A virtually unanimous and bipartisan Alaska Senate this week found the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, and nine state employees, including top Palin aides, in contempt for ignoring subpoenas to testify in the Troopergate investigation. Only one Republican voted against the measure.
The Senate vote is a direct contradiction to Palin’s argument that her staff cooperated and acted appropriately in the matter. However, the Senate voted not to seek punishment in the matter.
The 10 people cited in the resolution are Todd Palin; Sarah Palin’s Chief of Staff Mike Nizich; Deputy Chief of Staff Randy Ruaro; special assistant Ivy Frye; Department of Administration Commissioner Annette Kreitzer; Department of Administration employees Dianne Kiesel, Nicki Neal and Brad Thompson; Kris Perry, the director of the Palin’s Anchorage office; and the governor’s scheduler, Janice Mason.
The legislative special counsel, Stephen Branchflower, previously found that Palin had abused her office in the scandal.
For the full story, click here
It took just two and one half weeks:
By Charles Krauthammer
Updated: Friday, February 06, 2009
“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”
– President Obama, Feb. 4.
Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.
The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, but what’s legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.
He’d been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he’s not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don’t get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.
At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal’s private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he’d come to Washington to upend.
And yet more damaging to Obama’s image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama’s name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.
It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’s own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.
Not just to abolish but to create something new — a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the “fierce urgency of now” includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.
The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting “planted” for “ready to market” would mean a windfall garnered from a new “bonus depreciation” incentive.
After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
Peter Schiff: Stimulus Bill Will Lead to “Unmitigated Disaster”
uh, isn’t this your guy?
http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/article/169781/Peter-Schiff-Stimulus-Bill-Will-Lead-to-%22Unmitigated-Disaster%22?tickers=^dji,^gspc,QQQQ,SPY,DIA,TLT,UDN
Beating Up On Barack
Iran’s leaders continue to display their contempt for Barack Obama, whom they regard as weak.
It isn’t just Ahmadinejad; Iran’s leadership is unified in treating Obama with the disdain that he invited by impugning his own country’s past policies in the region on Al-Arabiya television. Today it was the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Ali Larijani:
Iran sternly dismissed decades of U.S. policies targeting Tehran and declared Friday that the new American administration had to admit past wrongs before it could hope for reconciliation.
The comments by Iranian parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani at an international security conference in Munich appeared to be the most detailed outline yet of Tehran’s expectations from President Barack Obama’s administration.
“The old carrot and stick policy must be discarded,” he said, alluding to Western threats and offers of rewards to coax Iran to give up nuclear activities the West views as threatening. “This is a golden opportunity for the United States.” … He declared the U.S. had to own up to the past before it could hope for a better future with Iran.
“In the past years, the U.S. has burned many bridges but the new White House can rebuild them” if it “accepts its mistakes and changes its policies,” Larijani said.
If Obama ever does sit down with Ahmadinejad, it will be apparent who is bestowing the honor on whom.
Afghanistan tempering European allies’ “ardor” for obama
That’s the somewhat snarky headline of a Washington Post story on the European response to President Obama’s efforts to obtain assistance for the war in Afghanistan. According to the Post, European leaders “are proving just as reluctant to contribute more soldiers or money to the NATO-led operation as they were during President George W. Bush’s last years in the White House.” (emphasis added)
The French Defense Minister has said that his country will not consider sending additional troops.
The Dutch Prime Minister has announced that his country will begin drawing down its force.
German officials have ruled out sending any more troops beyond the 4,500 additional ones the government authorized last year. Germany, moreover, does not permit its troops to venture into Southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban happens to be strong.
My, the new era of cooperation seems to have come to an abrupt halt once the world realized the absurdity of Barack Obama.
Of course Palin and the others didn’t respond to their subpoenas. They’re Republicans and everyone knows that being Republican means you’re above the law.
Inherently contemptible.
