103 Thoughts to “Wed. Sept. 1 Open Thread”

  1. Slowpoke Rodriguez
    September 4, 2010 at 3:01 pm

    Moon-howler :
    @slow, then you and the Dixie Chicks have much in common.
    I like their music but they aren’t particularly wise.

    The Dixie Chicks (more Natalie than the others) can say whatever they please about George W. Bush. I don’t habitually look to music artists for my political opinions.

  2. Elena
    September 4, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    Palin and Beck are the Ringling Brothers of political theatre. How can two people, holding no political solutions whatsoever, claim to be the voice of “real america” ? We talk about them because their following is so huge. We talk about them because Palin tweets, twitters, facebooks, stupid outrageous infamatory comments like “death panels” are a part of the healthcare legislation. We talk about Beck because he cries ALL the time, these fake crocodile tears, because he writes these bizarre conspiratorial connections on chalk boards that are suppose to make us run screaming in fear. But, G-d help us, it is working, and THAT scares the you know what out of me!

  3. Wolverine
    September 5, 2010 at 3:03 pm

    Moon, I am conservative on most issues; but the only camps I am truly in are the camps of fairness in political discourse and enmity for the politics of personal destruction. I don’t watch Beck’s show and I do not fawn all over Sarah Palin. I don’t even go to public rallies and have never in my life paraded down a street carrying a political sign. And I try hard not to take gratuitous personal potshots at the opposition.

    What I try to do is watch the “people” out there. That is a very interesting avocation. One of the more recent snapshots happened right in front of my house. Hispanic kids and Black kids, all in the 7-12 year old range, having a voiciferous argument and almost coming to fisticuffs over the issue of whether or not Hispanics are “racist” with regard to Blacks. Adults had to intervene on the Black side to calm down those little tempers. Very interesting American vignette. Kids who all have brown skins arguing about racism. Well, maybe not just a vignette when you begin reading about contemporary race relations in South Central LA.

    Well, in any case, consider the possibility that people like Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and Palin just might be riding a tide rather than creating one. In that tide are a whole lot of people who are not the most articulate when it comes to political discourse. They appear to be responding to others who ARE more articulate and who are expressing the exact political thoughts which they themselves find hard to voice. Sort of like President Obama. He also rode a tide in which Bush II had all but worn out his welcome in many arenas and his proposed successor was not exactly in good standing in places where he might naturally have been so. Tides rise and tides fall. This one looks to be a rising tide for a large part of the electorate. The interesting part is that many of these people are becoming actually “involved” for the first time in their lives. The politicians of both major parties would do well to keep a close eye on the beach warning flags.

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