I'm a corn-fed Midwestern boy, but I've picked up some bad habits along the way. I say things about public figures I wouldn't say about private citizens, and that's not quite entirely justified by the fact that most private citizens I know are not scum-sucking megalomaniacs. I once caused (inadvertantly) a local reporter to receive a lot of insulting emails (apparently) by posting something she'd written on Salon's Table Talk. And I was profoundly sorry and told her so.
It's easy to snipe at people from a distance that won't get your teeth shoved down your throat. It is to the credit of the left side of the spectrum that many people objected to the language aimed at Michelle Malkin yesterday. In disagreeing with them I in no way meant to imply that I find gutter talk a good idea. I do think that Malkin, as a paid provocateur, ought to be above mentioning it in her column or seeking in out in another site's comments or on men's room walls.
We North Americans are particularly impoverished when it comes to cursing, and it's gotten worse in my lifetime. Not the volume, I mean, though maybe that's true as well, but the sort of mindless "Fuck you, you fuckin' fuck" stuff, the substitution of charged words for something that might require a bit of thought. But then what passes for thought has toyed with the poverty level lately, too.
Personally, I don't like anatomical curse words. I didn't join in in fourth grade when "asshole" took over the playground. But it is part of our common currency, and as such it can be used well, even artistically. There's a big difference between reflecting Life As We Know It and repeating something for its conventional effects, like there's a difference between a Stieglitz portrait and one of those disposable snapshots your grandma takes at family gatherings.
I guess what I'm saying is, in this age of polarized public discourse there's a great need not only for more precision in our language, even when expressing anger or outrage or schadenfreude, but for some more creative ad hominems. I hope you'll join me in searching for some. If not, you suck.
Friday, April 8
It's Animal Husbandry If You're A Republican
Paul Musgrave of In the Agora:
Pity the poor beast. I guess after taking three weeks of pummeling it was too weak to withstand a single day of bright light.
Actual, Real News
Much as I respect the right of the blogosphere to continue to beat a dead horse...
Pity the poor beast. I guess after taking three weeks of pummeling it was too weak to withstand a single day of bright light.
In-Credible
The Blog of the Year Explains It All:
Never mind that you're the guy who turned the dumb memo into a ripple as big as The Ritz. Never mind that Senator Harkin may have better things to do than answer every self-important idiot with a blog and an endless supply of crackpot theories, or that he'd have needed to schedule time for The Washington Times, CNN's Inside Politics, The American Spectator, Rush Limbaugh, CNBC's Kudlow and Company, Michelle Malkin, Tucker Carlson, Special Report with Brit Hume, The Weekly Standard, The Daily Standard, AIM, Fred Barnes, Joshua Claybourne, NewsMax, and maybe dropped a line to Bill Bennett while he was at it just to answer questions from everyone who was publicly convinced the memo was a dirty Democrat trick. And never mind that a group so convinced on the basis of nothing whatsover wasn't gonna listen to him anyway.
Where was Mel Martinez for the past three weeks? And who were Clayborne's four inside tipsters?
HINDROCKET adds: A reader asks a good question: Where has Tom Harkin been for the last two and a half weeks? If he had come forward on March 19 or 20, there never would have been a "talking points memo" story, or at least not much of a story. The truth--that an obscure Republican staffer wrote a dumb memo that hardly anyone saw--would scarcely have created a ripple.
Never mind that you're the guy who turned the dumb memo into a ripple as big as The Ritz. Never mind that Senator Harkin may have better things to do than answer every self-important idiot with a blog and an endless supply of crackpot theories, or that he'd have needed to schedule time for The Washington Times, CNN's Inside Politics, The American Spectator, Rush Limbaugh, CNBC's Kudlow and Company, Michelle Malkin, Tucker Carlson, Special Report with Brit Hume, The Weekly Standard, The Daily Standard, AIM, Fred Barnes, Joshua Claybourne, NewsMax, and maybe dropped a line to Bill Bennett while he was at it just to answer questions from everyone who was publicly convinced the memo was a dirty Democrat trick. And never mind that a group so convinced on the basis of nothing whatsover wasn't gonna listen to him anyway.
