“Was not their mistake once more bred of the life of slavery that they had been living?—a life which was always looking upon everything, except mankind, animate and inanimate—‘nature,’ as people used to call it—as one thing, and mankind as another, it was natural to people thinking in this way, that they should try to make ‘nature’ their slave, since they thought ‘nature’ was something outside them” — William Morris


Monday, July 11, 2016

Cry Me a River

"Because you put me in a double bind, and if you have to resort to psychological violence..."


"Because I don't feel like parting company with most African Americans."


"Because I'm a millennial and I'm not going to imitate the X'ers who handed the world to Bush II in 2000."


"Because you want me not to and I have major defiance issues."


"Because she's a woman and women should get jobs. Oh I'm sorry, did I break your rule? Cry me a fucking river."


3 comments:

Asa said...

Because she'll keep the system from running into the ground for the next 8 years while we continue working on building something better.

Nick Guetti said...

You sound like I did when I voted for Clinton in 1992. I loved Hillary's rhetoric too: she was a big reason I was psyched that Bill won. What I object to is the idea that what a candidate says before the election necessarily have anything to do with A) their political record, or B) their post-election decisions. The ability of a candidate to appeal (in an essentially aesthetic way) to certain people does not mean he/she loves those people or has any interest in their welfare. That's what a professional politician does: the predatory bright-colored feather dance, so that the prey gets all starry-eyed and drops its defenses. The trouble is that professional politicians and good presidents are not the same thing. What I'm reading from your references is that you don't like how Sanders is presenting himself, which––"cry me a fucking river"––reminds me a little of the disparity between an average football fan screaming at the TV screen and the athlete playing the actual game.

Nick Guetti said...

Asa, it takes a wealth of optimism most people can't afford to think that the system hasn't been underground for decades. Since Tim & I actually agree on so much, it's long puzzled me what our political differences really are; at this point I think it's just that I've never had the coin to afford entry into the manifold of self-delusion it takes to speak of keeping the system going. The system fills the vegetables you eat with cadmium, which leads brilliant and healthy-dieted people to screaming deaths in their old age, in old folks' homes where no one who "matters" (i.e. is busy making money for someone richer) will hear. It makes people believe they have to "matter" (to whom? for what?) in order to be afforded any respect. It makes people say that keeping it going "while we work on something better" (who is we? aren't subsidizing and undermining a system two different things that detract from each other?) is the right thing to do. Clinton, in the words of Cornel West (who I wish was running for president), is a neoliberal disaster...oops, sorry: neoliberal catastrophe...and it really takes an amazing amount of amnesia not to see that. Trump can't be taken seriously as a candidate (no politician in Europe or Britain, of any political persuasion whatsoever, thinks he's good enough for the job); what sucks about him is that he proves that "the system" is utterly doomed and unsalvageable, because it has created a public that likes him enough for the job that he has a shot at getting it. If he does, however, the White House will immediately become deadlocked due to opposition on the left...the kind of opposition that a figurehead like Obama or Clinton makes more difficult, not less...and that's a good thing: we (by which I mean humans, but I wish it applied to Americans who can afford a house) can't afford delusions, and we ought to be angry and frightened, because the situation warrants those feelings. I'm angry at Sanders, my former candidate! He just lost my vote, next time he runs. If you want to talk about a woman whose turn it is, what about Stein? Oh, right, you don't know who she is because she can't be heard over the pounding hooves and the racetrack announcer's inane babble.