Read "Deer Hunting With Jesus" by Joe Bageant. Joebageant.com for starters. An interesting fellow. He talks about how the prog movement tends to disregard the poor whites (and gets Bush elected). It's very well written and entertaining. Of course, I may be biased because I lived my teenage years in the town he talks about....and had a few beers with him.
Thanks for your thoughtful post. As an almost 60-year-old white woman who has been an Obama supporter for awhile, I get really angry at the pervasive bashing of everyone in my age cohort, even among people who hold exactly the same social and political views that I do. It's incredibly counter-productive and it hurts. I don't transfer those feelings of alienation to the candidate, but I would imagine that some people do.
gravie, I agree it is really frustrating. I knew some devoted volunteers of both the Dean campaign in 04 and the obama campaign this time that were between the ages of 50-80! they got so frustrated at the media and other volunteers and even the candidates themselves referring to the young volunteers, young deaniacs or deanie-babies. totally missing the diversity of ages and experience.
I recommend time spent with Joe Bageant.
He has some insights on some of the folks you mentioned.
http://www.joebageant.com/
"But what gets people really going is the idea of being left-out, left behind, disregarded or not taken seriously."
Point taken , but you're not spot on here.
What gets me is the shit I've had to eat ever since I was seven goddamned years old, because I had a brain and loved to use it.
Being "left out" hasn't bothered me for decades. I learned to stay under people's radar most of the time, for my own protection. Starting at home, of course, but it didn't end there.
But I also ran into a fork in the road of life rather early.
One fork would have me collaborate with my oppressors. Not happening.
The other fork would have me do as I will with my own mind, and treat my abusers with the contempt they earned and deserved.
Stormcrow, hear you but I am not talking about right vs. left, or oppressors vs. not. I am talking about folks in our own coalition on the same side... who can't talk to each other about some stuff because of other sub-context or emotion that I don't think we address.
there is a gap in the discussion
like progressives, old left, greens, catholic dems, non religious dems, and many more subgroups that spend a lot of time being angry at each other but expressing it in fights about xxx when the fight is really about something else. You don't understand and appreciate us. etc.
at least that is some of what I am seeing and some of what I think fuels the circular firing squad. an unwillingness to listen, and an unwillingness to focus more on what we agree on... and discuss the stuff we don't with respect.
LHG, I'm not talking about right versus left either. I've gotten dumped on by both sides.
As far as the circular firing squad goes - right now, what I'm seeing is, I think, a combo of two root cause flaws.
(1) Agendas their owners won't admit to.
Like the closet racists in Hillary's camp who are now stumping for McCain. And the closet misogynists who made a point of calling Hillary a "b*tch" every time they actually voiced their thoughts.
(2) Lack of sufficient self-discipline.
It's important to NOT concentrate on the immediate pain produced by something like Obama's recent fold on telecom immunity. And to concentrate instead on the long term goal, which hasn't changed in the smallest particular.
It's really, really easy to allow ones' self to be distracted by one's wounds. But when one is engaged in a knife fight in a phone booth, that's the same as failure and death.
But in the longer term, we have Door Number 3:
(3) Parochialism? Nay, tribalism.
I see this on display quite often in "establishment" Dems. On the gun control issue, for instance. I'm pleased and surprised by the absence of this in the comments to the Breaking: Heller Affirmed post below.
What I'm more accustomed to is the Rhetoric Express starting up with the "guns are evil" rant that has squeezed quite a few people right out of the Democratic Party and into the waiting arms of the wingnuts over the last 30 or 40 years.
We CANNOT afford either that level of factionalism or that level of intellectual shoddiness any more. We have been losing election after election after election with that bullshit.
Now, by way of consequence, we're
(1) engaged in two failed wars with a third waiting in the wings,
(2) we've gone from economic recession to economic depression, and
(3) we're at the eleventh hour and fifty ninth minute on both the oil and global warming fronts.
We cannot tolerate this sort of juvenile behavior in our ranks anymore.
We make common cause or we're done for. No third way.
great post, tlg.
