We can keep good care of those people. We CAN NOT prop up big business to compete with Americans because they are built on the backs of 250 million people. I think I speak for The People Of Canada when I say PLEASE DON�T MAKE US WORK TEN TIMES AS HARD TO KEEP UP WITH A ROLE MODEL WHO ISN�T EVEN DESIRABLE. -Charlotte Ashley
I've read all those studies that show people on the Right lack the gift of empathy. I can see they have a real hard time imagining themselves as people on welfare or as blacks in East Texas -- that's quite a stretch even for white bleeding hearts like me. What I don't get is their inability to do the simplest exercise in elementary fairness -- how would you feel if the shoe were on the other foot? -Molly Ivins
Truth is, Wal-Mart could not survive in a real free market: It would, for example, have to pay Chinese workers more (which would ruin its low-wage business model) and spurn any offers of government subsidies. Indeed, it's fitting that Wal-Mart, the business model fawned over by free-marketeers, exposes the so-called 'free market' as a lie, no more than a crude, albeit effective, marketing phrase. -Jonathan Tasini
I'm not a Marxist, but I do believe our capitalist, free-market culture is primarily responsible for the way we as a nation abuse the natural world and endanger human health. The capitalist culture values wealth above all things. Accordingly, a society governed by it -- as ours is to a remarkable degree -- will put considerations of prosperity over considerations of the commonwealth. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it will equate prosperity with the commonwealth.
On the corporate level, this can lead to practices that show a reckless disregard for human health even among companies whose primary business is relieving illness and saving lives. Just think of Merck, Pfizer and... Johnson and Johnson, all of whom knowingly sold drugs that put people's lives at risk.
On the government level, it can lead to policies that encourage economic growth at all costs -- for example, policies that relieve industry of the cost of ensuring that their practices are safe or that actively promote the use -- and using up -- of irreplaceable natural resources.
Finally, on the individual level, it can lead to the belief that an SUV is crucial to your well-being while clean air is an intangible you can afford to do without -- and the related feeling that all that matters in the voting booth is "the economy, stupid," as Clinton's campaign team famously observed.
Republicans are relentless. They're like the zombies in Dawn of the Dead. Stop one at the door, you've got five more clawing through the window. They just never give up. -Tom TOmorrow
The sinister fact about literary censorship in England is that it is largely voluntary. Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban... Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. -George Orwell
Shorter right-wing blogosphere: The fact that John Kerry's military records provide no incriminating evidence we can use against him proves he has not released all of them. -August J. Pollak
Imagine if the U.S. media showed uncensored, hellish images of war - even for one week. What impact would that have? I think we would be able to abolish war. -Amy Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers
I would say that many, I could say thousands, but it's really hundreds of thousands, and when we include the Vietnamese, millions, have died in the last century because American politicians were unwilling to be called names. They were unwilling to face, however invalid, however ridiculous, the charge that they were weak, unmanly, cowardly, defeatist, losers, and whatnot. -Daniel Ellsberg [article link]
I keep hearing people say that Howard Dean should be more careful not to say things that the Republicans can twist around and make into something that sounds bad. They say that Dean is 'just giving them ammunition.' I call this the 'being afraid that Rush Limbaugh is going to say something bad about them' syndrome. I have some news. Sit down. Prepare yourself. Take a breath. Here it comes. Rush Limbaugh is going to say something bad about you. Republicans are going to twist whatever you say. It doesn't matter what it is that you actually say. As much as Howard Dean is able to advance a narrative that the Republican Party is a party of white male Christians, it forces Hispanics, women, blacks and Jews to return to the Democrats. As much as Howard Dean is able to advance a narrative that Republicans only work for the interests of the rich that brings blue collar and middle class people back to the Democrats. Why do you THINK the Republicans are trying to get him to stop saying that? -Dave Johnson, Seeing the Forest
Here is the contradiction in the tiny, dark heart of American conservatism: Its values are solidly "pro-life," but its economic policies lean toward death. While upholding the right of each stem cell to blossom into a human, conservatives have curtailed the lives of all multicellular citizens - by weakening environmental regulations, for instance, and cutting social programs. Right-wing ambivalence on life-and-death issues exploded into a schizophrenic breakdown in the case of Terri Schiavo. With one hand, the Republicans held her feeding tube firmly in place, while the other hand reached for the ax to cut off the flow of Medicaid dollars that were keeping that poor shell of woman alive. -Barbara Ehrenreich
This explains why Democrats never seem to get to the center, no matter how far they move. Swing voters aren�t waiting for us to say something different, they just doubt that we mean what we say. The more we change our message to court them, the more our slickness turns them off. -Doug Muder
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated. -Gandhi
All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. -Henry David Thoreau
If tomorrow the Times ran an article on its front page headlined "Bush is Second Coming of Christ," conservative activists would charge that it proved the paper's liberal bias because it didn't compliment the color of the president's tie. -Media Matters
As they flex their political muscle, right-wing Christians increasingly reveal their condescending view of women as moral children who need to be kept in line sexually by fear. That's why antichoicers will never answer the call of prochoicers to join them in reducing abortions by making birth control more widely available: They want it to be less available. Their real interest goes way beyond protecting fetuses--it's in keeping sex tied to reproduction to keep women in their place. If preventing abortion was what they cared about, they'd be giving birth control and emergency contraception away on street corners instead of supporting pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions and hospitals that don't tell rape victims about the existence of EC... How sexist is denial of Plan B? Antichoicers may pooh-pooh the effectiveness of condoms, but they aren't calling to restrict their sale in order to keep boys chaste. -Katha Pollitt [article link]
History ends at least once and occationally more often in the history of every civilization. As the civilization's universal state emerges, its people become blinded by what Toynbee called "the mirage of immortality" and convinced that theirs is the final form of human society. So it was with the Roman Empire, the Abbasid Caliphate, the Mughal Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. The citizens of such universal states "in defiance of apparently plain facts... are prone to regard it, not as a night's shelter in the wilderness, but as the Promised Land, the goal of human endeavors." The same was true at the peak of the Pax Britannica. For the English middle class in 1897, "as they saw it, history for them, was over... And they had every reason to congratualte themselves on the permanent state of felicity which this ending of history had conferred on them." Societies that assume their history has ended, however, are usually societies whose history is about to decline. -from "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel P. Huntington
Is that how we lived, then? But we lived as usual. Everyone does, most of the time. Whatever is going on is as usual. Even this is as usual, now.
