Economist Watch

Cover, January 28th - February 3rd issue

For those who don’t believe that there is an Anglo-American echo chamber in the upper reaches of journalism, as well as the low, look to the libertarian Economist for evidence. It prides itself on intellectual stamina and often deserves the props. It’s only a magazine – technically a newspaper, actually – so we shouldn’t levitate. There’ll be new outrages in only one week’s time. However, if I want to learn Karl Rove/Grover Norquist talking points, I would simply hang out at a local breakfast eatery, nursing a pot of what passes for coffee in such establishments and watch Fox “News” all day. (E.g.: “Is it their religion that makes them terrorists?”)

Lucky ducky me. No, wait. Lucky ducky was a Wall Street Journal coinage. Nevertheless, I received my subscription copy of the January 28th – February 3rd issue yesterday. Subscribers in the civilized part of the world expect their copy on Saturday, so they can plot overthrows and palace coups and portfolio tilts for the coming week. My issue may arrive on Tuesday, Thursday or as a one-two punch every other week. The mailmen around here clearly do not understand why the Northwest Territory is so barren. If the movers and shakers would receive their Economist on time, the place might start to rock and roll. But then they’d have to sell their Shaklee vitamins on their own time. Just an observation, mind you.

Like most cocooned Americans I generally start with its coverage of the United States. The Lexington column, as I’ve mentioned before, sets me on edge, and this week is no exception. Its title is, “The papal court.” It’s about a Supreme Court with five Catholics on the bench. Do you know any actual Catholics? I do. Lots of them. See how this fits your experience. “This is a remarkable historical turnaround. Arthur Schlesinger senior once remarked that prejudice against the Catholic church was “the deepest bias in the history of the American people”. The Protestant majority denounced Catholics as minions of the anti-Christ and servants of a foreign power, marginalized Catholic schools [true], demonized Catholic pastimes, particularly drinking, and tried to keep them out of high political offices. It is not so long since presidents observed an unwritten convention against having more than one papist on the court.” (Page 34.)

Uh, anyone at The Economist want to guess the year John Kennedy was elected President? When’s the last time you heard someone refer to a Catholic as a ‘papist’?

Here is a really great outcome of all that ‘60s peace, love and dope The Economist was dissing the last time I wrote about it. We stopped caring about stupid crap like which flavor of Christian (or not) our friends happened to be. As I’ve said before, I can’t decide if the Lexington columnist is 80 or 25, because no one my age would write about something so devoid of experience - - unless he’s David Brooks. Bobo can strangle history along with the best of them.

Time to do your homework, Lexington. Who was the chief conservative spokesman for the longest time, at least in the popular mind, the person dispatched to scuffle with Gore Vidal on all the late night talk shows? And what is his religion? Was he a pariah to the left on account of his religion or because his ideas are so antebellum? (and I’m not sure I’d stop with the Civil War on the bellum part.)

What you will not see The Economist write about is all the Israeli citizens peppered throughout our government or their alignment with fundie kooks and the right wing Catholic Justices Scalia, Thomas and soon-to-be Alito. They might have lived in New Jersey, but their money’s on Haifa and Tel Aviv. It’s OK to bash Catholics and the Protestant hegemony in The Economist, but do not talk about AIPAC or aforesaid unholy alliances.

The article also advises that “Above all, Catholics are becoming ever more mainstream.” (ibid) Gosh, that’s really swell of them. Considering that Alito and Scalia both are alleged to be members of Opus Dei, a most un-mainstream group, akin in extremism, if not substance, to the KKK and the Trotskyites, I’m not quite skipping to ma Lou over the prospect of those two narrow, pre-Enlightenment “thinkers” rearranging the Constitutional landscape for the next couple of generations. Catholicism is the least of their uniqueness. And, frankly, if they were Catholic in the sense of universal or Catholic in the style of the Saints, say Francis of Assisi, an Italian with a moral worldview and a huge heart, then I would be thrilled that they were on the Court. And don’t forget the me-too Catholic, Clarence Thomas. There’s a holy man for you. (“Is it their religion that makes them terrorists?”)

OK. On to another section. On Page 32 there’s a shaded box “On red alert”, subtitled, “How to prevent the warping of impressionable minds”. (Stop me before I kill. Is The Economist writing this tongue-in-cheek? Is my literal, steak and potatoes American mind too crass to absorb the subtle dig? Or are they serious?) This recounts an attempt by the UCLA College Republicans’ past president to harass and intimidate professors there. He was going to pay students to tape lectures so they could be vetted for wrong ideas. He was slapped down. Even some of the money bags conservatives he’d lined up withdrew, and they seldom back down. “The cash-for-tapes ploy may be un-subtle, but it reflects the keenness on the right to tackle what many see as the American left’s last redoubt. … Given Conservatives’ success in changing Congress, the judiciary and the press, pinkish academics have every reason to be scared.” Pinkish? Pinkish?

Ah, well, nothing succeeds like 20 bazillion dollars, I always say. Pink refers to Commies, like reds. As a left leaning person, I came across some far out leftists in undergraduate school in the early ‘70s. It was quite fashionable to be extreme – over nothing, in some cases. However, I likewise encountered whitey righties, a displaced Hungarian history professor, a full colonel Army reservist who happened to be the head of my department and, therefore, my advisor. Oh, and the men who took the professor’s salary but were only half-baked in their efforts to help females advance. I had to learn to deal with it. I shudder to think what one of these coddled, spoiled “conservatives” would do to beat his/her (if that’s not too radical) way out of a paper bag.

As to impressionable minds. This is quite disturbing, actually, as “impressionable” might be exchanged for “intelligent”, and, God knows, we don’t want intelligent young folk exposed to great ideas. Just issue them a pin striped suit or the office casual equivalent, their College Republicans button and a subscription to Humans Events, block all internet forums but Little Green Footballs and The Corner, and watch their “impressionable” minds shrivel. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it? The Ruling Class matriculates elsewhere. And UCLA is a state school.

Last, they do a little write up on Maria Cantwell, the Democrat Senator from Washington. She was a tech mogul from RealNetworks, and she made oodles on paper, so she ran for the Senate and won, barely. She halted slippery Ted Stevens’ insertion of Artic pillaging into a defense bill. Hee hee. She outed him and it, and now the state Republican chairman is calling her an obstructionist. They definitely are running out of ideas on the right, if they ever had one in the first place – except FOAD - for America, of course. (See Miss Neveda)

But then they let slip a clue that they must in fact be on Karl Rove’s speed dial, after all. “It does not help that she received $17,865 from organizations linked to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist. She is now giving it to charity.”

An Indian Tribe does not a Jack Abramoff make. A glance at her campaign finance records at Open Secrets revels that lawyers contributed to Maria Cantwell by a margin greater than 2-to-1 over the next largest contributor. Micro$oft, Amazon, Comcast all contributed, as well.

As another famed College Republican president, Jack Abramoff was not directing money to Democrats. That’s the whole idea. A one-party state. The conservative revolution. Maria may come under the heading DINO. I don’t know enough about her. Kevin Phillips characterizes the national political scene as “different flavors of money”, and I think that’s a lot more interesting and enlightening than the chewed twice offerings in The Economist.

One last note. They are very bearish on Bush’s health care “initiatives” and predict a collapse of the system. Cheerio!