d'oh!!!

heh. guess the mass. dems had to learn the same lessons the republicans did across the country. lesson: don't take anything for granted, and it probably would be a good idea to represent the people that elected you.
as one headline reads: GREAT SCOTT!

a taste of what a state run health care system looks like

so you want to have the government run the health care system? kind of like they do in Britain? how about we examine just what that might mean. how about in a system paid for by taxes dedicated to providing health care, there are more managers than midwives, as the article headline states.
managers have increased their ranks by 9% this year. a snip, and remember to substitute Democrat for Labor in the text. this is what we face:

Meanwhile the number of health visitors and nursing assistants, who help on the wards with duties including cleaning and helping the elderly to eat their meals, have fallen by 3 and 6 per cent respectively.

Critics say patient care is suffering because the NHS is putting more effort into employing bureaucrats - often in so-called 'non-jobs' - than front-line staff.

They say cuts in the number of nursing assistants will lead to more malnutrition on Health Service wards.

Overall, the numbers working in the Health Service rose by 2.8 per cent to 1.37 million - a quarter higher than the figure when Labour came to power.

The news comes after the Government admitted that NHS staff and other public sector workers would receive inflation busting pay rises, even though the private sector is struggling with pay freezes and job cuts as the recession begins to bite.

Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: 'Yet again funds that are urgently needed for the frontline are being swallowed up by Labour's bureaucratic black hole.

this goes hand in hand with another issue i ranted about some time ago HERE

the "Fairness Doctrine": even some Dems see the irony

Speaking of talk radio (which I listen to constantly), I remain incredulous that any Democrat who professes liberal values would give a moment's thought to supporting a return of the Fairness Doctrine to muzzle conservative shows. (My latest manifesto on this subject appeared in my last column.) The failure of liberals to master the vibrant medium of talk radio remains puzzling. To reach the radio audience (whether the topic is sports, politics or car repair), a host must have populist instincts and use the robust common voice. Too many Democrats have become arrogant elitists, speaking down in snide, condescending tones toward tradition-minded middle Americans whom they stereotype as rubes and buffoons. But the bottom line is that government surveillance of the ideological content of talk radio is a shocking first step toward totalitarianism.

One of the nuggets I've gleaned from several radio sources is that Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who has been in the aggressive forefront of the campaign to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, is married to Tom Athans, who works extensively with left-wing radio organizations and was once the executive vice-president of Air America, the liberal radio syndicate that, despite massive publicity from major media, has failed miserably to win a national audience. Stabenow's outrageous conflict of interest has of course been largely ignored by the prestige press, which should have been demanding that she recuse herself from all political involvement with this issue.

who else but my favorite dem pundit/writer/journo Camille Paglia. as always, go read this weeks column. it'll do you good. see, i can and do read stuff from other than the "mindless mouth breathing far right" as one acquaintance told me during a political discussion.

It's Wednesday's weekly dose of Camille Paglia

so here it is, Wednesday again. we're bracing for a cold storm heading our way from siberia this coming week. brrrrr.
i like wednesday. one of the best reasons to do so is that Camille Paglia, my favorite liberal (but certainly not a libtard) publishes her weekly column over at salon.com. here's a taste of her latest:
this is a question a lot of us on the right have been asking for some time.....

As for Obama's appointment of Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, what sense does that make except within parochial Democratic politics? Awarding such a prize plum to Hillary may be a sop to her aggrieved fan base, but what exactly are her credentials for that position? Aside from being a mediocre senator (who, contrary to press reports, did very little for upstate New York), Hillary has a poor track record as both a negotiator and a manager. And of course both Clintons constantly view the world through the milky lens of their own self-interest. Well, it's time for Hillary to put up or shut up. If she gets as little traction in world affairs as Condoleezza Rice has, Hillary will be flushed down the rabbit hole with her feckless husband and effectively neutralized as a future presidential contender. If that's Obama's clever plan, is it worth the gamble? The secretary of state should be a more reserved, unflappable character -- not a drama queen who, even in her acceptance speech, morphed into three different personalities in the space of five minutes.

and on the Mumbai terror killings:

