We know the story line well, since you and Justin and others have played it for us so often it is virtually committed to memory.
On the one hand, any one who argued for a strategic approach to the election, and campaigned for Gore in order to avoid serious setbacks for labor, people of color, women, gays and lesbians and environmentalists, clearly has no principles and lacks all self-respect, so it is entirely fit to use the "language of betrayal" in discussing us. We deserve it, and we should expect it.
On the other hand, any one who argued for a moralistic approach to the election, and campaigned for Nader in order to punish, defeat and/or destroy [take your pick] the corrupt, unprincipled Democrats, deciding that whatever licks labor, people of color, women, gays and lesbians and environmentalists take from a Bush victory are just the price they will have to pay to get at the Democrats, are clearly full of principles and entirely self-respecting. Thus, if some third party employed the same "language of betrayal" to describe you that you used to describe supporters of a Gore victory, that is outrageous name-calling and motive impugning.
In short, you are noble and virtuous, we are base and reprehensible (oh, and don't forget, self-righteous, too -- despite the fact that all nobility and virtue is yours).
Given this obvious division between the good and evil, it is entirely appropriate to whine bitterly about language used to describe you by some third party, and then to turn around and use the same language to describe us.
A long time ago, it became clear to me what the terms of discourse from you were [which Justin has taken up so eagerly on the question of the elections], and that one had the choice of either sitting passively by and just taking all the shit that you threw, or of responding in kind, throw for throw. Well, I decided to get my throwing arm back into shape. If you can dish it out, then you should be prepared to take it.
But I can't say that the record to date has indicated that capacity on your part.
> Leo, comrade, I'm on the road, so I don't have a
> lot of time to pound
> the keyboard, but I'm curious - do welfare
> "reform," capital
> punishment, higher military spending, and honoring
> the memory of
> Jorge Mas Canosa represent the values of the left,
> such as it is?
and
> Good thing you don't engage in name calling and
> motive impugning,
> Leo! Sometimes it's the little things one is
> thankful for.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
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