While I was growing up - or at least getting older - there were certain words and phrases that blazed across the political firmament. Some were soaring and inspirational, like "Give Peace a Chance," some were lamely laconic, like "Just Say No," and some were strangely urinary - "Trickle Down" comes to mind.
Remember when anything Liberal was bad? Of course, now we have neo-Liberalism, and that's okay. It's just like traditional American Liberalism, only it takes all the Civil Rights and economic justice old-fashioned Liberals fought to secure for citizens, and gives them instead to soulless Corporations.
And that's all it took to make a version of the "L" word okay.
And Revolutionaries! Remember when they were all swarthy anti-American agents of Moscow, good only for rounding up and shooting? (Not by us, of course, but by Death Squads - another name that was somehow never quite obvious enough to lose Presidential sanction or Congressional funding.) Nowadays Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Gingrich call themselves Revolutionaries. Fighting against the Man - though in their case it's against the little man. To be fair, a Revolution is an action that brings a new class to power, and I think few would disagree that these bloodworms are in a class by themselves.
Hey, I even heard Bush refer to himself once as a progressive - because he wanted to help Democracy and the Free Market progress around the world... in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.
But I don't want to talk about the happy-go-lucky Orwellian co-option of Progressive language so many have slavishly accepted. No, I'd rather discuss how easily the Reactionaries have denigrated the terms they could not co-opt, how readily that denigration was accepted by Liberals ( or whatever they call themselves nowadays ) and how that linguistic negation, and the cowardly response, led us to the split personality that is the Democratic Party.
Ready?
Feminism:
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people." No special rights, no unisex bathrooms, no enforced Goddess worship - just equality before the law and in the workplace. And yet when Reactionaries like Rush Limbaugh shouted into a microphone that fiery Feminists wanted to turn our pie cooking, God-Fearing womenfolk into a pack of hairy armpitted, ball-busting lesbian FemiNazis, Democrats ran for cover.
Feminazism? The Uber-estrogen fueled Corporate/Military totalitarian philosophy, combining the hatred of men, with the insatiable lust for lesbian Lebensraum. Is that what Feminists were, and are, struggling for? Because if not, if Equality is what it's always been about, why do the Democrats still shun the word? (Oh, it was also around this time - after Liberals abandoned their own name - that the whole "I don't believe in "isms" weasalosity was born - the idea that if you actually stood for something you were weak. Another successful mindfuck brought to you by People Who Want You to Shut Up.)
Environmentalist/Tree Huggers:
People who believe it is in our enlightened self-interest to have the cleanest possible environment. Who could be against that?
Well, it turns out anyone who gets richer by polluting. And so, with the megaphone of corporate media, the altruistic Environmentalist became the unbathed, granola chomping Tree Hugger, a furry Luddite who wants the children of honest loggers to starve. Sure, some of Earth First might be stinky nuts, but do we actually disagree with their ideals? If we have to choose between the corporation that is cutting down the redwoods and the guy who chains himself to the last tree to protect it, who do we sympathize with? And what was that they were saying about global warming all those years ago?
But by then they had been redefined by the Reactionaries as Tree Huggers. And how did our brave leaders respond? With the magic of self negation! By prefacing any statement that in any way may seem to endorse even slightly any infringement upon the profitable rape of Nature, any idea of environmentalism, with "Now, I'm not a tree hugger, but..." Weasels.
And what's wrong with hugging trees anyway? Trees don't cut funding for food stamps. Trees don't poison children with depleted uranium. Trees don't shoot their friends in the face.
Trees make air, and in return we kill them. Fuck that. Be a tree hugger.
Peace-loving:
Do I even have to go into this one? What kind of person is afraid of being called peace loving? A Democratic candidate for President. We live in a country where if anyone running for high office says they love peace they have to immediately follow it up with a list of who they are willing to bomb to preserve it , lest they be labeled weak. The thing that gets me is that all of the candidates, even the Republicans, say they admire and respect the actions and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. But if he were alive today almost all of them would call him a traitorous pussy.
Red:
Admittedly this is more problematic. Stalin was a Red. Pol Pot was a Red. But so was George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Helen Keller, Paul Robeson, and Aaron Copeland. The guy who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance was a Red. And so are Social Security, free public education, minimum wage, unemployment insurance, unions, and the weekend. No wonder the Reactionaries are attacking them so hard.
