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The Whine of Voracious Liberals
Does the extremism of some progressives spell danger to delicious evolution? Well, yes
I hear it nearly every week in response to nearly any column that has anything to do with me daring to say I appreciate or admire or moderately wish to commend some sort of progressive movement or corporation or product, one that appears to be creating some sort of good in the world, moving things forward or upending the status quo or infuriating the religious right and making you think/shop/screw anew.
I get the e-mails. And there is, by and large, a general outpouring of agreement, understanding, clarity. There are also lots of healthy disagreement, discussion, valid points of contention. There is the requisite tiny hunk of phlegmy, grunting hate mail from the turgid and the monosyllabic and the neoconservative. Well and good and lovely.
But then there's this other hunk, a surprisingly large and very whiny group of responders who invariably say something like this: It does not matter that Company X has made impressive strides in environmental awareness or product design or gay rights or whatever the hell you're talking about. It does not matter that maybe you're a little bit right and this is a slightly revolutionary thing you mention.
It is still not enough. Company X has Serious Flaws. Product Y still kills trees in Bangladesh. CEO Z hates kittens and wears fur mittens and once said something mean about transsexual midgets. Therefore, you are completely wrong and I cannot believe you support this company/idea and this must mean you're a capitalist idiot Audi-driving hypocrite and I'm never reading your column again. Unless I do. So there.
Specific example? Sure. I recently wrote a big pile of words in tentative but still enthusiastic praise of the Whole Foods juggernaut, a fascinating and innovative mega-grocer led by an equally fascinating, contradictory jerk/genius of a chief executive, John Mackey, half cutthroat libertarian mega-capitalist and half spiritual yoga-loving employee-supporting industry-upending revolutionary.
Here's where it got ugly: While most readers generally agreed (or thoughtfully disagreed) with my assessment that the positive changes Whole Foods is forcing upon the otherwise rather toxic American grocery universe far outweighed the scattershot negatives, a significant chunk were, if not furious, at least sneering and bitter and dissatisfied, wailing to me that, oh my God, didn't I know John Mackey is, for example, anti-union? (Well, yes, I did.)
Well then, didn't I know he used questionable business tactics to buy out Wild Oats? Didn't I know Whole Foods has shoved some mom 'n' pop grocers out of business and didn't I know some small organic farmers don't like their buying power and didn't I know that not everything they offer is totally organic and by the way haven't I noticed their stores are staffed by way too many grungy sullen tattooed hipsters and aren't tattoos and nose rings totally ugly and gross? Uh, sure.
And finally, didn't I know that this one time Reader X got some horrible customer service and Reader Y once encountered snooty patrons and Reader Z can't believe I like them given that they sell bananas imported all the way from Guatemala and therefore Whole Foods is detestable and hateful and blah and blah and blah?
It was like reading a stack of letters from your nasty, drunk hippie grandparents. It was like having a potential lover suddenly slap you for no reason and then tell you their laundry list of impossible needs and STD precautions and all the reasons you can never touch them again, despite how you never really wanted to in the first place.
And here's why: Such letters are all too similar in tone and attitude to the stance of the fundamentalist Christian right, the bitter and perpetually unsatisfied throngs for whom no behavioral law is strict enough and no relationship is unhappy enough and no repressed homosexual desire is self-hating enough.
Let's compare. Because I also recently wrote a piece in celebration of the glorious downfall of the Godmongers in America, the end (at least for now) of the radical Christian right's influence over a wary and dogma-stomped society.
I cheered the collapse of the insufferable "family values" fundamentalist groups that, until recently, controlled much of Congress and yanked Bush's puppet strings and have done so much damage to women and gays and science and love and sex and hope, lo, these past seven years. (Check that: 2,000 years. But that's another column.)
The reason for their glorious collapse? Insatiable zealotry. The fact that, no matter how far to the right BushCo shoved this nation, for this hardcore base of fear-drunk evangelicals, it was never enough. They want nothing short of the complete destruction of gay culture, abortion rights, the end of the separation of church and state. They want, in short, absolute sexual, ideological, and moral lockdown.
To which I responded: Yay! Because ultimately, this sort of rabid zealotry spells certain defeat. Such moronic groups have the seeds of their own destruction built right into their impossible worldviews. Brutal absolutism is their one fatal flaw. So long as it exists (and it always has existed), progress and evolution will always win.
It's an obvious parallel, to see an uber-progressive left that, while encompassing an entirely different ethos (extreme openness and egalitarianism versus extreme clampdown and religious ignorance), still resonates with the same kind of impossible standards of behavior. It's like demanding that the whole world instantly turn into one big PETA rally. There is just no way. I mean, thank God.
Whole Foods is but one example. I've heard the same outcry when I praise, say, Apple product design (which, I admit, is nearly always). It happens when I suggest CFLs are a small but terrific environmental advancement (but don't I know they contain trace amounts of mercury and disposing of them might possibly be a problem in 10 years maybe!?)