Another neo-con above the law – until it crashes down on them. As for new troll Betty, a little ditty from Tom Jones (with modification of course):
Whoa, [dense] betty (bam-ba-lam)
Whoa, [dense] betty (bam-ba-lam)
She’s from birmingham (bam-ba-lam)
Way down in alabam’ (bam-ba-lam)
Well, she’s shakin’ that thing (bam-ba-lam)
Boy, she makes me sing (bam-ba-lam)
“A virtually unanimous and bipartisan Alaska Senate this week found the husband of Gov. Sarah Palin, Todd Palin, and nine state employees, including top Palin aides, in contempt for ignoring subpoenas to testify in the Troopergate investigation. … However, the Senate voted not to seek punishment in the matter.”
************
The Court finds you guilty of murder, mayhem, and crossing at a location other than the street corner. WE have made our point. No punishment is decreed! Alice, you and that rabbit are now free to go!
http://www.foxnews.com/video/index.html?playerId=videolandingpage&streamingFormat=FLASH&referralObject=3541216&referralPlaylistId=949437d0db05ed5f5b9954dc049d70b0c12f2749
Must see video.
Mother of USS Cole victim blasts barack obama.
You know betty, I’d be less worried about Leon and more worried about what’s about to happen to RNC Chairman Steele.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29066465/
Obama’s Energy Savings Estimate Are Skewed
By BERNIE BECKER
New York Times
Published: February 6, 2009
WASHINGTON — When he ordered the Energy Department on Thursday to set new, mandatory efficiency standards for a variety of household appliances, President Obama projected how much electricity would be saved.
“We’ll save through these simple steps over the next 30 years the amount of energy produced over a two-year period by all the coal-fired power plants in America,” Mr. Obama said.
But audits of a prominent 17-year-old program, Energy Star, to conserve electricity used in consumer goods, a voluntary effort called Energy Star, have found that such estimates, however rosy, are not accurate.
According to the E.P.A.’s office of inspector general, which has released two reports on the program in the last 18 months, those estimates are misleading, and safeguards to protect the integrity of Energy Star labels must be stronger.
In December, the inspector general issued a report that said Energy Star’s savings claims were “not accurate or verifiable.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/washington/07energy.html?_r=1
SO OBAMA IS OUT THERE LYING AGAIN.
TURLEY I am challenging you on this.
You and your little band here apparently believe that a state legislature can at will Subpeona a sitting Governor, her husband, and staff, but the Governor has zero power to do the same to the State legislature.
I rather doubt if anybody in the US Supreme Court would call that equal but separate powers.
Morons.
We can thank former Sen. Tom Daschle for illustrating why his Democratic colleagues in Congress thinks there is a vast pool in America of untaxed income – the so-called “tax gap” between what is reported to the IRS and what taxpayers really owe.
Daschle’s fellow Democrats clearly believe ordinary people share former Sen. Daschle’s miserable sense of ethics and need to be jailed, but Daschle get’s a handshake and a lecture – not to be so blatant about it next time.
My but the trolls are foaming at the mouth this morning.
How completely and utterly satisfying. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Reporter restrained after Panetta hearing
February 06, 2009
Categories: White House
Reporter restrained after Panetta hearing
Following Leon Panetta’s confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building.
There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days.
Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man’s role.
“I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside,” Strohm said.
Tim Starks, a reporter for Congressional Quarterly, said he witnessed Strohm approach Panetta and ask a question, just before the man began “grabbing him by the arm and moving him away.”
“I said to the guy, ‘That’s not the way you do it,’” recalled Starks.
Starks said that he’s covered the CIA for years and had never seen a reporter strong-armed that way before, adding that the agency is typically respectful of journalists.
WELL, WELL, WELL, AND SO IT STARTS.
buddha,mespo, mikea,mikes
may i have permission to copy some of your replies and post them to a blog i belong to? i will note your screen names and the turley blog
Bron98:
NO!
