this wouldn't surprise you in the least. It was the most vapid, inaccurate, misleading piece of fluff you've ever seen, and I mean even to the level of grammar.

The one glaring idiocy that outshines all is the whole thesis, which is that there are no trends anymore to track because everyone has broken into "microtrends", following their own trend or that of a small group. Everyone is doing this. It's so common that he wrote a book about it, because it's so widespread as to be a, you know, tendency, or, what do you call those things....

Oh yes.

A trend.

It just gets worse from there.

This is the most revealing article in Salon to date. People complaining about Camille Paglia appearing in such an otherwise "progressive political magazine" or about some fluff piece in Salon which is supposed to be a serious, sober, forum should look at this list of articles. This is what Salon thinks are its best articles. One of them is described this way:

What is your poo telling you about your health? It's the burning question that has everybody's head in the toilet these days.

It's titled "The bowel movement".

Salon is most worthwhile for the column by Glenn Greenwald, which gets widespread attention and prestige from political circles and readers alike. Tom Tomorrow is also a gem, and a legend that Salon should be proud to publish.

Instead, here is the list of Salon's "favorite articles".

Read it and weep.

My point is only that those complaining about Salon seeming like a cheap tabloid should look at this realize that this is how they see themselves, not in the lofty terms you imagine. This isn't a list of meaningful articles peppered by the occasional satirical or fun gossipy diversion, this is a list consisting almost entirely of the latter. This is the Parade Magazine of the online world, "progressive" style.

This would be entirely meaningless were it not for the fact that it has consequences. Over and over you see references in the right wing media to Camille Paglia as a "big liberal" or "a dyed in the wool liberal feminist" followed by something along the lines of ""See? Even liberals like her agree!" (That Sarah Palin is a true feminist or that Hillary Clinton is pure evil, and so on).

I'm not proposing that Salon must adhere to some ideal of progressive or liberal thought that I and others dictate. I'm proposing that people should stop pretending that it is. It's a tabloid, and sensationalism is the goal at Salon, and one glance at that list should demonstrate. The next time Camille Paglia writes a diatribe that reminds you more of Bill O'Reilly than anything else, just realize that they're both given a forum for exactly the same reason.

The extreme conservatives who are arguing this particular line of nonsense are doing so with an underlying message, namely that massive government spending is ineffective against an economic depression. They will also argue that what DID finally cause the economy to recover was World War II.

The reason for this of course was that the war involved--- yes, massive government spending.

Oops.

No one is arguing that waging war, especially on each other in our own country (i.e. your mention of destroying property and etc)is the best way to embody government spending. The point I was making is very simple, that even the right wing ideologues who argue that the economy recovered only as a result of WWII are in complete contradiction with themselves that government spending has no place in recovery, and further, the absurd claims that spending caused or prolonged the depression.

Robert Higgs is just wingnuttier than most, taking it further to claim that the war had no effect either. His claims strike me as patently absurd. The GI Bill was in effect after the war, which he seems to be either unaware of or is purposely ignoring.

You're both peddling absolutes, putting forth straw man arguments right and left. The cracks about The Soviet Union are classic scare tactics by the right, every time someone suggests moving away from our extreme-free-market Randian economic model with its terror of anything "socialist", someone on the right starts screaming about Russia.

I've lived in what you would no doubt call Socialist countries and the fear is vastly overdone. The health care is fantastic, for one thing, and the quality of life is generally much higher than those of us in the US realize.

We don't have to become socialist, that's not my point. My point is that we are nowhere near it, and the obsessive fear of it is unhealthy. For the economy as well as every other way.

Say what now? I was referring to my post and the article when I wrote that "no one is suggesting waging war on our own country" since the post I was responding to that contained that particular straw man proposal was a response to a post of mine.

On the other hand, you're claiming that Krugman has proposed war as a solution to the economic crisis?

I'd love to try debunking that but it's a little far off the reality rails to know where to even start.

One of the few silver linings in all this is watching people like Paul Krugman embarrass people like George Will (who I suspect is one of the posters here, under an assumed name) on Sunday talk shows by running circles around him on the subject of the Great Depression. I would have thought vapid ideologues like Will would know better than to try that with someone who just won a Nobel prize in the subject, but I suppose an overinflated ego is almost a requisite to getting on TV.