Anti-Powerfulism (The Left's Groucho mentality… 'I'm against it!')

Tech Central Station ^ | February 8, 2005 | Uriah Kriegel

[quidnunc]

President Bush's State of the Union address made clear that his plans for his second term will focus on two projects: the Greater Middle East Initiative and Social Security overhaul. The response from the other side of the aisle suggests that Democrats plan to spend the next four years fighting back these two projects. What Democrats have not yet offered, however, is an alternative set of projects, which might then be claimed to be better or more worthy of the nation's energy and capital than Bush's.

This is an emerging pattern not only in the Democratic party but in the worldwide political movement of the Left, and not only in the past few weeks but for almost a decade now.

That movement formed originally around anti-globalization activism and was consolidated through the opposition to the Iraq war. Its common thread is a certain kind of anti-Americanism and perhaps more generally a sort of "anti-powerfulism," which can be defined as the instinctual opposition to all who are powerful: the United States in the first instance, but the World Bank, WTO, etc. as well.

Observe that all three platforms — anti-globalization, anti-war, and anti-Americanism — are "anti-" platforms. They are all premised on an opposition to something. The worldwide left-wing movement has thus been defined in the past few years in reactive rather than active terms. The essence of the movement has been what it is against, not what it is for.

-snip-

[SAJ]

Good grief, mate! If you're going to quote Groucho, do it all.

Professor Quincy Adams Wagstaff in ''Horse Feathers'', wasn't it?

Are the lyrics to that tune -- pardon me -- 'Google-able'?

[backhoe]

 Groucho Marx Said It Best -- the Kook Left  -- the Groucho Marxists...  ( AKA, the "Wackadoo Wing..." )