A World Absent Of Red Ink

Let me tell you a wonderful, old joke from Communist times. A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors, so he told his friends: “Let’s establish a code. If a letter you get from me is written in blue ink, it is true what I say. If it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: “Everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theatres show good films from the west. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.” This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink: the language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom— war on terror and so on—falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here. You are giving all of us red ink.

– Slavoj Žižek at Occupy Wall Street protests in New York

Why The House Won’t Investigate The News Corp Hacking Scandal

Someone, please explain this to me. Donald Issa (R-CA), appearing on Fox News (a News Corp subsidiary) to explain why the House of Representatives won’t investigate the News Corporation hacking scandal:

Well, thank you for being fair and balanced… This is being looked at by the Justice Department. This is being looked at by the Senate, and we’re keeping and eye on it. But at the same time, this is a story about a unit in another country, and we want to make sure we don’t enter the ground that is most inappropriate for us, which is we don’t start picking on media whether they’re the left or the right just because we can.

But at least he can appreciate that Fox is ‘fair and balanced’!

Jon Stewart On Christian Victimhood In America

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Michelle Bachmann Explains Hurricane Irene

What. The. Fuck:

I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

– Michelle Bachmann explains at a campaign stop in Florida where earthquakes and hurricanes come from.

A Nation Of Have-Nots Playing Pretend

“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

John Steinbeck