No, thats not a typo, that what comes out when I repeatedly bang my head on the keyboard.
During my allotted ¾ hour of blog reading this morning (Im not an addict, Im
About four paragraphs in, I started banging my head.
Im not going to do a graf by graf fisk of him, thats so 1Q 02; Ill simply pull some quotes and make some general comments.
W’s approval numbers are coming down. It’s time for some more war-mongering. But, wait, that’s not working. How about war itself? Surely that’ll work won’t it? It might get a few folks killed but, hey, who gives a damn about that, right? (Don’t you know Karl Rove has said something just like that to W recently?)
The sniper thing in the D.C.-area continues. Of course, we all know it’s the gun control folks behind it all, right?
Even W’s Justice Department can’t ignore how Enron and the big energy companies were gaming the California electricity grid. I suspect they’ll try though. As we all know, the public’s watchdog was bought off two years ago by their buddies in the energy business. We’ll see I guess. Don’t hold your breath that “Kenny Boy” sees the inside of a jail any time soon.
Here is more proof that the Heritage foundation is just a mouthpiece for the White House’s war effort. Of course, we already knew that, didn’t we? Is there really such a thing as a “conservative think tank?” Thinking? Really?
On that note, Ill add thinking, really?? Tom, youre not a commentator, youre a cheerleader. You need some pom-poms and a letter sweater with DNC on the front. I hope your plan works, and the rhetoric gets you seen and picked up by the party those staff jobs can pay well but even as partisan rhetoric, this makes me want to take a shower.
Now, other than damaging my delicate sensibilities, this matters for two reasons.
First, because the average American isnt a moron, and knows when theyre being shilled
and both parties are shilling like mad
and the disgust of the voting class is palpable.
Next, because it conveniently ignores the culpability of his team (sadly, its mine as well) in looting the public purse, and building Sky Boxes to keep the unwashed at bay. We are in an era when the entrenched political classes have sold their souls to powerful monied interests, to the clear detriment of the average American. From top to bottom, good people go into the system and venal functionaries rise to the top.
As long as each party can blow enough smoke at the other guys as the cascade of scandal unfolds, they have some prayer that their own venality, self-interest, and corruption will get overlooked. Because Im a liberal, Im supposed to overlook the sins of my guys and put a magnifying glass to the sins of the other team. Well, fuck it. Theyre all sinners, and until enough of us are willing to stand up and point to the dirt on our hems, this problem isnt going to go away.
This isnt a sport, we arent divided into teams, and my childrens world is at stake.
So good work, Tom, catch you later. And Jeff what the hell are you thinking?
[Update: I went over to Tom’s blog, and no, I don’t think I read it too carelessly. Tom, do me a favor: find three things you’ve said in the last 90 days that challenge any Democrat in remotely the manner you attack the Republicans…I’ll be standing by.
Now look, partisanship is a Good Thing. I don’t think we can, or should, all live in the mushy middle. And hardball politics has been a part of American politics (not to mention, say, Florentine poltics) for a long damn time.
But as I note here, the way it is being played now, it’s a loser’s game.
The last part is what interests me. A whole political movement could be built around the paragraph about the magnifying glass.
I have to thoughtfully disagree on one point of your response: I think the average American is actually a moron. Using the term in its casual, common vernacual manner, by which I mean, ‘behaves as a general rule without wisdom or even any real effort at rational analysis about anything’. And I don’t think the ‘average American’ has any idea when he or she is being shilled; if they did, advertising wouldn’t work.
I suspect the average American simply nods when they hear or read something they already agree with, or bridles when they hear or read the opposite.
I agree with you that Tom is a cheerleader, however; although the word I’d use is ‘parrot’, or, as I often call such folks, ‘larynx’. He does not seem to think so much as simply relay someone else’s thoughts; who the original thinker of those thoughts was, many Xerox generations ago, is probably unquantifiable at this point.
But, still, I think you spend a lot of your time reading smart folks like William Burton and like that, and you’ve come to badly underestimate yourself and the company you seek out, and grievously overestimate ‘the average American’. I suspect most of them are morons. Somebody makes THE BACHELOR and THE WEAKEST LINK into profitable franchises, after all.
er… sorry… I do know how to spell ‘vernacular’. That was a brain-o.
You might actually read more than one post before deciding where I stand on everything. You clearly analyze as carefully and as comprehensively as the Fiskers usually do it appears. In short, you might actually read the other 95% of the page bub. Judging from this post, I’m not impressed with your level of analysis — or maybe it’s your rather short attention span.
BTW, not that you seem to care one damn bit obviously, but I also tend to agree with you about both parties right now and, if you actually read more of my blog before popping off like this, you might know more of where I stand on these sorts of things. But I guess, like many of the righties in the blogosphere with their juvenile fisking, you just want to score points by blasting away at someone. Congratulations.
You can fuss at Jeff by saying “what were you thinking” but I might suggest, judging from your post, you aren’t thinking a hell of a lot either. Geez, the audacity required to read one post and crank off a post like that in response — not a very thoughtful guy yourself, are you?
Tom
Well, Tom, thanks for reading, I guess…and as I have time, I will go deeper than one page into your blog if you say there’s more there.
But see, I have this basic position… everything, every word, on this blog is my responsibility. I’ll be wrong, or stupid sometimes; and when I think I am, I’ll step up and publicly apologize or withdraw what I’ve said. I don’t tell people that the stupid or wrong stuff is ‘unrepresentative’, and ask them to read deeper; and sadly, that’s what your comment comes across like to me.
And to your last paragraph; what would you do if you did, in fact believe as I do and you read what I read?? Should I have remonstrated gently with you, and what would then have done? This isn’t a game to me, this is my sons’ lives and the world they are growing up into.
A.L.
Darren:
I’m not sure I agree with you; and I definitely don’t want to agree with you, because if that’s true, we’re doomed.
My experience with the folks I meet in the course of my daily life is that once you get them to drop their pose, they’re pretty aware. We are all adopting this pose of ironic detachment…falling into the mode of “hey, I’m just a grocery clerk…heh…heh”; but people will set that aside if you challenge them (can you tell I’m a real PITA to be around?) and what’s there is almost always worth hearing.
Call me an optimist…
A.L.
Whoa. You haven’t gotten that we’re doomed yet? Geez, I’ve known that since… I don’t know. Reagan first got elected?
I admire those intelligent folks who can maintain hope in the face of all analysis, but… well, geez, look at this Tom guy you’re on about. He’s a smart guy, thinks he’s analytical, and he simply DOES NOT GET WHAT YOU’RE ON ABOUT. I… geez, A.L. Yes, we are doomed.
It’s not that 40 million people voted for Dubya that makes us doomed, although, shit, that’s horrifying, and it’s so horrifying that those few of us who actually can think simply HAVE to be in denial about it our every waking moment in order to function. It’s that the other half of the electorate who bothered to vote, voted for Gore. They’re both hand picked corporate candidates and while Gore would certainly have been the lesser of two evils, he would not have been a particularly good President, nor would he have been the best President of the candidates… and anyone remotely rational should have seen that.
Of course we’re doomed. I don’t like the fact that most people simply do not want to think any more than you do, but I can’t deny what seems to me to be the most compelling fact about humanity at large. Since the dawn of time, people have used alcohol to turn off their brains, and the clever shamans have used superstitious terror to enforce necessary socialization, because superstitious terror is the only thing that works … and, also, people like religion, because it also lets them stop thinking (and even gives them an excuse to feel good about it).
As William Atherton once said in REAL GENIUS, people like you and I are different… better. You and I think, and I’m making an informed judgement, from reading your work, that you enjoy it. So does William Burton, and so do a handful of other people I respect, but my God, do you really think we’re typical? Or more than a fraction of a percentile of the population?
AL,
I admire, and agree with, your stance that politics is serious and *does* affect our future. To me, Darren’s comment is elitist and naive. Yes, naive. Although cynicism is all the rage (I was a cynic in my youth), I believe it’s naive to think that in our 300 year history it’s just now that the populace has gotten dumb and therefor we’re doomed. Or have we been doomed for our entire history?
Yes, I’m nervous about the power of the elite, about the huge gap in earnings, lack of basic medical coverage, etc. Yes, it seems to me the pendulum has swung way too far to the right. Yes, we have to be careful of corporate power. But to think that a vote for Nader (or your write-in of choice) instead of a vote for Gore was the way to change these things is naive at best, and dangerous at worst.
I am humbled and proud to stand here before all my fellow Americans pronounced to be both cynical and naive.
I’m not sure how a Florida resident voting for Nader in the last election counts as cynical… no, wait, that would be the part of me that’s naive, right?
Humbled and proud. AND cynical and naive. By God, I’m a floor polish AND a dessert topping, both!
Well, we are divided into teams. They are called political parties. And cheerleaders are needed, though not everyone should be one. Personally, they people I’m sick of are the ones who are always saying “Well, I’m a Democrat, but….”
If I happen to find myself agreeing with the Republicans against the Democrats, I keep my mouth shut. The Republicans are completely able to take care of themselves without my help, which in any case they don’t want — hell, the Dems don’t want to be seen with me either.
I happen not to believe that the truth lies somewhere between the Dems and the Republicans. I think that it lies between the DLC and the Greens. The American people disagree with me, but I see no point in changing my opinion for that reason.
My opinion of the present war atmosphere is different from yours also, A.L., though it was nice to be able to agree with you on one point yesterday. The urgencies I feel are different.