Where was Mel Martinez for the past three weeks? And who were Clayborne's four inside tipsters?
Thursday, April 7
Hanging Slider
Gee, in all the excitement I forgot the most important thing: some of you nasty libruls sent Michelle profane emails. Shame.
Y'know, Michelle, when you get the hook after giving up seven hits and six runs in the first, just go to the showers like a professional. It doesn't matter that the concession stand was out of nachos.
Y'know, Michelle, when you get the hook after giving up seven hits and six runs in the first, just go to the showers like a professional. It doesn't matter that the concession stand was out of nachos.
You Think This Is Easy? You Try Walking Fast With Your Pants Around Your Ankles!
Taking responsibility, adult style. Michelle Malkin:
Correct, so far as I can tell. What she did do was spend a week calling it calling it "fishy" and linking to all those people she now says should retract.
No, Malkin did not, as Hindrocket did, call the memo an outright fake. Self-congratulations are in order, and they weren't long in coming. But then, words are the tools of wordsmiths, and when they use one--especially over and over again--we ought to take them at it. "Fishy" implies a lot more than "some have questioned its authenticity".
We got our last whiff of seafood on March 31. In what some (me) are calling The Miracle of the Fish Smell, the issue changed to a WaPo story which had gone out on the wires March 20, but included a line about the memo being "distributed by party leaders" that didn't run that way in the Post. Various WaPo spokesmen denied they had intended (or had the evidence to) pin the memo on any specific person, or party, for that matter. Now the memo was a mere puzzlement: "We may never know whether the memo was the handywork of a Republican staffer or a Democrat dirty trickster or an outside interloper..." Wish I could find an air freshener that effective.
Now that the "Democrat forgery" story has been thoroughly depantsed, the only issue is that three-week old wire story. Joshua Clayborn of In the Agora, who published insider tips about the memo's "fabrication", which Malkin linked to, now says:
Or, say, under your own byline. It's a funny thing about the sense of smell, as we wine lovers will attest. It fatigues easily. Last week's razor-sharp senses, dulled by overuse, have become this week's docile acceptance of the Tale of the Rogue Aid. Time for apologies? Who cares with that crew?
ObBlogWildSpeculation: Were these folks tipped at the end of last month that the "fabrication" story couldn't be sustained, and some little fish would be taking the hook to protect "the leadership"? Why are the folks who used Terri Schiavo as a political football so concerned that the plan found its way into print?
After John Hinderaker at Power Line first started asking necessary questions about the reporting on the memo, many on the Right jumped to conclusions that the memo was "fake" or a "dirty trick." I concur that those who made such claims should issue clear retractions and corrections. And I urge those bloggers and pundits to do so.
But contrary to what the left-wing gloaters who have not bothered to follow the story until last night are writing, I have never made such claims...
Correct, so far as I can tell. What she did do was spend a week calling it calling it "fishy" and linking to all those people she now says should retract.
No, Malkin did not, as Hindrocket did, call the memo an outright fake. Self-congratulations are in order, and they weren't long in coming. But then, words are the tools of wordsmiths, and when they use one--especially over and over again--we ought to take them at it. "Fishy" implies a lot more than "some have questioned its authenticity".
We got our last whiff of seafood on March 31. In what some (me) are calling The Miracle of the Fish Smell, the issue changed to a WaPo story which had gone out on the wires March 20, but included a line about the memo being "distributed by party leaders" that didn't run that way in the Post. Various WaPo spokesmen denied they had intended (or had the evidence to) pin the memo on any specific person, or party, for that matter. Now the memo was a mere puzzlement: "We may never know whether the memo was the handywork of a Republican staffer or a Democrat dirty trickster or an outside interloper..." Wish I could find an air freshener that effective.
Now that the "Democrat forgery" story has been thoroughly depantsed, the only issue is that three-week old wire story. Joshua Clayborn of In the Agora, who published insider tips about the memo's "fabrication", which Malkin linked to, now says:
If this story is true, ABC News, the Washington Post, and virtually every news outlet that ran the infamous story should now publish a retraction. Unlike what ABC and the Post reported, the memo did not originate from Senate Republican leadership. At most it came from one Senator, Martinez, and if we are to believe Martinez it was simply a foolish, sloppy aide. Either way the real turn of events appears to be much different than the one portrayed by most media outlets.
