Why Do They Hate Our Freedoms?

One of my right-wing classmates on Facebook posted a link to this article from the American Spectator, a charming little rag whose main function appears to be to make the National Review look moderate. My friend commented on the link:

If we are so upset with our Government ... Why do 80 % of incumbents win re-election. ...... Read the article below "Breaking the Ruling Class"

The link came via a Facebook page belonging to the American Majority, a right-wing organization that evidently chose its name on the same principle as the Bolsheviks did, though with less basis in reality. (And goodness gracious! The article was written by the "founder and President" of the American Majority, one Ned Ryun.) their link included the comment:

At re-election rates of over 80%, we do indeed have a ruling class. How can we stop this?

... illustrated by a picture of Charlie Rangel. I guess the idea is that since so many in Congress serve multiple terms, they constitute a "class." Tied to this is a call for the highly anti-democratic quick fix of term limits. The American Majority's wall photos include images of scary Negroes and many of politicians, but only one is of a Republican, Chris Christie.

The article itself misses a few things:

During the American Revolution, roughly a third of all colonists supported King George III, and, for the most part, Parliament. Though completely surrounded by the wildfire of political rebellion, these Tories continued to support the status quo. Thankfully, our founders did not, no more than the Tea Party accepts today's status quo. ...

Of course, "our founders" -- certainly the iconic ones -- were the ruling class of their day, and they didn't want to shake things up too much. They were very concerned to protect the wealthy elites against the envious rabble. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry -- all were gentry. (I just looked up Henry and noticed that after failing more than once in business he became a lawyer. That would qualify him for political office today, wouldn't it?) But hey, only Communists study history; Real Americans can just make it up.

I don't mean to oversimplify; the Founders made some appeal to radical ideas to gain support from the bulk of the population, including those of Thomas Paine. At least some of them had some personal and political integrity. But they were still the Ruling Class. I thought that the historical chapters of Roger D. Hodge's The Mendacity of Hope (HarperCollins, 2010) cast some interesting light on the crony capitalism of the late 1700s; if you want an introduction to the problem, check it out. (Look up the Panic of 1792, especially.)

In 2009, a full 76 percent of people polled said that elected officials put their own interests ahead of those of the American people. Yet despite such numbers, in 2010, during one of the most dramatic political shifts in decades, more than 80 percent of incumbents at all levels won reelection, largely preserving the political status quo.

Funny, that. Leftists have been pointing it out for some time. But I think that the 2010 elections can only be linked to "one of the most dramatic political shifts in decades" if you relate them to the 2008 elections, which were a much more dramatic rejection of the status quo. It's interesting what short (or well-trained) memories the Right have; 2008 isn't that long ago, yet they forget that American voters delivered a stinging defeat to the Republican party. (But then, no wonder they prefer to forget that.)

At first glance, it doesn't make sense: a highly unpopular Congress (and president, for that matter), governing over an economy and country careening out of control, yet some eight out of 10 members of Congress can expect to be re-elected. Many have served for years and have brought this country to its current predicament. Yet they keep winning re-election to continue their tenures of failure: If current spending levels hold, the United States' public debt will eclipse 300 percent of our economy before midcentury. And when confronted with massive debt, our leaders, lacking the political courage to undertake fundamental change, shave infinitesimal amounts here and there, exfoliating the elephant of debt while it keeps plowing ahead toward the inevitable cliff.

Again, what a short memory you have, Grandma! True, Congress is unpopular, but the Republicans are even less popular. Obama's approval numbers are dropping, but the last I heard they hadn't reached George W. Bush levels yet. Most Americans still remember Bush and what he and his cronies did to this country; it's only the Republican fringe who have scrubbed their minds of such inconvenient facts.

