Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Some comments in the ongoing debate regarding the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren got me to thinking about our political system and people’s reactions to it. Warren is criticized by the Right for obvious reasons, given her strong stances on managing the economy and controlling the excesses of the Corporate Culture. In a sense she offends their sense of political purity, but then that is but a given because she is a Democrat. We have seen though on the Right that such conservative stalwarts as Richard Lugar have gone down to primary defeat because he failed the Tea Parties test of what a “true” conservative should be. Richard Lugar failed the “purity” test even though his conservative history is impeccable. In my conception political purity conforms to “party line” thinking, punishing those that fail to adhere in all respects to the standards of a given faction’s concept of standards their candidates must adhere to in order to retain enthusiastic support. I use “faction”, rather than “party”, because our two party political system actually represents an amalgam of various factions imperfectly coalescing under the rubric of a “Political Party”.
From a Left, or even Centrist perspective, there has been both amusement and trepidation about how the “Tea Party” faction has exerted control over the Republican Party. Then too, there is the same reaction to the power exerted by Fundamentalist Christians, a group that at some points overlaps with the “Tea Party”. A human trait is to see the foibles of groups we define as “other”, while being oblivious to the idiosyncrasies of the groups we are aligned with. Liberals, Progressives, Radicals and even Leftist Centrists like to believe that they are immune from the turmoil that they see in their Right Wing opposites, yet the “Left” and even the “Center” also routinely define people in terms of litmus tests of political purity. This was highlighted by certain comments on the Warren thread where people who were seemingly in tune with her domestic policy views, disliked her positions on the Middle East and appeared to hold them against her. This has definitely been true with many progressives and/or civil libertarians in viewing this current Administration. My purpose here is not one of castigation for anyone’s perspective; rather I’m interested in exploring the phenomenon of the belief that political figures need to meet all of our expectations in their positions, or be unworthy of our support. My own perspective is that tests of political purity are self defeating because it is impossible for any particular political figure to be in perfect agreement with all that any of us individually believe and politics becomes oppression without the ability to negotiate. The process of real negotiation requires compromise. What follows is why I believe that is true. Before my discussion though, I think a definition of perspectives would be helpful. There are some of us, including myself to a certain degree, who believe that we are living under a corporate oligarchy and as such the common pretense that our national fate is in the hands of the majority’s vote, is but pleasant mythology. I wrote about this in my guest blog Published 1, March 17, 2012: http://jonathanturley.org/2012/03/17/a-real-history-of-the-last-sixty-two-years/ .One logical conclusion that can be drawn from believing that democracy is an illusion, is that voting is a wasted effort, since whatever person we choose will either be a corporate stooge, or unelectable. I can respect those who draw that conclusion since the evidence of its truth is quite convincing. My own conclusion is not quite there yet, even though I do believe that we are under the rule of a coalition of the Military Industrial Complex and of the Corporate Elite. The redeeming feature to me is that I don’t believe in the homogeneity of the “ruling classes”. I think that they are made up of various factions and roiled by clashing egos. In my estimation voting for politicians thus has value because the vote affects the competition among our oligarchs. There is a qualitative difference for instance between Buffett/Gates and the Koch Brothers, in the sense that the former believe in more humane social policies and the latter have a draconian social view.
If one believes that Democracy is completely illusory, then why bother voting, since voting is a futile exercise? The logical conclusion of such a belief is to disdain all of American politics and politicians as being tools of the Oligarchy. From that perspective it isn’t a question of particular policy, since almost every player in normative politics is not to be trusted. So the question becomes how do the people change things when the political process is believed to be non-existent? Obviously, if it is ones view that America politics is a total sham, then a massive uprising of the people would be needed to make change. How does that uprising occur? Will its’ nature be peaceful, or violent? While I know there are “militias” out in the hills of places like Idaho, are they capable of banding together to overthrow our current government, I think not. Violent revolutions always seem to breed unforeseen and unpleasant excesses, which make their original aims moot. So the question becomes how do we effect a peaceful revolution? The answer is simple, but the process itself is immensely complex. A peaceful revolution can come about when you are able to convince an overwhelming majority of the people that the current system needs change and that they need to refuse to cooperate with it. Think of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. When the media is in the hands of corporations though, the issue is one of how does the message of change come across to reach the populace? It’s a question I’ve pondered for years.
