Washington, D.C. - “Republicans routinely criticize the policies of Barack Obama and other Democrats as socialist,” said Alex Epstein, an analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. “But their endorsement of Barack Obama’s imminent, trillion-dollar ‘stimulus plan’ shows that they buy into socialist ideas just as much as the Democrats. Indeed, Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s explanation of his party’s approach to a ‘stimulus plan’ would make Leon Trotsky proud: ‘We should have a simple test: Will the . . . trillion-dollar spending bill really create jobs and grow the economy . . .?’
“What is socialism, if not the idea that the government should seize citizens’ wealth and control industry in the name of creating jobs and growing the economy? If the government has the political right and economic ability to conduct this ‘simple test’ with a trillion dollars of stimulus, why not just nationalize the whole economy outright, and have McConnell, Obama, and a handful of czars tell us what to do and where to spend our money?
“A party that truly understood what is wrong with socialism would recognize the injustice and impossibility of central planners expropriating and dictating citizens into prosperity. It would recognize that wealth creation and economic prosperity are the result of protecting the rights of productive individuals to plan, produce, and trade on a truly free market--absent the massive government manipulation of interest rates and home-buying that brought about the current disaster. The Republicans have not earned the right to call anyone socialist--except themselves.”
After being caught by paparazzi staggering stoned through the streets of London recently, it was a relief to see Jake Gyllenhaal out jogging this week and looking really healthy.
In fact, it looks like he's bulked up some if you compare him to this photo from his Brokeback Mountain days.
This poster for The Happy Valley Showdown in Northampton is plastered all over town and has an unusual image on it - a girl on a toilet.
The store Faces in downtown Hamp has this Warholian Obama tribute in their window.
The city put up a new pedestrian bridge over Main Street in Hamp. I realize that when it comes to bridges function trumps form, but if I didn't know that it was brand new the rusty color of the bridge would make me think it was old. Don't they ever consult artists on these projects? Wasn't Jon Sendelbach available?
Hey, let's go take a picture of Northampton from up on the bridge! To do so we must climb these stairs, past where the word BLOG has been sprayed by some cyber-revolutionary.
Drats! The bridge is fenced off, but perhaps in the Spring they will open it and maybe paint it as well.
This is avant-garde film maker Ted Lee at Newbury Comix in Amherst.
Here's a movie he made at Amherst's Hampshire College starring The Faculty.
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