Now move along little one.
mmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . I need to make pancakes.
bacon
bacon goes good with that
Then it’s outside for Buddha, little trollseys! Yard work calls.
Russia rattles sabres in Obama’s direction
By Quentin Peel
Published: February 6 2009
Russia may face a grim economic downturn but one would scarcely think so to judge by the sound of sabre-rattling emerging from the Kremlin. Unless, of course, it is intended as a domestic distraction from the gathering gloom.
The double-act of Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin has come up with a series of security initiatives that seem designed to provoke the new administration in Washington.
Without even waiting to hear how President Barack Obama intends to conduct his relations with Moscow – something that Joe Biden, his vice-president, may well address on Saturday at the annual Munich Security Conference – the Russian leaders have thrown down the gauntlet.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/85fd2362-f46e-11dd-8e76-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
Buddha,
You are right. It looks like something has gotten under the Von Troll family’s skin. It is a shame that the facts can disturb them so much. I especially liked Dr. Marsupial’s claim that the legislature shouldn’t be allowed to subpoena the governor. I would think that a “doctor” would be able to figure out that one of the legislature’s job is to oversee the executive branch. But I realize that the troll educational authority doesn’t care much about facts.
Rafflaw, you don’t read well do you. Read what I wrote again, sit down and wait for the alcohol to wear off, then respond.
buddha,mespo, mikea,mikes
You guys are awesome.
The troll outbreak of non sequitur on this article is easily understandable. A majority of the Republican base prefers Sarah Palin as the party’s standard bearer. Much of that base are neither true conservatives, nor even true Republican’s. They are a mixture of misled fundamentalists who lack the knowledge of the Gospels enough that they don’t realize that Jesus was a revolutionary and people who as fascists follow/adore the leader goosestepping all the way. As non-thinking hero worshipers they react mindlessly and off topic. Dr. Marsupial, is the only one attempting to offer an on topic argument and his line of thinking only shows he is ignorant of our Constitution/legal system, making him I believe anti-American. As to the others: Bron, No.; LTC, quoting Krauthammer on anything is a sign of ignorance; Betty and Kent, your off post quotes are from genuinely uninformed people which I guess describes your condition.
Actually, if the trolls continue this it might give Prof. Turley and the rest of us some fun. Imagine posting faux articles such as:
“Cheney Admits a Lifelong Love for Hitler”; “Fundamentalists Admit They’re Not Much Interested in What Jesus Would Say”; “Rumsfeld Admits War Crimes Saying What’re Going to Do About It”; “Conservatives Abandon Republican Party Seeking a Saner Alternative”;.
They would respond in mass to their heart’s content and we could have real discussion on the real topics. Just a pipe dream I know, but consider the real implication of this. Professor John Turley has now risen to the position of major irritant to the anti-Constitutionalists among us. His message is getting out and the search for truth is frightening to the trolls and their sponsors. Their proliferation is a sign of their fear and weakness.
Dr Marsupial
I’ve read your post twice. I don’t think anyone here professes to know Alaska law intimately, but perhaps you need to reread rafflaw’s post for an accurate overview. First of all, it is quite common for a legislative body, whther state or federal, to have the power to subpoena all sorts of folks. Often the sitting executive is exempt during their term of office, but not their spouse or staff. The head of the executive branch has their opportunity to do essentially the same by virtue of their Justice Dept. or state’s Attorney General or equivalent. What’s your point?
to all, I want it known, contrary to popular misconception, that I am not a Palin supporter. Even some trolls have standards. But I do not support her because I view her as another progressive(not all progressives are theocrats) with theocratic tendencies.
I submit the following article that I have recently read,
Liberal geneticist trying to clone Lenin.
MikeS: I know you cant stand me but that was funny about the articles and I believe you could get some actual fun out of it.
rcampbell, thanks ~ you wrote what I was thinking. Me thinks Dr Marsupial’s head is in the pouch.
