Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

We’re watching the self-immolation of the leading world power on a level unprecedented in human history.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

He really is that stupid.

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

You are here: Home / Politics / Ain’t that a shame

Reader Interactions

118Comments

  2. 2.

    JenJen

    Also, 9/11 Ads are the new Hopey/Changey.

    Just out of curiosity, is it me, or is running an ad where you’re criticizing the opponent for not calling for the death penalty for SUICIDE BOMBERS rather stoopid?

    Last I heard, the fuckers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon are still dead.

  4. 4.

    DougJ

    Just out of curiosity, is it me, or is running an ad where you’re criticizing the opponent for not calling for the death penalty for SUICIDE BOMBERS rather stoopid?

    9/11 changed everything

  7. 7.

    The Dangerman

    I thought Pat Boone was excommunicated by the Right after his Metal Mood album (if you’ve never heard Mr. Boone cover Ozzy’s "Crazy Train", well, your loss).

    Also, he should be ashamed that he is, at some level, responsible for "You Light Up My Life".

  10. 10.

    JenJen

    @DougJ: I worked for the same hotel management company that owned the Vernon Manor. Some of my best friends worked there. If anyone here has ever seen "Rain Man," you’d recognize the Vernon Manor immediately.

    We are all having a KICK-ASS PARTY on Tuesday night, last night of "The Vern." You should come! Long drive, I know. But it’s gonna be one helluvan Artifact/Souvenir Grab!

  11. 11.

    Tonal Crow

    "It’s not your father’s GOP, child."

    "Really?"

    "No. It’s not even your grandfather’s GOP."

    "Oh…."

  13. 13.

    e.c.

    Pat Boone?!?!? Wow, way to stay current. That’s as bad a recent republican "humor" spam I saw that dragged out those "Hollywood Liberals" Barbra Striesand and Jane Fonda. Has the GOP just given up entirely on anyone under the age of 60?

  14. 14.

    El Tiburon

    Pat Boone is to Chuck Norris what Batman is to Superman.

    Doubt their strength at your own peril.

  17. 17.

    John Cole

    The last I heard of Pat Boone he was doing robo-calls gay bashing during the midterms.

    Anymore though, my mental image of Pat Boone is all screwed up. For some reason or another, every time I think of Pat Boone I get the image of an Esteban guitar infomercial. I can’t even conjure an image of Boone in my head. Somehow or another, a wire got crossed.

    I think I may be going insane.

  19. 19.

    JenJen

    @Dennis-SGMM: Exactly. Tedisco’s argument is this:

    "If you had a time machine, and could go back and kill the suicide bombers AFTER THEY HAD ALREADY KILLED THEMSELVES, would you?"

    Well? Would you kill them again? If you wouldn’t, you are not suitable to lead the NY-20.

  20. 20.

    Dennis-SGMM

    Crikey! I’m in my early Sixties and I barely remember Pat Boone. Maybe they’ll follow up with a blizzard of robocalls using the synthesized voice of Rudy Vallée with his Connecticut Yankees playing in the background. That GOP sure knows how to go after the youth vote. 23 skidoo!

  22. 22.

    Michael

    Pat Boone is to Chuck Norris what Batman is to Superman.
    …
    Doubt their strength at your own peril.

    Superman is still a dick. And so is Chuck Norris.

  23. 23.

    Comrade Stuck

    Also, he should be ashamed that he is, at some level, responsible for "You Light Up My Life".

    I used to have a crush on Debbie, when I was young and stupiderer.

    And Pat can’t be held responsible for his fatuous tadpole.

  26. 26.

    Laura W

    @John Cole:

    I think I may be going insane.

    Two words: Kangoo Jumps*

    28. It results in better mental performance, with keener learning processes.
    31. It tends to slow down atrophy in the aging process.
    32. It is an effective modality by which the user gains a sense of control and an improved self-image.

    *You realize the Kangoo Jumps could be your new Furminator, don’t you?
    1) Procure a pair
    2) Post the testimonial
    3) Profit!

  27. 27.

