Archive for category rants

Even more sure what’s wrong but no progress in fixing it.

Here’s some music to get you in the mood: http://www.last.fm/listen/globaltags/hanukkah

I was talking recently with a very learned and progressive scholar of history about the depth of the right wing’s messaging strategy, and he was unfamiliar with this document that helped create and define a broad and effective corporate-conservative machine: the Powell Memorandum. We all need to know this history.

From Wikipedia:

Based in part on his experiences as a corporate lawyer and as a representative for the tobacco industry with the Virginia legislature, [Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.] wrote the Powell Memo to a friend at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding politics and law in the U.S. and may have sparked the formation of one or more influential right-wing think tanks.

In August 1971, prior to accepting Nixon’s request to become Associate Justice of Supreme Court, Lewis Powell had sent to the leadership of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce the “Confidential Memorandum”, better known as the Powell Memorandum, and still under the radar of general public. It sounded an alarm with its title, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System.” The previous decade had seen the increasing regulation of many industries. Powell argued, “The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism came from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.” In the memorandum, Powell advocated “constant surveillance” of textbook and television content, as well as a purge of left-wing elements.

In an extraordinary prefiguring of the social goals of business that would be felt over the next three decades, Powell set his main goal: changing how individuals and society think about the corporation, the government, the law, the culture, and the individual. Shaping public opinion on these topics became, and would remain, a major goal of business.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.#The_Powell_Memorandum

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Last night a long feline life of 17 years came to a peaceful end as my friend Mehitabel sat in my lap and breathed her final breath. Here’s a short slideshow of photos of her:

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Meeting my neighbors and/or getting to know them better.

Enjoying lovely Fall weather.

Spending time with my son. (Now his second annual canvass.)

Checking out the variety of door styles and various porch architecture in my neighborhood. 

Getting some exercise.

Beating Richard Burr!