Comments on: Rooseveltian Rhetoric

By: raj

raj — Mon, 12 Jul 2004 10:49:51 +0000

“Socio-Economics”? Is that anything like “Socio-biology”? Ummm.

By: peter ramus

peter ramus — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 17:59:38 +0000

mandarin: I do enjoy a podiumpounding oration. Thanks for that. As to your request: Like so many things, HTML takes longer to explain than to do. For your purposes the anchor tag needs to have the entire web address spelled out in it, something which isn't clearly stated in the otherwise helpful page pointed to by derrida derider above. Not simply, as given by the folks at cdesign.net, this but rather this See? The whole darn address. Three step review: 1.Wrap the desired address in brackets, with a href= preceeding it. Don't forget the quote marks around the address. They're not optional. 2.Next, type the word or phrase (in your case it would be, say, Cannon's Two Americas). 3.Then, close the tag by wrapping ⁄a in brackets. Done: Cannon's Two Americas. Practice this. Commenting software often breaks down under the burden of excessively long web addresses because there are no line breaks in addresses and some files are nested way, way down in the server's hierarchical structure. If this seems too much of a bother, there's also this extremely helpful site. To each according to his needs . . .

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 17:15:38 +0000

He did come in second, Giles. Same position GW Bush finished in the 2000 generals.

By: Giles

Giles — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 15:22:54 +0000

The Economist only talked him up in comparison to the rest of the choice. Still the problem with Edwards is that if he he so able to connect with ordinary americans, why was he so unable to connect with democrats in the primaries?

By: Karlo

Karlo — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 08:14:53 +0000

I agree that Edwards is to be praised for bringing up the class divide. The “two Americas” is, after all, not some abstract concept, but rather a very concrete and visible reality that can be observed by driving a couple miles across class lines in a big city or by looking at generally accepted economic statistics. It’s odd to see the majority of Americans so afraid to acknowledge the great gap in wealth (and by extension, political power) in this country.

By: q

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:58:20 +0000

“class warfare”, “terror warfare” – warfare is a good blockhead-word. It all depends if you define problems as cancers to be cut out, or bruises to be healed. Instead why not try a systematic approach based on sound engineering principles, educating the basic productive units and decentralising decision making to the people who have to overcome problems everyday. “We don’t even know what skills may be needed in the years ahead. That is why we must train our young people in the fundamental fields of knowledge, and equip them to understand and cope with change. That is why we must give them the critical qualities of mind and durable qualities of character that will serve them in circumstances we cannot now even predict.” John Gardner, in “Excellence”

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:19:02 +0000

H.E., that’s surely as good an account as mine. Herewith, a story that should make everyone happy. Disraeli wrote “Sybil, or the Two Nations.” Cannon was struck by this phrase and converted it to “Two Americas.” Harrington picked up “The Other America” from Cannon’s speech. Then Andrew Hacker turned “The Other America” back into “two Americas” and thence “Two nations” to describe black and white America. Edwards wanted to make the point that Republican policies hurt poor white people as much as they hurt black people, so he turned it back into two Americas. voila. OK, that’s as much as I’m willing to do in my armchair. (ps Mandarin, how did you come up with that citation? You must know your Socialist Workers’ Party texts very well.)

By: h. e. baber

h. e. baber — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 05:12:47 +0000

Edwards actually talked about poverty—not just the struggles of the middle class. This has been tragically absent from our political discourse The trouble is that “poverty” doesn’t fly in American political discourse because it’s construed as the state of the “undeserving poor”—code for racial minorities. Virtually all white Americans who aren’t actually sleeping on grates believe that they’re Haves rather than Have Nots and imagine that class warfare will pit welfare queens, drug dealers and their latte-guzzling liberal allies against them and Republican plutocrats. If Edwards can convince Americans whose household income less than, say, $50,000 a year that they’re Have Nots rather than Haves Democrats have a winning ticket.

By: h. e. baber

h. e. baber — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 04:30:33 +0000

It’s surely descended from the title of Michael Harrington’s book, The Other America from the 60’s.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 03:57:27 +0000

“The two Americas” is surely descended from Sybil, or the Two Nations, by (future, I think) Tory Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. Sadly, the phrase “class warfare” still is used—G.W. Bush in a speech in York Pennsylvania said: ” Angry talk, and class warfare rhetoric, and economic isolationism won’t get anybody hired.” His attack on angry talk is on a par with his statement that “the American President must speak clearly and mean what he says.”

By: Henry

Henry — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 02:47:03 +0000

Yeah – the Economist is sounding a little less bullish now – but last year during the run-up to the primaries it was boosting him nearly every week in articles. Of course, it could just be that one of their US staffers liked him – or even that they decided on balance that he was the best candidate. Who knows.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 01:12:52 +0000

Yeah, he’s ideologically unsound on trade but Edwards would have been a much more formidable oponent to Bush than Kerry is; the Dems chose the wrong person. Formatting in comments, including links, uses HTML codes – they’re simple, but I can’t display them here because putting the code characters in gets interpreted as HTML by the blogging software. But this cheat sheet is pretty good at explaining.

By: Conrad Barwa

Conrad Barwa — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 01:01:04 +0000

I’ve an inherent suspicion of anyone whom the Economist keeps on talking up Sensible, being talked up by this source is rarely a good sign in most cases.

By: mandarin

mandarin — Sun, 11 Jul 2004 00:29:40 +0000

Unsurprising that Edwards’s catch phrase should appeal to you, Henry: http://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1948/twoamer.htm [I don’t know how to make this an actual link; perhaps someone can – grudgingly? – help.]

By: Simon Kinahan

Simon Kinahan — Sat, 10 Jul 2004 23:46:41 +0000

The Economist appears to be deeply suspicious of Edwards. They think he is too protectionist. The only “talking up” in this week’s paper concerned Kerry’s (sensible, in my view and theirs) tactics in choosing Edwards, given the alternatives.