A Utopian and a Magical Thinker Walk Into A Bar

A very useful tour of the things Hayek got right and wrong, via John Gray at the New Statesman.

And an interesting vignette of Milton Friedman creating one of the most hated tools of liberal government. From The Conversable Economist.

Two Vocabulary Questions

1. Why has the word “militant” only been used to describe workers and unions and never to describe employers, even when they've used armed force against unarmed workers?

2. Why is the word “conservative” used to describe right wing groups seeking to break down long-established and necessary institutions?

O'Reilly: The American Revolution is Over

THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD

By William O'Reilly (from the archives)

In the beginning, there was some sympathy toward the revolutionaries, who believe the parliament in London should lift its monarchist and commercial tyranny from our shores. In the face of the present conditions, that message is a powerful one, and so the folks who wanted independence got some traction.

But the more we saw and heard, the more fair-minded Americans came to believe that this rebel movement was not interested in legitimate issues. Many of them simply want to blow up the economic system.

In addition, some of their behavior was and is reprehensible: shooting at British soldiers from behind trees, throwing expensive imported tea into Boston harbor, tarring and feathering their opponents, speaking treason in public, all kinds of provocation against our British rulers, all kinds of depraved behavior in general.

A picture taken by the New York Post shows empty rum bottles that were taken out of the encampment of the Continental Army. Isn't that nice? I don't believe we've seen any rum bottles at respectable Tory tea gatherings, or am I wrong?

The pamphleteers (and we know their names) are still trying to portray these so-called “Freedom Lovers” as the liberal equivalent to respectable Tory business leaders. One simple question: Would you prefer that your daughter have tea in a respectable drawing room in a fine Tory household or in the ugly squalor of Valley Forge? You make the call, remembering the rum bottles.

A recent Wall Street Journal poll asked: Do you consider yourself a supporter of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence? Sixty-three percent of Americans say they do not support the movement; just 28 percent say they do.

Because troublemakers George Washington and John Adams and John Hancock were sympathetic to the movement in the beginning, along with many members of that radical crowd, such as known alcoholic Samuel Adams and notorious atheist Ben Franklin, this presents a big political problem for them. And so officials in 11 cities got together to discuss how to deal with this “American Revolution.”

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TORY MAYOR OF NEW YORK: “What had started as a political movement and a political encampment ended up being an encampment that was no longer in control of the people who started them.”
(END AUDIO CLIP)

And that's true. To be fair -- and we always are on "The Factor" -- some of the Revolutionary movement are well-intentioned folks who believe the British colonial system is no longer fair. That's a legitimate debate. But they have been overrun by thugs, anarchists and the crazies who intimidate. If you are a violent person, people usually back off. And George Washington's army, which is comprised mostly of people who can't get any other kind of job, has lost most of its battles anyway. Who can support such sorry ineptness? These lowlife characters are ragged and dirty from sleeping in the open, and many of them don't have any shoes. They probably don't bathe very often. A bunch of bearded longhaired hippies. How can any decent person say they are legitimate?

So the "American Revolution" movement is dead, finished as a legitimate political force in this country. And that's a good thing.
And that's "The Memo."

Invisible Protesters Occupy Wall Street

Keith Olberman featured this invisible phenomenon the other night, and then again with Michael Moore the next night.

Nobody is covering the protests on Wall Street that have been going on for a week.

Meanwhile five people show up in colonial costumes with signs saying Obama is a Nazi and it's on all four network news programs and the front page of every newspaper.

Is it because most American side with Wall Street?

Or does Wall Street own the public conversation?

Laughing at Rupert Murdoch, Ha Ha

We can laugh at Rupert Murdoch all we want, but he's laughing at us because he has enormous power over us. Think of it: a right-wing Australian owns a dominant part of the American media, the key parts being the Wall Street Journal and FoxNews. He uses these platforms to lie to us. Does he also use them to spy on us?

The Daily Show's take is funny in a creepy kind of way. Andy Borowitz's piece begs the question: are the readers and viewers of Murdoch's news operations intelligent enough to be granted adult privileges? Should Murdoch be trusted with a news operation at all?

No, we shouldn't laugh. News tells us what to do in our lives, and if we are lied to we behave like fools. Corrupt news is a public danger. Here is an excellent summary of the Rupert Murdoch machine, with excellent links.

The shameless, predatory propaganda 'n scandal sheet News of the World [sic] is just one media enterprise owned by Rupert Murdoch. He also owns the Times of London, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal and FoxNews. Would you guess that he runs his other organizations any differently than the runs the NOTW?

Ran, actually. The British public, after being nauseated and addicted by it for years finally had enough and Murdoch shut it down...presumably shifting the vermin from that paper to his other papers. Not to FoxNews, presumably, because it's all vermined-up. But it does make you wonder... Does the Wall Street Journal engage in the same criminal tactics to get news and to distort the news into balloon animals to amaze its captive audience? What about the New York Post? What about FoxNews? Dumb question. I think we need an aggressive progressive paper like the Guardian over here. It was the Guardian that blew the lid off the News of the World [sic] sleaze factory.

Astroturf Guerillas

Ever wanted a glimpse inside the right wing machine? Take a look. This is what's called the dittohead effect. These people know how to listen and do as they're told. You have to hand it to the right wing. They've got obedient servants.

Who is paying for this guy to go around teaching "guerilla tactics"? The Koch Brothers among others. Big Oil. Big Tobacco. Big health insurers. Big Polluters. Wall Street. Guerilla, my foot. The original minutemen weren't funded by multinational fat cats or bused to Lexington and Concord by Koch Industries.

Whether they know it or not (and they probably have no idea) the people in this "training session" are learning how to be obedient storm troopers for the very very rich. They are ordinary folks being trained to help degrade the interests of ordinary folks like themselves. Being taught underhand tactics to distort information and cover up for their masters. A strange mixture of flim-flam and Maoist revolutionary cell. It's a con game.

Who are the American Majority? They appear to be a majority of two, sons of a Kansas Republican with ties to Jack Abramoff. Often as not it seems the Republican Party and corporate lobbying groups are one and the same. They certainly have the same HR department.

It's the names of these groups that make me suspicious. When it says "Majority", assume a handful of people working for a very few very rich people. When a group is named "Women United for Liberty" assume that it's funded by men and dedicated to limiting women's rights. When "Tax Reform" is in the name, you can pretty well guess the goal is to shift taxes off its rich clients and onto everybody else. If its name contains the word "Prosperity" it will be the narrow prosperity of a few very rich corporations and individuals funding the organization.