Mary McCarthy

I have started a new folder in my Yahoo bookmarks called Fake Progressive, Rumproast was the first placed there, there will be others.

Going to Rumproast and engaging in the comments section as I mentioned before was interesting to say the least. OK, not interesting irritating in the extreme, OK not irritating in the extreme it pissed me off and made me wonder about the ability of the commentators to grasp reality. Also, being accused of being an ivory tower purist and unrealistic "progressive" just pisses me off, given that I've voted for and worked for the (marginally) lesser of two evils in almost every election that has been held since I was 21. That would include Carter, Clinton, Gore, Kerry and people too numerous to mention or remember in various congressional and state races. Obama I actually thought was different at first (boy was I dumb), by the time it got closer to the election, I was just afraid of Sarah Palin. It looks like McCain would have survived so I might as well have voted for him.

The positions for the other side boil down to: Obama couldn't really accomplish any real progressive stuff, Obama did accomplish real progressive stuff, Obama accomplished the most progressive stuff he could given the make up of the country/congress. I am an asshole (which begs the question really), I am too purist, no one could be good enough for me. No one has explicitly told me to take the crumbs from the rich man's table and be happy, yet.

UPDATE: I went back and read the comments after my last comment and yes they did essentially tell me to take the crumbs from the rich man's table, if not in those specific words then that was the specific meaning. The brutal attacks on bloggers who strongly criticized from the left were amazing. There was an interesting and wilful ignoring of the control that oligarchs and plutocracy has over our election process.

I am reminded of an essay by Mary McCarthy (I wish I could remember which one) where she talks about leftist intellectual life in the 1930s. She talks about the arguments over Stalin's show trials. People would defend Stalin against all kinds of arguments that marshaled large amounts of evidence showing that the allegations could not be true and it would not matter. Then sometimes, some small bit of information would get through and the next week the person who had been adamantly defending Stalin, would be on the other side. She said that it was often only a small thing. I guess I can hope for the same thing for these folks because I just don't think I can grab each one by the collar and shake them until they see reality.