vimothy
yurp
Is that true?
No Future for the GOP?
- Thread starter vimothy
- Start date
Is that true?
Leo
Well-known member
YES! check out "what's the matter with kansas?" by thomas frank.
vimothy
yurp
Speaking of nutters: http://www.ringospictures.com/index.php?page=20100320
crackerjack
Well-known member
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
that's a pretty silly link, dude. sure, there are plenty of wingnuts who show up at big, everyone-under-one-tent anti-war marches. it's kinda inevitable, the war (or wars generally) being an issue that will unite a broad range of disparate groups in opposition. and anyone can go to any big march, with any agenda, and take pictures of crazy (or seemingly crazy) people. but you can't just lump everyone into one category of nutter. there are plenty of people holding up signs that say stuff like "$ for Education Not War" which, agree or not, seems pretty reasonable. if you scroll down there are pictures of Iraq Veterans Against the War for crissakes. also, while I'm not really into the radical chic element of white people wearing keffiyahs, not everyone who wears one or who has an anti-Zionist sign is a "jew-hater", as we all know. the real problem with these big 3-20 marches is that they're usually sponsored/set up by ANSWER, a Trotyskist front group that cares a hell of a lot more about attractings #s than having any kind of focused message.
if you'll notice, this dude has another post about going to a Tea Party rally "in search of racism" & managing -not- to find any traces of it, just decent (overwhelmingly white, tho, I guess he couldn't get around that) Americans "sincerely concerned about...the erosion of individual liberty". and his blogroll is includes Victor Davis Hansen, Dennis Prager, your own Theodore Dalrymple, etc. (all conservative old white dudes for anyone unfamiliar). so, clearly, he has a pretty naked agenda.
my 0.02, anyway.
sorry to disappoint you by not being able to talk at length abt Tea Party etc, Scott. just too busy lately.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
my bad Vim, i remember you demolishing that argument in the thread the night Obama got in.
I think you guys may be missing the point of Frank Rich. The framing of the response is way way off.
I don't think that anyone seriously argues that more poor people support the Republicans than the Democrats. No one would expect that. You do know that the Democrats are still regarded as the poor people's party, and the Republicans as the rich people's party, right? That's not really news. The question is why would ANY poor people support the Republicans.
I don't think that anyone seriously argues that more poor people support the Republicans than the Democrats. No one would expect that. You do know that the Democrats are still regarded as the poor people's party, and the Republicans as the rich people's party, right? That's not really news. The question is why would ANY poor people support the Republicans.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
yeah, of course, to your first part. and the second part is the question, agreed.
culture wars, fear & loathing, etc. (presumably?)
no doubt there are big tomes about it all, but, in a nutshell...
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Something I've heard mentioned often in the context of low(er) income Rep voters is the huge success GWB had, at least initially, in marketing himself to white, working-class Americans as a "regular guy", "just like them" - as opposed to the scion of an enormously wealthy dynasty (to say nothing of being the son of the previous-but-one president). The fact that a lot of people see the Reps as "the party of God" is probably a big part of it, too. Culture wars, as Scott says - does this chime with the experiences of Americans? Padraig...?
vimothy
yurp
It's just a bunch of pictures. There are probably plenty of people who don't want to kill Obama, who can spell, and who are annoyed that Wall St has taken over the US government at Tea Party rallies too. Clearly, author of the blog is a bit of a dick. However, this sequence takes some beating:
The culture wars were the latest skirmish but the themes go back to Jefferson/Jackson vs. Hamilton.
But yeah, the topic has been done to death.
The more interesting one right now is "What's the matter with San Francisco?" aka why do progressives who are constantly betrayed by the Democrats keep voting for them.
People say "lesser evil", but with Obama, is that even true anymore? Yesterday he announced offshore drilling, he's keeping DADT, surging in Afghanistan, sending illegal drones into Pakistan, covering for the banks, OKing torture, OKing wiretapping, and the list goes on. I'm sure that I've missed a few betrayals in there. They're coming so fast these days I can hardly keep track.
The Obama-fan meme is that he is preempting the Republican attacks by adopting their policies (twisted, I know), playing 13-dimensional chess or something like that. I wonder what the point of having a Democrat elected is if you think his only winning strategy is to be more Republican than the Republicans. I don't call that winning
If 9/11 happened again, do you actually believe that his response would be any better than Bush's? I doubt it. He would be trying to prove his hawk credentials twice as hard as a republican, although I'm sure his invasion speech would be much more eloquent.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I'm not denying there was some pretty brutal stuff. I just don't need to some wisecracking d-bag who's all up on Hannity's nuts to tell me abt it. I've seen all kinds of utterly bizarre & sometimes vile things at demos. it's an inherent problem in a "movement" to which internal discipline is anathema; there's no one to tell dudes like that to f**k right off (tho I mean, people do, I've seen/done it before). It's one - among many - reason that so many people become disillusioned with these big, officious, symbolic marches pretty quickly (another would be that they're usually utterly ineffective).