Being 50 myself, I am straddling the gap. but I've always been more interested in cool stuff than comfort... When I'm working with the disgruntled, I can be a decent gap-bridger only because I remember a couple things my parents taught by example:
Thing 1: Sometimes it's not enough to be right: you also need to be effective: and using the Golden Rule makes you incredibly effective, invisible dude in the sky notwithstanding (thank you GC).
Note: that's if 'effective' means bringing people to see your viewpoint.
Thing 2: find something beautiful in anyone you want to bring over to your particular side of the bridge. there is something drop-dead gorgeous about just about everybody (I don't waste energy on the current crop of neo-cons): mind, body or soul. Find it, celebrate with them. it's surprising how doing that can open closed minds...
just my ¥2
Bottom line is that none here understand themselves nor the environment they must operate in.
Period.
Read:
Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
and my fave:
The Origin of Wealth
Those will get you started on the road to understanding why humans behave as they do in many situations. All, and the disciplines they represent, have a lot say about why 'politics'. Is played the way it is.
Some game theory study would not be amiss either.
This from a 60s era Draft Resister and Hippie member of the 'Counter Culture'. If we'd known what the guys in that book list are tryin' to tell us now back then.
Nixon would have been toast.
Burnt.
.
I've read Diamond's "Collapse".
I haven't read "Nonzero", but the Amazon book review tells me enough to know I'd take serious issue with the assumptions behind its premise.
Yes, human economies are non-zero-sum games. You're talking with a mathematician by training, so when you talk about game-theoretic concepts, you're preaching to the choir. Also when you make the implied assertion that human activity is non-zero-sum.
But I think Robert Wright is making the implicit assumption that human society is operating under a process functioning like biological evolution does. That assumption DOES NOT have the same sort of strong confirmations beneath it that the concept of genetic evolution does.
When you closely examine the modern business environment - say, by working in it for a couple of decades - the notion that it is "evolving" towards something higher becomes a joke in poor taste.
What you're going to see is the people at the apex of the heirarchy looting out their charges, walking away with nice fat golden handshakes, and moving on to the next opportunity for pillage.
That isn't what I'd call an evolutionary process.
Human systems do not evolve, and they aren't going to evolve, in an environment where the principal actors in those systems are immune to consequence.
Stormcrow eveolution isn't allways positive...the modern busniess world is an evolutioanry process...most of the mutations are harmfull though.
I have an issue wit hyour staements TLG...yiour askign us to reach out and help the group that has heald our head under water for a long time.
thwey have spent a very long tiem reasign the age where oen becomes an unoffical adult, and can be an equal member insociety..when the rest of us finaly sadi that we had enough with that BS we get chided for nto lendign the gezers a helping had...bullshit.
You want me to meet you on an even footign, don't spend decades holding my head under water.
A very thoughtful piece. I understand what you're saying, TLG, but I'm with Stormcrow. We talk a lot about transforming the Democratic Party here in the Netroots, about making them winners. We talk about changing the direction of the party with the goal of dampening, in the most minimal way possible (these are the Dems we're talking about), the rape and pillage of this country by its unofficial ruling entities.
That type of deliberate transformation and change requires as a matter of course that some people and attitudes be left behind. Not everything and everyone, obviously, since we stand on the shoulders of giants, etc. And there's room for common ground with the methods of the past, as long as they're effective and proven. But here's a little list to consider:
The Boomer BS Machine approach (top-down media, tailor-made polls, lowest common denominator, etc., etc.); blinkered identity politics (e.g. the first-wave feminists who supported Hillary); empty nostalgia ("Did I ever tell you kids about the 60s?"); triangulation (which leads us down the road to FISA compromise); anti-intellectualism (all those slams on "Creative Class" and degree-holding types); racism ("hard-working, white Americans"); jingoism (Nash McCabe and her flag pin); Luddism ("the Internet? A passing fad"); cynical fatalism (those who constantly bemoan their insignificance to the process as a way of demonstrating their interest in the same process).
