Well, going forward, here is the blueprint for how grownups debate. How, on social media or in real life, reasonable adults who accept science, evidence, facts, and logic can have a disagreement and discuss it. Bob Cesca has a Wednesday interview show that is available on his Patreon page that is free to the public. The idea is that you will go to the Patreon page, enjoy the free content, and be moved to kick him a few dollars to help continue producing content. A great concept, this is the good side of DIY political media and we should all consider spending a little bit here and there to support independent media. And for almost the exact reason for the debate here; because mainstream corporate media is not up to the task of defending democracy and in many ways is responsible for the horrid political climate that lets republicans skate away scott free from every disaster they cause and then put them on television to cover it up and call liberals traitors, etc.
Bob had Driftglass and Blue Gal on this week. They have had a low intensity disagreement for months now over the subject of Never Trump republican conservatives. I'll give you three guesses who's side I'm on and the first two don't count. It has annoyed me to ever higher levels that Bob has taken the position that some grand coalition of liberals and never trumpers will come together to rescue democracy and get rid of #doughfacedonnny. Driftglass has intermittently called Bob out for the, God Chez Pazienza would hate me using this word, problematic nature of throwing in with never trumpers. I don't want to tear down Bob, his heart is in the right place, heck I even tried this argument before the election. "This time, just this time" don't vote republican for president, #doughfacedonny is fundamentally unfit for office in every sense of the word is what I tried to convey. But too many credulous liberals are retweeting Bill Kristol, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, and others as though they have awoken from the multiple decades of leadership in conservative intellectual and political circles to see the error of their ways. This has to stop, these people are not your friends.
Bob clings to liberal optimistic hope that things might be, could be different this time. Hope is inherently about the future, and the future is not set. Sure it's possible that this coalition could arise, but is it likely? Is it worth the price liberals would pay by embracing people who were calling them anti-American traitors two years ago? I used to write about Bob and Chez as being akin to the subjects of my MA thesis, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr. Like them, Niebuhr died earlier than Schlesinger and it is possible that the latter would have thought and wrote in different ways if the former had lived longer. Chez was a healthy voice of skepticism in the more gregarious Bob's ear and while Bob has new co-hosts who exercise some influence on him, he doesn't have that same grounding he once had before Chez died. This is the first time in a while that DG & BG have been on Bob's show and it isn't a seamless transition because they were guests on his interview show, not co-hosts with equal weight to drive the discussion. But DG & BG did present that counterargument that has been lacking on Bob's show.
I'm not finished listening to the debate. Just wanted to get something down about the show itself. The point being that this is how adults argue. This is how sensible people can disagree on something but still be on speaking terms. It's a good demonstration of what we can do if we remember that that disembodied text commenting on something you post, or a news story on a public forum is also a human being. As for the title of this post, it was something that Driftglass said about the coalition with never trumpers. The US allied with Stalin during WWII because the Soviet Union had the Red Army and was a huge asset in fighting the common foe. What do never trumpers bring? Votes, where? The death star plans to unravel their propaganda machine and deprogram all the meatheads? Even some small assurance that we won't go back to defending against grand bargains and how much to cut Social Security again once #doughfacedonny is behind bars, as Blue Gal added. The votes from these people are a rounding error, and they are simply taking opposition seats on tv news that should go to actual liberals who have been fighting trump and the fascism he represents (and republicans embody) since the beginning.
Showing posts with label Arthur Schlesinger jr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arthur Schlesinger jr. Show all posts
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Tuesday, January 8, 2019
Is it easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission?
Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. once wrote, as he was wont to do, about presidential history in times of crisis. In particular he cited Abraham Lincoln and the extraordinary measures he took during the opening months of the Civil War. That was a real state of emergency, the slave states organized with incredible speed and moved quickly to steal Federal buildings and property. Slave power propagandists in the border states printed wildly seditious stories about the North and the newly elected president. It was not a time for careful deliberation and the slow wheels of government to take action. Schlesinger wrote that it was easier for Lincoln to do what needed to be done and explain his actions later.
Other presidents have taken questionable actions in times of crisis as well, Andrew Jackson's bank war and Indian removal, John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, Wilson's roundups and deportations of revolutionary aliens, and so on. In each case, it appeared to much of the public to be a real crisis. Okay, maybe not with Jackson because he was just an asshole, but most of the time action was at least perceived to be necessary. The constitution was bypassed, the crisis resolved and officials took responsibility for their actions, most of the time anyway. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. This idea isn't limited to presidents, military commanders, police chiefs, businessmen, and even parents who need to take their children to the doctor all occasionally take action and answer for it later. This has also been a core tenet of all the torture porn films and television shows, "do we torture the shit out of the guy with the location of the bomb now and take our chances on punishment later?"
I'm no leader and I hate these kind of hypotheticals but we are rapidly approaching a turning point in American democracy. Another republican president is about to declare an emergency to get some awful thing they want, as has happened at least informally, for the last half century. Let's think about a few. Nixon's operatives went on their merry way bugging opponents, blackmailing and intimidating activists, planting provocateurs in anti-war groups and others, and generally acting above the law until they finally got caught. And even then,they would have walked away laughing had it not been for the courage of democracy's defenders holding their feet to the fire. Reagan's basement conspiracy in Iran-Contra likewise just ran their clandestine operation to sell arms to one enemy so they could supply an army of terrorists in Nicaragua. A few of them got caught and did their time as just the cost of doing business. Most just laughed all the way to the bank though, including the doddering old man himself. The list of authoritarian monstrosities of George W. Bush's administration is incredibly long and would make for many posts and book fodder. Sure, there was a real attack on America, although in hindsight it is fairly clear that it could have been foiled if that band of republican hacks had tried. But the cynical opportunism of denouncing opponents as traitors, and blasting out terror warnings that most likely were exaggerated in the extreme to fearmonger and drown out news of their myriad failures certainly fits this pattern.
