Rowhouse Logic - Breathtaking Inanity

If I were to write that a certain politician was a sandwich bag filled with lukewarm Vaseline and crushed Valium, would you know who I was referring to? I’m just curious because I used that phrase earlier this evening and a friend of mine told me I should write more like the way I speak. This is all a learning process and it’s difficulty to find the right or the comfortable boundaries. I’m certainly more muted and respectful on the site than I am in person, but should this be so? As an example , when public figures can behave like this or this, is there really any reason for any of us to hold anything back?

And then there is this from Digsby:

I think most liberals’ first priority at this point is to remove the Republicans from sole power and many in the Democratic netroots have come to the political conclusion that we will only do that if we speak truth to power. The immoderate tone that thrills the netroots is not just for emotional satisfaction; it is a political strategy for beating the opposition.

I think that many in the netroots are no different than the vast majority of Americans everywhere. Policy is seen through a heuristic prism of impressions, image and preconceptions. Very few people are engaged in politics as a purely intellectual debate about the actual efficacy of one policy over another. Most people, even most smart people, make their political decisions based on a whole range of perceptions, only a few of which are based on strict reason.

…Will our “shrillness” help or hurt the party? I think the netroots believes it’s time to try a message that has a little more heat than lukewarm water. The establishment, still smarting from their seminal loss in 1972, is scared to death of anything that resembles real passion. Far more than a serious division in the party over specific policy, that, I think is the real fault line. What kind of politics — not policies — do the Democrats think will win?

This is a struggle for some of us - I know it is for me. My own voice, when I really speak, can be quite shrill and immoderate , but I tend to shy away from that sort of thing on this site. I’ve found, to my surprise, that I sometimes reserve my harshest criticism for other Democrats. I think the reason for that is a combination of living in a town controlled by an inept where it counts Democratic machine and thinking that my fellow Democrats really ought to know better than to ever roll over for the Bush administration.

This is a frustrating reality to live in if you hold a certain set of beliefs. The Democratic party has no control over the direction of this country and its official organs often don’t really seem all that interested in gaining that power. People with whom I tend to agree do not make policy decisions - ever. The people who do make those decision have been proven inept to the core and their values often do not reflect even the very basic trappings of decency. That may be a good enough reason to throw the comfortable, but harmless lukewarm Vaseline and crushed Valium to the pavement and be a little shrill.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 22nd, 2005 at 11:57 pm and is filed under Nothing Much. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.