Tag: Ronald Reagan

“But What if We Didn’t?” – Why Enmity and Outrage is the New Normal

I came across this posting via Jim Grey’s Recommended Reading column for today.   He linked to John Scalzi’s post entitled “But What if We Didn’t?” – and that has cleared the confusion as to why the American Congress has gone from attempting to work together to tearing each other apart.

When Ronald Reagan was President, he and Tip O’Neillc ould get along.

Now?

I will leave you to ponder what Scalzi writes – and strongly suggest you Scalzi’s post in its entirety by clicking on the link above or anywhere on the quotation below:

I have a theory about the Republican Party, and it is that around the time Newt Gingrich became the head of its brain trust, the GOP added a fourth functioning principle to its previous tripod of “Southern Strategy to corner the racist vote,” “Abortion to corner the Evangelical vote” and “Tax cuts to corner the capitalist vote (and money).” The fourth principle was not about kettling and controlling a voting bloc, but rather a principle to maximize its power and to motivate the voting blocs beyond whatever the GOP could offer them politically.

That fourth principle, to put it in its shortest and bluntest form, is:

“But what if we… didn’t?”

Somewhat more broadly, the Republicans recognized there was a suite of political conventions and traditions that were designed to make it easier for things to get done, and that this suite of conventions and traditions were exploitable by denial. While people in both parties (and the parties themselves) would occasionally use this exploit, it was not done systematically.

 

IMBY

IMBY is the opposite of NIMBY.

Sometimes it is surprising to find out what is in your own community.  Just the other day, for the very first time, I heard about lynda.com.  I have no idea where I heard of it.  Yet, it has been here for years, since the mid-90s, living in Ojai, Ventura, and Carpenteria.  Amazing.

As someone who has been in education for many years, I was pleasantly surprised, and delighted when I went to their site.  Watching the videos of Lynda and Bill, co-founders of lynda.com, I enjoyed the fact that these are real people, down-to-earth and creative.  Makes me want to change job venues!

We also have Sage Publications in Newbury Park, an academic publishing company with a wide array of publications in varied areas.  We also have Amgen in the same town, and nearby, in different areas, the now-defunct Countrywide.

Besides some interesting (to me) corporations, we also have a few movie stars and other famous people.  Four miles from where I live is the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library; in Thousand Oaks we have Ms. Hailee Steinfeld who starred as Mattie in the Koen Brothers version of True Grit.

Wow – all this over my back fence!