Posted on 08/16/2010 8:17:45 AM PDT by Nachum
The left has collapsed.
Its political support has collapsed. Public opinion polls point to a historic repudiation of the president and the Democratic party this fall, something on the order of a 60-seat Republican gain in the House. The GOP has an outside shot at taking the Senate as well.
Its claim to intellectual integrity has collapsed. Paul Krugman, Ivy League professor, New York Times columnist and Nobel laureate (the holy trinity of the liberal establishment), has humiliated himself with a startlingly dishonest attack on Paul Ryan's budget proposal. Krugman, called out by Ryan, rebuked by honest analysts and unwilling to concede his errors, has retreated into uncharacteristic abashed silence.
Its Leninist discipline has collapsed. Last week, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs complained about the craziness of the professional left in the punditocracy. "Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs explained. "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian health care and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality. ... They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."
Members of the professional left hit back at Gibbs, dubbing the Obama White House the "amateur left."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
Oh you have know my ex-wife's lawyers too! (just kidding)
That, too! Thanks. This thread needs another great posters BUMP!
NEVER get in a fight with someone who buys ink by the BARREL! The Media will cover EVERYTHING up that the Dems do badly.
I wonder what the best equivalent would be for the left.
Get the Queen and they all perish.
You can tell because they seem unable to get through a web posting on any subject without resorting to profanities.
Adm. Yamamoto knew the United States very well.
He was also killed flying between two ships because we had broken the German code that the Japanese were STILL using! We were sure that the one bad thing about the total defeat of Nazi Germany was that, by then, the Japanese would have HAD to have figured out that we now OWNED their code!
But the Japanese still used the German code throughout the war. Not very smart!
Its political support has collapsed.
Yes it has. And it is a cycle that has repeated itself every time since 1921. The socialists get power, make huge progress and alienate the electorate. (We are here now) The electorate throws them out and puts Pubs in. The socialists go on R&R to recharge their batteries and put a new edge on their attacks. The Pubs meanwhile do nothing of substance to reverse the damage done by the socialists except maybe a slight symbolic gesture and eventually they get seduced by the Beltway and alienate the electorate and the socialists return. Lather, rinse, repeat. In essence the Pubs are morons who show up with Wiffle ball bats for a crew served weapons fight.
Unfortunately, so is the "right." symbolized by Republican party.
What a great way to put it!
Exactly. bttt
Monday, August 16, 2010
When Narratives Attack
by Robert Godwin, Ph.D (Clinical Psychologist)
Everybody's got one.
A narrative, that is. For reasons we will get into later, human beings are narrative-producing machines. Narratives are how we understand time -- how we link together experiences into a coherent and meaningful stream.
In order to do this, we must ignore the vast majority of "reality," sometimes appropriately, sometimes not. Just like the historian, we must select from the infinite pool of facts those we consider relevant. Thus, there can be no objective history outside the narrative, for it is the narrative that tells us what is relevant and historical.
As I've mentioned before, everyone comes into therapy with a narrative of their life. In fact, to a large extent, they come in because the narrative is "broken," so to speak. Either it's no longer making sense, or has run aground, or is unfulfilling, whatever.
The problem is, one's true narrative is never linear but multidimensional, both vertically and horizontally. For example, we have a conscious and an unconscious mind, a right and left cerebral hemisphere, an emotional nature and an intellect, spirit and psyche. Each of these can have different agendas and be at cross-purposes with other dimensions.
Freud focused on the conflicts between instinct, conscience, and ego, but there are also potential conflicts between, say, intellect and self-image, archetype and culture, self and ego, conscience and desire, biology and economics, spirit and tenure.
We call someone "insane" when their narrative has completely broken down into fragments, or when a part has hijacked the whole. But most people are more or less insane -- or perhaps unsane -- in the sense alluded to above. The opposite of this state is what we would call integration, in which all the parts are harmoniously participating in the narrative (a narrative which is meta-cosmic in nature).
In my experience, most people have to amputate certain parts of the self in order to keep their narrative functioning. When the pain of this amputation becomes too intense, that's when they come in for therapy (or experience a "breakdown" of some kind).
But most people do not seek therapy. Rather, they may self-medicate with drugs or alcohol, or distract themselves in work, sex, or power games, or act out in some other manner. The list of ways in which people may pull the wool over their own eyes is endless.
What we call the "news" is nothing but a narrative. But most importantly, it is just like the narrative of a neurotic person, who is neurotic precisely because of his defective narrative.
Thus, when things happen outside the narrative, he doesn't notice them. Or, if he can't do that, he might aggressively attack or devalue them.
From a psychological perspective, this is perfectly understandable. For example, if your self-image is invested in the idea that the world is catastrophically warming, you will be threatened by evidence that it is not.
The other day, Taranto made the point that "for white liberals of a certain age (read baby boomers), an important part of their self-image lies in the assumption that conservatives are racist."
The point of this self-serving narrative is obviously not to describe reality, but rather, to feel good about oneself. It is auto-therapy, as is so much of the liberal narrative. For the liberal, everyone who disagrees with him is racist, misogynist, "homophobic," "Islamophobic," "anti-science," contemptuous of the poor, etc. In each case, the characterization is simply a transparent projection deployed for the purpose of maintaining the self-flattering narrative.
If you want to know why the culture has become so "divisive," this is why. Liberal elites are so threatened by the collapse of their narrative on every level, that they cannot help lashing out in a primitive manner.
Thus William Kristol writes of "the Agenda Project," a major progressive group which "has launched the 'F*ck Tea' project," the purpose of which is to "to dismiss the Tea Party and promote the progressive cause."
"The 'F*ck Tea' movement -- that's what the left has come to.
They can't defend the results of Obama's policies or the validity of Krugman's arguments. They know it's hard to sustain an anti-democratic ethos in a democracy. They realize they've degenerated into pro-am levels of whining and squabbling. So they curse their opponents."
That's about as primitive as one can get and still remain in the realm of language. The only thing left after "f*ck you" is violent action.
But it is critical to bear in mind that state violence is different from personal violence. The state is a giant bully that has a kind of infinite reservoir of violence behind it, so it needn't necessarily behave with overt violence, since merely the threat is usually sufficient.
Change can be progressive, or it can be violent. Organic growth is a kind of change, but so too is a bullet to the head.
Our Constitution is supposed to protect us from the violent predation of government, which is why it is Job One for the left to transform it from a document that protects us from the state to one which defines what the state can do to you.
Thus, "If a judge (or ultimately the Supreme Court) says the Constitution allows the government to force you to buy health insurance, then its a done deal, regardless of whether the Constitution says so or not. Under such a scenario, the Constitution thus becomes a tool for social engineering rather than a protection against government excess, as it was originally intended."
And "as the ruling class has more and more isolated to themselves the power to dictate what is and is not an appropriate use of the blessings of liberty, we have seen a corresponding decrease in the actual liberty we enjoy."
So in Arizona, a judge says that the people have no right to protect themselves from illegal aliens, while in California another judge decides that henceforth marriage will means something it has never meant and cannot mean.
It is not so much that marriage between two men is "illegal." Rather, it is impossible, like being the father of your mother. But what is the left but violent insistence on the possibility of the impossible?
Unfortunately, this is only the beginning.
Whatever happens in November, it certainly won't be a cause for joy. Transient relief, maybe, but not joy, because when narratives break down, people are truly capable of anything..
The American people are slooowly arousing from thier deep slumber but the process is entirely to slow . There are still entirely too many of our countrymen who are more interested in the latest sit-com or talent show on the idiot box than what the vermin in govt are doing.
Bump!
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