Friday, July 09, 2010

The Politics of Left and Right




The frustration from the Left is clear and getting louder.

In comments, via email and across the blogosphere, I get all of it, and agree with most of it (as I recently told a friend, sometimes I think we're going down like Charlie in "Flowers for Algernon"; that China or somebody put a giant Emdumbening Ray satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the United States in 1975 and we've just been getting stupider ever since. And the two questions the Left must absolutely demand that Barack Obama answer as he gears up for 2012 are "How could you have been so big a chump?" and "Why did you waste your first year and trade away so many things that were important to us...for nothing?")

And then I remembered that I have this here blog, so rather than responding in oneses and twoses, let me say this.

Over in the Better Universe, people have multiple, distinctive ideologies that both compete and cooperate with each other (in business, this is called "cooptition") and from which they can form governing coalitions to solve problems.

Here, we have a Democratic Party that can be budged incrementally in the direction of rational and humane problem-solving as long the crisis is immediate and scary and then only as long as we Constantly Scream At Them and beat them on the soles of their feet. Even then, after they get our nickels and dimes and sweat and votes, we get 1/4 of a loaf, a lot of chin music, and the back of Rahm Emanuel's hand.

On the Right we have American Fascism, right out in the open, being energetically championed by people who are unhinged, despicable, impervious to reason and ridiculous well-funded.

Those are the choices: A Democratic Party which depends on us for everything they have, which is still shot through with decent, honorable, hard-working men and women, and which nonetheless still treats us like a smelly hobo to whom they occasionally feel obliged to toss a bone...and a Republican Party now wholly captive to outright psychotics and which sees us as internal enemies to be wiped out.

In 1919, Max Weber wrote:
"Politics means slow, strong drilling through hard boards, with a combination of passion and a sense of judgment."

Over in the Better Universe, that "drilling through hard boards" is still difficult, but not the fuck-all frustrating nightmare it has become here.

But we don't live in the Better Universe.

We live here, in a place where our choices are complete capitulation to the hysterical and amply bankrolled vanguard of a new Dark Age...or building our own Better Universe in the face of ridiculous odds, incompetent and unreliable allies and malevolent opposition.

And to make matters worse, given the news of fresh outrages and enervating failures that are delivered to us piping hot every day, it is not just a choice that principled political agnostics can make once, but one that we are forced to re-visit and renegotiate every fucking day.

I'm tired too, and frustrated, and heartily sick of having to argue with idiots whose discredited and ludicrous opinions continue to find a place at the head of the table, while begging "friends" to please, please, please stop selling out what remains of the few Liberal values that 30 years of Conservatism has not obliterated in a vain attempt to bribe those same idiots into behaving like responsble adults for five minutes at a stretch.

All that being said, I do not know what tomorrow will bring, but today I'll side with Churchill:
"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."


UPDATE: Welcome C&L Readers!


17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I keep having this dream: where Obama is biding his time until a second term when he will actually enact the agenda he ran on in his first. Then reality intrudes and I question weather he will have majorities in either house..or weather he will even be around for a second term, having been marginalized in to some kind of new version of Jimmy Carter by the constant drumbeat of the insane right and the lack of coherent action by the left. It all depends upon to what degree the great "dumbening" is real or not. His very election would say otherwise, but the polls seem to tell a different story. Just praying he never utters the word "malaise" in public....

Alexander said...

AMAZING piece of writing there Mr. Driftglass. Bravo! You've summed up everything I've been feeling about this two-party system we share for quite some time.

Anonymous said...

Bottom line:

"Vote for us! We're not as bad as the republicans!" is going to get us shellacked in 16 weeks.

Seven Crows said...

Ain't it the truth and ain't it sad? If I think about it too much I will just curl up in a ball and wait for the starving hordes driven north by the rising oceans full of tar balls to overcome me.

Cirze said...

I think I quit being an optimist last week.

Or last month.

Or 30 years ago.

Depends on whether we're talking politically or personally.

I believe I speak for millions.

S

gruaud said...

It'll get a LOT worse before it gets better.

But evil triumphant: it can't last forever.

Serving Patriot said...

Obama = Carter? I'm tired of these comparisons.

Carter had scruples. Carter had morals. He had vision.

At this point, all Obama has demonstrated is a butt smooching, craven ability to give his big money donors (aka, his bosses) everything they wanted. And the rest of his donors and volunteers? Nothing but the big middle finger.

Carter was clear about the future we were headed to in not sticking to our first principles of unity, building infrastructures, developing ourselves. He warned of the America that would emerge from the wasteful spending of accumulated wealth, of the selfish, narcissistic concentration on one's own good over the greater good.

We're living that future.

And Obama would be improved by actually being a principled leader like Jimmy Carter was. Shrieking 'Pube harpies and pig people be damned.

SP

Litzz11@yahoo.com said...

that China or somebody put a giant Emdumbening Ray satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the United States in 1975 and we've just been getting stupider ever since.

I blame microwave ovens. Never trusted 'em. Thought back in the '70s they were a soviet plot to irradiate everyone's gonads. Now I see it was a Commie Chinese plot to make us all stupid.

Think about it ... where are these death ray boxes made, anyway? CHINA!

RobertM said...

