What Government Does for You

When government works effectively, it becomes an invisible part of everyday life and people start to take it for granted.

  October 17, 2012

“Government, keep your hands off my Medicare!”

Commentators and comedians alike had fun with the cognitive dissonance represented by the statement above, found on more than one hand-scrawled sign at Tea Party rallies. But while opposition to government is more at home on the political right, ignorance about the role of government is a bipartisan malady.

 Liberals may shake their heads at the “ignorance” of the Right, but we’ve seen focus groups in San Francisco comprised of liberal Democrats argue about whether or not the Bay Area Rapid Transit system is public transportation. Years of research and polling have shown that there is a broad lack of understanding about the role of government in our everyday lives. Many Americans are unaware of just what’s public and what’s private. Why is that?    READ MORE

Sandra Fluke Affair Proves that it's Right-Wingers Who Are the True Adherents of Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky

Like most liberals under the age of 50, I've never actually read Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. I only know what the book is about from reading Right-wing blogs -- they're obsessed with Alinksy, and seem to think that studying him is mandatory in our Liberal Indoctrination Centers public schools.

One of Alinsky's rules -- again, I know this because conservatives keep telling me -- is that you've got to: 'Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It and Polarize It.' And that's exactly what Rush Limbaugh and his slut-shaming is about. Sandra Fluke, after all, is not a prominent figure on the national stage. She is a a young woman in law-school who testified about the experience of a friend who required birth control pills to battle cancer. And here she is, a target picked, frozen, personalized and polarized. 

Anyway, Rush must be wondering what all the fuss is about - after all, his outrageously vile comments about Fluke aren't more outrageous or vile than any of the other bile he spews everyday.

Yet, there is a backlash, as Kristen Gwynne noted in an earlier post. Pressure is being brought to bear on Limbaugh's advertisers, and companies don't like to have their brand associated with the worst kind of misogyny.

Also, this is kind of nice...  

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