Pragmatismmisitamgarp

Read this interview by Sean Wilentz on current American politics in general and Hillary Clinton in particular:

So it's a pragmatic argument? That she can get things done politically?
That's true, but it's beyond that. Pragmatism is an approach to power. It's not a philosophy. It's not just going for half a loaf or knowing when to compromise, although all that is important. Rather, it's an understanding of the provisional nature of all of our deeds--an understanding that the politics of hope, taken too far, can turn into the politics of dogma. Just as the politics of memory can turn into the politics of fear. Hillary actually reminds me more of what John Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy were up to--more than anybody I've seen since. More than her husband.

My issues with Clinton aren't whether she'd be preferable to whomever the Republicans nominate - of course she'd be, if only to slow the decline of the empire - and if the matter was solely to get back to that mythological better country when Democrats held power I'd have relatively small problem with Clinton whatsoever.

My mother's father was a steelworker in the Mon Valley and my father's father a coal miner in Fayette County, and two generations later I'm a double college graduate who owns a nice house in suburban DC and have a comfortable life beyond what either of my grandfathers could have imagined, and if I hang onto the vestiges of Democratic mythology it's because that trajectory would have been impossible without progressive politics. (And Bromark has continued the progression further, moving into the executive class.)

Whatever else seven years of Bush have done, they've removed whatever deliberate blinders towards American empire and global hegemony many American self-called progressives have worn, and the regard we held this country, cynically naive and idealistic it might have been, will never be recaptured, or pretended to be recaptured again. We are complicit.

Returning America to the illusion that it's a slightly less gleeful torturer is what Hillary is best positioned and most competent to accomplish of the available options in the next election, as miserable as our choices are. That she'll won't be permitted to accomplish even that if elected is another issue.

This is not an endorsement, mind you, just the worse part of a doctor's appointment. Turn your head, cough, and ask yourself:

• If empire, what kind?
• If allies, what kind?
• If empire, what kind?
• If empire, what kind?

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Obamafication?

No. So no.

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• The problem with friendly dictators.
• State Department trolls Islamic web sites.
• Mocos, do remember to check this site out frequently.
• Seriously. More here.
• Why do Republicans deny their legacy?
• A question to ponder.
  
• Bestest site on web. Unless it's this one.
• While this is the most important. Really.
  

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I remember liking helmetball enough to know good helmetball when I see it, and watching New England run a two-minute drill to end the first half last night while humiliating Buffalo was fucking brilliant helmetball. Fucking brilliant.