blathertown, noalternativeland

I wanna waste a fuckofalot of time and blather on and on about the stuff near the end of the following blatheringmoron comment:

isn't part of the point that the US is not only discombobulating the fuck out (5.60 / 5)

of Iraq, but that it's also discombobulated the fuck out of the US?

Don't recall the exact quote, but it's at the end of the Shock Doctrine film....about the best way to survive the shock treatment is to be aware of what is going on.

But the subtext, for me at least, is the contrast between what is going on in the leftwing blogosphere and that statement. I think you can hardly deny that leftwing bloggers -- whatever else most of them may or may not be--are some of the most informed of American citizens, esp when it comes to sham government and corporate involvement therein. We are the ones most acutely aware of what is happening.

So we sit around wasting time on petty squabbles and personality cult issues in what we'd all have to agree has been a pretty ineffectual "movement" in terms of getting anything done.

Seriously, what have we really "accomplished" here? Aside from wasting a fuckofalot of time, blathering on and on about nothing. (I include myself in the broadstroke condemnation).

Is this just a coping mechanism?

Is it the only thing we can come up with in our sham-shocked state of paralysis?

Sometimes I think so.

by blatheringmoron @ Sun Sep 23, 2007 at 09:41:42 AM PDT

Well, I think you're right at the end there, except for the "sometimes" part. Let me splain ya.

There are roughly two reasons why somebody who really wanted 'TO DO SOMETHING' would come to an in-fact lefty blog like this:

1. Cuz he/she hadn't figured out what the hell was exactly was wrong with the US and/or how the hell exactly to fix what he/she knows is wrong. Confusion by confusion, a 'DO SOMETHING' lefty blog would argue and discuss and throw around evidence and ideas till it got reasonably close to best answers.

2. Shehe has got "1." basically right but can't figure out the power thing, how to marshall forces and create the real world changes that we've all figured out need to be accomplished real soon.

3. Figuring out the facts of the relationship between 1. and 2.

By and large, I don't see any of that here, or at myleftwing, or at booman, or much of anywhere. Essentially, even here, we have a self-selected group comfortable with the 'fact' that on no major issue is the let's say Dennis Kucinich position wrong. On "2" above, I think the consensus position is that there is no hope, so why contemplate the gory details. As for "3" that would've involved working on either or both "2" and "1".

The left will need to rethink or just compromise on its standard 'Kucinich' positions (not that I ain't probably gonna vote for him) if it is to have any success at "2" above. I think it's obvious, despite it never being discussed, that the compromise would involve the 'white working class' and its 'special interests'. Here or anywhere else 'lefty' we haven't taken even the first step toward figuring out what to do about that, in other words about "3" above. I tried to with The U.S. Power Matrix & An Immigration Test but got ignored at boomantribune and at politicalfleshfeast (by everyone except David Byron), and got the politically correct and racism-tinged 'misunderstanding' and abuse treatment at myleftwing.

Not that immigration is the heart and soul of the change and compromise the left needs to make in order to create a winning AND LEFTIST (it's not about dkos-DNC compromises) electoral coalition, there's a lot of other hard work to do too, populist work. But there's no taste for that here. Yup, we're in blathertown, noalternativeland.