on why you should not throw pies at “people for exercising their free speech rights, even if they are the vile scumsucking lackeys of crazed right-wing multimillionaires — or even worse, David Horowitz.”
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April 8, 2005
Billmon: 04/08
Comments
I do object to Billmon’s unwarranted and unfair slap at Peter Schickele.
And if Billmon has never mentioned it, your explanation should certainly include a specific reference to Aufsteig und Fall Der Stadt Mahagonny.
Posted by: barry | Apr 8 2005 20:34 utc | 3
unfortunately – i’m of the old school – no free speech for fascists & in a just world they would be hit with something a great deal harder than cream pies – perhaps a tonne of bricks – maybe more
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 20:45 utc | 4
Two issues need to be seen as distinct here, if only in the interests of clarity. There is the issue of free speech, as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Is the throwing of pies at speakers a citizen’s right, protected by the Constitution? (I’ll leave this one to the legal scholars). Quite a different issue is the matter of healthy academic conduct. Universities arose in Western Europe (about 1000 years ago) for a very practical purpose: they made it possible for differing experts in various specialties to argue dangerous questions safely–theologians, physicians and lawyers in the so-called “higher faculties,” and experts in the trivium (the arts of language) and quadrivium (the arts of number) in the “lover faculties”.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 8 2005 20:52 utc | 5
In principle, all could meet, debate, and publish with the sanction (always fragile, provisional, problematic) of the surrounding civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Debates outside these zones of diplomatic immunity were always unwelcome, not to say dangerous–a state of affairs continuing well into the sixteenth century and after. And while intellectual endeavors have been dispersed in the past five centuries, Universities have always kept, in principle, their function as safe places in which to explore dangerous disagreements. University procedures have always been hightly, even comically, encoded, but have never, so far as I know, sanctioned the throwing of pies.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 8 2005 20:52 utc | 6
i think i studied once in “the lover faculties” but it is so long ago i cannot remember
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 20:55 utc | 8
sorry for cut & pasting – i just though it extemely pertinent re the old polish guy
Opus Dei and John Paul II
A Profoundly Rightwing Pope
By VICENTE NAVARRO
Baltimore, Maryland
The predominant perception of John Paul II, as extensively reproduced in most of the Western media, is that he was very conservative (“traditional” is the term widely used) in religious subjects but progressive in social matters, as evidenced by his defense of the poor and his concern for human and social rights. His key ideological role in the demise of the Soviet Union is put forward as further proof of his commitment to liberty and democracy. John Paul’s support for the Polish trade union Solidarnosc, his numerous speeches in support of the poor and of those left behind by capitalism or globalization, and his frequent calls for human solidarity not to mention his opposition to the invasion of Iraq by U.S. forces all are presented as examples of his progressiveness in the social arena.
In this perception of Pope John Paul II, some critical elements are forgotten. Let’s detail them. He was groomed for the Papacy, long before he was elected Pope, by the ultra-right-wing sect Opus Dei. This secret organization was founded by Monsignor Escrivá, a Spanish priest who was formerly a private confessor to General Franco, organizing spiritual meetings for the Spanish fascist leadership. Opus Dei chose John Paul as the candidate for Pope very early in his career, when he was bishop of Krakow. His conservatism and anti-communism were very attractive to this sect.
John Paul traveled extensively at that time on trips organized and funded by Opus Dei, developing a very close working relationship with the sect. Opus Dei was the organization that developed the strategy to make him the Pope, assisted by the bishop of Munich, Joseph Ratzinger; the U.S. cardinals close to Opus Dei, Joseph Krol and Patrick Cody; and a cardinal then close to Opus Dei, Cardinal Franz König from Vienna (who later distanced himself from Opus Dei and from the Pope). The center of operations for this campaign was Villa Tevere, the Opus Dei headquarters in Rome.
Immediately after his election as Pope, John Paul designated Opus Dei as a special order directly accountable to him, not to the bishops. He surrounded himself with members of the order, the most visible being Navarro-Valls, an Opus Dei journalist who had worked for Abc, an ultra-conservative Spanish paper that had been supportive of the Franco regime. Navarro-Valls is well-known for selecting journalists to cover the Pope’s international visits who would report on them favorably. He constantly vetoed critical voices, such as that of Domenico del Rio of the Italian paper La Repubblica.
The Pope later named another Opus Dei member, Angelo Sodano, as Secretary of State of the Vatican. Sodano had been the Vatican’s ambassador in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship, becoming a close friend and advisor to the dictator. He was responsible for the Pope’s visit to the Pinochet dictatorship in 1987. During this visit, the Pope never called publicly for liberty or democracy in Chile. By contrast, when John Paul visited Cuba he was publicly critical of the Cuban regime. But he remained silent when he visited Pinochet. Later, when Pinochet was detained in London (awaiting extradition to Spain at the request of the Spanish Judge Baltazar Garzon), the Vatican, under Sodano’s influence, asked the British Government to let Pinochet return to Chile. This same Sodano had referred to liberation theologian Leonardo Boff one of the most popular priests in Latin America as “a traitor to the Church, the Judas of Christ.” Under Pope John Paul II, the founder of Opus Dei was made a saint just twenty seven years after his death (one of the fastest such processes ever). Meanwhile, Pope John XXIII and Bishop Romero, assassinated in El Salvadore because of his support for the poor of that country, have been waiting in line for sainthood for a much longer time.
Opus Dei and its Pope were profoundly hostile to liberation theology. John Paul condemned it at the II Latin American Conference, presided over by Opus Dei member Monsignor Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, Secretary General and later president of that Conference. John Paul also was displeased with the Jesuits who had become increasingly concerned about identification of the Church with the strong oligarchical regimes of Latin America. He changed the leadership of the order, appointing very conservative priests as its new leadership. As reported by the ex-Jesuit Luis de Sebastian in the Spanish Daily El Periodico (5 April 2005), the Pope received periodical reports from U.S. CIA Director William Casey (a Roman Catholic) on the “distressing” Jesuit movements in Latin America.
John Paul’s speeches on the poor were highly generic and sanctimonious, humanistic in character, without ever touching on the cause of poverty. As the Brazilian Archbishop Helder Camara once said, “When I called for the role of the Church to be with the poor, I am called a saint; when I’m asked to do something about the causes of poverty, I am called a communist.”
John Paul was profoundly political, always on the side of the powerful in Latin America and in Spain. He never touched on the political causes of poverty, he marginalized and ostracized the mass religious movements in Latin America that called for major social reforms in favor of the poor, and (with Cardinal Ratzinger, the guardian of the Church orthodoxy) he condemned such movements, ordering their leading figures Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, and others to remain silent. Bishop Romero wrote in his personal notes that, when he denounced the brutal repression carried out by the fascist dictatorship in El Salvador, the Pope reprimanded him for not being sufficiently balanced in his criticisms of the Salvadorian dictatorship, whom John Paul referred to as the legitimate government of El Salvador.
In Spain, John Paul was political to an extreme. He was openly supportive of the post-Francoist party, the Popular Party (whose founder is Fraga Iribarne, ex-Minister of the Interior of the Franco fascist regime) and just a few months before his death he gave a speech against the Zapatero government that was actually written by the proPopular Party leadership of the Spanish Church. Although he opposed the invasion of Iraq and the bombing of the Iraqi population, he never condemned the Franco regime (which the Spanish Church supported), nor did he ever condemn the bombing of Spain’s civilian population by the Franco Air Force, with the help of German Nazi bombers. When he was asked to condemn the bombing of Spanish cities by the Church-supported fascist forces of Spain, he declined to do so.
Rather than pushing a social agenda worldwide, Pope John Paul II became a major obstacle to such an agenda by making conservative issues (anti-abortion, anti-contraception, anti-homosexuality, and others) rather than social ones the center of political debate. The evolution of the U.S. political debate among Catholics is an example of this. In the past, Catholics in the U.S. voted Democrat more than Republican, but this is no longer the case. In the 2004 presidential election, more Catholics voted for Bush (52%) than for Kerry (47%), and they indicated that the primary reason they supported Bush was the “values” issue.
Based on all this evidence, it is remarkable that John Paul II, Opus Dei’s Pope, can be considered a progressive icon.
Vicente Navarro is Professor of Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, USA and Pompeu Fabra University, Spain. Navarro contributed an essay on Salvidor Dali’s fascist ties for CounterPunch’s collection on art, culture and politics: Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: navarro@counterpunch.org
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 21:00 utc | 9
I don’t think people should be putting pies in the faces of conservatives, either. waste of good pie.
Horowitz was here last night, and he was heckled by some in the crowd. According to a local reporter, he wanted the students expelled and wanted the security officiers to take names.
He also compared liberals to both Hitler and Stalin and said liberals now are the equivalent of those responsible for 100s of thousands of deaths.
Someone in the crowd asked the question, “What makes you any different than Ward Churchill?”
No pies. personally, I don’t think he should be given the satisfaction of being heckeled, either. he’s not worth it.
but more to the point, I don’t think it was the proper response. Butler, were he was pied, is a conservative and very rich small college, btw.
last night he was at IU.
as I said elsewhere, the academic bill of rights died in committee in Indiana, so he’s just blowing hot air up conservative students’ butts. Why give them any reason to think they have a legitimate grievance?
such actions too often create a backlash.
but who knows. maybe it’s all theater and he plants people there. but probably not.
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 8 2005 21:23 utc | 10
Where is civilized discourse when you want to get rid of it?
Posted by: teuton | Apr 8 2005 21:25 utc | 11
Cow pies would be better and you wouldn’t waste good food.
Can’t get much excited about the political implications.
Posted by: FlashHarry | Apr 8 2005 21:31 utc | 12
davi horowitz ouldn’t know civilised discourse if it hit him with an exocet missile
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 21:33 utc | 13
“Brussels police department, how may I assist you?”
“Uh.. yes.. I just got hit in the face with a cream pie.”
“Okay, sir. Have you called the Brussels police department before?”
“No.”
“Well, let me get a little information about you for our records. Your name?”
“Gates. William Gates.”
[lots more]
google “biotic baking brigade” for a history of dessert warfare.
I agree that in the University, pie throwing is not an appropriate response to even the most annoying of speakers. however, I think the rule might be relaxed a wee bit for locales such as Davos or other exclusive plute clubs 🙂
How about a pie of horse semen?
(the link is currently not working for me, but it should)
Posted by: Jérôme | Apr 8 2005 21:42 utc | 15
Not the mention various bars, DeAnander….But pie-throwing at speakers in University-sanctioned events really trashes the University–as it wouldn’t do if the pie were thrown, say, during a meal in the University’s cafeteria (where it would only damage the cafeteria, the pie, or the target’s clothing, etc.).
Posted by: alabama | Apr 8 2005 22:03 utc | 16
Pies? Pies? Who needs pies?
Today’s cartoon in my daily paper showed an Italian waiter ushering ragged modern pilgrims into a Roman restaurant. The menu on the billboard right by him read:
Spaghetti Polonese 10 Euros
Tomatoes – lovely splatch and squish when thrown, plentiful drip and nice bloody effect for the cameras – do just fine.
Spaghetti and pizza, combinations of starch and sauce and vege, are best materials for tossing, jokes, satire.
Hum. But the French throw pies, they even have a special verb for the action, rare thing for them. (Entartrer.) The Belgians do it too.
