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October 26, 2008 at 13:26:13
Promoted to Headline (H2) on 10/26/08: by Edwin Rutsch Page 1 of 2 page(s) |
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I interviewed Markos (Kos) Moulitsas, founder of the Dailykos.com and asked him about the failure of conservative values. For him, the conservative value of self-delusion was the greatest failure. He says conservatives value their ideology over actual reality and he pointed out a series of examples of how this ideology ignores reality. "As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions." Ralph Waldo Emerson
Markos (Kos) Moulitsas
Failed Conservative Values: Markos Moulitsas - Self-Delusion
Edwin: Have conservative values failed?
Markos: Oh, yeah, the failure of conservative values, the bottom line is that it has no bearing on reality. They created an alternate reality – cut taxes, lower the deficit, balance the budget – where global warming did not exist, where the world was invented 6,000 years ago, where science is bogus, where the best way to educate kids is to defund the schools.
And this is the comeuppance. When you base your reality on an ideology that has really no basis for reality, you’re doomed to failure. When you have an ideology that says that government cannot work, you have to by default run a shitty government. What’s the alternative?
Let’s say George Bush says the government can’t work, we need to shrink it. So, when I appoint my director of FEMA, instead of appointing a horse lawyer, I’m going to appoint an experienced administer who knows about disaster management and logistics planning. So when Katrina happens, the government does a fantastic job, making people’s lives better.
Suddenly, you have sort of a collision of ideologies. When you say government can’t work, and you have government that works, where does that leave the conservatives? In a really, really piss-poor place.
So, by default, Bush had to appoint the horse lawyer to FEMA, I could go down the list – in department after department it’s scandal after scandal. I mean, it’s all because he appointed people who are not qualified. Because they need to fail, they need to prove that government cannot work, and the way you prove government does not work is by running a government that does not work.
Edwin: What in one word is the value that you are saying, fantasy?
Markos: It’s ideology over reality. In one word? That’ three words. It’s – I know what the word is – help me out.
Edwin: I think fantasy, it’s like when you fantasize something, you’re not seeing it.
Markos: Yeah, it’s almost like when you’re crazy. I’m thinking when you think something’s real and it’s not, it’s delusion. There we go. Delusion. That’s the word I was looking for. Is that a value? I think if I had to really squeeze that down to one word, delusion would be that word.
Edwin: And what is that value?
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Loads of fun, I had..........
watching the interview with the sound turned off. Markos is (mis)information pure. Thanks for the laugh! by Tony Forest (7 articles, 18 quicklinks, 166 diaries, 1429 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Sunday, Oct 26, 2008 at 3:40:53 PM
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Reply: i turned the sound up out of curiousity
as I've ignored Kos for at least a year- ironic he's calling conservatives "delusional". With a past like this it's hard to take his claim to be a "liberal" seriously: Here's the first one: 1). Markos C. A. Moulitsas ZÚÑIGA was active for six months at Central Intelligence Agency offices in Washington, DC in 2001, with or without pay. (Listen carefully to MAMZ's speech to the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, on June 2, 2006.) Therefore, nothing that he, his supporters and associates say can be accepted at face value. by Better World Order (4 articles, 568 quicklinks, 39 diaries, 1112 comments [56 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Monday, Oct 27, 2008 at 1:56:09 AM
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Delusion? Nahhhh
Given the fact that "clear skies" means "more coal burning plants", "healthy forests" means "wanton destruction of old growth forests", "clean waters" means "over the top levels of mercury in our streams and rivers", and "Patriot Act" means "disembowelment of the Constitution and murder of the Bill of Rights", I have to say that Markos is wrong. The neocons have spent the last eight years lying to us. They aren't deluded at all. Well, perhaps their blind, deaf, dumb, and profiteering followers are. But the guys who raped and pillaged our country weren't deluded at all. They've been in power for 35 of the last 52 years, starting when Prescott Bush [the avowed fascist money launderer to Fritz Thuyssen who was supplying ordinance to the Nazis until the govt. forced him to stop] put Nixon into power [and his son, Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld into the White House]. These guys aren't deluded. They knew going in that they were going to pull of the biggest heist in history- the theft of a nation. Their followers were definitely deluded, and most still think that "trickle down" doesn't mean "p*ss on you". But their checkbooks will tell the tale over time. by Jennifer Hathaway (16 articles, 16 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 761 comments [221 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Sunday, Oct 26, 2008 at 4:04:30 PM
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none seem to be able to refute the claim of self-delusion?
interesting that no conservatives have been able to refute the claim of conservative self-delusion on this site? Instead of refuting the claims that the world is only 6,000 years old, that government doesn't work under a conservative administration, that selfishness and greed are the best values to base an economy and society on, all I've heard is personal attacks on Kos. Killing the messenger is not the way to refute the observation that conservatives value self delusion.... it only reinforces it . Looks like the country is about to totally reject the failed conservative values at the polls. Then the failure will be official. by Edwin Rutsch (64 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 155 comments) on Monday, Oct 27, 2008 at 2:00:04 PM
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