Letters to the Editor
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Broder
Freedom was not a concept that was fought for in the eighteenth century, and lived on as if compelled by nature. The nineteenth century proved that unregulated businesses or the "free market" led to a two tier economic system similar to that in Europe that Thomas Jefferson was opposed to.
Today's capitalists are not Adam Smith types. Adam Smith saw capitalism as a system that lifted most citizens as each person traded or sold his skill or talent for another person's abilities. In his view each person was a micro self-sustaining entity in a grand scheme that resulted in the macro system he described. The current financial sophistication allows for an incredible amount of bs that supposedly replaces talent, ingenuity, innovation, and product. Today there are financial instruments that produce nothing. The instruments are money that makes money off of the movement of it. No jobs are created. No infrastructure is built. No innovations are necessary.
From the early twentieth century to World War II there were World War I, the battle for women's suffrage, the crash of 29, followed by the Great Depression. The battle for freedom continued.
After World War II, there were the Klu Klux Klan, Joe McCarthy, the Birth Control Pill, a sincere effort to create a middle class, the civil rights movement, the peace movement, a new awareness of what it meant to be an individual, existentialism, equal pay for equal work, no discrimination against sex, age, race or physical impairment, Brown vs the board of education, the counter culture and more. Of these the one that was considered the greatest threat to the establishment was the counter culture. The most revolutionary change was the birth control pill.
How could hierarchal capitalists maintain or grow their wealth if people made their own clothes, grew their own food, generated their own electricity, did not follow fads or trends, were self-reliant, self-sustaining, self-entertaining, self-fulfilling, and self-regulating? Freedom either evolves or regresses due to the political climate. Freedom was the one concept that Americans were most proud of, and while freedom may have always been an illusion, it has never been as much so as it is now. Thanks to people like Broder. Broder has never been a centrist from my point of view.
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And your point is?
Well, there it is, isn't it? He's guilty of being relentlessly centrist. The unforgivable sin.
-- casual observer
So, Broder went to a bunch of really good schools, got a bunch of really impressive degrees, served in the military, has spent a lifetime in his profession, appears to be respected by his peers--oh, and he's pretty old. So obviously he's truthworthy, credible and of high character. They don't allow liars to graduate from the better schools--like, um Yale--or serve in the military--like, um, Rumsfeld--or spend a lifetime in an honorable professional--like, um, Cheney. And old people are invariable honest and credible--like, um, Ted "Tubular" Stevens.
And, of, course, people who have such impressive credentials are invariably levelheaded and sane--like, um, Bush (Cheney, Rumsfeld...).
Yes, you have proven your point beyond even the most casual of observations.
Of course, since you seem to equate centrism with being principled and honest, I'm sure you're a big fan of Joementum. You're not Dan Gerstein, by any chance? Because you kind of sound like someone's sockpuppet, given the utterly asinine and absurd nature of the "logic" you've shared with us here.
Character has far less to do with education, credentials, experience, public reputation, etc., than what you learn and are taught very early on in life, and a personal choice to be honest and courageous that one acts upon. And a thousand degrees and accomplishments can't give it to you if you have none to begin with. If you haven't figured that our for yourself by now then you're an even more casual observer of life than I thought.
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good point
casual observer is from my home, here in Texas, if I am not mistaken.
"Yes, you have proven your point beyond even the most casual of observations."
Yes, kovie, this is what we get here always. Even if someone seems to get it, that/those always fall back on the authoritarian backbone of whatever point is at hand. It's always better than you. No matter that you might just be happy where you are -- no matter that there will always be sef-congratulatory clubs.
Nice to see you kovie -- I failed you the other night on UT -- I took on more than I could handle and I apologize. I'm glad you are here.
Michelle
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impressive boobie credentials
[Kovie 12:21:56 AM] And, of, course, people who have such impressive credentials are invariably levelheaded and sane -- like, um...
Katherine Harris! The Mad Katter has a masters degree in public administration from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Case closed.
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Great exit line
I will leave the pages to the burgeoning pundits.
Since we all know you'll be back to see how your supposed valedictory was received, Addie old chap...why not fill us in on your plans. Are you going to get off your ass and go do something to avert the coming apocalypse? Take to the streets? But wait, the streets were built by The Man, so taking to the streets is playing his game. Maybe you should take to the skies. Swoop down on TPTB and surprise them as they wallow in the slop-trough of their corruption. Come on, let's see you do something, dude! Don't be one of those of whom it is said, "He has the wisdom of youth, and the energy of old age."
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militant bands of rebels oh my
Looking back through these comments (the ones i read) i don't think anything adonto has said deserves the condemnation or ridicule he/she is receiving. Afterall, adonto's direct action point isn't without historical precedent in this country. The Wobblies (for instance) come to mind immediately. Does anyone believe that without the early direct action of the Wobblies later labor reforms embraced by more "mainstream" and "centrist" labor movements would have been even possible. I doubt it myself. I remember a lecture Elizabeth Gurley Flynn gave on this topic many years ago (just before she died) about how the Wobblie's direct action (the Wobblies put aside political allegiances in those early days for the sake of that direct action) made it possible for future generations of labor activists to succeed. She was absolutely correct about that too. This is what Flynn said in Nov. 1962:
"Now, I am going to tell you of a few of the things that we never heard of in those days. It is very well to realize the difference in the environment, the difference in the composition, the difference in the level of our development. We couldn't see things with the eyes of 1962. We saw them with the eyes of 1905 through about 1917. Well, we certainly never heard of such a thing and we never thought it would be possible, that there would be social security or unemployment insurance. Those were the results of the 30's. The great struggle that came out after the decline of the IWW. Also, we never heard of vacations with pay. We never heard of vacations, let alone vacations with pay. We never heard of seniority as it is understood today. There were no pensions for retirement of workers. There were no welfare funds of unions. There were no health centers of unions, and there were no trade union schools such as there are today.
All of these things have come with the unions that have come into existence since the period of the IWW."
Mother Jones might even be another example. Timberline mentions the Panthers earlier in these threads (I have friends who were there too by the way) and that goes into an entire complex history as well etc... but can anyone argue that without the direct impact of such direct action (Wobblies, Panthers, even the direct action of Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd enviromental activist, and so forth...) many changes we've seen for the better in the past would have been accelerated had that direct action not occured? Well? I dunno, you tell me. Who's really pushing the envelope in all this anyway.
Journalist Harbor Allen, author of "The Flynn", wrote in The American Mercury, December, 1926 about Flynn and the IWW/Wobblies direct action movement: "So died one of the most militant bands of rebels America ever nourished. Its philosophy was impractical, its aims often absurd, its tactics still oftener childish. [...] Yet the wobblies, at their best, were gallant and picturesque fighters, steadfast in the face of vituperance and danger, and it was these qualities which drew Gurley Flynn to them."
So there ya go. Todays adonto may be yesterdays Flynn.
The wives, mothers and the children all go in to produce dividends, profit, profit, profit. The brutal governor is a pillar of the First Methodist church in Birmingham. On Sunday he gets up and sings, "O Lord will you have another star for my crown when I get there?" ~ Mary Harris (Mother Jones), 1908
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