22 Years ago today, throngs of Russians lined up for the grand opening of that country’s first McDonald’s. Less than two years later, the Soviet Union collapsed. This of course raises the question — is McDonald’s food truly that bad? While nutritionists and culinary afficionados might say yes, if the Golden Arches were actually capable of bringing down oppressive empires, the US would have been toast long ago.
On the other hand, there can be little doubt that Ronald and Co. made a significant contribution to Russia’s efforts to rebuild from its economic ashes. Within 20 years of the opening of that solitary restaurant in Moscow, McDonald’s had directly created over 125,000 jobs in the former USSR. The vast majority of those jobs – more than 100,000 of them – did not involve flipping burgers, but were instead generated in Russian-owned businesses that supplied the fast-food chain.
As you’ve probably heard, Ron Paul has brought a lawsuit against the anonymous party behind the infamous “Manchurian Candidate” video, an offensive, fake ad designed to lead people to believe it was produced by Ron Paul or his organization
A couple of days ago, the case hit a snag, and this has brought attention to some of the criticism of Paul’s decision to bring the suit in the first place. I agree with Paul’s decision to sue, and I think some of the criticisms are confused. I’ll address problems I’ve found with three of the most prevalent criticisms ~
Jonathan Chait thinks Newt Gingrich is karmic blowback for conservative support of Citizens United – support which further proves that conservatives don’t care about “good government” (as if more proof were needed!) ~
“In 2000, the Bush network froze challenger John McCain out of party fund-raising networks. Now, the GOP is trying to do this again on behalf of Romney…Ten years ago, this sort of edict would have suffocated Gingrich. But under the present system, Gingrich can simply have a single extremely wealthy supporter, Sheldon Adelson, write a series of $5 million checks.
“Conservatives may not care much about the good-government problems that this scenario raises. (I care! Imagine a sitting President trying to make a fair judgment about a policy decision impacting the businessman who single-handedly financed his entire election.) But they may come to care about the problems arising from a system that now allows one very, very rich man with very, very poor political instincts to overturn their own best laid plans.”
I guess when Mr. Chait says “conservatives” in the above quote, he must actually mean the Conservative Establishment. After all, the 40.4% of South Carolina conservatives that voted for Newt Gingrich clearly don’t believe that Mr. Adelson’s money overturned “their best laid plans.” The same holds true of the 29% of conservatives nationwide who currently favor Mr. Gingrich.
I have no doubt that the Conservative Establishment indeed resents Newt Gingrich’s ability to disrupt its scheme to buy the nomination for Mitt Romney. I also agree that Newt’s capacity to do so owes much to the Citizens United ruling. It’s difficult to see how Newt’s campaign could pay for advertising and keep the lights on were it not for Adelson’s money. But there’s a distinction between “conservatives” and the Conservative Establishment, and the idea behind Citizens United was to protect the interests of the former just as much as those of the latter.
This might come as a huge surprise to a lot of people, but most of America is moderate.
Crazy, right?
You wouldn’t know it looking at Capitol Hill. The liberal/conservative dichotomy is so entrenched in our political system that millions of Americans feel like they have to choose between extremes, and those who can’t choose bear the label of indecisive.
But the truth of the matter is that moderates aren’t indecisive. Rather, the liberal/conservative dichotomy doesn’t properly serve the interests of the majority of Americans. This is a huge problem when the two-party system is the status quo.
“The lunar new year is celebrated throughout the world, but especially in Asia when the lunisolar calendar ticks off a new cycle. This year is the Year of the Dragon on the Chinese zodiac, and is viewed as very auspicious. In China, the holiday is known as 春节, the Spring Festival, and kicks off 15 days of celebration. It also triggers the largest human migration in the world, as hundreds of millions of Chinese trek to see families. Gathered here are images of the preparation for the holiday, the travel scene in mainland China, and celebrations in many parts of the world. 新年快乐! “
Well, I didn’t actually figure it out – I merely recognized that someone else figured it out. And by “it” I mean how on earth Newt F&%!ing Gingrich pulled off such a big win in South Carolina and appears poised to do the same f&%!ing thing in Florida.
I’ve spent the last several days racking my brain, trying to understand why people would vote for Newt. The GOP Establishment doesn’t much support him, and on top of that, he is a philandering, flip-flopping, unconservative sell-out. And yet, the GOP base in the South is firmly behind him. Why?
It wasn’t until I read Conor Friedersdorf’s article over at The Atlantic that the answer became clear – Newt has flair!
It’s been said that Generation Y is the apathetic generation. I don’t know if that’s really true, but maybe we, like they, are suffering from:
weltschmerz: \VELT-shmairts\ noun, often capitalized 1 : mental depression or apathy caused by comparison of the actual state of the world with an ideal state
