The DNC

People want fantasies with happy endings. The theatre that Obama and Michelle and the Dems are putting on is that they understand our problems and are actively solving them, that they’d have done more if only those Republicans didn’t keep getting in the way, and Romney is a bad guy who will take away what little they’ve got left, so be very afraid of that. Re-elect Obama and it’ll all be better this time. We promise.

The bummer is that the enablers of these fantasies are liars. They could actually try to solve our problems, but doing so would prove exceedingly inconvenient for them and their monied backers, so it’s not going to happen.

And thus our ongoing tragedy continues.

The D’s don’t have to be very good to be better than the R’s.

One might wish for something better than both.

But Beelzebub is Lucifer’s man, which I don’t think is the case here. Seriously, can you imagine the R’s putting the ERA in their platform? Oh, it’s easy to be for something that probably doesn’t have the votes, and there’s no downside if through some magic the ERA makes it through Congress. But still, the R’s would never even have done that.

Unless the Presidential election gets close in this state, I’m planning a protest vote. No protests downticket, though; I don’t want a Scott Walker clone for my governor.

Then too, look at the opposition to the Democrats. Charles Pierce, quoting family and friends on Michelle Obama: “Well, don’t you think she’s a racist?” one of them said. “A racist? What has she ever said or done to indicate that she’s a racist?” “She doesn’t have to say anything. You can tell by the look in her eyes.”

Ya gotta watch out for those right-wing telepaths, I’m telling you.

I think we know who the racists are, and which party they support. And we know who the sexists are, and which party they support. And we know the homophobes are, and which party they support.

Now, we expect that a second-term Obama administration is going to do pro-bank things, do authoritarian things, and weaken the social safety net. But a Republican majority is going to explode the national debt, start a war in Iran, and shred the safety net completely. It is even possible that campaigning to the left will lead to modest policy moves to the left. In the current term we have seen that the hawks and the banksters refusing to take yes for an answer. These people have incredibly fragile egos. It is possible that even the very modest concessions to the left which the Democrats have made will alienate them, pushing policy a bit leftwards.

Meantime, Brad Delong, of all people, quotes a nameless commentator (who?) “I would urge people to think of accountability as a generational project — this is how it has worked out in Chile, Argentina, South Africa… the thing that can be done now is create opportunities for more participants to tell their stories, put on record what was done and who did it and how, so that the record gets fuller rather than thinner over time.”

“People want fantasies with happy endings.”

e.g. religion. Thank buddha in a riceball this motherfucking charade ain’t on my telly. NOTHING is more repellent than smug liberal hypocrisy. It’d take a drone strike on the convention or giving Digby the Bradley-Manning treatment to awake them to their bloody complicity. That they see themselves as superior to your average evangelical Palin-ite never fails to astonish me. Compared to the fine liberals of the past, they’re fucking replicants.

“But Beelzebub is Lucifer’s man, which I don’t think is the case here.”

No, they’re both Jamie Dimon’s bitches, complete with dog collars and filthy habits. Jesus Christ, I need another drink.

I think so, yes. The Democrats would have a very hard time walking back their positions on race, women’s rights, or gay rights. They also want to cut corporate taxes, so I don’t claim their platform is an unmixed good. But look at the Republican platform!

Obama might lead the USA into a war with Iran. So far, his administration has been avoiding it, but we know they can be pressured. However, there is no uncertainly with Romney: he given the chance, he will do it.

Do you really believe that a McCain administration would have done better than the Obama administration on any of the issues you mention? And then consider a Palin administration.

Considering how powerful the Presidency has become, how even a comparative weak President like Bush II was able to lead the USA into a war, considering that there is every reason to believe that Republicans will hold the House and may gain the Senate, yes, there is great reason to be concerned with what a Romney administration can do.

Let us grant, for the moment, that Obama is “evil.” Is Mitt Romney, a man who tells contradictory stories depending on his audience, who made his fortune by destroying US companies and sending American jobs overseas, or Paul Ryan, apparently a compulsive liar, and obsessed with a sociopathic philosopher, less evil? I think you are letting your disgust with the Obama administration override your disgust with the Romney/Ryan.

That said, reading the speeches makes me want to retch, too. I know it’s advertising, I know it’s campaigning, and I’m still disgusted.

