Stop treating monsters as reasonable people

I had a lot of problems with those who merely thought Bush was incompetent – there was massive discussion along those lines, and relatively little about the moral dimensions of what he was doing. Even today.

As for wikileaks – it took me some time to even understand what this was about. I still don’t fully know enough about it, but I have been swayed by arguments that compare Julian Assange with Thomas Paine.

And so, for any given controversy, there’s the learning curve issue, the willingness to understand and grapple with what’s going on – and the opposite of this is intellectual laziness, and I’m prone to that at times.

But there’s also the notion of a moral conscience, and how weak or how sharp this is, how blunted or well-developed it is. Some people grasped the moral dimensions of Bush’s actions or wikileaks immediately, others take awhile longer, and some never get it – they’re too preoccupied with their own concerns.

It’s a challenge for me to not be angry or rude in political discussions. I’ve learned from experience that getting angry almost always means losing the argument. Far more effective is saying the most succinct, pithy thing possible, and delivering it with enough coolness and conviction to make your listener take it in, whether they want to hear it or not.

I don’t think too much about allies or enemies. Close to 100% of the people I’m with are too busy running their lives to give these controversies much thought, and I’ve learned to be patient with that. The tiny fraction who know something about these controversies usually have even more incomplete knowledge than me, and I can sometimes do something about that. I’ve just learned to be patient with people.

I have redefined my relationships with a lot of people over the past 10 years. First it was with my “conservative” friends … most of them religious … who backed bush no matter what he did. Then it was with my “liberal” friends that were all with me about bush, but can only make excuses for obama as he does the same shit that bush did. Though I’m still casual “friends” with some of the members of both of these groups, I have a lot less respect for them. And it is not the fact that we disagree that has disappointed me, it is the fact that there is a ugly, black hole in their morality that they refuse to look at. Instead, they try to point their finger at me as being an unreasonable purist … not being pragmatic enough … as the country … and the world … falls apart around us while we keep getting shoved down the same road that brought us to this point.

This ugliness and apathy, by the way, is often masked by their politeness, which plays way too large of a part in their very superficial definition of morality IMO.

Z

teacher’s unions stealing food stamp money to pay for their raises??? i missed that one… what’s the reference?

Yves Smith pointed to a Freddie deBoer post, which has a parallel theme to this one.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/01/on-the-lack-of-left-wing-discourse-in-the-blogosphere.html

It is a very lengthy post, decrying the way prominent left-ish bloggers tend to form a neo-liberal cul-de-sac in the blogosphere, with no roads leading anywhere, but back to the Right. Freddie deBoer, himself, seems wistful for bloggers of high principle, though he’s a bit unclear on exactly what principles he has in mind, other than advocacy for trade unions and the working classes and vague references to socialism as it exists in other polities.

Far from rejecting monstrosity, he keeps saying how much he likes, say, Matthew Yglesias or Ezra Klein, but, at base, what troubles him is the evident process of sell-out, pushing opinion to the right, ever to the right. And, that cul-de-sac thing, whereby no one is included in the conversation, who is to their Left; only those to the Right are treated as Very Serious (even though there are reasons to have grave doubts about the seriousness of the public opinions of anyone prominent on the Right.

Question: With a massive and ubiquitous digital surveillance infrastructure in place, constitutional privacy safeguards thoroughly shredded, and most interpersonal communication being conducted over unsecured channels on compromised telecommunications systems, how could any political opposition effectively mobilize in the first place? Entrenched players could stay ten steps ahead, always heading off any attempt to organize against them–moreover, with enough scope and diligence, they might often be able to project the opposition’s next move before the opposition themselves had decided upon it.

I read NC and deboer before stopping by to see if Ian replied to it. As Bruce notes Ian did whether directly or nay.

Well said, Ian.. i am also angry and not willing to be nice – and that pisses me off. /s

I think that is deboers biggest failing to himself and all those he “really likes”. Be angry.. if you are not, something is wrong with you, knowing what so many of us know nowadays. At least deboer’s honest enough to say so.

