There’s sort of a bad confluence of events for History on April 19 and April 20.

For April 19.

1993 – The 51-day siege of the Branch Davidian building outside Waco, Texas, USA, ends when a fire breaks out. Eighty-one people die.

1995 – Oklahoma City bombing: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, is bombed, killing 168. That same day convicted murderer Richard Wayne Snell, who had ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh, is executed in Arkansas.

So it is, the New York Times published this essay yesterday:  Can You Have a Happy Birthday on April 19?

To be sure, other events of note occurred on April 19, some good, some bad — the beginning of the Revolutionary War in 1775, Lincoln’s blockade of Confederate ports in 1861, Captain Cook’s sighting of Australia in 1770, the destruction of Toronto by fire in 1904, the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the Warsaw Ghetto revolt in 1943, the marriage of Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, the sentencing of Charles Manson in 1971, the installation as Pope Benedict XVI of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2005 (good or bad; hard to tell), the Broadway opening of my favorite musical, “Carousel” (1945), the birthdays of Ashley Judd (1968), Murray Perahia (1947), Dudley Moore (1935), Jayne Mansfield (1933), Eliot Ness (1903), and the deaths of C.S. Pierce (1914), Charles Darwin (1882), Benjamin Disraeli (1881), Lord Byron (1824) and Paolo Veronese (1588).

I think the “beginning of the Revolutionary War” figured into a connection for McVeigh.  Uber-Patriot Timothy McVeigh went out to avenge the Government’s killings at Waco by a terrorist act aimed at the government in Oklahoma City.

And you know what else?
For the government, April 19 is a day to worry about. When F.B.I. agents arrested nine members of the Christian militia known as the Hutaree in late March, they acted because of information indicating that the group was planning an attack on police officers sometime in April. The betting is that the date they had in mind was April 19.

On edge.

Meanwhile, April 20 brings us —

Birth:  1889 – Adolf Hitler, German Nazi dictator (d. 1945)

1999 – Columbine High School massacre: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold kill 13 people and injure 24 others before committing suicide at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado.

Are these things related?  The answer is no, except in the early news reporting which I guess was based on some rather flaky unreliable student interviews and conjecture.  Perhaps too an internet posting that day from a screwy neo-nazi citing the unleashing of “Sleeper cell” in Suburban Colorado.  But this fell by the wayside in due time, I suppose.  But I guess that was only slightly less relevant to what happened than the Columbine High School clique group that had mostly graduated out in 1998, which the “Trenchcoat Mafia” has long become a short quick-hand reference.  Or to Marilyn Manson, for that matter.  These all sort out to become the equivalent of the siting of an Arab near the premises — something still today you get as evidence of a further conspiracy.

Our popular awareness of the Oklahoma City bombing is pretty much accurate, and our popular awareness of Columbine is not particularly accurate.  The latter gets infused with conceptions of adolescence and high school, and a Moral Panic of “What is happening with our children?”  Meaning needs to be found.
Well, I think public and private schools are a bit on alert for today.  If it works to distract anyone, 4:20 and its attendant Stoner Isle of a Stoner Holiday is right around the corner.

And with this McConnell rallies the 41 Republicans to filibuster Wall Street Reform.
………………………………………………………………………………….

Luntz: “The single best way to kill any legislation is to link it to the Big Bank Bailout.”

McConnell: “We cannot allow endless taxpayer-funded bailouts for big Wall Street banks. And that’s why we must not pass the financial reform bill that’s about to hit the floor.”

Luntz: “Taxpayers should not be held responsible for the failure of big business any longer.  If a business is going to fail, not matter how big, let it fail.”

McConnell: “[The Dodd bill] gives the government a new backdoor mechanism for propping up failing or failed institutions…. We won’t solve this problem until the biggest banks are allowed to fail.”

Luntz: “Government policies caused the bubble and its ultimate crash. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, and the Community Reinvestment Act all had a role in the catastrophe. The government inflated economic bubbles with easy credit policies.”

