Comments on: Leftist cartoonist gets his wakeup call

By: Eri

Eri — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:22:20 +0000

Let’s see if it squishes more. We got to get a pun going one of these days.

By: Eri

Eri — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:20:51 +0000

I’ve never heard those lyrics. What a hoot! I assume that’s to Linda Ronstadt’s song tune for When Will I Be Loved?

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 21 May 2011 19:16:09 +0000

Fine, I hope we do it your way. I hope nothing is done and the whole system falls into the void. Medicare is many tens of trillions of dollars in the red. A total collapse is exactly what this house of cards needs.

By: TB

TB — Sat, 21 May 2011 05:12:27 +0000

That actually works in “squish!”

By: ER

ER — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:50:18 +0000

A SIMPLE DESULTORY PHILIPPIC
Paul Simon

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I’m blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed.
That’s the hand I use, well, never mind!

I been Phil Spectored, resurrected.
I been Lou Adlered, Barry Sadlered.
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay.
And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,
And all my wealth won’t buy me health,
So I smoke a pint of tea a day.

I knew a man, his brain so small,
He couldn’t think of nothin’ at all.
He’s not the same as you and me.
He doesn’t dig poetry. He’s so unhip that
When you say Dylan, he thinks you’re talkin’ about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was.
The man ain’t got no culture,
But its alright, ma,
Everybody must get stoned.

I been Mick Jaggered, been silver daggered.
Andy Warhol, won’t you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled,
Been Roy Halee’d and Art Garfunkel’d.
I just discovered somebody’s tapped my phone.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Fri, 20 May 2011 19:48:37 +0000

Sure, sure…squishing to the RIGHT’s just fine wiith you, isn’t it? What about left squishers, huh???

By: TB

TB — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:30:14 +0000

Nice to see that this board “squishes” to the right like the other ones. Nostalgia…

By: TB

TB — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:22:05 +0000

The 2010 election was about economics. Go back and look at what the Republicans ran on. Try and find any mention of things like abortion in the campaign by the winners. The skepticism on the Tea Party is being engineered. As an exercise on media coverage, look up references to Republican politicians and ideas as “extreme.” Then try and find any mention of Democratic politicians and ideas as “extreme.” “Polarization” is used all the time, but somehow as far as the media is concerned, we’re dealing with a monopole.

By: mcfly

mcfly — Fri, 20 May 2011 18:11:38 +0000

Point taken.

I see both sides as culpable in this, though. As we’ve recently seen, too many “fiscal conservatives” have a thinly veiled but highly intrusive social agenda, so the Tea Party will have to forgive my mounting skepticism over their supposedly simple theme.

As ER says, the polarization of politics is not serving us well at all. “Us vs Them” is in danger of eclipsing “Us as Americans,” imho.

Moderates–true moderates, not MINO–have to work harder to drag the debate and the language out of the war zone.

By: TB

TB — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:53:12 +0000

The problem is that both “compromise” and “extreme” have been redefined. Obamacare, and its method of passage, was not “extreme.” The Tea Party movement, which was built around a simple theme of lower spending and lower taxes, is “extreme.” Why? “Compromise” apparently means the right giving up things while the left gives up nothing. Did you watch the last budget fight? The Democrats were rending their garments over something like $40 billion in spending cuts out of a $3.5 trillion budget with trillion-plus deficits. What’s the “moderate” position there? Where do you compromise on that? Eventually, the Senate ended up with a pathetic spending cut that in many ways wasn’t even a spending cut.

Language is being used as a weapon here. Be careful.