If you were to peruse the entire catalogue of this blog (better have some time) and could tell me exactly how it is that "Lefty" makes any sense whatever; I'd like to know.
I don't mean it is inaccurate today, what I mean is - What The Hell?
Showing posts with label Lefty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lefty. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Sunday, February 07, 2010
Kick The Left
Lately in some places it has been a real popular passtime to kick the left; mostly over its reaction to the Senate HCR bill. A lot of this fervor was generated by Jane Hamsher over at Fire Dog Lake (no i won't link her) for making a campaign against Rahm Emmanuel and hooking up with Grover Norquist - a swear word on the left. Now equating Jane to the Democratic Left is a lot like calling the Weather Undergound part of the Democrats. Where it gets hilarious is when the left gets blamed for disliking the Senate bill and yelling about it. Sounds a lot like GOP mindless lockstep to me.
There are two aspects that are really irritating, those folks are always 1-6 years late finding out that the left was correct (I wanted to say "right") and they figure it out when the stuff hits the fan. The other part is that the left is the reliable turnout, the door knockers, the donors, the callers and always the bride's maids. Nobody gets less, even lip service, and always folds for the "middle" no matter how far right those "responsible" people drift.
Senate Democrats would have you know that they were helpless in the face of the Mighty Joe. Those earmark things Johnny McPOW so hates; I'd bet over 50 Democratic Senators could figure out how a strike out works. In fact there seems to be an actual supply of ball bats over at the Senate with seats, chairs, earmarks, office spaces, and funding floating around in the hands of at least 51 Democrats. Since the Mighty Ho is holding hearings about the panty bomber it is pretty obvious nothing but wiffs happened in the club. I'm sure the left had something to do with that beyond hating him.
You can pull apart the entire course of the bill until now and see no damage from the left. It may have had an effect on approval, but versus the spectacle in the Senate, that would be pretty small. It has gotten to be real fun to compare the Democratic Left to the riechwing loons and particularly the Teabaggery bunch. The problem with that idea is that the so-called Democratic middle goes along with the stupidity propagated by the Republicans despite the pull back of the Left. Think I'm exaggerating? Fine, see who voted for and supported the AUMF in regard to Iraq, check out who voted for BushCo tax cuts, Patriot Act, Foreign Combatants, and on and on. You will not find the Left there. Why exactly members of the Administration are insulting the Left as though they were responsible for the failures of the Democratic Agenda is beyond me.
There are aspects of the Left that are silly to me, calling Obama Bushlite is one. The continuation of some BushCo policies in regard to terrorism is disappointing and, frankly, wrong but scarcely Bushian overall. Some of the Left shares with some of Democratic middle stupidity regarding the Second Amendment, but this is not remotely a feature of the Left versus that so-called middle. You'll find plenty of that middle tossing rocks as though owning guns is rightwing loonyism. As an example, in Communistic Oregon the Lefty organization Democratic Party of Oregon has as its second largest Caucus the Gun Owners Caucus.
There is extremism in any political stripe, stances that go beyond reasonable inspection into pure faith. Teabaggery is one example, but you would be hard pressed to find much of a percentage on the Left, despite the detractors. In point of fact, as the detractors scoffed at the Left for pushing the Congress over the "Health Care Reform" bill in the face of a lack of votes, they now are engaging in exactly the same behavior in favor of the Senate bill in the face of exactly the same problem - lack of votes. Somehow the Left is stupid and destructive for doing the same thing.
You could wonder why I find it difficult to support with work and money the Party that insults and ignores me ... you could, I suppose. But then, I never supported or applauded or voted for St Ronnie Reagan, either. If you understand or appreciate Reagan Democrats - you and I have nothing in common and you'll find this whole exercise insulting. I could care less.
There are two aspects that are really irritating, those folks are always 1-6 years late finding out that the left was correct (I wanted to say "right") and they figure it out when the stuff hits the fan. The other part is that the left is the reliable turnout, the door knockers, the donors, the callers and always the bride's maids. Nobody gets less, even lip service, and always folds for the "middle" no matter how far right those "responsible" people drift.
