"Absolutely. It’s been so shocking to see the demonization of public servants. It’s really part of this 40-year attack on the public. And I think the fact that we’re seeing right now that teachers, public janitors, school workers, bus drivers, cops, firefighters are the new welfare queens in our public life.

I mean, really they are. I mean, if you think about the stereotype that’s being trafficked right now. They’re talking about these lazy, you know, bloated pensions that are just, you know, cheating the system. I mean, that’s the welfare queens of the 1980s. And what has been– what’s the same between the welfare queen and this image of the postal worker who doesn’t really deserve the benefits they’re getting? These old shop worn stereotypes of race and gender."

"I believe part of the meta-problem is this: people no longer inhabit a single reality.

Collectively, there is no longer a single cultural arena of dialogue…

The point, for the climate denier, is not that the truth should be sought with open-minded sincerity – it is that he has declared the independence of his corner of reality from control by the overarching, techno-scientific consensus reality. He has withdrawn from the reality forced upon him & has retreated to a more comfortable, human-sized bubble.

…denier’s retreat from consensus reality approximates role of the cellular insurgents in Afghanistan vis-a-vis the American occupying force: this overarching behemoth I rebel against may well represent something larger, more free, more wealthy, more democratic, or more in touch with objective reality, but it has been imposed upon me…so I am going to withdraw from it into illogic, emotion & superstition & from there I am going to declare war upon it."

"The sociologist Max Weber, in his 1919 essay “Politics as a Vocation,” drew a distinction between “the ethic of responsibility” and “the ethic of ultimate ends”—between those who act from a sense of practical consequence and those who act from higher conviction, regardless of consequences. These ethics are tragically opposed, but the true calling of politics requires a union of the two. On its own, the ethic of responsibility can become a devotion to technically correct procedure, while the ethic of ultimate ends can become fanaticism. Weber’s terms perfectly capture the toxic dynamic between the President, who takes responsibility as an end in itself, and the Republicans in Congress, who are destructively consumed with their own dogma. Neither side can be said to possess what Weber calls a “leader’s personality.” Responsibility without conviction is weak, but it is sane. Conviction without responsibility, in the current incarnation of the Republican Party, is raving mad."

"The protests in Wisconsin harken back to the old days of labour and class struggle in the US."<br />
<br />
"A popular item is going around in emails and Facebook pages among the people who are in solidarity with the workers protesting against anti-labour legislation in Wisconsin: A CEO, a union worker and a Tea Partier (a member of the emerging right-wing political movement) are at a table with 12 cookies. The CEO takes 11 and says to the Tea Partier: "Keep an eye on that union guy, he wants your cookie.""

"American citizens should ask themselves: I work hard and pay my taxes, so why don’t the richest people and the corporations? Why should I pick up the entire tab for keeping the nation running? Why should the people who can afford the most pay the least? If you’re happy with that situation, you can stay at home and leave the protesting to the Tea Party. For the rest, there’s an alternative. For too long, progressive Americans have been lulled into inactivity by Obama’s soaring promises, which come to little. As writer Rebecca Solnit says, “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky…. Hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.” UK Uncut has just shown Americans how to express real hope—and build a left-wing Tea Party."<br />
<br />
[Related: http://www.thenation.com/article/158280/ten-step-guide-launching-us-uncut ]

"Years from now, we will think of February 2011 as the tipping point in America’s great awakening. After all the warnings and wake-up calls, this be will remembered as the time when the American people decided to come together, confront the plutocracy that plagues our republic, and do something to change the economic inequality / instability that has grown from it. There is a tide. If you don't yet feel it, here are Ten Wake Up Calls that we predict will help define February 2011 in America.  The more people who get involved, the more meaningful it will be.  So, please share this page with others who may still need a reason to wake up and stand up."<br />
<br />
1 Egypt; 2 Bob Herbert's Challenge To America; 3 The Protest & the Prank Call in Wisconsin; 4 Johann Hari's article in The Nation; 5 It's the Inequality, Stupid; 6 The Great American Rip-off; 7 BP makes US sick; 8 House of Representatives run amok; 9 The Stiglitz Deficit-reduction Plan; 10 Tax Week, April 11 to 17, 2011."

"These three aspects of the Republican strategy – a federal budget battle to shrink government, focused on programs the vast middle class depends on; state efforts to undermine public employees, whom the middle class depends on; and a Supreme Court dedicated to bending the Constitution to enlarge and entrench the political power of the wealthy – fit perfectly together.<br />
They pit average working Americans against one another, distract attention from the almost unprecedented concentration of wealth and power at the top, and conceal Republican plans to further enlarge and entrench that wealth and power.<br />
What is the Democratic strategy to counter this and reclaim America for the rest of us?"