So being a Red isn't just black and white. But I'll tell you this - American Reds have been on the correct side on questions of civil rights, social justice, and environmentalism a heck of a lot more than the Reactionary dickwads so many of our Democratic leaders work so hard to emulate. Reds defended the Scottsborough Boys - a group of young Black men being railroaded with rape charges, Reds created the ACLU which fights for our Constitution, Reds were the ones marching to make sure women and Blacks could vote in America, while Reagan - whom too many of our candidates trumpet as a great President - opposed the Civil Right's Act of 1965.
Let me say that again: Reagan opposed the Civil Right's Act of 1965. And not just in 1965, but when he was President, and he did all he could to undermine it.
Most Reds wouldn't have done that.
Oh, and for the record, that whole "the far Left and the far Right are almost the same" line is what I call Crapaganda - a lie to distract you from the fact that the speaker is mentally lazy, and full of shit. It's not a circle. Far Right: Militaristic Xenophobic foot soldiers for corporate hegemony protecting Arizona from Mexicans. Far Left: Pro-Democracy anti-Imperialist peaceniks in rubber boats protecting whales from slaughter. One side will beat you to death for reading this, the other will talk you to sleep for disagreeing. There is a big difference.
Lawyers:
This one really pisses me off. Our side demands we be a Nation of Laws, but then don't want anyone who has a thorough understanding of our government to be a Lawmaker. Usta be Liberals looked to lawyers to fight the good fight. Then somewhere along the line we became brainwashed that lawyers in government are the problem, that making law is something that should be done by people who don't really have a grasp of what laws are, and have little intention of being restricted by them. You know, businessmen.
Here's a thought: if your car broke down, would you take it to a dairyman? No, you'd take it to a mechanic - you'd take it to be worked on by someone who is skilled in automobiles, a skill you need to employ to do the job done well.
Yet when it comes to something as supremely important as making the Laws of our Nation, so many of us would rather not trust those who have studied that very thing. Some hate, for example, John Edwards simply because he is a lawyer. Never mind that his practice was built fighting for individuals against corporations - we've already been brainwashed into distrusting even the lawyers who are on our side.
Brown vs. the Board of Education wasn't fought by stock speculators. Thurgood Marshall wasn't a shoe salesmen before getting on the Supreme Court. The Chicago Eight were defended by lawyers. Every Klansmen put in prison for murdering a Civil Rights worker is put there by lawyers. In fact, every Civil Right you have was crafted by lawyers. The Constitution was written by lawyers! Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison - lawyers! Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Bobby Kennedy... you ever see "Inherit the Wind?" Clarence Darrow was a lawyer! And if we have to fight tooth and nail to defend our rights of Free Speech, Habeas Corpus, or anything else, we can and will depend on some courageous lawyers to stand by us, where they will take on the full might of Corporate America, or an oppressive U.S. government, for us.
You get my point. There are good lawyers and there are bad lawyers, there are our lawyers, and there are their lawyers. But since we've been trained to not trust lawyers at all today we have businessmen "lawmakers" who denigrate their job, bastardize the system, and do all they can to destroy a Government that is supposed to be of, by, and for the People.
Pitiful.
So that's it. Until Democrats can clearly identify for themselves what they stand for, stop believing the insidious redefinition of themselves and their allies by their declared enemies, stop sucking up to those who have vowed to destroy them - until Democrats can bravely stand up and say " What's so wrong with being a Peace-Loving, tree hugging, Red Feminist Lawyer?" this side of the aisle will always have a split personality: Those who dedicate their lives to fighting for justice, equality, the environment, for all that this country is supposed to stand for, and those who want their votes - but are scared to be seen with them.
Let's talk about the issues and not the labels!
"Funny thing," the guest answered. "A little over 20 years ago, people like you would have been asking me if I was a 'n****r lover' . And before that, you probably would have asked me if I was a Jew-lover. Well, I proudly admit to all three -- I'm a n****r-loving, Jew-loving tree-hugger and proud of it. Now.... what are *you*?" The interviewer was sufficiently stunned that there was actually a few seconds of dead air.
If that guy ever runs for President, I'll vote for him.
To me, tree-huggers (especially in Oregon) are people who will protest the cutting of any forest for mostly sentimental reasons -- no matter how old the trees really are. They will drive to the forest in their SUVs and Subaru's (paid for by their healthy trust funds) and then they will live on a platform in the trees for weeks or months, their own spiritual awakening.
