Let’s not get too cocky

The Republicans might still win the 2006 elections. Never misunderestimate the steamroller power of the great GOP Wurlitzer. It’s a juggernaut, and next to it the Democrats look and sound like impotent, helpless amateurs. Never misunderestimate the power of really good propaganda, the one thing the Bush administration does with finesse, even perfection. I have no choice but to admire it, the same way you have to admire the efficiency of the hydrogen bomb.

This was a quick airport post. No more today.

The Discussion: 4 Comments

Unless and until the Democrats at least raise a finger to slow down the cancer of suburban “development” and all of the consequences of it, a Democratic Congress or White House will hardly make a scrap of difference.

April 26, 2006 @ 8:46 pm | Comment

I’m looking at the 2006 and the 2008 elections as sign-posts as to what I should do with my life. America really needs to repudiate Bush and everything he’s stood for. Otherwise I fear we are just another empire in decline. Too bad, because as per your Thomas Friedman post below, the West Coast is in a much better place to adapt to the new global reality than the US as a whole.

April 26, 2006 @ 11:45 pm | Comment

Richard or Lisa:

This was just posted to H-Asia

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From: Joseph W. Esherick

At the recent Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in San
Francisco, as part of a round table on the Jung Chang and Jon
Halliday biography, Mao: The Unknown Story, I promised that I would
post the URL of a Web Site my students have developed as a result of
their reading The Unknown Story and checking its sources. The site
is now up at a relatively permanent home, as part of the UCSD Chinese
History Web Site. The URL for the host site is
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/ and for the Mao section:
http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/chinesehistory/mao/Mao.htm

As I mentioned at AAS, this is the result of a class exercise in
which I asked students to check the Chang and Halliday footnotes for
things that they found suspiciously different from other readings on
Mao and the Chinese revolution. It turns out that Chang and Haliday
have used their sources quite creatively — and even untrained but
relatively diligent undergraduates can see that this is problematic as
history.

I invite H-Asia members to visit the site. Even more, I invite
interested parties to post reactions to the site or the book, in the
comments section of the site. It would be nice to continue the
conversation on what is probably the most widely read book on China
in recent years.

Joe Esherick
University of California, San Diego

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You might be interested in it for a blogpost.

Michael

April 27, 2006 @ 1:43 am | Comment

I do agree that we need to vote Democratic in 2006 and 2008 just to flush out all of the Republican sewage. But it will only be a small measure of damage control unless and until the Democrats really begin offer new ideas and to wean themselves from corporate corruption.

April 27, 2006 @ 3:28 am | Comment

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