Just my contribution to our political tribalism!
I'm sure that deluded right-wingers will take issue with this, but the reason why David Neiwert is able to find so many documented instances of far-right violent whack-jobs and why there have been so few documented left-wing, murderously violent whack-jobs, has to do with differences in political philosophies.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
11 comments:
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Todd said...
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Why nice (American) lefties finish last:
http://exiledonline.com/we-the-spiteful/
Although I think he's just reversing the signifiers a bit, that last bit's nice:
"That’s where we are now. And it’ll continue to get worse than anyone thought imaginable because only one side is exploiting America’s spite. It’s like the one-sided class war that Warren Buffet spoke about:
'There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.'
Another way of saying that could be, 'There’s spite and envy all right, but it’s my enviable class, the billionaires, that’s harnessing that spite and using against the left, which doesn’t want to acknowledge how spiteful Americans can be– and that’s why we’re winning.'
But the left should see this as an opportunity. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or even a marketing whiz– to imagine how the left could tap into all that spite, envy, and petty malice. It’s right there in front of all of our faces. We can use spite to reform this wrecked country! After all, the spite we want to arouse is absolutely legit, totally justified and in fact way overdue! Why is the left so wobbly-kneed about bringing up the obvious? It’s about time the American people started to feel the anger and bitterness they should be feeling toward the people who’ve robbed and suckered them all these years!
All we have to do is drive home the obvious to Americans:
There’s a class war going on, like Warren Buffett says, and they’re kicking your asses every time and laughing all the way to the bailed-out bank—just in time for the bank to foreclose on your house! Americans don’t have tea parties, we have bar-b-ques for fuck’s sake, and we drink Coke or beer. 'Tea Party'—what’s next, the 'Vienna Ball' protest movement? Hundreds of thousands of 'Viennaballers' in Mozart costumes hitting the streets demanding hereditary titles for our billionaires? Suck up to them all you want to, they’ll still despise you. They have yachts and airplanes and mansions all over the world and children who will never see a bill or worry about a single thing beyond remembering their servants’ names– and it’s all thanks to robbing you and your family blind. No shit you’re angry! You have every reason to be angry!
Wake up and smell the spite—or choke on it. There’s no other choice. It’s not going away." -
January 23, 2011 at 6:12 PM
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thwap said...
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Todd,
Why is this in my yahoo email inbox but not here?
Why nice (American) lefties finish last:
http://exiledonline.com/we-the-spiteful/
Although I think he's just reversing the signifiers a bit, that last bit's nice:
"That’s where we are now. And it’ll continue to get worse than anyone thought imaginable because only one side is exploiting America’s spite. It’s like the one-sided class war that Warren Buffet spoke about:
'There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.'
Another way of saying that could be, 'There’s spite and envy all right, but it’s my enviable class, the billionaires, that’s harnessing that spite and using against the left, which doesn’t want to acknowledge how spiteful Americans can be– and that’s why we’re winning.'
But the left should see this as an opportunity. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist—or even a marketing whiz– to imagine how the left could tap into all that spite, envy, and petty malice. It’s right there in front of all of our faces. We can use spite to reform this wrecked country! After all, the spite we want to arouse is absolutely legit, totally justified and in fact way overdue! Why is the left so wobbly-kneed about bringing up the obvious? It’s about time the American people started to feel the anger and bitterness they should be feeling toward the people who’ve robbed and suckered them all these years!
All we have to do is drive home the obvious to Americans:
There’s a class war going on, like Warren Buffett says, and they’re kicking your asses every time and laughing all the way to the bailed-out bank—just in time for the bank to foreclose on your house! Americans don’t have tea parties, we have bar-b-ques for fuck’s sake, and we drink Coke or beer. 'Tea Party'—what’s next, the 'Vienna Ball' protest movement? Hundreds of thousands of 'Viennaballers' in Mozart costumes hitting the streets demanding hereditary titles for our billionaires? Suck up to them all you want to, they’ll still despise you. They have yachts and airplanes and mansions all over the world and children who will never see a bill or worry about a single thing beyond remembering their servants’ names– and it’s all thanks to robbing you and your family blind. No shit you’re angry! You have every reason to be angry!
