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Glen Beck is a Hippie?!?!?
Feb. 24th, 2010 10:21 amOr so claims this interesting article, which highlights a lot of parallels between the current American conservative movement and the "tune out, drop out" late '60s and early '70s. Basically, the author claims that the Right's mixture of anti-system radicalism, Luddism, street theater and dropping out (AKA, "going Galt") have obvious parallels to and the same root causes as the hippie movement.
On the one hand, I remember waaayyy back to 2004 and the "permanent majority," so I try to keep ideas like this in perspective. On the other hand, if the John "Eisenhower was a Commie!" Birch Society is back in the good graces of the conservative movement, maybe not.
Vaguely related to the above, I read that a former GITMO detainee is working for the US in Afghanistan. The obvious implication, stated by the now-English-speaking ex-detainee, is that a lot of folks got sold down the river to GITMO for reasons other than being Taliban. Two other tidbits:
1) In the article, a soldier is quoted as saying "no farmer speaks three languages" (the detainee also learned Spanish). What the soldier fails to grasp is that sometimes a person's situation in life has nothing to do with their innate abilities and everything to do with factors outside their control, like place and time of birth.
2) One of the first comments to the article, signed "Wake Up America!" asks why we are working with an obvious security risk. Perhaps "Wake Up America" should just go Galt?
On the one hand, I remember waaayyy back to 2004 and the "permanent majority," so I try to keep ideas like this in perspective. On the other hand, if the John "Eisenhower was a Commie!" Birch Society is back in the good graces of the conservative movement, maybe not.
Vaguely related to the above, I read that a former GITMO detainee is working for the US in Afghanistan. The obvious implication, stated by the now-English-speaking ex-detainee, is that a lot of folks got sold down the river to GITMO for reasons other than being Taliban. Two other tidbits:
1) In the article, a soldier is quoted as saying "no farmer speaks three languages" (the detainee also learned Spanish). What the soldier fails to grasp is that sometimes a person's situation in life has nothing to do with their innate abilities and everything to do with factors outside their control, like place and time of birth.
2) One of the first comments to the article, signed "Wake Up America!" asks why we are working with an obvious security risk. Perhaps "Wake Up America" should just go Galt?
