Wednesday, May 30, 2007

I just want to make sure that the government's working

* Waxman in the SFCron:
"I just want to make sure that the government's working."
- d'oh - how about Let Sibel Edmonds Speak
From the Chron is this little anecdote (which i didn't know):
"Waxman countered that when Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., was chairman, he had the word "Oversight" removed from the committee's title altogether. One of Waxman's first actions as the new chairman was to restore it."

* krugman:
"Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.

When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.

And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at."
* Le Drifte:
"2004 was a watershed year for a lot of people I know. Myself included. 2004 didn’t “radicalize” us in any sense – most of the people I’m thinking about haven’t changed their politics much in the last decade or so – but it “volatilized” us.

Or maybe “volumnized”.

We started using the word “fuck” a lot more, and a lot more loudly. As in “What the fuck are these morons thinking? Can’t they fucking read? Can’t they fucking rub two facts together and get anything but baffled? Oh, and who the fuck are these undecided freaks who, three weeks before the most important fucking vote of this generation, cannot make up their fucking minds?”

Like that.
[]
The Real Problem is that your Dear Leader built an entire Bullshit Bridge between the casus belli he got on 9/11 and the war he and his Neocon vultures wanted, and then cold-bloodedly pimped your grief, your fear and your patriotism to stampede you across it.

The Real Problem is that you and millions like you aren’t strong enough to face the truly terrifying truth that most of what you believe about the wider world is bullshit, and the people you trusted to lead your country are liars.

That men you trusted made you a chump.

A heavily-armed patsy, in the wrong country, for the wrong reason, killing the wrong people on the orders of treacherous cowards and thugs who have used you as cannon fodder for their Imperial ambitions, and for whom you no doubt proudly voted.

Twice.

The Real Problem is that, in the name of Holy Balance, journalists treat the patently and dangerously delusional adherents of Cult of Dubya as if their opinions were worthy of discussion.
[]
And when one’s delusions have been calculatedly stoked and weaponized by evil men, have been marched into the wrong fucking country, have caused the death of tens of thousands, the mutilation and suffering of hundreds of thousands, the displacement of millions, at the projected cost of trillions of dollars, then your wingnut fantasies no longer get to be elided over as merely creepy and eccentric.

Because now your delusions come with one of the biggest fucking price tags in American history. One that we will be paying down for generations to come.

Which is why those delusions no longer deserve anyone’s respectful attention, or any cravenly obsequious treatment by journalists in the name of “balance”.

The Real Problem is simply that journalists don’t have the nerve to ask the True Believers of the Cult of Dubya simple questions about their radical, ruinous and unshakable beliefs.

The Real Problem is that people who believe as Mr. Ites does are dangerously irrational, and the people who make a fat living propping up Mr. Ites’ dangerously irrational beliefs are depraved scum.

For the last thirty years many of us on the Left remained politely and tolerantly silent on these subjects we should have been loud and rude and demanded to know why dangerous, stupid, racist or crazy people keep getting treated with deference by the Lords of the Media?

Why people who are always wrong all the time about everything keep getting invited back into the national spotlight to share more of their idiotic insights, and people who have a track record of actually getting it right about Bush, Iraq and a hundred other thing are treated like kooks?

Why, when your country has been handed over to perverts and fascists by imbeciles and Christopaths, your press has collapsed into a pile of toadying hair, you treasury has been pissed away by criminals and your military hobbled by cowards and fanatics, it is somehow beyond the fucking pale to get angry about it?"

3 comments:

Christopher said...

Getting angry my brave friend will do nothing. You asked a question which I have answered elsewhere. Politics in America is about power. When you have the power you change events and situations if you don't you are ignored. The same people who were "wrong" about everything are always in front because they play the power game. You have to get onto the court to score points and so far the Left is just sitting in the stands, which can have some effect but it is trivial. The Left as a whole, unlike its prior incarnations, doesn't know how to play the political game--it has no base, no community to count on, no discipline and thus it is, rightly in my view, ignored. You want the media to pay attention then learn to kick some ass--I don't mean literally necessarily but it would be better to start really kicking than the same old crying about the fact that America is not the city on the hill and is not, and never was, the democracy it claims to be.

Anonymous said...

Chris, YESSSSS kick some asssss, lots of assss, but also figure how the game is played so you can work it for your cause.

Knowing all the procedurtal rules is a good place to start, dull as it sounds. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi should have taken lessons from Gravel when it comes to playing the rules to win.

The left is ineffectual because its most idealistic and principled people left the Democratic party and all they have left is a diet jello center of people "in it" for their own ends. so all they can do is hedge their bets.

lukery said...

Chris - you are correct that 'the left' has been ineffective. obviously.

The Right has been effective, are very disciplined, and very, very destructive. congratulations to them.

I disagree with you that 'the left' has no base. Significant majorities of Americans seem (i.e. polling) to support liberal positions that liberals.

One problem is that the Right own all the levers of power and are authoritarian. Progressives own none (and in fact 'liveral' is a dirty word) and we believe in healthy debate, rather than top-down authoritarianism - hence the apparent 'disarray'