Sunny Hundal, over at my favourite blog, Liberal Conspiracy, has always given the impression of wanting to be Britain’s answer to Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of DailyKos – the leader of an online grassroots of progressive political activists. Not quite there yet though, it seems.
Unfortunately for Sunny, Markos’ success came from running the leading anti-Government blog whilst at the same time being equally critical of the DNC and the sorts of candidates they were selecting (like Hilary Clinton with dubious records on Iraq) and wanting to get fresh faced people like Obama selected instead (with good track records on Iraq). Liberal Conspiracy, on the other hand, rarely has anything new to say or anything interesting to bring to political debate. It’s the same old, “The state should do this!!!” concept repeated ad-infinitum, convinced the failure of the left is due to the specific implementations or the personalities of their leaders.
Wrong. All that fretting and worrying about policy is such a complete waste of time. I’ve heard it over and over on Labour Home, I’ve heard it over and over on Labour List and it’s been done to death on Liberal Conspiracy. All of them looking for the new idea, the new brilliant policy that’s going to somehow going to reinvent the left, bringing together the benefits of redistribution and a monolithic public sector without economic stagnation, unemployment, crushing of innovation, a welfare subculture, Government enabled Monopoly corporations and all this without the authoritarianism and ‘unfortunate’ need to take as much wealth as possible from as many sources as possible to pay for all these adventures and ideas.
In short, there’s no way to ‘reinvent’ this crap. It’s a flawed, morally bankrupt premise that depends on people being willing to allow the state to decide who wins and who loses – shafting one group in order to boost another. It amazes me that people still believe it’s possible to make this hideous faith system work in the real world without experiencing exactly the same outcomes over and over again.
So while DailyKos is community generated and focused on real action that people can take, Liberal Conspiracy is a collaborative blog desperate to figure out ways of ‘reinventing’ the failed ideology of Social Democracy.
DailyKos was a successful campaigning tool not because of policies and ideas, but because they threw their full weight behind what they knew to be a highly attractive candidate for grassroots Democrats – Barack Obama. So it’s not a new Democratic Party in terms of policy. It’s a new Democratic Party in terms of presentation.
I’ve long argued that the Left doesn’t need reinventing: The malaise of the Labour Party and the left in general has come not from a failure of ideas, but complete lack of that kind of charismatic leader that can blag the British people into renewing their subscription to “Marxist Bollocks Monthly” Brown’s complete lack of charisma and ability to communicate exposes the emptiness of the ideology underneath. There’s nothing there, at all, and without the pretty smile and handsome charm of a true Progressive Leader, this ugly truth is left naked for all to see. Long may Brown continue in his role.
If Liberal Conspiracy really wants to reinvigorate the Left, all it needs to do is find that charismatic new leader. If you want power Sunny, it’s yours – just find the leader, that’s it, and embrace the inner Authoritarian and spank your Command Economy monkey to your heart’s content. Just don’t pretend you’re achieving anything else.
Roger Thornhill said...
31 May 09 at 3:50 pm
Charlotte, this fence-sitting has just got to stop!
Great post. the Left are still in utter utter denial about the beastliness of their ideology. And they spend their time calling Libertarians “selfish”, when it is they who want to breed an entire nation to abdicate responsibility in its entirety.
Frank Davis said...
31 May 09 at 7:31 pm
Nice article.
I used to spend quite a lot of time on Kos, oh so many years ago, when I was young, and the Iraq war was raging. It was a genuine community back then. Or so I thought.
Then one day I returned to it after a long absence, and read some piece about Global Warming that happened to be on the front page at the time, and posted a mildly sceptical comment about it.
Within minutes my comment had been removed, and I was being questioned. Who was I? Was I a Bush sympathizer? My comment would be held until I had been checked out. Previous postings of mine, critical of Dick Cheney’s custom of shooting his friends in the face, were dug out from a year or more before. I was grudgingly recognised as being one of the earliest posters on Kos. Eventually my global-warming-sceptical comment was allowed, surrounded by hostile counter-comments. And I was asked to justify my unwarranted scepticism. which I proceeded to do by saying that I was just, well, y’know, …sceptical.
The experience was like being surrounded by riot police, and put up against a wall, frisked, and interrogated. It was quite shocking. I’d not realised that climate scepticism was impermissible.
I never went back. And the experience boosted my nascent climate scepticism no end. I’m completely and irrevocably sceptical now.
David Boycott said...
31 May 09 at 7:45 pm
Great article. Why do you spend your time helping social democrats get elected under a misleading moniker?
Simon said...
1 Jun 09 at 11:15 am
Also confused, why the Lib Dem angle? You are clearly not a typical Lib Dem.
Charlotte Gore said...
1 Jun 09 at 11:23 am
Not typical, no, but not unique either.
I can’t let go of the idea that liberalism should be represented by the liberal party.
Stu said...
1 Jun 09 at 12:09 pm
What’s that got to do with the Lib Dems, Charlotte?
Charlotte Gore said...
1 Jun 09 at 12:10 pm
Funny
Letters From A Tory said...
1 Jun 09 at 3:32 pm
Well said Stu!
By the way Charlotte, your presence has been requested in the comments thread for today’s letter on my blog!
Oranjepan said...
1 Jun 09 at 6:19 pm
LC promotes Fabianism, if you wish to call that SD (social democracy) that’s your prerogative, but I question whether that is actually what the Fabians promote. It’s all a means to an end for them.
Kos’s success at campaigning also needs to be questioned. It helps to have supported the winning candidate when you’re retrospectively claiming influence, but weren’t they preaching to the converted and creating a sickly sweet stench of smug self-satisfaction which was just as off-putting and actually held Obama back from a more overwhelming victory?
So again we return to the subject of presentation vs substance.
David said...
2 Jun 09 at 12:25 pm
Liberalism is represented by a liberal party, just not the Lib-Dems (although I think the party has come on leaps and bounds in the past 5-6 years.)