Wake up and smell the spite—or choke on it. There’s no other choice. It’s not going away." -
January 24, 2011 at 11:13 AM
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Todd said...
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I posted it here; I don't even have your e-mail addy.
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January 24, 2011 at 1:53 PM
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thwap said...
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Todd,
All my comments are sent to my yahoo email address. This showed up there but not here.
I'll reply later. I was up all night with a sick little one. -
January 24, 2011 at 2:46 PM
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thwap said...
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Well, I started reading the beginning of that article and took issue with the generalization of US-Americans being a nasty bunch.
Then i read your excerpt from his conclusion and I agree that anger is justified.
But the "left" as represented by the Democratic Party is incapable of playing the class war card because they're corrupted deceivers.
The left itself would have to fight against wealthy, entrenched power, and a belief system that rejects as "evil" and "totalitarian" pretty much every strategy that social democrats could propose to even humanize US capitalism.
I don't know. When i put it that way it sounds hopeless. -
January 25, 2011 at 9:59 AM
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Todd said...
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Sure, it sounds hopeless, but capitalism's contradictions provide some hope (which is indirectly pointed out in the article).
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January 25, 2011 at 2:47 PM
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thwap said...
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Todd,
Capitalism's violent and bloody self-destruction (or violent and bloody self-wounding to be followed by reforms to allow it to eke out another quarter-to-half-century of misery) would give me more hope if there appeared to be a glimmering of awareness and fight-back among the populations in the West, but alas ... -
January 25, 2011 at 6:48 PM
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Todd said...
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"if there appeared to be a glimmering of awareness and fight-back among the populations in the West, but alas ... "
I take it you mean North America; need I remind you about Greece, Ireland, Britain, France . . . .
As for North America, the fact that we and others (better than us) have showed up. I'd like to see more now, but that'll require more work, contradictions, and public displays like those in Toronto, Ipperwash, Montreal, Seattle, etc. -
January 25, 2011 at 11:01 PM
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thwap said...
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I've referred to Honduras, Greece, Ireland, etc., ... and now Tunisia before.
But the world's only super-power appears lost in nonsensical dead-ends, and it's not clear that the people of Europe will successfully resist the tide of austerity or that the stupid 30% of their populations won't side with the fascists (who will conveniently find "liberal" capitalist support). -
January 26, 2011 at 11:04 AM
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Todd said...
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>Gallic shrug<
We'll have to see. In the meantime, we keep paddling (taking a break when we feel the burn _too_ much). -
January 26, 2011 at 2:55 PM
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thwap said...
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Yeah. What else can we do? I still bother with shit after all.
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January 26, 2011 at 5:17 PM
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Right-wingers like violence and war. They like the idea of cops busting heads and the state executing people. They're fine with racism, sexism, religious fanaticism because they call it "traditional values."
They tend to think people freezing to death on the streets is acceptable losses for an economic system that they think benefits them.
Leftists tend to hope for peace. They tend to want to prevent people from freezing to death on the streets. They tend to want social equality for all because, well, that's what makes them leftist. They're opposed to racism. (This last point is disputed by incoherent hypocrites and weirdos who somehow have it in their heads that protesting Israel's abuse of the Palestinians is "anti-Semitism" which reveals so much about the people offering such a stupid theory.)
So when a former Republican vice-presidential candidate hints that her supporters should "reload" to defeat Democrats who she targets with graphics of gun-sites, while others further down the food chain talk about "second-amendment remedies" if Repugs can't succeed democratically, and their rank-and-file show up bearing arms and holding signs about "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants" ... this is all of a piece with the right-wing's greater predilection for violence.
The left got arrested for holding anti-bush signs and wearing anti-bush t-shirts and the right-wing shows up with assault rifles and get a pass and then they whine and bitch when they get called on their rhetoric and their hypocrisy.