McConnell: “It also directs the Fed to oversee 35 to 50 of the biggest firms, replicating on an even larger scale the same distortions that plagued the housing market and helped trigger a massive bubble we’ll be suffering from for years. If you thought Fannie and Freddie were dangerous, how about 35 to 50 of them?”
…………………………………..

There is a bit more to this.  The other component is one of acruing that Obama shut out Republicans in the process, leading to the necessary 41 block Republican opposition … which, of course, in the New Age —

.

– though, naturally any compromises with Republican Senators has the effect of bringing it closer to McConnell / Luntz’s claims.  The Populist Campaign for 2010 is one to make out the Democratic Party as the “Party of Big Business” — somewhat appropriate enough in that to shade off that is to fall out of the constructed “Center” as amorphous figures have defined it over the years.

But seriously.

Actually it’s a surprise the bill has come out actually… with… relevant regulations… which actually strike against the Republican Party opposition line.  But then again, Blanche Lincoln faces a primary challenge.  It is a bit weird — in some ways this is a Defining Moment.  Consult again my (since mentally revised slightly) Presidential Rating System.  Why, getting this done would be like Chester Arthur getting through the then desperately needed Civil Service Reform– in the end, this is the Major Issue of the Moment, and the one that more than other sealed Obama into the Presidency.

In terms of Goldman Sachs and what the SEC’s prosecution of a relatively narrow charge means — you tell me.  Ever get the feeling some things are more symbolic than substantive?

Politically, it had long been believed that to come out full force against a process of Regulatory Reform would be a type of political suicide for a Republican Party — believed even now, kind of.  This is a bit of bumpkis – sometimes elections have a certain post-modern quality to them — nothing much matters except the Rage.

Hm.  From a review, or actually all of the reviews, of Conan O’brien’s opening Stage Show in Eugene, Oregon.

“Believe it or not,” Mr. O’Brien said. “This is the first time anyone has ever paid to see me. Don’t get me wrong: They’ve paid to make me to go away.”

Someone paid him about $10 for seats to see him back in 1988.

Three script writers from “Saturday Night Live” are sitting out the writers strike by providing an improvisational revue, “The Happy Happy Good Show,” at Victory Gardens Studio Theater.

The show features the three writers-Conan O’Brien, Bob Odenkirk and Robert Smigel-along with four other players: Rose Abdoo, Hugh Callaly, Debby Jennings and Dave Reynolds. Mark Nutter, of Friends of the Zoo, directs. One approaches the show with some measure of anticipation.

From another review of this long forgotten stage show, where Saturday Night Live writers killed time during during a Writer’s Strike by putting on a show…

“Happy Happy“ also gives Smigel and the six other comics (several, like him, veterans of the long-running “All You Can Eat and the Temple of Dooom“) the chance to try out stuff that may not fit the “SNL“ format or was rejected by NBC censors. ([…] Smigel: “Take our very theatrical finale, where we make wacky predictions about the year 2000; it uses dark silhouettes and a deliberate pretentiousness that just wouldn`t work on TV.“

As for the show in Eugene, guaging how Conan O’brien and his staff interprets the “Intellectual Property” rights — apparently there was an appearance from the (already predicted) Self Pleasuring Panda…  and they’re saying phooey on Triumph, able to claim him as he originated elsewhere.
Yet they won’t dare run to “In the Year 2000”.

A question about TBS, though.  Apparently promotions have started right from the gate.  Isn’t it overkill to roll through to November?

Here’s an interesting example of a group exercising their “Right to Petition”, and you may have heard about this.

Governors across the country, including Pennsylvania’s, have received letters ordering them to step down from office in three days — the first step in a quasi-religious, “freedom movement” group’s elaborate plan to disband parts of the U.S. government, according to the group’s website.

Interesting.  This was the copy found in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.  Note the inclusion of “including Pennsylvania”.  So…

Governors across the country — including Ohio’s Ted Strickland — have received letters ordering them to step down from office in three days, the first step in a quasi-religious, “freedom movement” group’s elaborate plan to disband parts of the U.S. government, according to the group’s Web site.

It is always good to insert the local angle into the AP copy.  Usually I see it in the headline, though.