    DougJ

    I can’t even conjure an image of Boone in my head.

    Yeah, well, the image I conjure up is of him promoting his Metal Mood album, so consider yourself lucky.

  28. 28.

    AnneLaurie

    I wonder if the Sadly, No! guys have broken out their "Pat Boone gift-boxes his favorite body part" photo again…

    From a schmuck-in-a-box to a putz-on-the-phone!

  30. 30.

    El Cid

    Just out of curiosity, is it me, or is running an ad where you’re criticizing the opponent for not calling for the death penalty for SUICIDE BOMBERS rather stoopid?

    Remember, these were the types of people who were arguing not so long ago that to call them ‘suicide bombers’ meant you loved the terrorists because if you really hated them you would call them ‘homicide bombers’.

    The mystery is then why the early 20th Century types saw it sufficient to just call them ‘bombers’ when people used explosives to kill people and didn’t feel it necessary to add the obvious ‘homicide’.

  34. 34.

    Laura W

    @JenJen: Ya know what’s gonna happen? I’ll get them, hate them, and you’ll never hear a word about them from me again.
    Mark my Kangoo words.

    (Edit: Although I will say that I got in early on the Furminator testimonials as Andre posted about it once and I chimed in with photos of my cats and their fur piles, having owned one for a long time now. I’m pretty sure that’s when got John involved, so there may be something to this along those lines. Some of us are trend/talent spotters early on. Others come along a little later. Or not. Did I win yet?)

  35. 35.

    Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist

    @DougJ: Yeah, well, the image I conjure up is of him promoting his Metal Mood album, so consider yourself lucky.

    The image I conjure up is that one with his schlong in a box that Anne Laurie mentions in #28, so consider yourself lucky.

    Srsly. Pat Boone’s peter. Thanks a fuckuva lot, internet.

  41. 41.

    Grace Nearing

    Just want to point out that Pat Boone, by his own admission, is not squeaky clean. He has admitted to causing — oh, what’s that phrase — pain in his marriage. What we don’t know for sure is the type of pain: the Ted Haggard kind or the Newt Gingrich kind or the David Vitter kind.

  42. 42.

    JenJen

    @El Cid:Oh, I know all about that filthy Sham-Wow dude. I’m sayin’, is all. I’m thinking about plotting an intervention for Laura W.

    Psssssst… don’t tell!

  45. 45.

    El Cid

    By the way, breaking news from Politico:

    GM CEO resigns at Obama’s behest

    By MIKE ALLEN & JOSH GERSTEIN | 3/29/09 5:23 PM EDT

    The Obama administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors, to step down and he agreed, a White House official said.

    On Monday, President Barack Obama is to unveil his plans for the auto industry, including a response to a request for additional funds by GM and Chrysler. The plan is based on recommendations from the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, headed by the Treasury Department.

    The White House confirmed Wagoner was leaving at the government’s behest after The Associated Press reported his immediate departure, without giving a reason…

    [Obama said in an interview with CBS’ Bob Schieffer] "…that’s gonna mean a set of sacrifices from all parties involved — management, labor, shareholders, creditors, suppliers, dealers. Everybody’s gonna have to come to the table and say it’s important for us to take serious restructuring steps now in order to preserve a brighter future down the road."

    I guess the administration is just trying to balance out for a blue collar industry seeking government aid all those CEO’s that they requested resigned from failed banking institutions, right?

    ****************

    Note: Fair enough, restructure the auto industry on different terms. But, again — why the hell (other than the usual suspect reasons) is there such utter divergence between treating the auto industry like a naughty child and the banks and financial institutions like sanctified relics before whom we weep with joy at beholding? F*@% but it’s obvious, and I’ve got zero love for Rick Wagoner.

  46. 46.

    Brian J

    Interestingly enough, I believe my mom met Pat Boone a few months ago at some fund raiser at some country club. Or at least, she met someone affiliated with the group that does his thing of promoting values in Hollywood, since she came home with a book with his picture in a few places on that subject. My mom’s sister and her husband are apparently involved with a lot of this stuff, from what I can tell, which makes sense, since they own a very successful Christian history production studio. I wonder who else they know, but since I like this side of the family a lot, I’m kind of afraid to find out.