The problem has worsened because these schmucks are so far from reality that now the Democrats and the Republicans believe their own lies. Obama really is going to run on “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” The Republicans really believe that tax cuts for the rich and corporations will balance the budget?

ERA and abortion are two sides of the same coin. Fairy tales meant to freeze a constituency behind one of the legacy parties.

Once more, alas, I’m voting Green.

Ian: “Obama is a profoundly evil fucking man”

Sigh…I recently got booted off the Common Dreams comments board for pointing out this very fact in a somewhat more diplomatic manner. One knucklehead commenter even asked me how much the Republicans were paying me to make my comments.

I’m done with all of them. Fuck the Democrats…fuck the smug ass liberals and progressives. I am now actually rooting for a huge Romney win. As you said, I would almost prefer the Republicans’ sort of, kind of honesty about their evil ways to the Democrats’ utter hypocrisy since in the end the country is going to hell either way.

The War on Terror (TM) is permanent. It’s meant to be. Obama — or whoever is in office — can and will trot it out whenever it suits him.

Meanwhile, the United Sheeple of America just keep bleating.

The white-collarization of liberalism and so-called progressives has utterly bankrupted what passes for the left in this country. Liberals get to feel good for their apparent broadmindedness but that doesn’t actually extend to content — to real policies that might cost them their privilege. Over at Shakesville Melissa is “blubbing” about a Rosie Riveter poster of Michelle Obama with the slogan “Yes, We Can,” a slap in the face to the real content of “Yes, We Can” given its roots in the farmworker’s strike and given the DNC convention taking place in a right-to-work state. But it’s “ugly” to point that out.

This aestheticization of politics is one of the hallmarks of fascism. All form, no content. And the “creative class” progressives have contributed mightily to this.

Gore Vidal described Obama as “an odious little man”.

This is a different topic. Comments are just the best way I know of to bring the question to Ian’s attention.

I noted at Agonist that Pauline Marois has been elected the new premier of Quebec. Could you talk about what you think this will mean going forward?

My impression is that the province decided against independence already, so I’m guessing such a thing won’t happen even though Mme Marois is in charge. Still, it does sound like her election has elbowed the liberal party aside, which seems promising.

So, I was just wondering what, if any, consequences Ian sees forthcoming from this election.

Glen Ford over at http:www.blackagendareport.com takes on the Michelle O. myth. OUCH!

” Most people don’t want to be a perceived as party-poopers – which is why the principled folks that have protested the evil antics of the corporate, imperial parties, in Tampa and Charlotte, are so much to be admired. Frankly, who wants to be the one to point out, in the middle of the festivities, that Michelle Obama was just a Chicago Daley machine hack lawyer who was rewarded with a quarter million dollar a year job of neutralizing community complaints against the omnivorous University of Chicago Hospitals? She resigned from her $50,000 seat on the board of directors of Tree-House Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, early in her husband’s presidential campaign. But, once in the White House, the First Lady quickly returned to flaking for Wal-Mart, praising the anti-union “death star” behemoth’s inner city groceries offensive as part of her White House healthy foods booster duties. “

The Democrats gave Todd Akin $2 million and enabled his place on the stage to spout his misogynistic bullshit. This then enables the Democrats to beat women over the head with fear of the evil Republicans. All while Obama codifies the Hyde Amendment into the ACA and restricts access to Plan B because “he’s a father,” which is a very pure expression of patriarchal thinking and power. Then people like Digby praise the Democrats for finally recognizing the need for women to control their own fertility.

Kabuki is really too polite a word for it — it’s all one big circle-jerk.

Calling for back-up here: how did Don’t Ask Don’t Tell get repealed? Was it because lawsuits by the Log Cabin Republicans forced the government’s hand?

What Obama Has Wrought
by Glen Ford
Editor, Black Agenda Report

Most people don’t want to be a perceived as party-poopers – which is why the principled folks who have protested the evil antics of the corporate imperial parties, in Tampa and Charlotte, are so much to be admired. Frankly, who wants to be the one to point out, in the middle of the festivities, that Michelle Obama was just a Chicago Daley machine hack lawyer who was rewarded with a quarter-million-dollar-a-year job of neutralizing community complaints against the omnivorous University of Chicago Hospitals? She resigned from her $50,000 seat on the board of directors of Tree-House Foods, a major Wal-Mart supplier, early in her husband’s presidential campaign. But, once in the White House, the First Lady quickly returned to flacking for Wal-Mart, praising the anti-union “death star” behemoth’s inner city groceries offensive as part of her White House healthy foods booster duties . . . .

http://blackagendareport.com/content/what-obama-has-wrought

Thanks for the perspective Ian.

