Among the things I have learned or re-learned this week: American conservatives deem themselves the proper judges of how other countries should present themselves and their histories at the Olympic games. There is literally nothing Mitt Romney can foul up that won't result in Washington Post opinion-haver Jennifer Rubin penning a column on how wonderful Mitt Romney is and how it isn't his fault. Congressman Steve King is nuts, which is not news, but he is nuts in the kind of ways that suggest you maybe shouldn't let him anywhere near your pets or kids. The way to reduce the deficit is to cut taxes on rich people yet again, no really we promise this time, and it's because if we do it
this time the prosperity unicorn will finally come poop money on us all. Eating fast-food chicken as a form of sexual protest is the most conservative effing thing I have ever heard of in my entire life, and I am very, very pissed I didn't think of it first. Has anyone done a "beer bong for Jesus" protest yet? I'm patenting that right now. (I know Chuck Grassley is currently in the middle of an effort to get people to eat more meat on Mondays because some FDA hippie said to eat less meat on Mondays, or something to that effect. That's also high up on the list of most conservative damn things I have ever heard, and seems to suggest once again that you could have half the country drinking bleach if Obama went on television to tell them they shouldn't do it.)
I have no particular point here. I know sometimes someone says "I have no particular point here" and they actually have a point, they're just trying to sneak it past you or something, but I really don't. That would be mean, and we've already all been through too much already. I'm just going to sit here, watch the Olympics, and try to determine which of these gymnastic routines are secret homages to communism. (Spoiler: all of them, as well as every swimming relay race. And we're not even going to discuss the postmodern economic symbolism present in each water polo match.)
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2007:
Whatever else can be said about Senator Barack Obama's "Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Global Terrorism" speech today, it has certainly put the spotlight on foreign policy in a manner far more suited to get to the root of things than the silly media-enhanced spat over whether a Democratic President should dial up the likes of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the afternoon of January 20, 2009.
The screaming started before the verbatim transcript was to be found anywhere. You can find it here.
Among progressives, foreign policy is always difficult to discuss for more than three minutes before the shouting starts. Because progressives (that is, liberals and those of us further to the left) have divergent goals (although these often overlap, as in, say, Darfur), and we don't have the same analysis, although there is considerable overlap. It's that overlap which makes us allies. Over the past few years, we've been more or less united around getting out of Iraq and staying out of Iran, but when the talk turns to the details, and when we go further afield, our differences cannot be submerged. In part, that's because some progressives choose words that make other progressives (and especially the full spectrum of Democrats) squirmy: words like "imperialism" and "hegemony."
This is nothing new obviously; it's essentially where we were during the Vietnam era. It's why many people are asking whether, say, Senator Hillary Clinton is an updated 21st Century version of a Cold War liberal or somebody with a fresher vision. It's why the term "terrorism" itself, much less "global war on terrorism." can kindle the outpouring of fierce debate we've seen today.
That debate is further complicated by the fact that left progressives themselves are divided.
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