Hillary, Scaife etc

photo: National Review

Firstly, three items from Slate:

1.Rich Men Behaving Badly: Meet the super-rich, the dysfunctional class threatening American values.
By Daniel Gross
Posted Saturday, March 29, 2008, at 7:08 AM ET

2."The New New Deal:"
Roosevelt-era reforms are saving capitalism—again.
Daniel Gross
March 25, 2008, 3:29 PM ET

3.Hillary's Rev. Wright:
His name is Richard Mellon Scaife.
Timothy Noah
March 25, 2008, 6:47 PM ET

"Hate speech [is] unacceptable in any setting," Hillary Clinton today told the Tribune-Review. We turn now to this excerpt from a 1981 Columbia Journalism Review profile of Scaife by Karen Rothmyer, in which the reporter describes a conversation with the distinguished publisher and philanthropist:

"Mr. Scaife, could you explain why you give so much money to the New Right?"

"You fucking Communist cunt, get out of here."

Well. The rest of the five-minute interview was conducted at a rapid trot down Park Street, during which Scaife tried to hail a taxi. Scaife volunteered two statements of opinion regarding his questioner's personal appearance—he said she was ugly and that her teeth were "terrible"—and also the comment that she was engaged in "hatchet journalism." His questioner thanked Scaife for his time. "Don't look behind you," Scaife offered by way of a goodbye.

Not quite sure what this remark meant, the reporter suggested that if someone were approaching it was probably her mother, whom she had arranged to meet nearby. "She's ugly, too," Scaife said, and strode off.

[What a guy. I should note that I think Jeremiah Wright seems like a much more agreeable character than Mr. Scaife, and hardly deserves to be compared to him.-JV]

Elsewhere-
Alex Jones loses it on Youtube,


And finally,"America is Run by Gangsters",
via Joe Bageant:

Tony from Sydney Australia writes to Joe:

I have been over to the USA four times and travelled around the back blocks a bit, including your area. I feel a sadness for the average citizen there. They haven't got a clue as to what's going on. I feel the USA has become a giant military camp to protect world capitalism and the citizens are not aware they have been conscripted. I have also travelled around Asia a bit. I've had deeper conversations about world affairs with Indonesian fishermen, Thai taxi drivers and even Tibetan peasants in far western China than I could get out many of the "middle class, educated" people I have met in the USA.