We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.
Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it. There were stories in the newspapers, of course, corpses in the ditches or the woods, bludgeoned to death or mutilated, interfered with, as they used to say, but they were about other women, and the men who did such things were other men. None of them were the men we knew. The newspaper stories were like dreams to us, bad dreams dreamt by others. How awful, we would say, and they were, but they were awful without being believable. They were too melodramatic, they had a dimension that was not the dimension of our lives. -from "The Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Atwood (via Echidne)
[from this article about the goings-on in Kyrgyzstan] Ben Bush: There's a couple of different reactionary versions of what's going on and one is that it's a triumph of democracy which doesn't seem dead on to me and the other is that it's some sort of Western conspiracy. Tom Bissal: Are people really saying it's a Western conspiracy? I think if you really look at a cost benefit analysis of this stuff and when you weigh it the way a president or a department of state guy is really going to think about these countries-- Just put yourself in his position, no one was sitting around talking about Kyrgyzstan when this happened. Trust me, they weren't. What I hate about thoughtless anti-Americanism is the same thing I hate about thoughtless pro-Americanism. They're essentially the same position: nothing happens that America didn't create or cause. It's the same delusion. It just boggles my mind that Noam Chomsky and George Bush basically have the same worldview, one is a transvestite of the other. It's like the right using Lebanon to vindicate their policy in Iraq. It would be foolish to say they're completely unrelated but it would be equally foolish to say they're inexorably related. People say Ronald Reagan won the cold war. That's the biggest load of fucking horseshit anyone has ever peddled. The Soviets had so many problems. The fact that Reagan happened to expand our military at the moment when the Soviet Union's unworkable system was finally collapsing on itself, and that collapse had almost nothing to do with Reagan. It was incidental. There was a million tributaries--cultural, political, historical--leading to the USSR's collapse. It's folly to go around looking at these events in the interest of figuring out how they benefit whatever president or political party happens to be in power. It's actually kind of evil, as all it does is create this vision of America as the puppet-master. The right can't have it both ways: they can't decry all this leftist conspiracy talk and then just take credit for every good thing that happens as a result of their own policy. It doesn't make sense. It's the simplest contradiction you can imagine.
It's a shame it's that second-hand smoke that stinks so bad, because that stuff we're sucking up is fucking great, man. -Bill Hicks
The "vast right wing conspiracy" was a term used to describe all the backroom players who were trying to destroy Clinton by various devious methods behind the scenes. Judging the book by its cover--admittedly something one is often advised not to do-- the "vast left wing conspiracy" appears to be a term used to describe various citizens who are deviously making movies and publishing websites and broadcasting radio shows in an underhanded attempt to sway people through the force of their arguments. -Tom Tomorrow
How many more of these goddam elections are we going to have to write off as lame but "regrettably necessary" holding actions? And how many more of these stinking double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give at the least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote for something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils? I understand, along with a lot of other people, that the big thing, this year, is Beating Nixon. But that was also the big thing, as I recall, twelve years ago in 1960 -- and as far as I can tell, we've gone from bad to worse to rotten since then, and the outlook is for more of the same. -Hunter S. Thompson
[The following two quotes are from T.G. Browning.]
misanthrope: A person with who holds a cautious, realistic, and
justifiable assessment of humanity. See misogynist.
misogynist: An incautious person who�s half right. See misanthrope.
Waging an aggressive war: 1500 dead soldiers and 100,000 dead Iraqis.
Ordering more executions (including minors) than any other governor in history: 152 deaths
Deaths per year caused by a lack of healthcare in the US: 18,000
Rallying to extend the life of one brain-dead woman who wanted to die: That's pro-life.-R.B. Fairchild
[in reference to the Terri Schiavo case] Wow. If you ever asked me if it were even remotely possible that one day I would read a Freeper thread in which torture is condemned, a boycott of Florida is urged (I shit thee not!,) not feeding the hungry is deemed murder, MLK's 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail' is invoked, the tyranny of a judicial system with life-and-death power is decried, Federal Marshals are called upon to defend civil rights, and a Fox News legal analyst is labeled a 'Death-o-crat', I'd tell you 'no fucking way,' then demand a hit off of whatever you were smoking. -via August Pollak
My girlfriend refers to me in bed as the "Energizer Bunny." It's not because I can go for hours or anything -- it's because I'm really good at rolling over and handing her fresh batteries for her vibrator. -Kim Moser
Frankly, the only thing more galling than the brazenness with which the White House abrogates the public's right to know is the sheeplike docility with which we accept it, with which we become complicit in our own hoodwinking. When the history of this era is written, people will wonder why we didn't challenge its excesses, why we didn't know the things we should have. If you're still around, remember the uproar you do not hear right this moment and tell them the truth. Ignorance was easier. -Leonard Pitts, Jr.