Or, say, under your own byline. It's a funny thing about the sense of smell, as we wine lovers will attest. It fatigues easily. Last week's razor-sharp senses, dulled by overuse, have become this week's docile acceptance of the Tale of the Rogue Aid. Time for apologies? Who cares with that crew?
ObBlogWildSpeculation: Were these folks tipped at the end of last month that the "fabrication" story couldn't be sustained, and some little fish would be taking the hook to protect "the leadership"? Why are the folks who used Terri Schiavo as a political football so concerned that the plan found its way into print?
Say What You Want To About Hoosiers, We Know How To Serve Dessert
Indy Star: Horowitz Hit By Pie At Butler:
It was the second time in a week that a conservative lecturer was hit by a pie at an Indiana university. On March 30, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, was attacked during a speech at Earlham College in Richmond.
Butler spokesman Marc Allan called Wednesday's incident "deplorable."
"People are going to have to learn how to disagree civilly."
You talkin' about the pie man, or Horowitz, or both?
It was the second time in a week that a conservative lecturer was hit by a pie at an Indiana university. On March 30, William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard, was attacked during a speech at Earlham College in Richmond.
Butler spokesman Marc Allan called Wednesday's incident "deplorable."
"People are going to have to learn how to disagree civilly."
You talkin' about the pie man, or Horowitz, or both?
Next Up: Zogby Poll Proves Pulitzer Photo Committee Was Wrong!
–John Stewart
Released: April 06, 2005
80%: Non-Terminal Patients Should Not be Denied Food, Water; Three-to-One: Feeding Tube Should Stay in Place When Wishes Unknown; Americans Divided on Intervention by Elected Officials, Christian Defense Coalition / Zogby Poll of Likely Voters Reveals
Yes, thanks to the folks at the Christian Defense Coalition that incredibly biased ABC Schiavo poll (which, you will recall, confused respondants by referring to "life support" as "life support") has received its comeuppance; ask a completely neutral, non-biased question and you'll wonder where the controversy went:
Another Zogby question his directly on Terri's circumstances.
"If a disabled person is not terminally ill, not in a coma, and not being kept alive on life support, and they have no written directive, should or should they not be denied food and water," the poll asked.
A whopping 79 percent said the patient should not have food and water taken away while just 9 percent said yes.
Okay, I was educated in the last century, and I freely admit that the intricacies of faith-based reality elude me at times. But how is misrepresenting two details of the Schiavo case in four clauses "fairer", to use Zogby's term? Artificial hydration and nutrition are life support under Florida law, which obviously doesn't require written instructions, either. So I suppose if I were willing to credit this rather breathtaking piece of public prostitution, I'd conclude that a whopping 79% don't like Florida's law.
Note I said if.
The Zogby poll found that, if a person becomes incapacitated and has not expressed their preference for medical treatment, as in Terri's case, 43 percent say "the law presume that the person wants to live, even if the person is receiving food and water through a tube" while just 30 percent disagree.
As in Terri's case? Seeing as how two separate courts, plus appeals, found Terri had expressed a preference, I'm wondering what you call this if not biased? Made-up shit, perhaps? Well, let's not stop now:
When asked directly about Terri's case and told the her estranged husband Michael "has had a girlfriend for 10 years and has two children with her" 56 percent of Americans believed guardianship should have been turned over to Terri's parents while 37 percent disagreed.
In a non-scientific poll of persons in my office right this minute, 100% knew that it was the court which was Terri's guardian, not Michael. The same percentage wondered how that majority of likely voters plans to write their little moral code into the law. What percentage thought having one child was acceptable, but two was over the line? How many believe Michael should have undergone chemical castration or entered a monastery? Or just satisfied his beastial urges on his lawfully wedded but unfortunately persistantly vegetative wife?
How many of you folks, assuming you are real, which I frankly don't, have the slightest awareness of what Michael Schiavo did for his wife after her hospitalization? In thirteen years the woman never had a bedsore. If Michael Schiavo is morally suspect let's have Congress dissolve the marriages of anyone who has treated his spouse with less concern and see who's left standing.