Ryun is also carefully vague about the context of Congressional corruption: he has Congress floating there in mid-air, full of motiveless malignity, security in its incumbency. He uses the Ruling Class to refer only to Congress and the Executive Branch; the Corporate Branch doesn't enter the picture at all. You'd think that Congress and Obama (who in the right-wing imagination must have taken office in 2001; Bush's effect on the economy is simply forgotten) were getting the country into debt purely for their own personal enrichment; that they do so in the service of the financial and corporate sectors is conspicuous by its absence from the, erm, discussion.

Which brings me to the most entertaining aspect of the article and my friend's recommendation: it's a call for Class Warfare, the great bugbear of the Right, the epithet they hurl at Occupy Wall Street, Obama, the Democrats -- but not at the Tea Party, who doesn't like Wall Street any better than the rest of the 99 percent do. I guess that's Tea Party Exceptionalism: it's only bad when their enemies do it, not when they do it.

Why Do They Hate Our Freedoms?

One of my right-wing classmates on Facebook posted a link to this article from the American Spectator, a charming little rag whose main function appears to be to make the National Review look moderate. My friend commented on the link:

If we are so upset with our Government ... Why do 80 % of incumbents win re-election. ...... Read the article below "Breaking the Ruling Class"

The link came via a Facebook page belonging to the American Majority, a right-wing organization that evidently chose its name on the same principle as the Bolsheviks did, though with less basis in reality. (And goodness gracious! The article was written by the "founder and President" of the American Majority, one Ned Ryun.) their link included the comment:

At re-election rates of over 80%, we do indeed have a ruling class. How can we stop this?

... illustrated by a picture of Charlie Rangel. I guess the idea is that since so many in Congress serve multiple terms, they constitute a "class." Tied to this is a call for the highly anti-democratic quick fix of term limits. The American Majority's wall photos include images of scary Negroes and many of politicians, but only one is of a Republican, Chris Christie.

The article itself misses a few things:

During the American Revolution, roughly a third of all colonists supported King George III, and, for the most part, Parliament. Though completely surrounded by the wildfire of political rebellion, these Tories continued to support the status quo. Thankfully, our founders did not, no more than the Tea Party accepts today's status quo. ...

Of course, "our founders" -- certainly the iconic ones -- were the ruling class of their day, and they didn't want to shake things up too much. They were very concerned to protect the wealthy elites against the envious rabble. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry -- all were gentry. (I just looked up Henry and noticed that after failing more than once in business he became a lawyer. That would qualify him for political office today, wouldn't it?) But hey, only Communists study history; Real Americans can just make it up.

I don't mean to oversimplify; the Founders made some appeal to radical ideas to gain support from the bulk of the population, including those of Thomas Paine. At least some of them had some personal and political integrity. But they were still the Ruling Class. I thought that the historical chapters of Roger D. Hodge's The Mendacity of Hope (HarperCollins, 2010) cast some interesting light on the crony capitalism of the late 1700s; if you want an introduction to the problem, check it out. (Look up the Panic of 1792, especially.)

In 2009, a full 76 percent of people polled said that elected officials put their own interests ahead of those of the American people. Yet despite such numbers, in 2010, during one of the most dramatic political shifts in decades, more than 80 percent of incumbents at all levels won reelection, largely preserving the political status quo.

Funny, that. Leftists have been pointing it out for some time. But I think that the 2010 elections can only be linked to "one of the most dramatic political shifts in decades" if you relate them to the 2008 elections, which were a much more dramatic rejection of the status quo. It's interesting what short (or well-trained) memories the Right have; 2008 isn't that long ago, yet they forget that American voters delivered a stinging defeat to the Republican party. (But then, no wonder they prefer to forget that.)

At first glance, it doesn't make sense: a highly unpopular Congress (and president, for that matter), governing over an economy and country careening out of control, yet some eight out of 10 members of Congress can expect to be re-elected. Many have served for years and have brought this country to its current predicament. Yet they keep winning re-election to continue their tenures of failure: If current spending levels hold, the United States' public debt will eclipse 300 percent of our economy before midcentury. And when confronted with massive debt, our leaders, lacking the political courage to undertake fundamental change, shave infinitesimal amounts here and there, exfoliating the elephant of debt while it keeps plowing ahead toward the inevitable cliff.

Again, what a short memory you have, Grandma! True, Congress is unpopular, but the Republicans are even less popular. Obama's approval numbers are dropping, but the last I heard they hadn't reached George W. Bush levels yet. Most Americans still remember Bush and what he and his cronies did to this country; it's only the Republican fringe who have scrubbed their minds of such inconvenient facts.

Ryun is also carefully vague about the context of Congressional corruption: he has Congress floating there in mid-air, full of motiveless malignity, security in its incumbency. He uses the Ruling Class to refer only to Congress and the Executive Branch; the Corporate Branch doesn't enter the picture at all. You'd think that Congress and Obama (who in the right-wing imagination must have taken office in 2001; Bush's effect on the economy is simply forgotten) were getting the country into debt purely for their own personal enrichment; that they do so in the service of the financial and corporate sectors is conspicuous by its absence from the, erm, discussion.

Which brings me to the most entertaining aspect of the article and my friend's recommendation: it's a call for Class Warfare, the great bugbear of the Right, the epithet they hurl at Occupy Wall Street, Obama, the Democrats -- but not at the Tea Party, who doesn't like Wall Street any better than the rest of the 99 percent do. I guess that's Tea Party Exceptionalism: it's only bad when their enemies do it, not when they do it.

Constitutionally Deficient

I read somewhere recently that the Tea Party is offering coloring books about the U.S. Constitution to schoolchildren (try this, little girl -- the first one's free!) to jumpstart their Constitutional literacy. That wouldn't be a bad idea, though of course the Tea Party, like most Americans, should begin with themselves.

I admit that until I read Roy Edroso's latest post, I'd almost forgotten myself that the Constitution endows Congress with the power to "establish Post Offices and Post Roads" (Article I, Section 8). So those on the right who want the Post Office to hurry into bankruptcy so it can be privatized are actually opposed to the Constitution; not that that's news. The Tea Party and the Republican right generally have shown themselves not only to be uninformed about the Constitution they claim to adore, but are actively disdainful of its provisions. (Not that the Republicans have a monopoly on violation of the Constitution, of course!)

I'm going to have to read the Constitution more often, and more carefully, myself; I'd overlooked the first paragraph of Article I, Section 9 until today: "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." It's long outdated now, of course, but it's interesting as another Constitutional concession to slavery and the slave trade.

Constitutionally Deficient

I read somewhere recently that the Tea Party is offering coloring books about the U.S. Constitution to schoolchildren (try this, little girl -- the first one's free!) to jumpstart their Constitutional literacy. That wouldn't be a bad idea, though of course the Tea Party, like most Americans, should begin with themselves.

I admit that until I read Roy Edroso's latest post, I'd almost forgotten myself that the Constitution endows Congress with the power to "establish Post Offices and Post Roads" (Article I, Section 8). So those on the right who want the Post Office to hurry into bankruptcy so it can be privatized are actually opposed to the Constitution; not that that's news. The Tea Party and the Republican right generally have shown themselves not only to be uninformed about the Constitution they claim to adore, but are actively disdainful of its provisions. (Not that the Republicans have a monopoly on violation of the Constitution, of course!)

I'm going to have to read the Constitution more often, and more carefully, myself; I'd overlooked the first paragraph of Article I, Section 9 until today: "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." It's long outdated now, of course, but it's interesting as another Constitutional concession to slavery and the slave trade.

Moderation In All Things, Including Moderation

No, I didn't go to Jon Stewart's party in Washington yesterday. For one thing, as I've already mentioned, I had a prior engagement. For another, what "sanity" does Stewart propose we restore? This country has always been batshit crazy. For yet another, Stewart early on called his project a "Million Moderate March," which leaves me out: I'm not a moderate, and that puts me in good company -- better company, I'm afraid, than Stewart.