    Anyway, I wonder how many ways this is going to be spun as some sort of positive thing, should the Republicans actually lose. I guess it could be in the long run if it forces them to take a long look in the mirror and figure out what’s wrong, but that’s not what would happen. You know, I don’t see voting for them any time soon, but I’d give them a lot of credit if they simply admitted they blew it big time and didn’t posture at all.

  48. 48.

    eemom

    anyone ever see the movie "Happiness," with William Macy and early-days Philip Seymour Hoffman? It was a brilliant, very dark comedy sort of in the same genre as "American Beauty," but a hell of a lot better, imo.

    Anyway, it has a scene where a thuggish Russian immigrant seduces a naive English teacher by singing her "You Light Up My Life." That scene right there is enough to cure anyone of all images Boone forever after.

    (This has been brought to you as a public service announcement by the Department of Obscure Movie References from Obscure Commenters.)

  49. 49.

    Brian J

    the Ted Haggard kind or the Newt Gingrich kind or the David Vitter kind.

    Shouldn’t that be, "the Larry Craig kind or the Newt Gingrich kind or the David Vitter kind–or did he go for the trifecta, like Ted Haggard"? I ask because, if memory serves me correctly, Haggard had coked up gay sex with a young male prostitute. I don’t speak wing nut, so I can’t say for sure, but something tells me hitting all three targets–cheating, someone younger, and something "perverse"–doesn’t win you any friends.

  51. 51.

    Comrade Stuck

    @El Cid:

    I think his will put the wingnuts into a hundred year hissy fit. Glenn Beck will rocket himself into orbit around Mars.

    Who will the Obamumist ask next to resign. Roger Ailles? will be Malkin’s next thread title, or some such/

  54. 54.

    JenJen

    @El Cid: May I just say that, in my lifetime, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a POTUS work so damned hard, so damned quickly?

    May I also say that me likey? I don’t think POTUS is treating GM as a naughty child here. For one, their business is a helluva lot more straightforward than the financial biz.

  55. 55.

    Libby

    Doug J, you’re not the only one who finds this immensely amusing. Best laugh I’ve had all day.

    And I needed one after figuring out that screwing up by thinking I couldn’t pick UConn for the final is probably going to ruin my bracket for this year.

  56. 56.

    DougJ

    Panic at Tedisco.

    Damn that’s good.

    I see a bunch of other posters elsewhere have used it already. Damn.

  57. 57.

    El Cid

    @JenJen: Yeah, of course. I just get very, very tired of our weird worship of Wall Street financial barons and our simultaneous hatred of our other industries such as manufacturing etc. I.e., a trade agreement will allow lots of jobs to be exported to a low wage nation? Great! Those lazy workers better retrain their lazy asses to work, um, somewhere or other. Someone wants to regulate Wall Street? OMG, freekout they ar ataking cap’ilsm!

  58. 58.

    Mike in NC

    Pat Boone? OMG, desperate much?

    Apparently neither Ted Nugent (gun whacko) nor Hank Williams Jr. (racist alcoholic/drug addict) were available? They were a fixture of McCain/Palin rallies for awhile.

  59. 59.

    Libby

    @El Cid: That’s exactly what I was thinking.

    Did everybody already see this Atlantic article written by the former IMF economist? He makes it pretty clear that what’s needed is to break up the bankster oligarchy. This is a telling quote.

    Squeezing the oligarchs, though, is seldom the strategy of choice among emerging-market governments. Quite the contrary: at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among the first to get extra help from the government, such as preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break, or—here’s a classic Kremlin bailout technique—the assumption of private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to ordinary working folk—at least until the riots grow too large.

  60. 60.

    Joshua Norton

    Here’s one of his biggies:

    Love Letters in the Sand

    Dude’s got to be older than McCain. I don’t think he has the celebrity pull they think he has. One of the questions on You Tube was "is he still alive"?

  61. 61.