Also, well said, Bruce. The sooner the revolutionary moment comes, the better, imo. Though I, like you, consider both money parties to be the problem… it would be best if we had it out under O rather than under Romney or whoever the next R of the month might be. Why the angry center, left, and right don’t get that is beyond me.

Bruce Wilder:
I think what Freddie means is that Ezra and MY are probably nice guys in person but that they’ve sold out their ideals to become the next David “Bobo” Brooks or “Dean Broder. Then again, on another level, I don’t get why Freddie likes either one as they both supported the Iraq war.

And what about the people who created the “Army Experience Center” to recruit kids to kill and die so that the recruiters can meet their quotas and so politicians can have their careers? Perhaps, like Dante’s Inferno, there needs to be a classification to describe the levels of evil.

Echoing your own views Ian, Chris Hedges new book, “Death of the liberal class”, is all about how “the left” has sold out the interests of those it purportedly represents. It’s startling, unprecendented even, how wholesale that sell out has been when you think about it. Still, knowing this is liberating in a way, as it spares one the distasteful mental acrobatics of trying to explain why so called “liberals” keep betraying us yet supposedly are on our side.

Steve Paikin has a good interview with Chris, if anyone’s interested, here, http://www.tvo.org/cfmx/tvoorg/theagenda/index.cfm?page_id=7&bpn=779880&ts=2010-10-22%2020:00:00.0

@ Cujo359

Me thinks overlooking another possibility might be fatal. IIRC the ‘villains’ outlined in “Fahrenheit 451” provide that way, those who preserve the human experience at all cost. Just because the times before were meaner does not support the idea that the problems were not as complex or demanding or the ability and stature of the protagonists were any less. Throwing away the harvest of history because it is not packaged in the mode of the day in order to salve the pretensions of modernity, throws away the hard won wealth of generations.

An example, Machiavelli is only know now at best for his “The Prince”, not his central work “Discourses on Livy”, a work well known to those at the “Philadelphia Convention” who constructed most their edifice upon the foundations of Machiavelli’s writings. (My bet is that hardly no-one reading this has actually read some translation of ‘Discourses’). Another example at hand is Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.’s “Cycles of American History”, possibly the best summary of history by an eminently distinguished historian. That it was written about a quarter century ago does not diminish its luster but rather burnishes its value. A contemporary of Schlesinger’s, a Paul Kennedy’s “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers – Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000” (sic – 1986) traces the course of power, the gaining and passing of power through the ‘Modern Era’. No discussion can possibly be complete without knowledge grounded from these works and many others like them.

When illiteracy is 60% (by government statistics) and all the libraries are shut down for the lack of funding, and the public schools warehouse all the children left behind; who will remember these books that speak of human experience, who will be able to point them out from the avalanche of pseudo-historical and faux factual output of the propagandists.

An alternate to anger, an alternate to despair; a pursuit of excellence, storing and accessing those who present excellence in their lives and works, keeping open the door to knowledge of the human experience; developing excellence in oneself and in others, and insisting on excellence in all things. Become the élite.

This is front and center to your rant. Take a gander at what Ian is talking about, at least one example. The stance of Sir Charles and his school boy bullies leaves the door open for more wars of Naked Aggression. That’s the beauty of the “bungled” because of “incompetence” theory. Of course, a critical thinker would then realize, given that poor excuse, that such a track record of bungling and incompetence should cause one to pause and consider whether such “wars” are justified at all, and the apparatus that executes those wars is worthy of the tax money that supports it.

Also, Warmonger is not an insult, it is a characterization of someone who supports or advocates war. Many of the posters in that thread considered the Afghanistan War and the “Humanitarian War” on Yugoslavia both “legal” and justified. They now support a withdrawal because they believe the campaign in Afghanistan was “bungled.” Also, they completely ignored, didn’t even review, the evidence to the contrary I provided them, but instead engaged in American Exceptionalism, meaning America only does things for noble reasons but often fucks it up.