There are some cultural mysteries to explore…there must be a pie-line somewhere on the map…What do Australians throw? 😉
Flash Harry I’ll have you know the Swiss have cow dung patty throwing contests. All official with measurements and champions and all. 🙂
Posted by: Blackie | Apr 8 2005 22:04 utc | 17
Gosh Blackie, I didn’t know that about the dung patty throwing contests. Do you think the let me keep my Swiss citizenship? :->
Posted by: Fran | Apr 8 2005 22:09 utc | 18
that’s nottomention….Typos are symptoms, right? (The topic matters too much, and it’s time to walk the dogs.)
Posted by: alabama | Apr 8 2005 22:16 utc | 19
i am now taking enrolments in “the lover faculty” which will pass in the été in scenic la baule – fees of course will be very high but all methodologies including those taught to us by the indians will be under instruction
of course speculative & even metaphysical approaches will be deeply under study
enquirees to professeur hackenabush – the lower faculty of the higher faculty – la baule université
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 22:27 utc | 21
evidently – “the lover faculty”
deanander will offer courses on the deeply transcedental transactions beween bees & other species that will be conducted in open air
jérôme wwill of course of his famous cabbalic centring on chiffres & other forms of game theory in modern loving
comrades slothrop & theodor will engage in the hardest of hard edge approaches to the matter & only those prepared to pass through passages will be accepted
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 22:31 utc | 22
As I see it, the argument breaks down in two parts: 1) pies playing into the rightwingers hands and 2) the sanctity of free speach should not be violated even if the other side does it.
1) Pastry martyrs
Will “Feel sorry for me, I got vanilla sauce in my hair” actually work with the audience? If he had been shot they would have no problem making him a martyr but he has not been shot, only humiliated. And that I guess is the point, getting hit with a pie makes you look silly. So I do not think this plays into the right wingers hands. If they can spin getting hit with a pie, they can spin anything from thin air.
2) Free speach
Let me get this right: you do not believe in the power of truth to change the world and you say yourself that the game is rigged. Well then, if you want to win would not the first step be to jettison the rules of civilized debate (as the other side is not following them anyway)? Your position looks to me like “better lose with honor than fight dishonorably” and while it might be noble, I am not surprised there are people who do not agree and thus flings pies.
Pies has btw been used in swedish politics for a while now, imported I believe from the Netherlands. The only public figures who has gotten away stronger for it are those who has laughed it off. Those who has scoffed about freedom of speach (while their bodyguards wrestle down the pie-thrower) has looked silly (as you tend to do with vanilla sauce in your hair). Is this new to the politics in USA?
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 8 2005 22:35 utc | 23
Just to clarify:
I do not endorse pie throwing per se, I just think the arguments against presented by Billmon does not hold.
Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Apr 8 2005 22:38 utc | 24
so, may we expect HSA to draft some legislation soon, definining “assault with baked food products” as an act of terrorism?
Posted by: DeAnander | Apr 8 2005 23:42 utc | 25
yes dea & the punishement will be enclosure in a bic mac store making chips without the possibility of parole or vegetables & a reading list of two books kissinger’s memoirs & that of his devil spawn madelain allbright & foeced to listen to the same riff of ted nugent that he stole from that titanicin every sense of that word) band mountain
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Apr 8 2005 23:55 utc | 26
the Dessert Cart:
weapons of meringue destruction
ice cream ballistic missiles
Vienna torte reform
the Order of the Croissant de Fer
Dirty Dessert Bombe
Pain au Shock-n-Awe
—
well, you know what they say — il faut soufflé pour etre… [oh someone stop me!]
and alas, already on all our plates, Baked Alaska…
I would point out to Alabama way up thread that those students 1000 years ago were very good at throwing things too. They also fancied themselves adept with swords and daggers.
I’m sure pies will be in the US Code shortly.
Posted by: Duns Scotus | Apr 9 2005 0:44 utc | 31
ooh, ooh, on “the lover faculty,” can I be the head of research?
ba da bum (clang)
Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 9 2005 0:45 utc | 32
Aargh! With this outbreak of pie-throwing, I’m afraid we need to increase our strategic pie reserve. Pie is a finite resource, after all!
