Paul Krugman compares the "self-styled technocrats" pushing Greece to vote "yes" on the EU bailout deal to "medieval doctors who insisted on bleeding their patients — and when their treatment made the patients sicker, demanded even more bleeding." Everybody but our elites knows you have to, in Eric Cantor's words, take a risk to get sluggish economies moving again -- but that means you have to spend money, which means you can't hoard it if you happen to have most of it when the economy goes south. Mr. Krugman also reminds us that "Greece’s debt problem reflected irresponsible lending as well as irresponsible borrowing," which makes a total of one member of the "liberal" media who has mentioned the irresponsible behavior of German and French lenders. Mr. Krugman also says he doesn't know for sure that abandoning the Euro would work out well for Greece, though debt relief surely would, especially when one of Greece's creditors has come out and said that Greece can't pay back what it owes, which scenario would, I suppose, be the dream scenario for banksters.
Thanks to the Washington Post, we meet some black defenders of the Confederate flag, most of whom live in the South. ZOMG THE TABLES HAVE TURNED!!!!! TEH WHITEZ WHO OPPOSEZ TEH FLAGZ ARE TEH REAL RACISTZ!!!!!!! Well, not exactly -- America is a big place, with some 330 million people, big enough that you'll encounter pro-Confederate flag black folks sooner or later. I don't presume all of them want extra credit for opposing slavery and only being friends with folks who feel the same, nor do I presume all of them can't explain coherently why they think slavery is a "choice" or how preventing state houses from flying the flag actually oppresses a person's own right to fly the flag or think about the flag however they like. I also presume that not all Confederate-flag loving black folks think you are "not entitled to commentary on which flag waves in our humid Southern breeze," though such "commentary" would also be First Amendment-protected speech. But, for better or worse, that's who we meet here -- another bunch of folks who can't distinguish between being oppressed and being shamed in public.
Finally, I've talked a lot about Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's political survival skills, but I think I've finally figured out how to beat him. As always with formidable politicians, it involves turning his strength into weakness. What is his strength? His absolute unflappability through whatever chaos and disorder he's fomented; the kids would call him "cool," I suppose, or "chill." And what would we better call him, in order to defeat him? Cold. The man is unflappable, we would say, because he has no feelings about anything at all. And how do we know his hollowness? Because he has shown us he will say anything, at any time, to gain an advantage -- he tells the Tea Party he's against Big Gummint welfare while telling Iowans he's for ethanol subsidies, and he said he wouldn't try to kill public unions or pass right-to-work laws when he was trying to win elections, but he did both those things after he got elected. You can't trust anything the man says, because for him, you are not people; you are mere instruments of his victory, and men like that can never be trusted with power. I'll likely have to refine or expand upon this thesis in time, but that'll do for an opening.
Comments