Alcuin, that Hoffer passage rings true.

When Reagan won that first landslide, I could see the truth of that in the people all around me. Those awful views and practices weren’t forced on them. It seemed more like they were relieved, bordering on jubilant, to finally say openly what they had already been thinking.

“Evil? or Stupid?”

Either or both – to the extent they describe tribalism.

I refer readers to a series of articles on this tpoic by Arthur Silber for whom help was recently solicited on this site:

http://tinyurl.com/9mnojxo

Kropotkin’s Beard – I’ve started reading Thompson’s history of the English working class – http://www.amazon.com/Making-English-Working-Class/dp/0394703227/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1346932720&sr=1-1&keywords=thompson%2C+history+of+the+english+working+class#reader_0394703227

As a kind of mirror-opposite correlate to the meaninglessness you observe, I’m finding Thompson to have incredible insights into what living, breathing political consciousness looks like when it emerges. Here’s a bit from the first pages of the preface –

“I emphasize that it (class) is an historical phenomenon. I do not see class as a ‘structure’, nor even as a ‘category’, but as something which in fact happens (and can be shown to have happened) in human relationships.

More than this, the notion of class entails the notion of historical relationship. Like any other relationship, it is a fluency which evades analysis if we attempt to stop it dead at any given moment and anatomise its structure.

. . .

‘It’, the working class, is assumed to have a real existence, which can be defined almost mathematically … Once this is assumed it becomes possible to deduce the class-consciousness which ‘it’ ought to have (but seldom does have) if ‘it’ was properly aware of its own position and real interests.”

I don’t have time to organize my own thinking about this right now because it’s time to go to work. I just thought it might be an interesting addition to the conversation- so there it is.

Afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you, just like last time around—it isn’t that they necessarily “want to be lied to”. I mean, some do, of course. It’s that they recognize that this is where American society is.

You blow off the consequences of a Republican victory too easily. The fact is, very many Americans, quite enough to tilt the entire political pinball machine, actively want eviller than the evils of which you (assuredly rightly) accuse Obama. So at every election, people have to decide whether they want to emotionally and politically validate those people (which has real consequences) and take a huge risk on either hastening collapse—always a very risky thing to do—or test the theory that the Dems are punishable by would ultimately be a small rump of genuinely leftist voters…

That’s why I don’t hold with being too judgemental about left-wing Obama supporters.

My conscience won’t allow me to vote for Obama. People for the American Way called last night for money in behalf of his re-election. I told the man I wasn’t voting for Obama or for Romney and gave him the short list of Obama’s criminal acts, all of which your readers know. I will write in Jill Stein (as she is not yet on the ballot in my so-called blue state) in protest or leave it blank.

Voting for the lesser of two evils (e.g., Carter, Clinton) hasn’t helped us in the past and won’t now. The state’s superstructure is massive and now joined with that of the corporations and both are girded for war against the nation’s citizens as well as the world.

Whatever we learn of Obama in the years to come, we know now that he is stubborn, rigid, identifies with the elite, resistant to understanding their true nature an, wants to be among their number, and has served their interests well. We have evolved even further into an evil empire at home and abroad as a result of his actions. A case can be made that every president since WWII is a war criminal and that would include Obama and Romney, if elected (or if he steals the election).

The understanding of what it means to be of the Left has gone out of America, disappeared except in the minds and hearts of the relatively few. Capitalism and the state have killed it. Authoritarianism appeals now to persons on both the Right–and I can’t bring myself to say Left because most Leftists are not and were not authoritarian by nature, although some were (e.g., in Russia)–and what passes for the Left in America, the so-called Progressives and Liberals before them, many of whom acquiesce to authoritarianism judging by their voting records and failure to speak out against war, the militarizing of the police, the use of coercive weapons and surveillance against the population, the destruction of unions, jobs, pensions, benefits, the environment, racism, sexism, the meagerness of the social safety net, stripping welfare of any meaning, failure to adhere to the constitution, and the stripping of public institutions in service of private gain–and the betrayal of the Democratic party. And racism and sexism were always at home among many on the Left as well as they are among those with no political philosophy .

