Walt speaks, whoever he is...[ will you marry me? ] and his comment below is the reason to finally resurrect this blog from the dearth [ or death? ] of rational remarkage over the past year. Depressing, really, when Walt hit upon the suspicion I had about John Kerry in the last selection cycle... Kerry wanted everyone to think he was the 'Ron Kovic who ended the Vietnam War' type of hero.
Back to Walt, I personally apologize to you for being part of the problematic "edgy progressives threatening not to vote for either party..." and please don't take offense at my editing of the typos in order to underscore your eloquence with reading perfection. I am sorry, but will say that my Kucinich-based YouTube channel (Scoppertop) enjoyed lots of hits and I made lots of cool friends, particularly a young man of integrity and insight named erkd1. Hopefully, Walt, I can find you online blogging somewhere and add [ invite? ] you to my daily Bookmarks Bar. -ed.
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walt March 6th, 2008 4:57 am:
Talk about the Vietnam Era. We, in the progressive movement seem to have entered that troubling period of internecine warfare that so distinguished the aftermath of the “peace movement” and led to its ultimate dissolution in the 70’s.
Whether it’s hard-core Obama supporters threatening not to vote at all if HRC is nominated, or edgy progressives threatening not to vote for either party’s nominee because there’s “no difference between them”, or all-out, pointless, rant-fests like this, we are bearing witness to the sad condition of our movement since the 60’s … when a few astute social observers described us as The “Me” Generation.
Self-absorbed, atomistic, uncompromising, progressives (a small but vocal few) have shown a toxic reaction to the more pertinent characteristics of pluralistic democracy … namely, cohesion, compromise and solidarity.
I used to wonder if it truly was a progressive plague or an American one? At this point, the Republican party seems perched on the precipice of such self-immolation but - much as I hate to say it - I have been impressed by their ability to hold their noses, unify behind and support a candidate that they believe can win. Then they force that candidate to adopt their positions once he is elected. Remember how GWB, the “Great Uniter” turned on that promise and imposed his fanatical crypto-facist, Christian-fundamentalist, neo-liberal agenda on all of us? He was required to.
I trust - or rather fear - that all this stürm und drang about McCain breaking up the party’s homogeneous composition is a temporary situation … or a calculated farce. Now that he is the nominee, they will rally behind him.
They are better at this game than we are, but only because we refuse to play.
For the Right-wing it is not - nor has it ever been - about a candidate. For them, it is and has always been (for at least 30 very odd years indeed) about a concerted, anti-liberal agenda determined to reverse the works of FDR, LBJ and any progressive social programs implemented. They have, since Reagan, been appallingly successful at it.
For us, since JFK, RFK, MLK it has unfortunately – yet understandably - been about personality. We lost great leaders to violence and since Vietnam, we have had no unifying agenda to rally behind. We consequently depend on individuals to provide the vision instead of trying to build an ideological consensus among ourselves that we can all get a piece of.
Largely it’s because we are not as politically active as a body as we could be. Too many competing agendas and too much wasted energy. Casting vitriol on a journalist’s character on a website is decıdedly NOT political action.
The progressive Democrats are tearing themselves to shreds arguing over whether it will be Obama or Clinton. One side resents the idea that such a candidate will be forced upon the other, ignoring the fact that the better candidates in the race - Edwards, Kucinich, Biden and Gravel - have either been driven out or marginalized. Yet no one seems too irate about the fact that THIS decision was made for them.
I am 60. I was drafted. I did “serve” and fortunately survived. But many of my brothers are inscribed on that wall (courtesy of the Tet Offensive) and many more are lost to all efforts to find them through the vagaries of time and possibly homelessness.
This election is - as we once believed - critical. The decisions we make for President will affect the lives of our children more than ours. I have come to believe that whether it is Obama or Clinton - and by and large this will be a decision made by the citizens of our pluralistic democracy, voting scandals and crooked “Supremes” aside - we had better, if we believe one bit of our identity as progressives - choose and support one against McCain.
I would like to add that despite all his contributions - and setting truthie’s tempest aside – it was not Gravel who stopped the war, any more than it was bourgeois adolescents like Abbie Hoffman (OK, I’ll give you Dave Dellinger). If it was any one person, it was Ron Kovic, who along with dozens of other maimed and broken Veterans chained themselves to the gates of the White House. When their images of despair were beamed out all over the world, hearts broke … as did the American people’s will to believe the lies and go on. Politicians couldn’t look away from that demonstration as they did so many others. No one could. That act, more than any other, altered the minds of the American people and it was the American people who ended the war by withdrawıng their “silent” support for it.
So it will be with Iraq and Health Care and Corporate İnfluence and our Imperiled Planet. No inspirational “messiah” will take office and change things. Neither will an experienced “wonk” or a former POW. Ony Americans, actively participating in government can do this, no matter who is president. I just earnestly believe our chances of doing so are much better with a Democrat.
Nader could do it, but certainly not as President. That’s the ultimate delusion. What he could do is return to his only valid reason for fame - reactivating interest in participatory democracy at the grass roots as he did with the PIRGs. That is what he is famous for and that is what he did best – better than anyone in my lifetime. He pulled us out of apathy into action.
I liked the suggestion that he draw Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich and others into some kind of consensus movement – not a third party, God help us, there’s no time – but a political movement that any member of any party can support and that can put pressure on the President and Congress to reverse 25 years of anti-progressive legislation. Viable third parties evolve from that - over time. They don’t come from disaffected voters getting more disaffected every 4 years.
Social action is the only solution. Anything else, like this endless hair splitting and tiresome in-fighting, is nothing more than … what we used to call bourgeois self-indulgence … which in the 60’s, was the preferred course of action for those elite “liberals” least affected by the outcome of politics. They lived well no matter who won.
We have to elect a Democrat and then through organized action, we have to wean them off the corporate teat and “hound” them back to their roots – the protection of the unprotected. And there are millions of them out there. If you don’t care who wins you are not one of them.
It can be done. It has been done. In my lifetime.
If you are too cynical or filled with despair and believe that it doesn’t matter if a Democrat or a Republican wins you are too comfortable and cossetted to call yourself “progressive” or “liberal” or anything like it.
You are – as we old guard used to say – not part of the solution, but part of the problem.