    Dennis-SGMM

    @El Cid:
    Yep, American blue collar workers were just too lazy and stupid to compete so fuck ’em. Toward the end of my career as a machinist I watched as the machines and tooling from one place after another were sold off by the pound, loaded on trucks, and taken directly to Long Beach to be shipped overseas. Other than the guys loading up their tool chests for the last time, no one gave much of a shit as thousands of good paying jobs went away forever.
    When the wonderful people who tanked the economy are denied seven figure bonuses or asked to play by some enforceable set of rules it’s somehow The End of the American Way.

  62. 62.

    El Cid

    @Libby: Exactly. These are very bizarre times for anyone who paid close attention throughout the 1980s and 1990s at what the IMF and WorldBank etc were advising / forcing countries in Latin America and Africa to do with now.

    If they treated the U.S. like they did Ghana or Bolivia or Zambia, they’d be telling us to stop publicly funding children’s education and make the kids’ families pay tuition from their zero-money peasantry jobs.

  63. 63.

    Comrade Desert Hussein Rat

    Pat Boone? Really? Just how much more do the GOoPers think there is to tap into of the 80+ voter crowd.

  64. 64.

    burnspbesq

    @JenJen:

    Naah. Far too easy.

    Connect Tedisco to TV on the Radio, Death Cab for Cutie, or the Airborne Toxic Event and I’ll be really impressed.

    Tangentially related: is it my imagination, or did every oldies radio station in America stop playing Orleans as soon as John Hall started running for Congress?

  65. 65.

    Danton

    Pat Boone came to my high school in 1969 to talk about the evil of drugs. I remember sitting in a dark and cavernous auditorium and smelling the evil all around me and wishing someone would pass some of that evil down my row.

  66. 66.

    El Cid

    @Dennis-SGMM: And still, in none of these discussions does anyone really suggest where our future economy is going to make money.

    OK, it won’t be manufacturing, that’s going to remain constant in certain high wage cost manufacturing increasing in automation efficiency, and so jobs will continue to bleed away, and lower wage manufacturing must go to the 3rd world for, um, ‘efficiency’.

    And, well, the high tech isn’t just our thing anymore; and, well, the 1990s claim that we would be financial innovators seems to have run into a couple of bumps.

    So, we’ll just make sure and strengthen the social safety net and increase education so that people will be better poised to work at mystery jobs that we hope will come along, or that the currently small visions of green industries will somehow be massively expanded.

    What is it we’re supposed to do here?

  67. 67.

    Left Coast Tom

    How does Pat Boone help the Republicans with "urban and suburban hip-hop settings"?

  68. 68.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    Im sorry. The CW here is that the GOP is laughable for trotting out Pat Boone. Okay.

    My takeaway is, this is Upstate New York politics?

    Why should anyone notice, or take seriously, anything having to do with Upstate NY politics, again?

    Doug, if you guys cant whip a party that is using Pat Boone at crunch time in a campaign, then you should just fold your tent and go home.

    Good lord. I think Utah has more tractable politics than that.

  69. 69.

    [delurk]...[/delurk]

    Has anybody noticed how many of these right-wing fuckers are of nationalities that their ideological compadres did their absolute godamnedest to keep out of the country, culminating in the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924?

    Of course Tedisco (well, Tedesco) is Italian for "German," so that’s another adopted country his family has betrayed. Now, if they got out because of the Fascists, I take the last part back; but isn’t it funny that they’d turn into Fascists once they got here?

  70. 70.

    GSD

    You’d think the GOP would have the white, uptight, douche-bag vote all wrapped up at this stage of an election.

    -GSD

  71. 71.

    AhabTRuler

    Why should anyone notice, or take seriously, anything having to do with Upstate NY politics

    I mean bless it, but aside from electoral votes, upstate is definitively "àpropos of nothing." Effing Albany? You call that a capitol? I’ve seen Hemorrhoids that are more attractive than that city (W00t! Crossgates mall!)! Utica, Rochester, tiny little Geneva? Pfeh! Fingerlakes? Pfeh! Wineries and apple picking? Pfeh! Don’t even get me started on Buffalo; call me when they have a team that can win one freakin’ superbowl out of four freakin’ chances!

