Hell in the Eye of Consensus

I think by and large I agree with HTML. It's not sensible to become enamored of any particular politician. Politicians are in the business of fuzzing perceptions by feeding you bullshit so as to attain or remain in power, and it's just not a good idea to expect too much out of someone with that sort of a job description. Hookers only have hearts of gold in 70s cop shows, and politicians only do the right thing if they're pounded into doing it. And even then you have to watch the fuckers all the goddamn time, like they're Flava Flav standing next to the package of Twinkies you were saving for an after-lunch snack.

As I've said before, this primary season in particular reveals that the problem is structural -- it's built into our system, which seems more and more retarded to me the older I get.

Back in the day they thought they needed a President, the Founding Fuckers did, but nowadays it's frankly dangerous. Why do we need a new quasi-King every four to eight years? A vestigial symbolic executive figurehead -- a gilded dashboard statuette for the Buick of State -- and a genuine parliament would be a far better idea.

I mean, if the original intention were to prevent, you know, concentrating political power into dynastic families, well, nice one, shitheads. And also we're stuck with ridiculous anti-democratic 18th century relics like the Electoral College and the Senate, which are explicitly designed as mechanisms for saying Fuck You to the Rabble, which may be defined as "most of the people living in the nation right now." The Founding Fathers were a gang of dicks. Fuck them.

And this is not just a problem for us Liberal Fascists. Look at how long the anti-abortion maniacs prayed and organized and voted, and then they finally got their guy and their legislature -- and then pffft, really. That has to count as the longest Intimate Massage without a Happy Ending in all of recorded history.  Which is fine for those freaks; they get off on it, so they'll always come back for more, eventually, as per a dynamic John McCain knows damn well and is right now banking on, the fucknose perv.

But it shouldn't be like that for liberals. The system does force us to get behind a particular candidate according to the electoral clock. But we need to recognize the two big dangers of the system. ONE, the confusion of the person with the point -- we want specific things, like no more stupid wars, decent healthcare for all of us, no more assholes telling people who or how they should fuck. More and better jobs. That sort of shit. We will get that when we make the system give it to us: in other words, by building a majority that is capable of Bending the Political Class to Our Iron Will. (I just put that last bit in for Dr. Load.) TWO, the problem of assuming that just because you won an election, you've won the day. You have not. You've won the day when your kids get sick and you don't have to blow anyone or lose your house to get them to the doctor.

All of which is to say that HRC has pissed me the fuck off with her McCain fluffing of late, Obama strikes me as just some guy from Illinois, and John McCain wants to kill everyone because he's deranged.

So if you're wondering who I support in the primaries, the answer is, I don't fucking know. Or care, particularly.

It's US that matters.

How we doin'?

Comments

[va]

From where I sit (in the tank), I was looking for Obama to come back with some thunder. This shit about income taxes is totally gradeschool. I need my hope sprinkled with some righteous condemnation now and again, just to keep me grounded, you know.

Just thought of something: Thers for president! Or vestigal symbolic executive figuregead!

Two handfuls of people I know are so disillusioned by the Dem candidates and the state of things that they're independently talking about staking out a few acres in the Yukon. I'm considering looking for extra-political institutions to put all this surplus faith into. My girlfriend's a social worker...I think I'm gonna send her a campaign donation, call her up and be like, vote yes on going to see a movie later...

[Thers]

va, EXACTLY. That's what I'm TALKING ABOUT.

Yukon Fucking Ho.

[hmmn]

Hmn. Y'know, when middle class folk start grumbling in cynical, world weary tones about how all politicians are utterly useless whores, and the two candidates are decidely not white guys. I think this says something.

It's easy to despise whores and ignore how the question of their hearts isn't really the issue, but what's in the hearts of the johns and pimps who use them. They are at the receiving end of the transaction, including the one which put them in the job.

It's interesting you combine the whore metaphor with "only do the right thing if they're pounded into doing it." I think this says what kind of trick you are - the sort who will fuck up a working girl for degrading him by her mere existence.

This is by way of saying I'm unimpressed by those who treat politics as some sort of subhuman corrupt other, rather than the product of the same base and noble urges you possess. Polis means the people, yo. Maybe this implies an unsatisfying amounts of responsibility and helplessness. The imbalance varies depending on where you are on the food chain, but for those in the comfortable class, including bloggers, the frailty of politicians seems like an affront to our own well meaning privilege.