I realize that Stewart's call for sanity may be as tinged with satire as Colbert's corresponding call for fear. But only tinged. (This morning I heard someone on NPR say piously that Stewart's closing "sincere moment" showed that satire can go beyond entertainment to have a serious meaning. Duh! Satire is supposed to have teeth, and sink them deep. If it doesn't, it's just mockery pretending to be satire.) That was shown by Stewart's early announcement (also quoted in the Times) that

The purpose, he said, is to counter what he called a minority of 15 percent or 20 percent of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric. He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal.

Numerous people jumped on that last clause. Glenn Greenwald pointed out that Stewart's exemplary extremes were bogus, citing a McClatchy story which reported that

The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

(See also this post at the Comedy Central website, and notice the second comment under it, by an Administrator.)

But, well, maybe that Army general is an extremist. But any number can play that game. To wit: Some extremists say that George Bush should be sainted. Other extremists say he should be flayed alive with hot rakes and disembowelled publicly before being drawn and quartered. As a moderate, I say he should merely be hanged, as Saddam Hussein was hanged with his approval. If you disagree with me, you're the kind of extremist who has ruined political discourse in this country.

Actually, that whole paragraph from the Times was bogus, in the Car Talk sense of the word. What is laughingly known as political discourse is dominated by the corporate media, who by dint of owning the media infrastructure and spending large amounts of money get to define and occupy the Center. The extremists would be those who "reflexively" opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq, who want a single-payer health care payment system (or better yet, a National Health Service), who now oppose Obama's war in Afghanistan, who opposed the Bush-Paulson-Obama-McCain bank bailout, who do not (contrary to recurring corporate media claims) worry about the deficit as much as they worry about jobs, and -- do a lot of yelling, but are mostly not heard except by ourselves. True, the corporate media have given disproportionate coverage and support to the Tea Party Extended tantrum, but that's because calls for "smaller" government, lower taxes for the rich, and the demolition of social services and the Commons, are part of the great Center. (Greenwald also showed that "Stewart's examples of right-wing rhetorical excesses (Obama is a socialist who wasn't born in the U.S. and hates America) are pervasive in the GOP", not just in its fringes.)

I get weary when the Tea Party is treated as if it were something new in the US. Surely I'm not the only person old enough to remember the "New Right" that gave us Ronald Reagan in 1980, that considered William F. Buckley Jr. a liberal if not a leftist, that was going to sweep away liberalism like a tsunami, stop abortion absolutely, put prayer back in the schools, make us proud of our Flag again, end welfare, limit government, and roll back Communism?

The hysteria of the Democrats, who warn that a Republican victory in November will usher in a new Dark Age, is more than matched by the hysteria of the Republicans, who gleefully anticipate the new Age of Light that will bless the Fatherland when they supplant the Democrat scalawags and give America back to We the People. Just like they did in 1994!

So my right-wing acquaintance (that's RWA1) keeps linking to prematurely triumphalist articles in USA Today, plus the usual Obama ankle-biters from the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page and National Review Online. (That WSJ article was mildly amusing. It was an attack on some Democratic house scribe who wanted to depict Barack Obama as a philosopher-president. I hope I needn't reiterate my own low opinion of Obama's intellect, but I'm old enough to remember [as is RWA1] when the Journal was trying to present Dan Quayle as a serious intellectual, a reader of Plato and Aristotle, full of gravitas. Or as Richard Nixon told the New York Times, "He's a very different man than the intellectual midget that has been portrayed in much of the media.… I think he's going to make an excellent Vice President, and I believe that he's going to be a popular Vice President just as soon as the people of this country see him as he is." Riiiight.)

RWA1 also linked to this WSJ story on the birth of the Tea Party Movement, "a good account," RWA1 said, "of the movement without the hysterical baggage in the partisan media." It's nice to have a non-hysterical account of a hysterical movement, I suppose, though Fox News is surely "partisan media" and has been highly supportive of the Teabaggers, as have the corporate media generally. (It happens that NPR's This American Life did a show on the Tea Party, very sympathetic and non-hysterical, just today.) RWA1, who also went berserk over the firing of Juan Williams by NPR, considers himself a sober conservative (but don't they all?), but he isn't that different from someone like Jon Stewart in wishing to see himself as the reasonable, rational middle. And truth be told, they are probably not as far apart politically as either would like to think.

