Posts by: Tom Sullivan
In March 1999, Harvey Cox of Harvard Divinity School wrote of the emergence of a new “Supreme Deity, the only true God, whose reign must now be universally accepted and who allows for no rivals.” — The Market.
Omnipotent: In a kind of reverse transubstantiation The Market transmutes all things once holy into [...]
Quantum mechanics suggests that as you bore down deeper into matter, Newton’s laws break down. You enter a quirky, alternate universe of gluons and quarks, of probabilities and spin, and particles with “flavors” like charm and strangeness where the rules governing ordinary reality no longer apply.
Now enter the world of quantum conservatism, where commonsense [...]
Trouble with a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “P” and that stands for pool!
Friday, a friend put me on to a musical bit that I know by heart, but he gave me a fresh perspective on it. I had never seen it in a modern political context, in a cable news/talk [...]
No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. – Matthew 6:24
President Richard Nixon once observed, “Flexibility is the first principle of politics.” But that brings [...]
The Republican War on Women demonstrates their oh-so-conservative decision to govern by the precautionary principle. Small-government conservatives have decided it is government’s job to ensure that women view ultrasound videos and have transvaginal probes before having a legal abortion. Clearly, they want to ensure — in a consumer-protectiony kind of way — that women, people, [...]
This radio interview with North Carolina state Rep. Rick Glazier last week has stayed with me. Glazier and state Rep. Ray Rapp were reacting to the Republican handling of education after gaining control of the North Carolina legislature in January 2011. Glazier explained it with this story:
Sort of mind-boggling. Maybe an opening script [...]
Dueling editorials in the February 24th edition of the Baltimore Sun revisit the ongoing arguments over the new voter ID laws popping up around the country.
The Sun urged caution in adopting measures aimed at stopping “the phantom menace of voter fraud” when they threaten to disenfranchise “tens of thousands of legitimate [...]
Zombies.
Reports of their voting have been greatly exaggerated. A lot of places. Particularly in South Carolina, where Republicans insist zombies have photo IDs to vote — the kind any respectable Undead can obtain where they get their driver’s licenses, at the DMV (Dead Men Voting) office.
The late George Carlin had this comedy bit involving a four-letter word starting with S. He marveled at how it was this all-purpose expletive. He provided lots of examples. What fascinated Carlin was how everyone used the S-word figuratively. Almost never literally.
Socialist is like that. Conservatives started throwing the word around [...]
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was a waiter. For seven years. Before PCs. Back in the age of LPs and carbon paper. I remember one customer who, after he’d signed his credit card receipt and I handed him his copy, asked me to give him the carbons (back then [...]
Primary voters just gave former Speaker Newt Gingrich the win in the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, “America’s most conservative state.” Reddest of the red. Buckle of the Bible Belt. CNN welcomed viewers to the Charleston debate this week with “Welcome to the South,” a place “where values matter.”
More [...]
So much misdirected anger.
Over at Daily Kos, Zwoof has seen a rash of chain emails about “welfare junkies” who are “drug-fueled slackers.” Obligingly, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced the Welfare Reform Act of 2011 to discipline deadbeats on food stamps.
This is old news. It is Ronald Reagan’s “welfare [...]
From the New York Times, another example of what happens when education goes from being a vocation to being a for-profit industry:
WASHINGTON — Last year, the Obama administration vowed to stop for-profit colleges from luring students with false promises. In an opening volley that shook the $30 billion industry, officials proposed new [...]
On December 2, the Department of Health and Human Services released its rule on how health insurers comply with the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio (MLR) provision. The rule is effective on January 1, 2012. Before you flip over to YouTube to watch the latest in cat cuteness, consider this headline from [...]
Last summer, I asked this question:
Why are millionaires and billionaires targeting public education? For the same reason banksters pimped mortgage loans. For the same reason Wall Street wanted to privatize Social Security. For the same reason Willie Horton Sutton robbed banks.
Answer this question: What is the largest portion [...]
OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT FROM THE MINISTRY OF TRUTH
Immediately and Henceforth, Naked aggression shall be called “preemptive war” Propaganda shall be called “news” State kidnapping shall be called “extraordinary rendition” Water torture shall be called “enhanced interrogation” Arbitrary imprisonment shall be called “extrajudicial detention” Kleptocracy shall be called “privatization” Securities fraud shall be called [...]
As cities around the country trade notes on how to crack down on peaceful Occupy protesters, a chant goes up: ‘Who do you protect? Who do you serve?’ As the empire strikes back, Chris Hayes offers a plausible answer. It’s the reason for Occupy in the first place.
Citing UCLA [...]
Have you heard about Zombie ACORN? The conservative media is a-twitter with ACORN sightings over a year and a half after the right wing succeeded in killing off the voter-registering, community organizing group. Behind the 99% in the Occupy movement is ACORN, did you hear? They just won’t die.
It’s ironic. The [...]
With their “We are the 99%” chant, Occupy Wall Street protesters call for and end to the corporate corruption of democracy, to America’s two-tiered system of justice, and to the rigged economics that concentrates the nation’s wealth in the hands of the top 1%. By cheating, says Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi, who
We had to repost this gem from hippie One Pissed Off Liberal at Daily Kos:
#OWS: Let Me Tell You Wall Street
Asshats a Little Something About
Hippies
One of the attack memes for right wingers and know nothings is that the Occupy Wall Street movement is merely [...]
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On winning and values
So, right-wingers, you want a society where families are stable, where everybody looks like you and shares your Christian faith, and where the government pretty much stays out of your business? It’s not in some Randian fantasy, it’s right here in the USA.
Empowerment and education: Why young people don't vote
“Greater education of our civic processes must be the fulcrum of any program to increase voter participation amongst young people. … When people stop participating in democracy then that is an institutional failure, not a failure of the citizens. Assuming otherwise leads us down a slippery slope to elitism and nothing could be more anathema to the American Republic.”
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