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http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2008/09/child-abuse-at-the-democratic-and-republican-conventions-or-pardon-me-while-i-retch/
I loved this comment:I stopped reading the WSJ years ago because I learned so much more from the FT and that is still true, although not to the same degree. One unexpected source of information was these bolgs, which frequently confirm to me the wisdom of my ancestors coming over here. After a few centuries and a lot of warfare we finally got everyone here the right to vote, an outcome apparently nauseating to some. Commentaries on American voters like this one are very disappointing, but I guess the aristocratic impulse is hard to kill. Articulating nuclear and parsing the different measures of production is not a sure sign of liberal thinking and engaging in discussions that could lead to limiting the franchise is a sign of an oppressive mode of thinking. I actually started listening to right wing talk radio over here and found that, while it is far more grating, its vocabulary is inferior to that of these blogs and its insults far less nuanced but its spirit no more intolerant. The comments on the candidates families were excessively citical. I always hoped for and found better stuff here but that is changing. Perhaps Rumsfeld will be proven correct about the old Europe thing.
One is left to wonder, though, if there is some link between the power everyone finds so frightening and the enfranchisement of our Neanderthals. Such classes are everywhere and I wonder if Mr. Buiter is more comfortable with football fans in the UK than with American voters or simply finds solice in their failure to vote. I can’t imagine him hanging with people who chant football cheers, but maybe I’m prejudiced against the chattering classes.
The irony of all this is that those people your readers find so frightenng want to be the opposite of scary - they just want to be removed from the world. Last time they really did that we a had a global depression and some remarkably undemocratic governments in places like Germany and Vichy France. It is not to our credit that we had to send a Cravath partner over to Germany to set up a government, but we had to. One wonders what would have happened in the UK if there hadn’t been a half American in office. My grandparents came over on t he boat from Sweden and I grew up immersed in Swedish culture, but I’m glad they left.
Perhaps there are Swedes who are glad too, but the truly grievous thing is that peoples who need to be allies are fighting, even if only in words. Replacing Bush with Obama will not help at all so long as only one side’s narrow mindedness is thought wrong and articulation is thought a substitute for civility. Just because someone doesn’t use Sean Hannity’s rhtoric doesn’t mean they are not vulnerable to the same poor character.And this one too:Far be it from me to attack democracy or defend class-conscious sneering at the “common” people. But surely it’s not good for America to make political choices based on appearance and manipulation of images as against understanding and discussion of substantive policy differences?
Incidentally, wasn’t that also a large part of the totalitarian technique - the manipulation of image to mould complicity and assent of a wider population, no matter the grim reality?
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"When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." - Socrates
Vita contingit, Vive cum eo. (Life Happens, Live With it.)
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." -- author unknown
"De omnibus dubitandum"
