I used to be very involved with local politics at the local level (city, county, state). I lost interest when I realized that local and state (there are no city) Republicans aren’t that bad for the most part. Don’t get me wrong, they’re very corrupt — even moreso than their Democratic counterparts, which is really saying something — but they’re nothing like the apocalyptic cult that the Republican party is at the national level.
Everyone should read that piece that mistermix linked to earlier, by the former Republican staffer bemoaning the state of his party, because it gets things just right: the Democratic party may not be awesome, but it’s essentially sane. I think this goes for Firebaggers and Obots alike. I just don’t hear a lot of truly crazy policy positions from anyone on the left these days.
Nearly all of our political problems are caused by the fact that one party has gone completely insane. I just don’t see how it’s possible to have an intelligent discussion of American politics without accepting this basic fact. Having Jon Huntsman on your show every damn week doesn’t change this fact, it doesn’t even do a very good job of hiding it.
That said, I think this is taking it a bit too far:
What has been the worst 10-year stretch in American life?
It’s a timely question as the nation approaches the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. This grueling decade surely stands among the nation’s most challenging.
For the first 80 years of history of the United States, millions of people were held as slaves. It’s certainly true that the craziness of contemporary American politics is caused by the bitterness of people who are mad that African-Americans now have civil rights. But there’s no way you can convince me this craziness is as bad as slavery itself was.
Yutsano
Bad for whom? It worked great for rich landowners. Who founded this country too.
JPL
Maybe he is projecting. What I mean is if the last ten years gave us a Bachmann/Perry administration, we could all be servants. Could it be worse than living under slavery, I hope not.
ALSO,too… Citizens United has opened the door for Fascism.
Hal
It’s massively misleading. Jon Huntsman is polling at what, 1 percent? No one is voting for him, that’s perfectly clear, and yet he is constantly promoted by the media as a example of Republicanism today. He clearly is not, even though he is just as clearly a conservative. If the average voter sees and hears Huntsman on TV, and thinks he’s the typical Republican, why wouldn’t they end up voting for Perry? They’ll just assume they are one and the same in terms of beliefs.
Steeplejack
__
What bollocks. I’ll take 1855-65 for $500, Alex.
ETA: We are such a nation of self-absorbed wusses.
beltane
@Steeplejack: The worst is that the people who are complaining the most about how “grueling” the past decade was are the same Beltway idiots who have not suffered in the slightest except in their own imaginations.
aisce
@ yutsano
ha ha. look at you, all “edgy” and cynical. like a good little internet liberal should be.
you win 10 cool points. spend them wisely.
TheHalfrican
Worst 10 years? What a fucking joke, that guy needs to get a grip. Hey, buddy, psst: Nadir of America Race Relations. There used to be a time in this country where racist pogroms were the norm and not only did the Gov’t not do shit about it, it was wildly unpopular to even condemn it. Take that “Things Have Never Been Worse” shit somewhere else, k?
Corner Stone
Hmmm, come hang out in TX-22. We’ll see how crazy shit gets.
Thomas
Oh woe is me. Let’s all feel sorry for ourselves already. Our media needs to spend less time on b.s. talking how crappy things are and have been recently and more time talking about why things are so crappy. Of course, then they’d probably not be able to maintain their faux balance, both sides do it narrative.
TheHalfrican
And you don’t have to go back 100 years. Just ask any black person who remembers what The Hood was like during the 80s and see what they think about this “worst decade” rap.
beltane
If you think about it, almost every decade of this nation’s history has been shitty for one reason or another. Let’s phrase this question in another way: what was the best decade in American history?
Mark S.
What’s hilarious is that supposedly sane candidate Jon Huntsman wants to raise taxes on middle class families by $1,890 and cut taxes for the top 0.1% by an average of $460,000. Our liberal media is too stupid to read any analysis so they call it a serious and well-meaning proposal.
Violet
I’m not even going to click over and see who wrote that. He’s an idiot. Perhaps he should ask people who lived through the Great Depression just how fabulous that era was. Or take a look at how grand slavery was. And in the past, all those diseases tied to poor water quality, lack of food safety and so forth were fantastic too.
I know things are not perfect today, but this guy seems like he’d whine about how tough he has it if his driver showed up in a Towne Car instead of an Escalade.
Omnes Omnibus
@aisce: I do so enjoy your cool, above-it-all pose.
Slugger
My nomination for the worst ten years: 1959 to 1969. Civil Rights, Vietnam Nam, riots, murders of JFK, RFK, MLK, death of Janis and Jimi. Election of Nixon with the invention of the southern strategy.
There was the moon landing, and I got stoned a bit on the upside.
MikeJ
I was disappointed that the version of Huntsman’s book I found online was a pdf instead of a sane format. Nobody who wants to make fun of him should google the name of his book with underscores replacing the spaces and a _(47).zip at the end.
master c
spinal tap! Right?
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
Reminds me quite a bit of the late lamented Lil Bob Lob, except without the whole “death to America” thing.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Was I supposed to be wounded by that? I can’t keep up any more.
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason
@Slugger: You did get stoned a bit. IIRC, Janis and Jimi bought it in 1970.
I kinda liked that decade, myself. I’d say the 70s were worse. They were clearly the Decade That Taste Forgot, Peak Oil in the lower 48 of the US, gas lines, and the foreshadowing of Republican insanity.
Overall, though, since I’m in the midst of reading Battle Cry of Freedom, I’d have to go with the 1850s.
fuckwit
@Steeplejack: DING DING DING, we have a winnah!
And, we are about to repeat that period again soon!
Corner Stone
Where is Sarah P&T when I need her? I feel like listening to some Adele and crying all night.
JWL
“Nearly all of our political problems are caused by the fact that one party has gone completely insane”.
Wrong, wrong… fucking 100% wrong.
The GOP hasn’t gone insane. That organization knows exactly what it’s doing.
Sam Houston
@Steeplejack: WWI influenza – it was awful.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
Shit, I forgot all about ol’ Lowblow. I wish VH1 would do a Balloon Juice comments section retrospective, just to jog my memory a little bit.
4tehlulz
@Slugger: Janis and Jimi died in ’70.
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
We could’ve had it all.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: Dude rocked his high horse like nobody’s business.
Got the grim reaper hook by ABL on a thread where he didn’t do shit wrong except make the mistake of commenting in her thread.
Lil Bob Lob was a legend in the false equivalence, both sides, and death to america categories.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.: hoo hoo…hoo hoo.
Fuck the haterz!
Cacti
1935-1945
Depression followed by a war that cost the lives of over 400,000.
Corner Stone
@Mark S.:
That would be fucking awesome, just to find out how many were really DougJ.
Wait…am I DougJ? Shit.
4tehlulz
Not even top 3.
1. 1860s
2. 1850s
3. 1930s
Honorable mentions: 1830s, 1960s
Sam Houston
Kids of the 60s who watched humans walk on the moon and really believed we’d get jet-packs and flying cars, raise your hands.
Did we get screwed or what?
aisce
@ omnes
how ’bout that howard zinn, eh? first time i read a people’s history, it knocked me on my ass, man.
hoo boy. rich landowners founded america. and had slaves. good stuff.
@ yutsano
i would sure hope not. getting offended would cost you 317 cool points. i don’t know how many you’ve banked by now, but that’s a hefty price tag no matter who you are.
MikeJ
@4tehlulz:
Unpossible. Saint FDR was president and he got us universal health care and voting rights for everyone.
Lolis
Can we all stop pretending Huntsman is a moderate? He created a flat rate state tax in UT which was a tax hike on the poor. He supports civil unions but would be awful on everything else, especially economics.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Sam Houston: I was in Sydney on R&R when we landed on the moon.
