Post #12,898
10/11/01 12:09:07 PM
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Does the Left matter anymore?
I confess I was really torqued off by all the anti-American bile on Kuro5hin that merged after 5000 Americans were murdered. Then there was that Thobani woman with the wild staring eyes and the heart full of hate. But you know what? The American public as a whole aren't going around blaming themselves. We did a little soul searching, but that's all searched out. Now we're going over there and doing something about it.
And there's this anti-terrorist coalition. It's even got Muslim nations in it! I'm starting to think the Left is all flapping gums and no teeth. They're just an overcompensated inferiority complex in search of a power base.
When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1989-1990, the hard Left must have done some soul searching, except ideologues don't do soul searching. But they do bide their time, and when the Fundamentalist Muslims decided to greviously wound America, a marriage of convenience flashed into existence.
But you know what? This big coalition has been built, even Muslim countries are on board, and the America-hating pomos are looking awfully marginalized right now. Even poor Noam Chomsky is catching it from nominal fellow Leftist Christopher Hitchens, while apostate David Horowitz lays down crossfire. The New Republic has become the Newly Republican. Even the Village Voice seems a bit wimpy. National Review is right where it's always been, but no longer on the defensive. Time for the hard Left to do some soul searching. But no, they don't do soul searching.
So what will they do instead? Time to vent their frustration on Kuro5hin!
Which raises another question: how relevant is Kuro5hin? But that's a whole `nuther topic.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
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Post #12,899
10/11/01 12:11:29 PM
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You're only looking at this one issue.
And while the unity will last for a while, eventually it will fade, other problems will come back up, and opinions will wildly differ.
Addison
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Post #12,906
10/11/01 12:56:11 PM
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And then the Left will find a new way to discredit itself.
I have seen the future, and it's the same old crap.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
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Post #12,929
10/11/01 2:10:07 PM
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Confusing patriotism with politics
And I am not talking about the kind of thugish patriotism you so fervently espouse. As long as people care about freedom, the left will continue to matter.
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong
H. L. Mencken, Mencken's Metalaw
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Post #12,931
10/11/01 2:20:42 PM
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Freedom my ass.
The Left has never been about freedom. "Freedom" is just a word they use.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
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Post #12,944
10/11/01 2:38:06 PM
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Am reminded of Mark Twain.
I imagine the Left looked pretty insignificant to the Germans in in late 1930's as well.
But if you're only talking about the Americans that "matter", you know, the 40% or so who still vote for one of the two same parties, then I guess that left doesn't matter anymore.
To the other 60% of the populace, it's still very much alive.
GODWIN (before anyone else can do it),
Mikem
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Post #12,947
10/11/01 2:44:25 PM
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Sorry, no Godwin
Intentional triggering doesn't end the thread.
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #12,956
10/11/01 3:06:12 PM
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Wrong reasoning....
Cause he didn't accuse anyone of being LIKE the nazis.
See, your reply, it was insane, just like Hitler.
(That's a Godwin). :)
Addison
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Post #12,958
10/11/01 3:09:10 PM
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Depends on your definition.
I was using [link|http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/Godwin's-Law.html|this] one.
"As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." There is a tradition in many groups that, once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in progress. Godwin's Law thus practically guarantees the existence of an upper bound on thread length in those groups. However there is also a widely- recognized codicil that any intentional triggering of Godwin's Law in order to invoke its thread-ending effects will be unsuccessful.
Yeah, it can be read both ways...
"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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Post #13,704
10/16/01 11:08:18 PM
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WAY OT: Addison
I have been grounded because of weather for the past week. Am going on my first solo X-C ASAP. Maybe Thursday, any tips?
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Post #13,742
10/17/01 11:07:50 AM
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Check the Water Cooler for response.
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Post #12,955
10/11/01 3:04:07 PM
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I wonder
Is it possible for you to define what you consider to be "the left". Aside from insults that is. I think we may not agree as to who should be included.
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong
H. L. Mencken, Mencken's Metalaw
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Post #13,050
10/11/01 7:46:07 PM
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I was gunna *say*...
...I thought the only elements of US politics was the Right, and the Further Right.
Peter
Shill For Hire
[link|http://www.kuro5hin.org|There is no K5 Cabal]
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Post #13,203
10/12/01 9:26:35 PM
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Just think of 'moderate' as now named: 'pinko commie librul'
That is: many of these folk haven't changed their rhetoric from McCarthy's time - which is what they yearn to see reinstated. (O'course the more vociferous never had to *live* through McCarthyism; they were just brought up by grandmothers like mine.. and froze there, after they memorized the labels)
HTH - (Murican glossary of terms badly needed)
Oh: and also a new party to counter the present One - with Two Right Wings\ufffd who periodically have huge tent meetings and try to out-tough each other re eating the poor.
(The only real *sin* in Murica is: bein poor - but you knew that)
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Post #12,976
10/11/01 4:22:28 PM
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Does the left as in Sharpton, or the left as in
woodie guthrie? Which one are you speaking about? Do the wobblies have a place as jobs are lost? When the airlines get 15 billion and the laid off workers get a kick in the ass? Which right or left are we speaking about?
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #13,030
10/11/01 6:01:51 PM
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Thank you, Bill
It makes it so much harder for these Righteous sloganeers of lump-ectomies to focus.. when their definitions are: "anyone who won't be reasonable and see it My way".
(And of course, the opposite of Right-eous isn't er 'left' or even 37\ufffd12'14" - it's Wrong-eous)
{yawn}
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Post #13,065
10/11/01 10:42:25 PM
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Heh.
Ashton, currently the most indefeasibly righteous people in our politics are the left -- lefteous? The folks who cannot see _anything_ good about the United States... funny. I happened to be in Canada when whatsername handed down her diatribe. I got apologies from hotel clerks and cabbies afterwards.
For pure, undiluted certainty about the Revealed Wisdom, nothing quite beats an American leftist university professor with tenure and a tax-supported salary.
Hey, I've an idea! -- let's see what happens when you bring, say, a Falwell disciple and a Berkeley Political Studies professor together. If it can be done in such a way as to contain the resulting blast, our energy worries are over, and we can tell the Saudis to go fish. Might make the country more livable in a lot of ways.
Regards,
Ric
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Post #13,071
10/11/01 11:11:53 PM
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Seen it and the amount could not be cleaned with a pitchfork
needed a front end loader. lets face it. If you go right to Hitler you meet Stalin coming from the left. The ideal is were everyone gets a seat at the table, labor capital and management working together for the benefit of the investiture. Labor has to recognise return on capital, capital has to realize that labor provides value and management has to balance both and provide equal value to both and I think that is where we are failing. fscking sales people.
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #13,207
10/12/01 9:40:01 PM
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Re: Heh. Heh\ufffd
Come now.. the gold standard for measuring the population is: tenured profs? Where's your Hoover Institute spokesman or maybe Liberty Lobby or er Heritage Foundation -- I guess these are to be considered models of measured moderation (?)
And smug Certainty - is That what's botherin you, bunky? You mean like Rush? or the religio-political folks in the 700 and other clubs.. I guess I missed all that cerebral moderation which your omission would imply. That's because I actually wrote down (!) some o' the stuff spewed (spewn?) by them there late-night folks explaining about Right-eousness.
(I couldn't print such stuff in a family forum, of course)
Naah - with such definitions of 'liberal' and 'conservative' as are mangled nowadays: no sale. A war of opposites is just Too Much like the evening news. No Sale thankyouverymuch.
Gobble gobble.
A.
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Post #13,827
10/17/01 4:42:47 PM
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Irrelevancy illustrated: the peace rallies
[link|http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000081948oct14.story|As critqued by Marc Cooper]
Excerpts:
Some conservative critics have lambasted this left for being subversive, even treasonous. I prefer to characterize it as traumatized and dysfunctional...
The end result of this psycho-political micro-climate are two generations of American leftists who lack the political sensibility and even the simple emotional language that would allow them to see their own fellow citizens, even transitorily, as victims rather than victimizers, that would allow them to distinguish between a CIA coup abroad and the butchering of thousands of innocent American civilians at home.
Hence, that odious whiff of "chickens coming home to roost" that has permeated much of the left's reaction to Sept. 11. It's one thing to argue that Americans are naive and perhaps arrogant to have believed in a historic exceptionalism that could immunize them against pain and bloodshed on their own soil. It's quite another to suggest, as I repeatedly heard during that peace rally, that America somehow invited last month's massacre. Morally repugnant and politically unviable, this sort of demagogy can only render the left irrelevant...
We on the left must walk and chew gum at the same time.
I say:
Chickens coming home to roost indeed. That kind of talk cuts both ways.
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
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Post #13,861
10/17/01 7:19:35 PM
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Nah: just the same ol same ol problem: idiot slogans
As meaningless whether Right Left Up Down Top Bottom Charmed or Strange. BS words *exactly* as described by Stuart Chase in The Tyranny of Words and called..
Blab! words.
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Post #13,877
10/17/01 9:39:53 PM
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Slogans are for the ignorant masses.
It gives the schmoos a chance to be relevant for that nano second in time where all dross falls away and a sense of purpose larger than life itself overcomes the id. That is when you can direct the mob to your own aims and devices quite often at extreme angles to the normal belief of the mass.
thanx,
bill
Idealogue for hire
Cheap Rates, Quality Work,
Insurance is our Specialty
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #13,887
10/17/01 10:14:21 PM
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Damn Box: that rates an A for Virtuosity! (kan't spel here)
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Post #14,045
10/18/01 5:45:48 PM
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Sontag tries to clear it all up
[link|http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11742|She's not anti-American, just misunderstood].
Excerpt:
What has been constructed is this sort of grotesque trinity comprised of myself, Bill Maher and Noam Chomsky. In the Saturday New York Times, Frank Rich tried in his way to defend us by arguing for our complete lack of importance, by saying that any substitute weather forecaster on TV has more influence than any of us. Well, it's not true of course. Excuse me, but Noam Chomsky is quite a bit more than a distinguished linguist. Our critics are up in arms against us because we do have a degree of influence. But our own "defenders" are reduced to saying, "Well, leave the poor things alone, they're quite obscure anyway. "
I say:
Her defenders may have a point there.
`Nuther excerpt:
That people were in a state of great pain and bewilderment and fear I certainly understood. But I thought, "Uh-oh, here comes a sort of revival of Cold War rhetoric and something utterly sanctimonious that is going to make it very hard for us to figure out how best to deal with this." And I have to say that my fears have been borne out.
I say:
Is there a problem with that?
[link|http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/marlowe/index.html|http://www.angelfir...e/index.html]
Sometimes "tolerance" is just a word for not dealing with things.
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Post #14,049
10/18/01 6:03:54 PM
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If you can't see that, then... I dunno what to say.
The Bogey-Wannabe writes: [Quoting Susan Sontag:]That people were in a state of great pain and bewilderment and fear I certainly understood. But I thought, "Uh-oh, here comes a sort of revival of Cold War rhetoric and something utterly sanctimonious that is going to make it very hard for us to figure out how best to deal with this." And I have to say that my fears have been borne out. I say:
Is there a problem with that? But anyway, FWIW: Yes, there is. Let's see if you can figure out what it is before I can come up with a way to explain it to you, Mmmkay? ('Coz if you do, I won't have to! :-) Christian R. Conrad
The Man Who Knows Fucking Everything
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Post #14,095
10/18/01 11:55:28 PM
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totally confused here Marlowe who is an avowed
something or other indicates the "Left" is totally irrelevent when most of what he espouses is leftist and communist rhetoric? Missed something along the way. If the left means total government control of info. Spreads misinformation. Lies about the economy. Stifles civil rights and assignes block gaulighters(the only move not yet in place) why is he so concerned about the Left? According to him it has acheived 90% of its aims?
Perhaps it is time to redefine what is acceptable and what is not as opposed to right and left. Can we as a Society define a Party line which is Acceptable or nit.(deliberate)=
gonna quit here. I ready to proclaim a new party at this point but would like all input first. There is no reason the IWETHEY party could not be the party of choice in the next federal elections unless we screw it up. Convention time folks, think relistically, seriously and long.
Do IT
thanx,
bill
tshirt front "born to die before I get old"
thshirt back "fscked another one didnja?"
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Post #14,121
10/19/01 2:50:17 AM
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Laudable idea but..
It's almost as if Muricans *want* their epithets and shibboleths much more than - any chance at clear communication, debate, compromise, decision.
Slogans are the mothers milk here - less so in civilized countries, but we could.. watch those sometimes, see what they talk about. Not likely and - too much trouble.
Left / Right Commie / Patriot -- I really don't think they'll surrender these any quicker than bringing down the Stars & Bars or refraining from attacking your local towelhead. It's a positive feedback mechanism with the loop being:
The Peepul --> the Corp-run Meeja --> the Politico-Bizness self-funding Government-replacement--> [da capo] back to beginning.
Nope: No room, no funds, no interest = no chance.
Just recap of 2000 + whatever The War generates for diversion. And group-think; look for even more of that.
(8 years of Bush-speak or.. Arabic? if much gets Really screwed up) M$ Arabic add-in for Word2004 ??
:[
Sorry,
A.
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