the silliest thing in the pictures for me was pictures of all the punk rock kids with bandannas around their faces but their hair spiked & patch pants on. brings back fond memories, that does, the complete failure of the punks to grasp the concept of anonymity. I used to find that so exasperating.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
because there's no one else they can vote for. the United States electoral system - i.e. single-member voting district rather than proportional representation like most of Europe - makes it nearly impossible for them to get anyone elected to an office higher than mayor, w/the exception of a Rep or two in v. liberal districts, i.e. Sanders or Barbara Lee (but never enough to actually form any kind of a bloc in the House). the United States, as many including yourself have pointed out, is centrist, where "center" mean right of Richard Nixon.
progressives etc. (incl. the liberal wing of the Dems) voting for "center-left" candidates who pander to them during the primary & then forget about them/their demands once the nomination is secured is an old story. JFK's an even better example - got the Adlai Stevenson wing of the party to back him vs our boy Nixon & then, once elected, proceeded to nominate an ultraconservative war profiteer to head the CIA, greenlight Bay of Pigs, initiate Vietnam, fail to do anything of substance on civil rights (which was actually LBJ), etc. and the progressives & liberals had to sit there & take it cos they had absolutely nowhere else to go, & the Kennedys, or in this case Obama, knew it. I mean, what were they going to do, jump ship to Goldwater (Palin)? & Obama, bless his hardnosed, slightly cynical Chicago political operator's heart (& sense of history) was fully aware of that & played it to a tee.
NB that I'm not advocating this strategy of acting as the swing vote to get candidates nominated who will then ignore you, just denoting its sad futility
#1 - I mean, what were you (or was anyone else) expecting? I'm not clear exactly how he's "betraying" you or anyone else...? he's hardly the first or 1000th politician to break campaign promises.
#2 - Oh come on, tho. Health care - for better or worse, considerably firmer stance on Israeli settlement-building, drawdown in Iraq, ending the Mexico City Policy, various appointments (for example, finally getting Craig Becker onto the NLRB), energy bill(s) in the works, etc. I'm not saying it's been great, nor am I really defending him/his admin, but certainly there are many things which would not have (or would have) happened in a McCain/Palin White House. many of them for the worse. the differences aren't huge, & a lot of the similarities are uncomfortable but, still. it is what it is, i.e. American politics. if you have low expectations, you'll only be disappointed most of the time.
I think the best set of questions to ask to all of your ruminations goes something like: how have conservative activists/pols been so successful in progressively (no pun) shifting the terms of the debate to the right? have they, in fact, been successful? (I kinda suspect its been largely a case of pols & pundits using inflammatory rhetoric - a lot of which a lot of them don't really believe (tho some do) - to stir up the base & then getting gored on the horns of that rhetoric when the masses actually take them at their word & expect them to act in it.) what have the mechanisms of that success been? & why have progressives been so often failed to counter them? how does the U.S. keep getting more liberal culturally even as politics march ever further to the right? & so on.
"tho. Health care - for better or worse, considerably firmer stance on Israeli settlement-building, drawdown in Iraq, ending the Mexico City Policy, various appointments (for example, finally getting Craig Becker onto the NLRB), energy bill(s) in the works, etc."
Well, all I can say to that is thin gruel. Also, as of yesterday "cap & trade is no longer in the lexicon" according to the White House, so I wouldn't hold your breath for energy policy. Hope you like offshore drilling. "Healthcare" is such an absurd, overtly corrupt sham that it barely even warrants mention. I'm not sure what it would take to actually turn your stomach, but for me it was the public option being dumped.
"#1 - I mean, what were you (or was anyone else) expecting? I'm not clear exactly how he's "betraying" you or anyone else...? he's hardly the first or 1000th politician to break campaign promises."
Yeah, he just took it to an utterly absurd new level. That's what's surprising. I mean even Obama's fully-in-the-tank access-blogger cheerleaders like Klein and Yglesias are scratching their heads now -- it's that undeniable. No one in their right mind who has been following the developments could call these reversals expected.
"how have conservative activists/pols been so successful in progressively (no pun) shifting the terms of the debate to the right? have they, in fact, been successful? (I kinda suspect its been largely a case of pols & pundits using inflammatory rhetoric - a lot of which a lot of them don't really believe (tho some do) - to stir up the base & then getting gored on the horns of that rhetoric when the masses actually take them at their word & expect them to act in it.) what have the mechanisms of that success been? & why have progressives been so often failed to counter them? how does the U.S. keep getting more liberal culturally even as politics march ever further to the right? & so on."
Interesting questions. Obviously I don't have the answers, but apropos the teabaggers and left-wing protesters upthread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
That's why we see the craziest right-wingers on television, but never the crazy lefties.