And it happens, perhaps most disturbingly, when I write of fitful political progress. It happens across the liberal political blogs, where otherwise well-informed, intelligent commentators will screech that they were once, say, a Barack Obama supporter, but then they heard him say one single thing that sounded "too political" or that wasn't in exact accord with their pet issue of (nukes/war/gays/health care/porn/medical marijuana), and hence they got all pissed and disgusted and now they hate hate hate Obama and are voting for Dennis Kucinich. I mean, please.
On the one hand, I get it. We want to hold progressive companies/people to a higher standard, especially if they want to market themselves as these high-concept change-the-world do-gooders. We, as conscious, informed, progressive consumers have every goddamn right to keep their feet to the liberal fire, and what's more, this zeal has often resulted in a given company/person responding positively. (Ref: Apple's impressive green initiative, Whole Foods working more closely with local farms, et al.)
But ultimately, this sort of excessive, all-or-nothing liberal zealotry will only result in the same dangerous fracturing as always befalls the extreme right. Yes, it seems fairly obvious, but it bears repeating, over and over again, especially as Dems gain more political traction and we head into what will hopefully be a far more enlightened, juicy, and balanced era, where gays marry and wars end and dolphins dance and trees sing and President Jobs gives everyone an organic iPhone.
What, too extreme? Sorry.
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him. Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SFGate and in the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle.
© The San Francisco Chronicle
99 Comments so far
Show AllYes!
I'm 59 years old and a flaming progressive, but I've come to realize that progress almost always comes in small steps. Utopia is a dream - a beautiful one, but still, a dream. Better is good. Perfect is unrealistic. Truth is very important. And overreaction is almost always counterproductive, although it can be fun at times.
"Bravo!
We're experiencing exactly this kind of P.C. zealotry right now in the nasty debate over ENDA."
...and the one over Al Gore's possible candidacy.
"If it's closeminded, it isn't liberal or conservative. It's closeminded."
Sorry but no. If it's closeminded it's conservative. Left wing or right wing conservative.
Bravo!
We're experiencing exactly this kind of P.C. zealotry right now in the nasty debate over ENDA.
The practical want the bill passed as it has been offered for the past 20 years. The zealots want the transgendered included in it and got them into the bill wording for the first time this year. The result of course is that while for the first time there IS a possibility of getting gays, lesbians, and bisexuals protected from job discrimination, there is no political will to do so for the modified bill because no one has taken considerable time or effort to educate the public and Congress on the importance of including the transgendered.
Is that a problem? No, according to the zealots. Gays and lesbians will all happily suffer in noble defeat of their centerpiece federal rights bill because it isn't PERFECT.
I hope everyone at CD will read the article above, then read it again, then again, then again, and then join in re-centering our country in 2008. It won't be President Jobs, of course, but it could be President Clinton, or Obama, or Edwards, or Gore.
We'll have only ourselves to blame if it's President Giuliani or President Thompson.
interesting how moford sounds like the progressive zealots or is it the zealots of the right he is condemning. personally, i am tired of yielding ground to what is the 'good lie' or purity of intent people who always say lose today win tomorrow. you give an inch and i will take a mile. there is no difference between the extremes. both are willing to take my rights/freedoms.
Thank you, Mark Morford, for saying what I have been thinking, and at times, agonizing over, for a long time. Sometimes reading the malicious comments on this site about people who are essentially good and trying to move this country toward progress is just so disheartening. You are right; we are shooting ourselves in the collective foot when we demonize and eviscerate the very people who offer any hope at all. How pathetic. The left needs to get it together, and soon, before we wake up in '09 with Rudy in the Oval Office. Thanks for saying what sorely needed saying.
It's not a matter of us wanting perfection, or being whiny. It's a matter of us not agreeing with you. All the shit-talking us publicly does is make us more convinced that there is a split - a deep split - in the way we see the world around some issues.
It looks like not a few liberals have Talking Points sent to them the same way the Right does.
I don't refer to my politics as liberal because liberalism is primarily a matter of not sounding too zealous -- "please Mr. Douglass, please Mrs. Stanton, stop being so demanding and criticizing us, we're doing our best to get you a crumb or two, why are you so UNREALISTIC?"
The right-wing attack machine has been so successful in the last twelve years because they discerned this fundamental fear among Liberals-with-a-Capital-L -- faced with the ugly prospects of a real fight, a Liberal always retreats politely through compromises that allow him or her to appear Reasonable and Not-Extremist.
I don't understand. No one is listening to the moderate liberals, let alone the extreme ones! This includes St. Barack, who won't say we will be out of Iraq by 2013, and offers a less-than-inspirational national healthcare package. After all, he reasons, insurance company executives have to eat, too!
I can't see what the danger is of "liberal extremists" are when interests representing the very unliberal rule both political parties. All citizens need to protest
BOTH the Republicans and Democrats if they want real change. If you are not very rich, you are not living as well as you were ten years ago, whether you are a liberal or a conservative!
This sounds like an ABB sort of article.
Yes--be glad that a company did something right--but if youa dopt the stance of the author then you are supposed to sit back and think: hoo boy! Isnt the world grand? We can take it easy now.
No--you cant.
The Body Shop tried to do good things and was bought by L'Oreal.
You could say that happened because of this ABB mentality.
Environmentalists have got to be as determined and serious about what they want as those that are seeking the opposite.
If you are a vegetarian(and you make a sorry excuse for an environmentalist if you cant even give up meat) then you shouldnt be telling everyone to uy small farm meat. You should be telling them to be vegetarian.
If you dont believe that the world can be vegetarian then why are you a vegetarian in the first place?
You have to stand up for your principles. If you compromise on them then youa re doomed to failure(i.e. Body shop).
That's the most basic reality.
I think a lot of this comes down to the difference between liberals who really want mild reform and think this system can be fixed and that the answer lies in trusting the Democrats with whom they identify and progressives who have grown beyond that through education and experience in the struggle and who demand real change. We progressives know that the revolution is not happening next week and that "better is good" but we also know that a weak dem is not better most of the time and the delusion that they are is worse than resistance and struggle for actual progress. Compromise, while important, is not the primary tool of progress. Struggle and a constant and critical search for truth are.
So Mark Morford doesn't care about workers rights or unfair business practices of large corporations as much as he cares about issues he thinks are important. If he politely said that he had different priorities, I would just view him as wrong. But this sort of attack is wrong and dangerous. What he is saying is that those who think workers rights and restraints on corporate criminality are a problem. Well, yes, we are a problem for some interests. And some other issues MM doesn't think are important: "nukes/war/gays/health care/porn/medical marijuana". What's left? It looks like all that's left is the supporting certain corporations with good PR programs.
PS I don't think all issues are equally important (porn? that's a political issue?) but to me it's a red flag when you view workers' rights as not important in the context of sticking up for a union busting corporation that's using illegal means to smash independent business competition. Everything that MM likes about Whole Foods works quite well as a PR campaign for appealing to a well defined target market.
I was glad to read Mark Morford's article and recognise the feelings he describes.
My ideals are probably far left of almost anyone here - European socialist, trying to blend in with USA liberals. I've realised that I must reign in my ideals to conform with what's feasible and available here.
I admire the passion of some of CD's more zealously progressive members, they are needed, and plenty of them. But at the same time I can appreciate it's not realistic, short of a real revolution, to think that things can change here in under a couple of decades or so. The changes required are too fundamental.
As someone said above, small steps to the left are all we can realistically hope for. Too much fragmentation will bring about big steps in the wrong direction.
JP,
"e progressives know that the revolution is not happening next week and that "better is good" but we also know that a weak dem is not better most of the time and the delusion that they are is worse than resistance and struggle for actual progress."
It took time for American colonists to recognize that Parliament was part of the problem, not the solution; in the same way, it's taken many of us time to admit that Congress & both parties share the imperial delusions. Apart from a handful of Representatives, the vast majority of Democrats really & truly see nothing impeachable in Bush's murderous reign.
Morford hit the nail on the head with this one.
Most Progressives on CD are intelligent, accepting, people - who want to work together to make the world better for everyone. They also know that sometimes you don't always get everything that you want, that compromise is sometimes necessary, and that just because someone doesn't completley agree with you doesn't mean that they are evil or the enemy.
I have unfortunatly run into far too many of the other kind of Progressive- Obstinate, Dogmatic, Unwilling to concede even in the smallest way that the other person might be right, believing that anyone that disagrees with them is either evil or on the payroll of some evil entity.
Even worse are the last and thankfully smallest group - the hard core haters that would compare to anything the right wing could come up. Always Angry, always spouting hatred of such and such group, pouring invective and hatred on anyone they don't consider "left" enough, they would be virtually indistinguishable from some posters of "stormfront". What self-important pains in the ass.
The progressive community can either support anyone that moves, however slowly, in the right direction- or they can risk alienating the great majority of the population.
Given the corrupt, obscenely greedy, ruthless, cold-hearted country we're living in today, it's amazing companies such as Whole Foods and Starbucks and Central Market have managed to stay as clean as they have.
Paraphrasing progressive George Soros: no business can succeed in America legally. Period. One just has to try one's best.
Thank you everyone from restive to conrad, for reaffirming my faith in the US progressive movement. It is not a matter of being 'whiny' or 'extremist', it's a matter of sticking to your politics regardless of where the ever-shifting 'center' lies and a matter of disagreeing with the politics of the 'lesser evil'. Even a cursory reading of history will show that the Democrats and the Republicans are basically just two wings of a business party, all Liberals (with the capital L) should read a People's History of the United States.
As an aside since when supporting workers rights become 'extremist' it's even a fundamental right under the UN Human Rights Charter (a document that's hardly the Communist Manifesto)..
Anniesee,
"But at the same time I can appreciate it's not realistic, short of a real revolution, to think that things can change here in under a couple of decades or so. The changes required are too fundamental."
The current regime & its collaborationist Democrats are doing one good thing: they are killing off the foundational national myths that are commonly evoked to prevent the citizens from recognizing the need for revolutionary change, or even actual revolution.
The keystone of that myth is the belief that we have a unique continuity in our Constitution & that, as we've been told at the last several inaugurations, "power is handed over peacefully". The occasion when power was NOT handed over peacefully in 1861 is whitewashed as a kind of continuity, when it was an abolition of the original colonial union, of which legal slavery was a wholly integral part. Without it, there would have been no USA at all. So really the present form of government at best dates back 142 years, not over 200.