What does it cost to get Zogby to perform these tricks in public? They didn't just conduct the poll so those Christian Defenders could wave it under legislators' noses; they feature this trash on their website. What's it worth to have to hire somebody to shave you because you can't look at yourself in the mirror anymore?
Wednesday, April 6
An Andy Rooney Minute
My wife has a mystical attachment to Miracle-Gro™ potting mix. She's like a gambler who wins big on her first bet. She got good results the first time with it, and now I'm stuck buying the stuff, which I figure is akin to Kellogg's Total™: two cents worth of vitamins dumped into a box of Wheaties™ for which the price goes up 50%. And I have to remember which pots can't be fertilized for a month after. Course of True Love, an' all that.
Anyway, I was dumping the first bags of spring into their storage bins, and I noticed the top of the bag:
Easy Open. Just cut along dotted line to open and pour.
Wow. What a breakthrough. Not like those other potting soil bags that require a torque wrench. It's like the folks at Miracle-Gro™ have harnessed some basic force of physics or something. And it works, too. Back over to you, Morley.
Anyway, I was dumping the first bags of spring into their storage bins, and I noticed the top of the bag:
Easy Open. Just cut along dotted line to open and pour.
Wow. What a breakthrough. Not like those other potting soil bags that require a torque wrench. It's like the folks at Miracle-Gro™ have harnessed some basic force of physics or something. And it works, too. Back over to you, Morley.
That'll Show Those Web Journal Logging Bloggers
Via World O'Crap the Des Moines Register's Erin Crawford rassels the broad side of a barn.
Okay, first up. I'd never seen anything about the Gannon/Guckert/Gosch business, and with luck I won't see any more. But the corporate press lost its standing to criticize the unprofessionalism of web logs ("blogs") about twenty years before the first one appeared. And that's due in no small measure to this very process: the creepy voyeur of the voyeur quality of second-hand tabloid journalism, the tsk-tsk of the schoolmarm with the secretly moist panties:
The most fervent bloggers on the Web aren't as interested in linking Gannon to Gosch as they are in presenting their version of a massive conspiracy. The story that excites them is a sordid tale about the CIA operating a pedophilia ring on behalf of dignitaries and politicians and training male prostitutes to serve as spies.
I'm not gonna count, but how many front-page Michael Jackson stories do you suppose the Register has run?
And that's not even mentioning the obligatory slagging of the whole of web log journalism ("the blogosphere"):
...the anything-goes nature of the blogosphere and self-proclaimed reporters on the Internet, who seem to find accuracy and proof a nuisance in uncovering fantastical conspiracies.
Opposed, I guess, to the uncoverers of fantastical conspiracies who use email, or church socials, or the History Channel, who are so scrupulous about fact. Throughout the piece Ms Crawford makes some handy hops from specific instances of alleged tinfoil hattery to blanket statements about web logs ("blogs") and their denizens. They're "credulous" believers in a "dark fiction" who "revel in the notion of political hypocrisy". This last is telling--the supposed hypocrisy is in the Jeff Gannon story, not the CIA pedophilia ring angle, no? But then Gannon gets the full protection of the journalistic panoply of balance. His career as a male prostitute is covered by the rubric "linked to gay escort addresses". JimJeffJohnny wasn't exposed to the world by "bloggers", he was "uncovered". Scare quotes in original.
Perhaps Ms Crawford is on a mission to eradicate unsubstantiated rumor from our national discourse. She says:
...lack of proof wasn't enough to stop a vast network of gossip from enveloping the story.
If so, Godspeed, Ms Crawford, and best wishes for a good corn crop. If you don't mind getting a tip from a "blog" you might Google ("use a web search engine") up "Al Gore" and "invented the internet" sometime.
Okay, first up. I'd never seen anything about the Gannon/Guckert/Gosch business, and with luck I won't see any more. But the corporate press lost its standing to criticize the unprofessionalism of web logs ("blogs") about twenty years before the first one appeared. And that's due in no small measure to this very process: the creepy voyeur of the voyeur quality of second-hand tabloid journalism, the tsk-tsk of the schoolmarm with the secretly moist panties:
The most fervent bloggers on the Web aren't as interested in linking Gannon to Gosch as they are in presenting their version of a massive conspiracy. The story that excites them is a sordid tale about the CIA operating a pedophilia ring on behalf of dignitaries and politicians and training male prostitutes to serve as spies.