The past and present leaders of America who called or call themselves Liberal, who are now Neoliberal, were and are center rightists who didn’t and do not hesitate to walk on the dark side in war making, militarism, and protector of elite interests. And now, as everyone knows, center right is very right. By design, they are now deaf to the interests of everybody else and, even when not deaf, in most cases ineffective in making changes for the better. Their sops to the people are just that. They change little in actual practice in view of what goes on and in almost every job site and institution in the country and when basic rights are denied in most courts of the nation, including the Supreme Court and the criminal “justice” system.

The minority of us now have knowledge of the great evil that resides in the state and always has (but not always in government, which has and can work in behalf of the common good) and sits triumphant behind the facade of government and all our institutions. Others of us believe that the government can and should do nothing for us. At least for so-called Progressives perhaps the truth is too brutal, so they cannot come to grips with it.

Is the first cause the psychopathy as well as the authoritarianism of most of our leaders and so many of our citizens? Anyone who has read the literature on both, especially psychologist Bob Altemeyer’s research into the character traits of authoritarian leaders and followers, might easily think so. Is evil almost always found in the disordered brain of each? A brain formed by both nature and nurture (the family and the culture)? I’ve come to believe that we are not all equally capable of discerning the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, not all of us capable of seeing the manipulations behind the propaganda with which we are constantly bombarded by the media and the institutions of the state, the corporations, the political parties, and the received notions that have come down to us from earlier generations. Not all of us equally capable of nuance, insight, compassion. Perhaps most of us accommodate ourselves to the ruling zeitgeist without question. Perhaps this is the true nature of human nature.

Can this be changed? Psychopaths can’t change, only on the surface. Altemeyer has shown that when authoritarian followers are shown the proof of their biased thinking some people can change for the better. The problem is how to reach them. When such people come into intimate contact with those they despise sometimes minds and hearts can change. As a people we are fragmented, atomized, removed from each other due to the size and organization of modern life and this makes such change illusive if not impossible and the work of the propagandist easy.

I first came in contact with the character traits that make a person a Rightist, an authoritarian, in my own family, as did Charles Pierce recently, as related by one commenter. The most important thing I noticed, and this is now obvious in studying the statements and tactics of the American Right and other Rightists, and many others have noticed it, is the sense of threat they experience from those who are different from themselves. They really do believe that they cannot be safe unless their enemies are vanquished and they see enemies everywhere. And, as a result, I believe they believe, most or all of them probably not consciously, that anything becomes permissible to them, any lie, any illegality, any act of discrimination, any injustice, any war, any sin, to achieve that end. The other trait that stands out is that they must think of themselves as uniquely superior to others (if only those others would do what I have done, a common refrain), a natural aristocracy.

If this is true, then are those who do evil incapable of thinking of it as evil and less culpable than those who do see the evil but are afraid to face it? Does responsibility lie with those whose brains as less disordered and is it impossible for us to effect change in the face of such depravity, authoritarianism, and confusion on the part of so many millions of us?

In my blackest moments, I think we are doomed as a species. We stand senseless in the face of global warming. As soon as something changes for the better, individuals or groups formed on the Right work to destroy it. It seems we have all become useless and we will all pay the price for our fecklessness in the face of such evil.

“Voting for the lesser of two evils hasn’t helped us in the past and won’t now”

When the “greater” evil keeps getting more evil, so does the lesser evil, after all. There was a time recently when Republicans wanted cap-and-trade, an individual insurance mandate, and a payroll tax cut. Today those are Democratic policies, which the Republicans have of course disowned as they continue moving rightward, taking the Ds with them.

Alcuin PERMALINK
September 5, 2012
Some wisdom from Eric Hoffer:
etc.

For confirmation of this — the effectiveness of propaganda, especially with those already predisposed to believing it — see this good (and depressing) article on the near-impossibility of getting people to respond to logic and empirical evidence. I have it bookmarked because I refer to it so often. In some ways it’s a relief: it explains a phenomenon I’d observed for years but never understood:

How facts backfire
Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

Also agree with Radical Livre that it’s the Democrats and their “lesser of two evils” enablers that have moved the Overton window to the right.