The immense public indifference to Ken Burns' latest hagiographic exercise suggests that even the WWII paradigm is starting to lose force. The menace of fascism was very real, but even without it, the US government would have chosen to fight an imperial war somewhere in order to drain off the forces impelling the country towards revolution.
Substantive changes will only be made when the national self-deceptions no longer command the imagination or the rhetoric of a significant minority. And I believe that is not as far off as it seems.
Then there are the "practical" liberals among us, who would have us put ALL of our energies into the good faith basket of the padrones. Screw that shit. Independent working class organization, first, now and always. And if we still have time to vote for an occasional enlightened democrat, we will. But the days of that strategy calling all the shots are rapidly dwindling down the drain, and I, for one, think it's a good thing.
"Better is good" is better only if it's part of progress toward the goal of best. The Democrats joining the Republicans to pass a terrible FISA bill and then saying "We'll fix it when we get back from recess," just doesn't cut it. If you hear a "whine", turn up your hearing aid. It's a loud cry of anger and despair.
What the political spectrum is seeing is probably a first, a very angry large base of reasonable people who feel absolutely betrayed by those they elected, when the destruction of America and its values are at stake. Many many on the left no longer trust those who are supposed to represent them, so to "compliment" candidates or companies on some cosmetic accomplishment is about as worthy an endeavor as the praise of a panderer.
It is imperative to address the problems in America -- they are urgent, and anyone who doesn't see that or take it into account is going to seem as though they're part of and supportive of those who've caused the problems.
Progress IS almost always incremental, that's true. But progress is an adjective attached to the solution of a "problem", not criminal actions. Progress goes somewhere. It isn't ever static or cosmetic, nor does it stop until the goal is accomplished.
But -- righting the destruction of America created by this administration and the underlying premises needs more than "progress". It needs immediate action to stop it, and a leisurely stroll through the motions is no answer.
Eh. Regrettably, this time around Morford seems to have gotten caught up in the Revenge of the Accomodationists backlash that's been percolating over the past couple of weeks. Please consult the Barney Frank articles on CD for a prime example.
Beneath the distinctive gonzo crackle of his prose is the tired straw man excoriating the Evils of Zealousness and Purity undermining decent people who deserve respect and space to support whom and what they please. The "liberals" are becoming what they beheld, etc. Yawn.
Even Morfordized, this is a bogus defensive posture mounted by unapologetic lesser-evilists and enablers. If, in fact, hordes of Sanctimonious "Liberal" Asshole Purists really do take issue with Morford, I would think that he can either tell them to fuck off because he can't be bothered engaging them, or he would employ his eloquence, hold his ground, and explain why the particular criticism isn't damning to him. One of the specious hidden premises of Morford's view is that he (the Reasonable Man) is acting in good faith, whereas the Replicant Liberals who oppress him aren't-- they just want to bash him over the head and gallop over the horizon shrieking, and not improving the status quo one single bit.
The "baby steps" theory of social and political change obviously captivates some, like a cool, tinkling spring of clear water appearing on the horizon captivates a wanderer in the desert. It seems so clear, so limpidly self-evident, so obvious-- and in any case, inevitable. Without disparaging anyone's sincerity or conviction: it's a mirage. With the hindsight of history, one can certainly discern trends that developed incrementally and meandered into dominance. "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard famously said. Persistent abandonment of principle and conscience in the service of political power does not pay dividends of enlightenment and progress, only more and more expediency and mediocrity-- that's how we got here in the first place.
Incidentally, although I personally don't have a transsexual dog in the fight, reading comments here and elsewhere from Frank and those who support his position ain't a pretty sight. The supercilious outrage from moderate LGBs castigating transsexuals, and those of us who support them, as Johnny/Janies-Come-Lately selfishly and unreasonablly insisting on making the perfect the enemy of the good comes off rather like the unforgettable scenes of desperate Vietnamese clawing to board helicopters evacuating Saigon, and getting their fingers smashed by luckier passengers' rifle butts.
"Baby steps"-- the mantra of crabs in a barrel.
"I admire the passion of some of CD's more zealously progressive members, they are needed, and plenty of them. But at the same time I can appreciate it's not realistic, short of a real revolution, to think that things can change here in under a couple of decades or so. The changes required are too fundamental."
Since when is calling for 1) food co-ops 2) corporate accountability - revolution? That's pretty much hippie do-goodism combined with liberalism - hardly earth-shattering stuff. Both have been around for decades, with mixed results - but what WF is practicing is actually a step back, not a step forward, even if there is good mixed in with the bad.
rant:
This is what gets me about this centrist crap - it's framed like consensus-building, when in fact it's capitulating to power, which when said capitulation involves the far right (or "natural foods" stores that are doing business with companies that invest in Monsanto and so on), it's not just foolish, it's dangerous. None of the things that are being asked of WF are revolutionary in focus, even on paper - given the balance of power at present, that would be calling for workplace control, with an anti-capitalist economic model, as much as that is possible at present.
