Reading The Pictures: A Few Pointers About The L-Word

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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Comments

[Alternoid]

01:19 AM on 08/27/2007

The Economist is written by people who have never gone hungry for those who believe they will never miss a meal.

[realitytrumpsbull]

04:14 PM on 08/25/2007

I think having a bona-fide Independent Party would go a long way toward addressing all of this.

[leftLibertarian]

04:46 PM on 08/24/2007

Turning to the left?

I doubt it.

Bush is still in power. The democratic party is the so-called opposition party. America is still fighting in Iraq. Most people think Iraq had something to do with 9/11. Most Americans believe in angels.
America will be in Iraq for another 50 years, just like America is still in Japan and Germany etc.
A nation who think it can do what it wishes to other nations, thinking it can export 'liberty' as more laws are written by American boobs to curtail our own liberties.

[nunzia]

01:37 PM on 08/24/2007

Oh dear. Heaven forfend.

[gingy]

11:10 AM on 08/24/2007

things have been going to the right for a long time. if you keepgoing right long enough you come full circle and there you are...at the left.

i have never seen such anger between citizens of the same country. i think the politicians bring out the worst in us.

besides things are not all right and left anyway. there are many shades. i am a moderate leftie. but i always prefer the liberal left to the right any day. and so what? the right wing are not bad people. neither am i. we are all americans first.

i think we need to reallize we are all good people and start thinking about america...not ourselves.

[Annisee]

11:05 AM on 08/24/2007

As MikeDu said above "Left is good" - it's the only way to go if America is to survive with anything like a decent reputation in the world.

I'm British by birth. America doesn't really understand "left" - as far as I can see they fear it as being communism-lite. Your "left" is Britain's centre.

Dennis Kucinich is as left as it gets here, and what the country needs at this point - but both the media and most people (led by the nose by MSM) seem afraid of him, and his policies, so fall back on petty jibes about appearance.

[opie]

10:32 AM on 08/24/2007

Oh, as to the picure on the Economist: I'd say a breath of fresh air is about right.

[Tabasco]

10:27 AM on 08/24/2007

Really cheesey cover art for them.

I suspect that there is a vast, all-powerful covert left-wing organization directing the very thoughts of our great republic into bigger government, endless war, massive debt, cronyism and secrecy and.......

Oh. Wait.

[Trevor51181]

08:53 AM on 08/24/2007

I work as a financial advisor now. Actually, I'm still working on licensing to get into it, but the point is that the more I'm getting exposed to capitalist theories and the way markets work, the more socialist I'm getting.

[nickyboy1]

08:27 AM on 08/24/2007

A hard left will only bring us almost center.. so we must keep working. The dems will have their work cut out for them.
Knowing this would ordinarily make me hopeful but we're under an amoral, ruthless, greedy, power hungry control. I don't even know what power our elected officials have anymore. The dems will win if the repugs don't cheat or worse inflict martial law. If they do win, are they our leaders or just our managers? What is going on?

[realpolitic]

06:41 AM on 08/24/2007

Yes, according to the Economist magazine, God is telling America to turn left. And we all know God always talks to America and gives us direction. The present administration just hasn't gotten the memo yet.

[godlessclif]

05:30 AM on 08/24/2007

Hillary is the Margaret Thatcher of America. In fact in England Bill and Hillary would be Torys. Kucinich, Biden and Edwards would be a liberal party. Only Ralph Nader would be labor party.

[imajoebob]

01:20 AM on 08/24/2007

What I find truly laughable is that UK politicians espousing views similar to Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton are more likely to be Tories than Liberals (except for Blair, of course). In fact, many of The Economist's own opinions could be considered "liberal" by current US news standards (and I use that term very loosely).

[Collielady]

12:42 AM on 08/24/2007

Gee, I don't know... to me it looks like the hand of God pointing the way, to the left... meaning the religious right should re-think their position. (WWJD?) God is giving the "moral values crowd" a sign. They should be very afraid, fall to their knees, and repent to the left. That's how I interpret that picture.

[kozy]

10:29 PM on 08/23/2007

First, there IS a shift to the left, no question about it. But, it is caused by the dismal failure of the new breed of right wing -- the Neocons. Neocons worship money and materialist things, but must appear to worship supernatural things to get the support of the masses. The problem is they are not good managers of government or ANYTHING else! The idea of maximizing worldly possessions in combination with maximizing Jesus stuff at the same time, simply is too much even for the masses to accept. They simply don't (and can't under any stretch of the imagination) logically go together. Then, there is the mismanaged war, the mismanaged world politics, the mismanaged debt-ridden economy, the hollowed out industrial base, the political corruption of government agencies (the Rove factor), the dysfunctioning automobile industry, and the increasingly corrupt lobbying system. The left looks good because it is the only alternative out there. And it has governed before, not great, but in contrast to Neocon mismanagement, pretty well. The public may give the left a chance to govern again.

[godlessclif]

05:25 AM on 08/24/2007

The left never governed in the USA. A late election return. Henry Wallace lost, McGovern lost.
The closest thing America had to a leftist was Teddy Roosevelt. He broke up the Rockefeller oil monopoly, The Vanderbilt rail monopoly, the Dupont munitions monopoly and the Morgan Banking monopoly. His cousin FDR only broke up the Alcoa aluminum monopoly and started the TVA and Bonneville power authorities. FDR was not as leftist as TR.