Like Ian, I have no time for morons who support monsters, and sorry ( no, I’m not, really), but Obama is every bit the monster that Bush was, and is. Of course, they’re both cheerleaders doing what they’re told to do, but that doesn’t make them any less complicit.

http://www.cogitamusblog.com/2011/01/even-lost-wars-make-corporations-rich-by-chris-hedges.html#comments

I wish I had something to add; alas, I can only amplify. I’m sick of the hypocrisy of the left, I’m sick of their defense of Obama’s actions, I’m sick of being “polite” and “tolerant” towards people who, as a previous commenter put it, have a black hole where their morality should be. I, too, feel angry much of the time, particularly at people who should know better.

I find I’m distancing myself, in the real world as well as in the blogosphere, from people I had thought were allies. It’s easy to mouth all the correct liberal pieties at cocktail parties, but when push comes to shove, what are they actually willing to stand up for?

The demonization of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange is appalling, the defense of Obama’s continued aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq and Pakistan and Yemen is nauseating, as is the defense of his assault on our civil liberties, the increasing security state, the complete sell-out to corporations.

And I’m fed up with the tepid rationalizations and condescending lectures from other liberal bloggers to naive numbskulls like me about how the world “really” works, about how to be “pragmatic,” about how our views are, if you can believe this shite, “Stalinist.”

While I tend to agree with you Ian, most of us in our lives can’t live this way. We interact with many others in our various communities and it is really helpful to get along. It is also important to note that sometimes other people have different life experiences and can look at the same data and come to different conclusions than you do.

What I find so troubling about political discourse is that for the people at the bottom (like me) it really is “liberal, tory, same old story,” but we act as rabid partisans. Meanwhile if you look at the political elite, well, Versailles, really does some it up. The Senate is a corrupt and incompetent old fools club.

I do agree with Bruce Wilder that we (society) are screwed, but I am finding it is best to keep this to myself as this can be interpreted as wishing for failure. Similar to the argument used that if you are against the Iraq war you are against our troops.

I thought the American public would be totally pissed off about the global financial crisis, and I am floored that the only people who are upset are on websites like this. While I might be alone in my opinions in physical space at least it is comforting to know there are a few others who share my opinions. (Or maybe I share their opinions)

For sure, if you’re not angry there’s something wrong with you. The trick is to keep it simmering instead of blazing. I don’t know how you do that and suspect if varies from individual to individual, but anger is necessary; without it, we tend to be apathetic and polite even when confronted by the worst right -wing lunacy imaginable. Incidently, I read this blog daily because I find the anger often expressed here mirrors my own.

Oh, yeah, and in telling the truth, you can deny a spurious honor to the bastards.

Ian –

First, I feel I have to note that based on your link, your description of the matter as “teachers’ unions stealing food stamp money to pay for their raises” was at least several steps short of fair.

That said, I know exactly what you mean and how you feel when you say “I’m not on the same side as a lot of people,” including people on the nominal “left” whose morality shifts depending on whether there is a “D” or an “R” after the speaker’s name. It’s something I have been thinking about for a while; back in July I said of establishment Democrats “These people are not on our side.” More recently I said that

at the end of the day it’s not about personal benefit. It’s not really even about winning, at least in the short term. It’s about actually knowing – and caring – which side you are on.

The labor movement used to label people who would back off at the first sign of difficulty, who would philosophically trim their sails at the first sign of rough seas, with the bitter term “trimmers.” I think we should revive the term as useful to describe much of what passes for “liberal” politics and politicians these days, especially for those without even the guts to stand by the word “liberal” and instead try to hide behind “progressive” – which they are not.

They are trimmers – and they are not on our side.

Quote from Wobbly (IIW) leader Bill Haywood: “A liberal is the guy who leaves the room when a fight starts.”

