Objections

As long as the world shall last there will be wrongs, and if no man objected and no man rebelled, those wrongs would last forever.

-- Clarence Darrow

In this week's Sift:

• Why I Am Not a Libertarian. I still remember the points I found so convincing when I was a 19-year-old Libertarian. But 35 years later the world looks very different to me.
• Horse Race 2012. In general the corporate media over-covers the presidential horserace, and I hate to compound the problem. But they also cover it badly, so now-and-then I feel like I have to comment.
• The Great Flabbergasting and other short notes. Rachel Maddow coined an amusing term for a head-shaking phenomenon: Republicans turn against their own ideas as soon as President Obama adopts them. Meanwhile, Jon Stewart confronts ideas that billionaire Warren Buffett is a socialist and that the poor should have their taxes raised before the rich.
• Last week's most popular post. Last week was something of a break-out for the Weekly Sift. One Word Turns the Tea Party Around just passed 1900 hits on the blog, in addition to the via email or RSS. And when I cross-posted it on Daily Kos, it drew over 800 recommendations and 224 comments. What's more, these blog visitors showed some signs of hanging around: The second-most-popular post last week was the Who Am I and Why I Started the Weekly Sift post that is always up. The popular posts of previous weeks have been driven by Reddit; One Word was driven by Facebook. Thanks to all of you who linked and liked and otherwise helped get it out there.
• This week's challenge. When you hand your money to a big corporation, chances are a slice of it will go to ALEC or the Chamber of Commerce and be used to promote corporate rights over human rights. In the economy as it currently exists, you can't avoid corporations completely unless you're ready to live like the Amish. But chances are you can find some way to give them less of your money. This week, investigate whether a credit union could serve you better than a bank. Or patronize a locally-owned shop or restaurant, a farmer's market, or some other human-scale business rather than a national chain.

The Weekly Sift has moved to weeklysift.com.