“OUR LITTLE WOODSTOCK OF DEMOCRACY”
Dec. 24th, 2010 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
defrogGuest commentary from Team Def Political Batshit Science Editor, Lucky Bensonhurst.
I was busy unpacking my chrome penguin bookends in the new office when I got a call from Rick Sanchez demanding comment on something called the No Labels movement.
“Look, Rick,” I said, “I’m busy right now, and anyway I’ve never fucking heard of it. In any case, I’ve already told you I made my peace with fucking designer labels years ago. We’re so swamped with fucking logos I barely even notice them –”
“No, no,” he insisted, “No Labels isn’t a consumer movement, it’s a political group formed by Republicans, Democrats and independents to back moderate candidates running against extremists.”
“Very funny, Rick,” I snarled. “Count on you to fall for Keith Olbermann’s fucking practical jokes. The name is the giveaway – any serious political group would come up with a better fucking name! ‘No Labels’, my endangered furry ass! Don’t call this fucking number again until January!”
Turns out he wasn’t making it up:
Ha ha. Radical center. Yes. Good one, Tom.
Looking over this, I can’t help but think of Bill Hicks’ anti-marketer rant, where he imagines the marketers in the audience thinking, “Oooo, Bill is targeting the anti-marketing dollar, that’s a good dollar, we’ve seen studies, he’s very smart to do that.”
Only in this case it’s the Civil Discourse Dollar. Or voting bloc. Or whatever.
The whole thing is ludicrous, of course. Politics is partisan horseshit by default, and bipartisanship, when it exists, is essentially the art of having it both ways as much as feasibly possible (which, as near as I can tell, basically means that both sides agree to sleep with the same lobbyists and blame the other guy if they get the clap).
That is democracy as we know it, and has been for a couple of centuries now (or at least since the Industrial Revolution).
Partisanship in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that political debate has become siloed twin echo chambers of senseless, demented fear-soaked batshit in the name of Good Television.
Which is clearly not a good thing. But a PAC to support moderate candidates isn’t going to make the handful of hardcore waterheads dominating everyone’s airtime any less pedantic, fear-crazed or daffy. Defeat has no effect on them. You’ve seen it. When they lose, they thrive on martyrdom and pledge to take the country back and save it from turning into Nazi Germany. When they win, they gloat and then declare the losers to be America’s enemies trying to undermine the country and turn it into Nazi Germany.
Same as it ever was.
This is the part, of course, where Frank Rich sends me rude emails pointing out that No Labels is a stupid idea and bipartsanship is pointless because everyone knows it’s the GOP’s fault we have hyperpartisanship in the first place. Evidence: The Tea Party, Fox News and conservative talk radio all have a considerable amount of influence on the GOP, but only a fool or a Republican would accuse MSNBC, Daily Kos or Buzzflash of having the same amount of clout with Democrats.
Okay. Fair point, even though it reminds me of kids on the playground pointing fingers at each other shouting, “But HE started it!” But sure, I’ll allow it. And anyway, we both agree that No Labels is a useless idea, so who wants to argue?
Besides Frank, I mean.
Still – my pure and frankly beautiful disgust with the GOP notwithstanding – I’m not really all that impressed with the No Compromises crowd, be it the Republican filibusters or the progressives who blow a fuse every time Obama talks about reaching across the aisle to the Party Of Black Dripping Evil.
(As if he was ever, by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, progressive to the satisfaction of the Daily Kos people who really wanted Dennis Kucinich to win. I mean sure, compared to Junior Bush, every Democrat in the 2008 primaries looked like Ralph Nader in comparison, but come on. There's an old joke my attorney Lou Heineken likes to tell: "How do you tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat? The Democrat is the one wearing the cheaper suit.").
I understand the revulsion, of course. But I’m also a pragmatist. And unless you have a big enough majority to override filibusters, White House vetos and party moderates, yr not going to get everything yr way. (And if yr the Democratic Party, even all of that won’t help you.) At some point, you have to bring the other side to the table and work something out with enough of them, and that’s difficult with one side screaming “You LIE!” and the other bellowing “SILENCE, Nazi Scum!”
Or whatever.
So. Anyway, that’s why No Labels is a joke. It’s not a fix. It’s a half-assed marketing stunt with bad branding. I’d be surprised if anyone even remembers who or what No Labels is by the time the first 2012 hopeful announces his/her candidacy.
Let’s put it this way:
“Woodstock of Democracy”, my ass. Unless you mean a chaotic drug-addled filthy mudpit of well-meaning people hopelessly out of touch with reality. Then maybe.
And Woodstock had Jimi Hendrix going for it.
The defense rests.
– L. Bensonhurst
I was busy unpacking my chrome penguin bookends in the new office when I got a call from Rick Sanchez demanding comment on something called the No Labels movement.
“Look, Rick,” I said, “I’m busy right now, and anyway I’ve never fucking heard of it. In any case, I’ve already told you I made my peace with fucking designer labels years ago. We’re so swamped with fucking logos I barely even notice them –”
“No, no,” he insisted, “No Labels isn’t a consumer movement, it’s a political group formed by Republicans, Democrats and independents to back moderate candidates running against extremists.”
