Political Dorkage

[the_gneech]

I was checking out some political essays I found linked on Arts & Letters Daily; my conclusion is that modern political thought needs to either get some decent editors, or learn when to shut the heck up.

Both pieces, by a weird quirk of synchronicity, were about the Democratic party's seeming inability to prevail in elections lately. Both of them had interesting insights, and touched on some profound truths about the American national character, about the Democratic party's role in same, and the nature of liberty. So far, so good. But then the stupidity started. Claims by one essay that "Social Security has virtually eliminated poverty among the elderly" (ha!) and such left-handed compliments as "President Bush's faith in the transformative power of freedom may be extreme and un-nuanced, but it is not wholly misplaced," ... or then a different essay's oh-so-subtle, "This is not to disparage as self-indulgent, latte-sipping navel-gazers and whiners the 48 percent of the electorate that voted Democratic."

C'mon, people, it makes it very hard to take stuff seriously when it contains this junk. -.-

-The Gneech

Comments

[laurie-robey.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that they need to lay off the stereotyping, generalizations, and conclusions that have been jumped to. Of course, that applies to more than just the political essays. I'd say the same applies to much of modern thought that gets published, whether it's in the newspaper, on TV, in a book, or on the Web.

[kesh.livejournal.com]

Seems like nowadays you can't be a political commentator without insulting your opponents. Blah.

[bauske.livejournal.com]

Politics in general bother me, especially the two-party system. I won't even get into that.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

It could be worse. ];-)

"The Wizard of Oz" was written as a metaphor of an old US election in which a third party presidential candidate took votes away from himself as the candidate of the Democrats, and cost himself the election by splitting the vote between himself. (He had two different vice presidents in the two parties.) He was the Cowardly Lion; the winner of the election was the Wizard.

Generally, third parties have their issues adopted by one or another of the main parties -- but the Republicans were an unheard-of brand new party in the 1850s, and won in 1860. It happens.

===|==============/ Level Head

[bauske.livejournal.com]

Oh thanks, like "Wizard of Oz" hasn't been ruined enough for me by the presence of "Wicked."

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Backstories can be interesting!

The issue was whether silver should join gold again as part of the money standard, which would increase inflation to the farmers' benefit (Kansas).

The road to the Emerald (green money) City -- Washington -- was paved with gold bricks. The Wicked Witch of the East is the greedy capitalist cities, and the Good Witch is, of course, from the South in the book.

In the book, Dorothy's shoes are silver -- and there's a reason the land is named after the abbreviation for "ounce". ];-)

Imagine if more political commentary was made by such amusing metaphor.

===|==============/ Level Head

[bauske.livejournal.com]

It's interesting, definitely, but also a bit disappointing.