It's as if you're reading my mind, Drifty. Gone are the days when I blindly checked a "D" on my ballot and went on my merry way. I officially registered as an Independent. There is no party that represents me anymore. One will lie to my face and the other is insane.

I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said "Don't waste your vote....vote Green". That sums up how I feel.

When the economic crisis hit, I felt obligated to try and understand it as best I could. In the past year alone, I've read at least three thousand pages on monetary reform. Is that what it has come down to- we have to figure out this shit by ourselves? What the good is it to have 'representatives' in Washington if they either 1)are too busy trying to get re-elected to learn about the problems and fix them, 2)just don't give a shit, 3)are paid by BigBiz to plunder the public, 4)live in a different universe altogether ...where they think they can just let things stay the way they are because they're rich and aren't feeling the pain ("Screw the Gulf, I don't live there, gimme my oil")?

So in regards to your post:
brilliant!

Anonymous said...

uhh..actually, I wasnt comparing Obama to Carter, I was pointing out that the right will use the same strategy to try and defeat him that they used to defeat Carter. Namely portraying him as weak and ineffective...because he couldnt (in four short years) an economic system that the repubes had spent the better part of a decade realigning to further enrich their ranks...sound familiar?
Democrats get in to the white house as a reaction to the in your face, take it and like it abuses of Republican presidents. The main problem being, it takes longer than 4 years to fix the kind of systemic abuse that a repub pres (with requisite rubber stamping from repub congress) can inflict.
Apparently, a big part of the great dumbening is short term memory loss. Who would have thought ...after Nixon..that we would ever see another corporate sock puppet with an R after their name get in to the oval office again....and then came Reagan...exponentially worse...and then two terms of the frat boy...again..a magnitude change of stupidity.
Those who say Romney or caribou barbie have no shot at the white house...ignore a curve that history slaps us in the face with every four years.

res ipsa loquitur said...

but today I'll side with Churchill

Me, too. I am late to optimism, and a fleeting moments of despair notwithstanding, I need to stay optimistic to stay sane. The other thing I can't be anymore is angry. I was angry for eight years and when it was over, I was exhausted. If that makes me a "cultist," an "apologist", or a mere schmuck in the eyes of some self-appointed Purity Patrol, so be it.

Denny Smith said...

Great writing, as always (subliminal: do the book...)
Look, completely understandable why folks are frustrated.
The game is rigged: period. Money talks and bullshit walks. Why would any rational adult put any resources into a rigged game? (well, I suppose Vegas explains the triumph of hope over experience, but that analogy is mismatched here).
As well, I think the conventional paradigm of "left vs. right" is no longer valid. That's a horizontal structure, when the reality actually is vertical. Not left vs. right, but up vs. down.
(income inequality stats speak well to this). Like Mencken said, "When they say it ain't about the money, it's about the money."
Hence, if we choose to fight, why would we employ left/right tactics in an up/down game? Isn't that a waste of our time and resources? And if it's non-productive, (and we all are venting that it is), then isn't that a real source of our frustration? It should be.

Kathy said...

Obama can only WISH he was half the president Carter was.

In the 70's, at Carter's behest, we DID use less gas, cars were made that got better milage- and people bought them. We drove slower and saved gas and lives. We started installing solar panels (for a while I was a salesperson for solar water-heaters for POOLS: they sold like the proverbial hotcakes.

Regan and his Puppet Masters brought that to a grinding halt, meanwhile trashing the memory of a Very Good President, turning a fairly successful term into a "Well Known Failure".

How about having a Nationwide Strike: observe France and other European countries. Their strikes WORK.

A dramatic strike would be if all Americans (or say, half) stopped buying gas for 2 days, or more if possible.

A type of strike that the majority of American's can participate in, conservatives and liberals. The purpose would be as much to demonstrate to Us that we DO have power, as to let the "powers that Be" know sweat a little.

Nance said...

"We live here, in a place where our choices are complete capitulation to the hysterical and amply bankrolled vanguard of a new Dark Age...or building our own Better Universe in the face of ridiculous odds, incompetent and unreliable allies and malevolent opposition."

You named it. I couldn't figure out the exact identity of the Thing I see coming, but you've identified it. Throw in some evolved viruses, some more MRSA-type bacteria, and a few more vaccine-avoidant idiots, and we can even have a plague or two to round out the picture. There; that's the part of me that's pessimistic by policy.

Where's Robin Hood when we need him?

Monster from the Id said...

Chump, shmump.

Obummer is not a chump; he's doing exactly what his paymasters want him to do.

For them, the Obummer Assministration is NOT a failure, but a resounding success. They get more and more gold mines, while we keep getting the shaft.

Obama, Rahm, etc. to Flounder, er, Driftglass and the other Kool-Aid Kidz present here:

"You fucked up! You trusted us!"

(2008 Green voter here--I knew better than to trust the frat rats. *gloats*) ^__^

Sharoney said...

Heard this haiku on, of all places, NPR:

Don't ask the mountain to move.
Just take a pebble
Each time you visit.

--John Paul Lederach

Montag said...

Ah, well, perhaps Churchill was optimistic because he was a big believer in aerial bombing and indiscriminate use of poison gas....

There are reasons why he's an icon of the current crop of neoconservatives.