Once More, With Feeling
Yeah, I know. But I can’t resist telling you once again what has disgusted me so. Tristero makes the point in a more felicitous, more coherent way than I did:
[T]here is a serious intellectual crisis in this country. Bush/Iraq – especially the failure of the media to catch on before it was too late – is a direct consequence of that. That folks like [Jonathan] Chait [who was for the Iraq War] still command enough respect to have the opportunity to write cover articles for the New Republic – on any subject – while those who were absolutely right about this debacle from the start are still all but completely ignored by “respectable” opinion-making journalism should be cause for genuine alarm. Without truly intelligent, educated, and street-smart voices available to raise a …hullabaloo before it’s too late, this country is almost guaranteed to repeat the spectacular debacle of Iraq in the near future. And I don’t see enough of those voices in the mainstream political discourse.
It’s not just in the ‘MSM’, though. It’s everywhere.
I think many people who were otherwise fairly decent and should have known better — and thus, people I have far more contempt for than I do for a wingnut who is simply evil and stupid by default — than to be for the Iraq War have, still at this late date and despite many words to the contrary, internalized the ‘incompetence dodge’.
Why holding people — whoever had a pulpit — accountable for their pro-war stupidity is important is not for reasons of vindictiveness, nor even for bitterness at all the carnage they morally abetted. It’s because there will be another Iraq — maybe Iran, maybe not, maybe soon, maybe in the distant future — and the same idiots who fell for the current disaster will fall for the next one. ‘Oh, but they’ve learned their lesson now!’ Sure. Like they remembered to think about Vietnam in 2003; like they remembered not to trust a cretin, a crook, a stealer of an election. These people make Guy Pearce’s character in Memento seem like an elephant. But it’s not just amnesia that they suffer from; it’s that their principles suck — they are knee-jerk interventionists, which means they are imperialists but for ‘good reasons’. Since Republicans and ‘centrists’ are clever enough to disguise their schemes of plunder and hegemony with sticky-sweet, idealist rhetoric (one learns this in Neocon 101), the clueless nimrods (meow, meow) and willing enablers (like Chait) will fall all over again for the next Iraq while somehow maintaining the position that the new conflict will have something to do with Osama bin Laden or WMDs or whatever the excuse du jour may be. If a different Republican or centristy Dem president proposes another Iraq, the idiots will instinctively support it because of their temperment and ideology and bizarre willingness to jettison their otherwise ample cynicism just when it’s needed.
The lesson of Iraq must be learned and the only way to do that is to never forget who supported and enabled the war — and never let them forget it until they are reduced to writing for ..well, something with as few readers as the Nation or Z-Mag or some other publication whose writers were, unlike the wankers, entirely correct about Iraq, Bush, etc., but recieved only grief from the wankers for it. Nor should the ‘liberal’ institutions and publications (where applicable) be allowed to forget it as long as they keep such idiots in their employ. There must be accountability. If certain ‘liberal’ online journals don’t become more like The Nation and less like the fucking New Republic in the type of writer they employ, they should be treated like the New Republic — with utter contempt. It’s the accountablity, stupid!
Now here’s where I disagree with some of the commenters in the last post, and while I love each and every one of you (except Limpy and Grampaw, of course), I’m gonna be a little snotty about it. Some people would rather be nice than be right, than right a wrong, than prevent the next fucking catastrophe even as the current one engulfs everything in flames: better, it seems, to be civil to the idiots than embrace a principle of decency. Because, after all, the idiots are on the side of angels now!
Well, whoopdie fucking doo. Look at what it took for these people to finally get a clue.
I posit that this weird, punching-bag liberal habit of forgiving stupidity is caused by the same mealy-mouthed, wishy-washy temperment that, let us say, caused so many to not only accept but forgive the election theft of 2000 — often to the point that it was denied there was a theft at all. It’s the serial-reconciler temperment that wants ‘A Uniter’, no matter what sort of political and moral abomination he’s trying to unite one with, or the facts of the ‘Uniter’s’ history. Which, come to think of it, is how we got in this mess to begin with.
I hate to be an apparatchik, but Kos’s solution (‘be more partisan’) is no longer enough. It’s time to insist that ‘our’ journalists, bloggers and politicians be more ideologically Left. It’s not enough, if we’re to learn the lesson of Iraq, to simply oppose wingnuts; we have to oppose wingnuttery. The ideology of a ‘Liberal Hawk’, whatever the heights to which he flew, how showy his plumage or with however much sincere regret he now retreats to his nest, is wingnuttery and therefore unacceptable.
the clueless nimrods (meow, meow)
Hey! No nimrods we, matey-boy. Catch a cat starting a war: we ain’t that stupid. If you humans would be more like us, the world would be a nicer place. And more fish-scented.
Course, you gotta be willing to sleep 22 hours a day. And lick your own arse clean. But that’s a small price to pay, I think. Certainly better than licking Bush’s arse, which the Dems made a career of up till now.
Oh, no, pussycat. Not you. Sorry for the collateral damage. Here, let me scratch your ears…
Interesting HTML. I agree with you that people who call themselves liberals should actually be liberals. (To me, liberals = Leftists, liberals don’t = ‘Neoliberals’.) I think maybe part of the problem comes from the disrepute that the word ‘liberal’ is in now.
Maybe you are right, maybe what we really need is people to call out those who claim to be liberal but always support war as a policy. Probably the best example of someone like that is Tom Freidman.
As I understand you, you are calling for liberals, or leftists, to do pretty much what the Conservative Movement did from 1970-2000, is that correct?
By the way, what clueless nimrod goes meow, meow?
These people make Guy Pearce’s character in Memento seem like an elephant.
Can someone with mad photoshop skillz whip up a naked Jonathan Chait or Yglesias with tattoos all over his body saying things like: “never be a cheeto stained cheerleader for another insane war again”? Or: “Note to self; remember not to fucking be an evil wingnut again”? Better yet can we kidnap them and tattoo them for real?
Speaking of The Nation, please take a moment to fill out this anti-postage rate hike form.
Can someone with mad photoshop skillz whip up a naked Jonathan Chait or Yglesias with tattoos all over his body saying things like: “never be a cheeto stained cheerleader for another insane war again�? Or: “Note to self; remember not to fucking be an evil wingnut again�? Better yet can we kidnap them and tattoo them for real?
…just as long as they’re not holding a giant sammich, I’m down wit dat.
As far as casting the remake of Memento goes, I think that the tragic role of the Joey Pants character who gets whacked by the delusional amnesiac is played by, well, … by everyone fucking else in the country.
I was talking about this to one of the moms in the pick up queue at the kiddo’s school the other day.
She was shocked,shocked I tell you, that I am a liberal. But then I went on to explain what that actually means,and a little light switch went on for her.
I think,if you could get people to calm the hell down and stop with the kneejerk reactions,you’d find that most of us want the same things:
1)A government that is fiscally responsible,without being mean and stingy about it. For some reason,today’s self styled conservatives think the answer to every problem is punishment and suffering for as many people as possible.
2)Overall public protections,such as safe roadways,well maintained infrastructures,a clean food and water supply,decent and affordable health care and housing,a shot at a decent education and a way to provide for one’s self and one’s family. When people have those things,the vast majority will then be willing to use their time and energy to improve their little patch of the world in some form or fashion. If life is a struggle to just have the basics,then people lose hope,become angry and resentful and you get more of the more common social problems.
I find nothing radical or “left wing”about that,it’s just common sense.
As for the people who still cling to vilifying most of their fellow Americans,who want perpetual war for perpetual peace etc,etc,ad nauseum,perhaps we should stop paying people for their mentally unbalanced and mean spirited opinions. These pundits get in the way of progress,they certainly don’t do much but line their own pockets.
Frankly,I have little forgiveness left in my heart for anyone clinging to this war or claiming to still be a Republican(or worse in many respects,a “centrist”,blech),you either contribute to progress or impede it. And by progress,I do not mean paving over every bit of grass or developing every square inch of the nation. I mean policy that actually works in positive ways and makes life better for all of us in the long run rather than enriching a few wealthy buttheads.
Angry Old Broad I’m on your team! Your comment is astute AND I love that you are converting people in the pick-up queue! Keep at it!
Thank you for the gracious apology, HTML. I shall roll onto my back so you can scratch my belly. Then I shall fetch for you a fresh-killed rat, hardly used. You can have it for dinner.
And, anangryoldbroad, I couldn’t agree more. It’s unfortunate that the mean-spirited ones, once in power, tend to foster a society which drives more people to support them. And people are stupidly ready to demonise strangers at the ring of a bell, unable to realise that most humans want basically the same stuff: food, shelter, security, all those ‘little’ things. Those that truly want to annihilate all ‘others’ are extremely rare, and they got that way either through mental pathology, or through extremes of circumstance.
Extremes of circumstance which we are, alas, currently creating for as many people as possible.
I keep asking hard core conservatives what they are conserving and just what the hell they think they’re winning by doing things to”spite”liberals. here in red state America,there’s alot of that spitefulness,I was quite surprised how deeply inbedded it is in some quarters.
Like someone who advocates cutting down a few thousand acres of trees. So,you cut down the trees,a hippie cries,and you won what again exactly? Sure,you might get some money for the trees,but once that’s gone,then what? I guess you could build some more useless crap,or plant more trees,but the damage is done. It’s the height of stupidity to fuck up the landbase,we cannot live without clean air,food and water,no matter how wealthy a person is.
I used to have this idiotic arguement with my husband all the time. He had to assert his manliness by using the stuff I’m passionate about to mess with my head. He stopped it when I pointed out that all he was winning was a shot at paying a divorce lawyer a hefty sum and teaching his son to be an ass. There’s a bigger win by opening one’s head and heart. Not to mention the respect I have for him for doing so. When I ask conservatives what they think they’re winning with all this hatefulness,they never can answer me without sounding like a middle school bully.
I agree with ex-Retardo, but offer one small addition. The Nation has a pretty healthy circulation, and has the highest circulation of any political magazine in the US [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nation#_note-6].
Excellent analysis angryoldbroad, and you are a trooper for converting the other moms!
Funny, I think that maybe you are the real ‘centrist’ here. In the sense of saying things that the vast majority of people, if they really listened to them, could not help but agree with, I mean.
I get it, you know. Holding people responsible so we won’t be psyched again. Excuse me. So those who were fooled once won’t be fooled twice.
But being more partisan is a temporary solution. Being more partisan on “news” programs that invite two conservatives for every “liberal” just means you’re trying to stay even. That’s not progress, that doesn’t promote an exchange of ideas. All that does is it gives us a chance to put the breaks on Iraq 2.0, if we’re lucky.
If liberalism is not one thing it is being hostile to change. In the world of corporate media and celebrity journalism the public’s interest cannot be served. “Liberals” making common sense arguments against military adventures, never mind partisan arguments, look like fish out of water when everyone else (so-called conservatives and “centrists”) is gunning up for dramatic change. Responding with “Imperialism!” just makes us look like Blame America First® cretins even if we’re on to something. Too many Americans believe in the inherent good of this country and have too much respect for the office of the presidency to entertain such an evil possibility.
Ever since the Communications Act of 1934 passed the pendulum has swung too far in favor of, or against the interests of, business. It’s time for Congress to amend the Act once again in favor of the public interest and use its power to break up media monopolies. This will take a strong and stubborn populist movement demanding independence in media, not just in terms of equal representation, but also in terms of corporate structuring that lets the Big Six cross-produce and cross-promote products. This means supporting grassroots organizations like Stop Big Media with lots of money, too.
Until then, promoting partisanship exemplifies we are stuck playing catch-up. We need to do more.
Does anyone know of a handy Wikipedia list like; List_of_Totally_discredited_Iraq_cheerleading_mainstream_pundits_who_still_have_mainstream_pundit_jobs ?
If not, can we create a permenant wall of shame for these wankers?
I doubt I converted her,but I think I did get her to understand that liberal isn’t equal to America Hating Treasonous Unwashed Maniac,lol.
