According to Jonathan Chait, a leading TNR doobee: "the left-wing blogospere" is emphatically not "a placid realm of civilized discourse"-- no, instead we're into
relentless, juvenile name-calling... the imagining of conspiracies between the Democratic Leadership Council... and various corporate lobbies....And we're frozen in place by
the fervent belief that monolithic motivations could be imputed to all who were associated with those sinister, back-stabbing institutions-- i.e. the corporations and their fink tanks.
And guess what, comrades -- us left blogs are not
... actually all that lefty... if you consider only their policy agenda in a vacuum....-- it's only our "political style" which is indeed left -- in fact that is not only left but "distinctly New Left" -- meaning "paranoid, Manichean ... brimming with humorless rage."
But decent neo-progs better not relax: just because
the contemporary blog-based left, unlike the McGovernite New Left, lacks a well-formed radical program....And why? Here's the forecast of the left blog law of motion
there's lots of evidence to suggest that this style of thinking is suggestive of a tendency to move in more radical directions over time...ending where? Well, where else -- by "veering into the abyss."
It's our old friend the "Commies are Nazis" theory, which served TNR so well in the 80s. There's no joke like an old joke.
Now Chait, I guess, has been run over a few times by these raging left bloganauts -- but he don't feel no "personal frustration," despite the plain fact that even after writing "plenty of great stuff that critiques Bush," he still faces a "one strike and you're out policy."
Now I'll admit that would piss me off -- but Chait is the type of regular civilized broad minded chap that can
actually really enjoy mixing it up... and oddly enough.... being personally attacked as wellWhat freaks him though is this left blogosphere's "paranoid mentality ... toward TNR":
They cannot see gradations. They cannot see differences between individuals within an institution. [It's like] their unrelenting hostility toward the DLC, some of whose members are much more liberal than others....In other words, us loons are
simply unable to process the fact [that] 80 percent of the political commentary we publish is a sharp attack on Bushand yet because we "disagree with ... 20 percent," it's pow! right in the kisser. We have absolutely
"no mental category for an institution that agrees with them 80 percent of the time.... The would-be Grover Norquists of the left may well fashion themselves as shrewd political tacticians....But we need to learn from our righty counterparts, who
... have been able to move the political center... in large part because they understood the difference between someone who agrees with them 80 percent of the time and someone who agrees with them 0 percent of the time....So I guess since us lefty blogs don't get this, we're as Jon says "dangerous and fanatical."
Well, gang -- who wants to be "dangerous" around here?
I've already got dibs on "fanatical. "
Comments (9)
I piled on to this earlier, if you'll forgive the self-linking. I'm afraid I'm not at all dangerous. Just kind of crabby and a bit obsessed with squirrels.
Posted by J. Alva Scruggs | May 9, 2006 11:47 PM
Posted on May 9, 2006 23:47
It's our old friend the "Commies are Nazis" theory...
Got Im Himmel! Ve haff been discovered! Retreat to der bunker!
Posted by AlanSmithee | May 10, 2006 8:11 AM
Posted on May 10, 2006 08:11
jas wonderful post
we oughta put it up here ask herr smiff
i love this line particle
apropos most elite libs
" .... their intentions are mostly good, with good being defined as a reluctance to deliberately hurt people..."
its a j dewey type definition
very intentional
but yet operational
and yet cause they refuse to accept the feed back
when it "means " they fucked up
ie
policy remains unchangeable
even as the groans and screams
crescendo
Posted by Anonymous | May 10, 2006 10:33 AM
Posted on May 10, 2006 10:33
TNR:
A classic exercise in what I call scorecarding.
Posted by MJS | May 10, 2006 1:38 PM
Posted on May 10, 2006 13:38
What can you say to people who oppose everything, and I'd be willing to concede 95% in some circumstances, except the primary cause of the problems?
Posted by J. Alva Scruggs | May 10, 2006 5:04 PM
Posted on May 10, 2006 17:04
Homer Simpsons once said "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything...14% of people know that (I think they stole this from Steve Wright though)."
You recently I have been reading Parenti's Black Shirts and Reds and that has served to radicalize me more than ever. I definitely have a well informed radical agenda. Although I wouldn't call it radical, I'd call it practical and sane....
Posted by Tim D | May 11, 2006 1:02 AM
Posted on May 11, 2006 01:02
Homer Simpsons once said "Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything...14% of people know that (I think they stole this from Steve Wright though)."
You know, recently I have been reading Parenti's Black Shirts and Reds, which that has certainly served to radicalize me more than ever. I definitely have a well informed radical agenda, although I wouldn't call it radical, I'd pronounce it as practical and sane....
Posted by Tim D | May 11, 2006 1:03 AM
Posted on May 11, 2006 01:03
On a note related to Tim's, there's always this unjustly neglected piece from the also unjustly neglected Left Hook:
Why I'm No Longer A Radical
Posted by alsis39.9 | May 11, 2006 11:02 AM
Posted on May 11, 2006 11:02
This bullshit idea that leftists and the Democratic Party liberal mainstream agree on 80% of the issues is a variation the great myth that seem sto infest most liberal apologists. I constantly get accused by liberal Democratic Party apologists for being a perfectionist who can't handle a few differences of opinion on a few issues, or that I somehow expect "purity". This ridicilous argument is all built around the idea that we lefists should just come back to the fold, that we are really allies of the Democratic Party establishment and their liberal drones, that we're all one big family of Republican-hating liberals and leftists.
This is, of course, utter nonsense. It is insulting and condescending for liberal apologists for the Democrats to pretend to speak for my own left wing values or to claim for me a set of beliefs that I don't hold. And it is one of the biggest myths that I think needs to be shattered. The problem with the Democratic Party isn't that "they aren't good enough", but that they are actively bad, that the party actively pursues policies that are contrary to progressive and radical values. I don't reject the Democrats because "they aren't quite good enough", but because they are actively purusing policies of war, imperialism, corporate greed, globalization, and a host of other policies that I actively oppose.
Posted by Haikuist | May 11, 2006 12:38 PM
Posted on May 11, 2006 12:38