A serious question: do appeals to these attitudes really have a place in pushing forward a truly liberal or progressive agenda in 2008?
And a follow-up question if you answer "no": can "fighting liberals" still afford to pussyfoot around our rejection of these concepts and make nice to those who cling to them?
Hey, congrats on finally getting this post up.
You are my favorite, here; much more palatable than that violent racist you're harboring. And that 'Sir Scratchy Lower Manhattanite' (see my previous comment...what I said before. His scratchiness and irritability explained, him being one of that 30%).
And, the reason I spotted your post early was because my g00gle reader had it in cache (NOT that I hang on every word from this place; you are in your place, after all; after Ace and PW and Iowahawk and Insty and...
Oh. I have you listed as "Liberal's Group News". Which is apropos.
The hubris of "purity" is the downfall of any political movement. Just take a look at what is happening with the GOP to see it in the latter stages. Democrats are notorious for doing the same thing, only we seem to do it before we win office.
The pragmatic thing to do right now is to remember that the perfect is the enemy of the good. At the point that Obama is elected and sworn in, I'll jump all over his movements towards the center or right. But until that point I'm going to hold my criticism... or at least keep it in the family.
A good example of this is the concern about people in Muslim traditional dress that wanted to sit behind Obama at a speech in direct camera position being asked to move by a local organizer. Unfair to move them, stupid of them not to realize the red flag they were waving at independent and more conservative voters while it is still a tempest in a teapot. As my mother used to say, you don't have to tell everything to everybody. Obama loses and you think McCain will be concerned about the niceties of where a woman in a burka sits?
What gravie said. Back when I was working on Howard Dean's campaign, about half the people there were over 60, writing letters to Iowa voters. I didn't see the kind of generational crap then that I see now, for all that Dean was a boomer candidate.
It's hard not to get disheartened when you go around the blogs and see your generation bashed for everything that's gone wrong, as if we were all some monolithic bunch that all sold out and went to work on Wall Street eating the poor. Some of us have been at this "change" thing for 40 years.
There's a perception that we're clogging up the workplace and stealing the jobs. We're going to be clogging up the retirement system. We're going to be "stealing" Social Security. It's enough to make you think that if younger people find a way to do it, they'll line us up against a wall and shoot us.
The whole Clinton/Obama framing hasn't helped. I know plenty of older Obama supporters, and I've been irritated with young feminists who have seen Hillary Clinton's inability to capture the nomination as being SOLELY about sexism. We on the left are as capable of destructive stereotyping as the right is.
I understand the frustration, but younger progressives need us just as much as we need them. We get more done with numbers than we do with generational grievances.
Some Obama and Clinton supporters have undoubtedly been guilty of sexism and racism, but hasn’t most of the sexism and racism come from the SCLM, which prefers McCain to both Obama and Clinton?
Jill, you mean we can't line you all up agienst teh wall and shoot you...it would solve a lto of problems...
how about i jsut get to shoot the 50 is the new 30 crowed...guess what, your old, tiem to get otu of teh way and let the rest of us move forward.
the indians have a very good philosphy on this, when you have reached a certin point in your life, its tiem to stop beign an active participant and take on the role of mentor, and advisor to the next crew...guess what boomers, that tiem is now.
not my fault that you had so much hero worship goign on for your parents that you wouldn't tell them to move on...I get it you wanted to stay kids for as long as possible...the rest of us don't. we dont' ahve any hero worship invested in YOU...
sure give us advice, but the world has moved on, get out of teh way so the rest of us can try and catch up to the rest of the world.
Jill I hear you. And I do think it is less about age and more about attitudes. That was one of the things I was trying to get at in this post.
Moonglum-- I think you are being too hard on Jill. I think she made some good points.
Inter-generational conflict is a divide-and-rule deception. Boomers aren’t more misguided than other age groups.
Elders should be ‘incentivized’ to move gracefully off the stage, but the current trend is in the opposite direction: work until you drop.
"guess what boomers, that tiem is now"
Sorry, moonglum, but you're not talking about people who are just going to roll over and play dead.
