Sad Observation

20 Comments

1. 

   Anonymous on April 22, 2014 at 9:50 am

   The first two comments start with: “Man, you have hit the nail on the head …” and “Yes, thanks for posting this…”

   What’s ironic, Boo, is that THIS post is composed entirely of finger-pointing and detached cynicism.

   You can’t scold people into sincerity. That’s not how humans work. So what’s your plan to engender sincerity? If you don’t have one other than ‘scold more and clap louder,’ you’re part of the problem.

   • 

     BooMan on April 22, 2014 at 10:00 am

     It’s an infinite regression of irony!!

     • 

       Anonymous on April 22, 2014 at 11:34 am

       Ha! Funny.

       But the question remains. How does a political movement/party promote sincerity?

       • 

         NickT on April 22, 2014 at 1:12 pm

         Well, you start by looking at the polling on an issue and then work really hard on the appropriate facial expressions and language until you believe what you are saying.

       • 

         Arthur Gilroy on April 23, 2014 at 2:42 pm

         By telling the truth, steggies. Something both wings of the UniParty have not done for decades. In a recent reply I quoted from a site called The Vineyard of the Saker.

         Here are some excerpts of his take on the fall of the U.S.S.R and how the U.S. is now coming to the same fate through the same basic mistake.

         How the Ukrainian crisis will eventually bring down the AngloZionist Empire

         —snip—

          What really brought down the Soviet Union was something entirely different: an unbearable cognitive dissonance or, to put it more simply, an all-prevailing sense of total hypocrisy.

         —snip—

         …with his anti-Stalin campaign Khrushchev basically told the Soviet people that what used to be white yesterday is henceforth to be considered black and that what was black is now white.  On a deeper level, that also showed that the Soviet Union was ruled by complete hypocrites who had no personal beliefs and who stood for nothing except for their own power.

         The poison of disillusionment and cynicism injected by Khrushchev and his clique acted slowly, but surely, and by the time Leonid Brezhnev came to power (1964) it had already discreetly permeated all of Soviet society.  By the 1980 it was omnipresent at all the levels of society, from the lowest and poorest to the top party officials.  I don’t want to go into all the details, but I will say that the fact that almost nobody stood up to defend the Soviet system in 1991 and in 1993 is a direct result of that poison’s erosion of the Soviet society.  By the 1990s everybody knew that even if the ideals of Communism were good (which some still did believe while some did not), the modern Soviet society was built on a gigantic lie which nobody was willing to fight for, nevermind die for it.

         That rot of disillusionment and cynicism is also what defined the 1990s and the “democratic nightmare” of the Eltsin years. People now say that this was the time when “every young Russian boy wanted to become a Mafia Don and every Russian girl a prostitute” – not quite literally true, of course, but generally true nonetheless.

         —snip—

         How does that all apply to the AngloZionist Empire and the Ukraine?

         It is quite obvious, really.  I tend to agree with Alexander Mercouris, Mark Sleboda and Mark Hackard when they say that the USA, ruled by incompetent and poorly educated politicians (rather than by professional diplomats or real statemen) probably expected Russia to roll-over and accept a Banderastani regime in power in the Ukraine.  And when Russia refused to accept that and pushed back, the AngloZionists made their initial miscalculation even worse by dramatically increasing their rhetoric and by insisting that black was white and white was black.

         For the AngloZionist a neo-Nazi armed insurgency which seizes power in contradiction with an agreement it had signed less than 24 hours before is a “legitimate representative of the Ukrainian people”.  The Baderists are philosemites and democrats, while the people in the eastern Ukraine are either Jew-hating extremists or Russian agents.  When the folks in the western Ukraine engage in a campaign of terror, murder and looting, that is an expression of democracy, when the people in the east seize SBU buildings it is terrorism.  When Yanukovich was faced by protesters the US demanded that he not use any force at all, not even cops with sidearms, when the junta leader Iatseniuk faces protesters, he is acting with praiseworthy restraint when he sends in tanks, artillery pieces and combat aircraft.  The referendum in Crimea is illegitimate because it was allegedly conducted at the point of a gun, while the proposed upcoming Presidential election will be legitimate even though they will be organized and conducted by bone fide neo-Nazis and even though two candidates get assaulted and cannot campaign.  I could continue to multiply the example here ad nauseam, but you get the point: what the AngloZionists are declaring urbi et orbi is basically that black is white, the earth is flat, 2+2=3, up is down, etc.  They are doing exactly the same than what Khrushchev did in the USSR: they are showing their own people that they believe in nothing and stand for nothing except their own power.

         Not that the American people need much convincing, I would add.

         In my admittedly subjective opinion the level of disgust of most American people with the Federal government is already sky high.  Sure, most people feel impotent and believe that there is nothing they can do about it.  When they vote for peace, they get more war.  When they vote for less taxes, they get more.  When they vote for more civil rights, they get less.  There is an entire generation of Americans out there which is as disillusioned and as disgusted with their own rulers as the Soviets were with their rulers in  the 1970s and 1980s.

         Interestingly, there is definitely a strong anti-regime movement of American patriots out there.  These are folks who have the wisdom to differentiate between, on one hand, their country, their people, the ideals upon which the US society was originally built, and, on the other hand, regime in DC and the 1% of the population whose interests this regime works for.  Amazing, no?  The Soviet Union had its formal nomenklatura while the USA has it own, informal, one.  About 1% of the population in each case.

         You want more uncanny parallels?  Sure!  How about

         1.   A bloated military budget resulting in an ineffective military
         2.   A huge and ineffective intelligence community
         3.   A crumbling public infrastructure
         4.   A world record in the per-capita ratio of incarcerated people (US GULag)
         5.   A propaganda machine which nobody trusts any more
         6.   An internal dissident movement which the regime tries to keep silent
         7.   A systematic use of violence against the citizens
         8.   An increase in tensions between Federal and local authorities
         9.   An industry whose main exports are weapons and energy
         10. A population fearful of being spied on by the internal security services
         11. A systematic assimilation of dissent with espionage and terrorism
         12. A all-prevailing paranoia about internal and external enemies
         13. A financially catastrophic over-reach of the empire across the planet
         14. An awareness that the entire planet hates you
         15. A subservient press-corps of presstitutes who never dare to ask the real questions
         16. A sky-high rate of substance abuse
         17. A young generation which believes in nothing at all
         18. An educational system in free-fall (the Soviet one was much better, btw)
         19. A disgust with politics by the general public
         20. A massive and prevailing amount corruption on all levels of power

         These are just a few examples which apply as much to the USSR of the 1980 as it does to the 2014 USA.

         —snip—

         My main point is not that the USSR and USA are the exact same, but only that the similarities between the two are becoming uncanny and numerous.

         In conclusion and to put things simply: what the AngloZionist are openly and publicly defending in the Ukraine is the polar opposite of what they are supposed to stand for.  That is an extremely dangerous thing to do for any regime and the AngloZionist Empire is no exception to that rule.  Empire often crumble when their own people become disillusioned and disgusted with massive discrepancy between what the ruling elites say and what they do and as a result, it is not so much that the Empire is faced with formidable enemies as it is the fact that nobody is willing to stand up – nevermind die – in defense of it.

         —snip—

         Booman above uses the words “detached cynicism” to describe what is really simply another kind of detachment. Detachment from the suspension of disbelief that is necessary for people to swallow the rhetoric of the U.S. in the face of massive and consistent contradictions regarding that rhetoric that are implicit in its actions.

         We are rapidly approaching a time where we will have to pay for the sins of our rulers if we do not stop (s)electing them in media-fixed elections.

         It is past time that we wake the fuck up.

         Booman will call this “cynicism.”

         I simply call it the realities of the situation on the ground.

         So it goes.

         AG

   • 

     Geov Parrish on April 22, 2014 at 3:21 pm

     I actually just read through that entire thread, because that’s not what I had remembered at all. And with a very few exceptions, what I read then and just re-read was a bunch of commenters sincerely struggling with how to both make a difference and survive emotionally in a time when there’s no clear path for either. I don’t agree with all of the commenters, bur almost nothing (except AG, who’s sui generis) is nearly as cynical and detached as this “sad observation.”

     My theory of activism is that it works in concentric circles. You always wind up changing yourself – by standing for what you believe in, by having the courage of your convictions, by not giving in to cynicism or despair. You also model that behavior for the people around you, and influence them. On a good day, you might influence a community. You might get a policy changed. On a really good day, you might beat city hall. And on a really, really good day, you just might change the world.

     On most days you don’t change the world. On a lot of days you have no idea what impact you’re having on policy, and you face setbacks as well as victories along the way. Regardless, caring about the world around you, and trying to change it, almost always means you’ve changed your own life for the better.

     Gandhi, of course, had it more succinctly: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” I want a world with a sense of humor, but ironic and detached? No thanks.

     • 

       MNPundit on April 22, 2014 at 7:15 pm

       Can you even post on the front page anymore?

       • 

         BooMan on April 22, 2014 at 10:28 pm

         He still has front-paging privileges.  I think he’s kind of busy with local political work.  

         • 

           MNPundit on April 23, 2014 at 3:02 pm

           Too bad, he’s the front pager I always felt best represented my views here. At least he hasn’t quit! 🙂

2. 