We all gotta eat,we all need to feel like we’re invested in our communities,we need an extended family that we feel secure within,we need shelter,healthcare,etc. In other words,we have far more in common than not. That other stuff,the divides,that’s shit made up by people with ulterior motives. Who benefits when we fight and spite one another? it ain’t you and me,that’s for sure. And don’t get me started on the whole religous aspect involved here,that’s a problem we have to begin tackling soon.
The list of who is “unamerican”is getting mighty damned long these days. If you beleive that crap,you’ve only got perhaps a few million out of 300 million(about a third of those are little kids who don’t have much of a say in things)people that are supposedly”good”. That’s bullshit most people see through. As the hate list grows,it’s bound to touch people you love and care about sooner or later.
angryoldbroad has a point, and atheist’s comment on hers is interesting. Chait admitted that the netroots phenomenon may help re-establish the center. Well, his idea of center and ours is different, but the point remains. It is true that, at least IMO, the best thing the netroots does is close the overton window. it ‘brings balance to the force’; its left ideology cancels out the hard right ideology that is mainstream wingnuttery. What will remain is *reasonable*. Not fake-reasonable like Chait’s foreign policy centrism or like Tom Friedman’s trade-economic centrism, etc.
About The Nation — isn’t that a very very recent development? Regardless, I had in mind the publications more often cited than The Nation on our side in the blogosphere — TAP, Washington Monthly and, now, the Atlantic.
Shouldn’t he have linked to hullabaloo when he said it?
Did he link to hullabaloo when he said it? Sadly, No!
“It’s time to insist that ‘our’ journalists, bloggers and politicians be more ideologically Left.”
I second the sentiment, but I don’t think this is quite right.
Popular usage of the concept of ideology has come to include 2 separate dimensions. One dimension has to do with where policy positions fall on a left-right ideological scale. The other, unacknowledged dimension, is how confrontational one is in supporting those issue positions. People often conflate these 2 dimensions into one, so that anyone who is high on confrontation is considered an ideological extremist no matter what their actual policy views are.
So the point is not that our journalists, bloggers and politicians need to be more “ideologically Left”. Rather, they need to be more “confrontational” in support of our policies, which in a lot of cases are actually pretty centrist and moderate.
The bottom line? They don’t need to be more ideological, they just need to grow some balls, for goddsakes. Quit acting like such a bunch of frightened pussies all the time.
Disturbance:
I think you’re right about the terminology but off on the analysis — these fucks had plenty of balls (and still do) when it came to attacking DFHs, Chomsky, Vidal, Counterpunch, et al. (basically everyone who was always right about the war and for the right reasons).
They can be contfrontational, but only when attacking the Left.
[…] HTML Mencken has words for the mushy middle of the US progressive blogosphere and the allegedly liberal media: […] […]
Two things:
1. HTML’s statement reminds me of the 60’s-era/SDS critique of “liberals,” viz., that they didn’t stand for anything apart from a generally benign guarantee of everyone’s “rights.” This led to admirable campaigns for social justice, but also to a nicey-nice toothlessness when it came to confronting true scumbags (Nixon, Kissinger, etc.) actively pursuing a specific goal. To only guarantee everyone’s rights is to guarantee the right of your indifferent, bloodthirsty, lying opponent to pursue his ends, thank yew. It was as though liberals were a party of referees, while conservatives were a party of actual football players.
2. Implicit in the writings of the Chaits, Friedmans, etc., is the premise that those on the other side MEAN WELL. But they don’t mean well, even if they think they do. And even if they do think they mean well, so what? Everybody means well. As I’ve said before, Hitler thought he was doing the right thing.
To think you can separate the frankly evil machinations of Tom DeLay or Grover Norquist or Karl Rove, from the “otherwise benign, well-meaning” activities of Wolfowitz or Rice, is at best naive and worst delusional.
You see the purest expression of this in the writings of David Brooks, who sympathetically reviews the wingnut agenda, then glosses over the actual results (carnage, chaos), and judiciously reviews their excuses and their plans for reform. He’s like a movie critic who only reviews trailers.
Three. Three things.
3. If the writings of the most extreme of the wingnuts is an indicator of the general tenor of the slightly-less-oblivious middle, then note (sigh) the sexual posturing, the grandiose Warrior rhetoric, of the looniest of the loons. This is what War brings out. They’ve never felt so alive (literally). So this is what the left has to contend with: an opponent not only fueled by open or covert greed, racism, and Christian bigotry, but fueled by the bogus testosterone of the Protein Wisdom cock-waving dickwads who think feeling strong means being right (after a lifetime of feeling weak and being wrong).
Time for Phil Ochs once more.
I cried when they shot Medgar Evers
Tears ran down my spine
And I cried when they shot Mr. Kennedy
As though I’d lost a father of mine
But Malcolm X got what was coming
He got what he asked for this time
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
I go to the civil rights rallies
And I put down the old D.A.R.
I love Harry and Sidney and Sammy
I hope every colored boy becomes a star
But don’t talk about revolution
That’s going a little bit too far
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
I cheered when Humphrey was chosen
My faith in the system restored
And I’m glad that the commies were thrown out
From the A.F.L. C.I.O. board
And I love Puerto Ricans and Negros
As long as they don’t move next door
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
Ah, the people of old Mississippi
Should all hang their heads in shame
Now I can’t understand how their minds work
What’s the matter don’t they watch Les Crane?*
But if you ask me to bus my children
I hope the cops take down your name
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
Yes, I read New Republic and Nation
I’ve learned to take every view
You know, I’ve memorized Lerner and Golden
I feel like I’m almost a Jew
But when it comes to times like Korea
There’s no one more red, white and blue
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
I vote for the democratic party
They want the U.N. to be strong
I attend all the Pete Seeger concerts
He sure gets me singing those songs
And I’ll send all the money you ask for
But don’t ask me to come on along
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
Sure, once I was young and impulsive
I wore every conceivable pin
Even went to socialist meetings
Learned all the old union hymns
Ah, but I’ve grown older and wiser
And that’s why I’m turning you in
So love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal
*My soft spot for the Les Crane Desiderata album in evidence.