Posted by: Maxcrat | Apr 9 2005 1:38 utc | 33
Peter Schickele?? PDQ Bach? I know him and had a close association with a music professor who was his dear friend… what did I miss barry?
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Apr 9 2005 2:52 utc | 34
Cool, Barry. I love that I’m the only (lightweight) among the assembled brains who gets the joke ROFL. 😉
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Apr 9 2005 2:54 utc | 35
I’m with a swedish Kind of Death on this one. Firstly as was stated trying to make political capital outta a pie inevitably ends up in the humiliation of the receiver. One of the leading Tories around here started verbally bashing the local indigenous people and was making up ground amongst the middle classes until he went into an indigenous meeting and had a handful of mud thrown into his face. Feelings had been running really high with all sorts of talk of violence but when that violence translated into a geek getting mud in his eye, his pomposity was pricked and he had to shut up because everytime he started bashing the brownfellas the media would show the pinstriped pedant being treated with the contempt he deserved.
Secondly consider the targets of any of these attacks, they are always the people using emotive claptrap to cause trouble. Pie throwers don’t chuck a few at Joe Public just to make their point, they go to the source of the trouble. Do you think that BushCo would be able to scare the public about terrorism nearly as much if the targets were confined to the politicians who had made the decisions that had stirred the bombers up in the first place?
Remember that fatty Sharon only got really heavy on the Palestinians after one of his cabinet was taken out. He completely over reacted and wiped out the village where the assasins were thought to come from because he knew that if the Palestinians confined their targets to the political and leadership classes that were screwing them, they would make their point and ordinary people wouldn’t feel nearly so threatened.
I’m all for it particularly if you consider that a pie is just another statement aimed at those who use their control of the media to restrict all spoken dialogue to their own ‘talking points’.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Apr 9 2005 2:55 utc | 36
Well, whore-o-shitz deserves whatever he gets. He has the right to speak, but the pie throwers have the right to show their disdain for such an ignorant dipshit.
Billmon outed the asshole a couple of weeks ago and in my mind his credibility is shot. He is a mini Hitler and should have no forum for spewing his venom.
Posted by: jdp | Apr 9 2005 3:02 utc | 37
Horowitz: the man from Self-Victimizationville
from feministe
Posted by: Nugget | Apr 9 2005 3:07 utc | 38
Duns Scotus, it wasn’t my point that campuses were pastoral pastures. No, the Latin Quarter (for example) was never a crime-free zone, but it was still a diplomatic quarter where theologians could argue philosophical questions–and philosophers could argue theological questions–without being burned at the stake for doing so. Arguments previously confined to monasteries entered the public domain. Publication–the “public domain” as we now know it–quite literally began in the Universities, as did freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. Our modern democracy began on university campuses, where warring interests had to check their pies (their swords and daggers) at the door. The contract’s always been fragile, and the inviting of a Horowitz on campus is every bit as violent as the pie-throwing it provokes. Folks on campus have always known how to trash the place, and scholarly credentials don’t always stay their hand.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 9 2005 3:48 utc | 39
It’s hard for me to tell if Billmon was being serious or not. The entry almost reads as a peice of satire to me.
Posted by: anthonytcooper | Apr 9 2005 4:23 utc | 40
Billmon’s Dead Wrong on this one. Powerful people – unlike Whorowitz – are blessed that one of Abbie Hoffman’s legacies is throwing pies. They’re a stand in for a bullet. When serious people like Bill Gates get a pie thrown at them, it’s their wake-up call to improve their security immediately while it’s merely meringue that must be removed by the dry cleaners.
Posted by: jj | Apr 9 2005 4:26 utc | 41
during the last general election in Ireland both main candidates for Taoiseach (prime minister) got pied by two different young women within a couple of days of each other – how the country laughed and laughed.
the response is the thing really. If someone can respond with grace and humour it says a lot about them. if they press charges it also says a lot about them. neither candidate in the irish case responded vindictively. In fact the underdog recieved a boost in public support through a humourous one liner he said to the cameras straight after.
