Take this dashing big wave-haired gob. To the few of you who don't instantaneously recognize him, he's one David Gizzborn Sirota, book author, thoughtful e-roots blogger and now -- as you can see -- hugger of the well-intended, the imperfectly-gifted, yes, us, the little people.
This giant has stooped to grass roots schmooozin' to start a great American uprisin', a low-rent prairie fire for 'progress'. He's always been a man of many and piebald parts -- and through it all, he's remained quite the master strategist.
I'll quote some -- just a taste, mind you; a whole book lies in waiting for you out there, somewhere along the Amazon.com.
Sirota on the class hole that the merit types punched through the center of liberal politics for oh so many years now:
"social issues are really, really important (and, of course, I am pro-choice). But the problem is that the orthodoxy is ONLY about social issues (the issues that are unfortunately more culturally divisive), but not about economic issues (the issues that are more cross-culturally unifying)."Sirota on -- the old top-down prog-org scam:
"Autocratic Progressives... build... anti-progressive, autocratic, top-down, command-and-control structures.... The much-vaunted new progressive infrastructure — from Moveon.org to well-funded left-leaning think tanks in Washington, D.C. — run the gamut from mostly undemocratic to completely undemocratic.... This is elitism at its worst."Last, and best of all, Sirota on -- direct action:
"without [it]... epublican democracy is truly disempowering: our only means of influence are to beg... the congressman, the governor, the president, etc. ... to do something on our behalf."
Sum up:
"taking matters into our own hands... [we] can wield a tremendous amount of power."Now is he wrong here? Nope. He's got the beat down. And even the means to the highest ends and the area for prime attack -- "labor movements" -- he's got that right too. Amazing.
Why then am I not invigorated? Why do I wish he'd go off somewhere else? Anywhere. Just please, master Dave, don't spend the next 4 years limboing through America's union halls.
Shouldn't I be saying at last they get it, they really get it? Am I nothing but an, oh no, direct action snob?
Comments (2)
1. Because he actually has no clue about social movements and how they work. Successful movements are not "broad coalitions." They are focused packs of pissed off people demanding specific changes in the status quo on very specific fronts. When he thinks he's talking about movements, the Siro-virus is actually just talking about cobbling electoral majorities -- and he doesn't understand that process, either. Whether he's genuinely confused on all this, or merely being paid to pass DP shilling as somehow meaningful -- that's an interesting question, perhaps.
2. Because you know he's even worse on the class issues he claims to care about. NAFTA is probably about #17 on the list of anybody who seriously wants to politicize class in this market-totalitarian/overclass-owned nation. And you know Sirota thinks there's something wonkish to "debate" even about NAFTA. His "class" agenda begins and ends with Robert Kuttner -- modify NAFTA and makes "job training" gestures.
3. Because he is openly trying to change the "orthodoxy" of the DP, as if there is one to change. The left-lib dupes who read Siro's chaff certainly think that gay rights and abortion are somehow the core of the DP. But three wrongs doesn't make any more of a right than two does. The true orthodoxy of the DP is collaboration with the money-dominated status quo.
Posted by Michael Dawson | July 15, 2008 1:33 AM
Posted on July 15, 2008 01:33
Drenchin' em' in Apple Cider vinegar and wrappin' em' in duct tape works on every wart.
Posted by Son of Uncle Sam | July 17, 2008 5:41 PM
Posted on July 17, 2008 17:41