|
|
|---|
|
American Politics Journal Atrios Barry Crimmins Betty Bowers Buzzflash Consortium News Daily Howler Daily Kos Democatic Underground Disinfotainment Today Evil GOP Bastards Faux News Channel Greg Palast The Hollywood Liberal Internet Weekly Jesus General Joe Conason Josh Marshall Liberal Oasis Make Them Accountable Mark Morford Mike Malloy Political Humor - About.com Political Wire Randi Rhodes Rude Pundit Smirking Chimp Take Back the Media Whitehouse.org More Links |
Subject: Noisy, Demanding Liberals and the Overton Window
Hi Bart!
A word about liberals criticizing Obama for not making enough lefty nominations. There's something called the Overton Window. Although I've been vaguely aware of the concept for a long time, I didn't know it had a name or anything. A good illustration here:
http://www.correntewire.com/the_overton_window_illustrated
The Overton Window is a window in the political spectrum of what's considered reasonable. As the linked page shows, the Cons have succeeded in dragging the Overton Window at least two clicks to the right of where it sanely belongs. How? By letting their wingnuts make crazy demands so that their slightly less fascist core doesn't seem crazy.
To counter this, it is good to have noisy lefties dragging the window back to the left, making demands of Obama and of lawmakers and media. Instead of lefty firebreathers fighting the center-liberals, both should understand that the firebreathers create room for the center-liberals to maneuver.
(Slight digression follows)
Me? I am a firebreather! (From North Carolina,
the sane one). An old, old school friend once asked me: "Tom, you used
to be the most conservative person I knew. Now you're the complete opposite.
What happened?" I replied, "I learned a lot over the years... especially,
that the conservatives hardly ever tell the truth about anything."
Having noted that, why NOT Kucinich at Defense? GOPists appoint people to sabotage agencies they want to destroy ALL THUH TIME. The vast war budget, basically half the federal government, has gone far to bankrupting Ameria and hence the world. What if we spent half that money on environmental measures, new energy development, and helping the world's poor? Betcha that would buy just as much security, because they'd love us. Alas, this has not been tried.
Tom B
Send e-mail
to Bart | Discuss
it on The BartCop Forum | Comment
on it at the BartBlog