dagblog - Comments for "Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings"

"Sometimes if I'm not

PseudoCyAnts — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 23:03:07 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

"Sometimes if I'm not careful, I drift prematurely into my analysis of the American Political system: there is only one party in the United States, the Property party (thank-you, Dr. Lundberg for the phrase) and it has two wings, Republican and Democrat.

Thanks, but I am unable to offer the exact Vidal essay this is from without first getting down to a library. The quote was pulled from a Google Books search snippet.

It seems Vidal was referencing:

The United States can be looked upon as having, in effect, a single party: the Property Party. This party can be looked upon as having two subdivisions: the Republican Party, hostile to accommodating adjustments (hence dubbed "Conservative"), and the Democratic Party, of recent decades favoring such adjustments (hence dubbed "Liberal"). The big reason third parties have come to naught--a puzzle to some political scientists--is simiply that no substantial group of property owners has seen fit to underwrite one. There is no Anti-Property Party.

Ferdinand Lundberg. The Rich and The Super-Rich: A Study in the Power of Money Today. 1968. Lyle Stuart, Inc., New York
Chapter Two - Room At The Top: The New Rich

The Vidal quotation is from

gtodon — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:26:30 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

The Vidal quotation is from the 1970s. The Ferlinghetti poem was obviously written in the 1990s or early 2000s. If someone is stealing, it isn't Gore.

Re the Obama changes in Cuba

VLaszlo — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:52:51 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Re the Obama changes in Cuba policy: it is hard for me to imagine how one could do less and still claim to have made a change. What is left in place are the greatest obstacles to a change in US - Cuba relations...the embargo and the ban on Americans traveling to Cuba (an assault on American rights not Cubans). The Obama changes are welcome but minimal. Change we can calibrate with a microscope.

It may be hard to be timid and bold at the same time.

Also related to Jackie O.

tlees2 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:44:34 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Also related to Jackie O.

Thanks for that link, Ellen.

miguelitoh2o — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:37:26 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Thanks for that link, Ellen.

To recap 4 years of our conversations here, the U.S. is stumbling oblivious into the gaping razor blade jaws of procurement impossibilities without the financial-economic means (or even pretense to means) to paper over all the rampaging irrationality.

Whatever happened to her

oleeb — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:25:23 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Whatever happened to her anyway? Not that I miss her in any way, but for a while it seemed she was a rising media personality but I've not seen her in quite some time.

Indeed. There's a good link

oleeb — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:23:30 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Indeed.

There's a good link to a story on TPM's front page about the subject of Obama's inexcusable defense and expansion of the tyrant Bush's police state tactics. Greenwald is but one of a growing chorus of voices on the left that are sounding the alarm on this.

All of which tells us quite a

tlees2 — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:00:45 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

All of which tells us quite a bit about Susan Molinari.

Sure is starting to look like

Logico — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:16:20 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Sure is starting to look like one party. This (just the intro) from Glen Greenwald at Salon.com yesterday:

"In the last week alone, the Obama DOJ (a) attempted to shield Bush's illegal spying programs from judicial review by (yet again) invoking the very "state secrets" argument that Democrats spent years condemning and by inventing a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim that not even the Bush administration espoused...These were merely the latest -- and among the most disturbing -- in a string of episodes in which the Obama administration has explicitly claimed to possess the very presidential powers that Bush critics spent years condemning as radical, lawless and authoritarian."

Gore Vidal is one of a

JadeZ — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:48:38 +0000

In reply to Gore Vidal And The Two Right Wings

Gore Vidal is one of a kind.

Cousin to al gore.

But, when you do see him it only proves how controlled the media is in this country.

Maher, a pseudo intellectual at least tries.