I love that woman, adore her. Go ahead and make fun of her weaknesses. She's smarter than other people and righter too.

>>"I always thought that the Democratic Party is the freedom party -- but I must be living in the nostalgic past."

How many times can Paglia tell us she "always thought this" about the Dems? And how many times must I read that she has only now realized it ain't so?

Jody, I believe Camille was speaking rhetorically... I've seen her write about this before, although never quite so forcefully, I'll admit.

I want to touch on a couple of things from the quoted piece:

"This is, I submit, a stunning turn away from the anti-authority and anti-establishment principles of authentic 1960s leftism. "

I had an opportunity once to ask David Horowitz about this. His response was that the '60s Left's professed belief in liberty and individualism was always a sham: "We wanted our rights to use as tools to take away everyone else's rights."

Another bit from Camille: "Is it because the new professional class is a glossy product of generically institutionalized learning? "

That's a good guess. We're now seeing the rise to political power of the first generation to really be indoctorinated in leftist thinking throughout its schooling. I managed to dodge that bullet because when I was in public primary education in the early '70s, it was so dysfunctional that it could neither educate nor indoctorinate. (The perverse result of the late '70s-early '80s reform movement in primary education was that it made it a much better indoctorination machine.) And when I was in college in the early '80s, the Marxist march through the institutions had not yet managed to reach the state schools in the smaller states.

And I wanted to add: In terms of being detatched from ordinary Americans, the Republican Party leadership isn't much better. The difference between the two is that the GOP hasn't managed to whip all of its idea people into conformity the way the Democrats have.

Both parties need to go. Neither server the average person anymore. (if they ever did) They cater to extreme factions within their parties. Richard Prior got it right in Brewster's Millions. Why is the choice None of the Above never on ballots? I bet I know why.

"Both parties need to go. Neither server the average person anymore."

Good lord, I would hope for a party that would not ever, ever serve the average person and his wants! The average person would loot my purse to fund his home shopping network jones, claim disability income for life, and then use his idle time to further meddle in how I live. (Jaysus commands it, don't you know?)

I want a party that will respect liberty so much it will defend mine against the average person's predatory ways.

The tyranny of parties serving the average person is precisely what I want to avoid. The average person is a greedy idiot, looking to get something for nothing.

Agree that both parties fail to serve the average person anymore.

Also, I saw the indoctrination-style education at work in college at the University of Michigan when I took a class in women's studies. There just was no questioning what was taught, which is the antithesis of what university education is supposed to be. This was, however, probably the most educational class I ever took (besides "Critical Thinking," a logic class I took in high school). I taught myself after that to question everything. (They kept telling me how men really were, and it flew utterly in the face of anything I'd ever experienced. No, my dad isn't a "rapist," but a guy who wouldn't jaywalk, who paid my way through college and told me I could do anything boys could do...within reason, of course.)

I want a party that will respect liberty so much it will defend mine against the average person's predatory ways.

Agree, but when I hear-heared this, I was thinking of the ways legislators pander to special interests and pass laws that will screw the pooch like this health care "reform."

Too bad Camille can't end her abusive relationship with the Democratic Party. She rants and raves, (and I agree with her) but in the end, she always gives them her vote.

>>I believe Camille was speaking rhetorically... I've seen her write about this before, although never quite so forcefully, I'll admit.

Cousin Dave,
I take your point - but the rhetorical tic itself is getting awfully tired.

Paglia also asks, possibly again rhetorically: How has "liberty" become the inspirational code word of conservatives rather than liberals?

Since when was "liberty" an especially liberal cry anyway?
(And "liberty" in the mouths of politicians is ALWAYS partisan code for something else.)

> how many times must I read

> She rants and raves, (and
> I agree with her)

So we've established that the party is a loathsome corruption of the responsible liberal impulse... Great! The healing has begun. Remember to Vote Republican.

I read this and wonder where Paglia has been for the last 40 years or so? The anti-establishment types in the Democratic party were crushed in 1968. Since then the party has come to parrot the right's intrusive "War" on drugs and needlessly interventionist foreign policy, while pushing more government control of things like health care and education. In short, there is absolutely nothing that is being proposed or done right now that should surprise anyone who has been paying a modicum of attention to our national politics in recent years.

Paglia's feigned outrage has to be disingenuous. Perhaps a product of her inexplicable Palin crush?

"So we've established that the party is a loathsome corruption of the responsible liberal impulse... Great! The healing has begun. Remember to Vote Republican."

