the following is a comment i just made, despite my better instincts, to this post over at puntabulous, a blog i dearly love (and, if history is any judge, from which i will probably henceforth be banned from commenting forevermore).and it's not like the post in question was even particularly interesting--in fact, it was puked up by some guest-blogger--but what made it comment-worthy by moi were two things: (1) it was, like, the tenth reflexive, unthinking, half-assed condemnation of a column by the controversial pat buchanan which i myself had found fairly thought-provocative; and (2) being well into mkf cocktail #2, i figured, what the fuck--right place, right time.
whatever--if nothing else, it's a blogpost, and god knows i needed one:
i read and enjoy you, but never comment–-seeing as how my particular brand of neurotic darkness is so completely incompatible with all the lighthearted dorkiness that generally goes on here, i figure, why spoil things?
tonight (prolly because i’m a little shitfaced), i’m gonna make an exception, because here’s the thing about buchanan: yeah, he’s ultra-conservative; and yeah, he’s probably a nazi sympathizer; and yeah, he’d undoubtedly love to throw all us homogays into concentration camps and fill our every orifice with concrete–-believe me, i understand all that.
what i also understand–-and what most liberals either don’t, or won’t–-is, he’s also a very shrewd, observant student of history, and has drawn some very compelling parallels between the fall of past so-called eternal empires, and what’s now happening to ours.
in other words: yeah, he can be an asshole, but he can also be (and quite often is) right.
[excuse me now while i crawl back into my bunker at ruby ridge, adjust my tinfoil hat and await the invasion of the black helicopters]
8 comments:
Well, if you ARE banned henceforth from the site, it will be due to your even handedness and the fact that you can see, sober or not, both the good and the bad in either side of any debate or, in this case, the great, partisan, it's broke and maybe nobody can fix it, national fight to the death for domination at any cost, truth be damned.
thanks, will--i needed the blog-love today. oh, and my comment didn't seem to have made much of a ripple one way or the other in puntabulousland--i think if you really wanna start shit over there, you haveta, like attack battlestar galactaca or something ;)
For as long as I have known you, you really do believe this stuff yourself.
You do not see yourself reflected in the progressive policies of the Obama administration.
Certainly the Bush administration took the votes of working class whites, but never really did more than window dressing to the issues most affecting these voters -- unless you count very conservative judges who are busy trying to dismantle the Warren court's legacy case by case and issue by issue.
So, yes, there is a sense that there is a large number of disaffected voters.
But, a lot of the most disaffected voters are small business owners and others that benefited enormously from the Bush tax cuts and pro-business domestic policies.
They are disaffected mostly because they are used to their privilege and not really prepared for a world where they might have to share some of their profits with others.
There is an anger out there against Obama and progressive policies. It is certainly heart felt. But that does not make it any less dangerous, or more to the point, disingenuous.
Actually, this last post defending Pat Buchanan saying he is basically right is a little window into guttermorality's psyche.
But, I fear, that opaque comment will have to suffice.
noblesavage: there's so much here, i don't even know where to start.
first, the tiresomely insulting assumption that, since i'm critical of the dems, i must wholeheartedly embrace the other side of that bad political penny, the gop.
understand: i hate all the bastards.
i'm an independent in every sense of the word, noblesavage--i'm against institutionalized "sharing" (i.e., welfare) in all its forms, whether it be of the futile "great society" type that you are no doubt still pining away for; or the corporate kind facilitated by the dems and gop alike for their biggest donors.
i'm a free-market capitalist--an economic discipline that hasn't been practiced in this country for almost a hundred years.
what we have become instead is a bastardized oligarchy in which the corporate robber-barons have become locked in a death-struggle with the neo-socialists to see which group can kill the goose that laid the golden egg first.
[and you know that phrase "share some of their profits with others" sends cold chills down my spine--which is why you chose it, right?
it's the thought of the likes of barack obama, barney frank, christopher dodd, nancy pelosi, maxine waters, charlie rangel et al.--inherently corrupt, career sucking-at-the-public-tit political hacks who have never run a business, met a payroll or turned an honest profit in their whole miserable lives--divvying up the proceeds of the achievers in our society and handing it out to their union cronies that makes me wanna puke.]
Well, I do not think I am wrong here. You can say the Republicans are corrupt. I said that too and I'm glad you agree. But that does not change my post: there are a lot of angry white men out there and you just happen to be one of them.
That you do not find yourself having much in common with a lot of the other angry white men does not change anything.
What concerns me is that you are essentially operating under the same assumptions that all those tea bagging protesters do: that America is going to hell in a handbasket because the 'socialists' are in power and are going to rob you of your money, your guns, and probably force you to have an abortion or two whether you need one or not.
The angry white men are disaffected because they are so used to being on top and they find that a black president is not mirroring them as they are used to. That is what is meant by privilege. You are pretty much blind to your own privilege. In fact, you will probably say you have no privilege. That is my point.
You are one of Pat Buchanan's children. You may not like it, but look on the bright side: I could have said you are one of Buchanan's siblings.
noblesavage: at some point, i wanna sit down with you and have you lay me out, point by point, your vision of a perfect america--because now i'm really curious.
No problem.
As a prelude, you have to remember that I did go to Berkeley...so I'm betting that my idea of a good society is probably very different from your own.
The key here is I think I can explain in very specific detail why.
One of the problem with free-market philosophy is that it is not very good at solving the free rider problem. The Tragedy of the Commons is a great introduction to the concept of market failure. Markets do not internalize social costs, that is why we need government.
Some thoughts for you to chew on.
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