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2007
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September
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- Just when you think they can't sink any lower into...
- Calgary Ward 4: Vote early, vote often.
- Sometimes, the situation just screams for a United...
- Right-wing logic, as it were.
- Please give generously to the intellectually handi...
- Oh, THIS looks like a good investment.
- Dear wankers: Wrong about everything again, I see.
- Paying down the national debt: "As required by law?"
- Patton Oswalt: Snack time, any time.
- When life imitates Dilbert.
- Compassionate conservatism, Blogging Tory style.
- Yeah, about those 125,000 child care spaces? Well...
- Yeah, about that "founder of Greenpeace" thing ...
- Because it's all about the kids, remember?
- And suddenly, the MoveOn outrage becomes very sele...
- I believe that's what you call "timely."
- When you need absolutely half the story, all the t...
- Hypocrisy for thee, but not for me.
- Science, as it is done.
- Dear wankers: What's it like to be wrong about ev...
- The colour of the sky on Brian's planet.
- And when you want your news untainted by facts, th...
- There are no words for this.
- And if you don't like those facts, Raphael has oth...
- Oh, man, you talkin' crazy!
- Dear CTV: Regarding journalistic standards ...
- Context: that's the important thing.
- Facts can be such inconvenient things.
- Let me explain this to you slooooooowly ...
- Sometimes, the analogy should be self-evident, don...
- Your Canadian mainstream media in action.
- Blackwater cluefulness: Better late than never.
- WTF ... ?
- You keep using that word "civility" ...
- If we're lucky, they'll beat each other senseless.
- Sure, it's paperwork, but it's worth it.
- Deep thoughts from the Canadian Right, and turnabo...
- Friday, end-of-week retro.
- Right-wing armchair warriors: Whiny-ass titty bab...
- About that "walking and chewing gum" thing ...
- Tasers: The last word.
- And now, not your Small Dead Brainstem News.
- The classics never go out of style.
- Blog rankings by incoming links.
- "Earth to Denyse ... come in, Denyse ..."
- "WTF???" open thread.
- Kerry and dickheads and Tasers, oh my!
- Yeah, and there was that other thing, too.
- ... and sometimes, you DESERVE a good Tasering.
- Even wingnuts have their limits.
- Apparently, (Catholic) girls just wanna have fun.
- Welcome to the party, PZ.
- Why, yes, I DID call that nicely, didn't I?
- "... and if she buys kippers, it will not rain."
- Some people eventually get a clue. Other people ...
- Sometimes, this job is way too easy.
- "La la la la la la la ... I can't HEARRRR you!": ...
- And women getting the vote? That's some bad ju-ju...
- Your preznit speaks!
- ... and that second explanation isn't holding up t...
- Even assassination can be made more time-efficient.
- War profiteering by any other name ...
- And the BT reaction? I'm guessing crickets.
- "Well, if that's the way you feel about it, I'll j...
- Um ... poor people! Booga booga!
- Sometimes, I am thoroughly embarrassed by my species.
- If we wanted your opinion ...
- That IE thing.
- Those who don't remember (recent) history ...
- Those who do not remember history ...
- What's up with IE?
- Soljers ar stoopid.
- Yeah, it's genetic.
- I am Voldemort -- fear me.
- Quickly, Sherman ... into the wayback machine.
- Your "liberal" media.
- The blogosphere just got stupider: Gerry Nicholls...
- Unrepentant in the Great White North.
- Werds meen wut I say they meen.
- The National Post and Benador Associates: Get a r...
- Alexis Debat and Amer Taheri: Connecting the dots.
- Who said schizophrenia doesn't have its lighter side?
- The douchebaggery of Brian Lemon.
- Some serious eJankulatory goodness.
- Capitalism? Never heard of it.
- When I referred to unreasonable religious whackjob...
- The editorial you know you're never going to see.
- Ah, the consistency that is the Blogging Tories.
- Apparently, it's all a matter of context.
- Just get a bucket of paint for those idiots.
- Apparently, free market accountability has its lim...
- I'd like to recognize all the little people ...
- How stupid is Sheila Copps?
- I feel ... a batshit craziness in the force ...
- Kathy Griffin: "Suck it, Jesus."
- How to blog with one hand: Wingnut edition.
- Your Conservative Party of Canada: Getting things...
- And one Blogging Tory steps up big time.
- Heh.
- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!
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September
(183)
13 comments:
And I'm sure Naomi can supply us with the "information" we need to arm ourselves against this capitalist agenda for a paltry $21.99
Am I right?
Am I to understand, anony-tard, that you're suggesting you're familiar with not the just the commercial aspect, but with any aspect of the book trade?
I find that hard to believe.
CC...Jason Cherniak, without even reading the book, declared Klein is "missing the obvious." Go read it...it's such an uninformed and unlettered observation you have to wonder if Cherniak isn't suffering from Dunning Kruger.
anon expounds:
"And I'm sure Naomi can supply us with the "information" we need to arm ourselves against this capitalist agenda for a paltry $21.99. Am I right?"