In fact, I (mostly) vote Libertarian. Don't act like the lunkhead Republicans are any less moronic and power-hungry, particularly those in the legislative branch. If more people voted like me, we might actually see some incumbents get tossed out on occasion.

> If more people voted > like me

Politics!

Don't act like the lunkhead Republicans are any less moronic and power-hungry, particularly those in the legislative branch.

But Republicans are so much better when it comes to managing budgets and controlling runaway spending! Right?

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/03/fiscal-responsibility-party-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

I'd think she was brilliant anyway, but soooo glad to see (it would seem) Paglia seems to be coming around...

I pretty much see Paglia's point, but as others have pointed out, her nostalgia seems more than a little misplaced. Further, how seriously can you take someone who seems to have drawn inspiration from a Fleetwood Mac tune, Castenada-based or not? Does she mean we're supposed to follow the visions of stoned people?

A life-long Democrat, I will be registered as an Independent before the next election. I did not leave the Democrats -- they left me. (Pun intended.)

I have a feeling that Paglia's diatribe against the Democrats is intended more to bully them into coming around to her way of thinking than it is to express dismay at how the party has changed.

I'm still a huge Camille Paglia fan. But her "progressives were so much better back in my day" schtick is wearing thin.

She's not living in the nostalgic past using Woodstock as an example of Democrats being the party of "freedom" and "liberty." She's living in a fog of aging hippie self-delusion. Wasn't it less than a year before Woodstock that a Democratic mayor sicced baton-wielding riot police on a Democratic protest crowd at the Democratic convention in Chicago?

And with all the amateur-hour Obama mis-steps Paglia catalogues, how is it that she is still an ardent Obama supporter and continues to blame everyone in the Administration except Obama? What will it take for her to realize (and admit) that the man is out of his depth? That he is drowning and taking the country with him?

And, Camille, it's not Nancy Pelosi's fault Obama is struggling. It's Obama's. He hired Van Jones. He hired Geithner. He let Pelosi and Reid write a slew of pork-packed legislation and pushed it as his own program.

Obama's got an unstoppable majority in Congress and he still can't get his legislation passed. If every Democrat voted for his programs and every Republican voted against, the vote wouldn't even be close.

"It was as if Democrats live in a utopian dream world, divorced from the daily demands and realities of organization and management."

"What a backbiting mess the GOP is! It lacks even one credible voice of traditional moral values on the national stage and is addicted to sonorous pieties of pharisaical emptiness."

Come on, Camille. Anyone who has been paying attention for the past twenty-five years (or more) knows neither the Democrats nor the Republicans in Congress should be allowed to run lemonade stand, much less an actual country.

Reagan took a demoralized GOP after the tragedy known as Nixon and created a GOP associated with tax cutting, budget cutting and a strong military that isn't an eager beaver expeditionary force. His vision ruled for 12 years.
GOP with its current leadership is a waste. Palin had a real vision along the lines of Reagan, but bolder on the need to cut government spending. She has since been discredited, unfairly, but after Obama, American voters won't elect another inexperienced President in 2012. But they will listen to her closely as the fiscal disaster Obama is creating sinks in.

Democrats and Republicans - neither! - are listening to younger voters. Even if Americans in general think voting for a third party means "wasting your vote," most of them are generally libertarian in their views.

Look at the Republicans - they waste their time bitching about abortion and gays, and no one under the age of 50 really thinks women should be forced to have babies they don't want, or that homosexuality is an "immoral lifestyle choice."

The Democrats are equally pathetic - their ass-kissing of unions, when hardly anyone in the private sector belongs to a union anymore, and their love of bureaucratic, big-government programs. That is so last century! Anyone with a working brain knows the free market is the way to get what you want. You can't have prosperity with a negative cash flow, and people know this. The only reason anyone is still a Democrat is that they don't want to sound like an old white guy.

A pox on both their houses, I say.

Yeah, bring on Sarah Palin. Maybe her running mate will be Mark Sanford, Gov. South Carolina.
Go Republicans.
Please. The R-Party represents what? Perma-war in Iraqistan? Tax cuts for the rich, while saying we have to sacrifice to beat Pan-Islamism?
Universal military duty? Homophobia?
Creationism?
State's rights, unless states want to legalize pot?
We saw Bu$h for eight years, and we got stuck in Iraqistan, our economy was in the toilet, Clinton's surpluses had become ruinous deficits, and ethanol (a wheel-spinning farm subsidy) had become our energy policy.
Bu$h made the 1968 Mets look like winners. Bu$h was about a strong and smart as used toilet paper. Bush was the vile excretum from the rotten bowels of the R-Party.
What the R-Party puts up in 2012 will likely be worse. The R-Party base is looking...peevish, mean-spirited and vicious.
At least the Obama team shows up for work. I do wish we would pull out today fr Iraqistan, but on most other issues, Obama is doing well enough with the terrible hand he inherited from Bu$h.
We are nearly through the Bu$h recession already. Better times ahead.

