Anyone who doesn't recognize the absurdity of the right, and the stupidity of its followers, is also blind, deaf, and dumb...and clueless.

Progressives and liberals are hurt more by being divided with the ideal vs practical internal war more than too polite. Not much to say about this article and the comments already said everything I agree with but when we the Left is done losing and shooting each other off and ready to grow up and switch from mental karate to mental judo, we might get somewhere. True, we the Left shouldn't just sit back and let the rightwing get away with it but we the Left have also got to learn to stop burning bridges with this "ideal vs practical" warfare. The ideals must be given high respect and practical must be redefined to mean stability not concession.

This study sheds little new light on the subject. John Stuart Mill famously said in the 19th century that "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

The study "shows that prejudice tends not to arise directly from low intelligence but from the conservative ideologies to which people of low intelligence are drawn…rightwing ideologies that promote coherence and order" And, later, you note that "They fail to produce a coherent analysis of what has gone wrong and why".

In 1951, the self-educated longshoreman, Eric Hoffer, offered just such a coherent analysis in The True Believer. In his later The Ordeal of Change (1976), Hoffer elucidates that the root of this blind faith and acceptance of dogmatism is not so much low intelligence as low self-esteem (which is concomitant in a society which keeps 60 million whites as well as a majority of the black and brown oppressed as a permanent underclass).

"Faith, enthusiasm, and passionate intensity in general are substitutes for the self-confidence born of experience and the possession of skill. ... The substitute for self-confidence is faith ... the substitute for self-esteem is pride; and the substitute for individual balance is fusion with others in a compact group. ... In the chemistry of the soul, a substitute is almost always explosive if for no other reason than that we can never have enough of it. We can never have enough of that which we really do not want. What we want is justified self-confidence and self-esteem. .... We can be satisfied with moderate confidence in ourselves and with a moderately good opinion of ourselves, but the faith we have in a holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising, and the pride we derive form an identification with a nation, race, leader, or party [religion] is extreme and overbearing. The fact that a substitute can never become an organic part of ourselves makes our holding on to it passionate and intolerant." - Eric Hoffer

It's very uplifting to be told that you are smarter than people who disagree with you, and that your main problem is that you are too nice. As always, such assurances are followed on CD and elsewhere by lists of examples of the stupidities, the lies, the absurdities, etc. etc that our opponents believe, and the vulgarity with which they express their idiocies.

But somehow I don't feel uplifted or reassured. For one thing -- a big thing -- the "stupid" people seized power in the 70s and have held it since, forcing even their brilliant "opponents" to adopt, or acquiesce in, their dominance. That is not a sign of stupidity, but of political intelligence. As George W Bush might have said, "I may be stupid, but I'm president."

The same kind of mutual reassurance used to be common among conservatives when FDR kept winning elections by appealing to uneducated workers, farmers, and other riffraff. That Man in the White House -- with his ties to corrupt union bosses, big city political machines, and the Solid South -- had built a Coalition of the Stupid, the Lazy, and the Bigoted, the Jews and the Negroes, the Italians and the Irish -- all the flotsam and jetsam that swirled around at the bottom of the American barrel.

Nowadays the political losers are on the other side of the narrow American political spectrum, and they have pretty much the same complaints. How boring, how pointless.

"My IQ is higher than yours, you right wing bastard!" is not a political program. It's not even a good slogan. The answer to it is the age old question "If you're so smart, why ain't you rich?"

The right question, which people like Thomas Frank try to answer, and which has a chance of leading to a constructive discussion, is "Why have the working people turned against the agenda that is supposed to reflect their interests? Why have they walked away from the organizations that claim to represent them economically, politically, and otherwise? In other words, what have the "liberals" done to alienate the very people they used to be able to count on?

It may well be that the trick of successful politics is to find ways of rallying "stupid" people behind an agenda, and then outvoting the "smart" people. It may well be that democracy is a lousy way to run a country, because it gives too much power to dumb asses.

Successful politicians who get things done don't sit around whining about the stupidity of their opposition, and admiring their own intelligence.

They find ways to reach out to people who are different from themselves, and suggest that those differences are less important than the things that unite them.

They respect the knowledge and wisdom that exists even in "stupid" people, and try to learn from them.

