It Will Take the Left to Right This Ship Norman Lear

[Demeter]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/

"There is an element missing in the "Democrat/Liberal/Progressive, you name it, response to the mind bending breakdown of everything" we see around us. That missing element is the angst and the anger, the fierceness and the desperation, that comes only when we finally awaken and see the truth: Our country, our way of life is disappearing before our eyes!!

The extreme right, the ultra-conservatives, neo-cons, call them what you may, saw our national scenario in that light from their standpoint 25 years ago. They were losing the America they believed in to the libs and the evolutionists; the gays, and the humanists; the coastal elites and the femi-nazis. I think they saw it correctly. Progressive thought was on the march. Well, on the crawl, anyway. Glacier-like, perhaps, America was becoming more inclusive, more tolerant, more progressive, more humanistic -- and it frightened the shit out of them! Their way of life was threatened and they had a country to save. Fiercely, with favor toward none, they went about saving it. They declared war on the left, while successfully branding everything not right of center as the devil -- and, bless them, Americans all, look at the heights they have reached in a relatively short period of time..

I'm close now to making my point.

It's obvious that I speak from the left. (Actually I think of myself as a bleeding heart conservative, but that is another story. I've been successfully branded and I speak from the left.) So this is my observation: We lefties, we Democrat/Liberal/Progressives, do not yet get it. With all that is going on, unbelievably, the shit has yet to be scared out of us. We have not yet accepted that our way of life is seriously threatened -- and that we have a country to save. We are mired in what will "they" think? They've succeeded in making us feel weak where we're strong and doubters simply because we apply reason.

It will take the left to right this ship of state. That won't happen until we lefties get it. We get it, and fiercely, unapologetically, declare ourselves, to save our country and our asses.

[peacetalksforall]

1. I agree - especially the criticism about hesitations and fear of

worrying about what "they" will think. I don't know which has been worse - watching the harm done to this country by the right wing or screamong out against the leaders I assumed would want to fight it like myself.

Everytime I think about Dem leaders who went along with so much crap when there were plenty of people out here who saw through it all made me/makes me feel things are hopeless.

I will need a very wise person to talk me through the reasons Dems laid down, time after time.

What is wrong with people who want justice, equality, and opportunity for those who are always lagging behind white or wealthy or medium wealthy or christian people with pull?

[SteveM]

2. True 'nuff. I bring up the subject and friends turn away.

Progressive thought and philosophy is virtually AWOL in the minds of most Americans -- and Democrats. You cannot have policies marked by conciseness, concreteness and clarity if you do not have a philosophy. "Third Way" this, third way that; it's all an admission that the opposition (GOP) has effectively hammered away at the Democratic Party "causes" and forced progressives to flee the field or at best re-name what they believe in under a shower of two-dimensional phrases: "move forward," "win-win," "building consensus," etc. Since a body of philosophy (thereby, policy) is missing, you have a public which is sympathetic ONLY when the GOP (marked by conciseness, concreteness, clarity) fills its britches and drives everyone from the room; hardly a recipe for gaining and holding power and making needed changes.

Leadership? How do you have leadership when you have no ideas to lead with and a public who only wants the carpet cleaned up? And all this talk about impeachment: How can any group or party impeach another when the "leadership" considers its rank and file activists as the "Left Wing" of the party (just as mainmedia so names them every night), and the rank and file does nothing about changing its own "leadership." Frankly, since the early 70's, there seems to be a culture within progressive thought which holds that leadership is patriarchal and "stifling of diverse voices." This is where the fetish with consensus building came from. It's not enough to have a Nancy in high office; Nancy has to have vision and lead.