Cat Lady
Serendipity provided an opportunity to see Arlo Guthrie at home last night, and in addition to playing everything you’d want him to play, he led us all in a sing along of This Land is Your Land. Sing that song out loud loudly and proudly with a bunch of people, and something happens. It’s all about community. As the original DFH says, take care of your peace, and the rest will follow.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Cat Lady: Did he play “When a Soldier Makes it Home”?
Halfway around the world tonight
In a strange and foreign land
A soldier packs his memories
As he leaves Afghanistan
And back home they don’t know too much
There’s just no way to tell
I guess you had to be there
For to know that war was hell
drkrick
@Slugger: Janis and Jimi died in 1970. The ’60’s were scary, but 1929-39 and 1859-69 were pretty clearly a lot worse.
Not Sure
And then you have the unpleasantless from 1929-39. Made much, much worse by the fact that f***-all was done about it until it had festered and gone gangrenous for over three years. At least we had President Obama to try his best to keep America from a repeat of that.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@efgoldman:All that and then the people we knew personally that died in that shit.
Samara Morgan
and the thing that is making them insane is democracy.
ironic, no?
democracy is enabling the children of immigrants and slaves, and high IQ white people (the cultural and intellectual elite) to overwhelm the anglosaxon protestant/christian electorate that has ruled this country for 200 years.
sukks 4 them!
hahaha
Chad N Freude
Two things: 1. The op-ed is by Ronald Brownstein, an astute political analyst who consistently writes thoughtful, intelligent political analyses. Stone me if you wish, but that’s a fact in my world.
2. “stands among the most challenging” does not equal “the worst of all”. It’s true that he does not assert that the 75 years of slavery after the US became a nation are the 7.5 worst decades. He does, however, identify a number of upheavals that threatened the breakdown of whatever the social order was at the time and the very existence of the US, starting with the Civil War. Read the article and think about it.
ETA: Not mentioning someone’s favorite bad decade(s) doesn’t invalidate what he’s saying
aisce
@ toko grandin
and mentally challenged acronym afficionados. don’t be so humble as to leave yourself out of our revolutionary coterie.
jwb
@JWL: If they know what they are doing, they don’t know why they are doing it (because their actions are self-destructive for both themselves and the nation). And if they know why they are doing it, they don’t know what they are doing (because if their goal is anything other than to bring the country down and themselves with it, they are doing it wrong).
Corner Stone
Don’t forget me, I beg. I remember you said, sometimes it last in love and sometimes it hurts instead.
hoo…hoo..
Samara Morgan
@aisce: lol! im pretty high IQ.
……and….im a flaming liberal and an otaku of both Barack Obama and Julian Assange.
WTF are you? another cow chewing that free market-american exceptionalism cud?
NWBCW!
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan:
Read this again.
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: Now We Buy Children Wholesale!
James E. Powell
@JWL:
Absolutely. And if current trends hold, they are going to get rid of that Mooslim Soshulist in the White House. They will announce, through their corporate press/media, that the adults are back in charge. No doubt, they will go looking for another country to invade.
Those who call the GOP insane pay too much attention to politics and not enough to power, policies and who controls both.
The people who are insane are the non-rich American people who vote for Republicans. They and their hostile ignorance, bigotry, and religious fantasies will be the death of this once almost sort of trying to be great country.
jwb
@Lolis: In the make-believe land where Obama and Buffet are socialists, Huntsman probably qualifies as a moderate. He at least qualifies as sane, which these days means that when he talks he describes a world that I recognize.
jwb
@Lolis: In the make-believe land where Obama and Buffet are soshulists, Huntsman probably qualifies as a moderate. He at least qualifies as sane, which these days means that when he talks he describes a world that I recognize.
Reposted due to moderation over bad word.
jwb
@Samara Morgan: “im pretty high IQ.” And a pretty shitty speller.
Exurban Mom
In terms of suffering, wide-spread and hopeless suffering, the Great Depression is a horribly bleak period in American History. I’d rank the Civil War period right up there as well.