   Chris Bellomy on April 22, 2014 at 10:21 am

   Old attitudes die hard, but I’ve always been an anti-rebel. I’ve always thought that the positive vision sold by politicians like FDR and cheerfully repeated by pop culture figures like Will Rogers was essential to regaining that degree of political dominance. Even Reagan knew how to do the sunny attitude. It just requires a belief that things can be better, and that the people are capable of making them that way. Get people to believe in themselves again, and we can move forward.

   • 

     Don Durito on April 22, 2014 at 11:13 am

     Not only believing in ourselves, but each other – that seems to be the missing ingredient. The cynical pose that has been perfected over the last couple decades has been a death blow to the sort of solidarity that not only leftists like myself, but liberals/progressives need in order for us to have any hope of anything beyond rear-guard actions to salvage pieces of what our ancestors fought tooth and nail for.

     I don’t know the causal direction, of course, but it does seem to me that the last great waves of social progress coincided with utopian novels, as well as utopian visions in the other arts. There is a dearth of utopianism to be found in the artistic and literary worlds. We could use a bit of that again – not because utopias become real (far from it), but because they encourage us to dream of something better…and ideally to work toward those dreams.

     But yeah, the bitter cynicism that pervaded the countercultures available to me in my youth, and which seem to have been mainstreamed to a certain extent, needs to go. Rebellion for the sake of rebellion is stupid, counterproductive, and plays into the hands of the very bastards we need to be fighting against, and hurts the very people we need to be serving.

     • 

       JeffL on April 22, 2014 at 12:20 pm

       “Not only believing in ourselves, but each other – that seems to be the missing ingredient.”

       Obama could have said that.  He often did using other phrases.  And it’s true.

     • 

       Marie2 on April 22, 2014 at 4:12 pm

       …the bitter cynicism that pervaded the countercultures

       That was the anti-counterculture.  Those that felt resentment for having missed out on it because they were too young.  Heavy metal.  Punk.  

       Or those that were there that couldn’t choose between remaining engaged and angry or disengaged and ignorant.        

       • 

         keirdubois on April 22, 2014 at 7:47 pm

         I think that’s why I’ve never been much of a metal or punk fan, despite being a suburban white male born in the 70s–the prime demographic for both.

         Oh sure, there are one or two metal-ish bands I like, and the one positive aspect of punk (“anyone can do it, skills optional!”) meant something to me, but I was never angry or angsty enough to enjoy the popular versions of either.

         Which, naturally, got me othered out of my own demo.

3. 

   JeffL on April 22, 2014 at 12:12 pm

   Detached cynicism is understandable.  I don’t personally know anyone who hasn’t gone through a phase of it – whether for a couple of years or a couple of decades.  We’ve got amazing posturing and kabuki from state and federal politicians.  We’ve got a traditional news media controlled by corporations that will promote anything that gains higher Nielsen numbers.  It’s overwhelming.  The frustration is intolerable sometimes.  Why not drop out altogether and get back to just making a living and BBQing on weekends?

   But I think there is a path through that cynicism.  And each of us has the ability to see and take that path.  To me, it takes learning how government works (and doesn’t), hope and voting.  A sad number of “progressives” don’t seem to understand the importance of midterm elections or how the American system depends on compromise and two parties.  Hope isn’t “wishful thinking” but is a commitment to a choice to continue fighting the good fight, instead of giving up in despair.  And we need to improve voter rights, networks for registration and GOTV.

   If we’re focused on these basics, we have less time for our “I’m leftier than thou” attitudes.  That is unless of course, we’re still invested in promoting the cynicism because it helps us make a buck.

   About your phrase “believing in this country” from the other post.  We can’t talk about believing in this country until we are ready to look at it realistically, warts and all.  White progressives in particular need to catch up on their knowledge about the African American experience and Native American histories.  

   • 

     Anonymous on April 22, 2014 at 8:21 pm

     I suspect that there’s nothing more cynical than decrying ‘I’m leftier than thou’ attitudes. Most of the people shouting about how leftie they are are completely sincere. They are in many ways our greatest reservoir of sincerity. They really, really care, and they’re not afraid of showing it.

     Take the ‘Kill the bill’ers. You can criticize them for naivete, ignorance, utopianism, or the inability to count votes–but goddamn were most of them sincere.

     • 

       NickT on April 23, 2014 at 12:45 am

       “A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.”

       ― Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist

     • 

       JeffL on April 23, 2014 at 12:53 pm

       You and I happen  to have a fundamental difference in how we define “I’m leftier than thou” attitudes.

       I really don’t care to elaborate though because it really isn’t my main point.

4. 

   on April 22, 2014 at 1:34 pm

   Irony is a defense for living in a world of lies.

5. 

   Errol on April 22, 2014 at 2:02 pm

   I think it has to do with the ppl one meets. ppl make an impact, they become models for what is possible