(The trolls/righties/misguided are shrieking loudly these days. They put the country in the crapper and now we’re supposed to listen to them? As well, Obama has not been president for a month and they spew “failure” expecting more of him than they did of Bush for 8 long years or 12 of the GOP. Go figure.)
Dr. Marstupial:
“a state legislature can at will Subpeona a sitting Governor, her husband, and staff, but the Governor has zero power to do the same to the State legislature.”
**********
Either branch can subpoena members of the other. If the Executive does it, they show up in the hallway outside the Grand Jury Room. If the Legislature does it, they show up outside the hallway of the Committee Meeting Room. r campbell told you this once already. Must we break out the flash cards?
SARAH PALIN 2012 help fight the smears
christy:
“SARAH PALIN 2012 help fight the smears.”
********************
I note with interest that the ancient Mayans predicted the end of days will occur in 2012. I must say your prediction seems to track theirs almost completely. Here’s hoping confidently you both are wrong. We surely don’t need kindly ol’ cousin Sarah anywhere near the nuclear codes, assuming somebody could ever explain to her what that means. You betcha! [insert derisive wink here]
mespo,
I think a lot about the Maya.
Of all Earth’s ancient cultures, they are the one that raises questions in my mind. It has to do with one concept with which they had intimate knowledge and it relates to their calendar. Deep time. Their calendar relies on an understanding of astronomical data and concepts that to my way of thinking are really hard to reconcile with a nearly neolithic level of technology. They barely had metal working, but they were frighteningly good astronomers. It impresses me more than the buildings and they do impress. But as far as being wrong? You might want to reconsider that wish on the part of the Maya, mespo. It’s not the end of the world in the Christian sense of Armageddon. It’s just the end of a cycle. The world will go on, but the shape will change radically. Maybe that’s the key battle – the showdown between Authoritarianism and Liberalism. Just a thought.
christy
1, February 7, 2009 at 9:49 pm
SARAH PALIN 2012
I know many of us on the left sincerely hope this is the GOP ticket. Rod Blagojevich could win THAT race for President.
Is this another Witch Hunt coming fromthew Democrats to discredit someone’s reputation ??? Is this another Joe the Plumnber ?? I know that there were about 50 Obama Henchmen in Alaska during the Presidential Campaign and about 40 in Ohio investigating Joe. Isn’t it about time to take to Task the Whole Judiccial System in the United States ????
I’ve just learned that on Jan 27th, MR. (Not President) Barrak Hussein Muhammed Obama, the ARAB AFRICAN Illegal Immigrant posing as Someone Important has signed an added “Expenditure to bring a Load of Palestinians to OUR Country and give them housing, Medical Care and anything else they want. Congressman Alree, D.FL. has introduced a bill to establish Not Less than 6 Concentration Camps in OUR Country for Civilians, in case of an uprising or a Civil War against this Imposter Government. Scared Yet ???? This Imposter Pres. is bringing Foreign Troopps into OUR Country to Patrol OUR Streets and Arrest Anyone that Revolts to this ILLEGAL Government. PRAY LONG AND HARD, WE NEED SARAH AS OUR PRESIDENT, THE LEGAL ONE. GOD Bless All……..Billy Mills
Ok Billy Mills thanks for the post. Will see you at church or the Klan rally. Oh on Sarah, do you really think she can handle that President’s job– I hear the PTA faces a lot of challenges these days. Zeus Bless All to you, too.
The Palin PR team is in strategery sessions on how to brand their candidate. Let’s listen in . . .
“I don’t know, Billy. If Sarah likes it, we’ll go with it, but I think it’s a mixed message.”
“What! Why that message is a clear as Sarah’s milky white skin!”
“Billy, come on, you don’t see a problem with this sign? With this slogan?”
“‘Palin 2021 – Guarantee a Revolution!’ I think the slogan sells itself and you’re a bunch of lower 48 pansies if you don’t thinks so!”
