Can't someone drive a stake through his heart and pour some Holy Water on top?

[lapsedmodernist]

Greens disown Nader. What does that tell you?

Nader doesn't really fit into the "banality of evil" model. He lays claim to another modernist discourse, that of nihilism. And you know what I am really sick of? Fucking white American priveleged activists (and I don't want to hear anything about how your papa worked in a mine and you are the first one in your family to go to college, or how you are not Really White because you are Jewish, if you are a white (yes, Jewish, too, yes, really) American activist, you are privileged) raising the old banner of outdated Marxist escalation-of-contradictions-leading-to-Revolution or whatever, translating into "Bush should win in 2004, that would radicalize people, it's good for the movement. Kerry winning will make people complacent." How ideologically sound of them to discount the pure quantitative difference between the number of people who will die under Kerry vs. under PNAC hawks. Yes, number fetish is gross, as demonstrated by the dramatic count-up of yesterday, up to the 1,000th dead soldier in Iraq (and at least 23 Iraqi civilians die for every soldier)...998...999...1000, break out the candles! I am sure this made the family of the 998th soldier feel disappointed, like their son or daughter was thisclose to being the Round Number that spawned a brief flurry of media attention, it's just like trying to not be bitter about a bronze medal. Anyway, so our radicals, like, don't care about numbers at all. Numbers are for pussies. Uh, pussies vs. sexxy Revolution: discuss. Number of walking dead, sentenced by Bush's impending coup part deux versus the same number of those living, perhaps to organize in a local, grassroots way, or to just take care of their families, or to just pick lint from between their toes. Dead vs. alive. How easily they dismiss the difference, literalizing their metaphores, "globalization and empire are just smaller forms of murder." Since they, themselves, probably won't be dying for the cause, at least not in the next four years, instead competing with each other for "arrest cred," it's easy to think about What Would Che Do, rather that how many thousands people will lose life or limb to cluster bombs. Because in a self-righteous mind of a radicalized Refuse & Resist-er the invasion of McDonalds isn't merely comparable, it is completely equivalent to violent, painful death in Iran or in Syria, or in whatever country comes next on the PNAC roadmap to global domination. Like, fuck you all. Go cream yourselves over Hero or something.

Nader's September Schedule Tells All: No Credibility to His Claims of Helping Defeat Bush

 
WASHINGTON - September 9 - Greens for Impact, a committee of elected officials and Green Party leaders, is dismayed to see that Ralph Nader's campaign schedule for September consists almost completely of battleground states, where his presence could aid in re-electing George W. Bush. From September 11th through September 18th, Nader will be stumping in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Colorado. This route cannot be coincidental and it in fact belies claims he made when first announcing his presidential candidacy: "This is a campaign that strives to displace the present corporate regime of the Bush administration."

On September 3, 2004, Ralph Nader's campaign issued a press release deconstructing President Bush's spin machine, entitled "Bush Rhetoric and Reality Are Two Different Things." Following this model, Greens for Impact seeks to figure out what could possibly motivate Nader to visit every swing state. Our analysis indicates: "Nader Rhetoric and Reality Are Two Different Things."



1. Will Nader Take More Votes from Bush than Kerry?

Rhetoric: Nader continues to claim that there are enough conservatives distraught over Bush's fiscal irresponsibility that he will receive more voter from potential Bush voters than from potential Kerry voters.

Reality: Polling data from throughout the summer - in line with data from four years ago - has consistently shown that more potential Nader votes would go to Kerry than would go to Bush, and that Kerry's electoral vote total would be significantly higher were Nader not in the race. (See: http://www.theunitycampaign.org/battleground/). The Libertarian Party's candidate, Michael Badnarik, is also on the ballot in almost every state and is a much more logical choice for disaffected Bush voters. In addition, on September 8, 2004, after weeks of denying that Bush supporters were aiding his candidacy, Nader submitted 45,000 signatures collected by the Michigan Republican Party to put him on the state's ballot and hurt John Kerry.