They do not retain their jobs in spite of their previous absurdly wrong position, but because of it. Now, why they have any credibility is a different question. That’s a mindblower. Can I review my choices of planets on which to reside again? Are there any that aren’t populated with malicious, greedy, morons?
its left ideology cancels out the hard right ideology that is mainstream wingnuttery
HTML, Retardo-ex, I usually agree with you, but, IMO, you have got it wrong here. You are implying that the netroots has something close to parity of influence with the MSM. I don’t think that this is the case at all. At most the netroots act as a slight restraint to a full blown charge to the right – not a full counterwieght. More work must be done. I think Lesly’s got it right that the concentration of media outlet control has to be halted and reversed before we see real change. Its only the pig headed diaster of the war that has let the left gain any traction at all. Even a blind “centrists” can see the war as a complete fucking disaster – because the polls tell him/her that that is what the electorate thinks.
These are nice sentiments, but the U.S. did NOT invade and occupy Iraq simply because Rupert Murdoch or Jack Welch had difficulty locating strong voices from the Left. The manly-sounding men who clamor for bold action will always control the destiny of barbarians; and the only amazing thing is that not one of the 51 non-Gops now in the U.S. Senate has accidentally perished in a light-plane crash.
Bush-Cheney will NOT be remembered as a bunch of lying chickenhawks who subverted the Constitution and tried to start WWIII (and may yet succeed in that). Bush-Cheney will instead be mostly FORGOTTEN as UNSUCCESSFUL lying warmongers who subverted the Constitution and tried to start WWIII. And so it goes.
’06 notwithstanding, we cannot stop the march of folly. We can only lead, follow, or get out of the way and laugh amongst ourselves at the most stupid excesses of a political movement that imagines itself as the New Holy Roman Empire and despises the rest of the world (or the non-English-speaking parts of it, at least) as Tijuana.
WeikuBoy: “These are nice sentiments, but the U.S. did NOT invade and occupy Iraq simply because Rupert Murdoch or Jack Welch had difficulty locating strong voices from the Left.”
No, the White House had an easier time invading because AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG, News Corporation, The Walt Disney Company, Viacom and Vivendi Universal have an echo chamber effect limiting the public’s exposure to dissenting voices. Trust me I don’t buy into media conspiracy theories but there are real world effects and consequences when my local network starts the evening “news” broadcast talking about American Idol and there are fewer journalists today than there were thirty years ago.
It sounds impossible considering we have more media variety than ever before in the history of the world but do a Google search and you’ll notice the same story written by a few people, usually an AP journalist, is repeated ad nauseam throughout the country. This can’t be good for democracy. How do we expect people to make informed decisions when they read the same bullshit about WMD everywhere they turned? What’s more reasonable: expecting the public to research White House claims by looking through the IAEA’s website or expecting media to serve the public by acting like journalists and investigating government claims?
I think something angryoldbroad said goes to something real important.
It’s time for a rebranding. Liberal and conservative, as so many have said before me, is increasingly a useless, and inapplicable, division. I want honestly in political terminology. Let’s call it the constructive and destructive wings. Or maybe the constructive and suicidal wings.
To me, it shouldn’t be about ideology. Fuck ideology. Ideals are abstract, and life is not. Some of us want to address the many profound problems humanity has created for itself, and others want to compound them.
And if you couldn’t recognize that going to Iraq was nothing but destructive, you’re a chump. Sit down and let the pros play through. If you got fooled this isn’t your game. Go back to local news. HTML is 100% right. The stakes are too important to leave obvious failures in important spots.
bleh, what was that about getting off this planet?
We’ve tried the ‘flies with honey’ approach for nigh on 40 years now, and look where it’s gotten us: smack dab in the middle of a christian fascist takeover of America.
We gotta be unapologetic bomb-chuckers, because your tactic of ‘out-nicing the fascists’ is a failure.
I have reviewed these discussions with interest, but haven’t weighed in yet, mostly because no one would care anyway, but I have to agree with HTML. I don’t believe that former support for the war should be forgotten and/or forgiven.
To do so is to suggest that this war could potentially have been justifiable in the first place, had the administration been truthful. (Oh how loathsome Hillary is for making that argument). This baldly states that the US has dominion over the other nations of the world, and all the US has to do to act justly is to decide justly and accurately which countries “deserve” to be invaded by the US and have their governments overthrown (detestable though those governments may be).
Can we endorse such behavior by the US, and only cry foul when the hammer falls poorly, or on the wrong head?
There’s also the simple fact that many of those demonstrating anguish get to have their cake and eat it too — the likes of Friedman just wanted Saddam, an enemy of Israel, gone. Why did the neocons have no plan to stabilize Iraq after Saddam was gone? Easy — they didn’t CARE. (Forgive my Schlussel moment.). Oh boo hoo, cries Friedman, I was wrong, when he got what he, and Wolfie, and the Perlmeister, and the Feith machine, and the Chain gang, and Rummy, wanted all along. Post Saddam was less important.
It is true that, at least IMO, the best thing the netroots does is close the overton window. it ‘brings balance to the force’; its left ideology cancels out the hard right ideology that is mainstream wingnuttery. What will remain is *reasonable*.
Really? The way I see it, with a few quality exceptions, the blogs only have a “left ideology” inasmuchas they really really like Democrats and really really hate Republicans. On pure policy, they aren’t particularly “left” at all.
As Sawicky likes to point out, when President Obama or Clinton starts pushing for war or social security privatization, we’ll find out just how “left” the netroots actually are. My prediction is that opponents will make “wanker of the day”.
For ironicname and digamma — I wasn’t clear so let me amend it: the netroots have *potential* to close the overton window, if its political and ideological trajectory holds. Obviously, it’s not there yet; it needs to keep moving Left and destory the fake center once and for all, but progress is being made.
Digamma, you’re attacking Atrios when your criticism is really more applicable to Markos. Hillary, who’s surrounded herself with fake-centrist triangulating creeps, is starting to catch grief for it. And now that Obama’s fucked-up with the my space thing and more importantly, got the neocon (Robert Kaplan division) endorsement for his extreme interventionist beliefs, he’ll start getting ripped too.
Regarding:
“…and never let them forget it until they are reduced to writing for ..well, something with as few readers as the Nation or Z-Mag…If certain ‘liberal’ online journals don’t become more like The Nation and less like the fucking New Republic in the type of writer they employ, they should be treated like the New Republic — with utter contempt.”
