Paranoiac nation.
By trevino Posted in Democrats — Comments (21) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
As morbidly interesting as Garance Franke-Ruta's badly done piece on Darth Krempasky is the hysterical reaction of the left-wing blogosphere to it. (NB: I had lunch with Garance on Wednesday, and whatever her essay's many, many shortcomings, she is a swell dining companion.) In order to fully understand the latter, it is necessary to enter for a moment the mind of the committed left-wing activist.
Read on.
I'm not speaking of Democratic activists, mind you, among whom there remain a dwindling band of men of great sense. The left itself, though, is lately seized of the idea of an impending fascism in American life and discourse. Concurrent with this is the notion that the right-wing controls everything -- excepting their lonely bastions of online liberty, of course -- not due to any merit or legitimate affinity on the part of the American people, but rather by dint of a nefarious combination of lies, chicanery, and superior organization. What is the matter with Kansas, anyway? Well: Kansas has been duped. Markos Moulitsas used to claim that if only fundraising was equalized, the level playing field would mean that the inherently superior pull of the left's ideology would mean Democratic victory from sea to shining sea. One hasn't seen that line resurrected since the Heinz fortune and the online obsessives failed to pull off a win last November.
The inbred self-righteousness -- and the concurrent equation of political belief with personal virtue -- means that there is a general unwillingness to admit the obvious: the right hasn't dominated politics and political discourse in America since 1994 because of any conspiracy; it hasn't done so because of superior organization; and it hasn't done so because it has pulled off the remarkable feat of deceiving 51% of c.300 million Americans for over a decade. The right's in charge because, well, folks like the right. They like what it does. They like what it stands for. It's as simple as that. Yeah, we've got our think tanks. Yeah, we've got our magazines. Yeah, we've got our activist campaigns. Yeah, we've got our bloggers who know lots and lots of people -- more on that in a moment. All the above, of course, is also true of the devotees of the Socialist Fourth International. And, well, the Democrats. What's the difference? It's the ideas, stupid.
Franke-Ruta's essay does little more than feed the self-righteous paranoia of the American left at a time when it needs it the least. Make no mistake: American politics needs a healthy opposition movement and a healthy two-party system. Keeps us honest, for one: who else is going to shame the GOP leadership into rediscovering small government? Okay, so that would be the libertarians -- you get the picture. Ideological movements built upon a conspiratorial view of their enemies rapidly adopt the imagined worst characteristics of their enemies, even as they progressively abandon any meaningful critique of those enemies. And here we get to the bizarre reactions of the left-wing blogosphere to Franke-Ruta's piece. A sampler will suffice:
Stirling Newberry lauds Franke-Ruta's perspicacity in digging up the truth -- while neglecting to mention that he himself is a frequent collaborator with and source for Franke-Ruta in her work. The hidden linkage! A conspiracy afoot! Well, not really -- Franke-Ruta herself mentioned this to me, and it is in itself unremarkable -- except that it's precisely the sort of circumstantial omission that, when found on the right, is being spun into fool's gold here. The Miami Herald's Elisabeth Donovan repeats Franke-Ruta's falsehood about the right wing blogosphere attacking free and independent journalism per se; certainly a surprise to anyone familiar with the online left's peevish war on the SCLM in the past three years. The dimwitted Digby avers that the right-wing blogosphere is clearly better organized and funded than the left -- which is why, of course, the largest, most active, and most prolifically fundraising weblog on the planet is dKos. Kevin Drum declares that the dirty secret of the right-wing blogosphere is that it's all the same old operatives in a new medium. Quick, raise your hands if you knew who Mike Krempasky was before Al Gore brought you the interweb. Right. Now raise your hand if you read Billmon's commentary long beforehand. Thing is, if you read USA Today, you probably did. How about Peter Daou, erstwhile top Kerry aide and now UN shill? How about Max Sawicky, longtime lefty econ policy advocate? And the right's got a monopoly on bloggers from previous political milieus, eh? Okay, Kevin. Okay, Garance. The dullish Oliver Willis makes the same mistake as Drum. (Who knew it was a point of virtue to have known nothing of politics before blogging on it? Given how badly it shows here, perhaps it's a virtue made of necessity.) He then compounds his error by making a series of truly dumb statements: first, that redstate.org is part of a "well-funded propaganda campaign"; second, asserting that unnamed right-wing bloggers (read: products of Oliver's fertile imagination) resent the activities of paid shills like us. Well. Would that we were well-funded, or indeed funded at all beyond the generous donations of our readers. Of course, given that we're a 527 with legal disclosure obligations, Willis can let his stubby fingers do the walking and see just who's funding whom here; he won't, because he's lazy, and because the truth of the matter -- that this website is run on our pocket change and by reader donations that, while generous, don't cover costs -- doesn't feed his resentful paranoia nearly so well as the Legion of Doom thesis peddled by Ms Franke-Ruta. Oh, and besides, if we're propagandists for the power structure, we're poor ones next to the likes of Ruffini (who's good at it) and Margolis (who's not so much). (I leave it to the intrepid reader to ferret out RS's numerous attacks on the Republican Party, Administration, et al.) Finally, let's note that our man Willis is himself a full-time employee of Media Matters -- which is run by David Brock -- which is funded by George Soros -- and also employs Duncan Black -- who blogs as Atrios! Do I need to draw an org chart, people? It's a conspiracy.
The bottom line here is that Garance Franke-Ruta has managed to clue in the lefty blogosphere on the dirty secret of Washington, DC, politics, and indeed any geographic or subject-matter milieu: people know each other. Sometimes they interact. Sometimes they hold related jobs. Sometimes they have something in common. These things, though, mean nothing in themselves. My cousin's youth league basketball coach was Master P, but I ain't your entree into the rap world, baby, and neither is the kid. Red State pointed this out long ago, but the lesson doesn't seem to stick. And it won't, so long as the American left seeks to blame its decline on any factor but itself.
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Paranoiac nation. 21 Comments (0 topical, 21 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
I have an 8x10 four-color glossy of George & Laura Bush. It was mailed to me, even addressed specifically to me!!! I guess I don't qualify as a citizen "reader"..now
Where in this twisted set of facts does that now put me?
I thought I was just a reader who blindly provided "pro-bono" work for these right-wing activits......
I ate lunch once with Henry Kissinger.
And I once stood in line to buy coffee behind Elisha Cuthbert.
And a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I worked at a Starbucks... and made a Mocha Frappucino for Monica Lewinsky.
If that doesn't make me part of the conspiracy, I don't know what will.
I've had lunch with Pierre Salinger.
I once accidentally knocked into Babs Boxer. An "excuse me, ma'am," hastily mumbled, and our brief encounter was like dust in the wind.
I had dinner with Oliver North once, way back when I was an ROTC cadet. Clearly, I am a key player in the Iran-Contra scandal.
For that matter, I've also had dinner with Alan Keyes and Michael Medved, so I have to be connected to some other nefarious activities. Also, when I was a student at Hamilton I had a class with Peter Rabinowitz, husband of the now-infamous Nancy Rabinowitz, former chair of the Kirkland Project and the woman who invited Ward Churchill to Hamilton in the first place. Again, I must be part of the conservative conspiracy to discredit the left by giving Churchill free publicity.
I shook hands with Dick Cheney once. After my entire body turned to ash and I went to hell, I was respawned as a fascist Republican bent on global domination and destruction of all online self-styled progressives aka neo-reactionaries aka idiots.
I really need to eat out more often. Screw this brown-bagging it.
... they wouldn't be losing. Because if they knew what the problem really was, they would find a way to fix it.
This is true because they dearly want to win. O! do they ever! So if they could figure out their problem -- and if their figurin' were correct -- then they would surely fix it.
Except that in this case even if they did know what the problem was, they'd still be losing because their true problem is unfixable, not unlike a totalled auto.
