Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Live Long and Prosper? I Nearly Killed 'er!

But ALEC’s astonishing influence exposes the progressive Achilles’ heel: a lack of a similarly entrenched, nationwide infrastructure of state and local policymakers and advocates that can create and support lasting change.

-Anastasia Van der Woodsen
What we need is an entrenched infrastructure to create change that will endure.  We must create an inviolable, unchanging apparatus for the purpose of changing things into things that will never again change. We must alter the future forever in order that the unalterable future endure.

Posted by IOZ at 10:18 AM | email »
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39 comments:

C. Nihilist said...

liburl vision for the future:

a well-meaning boot changing a human face forever.

10:41 AM
Schmutzie said...

Chicago- 5/20/12

Progressives from all over the world will be here to re-enact the wonderful summer of 1968. Some names have changed; The Rahmfather has replaced The Boss. Occupy instead of SDS & The Yips. Dohrn & Ayers are older and less Weather Undegroundy, but they'll be here. There will be a much larger emphasis on workers' rights this time around, especially with Indiana and Wisconsin right around the corners. Expect plenty of more than slightly irritated, and now disenfranchised G8 protesters who can't make it to Camp David on such short notice. We expect some overflow of anger from the anti-Zimmerman movement. Huey, Stokely, and Eldridge (The Betrayer Mormon) are gone, but Seale is still a Panther at heart, and there are rumblings that he may make an appearance. I mean really, what's a Chicago protest in Grant Park without at least 1 of The Eight? And, there will be a large group of The Gays who seem to be riled up over recent remarks from Santorum about their status in American society. It's gonna be a scene man, and this time the cops are on the other side. You should swing on by, and bring Inkberrow. Something for everyone.

10:56 AM
Leonard said...

IOZ, there is an inviolable, unchanging apparatus for the purpose of changing things into things that will never again change. It is the state, and its penumbral institutions.

Van der Woodsen is a progressive lamenting the influence of the right on politics. This is like a fish in the ocean lamenting the drying effect of the wind on the water.

You should be mocking her inability to see the incredible extent of progressive power, manifest in the massive progressive state and penumbral state. Put long: the Cathedral. A democracy runs on popular opinion. But who controls that? Educators, and the press. Well: progressives control education. They control K-12 as a part of the state, which is unquestioned and thus inviolable and unchanging. They also have a complete lock on teacher accreditation, which again is unquestioned and thus inviolable and unchanging. Thus they control popular opinion, albeit with a lag of, on average, half of an average lifetime minus 18 years. Still, that's real power. Whatever progs believed up through roughly 1980 is now the law of the land. (Of course, progs believe newer things now, i.e. that gays should marry, and these have not prevailed. Not yet. But they will as the old uneducated generation dies and is replaced.)

Progressives also control the press, although in this case without being officially part of the state, at least in the USA. But they have been, in the past, and might as well be. Still, the monopoly is not complete; anomalies like Fox News can arise. There is slight good news here, at least, in that the Internet is destroying the traditional media system. So it is not an inviolable, unchanging apparatus.

Progressives also control the higher education system, lock stock and barrel. And they have positioned it as the gatekeeper of all white collar jobs, by the simple expedient of massive subsidies and banning essentially all other ways of testing job applicants. Thus, they increasingly have influence in all high paying jobs. But in particular, they control the Federal bureaucracy, which cannot be fired by any one. Again, when you look for an inviolable, unchanging apparatus, here's where to look.

Finally, as if the above were not enough, progressives control all large charitable institutions, as well as most other NGOs. For every law that the sneaky right manages to pass via such evil and wrongheaded means as ALEC or common sense, progressives pass 100. We get "stand your ground" in one state; meanwhile, in Maryland I cannot carry concealed, much less on such terms. And meanwhile progressives just socialized the entire healthcare system, most of the auto industry, and almost the entire mortgage industry.

11:06 AM
Anonymous said...

tl;dr

11:10 AM
d.mantis said...

HAHA leonard! Best comment EVER!

Hey everyone, leonard just started the stupid analogy contest and led off with a bang!

My entry: IOZ sayz "fuck what everybody thinks, this tomato is a goddamn vegetable"...leonard sayz "no, no, no silly IOZ...yada, yada = its a suspension bridge!"

Jesus, i needed a good laugh today.

