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Stupid is as stupid does

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The Colbert Report is hilarious because Stephen Colbert’s caricature of right-wing blowhards is so eerily accurate. Colbert doesn’t believe in “reading books,” he believes in his “gut.” He listens to his “rage.” He admires the “Alpha Dog of the Week.”

And why does Colbert sound like so many of today’s Republican Party leaders? Because, as Paul Krugman explained extremely well today, the GOP has “become the party of stupid.”

What I mean … is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy. The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

What about the experts at the Department of Energy who say that it would take years before offshore drilling would yield any oil at all, and that even then the effect on prices at the pump would be “insignificant”? Presumably they’re just a bunch of wimps, probably Democrats. And the Democrats, as Representative Michele Bachmann assures us, “want Americans to move to the urban core, live in tenements, take light rail to their government jobs.”

I’ve been troubled by the anti-intellectualism that dominates Republican thought for a while now, but Krugman’s summary is perfect. Today, the right too often looks at reason as an enemy to reject.

Global warming is creating a climate crisis? The evidence comes from a bunch of chart-reading egg-heads. Tax cuts don’t pay for themselves? Only if you pay attention to reality, which has a well-known liberal bias.

The problem, of course, is a whole lot of voters seem to agree that real men really don’t think things through.

Krugman added:

[T]he state of the energy debate shows that Republicans, despite Mr. Bush’s plunge into record unpopularity and their defeat in 2006, still think that know-nothing politics works. And they may be right.

Sad to say, the current drill-and-burn campaign is getting some political traction. According to one recent poll, 69 percent of Americans now favor expanded offshore drilling — and 51 percent of them believe that removing restrictions on drilling would reduce gas prices within a year.

The headway Republicans are making on this issue won’t prevent Democrats from expanding their majority in Congress, but it might limit their gains — and could conceivably swing the presidential election, where the polls show a much closer race.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

It reminded me of something Sullivan said the other day, after returning from vacation and noting that the McCain campaign was focusing its attention on arugula, tire-gauges, and Paris Hilton. Sullivan noted the “slow collapse of conservatism as a coherent governing philosophy.”

It won’t get better until voters start rejecting it in large numbers. Republicans won’t have an incentive to get smart if deliberate stupidity wins.

Comments

  • Chris

    says:

    …the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy

    Precisely. Well said, Mr. Krugman.

  • Old School

    says:

    Are the Republicans in Congress still staging their talk-in? Or have they decided they caused gas prices to fall low enough?

  • sniflheim

    says:

    I’ve actually seen this show.

    Morbo is spinning in his chair, Linda is watching him.
    % Morbo falls down, Linda laughs.

    Linda: You fell. Hi, [Waves] today some bad things happened. One bad thing
    was a train got crashed in New Jersey. Wanna see? [A flaming
    train wreck is shown] People won’t be late for work, though, because
    the Governor lady said, “I’m sending in more trains.”

    % Another train crashed into the wreck and explodes. People cheerfully board
    % the derailed cars.

    Morbo: [Still disoriented from the spinning] Morbo can’t understand his
    TelePrompter. He forgot how you say that letter that looks like a
    man with a hat.
    Linda: It’s a “T.” It goes “Tuh.”
    Morbo: Hello, little man. I will destroy you!

  • lou

    says:

    Extremism in the pursuit of stupidity is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of wealth is no virtue.

  • Davis X. Machina

    says:

    They can get away with this because they have no intention to govern, only to rule — to use the coercive power of the state to enrich themselves, their friends and relations, and to unleash the punitive power of the state on those who are not their family, friends, and relations not because they pose any danger, but simply because they are not their family, friends, and relations, and because they can.

    And to do that, you don’t need to be smart, just ruthless.

    It’s the political philosophy — actually that’s pretty kind, because they don’t believe in a polity — of the early Middle Ages.

    Party like it’s 1099, dude.

