the defeatists!

You miss out on some things living in the ole Crossroads of Opportunity

Thanks...Anorak. Was it a son or a daughter who pissed in the wine and called it retchsina? Here, General Cucumber Dip defeats General Falafel...

Quote read by an idiot, missing the entire point

Twitshit de la Dweeb went down to Monticello for the Fourth. He made on of those unfortunate things that people call speeches. The usual inarticulate and whiny stuff, I'm sure with the gamut of facial expressions and idiocy. And then he read a quote from Jefferson, obviously found and bowdlerized by his speakifiying minions...This is what Jefferson wrote:

May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. (AXE Emphasis)

Guess which part his monkeys with the typewriters decided to leave out? I mean, of course, his semi-intelligently designed speechifying typist type guys...

I think that Bush would make Jefferson think fondly of Adams, and Cheney would make him fall madly in love with Aaron Burr.  Is Bush himself capable of constructing a sentence in such a Ciceronian fashion? No. Devolution lives anew...Of course, Jefferson was drawing inspiration from Locke, Hume and the Enlightenment, and inspired at times by people like Thomas Paine. Bush, I suspect, is getting his faked inspiration from B- students from Regis University who didn't have the grades to get into their law or divinity schools...with an assist from whomever Cheney wants him to think like. Grover Norquist. Milton Friedman. Ayn Rand...

,So, in addition to being crazy, the fucker lies! Or, he copulates with the Great Whore...

Wonder if Cincy McCain has a stable for this animal?

At the age of 9, I asked a Baptist friend of mine if he wanted to go to a Church thing we were doing. He said no, he couldn't because "you Catholics worship the devil..." Obviously, it made an impression on me. Kid's name was Johnny something, and he had a clover shaped birthmark on his forehead. So, I said no we don't and even then, having the Crusader AXE approach to business, in the true Irish-Catholic spirit of ecumenism and Christian fellowship, I beat him up.

So, the idea of the Catholic Church being "the great whore" or the "Apostate Church" is an essential part of some Protestant Theology that percolated to my pre-teen buddy. Any study of the Reformation and the theology of Luther, Calvin, Cramner, Knox, Wycleff, the Anabaptists, Billy Sunday; Jonathan Edwards,Cotton Mather, Billy Graham...well, you get the picture -- they all hated the Catholic Church. Ian Paisley whom I believe has some tenuous connection with Hagee, Pat Robinson, Bob Jones Univesity and the like would preach that the IRA was funded by the Vatican to help set the stage for a successful invasion of the British Isles by the Communists along with their ally, the Pope in Rome. So, disingenuous isn't strong enoughfor this nonsense:

Hagee has often made references to "the apostate church" and the "great whore," terms that Catholics say are slurs aimed at the Roman Catholic Church. In his letter, Hagee said he now better understood that the Book of Revelation's reference to the Catholic Church as "the apostate church" and the "great whore" are "a rhetorical device long employed in anti-Catholic literature and commentary." He stressed that in his use, "neither of these phrases can be synonymous with the Catholic Church."

Not unlike the claim of some racists that when they use the word Nigger, they aren't talking about Blacks. Or, the "some of my best friends are..." So, either this guy is a lying sack of shit or he doesn't understand the history and traditions of his faith. Of course, the Catholic League's Bill Dougherty is equally batshit here.

Donohue, one of Hagee's sharpest critics, said he accepted the apology and planned to meet with Hagee Thursday in New York. "I got what I wanted," Donohue said in an interview. "He's seen the light, as they like to say. So for me it's over."

Well, Bill is easier satisfied than I. Then again, his blovations are similar enough in style and tenor to be from Hagee's pulpit. For me to believe Hagee, he needs to go to Rome and submit to the Pope as the head of the one true Catholic, Apostolic Church. Because unless he's lying, incredibly ignorant or has had a stroke, his claims in this case are equivalent to McCain's discussion of Obama as Hamas favorite son. While not as offensive since they are in the form of a psuedo-apology, they are at least as ludicrous. 

Somewhere in the canon of James Joyce, there is a passage where Buck Mulligan asks Stephen Dedalus why he doesn't just become a Protestant. The response is classic, to the effect that he refused to exchange a logically consistent absurdity for a logically inconsistent absurdity. Believing Hagee's apology is an example of a logically inconsistent absurdity.

Hey History,,,I need a little information

"There's a streak of sadism that comes through loud and clear in any Lawrence biography, and it's most noticeable here in the accounts of Lawrence recklessly blowing up trains and using unnecessarily large quantities of explosions. As one of his British companions put it: "We could indulge in a love of destruction which had lain latent in us since we were small boys."

