Loud Applause
Walter Kirn is filling in at AndrewSullivan.com right now. His posts are the best I've ever read on a blog before, not kidding. I hope when his turn is up, he'll take a page from Sully's book and start up his own WalterKirn.com.
Anyway, both posts so far are great, and I highly recommend them to you. I'd like to comment on the "Ideas Please" post, or the 8/15 entry if you prefer. It hits on something I've been feeling for quite some time. We're caught in an epic tragedy right now. Grasping more and more tightly at "our way of life" and symbols of permanence like the Bill of Rights, vowing to not let the terrorists destroy either. As Kirn notes, this is a bit like watching Lear... though I can only pray the insanity has not yet set in.
But he does hit at the solution, a time-honored one at that. Don't stay the course, change, evolve, and grow. That has always been America's secret. We can change, we can grow. Whether we do it quickly enough may be an existential question, but that it needs to be done seems manifest.
I'm going to take this a slightly different direction now. Instead of focusing on Terror, the Bill of Rights, and our current situation in Iraq, or as Kirn puts it: fighting the Gulf War over again, this time with feeling, I'm going to focus on the problem I see with many activist liberal bloggers. Indeed, I'm going to focus on the Democratic party, and perhaps see how it reflects the general tenor of the country as Kirn sees it.
Liberal activist bloggers... they call themselves progressives. And they constantly beat the drum of the "progressive blogosphere" and its wondrous "dialogue." Yet, when you get right down to it, most of the "Democrats from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party", or "Reform Democrats", are nothing more than nostalgic throwbacks.
They want the party to be pure true blue. Click here for a perfect example of the purification ritual, or the change without growth solution. Chris Bowers has this to say to those who don't necessarily support full gay marital rights: "Fuck them."
Sure is passionate, but it isn't growth, it isn't change, it is just shutting off dialogue and running back to symbols, running back to slogans, being "more Democratic" than those others, all the while reinacting every tragedy ever written. The ideas of how to run the party offered by liberal activists bloggers like Mr. Bowers are merely old, standby 60s era activist laundry lists with a sprinkle of Clinton-era boominomics. All of it slickly packaged in a cellophane wrapper, inherited from a busted dotcom bubbly dream. Were it only so easy friends.
I wish complex problems could be solved by simple solutions. I wish we could just put on our throwback jerseys and be the party in power again. I wish the country could simply be "more" American and by wearing suits on Fridays once more, beat back the terrorist menance. But we can't. Nothing is that simple. It takes hard work, dedication, and gritty determination. But more importantly, it takes the courage to change. Show me a "reform Democrat" with that type of courage, show me a country brave enough to change things on a dime. You do that, and you'll see victory for both sides of the coin.
Anyway, both posts so far are great, and I highly recommend them to you. I'd like to comment on the "Ideas Please" post, or the 8/15 entry if you prefer. It hits on something I've been feeling for quite some time. We're caught in an epic tragedy right now. Grasping more and more tightly at "our way of life" and symbols of permanence like the Bill of Rights, vowing to not let the terrorists destroy either. As Kirn notes, this is a bit like watching Lear... though I can only pray the insanity has not yet set in.
But he does hit at the solution, a time-honored one at that. Don't stay the course, change, evolve, and grow. That has always been America's secret. We can change, we can grow. Whether we do it quickly enough may be an existential question, but that it needs to be done seems manifest.
I'm going to take this a slightly different direction now. Instead of focusing on Terror, the Bill of Rights, and our current situation in Iraq, or as Kirn puts it: fighting the Gulf War over again, this time with feeling, I'm going to focus on the problem I see with many activist liberal bloggers. Indeed, I'm going to focus on the Democratic party, and perhaps see how it reflects the general tenor of the country as Kirn sees it.
Liberal activist bloggers... they call themselves progressives. And they constantly beat the drum of the "progressive blogosphere" and its wondrous "dialogue." Yet, when you get right down to it, most of the "Democrats from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party", or "Reform Democrats", are nothing more than nostalgic throwbacks.
They want the party to be pure true blue. Click here for a perfect example of the purification ritual, or the change without growth solution. Chris Bowers has this to say to those who don't necessarily support full gay marital rights: "Fuck them."
Sure is passionate, but it isn't growth, it isn't change, it is just shutting off dialogue and running back to symbols, running back to slogans, being "more Democratic" than those others, all the while reinacting every tragedy ever written. The ideas of how to run the party offered by liberal activists bloggers like Mr. Bowers are merely old, standby 60s era activist laundry lists with a sprinkle of Clinton-era boominomics. All of it slickly packaged in a cellophane wrapper, inherited from a busted dotcom bubbly dream. Were it only so easy friends.
I wish complex problems could be solved by simple solutions. I wish we could just put on our throwback jerseys and be the party in power again. I wish the country could simply be "more" American and by wearing suits on Fridays once more, beat back the terrorist menance. But we can't. Nothing is that simple. It takes hard work, dedication, and gritty determination. But more importantly, it takes the courage to change. Show me a "reform Democrat" with that type of courage, show me a country brave enough to change things on a dime. You do that, and you'll see victory for both sides of the coin.
posted by Federalist X at 11:15 AM
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