Actually I think Rich is onto something, Craig.

No, Sacha, what you've done is construct an argument. Rich flung around some poo words as a substitute for doing so — and sorry, I think squealing "Muldoonist" (like calling someone a "fascist" or "Stalinist") is designed to evoke an emotional reaction.

I thought Muldoonist was quite a good description for somebody who plans to borrow money to pork-barrel the construction industry.

Actually I think Rich is onto something, Craig.

Key's self-described mentor is the head of the infrastructure council. He then announces over the weekend an extra $5bn for "infrastructure" which…

As soon as overseas borrowing came up as a political headline it was inevitable his name would reappear.

My bet was on muldoonomics but it just didn't sound right.

Let the numbers be crunched, we have a major point of difference
finally.

It's interesting how Labour are much keener on fiscal probity than National these days.

Rich: If you really think either National or Labour have much credibility when it comes to 'fiscal probity', I've got a whole portfolio of bridges to sell you.

I thought Muldoonist was quite a good description…

H1 really needs to make up her mind whether Key is the second coming of Rob Muldoon or Ruth Richardson.

Well, I had to chuckle that nobody seems to have said "oh really, Helen?" when the general consensus about Mike Moore firing the M-word at Clark a year ago was…

H1 really needs to make up her mind whether Key is the second coming of Rob Muldoon or Ruth Richardson.

It's interesting how Labour are much keener on fiscal probity than National these days.

Hum... content-free but rather scary, ay?

I wonder how Tower feel about his ideology? He certainly seems to hold his clients (the dodos) in contempt.

lentivirus
disease
HIV
scrapie
tapeworm
sucking blood
mongrelised
sickness
flesh-eating bacteria

Truly Streicher-like rhetoric. (Apropos Redbaiter, I'm intrigued to learn that Streicher was widely known as "Jew-baiter"...)

If you strip all that out, Coote's basically saying that if you lost money on the…

http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=jvaVVRf-gpA

The guy seems fairly sane in recent columns. Is he just having a Redbaiter moment?

The real epicureans advocated a form of restraint and evenness of temperament and indulgence actually – neurosis and hangovers are definitely not pleasurable. Personally, I believe in all things in moderation – including moderation.

I/S just said it better than I could.

I/S did indeed put it better than I could while I was off downloading some nice iPod apps (lightsaber effects, anyone?)

Marxism is certainly inherently authoritarian, in the same way that the catchphrase of all schoolyard bullies are authoritarians when they say…

And if you look back at the world of 1979, it now seems unimaginable. Exchange controls; wage controls; closed shops; and the state, for reasons which had gone unexamined for years, owning airlines and car…

We live in an age of caution and conformism, when critical opinions can be outlawed as…

It's entirely possible that Scientology's leaders have come to believe their own stories. Don't discount the combined power of repetition, outside 'persecution' and unthinking sycophantic affirmation from sciborgs lower in the hierarchy.

I understand that Elron at least did by the time he passed on to whatever plane xenu resides…

It's weird, because, as far as I can tell, it consist of taking everyone who disagrees with a certain species of liberalism, and treating that as the defining feature of their philosophies.

Except authoritarianism is a defining feature of their philosophies. The NeoCons and fascists are just your typical power-worshipping…

Their war goes on but they have not hope of success, it is an ideological battle as Stalingrad was.

Just who is their Hitler if Helen is Stalin?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

a jousting competition between the very well read

Perhaps, but I don't think anyone's doing it to show off, thankfully.

How can Marxism be social darwinism?

Absolutely, Keir: I think perhaps people are, as so often, conflating Marxism with some of its attempted (or claimed) implementations throughout history.

Someone mentioned the new NBR column using the title "Helengrad" – my understanding is that this is David Farrar's weekly missive, is that right?

That is right. I quite like the term Helengrad :)

PhD = Paper Hanging Diploma (Interior decorating)

while Marxism is nominally distinct from right-wing authoritarianism or neoconservatism or libertarianism, they are essentially authoritarian social darwinism and there is no essential shift from the authoritarian, deterministic pattern or mindset of Marxism to those ideologies.

Um, wtf? That's duckspeak. You're not using actual, meaningful words there.

