Valley Forge & Palace Coups

Sarah Hoyt wants to urge Republicans to stick it out, in spite of the problems resulting from a bad elite that seems to be committed to service to corporate donors against the good of the nation.

This week has been a tough one. And the reason it’s been a tough one is not just the Republicans funding the Obama amnesty nor the “net neutrality” boondoggle where apparently even passing it won’t tell us what’s in it...

Our current administration has brought us far closer to nuclear war than we’ve been since the Soviet Union collapsed in on its corrupt self. And worse, it will be a multiparty war that will leave at best 1/3 of the world in ruins. And what they’re doing to the new generation, between indoctrination, unemployment and setting the sexes against each other doesn’t bear thinking too deeply about, lest the black pit yawns beneath our feet.

One way or another, we already have two more years of this. And that’s enough to make that snow-laden wind of despair howl around our flimsy tents.

If the world were just the US. If we didn’t have to factor on anything from outside, I’d still say “yeah, let it burn is an option.”

But is it?

Like it or not, the Pax Americana is AMERICANA. If we collapse, the world falls in on itself, and more importantly, we get truly overrun. Because we’re still relatively stable. The 7 million of Obama’s imperial amnesty won’t be but a drop in the bucket.

On the Left, though, the mood is not any better. They are also concerned that corporate mastery of their political class is so complete that there may simply be no hope at the national level -- perhaps in a few cities, a few states:

The devolution of the political system through the infusion of corporate money, the rewriting of laws and regulations to remove checks on corporate power, the seizure of the press, especially the electronic press, by a handful of corporations to silence dissent, and the rise of the wholesale security and surveillance state have led to “the death of the party system” and the emergence of what Ali called “an extreme center.”...

“This extreme center, it does not matter which party it is, effectively acts in collusion with the giant corporations, sorts out their interests and makes wars all over the world,” Ali said. “This extreme center extends throughout the Western world. This is why more and more young people are washing their hands of the democratic system as it exists....”

Ali said he was “shocked and angry about all the hopes that were invested in Obama by the left.” He lambasted what he called the American “obsession with identity.” Barack Obama, he said, “is an imperial president and behaves like one, regardless of the color of his skin.” Ali despaired of the gender politics that are fueling a possible run for the White House by Hillary Clinton, who would be the first woman president.

“My reply is, ‘So bloody what?’ ” he said. “If she is going to bomb countries and put drones over whole continents, what difference does her gender make if her politics are the same? That is the key. The political has been devalued and debased under neoliberalism. People retreat into religion or identity. It’s disastrous. I wonder if it is even possible to create something on a national scale in the United States.”

I'm attentive enough to recognize that there's a common theme here, outside of the 'center' (extreme or otherwise). There's a great deal of extra-national power that's come to dominate the governments of all major nations, our own included. Both the hard right and the hard left almost despair at its wealth and power.

Perhaps the real enemy isn't the left at all.

UPDATE: More on the mutiny.