David Sirota doesn't miss much. He's noticed that the Democratic Party has declared open war, war to the knife, against what it calls the "left":
I think David is odd. He's surely well-informed enough to know that this is standard operating procedure for the Democrats.Seems to me that House and Senate leaders have declared an all-out war on "the Left." ....
Here's this excerpt from the Washington Post (h/t FDL):
[O]ne Senate Democratic aide said bluntly: "The left has been foiled again. They can rant and rage but they still do not put the fear into folks to actually change their votes."
Here's the Hill newspaper today:
Democratic leader says party won’t turn left
As the House prepares to elect its leaders, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is challenging the idea that the expanded Democratic majority and its leaders will make a hard left turn.
To show that these aren't errant, uncommon statements, make sure to read Glenn Greenwald's review of how this hatred for "the Left" now reaches all the way to the top of the new Obama administration through Rahm Emanuel.
[I]t's pretty odd that only two weeks after a landslide election that saw a huge ideological progressive mandate, Democratic congressional leaders think it's a great public message to declare jihad on progressives.
But in all fairness, he is onto something -- though it's not what he thinks it is.
In earlier years, Pwogs had to wait until after Inauguration Day to be disappointed. Now, with the generally faster pace of events -- due probably to the atom bomb, or maybe that Internet thing -- they can have the satisfaction of receiving their inevitable kick in the teeth much more promptly.
More explicitly, too. This suddenly popular trope among the old Donkparty stagers of berating the "left", even before their man has been sworn in is, I think, a straw in the hot air of no mean consequence. It attests bleakly to the radically enfeebled state of "left" Democrats.
These people's pathologically perseverative commitment to lesser-evillism has now landed them in the unenviable job of almost-perennial whipping boy. (They do get a few dry old bones thrown to them in primary season, whenever the Democrat is not the incumbent, and on this scanty fare they must nourish their delusions from one decade to the next.)
Why, though, do the alpha donkeys feel the need to drive the point home so explicitly, and so publicly? Why not just fuck the Pwogs quietly, rather than talking about it -- as has always been the case in previous Democratic administrations? The election is over -- those half-a-dozen Angry White Guys who might have been swayed by this tactic have already cast their ballots for whomever.
I suspect they're just having some fun, and the Pwogs are now so inconsequential that they can afford to have it. It's good to be the king -- again. Yeah, during the primaries and to some extent during the election, they had to keep their hatred and contempt for the Pwogs a little muted. Now they can indulge themselves -- and people who can indulge themselves, generally will.
Comments (11)
I agree that they're fucking them publicly and explicitly for the fun of it, in part. But I think they're also motivated by a desire to make an unmistakable show of humiliating them. They know the pwogs will never abandon them. So there's no risk at all.
There's the bully's crude logic of impressing the more faithful bootlickers (the poor, stunted things need all the vicarious thrills they can get). And, as they get down to business, they need people who can be shoved into the scapegoat role. There are none so easy to shove into that as the nebbishes who have just been smacked around a little. Those that gripe and whine are the easiest of all. No one cares whether they're right. They're victims, a laughingstock, and that's all that counts. The spectacle of Sirota shrieking about the betrayal -- it's so unfair!!!! so wrong, gosh darn it!! -- makes a fine show for that purpose. The rest is monkey-see/monkey-do. Sirota himself is prime material for four years of this freak show.
It's a disgraceful admission, but I hope they put him through his paces, with a great deal of attention to the use of spurs and a crop.
Posted by Al Schumann | December 10, 2008 2:37 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 02:37
Practically the only satisfactory part of our quad-yearly electoral farce is the ritual Beating of the Pwogs.
Posted by AlanSmithee | December 10, 2008 6:09 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 06:09
too much blues not enough reds here guys
pale wet noodle politics
IS
prog politics yes
but
progs will leap high again some day
leave theself deluded cess pool
they call their prog pond home
and migrate to washington
as they did in the 1930's
why ???
because the elite will summon them
only the human face of goo goo
can quell a class riot well underway
a wave of job floor chaos can be brought back to order only by....
the promise of progress
made flesh
enter code pink wearing a crown
Posted by op | December 10, 2008 9:59 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 09:59
obama :
a cleveland or a roosevelt ???
Posted by op | December 10, 2008 10:01 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 10:01
father S
poor twain ...
i note
you'll take any cloaking device handy
to indulge your
restless nambla under side
Posted by op | December 10, 2008 10:06 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 10:06
We'll see whether they get the call, Op. As crazy as the "democrats" have been lately, they're not even looking as good as GroverCleveland. I'd say they look more like Sam Tilden, busy figuring out how much more of the pale reconstruction effort to jettison as they look to ease the burdens of the bourbons displaced by the chaos of their latest infrastructural farce.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | December 10, 2008 10:54 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 10:54
mh
i got lost in your parallel
busy figuring out how much more of the pale reconstruction effort to jettison as they look to ease the burdens of the bourbons..."
with ya to there
but
"... displaced by the chaos of their latest infrastructural farce"
you leave me in my own dust swirl
btw
wasn't al gore '00 sam tilden ???
Posted by op | December 10, 2008 11:38 AM
Posted on December 10, 2008 11:38
Indeed. Gore played the Tilden role. All I'm saying is I suspect that generation of Tildenites are still picking through the dregs of that sorry mess as the financial mutts reshuffle.
Posted by Michael Hureaux | December 10, 2008 12:59 PM
Posted on December 10, 2008 12:59
"I'm not an ambiturner. I never learned how to turn left."
Posted by ktm | December 10, 2008 2:09 PM
Posted on December 10, 2008 14:09
The psychosis engendered by dependence on market theology generates many varieties of sociopathic behavior, but sanity is not so much based on doctrine as on authenticity.
The market system embraced by our political and religious institutions, based on theft rather than generosity, is contrary to the inherent indigenous values we once shared in common. People who expose the false right/left dichotomy have to be marginalized within the intellectual confines of synthetic society, so perpetuating market propaganda remains useful for the less-evolved consciousness of party politics.
All the more reason not to let them determine the discussion.
Posted by Jay Taber | December 10, 2008 8:50 PM
Posted on December 10, 2008 20:50
I had a feeling that image might get you a little worked up, Paine.
Posted by MJS | December 11, 2008 1:05 AM
Posted on December 11, 2008 01:05