Civilizations move in small steps. Liberals just keep them stepping in the right direction.

Liberals think the glass is half full,
Conservatives think the glass is theirs.

…Doesn’t “elite” mean “good”? Is that not something we’re looking for in a President anymore?

…I know “elite” is a “bad word” in politics and you wanna go bowling and throw back a few beers. But the job you’re applying for, if you get it and it goes well, they might carve your head into a mountain! If you don’t actually think you’re better than us…then what the fuck are you doing?

…not only do I want an elite President, I want someone who is embarrassingly superior to me. Someone who speaks 16 languages and sleeps 2 hours a night hanging upside down in a chamber they themselves designed.

…Isn’t it time we had something just a little bit different?

Yes. Yes it is.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof so long as it is Christianity; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press so long as it is in favor of Republicans and bashes liberal thoughts, ideas, and anything new that we refuse to understand; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble so long as they assemble for anything but gay rights, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances so long as you stand to the side and get tear gas thrown at you while riot police beat you down.

I stopped reading Alternet a while ago. I couldn’t really say why. I just kind of caught a vibe that the bulk of the writers there weren’t exactly my kinda people. Not bad, not good. Just a different kind of liberal.

However, my wife recently forwarded me an article about reclaiming rough-and-tumble rhetoric and using it against the Right Wing in this country. The premise is that the wingnuts are way better at concise, bumper-sticker insults and are more effective at humiliating liberals with words than we are. The author posits that we, as liberals, are too concerned with being “above the fray,” but argues that all it’s gotten us is 8 years with George W. Bush.

If John Kerry had responded to the spurious accusations against him in 2004 the way a Republican would have, he would have won the argument and the election.

And so far, the liberal response, the liberal attempt to reach out to the guys in the big trucks is embarrassing “populist” essays using bad imitations of American slang. Let’s be blunt here: “populism” is condescension. If you want male voters’ respect, stop patronizing them. (It just creeps them out.) Far better to insult them — to their face, in their face, telling them bluntly that the talk radio nonsense they parrot is pure crap. They know that themselves. Half of what they say is designed simply to reassure themselves and their friends that they’re not the same sort of wimps their social studies teachers tried to make them into. So they’re not afraid of being called cruel or insensitive; they’re afraid of being suckers.

The minute we start calling them on their suckerdom, they’ll change sides — and we’ll finally have some decent troops on our side. But as long as liberals speak in the language of Beavis and Butthead’s [guidance counselor] Mister van Driessen, they’ll despise you, even when they know you’re right (which they do).

I still believe in maintaining a certain level of decorum when arguing with the Right; I certainly don’t advocate childish taunts (except inasmuch as they are an effective way of mocking their childish taunts). We needn’t be wimps about it.

Alternet

Liberals got women the right to vote. Liberals got African-Americans the right to vote. Liberals created Social Security and lifted millions of elderly people out of poverty. Liberals ended segregation. Liberals passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act. Liberals created Medicare. Liberals passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act. What did Conservatives do? They opposed them on every one of those things…every one! So when you try to hurl that label at my feet, ‘Liberal,’ as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won’t work, Senator, because I will pick up that label and I will wear it as a badge of honor.

Matt Santos, The West Wing

“Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.” -Mort Sahl

Much has been made (some would say too much) of Jonah “Doughy Pantload” Goldberg’s screed “Liberal Fascism.” It’s been established that it’s laughably UNacademic, absurd, and even demonstrably false on nearly every page. Basically, Goldberg is stupid, and he wants the rest of us to be just as stupid as he is. In a lovely review over at Whiskeyfire, I have found what I believe to be the final, definitive word on Cheetoz McPantload:

But Goldberg is heavily invested in coming across as “serious” and “scholarly,” despite his ridiculous and obnoxious title and cover art. Since he’s not capable of serious scholarship, though, what that boils down to is an expressive interest in translating “fuck you, fascist liberal swine” into 400 pages of flatulent doublespeak…

Ergo, in an curious way Goldberg was shooting for dull… and in that, at least, he’s succeeded.

link

(I promise I’ll try to start having more original content. But…for now…)

I believe there is both worth and glory in the achievement of individuals. However, I do not believe in the elevation of selfishness into a virtue. What I want sometimes comes — as it rightfully should — behind what many others need.

I believe that noble self-sacrifice is not something that is demanded of only a few on the battlefield. It’s something that’s demanded of almost everyone, almost every day, in ways both great and small. That includes when I pay my taxes. Read the rest…

I think we all know that Jonah Goldberg’s latest, ah…”book,” Liberal Fascism, is a ridiculous polemic based on absurd assumptions and very little in the way of real research. Dave Neiwert takes apart “Pantload” Goldberg’s whitewashing (hardy-har) of the Ku Klux Klan, and here is Sadly No’s description of Neiwert’s deconstruction of Goldberg:

10,000-plus words of historical beatdown, a ridiculously well-sourced jackhammer of petrified bullshit-destroying whup-assitude.

So, really, this post is merely an excuse to copy and paste that sentence. Never in my wildest dreams could I write anything better.

Sadly, No!

Bonus: Goldberg vs. Juan Cole