Back in the 60’s there was the idea of “dropping out” of a corrupt system. Its problem was that it was espoused by many and practiced by few. The truth was that for those “dropping out” the system didn’t miss their participation, nor would it now. A current conservative stratagem is to make voting harder, thereby limiting turnout of voters negative to their cause. We solve nothing by not voting. We could vote, but cast our votes for nascent opposition parties. This is not a bad premise in my estimation, even though in our loaded political system, minority party effectiveness is more limited than under parliamentary government. Let us think though about a minority party legislator’s ability to be effective once elected, since I assume that the process of gaining political power through organizing a minority party opposition would be slow and could be violently opposed. Think of the police reactions to Occupy Wall Street. However, OWS does show that the elite can feel threatened by a mass movement.
When we discuss the election of someone whose political views are outside of what the “mainstream allows”, we need to take into account how much positive influence they can have on the political process, if they are unwilling to compromise their “political purity”. Let us take the real instance of Senator Bernie Sanders, a socialist, as he does his job in the Senate. I believe that Bernie is the most ethical and perceptive Senator we have had in the Senate in a long time. He is also an effective Senator in terms of being able to not only put forth a progressive point of view, but to actually influence Senate activity. In order to be effective in the Senate, Bernie has had to compromise on certain issues and thus would certainly be seen from the orthodox socialist perspective to have sold out. In contrast let us take another man whose career I’ve admired, Dennis Kucinich. Dennis has been an aggressive/effective spokesman on a national level for unpopular, yet valid causes. Within the house though he has not been able to effectuate change simply because Dennis does not do compromise well
In today’s world a political change process is mainly effectuated in four ways:
1. Violent revolution, which is highly problematic at best.
2. Massive non cooperation with the system, ala Gandhi and King, which can be very successful based
upon the right circumstances.
3. Organizing and creating an opposition political movement, a possibly fruitful, yet hard process to carry
out with success..
4. Working within the system, imperfect as it may be, to effect slow change.
All of the above can be work to effect change in a given context, but one factor is a given no matter which method is chosen. To build a mass movement in a diverse population the need to compromise is paramount. This need to compromise is called “coalition building”. The Right has been effective at this for years when you think of the coalition between religious fundamentalists, lukewarm objectivists and outright corporatists. What would Jesus, Ayn Rand and even Adam Smith think of the ways their teachings have been presumably melded? In the past the Left also coalesced around certain issues, bringing together groups that were hardly homogeneous. However, from the 60’s onward building of coalitions on the Left has broken down. “Centrists” and “Liberals” became anathema to “progressives” and “radicals”. After all that he had accomplished Martin Luther King became an “Uncle Tom” in the minds of “Black Power” advocates for his refusal to entertain the concept of violence as a tool.
The Left coalition also began to break down in the 60’s over the issue of Viet Nam. Working class union members generally supported the war that was drafting and killing their children. The leadership of the AFL-CIO, who had striven to disassociate themselves from Marxism during the McCarthy era, had become part of the country’s establishment. As George Meany, the AFL-CIO President, began to play golf with Eisenhower and major industrialists, the Union movement swung away from its Left Wing roots. The fact that the labor movement was overwhelmingly “white working class” in an era where Blacks were demanding equal status also took its toll on the coalition between Big Labor and the Democratic Party. The AFL-CIO and Teamsters supported Richard Nixon in 1968..
