I can't think of a good title for this, so please just read it

WilliamPitt

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Thu Mar-04-04 02:40 PM
Original message

I can't think of a good title for this, so please just read it

"WHY ARE YOU PROTESTING?"

"Because ever since I was a baby crawling around the TV set I've been suckered, lied to and propagandized. The kind of psychological abuse I've been subjected to may not be as bad as sexual abuse but, believe me, it leaves lifelong scars nonetheless. I feel empty, soulless, mindfucked...and now it's payback time."

- Unattributed quote from February edition of Adbusters Magazine

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I have no standing to make pleas for civility on this forum anymore. I've blown that several times over, to the point that apologies for that behavior no longer make the grade. Fair enough. I suppose the best I can do is lay a few things out and see where the day takes us.

There are a bunch of threads today about whining, about castigating people who seem to want Bush to beat Kerry, about people who refuse to 'get behind the nominee' who isn't actually the nominee yet, but will be barring an assassin's bullet or some other insane twist of fate. As I have barfed up more than a few threads about that recently, I completely understand the motivation behind them. That's what I want to talk about.

I direct this to the bitter-enders, to the people who righteously supported candidates who are now no longer in the race. This is not a broad-brush statement, because you know who you are, and you are a relatively small group. You absorbed tremendous amounts of abuse advocating for your candidate, and if the truth be fully told, you heaped a great deal of abuse upon others in the process. That, more than anything I think, is why you refuse to do much of anything beyond continue the attack and the defense.

I'll tell you why you make me angry, why I and others sometimes freak out and post threads that bait you and attack you. We have all lived through the last three years. We are now, at last, into the endgame. The truth is that your candidate, no matter who they may be, would no more be a savior than the guy who appears to have the thing locked up. Yes, even Kucinich, who would have to work with a partisan Congress, and obstructionist Pentagon, an adversarial court and an evenly divided nation. All his progressive street cred would get left at the Oval Office door on his first day, and he would begin the process of making compromise after compromise to get something done.

Your guy was no saint, no savior, no great hope for the huddled masses. Your guy was a politician, with good votes and bad votes. You make me angry because you refuse to accept this all too often, and you go out of your way to beat others over the head with the alleged righteousness of your slighted hero. That ain't the way it is. That is as far from truth as the idea that one crew of candidate supporters have been crueler than other crews. Karma is a wheel, and it goes all the way around, and every one of us own a portion of it.

You're not a victim. You became part of the American political process, and for a variety of reasons that cannot be quantified by the words 'conspiracy' or 'dumb voters' or 'sheeple' or 'DLC' or 'Media,' the person you chose as a standard-bearer in this process lost. You're not a victim if you got bruised and beat up here because, I'll warrant, you drew as much blood as you lost over the last several months. I was here. I remember. The knifework was universal, and I was as much a part of it as you were. You're not a victim, so don't act like one.

John Kerry is going to be the nominee, and if I have anything to say about it, he is going to be the President. He is far, far from perfect. He has cast several wretched votes. In a perfect world, a perfect America, things would be different. They aren't...and part of the project here is to work towards changing that. It is a lifetime project.

At the end of the day, though, we stand together on much that we have managed to forget. We all share the sense of anger and frustration captured by the quote I used above. We all know the score, and it stands against us. If you want to remain a bitter-ender for whatever reasons, don't let me or anyone else stop you. Don't pretend that threads here which stand against you influence your ultimate political decisions, and don't threaten people with that, because it's just dumb...but don't stop if that's the cut of your jib. It is your right to do so.

Just remember that we are far more similar than different. When you find yourself screaming in rage at someone who agrees with you on 95% of the issues, you or they may just be a zealot. We've had far too much zealotry here, and in our government.

There are greater things afoot than your lost candidate, or someone else's winning one. The sooner we all remember that, the better off we will be. We face a determined, unified, well-funded foe who holds the high ground on all fronts. I plan on charging that high ground under the Kerry banner. If you want to stay behind, that is your choice. You'll still be welcomed to the victory party.