The group, calling itself the Guardians of the free Republics, describes the plan as a nonviolent and legal attempt to “restore the true Republic.” Department of Homeland Security and FBI officials said there did not appear to be an immediate threat of violence.
Just a demand to quit within three days, in order to implement –?

“Everything is going to be orderly and no one is going to be harmed in this movement,” said Billy Ray Hall, a man who identified himself as a follower of the Guardians of the free Republics. “It’s going to be really good. There’s going to be funds enough for everybody.” […]

Funds enough for everyone?  What is this — the Diggers?

Guardians of the free Republics emphasize the peaceful nature of their proposed revolution, although their wording is at times opaque and foreboding.  The group believes that an act of Congress passed in the late 1800s effectively transformed the United States into a corporation, Hall said. Since then, the American people have been serving corporate masters.

The plan to restore America begins with the assembly of “de jure grand juries” in all 50 states, according to the group’s Web site. Followers were asked to sign a “covenant of office” and are described as “elders.” The group must act quickly to avert some impending enforcement of martial law, said group leader Sam Kennedy on his Internet radio program.

So you now have a choice between … oh, Christine Gregorie or Ted Strickland or Rick Perry or whoever – or these guys?

Kennedy, who said the group was attracting followers in droves from the so-called freedom movement, described this plan as a “revelation” and compared the coming events to “a time to parallel the storming of Jericho and all the great Biblical events of history.”

“Calamity is coming for this world,” he said on the radio program, adding that it would be peaceful. “We forgive all who repent for their crimes against mankind. You could also expect that many of those people will not repent, and if they are recidivists we will deal with them accordingly.”

Meanwhile, in Yakima, Washington:

Actually this has little or nothing to do with the Guardians of the free Republics — perhaps there’s something to be made in individuals guarding the free republic —  it’s just that I’ve always had a desire to tap in an incongruent “Meanwhile, in Yakima, Washington.”  I don’t know why.
The Stranger, the alternative paper in Seattle, has a beat reporter milling about the Yakima Valley — apparently in search for the whole energy of this Selah fellow…

A 63-year-old Yakima County man has been charged with threatening to kill U.S. Sen. Patty Murray over her support of the health-care overhaul.The FBI and local police arrested Charles Alan Wilson at his Selah home early Tuesday. Wilson was scheduled to make an appearance in U.S. District Court in Yakima, and he will then be transported to Seattle, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

According to the charges, staffers in Murray’s office in the Jackson Building in downtown Seattle had become concerned over a series of phone calls by an unknown man over the past several months. The calls came from a blocked number, and often were made in the evenings or on weekends.

Usually, according to a staffer identified by the initials “M.G.,” the calls were merely vulgar and harassing.

But on March 22, “the caller began to make overt threats to kill and/or injure Senator Murray,” according to the complaint signed by FBI Agent Carolyn Woodbury.

In that message, a man the FBI says it has identified as Wilson stated, “I hope you realize there’s a target on your back now … Kill the [expletive] senator! I’ll donate the lead.”

In several other vulgar and profanity-laced messages left over the next week, the caller repeatedly threatened the Democratic senator’s life and said he “hopes somebody kills” President Obama as well, according to portions of transcripts in the complaint.

We will see, I suppose an odd little connection between the conspiracy spewing Truther Tea Partier amped around the similar circumstances surrounding the Presidency of James Garfield and friends with Obama to the threatener of Patty Murray.  Maybe I should go ahead and defend the conspiracy Truther Tea Partier right here and now.  Or maybe I should wonder why I tossed the religous end times “Dissolve the Government” freaks into this picture.

Well, I suppose the Stranger article is all about Local Color.  A bit of background for explanation.