Absolutely. But if the problem with Chait rests on his ability to publish in the New Republic, you must be aware that the Nation has far more readers. My understanding is that the New Republic has a circulation of something less than 60,000 (bi-weekly) while that of the Nation is at 184,000 a week.
Chait has been reduced to writing for New Republic.
To do so is to suggest that this war could potentially have been justifiable in the first place,
I know, I’m not really educated in all the nuance, and I mean no disrespect, but that sounds a great deal like a typical wingnut false dichotomy. Lookit. We were pissed with the whole “kerry is a flip flopper” thing, I remember it, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just a dream. We all pointed out that the ability, and even more importantly the WILLINGNESS to reexamine one’s position and come to a different conclusion in light of evidence was a GOOD trait, and one we’d like to see more of. Especially with dubya’s unwillingness to admit error on any level.
So please forgive me if I find this all or nothing false binary to be at least out of character and at it’s worst disingenuous….
mikey
Point taken, mikey but I think there’s a distinction that has to be made between politicians who revise themselves and pundit who do the same.
For now, we need the politicians who’ve reassesed their previous support for the war.
We don’t need the pundits who’ve done the same. Politicians who’ll at least consider our beliefs are still too rare to shitcan for inconsistency or idiocy — at least for now. Pundits are a dime a dozen. You’re a pundit, I’m a pundit, everyone’s a pundit. There is no ready replacement for John Kerry right now. OTOH, there are a bazzillion people out there who got it right who could replace, say, Kevin fucking Drum right now. Think of how much better the ‘liberal’ blogosphere would be if Billmon or Digby got paid to write in Drum’s spot. I know one thing, from those two you would have never heard not only pro-War shit, but that a large newspaper should fire its liberal columnist, keep its neocon columnist and hire fake-centrist nitwits for the remainder of the positions — all of which is exactly what Kevin Drum has written.
These people are a poison that Bush has temporarily given us the antidote to. As soon as he’s gone, they’ll fuck everything up again.
I read that and it makes sense. Then I say, waitaminute. Wouldn’t we be better off if we had Digby and Mencken AND a bunch of people who say “holy shit, I bought a rotten flounder, and man it stinks! I want to join with you in bringing this horror to an end”?
Now I know, a lot of these cats aren’t willing to go that far. So how bout this? We set the bar high. You helped facilitate this nightmare? You can come in chieu hoi if you want, but you’ve gotta JOIN the cause. You can’t waffle, you can’t hide behind weasel words, but if you’ll sit security in a hole at midnight with the rest of us, you can earn your forgiveness.
How bout that?
mikey
(I’m just trying to think like a recruiter. People are, after all, still dying with alarming regularity. Ending this shit is more important then winning the prize for being right)
Chait has been reduced to writing for New Republic.
Okay, but like I said, I was thinking of the big magazines and bloggers that the ‘sphere heavily links to. It’s great that The Nation has more print readers than TNR. At least on the blogs I read, which I think are pretty much the ones that everyone else reads, there are far more links to Washington Monthly, TAPped, Atlantic and even TNR than to the Nation. Even bloggers take more seriously dipshits like Kevin Drum than they do Katrina Vanden Heuvel.
And did TAP hire Roy Edroso or Digby or Billmon? No, but they hired a guy who once wrote a ‘What’s so bad about Pinochet?’ blogpost, who thinks Max Boot is a real historian, who very recently advocated, with relish, a plan for war with China over fucking Taiwan. But he too thinks Bush sucks, so all is forgiven forgotten, excused.
And no, I’m not naming names. I’m in enough flamewars as it is.
Anyway, it’s TAP and WM and related entities that have pissed me off by enabling the formerly pro-war pundits who may be anti-war now but have not changed the part of their ideology-mentality-personality that made them fucking STUPID enough to be pro-war in the first place.
Passion + intellect == Hot hot hot
Mikey, this helps us end it. And more importantly, it’ll help us keep from getting into the same shit again.
This isn’t about vindictiveness, it’s about preventing this shit from happening again.
Nope. This has NOTHING to do with preventing this shit from happening again. In order to prevent venal thugs from hijacking the process and wasting lives and treasure, there is much we can do. However this, my most literate friend, is meaningless.
We have to keep bloodthirsty corporatist theocratic authoritarians out of power. Our system lends itself to abuse from the top. Oh jeezus on a cracker, have we learned that. We have always had this scenario, what if the president of America or the Premier of Russia goes bonkers?
The answer is, they do whatever bonkers shit they want. The executive works in real time, the checks and balances works in slo mo.
And the republican congress, blocking any and all oversight are complicit in very much a criminal manner. But as much as we’d like to lay this off on political punditry and opinion shapers, we have to be honest. If the public had not been on board due to the propaganda, cheney would still have given the “go” to the invasion. We never had a chance.
It’s like marriage. Pick the wrong one, and you cannot escape the grief….
mikey
No, mikey.
Bush is odd in that he’s a deadender, as is the movement around him. But most politicians are beholden to political capital, and political capital is partly made by pundits.
When, as even Chait admitted (and a long time ago at that), the ‘liberals in the media’ are far more right wing than the masses of Democratic voters, the effect is that *instant political capital for wingnutty adventures* exists far more than it ought.
*This* is why my point’s about the future. Pundits should be representative; had they been representative, they would have been right on Iraq; if they are more representative, they’ll be right about future stupid pointless imperialistic hubristic evil fucking wars.
There’s a direct relationship between the Chaits in print and on TV and the Drums and Yglesiases on blogs and the amount of wingnuttery that can gain traction in America. Republicans will supply wingnuttery on their own until their movement is crushed, it’s true; but enablers of wingnuttery (who speak as and are recognized as ‘Liberals’) make what’s awful that much worse.
Two things I’d like to add.
Digby, Billimon, Dave Neiwert, there are plenty of folk who should have columns representing the left and sanity and reality instead of douchecuntmcshittyfucks like, well, we could probably all name generally the same names. But it’d be even better to have Dave in charge of a newsroom of some kind in a major market. Editors are more important than pundits, even in syndicated times.
