The Pendulum Swings

Yet Another Rally on the National Mall - by Ep_JhuIn 1969, in the wake of a massive anti-Vietnam rally on the National Mall, President Richard Nixon called for the support of "the great Silent Majority."  At the time the forces of doctrinaire liberalism called for radical change in government and a "revolution" in cultural, sexual, racial and political terms seemed imminent.  That revolution proved unable to affect the course of the country militarily- the end of the draft made it possible for the U.S. to fight with muted domestic outrage- but it continues to reverberate in other ways.  Now things have reversed and a massive Conservative outrage has crystallized into marches on the National Mall.  Just like Nixon, I believe that most of the country does not support the stridency of the those calling for revolution, but the movement is so visible that it has to be acknowledged.

What if instead of asking the majority to stay silent, Nixon asked them to speak up?  That seems to be the central point of John Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity.  It will be an extremely visible rebuttal to Glen Beck; you got a bunch of people to the mall, but so can we.  Stewart says that isn't what he's doing.  It doesn't really matter what his intentions are, that's what this rally is.  Timothy Noah at Slate says that's why it shouldn't happen (Slate taking an absurd and contrarian position, shocking).  Why not let people who think the U.S. is ok demonstrate? It will be a powerful refutation of the histrionic calls for revolution.  I'd like a better government, but I am willing to work towards it rather than impose it through incoherent outrage.  That's why I'll be at the Rally to Restore Sanity.

"The Million Moron March"

Image courtesy of Mario PiperniRiffing off John Batchelor's column ("The Festival of Fools") and John Avlon's column ("I Have a Nightmare"), both for the Daily Beast, I too came up with a pithy title for this post on the most recent Tea Party event (because that's really what Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" march on the Washington Mall is.  The demographic is exactly the same.)  I generally agree with Batchelor that this particular march is a non-issue:

The celebrity Glenn Beck has organized a festive and apparently harmless public event for the Washington Mall that he calls “Restoring Honor.” This theme is so deeply bland that it invites us partisans to look for inner meaning, such as the fact that August 28 is the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s revolutionary March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, or such as Beck’s Fox News Channel seeking a low-budget reality show to sell for the dog days of summer programming.

The trick here may be that Beck’s event, which will feature the celebrity Sarah Palin, is not about anything at all. It is a farce of an event in the way the bookish Karl Marx meant it, “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

However, I disagree with Batchelor's contention that we should take Beck's idiocy at face value: and I have a few general qualifications for the "Tea Baggers are morons" crowd.

Click to read more ...

Conservatism Eats Itself

The point of view Texas just correctedThe Texas school board's new curriculum continues the tragic decline of modern American "conservatism" as a movement with intellectual heft and consistency of thought.  Conservatives once imagined that they stood athwart the breach that threatened to replace individualism, inherited values and freedom with the top-down collective conformity of the Soviet Union.  Now, the right indoctrinates the young before college to counter the propaganda of the liberal intelligentsia, brands anyone that opposes extra-legal torture as "soft on terror" and attempts to "bureaucracize" language by calling torture "enhanced interrogation" and capitalism "free-market enterprise."  It is a tragedy that conservatives would embrace propaganda and torture, reducing their legacy of strident opposition to Communism and its evils to froth of partisanship.  Communism was evil because of what it did, not why it did it, if we do evil then we are no better.  If only more people were temperamentally conservative - humble, careful and limited in their approach to politics- rather than ideologically conservative, which amounts to a shopping list of positions their team supports.

Click to read more ...

Hitting Em Where it Hurts

That progressive organizations are going after the finances of public figures who criticize Obama shouldn't surprise anyone.  It started with pressuring advertisers to pull out of Glenn Beck's program, and now three people have lost their jobs after groups suggested there was a conflict of interest given their comments.  Philosophically it makes sense, there has been a concerted effort at misinformation and scare tactics from the right and the left learned bitter lessons from the way Bill Clinton was treated.

However, the practice lends itself to the talking point of left taking away freedoms - no matter that the First Amendment doesn't guarantee freedom from the consequences of saying stupid things - and it heightens the vicious tribalism of both the left and right.  In the long run, actions like these are counterproductive, because it only prompts a heightened response from the other side.  I'm not naive enough to say that everyone should just start playing fair, but it is possible to be tough, honest, and honorable.  On the other hand, it isn't progressive politicians engaging in tough tactics, progressive movement groups do what they will. 

Fear Profiteering

Time's feature on Glenn Beck suggests he is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the Obama paranoia cottage-industry (other than Winchester and Smith & Weston).  While one should always be wary of enemies with advice, and I'm no friend to Republicans, hitching your wagon to that star doesn't seem to be a long term strategy.  What are people going to do when they realize that Obama isn't the anti-Christ?  Or perhaps I'm being too charitable.  Some of these people might not ever figure that out.  Still, if I was a Republican, I'd be looking at this graph and rethinking the focus on tactics at the expense of strategy.

If you really want to learn more about Beck, Salon has an article about "The 5,000 Year Leap," Glenn Beck's required reading, and W. Cleon Skousen, its John Birch Society author.