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Police Infiltrate Protests, Videotapes Show..., 2005-12-22 12:34:44 | Main | A Christmas Backcarol..., 2005-12-23 14:39:29 I've always wanted to move to Vermont, but if I have to emmigrate, all the better. And: John McClaughry, the Vermonter who heads the free-market Ethan Allen Institute, detects “a virulent anti-American leftism” in the SVR Poor baby! The author comes to the rescue: McClaughry is a cussed original whose work I have long admired, but unless the defining characteristics of “anti-American leftism” are a loathing of Wal-Mart, the Iraq War, and Big Government and a fondness for organic farming, town meeting, and a Vermont First ethic, the SVR seems to me a wholesomely shaggy band of ur-Americans, not anti-Americans. And anyway, even virulent anti-American leftism is a thousand fold more patriotic than swearing allegiance to this clusterfuck of a federal government, the Most Anti-American Institution on Earth. :: posted by buermann @ 2005-12-23 11:39:51 CST | link Comments: Where does the term "ur-American" come from? I've never heard of it before. According to that excerpt, then I'd say that America needs more ur-Americans. That McClaughry guy sounds like a "free market" type that I can do without. posted by freeman @ 2005-12-25 16:56:14 | link "ur" as a prefix means "original", not in the sense of unique so much as the sense of it being the ancient prototype; in the context I took it to be a reference to Greil Marcus' boulderization of a Kenneth Rexroth phrase ("old, free America") about an 'old, weird America' in which you can't sing about politics but you can sing about anything you like. posted by buermann @ 2005-12-28 07:15:47 | link go ahead, express that vague notion Name: Email: Homepage: Comment your turing test: