Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

To occassion Bush's inauguration, today's LA Weekly is dedicated to Plan B -- what to do now that we're stuck with this guy for another term.

There are various perspectives there, including mine, which is that the left needs to take the Long View and do what conservatives did aftet their defeat in 1964, which is carefully plot their way to future victory. We need to stop complaining about the right wing conspiracy and get one of its own. There are some silver linings in the clouds, and now's the time to get started.

Coincidentally, I happened to see this article today about Soros and others putting in money to such institution-building. Glad to see this starting up, but those new institutions need to come up with some better ideas than just defending Social Security and forming congressional cliques called the Third Way.

Comments

[bi]

Perhaps, instead of trying to sell a particular honest agenda, it's better to give people the tools to evaluate claims from various politicos to see if they're good or crud? If logic is rare among people, then teach people logic.

[Ethan]

Very impressive article in the weekly Josh. Very insightful.

I am concerned, though, that people are more easily swayed by propoganda than fact. Logic and reasonable thought are rare, and their demise is being hastened by the gutting of public education, and the homgonenization and stupefication of culture. People are getting even more stupid.

Is it possible for us to combat the evangelical crazies with our own marketing of the honest truth? Given the astounding way in which the truth is simply ignored at present, and that anyone who dares to bring it up is quashed, I think it will take many small victories of culture war and many embarrasing governmental disasters before even the possibility of an outright presidential fuckup is considered by some dude from rural South Carolina.

I mean, if you wrote even a small percentage of the horribly awful things this president has perpetrated down on a piece of paper and showed it to a guy from Kentucky in black and white, what would that person say? Left-wing media propoganda? How do you counter that?

Anyway, I suppose that is precisely your point that this is going to require a long-term effort to shift our culture. And I suppose success may depend on whether our fellow citizens have the capacity to choose what is right for the world.