Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought

In a delicious bit of irony (at least from where I sit) the Internet is teaching Ron Paul a thing or two about free enterprise in the Net Economy. It seems a collection of his fans registered the domain "RonPaul.com" a while back and have amassed quite a mailing list through it:  170,000+  email addresses. Ron Paul now wants to buy it, but considers their asking price much too high. They generously offered him "RonPaul.org" for free, but he wants the .com version. Such is the nature of supply and demand, Dr. Paul. Refusing the free offer of RonPaul.org, and unwilling to pony up the $250,000 the current holders are asking for RonPaul.com, the libertarian icon is filing his case with the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization, demanding the current holders turn over *both* domains to him. This is, of course, the very same U.N. he was referring to in 1998, when he said: The choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submi...

Now that the initial wave of shock and horror over the shootings at Sandy Hook has worn off, the national debate has again started about gun control, and to a less degree, mental health issues. Discussions about both are long overdue. After every recent shooting, the first reaction of the gun-lovers is...to buy more guns, because they fear "the government" is going to make it impossible to get guns. Am I the only one who sees this as closely related to the behavior pattern of people who are hoarders ? I'm tired of hearing some say that this happened because of some amorphous  "Evil" in the world that humankind is powerless to overcome. If there's Evil afoot, it's what Hannah Arendt, writing about the Nazis, call the banality of evil :  "normalizing the unthinkable." Such as accepting the idea that the man or woman on the street needs to own military-style semi-automatic assault weapons with huge magazines of ammo. There have been quite ...

Back when I was in college, a couple of my hippie friends decided they'd vote in the Republican primary, with the intention of boosting the prospects of the Republican candidate they felt would be least electable in the general election. They pulled the lever for former California governor Ronald Reagan. Whoops. In the 2000 election, a number of "progressive" voters (my dear wife among them) turned up their collective noses at Al Gore and voted for Ralph Nader. Enough of them did in Florida to usher in 8 years of George W Bush. Whoops. Despite years of voting primarily for Democrats (with a few notable exceptions ) I found Gary Johnson, Libertarian presidential candidate intriguing - fiscal conservative, socially progressive, and to all appearances, not a bad sort. I reasoned that since Obama had a snowball's chance in hell of carrying Texas, it didn't really matter if I abandoned him to vote for Johnson. Besides, I found myself somewhat incensed at seve...

My friend and debating partner the Whited Sepulchre helpfully offered a list of the top 12 things Libertarians wished everybody knew . In the spirit of love I figured I'd return the favor by offering up a list of the top 10 things non-Libertarians wished Libertarians knew. 1. History didn't begin ten minutes after you were born. The reason a lot of things are the way they are is to address historic issues you either never heard of or don't consider have anything to do with you. Get some context for a change. 2. Saying things like "Taxes are theft" sounds like crazy-talk to most people. Most people try and avoid people who crazy-talk. 3. You need to choose your political allies more carefully; your biggest political liability are some of your "friends." I'm thinking of Tea Party folks, gun fanatics, Birthers, Climate Change deniers. 4. One rarely wins converts by insulting people. Lecturing people or suggesting they are stupid if they disa...

I went to a Libertarian gathering the other day (it was in the neighborhood). The Libertarian crowd talks a good game. They seem to be, for the most part, fairly intelligent people,committed to their cause. While I don't always agree with them (and on quite a few issues I *do* agree with them), they make interesting arguments for their side. That being said, I've come to realize they are as full of hokum as the political types for whom they display their sneering superiority. They make much of their supposed political purity, espousing opinions that fall outside the mainstream on social and personal freedom issues, as well as small (and no) government stances on other issues. The truth of the matter - other than the Republican-friendly small government stuff, the rest appears to be all window dressing. During the 2010 election, Tea Party Libertarian, Rand " yes my dad's name is Ron " Paul, stated on his website in 2009 that " life begins at concepti...

I noticed where the recent production of "Atlas Shrugged, Part 1," will be released on DVD and Blu ray tomorrow. Get ready to relive the excitement of the first third of Ayn Rand's colossal door stop again and again. Since I never saw it, (nor plan to), I'm hardly qualified to offer up any meaningful criticism. I'll leave that to the good reviewers on Amazon's website . Not unsurprisingly, fans are once again using this a forum to accuse the professional critics who panned this epic of all sorts of dastardly liberal bias (imagine that). They've racked up the ratings to an average 4 stars (out of 5). Sample comment: "The movie is well made - the quality is actually quite good. Acting was generally good to excellent. Camera work was good; although the low budget resulted in a missing camera angle here and there. Special effects were consistently well done. The story, of course, is exceptional; and it is well-told in this movie." Hmm...if...

