Deconstructing "Progressive " thought

[Rifleman62]

Redeye:

The group I write off as unworthy of dialogue isn't people who have right leaning opinions (nor left), it's thsoe whose opinions are not in any way rooted in fact or any sort of reasonable basis.  If your basis of an opinion on an issue is an utterly incorrect or completely spun statement, and you haven't taken the time or made the effort to actually seek more depth on the matter, then yes, I'll probably write you off as being unworthy of any sort of dialogue.  If, on the other hand, you can present an argument which is cogent and rooted in something that isn't just fearmongering from what Mr. Campbell aptly described as "shouting heads", I'll happily discuss an issue and agree to disagree when that's the only conclusion I can come to.

Oh the intelligentsia!  Guess who makes the decision on the opinion?

That's twice.

 

[a_majoor]

It seems very easy to name call talk radio hosts, yet ignore the free pass the Legacy media gives to such clangers as:

Hillary Clinton; "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "Calls Protesters Astroturf"
Andrew Sullivan: virtually anything relating to Governor Palin (and especially her son Trig)
The other examples like Climategate have already been mentioned.

The bloggers are the phampleteers of this era, and have drawn the ire of the powers that be since they easily bypass the "gatekeeper function" the legacy media has tried to assume. There is more out there than whatever "narrative" is being pushed, and if you choose to ignore it, then fine. Trying to shout down the messenger, however, suggests you are actively trying to stop others from hearing the message and making up their own minds.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
The bloggers are the phampleteers of this era ...

Agreed, and like the 17th and 18th, most of what is written is nonsense - for every Thomas Paine there were hundreds and are, now, tens of thousands of cretins. The danger of the 21st century blogs is exactly the same as the danger posed by the earlier pamphleteers: there is no established base of truth or fact; both 'truth' and 'fact' are whatever the blogger decides they need to be suit her purpose. And that applies all across the socio-political and economic spectra.

The problem is that 21st journalism is no better - a goodly share of it, from both the right and left and, indeed, from the so-called centre, is little more than partisan propaganda designed, consciously designed by the journalists, to advance (or retard) one or another point-of-view. Thus, we, the consumers of information, have to work harder and harder to sift through the masses of bumph aimed at us to try to sort out a few kernels of useful "fact" and, ever more rarely, "truth."

 

[Infanteer]

Bla, bla, bla....

Your point being ?

...and that adds what to the discussion?  If this is the sum total of what you can add, just stay out of the thread.

 

[Redeye]

It seems very easy to name call talk radio hosts, yet ignore the free pass the Legacy media gives to such clangers as:

Hillary Clinton; "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "Calls Protesters Astroturf"
Andrew Sullivan: virtually anything relating to Governor Palin (and especially her son Trig)
The other examples like Climategate have already been mentioned.

Well, calling protesters in certain cases Astroturfers makes sense - the term is applicable.  It's called following the money.  So it's an alternate view to the right's.  In the case of many of the "Tea Party" I've tried to get from them a cogent, coherent argument of what specifically they want in terms of policy directions in the United States, and I have come to realize that a good portion of them (though I have no basis to claim any specific proportion) have pretty much no idea.  There is a distinct grain of truth to the idea that they have been co-opted to lobby for the goals of those far wealthier than them.  I ask them, "What spending cuts, specifically, do you want?  What programs get the ax?", rarely is there an answer beyond vague claims about "discretionary spending".

As for Palin, she's a joke, and on her way to obsolescence, thankfully.  However, I don't agree with anyone attacking her family (or any politician's) when she herself is such a rich target.

Climategate?  Been debunked, repeatedly.  However, someone who only watches Fox News or reads right wing blogs would probably not known that because they have never bothered to report it and they trot out the story whenever it suits them.  They're now doing that a lot with "half of Americans don't pay taxes", which is also basically a load of bollocks... or at least, a strikingly deceptive statement.  It fits their meme that the wealthiest deserve tax breaks and somehow unions and working class folks are the problem with America.