If giving ground to obviously duplicitous practices is your vision of adapting socialism to the realities of the US, then all due respect, I question your commitment to any kind of real socialism - even if you are from Europe. ;-D
/rant
We all deserve better than baby steps - and if we have to settle for less *after* we have pushed as far as we can, then so be it, in my view - but that's clearly not what is being demanded by Mr. Monford and Mr. Frank. Real unity calls for diversity, as well as a willingness to allow viewpoints other than your own at the table - this is *NOT* about that, it's about accommodation to corporations, to the far right, to fascism. Enough, already.
If this is just the perennial Radicals vs. Moderates, Reform vs. Revolution debate, then (maybe this is too moderate of me) I would have to say that both types have their roles to play in pushing things forward.
I think Morford's main point is rather the obsessive silliness and knee-jerk negativism that is typical of both Right and Left political extremists (but particularly of the Left given the way things are in contemporary corporate America) and that is so clearly self-defeating because it is both ineffective in itself and unattractive to potential supporters.
The maximalist, uncompromising, "principled" moral stance is most effective when you have one really big issue, not a laundry list of peccadilloes.
I would suggest that the acid test and final judgement of any political strategy is whether it produces positive results. Did you win the small reform you sought? Did your revolution lead to freedom and prosperity? Maybe you were on the right side, but did your strategy work?
Smart strategy that produces actual progress is better than holy self-righteousness. On the other hand, endless compromise and moderation that gets steamrolled by the forces of evil is no good either. It's not so much a matter of balancing as of acting vigorously and passionately and intelligently, using a strategy that works.
"I would suggest that the acid test and final judgement of any political strategy is whether it produces positive results"
This is the same strategy that guided the Democratic senators when they refused to filibuster Roberts or Alito & the Republicans then told them they would simply abolish the filibuster.
Now the strategic minimalists, who told us that filibustering Roberts & Alito would be diastrous because there would be no way to filibuster even worse nominees tell us that we need to be minilaists once again, why? Because Bush was able to put Roberts and Alito on the Court.
We have seen the results of practical strategy for the last six years, and the reality is that practical strategy, strategic minimalism, small reforms are nothing but fodder to keep political consultants in cushy offices raking in rich fees from shit candidates.
restive
"If giving ground to obviously duplicitous practices is your vision of adapting socialism to the realities of the US, then all due respect, I question your commitment to any kind of real socialism - even if you are from Europe. ;-D "
I wasn't referring to any particular practice, I had an overall picture in mind.
You are right - I'm on your side all the way, but what to do?
I live in a Red State, Bible Belt at that. You must forgive my having needed to become somewhat wishy-washy during my few years here.
I've just searched my Favourites file for an old article from Common Dreams which I kept and read often. It's Harold Pinter's Nobel Lecture from December 2005. Very anti-US administration, it is, and not easy reading for a lot of Americans I guess.
He ends thus -
"I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us - the dignity of man"
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1208-28.htm
It's what you and the other Progressives are saying, and he, and you, are right.
Thanks, Anniesee. Wow, comparing us to Harold Pinter, that's a fine honor. :)
What to do? Build solidarity wherever and whenever you can find it - in your community, with friends in other parts of the country or the world, on the Internet. I assure you even in the reddest of states that you aren't alone! Even if your numbers are small, you can find people if you look hard enough - and oftentimes, thanks to the Internet, not even that hard. Just be sure to keep your eyes and ears peeled, 'cause smallness in numbers can make you a target.
Anniesee, thanks for the link back to Pinter's lecture. His reception of the Prize & the lecture that year were gleaming islands in a very dark sea.
"I live in a Red State, Bible Belt at that. You must forgive my having needed to become somewhat wishy-washy during my few years here."
I recommend "Asphalt Jesus", an account written by the pastor who undertook a walk to Washington DC across country; the main purpose of the walkers was to engage people from many places considered to be ultra-right-wing & they discovered that many there were not in lock-step at all with the people claiming the mantle of leadership. In one case, three women in a small Bible church were astonished to discover, once they opened up, that each of them had gay sons -- but they had generally thought themselves to be alone.
It brings to mind "The Sounds of Silence" --
' "Fools", said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows'
-- and Pinter took up the imperative which had been the rallying cry of AIDS activists, "Silence equals death."
What's caused the furor against Morford has been the dismissiveness of Pelosi and Frank, which is exactly the dismissiveness all of us who've approached our Democratic reps have received -- "Very nice, now keep quiet so we can follow our strategy." While Pinter repeats in the present Thoreau's "Resist much, obey little", Morford et al are asking that we slur over the definitions, blur the lines, not interrupt hearings.
People in very reactionary communities, like the one you've been living, experience real pressure from real psychos -- look at Jena, where nutboys drove by the protestors with nooses swinging from their truck -- but writers & representatives from the most liberal cities & constituencies have decided this week to chastise anyone who outruns them, or anyone who insists that the time to advance is when your opponent is collapsing; that is not the time to compromise.
Needed clarities, Mark Mofford. Thanks.
I have a re-mastered CD of Kate Smith singing "God Bless America," recorded a few weeks after VJ day in 1945 - years before I was born.
