{"id":840,"date":"2005-03-28T13:48:29","date_gmt":"2005-03-28T17:48:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=840"},"modified":"2005-03-28T13:48:29","modified_gmt":"2005-03-28T17:48:29","slug":"wheres-the-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=840","title":{"rendered":"where&#8217;s the alternative?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/prorev.com\/2005\/03\/where-is-counterculture-when-we-need.htm\">Sam Smith<\/a> wonders why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzflash.com\"><em>BuzzFlash<\/em><\/a>&#8216;s traffic is equal to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\"><em>The Nation<\/em><\/a>&#8216;s.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This, reflecting our politics generally, represents a triumph of virulent antipathy towards the existing situation over the construction of an alternative worth fighting for, a tsunami of disgust and deconstruction overwhelming the creative, imaginative and hopeful.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzflash.com\"><em>BuzzFlash<\/em><\/a> does reflect the virulency of politics generally and rejecting the one-sided polemics makes good sense ethically and creatively.  Their headlines are on my site because I don&#8217;t watch television and the bare-knuckled visciousness of the show most Americans see on it is very relevant to understanding the political discourse overall. It&#8217;s a barometer, not an endorsement.  I harbour no delusion they exist beyond serving the Democratic party but I don&#8217;t think <em>The Nation<\/em> ultimately does, either.  Lest we forget <em>The Nation<\/em>, like so many &#8220;progressives,&#8221; remained uncritical of Kerry during his campaign no matter how Bush-like he became or repugnant his ideas.  But I think the point Smith is making is that untill meek progressives have a leadership that actually reflects their values they have no business criticising Republicans for not doing so.  Bravo on that.  I also don&#8217;t think they&#8217;re looking for an alternative.  There&#8217;s money and fame to be had playing this game.<\/p>\n<p>Does it distract those looking for one from finding an alternative?<\/p>\n<p>No more than witnessing a car wreck keeps one from getting to a destination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sam Smith wonders why BuzzFlash&#8216;s traffic is equal to The Nation&#8216;s. This, reflecting our politics generally, represents a triumph of virulent antipathy towards the existing situation over the construction of an alternative worth fighting for, a tsunami of disgust and &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=840\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdXTf-dy","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}