PIGS CAN FLY. NO, REALLY. THEY CAN.

PIGS CAN FLY. NO, REALLY. THEY CAN.
Idealism tempered by pragmatism. Or pragmatism tempered by idealism.


Or both. I don't know and it's getting to the point where I don't care. Is it apathy or legitimate disinterest. There really doesn't seem to be anything new under the sun. That should be a good thing. That would mean that I remember everything I learned, and there is little more to learn. Why is that bad. That's success. The fun of learning was novelty. A new understanding. What in the world is wrong with the realization that there probably aren't any new understandings that I could understand. That I figured it all out as far as I can take it. Why is that a bad thing, except it means the end of a perfectly fine hobby, intellectual exploration.

How many times do I have to realize that? I'm free of inquiry. I get it. I get the whole enchalada. The Whole Enchalada. I understand it. I read this whole article and already knew what it would say. A few details I would soon forget, but so it goes. Not depressing. Elating. I succeeded. I get it. No more discussions necessary. No more questions and new answers. Just old questions and old answers. Perfectly fitting. Look long enough and you will find, and then you have to stop looking. If I never read another newspaper it would be the same, unless I just enjoy it. But without novelty, that joy is compromised. And like the bible says, there is nothing new under the sun for me to grasp or grapple with. Done and done, as they say. Or been there done that, as they don't say anymore. BTDT. Same shit different day. SSDD. Still trying to sell my idea about more acronyms, but I fully understand that people are simple, and don't like new ideas. I get that. AWOL. RSVP. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. DLTDHYITAOTWO. BYOB. Not just LOL or OMG. But persuading you of the wrongness of the lack of a fuller language of acronyms is a waste of time. If at last you don't succeed, give up.




The New Republic
The New Man by The Editors
Post Date Wednesday, February 04, 2009



I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THIS CRAP AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE. ALL THE QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN SETTLED. CULTIVATE YOUR GARDEN. LET 'EM ALL GO TO HELL EXCEPT CAVE 76! (courtesy of Mel Brooks and some French genius philosophe)

Even as he goes about playing the game of politics as it was meant to be played, Obama must remember that the people who put him in office were not just attracted to his sobriety; they were also attracted to the spark of idealism he has always seemed to convey.


Obama inherits an economy that needs not only to be revived, but also to be reformed--to be made more equal and less rapacious. More equal??

More Equal?? What... spread the wealth? My wealth?? When was the last dime I gave to the poor? Never. More equal? That's a dream. A delusion. And, yes, maybe I am contemptuous of false idealism, and sardonic about the good unselfish motives of men, you know, the ones Obama referred to, to help people out when the levee breaks. He did go on and on in that weepy inauguration speech, about going back to our core decent values, supposedly lost during the Cheny Presidency.

Did you know that New Orleans has the worst street gangs in the United States? Worse than the crips and the bloods and all the latino shitheads, oh, the 87th street Shitheads, big gang all up there in New Orleans, and these gangs were stopped at the only bridge out of New Orleans, by police protecting the property and lives of towns and cities beyond the Big Easy. No my friend, she doesn't want what you're selling. Americans don't want equality. And they don't want to help the good people of N'Orleans when their profligate ways catch up to them.



You want me to pay, out of pocket, to clean up Compton and Inglewood? Have you seen the face of poverty in America and the world? We can't clean up that mess. And use American power to stop genocide, and dealing unflinchingly with regimes--from Iran to Burma to China--that suppress their own people or threaten others. With my tax dollars? With more American soldiers killed and maimed, families torn apart. To fix China, or Iran, or Compton?

There is a real world out there. We can't fix it. Look at the so called Greatest Generation and their reluctance to enter the world war for nearly half a decade. Isolationism is the natural state of things.

Now that he has won the White House, Obama should not forget that he sold himself to voters as an idealist. From him, they have felt the jolt of great things in the making. Sold himself is the operant word here. Lied to sell himself.

We have felt the jolt of great things in the making. Trouble is, it ain't gonna happen. Your problerm, Mr Chucko, is you swoon at the jolt of great things in the making, and forget that it is just another lame rhetorical jolt of hot air. You should try sniffing glue or something. At least that is an intellectually neutral way to get a good swoon on.

