Friday, November 12, 2010
From Tom Tomorrow - This Modern World
I try and read this great comic strip every week and I always enjoy it. This week it's better than usual. Click here to see it for yourself. I could comment for half an hour on each panel...but I won't.
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He could have published a panel a week for nine weeks and said a mouthful every time.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the one regarding the left requires a comment (from me, anyway), because historically liberals have kept their mouths shut while the left excoriated them as sell-outs.
In my mind, the question isn't whether Obama/Democrats were progressive enough or not. Personally, I'm satisfied that they've done well enough considering the rottenness of the system they've been given and the impossibility of changing it from within. They haven't batted 1.000 by any means, but no one does.
My issues with the left are these:
1. On the one hand, its writers seem to think that all Obama has to do is believe in a given progressive policy enough and Presto! Joe Liebermann and Ben Nelson will back him to the hilt while John Boehner puts his tail between his legs and slinks off like the craven dog he is.
2. On the other, they think the system is so rotten and corrupt that it requires dismantling and rebuilding.
3. They have no idea how to go about accomplishing this other than issuing plaints of "We've got to get organized!" This is what happens when you lack strategic vision, tactical sense, and organizational knowhow -- all things the left was once good at.
4. It's refusal to wake up from the progressive wet dream that the teabaggers are economic populists who can be won over instead of racist antintellectual know-nothings who would like to do nothing more than string up the likes of John Nichols and Robert Scheer (to name two of their defenders on the left).
Do I think this matters? You bet I do. It sowed disunion among the broad left while the right marched in lockstep. That may not last on the right, but today it has the momentum.
The American left needs to ask itself some hard questions. Like:
Aside from the dubious accomplishment of helping George Bush become president, why has we been politically irrelevant since the Vietnam War?
If we're so right about so many things, why does no one besides ourselves listen to us?
Why can't we get organized?
No answers like "it's the MSMs fault" or "it's the corporatists' fault" allowed.
He could have published a panel a week for nine weeks.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the one regarding the left requires a comment (from me, anyway), because historically liberals have kept their mouths shut while the left excoriated them as sell-outs.
In my mind, the question isn't whether Obama/Democrats were progressive enough or not. Personally, I'm satisfied that they've done well enough considering the rottenness of the system they've been given and the impossibility of changing it from within. They haven't batted 1.000 by any means, but no one does.
My issues with the left are these:
1. On the one hand, its writers seem to think that all Obama has to do is believe in a given progressive policy enough and Presto! Joe Liebermann and Ben Nelson will back him to the hilt while John Boehner puts his tail between his legs and slinks off like the craven dog he is.
2. On the other, they think the system is so rotten and corrupt that it requires dismantling and rebuilding.
3. They have no idea how to go about accomplishing this other than issuing plaints of "We've got to get organized!" This is what happens when you lack strategic vision, tactical sense, and organizational knowhow -- all things the left was once good at.
4. It's refusal to wake up from the progressive wet dream that the teabaggers are economic populists who can be won over instead of racist antintellectual know-nothings who would like to do nothing more than string up the likes of John Nichols and Robert Scheer (to name two of their defenders on the left).
Do I think this matters? You bet I do. It sowed disunion among the broad left while the right marched in lockstep. That may not last on the right, but today it has the momentum.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed all of your 'Issues'. You're a great writer.
ReplyDelete"Why can't we get organized" It's a great question but I have no answer.
I'm a 70 year old idealist/liberal and I have always been a sucker for the 'perceptions' that candidates throw out for us to believe in. I don't think that the President has ever looked back at what he said and what was perceived. Perception is reality. So, as much as I admire the man...probably the most intelligent president we've seen since Carter, I'm disappointed in him. And the system.
Left/Right...I hate those tags as they mean nothing at all anymore. I prefer 'Liberal' over 'Progressive'. I left the Democratic Party about 6 years ago because they were not liberal enough and they still aren't. I'm probably going to join the Socialists if I join any party again. At my age, what's the difference?
What K. said.
ReplyDeleteAnd, Steven, please, please do comment on each panel. Inhale. Exhale. And do it.