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The increasing use of the concept of "our Freedoms" that the right wing has been using to promote its ideology is giving a great word a bad name. In touting his march set today at the Lincoln Memorial, the comedian Beck has put it out and about. Jon Stewart did a great job of parodying the Beckoning in his post, via video here yesterday.
A freedom that the right cherishes highly in its pantheon remains the freedom from regulation that brought us into today’s economic disaster. Yet minions of the right continue to promote that continuing anathema of responsible economists. Along with that, they promote the tax cuts for business that supposedly give jobs to an economy that needs them desperately. The fact that those same concepts have not worked, and are provably wrong, seems always to escape the right wing ideologue.
Dean Baker appeared on Maria Bartiromo’s CNBC Closing Bell show Thursday, and in the closing minutes [starting at 5:19] pointed out to her that tax cuts oriented "toward moderate income people" would indeed produce spending, which good sense she interrupted to insist that tax cuts should support business "because businesses are the one who are going to create jobs". With a little interference from fellow guest Drew Matus – who distinguished himself by supporting Bartiromo’s absurdities – Dean Baker replied that businesses have already received "$1.8 trillion in cash" and asked how much more it’s going to take for them to start that long ballyhooed job creation, to which Bartiromo replied with a high volume laugh.
The freedoms that right wing ideologues appear to prize the most are the freedom from logic, the freedom from rational thought or at least the freedom from actual proofs added to their theorems. The freedoms that they want to receive are a direct contradiction to the country’s good operating principles, and are only distinguished by the impossibility of practicing them without destroying the fragile economy further.
Of course, the freedom from Rule of Law that the administration from Hell gave us has exploded into tragedies like the freedom from jobs, the freedom from safety of our food and environment, freedom from living wages, freedom from seafood industry in the Gulf, freedom from stable independent governments in the Middle East, and that landmark great, freedom from health care for all Americans.
These clowns seem to be the top performers for the wingnuts. Freedom from brainpower seems to be their foremost characteristic.
For the good of the country, we would like to see the country get its freedom from these destructive nuisances on our air waves.
45 Comments
Hi, Ruth! Thanks for adding to the discussion at Pull Up A Chair. I’m going to try to your suggestion of hollyhocks. They might already be in my seed packet mixes.
Bartiromo is such a finance buffoon. I honestly don’t know how anyone can take her seriously.
They’re all caught up in the mob mentality bubble these days. What other choice do they have, if they want to keep their jobs?
I’ve planted some hollyhocks here, too, they’re lovely. Establish themselves in fall, bloom the next year.
Actually, I usually call her Barfarama, it’s comical how she insists the day is night, up is down, mantra of the wingnut, and tax breaks for business which has definitively proved itself not to create jobs … this time for sure, will create jobs. Seeing her argue with Dean Baker is hilarious, needs three rings for the full performance.
Hah! I love that… I might have to start calling her that, too, but, of course, I would credit you.
Freedom! I have declared Freedom and Liberty to make my own little country. Yep, right here at home. I am in the business of survival of the fittest while currently under attack.
I’m telling ya, Ruth. It’s Medieval times again.
One improvement there over this; it might be better if people were getting out and growing stuff again.
Definitely! Getting ready to set out the fall crop myself. ;-)
Bartiromo. Remember when she sneered at Anthony Weiner with the remark “Well if Medicare is so great, why aren’t you on it?” Followed by that make your skin crawl laugh. Weiner of course answered “Because I’m not old enough. I’m only 45. You have to be 65 for Medicare. I would love it.” But she didn’t hear anything because she was still hyuking it up. She is a loathesome creature.
Yes, thanks for reminding us. She evidently meets the standard for ‘business reporting’ for those corporate interests that need some one to sell products that are toxic to their purchasers.
She’s the Sophia Loren of wingnuttia.
Money Quote!! ☆ ✰ ✮ ✯!!
Thanks. It’s the freedom from rational behavior that seems most to characterize the Pre-K set that the right wing is dominated by.
You know, I’ve about reached the point where I’m ready to let the wingnuts go for it. What are they going to do when their “solutions” result in a new Depression? Even they may have difficulty painting the unemployed as lazy when the jobless number over 30% of the population. What the Democrats are doing is only postponing the evil day, so maybe the sooner we get it over with the better. Oh shoot, I guess this is just a bad day for me. Tomorrow I’ll probably feel differently.
No, I can’t let the world go under, even for those who are fighting so hard for that goal.
Sorta like when the Reagan administration shuttered mental hospitals and mental health programs all over the country under the guise of providing personal liberty?
