More Finger-Wagging from the Faux Left

A long article by one Rebecca Solnit appeared at Common Dreams on Thursday, as well as at Huffington Post, and possibly elsewhere this week: Rain on Our Parade: A Letter to the Dismal Left

Ms Solnit set about scolding, at length - yawn inducing length in fact - anyone whose politics veer towards the left and who is not about to support President Obama in the November election. Other so-called liberals and "celebs" have scolded these individuals, such as myself, in similar fashion. Such sanctimonious scolding is irritating in the extreme. Ms Solnit is entitled to her views on the issues she raises; I and many others who think differently are entitled to ours. It'd have been quite easy to compose a post explaining her viewpoints without descending to insulting her readers.

For example her 2nd para:

O rancid sector of the far left, please stop your grousing! Compared to you, Eeyore sounds like a Teletubby. If I gave you a pony, you would not only be furious that not everyone has a pony, but you would pick on the pony for not being radical enough until it wept big, sad, hot pony tears. Because what we’re talking about here is not an analysis, a strategy, or a cosmology, but an attitude, and one that is poisoning us. Not just me, but you, us, and our possibilities.

And later on this gem - dearie me!!!

Still, every four years we are asked if we want to have our foot trod upon or sawed off at the ankle without anesthetic. The usual reply on the left is that there’s no difference between the two experiences and they prefer that Che Guevara give them a spa pedicure. Now, the Che pedicure is not actually one of the available options, though surely in heaven we will all have our toenails painted camo green by El Jefe.

I was very happy to see the comment thread beneath Ms Solnit's piece at Common Dreams double and treble in length over a couple of days, filled with views from people such as myself, but far more knowledgeable on US politics and far more eloquent.

"Dismal left" she calls us? In my view it is Ms Solnit's view that is dismal - dismally blinkered.

Tom Carberry's popular comment begins thus:

Ms. Solnit's cliche filled essay complains about the cliche of the lesser of two evils, because she must admit that she has hitched her wagon to Obama's stairway to heaven and declared the slaughter of Muslim children OK because "thousands" of American children will do better under Obamacare. (I can do cliches, too).

Ms. Solnit belongs to the amoral left, that seeks its own benefits, without regard to the costs paid by others. No matter what happens, well off "liberals" like Ms. Solnit will do fine, or at least she believes that.

We have two types of mainstream voters in Amerika -- moralistic conservative voters (such as in they oppose abortion, but don't mind if the child starves or dies without health insurance) and amoral liberal voters, who cannot take a moral stand on any issue, no matter how urgent................I had to read a long way into the article to see what Ms. Solnit deemed important enough to go along with war, torture, and mass murder. Obamacare and the potential promise of Obama maybe (or maybe not) coming out in favor of gay marriage. That seems like a poor bargain.

There are now around 550 comments on Ms Solnit's essay at Common Dreams, the majority of which match my own feelings. Ms Solnit's piece on Huffington Post collected more approval, something to be expected I guess - more readers of HuffPo are of the same ilk as Ms Solnit - Obama Apologists seems to be the label they've acquired.

A few more clips from the hundreds of comments at Common Dreams:

Jag_Levak

If Obama is truly representing hundreds of millions of people, then maybe that is where you should be trying to scrounge votes for him. He does not represent me. I didn't vote for a war surge, or drone assassinations, or drill baby drill, or trillions in bailouts to Wall St. or putting banksters in charge of the economy, or cutting backroom sweetheart deals with Pharma and insurance giants, or revocation of civil rights, or domestic spying on steroids, or the White House office for wrecking environmental regulations, or the sabotage of international environmental and arms-limitation treaties, or the crackdown on whistleblowers and public demonstration, or the ramped up war on medical marijuana, or putting business lobbyists in charge of food, agriculture and energy policy, or the aggressive pursuit of anti-environmental union-busting job-killing international trade deals. (And do you really think hundreds of millions of people *did* vote for those things?)

by cent erista:

The only thing more to blame than the politicians, are their apologists who refuse to demand more from them. Not only do these hope-fiends enable regressive policies by defending those who enact them, they thwart the efforts of the small minority who rail against them by trying to quell dissent through fear mongering and ridicule. This behavior can become so entrenched and their ego investment in protecting the politician so reactionary, that they actually, involuntarily, begin to become agents in support of things they claim to abhor...

8bit_glory

This article condescendingly makes its own argument against itself. So progressives are just supposed to turn a blind eye and shut up about Obama's remote-control slaughter in the Middle East because of some modest health insurance reform? That's just one example. I will never stop speaking out against the military-corporate takeover of Democracy, no matter what political party partakes in it.

To end with a wry ironic smile:

contrl-z

Pollyanna, I'm in complete agreement. I am so sick and tired of people complaining about the holocaust whenever I say Hitler was a snappy dresser. Can't people just stop always accentuating the negative?

FINGER-WAGGING

I'm not sure that I can relate the mini rant that follows to astrology, other than to comment that what it complains of might be seen to connect to one, or all, of the following: Virgoan criticism, Saturnian authoritative behaviour, Leonine assumption that they must surely know better than the Great Unwashed, Aquarian assumption that their knowledge and mental acuity is beyond reproach.

Finger-wagging: (see here)

The wagging finger of admonition beats up and down as if striking the culprit. This can be with a stable hand and just a finger way. It may also be done with the whole arm, giving an exaggerated striking movement.
A more polite version points downwards as it beats out an important point, perhaps tapping on something like a table.
The forefinger held up and stationary means 'wait' (perhaps as a threat of being used as a club otherwise).

The internet is full of people wagging fingers at other people. I don't take kindly to being a recipient of finger-wagging, by the way, especially when it comes to my personal beliefs, opinions and choices.

In the last few days I've read articles wagging metaphorical fingers at lefties who are not being supportive of President Obama, threatening not to vote for him come November. I mentioned one piece of finger-wagging by Martin Sheen in Monday's post; another of the most annoying pieces of this type I've seen lately came from Robert Parry, an otherwise well-respected journalist. He had the audacity to suggest that "Such people are vain, preening perfectionists who care more for their own self-righteousness than the fate of the world. Indeed, "leftists" who have refused to support the Democratic candidate - no matter who he is, no matter what he has done - are complicit in all the atrocities perpetrated by Republican presidents since 1968." Luckily, before El Parry's finger wagging morphed into my own head-banging I found an excellent rebuttal from Chris Floyd at Empire Burlesque. There's a link to Robert Parry's article within that piece.

Other lefties regularly wag fingers at their hapless fellows for not having had the good sense to see through Barack Obama's 2008 campaign mode, and were naive enough to have voted for him. The Wise Ones, of course, knew all the time what kind of a two-timing politician he really was/is.

Fingers are wagged by many whenever the matter of voting for third parties is raised. Republicans finger wag at all and sundry for not seeing, as they do (with their amazing, almost psychic insight?) that President Obama is a Marxist, socialist and his only aim is to bring down the USA. (Sigh.)

My own body language response to political finger-wagging of all stripes (after head-banging as necessary) ought to be, if I'm to retain any sanity at all, careful inspection of my fingernails signifying boredom and disinterest. Or...heck - if I don't laugh at it all I'll go stark starin' flippin' bonkers: