Apparently having been dropped on his head from a large height sometime after 2007 or so, Matt Stoller is arguing that electing Mitt Romney would be good for progressivism. Apparently, the income inequality that has been building since the early 1970s is entirely by President Obama’s design — seriously — and there is no significant difference between Obama and Romney on women’s health issues such as abortion. Who knew?
Scott Lemieux argues that Stoller has turned into the new Camille Paglia, except “1)with fewer references to Madonna and uses of the word “Dionysian,†and 2)less coherent.” That’s good, but not on the mark, I think. I have always thought of Paglia as the Thomas Kinkade of philosophy, and I don’t think Stoller rises to that level. He’s possibly attempting to be the Glenn Beck of firebaggers, but he’s not flamboyant enough to pull that off.
Also, too:
Excerpt from the new book Assholes: A Theory
Frank Rich on how the Right will get worse after Obama wins.
More on Stoller — the Booman.
Camille Paglia — the Thomas Kinkade of philosophy. Love it, love, love it. A good description of her.
You know what would really be good for progressivism?
How about the Democratic Party welcoming some back in.
Now, you need too much money and too many business connections to run for any office beyond the local school board – and we need progressives on the school board, too!
And maha, GREAT line about Paglia and Kinkade! LOL!!!
‘How the right will worsen’ is interesting. Imagine how much credit they will claim for turning around the economy (sic) if Romney should ‘win’…
Only in an era with a media that’s a relativistic train wreck in which impartiality has run amuck would such an illogical appeal be floated. No doubt there’s a waiting gauntlet of echoers those chestnuts will be run through. Hell, it might even get a credibility-lending “What about that, panel?” from David Gregory on MTP. I’d love to see the trackbacks on that one.
Why can’t the good guys resist the sensationalism evidenced in titles? Even Rich’s title, suggesting that the tea party will “win”, does that in an article that hardly affirmatively concludes the premise. I do like his analogy that they are the cockroaches of politics, destined to survive in some form or another. I agree with some of the Stoeller article in that moral hazard could have been avoided to a greater degree by bargaining harder on stimulus, that Obama’s economic team sucked… However the not-so-airtight case for Obama that he concludes at the closing is ludicrous because of who is running against him. The argument for making the choice IS airtight. He’s certainly not helping the progressive cause with what he’s selling.
Maha: I hope you have plenty of bottled water and candles. Do you expect the city to get back on its feet by Nov 6?
Tom — from what I can tell, the worst of the storm is supposed to hook around to the west of us and smash New Jersey and Pennsylvania, then turn back to upstate New York. On its current trajectory, here in lower Westchester County we’ll just be catching the edge of it, and I’m safely out of a flood zone. My biggest concern is losing power. But I expect New York City to be back on its feet by Thursday, frankly, if the flooding isn’t too terrible.
Jeff Masters (wunderground) was predicting storm surge up to Albany.
Tom — I assume that would be flooding from the Hudson River. I’m a few miles from the Hudson and quite a bit higher. If the flood gets to where I am, it would be time to start building an ark.
I’ve got as much under control as I can.
Everything’s off the porch and lawn.
Laundry is done.
I’m baking a chicken, and making some roasted potato’s and vegetables, and some brown rice, for the next few days.
I have cans of beans, Nathan’s hot dogs, and a small canned ham, and sardines, and pickled cuke’s and tomato’s, to go with the rice, for the rest of the week.
I’ve boiled 9 eggs.
I have tons of ice in plastic containers to keep the refrigerator cold.
I boiled water in pots and will put it in the refrigerators.
I bought a doo-hickey for the cigarette lighter in my car so I can keep my old cell phone charged, in case of emergency.
The only thing I couldn’t do, was spend $10,000 to $15,000 to top-off the trees on our property
Btw: they were predicting record low air pressures – worse even than the 1938 hurricane. And if it’s true, anyone near the path of that hurricane might want to leave a few windows open, just a tad, in their house. Most people seal their houses up so tight when preparing for a hurricane, that they almost hermetically seal their homes and apartments. Air pressure can drop quickly, and if you don’t leave the windows open just a bit, they can either break, or, literally, get sucked out. That happens often with tornado’s.
If you don’t hear from me for awhile, it’s because we lost power. Hopefully, none of the tall trees on our property comes down on our heads.