The labor movement’s departure from coalition with the Democratic Party was to have devastating consequences for its strength. Their workers, doing well financially aspired to a scaled down version of the American Dream. The threat that competition with Blacks for jobs and with the Left’s critique of muscular foreign policy, helped drive white workers into the Republican Party. The fact that their leadership had become cozy with Management and Republicans led the way. The power of the labor movement waned until today it is a shadow of what it once was. The Left coalition forged under FDR and informed experientially by the “Great Depression”, began to fight amongst themselves. The battles increasingly became issues of “purity of political belief”. When a person’s political value is weighed on only specific issues that are politically “black and white”, coalition becomes almost impossible. Without the ability to coalesce “Movements” face severe limitations in their ability to grow.
I believe that in the desire for reforming our governance to work for the interests of all the people, all viable methods must be used. Of the four methods I list above I believe that only the latter three are really viable. A violent revolution in this country will only hasten the totality of oppression, since violent revolutions never seem to work out the way people have planned and that the people once having risen find themselves ruled harshly by those they so hopefully followed. Refute this premise if you will, but please don’t cite the American Revolution. While it certainly had violence it was a rebellion of colonies against an overseas colonial state. By revolution I mean the rebellion of a people in a certain geographical area against their own government.
Methodologically, none of the three methods can work without bringing together people of differing standards via a coalition that accepts deviation from a “party line”. This seems obvious to me since rarely do those who wish change agree on all issues. Are there “deal breakers” that cannot brook compromise? That depends upon the individual, the perceived threat and the current circumstance. I have my own deal breakers, certainly, but I invoke them in context of my reading of the perceived threat.
What do you the reader think of the argument I’ve made? If you disagree please let me know, since I understand that on any given subject I can be wrong and I am really willing to learn. If you agree with me then what are your “deal breakers”? Perhaps if you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
@Bron: The only people who want to take other people’s rights away are totalitarian lefties like you.
Since you consider it your “right” to benefit from the protections of society and benefits of communal action without ever contributing a dime to its support or maintenance, I assure you that the vast majority of us want to take that “right” from you.
Not because we are lefties, but because we do not want to live in anything remotely like your feeble-minded free-market dystopia.
Tony C:
I guess one should never say never. If I was starving I would eat the chickens. So I guess I am guilty of lying. I would also lie to totalitarians like you who come in the middle of the night, to protect human life, I dont think all lies are bad.
The only people who want to take other people’s rights away are totalitarian lefties like you.
“So I guess I am guilty of lying. I would also lie to totalitarians like you who come in the middle of the night, to protect human life, I don’t think all lies are bad.”
Bron,
In context of your comments on this thread and others, this says it all about you. Tony is not wrong about you having sociopathic tendencies, because you’ve just shown them. Another way of putting it is that sociopaths may not always be right, but they’re ever wrong.
But Tony, that would require that others in society have an intrinsic value beyond what the individual can gain to their pecuniary or other benefit and that the individual have a duty beyond self extending to both others and to society in general. The Aynish will be having none of that.
Bron says: I have never eaten any of my egg laying chickens, but I might if the need arose.
After saying: I have chickens for eggs and would never eat them.
As I predicted, dismissive deflection to distract from the fact that he lied.
Bron says: Why should a healthy individual with no physical of intellectual disabilities get a free pass in a healthy economy?
I have never said anybody like that should get a free pass, Bron. Of course it depends on what you mean by “free pass,” doesn’t it? Because to me, defending their rights without charging them a fee is not a “free pass,” I see it at our mutual responsibility to defend each other from those that would take our rights away, and to do our best to punish any that succeed.
Tony C:
I never said my chickens were pets, I said they were pampered as in they didnt have to do anything, big difference.
If you dont work you dont eat is in regards to chickens, but it could be in regard to able bodied humans in a good economy. Why should a healthy individual with no physical of intellectual disabilities get a free pass in a healthy economy?
the rest of your post is lefist gibberish.
And for the record, I have never eaten any of my egg laying chickens, but I might if the need arose. The fox has goten several through the fence, he must be a lefty because he just killed 2 of the chickens, only ate part of each one and then left the mess for me to clean up. I have only let one go and a rooster got away and lived for many years in the woods next to my house as I stated above.
Grasp at straws Tony, that is what you are doing. You so desperately want me to be a lying sociopath so you can think that what I am saying can be dismissed out of hand.
