I wanted to read this, I really did, but the opening graf made me want to chew my own teeth off. The first sentence is 'I am a great believer in used-bookstore serendipity.' What is this--an article on the tea party or a personal essay about two Smith undergrads bumping into each other between the photography and self help sections and then realizing that they share an interest in chai lattes? The rest of the graf doesn't get much better and so I would rather waste my time writing snarky comments on the blue than reading the rest of the article.Fair enough. This is a Ron Rosenbaum article. Just imagine that this, like anything else written by the esteemed Mr Rosenbaum, had an invisible first first paragraph. It would go something like this:
"Hello, my name is Ron Rosenbaum, and I am kind of a narcissist. You understand that everything is ultimately about me. What follows is a more or less endearing piece of pseudo-scholarly dilettantism in which I (over)-compensate for dropping out of my PhD program at Yale all those years ago. But since I am a bitchy, compulsive gossip, what follows will probably be at least fitfully entertaining. Bye!"If you think this is bad, try reading Explaining Hitler, or worse, The Shakespeare Wars, which is essentially just 300+ pages of gossip about Florida State professor Gary Taylor, interspersed with Rosenbaum pretending to care about the state of contemporary textual criticism and waxing lyrical about Shakespeare Survey. Why he gets published, I don't know. But it can be fun.
Perhaps this is the best Tea Party open thread to post Jill Lepore's recent feature in the New Yorker, Who Owns the American Revolution?
A new survey by the University of Washington Institute for the Study of Ethnicity, Race & Sexuality offers fresh insight into the racial attitudes of Tea Party sympathizers. "The data suggests that people who are Tea Party supporters have a higher probability"—25 percent, to be exact—"of being racially resentful than those who are not Tea Party supporters," says Christopher Parker, who directed the study. "The Tea Party is not just about politics and size of government. The data suggests it may also be about race."posted by MythMaker at 8:43 AM on April 27, 2010 [3 favorites]
Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong. They claim that culture is created by collective national society and its state, that cultural ideas are what give individuals identity, and thus rejects individualism. In viewing the nation as an integrated collective community, they claim that pluralism is a dysfunctional aspect of society, and justify a totalitarian state as a means to represent the nation in its entirety. They advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement. They identify violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.Sound familiar?
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posted by Fraxas at 1:02 PM on April 26, 2010 [2 favorites]