tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post1255424632261644658..comments2024-03-28T16:08:29.578-04:00Comments on Sardonicky: What Good Is the Democratic Party?Karen Garciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15612731479365562803noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-48781794556436980622017-06-28T10:44:16.878-04:002017-06-28T10:44:16.878-04:00Wendell Berry's statement serves a purpose. Th...Wendell Berry's statement serves a purpose. The only purpose I can glean from Mencken's is to identify what an ass he was. He sure had a contempt for democracy.Katnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-43110853573081929382017-06-27T22:38:05.496-04:002017-06-27T22:38:05.496-04:00That Mencken quote reminds me of a Wendell Berry l...That Mencken quote reminds me of a <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/650326-we-americans-are-not-usually-thought-to-be-a-submissive" rel="nofollow">Wendell Berry line</a> that's been on my mind a lot recently: <br /><br /><i>We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.<br /><br />How do we submit? By not being radical enough. Or by not being thorough enough, which is the same thing.</i>stranger in a strange landnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-7935886344444139772017-06-27T20:28:11.745-04:002017-06-27T20:28:11.745-04:00Not so long ago (although time seems horrifically ...<br /><br />Not so long ago (although time seems horrifically extended, while frightfully running out), the "Gray Lady"/NYTimes had at least a couple columnists who saw things from a little left of far right, aka "the center."<br />Prominently was Frank Rich. Here's his latest take on Trump:<br /><br />http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/06/frank-rich-nixon-trump-and-how-a-presidency-ends.html<br /><br />Nonetheless, and no matter what, we still must confront, if not endure, this sad, sordid, sickening reality:<br /><br />“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. <br />On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” <br /><br />"Americans, taken one with another, are the most sniveling, timorous, poltroonish mob of serfs and goosesteppers, gathered under one flag in Christendom, since the Middle Ages.”<br /><br />~ H.L. Mencken<br /><br />Erik Rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-66199157329735890242017-06-27T19:45:58.344-04:002017-06-27T19:45:58.344-04:00"There are some people who think the Democrat..."There are some people who think the Democratic Party can be reformed from within by changing the personnel. I say good luck to that. What’s happened in the last twenty years? They’ve gotten more entrenched. Get rid of Pelosi, you get Steny Hoyer. You get rid of Harry Reid, you get [Charles] Schumer. Good luck.<br /><br />"Unfortunately, to put it in one phrase, the Democrats are unable to defend the United States of America from the most vicious, ignorant, corporate-indentured, militaristic, anti-union, anti-consumer, anti-environment, anti-posterity [Republican Party] in history."<br /><br />Ralph Nader (25 June 2017}<br />https://theintercept.com/2017/06/25/ralph-nader-the-democrats-are-unable-to-defend-the-u-s-from-the-most-vicious-republican-party-in-history/Jay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-12607039317110430222017-06-27T14:41:12.633-04:002017-06-27T14:41:12.633-04:00In an article entitled "It's My Party&quo...<br />In an article entitled "It's My Party" in Harper's, Alexander Cockburn writes about this, but with nowhere near the insight that Karen Garcia has provided here (and previously).<br />But FYI, here's a link to Cockburn's piece:<br />https://harpers.org/archive/2017/07/its-my-party/<br />As far as I'm concerned, it's NOT my party, and they can cry if they want to, but I say, or crow, nevermore.Erik Rothnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-63284241364430522562017-06-26T21:31:12.152-04:002017-06-26T21:31:12.152-04:00
From the NYTimes
Red Century
Socialism’s ... <br /> <br />From the NYTimes <br /><br /> Red Century<br />Socialism’s Future May Be Its Past <br />By BHASKAR SUNKARA<br />Communism was a dead end, but we can reclaim socialism.<br /> <br /> Or, copy and paste this URL into your browser: https://nyti.ms/2t8scXE <br />Pearlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-83176586038028652352017-06-26T20:06:00.468-04:002017-06-26T20:06:00.468-04:00"TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just fooli..."TO BE HOPEFUL in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.<br />What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.