How can Marxism…

There was a question, some way back, about a documentary about the PYM. Can't remember the title but it was made by Russell Campbell and Alastair Barry.

Rebels in Retrospect, Vanguard Films.

maybe more so that elron's where the leaders probably don't really believe ....

It's entirely possible that Scientology's leaders have come to believe their own stories. Don't discount the combined power of repetition, outside 'persecution' and unthinking sycophantic affirmation from sciborgs lower in the hierarchy.

I guess I've had to joust with scientologists too much, I'd never really thought of Randism as a religion but I guess they are – the sort without a god but with a prophet (kind of like Buddhism) – maybe…

As an aside--has anyone else read the piece by Nicholas Carr "Is Google making us Stoopid? What the internet is doing to our…

Less Cosa Nostra than Judean People's Front/People's Front of Judea, surely? ("Don't call me Shirley")

Well, for folks who claim to abhor religion they sure seem to act like the kind of cult that will rigorously shun anyone who deviates from absolute doctrinal purity. Case Study #1,438,701 in the pathology…

And I'm not the only one to have this opinion. Here's a second opinion from a Randian on Objectivist Living (I'm sure you're familiar with the site):

Mr. Perigo has misused the strongest forms of moral condemnation so often that he seems no longer capable of making relevant distinctions.

If…

And really didn't her hubby get the worse of any sexism?

maybe I do need subtitles to translate the academese

Meh. I use the academic stuff and be damned. The alternative is talking down to people because I think they're not clever enough. Which leaves a very nasty taste in my mouth.

sounds attached as labels to various phenomena without any actual comprehension of the concepts and signification.

Or in pub talk, people talking shit.

...yes, maybe I do need subtitles to translate the academese.

Steve Bell routinely depicted Bush & Blair as the Chimp with his lapdog – the unintelligent with the unimportant.…

However, the type of conversation you get in some forums like Your Views bears out what Kracklite said:

sounds attached as labels to various phenomena without…

I agree on the ass vs arse thing, Suze.

I say there's room for both, goldarnit. Why limit ourselves?

And David?

I wish there was some way to connect what I read with the people I mix with every day

Honey, I've read this entire thread and I don't even know what taxonomy means , let alone what poo has…

My point really was that sometimes it's easy to forget about the forest when you're counting trees.

Or: "It takes ten people with…

I spend my nights getting people pissed and making sure they have a good time. Occasionally I'll…

I've never "hung around" with either individual — and would quite like to keep it that way".…

More seriously, David (does the P in hD stand for Pol)...

As a very old academic joke has it, PhD stands for "Piled Higher and Deeper" (as in books, notes, pizza boxes and unwashed dishes).

Danielle:

I can, boringly, list several US historians who were all Marxists in the sixties and seventies and now faff on about the wonders of authoritarian militarism and manifest destiny.
Truebelievers: they have a lot to answer for.

While I disagree with…

I've had a fucking fabulous day with the better half

Too.Much.Information.

Here's a suggestion: get better friends. Here's a suggestion: get better friends. Or stop hanging around in the same circles. Either should work.

Here's a suggestion: If imitating Cameron Slater and "Redbaiter" (who don't approve of my friendship and working relationship with our host one little bit) is your idea…

Scott has actually done similar stuff to Clark / Cullen (in his own great style) as well as their predecessors. I am…

But, in her long reign as PM she was accused (rightly) of many bad things but, in my experience,…

But I will cop to this — you bet your life that I'm damn sick of being tarred by association with right-wing nuts.

Here's a suggestion: get better friends. Or stop hanging around in the same circles. Either should work.

"School shooting: It's when, not if"
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4621587a11.html

Are Methcon branching out on the alarmist call or are the Cops abdecating their responsibility for vetting firearms licence holders?

I can't remember any particular poo-phrases, but there was certainly some mindless vitriol. She shared with Clark the 'pleasure' of frequently being portrayed as grotesquely unfeminine.

I guess you've got to be a politics nerd of a certain age to remember when she was called "Maggie The Milk-Snatcher", but you…

Ha, I believe we have Arts papers in common, Haywood.

The difference is that you actually passed your Arts papers. I withdrew from my Arts papers, and took my socially retarded personality over to Mechanical Engineering (and then I huddled over equations and didn't speak to anyone…

I assume you're referring to me? Curse you, Ranapia — Haywood! Haywood! Haywood! Will no-one ever spell my name correctly?

