I remember that episode of the Sopranos, that line was great. I first heard of Zinn in Good Will Hunting. The reference in the movie just slipped by me, not knowing anything about Zinn. But ironic that an exceptional person, Will, as portrayed in the movie, would refer to a Marxist revisionist. Everything is about class division to Zinn, one group of people, and populist opinion (as long as it dovetails with Zinn's pacifism) has merit, but the motivation of the wealthy is more power and more money, therefore has no merit. According to Zinn.

I'm more inclined to base merit off the actual ideas, than a person's social economic status. Interestingly, people are more likely to be enslaved by the government, than by capitalism. If you follow Zinn's path to democratic socialism, it has the greater potential to lead to state run slavery, ie communism, than the path towards a Constitutional Republic based on classical liberal (small l, not "Liberal" statism) economic freedom.

But then populist opinion is held in such high regard by government officials in countries with socialism.////sarc

Excellent visual. I have wondered why we are viewed as extremist. A bit over 200 years ago, it was maybe an extreme mindset to believe a limited government was the best course. But even then there were precedents. Over the next 100 years in our Republic's history, for the most part, it seems that that minset was the mainstream. Now we are back to being extremists, but that is only in the view of the dominate media. Extreme statists are trying to convince moderate people, people that normally say keep the government out of my life in general, that they are extremists.

Here's my chicken and the egg moment. I saw "Smokey and the Bandit" when I was about ten and loved it. But did I love the movie because of the stunts and cars? Or do I love the stunts and cars because of the movie? I also saw the sequels and even though they were bad enough that Reynolds was nowhere to be seen, I still loved the stunts. Later, when old enough, I liked to do stupid stuff in cars, sometimes when the car wasn't even moving. I had a MG when I was young, although it was a piece of crap mechanically, it handled like it was on rails. I would test how far I could push the handling. I remember, taking a four way stop at about 30, never touching the brake, pumping the clutch, the back end slipping out, counter steering, and letting the clutch out, sticking my foot in the gas. Off I go.

That's a great video of Needham lassoing the car. Which highlights that we used to be a culture based on the horse as transportation and now a culture based on cars and trucks and the internal combustion engine. Nothing like 350 horses kicking up a cloud of smoke. At least for the time being.

Read the HuffPo article, the same thing struck me, also. How secret is an organization that has a website and doesn't hide the fact the have a meeting? We aren't talking exactly a conspiracy theory here. Seems like the "He man woman haters" from Our Gang were more secretive. There is probably a good reason that they are not all that keen on advertising the meeting. Wonder what that reason is.....

I think Mr. Nolte is giving Behar too much credit. There are people that have these ideas that to remove all moral standards, they could trap the people who embrace those standards when they invariably fall short, even if they face the truth, take their lumps and try to move on. In this way, people that espouse a higher standard, can be discredited on issues other than their moral shortcomings, simply by using the hypocrite label.

Behar-I don't think she is one of the people who wishes to remove all moral standards for those goals, like she is in some kind of political and social chess match. After careful consideration, from hearing many of her remarks of late, I think she is just a f'ing idiot.

The Obama Administration can be summed up:

Underpants Gnomes

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB12432913199165229...

When large corporations provide better services and/or products than smaller business, fine, including a better cup of coffee. And when those larger corporations fail to provide those better services, they should be allowed to fail, and smaller businesses pick up the pieces. Instead of trying to create an ideal marketplace as some people will through artificial pricing and manipulation of the market place (for social justice), let the market pick the winners and losers. It sucks to be on the loser side (and I have been on both sides from time to time, personally) but it is the only way to elevate the standard of living AND enable freedom, economically and socially.

Let's see, I referenced Orwell, quoted Mr. Nolte, linked WSJ, which references South Park, all bases covered

Eliminate the competition. It has been noted that many people on Wall Street vote Democrat and prefer government intervention. This is about control of a commodity, sometimes it monetary and economic policy, through political pandering, sometimes it is the control of information. Maybe I'm extra cynical tonight, but "all animals are equal, some are more equal than others" It is about preferential placement at the trough. "Carry on", oink, oink.

I'm going to skip "Green Zone" no big loss, but I was wondering something OT, sorry.

I haven't seen the movie, it flew under the radar for me, so I have no opinion, but what is wrong with "Body of Lies"? This is the second thread today that busted on it a bit. From my understanding, it's about CIA agents pursuing terrorists and butting heads on methodology. But both characters want to capture the terrorists. The protagonists are pro-American CIA agents, the antagonist is a terrorist, at least from what I understand. I generally like Ridley Scott, so this is still a catch on DVD movie since I didn't see it in the theater, but I was wondering what the deal is. Am I missing something here about the storyline? Is there a blame America first storyline? Just wondering.

No, not everything needs to be a deep treatise on the human condition, man's inherent nature, blah, blah. All I'm asking is the movie have characters that are interesting, some semblance of a back story, something that makes me sympathize. Something. If there is a more interesting subtext, a deeper meaning that makes me think, so much the better. But if I can't see anything for me to root for the character then, I'm not going to go along for the ride. Maybe that's me. But you saying "I feel like Sullivan at the end of Sullivan's Travels." has more depth than most anything Emmerich has put on the screen.

And it's not like I'm this purist art-house snob. I like popcorn munching, blow it up, action, kick the bad guys butt movies as much as the next person, I just need a bit more than just that. Sure there is a big market for escapism. But Hollywood can do better than that. One of my favorite movies is "True Lies" It's a lot of over top action, but there is more going on there than Arnold kicking butt and blowing stuff up.

Some people fall into that category, but if look at Carl's review, yesterday, of "Precious" you will see a good deal if not the majority of people expressing a positive interest. The reason isn't about Winfrey, Mo'nique or Tyler Perry being conservatives (we know that isn't the reason) but it looks like a interesting story about self-empowerment. I'm critical of almost anything Emmerich, because there isn't much there besides destroying stuff. I'll defend "Stargate" because it was an interesting story, and the characters weren't just a backdrop for explosions. One would think, if someone knows me, I'd like "The Patriot", but nope. The characters were mostly uninteresting, the only interesting plot development was the compulsion for revenge, but it would better if Gibson's character was actually fighting as a, I don't know, a patriot who valued freedom.

I'm not going to be too critical of Cusack, seems like a good actor, but if you want a good movie and a good performance, see "The Jack Bull", and that's the point, I'd rather see a good actor (no matter what political leanings) in a good performance with good material, rather just a weak story that's an excuse of blowing stuff up.