"Contrary to Enlightenment expectations, the uncontrolled pursuit of interests, whether by individual or a class, proved just as proficient at disturbing social peace as the mindless pursuit of glory. Neither reason, grace, nor considerations of self-interest could settle the problem of the passions once and for all…<br />
<br />
The Great Recession & Tea Party’s ire, directed at Democrats & Republicans alike, suggest that this second political dispensation is coming to an end & that Americans’ passions are ready to be redirected once again. Having been dealt a bad hand, President Obama may have only a slim chance of doing that, but he has absolutely none if he limits himself to appealing to people’s interests. That’s not been the American experience of change. In our politics, history doesn’t happen when a leader makes an argument, or even strikes a pose. It happens when he strikes a chord. & you don’t need charts & figures to do that; in fact they get in the way. You only need 2 words…"

"Americans, I have some bad news for you:<br />
<br />
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world—by a wide margin.<br />
<br />
If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.<br />
<br />
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.<br />
<br />
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.<br />
<br />
Consider this…"

"story of the modern Republican Party…use cultural signifiers of good people of Middle America to get their emotional identification, meanwhile they pillage Middle America & redistribute its wealth to the rich. Sarah Palin is the queen of this cause. She presents herself as a warrior for hockey moms & Momma Grizzlies, while spreading fictions to stop those very people supporting social programs that could save their lives: remember her claim that Obama’s healthcare plan involved setting up “death panels” to execute the old & disabled? Her true slogan is Shill, Baby, Shill.<br />
<br />
This is all made easy for Republicans by the fact that most of the Democratic Party slithers in same trough of corruption, begging from the same billionaires & corporations, and so can deliver only a tiny notch more for ordinary Americans. This makes left-liberal ideas look discredited, when in truth they are largely discarded…"

"I’m starting to understand some of the Tea Party anger. It’s grossly misdirected, but there are understandable reasons to look around at our country and wonder what the hell has gotten into everyone.<br />
<br />
Personally, I believe in George Carlin’s American Dream: the most intelligent 3 minutes and 14 seconds of political commentary spoken in a generation.<br />
<br />
Two lines from it have stuck with me and helped me mostly stop being scared or disappointed by everything that happens politically. “Be happy with what you got,” and “They’ll get it all from you, sooner or later.”<br />
<br />
I know this sounds hopeless or jaded. But it’s the only way I can cope with American politics. Have you ever known someone who worried constantly and irrationally about all of the dangers that could happen to them (say, on planes) and could barely function in their lives? And you just want to tell them, “Stop worrying about everything! You’ll be fine!”"

"every 100 years, body politic we call America swells with fever as it fights off a democracy-destroying disease [of] "Special Interest Government," government captured by economically powerful, as they find a way to convert economic into political power…now entered 3rd of these cycles…corruption of today is in plain sight…Some of us thought Obama was our Jackson…feels embarrassingly naive today…Arianna Huffington has become a leader…Along w/ scholar/activists such as Elizabeth Warren, Simon Johnson, Joseph Stiglitz & Robert Reich, & maybe even come-back-kid politicians like Eliot Spitzer…Progressivism in its best sense is not just a politics of Left…needs to be willing to put aside part of the agenda of each w/in movement, recognizing that no change, on Right or Left, will happen until the fever is broken…Mainstream parties have lost the credibility for reform. As in 1912, only a breakaway, trans-party movement, possibly with no single leader, could have an effect in 2012."

"A democracy depends on informed electorate to survive…alarming number of Americans & majority of Republicans are misinformed…did not arrive at such conclusions on own…persuaded by relentless process of insinuation, strategic silence & cynical misinformation…speak in coded words & allow implications to sink in…have an agenda…seek to demonize Obama Presidency & mainstream liberal politics in general…conservatism they prefer is not traditional conservatism of…Taft, Nixon, Reagan, Buckley or Goldwater…frightening new radical fringe movement, financed by such as newly notorious billionaire Koch brothers, whose hatred of gvt extends even to opposition to tax funding for public schools…time is here for responsible Americans to put up or shut up. I refer specifically to those who have credibility among guileless & credulous citizens who have been infected w/ notions so carefully nurtured. We cannot afford to allow next election to proceed under cloud of falsehood & delusion."

"George Orwell never thought that his work would outlive him by much. After all, he considered himself “a sort of pamphleteer” rather than a genuine novelist, and confidently predicted that readers would lose interest in his books “after a year or two.” Yet sixty years later, Orwell endures, and I am not sure that this is a good thing...

"I'm harping on this point of Republican opposition to empathy because I find it so astonishing. This is not something I would ever have accused them of. "You think empathy is a Bad Thing" is a really low, nasty thing to accuse someone of.

"These are signs seen primarily at Tea Party Protests.

"I hear GOP folks and Tea Partiers bemoaning the fact that media and Democrats are using the extremes of their movement for ratings and to score points. This is like Drew Brees complaining that Dwight Freeney keeps trying to sack him. If that were Martin Luther King's response to media coverage, the South might still be segregated. I exaggerate, but my point is that the whining reflects a basic misunderstanding of the rules of protest. When you lead a protest you lead it, you own it, and your opponents, and the media, will hold you responsible for whatever happens in the course of that protest. This isn't left-wing bias, it's the nature of the threat."

"That tsunami of anger is gathering today is illogical, given what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either Civil Rights Act or Medicare...explanation is plain: health care bill is not main source of anger, never has been...merely handy excuse...real source of over-the-top rage of 2010 is same kind of national existential reordering that roiled US in 1964...conjunction of black president & female speaker of House — topped off by wise Latina on Supreme Court & powerful gay Congressional committee chair — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling & threatened minority...no matter what policies were in play...Demographics are avatars of change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama/Congress...By 2012...non-Hispanic white births will be minority. Tea Party movement is virtually all white. Republicans haven’t 1 African-American in Senate/House since 2003 &...only 3 total since 1935. Their anxieties about rapidly changing America are well-grounded."