Navel gazing, self-defeatism, hysteria, asshattery.

[Pirate Smile]

Not my Diary but I bring it here to share.

Navel gazing, self-defeatism, hysteria, asshattery.

by shpilk
Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 07:28:52 PM PST

I've been watching the right wingers for a long time. A very, very long time.

One of my earliest political memories is being 9 years old, and standing in front of the Goldwater Campaign HQ on Elm Street in Manchester NH after getting out of grade school, having an animated discussion with my fellow hooligan, Benjy. I played the deapan and serious type as my partner in crime raised the important question of the day. Trying to establish if candidate Goldwater's name really did resemble 'toilet water' was the stated goal if I recall correctly, until we were quickly invited to leave by an agitated person from inside the Goldwater HQ.

"Get out of there, you kids!" seems to come to mind.

Later, I argued with my HS US History teacher about McCarthy ; she was an adamant "anti-communist", who was dangerously poisoning minds. I did my best to reject her extremism, back then.

shpilk's diary :: ::

So yeah, I've been watching, observing, having moments of recognition of overarching themes through the years. I've fought back when I could, tried to make sense out of the senseless nonsense rammed down our throats as our political system became increasingly perverted with corporatism.

A parade of paranoid, delusional and obnoxious so called conservative leaders have tried to appeal to rank and base things like greed, xenophobia, racism, religious extremism, anti- and pseudo-science, and anti-democratic beliefs, all in the name of furthering corporate power. They've had a level of success convincing people to vote for them which is truly frightening. But as some of you probably have already surmised by now, the title of my diary is not about right wingers, tea-baggers, Pauliites, Dominionists or Palinistas. They have their own perverse sickness, their agenda and motivations which obscure reality.

Those of you who have read my other postings probably see my bona fides as a leftist and don't feel they are in question; but I am realist before I'm a leftist.

And this is where I must break from what I've been witnessing - this increasingly self-destructive behavior from the left has over and over has helped to snatch defeat from the jaws of what should be victory. Truly we are here today because of the what happened in 2000. No discussion of today's reality is complete without understanding what happened then. I've watched in horror as some aspects of what I thought was a mistake we'd never make again come back to life with vicious vengeance. What should be reality based discussions devolve into the massive navel gazing, self-defeatism, hysteria and self-destructive asshattery. Ominously, almost with a slight sigh of relief by some, the circular firing squad assembles.

I'm not the only one who predicted much of this before the primaries, that the left would be fracturing somewhat as unrealistic expectations will necessarily drive the narrative. Hillary or Barack, there would be this fracturing; neither of these people are leftists, they are simply moderate liberals.

So many people pinned their hopes on Obama, and yes it was perhaps in part because of the very effective rhetoric of change, people really believed it, sort of like prefabricated Instant Karma.

Realists like Lennon knew change doesn't happen this way.

I expected some fallout from pushback, but what I've seen is like nothing I could have imagined these last few months. The nearly violent rhetoric of rejection approaches the same levels of poisoning I've seen from the right. It's remarkably narrow minded, and it's not what I can accept.

There are a number of people in this community, activists and people who know and admire should know better who are being taken off track. I'm asking those who are willing to listen to step back from the edge and reflect before making yet more outrageous comments, pronouncements, summary judgments and oaths they may yet regret later.

I'm stayed focused on issues, and I welcome anyone else who wants to do the same.

PS: an afterthought about those who threaten to 'quit'; I say this a democratic socialist, not as a Democrat. Check out Sarah Palin, and tell me how well you think that 'quitting thing' is working out.
Get back to me with your results.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/9/812597/-Navel-gazing,-self-defeatism,-hysteria,-asshattery.

[NYC_SKP]

1. I'm gonna predict that some will call this another STFU thread.

But they just make the point of the damn thing.

K and R.

[NanceGreggs]

2. Oh, yeah!!!

:kick: & REC'D!

[tabatha]

3. Yep, that is why I cannot listen to Ed anymore.

[Undercurrent]

4. Excellent!

Flat out Bang On!

[Mojorabbit]

5. I am sorry

I have lived and breathed politics for the past ten years. Articles like this one make me want to puke.
I expect a whole hell of a lot more from our Democratic politicians than the performance I am seeing. I came of age in the late 60s and early 70's. I know what can be done and I am sick of the excuses that we are a big tent and can't be expected to have party discipline. Baloney.

I am appalled at our politician's lack of understanding of how the average American lives. I will give them no pass on the circus they have created around avoiding passing a decent health care bill that most of the population in polls wants. The fact that our govt is corrupt and in hock to corporate power has never been more stark and visible in my opinion. I won't let anyone play the Palin would have been worse game with me. I knew what I would have been getting if she had won and she would have delivered probably. Shame on whoever wrote this article.
I am going to bed.

[NanceGreggs]

6. Therein lies the problem ...

... the edict that you won't "let anyone play the Palin would have been worse game with me."

I don't disagree with everything you've said.

But the fact of the matter is that Palin was the alternative, like it or not.

It's them or us. And all the whinin' in the world - however valid - isn't going to change that fact any time soon.

[Mojorabbit]

8. Oh the choice was clear, I agree

What I am seeing though is it is mostly them and them. I don't see much concern for "us". There are a few good old fashioned good statesmen in DC but very few. Not like when I was coming up. I resent people writing articles in essence telling me that I should enjoy my shit sandwich cause I am so lucky to have it when the alternative is considered. Either way, it is still a shit sandwich.

[NanceGreggs]

9. Not asking you to enjoy ...

... a shit sandwich.

Just sayin' that the alternative was what it was.

[LittleBlue]

7. "Unrealistic expectations" = public option, not intervening on behalf of torturers

Got it.

[Kind of Blue]

10. "realist before I'm a leftist," sums it for me.

KnR!

[Armstead]

41. Progressive, liberal policies and values are not "realistic"?

Now that's the Republican way.

[Kind of Blue]

43. Call me whatever you want and twist the op-ed

as negatively discussing liberal values. That was not my take nor what I was addressing.

[KrR]

11. OMG read this thread in GD please!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7186213

[Pirate Smile]

12. Wow. We have DU'ers wanting to join the teabaggers.

[Name removed]

16. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[KrR]

22. Been lurking a long time

Enjoy your stay as well...

[Cha]

30. Not sure what that gibberish was about?

[SIMPLYB1980]

36. I told ya'll.

Thanks for the link, and welcome to DU! :thumbsup:

[snagglepuss]

13. .

[TheWraith]

14. Kicked and recommended. Very, very well said. nt

[Hekate]

15. Kicked and Recommended.

:kickK

[stevenleser]

17. I have to admit and come clean that I naiively thought we had all learned our lessons

I really thought that after Bush/Cheney, the left in this country would try to work together and help Obama succeed once he got elected. I've had a lot of successes with political predictions but this certainly isn't one of them. One would have thought that not having that unelected horror or his designated successor in the White House would have been enough to make most folks pretty agreeable and if not, at least understand the consequences of allowing the alternative to gain power.

I guess not.

[Cha]

31. Never underestimate the idiocy

of the egomaniac.

Most of the hysteria around here isn't even grounded in reality.

[Armstead]

33. Maybe because some of us naivekly thought that the Democrats would actually take control

The left was -- for the most part -- wildly enthusiastic after the election, and gave Obama and Congress the benefit of the doubt.

I think very few expected miracles or overnight change.

However we did expect that once in power they would take us in a clear direction away from the corporate right-wing, oligarch-kissing ways of the past. Not necessarily a clear immediate break, but real steps in that direction. We also expected that maybe the Democratic politicians might actually pull together and show some skill at governing.

Instead, we have seen health reform devolve into a contest of which approach is the least "liberal" and the insurance companies and their elected minions kowtowewd to while progressives are scolded, ignored and tossed a few bones. We see financial reform being whittled away similarly. We see DLCers being given back the keys.

Understandably that gets some people a little upset.

And, why is it the "left" has to shout to be heard, while people like Ben Nelson and Max Baucus are given the royal treatment?

[Itchinjim]

18. knr

[JTFrog]

19. K&R

[bread_and_roses]

20. I happen to think that incinerating and dismembering babies warrants hysteria

Just like I think the prospect of billions starving due to global climate change warrants hysteria. I happen to think that hysteria is a quite appropriate response to awareness of the issues.

I am reminded of a line in an article I read yesterday
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/09-7

everything I'd always disliked about liberals...their capacity for high-minded fervor for the emptiest and sappiest platitudes; ... their ability to screen out the mounting carnage in the cities they inhabit as they seek pleasant venues for ingesting good coffee and scones; their propensity for aestheticizing other people's oppression ...

or this, today:
http://www.alternet.org/politics/144460/to_the_hope_and_change_crowd_--_how%27s_it_working_out_for_you?page=entire

The saddest thing is that Americans are cultivated like mushrooms from birth to death, kept in the dark and fed horseshit.

Sure, we got Lilly Ledbetter. But to paraphrase a point in the above, it would be interesting to know just how thrilled Lilly herself would be by that if she knew what price her grandchildren will be paying for oxygen and water.

If the Teabaggers are the wild mushrooms sprouting up in the roots of dead trees, we're the cultivated white mushrooms, grown in mushroom-cushy ease for the support and maintenance of our Masters. It doesn't matter if the grower has a D or an R behind his/her name, they're shoveling the same sanitized horseshit.

[zipplewrath]

21. False Dichotomy

You're entire premise is based upon the logical fallacy of a false dichotomy. That the only two choices are Obama or Palin. That our choice was Obama or a GOP candidate. This is false and ignores the reality that at the beginning of the primaries, there were many candidates. And at that beginning we heard from all the same folks who are now telling us to "step back" that we had to go with some "middle of the road" candidate because other ones "couldn't win".

There were many choices, and more importantly it is in the primary where those choices get a chance to be heard. And in this primary Obama rose to prominence "preaching" several issues, probably the biggest of which is that he was "against the war from the beginning". He was also about "transparency". More vaguely he was about "change" and "hope". And now you want to suggest that we be realists and that this is the best we can "hope" for because our only other alternative is Palin? Give me a break. Many of us "hoped" for many other candidates, but had to listen to the DLC types talk about realism. And now you want to continue that speech on the basis of a false dichotomy?

By the end of the Obama surge, he will have more troops in combat than Bush EVER had. Please tell me exactly where that "change" is and how it is significantly different than what McCain would have done?

[alcibiades_mystery]

23. There's no doubt the Left will attempt to throw us back to Republican rule

in a fit of pique. The lessons of 2000 were unlearned.

I say this as a leftist - not a Democrat, not a "liberal," and not a "progressive" (a term which is itself a cowardly and mealy-mouthed concession). A leftist. It's shocking to me that after the catastrophe of the Bush years, the same cretins who threw us to the dogs in 2000 are back again trying for the same result in 2012. They're imbeciles of the first order.

[NJmaverick]

24. This is a dire and accurate warning that should be heeded by many here at DU

I have witnessed the same violent rhetoric of rejection here at DU. DUers actively working to take down the President and the Democratic party.

[cry baby]

27. agreed! nt

[PVnRT]

25. More attacks on the left! Yay!

For all the whining that some people do around here, saying that the "loony left" spends more time attacking Democrats than Republicans, it sure seems that Democrats like to spend a lot of time attacking the left themselves.

[NJmaverick]

26. They are not attacks it's calling out the destructive and dangerous behavior

of SOME on the left

[Armstead]

28. "I'm stayed focused on issues".....Well then maybe you should redirect your anger goofus

If you are focused on "issues" and are so "reality based," why pray tell are you wasting your time scolding the "left" when the ones who are selling you out are elsewhere?

[Cha]

29. I'm so glad more and more people are speaking

out on this.

"I expected some fallout from pushback, but what I've seen is like nothing I could have imagined these last few months. The nearly violent rhetoric of rejection approaches the same levels of poisoning I've seen from the right. It's remarkably narrow minded, and it's not what I can accept.

There are a number of people in this community, activists and people who know and admire should know better who are being taken off track. I'm asking those who are willing to listen to step back from the edge and reflect before making yet more outrageous comments, pronouncements, summary judgments and oaths they may yet regret later.

I'm stayed focused on issues, and I welcome anyone else who wants to do the same."

[treestar]

32. K&R

Self destructive, yes. Complaining we can't get anything done with a majority while at the same time so proud not to march in lockstep.

[Cowpunk]

34. Truly we are here today because of the what happened in 2000.

I agree completely. The abandonment of its political base by the Democratic party is indeed to blame for our current circumstances.

[Pirate Smile]

35. Kick because I've seen way too much stupid tonight in about two minutes.

[Bobbie Jo]

37. K&R

:kick:

[depakid]

38. What a bizarre post

It's those who are staying focused on the issues who are- one by one- becoming cynical and disillusioned due to inexcusable behavior (read: repeated sell outs) on the part of those who they worked hard to get elected.

And the poster wants to blame them for feeling abused (and watching while the public interest and the platform these politicians were elected on) are abused!

What an idiot. Guy obviously knows nothing about human nature- but surely does like to admonish folks.

WHAT A LOSER.

Dime a dozen from the Clinton era. And likely headed for the same result- despite the apologetics.

[RoyGBiv]

39. Outstanding!

Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

[BreweryYardRat]

40. Amen.

If you want far-left candidates, work on moving the national dialogue to the left. But for now, take what you can get.

[HopeOverFear]

42. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

sorry about that. :(