Seeing isn't believing. But believing all too often is seeing. -T.G. Browning
Since the November elections, I feel like the woman whose husband refused to listen when she told him not to sell the family cow for magic beans. She's still forced to consider his welfare, but it's neurochemically impossible to be more angry. And she can see that, irresponsible as he was to do it, as soon as it dawns on him that he's been rooked, he won't repent or apologize -- he'll blame her. -"Molly," a commenter at Digby's Blog
I really wonder how the residents of Wingnuttia and their media mouthpieces sleep at night. I hate when I make a mistake. I hate when I get things wrong - it makes me feel like a fool and I feel responsible for making others who might not see the correction look like fools too if they pass it on. But, for some reason these people never get tired of being wrong. They must really get off on it. -Atrios
As I walk into the room full of monkeys on typewriters, it dawns on me that if they were to stay in here long enough, they could write some Shakespeare or something. Then again, if they stay in here long enough, they'll probably unionize and go on strike, and then where are you? -BigDogDano
[in reference to George Bush inviting Rush Limbaugh to the White House] Media Matters isn't sure why the Bush White House invited Limbaugh; perhaps it was out of admiration for his April 2004 statement that women "actually wish" to be sexually harassed. Or maybe it was in appreciation of his March 2004 comment (about Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez and American labor leader Cesar Chavez) that "[a] Chavez is a Chavez. We've always had problems with them." Or are we being too cynical in thinking that the invitation was to thank him for his claim that "John Kerry really doesn't think 3,000 Americans dead in one day is that big a deal"? ... Perhaps Bush invited Limbaugh to the White House to thank him for calling the torture at Abu Ghraib "brilliant." -Media Matters For America
amoral: 1. Someone unable to rationalize convincingly. 2. Someone
incapable of following your rationalizations. -T.G. Browning
Minimum wage means that we would pay you less if we could, but it's against the law! -Chris Rock
Whatever doesn't kill me only makes me stronger. Except a crippling illness that leaves me comatose and on a respirator, that is. -Ben Bass
My dad was right: Supermodels are no more bulletproof than regular models. I think I'm finally starting to figure out this whole "learning from his mistakes" thing. -Christopher Rostan
It's really cool when you and your girlfriend finish each other's sentences. It sucks, though, when you break up to discover you're no longer capable of speaking in complete... uh... help me out here.... -Kim Moser
If hell is having to watch your worst decisions over and over forever, I really hope they give you a better judgment system than you had when you made those decisions. If they don't, they'll have to sit and explain to you why you were wrong. And chances are that they still won't get through to you. Then they'll have to think up some new punishment. Probably something involving bees. -Christopher Rostan
When I face a problem, I stop and ask myself, "What Would Jesus Do?" It works! Drinking wine, sitting around talking, drinking more wine, telling parables, drinking more wine and talking to God really does pretty much solve any problem I have. Now if only I could recruit a few disciples. -Wendy Bartram
What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.... Politics is not a picture on a wall or a television sitcom that you can decide you don't much care for. Is the person who prescribes your eyeglasses qualified to do so? How deep will you be buried when you die? What textbooks are your children learning from at school? What will happen if you become seriously ill? Is the meat you're eating tainted? Will you be able to afford to go to college or to send your kids? Would you like a vacation? Expect to retire before you die? Can you find a job? Drive a car? Afford insurance? Is your credit card company or your banker or your broker ripping you off? It's all politics, Bubba. You don't get to opt out for lack of interest. -Molly Ivins
I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives. -Molly Ivins
Sieg heil, y'all. -Molly Ivins
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, can never bring about a reform. -Susan B. Anthony
The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -George Carlin
They're all in favor of the unborn ... but once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception 'til nine months. After that, they don't want to hear from you. No neo-natal care, no day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. -George Carlin
I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race. -Bertrand Russell
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped,
but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. -Mark Twain
Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that is often considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business. -Robert Rice
The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? -Dave Barry
Sometimes I wonder why I am burning $5,000/yr on school when I approach it with nothing but apathy, and accomplish only slightly above the curve. Why? If one is going to do something, shouldn't one do it right? It just numbs my brain, I find it hard to attend for weeks at a time. Bleh. When I said I wanted a challenging school experience, I didn't think the challenge would be "how to get out of bed" and "how not to outwardly show your contempt for your peers". -Charlotte Ashley
[in reference to comments from prominent Republicans that a gay marriage ban will take time to pass] But of course it will take time! So will the abortion ban. The Republicans have no intention of actually getting these bans passed swiftly and decisively, noooh. Because then they'd have to invent something even crazier to keep their base happy, and they are not quite ready to go there yet ("there" being the banning of all contraception, probably). Without this, the successful banning of same-sex marriage and all abortions would kill the wingnut movement in the Republican Party, and the Republicans would lose seats all over the country. -Echidne
When is the revolution scheduled to begin? Because I've heard "The Second Amendment RULEZ!!!" types go on and on about fighting against tyranny, and yet, most of them just sit on their fat asses, waiting for someone else to start the battle. When are they going to bring it?
Let's be realistic for a second. If those jack-booted thugs came knocking at your door, you'd do what every other kooky gun owner does: Hurry to Free Republic and somehow blame Clinton for it. The revolution won't be televised because the revolution isn't going to happen. -The Misanthropic Bitch
Lord Acton said, "The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free, is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities." In America, our minorities enjoy maximum security, if you know what I'm saying. -The Covert Comic
Any sufficiently advanced coup is indistinguishable from an election. -The Covert Comic
War should never be entered upon until every agency of peace has failed. Peace is preferable to war in almost every contingency. -William McKinley
Remember the feeling of panic you had as a child when you couldn't find your house? And remember the feeling you had when you finally found your house, and you were safe inside with your family? Remember how much scarier that feeling was? -The Covert Comic
I may not know much about marketing, but if I manufactured a machine that generated warm, brown, steaming liquid for people to gulp down when they're barely awake, I might rethink naming the company "Bunn." -Brad Simanek
Reason editor Nick Gillespie recently wrote about how, surprise, he sorta doesn't like all the places which top Forbes magazine's "US Freedom index" which is simply a bunch of low tax places. Gillespie realizes that maybe there are more important things to worry about than taxes and regulations, and, well, hey, he likes New York City.
All of that is well and good, but what he doesn't quite do is take it all the way to the conclusion. New York City isn't as good as it is in spite of its high taxes and regulations, it could not exist without them. That's not to say all taxes/expenditures/regulations are good, but a densely populated place like NYC just simply would not exist and would not function without a pretty active government.
NYC couldn't exist without an immense public transit system. It couldn't exist without a rather large public sector keeping the place relatively clean and safe and functioning. It couldn't exist without pesky zoning and other regulations in such a dense environment, property rights are always going to be somewhat fuzzy. Frankly, it couldn't exist without all the things libertarians tend to get upset about.
