I appreciate your work. We certainly find ourselves in a war being waged using questionable rhetorical tactics. The rhetoric can be both disingenuous and unhelpful to longterm reconstruction. Yet it does appear that some of these tactics have proved successful for taking away ground from the enemy on the short term.

In our world of sound-bites and lazy-mindedness it is important that, on one front, we use words like “Socialist” to describe the current Administration (and the preceding Administration for that matter). And although it is true, there may be nuances of thought and action which are not easily summed up by the word “Socialist”, it still does not make the word inapplicable.

When describing a Cortland Apple, it is convenient to call it red. Yet it may be truer that the apple is Carnelian, Venetian or Scarlet. Referring to it as red is quick and pretty accurate. And for most people these days that is all they care to know. Indeed, it is a hindrance to accuracy and a denigration of language, but it is also important that we fight on all fronts.

As far as I can tell, Fox is the “mainstream media” at this point. Even the more liberal press are defining themselves in relation to Fox, and giving Fox the credibility of speaking for “what the people want.” Actually, Fox speaks for what its plutocratic owner, Rupert Murdoch, wants, nobody else.

Are highways socialist? John Quincy Adams pushed the idea that government should take a hand in developing this kind of infrastructure to build the country. Abraham Lincoln saw it as a way for farmers to escape the poverty his own father experienced, having to roads to get crops to market and develop any cash income. It was capitalist long before it was socialist.

Most important, capitalists are not champions of individual liberty. They are champions of conformity, and subordination to the needs of the company. Before socialists developed the kind of tactical discipline that led to communism, socialists were the advocates of personal liberty. I’m all for treating large corporate enterprises in a socialist manner, because they are too big and bad to trust with free enterprise. We just need to leave more flexibility and running room for new enterprises to develop. Culturally conservative, politically libertarian, econonmically socialist toward large corporations that have approached monopoly status, and free enterprise for individual initiatives, but subject to strong labor protection laws, is about where I’m at right now.

But, as to the picking candidates out of a hat gambit, sign me up…..what could be worse than what we have now anyhow? Really, what could possibly be worse? Well, ok, there is always the next election. Actually there is a pack of semi-feral dogs running around the seaside village of Yelapa, Mexico that would, I humbly guarantee, run things more smoothly than the current feral mountebanks running their tawdry schemes in Foggy Bottom now. They have a smooth organization, are economic in their efforts and the hierarchy is such that nobody ruffles any feathers whatsoever because the leader of the group, Spotty, rumored to be a bit of a beach pederast and this annoys the tourists a tad but, anyway, he has the Shakes and makes everyone nervous, thus demonstrating a firm grasp of realpolitik. Watching these Dogs run their daily scams makes Tammany Hall look like a bunch of witless amateurs.

Spotty The Mexican Dog, Now More Than Ever.

JB
Yes, the Malthusian disciples are elites. So was George Washington. If we want to argue that the former are bad and the latter is good, then we need to distinguish between good elites and bad elites. In other words, we can’t simply use the word “elite” to end a conversation. We need to distinguish.

Not according to the White House…

Fox ‘not really news,’ says Axelrod

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28417.html

You see, the left LOVES “democracy”, except when the market speaks and the “MSM” loses – it’s propaganda, and they need a “fairness” doctrine to set the record straight. How’s that for hypocrisy ?

The bottom line is in my view they cancel each other out. ALL the major networks are corporate mouthpieces with their own “left-right” axe to grind, which is why I don’t watch any of them.

As for “Elites” – I’d say the modern day Scrooge’s – the rich Malthusian disciples who think the rest of us should die so as to “decrease the surplus population” qualify…

World’s Elite Make Population Control #1 Priority

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/may/09052511.html

Notice these folks never lead by example and step up and volunteer to be first in line. They have too much “philanthropy” left to do. I’d call that elitist.

