the latest Lefty fad on my Twitter feed
Is: "hashtag-hands-off-Venezuela"
Well, my hands were never on Venezuela, but they're referring to the Trump administration's efforts to promote a right-wing coup in Venezuela. Various people on the Left want me to take sides. There was a demonstration at the Venezuelan embassy in DC, and a counter-demonstration, and they were calling me to show up to support the left-wing government of Venezuela.
And this is the type of thing I complain about in politics, how political junkies feel the need to take sides on every fucking issue, even when both sides suck, like they do in Venezuela.
I was recently listening to one of my favorite podcasters, and his guest said, "I don't like the terms Right or Left. I'm not interested in your political identity, I'm interested in your political ideas. If you have good ideas, I don't care whether people call those ideas Left or Right."
Here here! It was part of a longer discussion about the uselessness of the so-called political "spectrum". Where did this artificial division between "Right" and "Left" come from? What makes us think that there is only one dimension to political ideas? And why must we reflexively support anybody who claims to be on "our side"?
I don't know much about Venezuela, and I fear that what little I think I know has been planted by the CIA with friendly US journalists. But it seems that Venezuela is not a functioning democracy, and that whoever is running the place is doing a horrible job. I can understand wanting to "throw the bums out" when your country is going through the equivalent of its own Great Depression.
But that doesn't mean I'd support a US-backed coup either.
Do I have to pick sides? Is that really my job, sitting here in suburban Maryland, to decide the fate of a country I've never visited and know little about? I don't even speak their language. It's likely that a coup would just lead to a civil war, with hundreds of thousands of dead, and millions of refugees, in a world that is already fed up with record numbers of refugees.
I think I'll just give some cash to a refugee aid society and leave the feud over Venezuela to other folks, whether they identify as Left or Right.
Well, my hands were never on Venezuela, but they're referring to the Trump administration's efforts to promote a right-wing coup in Venezuela. Various people on the Left want me to take sides. There was a demonstration at the Venezuelan embassy in DC, and a counter-demonstration, and they were calling me to show up to support the left-wing government of Venezuela.
And this is the type of thing I complain about in politics, how political junkies feel the need to take sides on every fucking issue, even when both sides suck, like they do in Venezuela.
I was recently listening to one of my favorite podcasters, and his guest said, "I don't like the terms Right or Left. I'm not interested in your political identity, I'm interested in your political ideas. If you have good ideas, I don't care whether people call those ideas Left or Right."
Here here! It was part of a longer discussion about the uselessness of the so-called political "spectrum". Where did this artificial division between "Right" and "Left" come from? What makes us think that there is only one dimension to political ideas? And why must we reflexively support anybody who claims to be on "our side"?
I don't know much about Venezuela, and I fear that what little I think I know has been planted by the CIA with friendly US journalists. But it seems that Venezuela is not a functioning democracy, and that whoever is running the place is doing a horrible job. I can understand wanting to "throw the bums out" when your country is going through the equivalent of its own Great Depression.
But that doesn't mean I'd support a US-backed coup either.
Do I have to pick sides? Is that really my job, sitting here in suburban Maryland, to decide the fate of a country I've never visited and know little about? I don't even speak their language. It's likely that a coup would just lead to a civil war, with hundreds of thousands of dead, and millions of refugees, in a world that is already fed up with record numbers of refugees.
I think I'll just give some cash to a refugee aid society and leave the feud over Venezuela to other folks, whether they identify as Left or Right.