Plug
September 13, 2009 18 Comments
Not sure how much a plug from my unread blog is worth, but for a good left-wing blog check out The Hippie Professor. It seems fairly new, I’m not sure how I found it (probably random tag-surfing), but he is good-natured, spirited, well-spoken, intelligent, and willing to defend his views and substantively engage those who disagree. I find this incredibly rare. 99% of left-wing blogs would have banned me from their comments long ago 
I agree with virtually none of his views, of course. He’s on my sidebar.
Reading this thread, he (she?) is none of these things.
A rather boring pretense at logic; a parody. (NBote, I have nothing against fragment sentences)
You disagree with me ETat? That’s the last straw. You are hereby BANNED.
To address the substance of that thread, I find myself more sympathetic to hippieprof’s side of that argument than you seem to be. He does seem to get bogged down in crying ‘hypocrisy’, a favorite of his, and I do indeed find that ultimately boring (as he knows).
But the stuff about ‘with jobs’ was, at best, a silly cheap shot and not a very deep thought (certainly not what I expected from what I had previously seen at Chicago Boyz…). More generally, I think conservatives are setting themselves up for failure if they turn this into a game of ‘My crowd is bigger and classier than your crowd’, let alone ‘when my crowd turns out X people that’s more significant then when you turn out X people, because of [insert stereotype here]‘. Yikes. That’s more of a lefty maneuver. To rely on this tactic is to fight the battle entirely on enemy territory. With a hostile media and academic-elite, that approach makes for a losing battle.
Really, the only successful model using a conservative analogue of this ‘people power’ approach I can think of would be the battle for Proposition 13 in California in the late ’70s. But that worked entirely and precisely because of the initiative process peculiar to California, which allowed ‘the people’ to bypass the political and media establishment’s condescending smirks. But this health care thing will not be decided by initiative. It will be decided by the political and media establishment – over condescending smirks. There’s nothing those elites are going to find easier and more pleasureful than to condescendingly smirk at the tea party marchers and pass health care reform anyway. If this battle is going to be won, it’s not going to be won that way.
But still on your blogroll, so that’s OK with me!
Didn’t see your other comment.
I thought the topic of this post was mr/ms HippieProf, no?
But if you’d like to go outside these narrow limits, I can certainly tell you what I think of health care reform and probability of its passing. And of conservatives in general (hint: I’m not one).
About the tea Party: went to one near City Hall: it was an interesting experience which I’m not intending to repeat.
No, I don’t think all the demonstrations will have any effect on Washington elites (of both parties). We don’t live in Rome. Other than lifting morale of the regular people (by seeing others who apparently share your thoughts), I don’t expect any meaningful result from it. But to turn the argument upside down and call all this demonstrators elitist because they work as opposed to busloads of welfare recipients and union slaves paid for participation – that’s what I call cheap sophistry.
I didn’t think hippieprof’s argument was that the demonstrators were ‘elitist’. I thought it was that using the argument “our demonstrators have jobs and yours don’t”, as Shannon Love did, was elitist.
And I kinda see his point.
I can’t believe I’ve turned myself into the mouthpiece for hippieprof
That’s the road to serfdom!
*chastened*
as to argument – no, I don’t think he(?) has a point. Shannon already explained to him why it is not elitist, in minute detail; I wouldn’t go as patiently long and just say the majority (working people)who support the minority (not-working people) can not by definition be “elite”. His argument is pure sophistry.
And the idea that all the ‘tea party’ protesters count as ‘working people’, whereas lefty protesters don’t, is based on…what? Other than gross stereotypes, I mean?
That was his point. I agree with it. Carry on,
You are not aware of busloads of hired “protesters” that Left employs?
I thought it’s a common knowledge.
I’ve heard that that occurs, sure. In what numbers? What % of typical left political gathering merits that description? Is there anything analogous in the typical right political gathering? I don’t know the answers to those questions, and neither do you.