Meanwhile, an area where too many in the mainstream media have been oddly AWOL is in the response to the attack on Mumbai, India, two weeks ago by a squad of Pakistan-based terrorists, who killed nearly 200 people. Reaction in the U.S. was somewhat muted because the protracted standoff occurred over the Thanksgiving holiday, when many Americans were traveling or absorbed in family business. But I was troubled by a persistent soft-pedaling of the identification of the attackers as Muslims --as if the mere reporting of that fact would be offensive and politically incorrect.

and of course:

The slaughter of the Hertzbergs and other Jews at Chabad House should be a wake-up call to Western liberals who believe that jihadism can be defeated through reason and happy talk. Only other Muslims can launch the stringent internal reform necessary to stomp this barbaric extremism out. But the events in Mumbai confirmed my opinion about the looming problem of a nuclear Iran: While I oppose all American military operations and bases in the Mideast, I continue to believe that Israel, whose security is directly threatened, has every right to take preemptive military action against Iran.

and who can ignore:

However, Cavett's piece on Sarah Palin was insufferably supercilious. With dripping disdain, he sniffed at her "frayed syntax, bungled grammar and run-on sentences." He called her "the serial syntax-killer from Wasilla High," "one who seems to have no first language." I will pass over Cavett's sniggering dismissal of "soccer moms" as lightweights who should stay far, far away from government.

I was so outraged when I read Cavett's column that I felt like taking to the air like a Valkyrie and dropping on him at his ocean retreat in Montauk in the chichi Hamptons. How can it be that so many highly educated Americans have so little historical and cultural consciousness that they identify their own native patois as an eternal mark of intelligence, talent and political aptitude?

sorry. there is so much intelligence written in her columns that one is tempted to just cut and paste the whole damned thing. there are a few things i don't agree with in this week's column, but by and large it's more informed and well written than many, if not most, of the "right wing conservative" blogs and articles posted this week. i wish she'd wake up and smell the coffee, and come to the dark side. but with mouths like hannity, o'rielly and their ilk, i can't say i really blame her.
here. follow this link to read the whole thing.

Camille Paglia gets it right

i have to agree with the sleepy eyed whiner of the deep. Camille Paglia is one of my favorite feminists too. i visit Salon.com every week just to keep up with her latest. i am way, way on the other side of the political spectrum, and i certainly don't think the new president-elect is all he's been touted to be. her latest article states ( a bunch of months too damned late, i'm afraid) that there are things we should have been asking of the candidate, now the next president. i thought i'd sit down this weekend and write about her views and statements, but Sleepy Eyed Whiner of the Deep not only beat me to it, but did such a splendid job that i'll just send those interested over to him.

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace

again, i find others that are more capable than i in expressing how i feel.
an editorial in the WSJ by a lawyer that interned with Kerry's campaign legal team wrote a great opinion piece today. click here to read the article.

"Be careful of what you wish for"

i can't say it any better than commander salamander so head over and read his take on the election.

my one and only BIG political rant of the season

first, let me say that rants are usually free form. when the brain kicks into hyper-drive, thoughts may become disjointed and fragmented. if that happens, sorry. but bear with me, because i really do have a point.

i have really worked hard to keep my posting about politics to a minimum this year, as i did during the last of the previous presidential election. the hateful and vituperative posts you find across the political spectrum around the blogosphere really turned me off. but i've been stewing over this for a long time, and i thought i'd get it out there, and get it over with.
first of all, it should come as no surprise to anyone that as a life member of the NRA, guns are important to me. i wrote a post years ago called Late Night Musings. the post and the responses are worth a read just to get a taste of what gun ownership means to me, and what responsibilities that ownership imparts. possession of the means to protect family, my home, and myself against those intent on doing harm is of paramount importance to me. many local police agencies have no legal liability to answer a 911 call (many cited articles, but here's one that is actually intelligently written, with little hyperbole here. it's a little dated, but there are many "fresher" citations available with a little search engine time)
(here's another.) what does this have to do with this presidential election?
one of my most favorite and frequent debater about politics this year has made the election into a single issue concern. well, she has others, but the main concern is that the next president will probably install at least two supreme court judges. her concern: overturning Roe v. Wade. yes, abortion rights are at the top of her concerns. so my turnaround argument is this: the next president is most likely going to install at least two supreme court judges. and the latest ruling from the court in Heller v. Washington D.C. which holds that private ownership of firearms is guaranteed by the Second Amendment. that decision was upheld by a vote of 5 to 4. 5 to 4. me, i am ambivalent about abortion. i really could give a rats ass what a woman does with her body before viability. sorry folks, but that's just the way it is. i've long held that anyone that is anti-abortion because of the sanctity of life, but pro capital punishment is either delusional about what sanctity means, or is a hypocrite. and vice versa. again, sorry if i'm stepping on toes, but there it is. i've been around for 54 years, and have learned to think for myself.
but taking away my right to own firearms?
consider the following: the dem contender has publicly stated that he sees no reason to own guns. of course, he's had to modify that a bit as the election draws to an end. but just look at his comments during a dinner in SF where he thought he was among like minded folk. his disdain for private gun ownership is evident in many of his early speeches (easy to find using a google search. go ahead, it won't take long). but even if he DID have a change of heart, the folks he would consider for judgeship will be drawn from the same pool he climbed out of. and in that pool, guns are BAAAAAAAD BAAAAAAAD BAAAAAAD, and all gun owners are criminals just waiting for the time and place to break the laws.
so if it's a single issue campaign, anyone that even considers abridging my rights as a law abiding citizen of this country to own and use guns is my single issue. i don't think any right minded, intelligent human being should base their decision on one and only one issue, but if push comes to shove, you've just read mine. the fact that the government is in a rapid slide to hard core socialism, with a "spreading around of the wealth" for example, frightening as it is, is not my primary concern. having a veto proof congress, with a president that travels in circles that think i'm a criminal, those concern me more. socialism may cost me money, but the other will cost me freedom.

meet corey the driller

first, there was Joe the plumber, and now: meet Corey the driller.

You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.

read the whole letter, (and i really recommend you do) here.
hat tip to one of the newer submariner bloggers out there at Dare to Believe. thanks for the tip, Tom.

political commercial of the year?

got in my email just now. as the mailer said, this could very easily be THE political commercial of the year.

debunking some common misconceptions about Palin

i'm really surprised. Newsweek has published an interesting article concerning a spate of rumors surrounding Sarah Palin. interesting. seems most of this crap was generated by a Dem in Alaska. who must have thought she was doing her political duty making crap up. read and learn.

politics, and the role of women in them

Commander Salamander has a pretty sharp entry where he suggests Obama man up. great job, as usual Cmdr.

and to use part of a phrase i read today, the wheels may not have fallen off the Obama bus yet, but the lug nuts are certainly backing off. one or two too many curves, and that bus may end up in the weeds.

the role women play in modern American politics has experienced a relatively radical sea change in the last couple of years. hillary, pelosi, and others have shown that women are simply not to be discounted or ignored when it comes to leadership roles in this country. i say it's about damned time. too bad the two examples i used are from way over on the other side of the fence from me, but it does point out that huge strides have been made. and what is particularly sweet for me is that the biggest step may be taken by one of those women often denigrated and underestimated by the liberal factions in this country. that would be gun toting mom from out west, with no law degree and close ties to "small town" America. what also fascinates me is the apoplectic paroxysms of the feminists, leftists, and the others out there. oh my, here is a woman, but she isn't in our club.
yesterday's SF Chronicle Insight section had a front page essay by one of the members of that select group of women. or she WAS a member. let's see, she was a life long member of the Dem party until recently (she's registered as "declines to state") now, and was the former president of the L.A. chapter of N.O.W., the epicenter of feminism in this country.
a quote or two from the article:

...There was a lot of pandering and lip service to women's rights, and evenings filled with anecdotes of how so many have been kept from achieving their dreams, or failed to be promoted, simply because they were women. Clinton's "18 million cracks in the glass ceiling" were mentioned a heck of a lot. More people began to wonder, though, how many cracks does it take to break the thing?

Ironically, all this at an event that was negotiated and twisted at every turn in an astounding effort not to promote a woman.

