Letters to the Editor
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I think Ché Pasa and I talk past each other
But can you or kovie tell me who is demanding "instant gratification?" Who is it that demands Change NOW -- or else?
Perhaps no one said it. I think we were trying to address the psychology behind the expression of hopelessness. I think we were guessing that the sense of futility was framed by expectations of unrealistic time lines for progress. If that's not the basis for the ennui and angst, I accept that. It's not important to me if it's not causing harm.
Now you may believe that so-called Progressives can't do it this way; it would be wrong and all that. What the Busheviks have done is wrong. We don't want to be like them. Etc. What we want to do is build a movement and make imperceptible incremental changes over say a generation or two or maybe longer, but we don't want to do anything precipitous...
Nah, I don't believe any of that. Period. I believe that ends do justify means. (Though I do not believe that all ends justify all means... it's discretionary.) I believe in doing what works.
the changes the Busheviks have instituted in the whole concept of governance in the United States began immediately when they seized power, and they have been almost entirely consolidated during the seven years they have held that power.
The conditions that enabled the Busheviks were erected over decades. Especially useful were the US Supreme Court composition and manipulation at the polls, which was in turn enabled by a compliant Congress, which was in turn elected by a grass-roots level right-wing coalition of Federalists, movement cons, neocons, fundie xians, etc that funded and knocked on doors and cheer-led each other over AM radio over a period of decades.
I ask again: specifically what do we do?
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Ditto Gordon to Che: What do we do?
Hey, Che,
I get to feeling rather impotent most days reading Glenn's latest litany of more of the same. The stuff makes me angry some days... makes me fantasize about taking to the streets and taking up arms, and I'm the last person you would ever expect to see on the firing end of a gun.
I watched Iraq for Sale on cable last night and it reminded me just how long I've been feeling this way. But what struck me about it was that we here spend a lot of time decrying mainstream media for not covering this stuff and thus excusing middle America for not knowing it, but that movie has clip after clip from nightly, network news talking about stuff that's still highly pissing me off: the contractors in Iraq and their lack of accountability. Of course, those were the days before Jennings died and Rather got fired. But Jennings and Rather telling regular Americans the story didn't make a dent, so what does? Waxman was holding hearings and making statements then and it didn't make a dent, so what does?
And yet as I think about this here from behind my keyboard on a lazy Saturday afternoon, I think about what I think I know about the anti-war movement from the Viet Nam war and the anti-government corruption outrage from the Watergate era and try to take off my nostalgia-covered glasses to ask what was different then. And the main thing that comes to my mind is that the opposition to these current anti-war, anti-corruption sentiments now is in some ways outlasting us. I've seen a lot of burnout among the anti-war young. It's tough to take a stand like that and wearying to keep it when all around you are shouting the opposite or patting your head and telling you it's a phase you'll outgrow. It takes a lot of commitment to keep going.
That's probably not the only thing that's different, but I can say that there have been media that have seemed to serve as tools of the moneyed elite interests for as long as media have existed, including in the protest-rich 1960s, and still those protests occurred and some amount of change resulted.
It sure wasn't fast, though. And popular figures who were speaking truth publicly and loudly and having their thoughts disseminated widely were literally shot down for doing so.
At some point, when it came to the Vietnam war, there was a tipping point that got regular folks to join the party along with the young idealists. Undoubtedly, a lot of what contributed to that tipping point was the body count of soldiers combined with the vivid imagery of their deaths played across the nation's televisions every night. This war has deprived the anti-war movement of such "on the side of truth" supports that hit middle America where it lives.
So what do we do? I don't ask that in a defeatest tone, but in the tone of someone no longer possessed of my youthful energy, but willing to stand up and be counted for what I believe in beyond opening my checkbook or drafting a poison pen note to my local Republicans who will likely never represent me or to the Democrats in Congress whom I wish would stand up and represent me. I'm not asking the question in a jaded tone that suggests that those with ideas should sit down, shut up, and "be patient." I'm asking because I'm fresh out of ideas and I'm certainly willing to entertain those who still have them.
That's part of why I come here. Some interesting ideas get brought up here. For example, I thought the anti-boycott of paying bills 2x per month was a brilliant strategy, but suspect most of the folks who are of like mind may not be bringing in the fortunes of those preaching the current party line in the Beltway and so it might prove difficult. Just-ice was interesting and not at all costly -- could it be spread and would people get the message?
Oh and while I'm here, shout out to rollotomasi: thanks for the follow up! Understood and appreciated!
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Ché Pasa
I find it interesting--yet again--that in the same breath that you accuse me and some others of arguing against allegedly non-existant "I want instant relief NOW" types, you also accuse us of being willing to wait forever for change to come. So, the antidote to one supposed straw man is a second straw man? How is one to take you seriously when your own argument is laced with straw men? Let alone, as Gordon aptly points out, the fact that you've yet to explain how we are to fix things, um, SOON (as opposed to NOW, since you're clearly not one of the "NOW" types that I clearly made up and which clearly do not exist), as opposed to withing, oh, the next 50-100 years, as people such as myself are obviously willing to wait.
You make it sound as if things were more or less OK before Bush II took over, relatively speaking, and that the proto-fascist takeover of power and dismantling of the constitution took place almost entirely since then. Well, that's a bunch of of nonsense, of course. As Gordon, myself and others have pointed out (do you even bother to READ what any of us write, or is it your MO to only respond to the straw men that you set up because they're far easier to knock down?), this has been going on for decades, and is not unprecedented in US history. They took advantage of an already quite weak and corrupted political and legal system--as have ALL dictatorial regimes throughout history--and simply accelerated the transformation.
Nor, would I argue, is this transformation anywhere near complete, a contention made by some for which I fail to see sufficient concrete supporting evidence--Glenn himself has disputed this contention, which doesn't necessarily make him right, but I find his arguments against it far more compelling than the ones for it.
Your argument appears to be that we're literally about to go over a cliff, so there is no time to waste, we can't afford to be patient, and must act urgently, or else all will be lost. Well, first of all, as I just said, I don't believe that we're about to go over a cliff. Or, at least, you need to explain how this is so, and back it up. Second, you fail to explain how, specifically, we are to prevent this. And third, you misrepresent my and others' arguments that we need to be patient to mean that we must be infinitely patient, when all that I (and I presume others) are arguing is that, given how long it's taken for all this to happen, there is literally a limit to how quickly we can turn things around. I stand by my ship analogy--they don't turn on a dime, no matter how much you'd like them to or say that they can.
Again, WHAT would you have anyone do that is likely to fix things any faster? I don't recall your mentioning a single specific action that might accomplish this. Impeachment? How exactly does that work if the votes for it are not and likely never will be there in the senate, and possibly even house? Legal action? That takes years, by design, and the salting of the judiciary and DoJ with far-right Federalist Society hacks makes that even less promising. What else? Activism, mass protests, open revolutions? Seriously, what are you suggesting other than the generalized panic that you are urging the rest of us to express, as a way to move things along faster?
Instead of your vague generalities about how we're at the brink and cannot afford to wait any longer and have to do something NOW (oops, I meant SOON), I and others have proposed various SPECIFIC actions, that are in fact now being taken (if not quite as aggressively as they should--I do agree with you on that one), that actually stand a chance of succeeding, but which are simply not going to work as fast as we'd like. Our system, as Glenn explained, was simply not designed for fast change and action--intentionally, to avoid radical shifts that might imperil the republic--and just as it wasn't slowly dismantled overnight, neither can or will it be fixed overnight. And a panicky approach--which yours is--is simply not helpful--especially seeing as it contains no specifics on what alternative actions might be taken that stand a better chance of turning things around faster.
Seriously, be more specific or it's going to be hard to take you seriously. When one objects to the status quo, one is morally obliged to propose specific ways of changing it for the better. If you don't like the current, ongoing approaches to reversing the horrors of the Bush years--or their pace--then you need to offer up some of your own. So, what are they?