I THINK THIS ARTICLE IS ALL FILLER. IT SAYS NOTHING. I AM GETTING SICK AND TIRED OF REDUNDANT JOURNALISM. WE NEED MORE UNEMPLOYMENT. WE DON'T NEED ALL THESE PUNDITS AND JOURNALISTS AND POLITICAL WRITERS AND WE CERTAINLY DON'T NEED MORE CARS. WE HAVE ENOUGH NICE NEW AND PRE OWNED CARS TO GO AROUND. THAT'S THE TRUTH. OUR SYSTEM WILL NEVER WORK SMOOTHLY BECAUSE IT OVERPRODUCES. IT IS IRRATIONAL BY NATURE. NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING BETTER. AS CHURCHILL PUT IT, CAPITALISM IS THE WORST POSSIBLE IMAGINABLE ECONOMIC SYSTEM, EXCEPT FOR ALL THE OTHERS. SO THERE IS LITTLE TO BE SAID. AND THIS ARTICLE FROM NEW REPUBLIC SAYS VERY LITTLE.


The principles to which this magazine is committed--and which we hope Obama will act on--are tied together by a sense of idealism about what government can accomplish when it sets out to improve lives and ameliorate injustice. Obama has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform a broken health care system and affirm the principle that, in a decent society, quality medical attention is a birthright. He faces a climate-change emergency requiring radical government measures. And he inherits an economy that needs not only to be revived, but also to be reformed--to be made greener and more equal and less rapacious.


Affirm the principle that, in a decent society, quality medical attention is a birthright. And we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. HOT AIR.

Around the globe, the temptation for Obama to run away from ideals, and fall back on interests, will be great. Bush, after all, has badly tainted foreign-policy idealism. But, instead of abandoning idealism, Obama should strive to save it. That means fulfilling our obligations to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan--providing them with as much stability and freedom from tyranny as we have within our means to ensure. It means using American power to stop genocide, and dealing unflinchingly with regimes--from Iran to Burma to China--that suppress their own people or threaten others. And it means revivifying our role as the vanguard in crafting global efforts to check the spread of nuclear weapons and carbon emissions

In a decent society, quality medical attention is a birthright.

Maybe I AM cynical. But this is just not a fact of life. This birthright entitlement idea is the split between the two american philosophies. And the right is right. We can't afford to help the unfortunate. Obama speaks of the reach of our prosperity. Well, it ain't necessarily so.

In any case, this is a balanced view of Obama, minus my lovingly culled references to how horrible his so called soaring rhetoric is. But I'm just jealous. This guy is just plain having more fun than I am. So of course, being me, I react with spite. Not that I'm sure what that means exactly. Bitter and unhappy with the success of others, constantly crammed in my face. Is that so bad? Isn't it just natural to resent your betters? And find fault. Where fault can be found. I mean, my fault finding has been accurate hasn't it??

It doesn't matter anyway. It's just me carrying on and showing off. Pass the time. Observe the passing scene with some clarity. It's enjoyable. Of course, resenting your betters is not enjoyable. It's a goddamned curse. The work is to reject old patterns of behavior. But who has ever done that? I mean, that is very hard work. Probably impossible work. Stop being resentful. How about no attachments. Or selected attachments that don't lead to resentment. Lots of luck.

Anyway, here's the article. This just never ends.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


In 1960, The New Republic ran an editorial that began on the magazine's cover. Its title was "These New Men," and its subject, in part, was the hard-headed idealism of the young generation of liberals--led by John Kennedy--who had just taken over the Democratic Party, and who the magazine hoped would show "a commitment to the widest possibilities of life." "We share the sense of great-things-in-the-making," TNR wrote, adding that it was "impressed by the idealism" of these leaders because it was "not an idealism that expends itself in moral pronouncements. ... They all have a controlled impatience; they want action, but they calculate the odds."

Idealism, in other words, had to be tempered by pragmatism. Yet neither could it be put aside entirely. Of course, this isn't a mystical formula and possesses its own perils. But, now that he has won the White House, Obama should not forget that he sold himself to voters as an idealist. From him, they have felt the jolt of great things in the making.


Of all the contradictions embodied by Barack Obama, none is more fascinating than the tension between his clear instinct toward idealism and his equally apparent devotion t pragmatism. It was the idealistic Obama that the country got to know first--through th soaring exhortations of a 2004 convention speech, and later as we began to digest th rough outlines of a resume that included a stint as a community organizer in a poo Chicago neighborhood. But, over the course of the 2008 campaign--even as he darted around the country delivering speeches crammed with paeans to hope--a different side o Obama revealed itself. This Obama was disciplined, practical, and cautious--politicall liberal, yes, but in many ways temperamentally conservative. He was also decidedlyunafraid of the trade-offs, compromises, and conflicts inherent to electoral politics

Democrats have warmed to both sides of Obama, and rightly so. The party and the country have learned through recent experience that neither idealism nor pragmatism is much good unless coupled with the other.
WHAT? MORE FILLER. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. LEARNED THROUGH RECENT EXPERIENCE. MAYBE YOU LEARNED THROUGH RECENT EXPERIENCE, BUT THE REST OF US ADULTS HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THAT. GLAD YOU FIGURED IT OUT. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.