2. Is Progressive and Green Party Cooperation with John Kerry and the Democrats an Affront to our Principles?

Rhetoric: Nader states that cooperation with Democrats for the purpose of defeating Bush is tantamount to voting your fears over your hopes. He decries "safe-states" strategies that call for voters to support Kerry in swing states and progressive candidates in safe states as "schizophrenic politics."

Reality: Nader has himself allied with political parties whose views differ from his own, only he has done so out of sheer convenience. He will appear as the xenophobic Reform Party's candidate on several state ballot lines, and at that party's recent nominating convention he declared: "No one's ever going to agree with everybody.... You don't always agree on politics with your own family." Oddly he only applies this logic of accentuating political similarities over differences to his drastic leftwing-rightwing alliance, but deems it unacceptable for those seeking a more logical Green-Democrat alliance. The Reform Party nominated the right-wing Pat Buchanan for president in 2000 and this July its Chair, Shawn O'Hara, stated "I'm doing everything I can to make sure John Kerry never gets around the White House." O'Hara ran for Governor of Mississippi on a rightwing platform and in the past even defended the Ku Klux Klan imperial wizard against charges of fire bombing a voting rights activist. The Reform Party advocates a halt of almost all immigration, the retraction of many immigrants' rights, and the end of automatic citizenship for those born to non-citizens within the United States.

3. Don't Bush and Kerry have the Same Positions on the Iraq Situation?

Rhetoric: Nader decries Bush's unilateralism and unaccountability to the United Nations and world citizenry, while simultaneously chastising Kerry for "letting down the widening anti-war movement and like-minded citizens in the U.S.A."

Reality: Nader's presidential run is itself unaccountable and unresponsive to the larger progressive and antiwar movements, including left-wing Democrats, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Green Party, and many activists who supported his candidacy four years ago, including Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and others. Nader recognizes the tremendous influence that the United States has over international politics, but continues to campaign in the specter of polls that show that worldwide sentiment overwhelmingly favors a Kerry victory. (See: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/474450a6-01ce-11d9-8273-00000e2511c8.html). In doing so, Nader is himself acting unilaterally and against the wishes of the global community, who overwhelmingly want to see the self-proclaimed "War President" defeated.

4. Won't Nader's Campaign Help Highlight and End Rules Rigged to Ensure a Two-Party Monopoly?

Rhetoric: Nader laments that "barriers to full participation of candidates proliferate making it very obstructive, for most third party and Independent candidates to run."

Reality: Nader still does not support the immediate implementation of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), which would mean an end to the so-called "spoiler" problem. His campaign only minimally addresses electoral reforms that are needed before third parties and independent candidates will ever flourish in the United States. Nader could make use of the significant cache he accrued through his 2000 presidential run to forward IRV and other systemic changes that would have a long-lasting impact, but instead seems to relish the power that comes with the spoiler threat.

5. Isn't Nader the Victim of Dirty Tricks by the Democrats?

Rhetoric: Nader decries Democratic attempts to keep his name off of state ballots as undemocratic "dirty tricks" by corporate attorneys.

Reality: Nader and his supporters have themselves been playing "dirty tricks" by working to replace Green Party nominee David Cobb's name with Nader's name on several state ballots, including those of California, Utah, and Vermont. This would have the effect of overturning the democratically produced results of the Green Party's nominating convention, where a majority of delegates rejected Nader's attempts to receive the Green Party's presidential endorsement. This unprincipled maneuver begins to mirror other "anything-goes" tactics coming from the Nader campaign and undermines his claims of wanting to give voters greater choices.

6. Isn't Nader Helping Build the Progressive Electoral Movement?

Rhetoric: Nader claims that he wants to build a progressive electoral movement, and motivate the Democrats to end corporate dominated politics. His website states that "Someone has to be in the race to keep the two parties responsive and make sure that the issues the Washington insiders don't want to address get raised all the way to election day.."