Blaming the teachers’ unions for what Congress did is signing on to the right wing propaganda offensive. Congress provided aid to schools. This becomes, in rightwingese, money to teachers’ unions. Boo, hiss, teachers’ unions ought to turn down the money. Congress announces that the money for schools comes from a cut in food stamps. Boo, hiss, teachers’ unions are taking money out of the mouths of the hungry. All us right-thinking lefties know that workers ought to turn down money whenever Congress says it’s taking the money from a social program. Somehow Congress can say, “OK if teachers’ unions don’t want the money, we’ll take the amount we were going to put into the schools and do what the teachers dictate with it”, but can’t say, “We’ll fund these small needed social programs.” Yeah, that’s the ticket.

And your point about lefty solidarity is?

Ian,

I agree with your post…but I’d add:

That humor, in particular laughter, is an effective balm for the wounds the world’s Aristocracy inflict upon the world’s workers and their offspring.

Since good humor is at times hard to muster, I suggest satire & mockery towards those “serious people”.

I am not opposed to all war, nor am I opposed to fighting under all circumstances, and any declaration to the contrary would disqualify me as a revolutionist. When I say I am opposed to war I mean ruling class war, for the ruling class is the only class that makes war. It matters not to me whether this war be offensive or defensive, or what other lying excuse may be invented for it, I am opposed to it, and I would be shot for treason before I would enter such a war.

Eugene Debs

[quote]Politeness is the new morality.[/quote]

My impression is that legality is the new morality, or that there is no morality anymore and legality is all that remains. This seems to be the guiding moral principle in the US today; that if you can justify something within the stretch limits of the law, or of you can change the law to cover your desired actions, then it must be good.

scruff,

This is, of course, what enabled torture to not only take place, but to be defended and even promoted as somehow justifiable — as long as the U.S. does it. I know our government has taught, participated in, and justified torture in the past, particularly in Latin America, but it was always covered up, considered shameful, something that was beyond the pale. Then, in the Bush years, and now continuing under Obama, it’s out there in the open — not as a shameful secret exposed — on the contrary, as something that we “have” to do, that we’re “forced” to do. And, of course, it’s “legal” — thank you, John Yoo and pals. I don’t have the words to describe how vile this is. (I realize that torture is a whole ‘nother subject, so apologies for going off-topic; it’s just that the morality vs. legality question made me immediately think of it.)

Not to mention, the cuts don’t take effect for two more years, which means they probably never will, while the schools got the money they need NOW. Nobody has lost anything yet.

Speaking of monsters, Rachel Maddow is anti-Wikileaks. Glenn Greenwald called her out about it on his blog: “Last week, Rachel Maddow was on David Letterman’s show, laughed when Letterman denounced Assange as “creepy,” and — while expressing concerns both that the U.S. Government over-classifies and doesn’t safeguard its secrets with sufficient care — disparaged WikiLeaks this way:

Maddow: “I think he is a hero in his own mind, which makes me pretty suspicious. … We should not have freelancers from other countries making a decision about what gets declassified by our government. Our government should be better about it, but I don’t want random Australians deciding for me.” [audience laughs and cheers appreciatively].

Is that really a cogent distinction? It’s dangerous or even possibly a serious crime when one of those menacing foreigners (a “random Australian”) or “freelancers” exposes U.S. government deceit and corruption, but it’s acceptable and legal when true Americans or a large American media corporation (such as NBC News) does it? I’m quite certain there are no such distinctions in the law.”

So no more visits on Maddow’s show for Greenwald, I have no doubt she’s that petty. She hardly ever had him on anyway. And the last time she sandbagged him, letting some Obama fan spew lies about Greenwald immediately after his interview, and never giving him the chance to refute them on air.

This also reminds me of another insufferable Obamabot, Joy Behar. She had Roseanne Barr on recently who mentioned she hates Reagan. Behar chastised her (“you don’t hate anybody”) and after a commercial break, Roseanne had been convinced to apologize. Behar then taunted Roseanne about her dislike of Oprah and Obama, knowing full well Roseanne hates both of them (it’s all over her blog), but was she willing to offend their fans on air? Roseanne sheepishly demurred unfortunately, to Behar’s smirking satisfaction.

