Anyone out there who’s been paying even the slightest bit of attention knows by now that American politics are — not to be too blunt about it — really, really fucked up. And, nothing’s more fucked up in American politics right now than the way most media hacks and astroturfers define and obsess over “the Center” and whine about “the war on moderates”. After the US mid-term elections of 2010, US media pundits spent endless hours discussing how the Democratic Party needed to “move to the Center” — neglecting to mention, of course, that moving to “the Center” would require them to move to the right. In the wake of the recent elections in Greece and France, the chattering heads on American TV pissed their pants as they desperately asked “will the Center hold?”.

Lost in all of this is the fact that over the past twenty years or so, the “Center” in the US has been moving steadily to the right. President Drone Strike, who’s spent his entire term falling all over himself to suck up to right-wing cranks like John Boehner, is persistently labeled a “centrist” by the media. Rightist whackjobs like Sean Hannity label pro-corporate status-quo mouthpieces like CNN and the New York Times “the Leftist media”. Bland, toothless institutions like the Democratic Party, MoveOn and the AFL-CIO are tagged as “the Left” by the media and, in the meantime, people and organizations with real, actual Left beliefs and values are… which brings us to the inspiration for this large and extensively-researched infographic.

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…and here’s more centrist hilarity from December 2010:
“No Labels: Not Left, Not Right, Not Nothing”.

Continue reading "The American Political Spectrum: an Infographic" »

“He’s a real Nowhere Man, sitting in his Nowhere Land,
making all his nowhere plans for Nobody!”
–the beatles.

So, a few days ago, I read about some so-called “post-partisan” or “anti-partisan” or “centrist” or whatever the hell kind of outfit they’re supposed to be called “No Labels” that’s just had its big launch with all manner of bland corporate politicos and media hacks boosting it, including MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough — that’s right. one of the most right-wing howlers I’ve ever seen on the tube lending his gushing endorsement to an allegedly “centrist” group. You know when some emerging astroturfers use the phrase “common sense” in their press materials, it’s time to look the fuck out.

“Woodstock For Moderates” I heard it being called; that was such a horrid notion to imagine that there was only one thing I could do, and that was to hit the search engines. As I suspected, it was some weak-assed corporate centrist astroturf outfit being co-led by none other than Mark Penn, the Democrats’ famed Campaign Manager Of Losers and his socialite wife, and dragging along with such glittering moderate luminaries as Evan Bayh and a gaggle of GOP flunkies including former Rudolph Giuliani speechwriter John Avlon and McCain campaign advisor Mark McKinnon (hell, how does he rate?). Along with the eye-glazing politics of “civility” they’re pimping, it sure doesn’t help that they’re still being cagey about who’s signing their checks.

But, let’s just see what Salon was able to dig up…

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that seed donors to No Labels include Loews Corp. co-chair Andrew Tisch, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich, and ex-Facebook executive Dave Morin.pro-corporate Democrat. Ditto for Tisch, a former tobacco executive who has given money to Sens. Joe Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Kirsten Gillibrand over the years. It’s not clear where Morin, a young Silicon Valley investor, is coming from politically...

Ewwwwwww. Lieberman. Bayh. Facebook. Eeeeeewwwwwwww. Anti-partisan, my ass.

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Continue reading "No Labels: Not Left, Not Right, Not Nothing" »