They listen to "stupid" people and reflect on their concerns, and try to work with them to address those concerns.

In other words, they act in accordance with the democratic principles they so often proclaim, but too often fail to honour in their actions and attitudes. It was thus that a Hudson Valley aristocrat named Roosevelt was able to bring together people so different from him and rally them into a powerful political coalition that did many useful things.

And by failing to do that, and instead angrily abusing the "stupidity" of those they disagree with, too many "liberals" have lost election after election, issue after issue, for decades now. And watched their potential allies turn their backs on the liberals, and join the conservatives, who at least don't tell them how damn stupid they are all the time.

George M. may need to do some research into the meaning of 'leftist' and the meaning of 'conservative'. He morphs 'left' with 'liberal' and conservative means racist. This is what i hear from high school kids. And of course the liberals, according to this theory, have the 'truth' and are not deluded in any way. They are just too gosh darn kind. Oh yes, Obama's problem....He is just too polite to those mean old Republicans.

Democrats are leftists and Republicans are conservatives. Hard to believe a man with his credentials is really that insipid. But then, he does promote nuclear power as a clean energy source.

People are much more intelligent than Monibot suggests. The cognitive capacity for empathy is there, in ample supply, in virtually everybody. The human potential is far greater than Merkan liberals can admit to, because Merkan liberals need to paint the people as weak, to support their nanny state politics. We the people are building the society that nurtures the people, to realize their great potential. It is the environmental variables that keep people from reaching their potential. All those things that liberals approve. The potential is huge, for people to transform a society that has for far too long been suppressed by elite ideologies and agendas. And the people are doing it. Without elites and their political slaves.

Why don't you mount a "Boycott the Billionaires" campaign? These right wing people derive their political power from your financial power. If you deny them your financial power, they lose their political power. It was one of the factors which brought about the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa - though not the only one - so why not identify the billionaires who are the enemies of the American people and target them with boycott campaigns? Just don't buy their stuff. I am sure Common Dreams can provide a list of the corporations and products that support the right wing hegemony over American society. Why not get all progressively minded Americans to 'deny them your dollar'? This is an opportunity to establish small-scale real fairtrade organisations locally either by yourselves or as co-operative enterprises. Is it not time to stop complaining and to start organising? After all, according to this article, you are supposed to be the intelligent ones, are you not? So, why are you not all doing something concrete like boycotting the billionaires in order to take your country back?

It is both ironic and amusing to see Mr. Monboit rant about low intelligence, idiots, madness, crackpots, and an alternative knowledge system, with its own facts, its own history, its own laws of economics (and physics). With regard to his seemingly unshakable blind faith in the government's comically absurd and physically impossible 9-11 conspiracy theory, Mr. Monboit fits that bill as well as anyone. One hour of basic research, a bit of common sense, and a fundamental understanding of high school physics will prove to anyone able to engage in rational thought that an earthquake, hurricane, and fire resistant steel framed highrise (WTC7) can not crush its way through thousands of tons of cold, undamaged steel columns with near perfect symmetry at the same rate it would fall through air. Quite simply, WTC7's free fall and symmetric drop proves demolition, and demolition proves that 9-11 was an inside job. And of course, that's only a tiny shred of the mountain of evidence proving beyond any and all doubt that 9-11 was an inside job. As long as this elephant in the room is ignored and/or denied, the United States will continue its downward spiral.
Watch the first WTC7 free fall video on this link, George. It's only ten minutes long, and it proves demolition beyond any and all doubt - but you will need to forgo your blind faith and focus on physics, logic, reality, and reason....
http://911speakout.org

Too many on the Left simply will not ENGAGE those on the Right, preferring to call them names or deride them behind their backs.

We can talk quietly amongst outselves all day and night and not make a bit of difference. We need to get out there and ENGAGE with the Right.

This means starting pleasant conversations with anyone and everyone, wherever you are: grocery store lines, post office, over backyard fence, letters to the editor, public hearings on bad projects, and so on.

Discussions should be on issues which concern all, not R's vs D's. Often I find more agreement than one would have thought possible, if the approach is civil and non-partisan.

No one will do this for us.