‘to their lies we respond wih pies’.
Posted by: drunk as a rule | Apr 9 2005 11:31 utc | 42
Nyuk Nyuk Nyuk!
I’m not a big fan of pie throwing or splashing people with red paint or blood. Their exercise of free speech must be respected even if Horowitz is passing some incredible lies and distortions. Show him up for what he is. And walk away. Better to leave a lonely, angry idiot bewildered after his vacuous sermonizing. Better still to laugh him out of town without lifting a finger than produce a pie-martyr. His dull witted followers get too much mileage out of such affairs. It become the main discourse, surrounded by hymns of pie martyrdom and liberal “terrorism.” The real issues get forgotten and following discourse become shrill. Remember his clacks are rich Republican kids who never suffered want of food or money in their trustifarian lives. To his sheltered little minions, a pie thrown at Horowitz is as traumatic as the Kennedy assassination or breaking a nail before the prom. They cannot differentiate between the two levels of trauma. Having taught at a rich Republican university or two for a few years before getting a real teaching position, I can tell you that what these kids lack in knowledge is made up by zeal. Don’t play their game for them. There are better ways to win! And besides: A pie is a terrible thing to waste!
Posted by: diogenes | Apr 9 2005 12:15 utc | 43
Right you are, Diogenes. A mind is a terrible thing to waste–at a rich Republican university. I got out of one of those places myself, and just in time!
Posted by: alabama | Apr 9 2005 14:31 utc | 44
Based on the view pieing is unacceptable student behavior, would general strikes and sitins, and confrontations with guardsman, etc. be the object of our contempt?
Posted by: slothrop | Apr 9 2005 15:35 utc | 45
You would pie a clown at a party. I would have to say a right wing nucake clown like Whore-O-Shitz would be the object of every young persons pie throwing fantasy.
Also, the three stooges didn’t mind pie. Who do we have now, Whore-O-Shitz, Buchanan, Coulter, and Kristol. Oh yes, there was four stooges. Larry, Moe, Curly and my favorite Shemp. I’d say we have a hit show here somewhere.
Posted by: jdp | Apr 9 2005 16:34 utc | 46
Fran, maybe it is just a Suisse Romande thing, sort of Frenchie? I tried a quick google but cow patties being a minuscule topic as compared to one of the variants of “bourse” (stipend, scholarship, purse, stock market, and more), that is “bourse” with a missing letter – bouse – I am swamped in irrelevancy. If I find some pictures some time I will post.
Déboires patissiers: Bernard Henri Lévy properly holds the record. (Afaik.)
Vive l’internationale Patissière! (pie throwers)
Reactions to the pie, or the dropped frothy soufflé (gushing bottle, irate waiter tipping a tray full of mayonnaisy canapés, etc.) are part of the sophisticated testing of future top managers. It is a standard – during lunch with the Director(s) and The Team, food flies. The keen candidate is not hired if he-she gets mad. You are supposed to react graciously, discreetly retire to the bathroom, wipe off, even change shirt (skirt?) return speedily and resume discussing added value, flow charts, vertical integration, your team spirit, your love of hunting or goat cheese, etc.
One big head-hunter concern in Lausanne has 40 actors on its books to run these kinds of things. They make a pot of money. A pot!
🙂
Posted by: Blackie | Apr 9 2005 16:57 utc | 47
Who really cares if throwing a pie is warranted? If civil discourse and reasoned logic were an option Horowitz would get clobbered a lot worse than just getting a creme pie in his puss.
The wingnuts have but one thing that drives them, the will to win. If you want to prevail against them you simply can not be meek and abide by all the rules.
I actually admire the courage of the pie throwers. It is for most of us old folks a seemingly foolish thing to do and too many young people feel that way as well but it needed to be done. At least this young man is not one of the sheeple.