The bloggers are the phampleteers of this era, and have drawn the ire of the powers that be since they easily bypass the "gatekeeper function" the legacy media has tried to assume. There is more out there than whatever "narrative" is being pushed, and if you choose to ignore it, then fine. Trying to shout down the messenger, however, suggests you are actively trying to stop others from hearing the message and making up their own minds.

I'm not trying to shout down any messenger particularly, so much as highlight that listening to only certain messengers doesn't give you the whole story.  I'm glad that citizen journalism is alive and well, but when its primary product is deceptive agitprop, then voices against it are necessary.  Somewhere in the mushy middle lies the "truth", so the counterbalance is rather essential.

 

[a_majoor]

I'm not trying to shout down any messenger particularly, so much as highlight that listening to only certain messengers doesn't give you the whole story.  I'm glad that citizen journalism is alive and well, but when its primary product is deceptive agitprop, then voices against it are necessary.  Somewhere in the mushy middle lies the "truth", so the counterbalance is rather essential.

So you have simply inverted the premise, since it is the Legacy media that isn't providing the story, amd the citizen journalists of the blogosphere who are hunting for it. Following the money shows lots of well heeled liberal foundations pouring money into events attempting to counter the TEA party movement (and despite many allegations there is little evidence the TEA party movement is externally funded in any way; astroturft is an inversion of what is really happening).

If you don't think the citizen journalists are doing a good job, onsider the following article; every story was broken by the blogosphere and most are still not being followed in any detail (if at all) by the legacy media:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/03/14/the-aroma-of-illegality/?singlepage=true

The Aroma of Illegality
Posted By Roger Kimball On March 14, 2011 @ 6:14 am In Uncategorized | 46 Comments

It’s getting stronger, that stench of illegality, and it’s emanating from places high as well as low.

For the last few weeks, Madison, Wisconsin, has been Malodorous Central, as various government employees, from the 14 Fleebagging Democratic state senators to protesting teachers and sundry public union apparatchiks, have endeavored to substitute mob rule for the rule of law. “After the vote on collective bargaining in the Wisconsin Senate,” John Hinderaker reports [1] at Powerline, “armed guards led Republican Senators through a tunnel, out of the Capitol and onto a waiting bus, which reportedly was commandeered for the purpose on an emergency basis. A howling mob of union members threatened the Republicans, shouted obscenities and pounded on the bus.”

Useful data point: the mobs were howling because a majority of their duly elected officials had just passed legislation that they had, while campaigning a few months back, promised to lobby for. No one should have been surprised by Scott Walker’s efforts to get Wisconsin’s finances under control: he just did what he had promised to do if elected. And he was elected. And elections, as President Obama said long, long ago, in what seems like another country, “have consequences.” (The rest of that famous quotation [2]: “at the end of the day, I won.” Imagine if Scott Walker had said that!)

Madison has distinguished itself for thuggishness. But that “get-a-little-bloody” sort of activism (thank you, Congressman Capuano [3])  is only one facet of the illegality that is wafting about the republic. A small fuss was made a week or two ago when President Obama announced that he was directing his Department of Justice to forgo enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act, that somewhat desperate prop to “traditional” marriage (one man, one woman) that Bill Clinton reluctantly signed into law in 1996. Many of Obama’s critics cried foul, claiming that he was abrogating his Constitutional duty to uphold the law. In fact, as Andy McCarthy pointed out [4] at NRO, presidents regularly decline to enforce statutes they believe are unconstitutional. “The problem with what the Obama administration is doing with DOMA,” Andy observed, “is political, not legal.”

    Nothing requires a president to defend or enforce a law he truly believes is unconstitutional, or even a law he believes is constitutional but chooses, in his discretion, not to enforce as a matter of policy (see, e.g., Obama on the immigration laws).