And when you stereotype them (which is what you're doing), you're making enemies like you're sowing dragon's teeth.
Do you really think that's a smart idea? If so, perhaps you should sit down and listen up. Because this sort of behavior is going to run our bus right into a ditch.
"Inter-generational conflict is a divide-and-rule deception. Boomers aren’t more misguided than other age groups.
Elders should be ‘incentivized’ to move gracefully off the stage, but the current trend is in the opposite direction: work until you drop."
CORRECT.
On all points.
Jill,
The problem isn't Boomers, it's the Boomer-era attitudes I listed above and the stubborn hold they have on the Dems. The over 50 crowd has a lot to bring to the table, but the true progressives and liberals are going to have to let go of their generational BS and sacred cows. As you say, many of them already have been doing so since Dean ran.
Boomers clogging up the workplace and retirement system is just demographics combined with better medical care and healthier lifestyles. Most Xers I know anticipated this a decade ago and planned accordingly. There's a reason those of us who can (mostly eeeevil creative class types) have left corporate life and its attendant BS to the Boomers. And deep down, that's what the stubborn Boomers (especially those in the punditocracy) resent the most: that, with the enabling tool of the Internet, the most educated Xers and Millenials have successfully rejected the BS Machine the Boomers spent years refining.
Now liberal Xers and Millenials have the numbers to start applying that same rejection to Boomer politics as usual, so this friction is coming to a head. The way a given Boomer Democrat answers the two questions I posed above will let you know which ones should be lined up against moonglum's wall and which ones shouldn't. 
"The hubris of "purity" is the downfall of any political movement. Just take a look at what is happening with the GOP to see it in the latter stages. Democrats are notorious for doing the same thing, only we seem to do it before we win office."
I'd argue that the sort of politically correct purity you describe in your example is a direct legacy of left-wing Boomers. The kerfluffle over whether someone in Muslim garb stays or goes boils down to: how will this look on the Boomer BS Machine's main outlet? And the responses (cynical DLC organizer: "it won't look good on da telabision", caring PC liberal: "you're a racist oppressor") are indicative of the narrowing effect of the Boomer viewpoint.
An alternate approach would be: leave religious fanatics in the background, and then have Obama make strong and unequivocal statements concerning the separation of church and state in his speech. Waving two red flags at the same simple-minded bull can be an interesting and enlightening gambit in itself (for example, discovering that some conservative and independent bulls aren't so simple-minded as the MSM makes them out to be). But such an alternative approach falls outside the standard Boomer mindset.
I'm not asking Obama to be pure (though I don't hesitate to write the campaign when he drops the ball on critical Constitutional issues like FISA). I'm asking him to be smart. And so far, for the most part, he's delivered.
Those who never leave town, go to college or join the military, start a career and live in a smart bustling metropolis are those truly left behind. They stay and eat up the local bosses bullshit about what is best for the community and then build resentment and distrust toward those who would challenge local groupthink. To characterize these types of voters as mainly white is wrong. Out here in the sticks of the Central Valley, these folks are black, white, brown, and yellow. If progressives were to truly begin organizing in these blue dog districts I would advise they do more listening and guiding than preaching and judging. Empower those who want change. Support and protect those who speak up against entrenched power in these towns. Lay off the intellectual parsing of philosophical or social differences.
In addition to Stormcrow's comment here, maybe this has something to do with 'cult of celebrity' rubbish that dominates our news & national discourse. I am an Edwards supporter but I support him because of what he is saying and what he believes. When asked who I was voting for this fall, my answer has been constant for quite some time - I intend to vote for the democrat. Not because I want to drink a beer with him/her or that it's way past time for a black/female/gay/whatever president (even though that one is true), I support whoever is saying the closest to what I believe based on facts, not fantasies.
And hearing that Obama (& Hillary) are caving in on the telco immunity once again, is like always, very disheartening. I'm your base, guys, I've voted for dems since 1974. Is throwing your progressive supporters under the bus the only game plan you have?