<br />And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” <br />― Howard Zinn Pearlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-30624238814780597772017-06-26T16:20:58.202-04:002017-06-26T16:20:58.202-04:00Thanks, Karen, for an elegant lay out, with the he...Thanks, Karen, for an elegant lay out, with the help of unofficial saint and political philosopher Simone Weil, on why the two-party/one-party/any-party system is a poor tool for insuring justice across the land.<br /><br />As I kept saying throughout 2016, what we need is for voters to shift their support to a Third … Oh, WAIT! The Greens are a party too. Will we individually end up as anti-organization purists walking towards virtue alone? How can we organize a real force against evil without going astray in some other way, as so often happens?<br /><br />Maybe the problem is size. On the local levels here in Canada, at least in theory, there are no parties on the bottom tier of politics, only platforms and personalities, with or without histories, running for particular city offices. (But would you believe I have been shocked, shocked repeatedly in seeing that unaffiliated politicians can be corrupted as easily as politicians carrying a party label?) And we have all heard about the ultra-democratic town meetings of rural New England. Small jurisdiction, no party needed; large jurisdiction, enter big money and big parties.<br /><br />Maybe it's not parties, only big parties. Can it be that big countries are too big? As a thought experiment, let's ask ourselves, which countries today just might be committing the most serious and widespread injustices: The Icelands and Uruguays, or [cough, indecipherable, cough] the Russias and the Chinas? There seems to be an iron law: the bigger the country, the greater the capacity for good and evil. And as we have seen for many decades, if not millennia, the big dogs generally deliver the most serious bites.<br /><br />The critique of parties and bigness itself is too easy. What was Weil's alternative to no parties? Should we all turn our backs on big government and simply concentrate on doing and obtaining face-to-face justice with our immediate neighbors guided by our own brand of spirituality? We are all brothers and sisters. Right. What about the very weak and the bullies who don't play by those rules?<br /><br />Should big countries be broken up the way Teddy Roosevelt supposedly busted up the trusts? Would a number of smallish countries like Norway turn out enough Volvos to satisfy our needs on the road, turning out as many good wheels as the Detroits, Stuttgarts, Aichi and Seouls? And who would build uniform and safe superhighways across the three or four new independent countries between Boston and San Diego? Could we still have significant advances in big science––of course I mean the good things like vaccines and space telescopes, not Hellfire weaponry––without big money and big organization?<br /><br />If good and evil are inextricably bound on every level, parties or no parties, are we, whether in big countries or small countries, left with nothing more than the single tool of a persistent and committed nonviolent resistance in solidarity with our immediate neighbors? Ever tried to organize on that basis?<br /><br />To go down nobly, or to reach for the nuke: that is the question.Jay–Ottawahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10360356126450612113noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-65905729778961670152017-06-26T14:00:33.486-04:002017-06-26T14:00:33.486-04:00If we are talking dialectics, I would much rather ...If we are talking dialectics, I would much rather have a Republican party and a Marxist Party. Republicans openly love capitalism and freely admit that it creates winners and losers. They represent capitalism; whereas liberals dishonestly muddle the dialectic and claim they can magically lift all under the capitalist mode of production. <br /><br />Liberals sell the idea that you can tinker with capitalism and make it great again, thus rendering Marxism unnecessary. The are afraid to admit which side of the dialectic they stand on -- Capital -- and instead sell the idea that through their management of capitalism, alienation will slowly disappear.Jamienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-974773076690597683.post-53027163931749095322017-06-26T06:51:57.560-04:002017-06-26T06:51:57.560-04:00Here's a link to the story about protestors be...Here's a link to the story about protestors being dragged from their wheelchairs by Capitol police during a protest against Trumpcare. Didn't quite believe it myself 'til I found the report.<br /><br />https://patch.com/us/white-house/watch-capitol-cops-drag-disabled-trumpcare-protesters-wheelchairs-across-floorZeenoreply@blogger.com