While shuffling through a stack of magazines at the barber shop yesterday, I came across the August 9th issue of The New York Magazine. While not particularly familiar with the publication, one of the articles caught my eye. It was a conversation between Norman Mailer (NM) and his son John (JBM) entitled What I’ve Learned About Rage.
If I was more into the political scene in New York I probably would have realized what was coming but I somehow confused the name Norman Mailer with Norman Rockwell (heh), so I read on preparing to receive some fatherly advice about managing emotions. I got a lesson, alright, but certainly not the one I was expecting.
From the article, I gather that the Mailers are insiders with the New York Democratic (Socialist) Party. Besides being further proof that the mainstream media is in the tank for Kerry, the article was mostly how the Democratic Party can arrange protests during the upcoming Republican (Conservative) National Convention in New York. Those protests have already begun. The goal is to cause the most disruption to the Convention while simultaneously gaining the most favorable press for the Democrats. Disgusting, but dirty political tricks are nothing new to either side. The elder Mailer even suggested those sneaky Republicans really, really want lots of nasty riots and so will be secretly stirring up protests against their own Convention. I can not speak for the Republican planners, but that thought certainly gave me a rather nauseating glimpse into Mr. Mailer’s political mind.
Anyway, what really flabbergasted me was a something only a few paragraphs into the article where the younger Mailer dropped this little bombshell:
JBM I feel we’ve entered a realm where the question is, whose propaganda is better? The left (Democrat) is beginning to figure out that they can’t beat the right (Republican) with intelligent argument. They need punch phrases that get to the heart of the average American…
Excuse me? Your party can not win with intelligent argument? Is that because you have no intelligent arguments to make or because the majority of people are too stupid to understand? This suggests either a very deep flaw with your basic tenets or a very dim view of the population in general. JBM continued with:
… If that’s the case, what is the future for our country?
What indeed? The elder Mailer had a ready answer.
NM That’s not my first worry right now…
Double excuse me? You do not care what happens to the country as long as you win? I am beginning to understand why your party is bereft of intelligent argument!
Now, maybe I am just naïve. Maybe this is really how all politicos feel. But when was the last time you supported a group who proudly proclaimed: “Our side is wrong. We do not care. If we make enough noise, you idiots will still vote for us”?
It does not surprise me in the slightest. These paladins of the vastly over-rated and self-reverential New York smart set are so divorced from objective reality that they might as well be from Pluto.
I think the problem with the Left in America is that since the 70’s they have slipped into an increasing parochial and egocentric subculture.
Once the American Left could draw support from a large swath of American culture. Basically, anybody that wasn’t a wealthy business person could sign up. The Democratic party was guided by intellectuals, working class people, farmers. The party was no more culturally liberal than the Republican party.
In the 60’s however, the intellectuals took over. The party’s positions began to be constructed by people all of whom had very similar experiences in certain very narrow economic specialties. They lost touch with the pragmatic realities that most Americans had to deal with.
I think the major problem with people like Mailer is that they have absolutely no experience working within the context of a large organization like a corporation, the military or a government bureaucracy. Mailer has no gut level intuition about how difficult it is to get task accomplished on a day-to-day basis. Most Americans today, however, do have this direct experience and it has caused them to lose faith in centrally-managed deeply-hierarchal solutions to problems. Mailer thinks positively of programs like socialized medicine but most Americas just see a train-wreck waiting to happen.
Going forward intellectuals will have to acknowledge that they possess no special understanding of the world. and they are not the worlds elite but rather just another of the many economic specialties that modern world needs to function. They aren’t the natural aristocracy but just another group of peasants that talk funny.
Why do you have to drag a perfectly respectable Planet (Or Kuiper Belt Object if you prefer) into this?
Let’s insult the superstring theorists instead, and simply say that the Mailers live in another universe.
“Our side is wrong. We do not care. If we make enough noise, you idiots will still vote for us”?
No, that’s not the official position of the Left.
Their position is:
“Our side is right, allways, by definition. We are infallible. But the idiots out there (the voters) don’t get it. They are too dumb and/or crazy to understand the issues and our arguments. To get their vote you must speak in language they will be moved by. You have to address their emotions. So we nominate a war hero, he uses pseudomilitary jargon (‘reporting for duty’), he makes patriotic sounding noises, he uses the word ‘strong’ ten times in every speech. That’s what the idiots respond to. “
Well yes, but you can’t really assert that the mainstream media is in the tank for kerry and cite a boston globe article. the overwhelming coverage given to that swift boat group, which didn’t have a wink of proof to back up its allegations, is evidence enough that the mainstream media is more than playing kindly for bush.
“you can’t really assert that the mainstream media is in the tank for kerry”
Oh really?
http://www.techcentralstation.com/082704J.html
The scripted democrat party was on view in Boston at their convention.
The real democrat party will be on view this week in the streets of New York.
Watch, and learn.
Hmmm.
“Well yes, but you can’t really assert that the mainstream media is in the tank for kerry and cite a boston globe article. the overwhelming coverage given to that swift boat group, which didn’t have a wink of proof to back up its allegations, is evidence enough that the mainstream media is more than playing kindly for bush.”
I think you’re not looking at the issues hard enough. There’s a number of serious allegations made with a great deal of supporting evidence. And the people making those allegations aren’t wild-eye nutcases with black helicopter theories. These are people who’ve won Silver Stars and Bronze Stars by the bucket full. These are people who retired from the Navy as Lt. Commanders, Commanders and Rear Admirals (at the least).
In addition I need to point out that the Kerry campaign has retreated on at least two separate allegations.
1. Kerry did not spend 12/24/1968 in Cambodia. A charge Kerry has made at least 50 times in the last 35 years. A charge Kerry made even on the Senate floor in a debate on Nicaragua.
2. Kerry was fraudulently awarded his first Purple Heart for a self-inflicted wound.
This is serious stuff. And the fact that it has been Kerry who has been proven wrong and not the SwiftVets shows who is in the right here.
Oliver North, Townhall.com: Bring it on, John
Three Purple Hearts? That is odd, and definitely suspect.
How on Earth does a soldier get three purple hearts?
And what’s more, how does a soldier have 3 purples and not a scratch?
This last Sunday being very high humidity day and not outdoor-activity-inducing, I stayed inside and was watching the continuous footage of “protesters passage” at Madison Square Garden yesterday on C-SPAN cable, and was just amazed at lack of logic of their slogans (among other things).
Example. Two people marching together; one carrying (Kerrying?heh) placard “Buch+Dick=Fucked”, the other – “Fucking, not fighting!”
Make up your mind, dudes!
This morning I was 20 min earlier at work – subway cars were empty, streets bared of people, more room everywhere – all those scared by GOP out of town. My only wish is that those who left would stay wherever they are …