Senate Democrats would have you know that they were helpless in the face of the Mighty Joe. Those earmark things Johnny McPOW so hates; I'd bet over 50 Democratic Senators could figure out how a strike out works. In fact there seems to be an actual supply of ball bats over at the Senate with seats, chairs, earmarks, office spaces, and funding floating around in the hands of at least 51 Democrats. Since the Mighty Ho is holding hearings about the panty bomber it is pretty obvious nothing but wiffs happened in the club. I'm sure the left had something to do with that beyond hating him.
You can pull apart the entire course of the bill until now and see no damage from the left. It may have had an effect on approval, but versus the spectacle in the Senate, that would be pretty small. It has gotten to be real fun to compare the Democratic Left to the riechwing loons and particularly the Teabaggery bunch. The problem with that idea is that the so-called Democratic middle goes along with the stupidity propagated by the Republicans despite the pull back of the Left. Think I'm exaggerating? Fine, see who voted for and supported the AUMF in regard to Iraq, check out who voted for BushCo tax cuts, Patriot Act, Foreign Combatants, and on and on. You will not find the Left there. Why exactly members of the Administration are insulting the Left as though they were responsible for the failures of the Democratic Agenda is beyond me.
There are aspects of the Left that are silly to me, calling Obama Bushlite is one. The continuation of some BushCo policies in regard to terrorism is disappointing and, frankly, wrong but scarcely Bushian overall. Some of the Left shares with some of Democratic middle stupidity regarding the Second Amendment, but this is not remotely a feature of the Left versus that so-called middle. You'll find plenty of that middle tossing rocks as though owning guns is rightwing loonyism. As an example, in Communistic Oregon the Lefty organization Democratic Party of Oregon has as its second largest Caucus the Gun Owners Caucus.
There is extremism in any political stripe, stances that go beyond reasonable inspection into pure faith. Teabaggery is one example, but you would be hard pressed to find much of a percentage on the Left, despite the detractors. In point of fact, as the detractors scoffed at the Left for pushing the Congress over the "Health Care Reform" bill in the face of a lack of votes, they now are engaging in exactly the same behavior in favor of the Senate bill in the face of exactly the same problem - lack of votes. Somehow the Left is stupid and destructive for doing the same thing.
You could wonder why I find it difficult to support with work and money the Party that insults and ignores me ... you could, I suppose. But then, I never supported or applauded or voted for St Ronnie Reagan, either. If you understand or appreciate Reagan Democrats - you and I have nothing in common and you'll find this whole exercise insulting. I could care less.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The New and Improved Comments Policy
If you want to write something into the comments, I certainly encourage you to do so. However, in the face of absolute stupidity I have modified the policy. If you want to come around here and write something completely stupid I encourage everybody else to just kick the snot out of you, if you want to cuss like sailors, well, your mother might see you do it and that's your look out. This isn't now and never was intended to be for the faint of heart or weak of spirit and if you can't play, go elsewhere.
Because this blog gets published into newspapers and other places I'll probably keep a fair rein on my articles' language, but that is a publishing decision taken article by article. The comments section isn't my playground, it's yours. What I will not tolerate is publishing personal information or porno or hate site links and I have no edit feature so the whole thing goes.
If I get a particularly good comment I may bring it up onto the main, Carla gets the first one:
in response to complete stupidity regarding Birth Certificate.
Wishful thinking ought to have a category of its own, Phil proves it:
regarding, obviously, ratbastards.
Speaking of open season, no limits, if you think this election does more than crack a door open you're engaging in wishful thinking. If we want to get somewhere from here, we set the agenda, we set the conversation, we make the message. And take exactly no prisoners from the loon fringe. If you've got verifiable stupid from real leaders of the right I want it and my email is right here, tell me, links, sourced quotes, I don't give a damn except I will not be caught out passing bad information, ever.
If you want to write an article I'll publish it if you send it to me in either MS Word or MS Outlook. Same rules, verifiable sources, I'll edit for misspellings or simple grammar and credit you though it'll still publish under my "byline".
If you've missed it, I'm sick of being a punching bag for a bunch of failures from the right and hearing their stupid propaganda stated as fact. It's not for later, it is always now, that is where we're at, now. Do now and the future takes care of itself.
