i think that lefties feel that the truths we subscribe to are self-evident, and shouldn't need to be spun as narrative.

sometimes when we try to come up with a statement of shared values here at ET, it somehow ends up a bit wishy-washy, and i think it's for similar reasons...

we can pontificate: equality is good, social justice is good, unions are good, transparency in government is good, but these don't need to be mythologised or spun into fancy narratives, they are self-evident, and indeed have a habit of seeming trite and pious, gilding the lily, so to speak.

sometimes we fall into a trap of becoming cliche lefties, whinging utopistically and ineffectively while the right take the people to the bank (to better defraud them), because they own media, as many have pointed out.

sigh...i conclude that narratives containing the truth come across as naive nostalgia for ham handed social engineering (cf communism as practiced in USSR and PRC), that according to the right's narrative were universally evil, because they produced breadlines and trabants, while 'we' produced cornucopias and sexy porsche cayennes.

so we on the left are so ready to scream 'propaganda' at the right's 'twistory' (twisted history^TM) that we neglect to take on board what this diary points so well to, that in a 'truman show' media world, people believe the program that appeals most to their own laziness or cynicism, especially when it is drummed into them 24/7.

it's convenient to latch on to 9/11 as an attempt to bring down our noble house of cards by scheming evil terrorists so therefore we need to bomb afghanistan into the stone age, and since we're in the 'hood, go get saddam (dead men tell no tales) and squat the biggest embassy in the world nice and close to all the yummy oil, just waiting for our wise, paternalistic republican drills and supply lines....and yes ignore the crumbling bridges, rotten economy, souplines, katrina etc, because we're gonna 'smoke 'em out of their caves' and give 'freedom^TM' to the silly brown people who obviously will chill out when we have ripped off their oil and they can chew into a nice big mac, and see 800 porn stations in their tents and refugee camps.

we can't intone about what to believe, because it sounds too corny.

so what i believe iswe have to deconstruct the claptrap, remove the negatives, one by one, and eventually what will remain will be common sense, and won't need any more bernays sauce poured over it to 'sell'....

thanks kc, you rock!

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty