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roachboy · 04-26-2009, 05:40 AM

well, among the new realities conservatives face is that they no longer can control the terms of debate. it's hard to find a way in which a polemic between these two buffoons is of any real interest, but this is one. conservatives have a Real Problem on their hands with the legacy of the bush administration the gift that keeps on giving o yes. the responses from the right have been as outlined--torture is justified on utility grounds, which sets up the ends justify the means (obviously); torture is dissolved into something amorphous. so you have a fight over torture as over again harsh interrogation techniques, who gets to name the phenomenon. so you have a fight over claims to utility. this is all obvious, just an outline of the lay of the land insofar as the right is of any consequences, insofar as it's old ideological machinery continues twitching.

a claim like pan's is just another conservative evasion. after 15 years of conservative ultra-partisanship, now the problem is division--but it's blamed on everyone as if that had any weight beyond reflecting a psychological relation to a reality pan can't really cope with. and it has no weight apart from that psychological fact.

pan even goes so far as to try to define for us what the Important Issues are, mostly so that this question--which is a quite basic political one, in that the legitimacy of something basic about the way in which the united states fashions itself discursively is at stake in it---this question has to go away. so there are these shallow efforts to erase the problem.

the equivalence game is another old conservative favorite. it's called projection. it's primary function is to provide a sense to those who think through conservative politics that those politics are not extreme rightwing positions---you find opposites and declare yourself to be in relation to them, a normalized relation is set up. that's all this is. it's been happening for a very long time, it's functions should be obvious, so the only surprise is to find that it still has legs. go figure.

04-26-2009, 05:40 AM	#27 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	well, among the new realities conservatives face is that they no longer can control the terms of debate. it's hard to find a way in which a polemic between these two buffoons is of any real interest, but this is one. conservatives have a Real Problem on their hands with the legacy of the bush administration the gift that keeps on giving o yes. the responses from the right have been as outlined--torture is justified on utility grounds, which sets up the ends justify the means (obviously); torture is dissolved into something amorphous. so you have a fight over torture as over again harsh interrogation techniques, who gets to name the phenomenon. so you have a fight over claims to utility. this is all obvious, just an outline of the lay of the land insofar as the right is of any consequences, insofar as it's old ideological machinery continues twitching. a claim like pan's is just another conservative evasion. after 15 years of conservative ultra-partisanship, now the problem is division--but it's blamed on everyone as if that had any weight beyond reflecting a psychological relation to a reality pan can't really cope with. and it has no weight apart from that psychological fact. pan even goes so far as to try to define for us what the Important Issues are, mostly so that this question--which is a quite basic political one, in that the legitimacy of something basic about the way in which the united states fashions itself discursively is at stake in it---this question has to go away. so there are these shallow efforts to erase the problem. the equivalence game is another old conservative favorite. it's called projection. it's primary function is to provide a sense to those who think through conservative politics that those politics are not extreme rightwing positions---you find opposites and declare yourself to be in relation to them, a normalized relation is set up. that's all this is. it's been happening for a very long time, it's functions should be obvious, so the only surprise is to find that it still has legs. go figure. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite