Memory Hole Watch
In response to this post Glenn Reynolds replies in part with the following:
While I think that Drum’s comparison with U.S. and Israeli strategy today with Soviet strategy in Afghanistan — if that’s what he means, which isn’t quite clear to me — is wrong, I think that his reference to “casual genocide” as the preferred strategy of pro-war people is pretty clear, and pretty absurd. Yeah, you see that kind of thing in blog comments sometime, but I think most people support current U.S. military efforts because they fear that ignoring the problem is likely to produce more death and violence over the long term, not less. (Hence the frequent invocations of 1936 and 1938). That’s certainly my view.
My emphasis. Note that once again Perfesser Corncob reveals himself to be a master at weasel-phrasing. The emphasized passage is not quite a denial, and yet the reader is clearly meant to assume that Reynolds never engaged in rhetoric like that.
Which is a fantastically bullshit assumption.
(Also notice that — of course — Kevin Drum doesn’t bust Reynolds on this, no doubt on the grounds that sensible centrists must pretend that Reynolds is a serious person, qualitatively different from Coulter, Savage, Ledeen, et al.)
So the one voice that manages to get the Perfessah’s goat is the polite Kevin Drum… Well, I guess that just proves that a coward doesn’t challenge a fighter, he challenges another coward.
Yeah, Glenn’s right. When he said
Civilized societies have found it harder, though, to beat the barbarians without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Were it really to become all-out war of the sort that Osama and his ilk want, the likely result would be genocide — unavoidable, and provoked, perhaps, but genocide nonetheless, akin to what Rome did to Carthage, or to what Americans did to American Indians. That’s what happens when two societies can’t live together, and the weaker one won’t stop fighting
he surely didn’t mean to come off as casually suggesting the inevitability of genocide. And he also doesn’t call up the image of a dead-eyed sociopath standing over his cowering, bloodied wife / child / random victim, saying “Didn’t I tell you not to fight back?”
he surely didn’t mean to come off as casually suggesting the inevitability of genocide.
He’s J-Pod, but with more readers.
You know, I know how this is going to go over here, but I’ll say it anyway. The Kevin Drum bashing really anoys me. Maybe he isn’t much of a puncher, but there are plenty of those on this side of the blogosphere. Not everyone need be. But when it comes to real progresive issues like unions, consumer rights, taxes, social security, bankruptcy etc., his creds are pretty impecable. And while he was shaky on the war at first, he got on the right side before it actually started. If early uncertainty was a crime, alot of us would get kicked out of the club.
Bottom line is that on the issues, he’s one of the best informed and articulate voices we’ve got.
Anyway, my 2 cents.
Whatever, Dude.
It’s not like Drum had to “punch” anybody; but don’t tell me he didn’t know Reynolds’s history on this subject — it’s only been mentioned at Atrios’s a dozen times or so. So the only conclusion is that Drum chose to ignore it — Why?
Anyway you answer that is bound to look bad for Drum.
And spare me about his progressive credentials — read Gilliard’s archive if you want to see what a class-vulture idiot Drum is wrt unions. Nice gloss on Drum’s pro-War period, BTW.
One more Drum classic: this has to be the stupidest fucking thing ever.
I think that his reference to “casual genocide� as the preferred strategy of pro-war people is pretty clear, and pretty absurd. Yeah, you see that kind of thing in blog comments sometime, but I think most people support current U.S. military efforts because they fear that ignoring the problem is likely to produce more death and violence over the long term, not less.
Glenn Reynolds is a law professor, right? Wouldn’t you think that at some point in along his career path, he might have picked up some hint as to the meaning of the phrase “false dichotomy”? Apparently, the only options in his little world are “current U.S. military efforts” or “ignoring the problem.”
How does this guy hold down a job that ostensibly requires a modicum of brainpower?
How does this guy hold down a job that ostensibly requires a modicum of brainpower?
He has tenure.
“The Kevin Drum bashing really anoys me.”
Well, a progressive providing flimsy cover for the corporate media’s Sunday kinda love with frothing wingnuts ranks high on the annoyance factor, too.
If you’ve got Drum for a friend you don’t need any enemies.
OK, I confess. I’m just not conversant in the full range of internet punditry. I’ve learned about Townhall and Jonah and goldstein and many others through this blog (and WoC, I suppose). I knew of Malkin and coulter and LGF and Powerline and Drudge and Kos before, but frankly I’m having trouble keeping up. Now I’ve gotta figure out who Drum and Steyn are and how they came to be.
A suggestion for Retardo. Instead of another edition of Wingnut Allstars, how bout you put together a program. Not including the minor leagues, but more along the lines of the forty man roster. Some kind of casual users guide to who’s who in Blogistan. I know I’d print it out and tape it up on the kitchen wall…
mikey
Hey, Retardo, chill. Neither Drum, or anyone on the left of center, has 100% cred. Drum hits some good points, but admittedly he lacks the agressiveness that you have on many. Gilliard may criticize him, but he raises the labor issues and keeps that aspect in play.
Sometimes you agree, sometimes not, but Drum consistently seems to find issues that others ignore.
He broadens the discussion and that in itself improves the discussion, even if he is perhaps, on average as you imply, off the mark.
Mikey – I’d be glad to do that sometime.
For now, Steyn is a Canadian douchebag wingnut living New England. He used to be published by Conrad Black’s newspapers, which meant Steyn polluted Canada and Great Britain to a greater degree than America, but now that Black is in legal trouble and has sold many of his assets, Steyn’s by-line isnt as widely read anywhere. He persists at the Chicago Tribune and in the occasional National Review appearance.
Kevin Drum is the guy I have in mind when I say “sensible liberal”. One of the initially pro-war wankers who functioned as enablers to the whole enterprise. A guy for whom bullshit-evenhandedness is a lifestyle, just as often agreeing with the wingnuts as disagreeing, and the same for the Left. It’s true he’s better lately but… well, that stuff I said about Kleiman the other day? About never forgiving? It applies to Drum double. Also, Drum has *no* sense of humor. Upper middle class guy completely ignorant of the issues poor people face. Technocrat type. Triangulator. Useless.
He used to blog at Calpundit; he’s one of the most indefatiguable bloggers out there; was therefore a perfect fit for the “centrist”, triangulating Washington Monthly to pick up. And so they did.
Back in the days before the massive wingnut plague we suffer under now, Drum would have been known as a liberal or Rockefeller Republican.
A good watcher of teh perfesser.
Off-topic, but you’ve gotta check out this article:
Upper middle class guy completely ignorant of the issues poor people face.
Oh, c’mon. Yes, Drum is a ‘sensible liberal’, but you missed out the subject on which his credentials are absolutely impeccable: universal healthcare. He’s wonky on the subject, but his wonkiness is enough to make the standard troll arguments look dumb.
That said, he does have the very worst comments section imaginable anywhere left of wingnutville.
But Retardo, it’s time you did a Jeff Goldstein on Reynolds. The man needs the kind of takedown that can forever stand as a reference: for his rampant disingenuousness, his casual genocidal tendencies, his use of plausible deniability, his utter fucking laziness.
Anyone with the remotest doubt that Drum is, at best, a useful idiot for the right needs to follow the link in Retardo’s first comment above. It would be unbelievable if it weren’t so damn typical.
Ok, forgive an old guy one more question. It seems to me that we’re talking about two undertakings, with two separate priorities.
There’s political discourse, where we discuss the political, economic, and foreign policy issues that concern us, and we are pretty harshly unbending.
Then there’s electoral politics, where my gawd, it has GOT to be a priority to weaken the power of the criminals in office that are destroying America and putting the rest of the world at risk for their sick emotional problems.
So on the one hand, ideological purity is desired, important and enforced. On the other hand, we need a simple majority, and maybe should welcome just about anybody into our tent. I’m concerned, and unclear. Thoughts? Anyone? Beuler?
mikey
On the other hand, we need a simple majority, and maybe should welcome just about anybody into our tent.
I might be able to make this one easy. We can’t realistically hope to ever attain that majority if those in our ranks insist on providing Sensible Reasonable cover for the criminal goons.
IOW, if you oppose these fuckers then why don’t you goddamn well get on with it?
(The real problem, at least from GoatBoy’s seat, is that Political Opinion writing is seen by many in the profession as nothing more than another category. I want to make a living as a writer, I can try women’s magazine features, I can go for novels on a long shot, if I’m delusional I can try to sell short stories to the (What, one? Two?) major publications still buying them. Or hell, I can always crank out editorial page fodder.
Before you know it you’ve got a job. It turns into a career. You’ve got a mortgage, maybe a family, refining tastes in sustenance and merchandise, possibly a drug habit of one kind or another and before you know it you’ve got a reputation to protect. Hinders that need smooching. Sleeping bears that are not to be roused. Somebody younger and not so…fettered is going to have to try to pull that wolverine out of that hole. Somebody else.)
Yeah, I suppose, but go with me. On a jourrney. So let’s imagine there’s some folks. They don’t really like me, and they’re pretty sure they hate the fags and the muslims. But this shit they’re seeing on the news, and the economic bullshit with this Abramoff and this Halliburton and this Personal Retirement Accounts, they’re really thinking about voting AGAINST these liars who just seem to be part of the problem. Even though those muslims wanna kill us.
Well yeah. Ordinarily, fuck you. But this is serious. Life and death stuff. Y’know? Can you imagine where we’ll be in ’12 with president fucking mccain? Oh, not buying? Then what, president HASTERT?? I’m pretty sure that the ’08 election is pretty much a “Must Win”. So I’m willing to be a little less selective….
mikey
This looks like as good a place as any to hijack for some table talk:
mikey, I’m sure glad you’re around. You make me want to write differently. To show more of my ass, so to speak. I have a fear of (and general dislike for writing displaying) earnestness and I struggle to find a voice that avoids it while still being sincere. Pragmatism without cynicism, meaning it without really, really meaning it. And that’s hard. And you help.
Thanks.
Damn. That’s nice. I really am honored. ‘Course, the last kid mentored got run over by a bus in Tulsa.
mikey
Goatboy, if you keep this up, some other blog will come in with a big wad of money, buy out Mikey’s contract, and steal away from us.
mikey:
The part I’m having a hard time with is the idea that we should strip away any ideology in favor of just having enough fucks to beat the other fucks. I mean, what use is it really to destroy the fucks in office if in so doing, we end up being aligned with the fucks that put the fucks *in* office?
We’ve still got the root problem, we’ve still got the ignorant racist/bigots who only want to kill kill kill and not pay any taxes, who’re only with us because the last ship the rats were on sank. So now, not only are we trapped in the liferaft with the guys who sunk the fucking ship, they’re telling us that they think this one guy they have could lead us really well. And they’ve now got enough power (after all, they saved our party!), that they can say “Put this new fascist into office or we walk.”
Fuck ’em.
Patkin, you’re right. I’m honestly not offering a course of action. I’m asking questions. And the question, which of course I do NOT know the answer to is what is the appropriate course of action? A case could be made for many. Where lies the risk – reward? I have no answers. But I’m concerned that these questions should at least be thrown into the party, like a dead goat. It’s lying there. Let’s try to figure out the answer…
mikey
The only option I can think of is letting them turn on one another. This coalition is pretty strong, but it has to kill itself eventually. The risk is that they can take down everything with them in the power struggles, but the upside is that afterward, they’ll either be gone for good, or so isolated that they become unviable electoral figures.
Don’t touch them, don’t go near them, let them tear into each other and then become a bunch of third-party groups. It’s not safe by any means, but it’s the only option I can think of that doesn’t just make us them.
“But I’m concerned that these questions should at least be thrown into the party, like a dead goat. “
Yeah.
Hey!
Umm, no. Didn’t mean goat at all. Jeezus, what is it with you people and your dead goats?? Dead ARMADILLO, that’s what’s laying there stinking up the place. Yeah. Armadillo…
mikey
Or…um… what’s that other stinky, dead animal?
just to remind everyone–when you write something and yours is a right-wing mindframe, whatever you write ceases to exist minutes after you have committed it to print. it goes away. all that exists is your memory of what you wrote. or your lack thereof. it’s pretty…easy.
so you may think that instatotallycompletelyfullofshithackdit is being disingenuous in some way by not noticing that he is literally quoting himself not quoting himself (!), but instead he is merely revealing the truth by creating it.
he who controls the present controls the past.
Mikey, dunno if this answers you, but it’s an attempt.
I’m not aiming for ideological purity. Hell, I advocate an alliance with Xtian fundies on a populist-economic front.
But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna sell out or pander to them, either. I just have to convince them that they’ll get nowehere with me or with us in their desire to outlaw abortion or make gayness illegal or whatever. But everyone has a calculus, and some people, even wingnut-symps, can take their values seriously enough to question whether the wingnuts who pander to their nastiest biases are really moral as all that. I promise you if we make the centrist fucks knock off their “outsourcing — so what, Free Trade kicks ass!” shit, we’ll gain votes from economically oppressed wingnuts. And if we end the war, we’ll get even more of their votes.
Which starts to explain my enmity to the fake center — completed with the other complaints i listed above about Drum. Still, I’m not trying to purge him. But *his bunch* has repeatedly tried to purge people like me, and I’m fucking sick of it. And now, because of the war, my side has clout. Drums are put on notice that this isnt 1996 anymore, and they cant shitcan people who are “too far Left” — not when the alternative is more leaders like Bush.
So when I unleash on “centrists”, I’m not just making up for lost time or engaging in some long-delayed catharsis. It’s a tactical decision, because I know that most of them, if they have any brains at all, are gonna come Left or else become Rethugs. Their choice — and I’d like to know which they choose ASAP. So, I keep pushing.
Incidentally, most of this echos what Bill Clinton himself told Mike Tomasky — that it was wrong for the “centrists” to beat up on the Left, and that what we should all do more of is hammer home the point that the Rethugs are practicing top-down classwarfare. So I’m just doing what Big Dog said, and if it means that upper middle class assholes like Drum whose habit was to thoughtfully wonkificate on how to make more “efficient” the economy by [basically advocating laissez-faire schemes that make the avergae libertarian pop a stiffy] take notice of what the centrist-enabled American economic policy has done to the poor, then goody goody.
“One of the initially pro-war wankers who functioned as enablers to the whole enterprise. A guy for whom bullshit-evenhandedness is a lifestyle, just as often agreeing with the wingnuts as disagreeing, and the same for the Left.”
Yeah, you should write to him and say this:
Oh, wait….