OK. Maybe I’ll leave Al out of this one.
Rove says that any person to the left of the right wing of the Republican Party is a person who gives aid and comfort to terrorists. Bill O’Reilly calls for the tepid liberals at Air America to be locked up as “traitors.” And the eliminationist rhetoric from the right grows, gaining acceptance and credibility.
I think every leftist goes through a period of thinking the fascist clampdown is just around the corner. I did. I was 14 years old. After I grew out of it, I derided people who thought that way.
But watching Dick Durbin go down in mild flames this week, I decided -reluctantly – that the over-under for the arrival of the crisis is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of October 2005. (You can all come back and mock me when I’m wrong. I’d be delighted.) There is a kind of ugliness gathering on the right that I have not seen in US politics before.
Then again, I have never seen as energized an opposition to the ruling party either.
I am no huge fan of the government of the United States of America. I love my country, but the government could vanish or be radically transformed and it would likely leave what I love about my country essentially intact. The culture, the landscape, the more-or-less good nature of the the average resident.
The people in power are pushing to eliminate all those things, however, and they thus compel my reluctant support for the US government as it was before they seized power. It was an evil, lying, murderous institution with a legacy of slavery and genocide, but it was my evil, lying, murderous institution with a legacy of slavery and genocide. And it had a Constitution that enabled people like me to work to ameliorate the worst of the evil, to correct the worst of the lies.
Here is my source of hope. The right is going after the targets of opportunity. It is a Darwinian process. One by one, they attack the opponents who will cave. Who will be left?
Those of us who will not cave.
It occurs to me that the endless infighting on the left may well serve to make us stronger after all. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond opines that one of the reasons Europe conquered the world is that Europeans had spent the previous two millennia in warfare between adjoining towns. They were just damned good at it by the sixteenth century.
All that time we leftists have spent in circular firing squads must have sharpened our aim.
I won’t go so far as to say that I look forward to the right taking on an actual fighting left activist, rather than labeling moderates as “leftists” and dogpiling them. But I will say that when they do, I suspect they are in for a rather spectacular bloody nose.
(Cross-posted at Creek Running North.)
by the Bush admin, it is not casual comments.
It is designed to put the left, the liberals, the Democrats on the defensive about patriotism and ‘the war’ in Iraq.
It is designed to make all criticism of the situation in Iraq look treasonous.
Do not fall for it. Keep asking the questions and hope to stop the slaughter over there.
If those on the “left” would quit painting 50% of the country as idiots, we might have a chance. And how long before the “loyal opposition” stops chasing their tails every time one of the hard-right minions pops off? Seems no one has figured out that a sex-obsessed hard right pundit on a cable network has no real power.
Context being everything, I think the better response to Rove might have been laughter and derision. Followed closely by questions about the executive branch’s handling of the “War on Terrorism”, and a list of their failures, including underfunded agencies and duffel bags full of cash. Metaphorically speaking, they can’t find their asses with both hands.
Liberal fighting activists need to exercise that largest of body organs: the brain.
I’m a little unsure as to what you mean by putting those scare quotes around the word “left”. Mind clarifying?
I try not to use labels, but when necessary generally put them in quotes. Appropriate for political scientists and pundits, but meaningless, and sometimes harmful to the rest of us.
Fair enough. Thanks!
If those on the “left” would quit painting 50% of the country as idiots, we might have a chance.
I agree with you here. I think there’s a huge difference, however, between finding unnecessary enemies toward the right and whitewashing the very real neo-fascist movement building on what was once called the far-right.
As to that latter, David Neiwert has written far more authoritatively than I can. As to the former: I can write about that.
And how long before the “loyal opposition” stops chasing their tails every time one of the hard-right minions pops off? Seems no one has figured out that a sex-obsessed hard right pundit on a cable network has no real power.
Here I disagree, respectfully but strongly. One need only look at events in former Yugoslavia or Rwanda to see very recent examples of how hate-filled lies broadcast without challenge can exert a terrible power.
Pundits kill.
whitewashing the very real neo-fascist movement
Agreed that group is the enemy, and they should be unmercifully attacked as traitorous. And I did read your article, and enjoyed the fact you linked to the same map, and made the same arguments I’ve been making since after the election. (Although I tend towards using stronger language).
We’ll have to agree to disagree on the pundits. Yes, they have in the past had tremendous effect on policy. But that was in the vacuum of a sufficient response from the opposition, who are getting much better.
[Noted you live down the road in “SF East”. What’s your impression of the California Democratic Party?]
[Noted you live down the road in “SF East”. What’s your impression of the California Democratic Party?]
If only they made an impression, I’d be happy. I think they’ve enjoyed the benefits of LA-SF hegemony too long, and have gotten soft. Here’s the breakdown of the vote in the 2002 gubernatorial election:
There’s a huge natural constituency in that long red stripe down the east-central part of the state, despite recent buzz about the new GOP Latino. A GOTVoter Registration campaign in the Central Valley is a must-do for the Dems, and I don’t see them Must-Doing it.
I do very much appreciate some Bay Area Democrats such as my Representative, George Miller, and (though I despised him on general principle until 2/14/2004) SF Mayor Gavin Newsom, But the CA Democratic Party seems much more characterized by people like Gary Condit than it does by Nancy Pelosi.
All that said, I’d donate until it hurt to any Dem running against Richard Pombo. He’s extreme, he’s stupid, and – as his real Estate clan increasingly subdivides land that was once owned by conservative ranchers and sells it a sixteenth of an acre at a time to to liberal commuters – he’s increasingly vulnerable. If one GotOTMFV.
Same read I have. Over here in the valley it’s democratic machine politics. Not too fond of Doolittle either. I’m getting more convinced change will have to come from the ground up here. I’m considering changing my registration to “decline to state” – the new “DTS” party. <grin>
I really like your site, and your writings (and I, of course, love the moonbat).
You might consider posting some of your older, but still relevant pieces here from time to time. Or maybe some of the non political ones. I’m sure others would enjoy them as well.
Just a thought 🙂
Thanks, Nanette! High praise indeed.
This is the part that worries me. Not that there hasn’t been ugliness before, but this seems like just such a mindless, almost … I don’t know what ugliness. There can be few appeals to reason, because reason isn’t involved. Few appeals to fact, because then the ‘facts’ are just changed and the absolute belief in the new ‘fact’ replaces the absolute belief in the old, possibly contradictory, ‘fact’ with apparently no need for mental gyrations or anything at all. What is just is, even if it wasn’t yesterday.
Freakiest thing I’ve ever seen, I think, lol.
Dunno about the infighting among the left making us stronger. I don’t think it’s especially making us weaker either,as long as the infighting and struggling for position and all that is kept among the left. Nothing wrong with honing our principles and drawing lines in the sand that we won’t cross and so on.
What weakens us is not so much the circular firing squad, but the ones who move outside of the circle to join the other side at firing into it.
honing our principles
In the larger scheme of things that is our most important task, and one left untended far too long. Found a couple of websites that are trying, but they are in the outback.
honoring them would be a pretty good thing to do too, once they are honed.
I have seen a few groups doing this (honing, defining, etc.), which I think is a good idea… although some of it involves all the framing stuff, which I guess is a good idea too, or at least a popular one.
I am not all that politically savvy, so simple, direct and honest works for me, ;).
simple, direct and honest
Exactly. Frames are for pictures.