David Sirota from Creators Syndicate

Getting Off the Grid for 06/26/2009

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 00:00:00 -0700

As you read this, I am somewhere in rural China, probably disoriented, perhaps eating a fish eye, and certainly not paying attention to the news. This column was the last thing I wrote before embarking on what's become an all-too-rare experiment in human life: I decided to see what will happen when I go fully off the grid.

Because I am completely cut off, you cannot call or text me from ...

Updated: Fri Jun 26, 2009

China Is Here for 07/17/2009

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

GUIYANG, CHINA — Before planning for and making the trans-global trek to the most populous country on Earth, I knew mainland China mostly through television and movie screens. My sinologists were Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Egg Shen, the crotchety shaman from "Big Trouble in Little China" — a Cabinet of advisers who left me, ahem, unprepared for my voyage east.

Thus, ...

Updated: Fri Jul 17, 2009

The Attack of the 1-Percenters for 07/24/2009

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Here's a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had it so good.

According to government figures, 1-percenters' share of America's total income is the highest it's been since 1929, and their tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades. Through bonuses, many 1-percenters will profit from the $23 trillion in bailout largesse the Treasury Department now says could be headed to ...

Updated: Fri Jul 24, 2009

Health Care Tyranny for 07/31/2009

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

For those still clinging to quaint notions of the American ideal, these have been a faith-shaking 10 years. Just as evolutionary science once got in the way of Creationists' catechism, so has politics now undermined patriots' naive belief that the United States is a functioning democracy.

The 21st century opened with a handful of Supreme Court puppets appointing George W. Bush president ...

Updated: Fri Jul 31, 2009

The Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd for 08/07/2009

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I know I should be mortified by the lobbyist-organized mobs of angry Brooks Brothers mannequins who are now making headlines by shutting down congressional town hall meetings. I know I should be despondent during this, the Khaki Pants Offensive in the Great American Health Care and Tax War. And yet, I'm euphorically repeating one word over and over again with a big grin on my face.

Final ...

Updated: Fri Aug 07, 2009

Don't You Forget About Him for 08/14/2009

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Confidence is a strange and elusive thing. As a nation, we clearly have it in this post-Vietnam age of chest-thumping invasions and flag-pin patriotism. But as humans, we are each, well, human. In our minds' most secret caverns — those shadowy places that stiff upper lips, Botox and sports cars obscure — aplomb is often just a fleeting relief from more constant fear and loathing.

Updated: Fri Aug 14, 2009

Freedom from Fear for 08/21/2009

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Those of us living in the Rocky Mountains are steeped in America's famous gun culture — and we therefore know well the binary debates surrounding the Second Amendment. Firearm enthusiasts — the vast majority of whom use weapons responsibly — believe the Constitution protects their right to bear arms. Gun control advocates counter that the Constitution doesn't give anyone the i ...

Updated: Fri Aug 21, 2009

The Science Fiction of Military Marketing for 08/28/2009

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I'm a video game geek, so as I sat through movie previews a few weeks ago, I was sure I was watching Nintendo ads.

There on the cinema's screen was a super-sleek plane flying over a moonscape while communicating with an orbiting satellite. In the next moment, a multi-colored topographical map, orders being barked — and in my own mind, memories of "Call of Duty" graphics. ...

Updated: Fri Aug 28, 2009

A Party Is Not a Movement for 09/04/2009

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The difference between parties and movements is simple: Parties are loyal to their own power regardless of policy agenda; movements are loyal to their own policy agenda regardless of which party champions it. This is one of the few enduring political axioms, and it explains why the organizations purporting to lead an American progressive "movement" have yet to build a real movement, m ...

Updated: Fri Sep 04, 2009

We've Seen This Trigger Before for 09/11/2009

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

After a summer of politics marked by esoteric phrases like "co-ops" and "insurance exchanges," the newest kernel of ubiquitous arcana is the term "trigger mechanism." This proposal, which is gaining momentum after President Obama's speech to Congress, would have any national health legislation include provisions only allowing a government-run "public option&qu ...

