THE NARRATIVE AND POLITICAL CORRECTNESS


“Threats to freedom of speech, writing and action, though often trivial in isolation, are cumulative in their effect and, unless checked, lead to a general disrespect for the rights of the citizen.” -George Orwell

Friday, October 4, 2013

JULIA IOFFE: PROFESSIONALISM IS SO OVERRATED



On Tuesday, Julia Ioffe, senior editor for the uber liberal The New Republic, thought it would be hilarious to suggest that The Dear Leader needed to use military force against Tea Party "anarchists" in Congress. 

Ioffe insinuated that the current federal government shutdown is similar to the 1993 constitutional crisis in Russia, in which then-President Boris Yeltsin ultimately ended the impasse by dissolving the parliament, and had tanks shell the legislative body's "White House."

Ioffe asserted that the "old Soviet conservatives" in Russia 20 years ago were "intransigent" and "bullheaded" and the Tea Party representatives in the House are really no different - and should be dealt with accordingly, apparently (tee hee).
What is a president in a presidential constitutional republic to do when faced with an intransigent, bull-headed faction among his people's representatives?
Well, Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected president, was once faced with a similar situation exactly 20 years ago, in October 1993. The parliament, then called the Supreme Soviet, was increasingly against Yeltsin's neoliberal economic reforms (suggested to him by young Western advisors like Jeffrey Sachs). On one hand, these reforms freed up the old Soviet command economy. On the other, they drove the country into chaos and violence, and left tens of millions impoverished, their savings nullified by skyrocketing inflation. The parliament, dominated by old Soviet conservatives, was increasingly against these reforms and refused to confirm Yeltsin's key economic advisor. Yeltsin held a national referendum, a sort of national vote of confidence, which he won, and used it as a justification for what he did next.
Almost exactly 20 years ago, he dissolved parliament. The vice president and the speaker of the parliament dissolved Yeltsin's presidency, and holed up with their supporters in the parliament's headquarters, now known as "the White House."
Then Yeltsin did this to it.


Get it?  Because the Tea Party is intransigent and those Russian parliament guys were intransigent and blah blah blah...

 What's obviously lost on her is the usual hypocrisy of the liberal media when it comes to this kind of violent, authoritarian, eliminationist rhetoric.

The point being that if an editor at a Conservative publication had written the same kind of piece back in 2007 when a Republican president was dealing with a Democrat-controlled Congress the outrage from the Left - including, no doubt, The New Republic - would be predictably hyperbolic.  As always, liberals grant themselves the privilege of being as obnoxious as they want to be while scolding others about "civility."

But while there won't be any "teachable moments" or "national conversations" about this particular double standard, TNR and Ioffe did receive some feedback on Twitter...













As is typically the case with liberal trolls, Ioffe then tried to play the aggrieved victim:

Which earned her this rebuke from Jonah Goldberg:
Where to begin? For starters, the Bolsheviks were not trying to restore an old order. They were bloodthirsty revolutionaries eager to purge every vestige of the old order. After all, they weren't czarists or, needless to say, supporters of the Russian Provisional Government under Kerensky. The tea parties on the other hand are dedicated to the constitutional order established by the Founding and the subsequent amendments. In other words, Ioffe's comparison is silly and nonsensical when actually considering the content of the respective ideologies at play.
But, give her the benefit of the doubt, let's assume she's making a point simply about "tactics." How are tea-party tactics comparable to the Bolsheviks? Are the tea partiers lining opponents against the wall and murdering them? Republican strategy may be flawed, but when Republican representatives democratically elected to stop Obamacare refuse to pass a continuing resolution that doesn't delay the individual mandate or repeal the medical-device tax, only very confused people respond by shouting "Bolsheviks!"
By Thursday, Ioffe was sending out tweets like this:

And finally...this:

Oh, honey...rest assured that nobody is taking you seriously.

But wait! There's more... As an added bonus and for your viewing pleasure, here's a clip from August during the Snowden fiasco of Larry O'Donnell "mansplaining" the facts of life about Vladimir Putin.  Now this is some highly entertaining nutjob-on-nutjob crosstalk but keep in mind that while Ioffe is a lefty she is not an O-bot.  O'Donnell is furious with her because she's not demonstrating the proper amount of mindless outrage at the way Putin has made a chump out of Obama over Syria.  If Vlad hadn't run circles around Barry, I doubt Larry would be this cantankerous with Ioffe.  

The irony, of course, is that I'm sure there have been plenty of times when Ioffe herself got a kick out of watching Crazy Larry pull this kind of obnoxious, over-the-top crap on a Conservative guest.  How do you like them apples, Julie?

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3 comments:

  1. ErikMarch 13, 2014 at 6:42 PM

    Conservatism is not, and will never be, the counterculture. As long as money lies on your side (and believe me, that IS where the money lies) conservatism remains the ideology of the wealthy, powerful, and privileged. This doesn't mean accepting everything the left offers without careful consideration; just that, despite the constant, flailing attempts to rebrand it as such, conservative ideology will never be rebellion. Wishing won't make it so.

    ReplyDelete
  2. ErikMarch 13, 2014 at 6:43 PM

    Also, comment approval. Shocking.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMay 2, 2014 at 9:50 PM

    Complete, absolute, total control …
    seriously. The answer to that is _always_ no. Putin knows that, and that's why he's running circles around Hope & Change.

    ReplyDelete

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