I'm not gonna count, but how many front-page Michael Jackson stories do you suppose the Register has run?
And that's not even mentioning the obligatory slagging of the whole of web log journalism ("the blogosphere"):
...the anything-goes nature of the blogosphere and self-proclaimed reporters on the Internet, who seem to find accuracy and proof a nuisance in uncovering fantastical conspiracies.
Opposed, I guess, to the uncoverers of fantastical conspiracies who use email, or church socials, or the History Channel, who are so scrupulous about fact. Throughout the piece Ms Crawford makes some handy hops from specific instances of alleged tinfoil hattery to blanket statements about web logs ("blogs") and their denizens. They're "credulous" believers in a "dark fiction" who "revel in the notion of political hypocrisy". This last is telling--the supposed hypocrisy is in the Jeff Gannon story, not the CIA pedophilia ring angle, no? But then Gannon gets the full protection of the journalistic panoply of balance. His career as a male prostitute is covered by the rubric "linked to gay escort addresses". JimJeffJohnny wasn't exposed to the world by "bloggers", he was "uncovered". Scare quotes in original.
Perhaps Ms Crawford is on a mission to eradicate unsubstantiated rumor from our national discourse. She says:
...lack of proof wasn't enough to stop a vast network of gossip from enveloping the story.
If so, Godspeed, Ms Crawford, and best wishes for a good corn crop. If you don't mind getting a tip from a "blog" you might Google ("use a web search engine") up "Al Gore" and "invented the internet" sometime.
Before I Realized What I Was Doing I'd Clicked The Link
David Brooks, you can find him if you really want to: A House Divided, And Strong.
That is, yes, The International House O' Republicans:
Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly.
And there is no better demonstration of this than David Brooks writing a column about the Schiavo Schism without ever mentioning it, or uttering a word about the religious radicals.
In the early days of National Review, many of the senior editors didn't even speak to one another.
Oooh, not to mention that bon mot the Earl of Beaconsfield got off on Lord Derby in 1867.
Whittaker Chambers declared that the writings of Ayn Rand, a hero of the more libertarian right, reeked of fascism and the gas chambers.
Yeah, I hear they had to separate those two in Hell twenty years ago.
And, look, don't get me wrong: you can have the old charlatan, and welcome to her, but the fact that a couple dozen people on the right like to pretend they're actually "libertarians" doesn't make that an internecine squabble.
It's been like that ever since - neocons arguing with theocons, the old right with the new right, internationalists versus isolationists, supply siders versus fiscal conservatives.
Cro Magnon vs. T.Rex...exactly where do those battles take place, Dave? Okay, there may be a few rightists who have awakened to the aroma of theocrat, but where in the Republican party is this furious debate taking place? The House? Senate cloak room?
As for the rest, Dave, what's left of the "old right" beyond a few old typists? Where does the isolationist wing of the party meet? When did fiscal conservatives oppose supply side snake oil? Is there a hue and cry about spiraling deficits? Now, maybe, when it's well beyond voting against tax cuts, but where was it when all the Bush giveaways were enacted? Cognitive dissonance is not debate. Neither is talking out of both sides of your mouth.
[out of power "conservatives"] argued about the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order. Different factions looked back to different philosophers - Burke, Aquinas, Hayek, Hamilton, Jefferson - to define what a just society should look like.
Wait, he's got a point beyond "several of us memorized the syllabus fro Poly Sci 263 Foundations of Modern Conservatism":
A year ago I called the head of a prominent liberal think tank to ask him who his favorite philosopher was. If I'd asked about health care, he could have given me four hours of brilliant conversation, but on this subject he stumbled and said he'd call me back. He never did.
And if it wasn't for Burke's attitude about noblesse oblige he'd 'a named him, too.
We already caught you at this, David. Now come out of the bathroom and start talking to real people.