    [/unhinged rant]

  72. 72.

    Dennis-SGMM

    @El Cid:
    The idea that green jobs, even if green industries somehow became massive, will save us evaporates when you realize that the same people who shipped the other jobs over seas will ship the green jobs over seas as well.

  73. 73.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    @AhabTRuler:

    Not sure what your post means, but if you are defending the thread, I call fail.

    These Dems up there have nothing better to talk about than Pat Boone?

    Is there any possibility that the Dems up there can’t beat the Pat Boone party? Then I feel bad for Doug.

    If there isn’t ….. why are we talking about it?

  76. 76.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    @AhabTRuler:

    For about 5 minutes back the middle 50’s, when that sociopathic Good Christian Boy look was worth something. He had a crooner’s voice and used it to make a ton of money for a while. Wikipedia gives him credit for 45 million records. And he was pretty, in a horrifying sort of way.

  78. 78.

    Dennis-SGMM

    @TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:
    Some are trying to cast the special election as areferendum on Obama. Although I’d say that it was a tad early, that’s the narrative. From today’s WaPo:

    The contest is the first special House election since President Obama took office, and the national Republican and Democratic parties have made it nothing less than a referendum on Obama’s first two months in office, his economic agenda and his appeal.

    The Republican and Democratic national committees, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, interest groups and unions have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into radio and television spots, saturating the airwaves of New York’s 20th Congressional District, which surrounds Albany. The national parties have sent workers to help with organization and get-out-the-vote efforts.

  79. 79.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    @Arachnae:

    She married her second husband, Charlie Hobson Dry, in 1990, and they tried to reestablish her music career in a series of small venues, including Branson, Missouri, and Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Their plans failed, however, and Bryant and Dry left behind them a series of unpaid employees and creditors. Her career decline is detailed in her book, A New Day (1992). They filed for bankruptcy in Arkansas (1997) and in Tennessee (2001). Bryant returned to Barnsdall, Oklahoma, in 2005 for the town’s 100th anniversary celebration and to have a street renamed in her honor. She returned to her high school in Tulsa on April 21, 2007, to perform in the school’s annual musical revue. She now lives in Edmond, Oklahoma, and says she does charity work for various youth organizations while heading Anita Bryant Ministries International. The ministry’s web site features two articles championing her long-standing opposition to the "homosexual agenda".[8]

    Heh. Another win for the religious right!

  80. 80.

    Anne Elk (Miss)

    I feel duty bound to point out that this post should correctly be titled "ISN’T That A Shame" – I quote from my treasured copy of The Worst Rock and Roll Records of All Time (a great book that no one should be without):
    (from the liner notes of the 1957 album Pat Boone)

    Randy Wood picks all of Pat’s material and has had only one mild protest from Pat who wondered if it was OK to cut "Ain’t That A Shame" since it was ungrammatical. Pat still introduces the song as "Isn’t That A Shame."

  81. 81.

    Libby

    @El Cid: That’s what the guy who sent me the link said. What would the IMF do if we weren’t the USA? It’s all about enforcing poverty on the working class to ensure a compliant workforce for the megacorps.

  82. 82.

    Svensker

    @Left Coast Tom:

    How does Pat Boone help the Republicans with "urban and suburban hip-hop settings"?

    Because they think Mr. Boone is one of those crazy kids who sings that new negro music.

    (I bought a 45 of Love Letters in the Sand in 2nd grade — I thought Pat was dreamy…wait, do you guys know what a 45 is/was?)

  84. 84.

    Punchy

    not having time to read any previous comments, I undystand that I may be the 58th person here to say this, but with all seriousness and honesty: who the fuck is Pat Boone?

  86. 86.

    Dennis-SGMM

    @Libby:
    Lamentably for the megacorps, they’ve lost sight of the notion that you have to pay people enough to buy the shit that you’re trying to sell them. One guy making a million dollars is year is not going to race out and buy a thousand refrigerators or fifty Toyotas.