Thank you sir, may I have another?
i gave up trying to change the world a long long time ago. instead, i changed me, then i went to work changing the stuff that was right in front of me.
guess what? when i looked up. it felt like the world had changed.
felt good too.
Stormcrow never expected tehm to curl up and paly dead...ive been shoving them out of the way my whole life...NOW that we finaly have the critical mass necissary to push them aside, NOW that we can fianly start flexign our muscles, they want us to play nice with them...the group taht has been marginalizing ME now wantes not not get pushed aside....good fucking luck with that.
I am not makeing enamies, the advaserial relationship is allready there. I just get to paly on a level playing feild now...
TLG,
I didn't address your question earlier, but it deserves a response:
"How can we work across these various ideas, histories, and economic realities?"
Finding a solution to this problem really does require pushing aside those Boomer attitudes before anything else. Obama attempted to cut across some of these differences and focus on economic class in his famous "Bitter" speech, and look what happened: the Boomer BS Machine (Hillary, the GOP, and the MSM) fucking HOWLED in outrage. And they screamed not about the truth of his statement, but because he rejected the empty and divisive narrative that they've been pushing and refining since at least 1980.
So the solution starts with continuing to undermine the Boomer BS Machine. The Internet is great for enlightened liberals and progressives when it comes to doing this. But after the Netroots discusses strategy, creates substantive talking points and narratives, and shares ideas amongst ourselves, we have to take them to people who, while we know they're sympathetic, are on the other side of the digital divide and still rely on the MSM for news and opinion.
Some won't be able to break away from it. If you have contempt for them and anger at the Boomer BS Machine (both of which are legitimate), save it for the blogosphere where they don't venture anyway. The important thing to remember is that some will be able to accept that there's an alternative.
And the way to help those people get to that point is on an individual and personal and casual basis. These are people you know, so discuss their realities and concerns in three key areas: economic self-interest (including matter-of-fact discussions of economic class and energy costs); personal liberty (re-framing "patriotism" to its original meaning); and foreign policy (again in the context of energy costs, as well as immediate costs in blood and treasure).
Yes, this means telling friends and family some hard truths, but they're slightly softened by the fact that they're being conveyed in private from someone they know personally, rather than a distant politician. And the personal message also gives the Boomer BS Machine narrative a real challenge in a way that Obama and the Dems simply can't. If they accept the hard truths you convey and acknowledge the consequences of 4 more years of GOP misrule on their own interests, they'll be more receptive to Obama than McCain. And if they're encouraged to spread that message to others on their side of the digital divide, the Netroots might have a shot at winning people over.
One might want to avoid talk of lining people up against a wall and shooting them--ESPECIALLY when the targeted populations are already notorious for "bitterly clinging to firearms".
It's not a good idea to frighten such people.
Imperial Japan frightened those people once.
Once.
you see cralin-woodpecker-ID the wonderful thign is that I dont' even need to lift a finger. the world is changeing at an accelerateing pace. in fact teh rate of acceleration is increasing.
I don't need to do anything, those that clign to old paradimes, those that obsese with the old ways and romanticise past glories/failures, will be sweapt aside and religated to teh dustbin of history.
In what was a generational ellection on the dem side of the board, the old gaurd got sweapt aside, the old religious fundies are fidnign their children abandon them in droves. In busnies, in politics, in society regarldess of idiology (this affects both the left and right, all four quadrents) the old ways are bing pushed aside.
now that has allways been true, two things that are novel this tiem round. the rate at which these cahngeis are happenign is greatly accelerating. and communication is being decentalized.
sure the boomers, teh old gaurd still controll the gates, hell they cling to them so strongly that we will never displace tehm as the gatekeepers of information (the rains to power) as long as they live. Let them ahve teh fucking gates, we are tareign down the walls around them.
Wow, tlg, so much food for thought here. Amazing stuff.
I want to highlight this: "what makes them angry and frustrated is the thought that they will be left behind in the new political and economic constructs being discussed and also that they have been left behind for so long already and we need to fix that."
This is the crux of the matter: as liberal Democrats, we're all about NOT leaving people behind. Leaving people behind is what Republicans do.