...liberal theorists are more influenced by post-modernism, multiculturalism, relativism, value pluralism and all the other influences that dissuade one from relying heavily on dead white guys.
Like Jesus?
As a result, liberals are good at talking about rights, but not as good at talking about a universal order.
Yeah, shit, an' that was #3 on my list of New Year's resolutions, too.
That is, yes, The International House O' Republicans:
Conservatives have not triumphed because they have built a disciplined and efficient message machine. Conservatives have thrived because they are split into feuding factions that squabble incessantly.
And there is no better demonstration of this than David Brooks writing a column about the Schiavo Schism without ever mentioning it, or uttering a word about the religious radicals.
In the early days of National Review, many of the senior editors didn't even speak to one another.
Oooh, not to mention that bon mot the Earl of Beaconsfield got off on Lord Derby in 1867.
Whittaker Chambers declared that the writings of Ayn Rand, a hero of the more libertarian right, reeked of fascism and the gas chambers.
Yeah, I hear they had to separate those two in Hell twenty years ago.
And, look, don't get me wrong: you can have the old charlatan, and welcome to her, but the fact that a couple dozen people on the right like to pretend they're actually "libertarians" doesn't make that an internecine squabble.
It's been like that ever since - neocons arguing with theocons, the old right with the new right, internationalists versus isolationists, supply siders versus fiscal conservatives.
Cro Magnon vs. T.Rex...exactly where do those battles take place, Dave? Okay, there may be a few rightists who have awakened to the aroma of theocrat, but where in the Republican party is this furious debate taking place? The House? Senate cloak room?
As for the rest, Dave, what's left of the "old right" beyond a few old typists? Where does the isolationist wing of the party meet? When did fiscal conservatives oppose supply side snake oil? Is there a hue and cry about spiraling deficits? Now, maybe, when it's well beyond voting against tax cuts, but where was it when all the Bush giveaways were enacted? Cognitive dissonance is not debate. Neither is talking out of both sides of your mouth.
[out of power "conservatives"] argued about the order of the universe, and how the social order should reflect the moral order. Different factions looked back to different philosophers - Burke, Aquinas, Hayek, Hamilton, Jefferson - to define what a just society should look like.
Wait, he's got a point beyond "several of us memorized the syllabus fro Poly Sci 263 Foundations of Modern Conservatism":
A year ago I called the head of a prominent liberal think tank to ask him who his favorite philosopher was. If I'd asked about health care, he could have given me four hours of brilliant conversation, but on this subject he stumbled and said he'd call me back. He never did.
And if it wasn't for Burke's attitude about noblesse oblige he'd 'a named him, too.
We already caught you at this, David. Now come out of the bathroom and start talking to real people.
...liberal theorists are more influenced by post-modernism, multiculturalism, relativism, value pluralism and all the other influences that dissuade one from relying heavily on dead white guys.
Like Jesus?
As a result, liberals are good at talking about rights, but not as good at talking about a universal order.
Yeah, shit, an' that was #3 on my list of New Year's resolutions, too.
Garden Update
This little beauty is aloe polyphylla, spiral aloe, an endangered rarity from the Drakensberg and Maluti mountains of Lesotho, made available through the incredible efforts of Alan Beverly, who managed to propagate enough from seed (a very iffy proposition) to offer some for sale. His website says he's changing marketing arrangements for 2005; you can contact him if you're interested. Seed propagation is so chancey that most of what you find is probably micro-propagated; either way they're expensive. I doubt anybody is actually stealing plants from the wild, but do make sure the dealer is reputable.
She's heading for her second birthday (here, that is, making her four in aloe years). That's a 12-inch pot and she needs repotting. The rosette has splayed over winter under the grow-lights, but will tighten up with some genuine sun.
Two days of sun and seventy degrees and I got to do some work in it this afternoon. Everything's exploded; the tulip trees (the state tree and my favorite spring flowerer) are putting on quite a show. The earliest of the asiatic lilies are six inches tall overnight. Everything except the coneflowers and wormwood are at least poking their heads up in the herb bed. Wormwood, for some reason, just doesn't seem to overwinter here, though it's well protected and the one at our last house lived for years. Guess that's part of the fun.
