Saturday, October 30, 2010

JUST WHAT I WAS THINKING

I spent the day watching amazing young men demonstrate their skills as a skateboarding team on tour for their sponsors. They were at the nearest big indoor skateboard park, Garden Sk8, where my thirteen-year-old skates often on weekends and was looking forward to this one.

Once again I was reminded of how what these champion skateboarders do is as much an art as a "sport." It was like watching a modern dance troupe in which all the dancers get to invent their own signature moves and gestures and perform them at will.

The throbbing soundtrack of punk rock along with the noise of boards and wheels and falls and grunts and the general warehouse acoustics left my brain a little fried, but it was worth it.

My intention was to come home and write a post for this blog about how what I think the basic failure of the Democratic Party and its candidates was this year is their lack of a coherent and repetitive summary of all that Republicans have wrought in our times.

Ever since Reagan, Republicans have been consistent in their blaming of all the country's woes on Democrats and liberalism. But the Dems haven't seized the opportunity so much failed policy on the Republicans' part has presented them with.

And then I check my e mails and the recent comments on this blog, and there were links to the video below which begins to do what I think all Democratic campaign ads should do, and could do even better. But this is a start, and thanks to my friend Robert Z. for putting the link in one of his comments.

11 comments:

JIm said...

I remember when Republicans like Tom Delay and W acted like jerks and became Democrat lite, with spending, earmarks, socialist programs like the government drug program and "No Child Left Behind". I remember Santerlli's rant in Feb. of 09. I rememder going to a Tea Party rally 2 wks. later on the steps of the Colorado Capital building two weeks later with 200 attendees. I remember going to another Tea Party meeting on April 15th of the same year with 8000 attendees. I believe I can see from my mountain cabin at 10,500 ft. 100 seat pick up in the house and a 11 to 13 seat pick up in the senate for Republicans. I believe I can see a newly discipline Republican party, who fear primary oppostiton from the Tea Party, doing the right thing and working for the repeal of Obamanomics.

God Bless America!

Lally said...

I remember the above Mister Tea Party defending Republicans like Tom Delay and W. and over and over again in comments on this blog, et-endlessly-cetera revisionist jive to suit whatever agenda attacks Democrats and liberals and supports the interests of the rich and corporations. And like the man said, you against all that government does for you? then give it up, turn your social security and medicare etc. over to the rest of us along with all the federal money your state gets to pay for highways and subsidize agriculture and energy and help pay for schools and teachers and firemen and police et-endlessly-cetera. Or, continue to be the phony chatterbox using whatever argument or position serves the interest of keeping those of us who are for the common good out of power so those who are for the good of the few can have it all.

Lally said...

Or as in this quote Alameda Tom posted on his blog:

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"

~ Isaac Asimov

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Yes, God Bless America, where even Anti American, Anti Constitutional, Anti Declaration of Indepencence, Anti Emancipation Proclamation, Anti Truth embracers like you Jim who have the gall and self righteousness to claim that you are defending and upholding what this country is about are allowed to spout off.

JIm said...

Robert,
I feel no gall and Mike, I would love to see the quotes you accuse me of defending W's and Delay's spending. I did defend W's attempt to rein in the out of control GSEs that Barney Frank, Chris Dodd,Obama and Bennet (soon to be former Republican Senator from Utah) defended, which led us into the financial meltdown. I did defend the Bush tax cuts that helped spark a rebound from the 2000 recession. I certainly did defend the "Surge". Of course even Biden said Bush deserved some credit on that one. As far as anti-intellectualism,I like what Wm. F. Buckley said. It went something like this. He would rather be governed by the first 100 names in the Cambridge phone book than the professors at Harvard and MIT. Buckley was no intellectual slouch himself.

It will be interesting to see America's views on Obamanomics Tuesday.

Anonymous said...

Saw this and thought it was really succinct.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/10/31/914984/-Four-questions-for-Republicans...and-four-answers-for-undecided-voter
Hope it works to just click on, if not copy and paste.
Caitlin

Shem The Penman said...

Talk about elitists. It didn't get much more elite than Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. He was rich and stayed rich when the maximum income tax rate was 91%. Funny that Jim would quote such an upper-cruster. And as to the quotation, wouldn't one be better off being governed by 100 names chosen at random from the Cambridge phone book than the first 100. I mean, what chance would you have of real diversity when all the people in power have names starting with the letter A?

Lally said...

Cait, great link. It doesn't seem to work on this blog in comments to just click so cut and paste is in order. I which case I may just copy and post it for hopefully more people to see.
And thanks Shem, but to add to your comment about Buckley, there have been many articles by his friends and coworkers in his magazine etc. that assure us he would have been totally against most of the Tea Party positions and that, in fact, despite his some would say (me) pretentious vocabulary, he rarely read a book all the way through, and usually just browsed in them to get a slight impression, so he wasn't exactly an "intellectual" as such, more like an actor, whose act added to the wealth he was born into.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

Yup, if you search "quotes by William F. Buckley" on Google/Yahoo, etc, you get a bunch of quotes that might have sounded good in Mr. Buckley's affected voice and manner, but when you break them down, don't really mean squat. Like my friend Joel used to say, "If my mother had balls, I'd have two fathers." - sounds good, but what the hell does it mean?

JIm said...

You guys obviously did not like Buckley's style but we can link the growth of the conservative movement from Buckley to Goldwater and Reagan to Rush and the explosion of talk radio through Fox to the Tea Party. He was a man of consequence. He was born to wealth like FDR and the Kennedy. I assume you are equally disdainful of FDR and the Kennedys for their speech patterns.

Robert G. Zuckerman said...

I'm not disdainful of Buckley, I just think that, having looked at his supposedly notable quotes, they may have sounded good because of his mannerisms, but when read on paper, they don't carry the weight, in my view. On the other hand, Dr. Maya Angelou, whom I've had the privilege to sit with, pays full attention and responds to everything other people in the room say with true insight and care.