You've got to hand it to the Koch Brothers (America's most secretive gazillionaires) - they really do believe in free markets. I guess that's why they see no issue with selling millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to Iran, a country the U.S. identifies as a sponsor of global terrorism, according to a Bloomberg Markets investigation . Of course, they were careful to do this through various foreign subsidiaries they owned. Is it okay to stab our nation in the back, as long as the Invisible Hand is holding the knife? The Bloomberg article references numerous examples of the Kochs' general disregard for the law, including lying and outright theft of resources from federal lands (which means they are stealing from me and you). These are the people bankrolling numerous Libertarian and Tea Party organizations.Why dirty your hands when  you can outsource the job? By the way, Koch's consumer brands include Lycra fiber and Stainmaster carpet. Georgia- Pacif...

The great circus sideshow that is our political process continues to be about the "debt ceiling." It's like the cliff-hanger ending at the end of a mediocre reality show. The self-aggrandizing and self-righteous Tea Party wing of the Republican party is hell-bent on driving the school bus off the cliff to make a point. Stephen Colbert sums it up nicely: Meanwhile, not a peep from much of anyone about such things as the tracking of American citizens via cell phones , warrantless wiretapping , or other Bush era shenanigans now taken over by the present administration ( Wired has more on this ).   I guess the Tea Party is okay with this sort of thing as long as it doesn't raise anyone's taxes. The Romans learned a long time ago the best way to distract the citizenry from the signs of their crumbling republic was with circuses. I'd say that lesson was not lost on our present elected officials.

It's hard to speak in absolute terms about the Libertarians, since they come in so many flavors -- mostly bitter. They all claim to stand for individual liberty (duh), a goal which, like mom, apple pie, and the flag, is hard to argue with. In the past they proudly pointed to their support of social rights -- as manifested by such hot-button issues as abortion rights and gay rights. Lately, as a result of in-breeding with Tea Partiers (why cousins shouldn't marry) they seem to have forgotten about all that. Rand Paul, scion of Ron Paul, and darling of the TeaLibertarians states, " I believe life begins at conception and it is the duty of our government to protect this life ," and came out against same-sex marriage during his 2011 Senate campaign. Hardly the stuff of individual liberty. So, what's left after social rights are gone? Property rights. Yes, the Libertarians are all about property rights. Property rights apparently trump civil rights. Said Paul , "...

Far be it from me to deny someone the joy of seeing a bad movie. There are plenty of films that I've gone out of my way to see that a mainstream audience would find utterly boring. That said, it is telling (in my mind) that my Libertarian friend, The Whited Sepulchre, starts out his " review " of Atlas Shrugged by exclaiming, "they didn't screw it up!" but by the end of it says, "they didn't totally screw it up." In some circles this is known as damning with faint praise. I respect his honesty. Other online reviews pretty much panned it. What was amusing was the comments by the True Believers, who were convinced in every case the reviewer was some liberal scoundrel for failing to see the film's elusive virtues. It never occurred to them that, politics aside, the film...just...sucked. Even my friend, the WS, admitted the screenplay, acting, directing, and effects were not particularly good. So what's left? Ayn Rand's philos...

Glenn Beck is now officially too crazy for Fox News. Who'd a thunk it? While the Washington Post trumpeted  in its  Entertainment section  the split between Beck and Fox would "dissolve a 27-month marriage beset by outside pressures and internal tensions,"  the Fox News website  tactfully noted in the  Business News , "the show has been losing viewers recently." Who says advertiser boycotts don't work? Well, this is old news. What I'm wondering is what the Mad Prophet will do next? Radio is an obvious answer, but without Beck's visuals (chalkboard, tears, pacing the set), that's bound to get boring before long. Americans may have have a love affair with freak shows but they like to see the object of their affection in living color. My prediction is this will play out as it does with other celebrity freak shows: escalating crazy (until the public gets bored with that), followed by a reboot of the story arc in the form of some so...

With all this business in Wisconsin and their union-busting governor, it's become quite popular amongst some to bitch about "the unions." For all of their faults, there are strong and compelling historic reasons for why unions exist. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City on March 25, 1911 caused the deaths of 146 garment workers , many who were trapped because the owners had locked the doors to the stairwells and exits. The fire is often cited as a catalyst in shifting the public's sympathies in favor of labor reform. PBS's American Experience series now has an excellent documentary entitled Triangle Fire that gives the background and events leading up to this tragedy. Watch it online and re-visit some of the rhetoric which is being bandied about these days by right-wing politicians (and I include Tea Partiers and self-styled libertarians in this group) and uber-rich business interests . They are making the same tired "private prope...

Okay, kids, today we are going to discuss the differences between being a shill and being a tool. Wikitionary has a couple of definitions for "shill" : A person paid to endorse a product favorably, while pretending to be impartial. An accomplice at a confidence trick during an auction or gambling game. I was in advertising for years -- I am (sad to say) well acquainted with the art and science of shilling. A classic example: back in the day, my then employer had as a client a very large brewery, which I shall call "A-B." When a proposal to require a 5 cent deposit on non-returnable bottles appeared as a referendum item on the Oregon ballot one election year, A-B took a very dim view, since they were a major producer of non-returnable bottles. Their response? They set up and bankrolled some phony grassroots committee ( "Citizens for Sensible Packaging" or some such bullshit) to oppose the measure. This is now referred to as "astro-turfing. A-...