Your mind is very feeble and transparent.
For the record many farmers do eat pets and would kill and eat a chicken which wasnt laying eggs. So now you are insulting farmers as well? I guess everyone who actually works for a living and doesnt do the vulture capitalist stuff you do is a sociopath, eh?
You are one big mess of totalitarian nonsense.
The proof is in the eating of the pudding.
@Mike: Highly unlikely. He will come back with a dismissive deflection, probably accuse me of being a vegan or bleeding heart about chickens. He doesn’t understand it isn’t about the chickens at all, it is about him, and his casual and persistent lying and fabrications.
@Malisha: Sociopaths use whatever means necessary to get their way; they know that other people feel emotions and empathy and sympathy, even if they do not, so they try to manipulate others by appealing to their empathy or sympathy.
Sociopaths also love the defense of “after all I did, I was trying to help you, I was being your friend, and now you are betraying me!!!”
There is a new show on the Food Channel called “Mystery Diners,” I recommend it for anybody wishing to observe sociopaths in action from a safe distance.
The premise is that an investigative company will install secret cameras and microphones in an owner’s previously successful but now failing restaurant to see what has gone wrong. The “Mystery Diners” are employees of the investigative company that pose as undercover customers, waitresses, bartenders, suppliers, etc, in a “sting” designed to catch the problems.
In virtually every episode so far, the problem has been that the owner hired a sociopath that is ripping them off, and it can be fun to watch their excuses when confronted with the evidence of their lying and stealing.
I don’t know why more of them are not prosecuted, frankly.
@Bron: I must commend you on your story about the Little Red Hen. But again you are making assumptions that are not implied from the story.
Another lie. I made no assumptions that were not implied by the story. This is, again, not about the story, but about real life, and whether anything I said was an unwarranted assumption. It was not.
Tony C, I’m not paying attention to the chickens arguments too much and I’m not directing any ideas at Bron, but something you said in this last comment made me want to point out something about ALL the sociopaths I have ever known: They can REALLY feel a lot of sympathy for themselves. They out-victim all the rest of us. When something does not please them, or comes out differently from the way they wanted it, they’re experts at explaining who hurt them, how much, how vicious and evil were the intentions of the “heinous criminal” who displeased them, etc. OMG the tears can cause flooding.
@Bron: Of course I am serious, your comments about your chickens were not about a story, they were about real life. These are all your own statements:
1) I have chickens for eggs and would never eat them. They are pampered peckers.
2) I am thinking about eating them, or [letting a wild animal kill them].
3) If you dont work, you dont eat.
4) And anyway a chicken over about 4 months old is tough.
5) I just fired them.
A rational person reading that would conclude you lied in the first line. You make a pretense of having an emotional attachment to your chickens like pets, you give them pet names.
Then destroy that in the second line; nobody with an emotional attachment to a living thing would eat it, or purposely let a wild animal kill it. You give the justification for this in the third line; “If you don’t work you don’t eat.”
In the fourth line you again betray the lie of your emotional attachment, you imply you would eat them if they were tasty, and in the fifth you inform us you have casually discarded your pets, and do not really give a shit if they live or die.
You lied in the first post about your chickens, you have no emotional attachment to them whatsoever and would not hesitate to kill them, eat them, or let them be ripped apart. In fact, with your use of “Mr. Rouge Renard” and pretensions of being their “boss” instead of an executioner, you prove that you find their plight, pain and suffering humorous.
People that find pain and suffering in animals humorous often find pain and suffering in humans humorous too; the trait of empathy is deficient in such people.
With your willingness to tell outright lies, it completely explains your devotion to Objectivism. You know you are empathically deficient, you know you do not give a shit about other people in pain or misery or suffering. Aynism gives you the amulet to deflect criticism over your mental disability. Your inner sociopath is shining through, Bron, you just cannot fake empathy and caring for very long when you have so little of it.
Tony,
You nailed Bron in your 6/14 8:41 am comment. Hoisted on the petard of his own peculiar words. I wonder though whether he can even make sense of what you exposed about him?