The tanks are still there, 177 in all, packed with 53 million gallons of radioactive waste. One million gallons have leached into the desert soil.
A decade from now, this byproduct of the atomic age at Hanford nuclear reservation was to be turned into 14-foot-long glass rods, loaded in steel canisters and shipped to Nevada, where it could sit forever beneath a mountain. An additional 2,300 tons of spent nuclear fuel would go with it.
But now the worst waste from the country’s most polluted place has nowhere to go.
The Obama administration’s recent decision to withdraw licensing to build a high-level nuclear-waste repository at Yucca Mountain leaves future storage of the Manhattan Project’s nastiest goop undecided. Some worry the move means waste could remain at Hanford indefinitely and that nuclear garbage from elsewhere might even join it. […]
“A lot of us were quite confident way back in 1995 that we would probably end up right at this spot,” said Todd Martin, former chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, an independent, nonpartisan group that attempts to advise the Energy Department on Hanford cleanup. “I’m much more concerned about when we’re going to make our first teaspoon of glass.”

It’s the by-product of living in a Vast Nuclear Wasteland.

Alpha Broadcasting has a building downtown where its radio stations are represented as that posters plastered with three each of that type of silhouette Clip Art.  Freedom 970 has a man barbecuing, a Soldier Saluting, and a woman shopping — denoting that, apparently, this is the height of Patriotism.

And Bush said, “Go shopping” after 9/11.

It’s a conservative station — natch, recently revamped with the addition of Sean Hannity and (because he comes with Sean Hannity) Mark Levine.  This is too bad — Phil Hendrie — a hold-over from previous corporate control at a less ideologically-straitened station — they clearly have deigned to get rid of — has been bumped to the wee hours of the night — in wait for eventual dropping.

Freedom’s Just another word for …?

Down aways, at the Max Stop in front of the Courthouse, I’m not paying attention to much of anything when a suit security detail of one sort or other — not the bulky type, but a management sort — shouts “I saw that!”  I look over, and see that he is communicating to this sort of pan handling-looking — reasonably clean — 20 something, I guess.  He shouts, “What?  What?”  The security says, “That little transaction.”  “I was just giving change for a dollar.  What?  You gonna hassle me?”  Security points to a camera.  Life goes on.

I am confused by this scene.  Down from this lad is a woman, scuzzier looking, with a sign of that “Need Money to Pay off Ninjas” variety, more conspicuous than this guy — so it can’t be an outlawing of “Spare Change?” Did he exchange the marijuana, or security believe he did so?  The latter possibility is unfortunate — the guy’s not going to have the benefit of the doubt if this goes up further — and that camera had better show something definitive for his sake.  As it were, I’m inclined to view this as a sort of act of Intimidation — “You’ve been warned”.

Meanwhile, I look around, planting three quick figures for silhouetting purposes.  Something vaguely iconic about it.

Yesterday was April 11, a “Day That Will Live in Infamy”.  Ken Kronberg committed suicide.  Had it not been for this, it is unlikely that I would still be posting on matters concerning the Larouche cult, certainly not at the rate I have, and I would have moved on to some other bright shiny object of absurdity.  An anniversary like that puts me in mind to look back and answer the question — Why was I around to take special notice of this?  I am a little bit startled in re-reading what fades away in my memory.

The circumstances of the time are these.  A college newspaper writer saw a few posts on this blog — they were re-posted comments to silly posts about the Larouche Movement from a former member giving his warning sirens and relaying his experiences.  Current members descended upon his comments, and the tenor of my general attitude can be seen with this post.
The college writer thought I was that former member.  She was wanting to write a piece for her school newspaper, dangling further possibilities in shopping to the liberal rags of In These Times and something else that escapes my memory — which would be in its immediacy a Cautionary Warning Piece to the campus as the cult started its fall recruits.  I let it pass before she emailed again with more urgency.  I don’t know how this reads, but after a bit of thought, I switched my mind and actively, more aggressive than my laissez faire attitude norm, contacted the man to urge the poster some cooperation with the college newspaper writer.

There’s a bit more to the story, but not much.  Perhaps I leaned on him a bit too hard, perhaps not.  The article was apparently something of a Deadline Buster.  But it was published — made a presence at that campus and online.

