One could take their arguments point by point to challenge them (and many posts I've written here have done so). But the most glaring way in which they fail is the extent to which they are totally and completely out of touch with American voters. That was made obvious yesterday in a poll released by Gallup.
You can only assume that the 15% who think President Obama is conservative is made up of Greenwald/Uygur followers. As far as the rest of the country is concerned, 80% see the President as either moderate or liberal.
Why does that matter, you may ask. Perhaps the ODS crowd has some higher plane of knowledge than most voters. Maybe they're right and the rest of us are wrong.
Well, if that's the case, then why bother yelling at President Obama all the time? They're simply preaching to the wrong choir. If they really wanted to change things, they'd be out trying to convince voters they're right - or doing the grunt work of finding an alternative candidate and convincing voters to support them. Instead, Uygur adopts the role of powerless victim and suggests "the establishment" wouldn't let him.
I would have loved a progressive alternative, but apparently we are not going to get one... Primaries are the perfect place to send a message without taking away votes in the general election. But it didn't happen because the Democratic establishment says we must fall in line because we wouldn't want to hurt the agenda of the president.
We can speculate about the lack of money and prestige that might keep them from actually doing something that would make a difference. After all, they've simply learned the lessons that Faux News personalities have taught us all about how poutrage gins up the viewers/readers. So why bother with the nitty-gritty of real organizing when playing the victim and yelling at Obama is so ego-gratifying and profitable? These guys are the very definition of sedentary agitation.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Smartypants!
ReplyDelete"If they really wanted to change things, they'd be out trying to convince voters they're right - or doing the grunt work of finding an alternative candidate and convincing voters to support them. Instead, Uygur adopts the role of powerless victim and suggests 'the establishment' wouldn't let him."
This is what I've been telling PL/emo-prog friends and acquaintances for the last 5 years, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who recognizes this reality. If they were really interested in furthering progressive policies, they would have been spending the last 5 years doing voter outreach & registration, community education efforts, and candidate recruitment & training instead of whining constantly about how Nancy Pelosi-Harry Reid-Barack Obama-(insert Democratic leader here) "isn't progressive enough" because he/she can't/won't give them all the ponies they want whenever they cry for ponies. If the PL emo-progs really believe in things like single-payer health care, marriage equality, carbon tax, breaking the big banks, and other left policy goals, they'd be finding the voters and candidates to make it happen instead of flirting with extreme libertarian nuts like Ron Paul who HATE 99% of what "the 99% movement" is supposed to be about.
And btw, it gets worse. I see Cenk may soon be pushing "the next Nader"...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/22/third-party-candidate-corporate-interests-control-u-s-government/
So now the guy who endorsed Mitt Romney in 2002 and nearly threw the UT-02 Congressional election to a crazed teabagger is "our progressive hero!!!"? Ridiculous.
You've got it Smartypants. If you haven't seen it yet, I'll point you to an excellent post on Cenk and the PL at Speaking Truth to the Power of the Lying Liars of the US Media, Right AND Left
ReplyDeletehttp://emiliawahoo76.blogspot.com/2011/12/cenk-uygur-comes-out-of-woodwork.html
(quote)I'm old enough to remember ratf***ers. They appeared, as if from nowhere, during the 1972 election year - young Republicans, mostly college students, trained to look and act like young Democrats of the day (the forerunners of today's EmoProg Puritopians), to infiltrate the offices and campaigns of the major Democratic Presidential contenders with the one aim of delivering Richard Milhouse Nixon the weakest possible Democratic candidate for the Presidential election of that same year....
The entire face of the Democratic party was altered after that. McGovern's campaign manager, Gary Hart, set about changing it from a party which fought for union rights and for the working class and working poor into a bi-coastal cocktail party comprised of educated elitists who had nothingn in common either with labor history or the working class....
Ceny Uygur was one of those ratf***ers. A failed corporate lawyer and neocon with an enhanced opinion of himself and an ego as fat as his broad a**.
He, along with the likes of Arianna Huffington and Ed Schultz, all former virulent neocons, sought to tap into the low information end of Progressive voters - young people and disaffected Left Coastal unreconstructed middle class types who yearned to be hippies again (or even for the first time) who either had forgotten how to think critically along the way or who had never learned. Suffice it to say, these people knew nothing and understood little about the way the government functioned....(endquote)
It's interesting how the light has been shined on a lot of behind the scenes manipulation that has been going on for years. Koch brothers, ALEC, PL and low information voters on both sides. Ratf***ers indeed.
Cenk Uygur is as useless as tits on a fly and Greenwald should turn in his gay card, seeing as his lazy ass solution is turning things over to assholes who would set gay rights back a century. Twats...
ReplyDeleteRereading Al's definition of Activist was good because as I read it I thought, This describes the "Occupy Movement" to a tee. Especially my local band of 'activists'.
ReplyDeleteTien - I was hoping that by putting that link in folks would go back for a refresher course on all of that. Giordano nailed it - as usual.
ReplyDeleteThank God for imasmartypants! I love this blog. Truth is so very hard to find these days with all the agendas and disinformation. Thank you!
ReplyDelete"If they really wanted to change things, they'd be out trying to convince voters they're right..."
ReplyDeleteOne of the most common mistakes Progressives have made with respect to the Overton Window is completely misunderstanding its audience. They think pushing the window means getting more liberal politicians out there in order to weight the scale in the liberal direction. No, pushing the window means changing *public* opinion in your direction so that the politicians they elect will inevitably be closer to your own position.
More liberal politicians are the consequence, not the cause.
I would so like to fold that "Overton Window" very neatly and shove it up the backside of all these people until they were tasting it on their lips!
ReplyDeleteSorry, bad Aquagranny911 mood today.
Have a good New year! I certainly intend to!
ebogan63 here.
ReplyDeleteLegislators get to set policy and laws, not 'overton windows' You do that by getting people to run that share your views,and win elections, plain and simple!
Please don't let the idiocy of some on the progressive left with regard to the Overton Window lead you to mock the concept. Because it is a very valid tool for understanding persuasive communication. The fact that it has been misunderstood by some does not mean that it isn't an important tool to understand.
ReplyDeleteChris, you prob. have a point, but what has worked for me in registering folks to vote is stating the candidates positions, listening to potential voters concerns, and finding the common ground where the candidate I want to get elected and the potential voters intersect. I emphasize the listening part, cuz this is something I feel that we as liberals don't do enough of, esp. when we are out of our confort zone and talk to folks not of our political persuasion. On your recommendation, I will give it a shot, until then, I will be devoting my time in getting the president reelected.
ReplyDeleteebogan63.
Good enough. Though I'd like to clarify my previous comment by saying that I'm talking about a more general cultural framing that goes well beyond mere political races and involves selling a different approach to life.
ReplyDelete