"But perhaps the most shocking quote in the book comes from Lawrence's friend and ally, Feisal ibn Hussein, who became the king of Iraq in 1921.

"Shortly before he died in 1933, he claimed that there is "no Iraqi people but unimaginable masses of human beings, devoid of any patriotic idea, imbued with religious traditions and absurdities connected by no common tie, giving ear to evil, prone to anarchy and perpetually ready to rise against any government whatever."

Cool. We've been fucked with the pillars of wisdom.  IOZ will be soooo happy.

http://rhaplinks.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=4437757&type=playlist&title=Playlist&from=real

Oh Jesus bless us, he was born with teeth and so I was which plainly signified

'O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!'
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.  That's from Act V, Scene VI of Henry VI  It's one of the soliloquies of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who will ultimately be Richard III  and a favorite of Defeatists world over. He wasn't anywhere near as bad as he was painted, and compared to his immediate successors, could be a RFK figure, cut down in his prime by treachery, greed, and the over-reaching ambitions of lesser men. Anyway, the reason I mention it is not because I watched the Doctor Who rerun concerning his visit with Martha to the Globe theater putting me in a Shakespearian mood, but because of the Chelsea Clinton "pimped out" imbroglio.

I find myself in an odd position; I'm about to defend the Clinton family and Billary. For some reason, the Conservative loonie fringe hears that name and goes absolutely batshit. II'm not sure why, except that Bubba did a lot of the things that they had wanted to do -- end welfare, minimize the social security safety net, balance the budget, pay down the national debt, fuck interns-- while pretending to be a liberal. Perhaps it's because he's decidely heterosexual, and the R's prefer their predators to be pedophiles? Hillary is not Jackie Kennedy, but she's at least as attractive as Laura Bush, and Chelsea is actually a very bright and accomplished young woman, especially compared to Bush I's boys and Bush II's girls. I recommend the Wikpedia article about her. Legacies doen't graduate with distinction from Stanford. Legacies don't go to work for McKinsey. She is also quite attractive, despite the harping on her appearance since her dad's inauguration by the beautiful people of the left -- Coulter and Limbaguh. (Guys, here's a test for -- who'd you rather wake up next to? Chelsea or Annie?)

But, oddly enough, the Clintons drive a lot of people on the left of center batshit as well. The last Democratic president before Bubba was Jimmy Carter who is personally far more admirable as a human being, but was something of a disaster as a president. So, the whole MSNBC thing really has to be seen in context. Chelsea has been a lot less obnoxious than the Bush twins at the Republican convention, and is not running a blog or badmouthing Obama. She's actually less obnoxious than by far than McCain's mother. She's standing on the stage, doing the Clinton Clap/Clap/Point/Point and really not getting in the way of anybody's outsized ambitions. She's supporting and helping her mother. Hardly being pimped out. What the fuck was David Schuster thinking with that line, and I think Bill could have made some points by following his instincts, going to MSN and slappiong the little weasel silly. Instead, they triangulate, which is sad. One of the most admirable things about the Clintons has been their desire to let her achieve everything she can and to protect her.

You know, I gotta say my fellow alumni Chris Matthews and Dulcinea Dowd and a whole host of other more or less left of center, Irish-Catholic types who went to places like Holy Cross, Georgetown, Catholic U and Notre Dame have real Clinton issues over the sex. Do we seriously believe that if Eleanor Roosevelt had thought it possible,  that she might not have run for President? FDR died in the lap of his goddamn mistress and I suspect that there was a fair amount of philandering going on in the White House over the centuries anyway. But Matthews claim that the only reason Hillary Clinton has a chance is because Bill had a midlife crisis is nonsense. We IRish are constitutionally unable to like the Clintons, so we annoint a complete nonentity as the second coming of JFK. If the Irish could ever get over their hangups about sex, we'd rule the world!!!

Thinking back to Richard, he was probably a normally handsome man and an accomplished warrior whose weapon of choice in battle was the...battle-AXE. He was unfairly villified by characters as sanctified as Thomas More -- who was a creature of politics, Wolsley and sexual repression -- and Shakespeare. Perhaps it's a reach to compare the Clintons to the Yorkist side of the Plantagents but I'm not sure. I think this is fairly straight forward -- David Schuster is a weasel and Chris Matthews a prude and MSNBC has decided to annoint Barack Obama.

doo-wop (that thing it is you do?)

shorter Atrios:

                                    TREEHORN
                         People forget,

              He taps his forehead with one finger.

