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Plato’s Beard » East vs West

When Ralph Nader pointed out that there are no significant differences between the Democrats and Republicans it was met with responses that ranged from insult to false outrage which persists to this day among idle commentors in the blogosphere who challenge Nader’s motives, personality and commitment! One presumes they consider their own hard commenting e-politicking in favour of the Democratic party the better alternative to Nader’s decades of activism. The 2006 Democratic victory, eked out based on a sad mixture of Bush’s unpopularity and a field of ex-Republican and “Blue Dog” candidates, was the crowning achievement of this hyper-cautious citizen politician “liberal”s. The expectation then would be that we would, in quick order, gather evidence of how wrong Nader was about the difference between the two parties. Well, here is Matt Taibbi:

Current blogosphere darling (though even that tide is turning) Obama has been on the forefront of the call for the Iraqis to show responsibility. No doubt his righteous scolding will accomplish this bogus goal, more so than the death and disorder that the Iraqis are enduring as a result of our assault. Taibbi addresses such callous nonsense:

The term offered by the blog-comment-osphere for their hyper-cautious centrism is “gradualism”. Taibbi comments:

Howard Zinn wrote recently a timely piece pointing out that we are not politicians but citizens. But for the “progressive” blogosphere, the small bits of power derived from colluding with the Democrats (which they perceive as king-making, or at best productive engagement) perhaps offer greater satisfaction than the uncertainties of citizen activism of the type practised by Nader.