Posted by: Dan of Steele | Apr 9 2005 16:59 utc | 48
Blackie and Fran
As might be expected the US is the Cow Chip Throwing Capital of the World
Posted by: Dan of Steele | Apr 9 2005 17:11 utc | 49
I enjoyed this story of Horowitz being pied for a strictly personal reason. Horowitz’s big thing right now is going after liberal professors and my brother is an English professor at Butler and very liberal. So basically for me it was you attack my brother you get pied. Just desserts! (bad, bad I know)
As Fauxreal says above this is a small, conservative, rich school and I believe it has a religious affiliation. I went on a two week trip with my brother and about twenty of his students a few years ago. What a bunch of righty whitey boring kids. They were so midwestern provincial. To see something like this happen at Butler is a very good sign. This should have been a sympathetic audience for Horowitz and he got pied! No wonder he was so angry.
Attention David Horowitz: no one is listening.
Posted by: wowser | Apr 9 2005 17:24 utc | 50
Quite a few bon-mots popping up here — “righty whiteys,” “trustifarians” (I love that last one!). Anyone heard whitebread suburbia referred to as “The Whine Country”? I forget where I heard that but it was fairly recently.
I’ve been deeply irritated in the interim by this article over at Alternet (alternet can generally be relied upon to vex me at least twice a week but this is more annoying than usual). The author pokes with accuracy and verve several of the sore spots of pwog/liberal subculture; her conclusion is that “we” (progressives) have to move further to the right; we have to dilute, qualify, and tone down our positions on everything from reproductive rights to religious freedom, etc. We have to “listen to” the concerns of the Red-staters, the people that Thos Frank describes in his ‘Kansas’ book — we have to speak their language, etc., back away from positions they find too scary.
According to this meme, it is the fault of progressives that the Right now dominates the idea-space of the US — its media, its commerce, its imagery. This domination has come about entirely because the Left has failed to “listen” to “ordinary people”. [Never mind the zillions of dollars and decades of patient effort that a coordinated rightwing movement has invested in building up this cultural Blitzkrieg.]
Talk about “Self Hating Progressives”…?
The debate which follows in the Comments section is interesting. Various commenters agree and disagree with the proposed “move further to the centre [aka right]” strategy.
The argument is seductive because imho it contains a grain of truth (yes, liberalism in the US has divorced itself from labour issues and hence has become an “upper class” meme, alienating to working class and poor people; yes, pwogs have from time to time become obsessed with self-policing, with identity politics taken to comical extremes, etc.). And in a way it is comforting to believe that the rightwing putsch took place because of some error or carelessness on the part of progressives — i.e. that we could, by effort of will and a change of strategy, clear up the misunderstanding and restore the status quo ante. To believe it is “all our fault” (and we can fix it!) is more comforting than believing that we are up against a disciplined, organised, and wealthy opposition that knows what it’s doing and has planned its campaign for decades.
But I can’t agree that a progressive (let alone a radical!) message/idea should be watered down, bowdlerised, dragged rightward until it becomes unthreatening to an evangelical from Monohippoville Kansas. This is the game that the Dems have been playing for 20 years and where has it got them? out of office, messageless, hopeless as the post-Major Tories.
link to Senator Harry Reid .
Reid doesn’t come from “Whine Country”, DeAnander, and so maybe we can take his site as a corrective (somewhat) to the article over at Alternet. He truly happens, and he really survives.
Posted by: alabama | Apr 9 2005 20:30 utc | 52
@Kate,
I got it – totally missed it on the first read-through. Saw the L word and skipped right over the rest ot the sentence.
This thread is definitely going to go into overtime… :^)
@DeA,
The PATRIOT Act will be amended to address this new keylimeate of fear and treacherry, where terrorists possess new and dangerous armamince…
Posted by: OkieByAccident | Apr 10 2005 21:13 utc | 53