  88. 88.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    Heh. You guys really need to explain the moderation on my post at timestamp 8:37 pm.

    is there ANYTHING about this website that did not come from the Piece Of Shit Insititute for Horrible Software?

    Anything, at all?

    I think I know what it is up with the post, and if I am right, then you guys really need to get a real website. That is just too funny.

  89. 89.

    Shawn in Showme

    @El Cid

    So, we’ll just make sure and strengthen the social safety net and increase education so that people will be better poised to work at mystery jobs that we hope will come along, or that the currently small visions of green industries will somehow be massively expanded

    Obama has committed $2.4 billion to electric vehicle research and development alone and he’s only been in office two months. Those "currently small visions" are about to ramp up in a hurry.

  92. 92.

    El Cid

    @Libby: The difference is that in the old days, when you made such points, it was to point out the hypocrisy of the ‘neoliberal’ (or market fundamentalist) approaches of the IMF / WB on the 3rd world compared to the actions of the West — the thrust being that these moves will harm the very economies of the 3rd world which need help, and you don’t see the West doing those sorts of things to itself.

    Times change. Now it’s time for a lot of greedheads to want to do exactly in the West what they used to be able to do to the 3rd world. That’s the motive behind the whole "shock doctrine" approach.

    And the former recipients of IMF/WB ‘lessons’ in South America, who have largely broken free of Western dominance over the past decade, watch in both slack-jawed and open bemusement at the changing fortunes of the behemoths they used to confront.

    Not for nothing, and not by accident, did the child of the favelas and auto industry worker & striker & dissident against U.S.-backed dictatorship now President Lula da Silva of Brazil rattle cages by mentioning that this crisis was caused by people with white skin and blue eyes (simultaneously playing on the only-recently challenged rule that South American rulers were expected only to look white European, not like their indigenous and African looking majorities):

    For years the leaders of countries in these regions were lectured by white, largely Chicago-trained economists on how to run their economies. The same economists that encouraged de-regulated bank lending in the US, that reviled government intervention, and that encouraged the growth of e.g. AIG’s reckless build-up of liabilities – spread their dogma to poor countries.

    In ways that were to foreshadow the crisis in the US, financial de-regulation policies were effectively imposed on poor countries by the ‘Washington Consensus’. These policies led to frequent crises: to a massive build-up of liabilities and debt, to cuts in government spending, bank failures and even country (sovereign) insolvency.

    And then double standards were, and are imposed. The US, Europe and Japan responded to their own financial crises by government (central banks) creating money (as opposed to borrowing money). This money is used to finance a fiscal stimulus, or government spending, to build and repair infrastructure, create jobs and moderate the crisis.

    In contrast, poor countries are forbidden by the Washington-based International Monetary Fund from creating money, and instead are forced to do the reverse. That is: contract their economies by hiking, not lowering interest rates; by bankrupting, not bailing-out their finance and other industries. And by slashing government spending. This causes bankruptcies and unemployment to rise dramatically – leading to a further downward spiral, and to social and political unrest.

  93. 93.

    gbear

    Randy Wood picks all of Pat’s material and has had only one mild protest from Pat who wondered if it was OK to cut "Ain’t That A Shame" since it was ungrammatical. Pat still introduces the song as "Isn’t That A Shame."

    That may be the saddest rock and roll fail story that I have ever read. Even the writers of ‘A Mighty Wind’ would have rejected that as being too pathetically lame.

  94. 94.

    J. Michael Neal

    I think Simon Johnson is pretty smart, and has some interesting things to say. However, as someone upthread kind of said, there’s a lot of evidence that the policies the World Bank was pushing were wrong. They don’t become any less wrong because the crisis is in the US.

  95. 95.

    Brian J

    What is it we’re supposed to do here?

    I can see why people who are losing their jobs would fear globalization or the parts possibly associated with it, such as relying less on manufacturing, but why should everyone else? Why should you be fearful of the fact that you can’t imagine what fields people in the coming decades will be working in?

  96. 96.