I don't think that the confrontation between Obama and Clinton was a "pie fight". I think calling it that, as do Jane Hamsher and Digby, and some other bloggers who were in the Clinton closet from the gitgo, trivializes an extremely important political victory for progressives.
We dodged a huge bullet when we were able to help Obama get enough delegates to force her out of the race.
As I think most progressives would agree, our lack of success in recentl elections has come from the fact that too many democratic candidates, from the top down, were unwilling to speak the truth to the american voters, and tried to back into office ass-first, as republican-lites.
Hillary Clinton, of course, with her support for bush's debacle; with her covert and overt racist bullshit; with her campaign tactics from Rove 101; and with her kissing of John McCain's ass, was the most flagrant at this that we've ever had.
If we had nominated her, we would deserve the loss that we would almost surely have sustained.
Instead, Obama is starting to show his strength, and he has a campaign war chest that, for a change, far exceeds that of the republicans.
Running Hillary Clinton back to the Senate was no more a "piefight" than was Abraham Lincoln beating Stephen Douglas, and bringing integrity and vision to a nation bedeviled by the twin warped philosophies of "states rights" and slavery.
When we got rid of Hillary, John McCain became the political footnote that the republicans knew and expected he would be in this election, all along.
If ousting the only candidate who could give the republicans a chance to perpetuate their bloody bullshit, was a "piefight", then I say:
Bring on the lemon meringue! :o)
tlg, moonglum here and obd provide edifying examples of "philosophies" that will not accommodate the needs of others. It's a largely male phenomenon, and they're about to say the most vicious things they can think up to tear me about for saying so. But then, they prove that ambition and avarice, abuse and control appear in many forms - and some will pretend to be your ally.
Dear tata;
If "the needs of others" include hopeful speculation about the assassination of one's opponent; praising John McCain as good commander-in-chief material; clear appeals to racism; campaign tactics reminiscent of the worst of Karl Rove; and schmoozing with right-wing assholes like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Mellon Scaife, then, my 2c, their "needs" NEED to go unmet.
Hillary Clinton, so far from being "politically savvy", was brick-dumb enough to throw her natural constituents, the progressive wing of the party, under the bus while she went haring off after right-wing support that simply would not have existed for her in the general, no matter how much she tootled on her racist dogwhistle.
The progressives got their payback, when MoveOn.Org, and the other powerful blog organizations, began to hammer her with every straw vote that was taken, and with their support of Obama. Along with her third place finish in Iowa, we were instrumental in destroying the myth of the inevitability of her nomination. :o)
I am very, very, proud to have had a hand in it. :o)
Pssst! B.O.; I aint sending her any money as part of a bribe to get her to support you. I am sick and tired of the threats from she and her supporters...if they really care about the country we won't HAVE to kiss her ass any more, to get her to do the right thing. But if some of her supporters, after the shit she's pulled in the primaries, want to bolt, then let them go and do their damndest. I think that we can win with those of her people who understand the choice between Obama and McCain clearly enough that the question of who should get their support is cut and dried.
BTW, L'il Gator; you put up some good stuff on here, and I enjoy and appreciate it, but by re-opening this little debate, you are not doing the party any service. Barack Obama used NONE of the tactics against Clinton that she used on him. He owes her nothing, except a brief gesture of reaching out, and if she wants more, then she can go fish.
Ending her campaign was NOT a "piefight", it was a righteously progressive thing to do. A "well done" to everyone who helped effect it. Including, you. :o)
"If progressives were to truly begin organizing in these blue dog districts I would advise they do more listening and guiding than preaching and judging."
I thought this was very well stated and very true. We can't afford to arrogantly preach to people and turn them off. It is hard but we have to learn to listen, persuade and get a few folks to be local leaders for the progressive movement in those areas.
"Obama is starting to show his strength, and he has a campaign war chest that, for a change, far exceeds that of the republicans."
this one we have to fight to keep... give 10-320-30 dollars if you can asap. Actually the RNC has way out raised us thus far. Dean has 14 mill. in the bank, they have 55//
and though Obama has raised more overall-- in this recent quarter McCain is drawing even. We need to get back out there and send our nickels and dimes to BHO asap!
