October 17, 2011
August 10, 2010
Today’s Quote: Revealing the True Class Differences in America
And it’s no doubt gotten worse since this was written in 1984 — just look at the shabby way the heroic workers who became ill from Ground Zero have been treated:
“Every year 100,000 workers are killed or die of work-related accidents or disease; 400,000 are disabled; 6 million are hurt at work. In The Working-Class Majority (1974), Andrew Levison says, ‘All the clichés and pleasant notions of how the old class divisions…have disappeared are exposed as hollow phrases by the simple fact that American workers must accept serious injury and even death as part of their daily reality while the middle class does not.’ And he goes on:
‘Imagine the universal outcry that would occur if every year several corporate headquarters routinely collapsed like mines, crushing sixty or seventy executives. Or suppose that all the banks were filled with an invisible noxious dust that constantly produced cancer in the managers, clerks, and tellers. Finally, try to imagine the horror…if thousands of university professors were deafened every year or lost fingers, hands, sometimes eyes, while on their jobs.’”
– Paul Fussell, from his book “Class,” Ballantine Books (1984).
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April 11, 2010
July 2, 2009
Sanford and Satan
“The standard Sanford has set for other politicians over the years has been fairly high. A member of the House of Representatives during the heyday of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, he was often a harsh critic of the president for his marital misconduct.
“This is ‘very damaging stuff,’ Sanford declared at one point, when details of Clinton’s conduct became known. ‘I think it would be much better for the country and for him personally (to resign)… I come from the business side,’ he said. ‘If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he’d be gone.’ ” […]
” ‘The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust,’ … [Sanford] told CNN. ‘And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.’ ”
– Sam Stein, “Sanford Was Harsh Critic of Clinton Affair…” Huffington Post, June 24, 2009.
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March 18, 2009
Quote: A Defining Moment
“Neocrit (noun): a neocon hypocrite, particularly one who makes a living selling it to the rubes.”
– Matthew (Chironboy) at The Church of Mothra.
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Would Palin Really Like to Compare Her Experience on Nukes with Obama’s?
“Now, the president, with all the vast nuclear experience that he acquired as a community organizer and as a part-time senator, and as a full-time candidate, all that experience, still no accomplishment to date with North Korea and Iran.”
– Sarah Palin at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, April 9, 2010, as quoted by Media Matters.
In fact, as Media Matters points out, as a US senator, Obama traveled overseas to investigate nuclear stockpiles in other nations, co-sponsored a nuclear non-proliferation bill with Republican Sen. Richard Lugar in 2005, introduced another bill, the Nuclear Weapons Threat Reduction Act (S.1977) in 2007, and did his college thesis on Soviet nuclear disarmament long before entering politics. Actually, the Nobel committee cited Obama’s lengthy record of trying to limit nuclear weapons as one of the reasons he received the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
What experience does Sarah Palin have in this area? Zip, zilch and zero.
If I were an inexperienced beauty pageant contestant like Palin I wouldn’t get snarky about anyone else’s lack of experience in anything – it only tends to remind the public – that large majority who aren’t part of your personality cult – of how vacuous and ignorant you really are.
BTW, Bush, Cheney and the GOP had eight years to ‘accomplish’ something in regards to Iran and North Korea. What did they have to show for it? Increased atomic and missile warhead testing by the N.K. and an accelerated nuclear program by Iran, in response to Republican threats of invasion. Obama’s been in office for a year; let’s see what he accomplishes in eight.