Craig's Blog

# re: Michael Moore and the plight of the liberals

why are you insisting on finding a "liberal" perspective ? seems that article you sent me [http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article_rss/cold_turkey/] missed its mark with you. polarization isn't much better than homogenization.

hmmm...

- socialism is not the only liberalism
- there are as many potential political parties as there are people
- _everything_ is 'lusion (you knew that)
- have you looked into what the libertarians are doing lately ? i haven't; might be worth a look
- solutions to what, in particular ? much of political differentiation is in the definition and identification of _problems_. (aka "framing the question")

maybe you have an expectation of the presence of a certain perspective - and that perspective may no longer be relevant.

in any case, moore was clearly an ass from day one. his agenda was never "justice" or "truth", it was "rattle cages and get noticed". perhaps you were previously projecting your own hope for a cogent political dissent, and are now expressing disappointment ? no shit, eh ?

which may be getting to the root of the matter: you are wondering what happened to substantial machinery of dissent ? how about a re-run of the 60's ? one problem with the multicultural political correctness of today is the flat-light "don't worry - be happy" conformity of non-differentiation. (huh?)

all right, enough gobbledygook - what would you _want_ to see out there in terms of political opinion ? (ie - become your own solution ;-) )

# re: Michael Moore and the plight of the liberals

Well the cold turkey article got me thinking about all of this, so it was the seed of thought.

To me libertarians are the only ones that have anything approaching what I believe is the way I want society to be. Of course they require an intelligent society devoid of sheep which doesn't exist so I can't see it working. Maybe in a small nation like Switzerland or Bermuda but not the US.

Well I think I'm just disappointed in that I think or rather know we could be a better society/country and there are solutions that exist. I just don't see anything but "rattling the cage" type of politics. I have my own solution sets that are close to the libertarian point of view with a hint of liberalism (as far as I understand liberalism today). But I want other ideas, concepts to throw my ideas against to see if they stick. I just can't find them other than a diamond in the rough every so often. Maybe I'm not looking in the right areas or maybe I've heard it all before and starting to notice patterns and repetitive thought. My dad use to say if you aren't apart of the solution your apart of the problem. Maybe I should try and make a difference. Oy vey, time for bed.

# re: Michael Moore and the plight of the liberals

[libertarians take bermuda! news at five]

[i thought anything not part of the solution was part of the precipitate, but oh well]

have all ideas already been had ? we are still mucking about in the rash of concepts from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. in some sense that period was both the birth and death of everything. boundaries were thrown out in everything from political thought to art and science and philosophy. the full spectrum of possibility was revealed.

however, there is still the matter of choices and realization. as vonnegut pointed out is that article, we are denying that realm of possibility in favor of mcpolitics (to use an overused mccliche ;-) ). seems the average mchuman (hmm, possibilities there) can only conceive of issues as either-or, black-white, us-them, self-other, hero-villain. this is the lowest possible level of intellectual accomplishment, achieved in infancy. it also the lowest possible sense of structure (the only lower "structure" is "allness"). if we insist on being mcidiots, we get what we mcdeserve (ok, now that's just annoying).

i prefer picking my positions from the menu, a la carte, or even playing with the ingredients themselves. in order to do that one must give up the insistence on an apparent consistency which would allow the application of a neatly wrapping label. one popular delusion is the association of veracity inversely proportional to complexity - the snappier the slogan, the truer it must be (whatever "it" is).

there is some fallacy in today's overwhelmingly rationalist-empiricist world. we've unjustifiably internalized concepts such as "occam's razor" and "falsifiability", using them blindly in inappropriate situations.

anyway, that's one way of looking at my current intellectual project: reacknowledging internal complexities in order to allow the perception of different boundaries and commonalities.

so what if eliminate the artificial policial constructs such as legislatures and heads of state and courts ? well, actually, the legislatures and courts can remain for now, too much workload for what i have in mind. so let's start with heads of state: why are we relying on electing a single person, and through him delegating _several years_ of important decisions and actions ? this is an anachronism from earlier days when direct population participation was impractical. now, we can all go online and vote our positions on every single item. political parties become obsolete.

this would work somewhat like the stock market. see how well that has done ? (that's sarcasm, folks). yes, we do seem to need various buffering and organizing influences / focuses to coordinate things. but who says that has to be a person ? we are still in the business of god-kings. what the hell ?

so let's start there: no figure-heads allowed. that goes for corporations as well. and the wealthy. and religions. so what does the buffering/focusing ? machines. and who programs the machines ?

WE DO ! AAhhh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha !

oh, sorry. ;-) but can we achieve some freedom from our genetic background, this insistence on perpetuating hierarchies ? there are many other organizing constructs available.

anyway, not that solves your immediate "problem" of wanting new "solutions", but i suspect this approach would help in the formulation of such. meanwhile, your mere recognition of repition is a step on the road to a new awareness. discomfort leads to ingenuity. seek the pain.

# re: Michael Moore and the plight of the liberals

reading:

"Michael Moore Is A Big Fat Stupid White Man"

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0060763957

although "big fat white man" is irrelevant; "stupid" would be sufficient fot their purposes.

not that i agree or not, just listing more info.

# re: Michael Moore and the plight of the liberals

Well they're playing off the book "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot". With all of this name calling it's a wonder these people are taken seriously by anyone.