  • RepublicanPointOfView

    says:

    The problem with you elitists is that you continue to attempt to confuse the american public with facts. If you fully understood that belief is stronger than science and facts, you would give up your liberal wimp ways and become a Republican.

  • petorado

    says:

    The right has systematically shunned anything that doesn’t work in its favor: facts, science, files, studies, surveys, polls, conventional wisdom, video and photographs and truth-tellers of any stripe.

    Krugman’s right about the Republicans. To them a lie is worth a thousand defensive statements by their Democratic counterparts. And it all comes down to the fact that only a brave few in the media are calling them on their lies.

  • SHI

    says:

    i.e. replace Bush with Republican

    “Let me say for the umpteenth time, George W. is not a stupid man. The IQ of his gut, however, is open to debate. In Texas, his gut led him to believe the death penalty has a deterrent effect, even though he acknowledged there was no evidence to support his gut’s feeling. When his gut, or something, causes him to announce that he does not believe in global warming — as though it were a theological proposition — we once again find his gut ruling that evidence is irrelevant. In my opinion, Bush’s gut should not be entrusted with making peace in the Middle East.” Molly Ivins

  • Aaron

    says:

    No one said that opening drilling now would immediately bring more oil to market. The price of oil has skyrocket based on future predicted scarcity, not any current shortage. “Speculators” have bid up the price because they know that unless we open up some new sources of oil (and there are plenty, inlcuding wells that had been tapped and are replenishing themselves) then we will have a supply shortage. If we tell the markets that supply will be stable to increasing for the forseeable future, that brings the price down. THAT is long-term thinking, using reasoned analysis of the way markets have always operated. And again on Bachmann, can anyone provide evidence that she is mistaken? Growth boundaries, cap-and-trade, subsidized mass transit (roads are paid for by their users via gas tax), these are all things designed to force people into living a lifestyle that they don’t want to live. Here’s what no one wants to come out and say: if the Republicans had a candidate as personable, likeable, and skilled in public speaking as Obama, this would be a landslide. The fact that it is within 5 to 6 points tells you 2 things: a huge percentage of America now looks ONLY at party when voting, regardless of policy positions or “quality” of the candidate; and that among those who have not hardened their positions, a large number still want limited government, lower taxes, and to live the way they want to live, not the way someone else tells them is best.

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    In response to RepublicanPointOfView:

    In that the corporate news media makes little effort to let facts get in the way of their he said – he said discussions of ‘issues’, you are unfortunately probably correct.

    The corporate media is more interested hyping a ‘horse race’ than in informing the public of the truth. That sells a lot more advertising that dull presentations of truth. It would not be overwhelming surprising if this presidental contest continues to be about ‘character’, as defined by the rethugs and their corporate media echo chamber, than about ‘issues’.

  • Racer X

    says:

    Kinda makes you wonder if destroying the educational system isn’t part of their plan, eh?

    And think about this: Are the media giants ever going to help people get smarter, when the easiest people to market to are the dumb ones?

    Thanks Bill Clinton, for helping to deregulate the media, which will never allow a serious discussion of re-regulation to be aired.

  • ericfree

    says:

    In keeping with the Colbert mention, last night The Daily Show quoted the U.S. Energy Dept. as saying any benefits from offshore or ANWR drilling wouldn’t show up until 2030. Stewart then played a montage of clips of rightwing journalistas, mostly from Fox, gradually reducing that number without attribution until it was “a matter of months.” As my wife says, they may not be born stupid, but they certainly work hard at it.

    For sniflheim, #3 above, either he’s earning McCain points or needs to go back on his pills.

  • The Answer is Orange

    says:

    the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem

    Yep. Brought to you by the party that goes on and on and on about the nasty vicious non-Caucasian thugs taking over our cities and the hedonistic LIEberuls who want to outlaw marriage and screw anything with a pulse.

    Qui s’accuse, on s’accuse. (Pardon my French.)