Perhaps, but this information would be of value only to those people who read. In your case, anon, I'd go with the 12-pack of Molson's. At least the lettering on the bottles is larger.
It's the same argument lobbed against Al Gore for having a big house or against John Edwards for getting an expensive hair cut.
Can't these retards get some new material?
And just to pile on a bit more: is it really possible that anonymous can't tell the difference between trade for products (which is as old as civilization, and a good thing), and neocon hypercapitalist ideology, which is a mere half decade old and a very bad thing indeed?
...yeah, I guess it's possible.
I've begun to say to people that we've now had about a third of a century of putting the big capitalist agenda into practice, in more and more areas of the world. And now it's time to assess the evidence, since it's had time to work through. Three decades, for goodness' sake.
So. Are most people better off, financially, as we were assured would happen? (Darn that pesky 1% of people at the top of the food chain who seem to have swallowed up 85%-or-so of all the available money and assets.) (And darn those CEOs who used to only make 40 time as much as their workers, but now make 400 times as much, or thereabouts.)
Are people much more assured about the future for their kids, now? Are even the Conservatives more certain about their kids' future? Are they BLIND?
Has competition improved the quality and quantity of all the available products, as we were assured would happen? Because if we didn't like the quality/quantity of products from one company, we could stick out our tongues at them and go to their competitors? Just listen to Ontario Today's regular phone-in program to the appliance expert, and listen to how often he complains, "Thirty years ago they built them to last. Now every new appliance is basically garbage."
Has laissez-faire capitalism, as we were assured (hello, Michael Novak!), brought more peace to the world, because no company would support bombing a country in which it had invested, so the more companies who invest in other countries, the more and more idyllic peace we're going to get?
Hahahahahahaha
For gods' sake -- the evidence is IN. And we let them keep saying, "Oh, just give it time. We haven't worked the bugs out yet. Everything will get So! Much! Better! if you just keep privatizing, keep selling off, keep corporatizing everything." Like nobody will notice that it has never happened yet, in any major, lasting way, in any area where they've inserted their tentacles already.
This damn emperor has been naked for a third of a century, by god. How stupid are THEY, to keep believing this crap? And how stupid would WE be if we let them get away with spouting it any longer?
And then you add this shock doctrine, which has been a favourite doctrine of this crowd, also for decades. (And if the Blogging Tories or other Tories don't know that, then clearly they have no authority to speak about anything from their side of the fence, because they don't have a clue what their dear leaders really are up to, or really believe.)
It's a horrible picture.
That's what happened with me with the Iraq invasion...I completely lost confidence in our current economic system. I'm a supporter of the free market and always have been. On balance, I'd prefer a lighter touch from the State with regard to the economy. I do support wealth distribution and the social safety net, but I think a prosperous society is better equipped to take care of everyone than one that is struggling economically.
So, I'm obviously not much of a socialist. But when the Iraq invasion started and you saw the dollar signs in the eyes of the capitalists, that was it. There it was...naked disaster capitalism. When Katrina hit, it was confirmed.
The capitalists have become sociopaths, indifferent to everyone else's needs but their own. I want these people removed from power and their supporters marginalised.
Right on, bros! The Man be definit'ly holdin' us down!!
Power to the people! Fight the power!
Wake up!
*shh*...Quiet. Adults talking.
Not here, they're not.
Ti-guy, when I was a libertarian capitalist, I always used to scoff at lefties, "You talk like we don't believe in taking care of our aging mothers, or giving our children birthday presents. We're no less human and compassionate than you are."
Then I started seeing that in practice, the laissez-faire crowd did end up sacrificing even people they said they loved. Recently I even heard about my brother, essentially telling his young son who has several food allergies, "We've made all the adjustments in your diet we're going to make. Any more, and you have to find a way to live with what you've got. There's no free lunch, here." This isn't the only way he's applied his ideology to his own family.
It was stuff like that that began to make me change my mind.
I still think capitalism produces the best effects for the greatest number of people, compared to any other system we've devised so far. But now I call myself a "Capitalism-with-the-hell-regulated-out-of-it-ist."
I listened to an interview with Naomi Klein (with commentary by Aurel Braun and Greg Palast) on The Current today and I'll probably have more to say once I read the book. But the idea that capitalism and economic change have a higher moral value than democracy and individual rights is probably the dividing line between what free marketers should tolerate and should not. It's the idea that high crimes are committed, information is withheld or distorted and change is imposed undemocratically that is my biggest pre-occupation now with traditional capitalism.
Also, the fact that all free-marketers sound like angry assholes these days makes me wonder about the mentality that is attracted to this economic model. It doesn't seem to be producing or nurturing particularly sophisticated people.
That was a great interview, wasn't it?
It's an interesting question, about the psychology of these people. When I moved to Ontario and listened to all the things Premier Mike Harris said, it suddenly occurred to me that the ideology attracted a LOT of people who wanted to "get even" with someone.
I'm still looking back at the wingnut crowd I grew up with and supported, trying to analyze it. I think it's a combination of two things, actually: the need to "get even" because you can't get your way all the time, and a horrible fear of lack of control and instability. You can see how they really hate grey areas, but want everything pinned down.
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