In terms of the rightward shift - I refuse to accept it as some sort of normal state of affairs. When being circa 1950 sane means that you are considered a raving left-wing lunatic today, I'm fine with that. I refuse to move my frame of reference.
Accepting the state of affairs "pragmatically" and accepting increasing corruption is just what C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism". I refuse to play that game, even when the President is a nice, well-spoken, seemingly decent guy, "one of us" who "is doing what he can within a corrupt system" or whatever.
Well, all I can say to that is thin gruel. Also, as of yesterday "cap & trade is no longer in the lexicon" according to the White House, so I wouldn't hold your breath for energy policy. Hope you like offshore drilling. "Healthcare" is such an absurd, overtly corrupt sham that it barely even warrants mention. I'm not sure what it would take to actually turn your stomach, but for me it was the public option being dumped.
"#1 - I mean, what were you (or was anyone else) expecting? I'm not clear exactly how he's "betraying" you or anyone else...? he's hardly the first or 1000th politician to break campaign promises."
Yeah, he just took it to an utterly absurd new level. That's what's surprising. I mean even Obama's fully-in-the-tank access-blogger cheerleaders like Klein and Yglesias are scratching their heads now -- it's that undeniable. No one in their right mind who has been following the developments could call these reversals expected.
"how have conservative activists/pols been so successful in progressively (no pun) shifting the terms of the debate to the right? have they, in fact, been successful? (I kinda suspect its been largely a case of pols & pundits using inflammatory rhetoric - a lot of which a lot of them don't really believe (tho some do) - to stir up the base & then getting gored on the horns of that rhetoric when the masses actually take them at their word & expect them to act in it.) what have the mechanisms of that success been? & why have progressives been so often failed to counter them? how does the U.S. keep getting more liberal culturally even as politics march ever further to the right? & so on."
Interesting questions. Obviously I don't have the answers, but apropos the teabaggers and left-wing protesters upthread:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
That's why we see the craziest right-wingers on television, but never the crazy lefties.
In terms of the rightward shift - I refuse to accept it as some sort of normal state of affairs. When being circa 1950 sane means that you are considered a raving left-wing lunatic today, I'm fine with that. I refuse to move my frame of reference.
Accepting the state of affairs "pragmatically" and accepting increasing corruption is just what C. Wright Mills called "crackpot realism". I refuse to play that game, even when the President is a nice, well-spoken, seemingly decent guy, "one of us" who "is doing what he can within a corrupt system" or whatever.
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
no arguments, really. however...
again, it depends on what you were expecting to begin with. this - i.e. a centrist (center shading right in the American style) admin that did some things I liked, a lot I didn't & carried on w/a fair % of unlikeable things fm the Bush years - is pretty much what I was expecting, e.g. I'm not disappointed or feeling betrayed. a general discontent w/the system/state of affairs/whatever you want to call it, sure, but that's been true since I was 12. it's hard to be disappointed by something you've neer really believed in to begin with.
oh no I'm not advocating that type take-what-you-can-get "pragmatism" at all. maybe I was unclear. my commentary in this case is merely descriptive &/or analytical. I do think a lot of the rightward shift is reactionary in the purest sense of that term; that may sound obvious, but I think it's an important point to make b/c I don't believe it has - mainly, at least - to do with some kind of inherent tendency towards conservatism among white Americans. or, you can't divorce the increased franchise of women, minorities etc. from the backlash, which as it increases in desperation takes on more & more the look of a very nasty rearguard action. it's a loaded moment in America, certainly. I don't think we're guaranteed a light at the end of tunnel but we are guaranteed something simply based on demographic pressures.
as far as shifting terms of debate, I'd never heard of the Overton Window but I'm familiar w/the idea. I remember reading Dave Foreman* (one of the founders of Earth First) talking about exactly that -> more radical environmentalists shifting the terms of the debate so that the Sierra Clubs etc. would have a stronger position at the mainstream bargaining table. or Malcolm X shifting the terms of debate for MLK etc. what's important in this case is figuring out how conservative extremists have been so successful in doing that - or, maybe, how mainstream conservatives have been able to take advantage of the shifts wrought by extremism.
*before anyone mentions it, yes, he had/has abominable & wrongheaded views on immigration, AIDS & some other things - I'm just using him as an example
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Peter Wicks:
With the research ideal, the primary function of the university is the production of knowledge, rather than its preservation or transmission. Status and career advancement are determined primarily by scholarly productivity, and an incentive scheme is created in which the desperate search for something new to say about Hamlet takes precedence over teaching a new generation of readers to unlock Shakespeare’s riches. If modern interpretations of classic literature often seem crazy, that does not mean that those offering the interpretations have gone mad. On the contrary, they are behaving rationally in a system in which one must always have something new to say and all the sane interpretations were already taken.