    Putting the law to the side, it is outrageous for an administration to use its Justice Department’s privileged position as the lawyer for the United States to sabotage a case, and for a president to claim his legal position is evolving when, in fact, he is transparently pandering to a key constituency.

Obama and Eric “My People [5]” Holder may natter on about “equal protection.” That’s just talk, though. What they care about is not the 14th Amendment [6]but their political program.  Example: if you are a white voter in Philadelphia, you don’t get equal protection from armed Black Panthers who strut about polling places. And if some nebbish in the Justice Department who hasn’t gotten the message  brings a suit against the Panthers, a higher-up (maybe even “My People” Holder himself) can quietly drop the suit [7] when he thinks no one is paying attention. Sniff, sniff: catch that acrid scent? Just wait: when the governor of  Arizona decides to enforce the state’s immigration laws, it is the work of a moment for “My People” Holder to file a federal suit [8]seeking to declare the law “invalid.” Now you smell it, don’t you?

These are obvious, industrial-strength, belching-cloud sorts of illegality — the sort that make it onto Fox News and blogs across the country. More subtle, yet in the end no less odoriferous, are widespread efforts by the Obama administration to rule by executive fiat. It wasn’t so long ago I was being assured by various conservatives that Obama’s  “cap-and-trade” legislation was “dead in the water.” Oh, the poor dears!  They thought that just because that species of lunatic self-immolation on the altar of pseudo-environmentalism  had failed in Congress, it was therefore defeated.

What they failed to notice is that voting for the Obama administration is merely a formality. It counts only to the extent that it ratifies the policy being proposed. Otherwise, it is a mistake that must be rectified by going quietly behind the scenes and effecting the policy by extra-legislative means. Isn’t that why God created the EPA: to circumvent the will of the voters (who don’t know what’s best for themselves anyway) and provide them with green energy, green jobs, a green economy? (It’s only spoilsports who point out that green energy means “less energy,” just as “green jobs” means “fewer jobs” and  a “green economy” must be sharply distinguished from a “productive economy.”

It’s the same with ObamaCare. The public hates it. The Republican Congress is endeavoring to repeal or at least emasculate it.  To date, however, it just goes on its merry way. As Conrad Black points out in a superb essay [9] at NRO, “the Republican plan to starve Obamacare of funds has been frustrated by a combination of pre-funding $105 billion in the initial 2,900-page bill, and granting the HHS secretary vast discretion to fund it on her own authority, seems to compound the measure’s inherent failings with fiscal indestructibility, a usurpation of what are generally thought to be the rights of the legislature.”

“The rights of the legislature.” Remember those artifacts of yesteryear?  What we are embarked on now is an imperial effort to turn the legislature into cheerleaders for policy formulated by unelected elites.  That’s the way they do things in Europe, and that’s the way Obama and his enablers want us to do things here.

Hence the virulence of the reaction in Wisconsin.  The real issue was not whether public employees should have the right to bargain collectively but whether public employees should be answerable to the people or to the party they helped to elect. Is it “We the people” or “We the party”? Sniff, sniff. There’s something rotten in the state of Denmark.  The question is how long we’re going to lounge around like Hamlet, sicklied o’er with the pale cast of whatever it is that passes for thought.

The Democrats have put the country on notice: the choice they’re offering, as a friend of mine put it, is “rule or ruin.” Either we play their way or they take their votes and decamp to Illinois or wherever, leaving behind an assortment of union thugs to sort out the opposition. It’s unpleasant. It smells bad. But either we stand up for liberty and responsibility now or we continue to spend our way into oblivion, servitude, and that gangrenous green utopia the politically correct hail as paradise.