Tony C:
Are you serious? I think you are going over the edge. I thought your little red hen scenario was funny and was trying to respond in kind with the “other” side of the story.
If your are serious about this, I think you might be off your meds or you had a bad day today and just arent thinking strait.
I mean honestly, you are saying I am a liar because I dont believe your version of the little red hen and I know how to cook coq au vin?
I challenge you to show me a definition that is wrong or where I have lied.
Dumplings with noodles Chicken dumplings with noodles. Tasty. Have to boil it for a while.
@Bron: yes, lets talk about projection.
You cannot be trusted to tell the truth or to abide by real definitions, so what is the point in talking to you at all?
I am not projecting anything, I am stating the obvious from the observable facts (your posts); you are a compulsive liar that cannot tell the truth, you simply fabricate whatever you need to support whatever you want to say.
Even your most recent “defense” shows your propensity to lie, you first claimed that chickens over four months old were too tough to eat, then when I suggested perhaps you do not know how to cook, you rush to claim you know exactly how to cook a tough chicken and make it delicious.
So which is it? They are too tough to eat, or toughness is not a problem at all? Which proves my point, you lie whenever it suits you, and that makes talking to you pointless. But pointing out your duplicity and dishonesty and outright lies are worthwhile, just in case anybody else is still reading this thread.
Bron 1, June 13, 2012 at 7:39 am
Matt’s Johnson:
Chickens arent rational, so I am free to eat them and so is my neighbor Mr. Rougue Renard. In fact Mr. Renard has eaten quite a few of my chickens over the last few years.
I have yet to take action though, chickens only cost about 2 bucks each if you buy them as peeps. Figure a bag of food to reach laying age and your investment is around $15 by the time Mr. Renard enjoys an evening repast.
So he has beaten me out of about $90. I am not sure that is a sufficient amount to declare all out war on Renard but he would look good on the wall or as a full mount in my office. I could even have a chicken mounted and put in his mouth.
=================
Bron, just sent him an invoice. If he doesn’t pay it, sue him.
Tony C:
yes, lets talk about projection.
@Bron: You needn’t bother, you are a proven liar, a callous sociopath, you have nothing to say that I need to hear because you are just too stupid to come up with anything interesting or logically sound.
As usual, you lie and accuse me of the crimes you commit: Unlike you, I made no assumptions and invented no justifications. In the story she simply asks for help, she does not ask anybody to interview, she does not offer to share the results, she just asks who will help her, and nobody takes her up on it.
But you need to fit the story into your preconceived mold, and like so much else that fails to fit that mold you have to invent extra bullshit out of whole cloth. You cannot follow logic, you cannot help lying, your enjoyment of other people’s misery shines through in every post, and you have nothing to say that is worth hearing.
Tony C:
The chickens have instincts, they will fly into trees at night to roost. I had a rooster once who took off and lived in our woods for years, I knew this because he had a funny cock a doodle do which would trail off like he didnt get enough air into his lungs. I heard him in the mornings for 3 plus years, so he did just fine. So I had some expectation my chickens would surive if cut loose.
Coq au vin is a good way to cook a tough chicken, leave it to a lefty to state something as true before he knows the facts. I probably cook better than you do unless you are a trained chef and even then I could probably give you a run for your money.
I must commend you on your story about the Little Red Hen. But again you are making assumptions that are not implied from the story. The little red hen grew the grain, harvested the grain, milled the grain and turned it into bread. She was the head of a vertically integrated baking conglomerate. The horse, pig and cow were stupid not to invest time into her enterprise, she was offering them jobs which paid premium wages and bonuses [free, delicious bread, all you can consume]. Before she offered the jobs she wanted to see if they were willing to work, she found out they werent and stopped her baking operations on that farm.
She moved on to another of her farms and started again, but with much better success as the animals on this farm hadnt been corrupted by welfare and were not opposed to working for a living. They invested their time and they and the little red hen brought their bread to market all over the US, you might know it as Pepperidge Farm.
