I don't usually look at the statistics for my blog because I'm afraid of it corrupting me. It's one of the obvious facts about blogging that the hate-talk blogs get a lot more hits and traffic than those that deal with serious topics in a serious way. Libertarians of the liberalish kind aren't immune to the irresistible urge to vent and hate on things that have kept Rush Limbaugh and the like on the radio for decades. I'd really rather not participate in that, if it were going to make things better, things would be nearing perfection now.
The other day I had occasion to look at the statistics for this blog and it is obvious, from the number of hits that they got, I could probably make a career out of a PZ Myers watch blog, if I could stomach having to read him and his putrid fans. Those posts I did on him last month and earlier got a lot more hits than my usual post does, one of those by a factor of hundreds to one. Other topics that are big in the hit count were the critique of Darwinism and pseudo-skepticism, especially the odious James Randi.
I've tried to keep my writing about those to my main theme of promoting the success of the real left and its political agenda, though in some cases the links might seem a bit tenuous to some readers. I really am convinced that materialism is basically and inevitably opposed to any agenda of the left that deserves to be considered an alternative to what is called conservatism these days. As conservatives these days are all about the accumulation of material wealth into a few hands on the basis of Mammon worship as opposed to the equal distribution of wealth on the basis of need, the connection really is no big surprise. The conservative program requires both a rather vulgar materialism in which objects of commerce and use are more important than people and that the rights which require their needs be met are illusory. Even the conservative-materialist icon Jefferson was hard put to account for those kinds of rights except to attribute them as a gift of The Creator. I suspect that Jefferson would be mighty uneasy with some of his greatest avowed disciples just as Jesus and Marx would. Surprisingly it turns out, whether or not you really believe that people have those rights and that those rights are real and that you are required to honor them really does make all of the difference in political identity. The position of the actual left really is based on those metaphysical ideas denied and damaged by the ideology of materialism. Allegedly leftist materialism is irreconcilable with any left that will not devolve into another sect of the same materialism practiced by the most vulgar kind of conservative, the kind who dominate both of our political parties.
I am back at work and things will slow down here a bit - yesterday I had to process a pile of tomatoes that split in the rain that finally came - I will try to keep focused on the goals of this blog.
More topically, here is a two year old post from another blog Glenn Greenwald: Neither a Liberal Nor a Progressive. That Greenwald can become the champion of so many alleged liberals is a really weird thing because he's really nothing like one. I think there's something to be learned about pseudo-liberalism from the people they champion. The number of apostates from the alleged left in the past should have clued us all off about that issue as well.
Concentrating on the Greenwald link, because all I can say about the rest is "Amen, Brother!", I note this ending sentence (in our end is our beginning):
ReplyDeleteMaybe, in the end, it’s not even the politics that matter the most to Glenn Greenwald. Maybe what’s most important to him is ensuring that he’s not ignored.
Ayup.
More and more I'm convinced the whole David-Miranda-as-mule business was Greenwald trying to find a new way to focus the story on him again. It seems to be pretty much the reason he does anything.
I've been looking at his old blogspot blog and it's pretty odd as a record of "liberal" thought. I've seen a lot of the older reaction to him as confirming some of the ideas I've had about the distinction between real, American style of liberalism and a liberalish libertarianism that is mistaken for it. I don't really trust someone who is for gay marriage if they aren't for the equality that is essential to keep it from turning into an unequal institution. It's a lot like when it became obvious that a lot of feminists were mostly focused on the glass ceiling at the top of the corporate structure instead of changing the corporate structure that was the more general problem. I'm not interested in making the lives of rich gay white men easier while general inequality is supported. That's just the Athenian system in modern dress. Justice, the great emphasis of the Jewish scriptures is the foundation of my liberalism and what that was based in is the bedrock on which that rests. I don't think I have that in common with Greenwald or most of the members of the blogging classes I've encountered, though maybe, as the post I've linked to indicates, I'd been going to the wrong blogs based on their popularity. Thus why I avoid looking at my blog stats.
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