As I heard it occasionally, later as a scruffy kid in the '50's, on my parents' LP machine, it filled me with a strong but imprecise sense of what a loveable national identity must be when it's Really Good. Still later I came to understand that that identity in the end has to be supra-national and humanly/humbly noble, above and beyond everything else that worldly strength might require.
And I don't mean the God references in the song; I just mean the depth of feeling in Smith's voice, and the beautiful energy of the audience, as she singingly represents what everybody then felt about the USA.
America vanquished European fascism - a madly murderous evil -- and then out of a self-imperfect but still-deep decency, it (those Americans) embraced their former enemies; rebuilt their ruined cities, and called on them to be civilized friends.
This world (including our country) is violently imperfect. But to see what America was once capable of within our gross human imperfections, makes me cry. I think it's good to let ourselves cry about that high point in our history. And then use the energy of those hot, fierce tears to fight again - this time from within - to re-ground that deeper decency we foolishly let go.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
"Morford et al are asking that we slur over the definitions, blur the lines, not interrupt hearings."
Not interrupt hearings...god, the number of times I've been at a hearing where some "liberal" official was selling folks down the river, and when people balked, they threatened to have protesters arrested. To be fair, politicians from both the left and right do this - but if anything, that just underscores the point that the underlying issue right now isn't left or right, but decency or cowardice.
Mark Morford,
Instead of feeling offended and becoming defensive (or snide) regarding the negative or critical feedback you received regarding your Whole Foods article, why not step back for a moment, try to be (more) objective and think about whether there's any merit (value, justification) in those remarks. If you don't like the heat, stay out of the "Whole Foods" kitchen. ;)
#
restive October 13th, 2007 2:19 pm
It's not a matter of us wanting perfection, or being whiny. It's a matter of us not agreeing with you...
--------------
Thank you Restive for articulating what I wanted to say.
Baby steps? Indeed! Baby steps are for babies. So is pabulum, whether it comes from Morford (a la his piece on Whole Foods), or whether it comes from a Dem or a Repub or whomever.
I consider this essay "The Whine of A Voracious Whole Foods Customer". Please! Let us all be able to have and afford whole food. All people, from all corners of this planet. Why should whole, healthy, organic food be available only to those who have enough money to purchase it? And shouldn't all food be organic? It once was.
I also wonder if the employees of Whole Foods can afford to shop there? Don't have a clue about this situation, but it's a good and valid question. Yes?
Many thanks to Restive, Conrad, LittleBrother, and others for your thoughtful remarks.
And the schism widens.
Pretty soon there will be an article derisive of progressives because we don't support, cherish and worship BP and Shell, because, hey, don't you see how GREEN they are now? I mean, they have to be, that's what their PR departments say.
Yet again another Ivory Tower limo-liberal telling me that I'm just being foolish for paying attention. Telling me I'm ruining things by looking at the obvious symptoms of cause and effect.
You feel the need to capitulate and sell-out to everyone who pretends to be 'the good guys' because you don't actively see them drowning puppies in a bathtub, that's fine. Quit being so offended when people point out your naivety though.
If you think Whole Foods is great because it allows you to placate your conscience's warnings against your consumer lifestyle, all the while watching it destroy local economies in the name of 'progress', that's fine. Quit mistaking cognitive dissonance with conscientious compromise though.
If you think that the semi-moderate conservatives calling themselves 'Democrats' will somehow (against all evidence) save us from the further national degradation, environmental destruction or the widening income/power gap, that's fine. Quit being surprised when other people pay enough attention to actual events (as opposed to pundantry) to know you're lying to yourself.
And for all your snide little jabs, you still don't adequately explain how fighting for ACTUAL progress is either somehow un-progressive or somehow automatically more disruptive to progress than constant capitulation and one-sided 'compromise' to the regressive crowd.
I think the REAL question is, why do these 'moderates' insist on ignoring the fact that every progressive candidate was announced (and the pronouncement accepted and repeated) 'unelectable'? Why do these 'moderates' insist on supporting the current and even another war (as if that's somehow the 'safe' path) through their support of 'moderate' candidates? (2013 people, remember that, war until AT LEAST 2013, promised by the 'moderates') Most importantly, why do these 'moderates' continue to offer whiny (a charge Mr Morford offers in the spirit of the proverbial pot/kettle tradition) excuses for their leaders' inability (I'm being generous here) to even PROPOSE real progressive legislation and for their CONSTANT support of the neocon's CONTINUING (there's an important clue) march toward fascism.
Bahhhh, I'm tired of wasting my time with this. Most everyone who cares even a drop already knows what the political landscape looks like, and everyone has already made their choices. I'm just mortified by the fact that so many people have chosen the path of proven-ineffectiveness, proven regression, hell, proven atrocity.
Not in my name though, that I promise. Think long and hard about supporting war until 2013. Do you really want that blood on your hands? You're going to have it if you support the corporate Dems, because they've already promised you that's what you'll get. No ifs, ands or buts about it, they've already told you, and you can't spin it away. Doom and terror for another 6 years AT LEAST.
Yeah, that's awfully progressive.
FEISAL (Alec Guinness):
"With Col. Lawrence, mercy is a passion; with me, it is merely good manners. You may judge which is the more reliable."
