cared about nothing but achieving a left-wing seizure of power Is there necessarily such a thing as a left wing, breathed into existence by the need for a conceptual opposite to the right, or can we finally let right flow free as a signifier, allowing it simply to act as an umbrella term for people who would restrict our freedoms? I haven't been able to distinguish anything recognisable as a left wing in US politics since I arrived in 1997.
I think there is a proper place for epithets in politics; ridicule is an acceptable and useful political tool - perhaps the only one left - for placing those ridiculed beyond the pale of debate. I'm trying to think of a good term of ridicule for McCain et al and their astonishingly tyrannical goals. Something with the grace and power of "underpants bomber." But I'm still too angry to be able to summon the funny, and Victor Hugo's "nocturnal strangler of liberty" really isn't twitter-ready.
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Date: 2010-03-19 03:03 pm (UTC)Is there necessarily such a thing as a left wing, breathed into existence by the need for a conceptual opposite to the right, or can we finally let right flow free as a signifier, allowing it simply to act as an umbrella term for people who would restrict our freedoms? I haven't been able to distinguish anything recognisable as a left wing in US politics since I arrived in 1997.
I think there is a proper place for epithets in politics; ridicule is an acceptable and useful political tool - perhaps the only one left - for placing those ridiculed beyond the pale of debate. I'm trying to think of a good term of ridicule for McCain et al and their astonishingly tyrannical goals. Something with the grace and power of "underpants bomber." But I'm still too angry to be able to summon the funny, and Victor Hugo's "nocturnal strangler of liberty" really isn't twitter-ready.