However, there are enough contradictions in their actions to make them a laughable lot, and they don't actually practice what they preach. Nor do they understand that stopping the cutting of timber in the western US will mean that timber in less productive forest regions (Boreal forests in Canada and Russia as well as tropical forests in Central and South America) will be cut to make up the difference. For the most part the tree-huggers come from long ago deforested regions of the country -- their parents likely are involved in corporations that now or previously have made money off of forest resources. They come to the Northwest and want to protect the trees... because they're beautiful, and magnificent (especially after tripping on mushrooms and smoking a lot of weed).
Timber is a renewable resource. The US has the best laws on the books to ensure that trees are replanted. There is a reason that "tree-hugger" has a bad conotation, and it's not necessarily one that is only shared by conservative capitalistic consumers...
What Mr Sullivan perhaps should have focused on is how we all got our misnomers so well-memorized? How is it one side (right) is able to co-opt all of the other sides good ideas and then villify and namefuck them?
The Media. That is how. We have seen the most blatant and tilted and full-court-press weight of the ginormous media conglomerates. Believe me, if a dem candidate or prez had cocaine abuse, alcohol abuse, shady business dealings, and Military Desertion in his closet the Right would be successful in destroying his presidency just by media manipulation. THe rightwing successfully destroyed Jimmy Carters presidency and Bill Clintons...while effectively erasing the memory of BushI and deifying Ronnie Raygun.
So, the willing cooperation and blatant advocacy of the corporate media is what is making the difference...what has been the prime tool in re-naming America. All you needed 30 years ago was a slight percentage of the Media working for you, to effectively vilify. It has steadily grown to our current media where it is 100% owned by 6 corporate groups. They dictate what goes over the airwaves, what gets traction in newspapers and The News.
That is how global warming news has been 'disappeared'. That is how earth-lovers get labelled as freaks and tree-huggers. That is how two abusive, semihuman sociopaths with disgusting records became the prez+viceprez. Media is the lens that we stupid post-humans tend to see the world thru. It is a corporate, rightwing lens.
Your favorite REDS are all pleasant and for the common good. Just so long as they aren’t in power. True communists in charge disallow opposition parties; execute teachers, politicians, and leaders of the capitalists to preserve their power. Is this truly what you want? No freedom. No independent thought. No freedom of expression? Do you want the government telling you and your son what you will be in life? Where you will live and what you will do? Unless, of course, you see yourself as an elite party leader telling the rest of us how to live. Keeping our thoughts and desires in check while you live as you will and enjoy your existence as the rest of us are kept under your boot. No thanks?
Thank God for the 2nd amendment and please Michael, try your revolution. 10 to 1 says it will never fly!
"we are gentle angry people..."
POST-BUSH
nix the GENTLE
http://www.pinkpistols.org/
Maybe the place to search for the values you admire is not the Democratic Party?
Why do you waste your time reading these posts or anything on this website? Do you really think that readers of these pages are going to slap their own faces with that moment of revelation that they have been wrong all along and that conservatives are the best thing that ever happened to this nation?
If it is to convert readers you aren't going to be successful.
When you realize how you have damaged this nation, liberals will be here to bail us out again Liberalism is so successful that the nation forgets how it was a generation ago when conservatives were so afraid of liberals conservatives murdered college students in Mississippi who were just registering black Americans to vote.
And your King Reagan started his campaign for president by celebrating those kids' murder crying for "states' rights" to his fellow Americans.
To hell with your anti lawyer, anti woman, anti intellectualism. Conservatives are actually radical in their desire to ruin everything since FDR. And when you try to avoid paying taxes, although conservatives drive down the same streets, suffer the same property damage, need the same police, you hurt the middle class who you have managed through fear and ignorance to support you.
Conservatism will overreach just as it has before. And liberals will clean up after conservatives and give everyone a second chance to forget that conservatives aren't interested in building but rather destroying. Any jackass can kick down a barn but it takes a carpenter to build one.
Perhaps the economy will have to collapse as it did in 1929 before liberalism will prop up the middle class in the wake of the destruction conservatism have brought. College tuition is out of sight, schools no longer must be integrated. It is impossible to get inside the courthouse unless one is very wealthy. Products aren't regulated so our food and even toys are polluted.
Heck of a job, conservatives!
http://galton.org/essays/1900-1911/galton-1904-am-journ-soc-eugenics-scope-aims.htm
George Bernard Shaw on Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia: "As between the Danakil warrior and the Italian engineer, I am on the side of the engineers."
http://books.google.com/books?id=rJ_nJw2XR1MC&printsec=frontcover#PPA143,M1
More 'Far left or far right?': Carlos the Jackal, Serge Thion, Alexander Lukashenko, Horst Mahler (Red Army Faction), Juan Peron...