1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

The Tea Party, the Debt Ceiling, and White Southern Extremism

“Contradicting the mainstream media narrative that the Tea Party is a new populist movement that formed spontaneously in reaction to government bailouts or the Obama administration, the facts show that the Tea Party in Congress is merely the familiar old neo-Confederate Southern right under a new label. The threat of Southern Tea Party representatives and [...]

Malignant Revolutionary Entity

“These folks aren’t in the business of doing Wall Street’s bidding. They’re in the business of bringing the system down to create their own new order, no different from a Maoist or Leninist revolutionary on the other side of the aisle. It’s a market fundamentalist cult. They are a sizable and growing minority of the [...]

The GOP Can’t Control the Tea Party

“the gop made the same mistake that some on the left did in their perception of the tea party – they thought it was a top down, cynical manipulation of people, similar to what the gop has accomplished with the evangelical vote – a demographic that could be farmed for votes without having to deliver [...]

Wielding Power

“The only rational thought is that he’s gotten what he wants. That he wanted to protect the torturers. That he wanted to protect the banksters. That he wanted to solidify and increase the powers of an Imperial Presidency. That he wanted Health Care Reform that amounts to little more than a giveaway to the megacorporations [...]

Regime Change is Not Revolution

“”There was no meaningful revolution. It’s former members of the Soviet elite and their kids who are still running the country as we speak. Nothing’s changed for the general populace except that their rights to medical care, education and (shitty, but functioning) housing has been removed. Life expectancy is fucking worse in modern Russia than [...]

Pro-War Ideology Connected to Being Shielded From the Human Cost of War

“[A new study] suggests that many Americans’ aggressively pro-war ideology may fundamentally rely on their being physically shielded/disconnected from the human cost of war. … The researchers analyzed data from the Jennings-Niemi Political Socialization Study of college-bound high schoolers and subsequent interviews of those same high-schoolers from 1965 onward. In the process, they discovered that men [...]

The American Death Star

“When you laugh at Michele Bachmann for going on MSNBC and blurting out that the moon is made of red communist cheese, these people don’t learn that she is wrong. What they learn is that you’re a dick, that they hate you more than ever, and that they’re even more determined now to support anyone [...]

How Roger Ailes Failed at Setting Up a Strong Republican Candidate for 2012

‘”[Fox News's Roger] Ailes is the most successful executive in television by a wide margin, and he has been so for more than a decade. He is also, in a sense, the head of the Republican Party, having employed five prospective presidential candidates and done perhaps more than anyone to alter the balance of power [...]

Germany, Patriotism and Nationalism

“The liberal student movement of the late 60′s was different in Germany from how it happened in other countries in that the post-War generation confronted their parents about their (personal) past, and finally began to process the history of the Third Reich. As a part of this process, a lot of the blame was laid [...]

Fanboys Punk Out, Players Play

“Americans want to talk about killing and watch violent movies and play violent video games, and watch fighting sports. But it’s all about simulacra. Hence the popularity of things like the UFC gym franchise where you can “train like a UFC fighter,” without actually sparring. Which is sort of like spending all your time doing [...]