The man knows his John Stuart Mill. Why is such cogent, simple analysis completely beyond most Americans?

Then again, to play Devil's Advocate:

http://www.testpattern.org/2003/04/hitler-on-propaganda-in-chapter-six-of.html

Thank you, sir.

Mandatory sentencing laws. Election fraud and intimidation. The annihilation of our social safety net. Regressive tax structure. The waging of foreign wars that disproportionately affect poor Americans. These are all consistently Republican policies and tactics. There is only one reasonable way to interpret the evidence: the Republican party is fundamentally racist.

By collaborating with such an enterprise, Clarence Thomas betrays his own people. He thus rightfully earns the censure and revulsion of Black America. I don't blame them a bit for hating him. There's a special kind of nausea I feel when I look at someone who's climbed over the corpses of his brethren in order to lick the boots of their murderers; it's similar to the feeling inspired by Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the Nazi collaborator of the Lodz ghetto.

Civilized people can debate the merits of affirmative action or any other specific policy. What is not open to honest debate is the basic barbarity and xenophobia of Republican policy, whatever pitiful "Big-Tent," "Compassionate Conservative" drivel they trot out around election time.

Any Black Republican is, ipso facto, a traitor to his own kind - he thus ranks among the lowest dregs of humanity.

Robert W. Arellano

......was a surreal, disturbing experience. I kept wondering, were we all responding to the same article?

Earth to liberal America: The GOP is a vicious, extremist, criminal organization bent on eroding our basic liberties and obliterating what remains of our democratic form of government. Neither this party nor its representatives deserve our respect. They forfeited that right years ago with their abominable, outrageous behavior.

I found Gary Kamiya's article thoroughly entertaining and absolutely accurate. Palin is a political featherweight who was added to the McCain ticket for utterly transparent, half-assed reasons. The article simply points out the elephant under the couch: this woman's selection as a vice-presidential candidate represents the latest instance of "style" (appalling, yes, but there's no accounting for taste) over substance within the GOP. And it does so in a way that actually provokes laughter in balanced human beings. Lord knows, that's a rare gift these days.

Kamiya has skewered this wretched woman and the political nightmare machine that spawned her with the oldest weapon in the polemicist's aresenal (take a deep breath, all you dessicated, doctrinaire marxists) - satire. Look it up in the fucking dictionary.

And cheers to Gary Kamiya for his keen observation and sharp wit. Don't let the pointy-heads get you down.

Robert W. Arellano

....... because Sarah Palin is despicable. Q.E.D.

I don't normally care for hardcore feminist rants, but this one brought a smile to my face.....keep up the good fight, sister.

Robert W. Arellano

Camille Paglia certainly does have a way with one sentence summaries:

"Practical training in hands-on vocational skills is desperately needed in this country, where liberal arts education has become a soggy boondoggle, obscenely expensive and diluted by propaganda and groupthink."

I graduated Phi Beta Kappa from a fairly well-regarded liberal arts program in the South. By my senior year, I realized that the classical education I revered had apparently been decimated in America - gutted by ignorant, trendy charlatans in the names of "post-modernism," "deconstructionism," "critical theory," and a dozen other empty, Stalinist frauds. I opted not to pursue a higher degree.

Not long after I graduated, I had a life-changing experience - I worked as a day laborer on a construction site. I'll never forget one moment in particular. I watched a young man pick up a sixteen foot long 2x12 and carry it across the building. Doesn't sound like much, until you try to do it. In that moment, I realized that all of the learning I had been pursuing in the classroom really didn't amount to much in practical terms, and that this blue collar guy who almost certainly couldn't discuss Plato with me was actually far more useful than I was.

I think I made a subconscious decision that day to learn a trade, and though it took a few more years to get there, I made good on it. Today I am a journeyman carpenter, and though I don't make my living with my hands at the moment, it's something that no one can ever take from me. Learning how to build a house grounded me in a way that studying philosophy, language, and history (all things I love dearly) never did. It truly made a man out of me.

With time I've come to realize that my liberal arts education has served me very well - it taught me how to think. Among contractors who knew anything, that always gave me an advantage. Many of the guys working on job sites are, I'm sorry to say, lunkheads. They've never been taught problem solving, critical thinking, time management - the very things that a liberal arts education provided me. They have limited perspective. One contractor once explained a foreman job to me in depressingly honest terms: "It's baby-sitting grown men."

America has been polarized along all axes, but this is probably the one that disturbs me the most - the gap between those who do things and those who think about things. If we can't bridge it, we're in big trouble.

For being one of a handful of public figures to have the guts to say these things. If this country ever wakes from its trance surrounding Israel, you will be celebrated as a prophet.

I am curious to know your views on Norman Finkelstein, and whether or not you make common cause with him.