bad attitude
Dec. 2nd, 2003 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisyphusshruggedRuss Baker has been getting a lot of nasty letters about a piece he wrote for Slate which was factual, hence critical, about Bush economics.
I seem to be going the other way (at least on the first point - number three has much to be said for it). I think if we were the rabble that the loudest among us would have us believe they represent, the folks who are profiting from our current difficulties wouldn't be working so hard to keep folks from finding out what they're doing.
Maybe the problem is that we've all gotten sucked into the view that this is all a game - people are willing to get behind some really noisome shit to prove they're sophisticated enough to see through it to what's Really Going On. Hell, everyone lies, cheats, steals, demonizes opposition and strips constitutional protections away from the unconnected, right? Let's not be hysterical about it.
I don't, honestly, see how anyone could look at the methods and results of what's going on in politics today and not see that it has to stop. I don't see how you could look at the people doing it and give them the benefit of the doubt after the last three years. I don't see how anyone could possibly make excuses for them. I don't see how in good conscience it's possible to hedge any of this so you won't burn your bridges with the avuncular satraps of the right, who are great guys to drink with, I'm sure, when they're not beating up pollworkers or gutting your children's future or casually accusing their opponents of treason with a chuckle, just to piss them off.
I don't too much give a fuck if that's strident. These people are threatening my child's country.
Find the left distasteful aesthetically? Well, know what? A lot of 'moderates' have been pretty much OK with asking the country to suck it up for the last three or four years, for no particular reason that I can see except that passion without Dockers and Pabst is just that tiniest bit declassé.
I think it's time for the 'moderates' to suck it up, stop pretending there are two sides to what's happening to our country right now that are worth our respectful and balanced consideration - no-one in Washington pretends there are - quit hedging your bets and do the right thing.
It really doesn't hurt that much.
So what does all this teach us, you might ask? I emphatically have no idea. Still, I’ll hazard a few conclusions. 1) Despite the constant lip service paid by politicians to the ineffable wisdom of the ordinary person, there is some truth in Plato’s famous doubts in that regard. 2) Folks have always been foggy thinkers, imprecise articulators and miserable at spelling, grammar and usage. Now, though, they’re especially deadly, armed as they are with IITFS - Internet Itchy Trigger-Finger Syndrome. 3) With so many amateur insta-pundits out there happily shooting up the political barroom, we professional pundits ought to learn some humility and self-restraint.
I seem to be going the other way (at least on the first point - number three has much to be said for it). I think if we were the rabble that the loudest among us would have us believe they represent, the folks who are profiting from our current difficulties wouldn't be working so hard to keep folks from finding out what they're doing.
Maybe the problem is that we've all gotten sucked into the view that this is all a game - people are willing to get behind some really noisome shit to prove they're sophisticated enough to see through it to what's Really Going On. Hell, everyone lies, cheats, steals, demonizes opposition and strips constitutional protections away from the unconnected, right? Let's not be hysterical about it.
I don't, honestly, see how anyone could look at the methods and results of what's going on in politics today and not see that it has to stop. I don't see how you could look at the people doing it and give them the benefit of the doubt after the last three years. I don't see how anyone could possibly make excuses for them. I don't see how in good conscience it's possible to hedge any of this so you won't burn your bridges with the avuncular satraps of the right, who are great guys to drink with, I'm sure, when they're not beating up pollworkers or gutting your children's future or casually accusing their opponents of treason with a chuckle, just to piss them off.
I don't too much give a fuck if that's strident. These people are threatening my child's country.
Find the left distasteful aesthetically? Well, know what? A lot of 'moderates' have been pretty much OK with asking the country to suck it up for the last three or four years, for no particular reason that I can see except that passion without Dockers and Pabst is just that tiniest bit declassé.
I think it's time for the 'moderates' to suck it up, stop pretending there are two sides to what's happening to our country right now that are worth our respectful and balanced consideration - no-one in Washington pretends there are - quit hedging your bets and do the right thing.
It really doesn't hurt that much.