As I wrote to Russell yesterday, I'm not a great fan of discourse analysis (although, yes, I do realize that I'm being a stereotypical engineer in saying that), but I…

I'm not a great fan of discourse analysis (although, yes, I do realize that I'm being a stereotypical engineer in saying that)

Ha, I believe we have Arts papers in common, Haywood.

Sometimes tone conveys more. My sadly deceased Granny could put so much feeling into the two words "that…

Isn't it Perigo's (and his fellow libertarians) intention to convert others to their point of view?

Well it's impossible to tell, but I'd guess 'not'.

It looks like the point is to sit around laughing at how stupid every other philosophy is, because A, like totally equals A', an' shit,…

Craig, is that a difficult mirror to look into, or is Stephen Jones correct when he says NZers are a people even more devoid of irony than Americans?

I don't know, Paul, as I really wasn't buying into the framing the whole S. 59 repeal debate as insane fundie Christian…

Sorry, Russell, your 'analysis' is as lame as the thesis, for which Mr Stoddart was awarded an academic diploma.

A graduate diploma at VUW consists of at least 4 papers, so Stoddart would have to have submitted more coursework than just the research paper. But whatever.

Frankly, the research was…

I've got to thank David Hayward for firming up my conviction that any university that offers 'political science' should be done for fraud.

I assume you're referring to me? Curse you, Ranapia — Haywood! Haywood! Haywood! Will no-one ever spell my name correctly?

As I wrote to…

__family fist
fucking religious mofos
religious nutjob community
right-wing nutters
nasty rightwingers
nasty little insecure creeps
little pricks
fundy religious nutters…

Another thing I've noticed about the pathology of the rhetorical coprophilie is now rancid they get when their own conduct is pointed out to them.

Craig, is that a difficult mirror to look into, or is Stephen Jones correct when he says NZers are a people even more…

As Emma suggested, we could learn from our Deaf community and adopt a symbol for sarcasm – (!)

But that rather defeats the purpose.

Sorry PYM – Pretty Young Men?

Progressive Youth Movement. Late 1960s, early 1970s New Left movement in New Zealand. There's a rather entertaining documentary about their antics which I forget the title of.

I've got a pretty clear idea that Willie Jackson is a barking moonbat, and if I really…

Perigo used to be a decent newsguy, and now he's degenrated into that?

Sorry Craig, this time I was joking.

As Emma suggested, we could learn from our Deaf community and adopt a symbol for sarcasm – (!)

Mea culpa. Should have the wit to recognise a good tease when I see it, but you just brushed against the standby switch on my sense of humour. Rebooting as we speak... And no, I'd be a vulgar, foul-mouthed little tramp if if I was red as a baboon's…

Craig, I doubt I/O needs folks to run to his defence, but your comments do tend to degenerate noticeably in taste very quickly (see above). Compared, that is, to a sample of every other PA poster.

Is that because you is slightly rightly?

Oh yeah, seriously tasteful thread this one.…

Is that because you is slightly rightly?

Makes much more sense though when singing along to the Michael Jackson classic

Ultimately I made no pretense at having undertaken a random or representative analysis of The…

Now, come back when you've got the sort of torrent of shit written about in Stoddart's thesis, and maybe people will take you seriously.

I've been reading it for years, Idiot, and you can go sit in the naughty corner with Perigo and stop being such a precious little toddler.…

You'll note for example, if you read the thing, that Stoddart quite explicitly doesn't bother to distinguish between the comments and views of either callers or hosts; so trying to bag…

And here was me thinking at last someone is blogging the Bristol Stool Chart

PMSL – and that'd make Perigo a type 2 then?-

I really don't get the Ayn Rand obsession – I read Fountainhead & Atlas Shrugged years ago, but they never struck me as awe inspiring. And to…

'Child-beaters" ring any bells, Idiot?

We have a winner! An actual poo-label! Now, come back when you've got the sort of torrent of shit written about in Stoddart's thesis, and maybe people will take you seriously.

And the words the right would probably like to claim are poo-lables ("privatisation", "tax cuts for the rich", "inequality") are both well short of the frothing we see over there, and actual descriptions rather than sheer hyperbolic invective.

