Annals of paranoia

Here's the latest from the realm of Whack. A conservative website has found further proof that President Barack Obama is a communist. So that explains why the stock market is doing so well...

The evidence proof? The writer opines that Obama's daughter Sasha's real name is Natasha, which is obviously Russian. I guess the fact that Sasha was born 10 years after the collapse of communism in the former USSR only proves how devious these guys are. Besides, we all know that anyone named Natasha has to be a pinko.

But I'll do him one better. Sasha was actually the nickname of V. I. Lenin's brother Alexander, who was executed by the czarist government for his revolutionary activities in 1887. Some people believe the failure of Sasha's anarchist friends to unsettle the government ultimately inspired him to create the Bolshevik party.

Hmmmm....I guess now we need to decode Malia.

Red Prometheus

El Cabrero just finished reading David Priestland's grande book, The Red Flag: A History of Communism. It was very readable and non-polemical and included cultural as well as political matters in a global history of that very diverse movement.

Early on, Priestland invokes the myth of the primordial rebel Prometheus, who was terribly punished by Zeus. The young Marx referred to Prometheus as "the most eminent saint and martyr in the philosophical calendar."

Viewing the history of the movement through that lens, Priestland's final lines are worth pondering:

The history of Communism should have taught us two things. The first lesson, now drawn by many writers, is how destructive dogmatic utopian thinking can be. The second, rather more neglected today, is the danger of sharp inequalities and perceived injustice--for they can make that utopian politics very appealing. Since 1989 the dominant powers have learnt neither lesson. Reacting sharply against communist utopias, messianic dogmatic liberals have sought to export their system--sometimes by force--across the globe. Perhaps, only now, chastened by the crises of 2008, will we finally learn from the history of Communism. Only if we do so will we be spared another bloody act in the tragedy of Prometheus.

MASSEY MINE DISASTER. Here's NPR's coverage of the congressional hearing held in Beckley earlier this week and here's an interview with WV Senator Jay Rockefeller about the disaster from the Charleston Daily Mail. And, while we're at it, here's a take on Massey CEO Don Blankenship's leadership style from a business social responsibility blog.

WELFARE TO WHAT? Recession-induced cuts to child care may force low income workers out of their jobs.

OF TESTOSTERONE AND TRUST, one may learn something by clicking here.


GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED