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August 17, 2009

BAG Archive Edition: A Few Pointers About The L-Word

By Michael Shaw

Archive Note: This BAG entry appeared at Huffington Post on August 23, 2007 after the Democrats swept the mid-term elections. It's interesting, among other things, to consider (debate?) how prescient this was.  Original post/comment thread here.

2007-08-22-EconomistLeftScare.jpg

I hope you caught this cover last week, as The Economist should definitely be called on it.

In an act of political fear mongering, this photo-illustration warns that an otherwise centrist America is being mysteriously poked to the left. (Which is why I've come up with a more accurate directional and title revision, which you can see here at BAGnewsNotes.)

In The Economist scenario, on the other hand, it's as if the left (in a freak act of nature, in the form of a wannabe-storm cloud) is conspiring not just to highjack the country but to drive it off into the wilderness.

Even more clever, in fact, is the allusion to celestial forces. Wonderful, wonderful indeed how the illustration seems to associate the left with the Almighty, transposing the delusion, firmly gripped for most of the decade by the right wing, that it was they who acted with the hand of God.

And if it's not that, then it's Harry Reid and Co. as the all powerful Oz.

(photo-illustration: The Economist cover. August 11, 2007)

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  • http://crooksshadow.blogspot.com Mike H

    PRINCETON, NJ — Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/120857/conservatives-single-largest-ideological-group.aspx
    —————-
    I guess you and the rest of the reality based community never got this memo huh?

  • jonst

    what does “Harry Reid and company” have to do with any discussion of the Left?

  • acer

    It looks to me like the road goes left anyways in the distance…then ominously jags right again after a short time and disappears in to the distance.
    A sign of what the Economist wishes to happen or similar, hmmmm?

  • http://www.victorfitzsimons.net Victor F

    another survey (State of American Political Ideology) says “…more than two-thirds of Americans rate a “progressive” approach to politics favorably, a 25-point increase in favorability over the last five years….” The authors go on to suggest this has more to do with branding than anything. And hey, after 8 years of Cheney, any adjustment towards the center looks like a “turn to the left.”

  • http://www.acecomputersonline.com/jyerupakku/ ジェルパック 口コミ

    はじめましてジェルパック 口コミです。
    ブログがんばってくださいね。

  • yg

    poll how many conservatives want to forgo their evil socialistic medicare & social security.

  • http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/inyti-poll-indicates-even_n_218852.html yg

    before anti-reform corporate forces panicked and went nuclear with their “grandma is going to die!” fearmongering, their own commissioned polling showed majority support for public option. NYT followed that up and found 50% republicans support a public option.
    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/22/inyti-poll-indicates-even_n_218852.html
    of course the numbers have shifted since then, but now we know what precipitated the panic.

  • Tena

    Beat me to it. I was just going to say I wish Harry Reid and company were the Great Oz who wanted to turn the country left. I can’t figure out which party Harry is supposed to be working for these days.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/aog Annoying Old Guy

    Because it’s a very common pattern that nothing discourages support for “progressive” politics like implementing them. Just consider the Clinton Presidency, for instance. Or Eastern Europe. Or the USA 1976-1980.

  • Tena

    The cover bothered me from the start and I couldn’t figure out why at first but now I see why: the hand points left, but the road keeps going straight. The hand is in the foreground and the road goes right past it.

  • yg

    the hand is also a cloud. not rooted in anything solid. prone to be buffeted around by unpredictable winds. might even dissipate into nothingness.
    this also recalls the story about a floating hand that warned the writing is on the wall. uh oh.
    the wrongwing version would have a floating hand with an extended middle finger.

  • http://ruinsofempire.blogspot.com/ Rafael

    You mean the U.S. before Johnson/Nixon wrecked it? Although come to think of it some of Nixon’s policies seem downright “socialist” by the yard stick of the modern conservative. And let us not forget how Ronald Reagan plunged the U.S. into such deep debt that it will never come out of it. But yeah, history, who needs it?

  • http://ruinsofempire.blogspot.com/ Rafael

    On the global scale of Left-Right politics, the U.S is clearly Center-Right to Right. What people consider Left in the U.S. is what most Right-wing parties consider to be the norm. Not to be confused with Far-Right parties which would really feel at home with the current rhetoric of the GOP.

  • Tena

    It’s not clearly anything. You are backing that up with exactly nothing.

  • http://profile.typepad.com/6p0115724f02ff970b Serr8d

    Interesting. My take on the ‘Storm’s Coming’ theme…

    Related, Iconography.

  • yg

    uh huh. and bush’s $8 trillion dollar’s worth of unfunded liability for medicare part d alone – had nothing to do with the storm. that’s not even including the cost of tax cuts and 2 wars.

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