Re: [OT] Slashdot and media accuracy (was Re: Improved Debian Project Emergency Communications)
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 10:15:11PM -0700, Thanasis Kinias wrote:
> I was aware of the indepentents; `nonzero' referred to members of
> organized `third' parties, which could run party lists under a
> Scottish-style system. AFAIK there are no party members in the Congress
> that are not Democrats or Republicans.
You conveniently ignored the quote by the Indian fellow who complained
about how there are too many political parties.
In my personal opinion, the culture which is most similar to America is
India, although we took different routes to get there: they've been
through Democracy, Theocracy, Tyranny, Oligarchy, Nothingorcracy, and
Sillyocracy, and so they really don't take much of anything too
seriously nowadays. Americans don't take anything too seriously either.
The "anarcho-syndicalist" comment was hopefully a self-conscious ironic
reference to Michael Palin in The Holy Grail, I hope, and not serious.
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/ea/side/whig.html:
"The term Whig came into common use in 1834, and persisted until the
disintegration of the party after the presidential ELECTION of 1856. The
anti-Jackson groups drew upon the political history of two revolutions,
the American and 17th century English, for their name. In both cases the
opposition to the king had called themselves Whigs. Now it was "King
Andrew" Jackson who was the alleged tyrant.
The Whigs' direct political antecedents were the National Republicans,
the administration party during John Quincy ADAMS' presidency
(1825-1829)."
Southerners originally hated Republicans because they were the
Carpetbaggers who came down and acted like slimey weasel businessmen
during Reconstructed. (Sometimes I pull for Osama because I know what
it's like to lose a war to Americans. It galls.) Jesse Helms was
originally a Democrat.
Don't get me wrong: I absolutely loate and am ashamed of my fellow
southerners who are consciously are subconsciously racist. (This means
I loathe myself sometimes -- it rubs off). But the Whigs were the
Republicans/Democrats before they started using the Race-issue in an
obnoxious way to do shitty things to people, like the Democrats do now.
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