Moreso when the participants are exotic sorts who must be held to a more exacting standard as their fall excite us so as it disappoints for these people struggled to participate for so long and discomfited the status quo, all so they could be as unclean slatterns like the rest. We cannot trust them, let alone be inspired by them. The beatings must occur, and twice as vigorously - it's the only way we can prove we are above all that.

[Culture of Truth]

What angered me about Clinton's praise of McCain in relation to Obama is that it fundamentally sets back the progressive cause, in every way, to promote her candidacy.

The progressive, liberal movement is ultimately about getting certain results, not about electing one person or another.

While we keep one eye on the prize, and one eye on the nominating process of the Democratic party as our best means of achieving those goals, the candidates actions of late are a sober reminder that sometimes not only are their goals not the same, they are at times diametrically opposed.

[SteveB]

Honestly, hmmn, I was saying that politicians were dishonest fuckwads back when Presidential elections were a contest between matched pairs of white guys. Really, I was!

And good for you, Thers. Look at the gains the gay rights movement has made in our lifetimes. Did they do that by electing a gay president? Or even by electing gay city council members? In the end, the only secure progress is made by winning tens of millions of people over to your ideas. When that happens, the politicians follow, eventually. Very eventually.

[Thers]

hmmm,

You're taking the cheap way out. And putting the cart in front of the horse. That the candidates are who they are at all is the result of generations of struggle -- of ordinary people pounding it into the skulls of politicians that blacks and women could lead.

You're ignoring what I said about problems inherent in our system. I know what polis means. The point is that our system is to a shocking degree undemocratic. That the war has continued past 2006 should tell you all you need to know about that. Under a parliamentary system Bush would have been out at least two years ago.

If you think much of the "conversation" in the left blogosphere -- the pie-fights between supporters -- has been productive, good for you. I think myself that it's a natural byproduct of a flawed and undemocratic system. As is your knee-jerk assumption of bad inner motives on my part, frankly.

Y'know, when middle class folk start grumbling in cynical, world weary tones about how all politicians are utterly useless whores, and the two candidates are decidely not white guys. I think this says something.

Yeah. It says whoredom is an equal opportunity job, which we already know. I think we'd all be pretty happy now if the politicians just followed the damn laws, but we also know that they must be watched every moment to keep them honest. Power corrupts, as you might have heard.

It's easy to despise whores and ignore how the question of their hearts isn't really the issue, but what's in the hearts of the johns and pimps who use them. They are at the receiving end of the transaction, including the one which put them in the job.

Mendatious, mealy-mouthed tripe. Politicians are elected to run the government. If they decide to enrich themselves it's not the electorate's fault, unless they return the greedy bastards to power.

[flory]

Moreso when the participants are exotic sorts who must be held to a more exacting standard as their fall excite us so as it disappoints for these people struggled to participate for so long and discomfited the status quo, all so they could be as unclean slatterns like the rest.

50+% of us don't consider ourselves 'exotic sorts' just because we have vaginas.

Just saying.

I suspect those of darker skin tones don't either.

Oh, and hmmm? What Thers pretty clearly said was:

this primary season in particular reveals that the problem is structural -- it's built into our system, which seems more and more retarded to me the older I get.

I would interpret that to mean he was talking about the process, not the politicians.

As for the rest of your rambling....Paul J Cella, is that you?

[Susan of Texas]

Sorry, forgot to put my name on the last post.

[gus]

I detect a whiff of libertarianism.

How well are -we- doing, if we can't even choose between candidates? We're gonna muscle our representatives into behaving, but we don't care who that representative is?

Saying the political problem is structural is as helpful as saying the agricultural problem is ecological.

This blog is almost always very, very smart.

[dave™©]

What angered me about Clinton's praise of McCain in relation to Obama is that it fundamentally sets back the progressive cause, in every way, to promote her candidacy.

"I set back the sacred cause of reform - is that it, Jebediah? All right." -
Charles Foster Kane

I mean, really - get a fucking grip, already.

[dave™©]

Hmn. Y'know, when middle class folk start gr--

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

[Thers]

Saying the political problem is structural is as helpful as saying the agricultural problem is ecological.

Well... yeah. In both cases.

A better way forward in progressive politics is to waste less time on personality issues and more time on substantive issues. A better way forward on agriculture is to realize how what we grow fits into the wider ecological picture -- something I think it's clear has not been done.

Sorry, but I think you've missed the point by a lot.

[uncle noel]

Yes, politics is dirty business. HRC can't kick McCain's ass unless she kicks Obama's. The one's who aren't thinking, "Win at all costs.",lost already. Yes, they're all assholes, but some are less inclined to be deranged killers. Let's try to steer the vehicle in that direction.