Month: November 2012

No, this is not from Pete Peterson’s Austerity Circus or  “Fix the debt” or the Concord Coalition.

Can you see what the problem is there? This is from ABC News, which normally goes into huge contortions pretending to be objective. That slick graphic does not tell the whole story, most especially the salient fact that this is a phony crisis created by politicians to force solutions to problems that aren’t problems and make real problems worse.

The Village may have worked itself into a frenzy over this deliberately created, phony deficit crisis, but that doesn’t mean that major news organizations should be engaging in demagoguery and advocacy. Maybe they don’t know any better, but they should.

If you want a real set of solutions to the “fiscal cliff” here’s James Galbraith:

First, is there a looming crisis of debt or deficits, such that sacrifices in general are necessary? No, there is not. Not in the short run – as almost everyone agrees. But also: not in the long run. What we have are computer projections, based on arbitrary – and in fact capricious – assumptions. But even the computer projections no longer show much of a crisis. CBO has adjusted its interest rate forecast, and even under its “alternative fiscal scenario” the debt/GDP ratio now stabilizes after a few years. 

Second, is there a looming crisis of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, such that these programs must be reformed? No, there is not. Social insurance programs are not businesses. They are not required to make a profit; they need not be funded from any particular stream of tax revenues over any particular time horizon. Reasonable control of health care costs – public and private – is necessary and also sufficient to keep the costs of Medicare and Medicaid within bounds. 

Third, would the military sequestration programmed to start in January be a disaster? No, it would not be. Military spending is set in any event to decline – and it should decline as we adjust our military programs to our national security needs. The sequester is at worst harmless; at best it’s an invitation to speed the process of moving away from a Cold War force structure to one suited to the modern world. 

Fourth, would the upper-end tax increases programmed to take effect in January be a disaster? No, they would not be. There is no evidence that the low tax rates on the wealthy encourage them to spend or invest, no evidence that higher tax rates would deter the spending and investment that they might otherwise do. 

Fifth, would the middle-class tax increases, end of unemployment insurance and the abrupt end of the payroll tax holiday programmed for the end of January risk cutting into the main lines of consumer spending, business profits and economic growth? Yes, over time it would. But the effects in the first few weeks will be minimal, and Congress could act on these matters separately, with a clean bill either before the end of the year or early in the new one. 

Sixth, what about all the other cuts in discretionary federal spending? Yes, some of these would be very damaging if allowed. Simple solution: don’t allow them.

In short, Members of Congress: if you can, just pass the President’s bill on middle-class taxes, and, if you can, eliminate the domestic sequester. Then, please go home. Enjoy the holidays. Come back in January prepared to extend unemployment insurance, to phase out the payroll tax holiday gradually, to restore stable funding to necessary programs and to start dealing with our real problems: jobs, foreclosures, infrastructure and climate change.

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One man activism

by digby

Freeway blogger did some activism this week-end:

I got up before dawn to get this sign up while it was still reasonably dark. It’s over twelve feet long and held up with six wire coat hangers, duct tape and some bungee cords. Traffic here (14 lanes by LAX) is usually at a standstill, which is good because, well… it is a lot of reading.

The other side is much more succinct:

I can vouch for the fact that the traffic is at a standstill through most of the day in those spots. Perhaps a couple of people had his or her consciousness raised a little bit.

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QOTD: California Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez

by digby

From the LA Times:

Having won a coveted two-thirds supermajority in the Legislature for the first time in more than a century, California Democrats now face the temptations of one-party government — and the perils that come with it.

When Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez (D-Los Angeles) was asked what he intended to do with his caucus’ new power, he responded with one word: Nothing.

You see, they are afraid that they will lose their new supermajority if they do anything — the supermajority they have always needed in order to do anything.

And keep in mind that all these careerists are term limited, so there’s no margin in trying to maintain their seats. So why don’t they want to do anything? Well, one can only assume that they are all looking at careers after state government and it’s not going to be as easy to land big jobs from their contributors if they do anything silly like try to solve problems for average people. (Term limits end up making government a sort of internship and resume builder for future plutocrats.)