Be careful with that whole “anger” thing, especially if you’re a dissenter. In yet another attempt to exploit the Arizona Shooting Spectacle for gain and /or leverage, the Department of Homeland Security, as announced by Janet (why do so many Janets in high-ranking Government positions look like men) Napolitano, is urging states to take a look at, and revamp if needed, their laws and policies in regards to mental health. One of the congressional advocates for this approach, had the following to say:

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/16/lawmakers-close-look-needed-at-mental-health-issues/

Murphy, who worked as a child psychologist before he was elected to Congress, said he hopes members of Congress and those in state Legislatures will be motivated to now “look carefully at their mental health systems and their involuntary commitment system laws,” to prevent future attacks.

And for all those who say it couldn’t happen here…it has happened here. Rent and watch Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling for an entertaining, yet highly disturbing, introduction into the world of Involuntary Commitment. It didn’t just happen in Nazi Germany.

I guess we could look on the bright side. Once we get thrown into the Asylum, we will get to meet each other in person, which probably would never happen otherwise. Wouldn’t that be grand?

Morocco Bama writes:

Rent and watch Clint Eastwood’s The Changeling for an entertaining, yet highly disturbing, introduction into the world of Involuntary Commitment.

Just go watch the YouTubes from Tuscon to see how just letting the mentally ill fend for themselves goes. That’s what we do now, at least for those whose families aren’t informed enough and well off enough to recognize the problem and deal with it. Involuntary commitment can be abused, and it’s something I find scary as a prospect if it is abused, but the government right now could throw any of us in jail for the rest of our lives and most people wouldn’t give a crap if there was any excuse at all. The only difference I see between that and involuntary commitment for political reasons is the drugs they administer.

Morocco Bama –

For clarity and my own info, do you have a link to DHS urging states to reexamine their mental health laws? Because in the link you provided, it was not Janet Napolitano of DHS who was speaking but Rep. Grace Napolitano of California.

Larry, my bad. I saw Napolitano and assumed there was only one in Government, but apparently it’s a pretty popular name. Isn’t there also a Judge Napolitano?

Anyhow, thanks for the correction and whilst it’s not as egregious as I made it out to be, I still hold to my point. In the midst of severe budget cuts to which there is no end in sight, I don’t want to give the states, or the federal government, any more incarceration power than they already have. Involuntarily committing people to unfunded hellholes will quickly turn out to be aOne Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest nightmare of epic proportions. I’m not saying what we have now is working, but I do believe that would be even worse, and more inhumane, if that’s possible.

Me thinks overlooking another possibility might be fatal. IIRC the ‘villains’ outlined in “Fahrenheit 451″ provide that way, those who preserve the human experience at all cost.

I suppose I should have said “emotional reaction” instead of just “reaction”. Anyway, if we’re assigning books, I’ll take “Cat In The Hat”. It’s about all my memory can handle. Someone else will have to tackle “War And Peace”…

Morocco Bama writes:

You want to give even more power to a Government we know is pretty much the strong arm division of the Multi-National Corporations? Yeah, they could lock us up for any number of reasons if they really wanted to, but that’s a poor excuse to allow yet another reason, and that’s all I see coming from this.

My argument pretty clearly was that it wasn’t “even more power”. A difference that makes no difference is no difference. All another excuse adds is a little more opportunity to be creative. Change the fact that they can do it already, and I’ll change my mind.

What you’re describing Ian is similar to what happened on the Right. It’s one part populist and one part disenfranchised. The Right strung its constituents along for decades on the morale wedge issues with no intention whatsoever of overturning Roe V Wade, getting a federal gay marriage ban, etc. So now thanks in large part to Obama, the disenfranchised Right is sending in their goon squad to accomplish those goals. The hell with serious policy, domestic or foreign, they don’t care.