                        that the brain is the
                        biggest erogenous zone--

                                    DUDE
                        On you, maybe.

                                    TREEHORN
                        Of course, you have to take the good with
                        the bad.  The new technology permits
                        us to do very exciting things in
                        interactive erotic software.  Wave
                        of the future, Dude.  100% electronic.

                                    DUDE
                        Hmmm.  Well, I still jerk off
                        manually.

we here at Defeatist Central have flung ourselves all willy-nilly onto our swords on many an occasion.  it's fun!  now I run mostly on intuition, and four things stick out to me about the defeatists in our midst: 1.if what you're doing, blogging, is not fun or fulfilling (something) in some way, then why are you doing it?  2.show me how exactly blogging has changed or upset the structures that bind us.  3.show me how you've infiltrated the existing structures and morphed them from within (via the internet, like arthroscopically and shit).  4.what sort of sad person does not do this for fun, and thinks this is the new means for ch ch ch changes!? (sing it) 

now, there is nothing as satisfying or enjoyable as being completely and utterly useless.  that is simple and resistant anarchy:

That's when [Fry Pan Jack] told me - you know, he'd been tramping since 1927 -
he said, "I told myself in '27, if I cannot dictate the conditions of my labor,
I will henceforth cease to work."  Hah!  You don't have to go to college to
figure these things out, no sir!  He said, "I learned when I was young that the
only true life I had was the life of my brain.  But if it's true the only real
life I have is the life of my brain, what sense does it make to hand that brain
to somebody for eight hours a day for their particular use on the presumption
that at the end of the day they will give it back in an unmutilated condition?"
Fat chance!

but to sit up at attention in one's barcalounger and bellow across the tubes that this is simply not the case, and to whack those that are pointing out a simple truth, and to settle back into the chair, somehow satisfied, is well...sad.

It's rather odd to spend all your time following political news and blogs if the only reason to do it is to provide justification for your view that All Is Lost. Just go out and have some fun instead.

I don't know what he does for work, but I work tangentially for a local government, which is constantly pointing out to me how hopeless everything is, because even at this level, it's bad, real bad, and if I didn't have this to entertain myself, I might just go insane. 

so entertain myself I will.  and we do.  one of the best scenes, I think, from the favorite of all favorite Defeatist movies, TBL, is this:

                                    CHIEF
                         Mr. Treehorn draws a lot of water in
                         this town, You don't draw shit Lebowski.
                         Now we got a nice quiet little beach community
                         here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet.
                         So let me make something plain.  I don't like you
                         sucking around bothering our citizens,
                         Lebowski.  I don't like your jerk-
                         off name, I don't like your jerk-off
                         face, I don't like your jerk-off
                         behavior, and I don't like you, jerk-
                         off. Do I make myself clear?

               The Dude stares absently.

                                     DUDE
                         I'm sorry, I wasn't listening.

if there is one thing the internet and blogs have helped the "royal we" sharpen, cultivate and hone, it is the art of the Fuck You.  which I think is the greatest thing ever, because it is one of the best tools we have for upsetting the powers that be.  (from fruitcake to f-bombs and back again, baby!)  I can probably find a fake picture of Bush humping two midget twins on the internet somewhere, and I can also find amazing essays and posts that tickle the best parts of my brain, that inspire and invoke and sadden.  (maybe we're making rebel music)  both of these products of blogging do in fact shape and manipulate the political, if that is the intention.  both are as useful as they are useless.  but, what is the utility, or the effectiveness, of blogging, or for that matter, a blogger?  feh!  not one damn thing I do or write on the internet is going to un-President the President, bring the troops home, dismantle our government, or bring about any noticeable change to the machine.  a million of us chirping away in the tubes won't either.  what we're here for, really, is to commiserate, to backslap, to create a little, to share, and to maybe, you know, learn something in the process.  because no matter how hard we try, when we close the browser window, we go back to the world as we know it. 

nothing is as defeatist as thinking otherwise.