The people I’m seeing are buying what the Dems are selling at the RNC. They aren’t saying “Obama is fucking evil, but he’s less fucking evil than I think Romney will be.”

That’s because they’re psychologically adjusting to the median expectation.

Also agree with Radical Livre that it’s the Democrats and their “lesser of two evils” enablers that have moved the Overton window to the right.

And that’s where I part company with the rest of the Ian Welsh commentariat. As long as a huge portion of the American population really actually wants something even eviller than the “greater evil”, the “lesser evil” has no incentive whatsoever to become less evil. Don’t vote for them? OK, you get the greater evil. Learned your lesson now? No? OK, have the greater evil again.

The end result of this, of course, is collapse of some form…

But when? How? Who?

Democrats will spend the week raucously applauding the violence and killing continuously unleashed by their strong, tough, resolute Democratic president – whom they’ll hail as their “commander-in-chief” whom we’re so blessed to be led by, even though most of them are not in the military and therefore, by definition, have no “commander,” chief or otherwise. And they will keep cheering for such acts even as the bodies of his latest innocent victims go unburied. And if any of this bothers any of us, we’ll be drowned out by stirring and deeply emotional tributes to the kindness and goodness of this great man, which will make all these unpleasant thoughts about the reality of his actions blissfully disappear.

This isn’t just what Democrats do. It’s what they now boast about, what they campaign on, what they celebrate. That, as much as anything, is the Obama legacy.

Obama campaign brags about its whistleblower persecutions
Excuse me if I don’t join in Democrats’ sycophantic cheerleading for an Obama presidency that has shredded laws and liberties
by Glenn Greenwald

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/05/obama-campaign-brags-about-whistleblower-persecutions

Although, to be fair, many Democratic partisans are simply utter fools, such as Scott Lemieux who somehow doesn’t know that Obamacare is based on Romneycare, which was based on a plan by the right-wing Heritage Foundation:

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/09/the-baseline-for-presidential-evaluations

Maybe people like that would rethink their support–maybe–if they weren’t so sadly ignorant.

Maybe people like that would rethink their support–maybe–if they weren’t so sadly ignorant.

Alas, if only that were true. But research — and experience — prove otherwise. The people on my mailing list, about whom I’ve written in general terms here several times, aren’t ignorant. They know what’s going on. They just choose denial. And the more highly educated they are, the worse they are. Sure, some of them will give you the standard “lesser evil” argument. But most of them simply choose to stick their heads in the sand. Frankly, I think this behavior is more damning.

And that’s where I part company with the rest of the Ian Welsh commentariat. As long as a huge portion of the American population really actually wants something even eviller than the “greater evil”, the “lesser evil” has no incentive whatsoever to become less evil. Don’t vote for them? OK, you get the greater evil. Learned your lesson now? No? OK, have the greater evil again.

The end result of this, of course, is collapse of some form…

For the record, voting democrat will also lead to collapse of some form right? As will voting for the GOP, not voting, voting Green or for your mom? I mean, really, we’re fucked regardless, it’s only a question of the hastening. The type of immediate, radical change that’s required is simply impossible. And we’re talking about mostly educated people here–for their mindnumbing denial in the face of reality, they deserve all the contempt we can muster.

Radical Livre:

StewartM, I think you got it precisely backwards. It’s the Democrats who push the Overton window to the right. Clinton, with his tough-on-crime laws, welfare cuts, NAFTA, deregulation, and imperial militarism, forced the Republicans rightwards to maintain their niche.

I’m not so sure, a lot of Clinton’s Third-Way crap had been propagandized by the Right long before. Not to say that Clinton *had* to give into them, but like Obama he tells his fellow Dems about all those Republican “good ideas”

(Can you friggin’ imagine a *Republican* saying that about a Democratic idea? Can you envision a group like the NRA selling out its constituency to be good soldiers for the Republicans like “leftist” groups do for the Dems?)