“Billy, she’s wearing a swimsuit and peeing on the Constitution. She has a Bible in one hand and a rifle in the other . . . and the wolf, Billy, THE WOLF! Who the Hell decided she should have the bloody dead wolf carcass over her shoulders? Can’t you see that ‘Guarantee a Revolution’ might get you EXACTLY that : a revolution?”
“I think it’s a thing of beauty! You all must be Al Kai Duh! Ya bunch of limp wristed . . .”
“Billy, Billy, Billy . . . I know she’s your sister and you have a crush, but really, I’m going to have to ask her to hire a new PR guy if you keep brining me product of this poor quality. Seriously, Kinko’s and a spastic monkey could do better.”
“Well I’ll go get my gun and my bible and we’ll see whose right!”
Maybe it’s time for us voyeurs to move along . . .
buddha:
Come on. I’m laughing so hard, I can’t to work.
mespo,
Then my mission is accomplished! One lives to be of service.
But if any of you know Will Ferrell or Adam McKay, I would consider being funny professionally for a moderate amount of cash and all the beach bunnies I could chase. And California produce . . . drool.
Seriously.
Billy Mills:
Dont you think that is a bit much? Obama was, as far as we know, legally elected and he took the oath of office. Work for relief in 2010 and 2012 but please not Sarah Palin how about finding some good conservatives maybe Steve Forbes for instance or Tommy Franks or Bobby Jindal. Sarah Palin is just another populist progressive. Let her keep Alaska warm and toasty.
Bron,
Please use the words progressive and populist in proper context. She may be populist with fundamentalists, but she’s not a populist. Not even close. You need to learn to distinguish the concept of common good as derived from collectivism and how that relates to liberalism vs. communism, socialism and authoritarianism. It’d help keep you from making these kind of definitional errors re: progressives. Sarah Palin is a retrograde authoritarian Neocon appealing to an extreme fringe group. She is truly neither populist nor progressive. She’s a cartoon, not a leader.
I’ll stipulate this may be ignorance, not malice, but I won’t let smears by false association stand either. You weren’t defending her, true, but you seek to slander others you have attacked in the past by your misuse of terms. True progressive populism, not the ego-imbued poison she and the Neocons sell, just may be the only hope this country has of restoring itself. The Constitution says We the People, not We the Palin. That means what’s best for all, not just Sarah and her buddies.
The common good. The collective state of society as judged by the quality of life of it’s weakest members. The concepts of equal application and the rule of law. True progressive populism. If you try to attach those words directly or by implication to a Neocon, you are mistaken.
At best, mistaken.
Buddha:
I stand by my statement. She may be a populist of the right but she is a progressive based on things she has said (or my interpratation of things she has said) I do no think she is a true conservative and I think she would be foolish enough to step on the constitution. I have had occasion to view evangelicals up close and personal and I would not vote for one if I had a .45 held to my head, they scare the hell out of me. they truly would step on the Constitution without a moments hesitation and think that God had told them to do it. Talk about your police state! They would read you your rights all right your last rites.
this is my understading of the term and I dont think it necessarily is restricted to one side of the political spectrum.
Populism is a discourse which supports “the people” versus “the elites.” Populism may involve either a philosophy urging social and political system changes and/or a rhetorical style deployed by members of political or social movements competing for advantage within the existing party system.
No, populism says no one is elite.
Get it straight.
That’s part of the problem. The arrogance of elitism.
Buddha:
so you believe then that there can be elites on both sides of the aisle?. Personally I believe the “country club republicans” have done more to ruin the country than any democrat has. I wish they would leave the GOP. They are also responsible for some bad republican presidential candidates.
But there are different forms of elitism, are we strictly talking about the elitism created by inherited wealth or position or are we talking about any type elitism, such as the elitism that comes from doing your job well. Lets call it the arrogance of excellence.
