FACEBOOK DOESN'T HAVE TO BE TRIVIAL

Really, it's about how you and your fb friends use it. In the last six months or so, I've been carefully putting my toes into the facebook waters in terms of mixing it up on politics. I've got to be careful, of course. Lots of my fb connections are people I knew in high school, and many of them still think it's "morning in America." And there's also my older far right-wing brother. I don't want to offend people, certainly not my friends. At least, not unnecessarily. So I rarely use the bombastic rhetoric that's common here at Real Art, but I have had some fun and enlightening discussions, the likes of which most of us avoid out in the real world, if only because things get so confrontational so quickly these days.

Case in point. I got a chance a couple of days ago to state the case that liberalism, as a political force, is dead in America. There weren't any conservatives writing on the thread, but there were some mainstream liberals, exactly the kind of people who need to hear what I'm saying.

So I'm going to try to reproduce that thread here as well as possible. I started with a simple link to a conversation Democracy Now's Amy Goodman had recently with Noam Chomsky:

Ronald

Of course, this is obvious to rational people, but it's always nice to hear Dr. Chomsky chime in:

Noam Chomsky: 2012 GOP Candidates Views are "Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior"

MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky discusses the position of the Republican presidential candidates on issues such as climate change and calls them "utterly outlandish." "I'm not a great enthusiast for Obama, as you know, from way back, but at least he's somewhere in the real world," Chomsky says. .....


David ‎"There's no such thing as a sanity clause" - Chico Marx

Whitney You can say that again. Michelle Bachmann continues to amaze me with her insanity.

Ronald For Dave:

http://youtu.be/SzfiBMRDc5Y

Groucho And Chico Contract Scene From A Night At The Opera.

Minerva Chomsky for President :-)

Jay Obama for President, folks! Otherwise, what you have is ... well, "Off the International Spectrum of Sane Behavior" - please don't lose focus on that fact. Obama not your favorite? Who F'n cares when the alternative is what it is?

Jay No slight intended, Minerva ... really!

Ronald Jay, if we continue voting for Democrats, then we continue voting for a slow-but-sure slide into right-wing insanity. Haven't you noticed that today's Democrats are much much more conservative than the Democrats back when we were in high school? When we vote for them, we bless and approve that rightward drift. Nothing has stopped it in thirty years. If we vote for Obama, we're actually voting to continue right-wing control of the US. It's got to stop somewhere, and I say it should start with the citizens.

Minerva Just no tea baggers, I mean tea partiers! Freudian ;-)

Stephany what is the alternative Ron? just curious? Ron Paul? like him enough...but he's got some off kilter ideas too.

James The best thing right-wingers could hope for is liberals disillusioned with Obama and not voting for him this time around. That will assure a Republican victory.

Ronald ‎@Stephany: there is no alternative. The liberals are out. They have absolutely no dog in the race anymore. Vote Republican, it doesn't matter. Vote Democrat, it doesn't matter. Either way, the plutocracy wins. Now you can make an argument that the Democrat version of corporatocracy is kinder and gentler than the Republican version, which is true. But that kinder gentler version still means rising health care costs, global warming, continuing the race to the bottom in terms of wages and benefits, continued erosion of civil rights under the national security state, continued aggressive war, continued torture of POWs, continued right-wing dominance of the federal courts, erosion of abortion rights, continued emasculation of the labor unions, and on and on. All the Democrats can run on these days is "not as bad as the Republicans." But, that's virtually an admission that they're bad, too. MORE...

Ronald So there is no longer a political party that reflects liberal values. Continuing to support the Democrats does nothing but aid the right wing. We have to pull out completely and start preaching on the street, to anybody who will listen. We've got to invest our own personal dollars in liberal think tanks and other organizations that have pledged to operate, for now, outside the political system. Public pressure is now the only avenue available to liberals, and that's where we've got to go. One hopes that this will cause long term cultural change such that people eventually are able to seize the political apparatus back from the wealthy corporate forces that now dominate it. MORE...

Ronald But the bottom line is that corporate America's three decade plan to usurp our republic has succeeded. The liberals lost. And the first thing we have to do is admit that we've been defeated.

Ronald ‎@Jimmy: see my response to Stephany.

So there you have it. I don't know that I actually persuaded anybody to see things the way I do, but I know that all these people will read my words carefully and consider them. I'm also pretty sure that none of them have heard this point of view before, the Chris Hedges assertion that liberalism is effectively dead in the US. But now they have. And it happened through facebook.

Imagine that.

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