Glenn Greenwald also pointed out something important that I've noticed too.

One other point about this fixation on the "tone" of our politics. Political debates are inherently acrimonious -- much of the rhetoric during the time of the American Founding, as well as throughout the 19th Century, easily competes with, if not exceeds, what we have now in terms of noxiousness and extremity -- but far more important than tone, in my view, is content. For instance, Bill Kristol, a repeated guest on The Daily Show, is invariably polite on television, yet uses his soft-spoken demeanor to propagate repellent, destructive ideas. The same is true for war criminal John Yoo, who also appeared, with great politeness, on The Daily Show. Moreover, some acts are so destructive and wrong that they merit extreme condemnation (such as Bush's war crimes). I don't think anyone disputes that our discourse would benefit if it were more substantive and rational, but it's usually the ideas themselves -- not the tone used to express them -- that are the culprits.

I wrote about the acrimoniousness of American political discourse here, and about the way that liberals / moderates confuse calm tone with moderate substance here. And the firing of Juan Williams, which led to a lot of caterwauling in our political discourse, reminded me of a piece that the late Ellen Willis wrote for the Village Voice in 1990 when CBS' cracker-barrel philosopher Andy Rooney was suspended for making some stupidly vicious racist remarks -- but not for making stupidly vicious homophobic remarks. I haven't been able to find Willis's article on the Web, but her argument has stayed with me through the twenty years since. She argued that instead of suspending Rooney, CBS should have required him to have an on-air conversation -- debate, even -- with anti-racist and anti-homophobic writers and thinkers, to actually discuss the issues instead of merely suspending him and letting him make a typically empty apology for offending people. Willis recognized, of course, that such an exchange would never happen in the corporate media, who are dedicated to homogenizing, flattening out, and simply ignoring the issues the world faces. To address them would be, like, upsetting. Extreme. Better just to discuss Michelle Obama's shoulders, and complain for the thousandth time that the Democratic Party hasn't moved far enough to the Center.

[The photo at the head of this post comes from Roy Edroso's alicublog. I like the sign, which suggests that someone at the rally might have had irreverent thoughts about the undertaking. But the New York Times article I quoted above mentions that "Mr. Stewart also promised to supply the crowd with signs if they did not bring their own, including as examples, 'I Disagree With You, But I’m Pretty Sure You’re Not Hitler,' and 'Take It Down a Notch for America.'" The sign in the photo seems like more of that, but I still like it. Some other signs can be seen at Band of Thebes.]

Moderation In All Things, Including Moderation

No, I didn't go to Jon Stewart's party in Washington yesterday. For one thing, as I've already mentioned, I had a prior engagement. For another, what "sanity" does Stewart propose we restore? This country has always been batshit crazy. For yet another, Stewart early on called his project a "Million Moderate March," which leaves me out: I'm not a moderate, and that puts me in good company -- better company, I'm afraid, than Stewart.

I realize that Stewart's call for sanity may be as tinged with satire as Colbert's corresponding call for fear. But only tinged. (This morning I heard someone on NPR say piously that Stewart's closing "sincere moment" showed that satire can go beyond entertainment to have a serious meaning. Duh! Satire is supposed to have teeth, and sink them deep. If it doesn't, it's just mockery pretending to be satire.) That was shown by Stewart's early announcement (also quoted in the Times) that

The purpose, he said, is to counter what he called a minority of 15 percent or 20 percent of the country that has dominated the national political discussion with extreme rhetoric. He tarred both parties with that charge, mentioning both the attacks on the right against President Obama for being everything from a socialist to un-American and on the left against former President Bush for being a war criminal.

Numerous people jumped on that last clause. Glenn Greenwald pointed out that Stewart's exemplary extremes were bogus, citing a McClatchy story which reported that

The Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison accused the Bush administration Wednesday of committing "war crimes" and called for those responsible to be held to account.