And as to mikey n HTML, I think you’re kind of talking around each other. mikey, it’s fine if the mistaken realize their mistake and want on the bus. They just have to accept they don’t get to drive, ever. It’s onea them accountability moments. If a pundit didn’t have the brights to recognize the lies is bad enough, but what about the ones that lacked the…. fuckit, sorry designed radfem monitor of the day, what about the ones that lacked the balls to say it? Or who figured playing along would at least salvage their career? Shouldn’t they lose their jobs? If not, what value do they have, why do their jobs even exist?
Mikey, I’d look at it this way. The politicians who supported the war – at any point in time at all – were wrong. That’s just it. Period. They were wrong. Anybody who supported the war in Iraq at all, ever, was wrong.
But it’s not like that means those of us who were clearheaded about the whole thing from the beginning should be Maoists about it and sending the “right deviationists” off to “reeducation camps” or something. There’s degree, and there’s nuance, and there are always circumstances.
When it comes to the difference between politicians and pundits….well, we actually need politicians. They’re in the Constitution. If we got rid of every politician who ever supported the Iraq war, we’d have to find some way to make Dennis Kucinich be the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives all by himself, all at once. I don’t think that would work too well.
But we don’t need pundits. There’s no legal mandate for them. We could put a cone of silence around each and every one of them, and not alter the structure of government as established in the Cosntitution. So, perhaps because they are a luxury and not a necessity, we can afford to be a bit choosier about them.
Frankly, it galled me worse than almost anything I’ve ever done in my life to vote for John Kerry in the ’04 election. That man did not deserve to be president of the United States, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that he was either too stupid to see through the wall of bullshit the Bush administration put out about the Iraq war, or he was too craven to stand up against Bush if he did know it was wrong. Either quality, as far as I’m concerned, disqualifies someone for being president forever. Either quality makes you respsonsible for the deaths of more American citizens than even Osama bin Laden is responsible for, and I wouldn’t vote for him either – know what I’m saying?
BUT……it was the only option I had. Normally, I’m not opposed to voting third party – it’s my vote, and no one owns it but me. Things are so bad in this country at this point in time, though, that I was really scared as to what would happen if Bush won a second term. I’m not a Democrat and I’m not obligated to vote for one; I just wanted to get rid of the guy who took away my habeas corpus rights before I lost any more rights or got disappeared.
In a more honestly representative electoral system, though, there’s no way Kerry would have gotten my vote. If I made a ranked list of all the people in the world eligible to be president of the United States, Kerry would probably be around #80,000,000 on that list.
Even if he had won, I would never have taken particularly seriously anything he ever said about anything – I just would’ve been glad to have someone in office who probably wouldn’t try to remove my ability to leave the country if I want to. If that’s the only thing one expects of a political candidate…that’s hardly a ringing endoresement.
To have supported this war in the first place, a person would have to be (in one form or another) a proponent of nation building. Nation building, first of all, is a traditionally liberal thing to do. I know that might rub some liberals who are reading this the wrong way – all I can say is that if you don’t like nation building, there’s a good chance you aren’t a liberal. I’m not a liberal, and I fucking hate the whole idea of nation building. And Mencken is exactly right on this point – a person who subscribes to the general idea of “nation building is good” is a person who will get suckered into supporting the next war, and the next, and the next…..because sooner or later, we will find someone who really wants to by our I Can’t Believe It’s Not Democracy sandwich spreadâ„¢.
Incidentally, Righteous Bubba, I think I’d like to marry you for posting those Phil Ochs lyrics. Few explanations of what’s wrong with liberals are more succinct or more stinging.
We don’t really have a choice but to put up with it in our politicians. We don’t have to put up with it anywhere else – and there’s a good argument to be made that we have a moral obligation NOT to put up with it anywhere else.
Now, if someone once supported the war but doesn’t anymore, and their reasons for doing so are more coherent than just “the war’s gone badly”, or the President lied to us about the prewar intelligence then we can see about welcoming them into the circle of sane members of humanity. Because if those are the only things you can see that were wrong about the decision to go to war in Iraq, then you still don’t get it. Like adb said, it’s not about holding grudges – it’s about accountability.
“Liberals� making common sense arguments against military adventures, never mind partisan arguments, look like fish out of water when everyone else (so-called conservatives and “centrists�) is gunning up for dramatic change. Responding with “Imperialism!� just makes us look like Blame America First® cretins even if we’re on to something.
Lesly, I think I see what you mean. Yes, it often happens that way. However, two things:
1. As far as being the ones who criticize war, you may consider this an unstrategic way of looking at it, but I basically feel that it is our duty to be the ones who criticize war, and millitary occuptions. Jillian thinks that liberals will always fall for ‘nation building’. I guess I have a different definition of ‘liberal’ than that. I consider myself a liberal and I feel that it is actually my duty to be the one who keeps saying, we don’t need to invade or attack other countries, we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq, we also should not have invaded Afghanistan, we sure as hell shouldn’t bomb Iran. And, I feel like it is my duty to constantly say it, in the face of all those propagandist ‘liberals’ like Tom Freidman. It frustrates me so much how completely impervious people like Feidman are to any kind of anti-war argument- from their own psychology, and also because the media we have now will always freeze us out, relegate us to the far margins.
2. I really disagree that the US public is incapable of understanding ‘imperialism’ and also understanding why it’s a bad thing. Hell, I have discussions with my Reaganite boss where he is criticizing imperialism- he won’t connect it with the USA, but I kinda feel that it is only a matter of time.
Atheist, the reason we probably disagree about whether or not it is a “liberal” position to stand for nation-building is that there has been a systematic attempt in America for about a generation to distort what the word “liberal” means, and it’s worked so well that even liberals don’t really have a good grasp on the word anymore. Most of the responsibility for it lies at the feet of Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew – Nixon tried hard to use JFK’s liberalism against him by implying that “liberal” meant “communist sympathiser”, despite the fact that Kennedy (one of our most liberal presidents ever) was perhaps the most profoundly anticommunist presidents we’ve ever had. Kennedy was at least as strongly anticommunist as Reagan was, if not stronger.
