On Gloom, Doom and the Elephant in the Room

—————–

Yesterday, thanks to the power of teh Google, your humble essayist posted on how China had recently entered the fray of purchasing US homeowner mortgage debt and appeared to be getting ready to do (much?) more of the same.

The resulting essay appears to have contributed to a rattling of the confidence of at least one of our own. To those of us who live and breathe the crap dished out by our political opponents day in and day out, a very good question or three comes to mind.

Why add to the pile? Why give us yet another thing to worry about? Shouldn’t we stop talking and go do something fer cryin’ out loud?

The answer? Yes (to do more), and no (to stop talking)…

The Power of Knowledge

Our movement was dubbed ‘The Reality Based Community’ for good reason. To use a broad categorization, much of our strength has come from our slow but steady ability to inform the public with facts, and let them draw their own logical conclusions.

George Bush has a most recent popularity rating of 24%. Immediately after 9/11, it was in the high 90’s. I know five years is a long time, but how do we think that number went from Point A to Point B?

Through slow and steady dissemination of the facts.

Initially, as we all know, the Traditional Media did a terrible job of giving the people the facts of what was actually happening in this country. How did this change? Well, folks like Michael Moore played a big part. As did John Stewart. As did Seymour Hersh.

And you know who else? Us. Lefty blergers. We played our own part in getting the information out there.

Because we lack the numbers of the traditional media or the Hate Radio Right, it took longer than we wanted. But eventually, the truth was revealed. In spite of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, we were able to get the facts out. On issue after issue. And the Traditional Media had no choice but to (somewhat reluctantly) follow along.

But what does that 24% really buy us? While it appears Bush and Co. will likely get out of Dodge before any real sheriff gets to town, we have exposed a good deal of truth to the American public. Many of them will think twice about voting for any other Republicans. Many others have said ‘never again’. Most believe the Republicans will be out of power in many regions of the country for decades. All because more people know the truth.

Yes, it is difficult to hear about yet another problem. Yes, it appears that progress is moving too slow to bear. But ‘slow and steady’ progress is pretty much the best we can hope for given our relative small size in the scheme of things. Still, as one may recall, the turtle did win that race with the hare at the end of the day.

But the Republicans, that proverbial Elephant in the Room, aren’t rolling over yet. We need to continue to get the facts out. The facts are our friends. Perhaps our best true friend.

So (with apologies) there will be more Gloom and Doom, because we need to discredit that damnable Elephant in the Room. Now is not the time to let up. The facts have helped us get this far. They are needed to help get us get the rest of the way.

The facts can be depressing. But they serve a larger purpose.

Cheers.