Reality: Nader's campaign has polarized the left and has yet to articulate any coherent strategy for actually advancing progressive issues. He has dismissed talk of using his campaign to extract concessions from Kerry and has pledged to stay in the race through the end. Nader credits himself with pushing Gore to the left in 2000 but discounts the fact that his campaign also helped prevent Gore from getting elected, making this "influence" meaningless. You cannot advance your issues if the person you are attempting to influence does not win. Nader refused to vie for the nomination of the Green Party - the only viable progressive party in the United States. In many states, Nader will be in direct competition for votes with the Green Party, lessening the chances that the Green Party will maintain its ballot status in several of those states, or attain new ones. In some states, where Nader is running as the Reform Party candidate, a vote for Nader will be a vote for a stronger Reform party, and further that party's ability to voice its right-wing and xenophobic agenda. In addition, Nader and Camejo continue to attack Green Party nominee David Cobb, and lie about his stances on issues such as the Iraq war, claiming he is not a serious anti-war candidate. This sort of misleading spin is intellectually dishonest, and parallels the tactics Nader decries when used by the Bush administration, Kerry campaign, Democratic Party, corporate media, and "liberal intelligentsia."

According to Greens for Impact Chair David Segal, "taking all of these inconsistencies and hypocrisies together, one can only conclude that Nader's commitment to defeating Bush is a ruse - just more spin and rhetoric - and his visit to swing states this month will only give aid and comfort to the enemy: George W. Bush."

Greens for Impact PAC (GFI) is an organization of principled and pragmatic Green Party leaders and elected officials. Its supporters include John Eder (Maine legislator), Norman Solomon (syndicated columnist), Austin King (Madison, WI Alder), and others. GFI recognizes Kerry's serious failings, but also that distinctions between him and Bush are real and significant. It hopes foster a unified left in order to defeat Bush. GFI asks voters to support Kerry in the swing states, Cobb in the safe states, and electoral reforms like instant runoff voting nationwide. For more information, visit www.GreensforImpact.com.

Comments

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

There is nothing wrong with it. I think you misinterpreted what I said. There is a particular breed of white (usually male) activists who all have competing "down with people" cred that usually runs along the lines of class and things that have to do with class, like education and social mobility. My point is, that they go to college, read a bunch of Marx, maybe even flip through The People's History, and since, at that point they are white, male AND college-educated, they are privileged. Yet they trade on their origins to downplay their privilege (and really, their cache is rooted in their parents' working class struggles or involvement in union organizing or whatever cool things their fathers and mothers did in local politics) when they wank about Global Issues, because otherwise it sounds assinine when they make ideological pronouncements about how the Brown People Across the Ocean have false consciousness or whatever. My point (or part of it) is that there is unhealthy "underprivilege" fetish among cetrain strata of white activists. Being white, they obviously can't be of color, progressive male revolutionaries aren't really down with male queerness for the most part, so what's left is "I too am poor" which in almost-therapeutic-like vibe of activist communities has to be accepted and mutually validated, even though this "poverty" has nothing to do with the poverty of a family in Fallujah whose entire house has been demolished in the bombing campaign.
Is this making sense? I totally don't want what I wrote to be misinterpreted the way you seemed to take it.

[vulgarlad.livejournal.com]

great entry.

~the lad

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Thanks!
I thought you were in the wild steppes of Montana, sans net. Do they have steppes in Montana?

[never-the-less.livejournal.com]

Amen.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

good entry. I'm pretty pissed off at all the Naderites, and it's hard to talk to them.

Of course, they're all white men with post-graduate education, which would make me a natural person to do the intervention.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to do the intervention. Somehow, I think that this probably won't work as well for me.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

That comic strip actually confused me. Like, what was the message? Was it a satire of how the Intervention or was it an endoresment of the Intervention?