11:57 AM
Anonymous said...

Our last and only remaining hope is voting Santorum for POTUS.

The Dull Sycophant

11:59 AM
Rob Payne said...

Vonder van von van Vandersnoot said the word progressive more times than anyone else in a run-on sentence. I think she gets paid a hundred progressive bucks every progressive time she wrote the progressive word progressive. But it is progressively charming to see progressives trading dead burnt Afghan babies for progressively higher wages and preventing future progressive extensive damage to our progressive democracy by standing up for progressive ideals.

12:07 PM
Happy Jack said...

A democracy

You lost me right there.

12:18 PM
Joe said...

I think Leonard might have actually used "progressive" more times than Vandensnoozel.

Leonard: Fox News may be an anomoly in the sense that it's not "progressive" (whatever that means anymore), but it does its share of cheerleading for government programs--the ones involving the armed factions of the state, anyway.

12:56 PM
Anonymous said...

needs more Victor Davis Cincinnatulus Remus Hanson.

12:56 PM
NutellaonToast said...

Being a progressive sounds important, the way Leonard puts it. Where do I sign up? I've been dying to control teacher accreditation for a while now.

1:39 PM
Anonymous said...

that's the problem with eating vegetables...getting ketchup stains out with FDR

1:52 PM
lucid said...

progressives control all large charitable institutions, as well as most other NGOs.

Because nothing says 'progressive' like billionaire philanthropists... or is that philanderers?

1:57 PM
MichaelRyerson said...

C'mon you guys, slow down. I'm still stuck on me and dick cheney walking up to a revolving door at the same time. shit.

2:50 PM
anne said...

io z, .. 'er no h ? , said flip 'er

3:22 PM
Anonymous said...

It's sad to see IOZ fighting fellow liberal Katrina vanden Heuvel when they agree on so much.

3:43 PM
Inkberrow said...

Schmutzie---

I'm already planning to be in Chi-town for what I agree might well be a Bizarro-world redux of 1968. Daley to Emanuel is the most fascinating comparison/contrast, but I hope to contribute in my own small way by running a pig named "Muhammad" as an alternative Democratic candidate for President.

4:04 PM
Leonard said...

lucid, which billionaire philanthropist's money do you want to talk about? Gates? Ford? Carnegie? Wellcome?

Nutella, you sign up by committing yourself to the pursuit of power by any means necessary. For good ends!! Of course! Good ends! But you can't call it "power" that you seek, that might make people think you want power for its own sake; instead you call it "change". For how can you make a change without the power to do so? The one implies the other, but people want "change", right? And once the change is made, who better to run the new bureaucracy than, well, you? And who better to fight like hell -- by any means necessary! -- to prevent it from being rolled back, but an expert on it -- like you?

5:18 PM
Freddy el Desfibradddor said...

Billionaire philanthropists pay for some nice PBS programs. And isn't PBS anarchy in action? I mean, the peasants get to "vote" during pledge week, and the Golden Rule applies - he who has the gold, makes the rules.

5:49 PM
lucid said...

Lenny - I always find it hilarious that your definition of 'progressive' is anything to the left of 1930's fascism, right down to the eugenics...

5:51 PM
Schmutzie said...

Ink~ Still wondering who will be our Abe Ribicoff. The right Rev Wright perhaps, or maybe Farrakhan. You just know one of those guys will figure out a way to insult the Mayor's handling of the protesters on Michigan Ave. Pretty sure Rahm won't try shouting them down with "you faker" (or "jmf" depending on who's doing the lip reading) like the Old Man and Jr. did with Abe. Re: your pig. You'll make a fine modern day Segretti, but I'd suggest steering clear of anybody wearing a Mosque Maryam t-shirt and for sure don't show your pig to anybody in a gray suit, white shirt, and bow tie. Those NOI dudes get a little touchy when challenged. Ask X.

10:06 PM
NutellaonToast said...

Leonard, you sure know a lot about evil. How did you become so knowledgeable in its ways? Can you train me, too, to fight evil?

11:07 PM
Leonard said...

Yes. I already am.

11:12 PM
NutellaonToast said...

Man, I was hoping this was the part where you offer me an Uzi to fight those usurpers...

11:33 PM
Leonard said...

lucid -- eugenics was invented in the US, by progressives. The Nazis copied us, not vice-versa.