I like New York. I don't think all people do or should. Not all people want to live in a place like New York. But, New York isn't and couldn't be a libertarian paradise and still be New York. And, nor could the rest of the country... -Atrios
When it comes to women's boobs, believe me, size matters. If they're not at least 90 x 60 pixels, I'm clickin' on the next thumbnail. -The Covert Comic
I've been thinking of trading in my office job for a truck-driving position. The only thing I'm worried about is if they make a big deal about drinking on the job like my current company does. -Karl Bean
In Mr. Bush's case, his administration has already shown ominous signs of "group-think" in its handling of Iraq and the nation's finances. By closing down dissent and centralizing power in a few hands, he is acting as if he truly believes that he and his team have a perfect track record, that they know best, and that they don't need any infusion of new heavyweights. He has every right to take this course, but as he knows from his Bible, pride goeth before. -David Gergen
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose... You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you, "be silent; I see it, if you don't." -Abraham Lincoln, 1848, in reference to President James K. Polk's waging of the Mexican War
Next time my cat sneaks up on me in a dark alley, sticks a gun in my ribs, and takes off with my car, I'm going to have a little talk with him about boundaries. And no more Fancy Feast. -Dakota Shepard
neo-con: A recent addition to the political lexicon, denoting someone who is compassionately totalitarian, yet pro-life for Homo sapiens under a minute old or dying in excruciating pain. -T.G. Browning
The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Bush Promises To Unite Nation For Real This Time
WASHINGTON, DC - A week after winning a narrow victory over Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, President Bush promised to "unite the divided nation, but for real this time." "Just as I pledged in 2000, I promise to bring the two halves of this nation together - only this time I'm really gonna do it," Bush said Tuesday. "I'll work hard to put an end to partisan politics. Seriously, though. This term, I will." Bush then requested the support of all Americans for his agenda of cutting taxes and extending America's presence in Iraq. -The Onion
Despite massive job losses in the state, Ohio residents gave the crucial winning electoral votes to Bush by voting based on "moral values," specifically in opposition to gay marriage. They will now have the comfort of knowing there will be no married homosexual couples standing next to them in line at the unemployment office. -Gary Tunstall
Anti-feminist, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-secular, anti-gun control, anti-foreigner, anti-human rights, anti-science, and anti-speech. Religion shouldn't promote hatred, and it can never justify violence. So why is it that, other than Jesus, the only thing that extreme fundamentalists of all faiths really disagree about is where to put the bombs? -Rob Fairchild
[The following three quotes are from T.G. Browning]
justify: One's weak attempt to provide some rationale, no matter how
silly, for any preconceived notion currently squatting in the squalor
of one's mind. See rationalize. See logic.
logic: The study of the principles of reasoning, insofar as one can
hammer them into something one already believes. 2. A systematic
method whereby one establishes the truth and validity of one's current
beliefs. See justify.
pro-life: A person who hold the curious belief that all life is
precious, in marked conflict with the closing Consumer Price Index
which shows a human life to be worth about $0.32--the price of a
7.62mm bullet.
[from bash.org]
DragonflyBlade21: A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you're a great guy, but I don't like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we're not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we're going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn't work out, we'll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.
Now, regular readers are well aware that one of my recurring themes -- so much so that I sound like a stuck record, in fact -- is the fact that Americans generically, and the media/pundit class particularly, have a peculiar blind spot when it comes to terrorism. When they're white right-wing extremist Christians, they're just "aberrations" and "isolated incidents." When it's committed by brown-skinned foreigners of another religion, we declare a "war on terror." -David Neiwert
The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments. -Adam Smith
Putting $1000 in the pockets of 310,000 families with urgent needs is going to provide far more stimulus to the economy than putting the same $310 million in my pockets. -Warren Buffet, re: the Bush tax cuts
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, what's the first refuge of scoundrels? My theory: the Internet. -The Covert Comic
While inevitable, the oft-repeated comparisons between McCarthyism and Ashcroftism are doomed to fall flat. As bad as McCarthy's tactics were, remarkably few people ended up in prison because of them. Ashcroft, on the other hand, imprisoned thousands of Arab-Americans after September 11 with no charge and apparently solely on the basis of their ethnicity, with no pesky public hearings and thus no risk that anyone might embarrassingly inquire after his sense of decency. -the rotten.com library
Voting disability ("Hard to Pin Down Syndrome") affects more than a million families in this country. Doctors claim the victims are of normal intelligence, yet lag behind even severely retarded children in decision-making ability. -Bad Reporter
The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify,
for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds. -John Maynard Keynes
Webloggers telling the mainstream media about being partisan and non-objective is like John Wayne Gacy telling Ronald McDonald how to be a clown. -August J. Pollak
Did you ever wonder what it felt like to have a blowjob from Anna Kournikova interrupted by the shrill screechy wail of Mariah Carey circa 1990? Well, then maybe *you* can explain to my wife why our alarm clock radio is now in 17 pieces. -Mark D. Sabien
Yesterday I was in the grocery store and saw this girl bend over to pick up something from the bottom shelf, and I saw straight down her shirt, and it made me really horny. Then it made me realize that I haven't had sex for, like, months. Hmmmm... somehow I thought this would turn out funnier than it did. -Bill Ervin
The Bush administration claims vindication from an extensive report which definitively states that although Saddam Hussein had not acquired weapons of mass destruction, he wanted them. In other news, nearly 90 million American men have been arrested and charged with rape for wanting to have sex with Britney Spears. -Charles Knorr
May our country always be successful, but whether successful or otherwise always right. I disclaim as unsound all patriotism incompatable with the principles of eternal justice. -John Quincy Adams
The combination of extreme poverty and inequality between countries, and often also within them, is an affront to our common humanity. -UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Poverty is not created by poor people. It is produced by our failure to create institutions to support human capabilities. -Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh
Domestic issues can only lose elections, but foreign policy issues can kill us all. -John F. Kennedy
If you ever get a chance to participate in the Olympic trials for the 100-meter dash, don't run it "balls out" -- you'll wind up being labeled "The Janet Jackson of Olympic Runners." -Jerry L. Embry
I hate it when I give a homeless guy money and the wife says, "He's only going to drink it up!" What did she think *I* was going to do with it? -Jerry L. Embry
To think of the future and wait was merely another way of saying one was a coward; any idea of moderation was just another attempt to disguise one's unmanly character; ability to understand the question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action; fanatical enthusiasm was the mark of a real man... Anyone who held violent opinions could always be trusted, and anyone who objected to them became a suspect. -Thucydides
One of every three lakes in the United States, and nearly one quarter of the nation's rivers contain enough pollution that people should limit or avoid eating fish caught there, according to the EPA. The number of advisories has been steadily rising, but EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt said the increase was due to more monitoring, not more pollution. Luckily, the country's supply of beef, pork, and poultry are still considered safe because of inadequate monitoring. -James Floyd
You know you hate your job when you spill soda on your computer and you're more concerned about the lost soda. -Steve Nathans
I keep seeing advertisements on TV for "male enhancement" pills. Thanks just the same, but I'm one of those lucky guys who has no need for that sort of thing. I have a girlfriend with a really small vagina. -Chris MacEachen
It's one thing to read it all in books, but being here I'm getting a much more profound sense of just how many grand civilizations before our own have thrived briefly, fallen, and been completely forgotten, even though they were completely certain that their gods were real, their customs were the highest evolution of human development, and their future was necessary for the very destiny of life on earth. Now we barely even remember their names. Of course, this time it's different...
