Please explain to me why anyone thinks any analysis of the "netroots" as some sort of monolithic entity is worth the pixels it occupies.

News flash: lots of different kinds of people read the internet. Lots of different kinds of people write blogs. They think lots of different things. There is no netroots, not as a discrete phenomenon with a discernible ideological valence or measurable influence.

Posted at August 2, 2006 2:51 PM in response to Too Conservative?

You know, the idea about how ideas are great.

Not those boring old ideas, like universal health care and retirement security and progressive taxation and clean energy and robust internationalism.

No, no, the new ideas. Like ... you know. The new ones.

Posted at July 10, 2006 2:18 PM in response to Not Ideas About The Thing, But The Thing Itself

I don't think it was tongue in cheek at all, and I think it was fucking brilliant, in the running for best post ever.

Posted at July 9, 2006 5:59 PM in response to Objectively true

The insidious influence of Big Corn on our agricultural, trade, energy, and environmental policies cannot be overstated. Read anything by Michael Pollan. Something like 80% of the items in the average supermarket -- food and non-food alike -- contain some derivative of corn.

It's not exaggerating to say that the entire American food industry is devoted to finding new ways of processing corn into junk food. They long ago maxed our our ability to consume corn itself, and there are huge corn surpluses thanks to ridiculous subsidies, so they have to get it down our gullet somehow.

Also, corn-based ethanol? Total scam. Total sop to Big Corn, and huge distraction from the real solutions to our energy problems.

Corn is evil, and so is corn syrup.

Posted at July 2, 2006 12:23 PM in response to Corn Syrup

Fear, violence, and control -- the only things the right knows or understands -- never, ever, ever, ever, ever work outside of the very short-term. This is demonstrated by copious evidence in our personal relationships, our communities, our state and federal governments, international relations, literature, film, oral traditions, homilies, the Bible ... really, you name it. That's the lesson humanity keeps learning over and over again.

And yet to be "serious" in foreign policy these days just is to express maximum belligerence, fear, and lust for control, no matter how patently insane the particulars.

WTF.

Posted at June 27, 2006 3:47 PM in response to Star Wars and International Relations

What I've never been able to get is how it escapes these people how closely their attitudes and rhetoric mirror every authoritarian movement of the last century or two. Every time it's that dissent emboldens the enemy, that transparency is unsafe, that any restrictions on executive power are a sign of weakness ... every time it's exactly the same. Same temperament. Same bullying and intimidation. Same fear. Same sense of victimization. Even some of the exact same words.

How can they fail to notice? Or do they just not care?

Posted at June 25, 2006 1:33 PM in response to I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing

Fantastic post.

Posted at June 22, 2006 11:01 PM in response to My Lieberman Problem -- And Ours

Venezuela has lots and lots of oil. Why do you think we give a sh*t about Chavez?

Posted at May 15, 2006 2:41 PM in response to The Next Next Thing

This is the kind of point that is sniffed at as unsophisticated or emotional by the professional punditry. But it is true, and devastating. I laud you for making it and hope you keep banging the drum.

Posted at May 2, 2006 9:56 AM in response to About That Idealism

This might be the most pathetic post I've ever read from you, Matt.

After all the discussion that's swirled around this today, you just meekly say "me too"? Why post at all?

Two points:

For the past two decades, Patrick Moore has been a notorious industry shill and environmentalist-basher. Describing him only as a "co-founder of Greenpeace" is grossly deceptive. This point has been made probably FIFTY DIFFERENT PLACES on various blogs today, which you could have discovered with a minimum of reading. Check SourceWatch on Moore.

Nulcear is NOT the only way keep generating electricity. A combination of wind, solar, geothermal, and hydrokinetic power -- combined with increased energy efficiency and improvements in the energy grid -- could do what we need to do.

The nuclear bandwagon is pernicious bullshit passed along by credulous lefties straining to be seen as "reasonable." Sound familiar? Seems like lefties got in trouble with something like that recently.

Posted at April 16, 2006 6:55 PM in response to Nuclear Power