Article printed from Roger’s Rules: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/03/14/the-aroma-of-illegality/

URLs in this post:

[1] John Hinderaker reports: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimballon%20collective%20bargaining%20in%20the%20Wisconsin%20Senate,%20armed%20guards%20led%20Republican%20Senators%20through%20a%20tunnel,%20out%20of%20the%20Capitol%20and%20onto%20a%20waiting%20bus,%20which%20reportedly%20was%20commandeered%20for%20the%20purpose%20on%20an%20emergency%20basis.%20A%20howling%20mob%20of%20union%20members%20threatened%20the%20Republicans,%20shouted%20obscenities%20and%20pounded%20on%20the%20bus.

[2] famous quotation: http://www.bluegrasspundit.com/2010/10/obama-2009-elections-have-consequences.html

[3] Congressman Capuano: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/145627-dem-lawmaker-on-labor-protests-get-a-little-bloody-when-necessary)

[4] pointed out: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/260730/proposition-presidents-may-decline-enforce-unconstitutional-statutes-unassailable-andr

[5] My People: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeAmIIQTbXc

[6] 14th Amendment : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Text

[7] quietly drop the suit: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/cityhall/Feds_Quietly_Drop_Suit_Against_New_Black_Panther_Party.html

[8] file a federal suit : http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/06/justice-department-file-suit-arizona-early-tuesday/

[9] a superb essay: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261666/state-obama-conrad-black

 

[Nemo888]

Didn't Scott Walker just cut corporate taxes in Wisconsin? Then tried to make up the short fall by clawing back wages and benefits from middle class public servants. Wages and benefits that would have been spent in State. This must make him a tea party hero.

 

[Redeye]

(and despite many allegations there is little evidence the TEA party movement is externally funded in any way...).

If you actually believe that, we have little to talk about.  That is complete and utter nonsense.

Yes, there are some liberal organizations (and individuals) that provide funding for projects aimed at advancing their agenda and countering that of the right's.  And I'm pretty glad that's the case.  The fact, however, is that if you look at the influence of money on politics, particularly in the United States, the money pushing agendas is coming from the right much more than from the left, and the efforts in states like Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan to attack unions (and that's what it is, the "fiscal necessity" argument has now been completely refuted especially in WI) is part of an overall effort by the GOP to defeat the only organizations able to counter their financial power.  I'm not a fan of unions at all, but if corporations and lobbies can buy so much influence in the halls of power, I'm glad there's some measure of counterbalance.  We have gotten to the point that "1 man, 1 vote" is now looking more like "$1, 1 vote".  That is very, very ominous indeed.

I find it particularly interesting how Tea Party protests and the union protests in Wisconsin were spun so completely differently by Fox too, as if their agenda wasn't already clear enough.  The way they've described people exercising their civil liberties in a peaceful but deliberate manner is pretty sickening.

 

[Redeye]

So you have simply inverted the premise, since it is the Legacy media that isn't providing the story, amd the citizen journalists of the blogosphere who are hunting for it. Following the money shows lots of well heeled liberal foundations pouring money into events attempting to counter the TEA party movement (and despite many allegations there is little evidence the TEA party movement is externally funded in any way; astroturft is an inversion of what is really happening).

If you don't think the citizen journalists are doing a good job, onsider the following article; every story was broken by the blogosphere and most are still not being followed in any detail (if at all) by the legacy media:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/03/14/the-aroma-of-illegality/?singlepage=true

As far as the PJ Media post, it's pretty much laugable.  President Obama declined to defend DOMA because he can, and it seems he believes it to be in his best interest to do so.  There was much ado briefly until it was realized that there are plenty of precedents for what he did.

The Madison protests have been vigourous, but there's been to the best of my knowledge not a single arrest, and mostly trumped up claims of "thuggishness".  I note that there's been no reports of people showing up with guns or anything like that.  Yes, people are angry and expressing their outrage at a baseless attack on the middle class by a governor who's just handed about $3.8bn in tax cuts to his richest constituents.  The fact that his legislature ran through the anti-union bill as a "non-financial bill" getting around the quorum issue shows that his effort is purely union-busting.  Then, of course, there's the prank call from "David Koch" he fell for.  I'll be interested to see how much steam the recall effort gathers, because it seems like WI voters have some pretty serious buyer's remorse.

Then it trots out this nonsense about the "New Black Panthers".  This is another ridiculous RW meme.  There's what, 24 of them nationwide?  Yet you'd think it was an organization of millions that was some serious threat to democracy if you only paid attention to RW media.

Then there's the other meme, about "ObamaCare" - "the public hates it" - this claim is being made very heavily without any sort of empirical evidence.  Polls have shown that to the extent the public is unhappy with it, they are because it doesn't go far enough and takes too long for all the provisions to kick in.

I could go on, but there's not much point is there?

 

[a_majoor]

More citizen journalism:

http://blog.eyeblast.tv/2011/03/union-thugs-destroy-recall-petitions/

Union Thugs Destroy Recall Petitions

Armed with a bullhorn, thuggery, and the most annoying chants ever, union thugs continued their streak of ‘solidarity’.

The following took place at a recall Jim Holperin Rally in Merill, WI. As you can see, “F*ck you” is written on the ripped up petitions. The video was shot after the incident took place.

According to an eyewitness account:

    This video was shot minutes after a union advocate destroyed several petitions at a recall Jim Holperin Rally in Merill, WI. The event was moved to the court house grounds because the private location originally slated to host the event was threatened with arson. It should be noted that police were present when the protestor destroyed these recall petitions, but stated to us that there was nothing they could do about it. The female protestor, who had a young child with her, approached the recall table pretending to be interested in signing the petition, then proceeded to write F— You! She then ripped up other completed petitions before being stopped. Her actions were met with great approval from the rest of the crowd, who took up the chant heard in the video.

( h/t Breitbart.tv )
Posted by Joe Schoffstall

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 16th, 2011 at 11:16 am and is filed under Liberals Behaving Badly, Online Video, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: Scott Walker, Unions, unions thugs, wisconsin

There is an embedded video as well

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I'm honestly trying to find a left wing equivalent to such hyperbole

It shouldn't be so hard.  Pay attention to the superlatives the next time some sort of spending cutback is announced.  "Criminal, vicious, heartless, violent..."

 

[a_majoor]

The Madison protests have been vigourous, but there's been to the best of my knowledge not a single arrest, and mostly trumped up claims of "thuggishness". 

http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/17/20-days-of-left-wing-thuggery-in-wisconsin-when-will-obama-democrats-and-msm-call-for-civility/

Includes video clips and still photographs of protestor caused damage and vandalism, threats of arson, death threats, mobbing of legislators....As to why there have been no arrests, that is a question that may well be addressed in the future by the Governor and the legislature. The Rule of Law is at stake, and brownshirts trying to overturn the results of an election or using force to prevent the passage of laws they don't like is not the mark of a civil society or a good leading indicator for the future.

Oh, yes, live ammunition was found outside the Legislature as well, so you now have your proof  guns are involved,,,,,,

 

[Redeye]

http://biggovernment.com/jjmnolte/2011/03/17/20-days-of-left-wing-thuggery-in-wisconsin-when-will-obama-democrats-and-msm-call-for-civility/

Includes video clips and still photographs of protestor caused damage and vandalism, threats of arson, death threats, mobbing of legislators....As to why there have been no arrests, that is a question that may well be addressed in the future by the Governor and the legislature. The Rule of Law is at stake, and brownshirts trying to overturn the results of an election or using force to prevent the passage of laws they don't like is not the mark of a civil society or a good leading indicator for the future.

Oh, yes, live ammunition was found outside the Legislature as well, so you now have your proof  guns are involved,,,,,,

Sources?  Andrew Breitbart is not a source.  That man has absolutely zero credibility.

Here's a source I found about the "live ammo" claim: http://kstp.com/news/stories/s2000476.shtml - no firearms seen, no evidence whatsoever of how it got there, who brought it, or why.  So forgive me for not really seeing any reason to place any blame just yet.