I think the above rhetoric breakdown is useful, because it's nicely structured and preemtively goes for all the popular Nader arguments.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

you know -- I hadn't considered that it might be a satire of an intervention. I can see now that it could be read that way. I read it (instead) as a community of friends who were looking for a playful way to intervene.

I may have to send that CD article to my [rapidly-becoming-ex-]friends who are out campaigning for Nader. At least WA isn't likely to be a swing state, but I wish they weren't doing this...

[wouldprefernot2.livejournal.com]

I have a number of reasons for supposing that a Kerry first term would be better for the left than a Bush second. But they don't add up to rock-solid conviction, so I can't be angry at the not-a-dime's-worth-of-difference crowd.

What I find most annoying about Nader is that he fits to a T the "Gunslinger from elsewhere who will come to save us all" model. This isn't just a third party thing -- I've seen it happen before with Jesse Jackson and Jerry Brown. Ultimately, it's a substitute for movement building.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

How about not just what's better for the (contested) "left"?
How about that Kerry won't start a war with Iran and Syria and PNACers will, and therefore thousands of people who won't die with Kerry in charge will with Bush in charge? That's the thing I was talking about, people who say "no difference" or reanimate that poisonous Nader myth of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dumb are arrogant and blind to the real human cost of war and occupation and only care about (often sectarian) ideological platforms.

I totally agree with your second point. And not only that, he is actually doing a lot to even further marginalize the third party movement, which is, as it is, the red-headed stepchild of American politics. That's why the Greend disowned him, I suppose.

[apropos.livejournal.com]

It's always white males who say things like "it doesn't matter anyway because they're both rich Yalies".

I've never met a woman who thought that Bush and Kerry were the same monster, and I'd reckon that has something to do with the prospect of hemmorhaging to death in an alley in order to maintain a "culture of life".

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I've never met a woman who thought that Bush and Kerry were the same monster, and I'd reckon that has something to do with the prospect of hemmorhaging to death in an alley in order to maintain a "culture of life".

Word.

Similiarly, I've never met a gay man who thinks the two are the same evil. Perhaps that has something to do with Santorum-loving fundies who thinks fags burn in hell vs. Teresa Hynes Kerry who wants to be the White House "mommy" to the queer contingent.

I just had a flashback to an argument with my High School (+) Boyfriend (a golden boy to the T), who had just gotten into Foucault and was arrogantly discoursing about how the gay people who were campaigning for a right to marry were wrong, and not radical enough, and were just recoding mainstream bourgoius normativity, and were, like, Uncle Toms to the movement that coulda been radical, and I accused him of spouting that bullshit from his armchair "radical" position where he would never have any problem marrying whatever blonde named Sue or trophy exotic wife he would eventually end up with, and that his discourse pronounced moral judgement on anyone not as ideologically "radical" (I put it in quotes b/c obviously I don't think that is truly radical at all) as him, and in the meantime the gay couples excluded from the discourse would have no legal rights like inheritance, hospital visitations, etc...
Have you ever seen "If These Walls Could Talk 2"--the HBO film? Everyone who just kind of forgets about the social legitimacy that is bestowed by married status, I want them to see the first segment of that film, where Vanessa Redgrave is forced out of her own house after her partned of over 50 years dies, and the partner's family chooses to pretend they were "just friends."

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

That's a good point. That must also be the reason why all women are pro-choice.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

don't be purposefully obtuse. She did not say all women are pro-choice. She did not say all women are pro-Kerry either. She just said that women subscribe to a very particular ideological platform of "both are equally bad so let's elect bush b/c that will radicalize the masses" much less frequently than men do, since women who are pro-choice understand how differently their reproductive rights might be affected under each of the "empire" presidents.

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

This is all true, except you leave out the part where women who are pro-choice are more likely to understand the abortion rights issues in the election because they are women. In a rational world this might make sense, but with one exception, I've only known one pro-lifer who was not a woman. Perhaps this leads me to take a much less generous interpretation of the generalizations I responded to than you obviously have.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

the argument wasn't about pro-choice women vs. pro-life women. the argument was about pro-choice women vs. pro-choice (in theory) men.

