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Senate primary upsets and foiled terrorist plots; what a week for news.
On the latter, I actually liked some of what was written in the war room blog over at Salon, and was kind of startled until I got to the end and saw there's a guest blogger this week. (I find Tim Grieve gets too caught up in his right-hatred; it undermines any legitimate points he has to make.)
I have to object to one of his primary assertions, though, that "supporters of President Bush have wasted no time attempting to exploit this event to make what they evidently perceive are powerful political points in defense of the president and his most controversial policies."
Oh, I'm not saying this isn't true. Nor is it the first time a charge like this has been made. But it strikes me as tacky to take Bush supporters to task for this behavior when plenty of us on the left are guilty of this ourselves. Abu Ghraib? The Katrina aftermath? Plenty of Democrats snatched these events, and many others, as proof of Bush's failure as a president. Whether they are in fact proof of that is, I think, somewhat irrelevant; it is still exploitation. It's easy to place blame. (Or to accept credit, as the case may be.)
But placing blame is ultimately a useless exercise, especially when it draws attention from the bigger picture. Abu Ghraib: why did it happen? Was it the pressures and climate of war? A reflection of problematic military culture and ethos? An unfortunate but inherent byproduct of human potential? Katrina: Poverty, sure. Race, yes. Miscommunication, mismanagement, disorganization, poor planning, of course. Even knowing all that, how much effort have we put into solving those problems?
(But poverty's a stubborn reality and the thought of solving it is overwhelming; race is a web in which many of us are afraid to tread; the others, well, isn't this where placing blame gets kind of self-defeating?)
Frankly, I'm tired of both sides. It's like watching toddlers fight (I'm right!) (No, I'm right!) (NO, I'M RIGHT!) and everyone scrabbling over each other to be the most shrill and the most smug. Meanwhile thoughtful debate is - where? Nowhere, because EVERYONE WANTS TO BE RIGHT. Myself included, sometimes, I admit. But I'd be happy to admit to being TOTALLY AND UTTERLY WRONG about EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT if it meant we could wipe this stupid slate clean and start acting like adults, listening to each other, opening our minds to other points of view, working together on issues I think most of us, liberal or conservative, deem pretty important: poverty, racism, human rights, and the general ineptitude of organized goverment.
But more often than not I suspect it's another of those fundamental human conditions. One of these days I will just embrace cynicism, and walk away.
On the latter, I actually liked some of what was written in the war room blog over at Salon, and was kind of startled until I got to the end and saw there's a guest blogger this week. (I find Tim Grieve gets too caught up in his right-hatred; it undermines any legitimate points he has to make.)
I have to object to one of his primary assertions, though, that "supporters of President Bush have wasted no time attempting to exploit this event to make what they evidently perceive are powerful political points in defense of the president and his most controversial policies."
Oh, I'm not saying this isn't true. Nor is it the first time a charge like this has been made. But it strikes me as tacky to take Bush supporters to task for this behavior when plenty of us on the left are guilty of this ourselves. Abu Ghraib? The Katrina aftermath? Plenty of Democrats snatched these events, and many others, as proof of Bush's failure as a president. Whether they are in fact proof of that is, I think, somewhat irrelevant; it is still exploitation. It's easy to place blame. (Or to accept credit, as the case may be.)
But placing blame is ultimately a useless exercise, especially when it draws attention from the bigger picture. Abu Ghraib: why did it happen? Was it the pressures and climate of war? A reflection of problematic military culture and ethos? An unfortunate but inherent byproduct of human potential? Katrina: Poverty, sure. Race, yes. Miscommunication, mismanagement, disorganization, poor planning, of course. Even knowing all that, how much effort have we put into solving those problems?
(But poverty's a stubborn reality and the thought of solving it is overwhelming; race is a web in which many of us are afraid to tread; the others, well, isn't this where placing blame gets kind of self-defeating?)
Frankly, I'm tired of both sides. It's like watching toddlers fight (I'm right!) (No, I'm right!) (NO, I'M RIGHT!) and everyone scrabbling over each other to be the most shrill and the most smug. Meanwhile thoughtful debate is - where? Nowhere, because EVERYONE WANTS TO BE RIGHT. Myself included, sometimes, I admit. But I'd be happy to admit to being TOTALLY AND UTTERLY WRONG about EVERYTHING I EVER THOUGHT if it meant we could wipe this stupid slate clean and start acting like adults, listening to each other, opening our minds to other points of view, working together on issues I think most of us, liberal or conservative, deem pretty important: poverty, racism, human rights, and the general ineptitude of organized goverment.
But more often than not I suspect it's another of those fundamental human conditions. One of these days I will just embrace cynicism, and walk away.
no subject
I'll reserve a spot for you here at the cynics club.
You made some excellent points. It's very distasteful and couterproductive when a politician's first knee-jerk response to human tregedy is figuring out how to score points off it. To take it a step further, I know some people on both sides of the political aisle who are so blinded by partisanship they actually hope for bad things to happen so it can be pinned on the other side. A prime example of this: people who want the economy to go into a recession during an election year because they don't like the incumbent. Never mind all of the millions of people who would suffer from such a situation. It's all for the greater good, after all.
I think a major problem that people have is a failure to mentally separate the concepts of ideology, politics, governance and virtue. We like to think that if a person or group of people share our personal ideology that automatically gives them an edge in the other three areas. We want to believe that "our side" is always wiser, more competent, more effective and just generally morally superior than those on the other side. That's a big mistake, and it makes otherwise intelligent people fall into the trap of supporting and defending people who are inept, ineffective, corrupt, or just plain scum. In short, the system would work a lot better if people could stop tripping over their cognitive dissonance
no subject
(Ditto for the above comment, too.)