Word: un-american
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...Klein that Barack Obama seems a grown-up in a nation badly needing some adult supervision [Nov. 3]. One of the qualities needed by the average American is the ability to reflect and question beyond emotionally programmed responses. While patriotism is happily viewed through emotional language and upbeat clichés, so too it should be seen as the ability to reflect critically and question. Too often Americans view these latter qualities as un-American, or being negative in a nation that prides itself on hope and optimism. I believe Obama and his team have the maturity to encourage this...
...movie Tender Comrade, Ginger Rogers utters the words "Share and share alike--that's democracy." Nobody objected at the time, but four years later, Rogers' mother complained to the House Un-American Activities Committee that her daughter had been forced to express a communist sentiment. The scriptwriter, Dalton Trumbo (who actually was a communist), went to jail for refusing to testify and then spent years on the Hollywood blacklist, unable to get work. But "share and share alike" has been rehabilitated and restored to its place of honor as one of America's finest bromides...
...damage had been mounting so swiftly that in the midst of a global stock-market rout that ate 18% of the Dow, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson was forced to import a plan he once considered practically un-American. Paralleling a program authored by U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, it called for the U.S. government to take partial ownership of nine leading banks and offer to buy pieces of hundreds of others. On Oct. 13, the nine bank bosses, assembled in the Treasury's imposing boardroom, were each handed a piece of paper with the terms: $25 billion of preferred shares...
With Wall Street going off the cliff, and housing prices still declining in many areas, both spending and lending are being squeezed all across the country. Consumer lending contracted last month--that's practically un-American. Car dealers may fold by the hundreds, as customers can't get credit to buy and manufacturers won't finance dealer inventories. Holiday-shopping forecasts are getting bleaker. Declining home values mean more homeowners could default, further driving down property values. All that crimps tax revenues, and states such as Pennsylvania and New York are now trying to plug gaping holes in their budgets...
...everyone considers his business acumen fair justification for the decision. Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez told the New York Times the move was "un-American," while the city's comptroller called it "an attempt to suspend democracy." Bloomberg himself has supported term limits since taking office in 2002, and said he continues to favor them. "You're not taking away term limits. You're simply going from two terms to three terms," he said...