I couldn't help notice Montana Headlines' gratuitous swipe at the left netroots community today -- which is as mean-spirited as it is false. It all starts with Fox News "liberal," Kristen Powers, who called netroots leftys "ninnies" because of their "obsession about Obama's recent flip-flop on FISA":
Newsflash to the netroots and the media (which seems perpetually confused on this issue): The netroots are not the base of the Democratic Party.
Overwhelmingly white, male and highly educated, they're a loud anomaly in a party that's wholly dependent on the votes of African Americans, women and working-class whites.
First, Powers is about as "liberal" as Tokyo Rose was a good American patriot. Just as you'd expect misleading propaganda to fall from the lips of a personality on Axis radio, so should you expect a "liberal" promoted both by Fox News and the New York Post to be...well...not particularly up front about her motives. In short, she's the television version of a concern troll. Her mission: to drive a wedge between different groups in the Democratic party. (No wonder she's MH's favorite liberal!)
But is the progressive netroots "overwhelmingly white, male and highly educated"? The short answer: No. This is a movement who's "blogfather" is a first generation Latino-Greek who put himself through college with his military service. Several major blogs include women contributors or founders. As for "highly educated" -- what do Powers mean by that? College educated? Probably. PhDs? No. Would it matter anyway? No.
There's no doubt that the majority of bloggers are white men, that the netroots don't mirror the multicultural and class composition of the entire left. But -- unlike what MH insinuates -- that it's part of some institutional classism, sexism, and racism, inherent to the left -- well, all you have to do is look at the rightie 'sphere and the Republican establishment, which is overwhelmingly white and male, and you immediately realize that the marginalization of nonwhite, nonmale people and those of nonprofessional classes is a cultural problem. At least lefty bloggers, say, are trying to swim against the current.
To drum up the idea of a white, male overseer class in lefty politics, MH trots out a tired 80s era wisecrack that liberals seek to erect "a welfare state with a highly centralized government" and to install themselves as its bosses. Of course, what liberals and progressives want is an egalitarian society that offers all full and equal opportunity to succeed, prosper, and contribute to society. It is true that we don't always rule out government solutions or government-aided programs to ensure that egalitarianism, and that we think that government should be run as efficiently and effectively as possible and needs good, competent administrators to function. There's nothing wrong with working for the government -- if you do a good job.
Ironically, I suspect that not a few conservatives who read MH or LiTW are themselves members of government. They might not agree with MH's assessment as to our goverment workers' roles. Or they may. After all, which party was it that seeks to centralize government? Which president passed No Child Left Behind? Which president enacted the most far-reaching and intrusive domestic spy network in the history of the republic? Which president has blocked states' efforts to set its own legislative agendas, time after time? (Think California's emissions standards, or Montana's legalization medicinal marijuana.)
Of course, past and current Democratic members of government have been just as bad at clutching power and wanting to maintain or extend the power of the federal government. But isn't that more the result of the corrupting quality of money and power than it is of ideology? The natural reaction is to call for more sunlight on government activity -- but where are the conservatives in the call for ethics reform?
But the worst offense in MH's post was the insinuation that the netroots' problem with the recent FISA bill was a matter of a "transgression against progressive purity," and the proper subject of disdainful amusement.
Since when have civil liberties become a matter of "progressive purity"? Are we the only supporters of individuals' protections from unwarranted surveillance by the government? Are we the last group of people in the country who believing in inalieable rights? I'm not so sure we are -- and I'm certain we shouldn't be. Certainly there wasn't much support for the bill and for retroactive telecomm immunity, and certainly not from the Democratic "base," as Powers insinuated. Most folks shrugged, because they didn't really see the harm in it, and most Republicans and conservatives seemed to meekly support it because their "team" invented it.
But in the end, where you stand on the FISA bill reflects where you stand on constitutional guarantees of liberty. If you supported it, you think that certain freedoms and liberties should be curtailed in the interest of a greater national good. In short, you view our rights, in John Rawls' words, as a "socially useful illusion." The problem with that, of course, is that now any right can be limited if it's seen to serve public and societal utility -- but just who decides what's good, just, and useful?
In the end, if you opposed the FISA bill, you support inviolate rights, which extend even to those you don't like or disagree with. In 2009, when Barack Obama is sworn in as president, and our nation's intelligency agencies start tuning their equipment into the conversations and personal information of conservative activists and ideologues, I'll still oppose FISA.
It's ironc then, in the second half of MH's post, after a lengthy rehash of regurgitated talking-points, he writes this:
It is unfortunately true, of course, that all too many posts in regional blogs like those found in the Montana blogosphere simply rehash talking points about national politics that have already been endlessly regurgitated.
Indeed. |