But the point is, the Clinton-Obama presidencies show the power of what a minority determined to gum up the legislative process can do if they so want. Now notice that despite all those thunderous denunciations by CPC members, they never manage to do likewise when the Republicans are in charge? Jane Hamsher at FDL once snorted: “Primary Obama? Talk about taking down Bernie Sanders instead”. And she’s right–if Bernie and his ilk had broken ranks on health care, on the debt ceiling, and any other egregious Obama betrayal of his base and actually joined Republican filibusters then none of that would have passed.
If the CPC had stood firm on its pledges of “no health care reform without a public option” then Obama wouldn’t have gotten Romneycare through nor that stupid “grand bargain” debt ceiling fiasco of a deal. And why couldn’t they? They’re larger than the Tea Party caucus, and look what they have achieved.

The point is, the problem with the Dems goes beyond Obama, but also to those “progressives” who may give good speeches but always seem to manage to deliberately lose important votes.

That being said, the best scenario for me is:

1) the Dems to capture Congress (ends the stupid debt ceiling threats which makes it harder for Obama’s grand bargaining). I care more about that than Romney-Obama.

2) Obama wins, but the Tea Party zealots find out some silly reason to impeach him (not for the legitimate reasons, of course, but something silly). In other words, a repeat of Clinton’s presidency, where Clinton was secretly planning a deal with Gingrich to privatize Social Security in a “grand bargain”, but that got derailed by the Monica Lewinsky scandal which forced Clinton to tack back to the left to save his presidency.

-StewartM

StewartM

Obama is a profoundly evil fucking man.

I don’t agree, but it’s irrelevant. The US political system is profoundly evil. Shit, the Canadian system is only moderately evil. “How can it be changed?” is the hard question. Calling individuals “evil” is too easy, and a cop-out.

@someofparts (and anyone else who is interested) –

To embed a link using HTML, follow this format:

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Replace the { and } symbols with the left chevron (). Be sure to include the quotation marks in the link – it won’t work without them. The URL is what is in the address bar of your browser (copy and paste works best).

Thank you Ian. Just commented over at Shakesville that I was baffled by the emotional “blubbing” about the Obamas given the cognitive dissonance between that response and a supposed commitment to social and economic justice and pointed out Obama’s kill list and detainment policy.

And just got an email back from Melissa herself stating that she “liked some things about Obama and not other things. It’s not that difficult.”

So killing people and indefinite detention falls under the rubric of “some things” and his cute family falls under the rubric of “other things.”

She knows. She absolutely knows. But she doesn’t care — that is, she doesn’t care enough. And this holds true for the other prog-bloggers you name.

I asked if she’d have “blubbed” for Pat Nixon as Nixon expanded the war into Cambodia. I’m old enough to remember liberals taking to the streets over that one.

But this community of liberals and progressives are very very deep into situationl ethics, which is a polite way of saying unprincipled.

The BS that people have no choice when in power is a cop out

Of course they have a choice; stay in power, get kicked out to make way for someone more acceptable to the kingmakers, or, in some jurisdictions, get assassinated.

I’m not so sure, a lot of Clinton’s Third-Way crap had been propagandized by the Right long before. Not to say that Clinton *had* to give into them, but like Obama he tells his fellow Dems about all those Republican “good ideas”

But that was exactly Clinton (and Obama’s) genius. They stole the Republican talking points right from under them. Clinton ended an era when Democrats were thought to be “soft on crime”. Obama did the same for “soft on terrorism”. Now Democrats accuse Republicans of not loving the military enough. Now Democrats accuse Republicans of being fiscally irresponsible. Now Democrats sneer at Republicans because George II wasn’t man enough to order a hit on Ibn Ladin. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

@dandelion

So killing people and indefinite detention falls under the rubric of “some things” and his cute family falls under the rubric of “other things.”

The smallness of Americans, the petty decadence. They feel free to form their opinions based on caprice, as if their civic duty is mere chaff, oblivious to the horrible reckoning that’s coming to us.

My friends in the states sound like Lisa S.’s friends; they’re fawning over Michelle, Bill, and Obama’s speeches. They are so impressed. I’m dumbfounded, gobsmacked by their thoughtless acceptance of the lies, obfuscation, and ignorance of facts; much less a tacit refusal about the country they live within and what it’s doing to the world at large.
These people (my old social) are the last vestiges of the true middle-class; acting as though they weren’t an endangered species.
I have no answer for that and frankly; I gave up looking or caring.