***Update***
There is a TZ that you want to be careful about picking fights with, he's good at it, lots of practice because he likes it. He's fun, though. He announced his intention to nose around here.
Because this blog gets published into newspapers and other places I'll probably keep a fair rein on my articles' language, but that is a publishing decision taken article by article. The comments section isn't my playground, it's yours. What I will not tolerate is publishing personal information or porno or hate site links and I have no edit feature so the whole thing goes.
If I get a particularly good comment I may bring it up onto the main, Carla gets the first one:
If pigs fly out of my ass....
in response to complete stupidity regarding Birth Certificate.
Wishful thinking ought to have a category of its own, Phil proves it:
Open season on ratbastards, no bag limits?
regarding, obviously, ratbastards.
Speaking of open season, no limits, if you think this election does more than crack a door open you're engaging in wishful thinking. If we want to get somewhere from here, we set the agenda, we set the conversation, we make the message. And take exactly no prisoners from the loon fringe. If you've got verifiable stupid from real leaders of the right I want it and my email is right here, tell me, links, sourced quotes, I don't give a damn except I will not be caught out passing bad information, ever.
If you want to write an article I'll publish it if you send it to me in either MS Word or MS Outlook. Same rules, verifiable sources, I'll edit for misspellings or simple grammar and credit you though it'll still publish under my "byline".
If you've missed it, I'm sick of being a punching bag for a bunch of failures from the right and hearing their stupid propaganda stated as fact. It's not for later, it is always now, that is where we're at, now. Do now and the future takes care of itself.
***Update***
There is a TZ that you want to be careful about picking fights with, he's good at it, lots of practice because he likes it. He's fun, though. He announced his intention to nose around here.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Ideological Purity
David Sirota writes in the San Francisco Chronicle that there is a real problem with people in power not owning what they said about the Iraq War, this is certainly true. He holds John Edwards up as an example of how it should be done - I made a mistake and I regret it. He goes on to note that there definitely is a massive case of CYA going on. This is where it gets sticky, why is this going on?
We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.
The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.
Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.
Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.
We all know why the President of the US would state that he never said, "Stay the course." It's politically stupid to do it, but he does have the semantic dodge of what course he was talking about, Nostradamus works well in that respect. There is however the matter of pundits and other pols who beat the warm drum enthusiastically. It is now a generally unpopular stand to take and those who take it publicly will be held to account for that stance. There is such a thing as Conservatism that isn't about god, gays, and guns; I don't subscribe to the philosophy but one of its tenets is military adventures aren't to be done. That used to be a Republican deal, but ideological purity requirements of the past decade silenced that. The political price to be paid for opposing the Iraq adventure on philosophical grounds outweighed principle. You weren't pure in the Bush ideology.
The responsibility for this falls on Parties and voters. Politicians can count. If philosophy loses to Party line the fault is not solely the Party's. This notion of ideological purity driving political discourse is harmful to Parties and to national policy and Republicans are not the only guilty party. There are, of course, issues that in voter's mind's trump ideology. Joe Lieberman is an example, his stance on Iraq cost him the Democratic Primary despite the rest of his political stances. There does, however, remain a blindness to policy and reasoning due to ideology. I will make a personal argument in this arena, I am intimately familiar with it and thus competent. During the Democratic Primary for OR 02 CD I set up policy statements and my reasoning for them, The Oregonian took those and attributed "the most conservative" of the candidates to me. As far as I can tell, there were 3 policies that contributed to that, strong support of the 2nd Amendment, opposition to illegal hiring/illegal immigration, and a stance that one size fits all environmental regulations is doomed. Now I'd be real surprised to find that conservatives exactly agree with my rationales for those stands, they are in fact based on hard left politics. Anybody that hasn't gotten the idea that I regard the 2nd as the final block against people like BushCo hasn't paid attention - and yes, I regard that bunch as exactly that dangerous. Sounds left to me. Illegal hiring crushes labor - I oppose fervently any actions to debase labor, and I don't mean just organized labor and in the 1920's that would've gotten me arrested. I'll fight the establishment of, enhancement of, and enabling of a plutocracy in this country tooth and nail and serfs are a part of that. That's damn left. Environmental policies that are created with the one size fits all philosophy are doomed, public backlash will occur and the very people you need to be partners become enemies. I want success in that arena, long term meaningful success. Left again. That is not the measure that was taken of me as a candidate. I failed the ideological purity test on the surface. Drivng drag cars fails completely.