We've got a whole planet in serious trouble from global warming, well-armed religious fanaticism, WMD proliferation into countries which, unlike Iraq, actually have them, and a dozen other things of unprecedented scale. And every great civilization which didn't actively address its problems has fallen as surely as Helios.
I turned on CNN in my hotel today, the first time I've seen it on the trip. They said absolutely nothing of any importance, really urgently, for about ten minutes.
Man, if there's one thing I'm learning: human beings are really good at simply "solving" their problems by killing each other with complete certainty that it's the will of God, using us in a divine struggle to project our own egos onto the world, against all evidence in the whole of human experience.
It's actually funny, the whole pageant, when you look at it on a time line. What a bunch of maroons we are. -Bob Harris
When life has got me down and I'm ready to give up, I try to remind myself: "I'm the one in control here. I have the gun and the hostages. So just back off, man, okay?" -Dan Brennan
We popularly refer to extreme prudishness in the face of something even only mildly naughty as "Puritan." Those with a slightly greater sense of historical understanding would use the term "Victorian." Someday, the most astute of cultural observers will refer to it as being "American." -Rob Fairchild
That may be one of my biggest gripes about centrist Democrats. They act as if amelioration -- both economic and social -- is embarrassing and has to be handled under cover. Let's not talk about poverty. Let's pretend racism is now confined to the kind of white trash that dragged James Byrd to his death, but that drug wars and disenfranchising African-American voters have nothing to do with it. Let's not talk about gay rights because it makes some voters squirm. (Could all you gay people just try to blend it and shut up, so no one notices you're here?) Just trust us that we'll do whatever is politically feasible to make things better, but let's keep it quiet so we don't offend anyone. You may actually get a few positive things done that way, but over the long term, by taking those issues out of the public's consciousness, you solidify the idea that there's no problem, that people are poor because they have no initiative, that racism has disappeared and any reference to it is just offering excuses. And the Republican Party is going to build on that opening. -Jeanne D'Arc
(from bash.org)
ZS: Ouranophobia- Fear of heaven.
Kevyn: What's scary about heaven?
Phantomlord: dude, christians hang out there
I think sites like matchmaker.com would be more successful if they had yes/no check boxes for pragmatic characteristics like "enjoys farting loudly in public" and "sucks one mean-ass cock." -Mark D. Sabien
Some would say that harsh penalties have the potential to reduce crime and restore public faith in the justice system. Others would say this depends on whether or not Kenneth Lay gets the chair. -Rob Fairchild
We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people--whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth--is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill housed, and insecure. -Franklin Delano Roosevelt
The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation. -Albert Einstein
It is very hard to talk about the promise of America without falling into self-congratulation and delusions, or worse, into a sense of entitlement. The language has been sullied, maybe beyond cleansing, by too many speeches in which our "values" are a nicely wrapped package we can hand someone else, or even force on someone who doesn't want them. America as an inheritence from a rich daddy, which allows you to take whatever you want, screw up repeatedly, and never pay for your mistakes, and still believe that your the best piece of work God ever created. -Jeanne D'Arc, quoted out of context
It is not possible to find a leader more foolish than Bush, who deals with matters by force rather than with wisdom. Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he and the Democrats have the cunning to embrace blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation as civilization. Because of this we desire Bush to be elected. -al-Qaeda statement, March 17, 2004.
