We must all hang together, or we shall surely all hang separately.
--Benjamin Franklin
I'm going to do a bunch of things in this diary that are contrary to established DKos convention. And there will be a terrific opportunity for a pie fight in the comments, if that's what you want to do. But that isn't why I'm writing it, and if that's what you're looking for, I hope you'll just move on and read something else instead of spattering cherry filling all over the comment section.
I want to apologize, I want to retract something, and I want to ask something of you. So...here goes.
As I see it, we're at a moment in history when we don't have the luxury of standing on abstract principles, however absolutely right and valid and morally correct they may be. Nor do we have the luxury of basking in the warm glow of feeling "right" while blasting our fellow progressives for having different opinions than we do, either, whatever side of an argument we may take.
Those differences are rooted in differing opinions about the strategic legitimacy of compromise and/or incrementalism, and, in many cases, disputed facts about what policies have been proposed or embraced by the White House and what the effects of such policies are or are likely to be.
Those disputes aren't going to be resolved. I honestly have not seen more than a handful of examples of people being persuaded by the comments of others in the entire time I've been here (since 2004). We like to hear ourselves talk, and we like to argue. Most of the comment threads on topics of current politics boil down just to gainsaying, gotcha logic, and the expressed poles of the issues listed in the above paragraph.
No, the disputes aren't going to be resolved. We are not going to convince one another. In fact, all we're doing now is infuriating one another. It would be great if we stopped trying to change one another's minds, since that almost never happens despite how brilliant and logical and high-principled we all are, but I'm not sure that Daily Kos would have many interested participants without it.
I do, however, have something to ask of you. Something hard.
I ask that you take the heat and character attacks out of your characterizations of the President and Congressional Democrats until November of 2012.
Rationale below the magic squiggle.
I'm not saying that we should abandon our values and ideals, nor stop expressing our wishes to our elected officials. I am saying that we can do that without questioning their character, intelligence, morality, or loyalties. Just until November of 2012.
This fight--and the coming ones against the same crazed voices in Congress--is not just about right now, but the future of the country in a fundamental and probably permanent sense, and we can't afford to lose it. Even if the outcome is only to defend the status quo.
This fight is for all the marbles, and I mean that in a sense that dwarfs arguments about cuts to hard-won social net programs.
I mean it in the sense that the United States of America is hanging on the verge of becoming a genuinely fascist nation. And if Barack Obama is taken down by a combination of the crazy right and the dissatisfied left, I believe there is a serious and significant chance that this will happen.
So, yes: I'm encouraging you to clap. And if you were clapping before, to clap louder. As I said, I'm doing stuff we're not supposed to do.
But please: hear me out.
I don't use the word "fascism" in the general-tarbrushing-of-conservatism manner in which it has often come to be used. I mean it in a literal sense, describing a system of government which is authoritarian and repressive, and is operated for the benefit of large businesses and the wealthy to the detriment of everyone else.
Cheney, his hand puppet and his henchmen tried to get us there, but the one thing they didn't have until late in Bush's term was an ironclad majority on the Supreme Court, and even then, he lost his Congressional majority in 2006. A very narrow window of time to dismantle the Bill of Rights, though they surely tried.
But after eight years of that--six with a sure-fine-sounds-good Republican Congress--the federal courts (particularly courts of appeals) are now so heavily salted with extreme right-wingers that previously hard-contested law like the Patriot Act would now sail through challenges with far less questioning. And the Roberts Court has made it clear that corporatocracy is exactly their vision for America.
There are precedents for this kind of thing.
Hitler wasn't elected by a majority, you know, but by a plurality because the left was split all over the place. Then he suspended elections due to an "emergency" and that was it. There, see, I broke a rule again: this time, Godwin's Law. Sorry. But I'm not accusing anyone of being "like Hitler", which is what Godwin's Law is really about. I'm just pointing at a historical example of where division on the left led to the disastrous rise of the right. I'm not saying it would look like Nazi Germany: it wouldn't. But we have already lost a tremendous amount of freedom we had just ten years ago. You don't have to have uniformed rallies and adoration of a "Great Leader" in order to have a society that meets the definition of fascism.
"It can't happen here" has proven to be the epitaph of a lot of people throughout this world's history. But people are people. We were stunned under Bush at what could, as it turned out, happen here, and every time we get our goolies squeezed for daring to aspire to air travel, we are reminded of how far and how quickly our rights have eroded from the lofty ideals we thought this country was supposed to be about.
People do crazy stuff when they're scared, especially when whipped by demagogues...and doesn't that pretty much describe nearly all the US mainstream media at this point? The organized "thought development" and bought media of the right have spent decades steadily moving the "center" in their direction. Overt racism, misogyny, religious bigotry, support for authoritarian deprivation of rights and nihilistic social Darwinism are no longer fringe any more, really. They're out there masquerading under the thinnest of sugared veneers on any cable channel you care to visit.
I've railed and debated here for a long time. I don't diary much, but I read a lot and comment some. In recent weeks, I've been increasingly frustrated as it seems a huge segment of people here--with whom I probably agree on just about everything in terms of the ideal goals--have made their decision, and they are just going to keep trashing Obama, period. The topic is no longer up for debate for them. It's already over.
I have admittedly been vitriolic about this. Because I'll admit, the first thing that happens with me when I get scared is that I get mad.
But that isn't the right approach, much as it seems to be a pretty broad vein hereabouts. So I hereby retract my characterizations of those who are so angry at and dismissive of the intentions of President Obama. I disagree profoundly with you, but I called you names. I apologize.
But I'm afraid. I am genuinely afraid for our country. I have the kind of feeling about this that Glenn Beck pretends to have, but for real reasons, not delusional ones.
Some of the President's vehement critics still say they'll vote for him, but holding their noses. I look at the electoral map and my read is that he will squeak in, or not at all. Which means that every slam, every denigration, every castigation that undermines his numbers and adds to the word of mouth that reaches independents and undecideds is just another step towards President Romney or Perry, and Vice President Bachmann.
I have no right to tell you what to do. Yes, you have the right to say whatever you like...now.
But I'm afraid for that right. I'm afraid for all of them.
So I'm volunteering for the firing squad just to ask you to consider --just consider--stepping back from your disappointment and anger...and clapping. Push for what you want, but consider doing it without impugning the character or intentions or values of the only person who can possibly stand between us and that Romney/Bachmann administration.
Just until November of 2012.
I am willing to take this pledge myself, if there is enough interest in it to show me that I won't be alone, or largely alone. And given my argumentative nature, believe me: this is like volunteering for a dozen root canals.
I am asking that the better angels of our natures and our awareness of the stakes of the game join forces for awhile.
You don't know me, and I know I have no standing or right to ask it.
I just am.