Tata, the belligerent faction among the Obama supporters, like the neoconservatives they increasingly resemble--in personality rather than ideology--do not understand the difference between being a bully and being a warrior.
They hope that this year will prove to be another 1976--the one year in my memory in which the GOP really HAD screwed up so badly that any Democrat could win the White House.
They think that the wars, the rotten economy, and the Bushevik civil rights violations together will function as a second Watergate scandal. This is why they think they don't need to be nice.
I think they're poking a rattlesnake with a toothpick.
On second thought, no, they're poking Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone with toothpicks.
It's not wise to do that to the Nice Ladies. 
"Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction."
I wonder how many of Obama's "bundled" contributions were, without his knowledge, from Republicans--who will hardly be willing to give now?
Could this be the ultimate GOP "ratfuck"? 
tanbark, I was not talking or even really thinking about Clinton vs. Obama... though clearly others still are. I was hoping we could discuss our own divides. Ones that we have been faced with since the start of Ho-Ho's people powered movement. We have to look at what has happened in 00,04,06 and now and see what we can improve and build on. I don't care about this year's primary in particular, though it did highlight some of the worst parts of what I am talking about.
In my little corner of the blogosphere I have worked with a good friend to think about this stuff. I do a newsletter for local dems abroad in Japan and around the world. And a good friend, who voted for Nader in '00 and regreted it after spent a lot of time talking with me about this kind of thing. He was a hard core old lefty organizer... and he managed to come and join the new movement in '04. Since then he wrote a series of pieces for the newsletter called Lessons From the Left. and it has been great. We don't always agree but I have learned a lot from him. And I hope he has felt like he learned a bit from the interaction as well.
I wrote this based not on obama v clinton, but because within our own ranks even here at the gnb many of our own differences of attitude surface not about what we are thinking but about what we are feeling.
Tata, the belligerent faction among the Obama supporters, like the neoconservatives they increasingly resemble--in personality rather than ideology--do not understand the difference between being a bully and being a warrior.
They hope that this year will prove to be another 1976--the one year in my memory in which the GOP really HAD screwed up so badly that any Democrat could win the White House.
How can that be considering most of us belligerent young fools weren't even born then?
Now I was around and kicking, I was a couple weeks old mind you but still...
Sigh.
I don't wish that the Boomers would shuffle off onto a rapidly melting ice floe in Arctic and die.
I just want some recognition that the stakes aren't the same for all of us.
Us younger folks have a alot of work to do.
Is it so wrong that we want to be in charge if we are going to have to do the heavy lifting?
I just want some recognition that the stakes aren't the same for all of us.
Us younger folks have a alot of work to do.
Is it so wrong that we want to be in charge if we are going to have to do the heavy lifting?
Oldest canard in the book. I was a child when people said don't trust anyone over 30, but it wasn't new then. In fact, thousands of times in history, civilizations have killed off their elderly only to find out whole bodies of knowledge and experience went with them.
It would utterly ridiculous to think this sentiment will not manifest itself forever.
tata, baltogeek is not saying "don't trust..." the message is Make room. One of the things that I have found is that the established party folks of any age want the new people to come in and do what they say. They want new people, but not new ideas, and they often do not make room at the table for real empowerment for newcomers. That is as big a mistake as new comers who reject outright all of the old ideas.
L'il Gator. Money it is...:o)
The mother's milk of politics, as ol' Big Daddy Unruh said, a few decades ago in California. :o)
Id, or Ivory bill, or whomever you are.
The rattlesnake has been defanged.
We dun it....Prouuuud of doin' it.
:o)
If they want to vote for someone with McCain's track record on women's issues. Let 'em.
You know what, moonglum? I'd tell you where to stick your lousy spelling and your equally lousy attitude, but I have too much respect for the GNB-ers to do that. So from now on I plan to ignore you.
I do that with people who are ignorant.
