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In one district and state after another we saw horror stories about GOP nut cases, Nazis and economy-wreckers. These monsters with shoes on were accused of being what they are but in many areas low-information voters had a hard time swallowing it because, thanks to the MSM and our own party's political lethargy, they did not know that what was being charged against the local gooper was in fact a PATTERN being repeated all over the country. We did not NATIONALIZE the evil of the other side even though they nationalized charges of evil against us.
Instead, we kept all campaigns local and with disastrous results. Many voters still haven't a CLUE how bad the GOP is in one location after another. It is a credible charge precisely because it is a national PATTERN, not an isolated accusation.
It drove me crazy to se how poorly we highlighted all this AS A NATIONAL PATTERN.
I think, though, that we are going to have the opportunity to do so now as never before. My fear is that we will continue going down the merry path of caving in for collegial comity etc., especially now that we are weaker.
Nevertheless, I'd like to share with you all a Hassidic teaching that I think may clarify our current situation perfectly.
One of the earlier Lubavitch Hassidic leaders, Rabbi Menachem Mendel (1789-1866), the third generation of Lubavitch leaders and often called by the title the Tzemach Tzedek, wrote a book called Derech Mitzosecha, an explanation of the mystical reasons for the commandments. In it he gives this teaching, ostensibly about people born with birth defects but really much more comprehensive in its meaning:
Rabbi Menachem Mendel asks why some people are born with a "blemish," meaning birth defects. What did they do to deserve it? Rabbi Menachem Mendel answers this with a parable about warfare. In the parable, sometimes evil hides inside a fortress. The enemy is well ensconced in the fortress and no way to get at it inside those thick walls to defeat it. But an invading army can still defeat that impenetrable fortress (in our case a media that was resistant to telling the truth about the GOP and other things like that).
In the parable, the invading army (the Democrats in our case), deliberately begins by sending in just a very small force to make a deliberately inadequate attack. The powerful enemy, hiding inside its impenetrable fortress, would normally be protected from such a meager attack and would stay hidden and safe inside its fortress. However, seeing the inadequacy of the invading force the evil enemy hiding inside its fortress is overconfident. The evil enemy opens up the gate of its fortress and lets its soldiers out through the gate to attack the invader, figuring a victory against such a weak force is going to be a piece of cake. Just then hidden reinforcements appear to augment the weak invading force and all the invaders storm into the fortress through the open gate, gaining access to the enemy within past the impenetrable walls and in so doing defeat the evil enemy. In other words, the invasion is an ambush.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel used this parable to explain what happens with people with birth defects. In his view they can have very high souls who are here to perform some great task or mission on this earth. But their inadequacy helps defeat the enemy. And just as the invaders are initially harmed by the evil enemy that has been suckered out of its fortress before the reinforcements can step in, in the same way people with birth defects have already been wounded in their service to the world but it is all part of the plan to defeat the evil.
This parable had something of a personal touch for me because the first ma'amer (pronounced MY-mer) that I ever learned with the Lubavitchers, a very deep form of mystical discourse, was taught to me by a wonderful individual who was born physically handicapped. And I owe a great deal to him as my first teacher of that deep group of discourses.
Rabbi Menachem Mendel concluded his presentation on this topic with these notable words:
"It is a great secret and a deep science to DRAW EVIL OUT INTO THE OPEN where it can be seen and defeated."
(Emphasis mine.)
In our context:
I wish we had kicked the crap out of the GOP and succeeded in telling the whole country about these lunatics better, so that we wouldn't be in the mess we're in now. But ex post facto, AFTER THE FACT only, it has a silver lining. A priori, before the fact ("lechatchila" in Hebrew), we shouldn't wish for this situation, but ex post facto, AFTER the fact ("bidievid" in Hebrew) we can still benefit or find an opportunity.
With the current group of GOP suck-ups running the Democratic Party I am not hopeful we will take advantage of the opportunity. But this is it:
We now have a gang of lunatics, such as woman-molester Rand Paul, who are going to be front and center NATIONALLY, not just locally, as the poster children of everything that is wrong with the GOP. And Boehner is going to be a lighting rod for criticism in the same way that Obama and Pelosi have been for these two years. I have a big problem with those who wished for this opportunity lechatchila - a priori, before the fact of the GOP takeover. But bidievid, after the fact, it's an opportunity we can use.
An important point is don't feel guilty about going negative against the GOP now. Don't think we HAVE to work with them now in order to get something done.
That's not important now. What matters is:
THE EVIL HAS NOW BEEN DRAWN INTO THE OPEN where it can be better seen and defeated.
It all depends on whether we capitalize on the opportunity. It also depends on WHO does the capitalizing. The milquetoasts who currently run our party and thought they could do better than Howard Dean, are never going to "GET" it. I am not confident they will be replaced by people who have their act together better. I assume that people like Dean will still not be allowed to run things. That's a shame because, though wounded, we are facing a unique opportunity.
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