Author Archives: Larry Franz

But He Seemed Like Such a Nice Man

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Michael Lind offers an explanation for the intense right-wing, anti-government, apocalyptic rhetoric that we hear so much of these days: “(Ronald Reagan’s) moderation in office had less effect on American society than the decades of vilification of the public sector that he pumped like toxic waste into public discourse.”

Lind points out that “every crackpot element of today’s radical Right can find inspiration in quotes from Reagan”, such as:

“In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

“The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”

“The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.”

And on other topics:

“Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all the problems men face.”

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness” (from Reagan’s nomination speech for Barry Goldwater in 1964).

“They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong.”

“It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.”

Lind concludes: “Reagan won his popularity by encouraging Americans to think and feel like aggrieved victims, while absolving them from any responsibility for the modern government that they themselves voted for.”

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/28/reagans_radical_rhetoric/

In the Dark

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It is possible that you have never heard of the most famous person in the world. Your life just worked out that way. You went about your daily affairs, lived a perfectly normal life, grew old and grey, but you were always distracted when X was mentioned in conversation, you were always out of the room when X appeared on television, you never noticed an article about X on the internet.

Of course, the odds are extremely small that this might have happened to anyone who is plugged into contemporary culture, but it might. One day someone refers to Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe or Abraham Lincoln, and all you can say is “Who’s that?”.

This strange possibility doesn’t bother me when I think about you being in this situation. But if I think about myself being ignorant in this way, I feel a little whiff of anxiety. Is it possible that there is someone incredibly famous who I’ve never heard of? Could I be that ignorant, that different from everyone else? Like what if I had never heard of Cassandra Calliope? How bizarre would that be?

I was reminded of this unlikely possibility when I saw a reference to something called “Star Wars Uncut” this morning. Am I the only one who has never heard of this? Obviously not, but I might be.

Sweden Isn’t So Bad

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Despite what some politicians and pundits say, most Americans, including Republicans, think that it would be better if we had a more equal distribution of wealth in this country.

In fact, most of  us think that Sweden’s distribution of wealth is much better than ours. A retired librarian in Wisconsin has more to say on the subject:

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/wealth-equity-we-all-want-it-j36iut3-167388085.html

Here is the relevant graph:

Ariely & Norton - Inequality

Divisive? Who Are You Calling Divisive?

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During the 2000 presidential campaign, George Bush famously promised to be a uniter, not a divider. As we know, that didn’t work out.

Lately, Republican politicians have been claiming that Obama is a divider, not a uniter. Senator McConnell says that Obama is the “most divisive” president he’s ever dealt with.

“Divisive” is usually defined as something like “tending to cause hostility or disagreement”. Abortion, for example, is a divisive issue. With that definition in mind, Obama has certainly been a divisive president. So were Bush, Clinton and Reagan. The last president who wasn’t especially divisive was Gerald Ford, whose principal job was to calm everyone down after the fall of Richard Nixon.

Calling someone “divisive”, however, seems to imply that he or she is at fault. A divisive person is someone whose actions will tend to divide normal people into two classes, the pro and the con. Some people try to stir things up. Some people are good at stirring things up without even trying.

What is strange about calling Obama “divisive” is that he has usually bent over backwards in search of compromise. People on the left believe, with good reason, that he hasn’t been aggressive enough in fighting for his policies. We want him to be more confrontational at the risk of being more divisive.

Paul Waldman, writing for The American Prospect, explains why Republicans think Obama has been especially divisive:  he hasn’t done what they’d like him to do.

http://prospect.org/article/projection-party

A new study suggests that people on the right have a stronger tendency to believe what makes them comfortable than people on the left (for example, that Obama has been unwilling to compromise). That shouldn’t be a surprise. Consider how many on the right reject what scientists say about evolution, climate change or the age of planet Earth. Or believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, the recent stimulus didn’t do any good or Obama is a Muslim socialist born in Kenya.

http://www.salon.com/2012/08/27/study_right_twists_facts/

The Return of the Weather Underground

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Most of us don’t need to know the temperature outside to the nearest 10th of a degree. Nevertheless, the site below is a boon to those of us who want accurate, local information about the weather. Whether or not we can do anything about it.

“Weather Underground has developed the world’s largest network of personal weather stations (almost 23,000 stations in the US and over 13,000 across the rest of the world) providing our site’s users with the most localized weather conditions available.”

They have a weather station less than a mile from our house. The current temperature is 74.1. That’s local coverage.

http://www.wunderground.com