Perhaps the best perspective would begin by seeing the 'ideology' of _both_ parties as one of _Extreme Liberalism_. There is, within the realm of respectable politics _no_ conservative position and _no_ left position; there are only variations in a naked liberalism. And since there is so little substantive difference between the two competing groups of politicians, they must exaggerate the more or less imaginary differences of style or particular issues. As the substantial difference narrows, the rhetorical difference intensifies.
This narrowness (or non-existence) of diffeence on substance has an important impact on perception of what is and what is not "possible." And that narrowing magnifies what throughout the last century has been the acceptable bounds of political discourse, bounds which the media have (in effect) assumed it is their responsibility to maintain. This is why, for example, in reporting on anti-war rallies during the '60s the _content_ of the speeches, the arguments made, were never mentioned. Please note: it was not that the arfguments were distorted; nor was it that those arguments were criticized unfairly: Their very existence was ignored.
The word "horror" appears overa and over again in Ted Morgan's book, and it is entirely appropriate that it does. Because what drove the anti-war movement was precisely increasing horror at the magnitude of the u.s. beastiality in pursuing the war against Vietnam. And this is why I am still, after seeral days, in a growing rage at what I am beginning to see as a real betrayal of our movement by Mario Savio in focusing on the private motives (or supposed motivesd) behind the intensity or that movement. To accept Mario's statement as accurate is in effect to deny the horror of what the U.S. was doing in Vietnam, it is to destroy our history, to deny that we ever excisted except as we were presented in the liesd of the Media at that time and ever since. No one would listen to us then, and it seems that even among leftists, no one will listen to us now. That horror is absorbed into and muffled by myths about the individuals who cried out against it.
Carrol
-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of SA Sent: Friday, February 25, 2011 11:45 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Fwd: [New post] Polarization
On 2/25/2011 12:22 PM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> What to make of this? What to make of the fact that Dem leader Harry
Reid's voting record ties him with the nominal socialist Bernie Sanders to
put them both among the most liberal members of the Senate? Politics
certainly doesn't feel polarized-there looks to be a suffocating consensus
in favor of the status quo. Is it that one party is insanely right wing and
the other is just tepidly so? Is that what polarization looks like?
There's a misunderstanding of the concept of Congressional polarization. It's about relative positioning, not absolute positioning. In other words, it's not about ideological intensity, it's about ideological consistency.
Polarization doesn't mean that those toward the left are moving further left and those toward the right are moving further right. It just means those more toward the left are getting more consistent in their more-left voting, while those toward the right getting more consistent in their more-right voting. It means that Chuck Schumer is voting with Republicans a smaller percentage of the time - not that the bills Schumer is voting for are becoming more boldly liberal.
National Journal only calculates who voted with whom - it doesn't evaluate the "liberalness" or "conservativeness" of the underlying bills being voted on.
SA
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