The problem Mr. Monbiot's article highlights is genuine, but his focus is misdirected. If we lived in a political environment influenced by strong unionization, a class conscious trade union leadership, class-based political parties, widespread and vibrant mass movements for social justice and against war and imperialism the stupidity of the right and the timidity of the liberals wouldn't matter. It is the absence of the former not the presence of the latter things that matters, and the resulting void is simply filled by what's left after the tragic defeat and collapse of the anti-capitalist 20th Century Left. Since that left took more than a century of struggles to construct any project to build a 21st Century anti-capitalist left that can challenge captial for power will be a project that this generation can certainly begin but just as certainly not finish. In any event, the focus should be on the manner of organizing rather than on Manners.

I'm not certain it simply a matter of the Democratic Party being to nice and not having good strategy. It is a matter of having been sold to the highest bidder. They are also after the same money as the GOP.

Monbiot should get strategic. A few months ago he wrote that there has been a de facto coup d'etat in the US. He should stick with that.

He may say Liberals are Polite, or turkeys, etc. for the sake of his story, but at least in the US, Legislation and Case Law has been steadily worked for 30+ years to disempower the people's interests (Polite Left).

Union organizing was taken away, while the powers and prerogatives of Family Offices over politics and markets has been enhanced. Humanities and social science education and communities have been defunded for 30 years, scholars turned into adjuncts. Publishing companies that published liberal scholarship were bought by Rupert Murdoch, the Mohns, and Stefan von Holtzbrinck.

Media enterprises that had to operate under a Eisenhower/Truman era "fairness doctrine" are now owned by the Murdochs, Richardsons of Texas, Sumner Redstone, and whoever really controls GE! Clinton signed the last nail in the coffin in 1996. There is no difference between the parties. They are both owned by the same people who are just pretending to be different on social issue false distinctions. http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php

In 1974, the Supreme Court allowed this demolition to be setup in the first place with FEC. They did so at the behest of Lewis Powell the Akin Gump tobacco litigator appointed to the Supreme Court by Nixon whose step-by-step instructions to demolition the Liberal community and democratic institutions in the US is now infamous. That long slide into the abyss was carefully planned and all the players lined up.

And, they allowed the "money as speech" precedent to be set with Buckley vs Valeo to begin the industries of conservative 'alternate knowledge system' which Monbiot references. Now enhanced with Citizen's United. As today's Romney Santorum debacle shows, they are manipulating elections with their ad $$$ budgets. None of it would be possible without legislative and case law chess moves that were carefully constructed. That systematic and careful demolition of democratic mechanisms over decades is the real story in Monbiot's story.

Monbiot can cast aspersions about individuals who identify with either conservative or liberal tendencies as portrayed by the privatized media.

He needs to get more tactical here about root cause and effect, and less polemic. So does Common Dreams!

As a nuclear power booster, Monbiot is an expert on stupidity.

The problem continues to be patriarchy. Guys at the top and guys all the way thru the system who brown nose to the guys above them to get at the money...they forget about their principles and bend on the issue of "making a living" - not rocking the boat.

The phrase "climate change" is a good example of capitulation to the radical right. It was admittedly created by a GOP propagandist to confuse the issue and immediately the Left switched from the accurate description of global warming to also use this idiotic deceptive tactic. This ploy is still working very well for the pollution industires.

NEO-PHOBIA - FEAR OF THE NEW

"The term is also used to describe anger, frustration or trepidation toward new things and toward change in general. Some conservative and reactionary groups are often described as neophobic, in their attempts to preserve traditions or revert society to a perceived past form."