The last ten years don’t even come close to matching either of those two periods. I really wish we could make some American history and civics lessons mandatory before some of these punk ass commentators shoot their mouths off. This guy belongs in the same remedial classroom as that Vadum asshole who just wrote a piece about disenfranchising the poor.
Akadad
Under Obama’s economy, the jobless and the homeless might be better off as slaves.
jwb
@Exurban Mom: The decade 2008-18 has the potential to rival the 1930s, however, if things continue on their present course.
Steeplejack
@Cacti:
Civil War–about 620,000 dead. And it all happened right here, not in Europe or the Pacific.
Chad N Freude
@Exurban Mom: Please read my comment @Chad N Freude and explain why he’s a punk ass commentator who belongs in the same remedial classroom as that Vadum asshole. I’m willing to engage on this.
@Everybody: Is it really necessary to honor the BJ tradition of taking one item that you don’t like and attacking the author without actually, you know, looking at the writer’s previous body of work and trying to understand exactly what he’s saying? Admittedly, it’s a great substitute for actually thinking about something and trying to refute it if you disagree.
Edited to try to improve clarity.
CT Voter
The GOP has gone insane, and has been helped along that trip to insanity by the media.
Hence, Mr. 1% Huntsman being all over the Sunday morning blabberfests.
Or MoDo’s latest junior high gossip column being at the top of Memeorandum today.
The media is yearning and yearning for that tall, dark and handsome stranger to rescue the country. Hence, the Rick Perry adorafest will commence Wednesday evening, unless he picks his nose on TeeVee.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Chad N Freude: If it’s a tradition you answered your own question.
Samara Morgan
@jwb: i dont have to speel.
im a mathematician.
:)
you nevah heard this?
biologists speak only to chemists
chemists only to physicists
physicists only to mathematicians
and mathematicians only to god.
hahahah!
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: You’re not a mathematician.
Chad N Freude
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): It’s a tradition. My question was do we have to honor it like Michelle Bachmann must honor Dominionist tradition.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: read this again.
read this again.
:)
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: And the Lowells speak only to Cabots, and the Cabots speak only to God.
If you don’t get it, Google it.
ETA: My god, you are an idiot.
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Chad N Freude: Why not, it makes the world go ’round.
Chad N Freude
@Raven (formerly stuckinred): Bachmann’s belief system?
Raven (formerly stuckinred)
@Chad N Freude: Nah, attacking people for no reason.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: who do you hate more?
me or ABL?
cornerstone nah liek meh.
/ineffable sadness
Donut
The other 20+ decades of US history were not / are not grueling nor challenging … how?
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: umm…my department head paraphrased it.
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: What do those two links have to do with you not being a mathematician?
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: Shouldn’t you be more 35-ish ?
Chad N Freude
With that fix, I yield.
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: Ah, so there’s no need to check it, just parrot it. Got it!
ETA: Well, if the department head said it …
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: what is bugging you is that im right. democracy is making conservatives crazy. all over the world electorates are being colonized by immigrants and the children of immigrants.
because that is how democracy works.
soooo
me or ABL?
who do you hate the most?
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: What does this have to do with you not being a mathematician?
Big Baby DougJ
@Violet:
It’s actually Ron Brownstein who is usually excellent, the one “centrist” pundit who I enjoy reading.
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: Yeah, like in Egypt and Libya.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: im just curious.
who do you hate more?
Chad N Freude
@Big Baby DougJ: Did you look at @Chad N Freude?
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: I don’t hate anyone. She’s not a writer and you’re not a mathematician.
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: i thot the post was about American conservatives…..oh.
Is this bugging you?
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: Where are the immigrants to Libya from?
ETA: Wait. You meant because Libya is still chaotic, the push to democracy doesn’t count. Sorry, I’m almost as stupid as you are.
ETA2: And Pajamas Media is a really reliable source.
ETA3: Why does “thot” make me think of H. P. Lovecraft?
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: oh i seeee.