One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. -Justice Stevens (SCOTUS), Bush v. Gore
[in a post on Bush and the global gag rule] There's something I don't get. How come the same administration that believes we will be tainted by any association with abortion, no matter how much good can be accomplished, also works with and financially supports brutal governments on the grounds that some greater, long term good will come from it? In other words, why is it anathema to have a three times removed connection to a doctor in Africa telling a woman whose body can't take any more pregnancies how to get an abortion, but it isn't wrong to directly finance a government that boils people alive? [in reference to Uzbekistan, one of our closest allies] Maybe the Bushies could provide us with a list of government-approved sins. -Jeanne D'Arc
My priest said I might find spiritual guidance if I gave up something important for 40 days of Lent. So I gave up sobriety, and guess what? It worked! -Greg Preece
When I was young I used to pray for a bike. Then I realized that God doesn't work that way, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness. -Dan Gadino
My dream is to someday be a member of the White House press corps and begin every question, "Riddle me this, Mr. President..." -Bob Van Voris
We have polluted the earth, the air, the water. Therefore, according to the ancient Greeks, we won't be perfect polluters until we figure out a way to pollute fire. -The Covert Comic
This commandment [honor thy father and mother] is often interpreted as a general order to obey and respect those who are older and/or in positions of authority. It is interesting that no corresponding commandment exists about honoring ones children, or people who are younger and/or below us in the pecking order. Why is this commandment missing? I suspect that it is missing on purpose. If a religion is to be acceptable to the rulers of an era, its tenets must not contradict their powers, and if a religion is to be acceptable to a large number of believers, its tenets must not deviate too much from too many of the existing social norms. Understanding this little practical fact makes it much easier to see why the big religions reflect the societal biases of the times when they were written down. Of course, it doesn't make it any easier to comprehend why everybody can't see this. -Echidne
I used to think that the worst feeling in the world was being lonely until I remembered that sliding down a giant cheese grater naked is also pretty bad. So it hit me what would be worst of all: sliding down a giant cheese grater naked and having no one to share it with. -Silas Knight
Looking at these photographs, you ask yourself, How can someone grin at the sufferings and humiliation of another human being? Set guard dogs at the genitals and legs of cowering naked prisoners? Force shackled, hooded prisoners to masturbate or simulate oral sex with one another? And you feel naive for asking, since the answer is, self-evidently, People do these things to other people. Rape and pain inflicted on the genitals are among the most common forms of torture. Not just in Nazi concentration camps and in Abu Ghraib when it was run by Saddam Hussein. Americans, too, have done and do them when they are told, or made to feel, that those over whom they have absolute power deserve to be humiliated, tormented. They do them when they are led to believe that the people they are torturing belong to an inferior race or religion. For the meaning of these pictures is not just that these acts were performed, but that their perpetrators apparently had no sense that there was anything wrong in what the pictures show. -Susan Sontag
Students of history are familiar with these complaints, since they have been leveled against virtually every group of immigrants to come to the United States. Of course, the language complaint also bespeaks a peculiarly American bit of unthinking arrogance about other languages; Americans are possibly the only people on Earth who are positively insulted that people from other nations have failed to learn how to speak English. -David Neiwert
While I fit the Zeiss 12x56 scope to my new Weatherby .460 big-game gun with its custom ultra-mag rounds, I chuckle ruefully to myself as I recall how this all started as a simple Fourth of July squirt-gun fight. -Michael Cunningham
When I heard on the news that George Bush and Teresa Heinz Kerry were campaigning in Lansing while John Kerry and Laura Bush were in Detroit, I was shocked. But then I remembered that in this year's election, Michigan is a swing state. -Jerry Embry
As I stood there tired and sweating, my frustration building, my father's words came back to me: "Never give up! Never do a half-assed job! Always finish what you start!" With his wisdom still in the back of my mind, I lifted my 5-iron and took aim at the near-lifeless body one last time. -Stephanie Shiner-Thompson
President Bush said that the intelligence briefing he received on al-Qaeda one month before the 9/11 strike contained no specific indication of a terrorist attack. The president added, "There was not a time and place of an attack" in the briefing. An al-Qaeda spokesperson apologized, saying the attack notification -- including the time, place, date and map -- must have gotten lost in the mail. -Mark Funk
You make fifty thousand dollars a year, you pay nine thousand in income taxes - that doesn't put you in the poorhouse, but it sure as hell tightens your budget. I make a million dollars a year, I pay four hundred thousand in income taxes - that leaves me six hundred thousand to live on. That doesn't cramp my lifestyle. I'm still rich. You gonna feel sorry for me? -Bernard Rapoport, quoted in "Bushwhacked" by Molly Ivins
Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I had spent three days eating nothing but beets and asparagus and downing enough Karo syrup to kill a horse that I realized maybe it was actually during a dream when I came up with my super-secret formula for "pissing Skittles." -Brad Simanek
(in reference to going to war over religion) You're basically killing each other to see who's got the better imaginary friend. -Richard Jeni
Things you'll never hear a woman say: 'My, what an attractive
scrotum!' -Patricia Arquette
The Web brings people together because no matter what kind of a
twisted sexual mutant you happen to be, you've got millions of pals
out there. Type in 'Find people that have sex with goats that are on
fire' and the computer will ask, 'Specify type of goat.' -Jason Alexander
[from from bash.org CharoNoMe: Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall. CharoNoMe: Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
To summarize [Condi Rice's testimony to the 9-11 commision]: they did not know al Qaeda was planning to attack within the United States, even though they knew there were al Qaeda cells within the United States and the title of the August 6 PDB--a document prepared at the request of the President--was "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." However, the document was apparently one of the most grossly misnamed reports in the history of governance, because, according to Rice's testimony, it "did not warn of attacks inside the United States." Except, of course, for the part where it talked about suspicious activity consistent with preparations for hijacking. And anyway there was nothing they could have done because they weren't specifically told when and where the hijackers were going to strike, and it's not like they could have hardened the cockpits in time even if they'd tried, which they didn't. -Tom Tomorrow
Why is it that Republicans understand so clearly that they have to keep the base happy, while the Democrats seem to delight in insulting theirs in order to court some temperamental sliver of voters who don't like them very much? Which are there more of? So-called progressive pro-lifers who care so much about forcing pregnant women to bear children that they would pull the lever for Bush, maker of dishonest war and champion of death row? Or women and men who want abortion to be legal and who fear the encroachments of sectarian religion on private life? -Katha Pollitt
The problem, as I see it, is that no one in the Bush Administration (or the press, for that matter) seems able to say, "We fucked up. We'll learn from our mistakes." About anything. Instead, all the time, it's, "We had a plan. Not just any plan, but a really cool plan. In fact, we implemented the plan! And the plan is working perfectly." I keep expecting one of them to tell us that the World Trade Center is still standing because their really cool plan� worked. Just you wait. -Martial
I think anyone who preaches the joys of bipartisanship is a fool who has little understanding of how American politics does and should work. Partisanship is a good thing. If the opening position is compromise then the public never receives a healthy debate over the merits of a particular policy. Sometimes I wonder if that's really what members of the Broder school of political analysis really want - to cut the pesky people out of the process. Of course, well-run government does require that there are a few responsible adults on both sides who can, at the end of the day, come together and iron out their differences. But, bipartisanship is not an end in itself. Democracy requires healthy debate and disagreement. -Atrios