(See also this post at the Comedy Central website, and notice the second comment under it, by an Administrator.)

But, well, maybe that Army general is an extremist. But any number can play that game. To wit: Some extremists say that George Bush should be sainted. Other extremists say he should be flayed alive with hot rakes and disembowelled publicly before being drawn and quartered. As a moderate, I say he should merely be hanged, as Saddam Hussein was hanged with his approval. If you disagree with me, you're the kind of extremist who has ruined political discourse in this country.

Actually, that whole paragraph from the Times was bogus, in the Car Talk sense of the word. What is laughingly known as political discourse is dominated by the corporate media, who by dint of owning the media infrastructure and spending large amounts of money get to define and occupy the Center. The extremists would be those who "reflexively" opposed Bush's invasion of Iraq, who want a single-payer health care payment system (or better yet, a National Health Service), who now oppose Obama's war in Afghanistan, who opposed the Bush-Paulson-Obama-McCain bank bailout, who do not (contrary to recurring corporate media claims) worry about the deficit as much as they worry about jobs, and -- do a lot of yelling, but are mostly not heard except by ourselves. True, the corporate media have given disproportionate coverage and support to the Tea Party Extended tantrum, but that's because calls for "smaller" government, lower taxes for the rich, and the demolition of social services and the Commons, are part of the great Center. (Greenwald also showed that "Stewart's examples of right-wing rhetorical excesses (Obama is a socialist who wasn't born in the U.S. and hates America) are pervasive in the GOP", not just in its fringes.)

I get weary when the Tea Party is treated as if it were something new in the US. Surely I'm not the only person old enough to remember the "New Right" that gave us Ronald Reagan in 1980, that considered William F. Buckley Jr. a liberal if not a leftist, that was going to sweep away liberalism like a tsunami, stop abortion absolutely, put prayer back in the schools, make us proud of our Flag again, end welfare, limit government, and roll back Communism?

The hysteria of the Democrats, who warn that a Republican victory in November will usher in a new Dark Age, is more than matched by the hysteria of the Republicans, who gleefully anticipate the new Age of Light that will bless the Fatherland when they supplant the Democrat scalawags and give America back to We the People. Just like they did in 1994!

So my right-wing acquaintance (that's RWA1) keeps linking to prematurely triumphalist articles in USA Today, plus the usual Obama ankle-biters from the Wall Street Journal Op-Ed page and National Review Online. (That WSJ article was mildly amusing. It was an attack on some Democratic house scribe who wanted to depict Barack Obama as a philosopher-president. I hope I needn't reiterate my own low opinion of Obama's intellect, but I'm old enough to remember [as is RWA1] when the Journal was trying to present Dan Quayle as a serious intellectual, a reader of Plato and Aristotle, full of gravitas. Or as Richard Nixon told the New York Times, "He's a very different man than the intellectual midget that has been portrayed in much of the media.… I think he's going to make an excellent Vice President, and I believe that he's going to be a popular Vice President just as soon as the people of this country see him as he is." Riiiight.)

RWA1 also linked to this WSJ story on the birth of the Tea Party Movement, "a good account," RWA1 said, "of the movement without the hysterical baggage in the partisan media." It's nice to have a non-hysterical account of a hysterical movement, I suppose, though Fox News is surely "partisan media" and has been highly supportive of the Teabaggers, as have the corporate media generally. (It happens that NPR's This American Life did a show on the Tea Party, very sympathetic and non-hysterical, just today.) RWA1, who also went berserk over the firing of Juan Williams by NPR, considers himself a sober conservative (but don't they all?), but he isn't that different from someone like Jon Stewart in wishing to see himself as the reasonable, rational middle. And truth be told, they are probably not as far apart politically as either would like to think.

Glenn Greenwald also pointed out something important that I've noticed too.

One other point about this fixation on the "tone" of our politics. Political debates are inherently acrimonious -- much of the rhetoric during the time of the American Founding, as well as throughout the 19th Century, easily competes with, if not exceeds, what we have now in terms of noxiousness and extremity -- but far more important than tone, in my view, is content. For instance, Bill Kristol, a repeated guest on The Daily Show, is invariably polite on television, yet uses his soft-spoken demeanor to propagate repellent, destructive ideas. The same is true for war criminal John Yoo, who also appeared, with great politeness, on The Daily Show. Moreover, some acts are so destructive and wrong that they merit extreme condemnation (such as Bush's war crimes). I don't think anyone disputes that our discourse would benefit if it were more substantive and rational, but it's usually the ideas themselves -- not the tone used to express them -- that are the culprits.

I wrote about the acrimoniousness of American political discourse here, and about the way that liberals / moderates confuse calm tone with moderate substance here. And the firing of Juan Williams, which led to a lot of caterwauling in our political discourse, reminded me of a piece that the late Ellen Willis wrote for the Village Voice in 1990 when CBS' cracker-barrel philosopher Andy Rooney was suspended for making some stupidly vicious racist remarks -- but not for making stupidly vicious homophobic remarks. I haven't been able to find Willis's article on the Web, but her argument has stayed with me through the twenty years since. She argued that instead of suspending Rooney, CBS should have required him to have an on-air conversation -- debate, even -- with anti-racist and anti-homophobic writers and thinkers, to actually discuss the issues instead of merely suspending him and letting him make a typically empty apology for offending people. Willis recognized, of course, that such an exchange would never happen in the corporate media, who are dedicated to homogenizing, flattening out, and simply ignoring the issues the world faces. To address them would be, like, upsetting. Extreme. Better just to discuss Michelle Obama's shoulders, and complain for the thousandth time that the Democratic Party hasn't moved far enough to the Center.

[The photo at the head of this post comes from Roy Edroso's alicublog. I like the sign, which suggests that someone at the rally might have had irreverent thoughts about the undertaking. But the New York Times article I quoted above mentions that "Mr. Stewart also promised to supply the crowd with signs if they did not bring their own, including as examples, 'I Disagree With You, But I’m Pretty Sure You’re Not Hitler,' and 'Take It Down a Notch for America.'" The sign in the photo seems like more of that, but I still like it. Some other signs can be seen at Band of Thebes.]

Press "1" for Inglish, I Mean Englihs

This sums up so many things so neatly.
(Apparently taken at a Tea Party rally somewhere, swiped from here)

Press "1" for Inglish, I Mean Englihs

This sums up so many things so neatly.
(Apparently taken at a Tea Party rally somewhere, swiped from here)

I the People

I've noticed a lot of people defending the Tea Party Extended Tantrum by claiming that it's about "We the People", as in What ever happened to We the People?, or, as the great orator Sarah Palin calls it in the video clip below, "this 'We the People' message".

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And I thought: Wait a minute! I'm one of the American People too, and I don't support the Tea Party, let alone the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The repetition of this mantra puts the lie to the recurring claim that the Republicans care about and support ordinary citizens: "conservatives’ vision is grounded in the belief that Americans are competent, decent, and hardworking, and it is the heavy hand of government that threatens to squelch American virtues." Only some Americans, and far from a majority; only some of "We the People", but, you know -- the right Americans.

I the People

I've noticed a lot of people defending the Tea Party Extended Tantrum by claiming that it's about "We the People", as in What ever happened to We the People?, or, as the great orator Sarah Palin calls it in the video clip below, "this 'We the People' message".

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And I thought: Wait a minute! I'm one of the American People too, and I don't support the Tea Party, let alone the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The repetition of this mantra puts the lie to the recurring claim that the Republicans care about and support ordinary citizens: "conservatives’ vision is grounded in the belief that Americans are competent, decent, and hardworking, and it is the heavy hand of government that threatens to squelch American virtues." Only some Americans, and far from a majority; only some of "We the People", but, you know -- the right Americans.