Political Irony

5 Comments

1. chinagreenelvis.com wrote:

   If you’ve ever taken the Political Compass test, you’ll see that the results page has some famous politicians and world leaders and shows where they fall on the map.

   Every single listed Democrat and every single Republican all fit nicely in the top-right square. This is the “Authoritarian-Right” sector, the opposite of which would be “Libertarian-Left”.

   No matter how much the “right-wingers” in this country want to call the rest of us “extreme liberals,” the fact remains: we are all, by our representation, de-facto right-wingers.

   American Liberals are actually closer to centrists, which is why they tend to listen to both sides of every argument and lack decisiveness. They deliberate and weigh, and when opposition rears it’s ugly head, they actually sit down and take in everything is being said so that it can be analyzed and refuted.

   The right-wing base in this country is so incredibly incensed by Obama’s election, and because their heads have been filled with all of this outdated and once ridiculous anti-socialism rhetoric, their passion to see things go back to the way they imagine they were is bolstered. It is this overpowering and very loud (albeit ignorant) message that has Obama’s once enthusiastic base suddenly playing Othello to the Republican party’s Iago.

   No matter how sure of something you are, if you’re willing to give all things the benefit of consideration, the message will reach you, and it will get in your head, and it will cause you to hesitate. This is what’s happening to the so-called “left” in this country today.

   I’m hoping that all these predictions that the Republican party will take back Congress in November are merely warnings, something to get that Democratic base into the voting booth, but I don’t think the message, if it is one, is powerful enough. I fear that it may very well turn out to be a simple premonition.

   Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 4:15 pm | Permalink
2. TENTHIRTYTWO wrote:

   Good analysis Elvis. I’m surrounded by right wing folks who are for the most part fairly well off with secure, good paying jobs. I go to the same shops and restaurants they do. Yet if I listen to them talk about “what’s going on in America”, I’m quite certain that we are not living in the same place. According to them, Armageddon is just around the corner….as they drink their coffee-house joe.

   I don’t know what’s going to happen in November. My gut tells me, no big republican shift. I’m starting to care less and less, though. I figure I’ll win either way. I will end up voting almost exclusively democrat, because I refuse to give any tea-party-ish fringe candidate or social conservative a vote. Which unfortunately leaves me with 1 republican to possibly vote for.

   If the democrats win, great, that’s what I want. If the republicans win, great, I won’t have to hear bullshit 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Just imagine, in 6-8 months everything will be turned around! Illegal immigration: solved. Economic downturn: solved. Unemployment: solved. War on terror: solved. War on drugs: solved. Education: solved.

   Magical, really. I can’t wait.

   One of the most ironic thing to me about the upcoming election is the amount of snide and nasty comments I’ve had to hear about hope and/or change. Because those pie-in-the-sky liberals think that Obama is going to make everything better with fairy dust. How’s that hopey changey thing working out for ya? What a bunch of blind morons, right? But holy hell you start running down the right-wing talking points line and say things like “take back our country” and “we will stop big government” and you apparently should be taken seriously.

   I don’t get it. I really don’t.

   Monday, October 4, 2010 at 7:01 pm | Permalink
3. chinagreenelvis wrote:

   Us and Them, man. Hypocrisy is just another word for pride. I’ve been guilty of it in the past, especially during the Bush years.

   One of my awakenings came about in the face of the first time I ever really heard Dick Cheney speak. Up until then, all I knew of the guy were all of the conspiratorial headlines I was reading on the internet coupled with pictures of him sneering. I thought that he must have been some sort of monster.

   I could never stand hearing George W. Bush speak. He always came across, no matter what, as a disingenuous and guilt-ridden brat. His cocky whining bore all the traits of an eleven year old boy who’s been proven that his ideas are wrong and yet stubbornly refuses to admit it.

   Dick Cheney was another matter altogether. I watched the vice presidential debates in 2004, and after seeing him next to John Edwards, I had a lot more respect for the man. I realized that I didn’t agree with his views, but after hearing him calmly and articulately explain them, I realized that this was a man who truly believed that America is vulnerable in a dangerous world and would do whatever was necessary to protect it and to assert our dominance over the rest of it in order to assure that protection, and that most of America wasn’t qualified to make those decisions for themselves. It wasn’t out of some evilness, it was just a paradigm.

   I realized that incongruence in ideology didn’t have to be demonized. I realized that a far better judge of character was a judge of character, and that’s something you do by watching a person speak, reading their body language, analyzing the content of their words and the consistency of the things they express over time. In that regard, Bush still fails completely and, honestly, Cheney still wins.

   It’s the media spin that’s put on those expressions which calls doubt into the minds of the opposition as to whether or not the person in question can even be considered human. The same things that Internet was doing to the Bush administration in 2004 is the same thing that Fox News is doing to Obama’s now. All I had to do then was read a headline that said “Cheney has a locked cabinet in his office” and I had no problem believing he was behind 9-11. These Tea-Partier types see Sean Hannity craftily editing Obama’s interviews and have no qualms about picturing him as an anti-colonist.

   Mockery is such an effective tool for being so basically empty. Unless that mockery is accompanied by something to back it up, it’s a “poor-man’s” defense in an argument. In the case of people like Sarah Palin, that something is taken as a given. She knows her crowds are already filled with all of the misinformation they need to hate the current administration that she doesn’t need to actually support any kind of a claim that the campaign run on “hope” and “change” isn’t bringing it. All she has to do is mock it by calling it “hopey changey stuff.” Her inference is that Obama’s administration hasn’t fulfilled their promise to change the country for the better in the span of twelve months. If you ask me, that’s a pretty weak accusation. It’s like saying, “This guy can’t solve a Rubix Cube in ten seconds. What a loser, right?”

   If I were a registered voter, I’d vote Democratic – not because the Democratic party has lived up to expectations or seems in any way trustworthy and reliable, but in direct opposition to the kinds of political tactics that are being employed by big business, conservative pundits, and the Republican party. What this country should be doing is stepping up and saying, “We can see through your bullshit and we deserve better. If your platform was worth considering, you wouldn’t have to lie so much in order to get it on the floor.”

   Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 8:03 am | Permalink
4. ebdoug wrote:

   ChinaGreenElvis: Without a television, I’ve only seen Bush once in debate. Cheney not at all. But I read and read and read. It came down to “neither of the above” But Rove and his ilk. Bending the poor in the US so that they believe Blue is Red. That corporations are going to solve all our problems. As said our wealth distribution is the worst it has been since before the great depression. And as said, the best wealth distribution was during Eisenhower and into the 1960s.
   The contant brainwashing can be solved by turning off the television. I turn off my phone toward the end. Once I get a robo call, I let voice mail pick up until the end of the election.
   American Crossroads and its tax deductible contribultions from IK’s “greedies” are running this election.
   Every time there is another Corporation stooge, tea party nominee, I give to the opponent.

   Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 8:21 am | Permalink
5. chinagreenelvis wrote:

   I find it fascinating that anyone in this day an age can still stand to watch T.V. … I put it on for five minutes once every six months or so and my brain wants to squeeze through my ears just to escape.

   Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 3:35 pm | Permalink