    El Cid

    @Shawn in Showme: I know, that’s great, I’m hugely supportive. It’s a wise move. I just haven’t seen anyone suggest that such green industries were really to be a central part of the growth / development of our economy over the next, say, decade. I hope they are. I hope we do. I hope we grasp this opportunity — yes, opportunity — to really rebuild the nation in a saner way. But when you tune in to the discussions of the U.S. economy, that’s not what you hear; you just don’t hear anyone explaining upon what the U.S. economy will base itself for the next decade or generation.

  98. 98.

    J. Michael Neal

    It is also worth pointing out that a debt crisis denominated in someone else’s currency is fundamentally different than a debt crisis denominated in your own currency. It makes the World Bank approach even less effective. Johnson has some good points he’s making, but you have to sort them out from the bad ones.

  101. 101.

    Shawn in Showme

    I just haven’t seen anyone suggest that such green industries were really to be a central part of the growth / development of our economy over the next, say, decade. I hope they are.

    I seem to recall Obama repeating his commitment to an investment in green technology that would result in "5 million new green jobs" over and over again during his campaign. Just because the MSM and the blogosphere wants to focus on AIG bonuses and "liberals turning on Obama" doesn’t mean there aren’t larger forces at work here.

  102. 102.

    TheOfficialHatOnMyCat

    @AhabTRuler:

    Yes, it has to be the h-o-e-s component of the footwear word.

    Amazing. Honestly, if this were my website, I’d ask for my money back.

    I mean, it doesn’t get much dumber than that, does it?

  103. 103.

    Anne Elk (Miss)

    Yes, it has to be the h-o-e-s component of the footwear word.

    Gods forbid anyone would ever want to discuss gardening…..

  104. 104.

    Dennis-SGMM

    @Shawn in Showme:
    Again, what’s to stop green manufacturing from being outsourced for the very same reasons that non-green manufacturing has been outsourced? Absent the creation of an industrial policy for America green technology will be just another case of "if you invent it, they’ll build it over there."

  105. 105.

    Brian J

    Is that really what you got from my comment? Then never mind then.

    Well, that was one thing that I thought to ask. I realize that the discussions here tend to go off in different directions, but I didn’t think what I asked was that off base.

  106. 106.

    Jen R

    @TheOfficialHatOnMyCat:

    is there ANYTHING about this website that did not come from the Piece Of Shit Insititute for Horrible Software?

    It’s still more readable than Pandagon.

    EDIT: Whaddya know, it looks like Pandagon fixed their stylesheet so you don’t have to scroll horizontally to read anything. Progress!

  107. 107.

    Shawn in Showme

    Again, what’s to stop green manufacturing from being outsourced for the very same reasons that non-green manufacturing has been outsourced

    Elect leaders who will craft policies that incentivize domestic job creation. In other words, the Reagan Revolution can never be allowed to happen again.

  108. 108.

    Brian J

    Elect leaders who will craft policies that incentivize domestic job creation. In other words, the Reagan Revolution can never be allowed to happen again.

    How do you propose to do that?

  109. 109.

    Shawn in Showme

    How do you propose to do that?

    Well, we managed to do it for about two centuries straight before Reagan took office.

  112. 112.

    joeyess

    Pat Boone, a 50’s era teen heartthrob and squeaky-clean, conservative, “silent-majority” icon, is sending out robocalls on behalf of GOP congressional candidate Jim Tedisco.

    I wonder if he’ll have his Whosiwhatzit in a box while making his phone calls to GOoPers?

  113. 113.

    Brian J

    Well, we managed to do it for about two centuries straight before Reagan took office.

    How do you figure?

  115. 115.

    liberal

    @El Cid:

    And still, in none of these discussions does anyone really suggest where our future economy is going to make money.

    Earn fees by selling mortgages to people who don’t earn enough to pay them back, of course.

  118. 118.

    Carl Nyberg

    Nothing conveys a forward-looking vision in the 21st Century like a 1950s pop star linked with Richard Nixon’s "silent majority".

    Remember, we need to keep those troops in Indochina or San Francisco will go Communist!

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