There were a few Larouchies who continued to grace this blog with their presence.  Someone with the last name “Bettag”, for instance.  In hindsight they appeared to give me more power than I ever could give myself.  See this statement here.
Do you also suggest solutions to the problems that this ‘nut case’ raises? Economics, the war? Or do you just intend to disparage those who do, thus demoralizing the population with your stuff? Good show!
Really?  This Blog has the ability to “Demoralize the Population”?  Really?  Looking back, I wonder if she meant I was “demoralizing” the members of the Larouche Youth Movement — future daily briefings seem to suggest that possibility for interpretration.  Otherwise, I’m a little stumped — months, years later I’d be sharing closer to the truth: “this blog is read by, like, seven people”.

I was reasonably charitable with the figure of “Steve”, though could not help but balk at his great question “Do you know the difference between Man and the Animals?”  I somehow slipped away “Animals” and replaced it with “beasts” — I think that comes from the various references to “beast-men” and “Bestial”.  So sorry.

Anyway, such comments did not escape the notice of ex-members.  Hence the following comment, shortly after the “Day That Will Live in Infamy”, April 11, 2007:
See if the larouche cultists who show up here can give more details of what happened in larouche’s residence the night before and the morning of the suicide.

Some details emerged shortly, of course.  The Daily Briefing for that morning.  And so Bettag resurfaced here.  What does it make YOU if you publish stuff you have no personal knowledge of? How much research did you do before you published Nick Benton’s article and then responded to it as gospel…?

A fumbling and mad scramble indeed, easily and quickly substantiated — Dennis King published the briefing in full, it was published at factnet by (probably quasi)-anonymous figures — and the larouche org itself chimed in on its authenticity when it blasted Dennis King’s postings at its various websites, the relevant phrase:

These slanders, along with King’s posting of stolen documents.

I will add that nothing came out of this particular message.
Brian Says:  May 1st, 2007 at 2:45 pm I don’t believe you guys have any idea about LaRouche or his movement. I would reccomend all of you to call them and challenge them personally. Making a stupid website called skull / bones and ranting about something you obviously dont know is retarded. I live in Lynnwood WA, we should meet up and have some of the LYM youth there and then you can tell them how bad LaRouche is in person, unless your just a little pussy that hides behind fourms and posts shit like you know something..

I don’t think so.

When  an article for Kenneth Kronberg appeared on wikipedia, the Larouche Wikipedia Team came out and took their whacks.

:::::::::The statement about suicide is clearly hyperbole in the “briefing,” not intended to be taken literally. Benton is treating it as if it were a literal recommendation. “Malicious” seems to be the right word for this. —NathanDW 16:12, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

And so they continue, as you can see on this wikipedia page, rationalizing the Daily Briefing.  But, for some comedy relief, try this one.:

:::Take a look at WP:SELFPUB. Kronberg was a member of the LaRouche movement, so under Wikipedia policy a self-published source from that movement is acceptable in an article about him. However, in an article about an opponent of the LaRouche movement such as Dick Cheney, material sourced to LaRouche publications would be excluded. —Marvin Diode 14:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The mind boggles.  And, as the Larouche Line evolved, so did the wikipedia assault…

::::How do you know it was “lack of support from his community”? He left no suicide note. For all we know, he was pushed to suicide by a wife who was undermining his life’s work by supporting George Bush. In a matter like this, it is disrectful to the deceased to speculate about his motives, but the real issue here is that the usual gang, King, Berlet, etc., have ghoulishly seized upon Kronberg’s death to push their agenda. That’s why this is a coatrack article. —Masai warrior 13:56, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

And about the Ken Kronberg Memorial Page.
:It is most emphatically not “his family’s memorial website” — it is a propaganda site run by his cousin, acting as a meatpuppet for Dennis King. —NathanDW 01:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

That’s an extraordinary claim, isn’t it? ”
To follow an evolution of the “Line”, we can track through the material I batched up here and here.  The startling focal point in terms of re-directional hate came when the Larouche org let it be known that Molly Kronberg donated money to the Bush Campaign.  Well, it is a ways from her congressional campaign days in garnering 285 votes, and back then, — that time in the late 1980s which, in the new drive to demonize Molly Kronberg, became another source of historical revision in the organization to meet the new narrative.

