Who do representatives represent?
slip:4uwewo1.
Hint: It’s not you. A pull-quote would be mis-leading from this one. it’s short, so just go read it.
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Who do our representatives represent? →
Remembering the fallen →
Yes, let’s honor those who died in the nation’s many wars.
But if we do not want to keep adding to the soldiers’ graves, let’s also ask why they died.
~ Howard Zinn from, On Memorial Day, Words from the Late Howard Zinn
slip:4upone1.
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Fish don’t know they are in water →
If you know a little history, you might see some of this, and think that today’s culture battles are part of a tradition that goes back to FDR …
If you know a bit more history, you might see that this culture war stems from North Eastern progressive tradition dating back to the US Civil War.
The truth is that our culture war does date to the Civil War. Just not the US Civil War in 1861. It’s the English Civil War in 1640s I’m talking about.
~ Clark from, «http://www.popehat.com/2014/10/10/strange-seeds-on-distant-shores/»
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What’s really wrong with Congress? →
Everybody seems to agree that Congress doesn’t work.
If you’re liberal, you’re appalled that even something like universal background checks for gun purchases (90% public approval!) can’t pass. If you’re conservative, you’re horrified that nothing can be done about the mounting national debt or the projections for exponential growth in entitlement spending.
And even if you care not at all about parties or ideologies, it’s just embarrassing to watch our leaders create one artificial crisis after another. We’re the richest country on the planet, and yet we’re constantly threatening to shut down our government, default on our bonds, mint a trillion-dollar coin, or do some other weird thing that would shame the generalissimo of a banana republic.
Is this any way to run a super power?
~ Doug Muder from, What’s Really Wrong With Congress?
slip:4uwewa1.
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What if there is no spending problem? →
Summing up: Liberals and conservatives agree that we have a long-term problem, but they argue about what kind of problem: a government spending problem or a healthcare cost problem.
Recently I ran into a potentially game-changing question: What if there is no problem? In other words, instead of being trapped in the dismal liberal/conservative argument about which apocalypse we’re headed towards, what if we’re actually not headed towards an apocalypse at all?
~ Doug Muder, from What if there’s no spending problem?
slip:4uwewa2.
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The republic of babel →
But democracies need to be able to talk. I have to know more than just what you want to do or want me to do. I need to understand why you want what you want, and I need to be able to explain why I want something different. We have to be able to discuss the nuances of our hopes and fears and plans — what’s absolutely essential and what isn’t — so that we can cobble together a solution that we can all live with.
~ Doug Muder, from The Republic of Babel
slip:4uwete3.
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Escalating bad faith →
This is part of a pattern in which all sides are acting in bad faith, and have been for decades. (And it’s not the only example, as I’ll discuss next week. Signing statements are another.) It creates a vicious cycle in which each escalation challenges the other side to either accept a defeat that seems illegitimate or to escalate further. There seems to be no obvious place for this to stop.
~ Doug Muder from, Escalating Bad Faith, Part I
slip:4uweea2.
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The U.S. Federal Reserve →
As we approach the 100 year anniversary of the creation of the Federal Reserve, it is absolutely imperative that we get the American people to understand that the Fed is at the very heart of our economic problems. It is a system of money that was created by the bankers and that operates for the benefit of the bankers. The American people like to think that we have a “democratic system”, but there is nothing “democratic” about the Federal Reserve.
~ Michael Snyder, from «http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines/25-fast-facts-about-the-federal-reserve-please-share-with-everyone-you-know»
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