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allhatnocattle.livejournal.comAmerican government keeps it's eggs in the basket of stable, controlled, USA-friendly regimes, even if they are ruthless dictatorships.( Read more... )
19/2/11
allhatnocattle.livejournal.com
paft.livejournal.comWisconsin State Assemblyman Robin Vos lets us all know what he thinks of those taxpaying Wisconsin citizens who work in the public sector:
The reality is they haven’t had to pay for these things, they’re upset about doing it now, and the taxpayers are the ones who definitely understand this because they get it, they’ve been doing this in the private sector for years, it’s time we had the same thing happen in the public sector…The fact that my Democratic colleagues want to go back to the taxpayer and have them pay higher taxes because someone shouldn’t pay 12% towards their healthcare….We are standing with the taxpayers all across Wisconsin. It’s amazing the outpouring of support that we’ve been getting from the people outside the Capitol Square, the people who are in the reality of the world, not the place that we’re sitting.
Howard Dean does a very good job of refuting Kudlow and Vos’ fiction that the demonstrations are all about the cuts in benefits and not about the elimination of collective bargaining. The capper to this exchange, however, comes near the end of the segment, when a sign appears just over Vos’ shoulder on the right. Not the kind of thing Kudlow could choreograph.
It beautifully highlights the idiocy of Vos' fiction that the demonstrators are, in some fundamental way, less American than other Americans. Does he really think cops and teachers don't pay taxes, or “live in the reality of the world?”
Crossposted from Thoughtcrimes
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The Apostle of Freedom
19/2/11 21:32htpcl.livejournal.comHello, revolutionary comrades curious folks! Today my country marks the 138th anniversary of the death of the greatest hero in our history, Vasil Levski. Very similarly to the legendary Garibaldi, he was a revolutionary who ideologized and strategized the liberation movement against the Ottoman rule. After developing a vast network of liberation cells across the country, he was eventually captured and executed by the Ottomans. But the groundwork he laid bore fruit just 3 years after his demise, when a nation which had been under 5 centuries of bloody yoke, revolted against the Porte. The April Uprising was drowned in blood, but that, in its turn opened the eyes of Europe for the atrocities of the Ottomans, and in 1878 when the Russo-Turkish war began (which we call the liberation war), no one objected. That resulted in the resurrection of Bulgaria.
Levski has been called the Apostle of Freedom and has been idolized ever since. I guess my point in telling this story is that every nation needs its heroes to look up to and try to emulate, especially at times of strife. And what about the enlightened principles which he laid in the liberation ideology! We can see things like democracy, a "holy and pure republic", a century of liberties, end of despotism and tyranny. All things which were way ahead of their time for our society.
His almost messianic sacrifice was a guiding light for generations. Those generations who carried out the liberation struggle, those who defended the newly resurrected nation from external threats in the years to come, including BG being used as a pawn in the fancy games of the Great Powers, unfair treaties signed behind our back, threats for invasions, stabbing in the back after the Unification, etc. The burning enthusiasm inside these generations launched the newly emancipated nation among the leading countries in the region in a very short time, only to be cut early in its flight by two bad decisions of its incompetent monarchs, who ensnared BG into two world wars, always choosing the wrong side and then leaving the people to pay for their stupidity (the so-called first and second national catastrophe). It's a turbulent history indeed. But Levski's legacy remains to this very day. And it still stands high on a pedestal, like an unachievable utopia, yet unreached but still coveted. Maybe one day we'll return to Levski's principles and we'll make them a reality.
( Some of his ideological principles you'd find strikingly familiar )
Levski has been called the Apostle of Freedom and has been idolized ever since. I guess my point in telling this story is that every nation needs its heroes to look up to and try to emulate, especially at times of strife. And what about the enlightened principles which he laid in the liberation ideology! We can see things like democracy, a "holy and pure republic", a century of liberties, end of despotism and tyranny. All things which were way ahead of their time for our society.
His almost messianic sacrifice was a guiding light for generations. Those generations who carried out the liberation struggle, those who defended the newly resurrected nation from external threats in the years to come, including BG being used as a pawn in the fancy games of the Great Powers, unfair treaties signed behind our back, threats for invasions, stabbing in the back after the Unification, etc. The burning enthusiasm inside these generations launched the newly emancipated nation among the leading countries in the region in a very short time, only to be cut early in its flight by two bad decisions of its incompetent monarchs, who ensnared BG into two world wars, always choosing the wrong side and then leaving the people to pay for their stupidity (the so-called first and second national catastrophe). It's a turbulent history indeed. But Levski's legacy remains to this very day. And it still stands high on a pedestal, like an unachievable utopia, yet unreached but still coveted. Maybe one day we'll return to Levski's principles and we'll make them a reality.
( Some of his ideological principles you'd find strikingly familiar )