So it was this.
Ted Andromidas (not verified) on Tue Sep. 2, 2008 7:31 PM PDT  Now Molly, for over a decade you have ridiculed and vilified LaRouche. I was there, at gatherings, where you did that. So, using your name means little or nothing. The more interesting question for me is, why DID you hang around? What was the point? Why did you live on a paycheck provided by an organization, and those affiliated with it, that you have so despised for 19 years. Really, cut it out>

Submitted by Molly Kronberg (not verified) on Tue Oct. 7, 2008 10:06 PM PDT
However, I didn’t “live on a paycheck provided by [the] organization”–I never got a paycheck from the organization after 1986, and Ken never got a paycheck from the organization after 1978.
As to my vilifying LaRouche at social gatherings–of course I attacked LaRouche for years, and events have shown just how right I was. In particular, the death of my husband, driven to suicide by LaRouche and his associates, as Avi Klein’s article intimates.

Notable is that the cloddlessness of the cult’s members continued unabetted.
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Aug. 24, 2009 2:15 AM PDT.
Whatever you say about Larouche as far as predicting the crash of the economy he was right on target.
Wha–?  See too here.
The Washington Monthly piece is an interesting piece of journalism about a truly disturbing event: the death of Ken Kronberg. Unfortunately both Kate’s post and Avi’s article suffer from the usual problems with LaRouche critics: (i) over-reliance on emotive words like “crazy” which don’t describe much except to advertise your own status in the respectible anti-LaRouche crowd (ii) and total mischaracterization of the ideas of the LaRouche movement. […] Sometimes I think that those who claim that the ideas themselves are simply “crazy” simply use that term to convince intelligent fair-minded people not to bother reading them. Now, LaRouche’s personal behavior makes the critics’ mischaracterizations an easier sell. That may be the true crime.

A very curious game of compartmentalizing and rationalizing, I would say, particularly since what is being rationalized isn’t worth a lot.

Then came this.
My ubderstanding is that there were problems in the marriage and this sort of thing has driven many a man to jump off a bridge, out a window, whatever.
Marielle can say whatever she wants now that poor Ken can’t defend himself can’t she?She’s rather low as human beings come.
Posted by: revenire | March 15, 2009 2:33 PM
And this.
Margaret (author) said:
Molly, aside from being evil, rotten and dirty, your problem is and always was that you are UGLY as SIN. Girl, you were whooped with the ugly stick! Dante needs to come back to create a new circle in Hell just for you.
# 17 September 2008 at 11:39 pm

You’ll forgive me since I wasn’t paying attention, but a prominent right-wing radio talk show host — as in “the” prominent right wing talk radio host — initials R and L — apparently used the word “Regime” in describing the Obama Administration.  Apparently a prominent tediously-inside-the-beltway television news network personality — oft times called “liberal” due to having worked in the Carter Administration — initials of CM– called him out on such a thing.

I was not aware of this controversy, and today I find myself encountering it and being puzzled due to the lack of there is no story here.  In terms of “toxic rhetoric”, this is a misdirection.  Blah blah blah — Get your “Regime Change Begins at Home” stickers out.  I hate anti-president paranelia of this type because of its sucker-pack character: just roll out the new model and you can make a mint.

I suppose I could dig into RL’s sentences.  He states that Obama’s is a “Regime” because he’s “Governing Against Will of People and Purposely Killing Jobs”.  It’s mostly not worth figuring out.  But I will suggest that the “I Want My Country Back” sentence never much impressed me back in the Bush Administration.  (As when John Kerry adopted the Langston Hughes poem “Let America Be America Again” for his campaign purposes.)  Roughly every perfidy of the Bush Administration can be found in the historical record through American history.  I suppose this is the price one pays for evading nationalistic claims.  I suppose for the flip side in thinking about the use for opposition to the Obama Administration (or “Regime” if you must), the thing to do is to discern the differences of what “back” one side wants from America’s past as against the “back” from America’s past lopped off by the previous Administration/”Regime” —

Excuse me for a moment while I laugh at this weasel — NG — wait.  There’s more where that came from!