To some degree this form of "stupidity" (which is fear-based) afflicts all of us. Just look at the Left's reluctance to wake up and take a clear-eyed look at the facts related to 9/11. And this, despite the fact that exposure holds the key to
stopping or at least slowing our forced march toward totalitarianism.

~~~~~~~

Obviously, if we seek to develop a broader vision, we need to be willing to move beyond and let go of some of our prior, more limited perspectives.

However, as we all know, it is easier and more comfortable to stay where we are and avoid a distressing ordeal: namely, the demise of our cherished notions. Because of the pain inherent in the process of revising our maps of reality, we mostly seek to avoid or ward off any challenges to its validity.

The problem is that there are many things we need to renounce if we are to give birth to fresh, authentic learning --- and not the least of these is our sense of "certainty." It can be very difficult to give up certainty - in the form of the positions, beliefs, and explanations that have defined us and lie at the core of our personal identity.

As Scott Peck has said, such a "giving up" is a sacrificial process. And, such sacrifice tends to be painful, "because it is a kind of death, the kind of death that is necessary for rebirth. Yet, even when we realize this on an intellectual level, this kind of dying is still a fearsome adventure into the unknown."

Elisabet wrote: "The problem continues to be patriarchy." I agree.

As I see it, "our problem" - at an even more fundamental level - arises out of our 5,000 year old "authoritarian paradigm." (Since, in theory women as well as men could create a society based on dominator principles).

A person whose basic orientation to life can be characterized as “authoritarian,” (which would seem to include the great majority of folks on the Right) can be predicted to display a number of attributes which include: intolerance of ambiguity, dichotomous thinking, rigidity of thought, punitiveness, anti-intellectualism, militaristic patriotism, conformity, and ethnocentrism.

Re- a few of these:

DICHOTOMOUS THINKING: Authoritarians exhibit a compulsion to divide everything and everyone into mutually exclusive groups - good/bad, right/wrong, friend/enemy - without taking into account the subtleties, qualifications or even major errors that may be involved. “Dichotomous thinking” can be considered an outgrowth of intolerance of ambiguity; it is a sort of “rush to judgment” which serves to provide an immediate (but illusory, and generally false) sense of certainty.

ANTI-WEAKNESS: Authoritarians tend not to support help for the weak because they equate weakness with evil; therefore, the outcasts of society are responsible for their own situations. It is their own fault if they did not “make it to the center of the herd.” Another implication of this view is that “winning” is all that really matters: if you are weak, or part of a “weak team” you should be feel ashamed.

POWER WORSHIP: The other side of the anti-weakness coin is the authoritarian’s typical worship of power, no matter how the power is being used. This trait also speaks to authoritarians’ habit of compulsively looking outside of themselves for measures and validation of their worth.

Try telling this to any Democratic Party members in the PDA, DFA, OFA, MoveOn, or any of their other groups. You will find out why the left gives in so easily to all the crap; these organizations are DESIGNED to keep the naysayers in line with the agenda of the wealthy elite who rule the Party.

Then you've got the Greens, Socialists, and other smaller parties who are completely useless due to internal egotists who rule those groups. These parties lack strategy or tactics, or even consistent messaging. They often bully intelligent and decent people right out of their parties. This claim is real; I have seen it happen to a lot of solid Greens, Socialists, and other activists.

Beware the Communist Party, which is really just a Democratic Party splinter group for all its bluster. Again, good people, but totally deluded.

And PLEASE do not confuse the Libertarians with the left or social liberalism; that's a lot of crap. Libertarians deeply believe in the same kind of anything-goes, unregulated, free-market capitalism that has destroyed this planet and its denizens for hundreds of years. In fact, they are even more radical about this than even many mainstream Republicans!

The DP was NEVER, EVER a left-leaning party. The New Deal was really a kind of outlier, a peculiar and short-lived legacy that barely survived two decades. For instance, the NLRA was denuded by 1949. The WPA and other anti-poverty and anti-unemployment programs actually lasted only a couple of years and it was a major battle even in that Democratic Congress to extend or expand them. (See The Real News for lots of stories dealing with the lie behind the legacy.)

So, what can the Left do? First of all, we need to create inviting and motivating contexts for ordinary people to get involved. This is what the long list of groups above do not do. Many of these want to maintain their smug elitist talking points and pro-capitalist agendas by continually suckering in their newest members to become audio repeaters reciting their cliches and bromides. The others -- whom are presumed to be leftists -- are like fraternities where new members must be thoroughly scrutinized (like a hazing) before they are treated like genuine members.

