I always liked Tinker Bell, even at her bitchiest. The illustration above unfortunately doesn’t make clear how extraordinarily sexy she was, but at my age, I must avoid over-excitement.
I never liked Bernie nearly as much as Tinker Bell, though of late, the grief he’s been giving Clintons, Inc. has rather endeared him to me. The enema of my enemy, and all that.
But a most depressing kerfuffle erupted today in my little corner of Facebook. Somebody posted a link to a piece at Counterpunch by Joshua Frank, which seemed pretty sensible to me, as Frank’s stuff usually does. Excerpt:
Bernie has fought a good fight, but he’s toast. The Clintons are just too ruthless and the primary process too rigged in favor of the establishment. The worst thing about the whole ordeal is that Bernie’s vowed to back Hillary when she ends up becoming the nominee.
Now this, of course, is precisely the reason why I haven’t been able to get too worked up about the Sanders phenomenon. Or primaries in general. It’s a contrived spectacle, engineered to offer the illusion of democracy, and ultimately achieve ‘buy-in’.
But the Dog-Star seems to have risen early this year. The response to this post by Bernie fans was… well… hysterical.
Most of it settled fairly close to the nadir: “Fuck you, asshole,” or words to that effect. A few more erected spirits were able to rise to the level of cliche, and reproach Frank for being unrealistic, or purist, or morally superior, or a party-pooper, or maybe a saboteur on the Clinton payroll.
Of course the amusing thing about this particular catechism of cliche is that it is precisely, word-for-word, identical to the reproaches that ‘centrists’ (read: reactionary monsters) like Clinton, and Albright, and Steinem, have been heaping on Bernie fans.
I wish somebody would write a history of this ‘purism’ trope. I bet it goes back at least as far as the English Revolution of the 17th century. In fact I bet somebody in Wat Tyler’s retinue hurled it primordially at a mediaeval comrade — accompanied, no doubt, by a generous fistful of Monty-Pythonesque horse manure.
Tim Kane, here in VA, running for guvnah (circa 2002) had a tiny problem cuz he’d posed as anti death penalty earlier in his career. “i will not allow my deeply-held personal beliefs to keep me from obeying the laws of the state.” well, so much for your supposed principles, i guess. the most important thing then is being elected, right?
but that’s not quite the case is it? for any of these clowns? as long as the Bern (or Trump, so far) doesn’t have to break w/the party, upset the Clinton DLC machine, then yeah, getting elected is the most important thing? if they are not willing to overturn these chamberpots, why the hell believe they are going to do anything “disruptive” and “transformative” in office? faith born of desperation that necessitates a kierkegaardian leap into the absurd?
Jeb! asked them to clap and look what it got him.
I think the rigged nature might be becoming a bit too apparent, this time around. The GOP have given up what feeble efforts they might have made trying to block Trump, who will be a train wreck for them. Meanwhile the Democrats are pulling out all the stops for Clinton, while trashing their legitimacy in the process. The defensiveness of Facebook commentators could just be another instance of telling party poopers to STFU; but one hopes, optimistically, it well betrays a deeper crisis of faith.
The Republicans have never had the kind of control the Dems have had, it’s not in their mindset. Perot got 20+% in the ’96 general election (mostly Republican voters) and Buchanan almost got the upset in ’92 against Bush in the primaries, yet you never heard anywhere near the bleating that continues to this day in regards to Nader’s 2%.