The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by McDuff:

I think a lot of people are possibly being a tad hard on Greg London here. Although I fully agree that he was an ass at the beginning of the thread, since his profuse (and myriad) apologies, he has had and continues to have a perfectly valid point. If you were to take the common factor between all his posts in this thread, disregarding the gumph around the ebbs and flows of the conversation, I think many would find it a useful observation.

It is not, of course, the be-all and end-all of the argument. Argument is a skill, and part of the skill is learning when phrasing your point of view in such a way that it will appeal to others will work, and when it is more satisfying for everyone involved to say "fuck you, you fucking fuck." Sometimes it's better to say "conservatives all suck" and deal with the fallout than it is to present a very nice, balanced view; for example, it is a tactic which has worked very well for conservatives in their opposition to liberals, has it not?

The "countering 'Strength' with 'Justice'" point, for example, is an excellent one and it is well made by repetition. Merely decrying the Bush and Rove tactic of repeating simple lies until they become truth -- of making the Kerry camp state "we're not flip floppers" all the time while it could be over in Middle America saying "what part of '9/11 9/11 stay the course terrorist terrorist strength' didn't you understand?" -- is only one half of the process of working out how to beat these lying, manipulative sons of bitches. We know what they do, and we know that it works. If we can change the terms of the debate, great, but an attack has to be on all the fronts on which they operate, not just one or the other.

I am heartened to see so many liberals being released from their chains of being nice -- which I know is a danger because the conservative rhetoric since the election has been against the "nasty" side of liberalism. Whenever we turn into something that endangers them, they say "oh, look what you are" and they say "oh, are we? Sorry, we'll stop," like saps and suckers. But we must also remember that, even if we get down into the dirt with them in terms of sheer aggressive opposition to their dangerous agenda, we have to be different where necessary too.

American centrism doesn't have the advantage that European centrism does: you can't quietly exist in the active, policy-making part of government while the loudmouths on either side shout at each other. Instead you've got the loudmouths on the right shouting at you and, unlike Marxism, don't have the shouty and innaccurate stuff to shout back with. You've got to fight for the centre on its own terms, not as a compromise between the two untenable positions on extreme right and left. It's hard. But it's possible. American liberals must have positive things to affirm, even as they continue to point out that Bush Sucks, that his policies suck, that the people who work for him suck, that his ideals -- such as they are -- make lots of male donkeys very happy. And when the right say "you're just saying Bush sucks, you don't have a policy of your own," you need to know how to slap those bitches back down in such a way that will make Mr Gunowner in Idaho think "yeah, go liberals," even if they don't agree with you, and even if they won't vote for you because of it, you need to at least put up a decent fistfight. It's good defense and good offense.

This is a great thread. I love to see convincing arguments actually convince.

Salon get some things right

I wasn't a big fan of redefining the word "marriage" either, but then the putsy feminists got rid of the dowry system and replaced a well established system of social transactions with this crazy liberal stuff based on "two people's feelings for each other." Is it any wonder that gays want a piece of the action? The straight community ruined marriage for those who prefer our wives to be indentured bondslaves, like the tradition says they should be.

Fuck it, give it to the gays, they probably won't get divorced as often.

I don't think it's unreasonable to call some in the Bush administration Fascists, but I think it is unreasonable to call them Nazis.

I have shied away from the F-word for a long time, preferring to use "authoritarian anti-intellectual nationalists." This is, of course, as near to the definition of fascism as you can get in a sentence, but when using loaded words we need to be careful to be painfully exact so as to avoid being contaminated by hyperbole.

So, to state the views clearly: The Bush Adminstration is not a fascist organisation. It contains people who are not fascists. It also, however, contains people who are, including the guy right at the top.

Nice to see this kind of thing getting a little airing here and there, now and again. It always boggles me that, even here in the UK where we've had the Catholics and the Protestants tearing each other apart for most of our history, people can whinge and moan about Islamic Terrorism like it's some terrible new invention.

I've no great love for Islam, but it's no worse than Christianity as far as producing psycho-nutjob-fruitbats is concerned. I challenge anyone to spend time on the Shankhill road and then try to say that White Christians are any saner than Arab Muslims.

Yeah, I grow tired of conversations with conservatives where they refuse to point out in what way the Bush administration is actually conservative.

The Bush administration is nationalistic, not conservative, and the reason I, for one, oppose them is that blind nationalism is the crack cocaine of a society. It is attractive, euphoric and bitterly addictive, but its intensity can distort the perceptions of those exposed to it such that all they can see and desire is the sweet drug, no matter how destructive the course it sets them on is. And, of course, once you've had a little you have to get more...

Not just "revolutionary Russia," but in fact every empire that's ever existed. The USA believes it is somehow more inherently noble.

"Some abroad, meanwhile, have distorted U.S. intentions through an apparent exercise in mirror imaging. Using their own mottled political histories as a reference point, they have asked what they would do with the power that the United States possesses and have mistakenly projected their own Hobbesian intentions onto our rather more Lockean sensibilities."

Oh really, Colin? Let me just say that, as one of these people "projecting" the history of my own nation onto others, I shall indeed believe in your "more Lockean sensibilities" when I see them. Until that point, Imperialism is Imperialism.

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