Virtually moments after the GOP announcement of Palin for vice president, pundits on both sides of the aisle began to wonder if Clinton supporters - pro-choice women and gays to be specific - would be attracted to the McCain-Palin ticket. The answer is, of course. There is a point where all of our issues, including abortion rights, are made safer not only if the people we vote for agree with us - but when those people and our society embrace a respect for women and promote policies that increase our personal wealth, power and political influence.
...
Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

The idea of feminists willing to look to the right changes not only electoral politics, but will put more women in power at lightning speed as we move from being taken for granted to being pursued, nominated and appointed and ultimately, sworn in.

check out the article, and see what i'm talking about.
hell, even the Brit's get it.

...
People have concluded that politicians of all parties seem to inhabit a world apart, governed by self-interest, cynicism, corruption, incompetence, deep contempt for the electorate and an incorrigible instinct to deceive them.

Politicians know this. Which is why they all purport to stand on a platform of 'change'.

But change from what to what, precisely?

Unless there's a clear answer, 'change' becomes a pointless soundbite which risks creating an impression of yet more political sleight of hand.

This is the trap into which Barack Obama has fallen.

Yes, he has amazing gifts of charisma and oratory; along with his youth and black ancestry, this all helps create the impression that he is an outsider and embodies a fresh start.

But, on closer inspection, he looks suspiciously like yet more of the same old same old. The way he changes his political message to fit the audience he is addressing sits ill with his pitch to represent a new politics of integrity.

And his voting record and positions on social issues place him firmly among the Left-wing elite which has waged such devastating war upon the West's moral values.

By contrast, Palin has a very strong sense of right and wrong rooted in her evangelical Christian faith. Perversely, this damns her in the eyes of the Left as the 'hard Right'.

This is clearly absurd: she is a working mother of five who has shown herself as capable of felling Big Oil and other political cartels against the public interest as shooting moose.
...
For she has taken the supposed characteristics of the Left - youth, dynamism, change, excitement and social conscience - and presented them as conservative virtues.

Since the Left habitually shores up its own position by demonising conservatives as nasty, backward-looking, mean-spirited, lifedenying, prejudiced, stupid and boring, it recognises her as a mortal threat - not just to Obama but to its whole political platform.

Accordingly, it is frenziedly hurling smears and allegations at her. And maybe she will eventually fall apart under the pressure.

read this article at The UK Daily Mail

ayup, going to be an interesting 59 days....

Media's 360 degree coverage of the Palin family

From today's email:

For Immediate Release Contact: Robert Romano

September 3rd, 2008 Phone: (703) 383-0880

To Whom It May Concern:

It is rare that we at ALG News are actually disgusted with the coverage of a political campaign, but the truth is, we have been positively appalled by the vicious attacks against the family of Governor Sarah Palin (R-AK), the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee. So much so that ALG’s award-winning cartoonist, William Warren, produced the following cartoon portraying a ravenous media feasting on the Palin family.

click for larger image


We believe that all fair-minded journalists were as shocked by some of the coverage as we were, and in that vein, we encourage you to republish and redistribute the cartoon. There are no royalties or restrictions involved.

Clearly, the attacks against Mrs. Palin and her family have gone far beyond the pale, and have no place in a mature discussion about the direction America is going in this year.

Sincerely,

Robert Romano
Editor
ALG News Bureau

###



Americans for Limited Government is a non- partisan, nationwide network committed to advancing free market reforms,private property rights and core American liberties. For more information on ALG please call us at 703-383-0880 or visit our website at Get Liberty.Org.

ohhh, willy's fired up

seems that the talking heads over at CNN have pissed off our shipmate WillyShakes.
can't say i'm surprised. hey Willy, has that network really ever given you any reason to believe they would act any differently towards someone that threatens their paradigm? (hint, see my previous post)

hahahahahaha

this is too freaking good. i couldn't have written this any better if i'd tried.

let's see.
the dems didn't put a woman on the ticket. the republicans did.
there's no way the dems can use the relative inexperience of the veep, since their presidential candidate is guilty of inexperience as well. any traction they might have gotten is completely blown out of the water.
hahahahahaha
crap, i love politics. this is a great participatory spectator sport.

and she carries a gun, and knows how to use it, according to a news program i watched about her last year. how cool is that?

let the fun begin!

so hillary is sidelined, and the dems are going to pit obamarama against McCain. there is enough dirt to go around, that's for sure. wonder which will be buried first? i wonder if the country is ready to stomach a socialist who got his political jumpstart from a couple of real deal, dyed red in the wool commies? here's a taste from a GOP website. yep, it's going to be interesting....

Liberal Fascism: a very interesting read

That Che Guevara has become a chic branding tool is a disgusting indictment of both American consumer culture and the know-nothing liberalism that constitutes the filthy residue of the 1960s New Left. Ubiquitous Che shirts top the list of mass-marketed revolutionary swag available for sale at the nearest bobo chic retailer - including a popular line of children's wear.
... "Viva la revolution!" Now even the smallest rebel can express himself in these awesome baby onesies. This classic Che Guevara icon is also available on a long-sleeve tee in kid's sizes...Lon live the rebel in all of us...there's no cooler iconic image than Che!"
Th Argentine henchman of the Cuban revolution was a murderer and goon. He penned classically fascist apothegms in his journals: "hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective and cold-blooded killing machine." Guevara was a better writer, but the same muse helped to produce Mein Kampf. Guevara reveled in executing prisoners. While commenting revolution in Guatemala, he wrote home to his mother, "It was all a lot of fun, what with the bombs, speeches and other distractions to break the monotony I was living in." His motto was "If in doubt, kill him," and he killed a great many. The Cuban-American writer Humberto Fontova described Guevara as "a combination of Beria and Himmler." Guevara certainly killed more dissidents and lovers of democracy than Mussolini ever did, and Mussolini's Italy was undoubtedly more "free" than any society Guevara the "freedom fighter" was seeking. Would you put a Mussolini onesie on your baby? Would you let your daughter drink from a Himmler sippy cup?

source: Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg pp. 193-194.

this is how far into the book i am, and it's an amazing read. the parallels to the whole global warming hysteria and many other "calls to action" that can be seen coming directly from the fascist's handbook are sobering. and this quote reminded me of a little tempest that went on back in February. Remember it? click on the picture to take you to one of the better blog entries of the day.

and of course, i can't miss the opportunity to share my favorite "Che" shirt:

electoral equality?

i was driving home from work the other day, and tuned in to KGO radio for a traffic update as i left the Sacramento radio sphere. the host was Gil Gross, and the topic under discussion was Geraldine Ferraro's flap about whether or not Obamamessiah was qualified to run. several callers mentioned they would vote for their candidate strictly on race or gender (that would be the dems.).
now usually, i think Gross is a good fit for San Francisco radio, since he and i have very different views, and his dovetail nicely with the target audience. but he said something out loud, on air, that i've been thinking for almost this entire political season. his comment, loosely transcribed:

"so if you are a woman, you should tell everyone you know that they should vote for hillary, because she's a woman. and if you are african-american, your only choice is obama. does that mean i should be going around telling everyone to vote for McCain, because he's an old white man? imagine the uproar that would cause"

i agree. i guess it's only sexist or racist if it is a white man saying it.
i'm not telling anyone who to vote for. i'm just (again) agog at the pure unfairness of the political correctness of it all... why aren't those people being pilloried for their views as a white male would be using the same logic?

David Mamet has an epiphany

David Mamet, one of America's noted playwrights, has had an epiphany. He's realized he's no longer a "brain-dead liberal", in his own words.

here's a link to the article in The Village Voice. yeah, you heard right. the village voice. the only reason i found the article was that it was linked by neo-neocon.

his transition "to the dark side" mirrors one of my favorite intellectual's own epiphany. neo-neocon went from a well educated jewish liberal to something much more. in her words, a neo-neocon. if you have the time, go back to the beginning of her blog and read about her "conversion". there is hope out there!

and don't forget to read the comments. there are a ton of them, but most are quite interesting.
too many caught my attention to pass on, but here is one that i especially thought said what i've felt for years:

This is exactly what has happened to me, only I am a professional historian who has lived all over the country. What I have seen the government do with its programs has made me believe that the only people who really benefit are the bureaucrats who are in charge. It has also created a new slave class of people who have to live up to all government requirements in order to benefit, but not get ahead in life. Thus, this class becomes indebted to those who gave them the programs, convinced that they are unable to do for themselves. This keeps some politicians in power, but actually keeps this slave class in a permanent dependency.

