In a way, this is a dang good description of how my political views have changed over the years as well. It's how I can choose not to vote for Kerry while enjoying Phil Ochs as much as I always have.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/05/22/INGUNCQHKJ1.DTL
Good riddance.
There's no room on the left for tedious self-absorbed windbags.
However, to be fair, I imagine that if I was more of a slave to the pomposity of principle rather than common sense, I'd probably waste all of my time engaged in masturbatory soul-searching in desperate pursuit of absolution from what should be an overarching conscience also.
Yeah, good luck with that.
they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.
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bons - if Kerry's not a very good leftist (I don't think he's a leftist at all, in fact) why would your natural inclination be to move farther right instead of looking for a candidate that represents your political stance better?
I mean really, if you're voting Republican because the Democrats no longer represent the centrist left (or whatever mythic "good old days" that writer seems to be hearkening to), that makes no sense to me at all.
According to the latest issue of Harper's, one third of voting republicans are evangelical Christians. So yeah, if you're ready to abandon the left (although I don't recall you ever being much of a leftist) go have fun playing with your Dominionist buddies. And don't give me any of that "log cabin" crap, it's the same lying, warmongering scumbags leading the party no matter what your local rep is up to. When people start going on about Stalinist Russia, moderate communists aren't the topic of debate.
These apologist nostalgia pieces are always funny, though. "Things used to be so much better, but now they suck. My illusions are shattered. First I will tear down that with which I was formerly enamoured, using exactly the same intellectual approach I used to build it up in my mind. For my next act, I will now turn into my parents."
OMG, Susan Sontag praised the conviction of the Al Qaeda? Holy shit, that totally makes up for Henry Kissinger not being prosecuted for crimes against humanity & still being a senior advisor to the current government. I guess right-thinking people would naturally vote Republican given that kind of choice. There does seem to be a lot of free & easy equivalency made in that article between leftist intellectuals and academics and the political left, which are often two different things. Who gives a shit what Noam Chomsky said? Is he running for office now? How is what Noam Chomsky says, what anti-harassment policies exist in universities in Arizona, or any of that stuff relevant? Even the Nader quote was out of context, but he hardly represents the mainstream of American leftist politics, having revealed himself ages ago to be a mere careerist weasel.
But really, the Iraqi vote as a great moment of self-determinism vs. fascism?
Oh, that's RICH.
What's more, the reason the left didn't bother commenting on the great moment for democracy that the vote in Iraq represents is because it's irrelevant. Not only was Iraq one of the few middle eastern countires to have a vote at all, unlike may of the Us's ostensible allies like the Saudi monarchy, we've already seen lots of seen puppet states come and go. They're not a great new thing. Hell, we've seen them become enemy states within a couple of decades. Wasn't Herr Diktator Hussein once propped up by the US because he was fighting the evil of encroaching radical Islam in Iran? Oh yes, he was. Heck, even the al-Qaeda got a lot of their funding and training as freedom fighters against the evils of communism, glad to see that worked out, too. Noriega? Ex-Puppet. Papa Doc Duvalier? Ex-Puppet. It's a long list if you care to look into it.
Self-determinism, my commie ass.
Our own history has shown us that freedom only exists if you are willing to fight for it, and fight to maintain it.
The war we continue to fight in Iraq is not for our freedom. Rather, it is (ostensibly) for a people who should be allowed to take the freedom we have granted them, and fuck it up however they see fit.
That we are still there fighting is testament to the fact that it is not their freedom we have installed, but rather OUR intentions, OUR goals, OUR puppets.
However, I'm sure that it makes those who have been consistently wrong about the Bush administration feel much better to hear an apologistic scree that validates the morally challenged position they've taken up.
That's what support groups do.
The war was and is wrong. Bush was wrong to lie to America. America was wrong to keep him in office. Simple truths.
They only become complex when you have to wring yourself through the dissonance of having been duped.
Fortunately, you are not alone.
Goody for you.
The guy is either over-simplifying or naive about the Iraqis' self-determination.
The Kurds voted to start their own country which will ihclude the Kirkuk oilfields. Neither Turkey or the US will permit this under any circumstances.
The Shiites voted for a theocratic state which neither the US or any of the surrounding states except Iran will permit.
The Sunnis are voting by supporting the insurgency.
Unlike Rumsfeld and his evil minions, even our military is sometimes truthful about the situation there:
In interviews and briefings this week, some of the generals pulled back from recent suggestions, some by the same officers, that positive trends in Iraq could allow a major drawdown in the 138,000 American troops late this year or early in 2006. One officer suggested Wednesday that American military involvement could last "many years."
Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top American officer in the Middle East, said in a briefing in Washington that one problem was the disappointing progress in developing Iraqi police units cohesive enough to mount an effective challenge to insurgents and allow American forces to begin stepping back from the fighting. General Abizaid, who speaks with President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld regularly, was in Washington this week for a meeting of regional commanders.
In Baghdad, a senior officer said Wednesday in a background briefing that the 21 car bombings in Baghdad so far this month almost matched the total of 25 in all of last year.
Against this, he said, there has been a lull in insurgents' activity in Baghdad in recent days after months of some of the bloodiest attacks, a trend that suggested that American pressure, including the capture of important bomb makers, had left the insurgents incapable of mounting protracted offensives. But the officer said that despite Americans' recent successes in disrupting insurgent cells, which have resulted in the arrest of 1,100 suspects in Baghdad alone in the past 80 days, the success of American goals in Iraq was not assured.
"I think that this could still fail," the officer said at the briefing, referring to the American enterprise in Iraq. "It's much more likely to succeed, but it could still fail."
It's also pretty comical to describe a coup staged on extranational military action opposed by an extensive network of national freedom fighters with strong international support as a victory for democracy over fascism. Sounds a lot more like the Vichy government in France to me.
Sure, Saddam Hussein was a dictator, but let's not even get into the appalling similarities between militarily enforced international corporatism and historical fascism.
Ari, God is on our side, so we can do whatever the fuck we want.
And we really need to eliminate those muslim religious extremists, because they've proven to be dangerous.
*dies of irony*
irony? this irony you speak of, me no understand
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