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, is a reader—and something of a postmodern interpreter—of the works of Albert Camus and George Orwell. A few days before President Obama’s big health-care “summit,” Gingrich addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference. He cited Camus’s “The Plague,” summarizing its message with Jack Nicholsonian authoritativeness: “The authorities can’t stand the truth.” His discussion of Orwell was more narrowly targeted. The message of “1984,” he explained, is that centralized planning inherently leads to dictatorship, which is why having a secular socialist machine try to impose government-run health care in this country is such a significant step away from freedom and away from liberty, and towards a government-dominated society.
I could point out that rhetorical black-balling is not new.  Compare the conservative William Graham Sumner’s “Forgotten Man” with the way Franklin Roosevelt used the phrase — arguably in parts re-inverted back by Richard Nixon’s class with the rise of “The Silent Majority”.  But then again, Roosevelt never referenced Sumner, so maybe he’s more home free than Newt Gingrich with respect to specifically citing Camus and Orwell.

Orwell’s position on the House and Senate health-care bills is unknown, but, like Camus, he was a lifelong democratic socialist (he was a member of the Independent Labour Party, which regarded regular Labourites as wishy-washy) and, as such, a big fan of government-run health care. Confusion about who is and who is not a socialist and what is and what is not socialism was endemic at C-PAC, as the conference’s participants affectionately call it. “The hope and change the Democrats had in mind was nothing more than a retread of the failed and discredited socialist policies that have been the enemy of freedom for centuries all over the world,” Senator Jim DeMint, of South Carolina, said, adding, in a reference to the President, “Just because you are good on TV doesn’t mean you can sell socialism to freedom-loving Americans.” Representative Steve King, of Iowa, listed the enemy within: “They are liberals, they are progressives, they are Che Guevarians, they are Castroites, they are socialists.” Then he mentioned a few more key segments of the Democratic coalition, including, besides Trotskyites, Maoists, Stalinists, and Leninists, “Gramsci-ites—ring anybody’s bell?” Strictly speaking, that should be Gramscians, followers of Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Communist Party leader of the nineteen-twenties. Ding-dong!
When we’re upa gainst the Trotskyites, Maoists, Stalinists, Leninists, and Gramscians —
Some people deign the “get America back” as sticking it to a simple matter of black man in the White House — and I suppose that old chestnut of a political wad out of Virginia lends some credence to the various coalitions gelling for political effect.  A long time back there was a fuss about cartoons plastering Obama in the guise of Urkel.  Was this racist?  Sure, though I know from experience you don’t have to be black to be compared to Urkel.  The bigger point is the parody didn’t even really make sense.

But in a world where ACORN is brought down by deceptive pieces of misleading editing — from a video filmer whose benefactor can with a straight face insist that there were no racist slurs tossed to black congress members at their walk past — that — such a thing is somehow not possible.  I don’t understand the automatic denial, except by putting it in the context of the fabricated ACORN video.  In terms of the colors of the hats in old Western movies, the White Hats need to always be wearing the White Hats and the Black Hats need to be wearing the Black Hats.

I have heard argued that talk radio, by which we mean conservative/right wing hosts, and the conservative media — biggest item in the mix is Fox News — cannot be all that powerful, as evidenced by the fact that for all their screechings against Bill Clinton — he was easily re-elected.  But that misses the point.  Back when the younger Bush was filling one of his Supreme Court picks, and I wish I could find this — The Atlantic published a piece about the true ideological breakdown of the Court — apparently by dent of Clarence Thomas being insane, the five to four division we always presume the Court holds (as shown with the “Citizen’s United” decision) is untrue, and we can find something like a 3 – 4 – 2 division definition.

Barack Obama is set to put up a Supreme Court Justice.  Stevens, important for such reasons that he can occasionally nab Kennedy and taper the 5 Justice Majority down – makes his escape before it’s too late politically.  We’re in for a political posturing battle with the definition of the word “mainstream”  justice up the air.  Take a page from GB — ignore the headline for the moment — and figure what this “RADICAL” coming is supposed to mean.  In a world where the old President George Bush threw out CT, and in a world where whoever Obama picks is going to be defacto the most Radical Pick in Human History — just … because.