'Child-beaters" ring any bells, Idiot? I could keep going, but you know…

I don't have BS & JB to hand, but my memory of it is that he explicitly says that he wasn't a member, though he was around the people and working with them.

That's if you believe Shadbolt's book anyway. I know some people who were around at the time regard…

Man, I am LOVING the solopassion site

Danyl, will you do us the pleasure of linking to any comments you leave there?

I can, boringly, list several US historians who were all Marxists in the sixties and seventies and now faff on about the wonders of authoritarian militarism and manifest destiny.

Meh, historians, they don't count.

he very definitely was – Or has his memoir 'Bullshit and jellybeans' vanished down the public…

Shadbolt was around various movements, but he wasn't a member of PYM from memory.

he very definitely was – Or has his memoir 'Bullshit and jellybeans' vanished down the public memory-hole?

He turns and takes it off the shelf...

Bloody funny book (for a variety of reasons).

Here's an excerpt…

Bzzt! It's an actual description, especially since Douglas adopted it with his "blitzkreig principles".

Dang, this game is harder to play than Numberwang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOZtWZ56lc

And here was me thinking at last someone is blogging the Bristol Stool Chart

I gwad, I looked and as I fell about laughing my office colleagues came to investigate the cause of amusement...

Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

And here was me thinking at last someone is blogging the Bristol Stool Chart

I can report that Maryan Street is calling John Key "sloppy as well as…

I'll throw in "blitzkrieg". Originally pejorative when used by Easton, Douglas was quite proud of it though.

Bzzt! It's an actual description, especially since Douglas adopted it with his "blitzkreig principles".

Everyone knows that Perigo used to be a good interviewer.

I'm too young to remember a sane Perigo. Nowadays, as a "media monitor" who had to summarise his filth on Radio Pacific, I find this very hard to believe.

WTF is it?

Postmodernist

Really? Is this speculation or local knowledge?

Bit of both, depending on whether the source was reliable.

What are the conservative or right-wing equivalent poo labels that lefties use?

Ruthanasia

God, is that it? I am not even sure that has any connotations, good or bad.

Sometimes tone conveys more. My sadly deceased Granny could put so much feeling into the two words "that Miggie" that if…

is "pomowanker"

WTF is it?

The guy on the right is supposed to be Redbaiter, right?

Really? Is this speculation or local knowledge? For a long time I wondered if Red wasn't David's alter-ego.

So, its not that people are outraged by a serious assault, no, its just "tall poppy syndrome". These people are utterly demented.

And the appalling irony is that he's clearly guilty of the very crime he accuses others of; using the assault to make political capital. What a wanker.

Just glancing at the SOLOPassion comments thread on this paper, I wondered: is "pomowanker" a widespread poo label, or is it something unique to Perigo et al?

I think that one's an artefact of the Rand cult, since they call themselves "objectivists".

This amused me a while ago.

The guy on the right is supposed to be Redbaiter, right?

Is Thatcher dead?

It will be a happy happy day when we can answer that question in the affirmative.

But they're planning her funeral anyway, since it will happen eventually.

Is the Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland involved in the plans? Given his prior experience in planning her funeral during the 1980's?

It turns out that two years ago Tony handed them a weapon with which they're now cutting him down. He did something vile and inexcusable.

Not nearly as vile and inexcusable as they, though.

For make no mistake: the crazed mobs baying for his blood and bowels couldn't care…

Joseph Stalin, crime, authoritarian,
Minister of Ugly Women’s Affairs,
drooling wannabe totalitarian,
elites, biggest attack on freedom in years

Ahmed Zaoui, foisted, moral cannibalism,
Gutless, Goebbelism and Helen Clark-speak,
bag…

Christopher: touche. But you may notice that my vehemance about Thatcher is the exception, rather than the rule.

Man, I am LOVING the solopassion site

What's not to love about it, when you're alone with your computer screen...

This amused me a while ago.

I find it difficult to see the level of sheer pooiness in the left's discourse.

Idiot Savant yesterday, on plans for a state funeral for Margaret Thatcher:

On the plus side, it will at least give her victims a final chance to throw excrement and rotten fruit…

Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

Thankyou. I'm full of shit at the best of times.

