Not Trusting the Left Blogs [update]

The very question of “trusting” the President illustrates the childish and shallow nature of the supposed “progressive” blogs. The Presidency is not a “reality TV” show or WWWF contest. The exercise of state power is inherently something that involves deceit, blood and gross injustice. The sainted FDR committed crimes that outrage the conscience and Obama will, by necessity, do the same. To govern, even the most principled person must continually make cold calculations about what interests get sacrificed, who gets thrown under the bus, what principles are worth fighting for now and what can be discarded on the faint hope of recovery later. The “left”‘s refusal to understand this basic reality goes hand in hand with its refusal to understand its own moral culpability for fecklessness.
Do we see proposals for a radical overhaul of the banking system in a way that would favor democracy and a more dynamic less oligarchical economy from the progressive lefters? No.[Note: Well, they tried, sort of: see]. What we get is “eek Timmy sux” and basically right wing nonsense about how mark-to-market accounting is the rock of civilization.  Al Giordano’s explication of what would happen if Obama was weak enough to dump Geithner was not even acknowledged in the pout-o-sphere. Do we get pressure for say, employee ownership of the auto companies? No. We get a bunch of whining about how poor widdle GM pwesident had to leave the job unlike the management of JP Morgan.

And on “intelligence” and civil liberties. Perhaps a glance at the church commission study would provide a fucking baseline for a reasonable critique. Push to withdraw from Iraq? Crickets. Smart proposal for Afghanistan? Zero. Radical critique of the cost of world wide US military presence? In your dreams. Discussion of stimulus? Nothing. Labor unions? Forget about it.

The bottom line is that the “progressive left” remains a social club which has no interest in evaluating the effectiveness its action or of actually building a movement for change. Validation of anger is about as sophisticated as we can get.