[mendaciloquent.livejournal.com]

Yes, but the principle applies to both. My point is that if understanding the reproductive rights debate in this election is really influenced in a significant way by whether or not one is a woman, one would expect to find far fewer women who are pro-life than men, which in my experience is not at all the case.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I feel like you are purposefully missing my point. We were talking abou a particular subset of lefties, and how certain platforms are more appealing to men of that subset because they don't really touch them so they can afford to wank "radical" rhetoric.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

I'd never claim that there are universal human traits, but ... a certain yearning toward the absolute -- pure science, perfectly abstract art, real revolution -- characterizes many more or less privileged young men in many places and times. It's as if they're, let's say, developmentally disabled in their ability to apprehend their situations and to adapt to them. Many of them grow out of it, given time and sufficient amounts of mockery.

So it doesn't surprise me that a bunch of privileged young men on the US left would be so attracted to Nader's campaign this year. What's sad is that these boys make up such a visible component of the US activist left, not because they are so many but because the rest of us are so few.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

Shit, I'd claim universal traits, and I'm an anthropologist. But I think MaChesmo is a culture-bound syndrome, that blooms differently in a subculture of "sublimated" gendering like activist movements tend to be.

It is always unforunate when the vocal, shrieking minority offers itself up as a strawman for the opposition to synecdichize (a.k.a. why Columbia Professor Nick Genova was an irresposible asshole to call for "a thousand Mogadishus" in Iraq during the teach-in about the war in 2003), but the rest of us are hardly few. I haven't interacted with you enough to know if our politics are similar on specific aspects and issues, but the "Anyone But Bush" platform (which is mine, at least tactically), their number is more than half the country. And in visceral flashes I actually feel that, like during the UFPJ march on the 29th in NYC.

[lolaraincoat.livejournal.com]

MaChesmo! what a lovely, precise locution. Anyway, yes, on further thought (and a second cup of coffee) I agree that I have probably been fooled by how loud those purists are into thinking that they are more numerous than they probably are.

But I teach at the kind of campus where I can pretty much count on at least one student per lecture wearing a Che shirt, so I might also have been fooled by my surroundings. There are an awful lot of those MaChesmo types around here. Of course, I'm not even in the US, so there's that ...

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

where do you teach??
MaChesmo "radicalism" actually grows better in less critical climates, when there is less risk...and when shit really hits the fan, when people who have never been involved in politics, like my uncle who just heavily got into union organizing, start being active, they are focusing on practical, tactical issues, like booting the new Walmart or getting Bush the fuck out of office.

[twotoedsloth.livejournal.com]

What's sad is that these boys make up such a visible component of the US activist left, not because they are so many but because the rest of us are so few.

I dunno about that. I don't think that actually outnumber, say, female feminist activists. But I do think that they benefit from that ol' discursively unmarked positioning, so that they can represent a "pure" leftist position (pure of, say, actual people) as opposed to the impure position that leaves the rest of us pathetically eager to accept tacky substitutes for real change (like, say, civil rights or health insurance). I don't think there are so many (or so few of us), but I think they are very talkative.

off topic

[alice-ayers.livejournal.com]

I have a canidate for subletting....but I don't have your email. I know, weird. She's a friend, can I give her your cell#?

Re: off topic

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oooh yes absolutely...give her my #.
My email is lafemmnica@aol.com
Do you think she is seriously interested? I am still in NC but she could come see it on Wednesday morning (I'll be back Tuesday eve).

[mycrust.livejournal.com]

jeez, I love your journal.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

why thank you.

nihilism my foot

[tomorrow-devil.livejournal.com]

Danny'sfriend@msn.com makes a good point. As the current scores are, even if the 2% voting for Nader were to vote for Kerry instead, Bush would still win, by percentage and electoral votes.