I agree with your overall point about the mushiness of labels, but there are often reasons why the labels stick. Take “MSM.” Yes, the world of news media is considerably more varied than it was 20 years ago, but the reality is that the audience for “MSM” publications (i.e. those that ostensibly purport to be “objective” but seem in practice to skew leftish) is far, far larger than the niche media. The audiences of the leading Fox talk shows, for example, are measured in hundreds of thousands. The audience for the three network news broadcasts is measured in tens of millions. From that perspective, it does make sense to speak of a “mainstream media.”

Or consider “socialist.” I think many people consider the historical record of socialist/Communist governments and see totalitarianism. That’s what they’re worried about when they see in our time and place, as you so nicely put it, “the continual expansion of the nationalized bureaucratic state.”

Les

Being a direct descendant of a Cuban family who escaped Castro’s takeover, and having a grandfather who fought for 7 months with the underground resistance fighters before barely escaping to Florida, I have no love for communism or Marxism in any form. Nor do I shy away from confrontation (my other half is Arab…so take that for what it’s worth), but I feel there should be honest discourse, which I believe is one of the points of Mr. Mitchell’s essay.

As a side-bar, I read this morning that Fox News is continually on top of the ratings for Cable news…would that not make it part of the “MSM”?

“I see an innumerable multitude of men, alike and equal, constantly circling around in pursuit of the petty and banal pleasures with which they glut their souls. Each one of them, withdrawn into himself, is almost unaware of the fate of the rest…He exists in and for himself, and though he may still have a family, one can at least say that he has not got a fatherland. Over this kind of men stands an immense, protective power which is alone responsible for securing their enjoyment and watching over their fate. That power is absolute, thoughtful of detail, orderly, provident, and gentle. It would resemble parental authority if, fatherlike, it only tries to keep its charges for a man’s life, but on the contrary, it only tried to keep them in perpetual childhood. It likes to see the citizens enjoy themselves, provided that they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly works for their happiness but wants to be sole agent and judge of it. It provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principle concerns, directs their industry, makes rules for their testaments, and divides their inheritances. Why should it not entirely relieve them from the trouble of thinking and all the cares of living?…It covers the whole of social life with a network of petty, complicated rules that are both minute and uniform, through which even men of the greatest originality and the most vigorous temperament cannot force their heads above the crowd. It does not break men’s will, but softens, bends, and guides it; it seldom enjoins, but often inhibits, action; it does not destroy anything, but prevents much being born; it is not at all tyrannical, but it hinders, restrains, enervates, stifles, and stultifies so much that in the end each nation is no more than a flock of timid and hardworking animals with the government as its shepherd.”

It wasn’t always like this. If you listen to newscasts from the ’30s and ’40s, you’ll hear congressmen and presidents described with a wide variety of specific and meaningful labels.

God gave us the ability to name things. I remember a live TV play in the 1950s when Keenan Wynn played God in the Genesis story, and a handsome but not very smart Adam named a Holstein (that was pooping on the floor, live) a “cow” and God chuckled, but let it go. We shouldn’t mind too much that about nine-tenths of the newsreaders believe in abortion “rights,” I guess, but that doesn’t mean that some ordinary guy like me should not recognize President Obama as a socialist. He sure is. And that doesn’t make me a “capitalist.” It just makes him a socialist.

Let’s not shy away from naming names. About a hundred years ago the London newspapers did a survey asking what was the “Greatest Problem in the World.” G.K. Chesterton wrote in and said, “I am.” He was, he said and admitted, a sinner, and that’s the biggest problem in the world.

I’m not here disagreeing with your intention. But you know what? President Obama IS a socialist, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill Bennett are NOT conservatives. Naming is not defining. If it walks like a duck….

Elitists, by the way, by any what other name are always in control. One of the most powerful and neglected concepts of the last couple of hundred years is Robert Michel’s “The Iron Law of Oligarchy.”
Our present oligarchs are not very admirable.

Best, John

Laugh. That was a joke. :)

When people deride elites or socialists or the MSM, they are really pushing a form of the argument: which elites? which media? which society? Which boiled down even further is a form of “who whom?”