The Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet state ended, Japan Inc. turned out to be insolvent, and look at those elections in Iraq. Why can’t journalists see the news coming at them?... A First Draft of History? Call the rewrite man!
Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Age of Extremes: The Paranoid Style in Politics
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In politics men who make speeches do not go out of their way to explain how differently they would speak if the enemies they had were larger in size or different in character. On the contrary whatever enemies they fight they paint in satanic terms, so that a problem sufficiently difficult to begin with in a liberal society becomes complicated further by the inevitable perspectives of political battle.
Traditionalist historian John Lukacs laments the direction of conservatism in America ... From Joseph McCarthy finding treason in the bright young men who are born with silver spoons in their mouths to Richard Nixon speaking up for the silent majority to George W. Bush complaining about those who ''think they're all of a sudden smarter than the average person because they happen to have an Ivy League degree,'' the right has consistently won elections by talking the language of Power to the People
• The Plain People of the Internet: You're not serious! [The Sex Pistols created some of the least boring music of the modern age out of the experience of being bored A Philosophy of Boredom ; Bush misread Camus Outside View: Bush, Camus and Sartre ]
• · The richest man in Parliament wants his Point Piper neighbours to pay more tax - to make room for tax cuts for everybody else. Juraj Janosik: Tax the rich and give to the poor - Turnbull does a Robin Hood ; Slavoj Zizek: A small note – not the stuff of headlines, obviously – appeared in the newspapers on 3 February. In response to a call for the prohibition of the public display of the swastika and other Nazi symbols, a group of conservative members of the European Parliament, mostly from ex-Communist countries, demanded that the same apply to Communist symbols: not only the hammer and sickle, but even the red star. This proposal should not be dismissed lightly: it suggests a deep change in Europe’s ideological identity. Heidegger can’t be pardoned for his Nazism, but Lukács and Brecht are excused for their engagement with Stalinism The Two Totalitarianisms ; During the Stalin years in Russia everything labelled veal was actually chicken. You can imagine what everything labelled chicken was ... Did perestroika herald "the end of history"? The collapse of the experiment initiated by the October Revolution is certainly the end of a history The Age of Extremes ; But after a lifetime of suffering it's too little, too late for some. Following her brother's death, Humhalova explained, her family members were treated as enemies of the state. Victims of occupation recognized
• · · In a collision between two radically different visions of how cities should grow, claims under Oregon's new law are pitting neighbor against neighbor, rattling real estate values, unnerving bankers and spooking politicians Anti-Sprawl Laws, Property Rights Collide in Oregon ; Things have not improved since 1990s as inspectors have discovered one in 10 child care centres fail to meet national hygiene standards and 14 per cent are unsafe Sydney Kids at risk in unhealthy centres
• · · · I'll just be glad to see the old terrorist put in the ground and sink straight down to hell. Have you carried out Cold River? On Arafat's death, a cold river of memory ; Terrorism Research Center ; Bin Laden blueprint blotted out
• · · · · Australia would be better off if more young people downed books and took up tools. But it begs some big questions Trading places ; Ultimately the lie is an instrument of power Traffic levels far outstrip predictions
• · · · · · In many ways Max Weber's predictions have proved accurate, with the world united into an iron cage called globalization. Dr. Johnson said that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. It is perhaps the least enduring of his famous statements, in part because it is oblique and in part because it is too specific. It is often trotted out to condemn patriotism. What is actually implies is this: when something seems good in itself, though its value cannot be divorced from its use, that thing will be easily and frequently abused. Patriotism, benevolence, and--back to the matter at hand--free speech fit the bill. The Calvinist Manifesto ; Labour are in power...but the tories still get to take the blame ... Boris Johnson: Both the Government and IRA seem content to ignore due process of law, and both are wrong