I’ll be a committed political junkie and activist until the day I die, but when I read something like that I honestly can’t blame people for throwing up their hands and saying,”why bother?” I suppose that may be the point. If you can depress the people enough maybe they’ll drop out and these fine folks in Sacramento (and Washington) can have a free hand to plunder and pillage.

h/t to ME
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Chump change exchange update

by digby

Just as Saxby Chambliss made news yesterday for saying something he said a year ago, today Lindsay Graham is getting big headlines for saying that he’d be willing to violate Grover’s pledge if the Dems would cut the living hell out of Social SWecurity and medicare. (Well, I’m paraphrasing a bit there…) But this is nothing new for Graham either. You remember this from four months ago, right?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday urged Mitt Romney to embrace revenues as part of a plan to stave off the automatic spending cuts set to take effect next year.

“If he gave his blessing, it would be easier for Republicans,” Graham said of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.

In a discussion with reporters, Graham said his Republican colleagues are torn over whether to agree to consider revenues – such as tax loopholes and fees for government services – as part of a deal to avert the spending cuts, called sequestration.

Graham’s position today is no different:

“I will violate the pledge for the good of the country — only if Democrats will do entitlement reform,” Graham said ABC’s “This Week,” discussing a possible bipartisan compromise to avoid the fiscal cliff. “I will not raise tax rates to do it. I would cap deductions… I think Grover is wrong when it comes to capping deductions and buying down the debt.”

This has been the set-up for months. And the President has already basically agreed to it by emphasizing his “balanced approach” and saying that he’s willing to betray his own “special interests” (which translates to old and sick people) in order to get a deal as long as the rich “pay a little bit more.” His promise of 2-1 spending to revenue locks in the idea that the wealthy will be contributing chump change while average people will feel that pain.It’s only a matter of the details at this point.

Now, I suppose the Senate can reach an agreement on this and the House Republicans will still balk. We haven’t heard a lot from them on the Grover back stab yet. But if Boehner can persuade enough of his crazies this time, the real pressure will fall on the Democratic caucus. And the pressure will be severe.

If you have a Democratic House member it isn’t too early to call and let him or her know that you don’t want cuts to benefits (and that you are well informed and will know if that’s what the deal entails.) The president is activating OFA on behalf of this “balanced approach” nonsense as David writes below. They will need to hear from their own constituents.

Those of us who’ve been following this Grand Bargain saga for the past four years have known this trainwreck was coming. It’s still possible that the worst of it can be averted, at least for a while. It’s worth a phone call.

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Lobby for filibuster reform, not tax hikes for the rich

by David Atkins

Several progressive organizations are gearing up right now to pressure lame duck Republicans to accept tax increases on the wealthy. Sounds great, right? Except it isn’t.

As Digby and I have been saying for a while now, minor tax rate increases for the wealthy in exchange for drastic social safety net cuts are not a good trade. Eliminating loopholes for the rich is an even worse trade, as they’re ridiculously easy to reinstall.

And we all know the Republican House isn’t going to pass tax increases on the wealthy without major cuts. We also know that the Obama Administration is desperate for a Grand Bargain. We know that when conservative Republicans push back against Grover Norquist on tax increases, it’s because they know a good deal for them when they see one. And a good deal for conservative Republicans is a bad deal for the American people.

In fact, the only salvation from this fate is Norquist and his tea party allies holding the line against tax increases, allowing us to cross the artificial fiscal Rubicon and demand straight-up middle class tax cuts.

So I don’t see any good reason to tell Republican House members to support tax increases on the wealthy. Precisely the opposite.

If activists want to lobby Congress, far more important is real filibuster reform. Jonathan Bernstein has a great post about it: it’s actually really easy to write filibuster rules that will prevent the minority from doing much more than stalling legislation. The only question is whether the Senate will have the guts to implement those rules.

That’s where the activism need to be right now, not on taxes.

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(*urp*) I need a Bromo: Top 10 Foodie Films

 By Dennis Hartley

As you contemplate 17 creative ways to recycle all that leftover turkey in your fridge, I figured this was as good a time as any to offer my picks for the top ten films for foodies:

Big Night-This is one DVD that I have repeatedly foisted on friends and relatives, because after all, it’s important to “…take a bite out of the ass of life!” (as one of the film’s characters points out with great veracity). Two brothers, one an enterprising businessman named Secondo (Stanley Tucci, who also co-wrote and co-directed) and his older sibling Primo (Tony Shalhoub), a gifted chef, open an Italian restaurant but quickly run into financial trouble. Possible salvation arrives via a dubious proposal from a more successful competitor (played with much aplomb by Ian Holm). The fate of their business hinges on Primo’s ability to conjure up the ultimate feast. And oh, what a meal he prepares-especially the timpano (you’d better have some pasta and ragu handy-or your appestat will be writing checks that your duodenum will not be able to cash, if you know what I’m saying). The wonderful cast includes Isabella Rossellini, Minnie Driver, Liev Schreiber, Allison Janney, and Campbell Scott (who co-directed with Tucci). Look for a mute Marc Anthony (the Latin pop superstar) lurking throughout as the kitchen assistant.