He also makes a lot of other points regarding Kerry's failure as a candidate - centrist democrats, inability to alter the W-admin's war policies, etc. - that are pretty interesting, but easily refuted by someone with a command of the facts. In fact, I told him, "anthrochica could easily refute those points, but it doesn't matter because none of those refutations are as accessible to Americans as Bush's 'Go America!' attitude."
Basically, Danny'sfriend@msn.com bemoans the same thing I do. Kerry is un-invigorating and unexciting. He's simply not getting people excited about his vision of America. All along, he's had this thing going as the alternative to Bush. But everyone knows that we can't really count on him to undo what the current administration has done. While it's becoming increasingly obvious to me that Nader is a chode, if this election goes to Bush it won't be Nader's fault. www.greensforimpact.com is admirable and inconsequential. A liberal politico hating on Nader at this point is like a rational philosopher hating on Rand. Yeah, yeah, they're disgustingly in the wrong, and it's really annoying how self-righteous their proponents are; but while there are not many conversions to be made at this point in the game, there are tons of more worthy problems to work on/bitch about.

I didn't recognize it before the primaries, but you did: Dean would have been a better choice. Dean, like Bush, might have been able to make more people feel like they're part of the show.

And as a non-Jewish white person, a Green, a reluctant Kerry supporter, indeed the great-grandchild of a miner, and someone who, like you, does a lot of vaguely ethnic subject positioning,^* I want to suggest an alteration to something you wrote. Here goes.
Nader doesn't really fit into the "banality of evil" model. He lays claim to another modernist discourse, that of nihilism. And you know what I am really sick of? Fucking white American privileged activists. End quote. Thank you!
This Bush-winning-radicalizing-thing . . . you're right! People are totally saying that! And they're morons! Greens were saying that just after the last election, and they were morons, too! I don't like your caricature with the miners and the privileged whites, but I do see why people might want to (mis-)link assbackwards thinking like that to working class roots or whatever. See, it's actually not nihilism, it's a peasant attitude gone wrong. Deformed realism is what it is - and I don't mean capital-R Realism, which you can see at work in the current admin. Marx hated on those poor peasants like no tomorrow, but I feel for them. When the power to manipulate relevant ideologies feels so far off, and none of the players involved in the drama are particularly convincing characters - when you can sincerely talk about the world in terms of drama, and banality really is more potent than glamor - then what is there to do but hope that the broken beast's death throes commence sooner rather than later? Beats me! I tend to think a real peasant would just shoot it and turn it into something more useful. Like food.

^* i.e., our journals
"Essays and epistolaries, ever-emerging Eurasian ethnicity, and erotic emergencies erupting everyday; ere, everyone enjoys."
or
"Where writing about West-ward wanderings and wondering what waste whitebread wankers will wreak on the world works well."

Re: nihilism my foot

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

a. Not to sound totally paranoid, but I don't trust the polls in corporate media. They don't seem consistent with each other, or are very murky about how they were sampled.

Why do you find my caricature problematic, out of curiosity? I am not dissing the miners, I am dissing grandkids of the miners who smoke weed in their college rooms/NYC or SF lofts with a Che tapestry and actively lay claim to working class roots while only begrudginly in sotto voice acknolwedging their privilege.

I stand by my support of Dean in the primaries for the reason you outlined. It was obvious Kucinich was never a serious contender, and I was worried that we would end up with a lame Democratic candidate, and that is exactly what happened. Dean, for all his faults, appealed to people on a grassroots level, and had the spark and the energy, and a moral platform that he exercised. That's why I was mad at people like nuncstans who used to spout rhetoric like I was "had" by Dean and he wasn't "truly" grassroots, and how could I vote for someone hawkish on Israel in the primaries--because I wanted to make sure he got enough votes to be the nominee, so that right about now the staunch Anyone But Bush clothesspin voters wouldn't be tearing their hair out every time Kerry appeared on TV, seemingly having less and less charisma, energy, passion and public speaking savvy every time.