Doughfacedonny is widely expected to declare a state of national emergency as outlined in an Act passed by Congress after Watergate that was and is supposed to stop the pattern of doing this very thing during his TV time tonight. Why the networks are still falling for his shit is a mystery we will never fully know the answer to. No one in their right mind would give this orange disgrace permission to do anything, or forgive him afterwards. Not that he would care. He already stole the presidency with the help of monsters at home and abroad. He stole two supreme court seats now and blew up the deficit with his corporate welfare tax giveaway. Has he asked for forgiveness for any of those things? No, of course not. He and Mitch McConnell have not asked permission to reopen the damn government that they run and aren't exactly trying very hard to be forgiven for the latest mess they caused.
It has made the rounds, in liberal commentary circles anyway, the idea of a Reichstag Fire moment coming from this crowd of traitors and imbeciles. And as the meme so often points out, "it's no longer whether trump has any decency, but whether we do." Are the networks, "the enemy of the people" as doughfacedonny so often calls them, really going to go along with this? Maybe he will just go out and feebly rant and lie about immigration and walls and other such nonsense. Nothing will come of it and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled resistance. There certainly is a national emergency but it's not on the border with Mexico. It isn't a legitimacy crisis, all the evidence of Russian meddling has rendered the occupant of the Oval Office illegitimate. It isn't an economic crisis either, the stock market is tanking because of the real crisis though. It is that one major political party in the United States is a death cult of human suffering and that about 40% of the electorate supports that cult.
There may come a time when the American people are finally pushed so hard that they must collectively ask whether it is easier to ask forgiveness for destroying the death cult after the fact, or whether we sit back and civilly wait for permission from the Democrats to defeat them. If doughfacedonny does indeed declare a national emergency and fumble around stealing enough money to build the stupid wall, it won't stop there. I suck at predicting the future, I really expected death squads on day one, but this time might prove more dangerous. Donny's back is against the wall, it is no longer a whisper that he should resign and bolt while he still can. The previous crises of Republican malice gave the criminal-in-chief a path out of danger, therefore they left when their time came but will donny? You can almost trace a line in the escalation of authoritarianism in republican governance since the late 1960s, pushing but never quite closing the door on democracy. Tonight the trap might spring shut. Stay tuned.
Other presidents have taken questionable actions in times of crisis as well, Andrew Jackson's bank war and Indian removal, John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts, Wilson's roundups and deportations of revolutionary aliens, and so on. In each case, it appeared to much of the public to be a real crisis. Okay, maybe not with Jackson because he was just an asshole, but most of the time action was at least perceived to be necessary. The constitution was bypassed, the crisis resolved and officials took responsibility for their actions, most of the time anyway. It was easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. This idea isn't limited to presidents, military commanders, police chiefs, businessmen, and even parents who need to take their children to the doctor all occasionally take action and answer for it later. This has also been a core tenet of all the torture porn films and television shows, "do we torture the shit out of the guy with the location of the bomb now and take our chances on punishment later?"
I'm no leader and I hate these kind of hypotheticals but we are rapidly approaching a turning point in American democracy. Another republican president is about to declare an emergency to get some awful thing they want, as has happened at least informally, for the last half century. Let's think about a few. Nixon's operatives went on their merry way bugging opponents, blackmailing and intimidating activists, planting provocateurs in anti-war groups and others, and generally acting above the law until they finally got caught. And even then,they would have walked away laughing had it not been for the courage of democracy's defenders holding their feet to the fire. Reagan's basement conspiracy in Iran-Contra likewise just ran their clandestine operation to sell arms to one enemy so they could supply an army of terrorists in Nicaragua. A few of them got caught and did their time as just the cost of doing business. Most just laughed all the way to the bank though, including the doddering old man himself. The list of authoritarian monstrosities of George W. Bush's administration is incredibly long and would make for many posts and book fodder. Sure, there was a real attack on America, although in hindsight it is fairly clear that it could have been foiled if that band of republican hacks had tried. But the cynical opportunism of denouncing opponents as traitors, and blasting out terror warnings that most likely were exaggerated in the extreme to fearmonger and drown out news of their myriad failures certainly fits this pattern.
Doughfacedonny is widely expected to declare a state of national emergency as outlined in an Act passed by Congress after Watergate that was and is supposed to stop the pattern of doing this very thing during his TV time tonight. Why the networks are still falling for his shit is a mystery we will never fully know the answer to. No one in their right mind would give this orange disgrace permission to do anything, or forgive him afterwards. Not that he would care. He already stole the presidency with the help of monsters at home and abroad. He stole two supreme court seats now and blew up the deficit with his corporate welfare tax giveaway. Has he asked for forgiveness for any of those things? No, of course not. He and Mitch McConnell have not asked permission to reopen the damn government that they run and aren't exactly trying very hard to be forgiven for the latest mess they caused.
It has made the rounds, in liberal commentary circles anyway, the idea of a Reichstag Fire moment coming from this crowd of traitors and imbeciles. And as the meme so often points out, "it's no longer whether trump has any decency, but whether we do." Are the networks, "the enemy of the people" as doughfacedonny so often calls them, really going to go along with this? Maybe he will just go out and feebly rant and lie about immigration and walls and other such nonsense. Nothing will come of it and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled resistance. There certainly is a national emergency but it's not on the border with Mexico. It isn't a legitimacy crisis, all the evidence of Russian meddling has rendered the occupant of the Oval Office illegitimate. It isn't an economic crisis either, the stock market is tanking because of the real crisis though. It is that one major political party in the United States is a death cult of human suffering and that about 40% of the electorate supports that cult.
