Month: December 2004

  • Why Are They Called Insurgents?

    The single most successful piece of Rove-spin, ever, has been the promulgation of the word "insurgents." Everyone uses this word, competely thoughtlessly, and so the pervasive sense is that these people are "surging in" from some unspecified outside place. Aren’t we the insurgents? Make it stop! Most of the attacks against the US-led forces in…

  • Controlling What You Say: Who’s Worse?

    I don’t know who said it–can’t find it on the Web anywhere–but the other day someone told me the pithiest characterization of the reds and the blues that I’ve ever heard: "Conservatives want to control what you’re allowed to say. Liberals want to control what words you’re allowed to use to say it." Examples of…

  • How Dare They Call Themselves Conservatives?

    If this blog has any purpose beyond the typical one (nourishing the cherished personal delusion that other people might actually be interested in what I have to say), it’s spin–crafting a coherent rhetoric that can convince reasonable "conservatives" to come over, to support traditional American progressive values, programs, and policies. I am not the person…

  • Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, yea unto the third and to the fourth generation

    It is both triply appropriate and at least triply ironic that this quotation (it’s Exodus 34:7, KJV) should lead off the first posting to this blog. First, because it’s all my father’s fault, rest his soul. (Isn’t everything? <g>) Everything you read here started with him. All of it: with one three-word opening line. Ben…