I don't quite get the need to feel superior to Digby with the criticism. Sawicky's critique was succinct and strong, and Perrin said the same things more eloquently. They raised some good points about the limits of non-revolutionary change. But then what?

If Perrin really means it, and thinks Digby is just a naive tool of The Man, then he better forget the fantasies and go get himself a real AK-47 and do something about it besides blogging (maybe he does; I don't know).

That is, I think Digby made a good case that we may be able to use electronic activism to bring about some badly needed change. If you think you can bring a global revolution via blogging, I need a lot more convincing (and merely being angrier and more critical does not equal more convincing).

Remember that one of the funniest parts of "Network" was the "revolutionary" group that was actually more interested in looking tough on TV than actually tearing down the system. Fantasizing in your blog about taking on SWAT Teams starts to veer into that territory, I think.

Anyway, go cheer yourself up by watching "Shooter", it's the ultimate progressive action picture, again featuring Ned Beatty delivering another timely speech. Jesus, who'd thought the man who made the awful "King Arthur" could give us this?

No, Dennis runs away when the SWAT team came by. He just needed the gun to get on stage to make his speech, where he seemed to be saying

a) The Democrats certainly don't want to change anything;
b) The pious bullshit about the potential of America plays on both sides of the aisle, and it's pitiful to hear "progressives" saying it because
c) The common conception of "America" is almost entirely mythical.

Basically, trusting Democrats is stupid and it sucks listening to foolish rhetoric for people who are supposedly on your side. (Dennis is an anarchist.) (You should always read his blog.)

These don't seem to be the same things as in Sawicky's entry, but maybe they would seem more related if I could bring myself to listen to the speech.

Neither seems to be saying anything about stocking up on weapons and taking on the Army.

I think there's a bunch of us who know that the Democrats are always going to be wusses, but not as bad as the alternative. So we vote for them until someone figures out something better to do. I'd like people to put it like that, but that probably doesn't go over too well if you want to have connections with the Democratic Party. In a way I can see their point. "Vote for the our candidate, because he/she is less repugnant" isn't the sort of slogan that gets them out to the polls on election day.

Where Dennis really goes wrong was in that crack about Watership Down. It's a good book.

While I think Perrin makes some good points, he's not nearly as in opposition to Digby as he thinks. I can think of many things to call Digby, but naive is not one of them. Frankly, if we're to fight "The Man," it's important that the press actually understand that civics lesson, as they clearly don't. I get a bit annoyed with the idea that everyone needs to respond to a situation in the exact same way (and Perrin's not exactly laying out a specific action plan). I'm certainly annoyed at the idea that a short speech celebrating liberal bloggers and pushing for accuracy in the media (among other things) is somehow supposed to encapsulate and solve every goddam problem in the nation that each critic is focused on. Jeez. It doesn't need to be either/or.

To me it is not really about who is better or least worst it is about the system itself. Truman, despite the fact that Japan was desperately trying to surrender at the end of WWII, dropped two atomic bombs, one on Hiroshima and one on Nagasaki. That was the act of a monster because Japan wanted to surrender so there was really no need for Truman to murder what is estimated to be 214,000 people in the blink of an eye. Saying that Truman dropped the bombs to impress Russia makes it no better and in fact it is just a sick and twisted excuse if it be true or not. And how about LBJ and the Vietnam War, all for political gain on Johnson’s part which I believe he even admitted. I suppose some might say the democrats are better at domestic policies despite their murderous pastimes but it was Clinton who signed off NAFTA which put millions of Americans out of work and he also destroyed welfare. I think it would be better not to focus on democrat vs. republican because that strikes me as just another form of tribalism rather we should focus on what is wrong with our system of government itself. This is why I did not care much for Digby’s speech. The fact is that both parties have pursued imperialism over the last 100 years and it is imperialism that has made our system what it is today.

VOTER INITIATIVE ON THE BUDGET AND TAXES. Violence will ONLY get a lot of innocent people killed and solve NONE of our problems. You can't trust the Democrats or the Republicans but you can ALWAYS TRUST THE TAXPAYER. (It's THE TAXPAYERS money)

In response to DP's article:
The speech is wrong. Not because it is based on incorrect ideas, but because it is so incomplete.
"There are no Arabs." is clearly false.
What it implies is interesting, but needs to be spelt out. There is a group of privileged people in each self-identifying group who have no loyalty to that group, but to the most powerful institutions. This is the nature of post-Marxist society. (When a model becomes well-known, it is anticipated and becomes misleading if care is not taken.)

The privileged and educated within each of the world's classes (be they nation of birth, ethnic origin or whatever) have a choice. They can seek to help those less well off than them, or they can seek to exploit them by doing nothing or facilitating the exploitation.

"There are no third worlds" this seems garbled. Did he mean "there is no third world"? Can't make sense of this. There are clearly unindustrialized nations. Perhaps he meant that the notion of industrialization as development is a lie?

"There is no West!" There is no western civilization? Can't make sense of this one.

"There is only one ... system of systems" this is quite hippyish, really. It's all connected, man. Well yes, Heizenburg told us that, but connectedness differs.

"one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars ... [blah blah blah] ... today!"
This is pretentious, somewhat redundant gibberish. Immane things are vast. The word is only used to sound scary because the listener probably doesn't know what it means (I didn't, TBH). People spending dollars interact! The world has more than one variate! And more than one nation! Goodness, I just didn't know.

I think what he's trying to say is "economic transactions trascend all boundaries, and the control of these transactions is where government really is, not the formally instituted governments, even those instituted on the behalf of broad and initially open classes of people."

This is something that should be talked about. I'm pretty sure there are people talking about it, in fact. We just need to find them and promote them in pertinent places. Comments are usually open on Libblogs. I don't see a dastardly desire to ignore such issues (I'm sure it exists. I don't think it's prevelant-- few people are that subtle), just a tendency to react to the latest memes or news.

As RP points out, it does go further than that into tribalism. But the blogs didn't invent tribalism (despite what the pundocrats like to imply). They present an existing and prevelant world view. Further, whilst there is a tribe that is powerful, coherent and domineering, tribal identity remains necessary. It needs to be seen for what it is, though, and compensated for, rather like instinctual racial prejudice (a similar mechanism of mind).

It's a good rant, very emotive. But I don't think it actually says much, just alludes to it. And you really shouldn't make policy on the basis of allusion.

Oh, and a joke:
What's the difference between a Liberal and a Leftist?
Liberals support policies they don't believe in whilst Leftists don't support their beliefs with policies.

When Dennis mounts the scaffold, his final words will be, "Thank God I lived long enough to see the fucking liberals go first."