There may come a time when the American people are finally pushed so hard that they must collectively ask whether it is easier to ask forgiveness for destroying the death cult after the fact, or whether we sit back and civilly wait for permission from the Democrats to defeat them. If doughfacedonny does indeed declare a national emergency and fumble around stealing enough money to build the stupid wall, it won't stop there. I suck at predicting the future, I really expected death squads on day one, but this time might prove more dangerous. Donny's back is against the wall, it is no longer a whisper that he should resign and bolt while he still can. The previous crises of Republican malice gave the criminal-in-chief a path out of danger, therefore they left when their time came but will donny? You can almost trace a line in the escalation of authoritarianism in republican governance since the late 1960s, pushing but never quite closing the door on democracy. Tonight the trap might spring shut. Stay tuned.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
American Chivalry
It has been a long time since I reviewed a film on this blog. And this is kind of a shame because I love movies, and so did one of the principle intellectuals I studied for my MA thesis. Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. loved the cinema the way George Will loves baseball, Reinhold Niebuhr loved God, and the way Driftglass loves to tell every member of the beltway's pundit class that they are full of it. Schlesinger felt that cinema was the American art form, more than jazz or rock and roll, and though he did not shoehorn a film reference into his writing very often, when he did it was to make a strong point. So in that vein I will try to make the point strongly that historical movies are fun and usually entertaining, but no substitute for real knowledge. What movies can do, however, is inspire our better angels to be better than we are. It is important that we aspire to an ideal.
Though I cannot hold a candle to the ways Rick Perlstein works movie references into his writing and successfully frames serious historical study with the tool of the theater. The way he seamlessly does here to immerse the reader who may otherwise be have no reference point for the crime wave of New York City during Trump's formative years with clips to Death Wish, Taxi Driver, and Serpico. I believe this to be one of the proper uses of film for historical purposes, to give atmosphere or big picture perspective to the past in a comparatively easy medium but not for real detail. Another way is to tell timeless tales of human struggle as allegories or even idealized notions of what our national character is. An example is our concept of chivalry. Chivalry in the Middle Ages was an ideology certainly, one that was almost universally impossible to live up to, but an idealized standard to strive for. Google defines the word as "the combination of qualities expected of an ideal knight, especially courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and a readiness to help the weak."
So what is the American interpretation of Chivalry? My wife and I recently watched Trumbo and Bridge of Spies, and I believe we can extract from these two films some combination of qualities expected of an ideal American. At least from a liberal point of view. While I do not always buy into the notion of Hollywood being peopled exclusively with bleeding hearts, see the above films that Perlstein cited to support his idea of avenging angel conservatism, the unthinking, reflexive brand of conservatism that I often deride as authoritarianism is rightfully cast as the bad guy in Trumbo. While in Bridge of Spies the Cold War is a character in itself, with characters and institutions reacting to the boogieman. This film also, to its credit, really helps recast the confrontation between East and West as the nuanced exercise in statecraft that it was.
Americans have an ideal vision of our republic as the home of freedom, where we have the right to say and believe what we choose. We have often fallen from that ideal state of being. Only a few short years after the passage of the Bill of Rights, the government was passing laws abridging the freedom of expression and most aspects of the first amendment in the Alien and Sedition Acts. Antebellum Southern politicians passed all sorts of laws restricting the postage of anti-slavery pamphlets through the mail. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus and violated many civil liberties during the Civil War. And A. Mitchell Palmer rounded up and either jailed or deported thousands of aliens after World War I in the first Red Scare. These are just a few examples of what Schlesinger called "political delirium tremons" where the proverbial "we" acted rashly and felt bad about it afterwards. Well maybe not in the case of southern slave owners.
These are official violations of the first amendment, "congress shall pass no law", but how many popular movements in American history have also violated our ideals of freedom? We had all sorts of anti-Catholic, anti-masonry, know-nothing groups in our past who discriminated, intimidated, and blacklisted anyone who didn't fit their idea of Americanism. To say nothing of the dirty and often violent tactics of corporations against their own workers.
In Trumbo, there was a combination of official and popular repression at work. Helen Mirran's witch-hunting columnist character, Hedda Hopper, was certainly vile and much of her vitriol seemed personal, as though she were simply jealous of Trumbo's success and talent. And then J. Parnell Thomas the poster child for the separation of powers. You can just pick an adjective for why people dislike politicians and he fits the bill. Grandstanding, pandering, self-righteous, vindictive, and corrupt Thomas really was the perfect warm up act for both Joseph McCarthy and Richard Nixon. Whether apocryphal or not, Trumbo's snappy comeback upon seeing Thomas in prison was so perfect, "the difference between you and me is that you actually committed a crime."
I know that I am usually the first to get bent out of shape over the movies taking liberties when recounting an historical episode, but as chivalric tales of what America is meant to be I am willing to suspend my disbelief as it were. Now it will take a lot more research than that necessary for a movie review to examine the historical Trumbo's ideology, but I suspect the filmmakers softened his communism to make it more palatable for audiences and highlight both the injustice and Trumbo's triumph. The way he explains what he believes to his daughter sounds just like a run of the mill New Deal liberal. Louis C. K.'s character Arlen was a lot more believable as the humorless true believer constantly trying to insert digressions about the plight of workers into scripts that were so out of place even pig-headed Republicans could spot it. I'm not sure who's interest that angle of the story served. Perhaps just a reminder that there were communists who were serious, but just as Arlen was a pitiable and pathetic character, so were the actual American communists. In her account of the Red Scare titled Scoundrel Time, Lillian Hellman talked about how silly the communists she knew were and how they were about as dangerous to American liberty and democracy as the Greens are today.
The point of it all was that McCarthyism was largely a partisan, grandstanding affair by Republicans, a half-assed attempt to smear Democrats and anyone on the left. The FBI, though fallible and not above political chicanery, was perfectly competent to weed out any actual Soviet agents and dangerous domestic communists. As Bridge of Spies showed. Though this film never made it plain what the spy Rudolf Abel was up to or if he was actually dangerous he was clearly working for the Soviets and was rightfully arrested. Now, nations have been spying on each other since the dawn of time. That is not really the issue of American chivalry addressed in the film, but how we behave in the great game of espionage. So, the next time your Trump supporting uncle goes off about the Muslims or whatever, ask him about this film. Do you want to behave like any other barbaric nation? Do you identify with the anonymous asshole drive by shooters trying to intimidate Tom Hanks? Or would you rather be the true American who believes in our laws and our rights, even when extended to people you don't like? That is basically what it comes down to.
All we are is what we want to be. Perhaps these two films can help some of us remember that fact. We want to be the best that we can be. We believe in justice and democracy. We believe in law. We believe in protecting the individual and we rejoice in our pluralism and tolerance for difference. That is our chivalry. That is our ideal. It's about time we start living up to it.
