Pragmatic Politics

At the beginning of the movie Happy-Go-Lucky the protagonist and her friends are dancing at a club to Pulp's Common People.



If one is holding up the liberal-left-social-democratic side of the rope in the political tug of war, you support economic and legal policies that pragmatically support the common people. This is what I try to do, which means not being ideological about, say, government regulation or taxes or unions.

And when I read a cri de coeur by an AIG executive, like this, I want to play the world's tiniest violin about his hurt feelings and complaints about "the environment," i.e. constant bashing of AIG management.

On the foreign policy front, though, my views differ from the ones common on the left-liberal side. I saw Ridley Scott's Body of Lies and thought it was a pretty good movie although many who are sympathetic with the common people will see it as warmongering propaganda. The scene where Leonardo DiCaprio is arguing with his girlfriend's sister over Iraq is especially good, because the sister is a "common person" who's against American foreign policy in the Middle East and yet I agreed with the arguments of DiCaprio's character and could see where he's coming from.

Russell Crowe is good in the movie as a CIA officer in Langley, as is Mark Strong who plays a Jordanian spy chief. Strong was also great in Guy Ritchie's RocknRolla and will be in Ritchie's upcoming Sherlock Holmes movie which opens Christmas. (see Hitchens on Arthur Conan Doyle.)