Robert Bolt
"Lawrence of Arabia"
Thanks, restive, Dichterfreund and everyone for this rousing set of comments. I think I've just reclaimed a little of the fire I'd lost. I'll take your advice and join the fray whenever and wherever I can.
:-)
God, neomunk, you're such a whiner. Loosen up! :P
mountaineer-Every word you wrote is in my 59 year old head. Thanks.
'Too many words exhaust the empty center'. This is from the ancient Tao te Ching.
In this case 'center' is not political but rather spiritual locus. 'Empty' is not pejorative. In this case one might say that it means that all the words flying around have become an as yet unrecognized 'vessel', its utility is in its emptiness. Our modes of identifying conditions are in the process of moving from 'content' to description of a condition and framework. Isn't there a beauty to this?
Imperfection as noted by Traumarei is something the poor of the rest of the world are all too familiar with and of necessity patient and resilient, drawing from what is known in the quotidian. Its a journey and we're called to journey together. It doesn't happen with armament. Take heart MM.
Bleeeechh!
Another massive dose of impotent outrage. All these posters excoriate Morford for "selling out" to accomodation. He's a villain because he's willing to take "little steps" when it's obvious that major strides are required.
Now let's watch the fireworks as we collide two universes, shall we? Just for fun, I refer you to a parallel thread, right here at CD, wherein an intrepid poster said "hey, let's turn all that outrage into constructive action! Let's build some new CD tools that enable us to band together, and take concrete action to solve these problems. What do you say?"
The answer was a galactic, horizon-to-horizon "THUD".
None of you outraged Progessives offered to lift a finger. Ya couldn't even muster a "Hey, yeah, let's find a way to work together and get something accomplished"
So, my dear purists, I wonder if you'd consider directing some of your cosmic rage and self-righteousness beyond the realm of "posting to the choir" and actually DO something?
If you take umbrage at my remarks, and I surely hope you do, I refer to you the post made by Nelson Terry, a third of the way down the page at this recent CD article:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/11/4484/
This guy is pleading for action. What's he get? Read it and weep. Do you know why Progressives don't have any political power? Simple. They think eloquent bitching is somehow a substitute for action.
Morford is really saying that baby steps are all we can possibly hope for, because we Progressives don't have sense enough to quit complaining and actually do something about all the problems we see.
Hey, sorry for the sarcasm. I know I shouldn't use that tactic, but please, can we somehow actually do something around here instead of all this well-intentioned pontification?
OutBeltway: I didn't see that post before (I had read that article too early in the day and did not come back to it) but it mirrors something I've been thinking about for a long time. Unfortunately I don't have the needed technical expertise to implement such a design, but I -DO- have an idea where it could get it's base from.
The website slashdot.org has (in my opinion) a good format for ongoing discussions of the type we have here on common dreams. I think the moderation system would need be redesigned (or even altogether scrapped) but the threaded comment model is superbly implemented.
I THINK (pretty sure, not completely sure) that the code for slashdot is freely available as open source, and as such could be modified for our purposes here.
I'm a technical user, but I'm no coder, and don't know anything about web applications, but seeing that others think it's a good idea (I've been kicking something like this around in my head for awhile, but not necessarily affiliated with Common Dreams) I'll head out to the wild web and see if I can dig anything up. BBIAB.
"This guy is pleading for action. What's he get? Read it and weep. Do you know why Progressives don't have any political power? Simple. They think eloquent bitching is somehow a substitute for action."
Hun, Nelson's post was two days ago. Could it be that you're just as frustrated as the rest of us, and as a result, getting PO'd because of it? If so, trust me, you ain't alone.
Now as for using CD as an organizing tool - I'm all for it. Also, I saw several people express support for Nelson's idea, as well as some others say they supported the idea, but that they were busy with other projects.
The best advice I saw though was to stop waiting for a green light and just do it. It's what I've come to learn with my projects - if I see something that needs doing, waiting around for people to get as excited as I am is a losing battle, but saying "frig it, I'm doing it anyway" rarely bites me in the butt. In fact, it's pretty much the key to my success as an organizer. Further, given the amount of traffic on CD, not to mention the quality of many of the posts here, it would be a very successful project.
Nelson, if you're reading this: where are things at?
Alrighty, after a quick scout, I've returned with a little (hopefully useful) info.
Here is the URL of the FAQ belonging to the forum software I mentioned above:
http://www.slashcode.com/faq.shtml
If you're not familiar with the style of board I'm talking about, try this:
http://slashdot.org/
That page has basic instructions for installing a slashcode forum. Unfortunately I have exactly 0 experience with apache, the same amount of experience with perl and not enough experience with MySQL. I suppose I could create a virtualized linux box to try and set this up in, but I'll be groping in the dark.
Any thoughts/comments?
While I agree with some of the threads in this article, we really need to come to understand that extreme times call for extreme responses.