I know that I am usually the first to get bent out of shape over the movies taking liberties when recounting an historical episode, but as chivalric tales of what America is meant to be I am willing to suspend my disbelief as it were. Now it will take a lot more research than that necessary for a movie review to examine the historical Trumbo's ideology, but I suspect the filmmakers softened his communism to make it more palatable for audiences and highlight both the injustice and Trumbo's triumph. The way he explains what he believes to his daughter sounds just like a run of the mill New Deal liberal. Louis C. K.'s character Arlen was a lot more believable as the humorless true believer constantly trying to insert digressions about the plight of workers into scripts that were so out of place even pig-headed Republicans could spot it. I'm not sure who's interest that angle of the story served. Perhaps just a reminder that there were communists who were serious, but just as Arlen was a pitiable and pathetic character, so were the actual American communists. In her account of the Red Scare titled Scoundrel Time, Lillian Hellman talked about how silly the communists she knew were and how they were about as dangerous to American liberty and democracy as the Greens are today.
The point of it all was that McCarthyism was largely a partisan, grandstanding affair by Republicans, a half-assed attempt to smear Democrats and anyone on the left. The FBI, though fallible and not above political chicanery, was perfectly competent to weed out any actual Soviet agents and dangerous domestic communists. As Bridge of Spies showed. Though this film never made it plain what the spy Rudolf Abel was up to or if he was actually dangerous he was clearly working for the Soviets and was rightfully arrested. Now, nations have been spying on each other since the dawn of time. That is not really the issue of American chivalry addressed in the film, but how we behave in the great game of espionage. So, the next time your Trump supporting uncle goes off about the Muslims or whatever, ask him about this film. Do you want to behave like any other barbaric nation? Do you identify with the anonymous asshole drive by shooters trying to intimidate Tom Hanks? Or would you rather be the true American who believes in our laws and our rights, even when extended to people you don't like? That is basically what it comes down to.
All we are is what we want to be. Perhaps these two films can help some of us remember that fact. We want to be the best that we can be. We believe in justice and democracy. We believe in law. We believe in protecting the individual and we rejoice in our pluralism and tolerance for difference. That is our chivalry. That is our ideal. It's about time we start living up to it.
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Getting The House In Order
I am a big fan of The Bubble Genius Bob and Chez Show, and I follow their writing for The Daily Banter and elsewhere. This is a podcast about politics that Mr. Cesca and Mr. Pazienza host twice a week to bring their pragmatic liberal point of view to a grateful audience. I am using the honorific "Mr." out of respect and it is how gentlemen talk about their friends. Two and a half years ago I wrote an open letter to Chez so I could try and cheer him up and share some historical perspective with anyone who was open to reading it. I like to think it helped, Chez posted the link to his blog and The Daily Banter, where the letter received a decent response, and an expression of gratitude from the man himself. Recently the show has focused more and more energy on the fringiest of fringes, the so-called Bernie Bots. Chez's articles have also lately become borderline obsessed with the idea that there are an enormous number of these privileged snowflakes who cannot wait to stay home on election day if Bernie Sanders is not the Democratic nominee. I am worried that this tendency is negatively impacting his mental health and want to give it another try to help my friend and to start getting our Democratic house in order for this long march to election day.
I am the first to admit that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, my letter could have had no real impact on Chez's improved attitude and writing. But if there is even a chance that I can be of some help I want to share my perspective on the issue of Bernie Bots and the attempted sabotage of keeping a Democrat in the White House, then let's give it a shot. I want Kid Dynamite (someone called Chez that in a comment on my post, I'm pretty sure he was being sincere) back in form and blasting the snot out of Republican obstructionism.
I will preface this by saying that I will be turning the mirror around a bit and using some of Bob's and your words, observations, and ideas to make a case for snapping back to form. And yes, I'm being selfish because every time you, Chez, write a monster smack down of that Republican obstructionism I get a warm fuzzy. This obsession started with grumbling about college kids being college kids, so let's start there. The beautiful thing about being Eighteen, Nineteen, etc. is it only happens once, and this is (hopefully) "our" chance to be stupid and live to tell about it. Bob certainly noted after the low youth turn out in 2014 that what loud college kids want is often irrelevant to our larger political reality. I have also written about the stupid mistake I made in 2000 and tried to atone for it. You and Bob have repeatedly stated that crowd sizes, yard signs, and social media hits are a poor gauge for estimating electoral strength. So I want to state that I worry you are being had.
Or am I missing the point? Is this grumpy "get off my lawn" idiom just an act? A niche to fill for this election cycle and bathe in clicks? No, I don't think so. Unless everything about your writing has been an act since I started reading it. Though criticizing Bernie Sanders' supporters has certainly generated a lot of pageviews and comments. On the other hand, and this may be completely unsupported anecdotal evidence, it seems like so many of the commenters are repeat offenders and the discussion is between just a few passionate people with a lot to say. There have been about 26,000 shares of your latest article on Bernie supporters, how many of those are from real, engaged citizens and how many are from people just passing on a cool meme? With all the technology available to us these days, it is still awfully hard to tell.
At the risk of using a Doocy mark, how many so-called #feelthebern movement leader types could just be paid right wing trolls? Is is wrong to ask the question of whether much of this controversy is actually being led by agents provocateur? How many dedicated, professional, well-paid propagandists would it take to lead an army of disconnected volunteer trolls to pretend that they are actually leftist Liberal critics of Hillary Clinton? My answer: One. You guys have commented in the past that comment thread trolls are often led by by one operative or organization that produces the memes and talking points for issues of the day. The majority of "conservative" trolls are followers, right wing authoritarian followers to be precise. It really would only take one person to forward the idea on some obscure, reactionary message board that everybody should show up on liberal websites and social media to attack Clinton from the left, and the trolls would come running. After making exaggerated claims (conveniently echoing Republican propaganda) criticizing Clinton, and making the idealistic stand about "teaching the 'establishment' a lesson" and that politics as usual is not good enough, we come to the 'staying home or voting for Trump' portion of the ratfucking campaign.
