So, how does one break the the right-wing hegemony on public discourse? Wasn’t discourse and rhetoric one of Obama’s celebrated qualities (perhaps the only one)?
Is it your view that the Democrats will plug the dyke with the one finger which they are willing to lift, while we, the real leftists, work to popularise a different view in public discourse? In which case:
> And
> sometimes these mildly liberal measures, such as protecting rights of
> "illegal" immigrants, are quite bold and courageous, given the fascist
> anti-immigrant fervor of the majority of the populace (not just here
> but in the EU as well.) So again, what good is being served by
> blasting people who pursue these measures?
Perhaps that is the way to create an alternate discourse? Both MLK and modern right-wing reactionaries seem to have followed this script, where in their public positions, rhetoric, activism they reflect their core principles, while on the back-end collaborating with the available politicians.
> Realistically speaking, I do not think that much harm is being done by
> this grandstanding left babbling, because this babbling has zero
> appeal outside rarefied academic, lit-crit circles. The only real
> effect is deepening isolation of these "principled" lefties. Which is
> sad, because there are a lot of really smart people out there, who
> could be doing something more constructive toward swaying the pendulum
> away from the far right, where it now is.
Prominent mainstream figures like Paul Krugman, Beinart, and any of a number of NYT op-ed writers are getting radicalised but not marginalised (“deepening isolation” due to their principled criticisms). During the Bush years, many a milquetoast bureaucrat stepped outside the safety of his/her careerism to criticise government actions and public mood.
The real problem, IMHO, is not this (that principled criticism of a “user” like Obama is turning off Uncle JimBob), but a version of what Doug’s new muse :-), Jodi Dean, points to: the unwillingness of leftists to collaborate (and act) in a concrete sense (I say “a version” because I do not agree with the rest of her analysis, for I think she falls back to easy “New Left” blaming).
I suspect, being an Obama supporting pragmatist is at best going to earn you a mildly popular “diary” on DailyKos. On the other hand, if you have a Nobel Prize earned from years of robust defence of market liberalism, then you can get a national platform to inveigh, based on whatever principles you hold, often, as Doug noted, repeating the same analysis of a “principled” lefty (in this case, Doug!).
No?
—ravi