Honestly at this point I don't think we'll know if Bush will have stolen the election with the help of Diebold, or if Kerry just turned off so many voters that Bush will actually win the popular vote for real. What a nightmare.

I tend to think a real peasant would just shoot it and turn it into something more useful. Like food.

Word.

from my rocking chair

[tomorrow-devil.livejournal.com]

Of course, I don't blame you for not trusting the corporate polls, but those are the polls that people will think of when they make their decisions, the polls that have the most popular legitimacy, so we have to work with them.

The caricature is screwed because . . .
Short version, in six points:
1. No one can ever owe up to their privilege – in the kind of socialist ethic that I presume we're talking about – except by rejecting it utterly (which I don't see you, me, or any of the angsty anthros and PCVs in the world doing), or somehow perverting that privilege (in a good way) to work for populist interests (which people often try to do, but not convincingly or thoroughly).
2. Identity regulation is the ultimate fascism in a society that, in principle, generally agrees on the preeminence of individual prerogatives.
3. "The mainstream," the "commercial," the "bastardized," etc. are fictions as weak as "authenticity" and as dangerous and damning to generativity as "nostalgia".
4. The "mainstreaming" of values, identities, and legitimacies refers to an ideal distancing of those attitudes and identities from their purist roots.
5. Purism is a greater luxury than the privilege of sotto voce grumbling.
6. Authentiques might, then, take the appearance of marginal attitudes and identities in situations of privilege (often referred to as "the mainstream," but not exclusively adhering to the outlines of "the mainstream") more productively as adaptations of those ideologies to privilege, or as distant sympathies to be shaped and harnessed, rather than as situations that demand – scary! – proof of identity.

That sounds really middle-class, doesn't it? Of course, it's all strictly, IMHO. I have a long version too, which doesn't taste so much like Brita water.
What your armchair radical ex boyfriend said about queer marriage (you mentioned it in a response to someone else's comment above); the attitude that you attribute to him is pretty doltish and impractical, and I'll take your word that it is. Then again, I have a feeling that real radicalism is either going to be so apparently divergent that it's indecipherable (and it'll look like, and suffer from the status of, "art"), or it's not going to look radical at all, in which case it'll probably be dismissed as mainstream.

But in the end, this is just me wanking in a vaguely political manner, which I do happen to have the privilege of doing, somehow. As a career. Great!

Re: nihilism my foot

[tomorrow-devil.livejournal.com]

I tend to think a real peasant would just shoot it and turn it into something more useful. Like food.
Word.


What does leviathan taste like?

Re: nihilism my foot

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

um. ew.

The Rails

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

Dear Ms. A. Chica,

I remember that you have written before about riding trains around America, like back to the midwest and stuff (on account of your aversion to flying - which I share). I am schemin' to take a train ride from Chicago to San Francisco, on Amtrak. In your opinion, is such a long train ride foolhardy? Will it be miserable? Dangerous? Can I get off in little towns and look around and then get back on when the next train rides thru? Is THAT a good idea? Any advice is appreciated,

Sincerely,

Mr. Chelvis

Re: The Rails

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

hmmm, that's what, like a little over 50 hours? Here's the problem: on such a long trip I would advise getting a sleeper, which is usually exponenetioally more expensive than regular couch. If you can afford it, I think it would be a nice way to go, I think it's great when you can actually see the country chance out of your window and be physically aware of your movement (which is why even in terms of public transpotation I prefer overground to underground); I don't know about wandering through little towns, I supose you can do that if you get an Amtrak equivalent of Euro pass or Greyhound pass (they exist). So I think it could be nice, but I imagine it will be pretty pricey b/c of how long it takes and that you want to be able to get off and get back on. If you want to get let's say three coach tickets and plan on spending nights not on the train, that can be manageable and a long, lazy but nice way of getting there.

Re: The Rails

[chelvis.livejournal.com]

thank you ms.chica.