  • Racer X

    says:

    Aaron, please tell us all the name of someone who believes that if we remove all the restrictions that the oil supply will “be stable to increasing for the forseeable future”.

    Who?

    And morons don’t count, it has to be someone with credentials.

  • adams

    says:

    When you look at the candidates the two parties have nominated for the highest office in the land and compare them intellectually you see what the true spirit of the Repulican party is. Since the 2nd world war every candidate of the Republican party has not been on the same level as the Democratic candidate. And yet they have managed to win the majority of the elections. It’s as if the are taking peverse pleasure in nominating the worst possible candidate and saying, “we can win no matter who we put up, because our message trumps theirs.” And their message is the one that Krugman has pointed out. Sad but true.

  • Wrecktum

    says:

    The stupidest politician today is not a Republican. It’s friend to the common man John Edwards.

  • SadOldVet

    says:

    Racer X – Aaron’s source is the same (unnamed) economist who believes that a ‘gas tax holiday’ will benefit working people.

  • Roddy McCorley

    says:

    Krugman, as usual, is right on the mark. But I take minor exception with this:

    the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem

    The simplistic responses of the GOP aren’t designed to be answers. They’re intended as diversions, to forestall or eliminate any meaningful consideration of the problem at hand.

    I know – it’s quibbling. Still, I think it needs to be pointed out whenever possible that what we are seeing all around us is not the failure of the GOP’s policies, but the success.

  • ROTFLMLiberalAO

    says:

    Welcome back Krug.
    ’bout time you got your ass out of the tail section of Air Fuck One. That flight was doomed for a fatal nosedive into a moral morass or profound complications…

    Side note to any remnant Clinton dead-enders out there:

    Anybody who still thinks we could have won in November with the immoral Bill and his sleaze show, has been snorting kool-aid for way too long. We need, and have, a squeaky clean, decent candidate with a picture perfect family. There was no other way for us to win. The game is rigged. We needed someone smart enough to rig the rigging. You’ve got to out-decent the repugs. You’ve got to cover all your tracks: All the way back to your natal moment. Obama has done that. He’s had his eye on this prize from kindergarten. His autobiography, written 20-30 years from now, will be one of the most fascinating America documents ever scribed. It will rival Ben Franklin’s for strength of character and sense of purpose.

    My own take on the man: He is deeper and more profoundly focused than any American of the last 100 years.

  • Lance

    says:

    Aaron said: a large number [of Americans] still want limited government, lower taxes, and to live the way they want to live, not the way someone else tells them is best.”

    The problem being when moron wingnuts tell the American People they can live in the ‘burbs and drive alone in SUVs to work on non-existent roads the State is unable to build because they won’t pay taxes and burning up gasoline we can’t supply from America no matter how much you drill.

    You can’t have the life style you claim anymore. Pay attention.

  • tomj

    says:

    There is more to this dynamic and the Republicans are masters of exploiting it.

    First is to recognize that a lot of people don’t enjoy talking about and using facts, many people simply do not absorb details. What they want is a bottom line. The vast majority of people will believe you if you tell them something that sounds too good to be true. People will believe you if you tell them that things will be easier or cheaper to do something than it actually is (think Iraq war).

    So all the Republicans have to do is to set impossible goals, or promise to cut taxes
    and reduce the deficit, or lower your taxes, did I mention taxes?

    Then the adults show up and they have to explain why this stuff doesn’t work and they have to use facts and logic. They sound either like party poopers or spoil sports and if you believe them your reward is much less exciting than what the republicans are pushing.

    Anyway, at some point the public may wake up to the fact that Republicans are acting like the rooster who claims credit for the sunrise.

