Around El Horn-Oh

1. It's official: "community organizer" = "Saul Alinsky + ACORN". Thanks to NW Republican for echoing Tom Frank's portrait of the ideological fantasies of the Fox News plurality and their "activist" vanguard. I just wish they would extend the "community organizer" frame to include Teachers' Unions and Gangster Politicians, then the entire public sector en general.
   
2. It's important to remember that the conversation about subsidizing capital markets has yet to mention working Americans in anything but the most passing way. Ben Smith has a nice riff here on the bevy of Left and Center-Left economic minds about to have a "Come to Jesus" sesh with nominee Obama, and I can only hope that the Stiglitz side gets some actual play.
   
3. Benjamin Dangle with a very important summary of the violent coup attempt in Bolivia this September and the crescendo still ahead as the Morales government attempts to ratify its Draft Constitution. It is interesting to see the coalescing of both Left and Center-Left governments in Latin America (not to mention Colombia) around Morales' explicitly socialist project. It is unsurprising to note signs of US support for the "white" oligarchy and its resource-rich regional governors, and it is ironic to note the prevalence of the initiative, recall and referendum in the historic process.
   
4. Why am I so cynical about The Battle in Seattle?