Updated: Fri Sep 11, 2009

Selective Deficit Disorder for 09/18/2009

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Watching the health care debate unfold these days is a little like watching scenes from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" — the ones showing a collage of strung-out, deranged or otherwise incapacitated patients rotting away in a squalid psychiatric ward.

As the insurance industry's Nurse Ratched lurks in the background, congressional Democrats cower in the corner, fearing ...

Updated: Fri Sep 18, 2009

Country Club Etiquette Trumps Legislative Results for 09/25/2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The recent headlines about President Obama working to crush primary campaigns against Democratic incumbents would be great fodder for a canned column looking at hypocrisy.

Yes, it would be easy to read about the president trying to clear the Empire State's primary field for appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and then pen a screed wondering how that squares with Obama promising to ...

Updated: Fri Sep 25, 2009

Who Are "The Deciders"? for 10/02/2009

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The war in Afghanistan poses two important questions: What should be done and who should be "the deciders"?

Congressional Republicans say the answer to the first query is military escalation. But according to polls, most Americans disagree. At the same time, many experts wonder "whether or not we know what we're doing," as President George W. Bush's former deputy nati ...

Updated: Fri Oct 02, 2009

The Zombie Zeitgeist for 10/09/2009

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

What's with all the zombies lately?

That could be a question about one of the hippest retro fads that pop culture has going these days. Inspired by horror genres of past, zombies have lurched back to pre-eminence in books like "World War Z," video games like "Left 4 Dead" and blockbuster films like "Zombieland." Even the highbrow producers at National Public ...

Updated: Fri Oct 09, 2009

Good Health Care Policy Makes Good Politics -- And Vice Versa for 10/16/2009

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I don't get it.

I know that's the simplistic refrain of every 10-year-old, but I'm 33 and I mean it: I just don't get it.

Specifically, I don't get why Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe (R) — or any Republican senator, for that matter — is attracting so much attention.

In the last few months, Democratic senators eliminated the public option and substantially weakened the ...

Updated: Fri Oct 16, 2009

A Tale of Two Supermen for 10/23/2009

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

For better or worse, our American Idiocracy has come to rely on athletes as national pedagogues. Michael Jordan educated the country about commitment and just doing it. A.C. Green lectured us about sexual caution. Serena Williams and John McEnroe taught us what sportsmanship is — and is not. And Charles Barkley outlined how society should define role models.

So when a single week l ...

Updated: Fri Oct 23, 2009

TARP on Steroids for 10/30/2009

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I recall that September day like it was yesterday — the explosion so stunning, so memorable. It wasn't 9/11/01, it was 9/29/08 — a moment when a rare blast of populist democracy briefly singed the economic terrorists who hold the Capitol hostage.

It had been a dark and stormy month of financial collapse, culminating in an attempted power grab. Pushed by his fellow Wall Street ...

Updated: Fri Oct 30, 2009

We Are What We Trade and How We Trade It for 11/06/2009

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Trade and globalization — when not referencing blockbuster sports transactions or raucous street protests, debates over these abstract terms can give Ambien and Jack Daniels a run for their money as a cure for insomnia. Of course, that's the problem — the rules governing what we buy and sell are now playing such a decisive role in almost every major policy that we're falling asleep ...

Updated: Fri Nov 06, 2009

Where Are the Real Deficit Hawks? for 11/13/2009

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Let's say you're a congressperson or tea party leader looking to champion deficit reduction — a cause 38 percent of Americans tell pollsters they support. And let's say you're deciding whether to back two pieces of imminent legislation.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the first bill's spending provisions cost $100 billion annually and its tax and budget-cu ...

Updated: Fri Nov 13, 2009

Intelligentsia Against Intelligence for 11/20/2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In the parlance of our times, the term "Idiocracy" means a nation run by idiots — and the term "idiot" is defined by the dictionary as "an utterly foolish or senseless person" who exhibits "a mental age of less than three years old."

There are obvious reasons to believe America is becoming an Idiocracy — a series of horrendous governmen ...

Updated: Fri Nov 20, 2009