Often left wing bloggers describe themselves as progressives, shying away from the L word–liberal, and that upsets me. Saint R Reagan succeeded in making “liberal” a dirty word and instead of fighting back, too many moved on. Well, I’m a freakiin liberal–a proud liberal, an unambiguous liberal, a fanatic liberal, a civil rights liberal, a human rights liberal, an environmental liberal, and a drinking liberal.
I want a liberal party–and it should be called The Liberal Party. I want it to run in primaries against DINOs, I want it to withhold donations to candidates until they meet and greet us–and bend in our direction. If the dems run a shit like Ford–we run against him. The fear of us siphoning votes and donations will give us a voice and respect. The Conservatives took over the Republicans that way, and we’ll have to fight the devil’s fire with some venom of our own.
Right now, many here are pissed off at the weak kneed Dems in Congress–the dogs- and have no power to scare them. They know we’ll be responsible and vote for them as the lesser of two evils–and that’s why they take our money and run. No more–at least for me–my money goes to those that are pure–liberal pure. I’m 62, my kids future has been put at risk because of compromises made.
Civil rights for African Americans is less attainable than it was in the late sixties, healthcare is less attainable to almost 50 million Americans–many of color–our cities are deteriorating in the “darker’ neighborhoods–and NCLB is screwing up education–especially in Black/Brown neighborhoods. Shit, even evolution is questioned–and those making scientific asses of themselves get more respect from the media than do liberals.
Our planet is at risk, our country is fighting a war ignited by lies and without purpose. We are hated by many of the world’s people because of this war, and expose our bigotry by trying to harass potential immigrants.
I could go on, but you get the point. We need a new Liberal party to force the Democratic Party to the left. If Dems win elections with “moderates,” the country won’t get better, it will just get worse more slowly. I’m sure Pelosi is a good person, but she’s doing a terrible job and we have no organization to force her out–and I hate her. Her lack of courage is literally killing some of America’s finest. We need a mechanism to put the screws to her and to her colleagues.
3 comments
“liberal”- i am and always have been, and have never referred to myself as a “progressive”; but, on the national level, and in most states, a third party will only help the repugs. on local levels, third parties can work; but that’s how to build any political movement, anyway- ground up.
A couple of years ago, The Obfuscation Report blog posted a great article called My Liberal Manifesto. I email it often to my now-disenchanted Libertarian, moderate Republican, and Blue Dog Democrat friends who ask (in the most casual way, of course) “So…what are typical, Liberal political beliefs?” It’s kind of sad really. They want so much to change and yet, for the last 25 years, they’ve heard nothing but the shrills cries of “OH MY GOD THE EVIL LIBERALS ARE GOING TO DESTROY YOU, YOUR WAY OF LIFE, YOUR CHILDREN, EEEK, EEEK, EEEK….!!!!” I won’t quote the entire essay here, but here are some of my favorite points.
I used to believe that a Liberal Party would only hurt the Democrats and lead
to years of Republican control. But if Congressional Democrats can’t replaced,
retrained, or reinvigorated enough to do the will of the people that elected them,
a third party may be the only option. It would probably have to start a the local
level with city and state governments and then expand into the federal branch.
With my young son’s future at stake (as well as other children and grandchildren)
I’ve gotten to the point where I will not support candidates who don’t have strong
Liberal values, even if they do have a “D” after their names.