Reasoning and motive become buried under simplistic labels, the fact that racist xenophobic nutcases oppose illegal immigration has nothing to do with the matter as far as the health and well being of labor is concerned. It certainly is not progressive politics to oppose something on the basis of race, neither is it progressive to participate in the oppression of labor. Pay attention. The fact that the NRA seems to have fallen in bed with some of the worst aspects of the Republican Party has exactly not one thing to do with owning firearms. The fact that Sen Chuck Schumer (D) sees a difference between interfering with the 2nd and interfering with the 1st does not make it progressive to do so, it is in fact absolutely oppressive to restrict liberty. It is not reasoning to ignore contradictions in the name of ideology, it is the pursuit of ideological purity that you've been told exists.
Do the Hillary Clintons pass ideological muster? Certainly on name alone, debate ceases if the surname and (D) becomes all important. The question really should fall on the balance of policy statements, their reasoning and their motives. The timing of her opposition (post mid-term) to Iraq is suspect in my eyes, her stances on gun control have shown no reasoning in light of the Constitution, in point of fact I find her very nearly the most poll driven pol I've seen. I cannot find a single iota of respect for labor in any of her stances beyond the minimum wage and that has yet to play out. Do I find Hillary's ideological purity in question? Not really, I have no idea what her ideology is by definition of action. I don't care if it doesn't look ideologically pure, I care about the outcomes and the reasons for them. Ideological purity is all about appearances and those who'll pass its muster should be deeply suspect. If you've 'stuck your foot in it' apologize for it, state why you were wrong then and why you're right now, people will take the measure of that and make an informed decision. If you're right, stand up for it, the heck with how pure it looks.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Are You A *Gasp* Liberal?
Or a progressive? No, I don't claim those titles, I stick with Lefty. I'm pretty sure I come by that label honestly. But I'm curious what Liberal or Progressive means to you. I don't mean in some long thick treatist, just simply put. I figure a paragraph ought to do if you've thought it over.
It probably doesn't seem fair that I'm not handing out a "Lefty" definition of my own, well there are thousands of words behind this post doing the defining, oh heck, it's not fair, so:
I don't think the "little guy" gets a fair shake in a system designed to reward capital or in a system designed around majorities.
There are all kinds of permutations of methods dealing with this, communism was one failed idea, socialism always seems to fall down, then there's modifications of capitalism and modifications of majority rule. Capitalism seems to work when it rewards effort, unfortunately that's not how it's designed. When idividuals are more highly regarded than groups or masses, majority becomes a more equitable method of expressing will.
But now it's your turn, what does it mean to you? I've been sticking stuff up here for most of a year and I'd like to see what you've got to say. It may be harder than you think to get it down simply, well - that's good for the brain. Please include a name or username, rude offensive crap will just go away.
It probably doesn't seem fair that I'm not handing out a "Lefty" definition of my own, well there are thousands of words behind this post doing the defining, oh heck, it's not fair, so:
I don't think the "little guy" gets a fair shake in a system designed to reward capital or in a system designed around majorities.
There are all kinds of permutations of methods dealing with this, communism was one failed idea, socialism always seems to fall down, then there's modifications of capitalism and modifications of majority rule. Capitalism seems to work when it rewards effort, unfortunately that's not how it's designed. When idividuals are more highly regarded than groups or masses, majority becomes a more equitable method of expressing will.
But now it's your turn, what does it mean to you? I've been sticking stuff up here for most of a year and I'd like to see what you've got to say. It may be harder than you think to get it down simply, well - that's good for the brain. Please include a name or username, rude offensive crap will just go away.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Re-elect RM Nixon
I KNOW he's dead. And I detested him, well before he was President, but here's what David Gergen had to say, paraphrased: Richard Nixon couldn't get elected today, he was too far left.
Had you thought of it that way, I don't mean, "was he a crook?" I mean how "far left" Nixon was, by today's standards. Now I don't put myself up as a rival to the advisor to 3 Presidents, but I'd propose that by today's standards nobody from FDR through Clinton would've been elected last time.