But yes, you have identified an interesting pattern in the history of ideas. Practically everyone in 1930 was far to the right of practically everyone today. In addition to sterilizing mental defectives, the progressives of the time were still Christians -- they were "super protestant", to use the lingo of the time. They believed in hateful Christian ideas like that this should be a white Christian nation, that homosexuality was deviant and morally wrong, that God ordained that marriage was between a man and woman, etc. It is only in the 1960s that their children ditched the inconvenient God and Jesus stuff so that they could fornicate more freely and so that their entire ideology could be established in the public schools.

11:53 PM
Eerily Lackadaisical said...

Which two posters in this thread are living proof that anarchy will never be able to flower among the weeds of human neediness?

11:55 PM
Leonard said...

Nutella, revolution is a tactic that can work for leftists, but never for rightists. There -- another lesson.

11:55 PM
lucid said...

Lulz, you need to read some history my friend. On countless issues, including every single economic issue the vast majority of people were far to the left of where we are now. The new deal happened because the elites were legitimately concerned about a communist revolution in this country & the subsequent coup attempt against FDR was because a group of industrialists wanted to follow European fascism instead. European fascism itself was the international industrialists' response to what they considered the threat of organized anarchism and communism... And we all know the fascists won World War II.

Perhaps the old adage about masturbation is true - you're so caught up in sex you've blinded yourself.

12:10 AM
anne said...

look back at cuneyt's comment on the last post ..

12:54 AM
Anonymous said...

Lucy,

That is sooo wrong in sooo many ways.

The Dull Sycophant

11:00 AM
lucid said...

Such as?

12:20 PM
Anonymous said...

"On ... every single economic issue the vast majority of people were far to the left of where we are now."

Do you even know Massa FDR's 1932 platform?


"The new deal happened because the elites were legitimately concerned about a communist revolution in this country"

Whaaa? Federales CONFISCATED everyone's money, and that was done to COMBAT communism? War is peace and up is down perchance?


"& the subsequent coup attempt against FDR was because a group of industrialists wanted to follow European fascism instead."

Vat coup?


"European fascism itself was the international industrialists' response to what they considered the threat of organized anarchism and communism..."

What is the date on Vladimir Ilyich's tome on Imperialism?


"And we all know the fascists won World War II."

As long as you remember, what's good for GM is good for America.

The following, on the ethos of the corporatist system, was written in 1883:
"D-voastră, adică noi, suntem cetățeni, domnule, suntem onorabili... Mai ales noi suntem stâlpii puterii: proprietari, membrii Comitetului permanent, ai Comitetului electoral, ai Comitetului școlar, ai Comitetului pentru statuia lui Traian, ai Comițiului agricol și ețetera. Noi votăm pentru candidatul pe care-l pune pe tapet partidul întreg... pentru că de la partidul întreg atârnă binele țării și de la binele țării atârnă binele nostru.

12:57 PM
lucid said...

Whaaa? Federales CONFISCATED everyone's money, and that was done to COMBAT communism? War is peace and up is down perchance?

This statement automatically disqualifies you from having a factual discussion of economic policy.

As for the coup attempt...

1:50 PM
Anonymous said...

?R U Kidding me?
?Executive Order 6102?

Who am I going to believe, you or my own lying eyes, yes?


Which part of "series of hobgoblins all imaginary" statement does not apply to the businessman putsch or to the "commies are coming" anti-Bonus Army propaganda?


The Dull Sycophant

3:15 PM
lucid said...

Oh, my poor dear, what pray tell an executive order specifically exempting private industry from compliance have to do with communism?

3:42 PM
lucid said...

Also, forced exchange of gold for currency has nothing to do with communism. Neither does taxation, nor Keynsian economic programs. The fact that you and some 35% of the US population believes they do is not only further evidence of my point about rightward drift, but proof that we're bordering on idiocracy.

3:49 PM
Anonymous said...

"has nothing to do with communism"

I'm glad that we agree.

TDS

6:42 AM
Karl Franz Ochstradt said...

...a factual discussion of economic policy.

Is that anything like a forward-movement analysis and its relation to the merits of moving in reverse?

I think you lost me while combining the notion of "facts" and the supposed gravitas of "economic policy" as if "economics" or "policy" depend on any relevant facts.

3:45 PM
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10:39 AM

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