the revolution will not be blogged

blogging for me is like talking to an answering machine: nobody is really home, or they're hiding from you, or listening and snickering.  the feeling you get from blogging is similar: you know noone is listening, but you're trying real hard to get past the voice in your head that has you questioning your tone and forgetting the reason you called in the first place.  this awareness can be pretty creepy, especially when compounded, globally!  ahh!  holy shit!  the whole world is listening; good god!  what shall I say?  typical blogging is about as satisfying as masturbation: you know what the outcome is going to be, and hopefully nobody is there to witness your throes of self-inflicted agony.  most people are pretty content seeing the words they type magically appear on the internet.   some of it is real good, some of it is real bad.  pictures help.  it is important that the author(s) recognizes the inherent self-aggrandizing nature of the medium; witness their propensity for vanity and understand the absolute futility of one person reaching out and writing to an entire world - on the internet, no less!  the blogger, no matter how good they are, must realize that they're special and unique, just like everyone else.  for some this is not enough.  witness:

One of my pet peeves has long been a certain strain of defeatism.
Understandably we all feel defeated at times, but there's a certain
kind of defeatist out there on the internets, people who spend most of
their time chastising others for thinking it's possible to have any
influence and attacking the "stupidity" of those who even bother to
try. Maybe those people are right. Maybe there never is anything to be
done. But if that's the case, get a new goddamn hobby. It's rather odd
to spend all your time following political news and blogs if the only
reason to do it is to provide justification for your view that All Is
Lost. Just go out and have some fun instead.

wow, a pathetic diatribe attacking trolls.  a troll, to trolls!  from, get this, an internet troll!  to paraphrase Atrios: get out, you fools!  and let the professionals get r done!  seriously, people, listen up!  how will we ever reach a consensus with all these damn people kicking my shins and tripping me up?  do they not fathom the importance of this, that which I just wrote, and the movement, man, the freaking movement.  so what if I'm wrong?  you're the one's who are slowing down the structure and mechanisms of real motherfucking change, yo!  begone!  we, brothers, we have the power to affect, and effect even, real change...if only.  if only! 

if only, Atrios, you didn't suck large donkey dong. 

you'll note that we've been blogging here at Defeatist Central for about 3 years now, and we're as organized as a bunch of old college roommates trying to get to the homecoming pre-game parking lot party.  we've organized nothing, contributed little, snarked and poked and slipped and joked our way through the tubes, creating a vast log of half-thoughts, some semi-truths, but mostly we've just generated ironic and back-handed insults and wise-cracks laid in disgust.  and that's about as good as this gets, or is supposed to get.  there's no rallying spot.  this shit is digital, man.  people don't run home to check out the hot blogging action at Kos or whatever.  (I myself am a 43 year old, 400 pound, blonde tipped, brunette at the roots, female shut-in, to, I am sure, many people's surprise.  there's not a lot of rushing going on here.)  and yet, we're as relevant as the next guy.  which is cool.  if there is anything blogging, and the internet for that matter, is good for, it is bringing down the median, and highlighting just how exciting alienation can be.  dude, we just don't want you to get all power mad and actually believe you influence change, any more than the rest of us.  shouting into the `tubes is not sane!  no one cares.  and your final ascension into an influence peddling corner of the empire will not be blogged; nor will the revolution.  thankfully.

so, you win, dude.  you're the King of the Internet.  let the rational polity and organizing begin, hencewith!  forthwith!  bitches!  over yonder and under the bridge and through the river and yada, freaking, yada.

we seriously.  fucking.  give up.
 

(the fact that some of the pointers that have led me in the past to Eschaton were to little nuggets of Atrios snark, is itself, not completely lost on me, in the realm of teh universal.)

I'd still wear a cup

every once in a while it's good to feel good about yourself - this world, it beats you down, you know?

well if a legitimate national security threat ever rears its imaginary head, I'm proud to say I could possibly take 27 five-year olds in a fight. 

http://www.howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com/

                            TYLER
                 Any historical figure.

                             JACK
                 Okay... Ghandi.

                             TYLER
                 Good answer.

                             JACK
                 You?

                             TYLER
                 Abe Lincoln.  Big reach.  Skinny guys
                 fight till they're burger.

yes, yes we do.  it's these little mental victories that keep me strong and virile. 

don't let the bastards get you down - especially if they're wielding sticky Legos.

intractible

Friedman's a goddamn idiot.

back when I was a gradual student studying, get this, sustainability issues in engineering, I used to get together with my advisor once in a while on a Friday afternoon and we'd slap each other's backs and hoot and holler about how if we were in charge a minimum five dollar tax on gasoline would bring about the changes we want to see in the world.  yea, what tools we were.  we wished we had the time to write a book like Kunstler, or some shit, and then everyone would be made to read and understand why change needs to come.  as if, like instantaneously, all zoning code would read as form-based (poof!), localities would shift tax code towards best use, and people would sell their cars - to nobody, or plant them in their yards.  as if transit oriented havens of walkable heaven would spring up like the cheap wood framed mcmansions have over the past decade.  little pockets of hope, or something.  as if more expensive oil is going to make anything else easier to do.  as if anyone cares.  as if it's impossible to move into a city or commute by bicycle as we sit here today. 