We DO, in fact, need new political parties representing the left. But from what I have observed, we need to steer clear of the notion that there is only one "left," for there are many. The left is concerned with equality and democracy. This means honoring differences and accommodating the individuals. I observe that many European countries have a multitude of "leftist" leaning parties, and I do not see that there is anything wrong with that. There cannot be one boilerplate plan for all of these different approaches if we are true to our ideals concerning equality and democracy.

This is why the left has historically had so many parties, and their remnants still exist today. The only problem with them is that they have become insular and fraternal, not open and democratic. Disproportionately large egos and serious paranoia, personal insecurity, melodramatics, and sociopathy exists amongst many of the senior membership, which leads to dysfunctionality and ineffectiveness, failure and embarrassment. Instead, we must look to a new model of leadership, one that is preferably based on a system of cooperation at the lowest levels of society ... and equality and democracy will be core to that effort.

How? The left must somehow develop (not attract!) its own charismatic leaders and relevant agendas. It must develop from the most LOCAL level, not the presidential races! (You will read my other rants about THAT here and on TRNN.) The left must develop a "political resume" that can empower its leaders to take on ever higher levels of government. It cannot begin by promoting the "run everyone for every office in the land" hail-Mary play. And it can not continue the now-venerated tradition of "borrowing" expat Democrats and others. As grassroots people, we must learn to "grow our own."

This grassroots left must have a built-in mechanism to replicate itself over and over again, always creating the next group of politicians for the future starting at the lowest (grassroots) levels. This is completely overlooked by the leftist organizations I have seen and participated in. In other words, this grassroots approach must not be a one-time affair; these parties must be continually seeding their grassroots presence in local government to establish and maintain power.

A living document establishing a sort of "best practices" for party and leadership development must be maintained, gleaned and culled from each Party's successes and failures. This would include training for new members and reinforcement for experienced politicians. These practices should always be founded on principles that best serve local communities, wherever those might exist.

This training, sadly, must fill in for what our public education system (now nearly decimated) failed to provide: An extensive and thorough survey of civics and society, as well as an objective assessment of real-and-existing political structures and institutions (such as how Congress is elected by corporations, not The People). This ice-cold Gatorade bucket of honest facts should provide a firm basis for effective political work.

And, while it is true that incrementalist (so-called "progressive," reformist, or liberal) policies that only tweak the system will not fundamentally alter the underlying problems of our world, another bloody revolution probably won't have any lasting effect either other than to further embolden claims by the right wing that leftists have left behind more of our perhaps well-meaning ideas but poorly executed legacy of disaster. I recommend the incrementalist approach, but with a twist, and it's one I think the author must agree with: DEMAND substantive reforms!

Therefore, the language of the Left must change also. We must learn the word "DEMAND" and not shrink from it. We must stop "asking," "requesting," and "urging" our elected and appointed officials; it is not their right to decide what is fair and proper for our welfare. Rather, it is their job to implement our demands, period.

Of course; fascism, aggression, violence, and hierarchical authoritarianism are powerful, democracy, tolerance and nonviolence are hamstrung by their own ideology. We do not adopt progressive beliefs because they are proved winning strategies, but because of our moral beliefs; and moral beliefs which go against the powerful often tend to get you martyred. And just about everybody feels. understandably, that they have better things to do right now than get martyred, either metaphorically or literally; most people just want to live their lives, and for most of us the more inclined we are to incorporate progressive thinking into our lives and work, the less we can afford the costs of getting more involved in the struggle. Once the right wing saw that they could stage a de facto coup by installing George Bush in the White House and get away with it, it became clear that they could toss the wackiest of the wackos in as berserkers and shock troops while they carried on with business as usual (only more so), and the country would still never seriously question their sincere and honest devotion to Goodness, only debate whether or not they were slightly misguided in some details.

Well this lefty ain't at all polite...we got a country full of raving lunatics in government and the media, whose puppet strings are pulled by a hint of money and power. They are the stupidest, most ignorant freaks on the planet. The morons who slaver at their words on Fox, Rush, Bill, Pat, 700, Sarah and Mic=hell...are so stupid they cannot see anything because the backs of their head are missing all the matter that keeps them thinking. When you see that glazed, arrogant, stare, just walk away. It is pointless to attempt to improve their thinking power. They are brainwashed. pure and simpleton.
Watch tv shows that say reality...and watch the dead eyes of stupidity. Watch the smirky faces of the right wing pundits as they suck the scum down their throats. And we thought the Steppford wives was bad...