I say we need elites in our society to carry us on to the next level, the Thomas Edisons or Michael Debakeys of the world. Without them society remains stagnant. Where would we be without Newton or Einstein or others like them? And the founders were certainly elites and they gave us a great form of government (at least i think so). Although some of the things I have read that the founders wrote lead me to believe that they were not arrogant, in fact quite the opposite.
Are you talking just plain shit head arrogance with nothing to back it up? Like the bosses degenerate son or something else?
No one is elite. I repeat. NO ONE.
That’s snake oil someone tries to sell you when they want to have control over you.
No one is special.
No one is superior.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Next time you want to bag on liberalism, you might want to remember that it was so important that Jefferson included it specifically in the Declaration of Independence. Liberty is the core of liberalism.
Don’t confuse elitism with the idea of meritocracy either. They aren’t the same thing. Elitism is a tool for repression, usually used by people who got their money and/or power in suspect manners when they don’t want too much scrutiny. Some of them rightly fear what would happen to them if the scale of their crimes were laid bare. Trust this, if an unedited tape of Cheney’s Secret Energy Task Force were made public? Everyone there would be torn apart by angry mobs. Not lynched. Made into tiny parts. Their employees and families would turn on them first. No cop would lend a hand . . . except to open the way for the crowd. It was their elitism that fostered their arrogance which relates directly to their crimes. Their sense of entitlement doesn’t given them carte blanc to screw up the world for everyone else and suffer no consequences. You kill with a pen, you kill with a gun, no difference – it’s still murder when your motive is profit. Elitism is anti-democratic, contrary to the common good and throughly anti-American. Elitism is also philosophical nonsense. It’s objectivism in drag. If someone tells me they are elite, that’s just a big red sign that says, “I an egoistic piece of shit. Everything I do and say is suspect. Do not trust me.” These are the same kind of people who say “Let them eat cake.” These are the kind of people who cried and protested their innocence until the blade fell. The “elite”. These are the kind of people who spend 1.2 million of tax payer money to redecorate their office after driving their company into the ground and losing thousands of jobs, but never the one that needs to be lost the most – their own. The “elite”. The “elite” are part of the problem, not the solution. Elitism is a form of ego worship and ego worship is evil.
No one is elite. We are all water and stardust. From the lowest of the low to the highest of the high.
End of story.
Buddha:
I tend to agree with most of what you said. and you are right meritocracy is different from elitism.
My wife went to UVA and the crowd from Richmond, VA is like you say and she could not stand them. She also thinks that Bush’s mammy fed him too much of the you are better than everyone else line.
I really do hope you are wrong about Cheney and Bush, I supported the war until about 2004 mid 2005 and then realized that we werent really there to win. The idea that this was all done for profit or because Bush wanted to avenge his father would be, as you would say, supremely evil.
I disagree about sense of self being evil, I think you need to have a positive view of yourself, otherwise you get stepped on. My view of someone who is egotistical is someone that is totally self absorbed and self indulgent and thinks his shit dosent stink. I think there is a difference.
But I do agree that there are way too many people that think they know best for us poor pitiful peons. And that is why I like free market capitalism, I dont think you would have all of these elites, they would not be able to keep their money longer than a generation maybe 2. Capitalism in the true form is too dynamic and in my view very egalitarian, if you have a work ethic and some smarts the sky really is the limit. But now I think you have a bastard stepchild that protects these rich assholes from reality.
A healthy sense of self esteem need not be ego worship. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the time in this country what passes as building self-esteem is all too often actually ego worship. A perfect example of the difference was covered in the thread about sportsmanship RE: Dallas Christian Academy vs. the Story of Jake Porter. Coach Grimes is incapable of teaching self-esteem, but perfectly adept at teaching ego worship. Jake’s coaches on the other hand exemplify the difference. Not only did Jake benefit from their actions, but the whole team and community received benefit as well.
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/01/26/christians-cant-jump-coach-grimes-fired-for-beating-girls-basketball-team-100-to-0/