The Bush regime has possibly caused the deaths of a million civilians in Iraq since the first Gulf War, and given a new training ground for anti-american sentiment. Billions are being squandered. Nukes being moved contary to ordinary operating procedures. What's not to be extreme about, in reaction to it all? What's the "centered" response here? Perhaps killing a couple hundred thousand is okay, perhaps making a mistake with only 1-2 nukes (as opposed to 2-3 times that) is fine? And maybe just a little torture now and again is acceptable?
There are some things really worth getting in a huff about. And yes while some of the reaction resembles the rigidity of the far-right, the content and direction is totally different.
I agree with others here on the PC thing, and on consumption. These aren't binary issues (kill thousands of civilians or not, torture or not). PC and consumption are matters of degree, gradations, etc.
So there are really two classes of problems, and they warrant two classes of response. (1) The binary sort (nuke Iran or not), and (2) the degreed/shades-of-gray sort: how much energy is your household going to expend this winter, etc.
Restive:
You are right smack on the mark. I am indeed cranky. I was appalled that the response to Nelson's suggestion wasn't nuk-le-er, at a minimum. The man deserved a grand-stand-shakin' dose of approbation. We should have stormed the field en masse.
Neomunk: You, my friend, are the man of the hour. I can do the systems work (as can dozens of others reading this post) necessary to implement what Nelson is proposing.
The thing we need the most is a set of requirements.
Nelson, pray tell: In your nirvana of emotion-and-effort-focusing tools, what are the deliverables, the results of this system? Is it groups forming, it it decisions taken, is it policy agreed upon...what are the "intermediate results", the steps ("milestones") we need to achieve on the way toward the holy grail of coherent action across hundreds of thousands of outraged thinking people across the land?
Remember, this system has to be functionally and qualitatively quite different from CD. It won't be about philosophy. It'll be about getting agreement, assigning responsibility, allocating resources, sharing info about what works, about finding the people that are doing what you want to see done, and joining them.
Can you (Nelson) articulate a vision about what you're aiming for?
Restive and NeoMonk: Please add your 2c. Others out there that are sick of just complaining, take out your stick and whack this Pinata!
"just because someone doesn't completley agree with you doesn't mean that they are evil or the enemy."
Sure, but does that mean that WF is beyond reproach?
i think this writer hits the nail on the head - the infighting of the antiwar movement in general is more than embarrassing.
we boycott each other and we expect to stop the neocon war machine.
moveon.org has been criticized for their ad about the betrayus thing, when they were, as it turns out, right about the lying bastard.
it was a newspaper ad and the response, from all sides, was ridiculous.
it is a sad statement about us all that we have no focus on a strategy to stop an unjust war but we can obsess over a an ad concerning a political general lying about a war that no one wants, for political reasons.
then a motion in the chambers to avow this liar.
i read today in the news that general betrayus could wind up being a republican candidate in the next election.
while we back stab and in fight.
then there was the anti war rally last week that had 300 attendees.
too bad they weren't spartans.
"You are right smack on the mark. I am indeed cranky. I was appalled that the response to Nelson's suggestion wasn't nuk-le-er, at a minimum. The man deserved a grand-stand-shakin' dose of approbation. We should have stormed the field en masse."
I like your spirit. Installing slashdot or something equivalent sounds good, as does getting requirements set up. I'd add a design spec to that as well, once the requirements are nailed down.
Well, the changes (from the starting point of slashdot.org) that I'd like to see made to slashcode for a forum of this type are:
New moderation categories at the LEAST. Actually, I don't know how conductive slashdot moderation would be here.
I'm up in the air about the necessity of an 'Anonymous Coward' posting ability in the context of this forum. It's fine (and needed, IMHO) on slashdot, but not so much here, I wouldn't think. We don't seem to mind owning up to our own comments here. (at least to the point of not hiding our screen names)
The categories for the main articles are nice, but (of course) need to be updated to relevant sub-categories of progressive/liberal news instead of technology.
(not a change but) I think this site could hugely benefit from something like slashdot's firehose system, where people recommend articles and the user population vote on bringing it up to the main page headline area.
...
Really though, I think slashcode would do just fine, and in fact solve a few of the social difficulties (like picking even more relevant articles) in software, democratically. One last suggestion would be a tiny IRC (or webchat, but I like IRC cause it's built for the job, not html) server for those of us online simultaneously....
Heh, in fact, that's something we could do TODAY. I don't frequent DALNet much, but from what I remember it's nick/channel (especially channel) registration and control functions could do us well. I for one would likely be a heavy lurker/chatscroller of #commondreams....
These are the kinds of things I think about when I'm scrolling through comment 56 of 118 here on Common Dreams and my eyes/brain starts to hurt from following the various conversational threads all jumbled up in a straight line.
If it's closeminded, it isn't liberal or conservative. It's closeminded.
"Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything." G.B. Shaw
daniel david --"and then join in re-centering our country in 2008"
Wow ! Any more of these 're-centering' iterations and the entire country will be as right-wing as Carolina or some such state !!
I thought i could put up with Morford till i read his article above and he bared his vapid soul. Morford belongs to that peculiar SF class -- Socially ultra-liberal ... economically and politically apathetic or mainstream. His limited intelligence doesnt permit him to analyze anything that remotely concerns socio-economic conditions and the politics that affect it.
Mark ... this is not about you so quit whining !