I do believe that what the Republicans hated about Clinton was that he ran on and won on their agenda and that was where the heavy tilt right in the Republican Party came from. If you hate him and oppose him at every turn, the only way to get out from under him is to move Right. A lot right. And then to call draconian rightism compassionate.
There was a pretty spirited comment section over at Preemptive Karma the other day about shifting tags of political persuasion. I called the tags laziness in regards to individuals and individual topics, but there is a usefulness in "tagging" the general political tenor. My real problem with left/center/right at this point is that the "right" isn't what it meant - conservative -when I learned the terms. I still can't get myself to call this bunch conservatives, I understood what they stood for, the best I can do with these guys is mean selfish religious pricks. There still are some conservatives around, I don't much agree with them, but at least I understand them. I can't make sense of the agenda of this crowd, no it's not the neo-con thing, though that's a part of it, it's the thing taken as a whole, it just doesn't hang together. For Pete's sake, Barry Goldwater's stuff had a consistency, it made sense whether you agreed or not.
If the destruction of the United States of America was the agenda, their stuff would almost make sense, I'm not talking about the dirt it's composed of, I mean the Declaration, Constitution, BOR, the spirit and philosophy. I'm a real "left" sorta guy, but that's not what I'm talking about, not politics, the basis of what we live is what I'm talking about. The Conservatives had a philosophy that informed their politics, these guys have...I don't know what. This just seems like some aberrant mess and calling them names doesn't address it.
When George II first ran, I thought he was too limited to be dangerous, I also didn't know who he hung around with, first mistake; I had some idea we still had a Congress and an opposition Party, mistake two; I didn't know something was hanging out there that could be used to scare a big chunk of the citizenry, mistake three - it was obvious; I didn't know these were the guys who'd be such political animals to do that, mistake four - wishful thinking. Now I'm a real smart guy - all those tests say so - but this list sure makes me look stupid. I don't like that.
I learn real quick...
Had you thought of it that way, I don't mean, "was he a crook?" I mean how "far left" Nixon was, by today's standards. Now I don't put myself up as a rival to the advisor to 3 Presidents, but I'd propose that by today's standards nobody from FDR through Clinton would've been elected last time.
I do believe that what the Republicans hated about Clinton was that he ran on and won on their agenda and that was where the heavy tilt right in the Republican Party came from. If you hate him and oppose him at every turn, the only way to get out from under him is to move Right. A lot right. And then to call draconian rightism compassionate.
There was a pretty spirited comment section over at Preemptive Karma the other day about shifting tags of political persuasion. I called the tags laziness in regards to individuals and individual topics, but there is a usefulness in "tagging" the general political tenor. My real problem with left/center/right at this point is that the "right" isn't what it meant - conservative -when I learned the terms. I still can't get myself to call this bunch conservatives, I understood what they stood for, the best I can do with these guys is mean selfish religious pricks. There still are some conservatives around, I don't much agree with them, but at least I understand them. I can't make sense of the agenda of this crowd, no it's not the neo-con thing, though that's a part of it, it's the thing taken as a whole, it just doesn't hang together. For Pete's sake, Barry Goldwater's stuff had a consistency, it made sense whether you agreed or not.
If the destruction of the United States of America was the agenda, their stuff would almost make sense, I'm not talking about the dirt it's composed of, I mean the Declaration, Constitution, BOR, the spirit and philosophy. I'm a real "left" sorta guy, but that's not what I'm talking about, not politics, the basis of what we live is what I'm talking about. The Conservatives had a philosophy that informed their politics, these guys have...I don't know what. This just seems like some aberrant mess and calling them names doesn't address it.
When George II first ran, I thought he was too limited to be dangerous, I also didn't know who he hung around with, first mistake; I had some idea we still had a Congress and an opposition Party, mistake two; I didn't know something was hanging out there that could be used to scare a big chunk of the citizenry, mistake three - it was obvious; I didn't know these were the guys who'd be such political animals to do that, mistake four - wishful thinking. Now I'm a real smart guy - all those tests say so - but this list sure makes me look stupid. I don't like that.
I learn real quick...
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