As an educator, I also see this in our education system. So many of our school districts are top heavy in administrators that those who teach do not even know what some of these administrators are supposed to be doing. These administrators are out of touch with what is going on in the classroom and just basically are concerned with keeping their jobs. Combine that with parents who are both working to provide their children with the basics and we have children who are on their own and behave like it as well. With little discipline at home, they feel like they should have free rein in the classroom as well. Teachers, having to deal with classrooms as large as 30-35 students, spend most of their time trying to discipline rather than teach and soon burn out.

and one more

So many entries here are proving Mamet right. He's Big Brother. A dictator-lover. He's racist, or nearly so. He's thrown in with the Authoritarians. He's for the Evil Corporations, or he doesn't realize the stranglehold Wall Street has on the political process, i.e. he's too stupid to know. Or he's gone from brain-dead liberal to brain-dead-conservative.

What next? He's Darth Vader? Why the vitriol and personal attacks, instead of refuting in an erudite, calm and civilized manner the finer points of his piece?

I know why. It's easier to smear and slander someone you disagree with than it is to debate them, isn't it? Debate requires thought. Slander does not. It is lazy, instinctual ideological knee-jerking, not rigorous intellectual discourse. It requires no thought. It is autonomic mental regurgitation driven by anger, not reason.

In other words, it is brain-dead spew. And on that note I, and David Mamet if I may be so bold, rest our case.

Uncommon sense from Britian

...as a perfect reflection of the European-establishment mentality-or, more specifically, of the neurotically conflicted attitude toward America that's standard issue for the so-called "'68-ers". It's the '68-er-Europe's version of the sixties generation-whose formative experiences shaped the politically correct politics of today's European establishment, and who still make up the heart of that establishment.

Like their American counterparts, Europe's '68-ers were mostly middle-class university kids, children of postwar prosperity who came of as protesting the Vietnam War and decorated their bedrooms with posters of Bobb Dylan and Jim Morrison (and, in some cases, Mao and Ho Chi Minh). The transatlantic similarities are many. But there are important distinctions. For one thing, the Europeans had another key formative event in addition to Vietnam: the May 1968 general strike by French students and workers, which paralyzed France and nearly brought down the government of Charles de Gaulle. This experience not only gave students an exaggerated lifelong sense of their own power and importance; it also established a postwar French custom of resorting to crippling, pointless strikes at the drop of a chapeau in response to just about anything.

The major differences between the American and European '68-ers emerged in the post-Vietnam years. Young Americans who'd raged against the evils of the American establishment grew up to become members of that establishment. In all but a relative handful of extreme cases, the pure, abstract oppositional ideology of their youth could not survive confrontation with the complex reality of America that was all around them and with the simple fact that America was their nation, their home, and - now- their responsibility. Indeed, for Americans in positions of power, the world world was their responsibility.

that was not the case with Europe's elite 68-ers. As they grew older, their awareness of their own provincality intensified, and with it their resentment and envy of the immense country on the far side of the ocean. America was the cultural hub; America was where it was happening. Americans of the Sixties generation had international responsibilities and an international audience. By contrast, as the European '68-ers progressed in their careers- as politicians, writers, journalists, teachers, professors, government bureaucrats- they became more acutely aware of the relative unimportance of what they themselves said and did and wrote, and could only look on from the sidelines, sniping and sneering at a country whose people they were, essentially, invisible. This marginality and irrelevance had its impact on their views and their rhetoric: aware that their critiques had no effect, they continued into their adulthood to assume a posture toward America that was every bit as extreme and cartoonish as that of their youth.

quoted from While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer (pages 97-98 of the paperback version), a book i highly recommend if you are at all curious as to why Americans and Europeans seem to be so diametrically opposed on many many issues.

why did i go through the trouble to type the previous paragraphs? because today i read an editorial by a Brit that claims 1968 was probably one of the worst years in British history, and his assessment mirrors Bawer's. Read the editorial here