Washington Post says: You Suck

[01d55]

In the person of Jim Hoagland (http://www.tinyrevolution.com/mt/archives/002742.html):
Bernie was one of all of us who refused to vote for politicians who would raise our taxes and make the nation live within its means, even as we went to war. Bernie was one of all of us who did not demand more diligent supervision of financial markets as long as the outsize returns kept flowing. And in his own special way, Bernie was one of all of us who wasted energy in myriad forms, kept on consuming imported goods even when it meant going into debt to foreign lands that do not wish us well, and cut budgets for regulatory and law enforcement agencies even in the fat years.

So we got what we didn't pay for, too. And so will our children.

So through the link you'll find a reply by high-falutin' poet John Milton, but I prefer the down home straight talk from our own Fifthfiend: Apathy horseshit, show me where any given person is supposed to be able to accomplish anything with any amount of effort without being steamrolled by one or another tool of elite power and then we can talk about apathy. People get used to being shit on because they have no not-getting-shit-on options, and then whenever any one of them gathers up the temerity to point that out, a dozen people being shit on just as much turn around and tell them it's their fault for being an attractive place for the people who rule us to shit.

[Fifthfiend]

I don't know that I want to hate too much on Hoagland as IIRC he's one of the more honest (less dishonest) Post columnists but yes I really can't stand this typical model of "Identify bad results of the decisions of social elites which they then imposed upon a population with a. no effective manner of influencing these decisions, and b. in all likelihood very little way of even knowing what exactly was being done and why, then pretend as though all 300 million Americans actually sat down together one day and said hey actually we'd really like the social elites who control our public institutions to rob us blind and slaughter a few indigenous populations while they're at it, then blame us for this thing that the writer is imagining we all decided." Generalizations about "us" and what "we" decided are just easy ways for Hoagland and his ilk to avoid talking about the actual means by which the above came to be reality, and by doing so, ensuring that nobody reading his columns will get any kind of crazy ideas in their heads like actually doing anything about any of it. Inasmuch as there is any possibility of the great mass of humanity being able to do anything about these kinds of dreadful political realities, it depends on them being able to recognize that these are things that have been done to them, just as any victim's first step in getting out of an abusive cycle is learning to stop telling himself that it's his own fault for inciting the abuse or giving his abuser an excuse or even for just letting it happen.

[Professor Smarmiarty]

I don't know that I want to hate too much on Hoagland as IIRC he's one of the more honest (less dishonest) Post columnists but yes I really can't stand this typical model of "Identify bad results of the decisions of social elites which they then imposed upon a population with a. no effective manner of influencing these decisions, and b. in all likelihood very little way of even knowing what exactly was being done and why, then pretend as though all 300 million Americans actually sat down together one day and said hey actually we'd really like the social elites who control our public institutions to rob us blind and slaughter a few indigenous populations while they're at it, then blame us for this thing that the writer is imagining we all decided." Generalizations about "us" and what "we" decided are just easy ways for Hoagland and his ilk to avoid talking about the actual means by which the above came to be reality, and by doing so, ensuring that nobody reading his columns will get any kind of crazy ideas in their heads like actually doing anything about any of it. Inasmuch as there is any possibility of the great mass of humanity being able to do anything about these kinds of dreadful political realities, it depends on them being able to recognize that these are things that have been done to them, just as any victim's first step in getting out of an abusive cycle is learning to stop telling himself that it's his own fault for inciting the abuse or giving his abuser an excuse or even for just letting it happen.

Despite not agreeing with Fifth in the past on such issues I totally agree here. You can't blame the average voter unless he/she is fully informed by a free and representative media and has lines of communication with other people in the same position as them.

[Solid Snake]

I don't know,

I mean I actually can personally relate to Hoagland's point.

I mean I supported Bush for six years. Six years of his Presidency! It wasn't until 2007 that I even began to wonder about the scant possibility that the war on Iraq had been horribly botched during its occupation phase, and even then I held onto the hope that the war itself was somehow justified (we'll find those WMDs someday! The people of Iraq are better off now! These new times call for desperate measures!), but I had simply acknowledged Bush and his cronies had just messed up the endgame.

Even a few months ago, it was difficult for me to cast a vote for Obama, despite knowing he was objectively the better man to lead. I did so with a heavy heart. It took a lot of neoconesque screw-ups from the normally-rational McCain to take me to that point.

The strange thing is looking back I can't really identify any one time, any one moment when I was actually delusional. I was always the same intriniscally logical, introspective person with the same consistent ethos. I've always considered myself a fairly righteous guy, at least in the sense that I believe in justice and compassion and the inherent value of humanity. I can't look back to 2003 and say "Oh, what an immature dumbass I was back then," because I wasn't an immature dumbass. I was a completely intelligent, sane individual who happily voted for Bush in 2004 and would, if a time machine were available today, go back to 2004, beat myself up silly, and (albeit hestitantly, as I don't like the alternative much either) change the vote for Kerry.

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Part of it all makes me wonder if it was just a culture of identity -- having legitimately identified myself as a conservative, I couldn't imagine a circumstance in which a "fellow conservative" would betray certain fundamental principles I uphold all human beings to. Conservatism is a certain sort of political and philosophical worldview, but intellectual curiosity and a genuine desire to make the world a better place was something I always assumed Dubya believed.

And I don't intend this to come off as, I'm like one of those wackos who wants Bush assassinated or who thinks Dubya is the antichrist. I don't even buy into the argument that he's the worst of America's 40-someodd Presidents. Not all of his decisions were horrible. I'm just profoundly disappointed in a fallible man who proved a worse-then-mediocre President, and even more profoundly disappointed in myself for once staunchly believing the man would be a great president. I mean in 2001 (before 9/11 even) I was convinced the man was definitely better than Clinton and had the potential to outclass his father and perhaps even Reagan (remember we conservatives rather like Reagan.)

I don't mean to make this all about Bush either, it's not Bush personally that I blame, it's more the entire Administration. My political consciousness began with a devout opposition to all things Clinton administration and that became a hardened support for Bush and, naturally, everyone Bush chose for cabinet positions and associated himself with. I was a huge Rumsfeld fan, a gigantic Condi Rice fan, and though I never quite liked or trusted Cheney, I certainly tolerated him among other perceived greats. I even liked Wolfowitz. Wolfowitz!

9/11 only cemented my misperceptions. I believed that Bush and friends were all genuine old-school conservatives who just had to play the "neocon" card of preemptive war, global policing, overspending and general arrogance in response to a national crisis. I kind of imagined Bush wincing as he had to increase budgets and create new departments, but doing it out of genuine service to the country.

So when Hoagland blasts me, what can I say? I voted for low-tax politicans despite the fact that these same politicans were increasing spending and increasing our national debt, and I deceived myself into having a reason for doing so. I certainly had no idea what the Bush administration was doing to the economy -- I was a political science major, but I was so engrossed in the War on Terror stuff that a terrible recession or (dare I say it) depression never quite hit home in my imagination. I was against environmentalism before I became a born-again environmentalist. I refused the existence of global warming in 2003, and had what I believed to be perfectly logical reasons for doing so.

If Hoagland wants to put a tiny portion of the blame on me, I guess I deserve it. I wasn't an ignorant sheep, I was deeply interested in politics and I lived in Washington DC. I knew what I was going on, but justified it, rationalized its consequences away. I worked for at least one nonprofit organization that exacerbated the situation, and I volunteered for Bush's 2004 campaign on the basis of principles that Bush himself apparently didn't share with me.

[01d55]

I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. Part of it all makes me wonder if it was just a culture of identity -- having legitimately identified myself as a conservative, I couldn't imagine a circumstance in which a "fellow conservative" would betray certain fundamental principles I uphold all human beings to.

I have to say that I find this explanation to be strongly persuasive.

Conservatism is a certain sort of political and philosophical worldview, but intellectual curiosity and a genuine desire to make the world a better place was something I always assumed Dubya believed.

But the (implied) explanation here, that the horrible things that have happened occurred due to Bush's personal failing is much weaker. Does Condolezza Rice lack intellectual curiosity? Does any non-psychopath lack a genuine desire to make the world a better place? A far more reasonable conclusion is that the Bush Administration, and indeed America's elite class generally, are deeply invested in a factual view of the world that it fundamentally wrong. Specifically, the view that America is a Force For Good In The World, and a culture of identity in which it is inconceivable that any powerful American - including and especially themselves, could do a great evil, such as for example destroying an entire country and killing more than a million innocents for no goddamn reason. Or wrongfully imprisoning innocent men and torturing them into confessions, and then convicting them of crimes and inflicting harsh (additional) punishment on the basis of those false confessions. And even if someone did maybe do something that was less than totally innocent, they had good and noble reasons (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/24/torture/index.html) and certainly shouldn't be punished at all (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/12/20/marcus/index.html).

So of course America has a right, and indeed, a duty, to impose our Good And Noble Will upon the world by Any Means Necessary, i.e. by force. That's a Bipartisan Consensus and no Serious Person disagrees!