Under the spreading chestnut tree, I sold you and you sold me.
— George Orwell
I haven’t written about politics (and have been happier for it) but have to mention ‘Julia’ since the study of ‘welfare states, planned economies, and all manner of bureaucracies’ has been a lifelong passion (dystopia). What is so rich is that ‘Julia’ could have been written by a conservative espousing the risks of the welfare state. It was also released at a time when the ‘end game’ (apologies to Krugman) of the welfare state is on display in Europe.
(1) The Party of Julia (NY TIMES)
(2) The Lonely Life of Julia: In Obama’s ideal world, men are replaced by bureaucrats. (WSJ)
(3) A Nation of Julias (National Review)
(4) O’s campaign gets creepy (NY Post)
(6) Romney: Clinton Said Big Government Era Over, But Obama Brought It Back
“Julia progresses from cradle to grave, showing how government makes every good thing in her life possible. The weak economy, high unemployment, falling wages, rising gas prices, the national debt, the insolvency of entitlements – all these are fictionally assumed away in a cartoon that is produced by a president who wants us to forget about them.
What does it say about a president’s policies when he has to use a cartoon character rather than real people to justify his record? What does it say about the fiction of old liberalism to insist that good jobs and good schools and good wages will result from policies that have failed us, time and again?”
Update
Julia’s world (The Economist)