It all comes down to some arithmetic. If you subtract the year 1973 from the year 1994, you get twenty-one. That's how old the oldest survivors of Roe v. Wade were in 1994. Of course most of them didn't vote in 1994, but Gingrich's Contract with America was enough to carry the day.
In the next few years, the youngest voters still weren't voting much, so the left was able to regain some of their losses.
But by 2002, the oldest Roe v. Wade survivors were 29. So the impact on elections started to show up. With the Roe v. Wade survivors' help the nation elected three new prolife Senators in 2002.
In 2004, the country added 5 new prolife Senators.
Although there will surely be ups and downs, the trend is that as more of the survivors vote, it will trend to the prolife side of the ballot box. Thus far, that side of the ballot box does not include the left.
The bottom line is that you can't kill 40+ million fetuses and think it won't skew the demographic picture. It would be foolish (or leftist) to think that of the 40 million fetuses that were killed, there would be an equal number of future leftists and conservatives wiped out.
More likely, the fetuses of more leftists would be killed compared to the fetuses of conservatives. This difference leaves a greater ratio of live babies being raised by conservatives than would otherwise be the case.
What is the impact of this difference in ratios? Well ask yourself this question: How far do apples fall from the tree?
So the leftists are left with an unfixable problem, because you can't go back in time and raise their aborted fetuses from the dead.
Those demographic disparities can't be fixed today - nor can they be fixed in the next several decades. This means the leftists and the Democrat party can expect to shrink more and more with each new election.
I expect this trend to continue until the party's bickering over continued losses causes its collapse.
In the meantime we are likely to hear all sorts of whining and excuses. None of them will be of any value to the left.
Nor are they likely to admit their real problem anytime soon, because it has to be psychologically untenable for them to come to grips with the idea that they were a party to a Democratic party holocaust.
After all, I met Ken Starr, had my picture taken with him, and spoke with him by phone!
Kneel before the Vast Right Wing Pejman.
You'll end up crying in the corner asking for mercy.
OK, Franke-Ruta, ready for a paranoia embolism?
I worked for Richard Viguerie TWICE...I knew Terry Dolan and wrote NCPAC direct mail for 7 years...while working for Richard Viguerie...worst of all, I know Mike Krempasky (just had lunch with him.) I met Brent Bozell at NCPAC. Now I write copy for Brent Bozell and teach courses for Morton Blackwell.
I occassionly contribute to RedState and once had a cigar with Josh Trevino!
As a former massage therapist at both the Watergate Hotel and the Metropolitan Club, I've been a double agent, having seen both Republican and Democrat muckety-mucks naked.
Not only that, with my hypnotic-trance, half-sleep enducing massages I now control the world. All conspiracies start and end here from my desktop.
It is only my benevolence that has kept me from using my power to own all the banks and oil companies.
Not only that, I was once on the same elevator as a prime Republican mover and shaker. I could reveal the name to you, but then I'd have to kill you. Also I'd have to remember the name, first.
at Montrose Park in DC. I have seen it and lived to tell the tale... though I did slough off a light patina of granite afterwards.
Because apparently my closest contact with the halls of power is... well, here.
The paranoia gets to me. I'm a grad student in an American and New England Studies program, and it struck me recently that the attitude of the Puritans towards the Native Americans wasn't too different from the "Blue States" reaction to those scary, scary "Red States"--what with their religion and their supposed lack of education and their "barbaric" lifestyles. I go on and on about this elsewhere, but seriously the comparison is not too far off the mark. I suppose people always paint the opposition in solid colors; I guess it seems more annoying coming from the left because they purport to not be doing exactly what they are doing.
I had dinner with Jose Pinera and once met then Governor George W. Bush and Rush Limbaugh when they both came to Minnesota to watch a Vikings came.
Neener, neener! ;)
Well done.
For the record, you're cousin's youth league basketball coach may have been Master P, and my aunt and uncle and cousins may have moved into the brownstone on the Upper West Side previously owned by Puff Daddy (P. Diddy? Sean "Puffy" Combs? What is his name this week?) but my cousins and your cousin are not rollin' in the same posse, homes...