The pig and cow put together business plans and presented them to the little red hen for venture funding. The business plans were so good the little red hen invested in each venture and since they were such good employees only took a 15% stake in the ventures and gave very favorable repayment schedules to both.
You may recognize Smitty Pig and Laughing Cow Cheese.
Now you know the back stories.
You get it wrong every time you try.
@Bron: I guess the little red hen is a sociopath too?
Only if she lets somebody else starve when she has food to spare. But that wasn’t the case for the little red hen, let me explain the children’s story for you, since you failed to comprehend the central lesson.
The hen invited friends of hers to join her in a sweat-equity venture and they declined. She herself, and her partners, were never short of food, and never short of time. It is possible they declined because they did not believe the hen had the competence to see her venture through, or the fact that the hen did not ever make clear what their share of any profit would be.
So the little red hen proved herself incompetent at persuasion and negotiation. She ultimately produced a worthwhile product, above and beyond the survival fare she was receiving for free the entire time. When she makes a false offer of it to her “friends,” what would you expect them to do? Turn down something they want and can get for free? Don’t be ridiculous, it is not dishonorable to accept a free offer, people accept invitations to free parties or entertainment all the time.
But the little red hen offer was false, it was made to build anticipation that could then be dashed, it was a spiteful punishment of her “friends” for refusing to help her for free. She was showing them the treat which she rightfully earned, and then saying with resentment, “Fuck you assholes.”
Which is not sociopathic at all, but is certainly an insult they did not deserve. They committed no offense by not pitching in on the work, whether they were lazy or busy with their own projects is immaterial. The little red hen was not in danger, or hungry, or otherwise on the verge of potentially catastrophic deprivation, so they had no moral responsibility to help her. Their time was their own to do with as they pleased.
So the resentment felt by the little red hen was misplaced, she should not have been mad at her friends, she should have just enjoyed her bread herself.
However, if she were really smart, she would have shared half of her bread with her friends anyway, in a party. So they could see that she was competent and had executed her business plan successfully, and then tried to recruit the friends as laborers, for the next season, since we can presume she will now have plenty of seeds. Then she doesn’t have to do as much work alone, and they will have more fun working together, and everybody can have plenty of bread.
As for your hens, after a lifetime of captivity they are mentally and physically adapted to a sheltered and protected environment; your idiotic, uninformed, infantile assumption that they are just as capable as wild (and much younger) chickens at survival is truly pathetic. It would have been kinder of you to simply humanely kill them, instead you decide to subject them to a few days of terror.
The idea that you owe nothing to the chickens is typically brutal sociopathy as well. After appropriating their lives for your personal gain, taking their eggs for a lifetime, you think you do not even owe them the courtesy of a humane end, without the terror of being hunted and eaten alive.
You didn’t fire them, you are clearly entertained by the pain, terror and death your choices will cause them. That is what we expect from a sociopath, stupid brutality for the fun of it, a complete lack of empathy, sympathy or understanding of the pain of others.
Thanks for the chicken story, Bron, you reveal yourself to be exactly what you have denied for so long. A lying sociopath.
Bron says: That is horrible. I have chickens for eggs and would never eat them.
We see now, that is not because of any feeling toward the chickens, but simply because laying hens are too tough to eat (or Bron has never bothered to learn how to cook.)
Bron says: They are pampered peckers,
We see now, that means they are fed slaves, until they stop producing, then they are cast into the arena to be ripped apart while still alive, for the chuckling entertainment of Bron as he thinks about their torturous fate in the jaws of a predator for which they are, by his coercive actions, singularly unprepared.
Tony C:
If you dont work, you dont eat. I guess the little red hen is a sociopath too? No one helped her and she refused to make bread any more.
The chickens have a chance in the woods, survival of the fittest. They can fly, I did not clip their wings, so they are perfectly capable of getting into a tree and roosting. And there is plenty of food available, so they are now in a state of nature with all things in common. I just fired them, they are free to find another person who likes eggs.
And anyway a chicken over about 4 months old is tough.