Z PERMALINK
September 7, 2012
Celsius,
It’s obviously all about the entertainment/presentation, it’s not about the reality/truth. It’s basically ‘just make me feel good for supporting you’.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Agree; these speeches were all delivered with cold, calculated professionalism, hiding the nasty operational cynicism of the powerful.
I find it astonishing, that I can be so astonished at my fellow citizens behavior and my increasing distance (philosophical/political/social) from them.
The fact I’m an expat probably contributes somewhat to my apparent radicalization.

Addendum: Then again, there were family issues that may have bled over into my assessment of the wider world.

(Sorry to have glommed onto Celsius’ passing speculation, but psychology is my catnip. OT or no, I’d be delighted if any other afficiandos – groo? 🙂 – would weigh in on this question.)

It’s quite amazing actually. The fact of the matter is that if you get people to buy into a belief the vast majority of them will place an emotional investment in maintaining that belief becoz to change it would mean that they’d have to admit that they were wrong. It’s pride-based, willful stupidity. And it’s extremely childish, egocentric and selfish becoz no one is right about everything … we all should vet our beliefs … we are all wrong at times. But most would rather stay wrong than admit they were wrong.

And demonize the folks/tribe that tell(s) you that you are wrong and most often folks won’t even listen to the other side’s arguments. They’d rather self-righteously bask in their feelings of moral superiority.

Z

“I will not vote for a dog catcher with a D (or an R) next to his name. ”

“Stray dog annihilated by drone-fired Hellfire missile, film at eleven.”

“Nobody who aspires to leadership in the US has real choices. ”

Of course, our system stinks. No doubt about that. But how can one say Obama had no choice when he does things that no other president ever–EVER–has done? How could he have no choice about assassinating American citizens when that’s never been official policy before? How could he have no choice about paring back Habeus Corpus rights when those have been accepted law for nearly a millenium? How could he have no choice about signing a law to allow indefinite detention when that is a radically new policy for American government?

Obama has to breathe, he has to eat and drink, and he has to sleep. He doesn’t have to fire missiles at funerals in hopes of killing a terrorist or two.

Notorious P.A.T.,

“No doubt about that. But how can one say Obama had no choice when he does things that no other president ever–EVER–has done?”

Exactly.

Alcuin,

“It’s time to get to work and build the society we’d like to see. It starts with community …”

I couldn’t agree more.

I’ve gone through the same shit – fruitless run-ins with people that really have no intention at getting at the truth – with my so-called left-wing friends who are actually nothing more than demo-zombies … after 8 years of fall-out with my right-wing friends during the Bush era.

The republicans in politics lie like hell … so do the democrats in politics … but as far as comparing conservatives to liberals outside of politics, in my experience liberals lie more.

Z

HTML screw-up – it’s been a long week! Here is the article I wanted to link to.

Petro
September 7, 2012
The fact I’m an expat probably contributes somewhat to my apparent radicalization.
That’s actually a very interesting question. While I remain in the belly of the beast, I have been “outside” of (“psychologically disenfranchised” from) this country’s delusional self-image for a long time (having endured the negative social consequences of not saluting the flag or reciting the allegiance pledge in the classroom at the tender age of 11 back in 1968, tho I did stand up). Indeed, what comes first, the alienation or the objectivity? Can’t imagine an 11-year-old feeling true alienation… so maybe it’s OK to take credit for objectivity…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I think my radicalization began in the 60’s with the war in Vietnam; further with what I believed was blow-back on 9/11; and finally with the invasion of Iraq, March 19th, 2003.
Prior to that date I swore if Bush did it I would leave the U.S. having no idea how that would happen. Eight weeks later, having secured a job in Thailand; I left.
Ten years in, I think my objectivity has been honed and I no longer value borders, nationality, or any identity of separation/division.
Americans are among the worlds greatest provincials; at least the equal of the average Thai, or most (but certainly not all) citizens of the developing world.
The hubris of 1st worlder’s just exemplifies their own ignorance and narrow mindedness when discussing the world at large.
If it’s not Thais, then it’s Muslims, or Africans or, or, or…
That pretty much wraps it up for me.

“Evil? Or Stupid?” Or third choice: both

@Notorious Pat – “Calling for back-up here: how did Don’t Ask Don’t Tell get repealed? Was it because lawsuits by the Log Cabin Republicans forced the government’s hand?” You’re not reading Ian carefully enough. It’s because gays withheld $$ and votes in 2010. Simple.

