Centerfield

Read the post more carefully- I had the same critique of the WWP sectarians back in the first Gulf War. Don't read my post as some centrist advocacy-- the Soviet Union and its dictatorial successors are not "the left", so if I reject them as well as the authoritarian right, that doesn't mean I'm lurching to "the right" or even "the center."

Think of my political position as "the bottom" against "the tops" in almost all elitist political formations, whether its political dictators oppressing people from the barracks or commissars offices, or economic dictators oppressing people from Wall Street.

I find it amusing when the sectarians try to label me a rightwinger and others try to claim me as a convert :) Check out this post on my political leanings versus the rest of the blogoshere for a good sense of my values.

An BTW there are incredibly nasty folks, always, in the center, since the center is often where power is, which attracts nasties of all kinds of non-ideological ilks.

That's an interesting point about the center attracting people who have no political principles except power.

I can think of a few chameleon types I know who become different people depending on the audience they're addressing. But while these unprincipled centrists may be corrupt, much of the real damage in the last century has been done by the true-believers, Nazis, Communists, fundamentalists, not sleazy politicians in the center who in their attempt to retain power, actual pander to voters.

Nathan, I didn't really think you were about to become a centrist. I was just being Pollyannish.