Corollary:
Whenever the Pwogfather (or in very rare instances, usually during an interregnum, a Pwogmother) violates some part of the liberal canon, look for liberals to turn to the Totempwog for succor. So that the amount of attention paid the Totempwog has an inverse relation to the amount of canon violation currently undertaken by the Pwogfather.
Thanks to Spartacus and Charles Oxtrot for the inspiration.
Crow's Eye: Maintaining a commitment to Pointless Acrimony™ and Hate Filled Invective™! Also available in corvid mischief and traditional sly dog's mistrust.
OT: what's with Skeptical Eye putting out right wing talking points about Chavez, and claiming that it's an anarchist position?
ReplyDeleteand, the purported explanation in the comments is even more embarrassing
I mean, Chavez is like Hitler???
the left supported Hitler and Mussolini???
is anything taught in the schools anywhere anymore?
Dunno. Hadn't checked back. Will now.
ReplyDeleteBut damn, did you handle that.
ReplyDeleteimitating Bunk Moreland**, I say:
ReplyDeletesheeeeeeeeeiiiiiiit.
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**ref: The Wire
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I thought it was weak and sad when Pwogland circled their meagre wagons made of toothpicks and balsa, and protected Wee Denny the Circus Midget.
But Alan Grayson?
Holy absurdity, Batman.
I guess we should be glad Miss Digby isn't declaring Steny Hoyer the true pwog-buddha. I guess.
I just don't get the lowest-common-denominator gig of stumping for Grayson. He's a shit.
Maybe it's an indirect plea for Israel?
Charles,
ReplyDeleteDennis almost occasionally lived up to the title, however dubious the honor. Those balsa wood defenses gave the progressive cosmos its first taste of fidelity in almost a generation.
And what'd he do with it?
Yielded at the first opportunity, to take a hack job fundraising.
It's like he almost enjoyed the idea of betrayal trading his "moral stance" for the commission.
Will the pwoglanders forget all this, when it comes to Grayson.
Youbetcha.
Respect,
Jack
yeah, even Oliver Stone has signed on, bizarre.
ReplyDeleteJack,
ReplyDeletePwogtopia showed its stripes quite a few years ago, when Markos Zuniga and Howard Dean worked together to "create a grassroots movement" via MoveOn.org, and then curiously watched over a million dollars disappear from MO's coffers under the watch of Messrs Dean and Zuniga. Shortly thereafter, "Doctor" Dean took the position as Chair of the DNC, in which role he stopped his "shouting" of complaints at the Repub-emulation of the "other" Democrats who were his supposed arch-enemy while he was still a "grassroots" candidate for the Donkey POTUS Nomination.
Then along comes Wee Denny, Circus Clown to repeat the same "grassroots" support gig, only to rebuke his supporters in favor of Obamaphilic sycophancy re health care "reform."
Hey, it's almost like there's some kind of pattern here.
Good pattern recognition you've got, Charles. Really good.
ReplyDeleteIt's not too different from the Sierra Club and the other NPR-fan-favorite "green" advocacy groups being co-opted by the interests of the polluter-rapist-despoiler class.
ReplyDeleteOr the running of AIG as a CIA front company for corporate espionage, then pretending that AIG is "failing" and in need of bailout when AIG patriarch Hank Greenberg wants to retire and his sons are too stupid to run the AIG business conglomerate.
The patterns are everywhere. The only question I ever have is, how are they shown in any given area of socio-economic interest.
there is a consistency to this that renders such behaviour complimentary
ReplyDeletepwogtopia is not a poltical movement in the classic sense of the term, one centered around transforming society according to its ideology
no, it is more analoguous to a social identity, a club, where you can be a member as long as you say the right things, it is about feeling good about yourself without forcing anyone to do anything that might make your life uncomfortable
hence, the support for people like Dean and Kucinich who gratify their emotional needs through progressive political statements, while ultimately going along for the corporatist line
Marxist-Leninists have wrongly maligned anarchists for being more concerned with personal purity than with accomplishments through political engagement, but it actually fits here
Precisely.
ReplyDeleteI think this explains both what I outlined above, and the patterns Charles has identified.
As an identity, it operates without any accomplishments.
But, this means that those identifiers which define the group must be continuously reinforced.
In the case of most progressives, some Exemplar will do.
After Obama failed the test, miserably (the Candidate became the President), the progressive community settled almost immediately on Kucinich, as a temporary replacement Dean, who himself was a mere stand in for goodman Nader.
For a subset, of course, it's always been Hillary, but that's another story.
Being progressives, they are utterly attached to the primary identifier, Good Government.
Everything they do centers on capturing the state in order to [insert thing that the state does, which confirms their pre-existing group identity].
But, once the party leader begins the actual business of government, and reveals that he was all along really just a guy who liked power, the progs split into two almost predictable groups - the Realists and the True Progressives.
The Realists adhere to the pwogfather, the TPs to the Totempwog.
I suppose we could make a triptych of this at some point, and inject an anti-Pwog, but that's for a later date.
And the old narrative begins all over again, with the Totem seduced by the Father until the Totem realizes the error of his idealist ways, or the Totem being cast out for failing to bring his fold back into the larger camp of power...
I touched on this http://fwe.cwis.org/2007/10/04/fabric-of-identity/ a while back.
ReplyDeleteJust checked identity as a search term on my blog. It happens that it comes up http://skookumgeoduck.blogspot.com/search?q=identity quite a bit. Thanks for the reminder.
ReplyDeleteOne more http://tbarj.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/lost-souls/ over at Friends.
ReplyDeleteSpartacus,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links and the heads up. Spent a chunk of the last few off-line, watching my kids play.
Or reading books with paper pages.
It's really not all that relevant, but I just started "The Invention of the Jewish People," and it's immediately absorbing.
Again, thanks - and thanks all.
PS - Al, if you're reading this - much obliged to you.
With enduring respect,
Jack
Totempwog and pwogfather - useful concepts
ReplyDelete