:)
sry, im not cc’ing you my
credentialscredenza. tant pis. think what you like, CS.but i think ABL is a fine writer.
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: link
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: haha, my bad.
i should have said WESTERN democratic electorates are being colonized.
Libya was a dictatorship, not a democracy.
they didnt have an electorate.
Corner Stone
@Samara Morgan: I don’t need them. You’re not a mathematician.
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: I guess this is what happens when I break my solemn vow not to engage with you. It’s really my fault. But you are stupid.
No more responses tonight.
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: well no….i thot that like Cole you are bothered by Libya’s new government including islamists.
Chad N Freude
@Samara Morgan: So much for no more responses. Yes, it bothers me, the same way that Dominionists and Tea Partyers in the US bother me. Please shun me from now on.
Samara Morgan
@Corner Stone: as you wish.
/makes obeiance
:)
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: but Libya is not our bidness.
like the governments of Iraq and A-stan are not our bidness.
its fine for you to take umbrage at the teabaggers and pretribs and dominionists in YOUR country.
what was the mission again?
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan:
Then why did you support the UN/NATO military involvement? If it is none of our business, it is none of our business.
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude:
but Libya is not your country.
and you cant do anything about it.
thinking you can is Peaceful Democracy Theory and the Bush Doctrine/COIN.
and we can all see how that turned out.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you intervened. Not to mention that you’ve directed attention to the fact that the Evil Troll changed the subject.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: pardon, i misspoke– Libya’s government is not our bidness.
stopping the slaughter of civilians was the mission.
Type B interventionism.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re a big kid and all, but I would be remiss if I did not warn you: you are trying to talk reason with the child again.
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: you changed the subject…you brought up Libya.
like i said, i thot we were talking about american conservatives.
and like i said, democracy is what is what is making conservatives crazy.
ironic, non?
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: I just read @Samara Morgan. I don’t recall where I said I can do anything about anything, other than pointing out when there’s an attempt to change the subject.
This must be punishment for sinning horribly in a previous life.
Cowbelle
You know, the 1990s — primarily the years of the Clinton presidency — weren’t really all that bad.
Samara Morgan
@Yutsano: its too delicious to see how upset the herd is by my insights.
i cant resist.
democracy is driving conservatives insane!
hahahahaha
Samara Morgan
@Chad N Freude: you brought up Libya, not me.
i was merely talking about the irony of democracy driving american conservatives insane.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: No problem. Now get back in the boat. The mangoes aren’t worth it.
@Yutsano: I am done now. Except I would like to point out that when she suggests that some things are none of our business, there is always Jacob Marley’s response: Mankind [is] my business. The common welfare [is] my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, [are], all, my business. The dealings of my trade [are] but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Samara Morgan
heres a lullaby, poor cattle…to soothe you.
nite lil doggies.
:)
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: type a interventionism Omnes.
Peaceful Democracy Theory and the Bush Doctrine.
7 million displaced, 1 million dead, 5 million orphans….in Iraq alone.
Marley was a Bushie.
JCT
Holy crap — this reads like an epic thread of drunks or performance art gone terribly wrong.
Omnes Omnibus
@Samara Morgan: Do you even know from where I took that quote?
kdaug
@Corner Stone:
Think I’ll stay in 10, thanks. Got relatives and in-laws in 22, and just ain’t seeing the appeal.
FlipYrWhig
I think the 1890s have a reputation for being pretty grim.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: I believe the 1890s were mauve. That has to mean something.
Lyrebird
@Steeplejack: What Steeplejack said.
The crime that was slavery did of course go on in all the previous decades, too, but without the 600K dead young folks, pillaging, rending apart of families etc added in on top.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: I think you gave it away by naming the person quoted, but then, SM being SM, maybe not.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chad N Freude: I am guessing that she has no idea who Marley is.
Corner Stone
@kdaug: Hey, come on over.
My dad used to live in Austin County. He’s south of Tucson now.
He got in so many fights in the butcher shop. Crazy shit.
ETA, you think being a pro-union lackey is rough in CD-10? Try it in CD-22.
Chad N Freude
@Omnes Omnibus: Every time I hear the word “mauve”, I think of this.
ETA:You really should hear the recording. I think there’s a DVD on Amazon, original audio might be on iTunes (haven’t checked).
Corner Stone
@JCT:
Both?
I’m drunk and naked.
Chad N Freude
@Corner Stone: Kurtz: [voiceover] The horror… the horror…
LosGatosCA
Proportionality just isn’t what it used to be.
Reminds me of the list of the biggest news stories of the 20th Century compiled around the year 2000.
1. OJ double murder
2. Kerri Strug’s Olympic vault on one good leg.
3. WWII
Also worst people of the 20th Century:
1. Bill Clinton
2. Pee Wee Herman
3. Josef Stalin
4. Rex Reed
5. Adolf Hitler
I suggest that we formalize the criteria on what constitutes a bad thing:
#1: It happens to white people, particularly white males, everyone else is not part of real Merika.
#2: It has happened recently – all things before they reached puberty does not count.
#3: Bonus points for ‘the others’ being the cause – brown people, muslims, poor people, commie pinkos, loose women, parasites, union members, children of all of the above.
#4: It fits into a pattern that may end up up with rich white people having to pay more fees, taxes, or otherwise being inconvenienced.
#5: Pre-empts their favorite program on the teevee
Corner Stone
@Chad N Freude: Don’t make me find you. I’m melting the chicken fat as we speak.
A Conservative Teacher
Why do you keep posting these stories about nobodies who are in the GOP and ‘reveal’ things about the GOP? Can’t you go after the GOP Presidential, Senate, and House candidates on your blog, or instead do you have to cite unconfirmed ‘disillusioned’ GOPers and Puerto Rican local congressmen?
Seriously, Democrat President Barack Obama sucks and his sucking matters. Your blog and posts don’t.
A Conservative Teacher
Mike Lofgren retired making 140K/year as a staffer for the Senate Budget committee (not ‘on the GOP side’)… he donated $750 to a GOP candidate back in 1992 but that was it… he was never elected to anything for the GOP and never played any role in creating policy for the GOP. He’s a nobody bureaucrat who made a lot of money on taxpayers backs producing phony numbers for both parties. His essay is worth nothing.
wapsie
If it hasn’t already been noted, “moreso” isn’t a word in Standard Written English.
“more so” or just plain “more” is wanted instead
Kathleen
@TheHalfrican: Or generations of African Americans who lived in the Deep South up to and through the Civil Rights movement.
Ohio Mom
Can’t agree with you on “local and state (there are no city) Republicans aren’t that bad for the most part.” I remember when Steve Chabot (no Democrat is going to video my town meeting) and Ken Blackwell were just run-of-the-mill Cincinnati City Councilmen.
They didn’t seem particularly scary back then but they were able to use their local experience to move into the big time and make big trouble. I will never, ever vote for a Republican, even for dog catcher, no matter how reasonable he/she seems, because you never know what they might morph into.
Samara Morgan
@Omnes Omnibus: of course i know.
it doesnt change what i said.
The lesson of Iraq is the lesson America should have learned in Vietnam.
More from Frank Rich’s essay.
the terrorists won, you stupid cattle.
Pax Americana is crumbling, the “freed” market is exposed as the looters’ scam it always was, and Bush and the neo-corporatists paved the road to hell with your good intentions.
Catsy
Tip for defeating the socialist FYWP plot to moderate socialism: use hidden tags to break up the offending word. What that means is that you insert an open and close HTML tag right in the middle of the word, like so:
soci[i][/i]alism
(Replace the square brackets with pointy ones, because FYWP also doesn’t respect basic HTML string substitutions.)
Then sit back in unmoderated bliss and feel smarter than a bit of sloppy code that’s too stupid to tell the difference between a string and a substring.