I found that once I came to accept the fact that my very existence on the earth was an abomination in the eyes of God Himself, that I truly *am* an unclean being, I've been able to make some really good progress on my underlying self-esteem issues. -Chris MacEachen
Sometimes, too much of a good thing can end up being bad. Take flatulence, for example. -Marshall
I gave my wife something that made her moan all night. Who needs a "bigger man-tool" when you've got a contagious stomach flu? Take that, spammers! -Clynch Varnadore
Visiting your parents should have an expiration date; when your patience for putting up with overbearing advice expires, you should go home. That or two days, whichever comes first. -Jenn McNanna
It might be time to change the meaning of anti-Semitic. Because, apparently the only way to be anti-Semitic in some people's eyes is to portray the Jews as people with the word "Evil" tatooed on their forehead. Because portraying Jews as an unruly mob, slobbering for the death and torture of an icon of peace and love apparently isn't a negative portrayal under our current definition. -an email to the author of Orcinus, in reference to The Passion of the Christ
I believe the true power of the Internet lies in the fact that I could -- by citing a fictitious "study" touting their amazing weight-loss effects -- convince more than one person to don a banana-peel helmet and put a lightbulb in his rectum. -Brad Simanek
Getting a girlfriend is a lot like getting a new dog. Sure you can spend a lot of money and get a nice one, but if you're patient, and not so picky, sometimes you can find one hanging around the dumpsters behind Burger King looking for something to eat. -Anthony Myers
Yeah, that's exactly what we need on our airplanes these days, people arguing about *religion.* -Jay Leno, in reference to this news story
Anyone find it amazing how the people who insist on God existing without any proof whatsoever demand disclaimers on textbooks about the proof of evolution? I'll support disclaimers on the science books if the bibles can all have "Warning: your results may vary" stickers. -August J. Pollak
Driving in to work this morning, heard a quote on the radio by Eric Hoffer: You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. Reflected that this may explain why people in the Middle East threaten America with weapons of mass destruction, and we Americans threaten people in the Middle East with freedom and democracy. -The Covert Comic
I don't have anything against celebrity athletes endorsing products, but what makes them think I'd buy soup from a millionaire who still wears jerseys as shirts and hangs out with his mom at the grocery store? -Brad Simanek
Some conservative writers have been comparing the US war against Iraq to the epic struggles of the Lord of the Rings. Since we all know that the Black Gates of Mordor opened only to reveal an unarmed army of deserting orcs and a cowering Sauron, and we discovered that the One Ring was actually a bad forgery, and finally concluded that Gandalf was a shameless, war-crazy liar, I guess I'd have to agree with them. -R.B. Fairchild
What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know; it's what we know for sure that just ain't so.
Is it just me, or does it sometimes seem like God is being a big baby about little stuff? -Ian Samuel
Silence is never misquoted, but often misinterpreted. -unknown, found on Megan's profile
If these walls could talk, they'd probably say, "No! Not the nails again! Not the hammer! NOT THE HAMMER!!!!" -Jennifer A. Ford
I disagree with my psychiatrist's assertion that I'm depressed because I have a serotonin imbalance. I'm pretty sure the real reason is: My life sucks. -Scott Carpenter
Give an undertaker a dead body and you feed him for a day. Teach an undertaker how to kill people and you feed him for a lifetime. -Bob Van Voris
I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends up defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter. -Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every year when they hold the New York City Marathon, I like to stand on the sidelines holding out a cup of bleach. You know, in case one of the exhausted runners needs to clean a spot on his shirt or something. -Bob Van Voris
Republicans have learned through hard experiences that most Americans do not actually want their government sharply cut. Voters are skeptical of government, but they elect candidates who promise solutions for their problems, not ones who tear down departments. They do not respond to politicians whose primary message is "No, no, no." -David Brooks
A conservative is a man who wants the rules changed so that no one can make a
pile the way he did. -Gregory Nunn
I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. -John Stuart Mill
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Reaganomics, that makes sense to me. It means if you don't have enough money,
it's because poor people are hoarding it. -Kevin Rooney
God doesn't have a legislative agenda. -Colin Powell
With all the violence and murder and killings we've had in the United States,
I think you will agree that we must keep firearms from people who have no
business with guns. -Robert F. Kennedy
All sorts of articles and letters appear in the papers about women. Profound questions are raised concerning them. Should they smoke? Should they work? Vote? Marry? Exist? Are not their skirts too short, or their sleeves? Have they a sense of humor, of honor, of direction? Are spinsters superfluous? But how seldom similar inquiries are propounded about men. -Rose Macaulay
Fetuses are now called unborn children. I like the logic behind this innovation; from now on I shall call living adults undead corpses. And for breakfast I will no longer order fried eggs but fried unborn chickens. -Echidne
One day it struck me that it's just not right that we eat certain animals, yet treat others as pets. And *that's* when I invented Kitten McNuggets. -Bob Van Voris
I'll bet people who aren't as bitter as I am don't have nearly as much fun with telemarketers. -Pam Pickard
Despite the obvious merits of an internationally led tribunal, Washington is adamantly opposed, which largely explains the path chosen by the Iraqi Governing Council. But Washington's opposition reflects its ideology, not concern for the Iraqi people. The Bush administration calculates that a tribunal of Iraqis selected by its hand-picked Governing Council will be less likely to reveal embarrassing aspects of Washington's past support for Saddam Hussein, more likely to impose the death penalty despite broad international condemnation, and, most important, less likely to enhance even indirectly the legitimacy of the detested International Criminal Court. -Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
The last time I needed a cavity filled I tried one of those new places where the whole time the guy's working on you he spouts language inciting rebellion against the authority of the state. You know, sedition dentistry. -Sandra Hull
When I was a kid, my parents used to tell me that Santa Claus was really an escaped mental patient who murdered one bad little boy every Christmas. Other kids got presents, but when I woke up Christmas morning, I was glad just to be alive. So don't tell me about Christmas spirit, Mr. Psychiatrist! -Bob Van Voris
An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been siezed. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor." -St. Augustine, The City of God
There never has been a war yet which, if the facts had been put calmly before the ordinary folk, could not have been prevented... The common man, I think, is the greatest protection against war. -Ernest Bevin, British Foreign Minister, November 23, 1945
To us un-Americans, an American conservative is a guy who doesn�t give a damn about you because you are a foreigner, whereas a liberal is a guy who makes an earnest effort to give a damn about you even though you are inferior. -a letter to the author of Orcinus (article link)
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Frame a man for murder and the state will feed him every day for 25-to-life. -Bob Van Voris
In hindsight, showing my mom how to do a Google search using the example phrase "Ella Fitzgerald scat" was probably a bad idea. -Patrick Crispen
If the supermarket workers are on strike, is it okay to cross the picket line if you only plan on shoplifting? -James Floyd
I think there is nothing sadder than a crying clown -- unless the clown is crying because he got hit in the crotch with a football, which would be hilarious. -Brad Wilkerson
You know work is slow when your most productive moments take place in the rest room. -Flatbush Escapee [Ah, yes, I remember that feeling well from my Chuck E Cheese days. :-) -ed.]