I've since refused to be a useful idiot for such idiots, and have instead found a home being a miserable illiterate cog in the mechanics of the current convention.  I am, or I perceive myself, stuck precisely because I cannot see my own way out of the mess, towards anything I might see as a worthwhile occupation of my time.  this affects my demeanor, my personality, my relationships, and so on and on.  I'm utterly and incorrigibly hopeless, aimless, apathetic, cynical and mean.  I also planted this blog's seeds.

so when I read Friedman's corpo-pseudo-intellectual-American-ho! inflections and reflections and unspoken wishes and dreams and so on, as backhandedly applied as they are in this piece, I can't help but think back, and shudder in disgust, like repeating something nasty I've eaten, or smelling a candied liquor that got me sick. 

I was at a very fine dinner awhile back with the wife, herself a former buy-side CFA, a hardworking and very lovely woman I may add, who used to work with on occasion, the host and other guests, all sell-side analysts from some German banke.  one of them mentioned a book he was reading, and I fucking forget what it was about, which kills this anecdote, but press on I will.  at any rate, in the conversation, I wound up mentioning something about how local indigenous people were able to avoid the giant tsunami a year or so back by paying attention to - what we call - nature.  this was interesting and new to them, but something I've known about since eco-gradual school days.  but, the theme was: get this, culture clash!  shock!  it was foreign to them that some other people somewhere else might live and recognize other things about this world, far differently from the western, detached-from-reality-at-the-brain-stem, awareness we've got.  it was amusing, because it bewildered them.  the meal was excellent.

and that's it, isn't it.  Friedman is, in his own way, a mother-fucking cargo-cultist. 

The inception of cargo cults essentially is based on a flawed model of causation, often being the confusion between the logical concepts of necessary condition and sufficient condition when aiming to obtain a certain result.

----

Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices and the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and military-style insignia and "USA" painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting cargo. The cult members built these items and 'facilities' in the belief that the structures would attract cargo. This perception has reportedly been reinforced by the occasional success of an 'airport' to attract military transport aircraft full of cargo^{[citation needed]}.

Today, many historians and anthropologists argue that the term "cargo cult" is a misnomer that describes a variety of phenomena^{[citation needed]}. However, the idea has captured the imagination of many people in developed nations, and the term continues to be used today. For this reason, and possibly many others, the cults have been labelled millenarian, in the sense that they hold that a utopian future is imminent or will come about if they perform certain rituals.

why, oh why, do I picture a grass skirted Tom Friedman leading seances and chants on some remote island near Fiji or wherever, channeling the great god iPod and lesser god Toshiba, hoping for the great New Day to arrive, where all are one and one is all, forever is forever and ever, amen, in glorious techknowleconodgtopia. 

I think I might just have made myself pleased today, with this.  thus, blog. 

and, Mr.Friedman, re: democracy.  any rational choice theorist will tell you, that if the candidates appeal to the people's base instinct's, they will get elected.

As Casey Stengal asked, the answer is No. Not Hardly. Not Even a Litte.

"Well, we've got this Johnny Lewis in the outfield.
They hit a ball to him yesterday, and he turned left, then he
turned right, then he went straight back and caught the ball.
He made three good plays in one. And Greg Goossen, he's only twenty
and with a good chance in ten years of being thirty." -- Casey Stengel

When I confront questions of Existential Angst, I often turn to the ramblings of the peripatetic Socratic philosopher Charles Dillon Stengel  After an unparalleled run of success as the Chief Operating Officer of the top-branded and most economically efficient and effective franchise in his sector, he was ruthlessly downsized for poor results over three successive years based on the idea that he was too old. Determined to prove the suits wrong, he took on a start-up and found that things didn't work so well with in that environment. In frustration, not unlike Henry II's crie de coeur about Becket, he asked the heavens, "Can't anyone  play this-here game?"   As with Socrates, an acolyte with his own agenda misquoted him. Anyway, the answer is an astoundingly loud "No."

