nihilism (uncountable)
- (philosophy) Extreme skepticism, maintaining that nothing has a real existence.
- (ethics) The rejection of all moral principles.
- (politics) (capitalized by protagonist Turgenev) A Russian anarchistic revolutionary doctrine (1860-1917) holding that conditions in the social organization are so bad as to make destruction desirable for its own sake, independent of any constructive program or possibility.
- The belief that all endeavors are ultimately futile and devoid of meaning.
- "…the band members sweat hard enough to earn their pretensions, and maybe even their nihilism" (rock critic Dave Marsh, reviewing the band XTC’s album Go)
- Contradiction (not always deliberate) between behavior and espoused principle, to such a degree that all possible espoused principle is voided.
- The deliberate refusal of belief, to the point that belief itself is rejected as untenable.
Joe Klein has an interesting article up at Time about the descent of the Republican party to swimming in the sewer.
Now its often brought up that the left had its crazies too-and the arguement is correct save for one fact that Klein highlights. In previous years, the loons did not have the keys to the car. Even during the 70’s when the Democratic party was very liberal. If the Blue Dog Democrats can get some more of their number elected-the Democratic party can save it self from its more extreme elements-at least moderate Democrats stand a better chance of being elected than their Republican counterparts:
An argument can be made that this is nothing new. Dwight Eisenhower tiptoed around Joe McCarthy. Obama reminded an audience in Colorado that opponents of Social Security in the 1930s "said that everybody was going to have to wear dog tags and that this was a plot for the government to keep track of everybody … These struggles have always boiled down to a contest between hope and fear." True enough. There was McCarthyism in the 1950s, the John Birch Society in the 1960s. But there was a difference in those times: the crazies were a faction — often a powerful faction — of the Republican Party, but they didn’t run it. The neofascist Father Coughlin had a huge radio audience in the 1930s, but he didn’t have the power to control and silence the elected leaders of the party that Limbaugh — who, if not the party’s leader, is certainly the most powerful Republican extant — does now. Until recently, the Republican Party contained a strong moderate wing. It was a Republican, the lawyer Joseph Welch, who delivered the coup de grâce to Senator McCarthy when he said, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" Where is the Republican who would dare say that to Rush Limbaugh, who has compared the President of the United States to Adolf Hitler?
Not one reference to the nihilists in Big Lebowski, aka the greatest movie of all time, what a disappointment!
um, dumb dumb,
social security is your dog tag # and it is what the government uses universally to identify “you”. Did you want a tag with that?
That whole House Unamerican shit, did you happen to note what party was in control of the house and senate? What party was that? You richly note that it was a republican who demanded if that senator who outed the complete communist leanings of the State Department knew no shame. I don’t think there’s a single member of the Senate today that shouldn’t be impaled.
I’ve already sharpened a hundred sticks; or twigs as the democrats would call them.
I remember my grandfather making me watch the hearings and how disgusted he was at McCarthy. A Jew from Russia and a refugee from pograms he was familiar with this kind of witch hunt. He couldn’t believe that this kind of thing happened in America.
Its to the great shame of Eisenhower that he did not stand up to the committee and protect George Marshall from that rabble.
Whether or not the loons on left “had the keys to the car” is all a matter of where one sits eh?
Of course if you are Beck, Hannity or Limbaugh your chair is on Neptune.
Joe McCarthy was a Republican.
We can clearly see from the below that McCarthy was uniquely extreme and had no support from either his party or the Democrats.
“The SACA relied on publicity to root out the Communists. Senator Humphrey proposed a new approach that would strike at both the Communist Party and the false accusations of McCarthyism. In August 1954 the 83rd Congress was debating a bill, introduced by Senator John M. Butler of Maryland, to combat Communist infiltration of labor unions. Humphrey offered his bill as a substitute for Butler’s bill. The Humphrey bill subjected any person with knowledge of the objectives of the Communist Party who willfully became or remained a party member to imprisonment for not more than five years and a fine of $10,000. Any person prosecuted under the bill would have the benefit of the Bill of Rights and all other procedural safeguards accompanying any criminal proceeding, including the presumption of innocence. The prosecution would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an accused individual was a knowing and willful member of the Communist Party. Anyone making false accusations against innocent individuals would face libel and slander actions. Humphrey believed his bill would deter McCarthyite tactics of character assassination and protect the reputations of innocent individuals.
Twenty senators co-sponsored the Humphrey bill, including liberal senators John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Paul Douglas of Illinois, and Wayne Morse of Oregon. The Senate voted to add the Humphrey bill as an amendment to, rather than substitute it for, the Butler bill. After modifying it in certain respects, the Senate passed the Butler-Humphrey bill by a vote of 85 to 0. The Butler provisions amended SACA by adding the category of “Communist-infiltrated organizations” to the category of “Communist organizations” required to register with the attorney general. The Butler provisions also made it illegal for any member of a Communistaction or Communist-front organization to hold office or employment with any labor organization or represent any employer in proceedings under the National Labor Relations Act. A labor union found to be a Communistinfiltrated organization was denied the benefits of the National Labor Relations Act.
Ultimately, Congress rejected the Humphrey provisions as passed by the Senate because of doubts about their constitutionality. Legislators also shared the concern expressed by Republican attorney general Herbert Brownell that the provisions would lead to the invalidation of SACA’s registration requirements because the combination of provisions would compel individuals to disclose they were committing the crime of being members of the Communist Party and, therefore, violate the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which protects against self-incrimination. Instead, Congress confined the Communist Control Act to two objectives: (1) to outlaw the Communist Party, and (2) to subject party members to SACA’s registration requirements and penalties applicable to members of a Communist-action organization. In its final form, the act passed the Senate by a vote of 79 to 0 and the House by a vote of 265 to 2. President Eisenhower signed the bill on August 24, 1954.”#1
#1 cribbed from http://www.novelguide.com/a/discover/mac_01/mac_01_00055.html
Seems to me that just proves Klein’s point doesn’t it? Back in the 50’s there moderate wings of both parties , while in today’s brave new world we have hacks like John Boehner lining up suck Limbaughs Viagra fueled Johnson.
WHAT?!!!
Read it again and point to the moderate wing OK?
You probably believe that the inability of the democratic party and the ONE to pass their fascist takeover of health care is due 100% to Rethuglican opposition in spite of the fact that the morons in the democratic party have a vast majority in both houses and have a president…. Go on, you know you want to blame Rush for the current impasse. Yield to your impulses!
Golf.
regards,
Curtis