Out There Where the Buses Don’t Run

I wanted a break from daily writing and time to work some of this out, yet I seem unable to work it out without writing it.  So I am putting it out in order to feed the muse, and hope some new kernel of truth will redirect me to the place I am striving to find.

A running dialogue on why the Left cannot seem to become an entity to be reckoned with…. (pesky prepositions)

I think I was on the right track when I penned this:

“Out there where the buses don’t run” is a good thing imo. Lots of us are completely honest, its just our brand of honest opinions do not match other’s brand of opinions.

:SNIP:
The thing is, the Right lock steps about hating EVERYONE, and by being inclusive we end up with myriad ideas.

I think my impasses is where we do not allow ourselves to even discuss that some/any of these areas may have merit, to move that Window left, by merely talking among ourselves about the “What ifs” without these labels being used to slap us into speaking only of mainstream acceptable talking points.

The right has long made “LIBERAL” a dirty word. The Rush-list comes flying into our minds, making us cringe and try and distance ourselves from those words.  You know the list, the list that makes us look laughable and in no way connected with the average American.

That is not true, but we will discuss that further below.

My debate partner claimed to hold some of his labels dear. I replied, in part:

Because I have both despair and disbelief in the electoral process being unable to change anything, I have been labeled a ammo-gathering freak, more or less.

We HAVE to be able to talk.

:SNIP:

The point is, you never convince an enemy, or make them have empathy for your side by calling them names.

World-generational-endless problem, here in the microcosm of a blog.

Then he pointed out we do call the far Right names all the time.  True that. 

But the right doesn’t call eachother names.

Example 1:

Speaking those things aloud in even the most liberal company opens the door to ridicule by those who would claim “no one will take us serious if we talk about working outside the process.”

Wait.

We cannot even talk about it?

Then the name-calling starts, a strange and disjointed combination of slurs used by the Right to marginalize us, and slurs from the Left, accusing us of wanting Dictatorial reign.

“If we vote long enough, hard enough, we can fix all that!”

How, I ask.  How can you vote the graft away from those accepting it?

But the devolutionary (diane word, needed it, made it) part is that we cannot even sanely discuss it, without the TAGGING!!!!!

Moving on………

Back to the discussion. I said:

::SNIP::
But the right don’t call eachother names, or have litmus tests for “rightness” like the left does.

I wonder why?

I just wish it didn’t block our common goal so badly of ridding this failed administration’s power over us.

To which my debate partner conceded: (MY bold, as I didn’t really want to snip this comment)

 

You’re right 
There is no similar dichotomy on the Right.  For instance, I hate how the GOP was taken over by the Ralph Reed, Fraud, Wedge Issue Southern based Fundies in the late 80’s.  I’m not particularly in love with the Neo Conservative movement of the late 90’s. But, we don’t eat our own.  We certainly don’t air our displeasure publicly.  Our collective goal is to keep the Baby Boomer 60’s Marxist ethos, Red Diaper Baby, Free Love, Arthouse Film attending, Mother Jones reading crew out of power.  We don’t hate everything you stand for, just most of it.  Now, I’m more of a Barry Goldwater-Jack Kemp kind of Republican and we’ll have our day in the sun again.  Bush has made sure of that.  The left doesn’t have that cohesive strength.  Everyone is too afflicted, too victimized, too angry.  Your hatred for Bush has blinded your judgement.  No matter how much you hate them, you need to win over middle class fly over country Americans.  You’ll never do that without a cohesive message. BTW, I’m a huge Bunuel, Tarkovsky and Fellini fan.

I have no answer to this response.

We are the party that is REALLY the party of less government intrusion into our personal lives, how do we convince people this IS mainstream, when we LABEL it and MARGINALIZE it ourselves?

We need to counter this “Big Government, High Taxing, All out Spending” meme with the hard truths.  We need to not cringe saying it, or beat eachother for saying it to appease the middle.  We are Middle America, really.

Liberals generally want individual freedom. (to a lesser extent that Libertarians) Republicans are micro-managing YOUR life, while letting Big Business run rampant over you.

Personal Choices, Gender Equality, Racial Equality, Health care, Infrastructure, Education, Peace, Environmental Protection, Business responsibility, Fair and Safe Labor practices, Government Transparency.

Are these not “fly-over” American values?  Are these not Liberal values?

Again, we have to be able to at least discuss the possibilities without self-labeling, and the self-loathing taught us by the ones who want to remain in power.

More pending……