“Very funny, Rick,” I snarled. “Count on you to fall for Keith Olbermann’s fucking practical jokes. The name is the giveaway – any serious political group would come up with a better fucking name! ‘No Labels’, my endangered furry ass! Don’t call this fucking number again until January!”
Turns out he wasn’t making it up:
The group hopes to build a network of citizen activists and establish offices in all 435 congressional districts. Beginning in January, members plan to police the new Congress, calling out lawmakers they think are too partisan and speaking up for those who cross party lines to find solutions. The group says it will not advocate specific policy positions, but will aim to foster a more civil discourse in Washington.
"Welcome to our little Woodstock of democracy here," [former Bush 41/McCain advisor Mark] McKinnon said in his opening remarks to the crowd of about 1,000.
"We're going to call ourselves the radical center, the people who care about results, not rhetoric," said former congressman Tom Davis, a moderate Republican from Virginia.
"Welcome to our little Woodstock of democracy here," [former Bush 41/McCain advisor Mark] McKinnon said in his opening remarks to the crowd of about 1,000.
"We're going to call ourselves the radical center, the people who care about results, not rhetoric," said former congressman Tom Davis, a moderate Republican from Virginia.
Ha ha. Radical center. Yes. Good one, Tom.
Looking over this, I can’t help but think of Bill Hicks’ anti-marketer rant, where he imagines the marketers in the audience thinking, “Oooo, Bill is targeting the anti-marketing dollar, that’s a good dollar, we’ve seen studies, he’s very smart to do that.”
Only in this case it’s the Civil Discourse Dollar. Or voting bloc. Or whatever.
The whole thing is ludicrous, of course. Politics is partisan horseshit by default, and bipartisanship, when it exists, is essentially the art of having it both ways as much as feasibly possible (which, as near as I can tell, basically means that both sides agree to sleep with the same lobbyists and blame the other guy if they get the clap).
That is democracy as we know it, and has been for a couple of centuries now (or at least since the Industrial Revolution).
Partisanship in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that political debate has become siloed twin echo chambers of senseless, demented fear-soaked batshit in the name of Good Television.
Which is clearly not a good thing. But a PAC to support moderate candidates isn’t going to make the handful of hardcore waterheads dominating everyone’s airtime any less pedantic, fear-crazed or daffy. Defeat has no effect on them. You’ve seen it. When they lose, they thrive on martyrdom and pledge to take the country back and save it from turning into Nazi Germany. When they win, they gloat and then declare the losers to be America’s enemies trying to undermine the country and turn it into Nazi Germany.
Same as it ever was.
This is the part, of course, where Frank Rich sends me rude emails pointing out that No Labels is a stupid idea and bipartsanship is pointless because everyone knows it’s the GOP’s fault we have hyperpartisanship in the first place. Evidence: The Tea Party, Fox News and conservative talk radio all have a considerable amount of influence on the GOP, but only a fool or a Republican would accuse MSNBC, Daily Kos or Buzzflash of having the same amount of clout with Democrats.
Okay. Fair point, even though it reminds me of kids on the playground pointing fingers at each other shouting, “But HE started it!” But sure, I’ll allow it. And anyway, we both agree that No Labels is a useless idea, so who wants to argue?
Besides Frank, I mean.
Still – my pure and frankly beautiful disgust with the GOP notwithstanding – I’m not really all that impressed with the No Compromises crowd, be it the Republican filibusters or the progressives who blow a fuse every time Obama talks about reaching across the aisle to the Party Of Black Dripping Evil.
(As if he was ever, by any reasonable stretch of the imagination, progressive to the satisfaction of the Daily Kos people who really wanted Dennis Kucinich to win. I mean sure, compared to Junior Bush, every Democrat in the 2008 primaries looked like Ralph Nader in comparison, but come on. There's an old joke my attorney Lou Heineken likes to tell: "How do you tell the difference between a Republican and a Democrat? The Democrat is the one wearing the cheaper suit.").
I understand the revulsion, of course. But I’m also a pragmatist. And unless you have a big enough majority to override filibusters, White House vetos and party moderates, yr not going to get everything yr way. (And if yr the Democratic Party, even all of that won’t help you.) At some point, you have to bring the other side to the table and work something out with enough of them, and that’s difficult with one side screaming “You LIE!” and the other bellowing “SILENCE, Nazi Scum!”
Or whatever.
So. Anyway, that’s why No Labels is a joke. It’s not a fix. It’s a half-assed marketing stunt with bad branding. I’d be surprised if anyone even remembers who or what No Labels is by the time the first 2012 hopeful announces his/her candidacy.
Let’s put it this way:
“Woodstock of Democracy”, my ass. Unless you mean a chaotic drug-addled filthy mudpit of well-meaning people hopelessly out of touch with reality. Then maybe.
And Woodstock had Jimi Hendrix going for it.
The defense rests.
– L. Bensonhurst