On the eve of the 2010 elections, I find myself puzzled by the choices of some of my Libertarian friends. They are lining up in droves behind Tea Party candidates: a mixed bag of wannabees characterized by angry anti-Washington rhetoric, mostly around the government spending and taxes (TEA = Taxed Enough Already). I'll ignore for now the obvious question of where these hot-heads were during the Bush years. The Libertarians have always prided themselves on being fiscal conservatives and social progressives. Indeed, the banner from the Libertarian Party website says "Minimum Government, Maximum Freedom." Hey, sounds good to me. Their 2010 platform preamble goes on to say: We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, that force and fraud must be banished from human relationships, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person's right to...

News flash: the sun rose in the east.  And in other headlines, a  survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality finds that Tea Partiers are "racially resentful." Is this a fancy way of saying black people piss them off? Which is another way of saying they are racists? Hmm...I wonder. Tie this with the recent poll which found this same group of grumpy white people thought "the Obama administration favors blacks over whites."  Newsweek has more information , if you are finding this hard to believe. Just to show they don't play favorites, the TP'ers also disliked Latinos. 

The latest CBS/New York Times poll reveals this shocking information:  people who identify themselves as members of the Tea Party movement are, for the most part, angry old white people who watch Fox News. In other news, scientists expect the sun to rise in the east tomorrow. Here's a snapshot of your basic Tea Party sympathizer/supporter: 75% are over 45 years old 95% identify themselves as Republicans  or "Independents" (ha!) 73% say they are conservatives 89% are white 63% say they get most of their political and current events news from the Fox News Channel More interesting takes on reality from the Tea Party: 92% think the country is on the wrong track 59% think President Obama was born in another country (30%) or say they don't know (29%) 52% say too much is made of the problems facing black people 25% think the Obama administration favors blacks over whites When pressed for why they objected to Obama, 19% said "they just didn't like ...

I'd heard this and scratched my head... Ron Paul, long-time Libertarian hero and current U.S. Representative from Houston (Republican) is facing a trio of  Tea Party infused challengers in Tuesday's Republican primary . They say he's "gone Washington." I thought only the Democrats ate their own kind. It's a funny old world...

Would-be Texas Governor Debra Medina continues to trot out her Tea Party infused alternate universe. The latest glimpse of her [ cynicism/ignorance/crazy ] came when she finally commented on last week's airplane attack on an Austin IRS office. The Dallas Morning News quotes her as saying the decision of a man fighting the IRS to crash his airplane into a building in Austin reflects "the hopelessness many in our society feel." Perhaps remembering the uproar that resulted from her fuzzy answer about the 9/11 bombers, she gave a half-assed assurance that she was not actually sympathizing, adding weakly, "I grieve for him. I'm very sympathetic for his family, for the families of those innocent victims in that building." I call bullshit. Coming from an avowed Tea Party candidate this strikes me as more than a little pandering to your base : anti-government soreheads and miscellaneous sociopaths . Joe Stack, the pilot, had a history of anti-tax zealotry ...

The holidays are upon us. Actually they were upon us sometime before Halloween: Santa now mingles freely with Dracula and Naughty Nurse, and visions of sugar plums are replaced by 20 count bags of mini-Snickers bars. I'm bracing myself for our latest holiday tradition, the bombastic pronouncements about the " War on Christmas ." For the past several years, self-anointed protectors of Christmas  have been creating lists of which retailers are naughty or nice. This seems to boil down to who says "Holiday" in their advertising instead of "Christmas." On the Naughty list have been such Satanic organizations as Sears, Wal-Mart, Target, The Gap, Banana Republic, Home Depot. This year's Naughty and Nice list has been helpfully compiled by the American Family Association of Tupelo, Mississippi. You may recall the American Family Association , led by the Reverand Donald Wildmon, from their previous name, the National Federation for Decency . The...

Much has been made in wingnut circles about the supposed "beating" of Kenneth Gladney at a St. Louis town hall meeting. Mobs of union thugs beat him! He was hospitalized! Yeah, right. MediaMatters has a clip of the incident as well as a pretty damning analysis which puts the lie to the hordes of rightwing media and blogosphere all foaming at the mouth. To quote from MediaMatters : Go watch the YouTube video. (Or, the "shocking video," as Power Line hypes it.) The first thing you notice when the camera starts rolling is a union member already sprawled out on the ground with somebody standing over him. No explanation of how he got there (pushed, shoved, punched?) and Ham couldn't care less. Then yes, Gladney is pulled to the ground by somebody wearing a union shirt. (At the :06 mark.) But instead of Gladney being beaten and punched, as his attorney describes, and instead of union "thugs" standing over him and threatening him, Gladney bounce...