[Dean's World] Aziz P: priorities

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Aziz P:
priorities
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1182437575.shtml


   So, I am in Chicago at my parents' place, and am preparing to go back
   to Marshfield tomorrow after having successfully unloaded all our
   stuff there yesterday. I decide to swing past the blogsphere to see
   what's going on. At RedState, I find this [1]incomprehensible
   gibberish:

     So flash in the bedpan Nan was was cuttin' a rug with the koolaid
     krowd up there in DC Wednesday, yucking it up with members of
     Campaign for America, Code Pink, and a handful of other of our
     favorite crazies. She did, yet again, a masterful job of dancin'
     all around her inability to accomplish the only thing they elected
     her to do.

     As the headlines go, apparently America's Mother-In-lawâ¢, Okinawa
     Jack, Dingy Harry AND the Dream Prez Hildebeast, all received stout
     rounds of boos.

   The funny thing about the above text is that about half the people who
   routinely surf the polisphere will be noddig in sage agreement and the
   other half will be utterly outraged. But to someone who hasn' really
   been plugged in for four days, driving across this great nation in a
   26 foot rental and jawboning with ordinary people at truck stops and
   Cracker Barrel, the above text really makes no sense at all.

   The problem here is that the blogsphere - especially the polisphere -
   is far too [2]referential. Unlike the referential culture and art that
   Mark talks about in his post at Kaedrin, though, the purpose of this
   referencing is to accentuate a divide. Somewhere along the way, the
   divide itself became equated with the thing being divided.

   I reject Clausewitz' maxim that politics is war via other means
   because a. it's supremely cynical and b. the logical extension is that
   "victory" can only be achieved through destroying your opposition, not
   finding common ground for a greater good. Politics can and should be
   the art of reason, and having been reading Plato's Republic the past
   few days, I am struck by how far the supposed entity "the West" has
   drifted from it's supposed foundations as elucidated therein.

   "A curious game. The only winning move is not to play." I choose not
   to play.

   I'm still a blogger here. But I'm done with the polsphere. Effective
   immediately, I'm ceasing active updating of Nation Building and City
   of Brass. I'll reorient both to focus on the del.ico.us feeds and
   reserve some small space on the side for the occassional blog post.
   Here, I'll probably stay out of the pol threads and post/comment on
   the fun stuff; I like most of you, even those of you whom I disagree
   profoundly with, and I feel a connection to you folks. I'll
   participate only in ways that build on that connection. And any
   blogging I do actively will only be at Haibane.info and Refscan (the
   latter being moribund of late due to my recent transitions).

   Thoreau says, simplify, simplify. So I shall.

References

   1. http://redstate.com/stories/congress/americas_idiot
   2. http://kaedrin.com/weblog/archive/001251.html