By developing in the popular consciousness the idea that “liberal” equals “commie symp” or “pinko” or something like that, people now think that being a liberal means that one is some sort of lefty – a democratic socialist, a social democrat, a socialist, or a communist. But nothing could be further from the truth. You can’t be both – you cannot be a liberal and a lefty at the same time. I still maintain that a lot of people in America who think they are “liberals” are actually social democrats.
Imperialism is part and parcel of liberalism. Liberalism entails an ideological commitment to capitalism, and an ideological commitment to capitalism differs from a practical support of capitalism in that it thinks that capitalism is always the best economic system for everyone everywhere. That’s where the imperialism comes from – if you have people who aren’t “enjoying the benefits of capitalism” somewhere in the world, then they aren’t “free”, and you are doing them a favor if you “liberate” them so they can enjoy “freedom” and “democracy”. If you want the best examples of this sort of liberalism in action, the presidencies of James Polk and Woodrow Wilson are probably the best places to look – in fact, I think Dubya probably has more in common with Woodrow Wilson than with any other president I can think of, and I don’t know of anyone who would call Wilson a conservative.
The reason this all gets so confusing is because of a fairly systematic effort to quash a useful political vocabulary in American conversation – the only terms we have left are “liberal” and “conservative”, and those weren’t even adequate to cover the political spectrum at the start of the nineteenth century.
I’m just saying that if you don’t think making the world safe for democracy” is a good thing to be doing, you probably aren’t a liberal. Don’t get bothered by the idea that you aren’t a liberal – just realize that there are a lot of other points on the political spectrum outside of “liberal” and “conservative”, and you probably have a lot more company outside of the liberal camp than you realize.
Oh man, my girlfreind is listening to NPR. They are so busy kissing Ted Koppel’s ass, telling him he’s brave because- get this- he criticized Mike Dukhakis in an interview. I guess they have forgotten how he kissed Bush’s ass just like the rest. Attacking weak candidates on the air, refusing any criticism of one who looks strong- hey isn’t that more like a definition of cowardice? This is why I don’t trust NPR.
Atheist, I’m not disagreeing with you. I felt it was my responsibility to speak against the invasion. But I’m just drawing attention to the power of framing. Without framing, Cheney would not be able to compare the Democratic Party to Stalinist Russia on Limbaugh’s show without listeners scratching their heads asking, “What the fuck did he just say?”
As Jillian points out, our political vocabulary is purposely misleading. In addition, the trajectory of “liberal” and “conservative” platforms of both parties have intercepted at least once in the past, further confusing popular usage labels. Because this confusion usually serves the interests of whichever party is in power we need to see the forest in spite of the trees. We need to come up with arguments capable of cutting through the rhetoric without unwittingly and sometimes perhaps wittingly, stooping to kissing “centrist” ass.
I call myself a liberal because that’s what I’ve always identified with, even though some of my arguments could be considered conservative or pre-New Deal libertarian and even though I’m not in favor of strict laissez-faire economic policies. (Not that I think Hayek is accurately portrayed by Reagan and Thatcher supporters, but that’s another post.) Besides, something about the word conservative just sounds wrong to me.
Dear Jillian:
I still maintain that a lot of people in America who think they are “liberals� are actually social democrats.
Yes, I guess that’s the catch, isn’t it? Thank you Jillian, I think you may have started to clear something up for me. Yes, I think I may be a social democrat, democratic socialist, whatever you wanna call it.
Some people think that to use the word ‘Socialist’ is a total waste of time because it opens up such nasty emotions in people and closes their minds. It does those things, but there is also something damn important attached to the word ‘Socialist’.
I still think that ‘liberal’, as it is used in the USA, basically means a moderate leftist. But that’s a discussion for another day.
I felt it was my responsibility to speak against the invasion. But I’m just drawing attention to the power of framing.
——————————
Because this confusion usually serves the interests of whichever party is in power we need to see the forest in spite of the trees. We need to come up with arguments capable of cutting through the rhetoric without unwittingly and sometimes perhaps wittingly, stooping to kissing “centrist� ass.
——————————
I call myself a liberal because that’s what I’ve always identified with, even though some of my arguments could be considered conservative or pre-New Deal libertarian
Absolutely Lesly. I do see your point. Our political labels seem to confuse for than enlighten. I do identify with how hard it is to describe yourself to people- a problem you seem to be quite familiar with as well.
I’m glad to see that makes sense, atheist. I really do think this confusion over what sort of tenets are central to different political philosophies is the reason for the seeming fractiousness and disunity in the Democratic party in recent years. The Democratic party is the more liberal party, and many Americans think they’re liberals, but then the Democratic party turns around and does things like support NAFTA, and people who think they’re liberals complain “Hey, *I* am a liberal, and I think NAFTA is teh suck! Why are you doing that?”
What they don’t realize is that they really aren’t liberals, and NAFTA is a perfectly liberal thing to support. So a whole bunch of people who really don’t share the same agenda have been duped by sloppy language usage into thinking they do share the same agenda, with many keystone cop-esque results – much to the delight of the Republican party.
Honestly, we’d all be doing the Dems a favor if we cleared this confusion up. We could be honest about the fact that we aren’t Democrats, that we don’t support the liberal agenda, and start making tactical alliances with Democrats when it makes sense for us to do so. Doing this would both strengthen the Democratic party – grassroots folks would stop feeling “betrayed” by the Democrats if they understood that they actually weren’t really Democrats in the first place, and also the Democratic party would have to wake up to the largish percentage of its “base” that is much farther to the left than the party apparatus is – and move in that direction if it hoped to retain our support on a consistent basis.
It’s worth thinking about.
Honestly, we’d all be doing the Dems a favor if we cleared this confusion up. We could be honest about the fact that we aren’t Democrats, that we don’t support the liberal agenda, and start making tactical alliances with Democrats when it makes sense for us to do so.
Interesting Jillian. The only thing is, we’d basically have to create a national social democrat party for these people left of the Democrats. While our sycophant media pissed on us 24/7 for trying it.
I mean, there’s the Greens, who were just barely hanging on last I checked. Aside from them- Bernie Sanders, probably a couple of other people.
