The slow(er) boat to hell
[video, above] Tenebroust, The "left" sets up the "right" for takeover, Feb 15, 2010 (1st posted at DH here, "Fascism USA...")
Ian Welsh: "A blast from the past and a reminder about the future", April 24, 2011
Obama is not turning things around, what he is doing is negotiating with Republicans how fast the decline will be, and how much and how fast it is necessary to fuck ordinary Americans in order to keep the rich rich. If Obama wins another term, he will continue to negotiate the decline, then, odds are very high, a Republican will get in, and slam his foot on the accelerator of collapse.
Chris Hedges, "The corporate state wins again", April 25, 2011
The rhetoric of the Democratic Party and the neoliberals sustains the illusion of participatory democracy. The Democrats and their liberal apologists offer minor palliatives and a feel-your-pain language to mask the cruelty and goals of the corporate state. The reconfiguration of American society into a form of neofeudalism will be cemented into place whether it is delivered by Democrats, who are pushing us there at 60 miles an hour, or Republicans, who are barreling toward it at 100 miles an hour.
Xymphora: "Hell or heaven", April 29, 2011
I'm getting sick and tired of these elections fought by the left on the basis of promising to take you on the road to hell, but a little slower than the other guys. This is killing the Liberals in the current campaign, as they have nothing positive to offer but that they are not the utter hopelessness of Harper.
First of all, no, I am not saying that Hedges and Xymphora are just filching from Ian Welsh, nor am I saying that Ian is filching from Tenebroust. (It's highly unlikely the other three have even heard of Tenebroust, who is not, er, conventionally articulate. (although I suspect he could be if he wanted to be, but just doesn't feel like it.))The same idea can spring up roughly simultaneously in many places.(incidentally, I gather that Tenebroust and Welsh are both cautiously pro-nuclear power, while Hedges and Xymphora are both steadfastly anti-nuke.)
At any rate, to me it seems that one of the reasons an idea spontaneously springs forth in divers minds may be because it is increasingly valid. (I was tempted to say 'increasingly resonant' but I'm getting tired about hearing about how ideas and spin 'resonate', and didn't want to contribute to the din.)
If you can recall other instances of having seen this line of argument please email me, or better yet tell me in the comments.
Labels: blogging, corruption, creeping fascism, culture, me n' my meme, our shitty zeitgeist, politics
posted by Jonathan Versen @ 1:30 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I made this point in several blogs during the Bush/Gore election when people were talking about wasted 3d party votes and I still gave a shit about which party was going to inflict its particular form of disaster on us. Clinton was a really shitty President, but because he took the country on a slower path downhill, he appeared to be less shitty than his predecessor or successor in office, people were convinced that he was a liberal or something. Alan Greenspan said as much when he called Clinton a Republican, much to the amusement of his audience. I've seen the idea expressed elsewhere from time to time. It may be that once you see it, it turns up elsewhere, sort of like having a new pair of glasses.
Now though, in reflection, Clinton's no fly zones, bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia and various bank deregulation and anti-welfare steps, make it seem to me that he was not even less shitty. I'm certain that Obama is way shittier than Bush, in part because he has democratic support every step of the way while the Republicans scream "please don't throw me in the briar patch" so they can keep Mitt Romney out of the White House because he's too liberal or something.
So, I'm pretty pessimistic.
I was gonna say, that tenebroust guy seems to go along with the whole birther thing:
http://tenebroust-thestenchoftruth.blogspot.com/2011/05/various-speculations.html
Hedges and Welsh are at least ground to reality. Again, as I've said before, Xymphora is pretty anti Semitic when you get right down to
Hi to both of you.
Drip, I am also pessimistic, even though I tell myself that when people talk about how stupid and vacant 'the people out there' are, the fact is the media mediates(sorry), among other things, our perceptions of each other, which helps discourage dissent and reward passivity.
If several millions of people 'out there' are made to feel as if they're all alone in seeing the world around them as going to hell in a handbasket, etc. and bipartisanship as a joke being perpetrated on us, and all of them think nobody else feels the same way, well, the people on the TV are doing their job correctly, right?
JM, thanks for the link. I will admit I only watch tenebroust's videos irregularly.
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