Comfort and Joy– Another quirky trifle from Scottish writer-director Bill Forsyth. An amiable Glasgow radio personality (Bill Paterson) gets unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend on Christmas Eve, which throws him into an existential crisis, causing him to take a sudden and urgent inventory of his personal and professional life. Soon after lamenting to his GM that he wants to do something more “important” than his chirpy morning show, serendipity drops him into the middle a of a hot scoop-a “war” between two rival ice-cream dairies. Chock full of Forsyth’s patented low-key anarchy and extremely dry one-liners. As a former morning DJ, I can tell you that the scenes depicting “Dickie Bird” doing his show are very authentic, which is rare on the screen. One caveat: It could take several days to get that ice cream van’s loopy theme music out of your head.

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover– A gamey, visceral and perversely piss-elegant fable about food, as it relates to love, sex, violence, revenge, and Thatcherism from writer-director Peter Greenaway (who I like to refer to as “the thinking person’s Ken Russell”). Michael Gambon really chews up the scenery (figuratively and literally) as a vile and vituperative British underworld type who holds nightly court at his “front” business, a gourmet restaurant. When his bored trophy wife (Helen Mirren) becomes attracted to one of the regular diners, a quiet and unassuming bookish fellow, the wheels are set in motion for quite a twisty tale, culminating in one of the most memorable scenes of “just desserts” ever served up on film. The opulent set design and cinematographer Sacha Vierny’s extraordinary use of color combine to lend a rich Jacobean texture to the proceedings. Look for the late great pub rocker Ian Dury as one of Gambon’s associates.

Delicatessen -This film is so…French. A seriocomic vision of a food-scarce, dystopian future society along the lines of Soylent Green, directed with great verve and trademark surrealist touches by co-directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro (The City of Lost Children). The pair’s favorite leading man, Dominique Pinon (sort of a sawed-off Robin Williams) plays a circus performer who moves into an apartment building with a butcher shop downstairs. The shop’s proprietor seems to be appraising the new tenant with, shall we say, a “professional” eye? In Jeunet and Caro’s bizarro world, it’s all par for the course (just wait ‘til you get a load of the vegan “troglodytes” who live underneath the city streets). The film’s most memorable sequence, a wildly funny, imaginatively staged sex scene, stands on its own as a master class in the twin arts of film and sound editing.

Diner– This slice-of-life dramedy marked writer-director Barry Levinson’s first feature film in 1982, and remains his best. A group of 20-something pals converge for Christmas week in 1959 Baltimore. One is recently married, another is about to get hitched, and the others are still playing the field and deciding what to do with the rest of their life. They are all slogging fitfully toward adulthood. The most entertaining scenes take place at the group’s favorite meeting place, a local diner, where the comfort food of choice is French fries with gravy. Levinson has a true gift for writing sharp dialog, and it’s all the little details that make the difference here; like a cranky appliance store customer who refuses to upgrade to color TV because he saw Bonanza at a friend’s house, and decided that “…the Ponderosa looked fake”. This film was more influential than it tends to ever get credit for; Tarantino owes a debt of gratitude (see below) as do the creators of Seinfeld. It’s hard to believe that Kevin Bacon, Mickey Rourke, Ellen Barkin, Daniel Stern, Timothy Daly, Steve Guttenberg and Paul Reiser were all relative unknowns at the time!

Eat Drink Man Woman– Or as I call it: “I Never Stir-Fried for My Father”. This was director Ang Lee’s follow-up to his crowd-pleaser The Wedding Banquet (another good food flick). It’s a well-acted dramedy about traditional Chinese values clashing with the mores of modern society. An aging master chef (losing his sense of taste) fastidiously prepares an elaborate weekly meal which he requires his three adult (and single) daughters to attend. As the narrative unfolds, Lee subtly reveals something we’ve suspected all along: when it comes to family dysfunction, we are a world without borders.

My Dinner with Andre – This one is a tough sell for the uninitiated. “An entire film that nearly all takes place at one restaurant table, with two self-absorbed New York intellectuals pontificating the whole running time of the film-this is entertaining?!” Actually…yes, it is. Director Louis Malle took a rather bold artistic gamble that pays off in spades. Although the film is a work of “fiction”, the stars (theatre director Andre Gregory and actor-playwright Wallace Shawn, who both scripted) are basically playing themselves. A rumination on art, life, love, the universe and everything, the film is not so much about the food, but rather a mash note to the lost art of erudite dinner conversation.

Pulp Fiction– Although the universal popularity of this Quentin Tarantino opus is owed chiefly to its hyper-stylized mayhem and the iambic pentameter of its salty dialogue, I think it is underappreciated as a foodie film. The hell you say? Think about it: The opening and closing scenes take place in a diner, with characters having lively discussions over heaping plates of food. In Mia and Vincent’s scene at the theme restaurant, the camera zooms to fetishistic close-ups of their all-American eats (“Douglas Sirk steak, and a vanilla coke.”). Mia offers Jules a sip of her 5 Dollar Milkshake. Vincent and Jules ponder why the French refer to Big Macs as “Royales with cheese” and why the Dutch insist on drowning their French fries in mayonnaise. Jules voraciously hijacks the doomed Brett’s “Big Kahuna” burger, then precedes to wash it down with a sip of his “tasty beverage”. Pouty Fabienne pines wistfully for blueberry pancakes. Even the super efficient Mr. Wolfe takes a couple seconds out of his precisely mapped schedule to reflect on the pleasures of a hot, fresh-brewed cup of coffee. And “Don’t you just love it when you come back from the bathroom and find your food waiting for you?”

Tampopo -Self billed as “The first Japanese noodle western”, this 1987 entry from writer-director Juzo Itam is all that and more. Nobuko Niyamoto is superb as the title character, a widow who has inherited her late husband’s noodle house. Despite her hard work and sincere effort to please customers, Tampopo struggles to keep the business afloat, until a deux ex machina arrives-a truck driver named Goro (Tsutomo Yamazaki). After one taste, Goro pinpoints the problem-her noodles are bland. No worries-like the magnanimous stranger who blows into an old western town, Goro takes Tampopo on as a personal project, mentoring her on the Zen of creating the perfect noodle bowl. A delight from start to finish, offering keen insight on the relationship between food, sex and love.

Tom Jones-Do I need to explain why this made the list?

In case you need a refresher:

 

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Your daily stupid

by digby

So we had this old Cary Grant classic Room for One More on in the background this afternoon and I just heard Robert Osborne explain that after an earlier broadcast the network had been inundated by angry viewers demanding to know why they cut the word God from the pledge of allegiance in the movie. Apparently, these bozos didn’t know that the movie was made two years before a bunch of McCarthyite Birchers insisted that the word be added in the 1950s. But hey, when people are angry about something stupid, I suppose there’s no reason to assume they aren’t dumb in a dozen different ways.

In order to allay another ignorant outburst, the channel went to great lengths this time to explain — twice — that they were just showing the movie as it was made and gently educate the fools out there that the word God in the Pledge of Allegiance isn’t one of the Ten Commandments or written into the Bill of Rights. And then they begged people not to write in again. I guess it must have really caused a stir.

Pathetic.

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Let Dave Roberts explain it to your Uncle Charlie

by digby

It’s a stale trope that these family holiday gatherings are fraught with political arguments. But .. they often are. We may choose to live in our tribal encalves most of the time but for an awful lot of us, the family that hatched us isn’t all of the same tribe.

Anyway, for the climate change argument, get out your nifty IPAD and show this to Uncle Charlie:

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Saxby C the flim-flam man

by digby

Zaid Jilani pours cold water on the Chambliss celebration sweeping the Village:

There has been much fanfare about Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss’s (GA) break from Washington Lobbyist Grover Norquist. On a local television station, Chambliss spoke of breaking with Norquist’s pledge to never raise taxes under any situation, saying, “I care too much about my country. I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.”

Many progressives have been celebrating Chambliss’s rebuke of Norquist. While Norquist is indeed a powerful lobbyist who should not have so much influence over the Republican Party, progressives should not be fooled by Chambliss’s rhetoric. The senator is not breaking from Norquist because he wants to raise taxes on the wealthy or big corporations. Rather, he’s doing it because it will make it easier to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.

Here’s why. For more than a year, Chambliss has been involved with a group of senators who support the Bowles-Simpson plan to cut Social Security and Medicare benefits while lowering the corporate tax rate. This Bowles-Simpson plan closes a few token tax loopholes, and also reduces the popular mortgage interest deduction. Norquist is opposed to closing even the tiny loopholes that the Bowles-Simpson plan closes, so he staunchly opposes the plan altogether — which also means opposing Chambliss.

Chambliss is willing to deal with closing small loopholes in the tax code in order to get to the wider goals of the Bowles-Simpson plan: cutting Social Security benefits by raising the retirement age, cutting Medicare benefits by capping overall spending, and dramatically lowering corporate tax rates.

This is exactly right. And the handwriting has been on the wall for a good long time. Recall this from April of 2011 quoting Chambliss on CNN:

Chambliss: Well, the fact of the matter is that you can’t solve this debt problem just with reductions in discretionary spending. You can’t solve it just by attacking and reforming entitlements. You’ve got to look at the revenue side also.

Chambliss and the various Gangs of Capitol Hill have always known that they needed to “look at the revenue side” in order to get the Democrats to agree to cut the hell out of vital programs. The president long ago proposed a “balanced approach” of two dollars in spending cuts to one dollar in “revenue”. And the Democrats have been extremely clear that they are prepared to agree to virtually any cuts to programs (except defense, of course) if the GOP will just agree to cough up some temporary “revenue” so they can look as if they got something in return for degrading their own legacy.

The fact is that Chambliss said nothing he hasn’t said before. They set all this up so that we would have a number of arbitrary deadlines coming to a head at the same time. It’s how we govern these days — a bipartisan plutocratic centrist and conservative coalition comes together to do the bidding of the moneyed interests and betray their own constituents under a phony sense of crisis in a lame duck session. The details vary only slightly depending on who allegedly “won” the recent election, but basically, this stuff is all baked in the cake long before any of us have a chance to vote.

If Americans of both parties want to change this, they will end the bipartisan plutocratic centrist and conservative coalition. (Don’t tell the Villagers — they’ll faint dead away at the mere prospect.)

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Plus ça change, yadda yadda yadda

by digby

After I read David’s post below, I thought it might be a good day to reprise this old one of mine, which I think gives some needed context:

Tooth And Nail, Might And Main 


As we think about the relentlessness of the Republican machine and its propensity for playing hardball, it pays sometimes to remember that their ruthless tactics are actually a matter of temperament rather than ideology. Conservatives have always been this way. The problem today is that they are operating with a radical agenda, an incompetent president and a country with much too much power to be allowed to run wild with either. 


This interesting post from Steamboats Are Ruining Everything takes us back to 1820 and reminds us that brutish conservatives are nothing new: 

William Hazlitt explained the nature of it in his 1820 essay, “On the Spirit of Partisanship.”

Conservatives and liberals play the game of politics differently, Hazlitt wrote, because they have different motivations. Liberals are motivated by principles and tend to believe that personal honor can be spared in political combat. They may, in fact, become vain about their highmindedness. Hazlitt condemns the mildness as a mistake, both in moral reasoning and in political strategy. “They betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse.”

The conservatives, on the other hand, start with a personal interest in the conflict. Not wishing to lose their hold on power, they are fiercer. “We”—i.e., the liberals, or the “popular cause,” in Hazlitt’s terminology—“stand in awe of their threats, because in the absence of passion we are tender of our persons.

They beat us in courage and in intellect, because we have nothing but the common good to sharpen our faculties or goad our will; they have no less an alternative in view than to be uncontrolled masters of mankind or to be hurled from high—

“To grinning scorn a sacrifice,
And endless infamy!”

They do not celebrate the triumphs of their enemies as their own: it is with them a more feeling disputation. They never give an inch of ground that they can keep; they keep all that they can get; they make no concessions that can redound to their own discredit; they assume all that makes for them; if they pause it is to gain time; if they offer terms it is to break them: they keep no faith with enemies: if you relax in your exertions, they persevere the more: if you make new efforts, they redouble theirs. 

While they give no quarter, you stand upon mere ceremony. While they are cutting your throat, or putting the gag in your mouth, you talk of nothing but liberality, freedom of inquiry, and douce humanité. Their object is to destroy you, your object is to spare them—to treat them according to your own fancied dignity. They have sense and spirit enough to take all advantages that will further their cause: you have pedantry and pusillanimity enough to undertake the defence of yours, in order to defeat it. It is the difference between the efficient and the inefficient; and this again resolves itself into the difference between a speculative proposition and a practical interest.