You mean these guys?
I don’t care much for the national social dems party – there’s a reason Socialists call ’em “Sedusa” (a play on SDUSA – Social Democrats of the USA). Mostly because of their support for the Iraq invasion – makes ’em dicks in my book.
There’s always the Democratic Socialists or the Socialists themselves. Hell, the Socialists even have a Myspace page.
The structures are already there, so it’s not like the parties have to be “created”; they just have to be supported. Hell, it’s not even like you’d have to join either of the parties to work with them, even. Just support them, and encourage others to do the same. When they hold a protest, show up. When they hold a fundraiser, donate. When you write to your elected officials, remind them that just because you’re on the left end of the political spectrum doesn’t mean that the Dems own your vote, and you’ll be more than happy to take that vote elsewhere if they won’t listen to you a bit more often.
Just don’t get put off by the in-group wankery – lefties are justifiably infamous for it. If you’ve ever seen “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”, think about the scenes where horrendous arguments are started over whether a person supports the People’s Judean Front or the People’s Front of Judea….it’s a lot like that in reality (sad to say). Just ignore it, and maybe learn a little about the history of it if you’re interested….but mostly ignore it. It’s what happens when you have a large group of people who really take ideas seriously.
OK but, do you think people will really vote for “Socialists” in the USA?
You know what, who cares anyhow. Just by virtue of existing, the Socialists have some kind of power. And increasing that small power can only lead to good things in this country. So that’s what I’ll do.
I don’t really think that people will vote for Socialists on a large scale here. But the very existence of a more viable socialist movement might serve to counterbalance the insanely creepy rightward swing the country’s taken of late.
There’s a theory about the modern body politic some people hold to that says the majority of the country is mostly middle-of-the-road on most issues, and in light of that, the only real way to win an election is to appeal to the fringes of your party enough to get them to come out and vote without alienating the centrist bulk of your party. If, say, 98 percent of the country is centrist, with 49 percent centrist dem and 49 percent centris republican, and one percent each makes up the “fringe” right and “fringe” left, then (all things being equal) the winning party will be the one that motivates the greatest portion of the fringe to come out to vote.
This is the strategy Karl Rove has endorsed for some time now, and it sure seems to have worked for him. There is an element in the Republican party that is much like the non-liberal left element in the Democratic party: they’re not *really* Republicans, but they’ll vote that way on occasion just to keep the (in their view) satanic democrats out of office. These are people who pretty much belong in the Constitution Party, but as long as the Republicans keep talking smack about faggots and wetbacks and babykillers, and as long as they keep fellating Jesus’ corpse in every speech they make, the Republicans will be able to pull in that marginal section of the Constitution party that is interested in voting strategically.
Like I said, it’s not easy to do – you have to balance your rhetoric carefully – but if you can do it, it seems to be a successful strategy.
As far as I can see, there doesn’t seem to be any reason why America’s left couldn’t do the same thing as America’s right. We can make ourselves a force to be reckoned with in each and every election. We can make Democrats realize that if they want to go on sounding like Republican Lites, they’ll go on losing elections. Frankly, the Democratic party took exactly the wrong lesson away from the 2000 election – but that’s not really someplace I like to go because there’s still a lot of bad blood between liberals and lefties there.
But as long as people who disagree with the centrist wankers who run the power centers in the Democratic party refuse to speak honestly about what they expect from a Democratic party, our views will continue to get overlooked. We don’t push them hard enough. We don’t have an Overton window of our own.
Don’t misunderstand me – I’m not asking anyone to join me on some damnfool idealistic crusade to remake this country into a workers’ paradise or anything. I just think that some serious pressure from the left could help to pull this country back toward some balaced semblance of normality. So push harder than you might naturally be inclined to. Start demanding a shortened work week and a guaranteed minimum income for all Americans. Ask for a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing all Americans the right to decent health care and decent housing. Suggest a rider to the next budget bill that requires for every dollar we spend on defense, we must spend two dollars on education.
Are we going to get any of these things? Hell, no. But if we ask for more than we expect (or even more than we want) we’re in a better position to “bargain down” to what we’d actually be happy with. Just remember how many people had nothing nice to say about Martin Luther King Jr. until they got confronted with the spectacle of Stokely Carmichael.
Jillian–just wanted to say that your comments are making a lot of sense, and that actually I’ve been seeing this happening for a couple of years now. How often does the front page at dailykos contain articles complaining about the stupidity of the leaders of the Democratic party? Terms like “DLC Democrats” vs “the netroots” keep being thrown around. I don’t know how much of a change that is making, but I think a lot of people are starting to see the same thing you are and talk about it, in whatever inchoate fashion.
PS: Also, something just clicked regarding Canadian and American politics. I grew up knowing that the Liberals and the NDP were not the same thing at all–although they were both on the “left” of the spectrum as opposed to the Conservatives. But in the States there isn’t that distinction, which has muddled some of my thinking since my exposure to politics has largely been through American blogs & media.
Mikey said:
“I know, I’m not really educated in all the nuance, and I mean no disrespect, but that sounds a great deal like a typical wingnut false dichotomy. Lookit. We were pissed with the whole “kerry is a flip flopperâ€? thing, I remember it, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just a dream. We all pointed out that the ability, and even more importantly the WILLINGNESS to reexamine one’s position and come to a different conclusion in light of evidence was a GOOD trait, and one we’d like to see more of. ”
Sorry, can’t agree that saying that this war was never justifiable in the first place is typical wingnut anything. Of course politicians should be able to change their minds on tough topics which could go either way — was this one of them? Was there ever any argument to go to war?
Over the weekend Dick Durbin was on NPR and discussed how, at the time, the intel congress was being provided on Iraqi WMD made it pretty clear that the administration’s argument to the American people (and the world) was materially misleading. Kerry heard that same intel and voted for the war anyway, for craven political purposes. I voted for him as the lesser of two evils, but that doesn’t mean I had much respect for him. I certainly would not consider him a reputable opinionmaker on Iraq, more to the point.
The war was illegal and unconctitutional, not to mention collosally immoral, right from the start, no matter what rational one could gin up. Nothing false in pointing that out.