Or it may be that the Bernie or bust movement is wholly part of the "far left", as it was in 2000 with Ralph Nader and the Green Party. I dislike speculating because there are no reliable documents to put forward as evidence. And the social media revolution has turned discourse into shifting desert sands anyway. Left or right, any number of people can create a number of sock puppet accounts to echo their message and agenda. Just as there are right wing authoritarian followers who obediently line up behind authority figures who tell them what they want to hear and will gladly attack anyone who disagrees with their self-righteous world view, there are left wing versions as well. In The Authoritarians
Bob Altemeyer describes the left wing authoritarian follower as a permanent rebel who is never satisfied with the existing order. Sound familiar? You and Bob talk about them all the time without using that label. It could be any combination of these vandals manipulating people for a myriad of reasons
The right wing authoritarian followers who show up to troll liberals have their leaders in right wing media and politics, with Trump being the textbook definition of the "social dominator" that Altemeyer described. But left wing authoritarian followers have leaders as well, you and Bob know them well. These are the Glenn Greenwalds and H. A. Goodmans of the world, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. had them defined as "wailers" almost seventy years ago. In The Vital Center
he described those two chuckle heads as "democratic men with totalitarian principles" almost as dogmatic and ideologically driven as their power-hungry counterparts on the right. I wrote about "wailers" and "doughface progressives" in several posts a few years ago (here, here, here, and here) because of the similarities between our self-appointed "purist" progressives who aggressively complained about being excluded and betrayed by the Obama Administration after working so hard to get him elected and those careerist "establishment" doughfaces in the administration who aggressively complained about the pajamas media and their foolish liberal agenda. Both sides had a point and the fact that we had to have that debate in public makes me despair of ever getting the house in order.
But seriously, in the large electoral coalition that is the Democratic Party, how many of these Bernie Bots that pledge to never vote for anyone but him are there? Chirping about it on those social media-driven websites that depend on Facebook traffic is one thing, but how many of these chuckle heads were going to vote before Bernie entered the race? Statistically insignificant is the term that springs to mind. Whether driven by authoritarians on the left or right, the numbers of Bots is pretty small. Most of the people I know and people I have observed do not have the nihilistic and apocalyptic view of pouting and staying home if they don't get what they want. No, most is not even the real descriptor, one is more like it and she never voted for a Democrat before. So the excessive energy spent trying to reason with people you, Chez, always admit will never see reason seems like a waste. We can't get everyone to agree, that's why we have elections. It is an imperfect method of resolving differences, but it's better than letting Trump make all the decisions.
I would love to see the young, disillusioned college types get out there in huge numbers and contribute their energy and passion to the process of democracy, but it hasn't happened. We can't win them all and moreover, we're not ready for a revolution. Even if that revolution is simply a return to dedicated New Deal policies and programs, which Bernie is basically advocating (for all the talk about Democratic Socialism, Senator Sanders is just a staunch New Dealer). Too many people have been effectively conditioned by the right wing media into petulant children. And not just on the right, the most interesting and largely unexplored facet of our descent into fascism has been how coarse we have all become in recent years. And goddamnit, wasn't The Daily Banter trying to "unfuck" the internet and raise discourse? I agree with most of what you, Chez, said in that piece, now that catharsis has been achieved it is time to take a break and stop policing the kids. The rest of non-authoritarian society needs you to get our house in order.
I am the first to admit that correlation does not necessarily mean causation, my letter could have had no real impact on Chez's improved attitude and writing. But if there is even a chance that I can be of some help I want to share my perspective on the issue of Bernie Bots and the attempted sabotage of keeping a Democrat in the White House, then let's give it a shot. I want Kid Dynamite (someone called Chez that in a comment on my post, I'm pretty sure he was being sincere) back in form and blasting the snot out of Republican obstructionism.
I will preface this by saying that I will be turning the mirror around a bit and using some of Bob's and your words, observations, and ideas to make a case for snapping back to form. And yes, I'm being selfish because every time you, Chez, write a monster smack down of that Republican obstructionism I get a warm fuzzy. This obsession started with grumbling about college kids being college kids, so let's start there. The beautiful thing about being Eighteen, Nineteen, etc. is it only happens once, and this is (hopefully) "our" chance to be stupid and live to tell about it. Bob certainly noted after the low youth turn out in 2014 that what loud college kids want is often irrelevant to our larger political reality. I have also written about the stupid mistake I made in 2000 and tried to atone for it. You and Bob have repeatedly stated that crowd sizes, yard signs, and social media hits are a poor gauge for estimating electoral strength. So I want to state that I worry you are being had.
Or am I missing the point? Is this grumpy "get off my lawn" idiom just an act? A niche to fill for this election cycle and bathe in clicks? No, I don't think so. Unless everything about your writing has been an act since I started reading it. Though criticizing Bernie Sanders' supporters has certainly generated a lot of pageviews and comments. On the other hand, and this may be completely unsupported anecdotal evidence, it seems like so many of the commenters are repeat offenders and the discussion is between just a few passionate people with a lot to say. There have been about 26,000 shares of your latest article on Bernie supporters, how many of those are from real, engaged citizens and how many are from people just passing on a cool meme? With all the technology available to us these days, it is still awfully hard to tell.
At the risk of using a Doocy mark, how many so-called #feelthebern movement leader types could just be paid right wing trolls? Is is wrong to ask the question of whether much of this controversy is actually being led by agents provocateur? How many dedicated, professional, well-paid propagandists would it take to lead an army of disconnected volunteer trolls to pretend that they are actually leftist Liberal critics of Hillary Clinton? My answer: One. You guys have commented in the past that comment thread trolls are often led by by one operative or organization that produces the memes and talking points for issues of the day. The majority of "conservative" trolls are followers, right wing authoritarian followers to be precise. It really would only take one person to forward the idea on some obscure, reactionary message board that everybody should show up on liberal websites and social media to attack Clinton from the left, and the trolls would come running. After making exaggerated claims (conveniently echoing Republican propaganda) criticizing Clinton, and making the idealistic stand about "teaching the 'establishment' a lesson" and that politics as usual is not good enough, we come to the 'staying home or voting for Trump' portion of the ratfucking campaign.
