Dr. King, in 1963: This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Mark Ames: A century-old ideological movement, Liberalism: once devoted to impossible causes like ending racism and inequality, empowering the powerless, fighting against militarism, and all that silly hippie shit -- now it's been reduced to besting the other side at one-liners ... Sure there are a lot of problems out there, a lot of pressing needs -- but the main thing is, the Liberals don't look nearly as stupid as the other guys do.
Louis Menand: Other people's culture wars always look ridiculous.
Douglas Haddow: We are a lost generation, desperately clinging to anything that feels real, but too afraid to become it ourselves. We are a defeated generation, resigned to the hypocrisy of those before us, who once sang songs of rebellion and now sell them back to us. We are the last generation, a culmination of all previous things, destroyed by the vapidity that surrounds us.
Ames: That's it, that's all this is about: Not to protest wars or oligarchical theft or declining health care or crushing debt or a corrupt political system or imperial decay -- nope, the only thing that motivates Liberals to gather in their thousands is the chance to celebrate their own lack of stupidity! Woo-hoo!
Noteworthy: If you think "Russia" when you hear "oligarchy", think again.
Mark Twain: It is desire to be in the swim that makes political parties.
Ames: Only now, when Liberal ideals have vanished into mythology and all they stand for is "not as crazy or stupid as Republicans" is it safe to camp out with the Democrats. They put nothing on the line ideologically, which perfectly jibes with this generation's highest value.
The Economist, after election night, 2008: He has to start deciding whom to disappoint.
Decius: I've come to the conclusion that you actually want shifty, dishonest politicians elected by an apathetic populace. This means that things are working.
Ames: I've come to the conclusion that this has been the Great Dream of my generation: to position ourselves in such a way that we're beyond mockery. To not look stupid. That's the biggest crime of all -- looking stupid.
James Lileks: The Apple tablet is the Barack Obama of technology. It's whatever you want it to be, until you actually get it.
Ames, on E.A Hanks: She's supposed to fight a long dreary battle that goes on and on, long after the credits roll. But that's not what she signed up for.
Kathleen Parker: Giving up being liked is the ultimate public sacrifice.
On John McCain: In all his speeches, John McCain urges Americans to make sacrifices for a country that is both "an idea and a cause". He is not asking them to suffer anything he would not suffer himself. But many voters would rather not suffer at all.
Ames: The idea that Ms Hanks and the Gen-X cheerleaders looking over her shoulder are supposed to help win the game by any means necessary is as far from her petulant thoughts as possible here.
Homer Simpson: Can't someone else do it?
Ames: Work is supposed to be compressed into a 30-second montage because work is boring and lame -- fuck this shit!
n+1: "This is a protest against the skeptics!" retorts a 30-something man with a soul patch. He hands us a leaflet. "Get out of the new road if you can't lend a hand! This is a demonstration! Read our program!" But the leaflet is blank.
John Givings: Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.
Ames, on Hanks: Like a petulant whiner, she wants things to happen without getting her ego dirty. That's the lesson -- bail out of anything that threatens to make you look lame.
Colin Powell: Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Viktor Chernomyrdin: We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.
The Rally To Restore Vanity | 