  • Aaron

    says:

    Racer X –
    The point is this: you don’t have to bring a product to market immediately to impact futures prices immediately. That is why stock prices of individual companies change when a prodcut is announced, not after it has begun sales. Markets price in future values, not current conditions. And historically trading markets collectively have been better at predicting future conditions than any analyst. And enough with the “credentials” crap. Acquiring certifications does not make you intelligent. If I wanted to I could make Pat Robertson look more credentialed than most commentators in America. He would still be an idiot. Trotting out people with a bunch of titles and zero track record of actual results is a typical liberal diversionary tactic. Many of these ideas sound great, and I wish we could implement them. Unfortunately they don’t work in real life because people will always manipulate any system to their own advantage; this is why the disparity between classes actually ends up being even larger in Communist countries, because the power structure is able to directly reward itself.

  • hark

    says:

    It’s all subterfuge, as #5 observes. They promote stupid, but they aren’t stupid. They are cunning, and they win. That’s the irony of the whole thing. It’s an act. They have an agenda that has nothing to do with their jingoistic and messianic rhetoric. They understand that America is full of Stephen Colberts, and they play to them. Their act is so good you don’t even know if they believe in what they say or not. Does Rush Limbaugh believe in all that crap he spews out every day? Does he go home and laugh? Or does he delude himself that he’s a great prophet of our times? Or both at once, a kind of double-think? Most likely both, and that’s kind of scary.

    Don’t underestimate these guys. Stephen Colbert they’re not – but their audience is full of them.

  • joey

    says:

    Aaron…you can’t live in the midst of a community of people and tell them to go fuck themselves you’re gonna live the way you wanna live and then take all their drinking water for future use. Do you honestly think that if off shore drilling were approved the price of gas would go down because there would be in the future a guarantee of more supply. Nonsense…gas will stay the same of increase in price now and possibly drop a few cents in the future (7-10yrs) unless they figure a way to charge us for increased drilling expense. 4 mo billion dollar profits should tell you these oil cos will milk the price for as much as they can.

    You don’t want limited government…you won’t give up roads, fire, police,clean water, safe food, safe meds, safe products etc. etc….what you really should want is more efficient government…where administration buddies aren’t profiteering to the tune of billions from our tax dollars, where official don’t take trips around the world at our expense (EPA), that infrastructure gets repaired and maintained before building new things (bridge to nowhere)…what you really should want is an end to the Money Party which uses leaders of both parties to advance lobbyists written policies to advance private interests to profiteer from our tax dollar. Unless, of course you want to be your own government, on your own island, then you’re stuck living with the population in a community. Anything else is a fantasy which ignores the reality of a true democracy.

  • jimBOB

    says:

    Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
    – Albert Einstein

  • Racer X

    says:

    Aaron: if the Republicans had a candidate as personable, likeable, and skilled in public speaking as Obama, this would be a landslide.

    Would it? I thought they had a personable, likeable, and skilled orator named Romney. But the wingnuts didn’t like him, something about being a fakey flipflopping cult member. So now we have the creepy old war hero dude with the plastic Stepford wife who he affectionately calls “cunt” and/or “trollop” (makes you wonder what he called the first wife he dumped for the Stepford model).

    Anyway, no matter, the creepy old guy is a War Hero(tm), and the guy he’s running against is a muslim terrorist (according to 10% of us). But how pathetic do you have to be to trail 5 pts behind a muslim terrorist?

  • Racer X

    says:

    Note how Aaron offers no one to back up his claim that the oil supply will increase if drilling restrictions are removed.

    No one.

    There has been no significant increase in the proven reserves in decades. We are burning through a limited resource. The market knows this. And it also knows that finding more will not increase the supply unless we find a LOT more, which isn’t going to happen, if you ask the people (like me) who actually have worked in the oil industry.

    Read “Twilight in the Desert”, Aaron. Peak oil is real, and you’re dreaming if you think we can drill our way to cheaper oil.