Lyndon

What are the conservative or right-wing equivalent poo labels that lefties use?

Did you corporate masters tell…

Now we're talking. I raise you "Rogernomics" and "Revolution".

I'll throw in "blitzkrieg". Originally pejorative when used by Easton, Douglas was quite proud of it though.

"We stand for liberty of thought and expression, but we will only protect yours if it aligns with ours".

Is "protection" even a concept that libertarians believe in?

It appears to be, "We stand for liberty of thought and expression, but we will only protect yours if it aligns with ours".

Very true.

The libertarianz website shows their constitution.

Short summary, after you read past the buff – all is decided by self-selecting central committee consisting of "libertarianz"…

As far as I'm concerned, that's the NBR Godwining themselves.

Nice work.

he very definitely was – Or has his memoir 'Bullshit and jellybeans' vanished down the public memory-hole?

You assume so much! From memory, we discussed education, property rights and gun control.

I apologise and withdraw.

Fer sure! I have never quite figured the philosophical base of libertarianism. It appears to be, "We stand for liberty of thought and expression, but we will only protect yours if it aligns with ours".

If I was less charitable, I would…

Peter I know nothing about.

He was a radical at Waikato Uni – involved in what was Nexus and apparently a hard-core hippy (I believe)

The 'was radical left when they were young and now are hard right' is an often-stated, rarely true thing,

I can, boringly, list several US historians who were all Marxists in the sixties and seventies and now faff on about the wonders of authoritarian militarism and manifest destiny.

Truebelievers: they…

Which makes sense, considering how many prominent local right wingers started out on the furthest fringes of the Left. Deborah Coddington, Peter Verschaffelt, Tim Shadbolt, and Don Brash were all members of various '60s radical movements, weren't they? And of course Perigo himself grew up in a Communist household.

Wikipedia…

Quite. It all reminded me of poohsticks

Love this rather underdone statement on that wikipedia page:

A member of the team from the Czech Republic which won the team event in 2004 explained the winning technique to Jonathan Hancock in an interview on BBC Radio Oxford: he looked to see…

Ruthanasia

Now we're talking. I raise you "Rogernomics" and "Revolution".

While I am no-doubt going to be suffering from a hefty-wallop of self-blindness (though at least I can acknowledge that), I find it difficult to see the level of sheer pooiness in the left's discourse. And the words the right…

And again, we come back to the stylistic and rhetorical links between the extreme left of yore and the poo-flingers of the 21st Century. They are the embarrassing Marxists of their age.

Which makes sense, considering how many prominent local right wingers started out on the furthest fringes of the…

The Workers Party is a tomato – red all the way through, and proud of it. We intend to keep it that way.

Brilliant! They're red, squishy, are actually a fruit, and bring me out in a horrible rash.

great example – involving apples, even – here)

I had to quote it ...

RAM is a Granny Smith apple -green on the outside, white on the inside. The sad remnants of Socialist Worker are a Braeburn apple – red on the outside, white on the inside. The Workers Party…

For him to have suggested you might be interested in joining the libenz, you surely would have spent a fair bit of time agreeing in these criticisms of the government. Find it hard to believe you were asked to join after discussing tax rates, privatisation or welfare.

You assume so…

the extreme left

You forgot the qualification "all three of them (and they're having a schism)".

Which is a roundabout way of saying that you should be comparing apples with apples. What's scary about the Kiwiblog right and associated poo-flingers is just how mainstream (for want of a better word)…

Surely he just copy'n'pasted a Redbaiter comment from Kiwiblog?

Now that I read it again, I am minded to make of it a poem.

Poo

Stench
Stooge
Stranglehold
Strident

Snivelling, whining socialists

I have to go off to my debate soon, but readers are invited to spend the rest of…

Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

Winnie, the poo label ...

(sorry)

Quite. It all reminded me of poohsticks

Also, your argument only works because you invented something for me to say in the qualifier "when offering criticism of a government".

I think your work in the 1990s was mostly critical of the National government. Perigo was a libertarian critical of drug, prostitution & (strangely enough) gender-orientation policy of that…

It seems that when you combine the word 'lesbian' with 'socialist', talkback audiences are somehow struck with contradictory impressions of sexual deviance, sexual puritanism and obsessive control over private lives. Or at least, that's what I got from the paper.

There's also the underlying implication that teh wimmenz are running…

"child molesters of the mind", "coven of left-wing witches", "man-hating lesbians", "parasitical ignoramuses", "snivelling, whining socialists", "stench", "stooge", "stranglehold", "strident", "turning hospitals into a gulag"

Surely he just copy'n'pasted a Redbaiter comment from Kiwiblog?

That is Stoddard's very tongue in cheek application for sycophant of the year. It should see him move up the pbulic seervice very rapidly. What esle is a VUW pol studies graduate to do? Be objective? Yeah ...

Cool! It's a test!

How many poo labels can you count, kids?

Intriguingly, they're all in fits over the academic language, but seem to find nothing untoward in the crazy-assed stuff Stoddart quotes.

Oh, and Perigo is evidently in the throes of his latest crypto-Marxist deunciation fit. Currently, it's fellow libertarian Richard Goode, who I…

Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".

I appreciate its evocation of a whole complex of rejection, loathing and fear of contamination – as well as its implication of general barely-concealed monkeyhood in those who…

To be honest, I think these comments are his true calling and blogging is for Danyl like an indie band "going commercial". His true fans reject the move.

So, so true. In Danyl's absence, commenting on TBR.cc is like playing a warmup set for a main act that never arrives.

– oppressor
– imperialist
– comprador
– puppet
– revisionist
– capitulationist
– right deviationist/left deviationist
– social imperialist/socialist imperialist (applied by China to Soviet Union)
– black elements
– rightist/capitalist restorationist (Chinese campaigns 1950s/60s)
– saboteurs/wreckers (Stalinist era purges)

Many of these sound better when preceded by 'running dog'.

(sorry)

I'm sure it's targets will simply dismiss it as yet another example of the hegemony defending itself ...

Yeah, right — like they'd use a lesbian commie word like "hegemony".

I'd agree with what Paul said, but note that the extreme left already has its own extensive set of poo labels drawn from particular understandings (or misunderstandings) of Marxist theory, as funneled through innumerable parties and organisations over the last century.

And again, we come back to the stylistic and…

I've to send it on…

Or what's wrong with being a lesbian I should say?

One of the interesting points drawn out in the paper is that, in talkback-land, lesbianism isn't really a huge issue in its own right. But adding it to other value-laden symbols 'promotes' it into something bigger than the sum of…

It's pretty poisonous stuff & I would have thought repulsive language to post regardless of politics.

ZAP aren't too bad these days, as far as their Belfast opperations go.…

One of the problems with Danyl's foray into blogdem is that he seems to have less time for commenting on blogs.

To be honest, I think these comments are his true calling and blogging is for Danyl like an indie band "going commercial". His true fans reject…

What are the conservative or right-wing equivalent poo labels that lefties use?

Nazional, springs to mind, plus the general use of fascist etc

That whole Helengrad thing is very good propaganda *for* Labour really, given the way it shows those who engage in it as completely barking mad.

It shows a bunch of people who are simply too lazy to think after presumably spending all their energy typing, or speaking and having nothing…

I think any longitudinal analysis would show a significant qualitative deterioration in Perigo's language and the ideas he is prepared to express. Read the paper, or the press release Lyndon linked to and tell me he talked like that in early 90s.

The change from his presenting personality back in…

Perigo offered criticism of a government.

Perigo on the opposition: "the National Socialist Party".

Insightful criticism, Angus? Or ... poo.

Maybe Perigo did suffer a mental collapse that occured coincidentally with a change of government occuring in 1999. Or maybe Russell's party of choice obtained power and Perigo's criticism sounded less astute, more silly.

Yeah, good try Angus. I think any longitudinal analysis would show a significant qualitative deterioration in…

Perigo offered criticism of a government.

Maybe Perigo did suffer a mental collapse that occured coincidentally with a change of government occuring in 1999. Or maybe Russell's party of choice obtained power and Perigo's criticism sounded less astute, more silly

Oh come on – I quite likely don't share Mr…

If the discourse isn't exactly expansive (indeed, it is as numbingly repetitive as any Soviet tract), perhaps it is, at least, consistent?

This is the discourse of opposition – it is normal and it is banal. It is inconsistent in its argument by virtue of being consistent in its opposition.…