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I'm one of those posters with a tendency to rail against the "far leftists" on this board. While I'm quite willing to admit that, I have to point out that I rail just as strongly against the DLC corporatists, if not more strongly. That's kind of beside the point, but I want people to understand that I am NOT a centrist, or a "moderate." Moderate liberal, perhaps, but nevertheless a solid one. I believe very strongly in liberalism. I support virtually all of our social ideas, and I'm very much in favor of MORE progressive taxation than we have now. I was also against the Iraq War well before the invasion. In fact, the run up to the invasion was one of the worst periods of my life. I dare say that I believe I was probably clinically insane at that time, due to the stress that it put on me, and the shame that I felt in even being an American citizen. The whole of my beliefs in my country were crumbling around me. I hated the people I walked past in the street, for being so willingly ignorant as to support an invasion of Iraq. It was the worst I had ever felt in my life.
But, back to what's going on with the problem you've noted. The problem on DU right now, in my mind, is that on the far leftist side of this board, liberalism is, in fact, being seriously distorted. Recently, many of the views being expressed on this board are not just "leftist"- they are destructionist. I hesistate to call them "anti-American," because I HATE that term- and I've BEEN called it. For the sake of brevity, and because I don't want to hurt anyone in particular or get flamed, I'm not going to list any of those views.
But these views are there. And they're not liberal.
They ARE contrarian. They ARE angry. They also seem to come from a mindset so bitter at the disgusting thing that our country has become that it seems to have lost all rationality and principle.
AND THAT IS THE LAST THING WE NEED RIGHT NOW.
The LAST thing we need to do right now is to lash out blindly at our country. We need to collect ourselves, and re-establish those founding principles of our party and liberalism itself. In doing so, the PC garbage and SOME of the more outlandish academic ideas that we're seeing here need to be put aside. I *am* an intellectual (although most here probably don't understand or even agree with that, due to my posting style), and I'm of the opinion that we most definitely can use some new ideas. But we're not trying to start an insurrection. I'm not interested in a Stalinist government (and I don't think the rest of the country is, either). We're just trying to take our country back. THAT is the point. We need to get our country back. That's not going to happen with off-the-wall stuff. That's not going to happen if we start supporting things like *government-mandated* parenting classes for those expecting babies (sorry, I had to mention one, at least).
This fight isn't about going along with the Republicans so that we can be "mainstream." It's about taking these ideas that are so central to our American way of life, to the founding fathers' principles, and resurrecting them. It's about, once they are revived, showing STRONG BELIEF in those principles- liberty and justice for all (REALLY), a chicken in every pot, the separation of church and state, FREE SPEECH (for fuck's sake!!!), a no-first-strike foreign policy, an ecologically sound environment, transparency in government AND voting (hard to imagine, huh?), fair wealth distribution and healthcare for EVERYONE. It's about showing the courage it takes to prove that we, as Democrats, *deserve* to be in control of this country. Most of all, it's about taking these American principles, these ***liberal*** principles, and re-framing them, *through* our leadership, to literally pull this country back over to our side.
Now, up to this point, I've been awfully nice to our Democratic leadership, in attacking the "far-leftists" in the way that I have. But, let me say this: the *reason* that DU has become such a breeding ground for these far-leftist ideas is the insanely ridiculous lack of leadership from our elected Democrats. Their spinelessness has left an idea/hope vacuum within our party, and it is currently being filled in with nonsense. Yes, all of this COULD have been avoided IF our leadership had taken it upon themselves, even in the recent past, to actually represent strongly what our party stands for- true liberalism. It is, in fact, virtually all Biden's, Clinton's (both of them), Edwards', etc., etc.'s fault that this is happening.
What else do you expect, when a party has been neglected like this- for over a decade?
Our party is GOING to find hope, strength, and principles somewhere. If our leadership doesn't offer it...well....
So, that's my opinion. My HOPE is that those who are looking for leadership and direction in our party can lose the hysteria and pull themselves together. Further, the sooner our Democratic leadership comes around, the sooner that is liable to happen. That's not to say that our leadership hasn't been BETTER in the past year or so- because they have gotten better. I think they're *starting* to "get it." But SO much damage has been done already.
Even so, that doesn't change the fact that we have to keep moving forward. Both sides of this need to figure out what it is that they're doing wrong, and take the corresponding action. If we can make that happen, we'll end up with a very, very strong and well-positioned party for both the 2006 Congressional elections and the big one in 2008.
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