Electoral politics makes you timorous

By Michael J. Smith on Monday September 17, 2012 01:23 PM

From an old pal of mine:

I read a headline just now about OCCUPY protesters shutting down the NY Stock Exchange. It's a kind of politics that Romney could conceivable rally much of the country around, as Nixon did around the anti-Vietnam demonstrations. God Alone Knows the outcome.
Of course this was a Facebook 'what's on your mind' post, a context in which people seldom show to good advantage, with one or two exceptions on my own modest 'friends' list. Most people are better in the 3D world; if all I knew about my friends was what I see on Facebook, few of them would still be my friends.

A friend of the friend replied to my worried friend, no doubt with the intent to reassure:

I think the democrats kept their distance from OWS pretty well, so they are not tarnished by them in general.
This is kinda the logical landing-place for people who are really into electoral politics: extra-electoral activism -- which is of course the only thing that ever really makes anything happen -- is worrisome, because it might provoke backlash. More than that: it's deplorable and must be kept at a distance, so that one faction of frauds can prevail over another in the electoral process -- America's Next Top Murderer, you might call it.

So for these two folks, OWS -- which is certainly the most interesting, important and constructive thing to have happened in American life since the 60s -- is chiefly to be considered in its bearings on the electoral hopes of Barack Rombama, surely one of the least interesting phenomena in American life, ever, and a first-class creep and friend of creeps, into the bargain.

I thought I had written a long essay, once, on backlash and fear of backlash, but if I really did -- if I didn't just dream it, and think it really happened -- it wasn't on this site. Maybe back in my tiny-newspaper days?

Anyway, here's the elevator pitch: the notion of backlash is useful only to centrists -- people who at bottom loathe and distrust actual popular upheaval. Recall that the term was invented during the civil-rights movement of the 60s, when good liberal folks were afraid that wild men like Martin Luther King might provoke 'backlash'.

Of course, it's obvious now that if the wild men had been worried about backlash, we would still have 'colored' entrances to public buildings, as was the case when I was a lad.

Comments (4)

anne shew:

ouch, isn't there enough of shiny and glowing in your land of .. . ,as sweet as that littl' may be of the character of , more low ink drawings please, .. . the little (that i don't know much about because of the reasoning just mentioned, and of hurts my eyes .. to mind , and of more of glowing ) has a cut bleeding on it's upper arm with a plaster partly covered by the tee, .. ?, (i have a feeling that this may be a technical question , \ michael, you didn't answer my questioning about what drew you in to face,not .. . don't make me say the naming of ag. / , i have my gin on mondays , midafternoon , now off for my bach walk , out .. . ,of electoral, of oral.. of something of spoken , more thoughts on in this out of away , and of a new study of birds, of my now wander with others

antonello:

"I think the democrats kept their distance from OWS pretty well, so they are not tarnished by them in general."

Tarnished by the tattered hordes of Occupy! Such is progressive self-regard in all its whited sepulchral purity.

"So for these two folks, OWS -- which is certainly the most interesting, important and constructive thing to have happened in American life since the 60s -- is chiefly to be considered in its bearings on the electoral hopes of Barack Rombama."

By the pattern of their dried-up spoor, it is the mark of the waddling, lumbering thumb-sucker (Yglesias invertebrata).

If the earth were to be invaded by gigantic mutant beings of incomparable hideousness, one of the first things emitted by the bloggers would be: "How will this disturbing development impact on the elections?" Which candidate will have taken the most decisive stance? Who will make the first gaffe? How will this sway the independent voters — the ones, that is, who haven't shat themselves down their own loos? The story would probably be allotted top billing on the Sunday morning news; or maybe not.

Op:

Ahh Anne


I must admit what's his name
the touch hole from toad wallow
isn't that far off one one claim at least

If you didn't exist out there somewhere
I'd be damn pleased to invent you

Anonymous:

''I thought I had written a long essay, once...''

how 'bout a 38 pp outline

speaking of OWS, you may want to take a look into Anonymous..

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