It isn't exactly a question, then, of whether Obama the idealist or Obama the pragmatist should run the country for the next four years. Clearly, he will draw on both impulses--as he should.


The real question is how Obama will determine the relative balance between the two.
A STUNNING REVELATION. GLAD I READ THIS. I NEVER COULD HAVE COME UP WITH THAT MYSELF. RELATIVE BALANCE, WOW. ITS SO SIMPLE, YET SO COMPLEX. GOD, I LOVE THIS WRITER. HE JUST MAKES ME REALIZE SO MUCH ALL AT ONCE. ITS A RUSH. I'M OVERWHELMED. AND HUMBLED.

And there are reasons to suspect that Obama's instinct toward pragmatism will win out more often than not. For one thing, Washington is set up to tame brash plans and big ideas. No president is above these rules, and Obama will probably find himself bending to them. But there will be an additional factor pulling the new administration toward pragmatism: Presidents tend to react to the perceived failures of those who preceded them. Republicans saw Clinton as undisciplined, so Bush established an administration that was secretive and loyal. Democrats see Bush as cavalier--so, if Obama follows the usual pattern, it will mean an administration heavily inclined toward caution.

AH, THE BIG PICTURE. SO FULL OF SHIT.

None of this would be terrible, of course. There are good reasons to wish for a return to prudence in government after the past eight years. And yet we hope that Obama does not venture too far in this direction. Even as he goes about playing the game of politics as it was meant to be played, Obama must remember that the people who put him in office were not just attracted to his sobriety; they were also attracted to the spark of idealism he has always seemed to convey.

The principles to which this magazine is committed--and which we hope Obama will act on--are tied together by a sense of idealism about what government can accomplish when it sets out to improve lives and ameliorate injustice. Obama has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform a broken health care system and affirm the principle that, in a decent society, quality medical attention is a birthright. He faces a climate-change emergency requiring radical government measures. And he inherits an economy that needs not only to be revived, but also to be reformed--to be made greener and more equal and less rapacious.


More equal and less rapacious. SURE. AND PIGS CAN FLY. NO, REALLY. THEY CAN.

Around the globe, the temptation for Obama to run away from ideals, and fall back on interests, will be great. Bush, after all, has badly tainted foreign-policy idealism. But, instead of abandoning idealism, Obama should strive to save it. That means fulfilling our obligations to the people of Iraq and Afghanistan--providing them with as much stability and freedom from tyranny as we have within our means to ensure. It means using American power to stop genocide, and dealing unflinchingly with regimes--from Iran to Burma to China--that suppress their own people or threaten others. And it means revivifying our role as the vanguard in crafting global efforts to check the spread of nuclear weapons and carbon emissions.

In 1960, The New Republic ran an editorial that began on the magazine's cover. Its title was "These New Men," and its subject, in part, was the hard-headed idealism of the young generation of liberals--led by John Kennedy--who had just taken over the Democratic Party, and who the magazine hoped would show "a commitment to the widest possibilities of life." "We share the sense of great-things-in-the-making," TNR wrote, adding that it was "impressed by the idealism" of these leaders because it was "not an idealism that expends itself in moral pronouncements. ... They all have a controlled impatience; they want action, but they calculate the odds."

Idealism, in other words, had to be tempered by pragmatism. Yet neither could it be put aside entirely. Of course, this isn't a mystical formula and possesses its own perils. But, now that he has won the White House, Obama should not forget that he sold himself to voters as an idealist. From him, they have felt the jolt of great things in the making.

OR DID I SAY THAT ALREADY. FACE IT, THERES NOTHING TO SAY, AND A DEADLINE TO MEET, SO HERE'S THE DRIVEL I'M FORCED TO PRODUCE. MORE CAPITALISTIC OVERWORK, MAKEWORK. CAN'T HAVE INCOME WITHOUT PRODUCTION, AND WHEN THERES LESS NEED FOR PRODUCTS, BINGO, THERE GOES THE INCOME. HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, SOMETIMES LITTLE WAVES, SOMETIMES BIG BIG WAVES.