Or it may be that the Bernie or bust movement is wholly part of the "far left", as it was in 2000 with Ralph Nader and the Green Party. I dislike speculating because there are no reliable documents to put forward as evidence. And the social media revolution has turned discourse into shifting desert sands anyway. Left or right, any number of people can create a number of sock puppet accounts to echo their message and agenda. Just as there are right wing authoritarian followers who obediently line up behind authority figures who tell them what they want to hear and will gladly attack anyone who disagrees with their self-righteous world view, there are left wing versions as well. In The Authoritarians
Bob Altemeyer describes the left wing authoritarian follower as a permanent rebel who is never satisfied with the existing order. Sound familiar? You and Bob talk about them all the time without using that label. It could be any combination of these vandals manipulating people for a myriad of reasonsThe right wing authoritarian followers who show up to troll liberals have their leaders in right wing media and politics, with Trump being the textbook definition of the "social dominator" that Altemeyer described. But left wing authoritarian followers have leaders as well, you and Bob know them well. These are the Glenn Greenwalds and H. A. Goodmans of the world, and Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. had them defined as "wailers" almost seventy years ago. In The Vital Center
he described those two chuckle heads as "democratic men with totalitarian principles" almost as dogmatic and ideologically driven as their power-hungry counterparts on the right. I wrote about "wailers" and "doughface progressives" in several posts a few years ago (here, here, here, and here) because of the similarities between our self-appointed "purist" progressives who aggressively complained about being excluded and betrayed by the Obama Administration after working so hard to get him elected and those careerist "establishment" doughfaces in the administration who aggressively complained about the pajamas media and their foolish liberal agenda. Both sides had a point and the fact that we had to have that debate in public makes me despair of ever getting the house in order.But seriously, in the large electoral coalition that is the Democratic Party, how many of these Bernie Bots that pledge to never vote for anyone but him are there? Chirping about it on those social media-driven websites that depend on Facebook traffic is one thing, but how many of these chuckle heads were going to vote before Bernie entered the race? Statistically insignificant is the term that springs to mind. Whether driven by authoritarians on the left or right, the numbers of Bots is pretty small. Most of the people I know and people I have observed do not have the nihilistic and apocalyptic view of pouting and staying home if they don't get what they want. No, most is not even the real descriptor, one is more like it and she never voted for a Democrat before. So the excessive energy spent trying to reason with people you, Chez, always admit will never see reason seems like a waste. We can't get everyone to agree, that's why we have elections. It is an imperfect method of resolving differences, but it's better than letting Trump make all the decisions.
I would love to see the young, disillusioned college types get out there in huge numbers and contribute their energy and passion to the process of democracy, but it hasn't happened. We can't win them all and moreover, we're not ready for a revolution. Even if that revolution is simply a return to dedicated New Deal policies and programs, which Bernie is basically advocating (for all the talk about Democratic Socialism, Senator Sanders is just a staunch New Dealer). Too many people have been effectively conditioned by the right wing media into petulant children. And not just on the right, the most interesting and largely unexplored facet of our descent into fascism has been how coarse we have all become in recent years. And goddamnit, wasn't The Daily Banter trying to "unfuck" the internet and raise discourse? I agree with most of what you, Chez, said in that piece, now that catharsis has been achieved it is time to take a break and stop policing the kids. The rest of non-authoritarian society needs you to get our house in order.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Open letter to Mr. Pazienza
Dear Chez,
I have been noticing your descent from simple grumpiness to downright tongue-tied furiosity on the Bubble Genius show lately and wanted to express a parallel to maybe help or at least provide some small measure of comfort during this time of crisis. Yes, the republic is in peril. Yes, the spectacle of brain-damaged conservatives pulling off stunt after stunt is disheartening. And yes, there is plenty of reason to believe this is the final plunge. Perhaps someone calling himself "The Gloomy Historian" is not the wellspring of hope to reassure you or your readers that all is not lost, but hear me out because this is certainly not the first time our country and democracy has so brazenly embraced self-destruction. "Darkest before dawn" may be a tired cliché, but in the story to follow it turned out to be the truth and dawn held for a half century, until we forgot the lessons of that dark time.
A while back I sent you a message comparing Bob Cesca and yourself to the subjects of my MA thesis, Arthur Schlesinger jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr respectively. While I certainly do not consider myself an expert in the conventional sense on any of you, I believe there are enough similarities to make a convincing comparison. I know Bob loves history in the same way Schlesinger did and both combine that love with their advocacy of the pragmatic liberal position and pursuit of truth. You, Chez, on the other hand run from the religious faith that gave Niebuhr strength despite your regularly voicing the realist view Niebuhr developed and even quoting his Serenity Prayer. I am not suggesting you slide on down to the Triple Rock and catch Rev. Cleophus James for some churching up (YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!). In fact, your secularism provides evidence that religion is not required to find an ethical and moral code to live by.
It was the 1920s and conservative regression and reaction were ascendant and practically unchallenged. After beating back the war preparedness measures of the Wilson Administration and defeating America's entry into the League of Nations, Republicans unleashed and enabled corporate power beyond their wildest dreams. Reinhold Niebuhr was on the outside looking in. After a stint as a four minute man, selling a war he did not fully believe in and turning his back on his German ancestry, Niebuhr was deeply disillusioned by a trip to war-ravaged Europe that humanity really was doomed. The theologian abandoned many of his Christian convictions of pacifism in the belief that democracy and liberty were ideas worth fighting and sacrificing for, and suffered the disappointment of being alone on a weak branch. Niebuhr felt the Great War was the chance for America to live up to its ideals at home and finally exercise a responsible involvement among the community of nations. Instead, we abandoned the world and turned inward for profit and "normalcy." It was a horrible time to be a reformer and Niebuhr's writings of the time reflect his deep cynicism of opportunity lost and the incredible selfishness of American elites. I hope Chez, that you can see parallels. America has a tendency to let us down.
America of the 1920s was the jazz and automobile wonderland talked about in too many textbooks, but it was also a land of vast inequality in wealth and power. Labor was practically a spent force, workers scrambled on their own for scraps. Radio allowed news and entertainment to enter American homes, but it also gave a platform to venomous preachers of hate such as Charles Coughlin and Aimee Semple McPherson if that sounds familiar. Debt lost its traditional stigma as materialism and marketing, those twin banes of the American reform spirit, became a metaphorical plague of locusts. And the dark shades of speculation were rearing their voracious mouths to consume and destabilize the economy years before the crash in another familiar refrain. Henry Ford famously remarked that "history is bunk" but his outlook was not shared by the neo-confederate revisionists in the academy and the KKK. Lynching, intimidation, hate over the airwaves, and all against the backdrop of "entrepreneurial" con jobs and snake oil salesmen running roughshod over the quaint ideas of freedom and democracy chasing that almighty dollar.
The big difference today seems to be that the crash did not slap people out of this crassness, nor did Americans become "good neighbors" or find solidarity in shared privation against uncaring power. As a prominent writer, speaker, and thinker Niebuhr played a role in turning the tide after unbridled capitalism vomited all over the city on a hill. It is not easy to pinpoint when the change from "untamed cynic" to Christian Realist occurred in Niebuhr during America's great crisis. But after preaching the folly of 1920s vices that culminated in Moral Man and Immoral Society he was able to channel the revelations about human nature into an ideology of leftist reform that eschewed idealism for pragmatism. Niebuhr even had a nemesis on the left that you, Chez and Bob, could easily understand. The feud between Christian Realists and the followers of John Dewey's philosophy may be largely forgotten today, but it had much of the intensity (though not the venom) of rivalry between Greenwaldian emoprogs and the Daily Banter today.
It may be a long shot from our contemporary point of view, but Niebuhr's frustration and triumph (his ideas influenced everything from the New Deal to the Civil Rights movement) give evidence for hope that the confused and divided Children of Light will eventually get their act together and prevail over the moneyed interests and Children of Darkness that know no law beyond their own self-interest. Or we can give up and follow your prescriptions for dealing with the NRA, but you'd be on your own for that one. I have no stomach for force anymore.
Sincerely,
The Kraken
I have been noticing your descent from simple grumpiness to downright tongue-tied furiosity on the Bubble Genius show lately and wanted to express a parallel to maybe help or at least provide some small measure of comfort during this time of crisis. Yes, the republic is in peril. Yes, the spectacle of brain-damaged conservatives pulling off stunt after stunt is disheartening. And yes, there is plenty of reason to believe this is the final plunge. Perhaps someone calling himself "The Gloomy Historian" is not the wellspring of hope to reassure you or your readers that all is not lost, but hear me out because this is certainly not the first time our country and democracy has so brazenly embraced self-destruction. "Darkest before dawn" may be a tired cliché, but in the story to follow it turned out to be the truth and dawn held for a half century, until we forgot the lessons of that dark time.
A while back I sent you a message comparing Bob Cesca and yourself to the subjects of my MA thesis, Arthur Schlesinger jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr respectively. While I certainly do not consider myself an expert in the conventional sense on any of you, I believe there are enough similarities to make a convincing comparison. I know Bob loves history in the same way Schlesinger did and both combine that love with their advocacy of the pragmatic liberal position and pursuit of truth. You, Chez, on the other hand run from the religious faith that gave Niebuhr strength despite your regularly voicing the realist view Niebuhr developed and even quoting his Serenity Prayer. I am not suggesting you slide on down to the Triple Rock and catch Rev. Cleophus James for some churching up (YES! YES! JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST... I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!). In fact, your secularism provides evidence that religion is not required to find an ethical and moral code to live by.
It was the 1920s and conservative regression and reaction were ascendant and practically unchallenged. After beating back the war preparedness measures of the Wilson Administration and defeating America's entry into the League of Nations, Republicans unleashed and enabled corporate power beyond their wildest dreams. Reinhold Niebuhr was on the outside looking in. After a stint as a four minute man, selling a war he did not fully believe in and turning his back on his German ancestry, Niebuhr was deeply disillusioned by a trip to war-ravaged Europe that humanity really was doomed. The theologian abandoned many of his Christian convictions of pacifism in the belief that democracy and liberty were ideas worth fighting and sacrificing for, and suffered the disappointment of being alone on a weak branch. Niebuhr felt the Great War was the chance for America to live up to its ideals at home and finally exercise a responsible involvement among the community of nations. Instead, we abandoned the world and turned inward for profit and "normalcy." It was a horrible time to be a reformer and Niebuhr's writings of the time reflect his deep cynicism of opportunity lost and the incredible selfishness of American elites. I hope Chez, that you can see parallels. America has a tendency to let us down.
America of the 1920s was the jazz and automobile wonderland talked about in too many textbooks, but it was also a land of vast inequality in wealth and power. Labor was practically a spent force, workers scrambled on their own for scraps. Radio allowed news and entertainment to enter American homes, but it also gave a platform to venomous preachers of hate such as Charles Coughlin and Aimee Semple McPherson if that sounds familiar. Debt lost its traditional stigma as materialism and marketing, those twin banes of the American reform spirit, became a metaphorical plague of locusts. And the dark shades of speculation were rearing their voracious mouths to consume and destabilize the economy years before the crash in another familiar refrain. Henry Ford famously remarked that "history is bunk" but his outlook was not shared by the neo-confederate revisionists in the academy and the KKK. Lynching, intimidation, hate over the airwaves, and all against the backdrop of "entrepreneurial" con jobs and snake oil salesmen running roughshod over the quaint ideas of freedom and democracy chasing that almighty dollar.
