If it was never clear before it should be now.
We are simply incapable of getting past ourselves and being resilient.
We'd rather "stand or die" on every issue - every principle - than to remain steadfast during disappointment and hardship to ensure we live to fight another day.
The academics and activists on here are SO damn frustrated that some on here prefer to acknowledge and embrace the political realities of the day and fight for future improvements to a current bill that they spit fire and berate others, refuse to accept any part of a counterargument, and almost rejoice in their principled "cleanliness". Almost as if they want to see future failure just to be proven right.
The wonks and "Obamabots" on here are so unglued at being spoken down to, and are so frustrated at the dissention within the ranks, that they break down and start overly generalizing, writing off the whole hard left as "nuts" and "militants", and are becoming almost dissuaded from digging deeper into the broader realities and hard facts.
We label each other sell outs. Shills. Apologists. Dumbasses. We spend countless hours on here, no longer to learn, absorb, react, and weigh sides, but to win arguments, label one another and grow more frustrated by the minute. Pavlovian is an understatement.
This bill is done. Like it or not, it's done. What's incredible to me is that regardless of which side any of us is on, any time WASTED on a debate over Jane Hamsher is time flying out the window to achieve our COMMON goals. We act as if we're all not on the same page - that is BS. Look around you. Whomever you are fighting with here is oddly enough your biggest ally in this fight. Would you rather have Jane Hamsher on your team, or Glenn Beck?? Despite the fact I've been less than enamoured with her tactics and message the past week, I'll sign up to have Hamsher's back ten times out of ten in that contest.
You think this bill carves away abortion rights?? I hail from Michelle Bachmann territory. Right now, she is leading daily prayer sessions to end your right to choose. She is waging "war" against liberal policies and organizing a reliable army to do her bidding. Whatever you may not like about this bill, you can damn well rest assured it takes a hard turn south if and when the Bachmann's of the world gain control of things. And let's not lose sight of the fact that WE are solely moving the needle in November. GOP numbers are basically tapped. While support for generic candidates rises on the GOP side, the numbers of those affiliating themselves with that party have never been lower. When we unite, we win. When we grow frustrated, embittered and ambivalent at the polls, we lose.
The Right gives NOT ONE SHIT about the merits of the argument. Never will. They want to shift wealth to the few at the expense of the masses. They want to destroy your right to choose. They are hell bent toward returning faith and God and religion back to Washington, and they are now singularly focused on reducing the role of government to a military complex and an insurance company, there to protect themselves from their own bad business decisions.
Mandates make me sick. The Nelson compromise is poor. Shifting more revenues into insurance companies is not my first choice for how we proceed. But it IS where we are. And I for one am happier here than left without a bill at all, waiting for some likely-fictional white horse to ride in and place a new and better bill where it stood. YMMV. But whatever my feelings on this bill, I cannot fathom, CANNOT COMPREHEND, how on earth we could so easily turn on one another and literally forget in a day how ugly, divisive, counterproductive, and dare I say evil this country becomes under GOP rule, hell bent on exacting revenge on those blacks, and gays, and Mexicans, and those lazy, good-for-nothing poor folks just waiting for a handout who ruined this country by electing that n-word into office with all his Socialist friends.
When we get frustrated at Hamsher, or malakhi overdrive, or nyceve, or me, it might do us ALL a world of good to step back, and take a hard look at the cover of Glenn Beck's latest "book". Or read the latest Tweets from the queen of Going Rogue on man's role in causing or repairing global warming. Or simply immerse yourself in Fox News for a full week and soak it in.
We can claim that our current divisions aren't going to matter in the end, that the polls are showing an inevitable November massacre, and that now's the time, but we are kidding ourselves. Anything we ram through in the short-term stands NO chance in the long term if our government changes hands back to conservative rule. It took 8 short years for Dubya to not only undo most all of what was pulled together during the Clinton years, but to create a calamitous array of civil rights violations, foreign policy nightmares, financial regulation blunders, and the like, that has literally all but consumed this Presidency to undo during its first term. IMHO, we are simply missing the target if we believe and behave as if there is any more critical goal to achieving and maintaining long-term progress and lasting reform than to continue amassing a strong coalition of the public, backed by stronger and wider margins in Congress and ongoing public demonstrations supporting our goals.
Activists - you would have to agree, no, that the lack of public demonstrations, masses taking it to the streets, organizing outside of Washington, was woefully lacking in this fight during 2009? Sure, some of us showed up at Town Halls, but by and large we were "outshouted" by a wide margin. Sure, there were a few select demonstrations - many impromptu and local, with limited numbers and virtually no press coverage. While your stance and principles to arrive at it are well founded, you surely recognize the political reality right now, no? That the majority of 60 is in fact not a firm progressive majority. That Louisianans and Arkansans and Nebraskans are FAR from viewing this issue through the strongly progressive lens that you do, no? Can we not both arudantly continue pressure on our leaders and the public while at the same time tempering our expectations a bit in the beginning and recognizing that only a massive display from the nation as a whole will ever reinstill proportionality to the leverage a few Midwesterners and Southerners have gained through the setup of the Senate?
Wonks - can we ease up a bit when we push back on the pressure from the left, stopping short of spewing many of the same labels on Jane Hamsher and FDL as would be readily coming from Sean Hannity or Bill O'Reilly? Can we be open-minded enough to acknowledge and even discuss the bill's shortcomings and flaws, and be willing to listen to the activists as to what the sacred cows are when we resume this fight in the New Year? I personally find Jane Hamsher's recent labels and tactics to be untimely and over the top. Yet, I do NO good by swinging the attack around on her, and setting up a potential minefield for future activist movements who dare voice loudly the clarion call of the progressive left in strong terms?
We literally have 316 days to get our shit straight. That is the end game. They tick off fast. Is there any excuse for New Hampshire to have a Republican Senator? For Maine to have two? For Connecticut to have the biggest waffler in the history of Senators representing them. When all of these states poll in the farthest left leaning region in America? Can we even imagine how much more fertile the ground becomes for a national move to the left if and when we pick up three seats in the Senate? Do we really think in our heart of hearts that President Obama and Rahm Emanuel STILL "sell us out" when they have that additional political leverage at their disposal? I KNOW a sell out when I see one - I've had Tim Pawlenty as a governor for quite a while. (by the way, anyone know where he is these days?). HE could be the one in Obama's spot in three short years - anyone want to take a chance on that? How about Reverend Huckabee?
There is no inevitability to November. The polls can and do move in a hurry. There is a Democratic base hungry for leadership and focus right now, and if Washington has its hands tied right now, there is absolutely no reason to think the FDL's of the world, the folks on here, the true heroes in the fight for progressive ideals, can't mobilize and work, organize and lead, all the way to expanded majorities in both Houses in the fall. UNITY in action, discourse in principle is how we rise or fall.
I bought Glenn Beck's book (at a yard sale nonetheless!) and keep it handy. Not because I read it to learn something. Not because I am curious. I look at it because it helps me refocus when I get frustrated at today's events. It helps me recall vividly the hate, the ignorance, the anger, the blind righteousness of the Right - the quest to control us through "faith", through pitting us against one another, through seeling out the soul of a nation for profits. We should be frustrated when we see our leaders now embracing some of that culture and giving in. We need our true activists to keep talking and pushing and fighting. But we ultimately most need to remember the black and white line out there between hate and compassion. Between tolerance and ignorance. Between exclusion and inclusion.
And we ultimately need to recognize we are all, however different, all on the same side of that very important line.