Insh'All'In

On a more serious note, the increasingly frantic and increasingly frequent appearances by pro-vote, pro-participation, and even pro-Democratic commenters on this particular blog as The Most Important Elections in the History of Ever approach are telling. Although their shared and often repeated line is that blogging is a do-nothing exercise, they in fact perceive it as just the opposite: a political act. And more to the point, they see the jokes and arguments, criticisms and agreements between one writer and another through the lens of the political coalition. Two writers who largely agree are "allies" in this estimation; they are "on the same side." And since the political stakes are high, as they say on CNN, since a decisive moment in the national Choose-Your-Own-Adventure narrative is now upon us, these commenters desire a deliberate diminution of what they believe to be internecine squabbling in order to shore up the factional lines. It is one thing to criticize supposedly antiwar liberals when the Democratic party holds majorities and all, but now that the tea-party Putsch is underway, it is irresponsible not to bury the various hatchets and present a unified façade of . . . Well. At this point the argument becomes even weaker, doesn't it? Present a unified face to whom, and to what end?

The question of why one might criticize a person with whom he shares affinities only makes sense if you percieve yourselves to be engaged in a collective activity, in particular a collective political activity. Why would you criticize another writer who also criticizes America's wars? is the plaintive question. The obvious answer is: because I believe that other writer's (let's call him Len Blueballs)--that I believe Len Blueballs' critique to be incorrect. I do not imagine that we are engaged in some sort of meaningful antiwar action, although I suspect he does. In fact, it is this suspicion which informs the large part of my criticism. I myself do not "oppose" the occupation of foreign nations by the United States because I imagine that opposition will hasten the end to these occupations; nor do I imagine that if I add my oppositional voice to others, it will hasten that end. (I certainly don't believe that voting for a Democratic congresscreature will do it.) I don't write in order to participate in some political movement, less yet in order to foment some new one. I am not on anyone's side.

Regarding the question of voting, I do not vote for the same reason that I do not pray five times a day facing toward Mecca. I do not believe in representative democracy. I think it is a fiction. That is not to say that I don't believe Americans exist anymore than calling Allah imaginery means I do not believe that Muslims exist; I believe in voting booths just as much as I believe in mosques. It is not the existence of the ritualized act that I call unreal; it is the deity at the other end of the prayer line.