busyAnti-Regulation Aide to Cheney Is Up for Energy Post
Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post: "A senior aide to Vice President Cheney is the leading contender to become a top official at the Energy Department, according to several current and former administration officials, a promotion that would put one of the administration's most ardent opponents of environmental regulation in charge of forming department policies on climate change."
Bush is doing everything in his power to push his agenda as far as possible in the time left to him, and to make it as hard as possible for his successor to change anything. Would you put a dinosaur in charge of halting a mass extinction? I wouldn't.
Christopher Moraff | Feeding the Beast: Federal Agencies in Shambles
Christopher Moraff, In These Times: "When President Bush exits the White House in January, he will leave behind a federal government in shambles. Since his first term, Bush has pressed forward with a radical view of the executive branch. Beyond adopting autocratic positions on foreign policy and taking broad liberties to subvert the Bill of Rights, Bush has waged a quieter - and perhaps more damaging - war at home against the very agencies under his charge."
We had a rather carefully built government, which has had pieces ripped out and sold off, and other pieces expanded far beyond their intended size and power. The next President is going to have to spend at least the first couple of years under the hood just to get the blighted thing working again.
Serge Truffaut | The Great Accomplice
Serge Truffaut, Le Devoir: "Setting off a year ago, the financial crisis has forced banks to write off billions of dollars, on top of entrapping hundreds of thousands of people into bankruptcy. Not long ago, the three strokes of Act Two sounded. It's theme? Reregulation and the rat race it will give rise to." s, Bush has waged a quieter - and perhaps more damaging - war at home against the very agencies under his charge."
In other words, don't put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Deregulating the banking industry encourages people to make money at other people's direct expense, which is ultimately destructive -- of the entire economy, not just the victims. Plus it encourages individuals to put what money they have left under the mattress, instead of in an unreliable bank; that's also not good.
Dean Baker | Swift Boat Economics
Dean Baker, Truthout: "Tarred with the most dismal record of job creation and income growth of any president since the Great Depression, it would be reasonable to expect that Senator McCain would be defensive on the economy; but not in Swift boat America. Instead Senator McCain is filling the airwaves with commercials telling the public that Obama's tax increases will slow growth and cost the economy jobs. It's pretty scary stuff to anyone who takes it seriously."
When a magician waves his hand, look everywhere else around the stage. When a politician attacks an opponent, look at the speaker's past actions, not words, on the same issue. McCain is trying to distance himself from the Bush regime, because Bush took a thriving economy and ran it through a meat grinder, dropped the patties on the ground, and then slapped them on the grill hoping nobody would notice the grit.
Terrence McNally | How Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America
Terrence McNally, AlterNet: "'It's like these guys take pride in being ignorant.' Barack Obama finally said it. Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right's stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them - and us - unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society."
In fact, some people do take pride in their ignorance, lack of education, and/or low level of academic performance. I know: I've gone to school with them, I've taught them, I've argued with them, and they're all around me outside the layer of smart people I keep for insulation. It's one thing to be uneducated for lack of opportunity or skill, if you do what you can with what you have, and keep an eye out for better options. It's quite another to choose to be ignorant and wear it like a badge. People do that partly because it's safer -- in many places, being smart and efficient gets you beaten up when you're young and worked harder with no better recompense when you're older -- but also partly because it lets them look down on other people. And it's a disaster. Democracy only works when a well-informed and sensible population makes decisions based on facts. When that doesn't happen, well, look around -- this is what we get. The facts bite back with economic meltdowns and global-warming-pumped hurricanes surging past dilapidated levees.
When people make decisions based on propaganda instead of facts, and get distracted by bread and circuses so they don't notice what's really going on -- that's the Fall of the Roman Empire. When people make decisions based on faith instead of facts, and kill science and scientists -- that's the Dark Ages. Those sucked. Let's not go there again.
August 20 2008, 20:26:27 UTC 12 years ago
Try this...
August 21 2008, 02:33:12 UTC 12 years ago
http://www.amazon.com/Flesh-Spirit-Carol-Berg/dp/0451461568/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b
August 20 2008, 22:08:26 UTC 12 years ago
I think a better question would be "How do we get this to change?"
I find some hope, by the way, in the popularity of shows like Numb3rs, Bones, and the various CSI and CSI-type shows, where it isn't the "rambo" types and intolerant jerks who are the heroes, it is the geeks. The ones who resist the easy, knee-jerk responses and instead and work painstakingly to discover the facts.
August 21 2008, 11:16:28 UTC 12 years ago
The EPA has been strong when people were unhappy about what was going on and put pressure on politicians to make things work. But the Republicans have gotten people into the mindset that nothing really works anyway, so why bother? An awful lot of people believe that. So part of the effort has to be to raise their consciousness and get them to understand that hell-raising is the only way out of this - and for something more than keeping their pickup truck full of cheap gas at all costs.
Thoughts
August 21 2008, 14:22:10 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Thoughts
August 21 2008, 20:36:56 UTC 12 years ago
Re: Thoughts
August 21 2008, 22:06:04 UTC 12 years ago
And most of the "family-friendly" are, as you point out, actively detrimental to healthy group dynamics in a family.
Deleted comment
Re: "Don't tell no lies."
August 20 2008, 22:47:41 UTC 12 years ago
That depends on your definition of "magic".
Or your example: "Any technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic" --Arthur C. Clark
Of course, some days it seems to me that a lot of people use magical thinking when it comes to everyday things, for instance, electric lights -- they know if they correctly perform the ritual (flip the switch) the light will come on. Sometimes, a ritual sacrifice is needed (you sacrifice the old light bulb and insert a new one). But they can't explain why it works.
Re: "Don't tell no lies."
August 21 2008, 02:43:45 UTC 12 years ago
Blind can be a route to evil. However, not all types of faith are blind or lead to evil -- and there are plenty of routes to evil that don't cross through faith.
"If we can't explain it, we can't explain it."
... yet. One key reason I resent faith-based decision-making is that it kills curiosity and exploration.
"Isn't all belief in magic faith-based? I don't see how it's any different from Christian belief in miracles, apart from popularity and economic/political power."
My belief in magic is empirical. While magic isn't perfectly reliable, much of it is plenty enough to make a notable shift in statistics. One of my specialties is magical theory, which essentially involves figuring out how magic works, identifying the underlying principles and variables so it can be used more effectively. It is both art and science. (This is not a terribly popular opinion, but it works.)
"Democracy is only as a good as the people who make it up, and it's as bad as the business of Make Believe."
Sadly that's true of all human systems. We have yet to figure out one that can compensate for flawed participants.
"All education is propaganda."
Not if it concentrates more on teaching you how to think than what to think. I teach my students, "Trust your instincts. Question authority. There is no One True Right And Only Way." Propaganda aims to narrow horizons. Some schools do that. But the beating heart of education is to widen horizons.
Re: "Don't tell no lies."
August 21 2008, 05:47:02 UTC 12 years ago
Possibly. I've also considered the possibility that I'm the magical equivalent of somebody who is tone-deaf. A tone-deaf person can not sing on key, but that doesn't mean that singing on key is impossible. I can not make magic work, but that doesn't mean that magic is impossible.
Oh, great. And here I'd thought that 2 + 2 = 4, and that water was made up of hydrogen and oxygen. I suppose everything I've learned about spelling and sentence structure in the English language is propaganda too.
Seriously, would you care to clarify that statement?
Peter Eng, he who blunders randomly about LJ on occasion.
Deleted comment
Re: "Don't tell no lies."
August 21 2008, 19:03:14 UTC 12 years ago
It depends on the model. Much education does push in a particular direction, but that's not the only option. Unschooling and Montessori, as well as other alternative models, don't push but rather support the student's explorations. That has its drawbacks -- if I hadn't been forced to learn math, I would never have pursued it of my own free will -- but it avoids many of the problems the public school system creates. Similarly, some religions are about discovery rather than dogma.
Of course, the non-propaganda models tend to be much less popular than the pushy models.
Deleted comment
Re: "Don't tell no lies."
August 22 2008, 15:52:01 UTC 12 years ago
For anyone interested in unschooling, here's a link:
http://www.unschooling.com/