No way in hell is the NRA some sort of noble defender of "key Constitutional rights." What, you think it's all Waco and David Koresh? Get over it. The NRA is, and always has been, about one thing and one thing only: fear. Promotion, dissemination, and paranoid endorsement of. Fear of minorities. Fear of foreigners. Fear of muggers and rapists and hoodlums breaking in and stealing all your beer. Such idiocy. You know what? I'm not some fairlyland utopian pleading for the banning of all guns everywhere. That is simply foolish. What I wish for is an immediate criminal outlawing of the very brand of ultra-conservative paranoid hate-filled fearmongering the NRA so desperately tried to drill into the nation's soul. -Mark Morford
A useless message in my in-box trumpeted, "Satisfy the girls with a bigger dick!" Hey, I wouldn't be caught dead with a girl with a dick, especially if it's bigger than mine. -Clyde Varnadore
duty: 1. If one�s duty, that which hurts the least. 2. If another�s duty,
that which benefits you the most. -T.G. Browning
fair play: 1. Any legally sanctioned monopoly. 2. Marvelous concept
peculiar to thirteen year olds and Americans, which is said to describe even
handed, equal treatment for everyone. No concrete examples are actually
known to exist. -T.G. Browning
Such things as individual liberty and a truthful press are simply not
compatible with military efficiency. -George Orwell, Homage To Catalonia
I don't like to tell potential employers I was downsized from my last job, because that makes me seem like a loser who couldn't adapt to the changing business environment. So I tell them instead that I quit to spend more quality time with my kitty cats. -Andrea Crain
Just once I'd like the answer to the question, "Honey, why are you crying?" to be "Because you know too much and I have to kill you." Instead, it's "You watch too much football and never take me shopping" that I always get. -Adam Altman
In retrospect, my plan to get out of jury duty by screaming, "Kill all the white people!" might have worked better had the defendant been white, had it not been the sentencing phase, and had I not been the defendant. -Andrew Kennedy
Your husband's noble and indeed wondrous medical assistance aside, I have to heartily and passionately disagree with "the individuals who enlist in the military cannot be held to even the smallest amount of responsibility for supporting the political regime in power." I realize they join with personal or maybe even benevolent intent. But this is not how they are used. Takes incredible levels of naivete to say "I had no idea I might be used as a disposable henchman for the current admin's violent and brutal corporate and petrochem strategies overseas." I mean, please. Sort of like joining the swim team and then feigning shocked ignorance about the whole getting wet thing. This is what they *do.* -Mark Morford, in response to a reader email
Nothing says "feisty" like a painfully distended bladder. -Bonnie Margay Burke
I am intolerant as hell. I do not tolerate rabid ignorance, or homophobia, or misogyny, or lib-bashing, or lies about war, or snide religious doctrine adherents who tell me if I don't live by a certain ethos or support a particular angry god or warmongering worldview I will burn, or suffer, or not be "saved," and I will pay; nor do I tolerate the spewing of misinformation meant to induce fear and rage in an increasingly numbed, thoughtless populace. Hey, doesn't that just about sum up the conservative agenda? You're damn right it does. What, too bitter? Too intolerant? As if. -Mark Morford
Even if we were to accept the premise that a fetus is a person, it may have a right to life, but it doesn't have the right to subject another person against her will to painful and dangerous medical consequences. If I needed a kidney transplant, I might be able to get the organ I needed to survive by stabbing someone and forcibly removing one of theirs. But even if they recovered with no ill health effects after the attack, I'd be guilty of a moral (and legal) wrong for subjecting them to it in the first place. Those people who want to consider fetuses person must remember that even another person with a right to life doesn't have the right to that life at the expense of another person, not even if that person is the child's parent. Being pro-life can't mean being in favor of saving one life by allowing it to hold another hostage for 9 months." -Amy Phillips (link)
Everywhere I look I see people driving fancy new cars and it just makes me sick. Why should I have to drive a piece of junk just because I've made a few dumb financial decisions? -Bill Stovall
I don't doubt that Easterbrook [note: the conservative columnist recently fired for referring to Michael Eisner as a "money-worshipping Jew" in one of his columns -ed.] no more thinks he is an anti-semite than Rush Limbaugh thinks he is a racist. Most anti-semites and racists don't think they are anti-semites and racists. Sometimes it comes out in anger, when they aren't thinking clearly and they kind of clap their hands over their mouths like Easterbrook did and whisper, "did I say that?" Others think they are making reasonable observations and that those who object are being peculiarly sensitive. They search for justifications and usually claim victim status themselves at the hands of the PC police. -Digby
There's nothing worse than listening to the sniveling crybaby in the cubicle next to mine whine and complain about his allergies all day. And then, of course, he blames it all on my cigar smoke, the inconsiderate bastard. -Charles Gulledge
I used to visit newsgroups on the Internet a lot, but I recently thought, "Why bother? If I want to be ignored when I speak, I can go hang out with my friends." -Eric Spratling
People like Ann Coulter, for instance, would say that we hate America. We don�t hate America. We want America to live up to its potential. We want this to be a better place than it is. And when you have, especially as you do right now, a gang of cutthroats and thieves running everything, then the only way this country�s going to be a better place and live up to its potential is if we are out there, jumping up and down and shouting and screaming and pointing out -- and this is a clich� -- that the Emperor has no damn clothes on. -
