Comment of the Day

On and On and On and On….

Blogs, Comment of the Day, Democratic (in)action, liberalism, Pointlesss centrism, Socialism, US politics
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on and on and on....

Which is better, New US Left or Old US Left? Bit of a pointless question, in light of the fact that what America considers ‘left’ is, by international standards, pretty right-wing and at best gradualist in tendency. So the spirited yet essentially empty discussion going on over at the News Blog re a blogspat between Max Sawickyand Steve Gilliard is being conducted somewhat in the manner of two bald men fighting over a comb.

The argument goes like this (and I’m paraphrasing madly): Max said the New Internet Left is just a money sucker for the Democrats, and Steve replied that Marxism is boring, Marx is irrelevant and the Old Left were a bunch of a hippie nutters who were dangerous with it, who set back the left’s cause for generations, and who should just shut up and let the New Blogging Vanguard get on with it.

But both fail to lift their eyes above the American horizon, both fail to notice that the Left is an international phenomenon and neither acknowledge that the use of modern technology as a tool for political organisation is not confined to middle-class reformist Americans. (I get the impression that in their heart of hearts they think the ‘free’ market will sort it all out if only the Dems can get elected. Then things can go on as normal and they won’t have to change their comfortable lifestyles at all. Change the system? Why… that’s crazy revolutionary talk!)

Both Gilliard and Sawicki seem to have internalised the reformist view that US voters just need to get rid of Bush, fiddle round the edges a bit and everything’ll be fine and dandy and politics can go on as usual.

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Comment of The Day

Comment of the Day
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Is at Sadly, No, in response to a wingnut troll:

Dorothy said, January 14, 2007 at 23:46


OMG! My Constitutional liberties have been diminished! I’m not sure exactly how, but maybe Gavin will shed light on it. I’ve heard that, while I can still talk to my terrorist friends, there is a chance it might be recorded. The HORROR! Constitutional rights down the toilet! Freedom disappearing! I can’t go on!!

The problem is, Kevin, that once Constitutional rights have been denied to any single American citizen, we are all equally at risk. I’m going to say this very slowly: there is no legal distinction between you and me and Jose Padilla. We share the same legal status: we have not been arrested, charged with any crime, pled a case before a judge, or convicted in a court of law. Whether or not he is actually guilty of anything is completely irrelevant: legally, the government has exactly as much right to detain him as they do you and me and Gavin and my cat. None. What. So. Ever.

I don’t care if they toss him in prison and throw away the key after his trial. He hasn’t had one. The government isn’t planning to give him one: they are now arguing that he is incompetant to stand trial, so even if they were planning to give him a trial, they can’t now. Oh, well, them’s the breaks. Too bad, so sad.

And if they get away with this, there is nothing and no one that can prevent the same thing happening to you. Or a member of your family. Or one of your friends.

So’s here’s the new Miranda warning; get used to it:

You had the right to remain silent. Now, you can be tortured until you confess, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law–that is, assuming you actually ever get to see the inside of a courtroom or even military tribunal chamber.

You had the right to an attorney, but since we no longer allow you to notify anyone that you have been detained and keep the fact that you’re in custody a national secret, we’d like to see you try to contact one. And we won’t let you talk to your attorney anyway, so there.

If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed to you by the court–at least, until we get the boycott of attorneys who represent detainees pro bono under way and drive those Constitution-hugging traitors out of business. Besides, when we’re done with you, you won’t be sane enough to stand trail anyway, so boo fucking hoo.

Quit acting like a girl. That was in no way an attempt to offend girls. It’s just that Gavin was acting like one of you. Girls rock. Gavin, not so much.

Please define “acting like a girl”. I’m dying to see what behavior patterns you characterize as “rocking” when performed by “a girl” and yet offensive when done by Gavin.

“Giving a damn about one’s fellow Americans,” maybe?

Or “valuing the rule of law that is the foundation of our country”?

Or how about “realizing that something doesn’t have to affect one personally in order to be bad”?

Maybe just “not being a self-centered asshole”?

Not a lot one can add to that is there?

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Comment of the Day: astroblogs

Comment of the Day, Manufacturing consent
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The comment of the day today was written by Node of Evil and comes once again from a Digby comments thread. The comment is about what to call that class of faux-blogs that are nothing more than fronts for the Beltway establishment to enable them to claim popular support:

Ooh, ooh, I’ve got it — we can call those sorts of sites (HotSoup, Swampland, Pajamas Media, etc.) “Astroblogs”:

Astroblog (adj.):

1.)A blog or collection of blogs set up to look like a public forum, when really it’s just a soapbox for the proprietor.

2.)A blog or collection of blogs set up with much fanfare and venture capital but no real readership and/or original content.

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Comment of the day

Comment of the Day, Manufacturing consent, Media
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Over at Hullabaloo, in a comment thread discussing the Jameil Hussein clusterfuck, commenter Bob makes a good if depressing observation:

[…] It seems to me that you don’t need biased news organizations to control the news, you merely need overworked reporters working for companies who don’t really care about the quality of their product. Once you have that, the political organizations who work hardest at framing (message discipline, etc) can control the stories that get told.

There are obviously many problems with this as the fundamental mechanism for informing society, but I’ll just point out one: Groups that are more strongly organized (top-down, disciplined, anti-democratic) will probably do a better job of framing stories than groups where everyone thinks and speaks for themselves.

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