As the 1%’s bipartisan elite continue their collusion to reduce us to a perpetual state of deer in the headlights indenture, and as our idol’s feet on both sides of the aisle turn to clay (Sanders/Ron Paul,) the opening scene of Blue Velvet reminds us, as does V, that something is indeed very wrong with this picture(country).
While hard and fast ideologies present us with our own individual North stars, and compromise—as practiced on the Hill—is but a Machiavellian ruse aimed at ingratiating the cunning elites to the hapless public; considered compromise, at the populist level—in the face of a greater common enemy—could be elevated to virtue. And baring that, should come to be understood as an absolute necessity by the 98% of the public.
Debates aim to score points, while dialogue seeks to explore alternative perspectives and resolution. MC hopes to “host” the latter. Econo-political theories purport to have special insights into the proper ways of organizing societies. Given the existing ideological differences, creating such earthly nirvanas implies degrees of coercion more applicable to closed homogeneous systems(prisons) than open society. This is a big country and an even bigger world, and in that context the idea of “laboratories of democracy” may be more benign than disempowering ourselves by granting increasingly expansive powers to Washington and “big government.”
The left buys into the big gov. proposition on faith, and in spite of evidence showing human nature to be morally fragile and predictably prone to subterfuge. Kidding ourselves aside, these tendencies invariably invite authoritarianism and totalitarianism. When Clinton declared the “era of big government to be over” on the heels of Reagan’s “the government is the problem,” both were substituting the term and idea of “government” with “democracy.” Both want to make the power vested in government increasingly responsive to “wise” power brokers and “meritocratic” elite interests only. Hence, no accountability, no prosecutions of financial white colar destructive behavior, no treading on the toes of the MIC or Trans national corporate interests. At this point big government is here to serve us up to the powers that be, period.
Traditional(Ike) conservatives and right-libertarians prefer to limit the extent of government and arrest the expanding powers of it’s current corporatist/militarist iteration. At this moment in time both—ignoring ultimate ideological objectives— share more common interests than either does with the political trajectory of their respective parties.
If I was a natural writer—I’ve kept a diary for a year in college and nothing, until beyond the last two years, since—or had, at least, all the time in the world to compose and commit my thoughts to “paper,” then keeping a humming blog on my own would be a relative breeze. Neither one or the other apply.
It’s fortunately also true that while style is a bonus, content in political musings is king. And content, judging by most gatekeeper sites’ fare, is at best stylistically impressive intellectual onanism—an empty, albeit, fanciful gesture aimed to distract us from our hollowed out, hopey-dopey lives, and suppress the green-shoots of our pent up disbelief and discontent.
So pardon me, but fuck all that!
If different, alternative content, aiming to become persuasive to a broad swathe of our neatly cleaved and politically divvied public could begin shifting the balance of power by wakening the rhetorically drugged and propaganda poisoned public, then let’s stop being shy or self effacing, and start questioning and posting more.
Gatekeeper articles appear and we acquiesce resignedly to leaving comments. No more is required to posting pieces (linked excerpts) from less well trodden sites: the original or refashioned title, followed by a short intro (comment), followed by cut and paste including link to source, and presto!
Content gets eyeballs. Eyeballs beget comments and dialogue, and for once, rather than just following the gatekeepers’ bouncing ball, we could create our own dissonant tunes. These could give rise to dissonant ideas that hopefully, before long, could turn into a decent, organized, counter(punch,) offering refuge to all dissidents from the status quo’s bovine pen. Can we inspire ourselves and others to mobilise around some mutually agreeable ideas of unity based in an understanding of it’s transitory and necessity bound nature, that would—ojala, inshallah— breach resistance and broach the partisan divide? Won’t know until we try.
I think the time is ripe enough for us to start seriously trying.
Personally, I’d like to de-stake myself from the WordPress imposed format of administrative authority at MC.
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