The Other Side

Every so often I like to go over and see what's what on the Left's side of the universe. I find that it can be clarifying to see how the other side thinks... err, as it were.

For your viewing pleasure, today's example comes from The Nation, a bastion of liberal tolerance and understanding. Post-racial, post-gender, post-partisanship, post-conflict really. The Nation embodies the idea of what America could be if only we could all agree to just be Americans. The editors of The Nation have this to say about the Tea Party:

While the energy and outrage may be genuine and organic, we should not fool ourselves into seeing this as anything but a right-wing reactionary movement, one whose themes (jingoism, militarism and a cult of victimhood at the hands of sundry nefarious betrayers) are as old as the John Birch Society.

Err, well, ok so they're a little edgy but it's just for dramatic effect, really. The John Birch Society is one of those things leftists like to laugh about at parties to show how "in tune" they are with their peers. It's a cultural thing. Like Red Sox fans bitching about the Yankees or when people who... deal with lawyers, joke about killing all the lawyers or maybe like when Mullahs preach about wiping Israel off the map. They don't mean it literally - they are just, you know, socializing. In truth, the editors of The Nation, in that long liberal tradition of multiculturalism and acceptance want America to know that even though we don't always agree - we all truly want what's best for the country. Bring it home The Nation!

It is useful for branding purposes that the right-wing organizers and activists draping themselves in nostalgia for the founding fathers not find themselves tied in the public mind to the Republican Party, loathed by a significant minority of the electorate and distrusted by an overwhelming majority. The reason is not hard to divine: over the last decade, the GOP ran the country into the ground. While the party's rhetorical fidelity is to small government and a big military, it has for decades been operationally committed to no philosophy other than perpetual war, upward redistribution of wealth, the defense of corporate power and white Christian identity politics. But despite the tea party's arm's-length stance toward the GOP, these are precisely the values for which it stands.

Ok, really, what a bunch of f*ckhead posers. I'm probably as supportive of a "Tea Party" like movement as you'll find - and I have no idea what they are even talking about. This is Grade A+ Bullshit right here. People pay for this magazine. I think. Perpetual war? Seriously? Upward redistribution of wealth? What is that? No, really, what is that? Is that like generally advocating against the regular redistribution of wealth? I guess you got me there then. Defense of corporate power? Corporate power? Like uh, in the governmental sense of the word? The we-will-throw-you-in-jail-if-you-don't-do-what-we-say kinda power? Er, no? Something else then... Sometimes I think liberals use "Corporate" as a prefixal curse word. Throw it in front of some other word, no matter how innocuous, for a phrase that shows you're on the right side in the battle for society's soul. Non-secular, of course - you know, a metaphoric soul. And finally we have "white Christian identity politics". Boy that's somethin' ain't it. Damn those white Christians... all identifying and shit. I presume black Christian identity politics are just peachy though, eh? Wouldn't wanna be racist...