If the female voters of the USA must choose between two misogynists, might they not more shrewdly choose the one who will be hamstrung by the congressional majority party rather than the one who belongs to the congressional majority party, and seems intent on turning it into his own personal fiefdom, like the "Dear Leaders" of some other countries?
Also, I notice that Tanbark did not mention having defanged the Nice Ladies, which is a somewhat harder task than defanging a rattler.
Perhaps I confused him by translating their name into English.
Perhaps I should have just said "the Eumenides".
When ego gets involved all bets are off... whether they be matronly egos or young buck programmer egos.
I think the point is that we need to elect Democrats from the top of the ticket to the bottom to try and turn this country around. Spend some time thinking about what would benefit the country the most and not who's genitalia is largest or best.
Being a Boomer, I find it interesting how tightly we are trying to hold onto our power... let there be an intergenerational leadership to make it the best of both.
thanks lil gator for starting a great thread on the subject...if i had to add to, i'd echo the theme that it's not a pie-fight, it was a small & vital victory, & that the best thing you can do is reach who you can reach, starting w/ who you personaly know...the sane persons/people vote will indeed be swayed...wouldn't it be fucking insane if America elected the best available candidate & "hope" meant survival after all...
Everyone --
Calm down please. Attack policies, not people.
I insist we are the Democratic Party, the "Big Tent" party. There is room for all of you here.
There will be no more talk of putting anyone up against a wall, no more talk of violence of any kind.
We have room for teenagers, young adults, adults, and elders. Figure out how to make it work.
In this conversation a few of you have crossed the line in a MAJOR way. At GNB I expect everyone to treat everyone else with respect. If you can't do that, STOP. Take a break for an hour or a day and cool off. Or expect to get a strike called, or to be benched (sent out of the game) for at least a week.
I'm not fooling around. Everyone CHILL.
I WAS talking about defanging the "Nice ladies", wasn't it you who used the "rattler" matephor? :o)
The only fangs they have left is to vote for McCain or sit it out.
I'm so sick of their whining and their protection of their triangulating loser, that I'm willing to take our chances in the general with anyone who thinks that Hillary Clinton's right-wing positions were worth ignoring for all these months, sitting it out, or whatever.
Ever since she voted for the clusterfuck they have been part of the problem; if they don't want to be part of the solution, then let them go wherever they will.
Tanbark. Lay off. let's let this one wind down. This conversation is not going to be a one time thing. And the stereotyping from anyone doesn't help.
let's close out this thread
and come back to discuss another day.
"This conversation is not going to be a one time thing."
Maybe we should attempt a "Take Two", then? Obviously, I'm arriving to this particular thread a little late, but I do think this is an important subject of discussion.
Yup, working on some further thoughts from the outcome of this one.
One thing though, I won't be happy with anyone who writes about hurting other people in my thread. And gators can bite hard. even little ones.
look jesse, LHG, the issue I have here si taht my slef and my peers ahve been told for decades, hell for our entire adult life, if not longer that we are lazy slackers taht will not amount ot anything, that we need to let "the adults" run things cause we are jsut screwups....we finaly, fianly have the clout, energy, adn numebrs to make a difrence...to start fixign the problems that those before us ahve directly caused adn now we are told to respect our elders and not hurt their feeligns...bullshit.
if you are unwillign to move forward get out of the way. if you are unwillign to get out of the way..well we finaly have the ability to shove you aside...don't whien ot me when the inevitable happens.
moonglum, enough already. we get how you feel about this. But the shooting people crap is just not cool. period. I posted this thread because I want people to really think about this. Talk. It is not just this cycle. As you point out this has been going around a long time. So let's think about-- without the testosterone bravado. It was an over-reaction to say the least. It doesn't help, your cause OR anyone else's. chill. we are going to keep this dialog going. But I want to hear from everyone... I don't want you shutting down the conversation. I hear some of what you are saying but your vehemence did not help gain understanding for anyone.
I am asking you sweetly to back off on the jacked up violence crap.
Commenting by HaloScan
