hello

What's hilarious in all of this is that with their "war on drugs" and "just say no" rather than sex education, conservatives also apparently believe that human nature can be reformed by governmental fiat.

I work Sunday and Monday mornings as a starter at a county golf course. Free golf all the rest of the week is a perk. Huge perk! As a non-resident...it would cost me over $50 per day to play. And every once in a while I have time for 4 or holes... which is a blessing.

I never think of it as a "blessing" when I am heading to the course at 5 am.

Yes, indeedy. I only grazed on that part of the story here, pointing to a traditional role of the church in what george would have to include in his category of "attempts to change human behavior".

Movement conservatism is deeply and profoundly invested in a project where government will or ought to or must attend to citizens' "virtue". Bill Bennett can't open his mouth without some lofty instructions for government getting Americans made virtuous through some regime of rewards and punishments. Gertrude Himmelfarb (Bill Kristol's mom) has a whole book on the topic. Phyllis Schlafly is so virtuous that she's able to exempt herself from her proscriptions on a woman's proper and most virtuous role which is in the home.

Of course, what constitutes "virtuous" behavior is to be defined by them pretty much exclusively. Definitely NOT by the rabble who might wander, drunk and horny, into some polling booth somewhere. That's the reason george resists the dangerous tentacles of the liberal elite - they are definitely the WRONG elite.

Now, that, franky, makes sense to me. Well done. Great gig. If we can ever get our bodies in the same city again, lets play a round or two together.

I suppose I ought to add this personal reflection from Irving Kristol on what he and his crowd were up to in their conservative project...

"Among the core social scientists around The Public Interest there were no economists.... This explains my own rather cavalier attitude toward the budget deficit and other monetary or fiscal problems. The task, as I saw it, was to create a new majority, which evidently would mean a conservative majority, which came to mean, in turn, a Republican majority - so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government..."

Not only does this give us a key insight into the "cavalier" attitude towards economics within this crowd ("Ronald Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter" as Cheney told O'Neill) and to a core of dishonesty manifest in their speech where that might seem advantageous towards power and political
domination), the population of his crowd (social scientists) tells us something very important about the means by which they sought to understand how groups function and thus how to manipulate populations through such understandings.

It's easy to deceive the American public, because most do not understand economics, and scare tactics works whether the rhetoric is true or not.

What Obama has failed to do is to communicate the fact that the national debt has been dropping based on the debt vs GDP. Also, debt, in of itself is not a bad thing. Just look at WWII when the country's debt was over 100% of GDP; our country came out stronger after the war, and became the economic superpower of the world.

Yes. Deception and manipulation aren't that difficult. Larry Tye's book on Edward Bernays is a hell of a read http://www.larrytye.com/books/fatherofspin/preface/

As to failures in Obama's communication over the last six years, I think we're all on board. But my opinion on this is greatly tempered through watching the growth over the last three or so decades of a divergent and wholly partisan media universe which has the functions (at which it has been very successful) of 1) filling up the media space with noise and partisan narratives to forward confusion and misinformation and...
2) cordoning off a large sector of the American public into a distinct epistemic realm.

Subway pole ballet http://nyti.ms/1pCVMMz

Attend, this is so cool.

that certainly explains why many of the posters from the right have increased their reflexive use of religious language ... worship blah blah

"reflexive use of religious language"
It's a very interesting (to me at least) phenomenon even aside from how religion has been a paradigmatic example of "trying to change human nature" as george would have us understand progressive legislation or goals.

My very first online post (at Abuzz) tried to address how religious communities and representative (speaking mainly about christian communities though it is obviously broader) demand unique warrant to be exempt from criticism and from satirization merely because they posit that the "sacred" is involved or because their belief structures are profoundly important to them. They might have an argument, I said, if they kept themselves distinct from political issues and activism. But where they don't - where they attempt to move the entire community via legislation and activism - then this demand for special warrant properly ought to gain a "tough ******* luck, bub" response.

Interesting read; especially when it's not only the US politics that provides misinformation about other countries and their leaders.

That was great to read, Frank, perfect job.

Cool it was, and now I'm off to read the comments..


By the way, I've an admission to make. I may read those three Perlstein books after all, after saying 'no way'. Just read a review by George Packer (N. Yorker) that made me realize how much I'd forgotten, or forgotten the sequencing of, thus changing my mind.

It's a great book, CI. Very easy to read and I really don't know of any other work which demonstrates so clearly how propaganda actually gets done in a modern society such as ours.

Hi darlin'
They aren't small, to warn you ahead of time, but as Packer says, the manner in which Perslstein lays out history keeps the narrative quite gripping. I too had forgotten so much. You don't have to read all nor read them in sequence (I haven't read the recent one yet).

One of the best I've ever had!

I love going to work.

I especially love my "office." Our first fairway is a beauty!

No, it is not cool. It is actually quite dangerous when done on a subway car with passengers and while the train is moving.

New York subway trains make sudden jolting stops at which point these performers can and do lose their grip and balance and go hurtling into passengers. Their feet hit faces and heads and other body parts causing injury.

The performance on an empty or at least non-moving subway car may be deemed beautiful; however, when it can cause harm it needs to be halted.

Fortunately, the police are cracking down on this inappropriate, dangerous and risky behavior. (even though the performers are whining about their rights being trampled upon. Their rights? What about the rights of the passengers?


www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dailypolitics/subway-performers-slam-police-crackdown-blog-entry-1.1901247

www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2014/07/nypd_cracks_down_on_subway_pole_dancers.html

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/video/10144985-nypd-announces-crackdown-on-subway-dancers/

Hog poop. As your links note, this is a policing theory in practice now which targets singers and other performers (a B flat in the gut?)

Have to agree with Sturgis here. That is grossly inappropriate behavior on a venue of public transport. Saying that no injuries have been reported is like insisting that fire prevention is unnecessary because nothing has burned down as yet.

I don't know who is right or wrong on this but safety rules point to wrong re guidelines, et al. As I said, I liked it.

I have a memory of being on the metro in Rome, both tired out of my mind, maybe our first day, sans a lot of sleep, and just sitting stolid while the train moved but still looked around, and a kid came on and did a small show.

I'm from Venice, Ca, home of the homeless, so I'm then already inured, and failed to donate. (I did in Venice sometimes, especially to one lady.)
Let's say I was grumpy puss. Same with my husband.

Most people in the subway car gave, I presume a little.
I learned a lesson.
I was the brat.

There are famously scalyway kids in Italy, but that day, that population wasn't cold to them.