>>>I'm not saying we can't ever do what you say, but our first task it
>>>changing the tenor of public discourse in the first place. That's a
>>>long, hard struggle but it's doable. We just need to be able to sit down
>>>and make a flippin' plan!
>>>
>>>This mess needs some project management, damn it. Who do I send my
>>>resume to? :)
>>>
>>>kelley
>>
>>
>>This seems to support the idea that things have to get worse before they
>>can get better. This is an idea I try to reject out of fear of what level
>>of suffering it means for so many people and how easy it is to espouse
>>this idea from the comfort of my present location. History shows us that
>>the quickest way to change the tenor of public discourse is to have a
>>crisis that makes that unavoidable. It hasn't given us much guidance in
>>another route.
not at all. I hate 'the worse the better' thinking, personally. I'm saying that I don't think a progressive program would fly under these historical circumstances. I mean, we are up against a machine that carefully laid the groundwork for 40 years. it's finally paying off for them. These are nasty, mean players and they stopped at absolutely nothing to sink Kerry. And while everyone seems enamored of the idea that the DLC chose Kerry, I still absolutely believe my republican friend who told me that Rove also made sure Kerry won in Iowa and New Hampshire. And you can see exactly why. One of the things they have to do is stoke the politics of resentment: disliking patrician rich boys like Kerry. Disliking wonks and nerds in the back of the room.
Dean may have been just as easy to sink, but Dean didn't have that persona. it was a smart move on Rove's part, because he can contribute to a political atmosphere that will continue to distrust rational thought, empirical evidence, etc. etc.
If we want to be effective, we have get just as nasty and dirty and fighting mad.
Right now, they will try to sink social security and any popular support for nationalizing health care. We have to start planning for that and get people stoked to publicly oppose that. We have to be read for the red-baiting. We have to get these supposed conservatives who support Canadian-style health care to start walking the walk.
Yes, we need a moral vision--something like what Obama says. We also need material infrastructure--networks, think tanks, alternative media, etc.
And some kind of freakin' plan.
kelley
"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."
--Bruce Sterling