It is not fair play, and Hazlitt thinks that liberals who decline to fight fire with fire are fools. “It might as well be said that a man has a right to knock me on the head on the highway, and that I am only to use mildness and persuasion in return, as best suited to the justice of my cause; as that I am not to retaliate and make reprisal on the common enemies of mankind in their own style and mode of execution.”

Hazlitt was right. And never more than today when the stakes are so high. 


As I said, we have been fighting this beast forever. Conservatives are just more inclined to fight and more serious about winning. But, I have seen the Republican agenda change from conservative to radical in the last 30 years and their candidates from steady, stolid leaders to firebrands and incompetents. America is the most powerful nation on earth. If the modern GOP boasted prudent, tested leadership and a simple desire to avoid radical change, I would still oppose them but I would not be worried. But, these people want to wildly experiment on a global scale and their track record of the last three years is devastating. History proves that bad things do sometimes happen. Being barely left standing to say “I told you so” will be no compensation. 

Sometime later, I revisited that post in response to a notorious article by Jonathan Chait in which he despaired of the scruffy netroots terrors who were destroying the discourse with our crude language and political aggression:

I wrote that post three years ago in the midst of what seemed like an overwhelming Republican juggernaut. I felt intense frustration at the fact that so many political and opinion leaders seemed to think there was something distasteful about the passionate outrage that many of us were experiencing and dismissed our passion as simpleminded and unsophisticated . (Admittedly, that frustration, born of a decade or more of ever increasing assaults on our politics, fueled a sense of mistrust of the Democratic establishment and liberal punditocrisy that lasts to this day — I simply don’t trust their survival instincts.)

But passion is more than just reaction. It also provides the opening for ordinary people to involve themselves in politics generally. Whenever I hear people complaining about the unseemly behavior of people who go to peace marches or Cindy Sheehan or the DFH’s who just ruined everything for all of us back in the 1960’s I can’t help but wonder how they expect non-news junkie policy wonks to connect with the world around them? Stirring debates between Peter Beinert and Jonah Goldberg? 

Humans need to feel part of something, that they have a stake in the outcome. Emotion is what moves people, whether it is demagoguery, fear, anger or inspiration (and there’s often tension and similarity among those things.) To get people engaged you have to give them something to care about, to feel connected with, to want to devote some of their precious time and resources to something for which there is no direct compensation except a feeling of doing the right thing or righting a great wrong. Change requires energy and energy is one thing that sophisticated intellectual salons and learned political journals, however important they may be, simply do not provide. 

Sadly, liberals are far more difficult to draw in to that for the reasons that Hazlitt cited nearly 170 years ago. It’s a temperament thing. We are just more dispassionate as a rule than the rowdy right because they feel they are protecting their prerogatives — and they just get off on the fight. But from time to time liberals simply have to get religion or risk losing it all. There have been certain periods where they were able to mobilize, usually in reaction to a great social upheaval or obvious conservative failure. Over the long run, we have actually progressed. (And you know where we’ll all be in the long run…) 

But mostly it’s been as Hazlitt observed:

It is the difference between the efficient and the inefficient; and this again resolves itself into the difference between a speculative proposition and a practical interest

Chait grants that the netroots “instrumentalism” (our “practical interest”) is perhaps necessary, but he frets that there is a danger that the movement will devolve into some sort of unthinking know-nothingness that rivals the right. I think that’s highly unlikely. As much as we grubby netrooters have a different temperament than the more staid punditocrisy, we have much more in common with them than the other side — and will always be at a disadvantage because of it. We are not, as a rule, drawn in solely for the combat, where the action is the juice and dominance for the sake of dominance is our motive. Indeed, just like the sniffing pundits, we all tend to be vain in our highmindedness, it’s only a difference of degree. It seems to be intrinsic to our nature. 

So I think we liberals can afford to take at least a little of what Hazlitt wrote back in the day to heart without fearing that we will turn into mouthbreathing demagogues. If the last few years of modern conservative dominance have proved nothing else it proves that we “betray the cause by not defending it as it is attacked, tooth and nail, might and main, without exception and without remorse.” The best case scenario is that you get left with the ruins of failed conservatism to clean up and straighten out over and over again. The worst case scenario is that someday they may just break the country for good.