Things to Think about . . .

. . . if the football isn't riveting this weekend.

• NC is trying to get at problem high schools and dropout problems by formally linking high school and college. But what about prom? . . .
• Tired of being accused of lacking "common sense" by people who frequently walk into walls? Here's how to respond.
• So much for all the crap about Ford's "binding the nation's wounds" and being so "courageous" to pardon Nixon. Turns out they were BFF and he did it because of that . . . by his own admission. Also tends to put the lie to the "he was the good Republican" nonsense, too, doesn't it? Liars just seem to breed liars, don't they?
• EXTRA-POINT ESSAY QUESTION: “Children of Men,” the new movie set in the near future when human race has been basically sterilized by virus, has a hero who must protect a female who has nevertheless become pregnant. In a world with only one person able to conceive, does she still have a right to an abortion? What are the implications of your answer?
• A dollar for anyone who can come up with the right music for this headline--"Head-Banging Snakes May Predict Quakes."
• Finally, what are we supposed to do without Billmon?

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The Power of Myth I

In a recent post I reviewed a book on the defeat of Reconstruction and, collaterally, the way our historians bastardized the past with myths about what happened, giving the battle for our history over to forces that epitomize the evil in our national character. It's horrifying but fascinating to see it in retrospective; it's worse to see the incorrect and warping recitation happening before your eyes. But here's the Christian Science Monitor, one of our best newspapers, this morning with commentaries on recent deaths proclaiming Ford "reconciler in chief" and Milton Friedman "objective scientist first." Please, please, please. Ford continued and enabled Nixon's "divide and conquer" politics, both in Congress and as President, that set the stage for Gingrich, impeachment, and everything Bushnev. He may have been a good guy (what was it that drove his wife to drink, I wonder) and held a few positions that Repubs now barf over, but his legacy will be all the links in the chain he placed to where we are now. And as for Friedman, Chile had to dump his recs before it could recover economically, he is famous for "greed is good," that well-known objective philosophy, and had bankers laughing or cursing over his claims that money supplies could actually be tightly controlled. Entire worlds are built on illusions and inability to deal with reality. They survive for a while (see Union, Soviet), but eventually they fail. Surprised about where ours is right now?

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Ford

Please forgive me for not joining the parade of folks, including bloggers on our side who surely by now should know better, extolling Gerald Ford, especially for his "courage" in "ending the national nightmare of Watergate." There is a straight line between Nixon and his people getting away with only minimal damage to Iran-Contra to everything having to do with Bushnev's disasters. We needed an exorcism, needed to confront what was being done to our Constitution and our American Legacy, and Ford short-circuited it all with Nixon's pardon. Courage? Please. He almost won in '76 and, frankly, would have if he hadn't made bizarre claims about the Soviets being good neighbors to all the countries around it in his first debate with Carter.

And it's interesting how people have forgotten or never understood that he was J. Edgar Hoover's spy and waterboy on the Warren Commission, preventing it from examining the FBI's investigation or prior knowledge of Oswald or Ruby. The Commission never heard that Ruby was a bagman for the mob from his earliest days. Think that might have made a difference in the course of the investigation? Wonder who was one of the strongest proponents for a limited investigation?

Ford was not Bushnev or Reagan or Nixon. For that, he's getting undeserved plaudits for being the last "good" Republican. He wasn't. He made Cheney and Rumsfeld possible. He made everything we're living through right now possible. Go ahead and praise this devastator of what this country was supposed to be about. I'm sitting on my hands.

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