So the leaders on the Left are trying to use that dangling carrot model to control the masses. They were never successful at it in the first place and it’s backfiring on them now. My sense is the constituents on the Left really do want meaningful policy, both domestic and foreign, but the current people in power have no intention of working on it. I don’t abide by the baby-steps program either, as in, let’s just get any HCR through and we can build on it later.

The reality is that we have a lot of luxuries in this country other countries dream of. Most people are too busy trying to hold on to the little bit that they have to do anything else. You can complain about people being distracted or paying attention to celebrities/pop culture or not caring, but once those creature comforts start disappearing and the majority of the population starts focusing on a lack food, shelter, and water, things will change.

Inner cities have disconnected themselves from the political process and mainstream society since they know they’re not getting served. Wait till major regions of entire states start to go that route. It’s happening in parts of the country as municipalities and states just can’t meet their budgets and vital services are being eliminated. You can only hope that enough people will realize they can’t keep voting against their own interests. You can only hope that enough people will realize that voting to help the masses instead of just yourself is better in the long run (and quite often in the short term too!). But I think most Americans are just fighting for themselves at this point. That’s nature. Addressing (metaphorical) parasites and viruses is also nature.

I don’t abide by the baby-steps program either, as in, let’s just get any HCR through and we can build on it later.

Yeah, that’s a bullshit approach to pacify. It’s the equivalent of walking in circles for eternity….which is pretty much hell if you include a red demon with horns torching your ass in the process.

grs wrote (great comment, BTW):

..You can only hope that enough people will realize they can’t keep voting against their own interests. You can only hope that enough people will realize that voting to help the masses instead of just yourself is better in the long run (and quite often in the short term too!). But I think most Americans are just fighting for themselves at this point. That’s nature.

Morrocco Bama replied:

The process has resulted in exactly the disposition you have described, but it doesn’t mean it was in their basic nature. It means they were easily molded into the deaf, dumb and blind creatures they have become.

What’s lacking, as grs stated, is that 1) things haven’t gotten bad enough yet, and 2) leadership. The right and the duopoly has the megaphone and money and the laws, all the control. Any threats – Julian Assange, and potential leaders such as Dennis Kucinich, Alan Grayson – are easily snipped in the bud and marginalized.

This won’t last – look at what happened in Tunisia recently – things got bad enough, that a single suicide triggered a revolution there, and copycat suicides elsewhere in the Middle East. The reigning president of 28 years fled the country. No one knows how this will play out, but it’s a start.

Leadership is going to eventually come from some strange quarters, which will reconfigure the fight – my bet is from the churches or from some spiritual quarter, in conjunction with the military. Because at the end of the day, this is about money versus people, unconsciousness versus consciousness, the material versus the spiritual, and eventually the material’s opposite pole, spirituality is going to force its way into the debate. Masses of people losing all their material possessions will only catalyze this. It will be a very interesting confrontation, because of the way the material gospel of Reagan has taken over the churches, and which won’t go down without a fight. The churches weren’t always like this in America, they had a very positive influence, pre Reagan.

It’s a cliche, but I believe it must get worse before it gets better.

I’m with you, dude. People without principles suck.

Okay, here I go again. It’s not just a matter of what position you take, though that matters. It’s what you want to do about it.

I hear screams of outrage against Obama all over the place. People fall all over themselves competing to see who’s the most outraged (and by implication, those less outraged are less worthy). But big fucking deal. Question is, what are people willing to do about it?

So I say to the purple-faced outraged, what we need to do is Dump Obama. Get a primary challenger to take him on. A few respond positively, but mostly I get responses that purport to be more radical. Throw them all out! Dump the system! Get rid of the entire Democratic Party! Snap snarl growl. But tactically … nothing. All these bold things that we lack the means to do, the outraged are all for them, but a simple measure that can actually be done?

Well, huff, puff, gee, uh …

See http://my.firedoglake.com/jeffroby/2011/01/03/dump-obama-for-a-tough-new-year/

I’m not reasonable.

I know. I wasn’t directing my comment at Ian.