Of course if I had to guess, or play a hunch, would I guess that the avg left protester is less likely to be gainfully employed than the avg right protester? I suppose. That’s not really a solid foundation for an argument though, and I would never base one on it.
Moreover, so what if group A has jobs and group B doesn’t? Citizens are citizens. This is an attempt at playing “my crowd is better and should count for more than your crowd”, which is beneath conservatives. And to try this argument is to fight the battle on enemy territory. Conservatives will never, ever, ever win the battle on the grounds of “whose crowd is better and should count for more”. Conservatives do not control the media. Conservatives do not sit at the ‘cool table’ in the high school quad. They never will and if they try to play that game they will lose. IMHO.
I think you misunderstood the gist of Shannon’s argument.
He said people who went to DC this time are working people with responsibilities (familiar, professional, business). People on a tight schedule and on budget.The core of the producers in the country. As opposed to consumers. He claims (and it corresponds with my experience from the times I watched anti-Bush demonstrations here in NY) that consumers present majority among lefty protesters: students, more or less ideologically brainwashed, various hipster professionals (of the types populating Billieburg…I’m sure you know the type), “educators” from Humanities departments, generally, assorted academia types, journos, various freelancers – people who not only are less paid, they have less dependents on their time (family dependents as well as people who depend on them due to business or practice) I.e. – people with much less responsibilities and who, basically, produce nothing – but have plenty of time, possess victim mentality and a big mouth; people who are dependent on State (directly employed or in the form of academic/”non-profit” grants) for their livelihood.
So that’s not an argument “my crowd is better than your crowd”. But “my crowd should count for more” is correct. Because to get these BUSY people sufficiently stirred up to the point that they left their tightly-scheduled producing jobs and businesses and went protesting their outrage to DC the events should be really threatening – economically threatening to them.
But why trust my interpretation? It’s easy to go and see for yourself – the thread is now more than a 100 comments long, some of which are Shannon’s (and he patiently chews his position to anyone who wants to understand); and with plenty of idiotic remarks from liberal trolls.
I understand that to be Shannon’s argument.
-It’s based on nothing objective/tangible other than the sort of ‘hunch’ I would come up with if I had to bet.
-It’s still, as you acknowledge, a variation of the ‘my gathering of N people is MORE SIGNIFICANT than your gathering of N people’, and I still think it beneath conservatives, a loser, etc…i.e. see my prev. comment. But feel free to fight on that terrain if you like. Best,
I’m not fighting any terrain. I was only trying to explain Shannon’s point, as you seem to misunderstand it, from the beginning of this thread till your last comment.
What would you consider tangible/objective proof in an observation like that? Would you propose poll-takers distributing questionnaires to protesters, some 1.5mln of them, re: their professions and means of supporting themselves?
I have explained why “gathering of my people is more significant than gathering of your people”:it it follows from “PRODUCERS are more significant than CONSUMERS”. It goes to the foundation of society. It does not matter, that both groups are citizen. If Consumers push Producers to the edge where the latter don’t have incentives to produce, both groups will die hungry. Despite all the excellent papers (I’m giving them a huge, huge benefit of the doubt) English Departments and non-profit Green Associations might crank up.
Anyway, the conversation seem to be going on a loop now, so i won’t continue.
I have explained why “gathering of my people is more significant than gathering of your people”:it it follows from “PRODUCERS are more significant than CONSUMERS”.
I understand the principle behind it. In my exp, I don’t think it’s an argument-winner. *shrug*
Wow – SC – I had no idea that you guys were talking over here until someone clicked through to my site from here…
I am indeed honored….
The entire interaction over on Chicagoboyz was surreal. After the first few rounds of comments I was banned from the site (I was later told it was a glitch – but I am suspicious) and all my comments were erased – but that didn’t stop people from having a go at me. It was like having my hands tied held behind my back in the middle of a fight.
Near the end, Shannon proclaimed that I was dangerous – apparently for the sin of promoting critical thinking about issues. Oh well….
– hp