  • JoeW

    says:

    The difference between modern progressives and modern conservatives is that progressives will alter their beliefs to accommodate reality. Conservatives believe they can alter reality to accommodate their beliefs.
    This is why they appear to be, quite literally, insane. Their tool of choice is the ‘frame’, or as some might prefer, ‘spin’. And the surest mark of a wingnut is the demand that the spin be accepted as the fact. In Lower Wingolia, no one is pro-choice, they are baby murderers – end of story. No one is in favor of diplomacy, only appeasement. Al Gore doesn’t want to solve climate change, he wants none of us to ever drive again. Period.

    If they understood this sort of nonsense for the partisan rhetoric is obviously is, they would probably still be able to share in reality with the rest of us – while maintaining their disagreements. But they simply can’t get there. It’s too hard on their wiring. It requires thought. They always favor a cartoonish scenario that shows them as victims of a sprawling diabolical evil, or alternatively, the only ones willing to recognize and fight said evil.

    It would be comical if they hadn’t thrown every thoughtful conservative overboard to get here.

  • Gaucho Politico

    says:

    Wrote about this the other day when the tire gauge debate was going on. You can read the whole thing here

    http://thegauchopolitico.blogspot.com/2008/08/tire-pressure-debate-was-very-important.html

    But the crux of the argument is

    Republicans have made a living since Nixon feeding the American people the easy solution and Americans have been too lazy to question that solution. What the easy solution usually is, is a new technology or decisive action. A one shot breakthrough that solves the problem or greatly reduces it. What makes it easy is not that it is easy to think these up (its actually really hard to find a successful one) but that it requires little or no work on the part of the public at large. The American public has no responsibility to do anything to treat the problem others will do it for them.

    The idea that the solutions to our problems comes in single leaps and bounds made by people other than us has taken a deep root. The root is so deep that people feel like they have no ability to influence big problems because the answer is too complex, too big, too hard. Republicans exploit this feeling whenever possible. The situation is so great, they claim, that they need more power, more tools, more leeway to deal with those problems. Their proposed solution using these tools is always a straight cause and effect chain. Easy to understand and horribly oversimplified their solutions are always clean and neat tied up with a bow. Combine the desire to exploit laziness with the need for easily understood yet sexy, flashy, decisive, action and you have the foundation for the GOP. That combination is why the love supply-side solutions.

    Think about the way the GOP deals with issues like the War on Drugs. They spray the fields of Afghanistan to kill poppies and the rain forests of Columbia and South America to kill Cocaine farms. To solve the problem with drugs we just need to eliminate the drugs wherever we find them. Seems simple, no drugs=no drug users? Not surprisingly their solution is a failure, colossal waste of money and is helping to feed the Taliban in Afghanistan. Think about the proposed solutions to the problem of high gas prices. First was the gas Tax Holiday. This was a solution that was aimed at reducing the cost of supplying the gas by removing a tax on it. Endorsed by no one it has gone nowhere.

  • independent thinker

    says:

    Aaron @ #10:

    You present a decent summation of the libertarian (small L) view. To some degree I too want the government in my personal life as little as possible, however, it is my observation that in practice too much deregulation has been very very bad for most people in this country.

    Take the airline industry. Since deregulation we have seen a steady decline in the number of carriers, a decline in the quality of service among those that survive, higher prices for terrible service, more crowded planes, fewer niceties (like meals) and on and on.

    Let’s look at another example: The energy sector. Deregulation created the conditions for Enron to screw millions of consumers and ultimately implode upon itself and ruin the life savings of thousand of its employees, oil companies have reutinely obstructed efforts to create alternative energy vehicles because to allow such technology out too soon would eat into their profits. Oil companies have spoiled thousands of acres of formerly pristine rain forest and destroyed the way of life for many native peoples because the profit margins were higher if they neglected the environment. This is why many people oppose more offshore drilling or drilling in anwar.

    A more recent example of the “benefits” of deregulation is the mortgage crisis we are all living through. Foreclosures are at an all time high, housing prises (my own included) are declining every month and have been doing so for the longest period of time since the great depression, millions of homeowners are at risk of losing everything.

    So, while I agree that to the degree possible government should stay out of our lives, the “small-government-free-market-will-take-care-of-everything-lower-taxes-are-always-good” mentality is deeply flawed.

    Where I suspect you and I DO agree are in places like protecting our Constitutional rights, reclaiming habeas corpus, disallowing torture, and for (insert deity of your choice here)’s sake, keep the government out of our bedrooms!

  • Tom Cleaver

    says:

    Aaron (#10) said: “…there are plenty, inlcuding wells that had been tapped and are replenishing themselves…”

    My friend, you win the prize, hands down, for Single Most Ignorant And Witless Thing Ever Said By A Wingnut.

    Your courage in coming here to prove so completely how accurate Krugman’s article is, is to be commended. You really are the incontrovertible proof that computers are now so user-friendly that bipeds lacking frontal lobes and opposable thumbs can use them.

  • Roq

    says:

    What else are they going to say to voters? “Vote Republican: we make rich people richer”?

    It’s faux populism. They have zero appeal to John Q. Public on the policies they care most about. The Democratic Party is the party of the people. Thus, we have the “regular guy” charade. It’s the very definition of ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing’. I’d say it goes to show how little Republicans know about “regular” people that they do such a shitty impression of them, i.e., stupid, but I think it’s more diabolical than that.

    The lie is so flagrant, they have to keep their audience dumb, averse to nuance and not asking questions. You can’t make people do that by force in a democracy – you have to make people do it to themselves. So they play on the intellectual insecurities (and sometimes out-n-out basest, most ignorant instincts) of the average citizen. Curiosity bad! Nothing to see here folks…

  • libra

    says:

    Krugman is, essentially, embroidering on Obama’s theme of “they take pride in their ignorance”.

    Me, I think it’s all because Repubs hate *all things French*, including Rene Descartes (and his “cogito, ergo sum”)

  • biggerbox

    says:

    … a large number still want limited government, lower taxes, and to live the way they want to live, not the way someone else tells them is best.

    Yes, and there are a large number of people who want to eat candy all the time and have any toy they lay their eyes on. We call them children.

    Adults realize that life is about making choices, and acting responsibly, with a long term perspective, so that, while it might be quite enjoyable in the short term to eat all the candy, er, excuse me, cut the taxes that pay for the infrastructure that keeps their way of life possible, it maybe isn’t always the best thing to do.

    McCain keeps talking about whether Obama is ready to “lead”. Leadership is about being the one who says “make these choices, and we’ll all be better off” and getting others to believe it, and do it. It’s about getting people to act like adults, and members of society. It isn’t about giving children permission to behave badly. On that score, McCain has no clue.

  • Coloradoblue

    says:

    Considering that conservatisms’ coherent governing strategy is to destroy the government (except for the military and tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy), they have pretty much completed their job.

  • burro

    says:

    19.
    On August 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm, Roddy McCorley said:

    “I know – it’s quibbling. Still, I think it needs to be pointed out whenever possible that what we are seeing all around us is not the failure of the GOP’s policies, but the success.”

    Not quibbling at all. It is success and the fact that the country is still recognizable after the Ides of Shrub is a failure on the part of “conservatives”. They wanted to tear it all down and if it wasn’t for the blogs and the internet they would have done it.

    This interview on Fresh Air went almost the whole hour but I thought it was excellent. Thomas Frank discussed his new book, “The Wrecking Crew” http://tinyurl.com/68bav4
    and it addresses the planned gutting of gov’t by relegating the most programmed and incompetent to the ranks of civil workers while simultaneously undermining gov’t agencies and dumping the U.S. Treasury into corporate pockets.