I-hole, you've said some pretty silly shit on these threads, but that was one giant, fucking, eye-watering, delusional, turd of a post...

In what world does throwing more money at a deficit pull us out of a recession?

YES it's all McChimpyHitler Halliburtan's fault!!

I can't wait 'til that dude's out of office!

Obama is not looking too great right now, but probably a shade better than Clinton at this time in his administration. If some sort of healthcare bill passes (and that is looking likely with Snowe and Bacus both sounding persuadable) and the economy is looking up next year (also likely for a varety of reasons, including Rahm's cynical Clinton-style maneuvering that has the majority of stimulus funding hitting in 2010), the Democrats will not lose their majorities, Obama will look like a winner, and likely get a second term.

I'd love to see Palin run, though. That would be a treat. Not as much as Michelle Bachman. But still.

"and no one under the age of 50 really thinks women should be forced to have babies they don't want, or that homosexuality is an "immoral lifestyle choice.""

Bah to that. Plenty of us do. And I'm not even near 50.

"Plenty of us do. And I'm not even near 50."

Well good for you - you can probably vote Republican without feeling sick to your stomach then.

Feeble: Monetary policy can only accomplish so much--when people lose confidence (as they did under Bu$h jr.) then the economy contracts. It was the worst recession since the Great Depression.
Deficit spending is necessary now--unlike when Bu$h jr. took office. He inherited strength. He left us weak. Our financial system nearly collpased, after eight years of Bu$h jr. What more is there to discuss?
Obama is not perfect, but like I said, at least he shows up for work. Bu$h jr., among his many foibles, seemed very lazy. After eight years, he still had the whiff of dilettante about him. Little Lord Fauntleroy jesting at being El Presidente.
I expect better days ahead. I sure hope we never get such a poor president as Bu$h jr, again.
The R-Party is looking mean, surly, peevish, unpatriotic, ugly and vicious right now. I expect a Sarah Palin-tyoe to win the R-Party nomination in 2012, just as economy recovers fairly well. I think they will get crushed.
If you study history, you will find political parties and movement, after taking a beating, usually return to the base. And the R-Party base...whoo-ee. If you think I am far out, wait until you see the R-Party platform for 2012. Maybe women won't be able to wear pants anymore in America either.

>> Deficit spending is necessary now

I hole. Stay off the sauce, k?

Oh, and have a nice day.

I know it has become fashionable amongst some to poo-poo Sarah Palin without much explanation why. I, for one, have been carefully reading her frequent postings on Facebook and they make a whole lot of sense to me: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000046225611&ref=ts#/sarahpalin?v=app_2347471856&viewas=544411369&ref=ts

"In what world does throwing more money at a deficit pull us out of a recession?"

The world of Keynes and his adherents, including many Nobel Prize winners.

They have a body of work that does not convince me, but it cannot be dismissed as without merit. And until recently, they held the pole position in the realm of economic studies. I am not saying they are right, but their arguments are not crackpot nonsense.

It was only in recent decades that the Chicago School and other neoconservative (that does not mean Iraq policy) economists beat back Keynesian policy prescriptions.

The current White House administration is obviously very taken with Keynesian notions, as we can see.

Obama is not looking too great right now, but probably a shade better than Clinton at this time in his administration. If some sort of healthcare bill passes (and that is looking likely with Snowe and Bacus both sounding persuadable) and the economy is looking up next year (also likely for a varety of reasons, including Rahm's cynical Clinton-style maneuvering that has the majority of stimulus funding hitting in 2010), the Democrats will not lose their majorities, Obama will look like a winner, and likely get a second term.

Lay off the political analysis. You're doing it wrong.

If the healthcare bill passes, the economy will not recover by 2012.

And if you consider the things in the pipeline after healthcare, it might not recover ever.

The unions (SEIU in particular) has offered their support in pushing Obamacare through in return for quick action on Card Check, which will deliver millions of people to unions, whether they want to join or not. That one bill alone threatens to crush small businesses.

Oh, and Car and Trade is still on the table, and Obama wants that this year too. And it will essentially increase energy costs across the board by a factor of at least 2.

I hope he fails. Because success for Obama's agenda means the end of America.