Dear Readers: Here we have a fourth article by An Anonymous Political Consultant, now writing under the pseudonym John Brown (Email: postpolitico@yahoo.com). His previous contributions to this site are: "Not New Ideas, but Identifying New Enemies", "Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus", and "Life in the Post Political Age".
-- Joe
By John Brown
When we look back with the benefit of hindsight at this year's presidential election, we will remember two noteworthy developments. The first and the most obvious one is the historic victory of Senator Barack Obama, and the other and much less noted one is the political birth of Governor Sarah Palin or more importantly the new prototype of conservatism her emergence represents.
Senator Obama's victory is most important in what it negated, the primary political narrative of our time. The conservative political and economic consensus, which has dominated this country since the start of the Reagan administration, is no more. Governor Sarah Palin's emergence is important in what it revealed, a snap shot into how and in what form the American right makes its comeback.
Continue reading "Sarah Palin is the Future of Conservatism" »
Dear Mr Bageant,
I am writing to tell you how much I have enjoyed Deer Hunting with Jesus, which I finished just this morning. I read the Spanish edition, Crónicas de la América profunda.
I found your book by chance, thanks to a notice in my local library (the reason why I read in Spanish and not in English, although I will try to get in the original language and have a go at it again, it's really worth it). Here in Spain, the only picture we get from your country is through the movies and the television series. We eat your food, we wear your clothes and our kids copy the ways of the downtown kids in your country (talk about paranoia -- it's really disturbing to see a Colombian kid who has barely spent two months here, living in one of the slums in Madrid, Spain, and dressing and gesticulating as a bro in the hood), but there is a great deal we miss, because it is not the stuff of television.
Continue reading "American problems are familiar in Spain" »
Dear Joe,
Here's one of the reasons I'm voting for (in fact, already voted for) Obama: he is untainted by the Vietnam War.
McCain is a very dangerous man because he is so hungry to win a war, that is, to win Vietnam. I even heard him say in one of the so-called debates, "I know how to win a war." Oh, yeah? Not much evidence of that particular competence, but lots of evidence of a deep desire -- let's say, acute obsession.
Continue reading "Sick and tired of re-fighting Vietnam War" »
Hey Joe,
I am not a Democrat, nor a Republican. I hail from the great state of
Vermont, with our independent Senator Bernie Sanders, one of the few
sane voices in Washington. I am going to vote for Obama. There is no
choice as far as I see.
Well, I made a deal with the devil last week while cutting hair in
prison. Seems all the heroin addicts that have found Jesus are voting
for McCain (yes, they can vote). Tormented by the fact that I am an
atheist, and on my way to hell, they agreed to watch the debates with
an open mind towards Obama if I in turn would read the Bible. Ha, I of
course, was thinking Wine Lovers Bible, or Poisonwood Bible, or my
mom's great Gardening Bible.
Continue reading "Bible advice for the Barberette of Beza" »
Joe,
Hi from Australia. I've just read your essay, "The Bailout in Plain
English". It's all too true. Of late, Henry Paulson, your Treasury guy,
was quoted as saying that he finds the recent US government move to buy
shares in Wall Street banks is necessary but as objectionable to those
bankers as it is to him.
Joe, as a retiree in Australia who worked his ass off for 44 years to
get enough money on which to live and now finds 40% of his retirement
fund is gone, will you please tell Hank Paulson what's fuckin'
objectionable. It goes like this, "Hank, you and your Wall Street
hyenas with your unregulated, unfettered free market Greenspan baloney
allowed this voodoo money to be AAA rated by the world's most trusted
ratings agency, that icon Standard and Poor's, so that the
multi-trillion dollar load of dog shit could be exported to banks
around the rest of the world.
Continue reading "USA betrayed itself and all its friends" »
Joe,
I came across your blog while searching for the phrase "escape from America".
I'm a 42-year-old man and I remember this country when it used to be
"free". Those days are gone, or maybe I was just naive or too dumb and
we were really never free. I don't know which.
I have been a police officer and have had a first hand look at corruption.
I hated it with a passion. After all, I got into that job to honestly
help people, not fuck them. Unfortunately, the way these laws are
written, a person has no more say as to how their children are raised
anymore. Hell, my father used to beat me when I deserved it. Try that
now and you will find yourself in prison and lose all rights to that
kid.
Continue reading "Former cop, 'deadbeat dad' having hard time" »
Dear readers,
Well, the masked political consultant blew through town the other day
painting the town with his latest message, this time a big picture
message. So big picture in fact, that it makes the ideas such as the
"framing concept" of George Lakoff look like mouse farts. Before he
again rode off on his white horse Mescalero, he left this silver bullet
for us to contemplate -- the answer to the question: "Why the neocon
bastards always seem to put six rounds into the chests of earnest
liberals in every political gunfight, and why the Christian
fundamentalists always cheer for the bad guys?"
In art and labor,
Joe
PS: Here are linked headlines to the two previous contributions to this site by our favorite anonymous political consultant: "Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus" and "Life in the Post Political Age".
By An Anonymous Political Consultant
The rise of religious fundamentalism as a political force is the most
important and misunderstood development in our recent history.
The primary motivating factor in the development of the religious right
is a defensive response to the challenges posed by the power of popular
consumer and entertainment culture and not a backlash against
progressive or liberal ideas and social movements.
Continue reading "Not new ideas, but identifying new enemies" »
Hi Joe,
I just this morning finished your book, Dear Hunting with Jesus
, which awakened me and taught me much. Thanks for writing it.
Toward the end I started to mentally resist what I perceive as your
somewhat anti-religious leaning, and after introspection I see that I
have a question to ask both you and this country at large:
Why can't a Liberal be Christian?
I have no doubt whatsoever that you will answer, "Of course a Liberal
can be Christian!" But I will suggest to you that sometimes what you
write seems to belie that answer.
Continue reading "What we need is a Christian Workers Party" »
Hi Joe,
I haven't been able to put your website down since my brother sent me
there three days ago. You are my hero. You have been able to articulate
what I have known since 1964 my first year of conscious contact with
reality that we were doomed. I tried to do something about it for the
next eight years, but gave up in 1972 when McGovern lost to Richard
Nixon. Then, I headed for the hills and valleys and woods of Humboldt
County in northern California.
So I know rural life. I am not a redneck. I am a hippie. But we all
lost the class war, so it doesn't seem to amount to much what we did or
didn't have in common. It seemed important back then and some of my
best friends were rednecks. We all hung out together at the Ivanhoe.
Continue reading "Channeling outrage, looking for the good" »