The big difference today seems to be that the crash did not slap people out of this crassness, nor did Americans become "good neighbors" or find solidarity in shared privation against uncaring power. As a prominent writer, speaker, and thinker Niebuhr played a role in turning the tide after unbridled capitalism vomited all over the city on a hill. It is not easy to pinpoint when the change from "untamed cynic" to Christian Realist occurred in Niebuhr during America's great crisis. But after preaching the folly of 1920s vices that culminated in Moral Man and Immoral Society he was able to channel the revelations about human nature into an ideology of leftist reform that eschewed idealism for pragmatism. Niebuhr even had a nemesis on the left that you, Chez and Bob, could easily understand. The feud between Christian Realists and the followers of John Dewey's philosophy may be largely forgotten today, but it had much of the intensity (though not the venom) of rivalry between Greenwaldian emoprogs and the Daily Banter today.
It may be a long shot from our contemporary point of view, but Niebuhr's frustration and triumph (his ideas influenced everything from the New Deal to the Civil Rights movement) give evidence for hope that the confused and divided Children of Light will eventually get their act together and prevail over the moneyed interests and Children of Darkness that know no law beyond their own self-interest. Or we can give up and follow your prescriptions for dealing with the NRA, but you'd be on your own for that one. I have no stomach for force anymore.
Sincerely,
The Kraken
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Podcasts
Another case of the Kraken being behind the times.
Something valuable came to my attention recently almost by accident that I thought I would pass on to anyone who might find utility in it. I think I was vaguely aware of podcasts before but it took a jolt to actually look into it.
I was a fan of Bob Cesca's work on Huffpo and started following him on a new site called The Daily Banter. Then found out he did a podcast with Chez Pazienza and stumbled onto it through Google. All of a sudden a new world opened on the ITunes store, there are podcasts for just about every subject and most of them are free to subscribe to. So, The Bubble Genius Bob and Chez Show features the two hosts bantering (pun intended) back and forth about the news of the day. No guests, no phone-ins but I guess the thing that caught my attention is their left-realist perspective reminiscent of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr. It is a strand sorely lacking in American media today, tough and pragmatic, and unwilling to play the weasel-word "both sides" meme of corporate media. Niebuhr himself would have found the irony in a committed atheist in 2013 regularly quoting him, as Chez does, especially since he Chez expressed no knowledge of Niebuhr's work when I contacted him about it. Bob is as idealistic and pure as Schlesinger ever was, but neither man was ever naïve about the real world. Cesca also has a keen interest in history, particularly the American Civil War, further strengthening the comparison with Arthur Schlesinger. Someday I will dedicate more analysis to this inquiry.
Other podcasts I have found to keep me occupied during all the time I spend in the car include: The Talking Dead, two incredibly polite and nice Canadian fellows who spend their time talking about death and apocalypse on AMC's The Walking Dead; Full of Sith, Star Wars and comics; Rachel Maddow's audio highlights from her MSNBC show since I no longer have cable; and the intriguing My History can beat up your politics, more or less a lecture formatted 'cast comparing contemporary events to historical ones. Then I just discovered The Alton Browncast, anyone who ever watched AB's show Good Eats or his other appearances on Food Network knows that he is very well-spoken and knowledgeable. I learned how to cook from him and a heck of a lot about cultures and food history over the years. Mr. Brown is from Atlanta and trained himself to speak without a Southern Accent for television, he records the 'cast from his garage which is very punk rock. The first episode he was speaking really fast at times, which is easy to do in this format but slowed down in the second so there is definitely a lot of promise here.
So if you spend too much of your time in a car or doing work that requires your hands and eyes but not necessarily your ears, podcasts might be a good (and often free) investment. This does not mean I have lessened my support of audiobooks but let's be honest, not everyone can stay focused during a long time recitation of a book. 'Casts are usually 45 minutes to an hour, so about the same as a music album.
Something valuable came to my attention recently almost by accident that I thought I would pass on to anyone who might find utility in it. I think I was vaguely aware of podcasts before but it took a jolt to actually look into it.
I was a fan of Bob Cesca's work on Huffpo and started following him on a new site called The Daily Banter. Then found out he did a podcast with Chez Pazienza and stumbled onto it through Google. All of a sudden a new world opened on the ITunes store, there are podcasts for just about every subject and most of them are free to subscribe to. So, The Bubble Genius Bob and Chez Show features the two hosts bantering (pun intended) back and forth about the news of the day. No guests, no phone-ins but I guess the thing that caught my attention is their left-realist perspective reminiscent of Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Reinhold Niebuhr. It is a strand sorely lacking in American media today, tough and pragmatic, and unwilling to play the weasel-word "both sides" meme of corporate media. Niebuhr himself would have found the irony in a committed atheist in 2013 regularly quoting him, as Chez does, especially since he Chez expressed no knowledge of Niebuhr's work when I contacted him about it. Bob is as idealistic and pure as Schlesinger ever was, but neither man was ever naïve about the real world. Cesca also has a keen interest in history, particularly the American Civil War, further strengthening the comparison with Arthur Schlesinger. Someday I will dedicate more analysis to this inquiry.
Other podcasts I have found to keep me occupied during all the time I spend in the car include: The Talking Dead, two incredibly polite and nice Canadian fellows who spend their time talking about death and apocalypse on AMC's The Walking Dead; Full of Sith, Star Wars and comics; Rachel Maddow's audio highlights from her MSNBC show since I no longer have cable; and the intriguing My History can beat up your politics, more or less a lecture formatted 'cast comparing contemporary events to historical ones. Then I just discovered The Alton Browncast, anyone who ever watched AB's show Good Eats or his other appearances on Food Network knows that he is very well-spoken and knowledgeable. I learned how to cook from him and a heck of a lot about cultures and food history over the years. Mr. Brown is from Atlanta and trained himself to speak without a Southern Accent for television, he records the 'cast from his garage which is very punk rock. The first episode he was speaking really fast at times, which is easy to do in this format but slowed down in the second so there is definitely a lot of promise here.
So if you spend too much of your time in a car or doing work that requires your hands and eyes but not necessarily your ears, podcasts might be a good (and often free) investment. This does not mean I have lessened my support of audiobooks but let's be honest, not everyone can stay focused during a long time recitation of a book. 'Casts are usually 45 minutes to an hour, so about the same as a music album.
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