 

[ModlrMike]

Sources?  Andrew Breitbart is not a source.  That man has absolutely zero credibility.

Still having a go at the messenger I see.

 

[Redeye]

Still having a go at the messenger I see.

If the messenger has massive credibility problems, then I try to collaborate the message with other sources.  And I can't.  Did some of the protests get a bit animated?  Yes.  So did Tea Party ones - so do any large group affairs potentially when passions run deep and there's tension.  I'm sure plenty of people would love to have us believe that all Right Wing functions are dignified affairs.  Then someone gets caught on video stomping on a woman's head. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=11969522)

Oh, and then there's Tea Party darling Mark Williams' great idea of sending "agents provocateurs" to Madison to act like louts generally so as to discredit any protestors.

Back to Breitbart's credibility problems - they are very, very well documented - the Shirley Sherrod affair, his ties to "prankster" James O'Keefe to whom he tried to give some credibility.  As a funny aside, it was none other than GLENN BECK that outed O'Keefe for his latest stunt.  That is a little twilight-zonish to me.  The funny thing is, as if Huffington Post wasn't having enough problems, he's joined their "staff", which I think has just about finished them off.

As for the protestors in Wisconsin, well, how've they been behaving generally?  Ask the Chief of Police in Madison, Joel DeSpain.  According to the USA Today, "DeSpain said there were no arrests and called the demonstrators "a very civil group."" http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-02-26-wisconsin-saturday-rally_N.htm

So we can go around in circles with hyperbole some more, or realizing tu quoque doesn't really get anywhere anyhow.

 

[Rifleman62]

And you own a Glock?

 

[Redeye]

And you own a Glock?

Not anymore.  Someone offered me more than I paid for it so I sold it.  Thought about picking up another one through Police Ordnance Company's Mil/LEO discount program, but I haven't been to the range in quite a while so it hasn't been a priority.  I do have a Ruger MkIII 22/45 that at some point I need to get fixed (I did something horrific to it after cleaning it apparently) and a Chinese Type 56 (SKS).  I sold my Browning Citori Skeet Gun last winter again at a profit, and my Smith M&P .40 because my supply of "free" ammo dried up in NS.  I still have my registered AR-15 lower that some point I'll get around to buying the rest of too.

Oh, was there a point in there somewhere?  Other than perhaps you trying to paint me as something I'm not?  Yeah.  I'm a gun owner.  I used to be a card carrying conservative, and in most elections I've voted in, that's who I voted for.  Until 2006 or so, anyhow.

 

[Dennis Ruhl]

I used to be a card carrying conservative, and in most elections I've voted in, that's who I voted for.  Until 2006 or so, anyhow.

What happened? Harper? As a true conservative, I consider Harper primarily a pragmatist as opposed to an idealogue.  I believe he would accompany himself in a rousing tune of the Internationale if it would win an election.  He doesn't have to because Iggy and Taliban Jack have a mean duet going on.  Harper keeps winning elections because he tempers his conservatism rather than pushing it.  I think a lot of people like to believe him to be a rabid conservative but he has stayed away from conservative hot button issues.  So what's his biggest failing?  A 403 area code?

 

[SeaKingTacco]

Dennis has actually asked a really good question.

Redeye- I realize you do not speak for all "Progressives", but could you lay out from your perspective what it is about Harper, exactly, that bothers that faction of political thought?

No BS- I'm truly curious.  This could be a good opportunity to learn.

 

[observor 69]

I believe he would accompany himself in a rousing tune of the Internationale if it would win an election. 

There's part of your answer SKT. Under his management he has led his government in a long list of actions that most "progressives" IMHO consider beyond the norm. I am sure you are quit aware of a most of these acts. Which brings me to wonder where your question comes from?

Edit: I personally reject the label "progressive." In years past I wondered why my poli Sci prof at RMC said he wasn't of any political stripe. I now understand, none of the major parties have won my loyalty.