You know, so that seriously mentally ill people could have the freedom to be disoriented and destitute, the freedom to be unencumbered by having a roof over their heads, and free to be subject to significant violence and exploitation in the parts of town most of us don’t want to walk through even in the daylight.
All those people who showed up for the Beckapalooza today? Now it’s all starting to make sense to me…
You know, even the impaired set seemed uncomfortable with the ‘rally’ that I watched, and that was really incoherent. After claiming he was going to let his god speak through him, that wasn’t much of an honor to any god. Reminds me of when Pat Robertson claimed his god had called him to run for president; if so, his god wanted him to face public humiliation.
Have they heard we are not a theocracy (another freedom, so to speak)
Too many syllables. They’ll never get it.
Another big word…perseverate….the day has made me crazy. I keep wanting to rant about not using our federal parks and lands to promote religion of any stripe…There: maybe Ive said it enough.
Believe me, any relationship to religion was nonexistent. Unless the Gettysburg Address, which at one point the Beckster began reciting, is just a deviant version of the Apostles’ Creed.
O, I thought it was reported that he wants our country to return to God…The notion of a worshipping “country” does not square for me.
True, he did go on about vaguely religious concepts, but it was so intermingled with other cant that it headed toward nothing connected with religious behavior. Oh, and he apotheosized with “Amazing Grace” on a bagpipe.
Edit: and he wanted everyone to give 10% of their income, with the mention that he needs $600K.
If he tithes, does that mean he thinks he a church? How much more can he offend!
It sure seemed that he jumped directly from that tithing concept to his own needs. I wouldn’t be surprised to see real churches object to that interpretation of this monstrosity.
Tithe to Me, may be one of the most offensive things I have heard…ever.
Worthy of the mogul horde, all about getting welfare.
Nor conversely, “worshipping,” a country.
Hello people, nice post Ruth C. Missed it this morning after PUAC. Nice how the analogy of circus and clowns came out of both of us today. Great minds…..I’m only a bit jealous of how much better polished are your uses of the metaphors. ;-)
We have the same ‘inspirations’, or at least irritants, as well. Thanks, have had to work hard at expressing things, since a lot of my career in political work has needed it.
It’s going to be interesting to see what, if any, effect this bizarre event will have on Beck’s clearly deranged quest for…whatever in the hell it is. I’m not optimistic, although I truly hope I’m wrong.
If the many times that Palin has been shown to be reality challenged had dented her following at all, I’d think this event had destroyed its perpetrator. If rational ideas were involved, it might. However, nothing of the sort is part of the right wing movement.
Absolutely; that Freedom from care has a different meaning to the wingers.
And wasn’t it also because some people like to be homeless? I think I recall….
Just talking about it that with a friend today. That was one of the cruelest acts a president has ever done IMO.
Those people could not fend for themselves at all, even to wiping their own butts.
Reagan was the beginning of laughing at and torturing the poor in this country…now, it’s an art form
Astounds me – the very first popular uprising evar!1! protecting the poor Aristocrats from the awful peons.
Nah, this happens over and over again in history. Authoritarian psychological characteristics have heavy biases for not only control, but also fealty.
“Living under a police state and deep in the bowls of a depressed economy is no way to spend your life….”
Bartiromo is bad wallpaper that’s getting thin.. It’s hard to distinguish her from the automatons over a cluster-fox because the line is so thin… She needs to retire…All the loons over at cnbc are getting tattered around the edges and really need to be replaced.
It’s just turned into another incarnation of Murdoch’s follies..
Hasn’t “trickle down economics” been discredited yet? These people never cease to amaze me. Their view of fixing the economy is how many more billions can we steal from the government and the middle class.
It’s only been discredited for the reality based. The wingnuts are still in denial.
Conservatives only want freedom for companies, not for people: that is their nature.
Book Salon up with Frances Moore Lappe’s Getting A Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want hosted by Christy Hardin Smith
Thanks dakine01,
Purchased a copy from the home-town independent book-seller, (let him order it) and haven’t read it yet. Very familiar with the author’s works. Just back from visiting (by small boat) a 4,000 acre state wildlife wetland preserve. Up a creek and a shallow lake. Had oars and a push-pole, lunch in a cooler and an intelligent, congenial acquaintance to share the mini-break.
What a good way to spend the day. I need more of this, too.
Q: What are they going to do when their “solutions” result in a new Depression?
A: Short Sell The Market and get rich.
indiemcemopants’ diary is upstairs!
“We Are Bound Together in a Single Garment of Destiny”