As for Pelosi, et al. – that’s why Obama is the more effective evil, as Glen Ford calls him. Obama can — and does — twist the arms of the so-called mor progressive Dems to vote with the Blue Dogs — not the other way around. If a Republican is president, then the Dems oppose those policies slightly more. Or some Dems — not that hag Dianne Feinstein, for example. Only a Democrat can get rid of Social Security. Obama already started with the “payroll tax holiday” which is the beginning of defunding Social Security. When George Bush wanted to make the middle class feel good with a tax cut, he wrote them a check out of the general fund. Unless we do something, Very Bad Things will happen to Social Security right after election in lame duck session.

“Smugness giving one “a buzz” makes some kind of weird sense”

Many Obama-ites these days certainly write as if they are high:

tbogg.firedoglake.com

@Notorious P.A.T – looking at that LawyersGunsMoney blog piece made me want to pull my hair out. Besides not being willing to admit that ObamaCare =RomneyCare = Heritage Foundation Plan, they also had a fundamental misunderstanding of Quantitative Easing. I have never seen someone say such stupid things in my life on such a topic before and with such confidence. To say that the banks hate QE is like saying water isn’t wet; something that can be disproved rather easily. That and the constant bitching about how if you criticise Obama you MUST be a rabid right-winger. Ugh.

Ian: this reply is very late in coming, because I started over several times. In truth, my desire for blogospheric battle-royales has waned of late. So I’ll keep it short and simple.

You may know more of these people personally than I do, but you also know that I lived for a significant length of time at the periphery of the culture dish that once spawned the whole phenomenon. And I met no shortage of people who “knew” and were able to condemn the whole (D) establishment 50% of the time, and the other 50% able to look and talk in admiration at their leaders. I don’t doubt that for the big guys it’s become a cynical game, which is often what happens to people who become too big.

But I don’t think it makes any sense to go all Lambert and wag my finger dramatically at they who have at least achieved some measure of success at the ballot box. If they’re “delusionally self-deceiving” or “lying”, they are merely following the greater mass of American liberals in their conception of what is possible or impossible. If Kos didn’t exist, someone would have invented him. He didn’t steal some sort of giant political movement that would have otherwise been in the keeping of the Real True Left or mislead some otherwise innocent flock.

And I don’t condemn the bulk of American liberals for their sense of limits. No one will “offer good,” because it’s hard to tell in advance that good would be voted for, especially considering past history. That is because the following is not relevant:

And opinion polls show, in fact, that most Americans are less evil on a lot of subjects (like universal health care) than their elites. There is a real elite/citizen divide on opinion you seem incapable of acknowledging. If the Chefs won’t offer anything but evil/more evil, and you can only choose those two chefs, you’re kind of fucked.

What people believe they want, and what they will vote for, are two completely different things. Voting is akin to purchasing a product and is better studied using the techniques of market research. There are many interdependent variables that convert a given voter’s desiderata into their voting intention, a large number of them emotional, and the sort of candidate that I would define as “good”, at least, would make demands of American society that it would not emotionally be able to bear.

I gave up the election prediction game given my failure the last time around, but I point out that even given Romney’s obvious deficiencies, he retains a nontrivial finite chance of winning, even though it’s patently obvious that whatever deliberate banker-propitiating failures Obama has had, Romney would be worse. Worse, the House and Senate retain a nontrivial chance of staying/becoming (R), which is even scarier considering that this is where the real looneys are.

So, you seem to think that if “good” were offered, it would have a strong chance of winning or even changing the debate. And I find this very doubtful.

And, by the way, it’s not a question of condemning the American public. It only requires a minority of Americans, about 25% or perhaps less, to tilt the pinball machine. Then anyone who wants to offer “good” must count on the votes of 2/3rds of the remainder. Offering a consistent programme that wins over a reliable 2/3rds is not easy. That’s why, even if there weren’t a giant conspiracy of silence suppressing the correct policy choices in elite discourse, “good” would still be quite risky. The main weight of moral fault lies upon a slice of American society—which coincidentally is the “bogeyman” group of mainstream liberal organizations, for good reason.

And yes, some of the blame lies at the feet of the people who designed the American political system, who didn’t anticipate the problems that would arise, and quite possibly would not be on the side of “good” even if they knew.