I first read some Ben Stein stuff during a period when I had mistakenly subscribed to The American Spectator. Everybody who wrote for the Spectator, from Emmett Tyrell the Mad through the interns who wrote ad copy wrote well. Stein wrote some quasi-letter from Hollywood thing that I did not enjoy. Of course, during that brief period when he popped up everywhere including Comedy Central, I became re-acquainted with him although I fled whenever his visage came on the screen in anything longer than a Visine commercial. Mrs. AXE for some reason found the Win Ben Stein's Money thing enjoyable...I got the feeling that he was channelling AE Houseman but only in half-hearted and bored way. I started reading his occasional columns in the Times and they are literate, intelligent and illuminating. I don't agree with a lot of his politics, but he has a "what the fuck are these idiots thinking about?" approach to economics and business that make reading his stuff refreshing. Note that he writes for the Times and not for the Journal, or the Post, in much the way that PJ O'Rourke has found a home with The Atlantic and not the Weekly Standard.

Today's column is absolutely brilliant. Stein is now channeling Martin Luther, and possibly Aristophanes while explaining how badly managed big investment houses and related enterprises are. I am reminded of Luther's comment that "Though we are seated on the highest throne of the world, we remain planted on our own ass." Stein's commentary is less vulgar, but equally on target. He believes that most people in power are not up to the task. "...when I worked for Mr. Nixon and Mr. Ford, I was sometimes allowed to sit in on Cabinet meetings and other high-level sit-downs. It was just like kids’ day at Annapolis. We were at the chairs of Jefferson and Lincoln and the seats had the names of immense government departments. But we were still just ordinary working stiffs trying to do work vastly beyond our ability — namely, governing a great continental nation. We were basically kids trying to do grown-ups’ work.Now, I have worked on Wall Street, in Hollywood and at big newspapers, and it’s always the same. There are very few geniuses out there. There are some fancy titles and immense responsibilities and, on Wall Street and in Hollywood, some giant paychecks. But there are few really smart, capable, perspicacious people (and I am certainly not one)."

Actually, he probably is. A lot of "working stiffs" lack the obliviousness gene necessary to rise to the top. I often look at people like John McCain and John Edwards, for example, and get the feeling that they are existentially torn. Yeah, they're going after the top job, the big enchilada, but they're wondering if they should perhaps instead just hit the salad bar. John McCain and John Edwards, Chuck Hegel and Al Gore, and a lot of other folks in all fields find themselves looking into the abyss, and the abyss is looking back.  Michel de Montaigne had a lot more going for him than any of the other advisers and courtiers wandering around 1600 century France but decided that he wasn't interested anymore.  In a forerunner of the Successories/Despair Inc. stuff, he put over his library..."1571 A. D., age 38. On Feb. 28, his birthday, Michel de Montaigne, weary of his service to the court and public duties, but still healthy, retreated to the bosom of the learned virgins [i.e. the Muses]. There he would live at peace and free of worry with respect to all things for the remainder of his life, however short that might be (it was already more than half-way run); so may the fates allow him. He dedicated this abode and secret lair, his sweet ancestral inheritance, to his own liberty, tranquility, and leisure."

Interestingly, Stein has found a significant emotional event in the veterans of the Iraq War. He visits Walter Reed frequently, and unlike the President, he attends funerals at Arlington. His summation, frankly, moves his satirical and on target economic analysis to a much higher level, and deserves both thought and consideration by anybody who thinks unfettered markets and all the rest of that Malthusian crap is the way to go. Goddamn Milton Friedman, who ultimately is Gordon Gecko in an ill-fitting suit; Goddamn Alan Greenspan for enabling the whole mess while knowing it wasn't going to work.

Stein is a moralist, and perhaps unknowingly, becoming a left-libertarian. Odd journey, from Nixon to Sartwell. We'll see if he owns up...his summation.

Human beings, even at the very top of Wall Street, can be just like greedy children. (In fact, maybe that’s why they wind up on Wall Street.) They can get into trouble over and over again with their greed and infantilism. You have to stay on the edges of their world. Make sure that any one sector is just a part of your investment future, and you’ll be all right.But it certainly hurts to  spend day after day, as I did this fall, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center — where the incredibly brave wounded soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan learn about walking and eating without their natural legs and arms — and to realize that the America for which they’re fighting is led in so many arenas, especially the money one, by such weak, disappointing specimens. 

It’s high time that the America for which soldiers sacrifice so much is run on a moral standard more like theirs. And this is without even talking about Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, where fresh graves are dug every week and the fresh tears keep the ground damp. They deserve better.

So, Ben, welcome to the Defeatists.  Montaigne,  Stengel and Socrates make for good company.