I hope everyone prepared as well as they could, and rides this storm and it’s aftermath, safely.
Good luck, and stay safe, everyone!!! 🙂
I hadn’t thought of hard boiling eggs, but that’s a good idea. I have enough food to munch on for a couple of days, but after that I may have to go out and forage.
I second what PurpleGirl said about the Camille Paglia/Thomas Kinkade comparison… with a smiley-face as big as the moon! Which would be cool if it could provide some light in event of power outages.
Will keep all you East Coasters in my good thoughts!
glad i live in florida where hurricanes are no problem.
Boiled eggs are a great idea, also fill every container you can spare with water, just in case you loose water pressure or the supply gets contaminated.Also, get some back up lighting; the new LED lights throw plenty of light and are pretty good as far as battery life goes. Don’t assume you won’t get wacked, this storm is massive. I made that mistake with Hurricane Charlie, never again.
‘Gulag, they tell us here in Fl NOT to open any windows, check with a reliable source on that one.
Maha, it looks like you’ll be on the “dirty” side of the storm, tornados could be spawned. We had that happen here several months ago, luckily they were out on the Deseret ranch, which is VERY large and sparsley populated (LDS Church owns it)
http://www.weather.com/activities/homeandgarden/home/hometips/severeweather/hurricane_windprotect.html
http://news.yahoo.com/york-times-endorses-obama-172159587–politics.html
And they called Paulie a fraud..not in so many words, but just a dickhead in general.
erinyes,
Maybe I’m wrong about the open window. But I remember reading about it a long while back.
Maybe I’m WRONG!!!
But it makes sense to me, since most Americans hermetically seal their homes at the first sign of trouble.
My all-time favorite stupid reaction, was after the panic over the anthrax scare after 9/11.
I was laughing my ass off at the sight of people plastic-wrapping their houses, like THAT was going to stop microbes!!! “Hey, Goober, whatcha gonna breathe?”
I think the open window refers to tornados, not hurricanes, and I don’t think it’s advised any more. The thinking was that the sudden and extreme change in air pressure, which really is more sudden and extreme with tornadoes than with hurricanes, would cause one’s home to either implode or explode, I can’t remember which. So by opening a window the air pressure would remain equal. However, as I said, the “experts” now say that’s bad advice and doesn’t do any good.
Matt kinda missed the mark when he blamed Obama for the mortgage crisis. I thought that was all part of Bush’s home ownership society.
“I thought that was all part of Bush’s home ownership society.” It was part of Bush’s unregulated banks society.
People in this country can’t remember from one day to the next. A slug like Romney would be polling in the single digits anywhere in the EU (except maybe Italy).
From the Silver Lining Dept – Mitt Romney In GOP Debate: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States.
Very eager to see the ads that are going to come out of this. Best wishes to all, including our blogmistress host, on surviving Sandy.
‘Gulag, during the anthrax scare, I was working in the town where the fellow with the National Enquirer was infected, I was staying at the comfort Inn where the supposed culprits had stayed. Talk about tension and suspense.
My wife’s name is Sandy (aka Beach Angel), so I’m kidding her a bit about the headlines. “Sandy threatens entire North East”, etc. But seriously, be safe and be prepared.
@Moonbat; The SBA loan we got after our ’04 hurricane season when we were hit by 3 hurricanes between August and November sure came in handy, especially since our home owner’s policy had a $5,000.00 deductable and the cost of roofing went off the charts because roof damage was so wide spread and roofing material was in short supply East of the Mississippi.Bush was in office at the time, and Jebbie was our Governor, they were in Punta Gorda right after Charlie came through with Buckets full of FEMA money…. Socialists!!!!
This storm may be the biggest “stimulus” the US has ever seen due to mother nature.
Yes, good luck with Sandy, all!
Btw – after this is over, I’m going to send a resume to The Weather Channel.
They’ve got all of these in-shape people getting blown around by the wind on the beaches they’re standing on (by the way, I wonder if they know that their bosses laugh at them the whole time they’re out there?).
I’m over 6 feet tall, and nearly 300 pounds, so it’ll take a hell of a wind to knock me over.
Hell, even the greatest Weather Anchor, and I mean, ANCHOR, Al Roker , isn’t half the man he used to be. It’s a shame to see a man who was once so well grounded, now buffeted by the slightest breeze. Grab some donut’s, Al!