    From the book via NPR:

    “Fantastic misgovernment of the kind we have seen is not an accident, nor is it the work of a few bad individuals. It is the consequence of triumph by a particular philosophy of government, by a movement that understands the liberal state as a perversion and considers the market the ideal nexus of human society. This movement is friendly to industry not just by force of campaign contributions but by conviction; it believes in entrepreneurship not merely in commerce but in politics; and the inevitable results of its ascendance are, first, the capture of the state by business and, second, all that follows: incompetence, graft, and all the other wretched flotsam that we’ve come to expect from Washington.”

    Stoopidity in gov’t is preferred because it does their job for them. Every institution becomes suspect, mistrusted, despised and is left to die. Mission accomplished. Acknowledging that better not be quibbling. It’s the only path to salvation if that’s still possible. We’d like to think RepubCo is looking pretty crappy right now but they’re just a little thrashed after a very successful run. What they’ve f’ed up in the last 8+ years cannot be undone in an equal period of time and they know that.

    In a different comment today I wrote the phrase, “corrupt Supreme Court” in a sentence. Of course it implied insult but real conservatives these days wouldn’t take it that way. They would hypocritically decry the lack of respect on one hand but on the other they would rejoice. A fundamental institution has been besmirched. It’s credibility has been compromised. It is mistrusted and dishonored. That, my friends, is success.

    They’ve earned the losses they are about to suffer and they are prepared for that. Sacrifices have to be made along the way.

  • burro

    says:

    I mixed up the Thomas Frank interview with the Ron Suskind interview which was also excellent. The Thomas Frank interview was only 20 minutes. The Suskind interview was almost the whole hour.

  • mim

    says:

    True, burro. I wish the Frank interview had lasted as long as the Suskind interview. I also wish that Frank’s interviewer (Dave Davies?) had not pressured Frank to say that privatization of government services might be a good thing.

    >Me, I think it’s all because Repubs hate *all things French*, including Rene Descartes (and his “cogito, ergo sum”)

    Including the French tradition of intellectuality, which Nicolas Sarkozy doesn’t like either (why did the French elect him?). Actually, Descartes’ “cogito, ergo sum” is an epistemological statement–it means that if I can know anything for certain it is my own reality, because I have consciousness and thoughts. Existentialism was still in the future.

    I have always believed that anti-intellectualism (as well as the media’s enmity) was the reason that Al Gore won the popular vote by such a squeaker in 2000.

  • Texas Aggie

    says:

    “Growth boundaries, cap-and-trade, subsidized mass transit (roads are paid for by their users via gas tax), these are all things designed to force people into living a lifestyle that they don’t want to live.” – Aaron

    Speaking about things designed to force people into a life style they don’t want, so are stagnant paychecks that don’t keep up with inflation. So are rising college tuition bills that put higher education out of reach of the middle class. So are fraudulent mortgage loans that get people thrown out of their houses. So is government refusal to maintain our infrastructure. So is stopgap measures and multiple tours in Iraq. So is the exhorbitant cost of medical care. So is the rising cost of food due to speculation and corporate control of food production. So are lots of things, but they still need to be dealt with.

    As Mr. Krugman was explaining, it is the stupidity and shortsightedness of the rightwing that has created this situation and is continuing to promulgate it.

  • Texas Aggie

    says:

    The price of oil has skyrocket based on future predicted scarcity, not any current shortage. “Speculators” have bid up the price because they know that unless we open up some new sources of oil (and there are plenty, inlcuding wells that had been tapped and are replenishing themselves) then we will have a supply shortage. – Aaron

    To a small extent this is true, but for a commodity that is bought and used right away and not stored for years, the price does depend on present supply and demand. The demand is not necessarily from the people who are going to use the commodity. That is what bubbles are all about. Speculators see something rising in price so they buy it and then resell it to another speculator at a higher price and so it goes until the music stops and there is one person without a chair. Therefore, speculators now aren’t factoring in what will happen in another decade. What they are (were) basing their buying on is the thought that there was someone else who would buy at a higher price. Once one person tries to get out while the getting is good, there is a rush for the door and a lot of people get trampled on.