My friend Marcus used to get me riled up simply by hovering in my personal space too closely and going on and on about what does and does not constitute “objectively good” music. But the summer of 1996 is behind us, and now he’s on to new ways of driving me batty: by sending articles my way.

Instigator

Subject line: The problem with the American left / To: Ramsey, Ozzy, Gordo, Rawn, ANP, Azzum

He then includes a few article chunks, and then quips:

Yup, that hits the nail on the head.

Of course, he does all this during my thirteen-hour day at the office, leaving me no recourse but to print the article and wait until now to formulate an opinion and reply. And not just reply-all, I mean, reply-all (muzzafutza!).

The article’s entitled The American Left’s Silly Victim Complex, and it’s written by a graduate of a very progressive and possibly first-or-second-tier liberal arts institution whose daddy is famous.

The author’s background illuminates the obvious author, and thus article, bias: he assumes that all liberals are just like him.

Well, allow me to retort.

-- Samuel L.’s character in Pulp Fiction

Author Taibbi writes that liberals are

easily mesmerized by half-baked pseudo-intellectual nonsense, and quick to run from anything like real conflict or responsibility. [They shy] away from hardcore economic issues … and [have] perfected a high-handed tone of moralistic finger-wagging, but its organizational capacity is almost nil. It says a lot, but does very little… In reality it’s the saddest collection of cowering, ineffectual ninnies every assembled under one banner… The American left is basically just a noisy Upper West side cocktail party for the college-graduate class.

A noisy Brooklyn cocktail party attended by many people with advanced degrees (plural) and only one non-college-graduate

Alright, for the record, I should make clear that my political stance has streaks of Libertarianism (note word “capitalist” in blog header) with a dash of “Don’t be a dumb-ass.” To sum, current POV ANP:

1. Hands off, gubmint
2. Before we start mucking with stuff, let’s take a step back, think critically, and not be dumb-asses
3. Rich people benefit disproportionately from our stable economy and thus should be taxed progressively
4. We need to address root causes and enough with the band-aids; the psychology of victim-hood needs to get fixed pronto else we really will become a lazy Welfare state (see also: sluggish socialists) (not to be confused with sluggish socialites)
5. Free markets, but we do a piss poor job of ensuring an educated consumer, and need to put more money into better public schools starting twenty years ago. Otherwise it’s just consumer buggery.
6. Sales tax on tampons pisses me off

So maybe I don’t even qualify as a liberal, but I sure as heck don’t consider myself a conservative (especially not by today’s bastardized definition of the word).

But I do agree with the author’s assessment that many liberals are disorganized, ineffectual numb-nuts who don’t understand basic economic theories and are unlikely to have actually produced anything substantial in their lifetimes.

Then again, I think most people are disorganized, ineffectual numb-nuts who don’t understand basic economic theories and are unlikely to have actually produced anything substantial in their lifetimes!

Unfortunately, the author doesn’t quit while he’s ahead. Much like me, he has to keep running his yap:

… The people who are the public voice of American liberalism rarely have any real connection to the ordinary working people whose interests they putatively champion. They tend instead of be well-off, college-educated yuppies from California or the East Coast, and hard as they try to worry about food stamps or veterans’ rights or securing federal assistance for heating oil bills, they invariably gravitate instead to things that actually matter to them — like the slick Al Gore documentary on global warming, or the “All Things Considered” interview on NPR with the British author of Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. They haven’t yet come up with something to replace the synergy of patrician and middle-class interests that the New Deal represented.

Well-off, college-educated yuppies during their happy golden bygone days

Hmm. Okay, he makes his argument marginally defensible in that he qualifies his target as “the public voice of American liberalism” rather than liberals as a whole.

But even this makes me sweaty. Because, let’s be honest, he’s assuming that all “well-off, college-educated yuppies from California or the East Coast” started out as “well-off, college-educated yuppies from California or the East Coast.” In Tibbi Mango Lassi’s world, no one with “any real connection to the ordinary working people” could possibly, themselves, have turned into a “well-off, college-educated” yuppie on the East Coast.

Meet Joe.  I grew up with him.  We had a really great conversation during my high school reunion.  He works in a factory making air brakes.

Chicken Tikki Massala continues:

“It’s also a cultural thing,” [Bernie] Sanders [Vermont Senator] says. “A lot of these folks really don’t have a lot of contact with working-class people. They’re not comfortable with working-class people. They’re more comfortable with environmentalists, with well-educated people.”

I would agree that in general, this is true — but again, it ignores many of us whose sense of justice comes from seeing those we grew up with still locked in that same place.  (And I’m not talking geography, either.)  Not because of talent or desire, but because of structures in place that effectively keep people in “their” place. And those of us who have gotten our fancy degrees and would like to be more involved in matters of social justice are busy making money to pay for said degrees.

How much money?

According to a 2004 Pew report, Americans who self-identify as liberals have an average annual income of $71,000 — the highest-grossing political category in America. They’re also the best-educated class, with over one in four being post-graduates.

But Corn Niblets continues to sloppily slosh his way — not unlike the manner in which I am currently sloppily sloshing — to his bottom line:

… having rich college grads acting as the political representatives of the working class isn’t just bad politics. It’s also silly. And there’s probably no political movement in history that’s been sillier than the modern American left… American college types don’t have to fight for shit anymore.

So people with GEDs leading the charge is the answer?!  Not identifying politically ambitious smarties whose roots are not entirely disconnected from the working class?!

This is right about where I go ape-shit and lose all sense of decorum (ha!  as if!) and storm out of the room, making Marcus feel like he’s won an argument while I fume and get all emotional and pout.

I’m not concluding this here. Because it ties neatly into an article that Aleeece put on my radar.

It’s late. I need sleep. More TK.

Meanwhile, I’m looking at a certain esq. in Ind. and tapping my foot impatiently w/r/t when the hell she’s going to motorvate and get involved in politics.  I’ll make the campaign posters!