#ra

The strategic adversary is fascism... the fascism in us all, in our heads and in our everyday behavior, the fascism that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us. ↗

— Michel Foucault

#behavior #causes #desire #dominates #everyday

I think I was lucky to come of age in a place and time - the American South in the 1960s and '70s - when the machine hadn't completely taken over life. The natural world was still the world, and machines - TV, telephone, cars - were still more or less ancillary, and computers were unheard of in everyday life. ↗

— Ben Fountain

#american #cars #come #completely #computers

I'm ashamed and embarrassed to say that I've read very little of David Foster Wallace's work. It's a huge gap in my education, one of many. ↗

— Ben Fountain

#david #education #embarrassed #foster #gap

Andrew Jackson was the first president to claim that the desires of the public overrode Congress's constitutional prerogatives. Virtually every president since Jackson has claimed the mantle, even while lacking two ingredients of an electoral mandate: a landslide victory and a specific agenda. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#andrew #claim #claimed #congress #constitutional

Hollywood has a history of raising expectations beyond Washington's reach, of appealing to the very American desire to mythologize political leaders, particularly the president. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#appealing #beyond #desire #expectations #history

'Argo,' 'Lincoln,' and 'Zero Dark Thirty,' three films honored with Best Picture Oscar nominations, lionize their Washington-anchored protagonists as crafty, competent, and virtually incorruptible. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#best picture #competent #crafty #dark #films

Barack Obama may have found the answer to his biggest rhetorical challenge: When millions of voters are unemployed or underemployed, how does a president simultaneously sound realistic and optimistic? ↗

— Ron Fournier

#barack #barack obama #biggest #challenge #does

Christie led the way - with a bulldozer. The governor is blunt, brash, and self-consciously authentic, the antithesis to what turns off today's voters: flip-flopping politicians who speak in poll-tested platitudes. Yes, he's the anti-Romney. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#authentic #blunt #brash #christie #governor

Clearly, the Obama presidency hasn't wiped out racial prejudices. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#hasn #obama #obama presidency #out #prejudices

It's an appeal as old as America and its presidency: This is an extraordinary country populated by hard-working, big-dreaming, freedom-loving people graced by God when they're not pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. ↗

— Ron Fournier

#appeal #bootstraps #country #extraordinary #freedom-loving