Over the weekend I replaced the crumbling cement pavers in the path around the roses with bluestone. Three hundred fifty pounds of bluestone. I was fifty-one when I started. Not sure how old I am now. But I do intend to find out why fifty-pound sacks of sand weight ninety pounds.
Tuesday, April 5
Disremembering Those Fabulous 60s
Kevin Mattson "Goodbye to All That" American Prospect Online
If you read just one DLC paean to conservative intellectuals this month, you're lucky. I was gonna give this a good going over, but I couldn't even finish reading it. Let me know how it comes out.
Of course, the postwar left has been in opposition before...
Yeah, since, roughly, the war.
The world that existed before the ’60s is one that no one wants to go back to.
Excepting, Kevin, all those conservative intellectuals you've come to praise. Sure, they pay lip service to civil rights now, because they have to.
To romanticize protest and the decade of the 1960s cuts us off from rethinking -- with a cold, analytical eye -- the decade’s lessons. The spirit of the ’60s has something to teach us, for sure, but it’s a mixed message, one that lives on in the activist wing of today’s left in troubling ways. We need to search out styles, dispositions, and ideas that can inform our present sense of being an opposition party -- and we need to widen what we choose from.
Sheesh, did the maitre d' seat somebody wearin' too much patchouli at the next table or something? Those awful protesters are making it difficult to find common ground with George W. Bush and Tom DeLay?
Look, nobody enjoys deconstructing the Port Huron Statement more than I. We do it every weekend here, weather permitting. But jeez louise, it gets tiring listening to people spout off about the Sixties just because they don't like bell bottoms. Yes, the Right was able to cash in politically and economically, on anti-sixties backlash. Not with new ideas; with old money. Had the Democrats adopted this brilliant political maneuver as well, where would you be now? On the barricades, marching for women's rights and minority rights, or on the pages of TAP telling everyone to behave themselves?
It's easy, apparently, to ignore what was accomplished, just as the Right can now ignore opposition to desegregation. Because the dirty work has already been done for you. The reason we aren't drafting the poorest of the poor to go die in Iran or Syria or France is those lefties in the sixties. The reason women still control their own reproductive rights, the reason we're able to fight for gay and lesbian rights, the reason the entire national park system hasn't been deeded over to the multinationals, is what happened in 1968, not 1948.
If you read just one DLC paean to conservative intellectuals this month, you're lucky. I was gonna give this a good going over, but I couldn't even finish reading it. Let me know how it comes out.
Of course, the postwar left has been in opposition before...
Yeah, since, roughly, the war.
The world that existed before the ’60s is one that no one wants to go back to.
Excepting, Kevin, all those conservative intellectuals you've come to praise. Sure, they pay lip service to civil rights now, because they have to.
To romanticize protest and the decade of the 1960s cuts us off from rethinking -- with a cold, analytical eye -- the decade’s lessons. The spirit of the ’60s has something to teach us, for sure, but it’s a mixed message, one that lives on in the activist wing of today’s left in troubling ways. We need to search out styles, dispositions, and ideas that can inform our present sense of being an opposition party -- and we need to widen what we choose from.
Sheesh, did the maitre d' seat somebody wearin' too much patchouli at the next table or something? Those awful protesters are making it difficult to find common ground with George W. Bush and Tom DeLay?
Look, nobody enjoys deconstructing the Port Huron Statement more than I. We do it every weekend here, weather permitting. But jeez louise, it gets tiring listening to people spout off about the Sixties just because they don't like bell bottoms. Yes, the Right was able to cash in politically and economically, on anti-sixties backlash. Not with new ideas; with old money. Had the Democrats adopted this brilliant political maneuver as well, where would you be now? On the barricades, marching for women's rights and minority rights, or on the pages of TAP telling everyone to behave themselves?
It's easy, apparently, to ignore what was accomplished, just as the Right can now ignore opposition to desegregation. Because the dirty work has already been done for you. The reason we aren't drafting the poorest of the poor to go die in Iran or Syria or France is those lefties in the sixties. The reason women still control their own reproductive rights, the reason we're able to fight for gay and lesbian rights, the reason the entire national park system hasn't been deeded over to the multinationals, is what happened in 1968, not 1948.
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