Gay film star Jack Wrangler dies; Florida's new "Solar City"; strip searching 13 year olds and D.A. filing pornography charges against teenage "sexters"; Progressives, Liberals, Lies and Democrats; Obama Report -- wading even deeper into Afpakistan quagmire and his Republican-heavy hedge fund Administration; latest on Israel's war crimes in Gaza.
For the second time, Blogtalk censors have taken their axe to my show description. Note how their filter rejected my use of the word pornography in the above description and forced me to change it on blogtalk to "***nography" to get past the filter. Orwellian and Stalinesque, huh? Also stupid.
Showing posts with label Liberalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Liberalism. Show all posts
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Identity Politics
Day 4. We’re on a roll, pickin’ up steam, train’s a comin’. My radio show starts 10am Saturday. Tune in. More on that tomorrow. I swear this is all leading somewhere, people. We’re starting out defining who we are. I didn’t expect it to evolve like this. I didn’t know what to expect. But I will soon move into strategy, and then tactics, and go into policy, which is after all determined by identity and strategy.
Words do count. Our political identities are important. Here’s another exercise for you, you should start writing stuff down: how do you identify yourself politically? Post it. Maybe you don’t have an identity, but I find that hard to believe, correct me if I’m wrong. Sure, a few people among us may not have a political identity, and I guess that’s cool. But your not leading. You’re following. And that’s cool too. Follow me. (Tee hee). Just don’t flip to the Dark Side down the road, when the next terror attack hits, or you convert to President Thompson or whatever. You’re in danger.
Progressive doesn’t mean progress because progress is a meaningless term, although that was the original 17th century name of the concept. Everybody wants progress towards their own values. Progress would be a fundamentalist Christian Republic to many Christians; a democratic, U.S.-ruling elite aligned, oil supplying, U.S. military based Iraq to the neo cons, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people will be killed and maimed,and how many millions refugeed and trillions of dollars wasted to achieve that progress.
Our political identity determines everything, our opinions on issues, the importance of them, what we do, who we support, who we empower. I’m a Progressive first and foremost. Personally, I also consider myself a Liberal, a Democrat, a Green, a Socialist, a civil libertarian, a unionist, a Moderate and a gay libber, but those are the sub identities. Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between these. Some of you consider yourselves Democrats above all else. That’s your identity. It affects things. One of my gripes about the party people is you’re often partisan, party above all else (here I go again, labeling and stereotyping). But you have a tendency to have a double standard for “bad” behavior if it is committed by a Republican as opposed to a Democrat. Or to oppose every single thing a Republican proposes (granted it’s easy to mistrust them). You get caught up in side shows. Take the primary flap. That’s a side show, at least for a Progressive. I don’t care about it. I’m outside the circular firing squad. I love you all. The primary system broke down this year, and good riddance. I’ve hated it for twenty years. We’re gonna fix it for 2012,I think. We will.
There IS a Progressive political identity, folks. I swear I’m not making it up. There are hundreds of thousands of people around this country who identify as Progressives, first and foremost, a whole community. They don’t consider themselves Liberals. Just ask Scott Maddox, I think, and Kucinich, Jesse Jackson, Feingold, Howard Dean, Jerry Brown, maybe Obama, if you get the chance. We gotta get them down here.
Now you don’t need to name your identity, that’s cool. Better that than say your someone you’re not. But doesn’t it make things easier? In the end, after I talk to and observe you for an hour, I’ll name you. I have limited energy, so I will try to help Progressives get elected, not Liberals or Democrats, and I will advocate Progressive ideas, not Liberal ones or Democratic Party positions (except where they often overlap).
In the end, BEWARE of the labels people attach to themselves. They may not be what they appear. Maybe I’m not really Progressive, after all. Just be clear about your identity.
Words do count. Our political identities are important. Here’s another exercise for you, you should start writing stuff down: how do you identify yourself politically? Post it. Maybe you don’t have an identity, but I find that hard to believe, correct me if I’m wrong. Sure, a few people among us may not have a political identity, and I guess that’s cool. But your not leading. You’re following. And that’s cool too. Follow me. (Tee hee). Just don’t flip to the Dark Side down the road, when the next terror attack hits, or you convert to President Thompson or whatever. You’re in danger.
Progressive doesn’t mean progress because progress is a meaningless term, although that was the original 17th century name of the concept. Everybody wants progress towards their own values. Progress would be a fundamentalist Christian Republic to many Christians; a democratic, U.S.-ruling elite aligned, oil supplying, U.S. military based Iraq to the neo cons, no matter how many hundreds of thousands of people will be killed and maimed,and how many millions refugeed and trillions of dollars wasted to achieve that progress.
Our political identity determines everything, our opinions on issues, the importance of them, what we do, who we support, who we empower. I’m a Progressive first and foremost. Personally, I also consider myself a Liberal, a Democrat, a Green, a Socialist, a civil libertarian, a unionist, a Moderate and a gay libber, but those are the sub identities. Yeah, there’s a lot of overlap between these. Some of you consider yourselves Democrats above all else. That’s your identity. It affects things. One of my gripes about the party people is you’re often partisan, party above all else (here I go again, labeling and stereotyping). But you have a tendency to have a double standard for “bad” behavior if it is committed by a Republican as opposed to a Democrat. Or to oppose every single thing a Republican proposes (granted it’s easy to mistrust them). You get caught up in side shows. Take the primary flap. That’s a side show, at least for a Progressive. I don’t care about it. I’m outside the circular firing squad. I love you all. The primary system broke down this year, and good riddance. I’ve hated it for twenty years. We’re gonna fix it for 2012,I think. We will.
There IS a Progressive political identity, folks. I swear I’m not making it up. There are hundreds of thousands of people around this country who identify as Progressives, first and foremost, a whole community. They don’t consider themselves Liberals. Just ask Scott Maddox, I think, and Kucinich, Jesse Jackson, Feingold, Howard Dean, Jerry Brown, maybe Obama, if you get the chance. We gotta get them down here.
Now you don’t need to name your identity, that’s cool. Better that than say your someone you’re not. But doesn’t it make things easier? In the end, after I talk to and observe you for an hour, I’ll name you. I have limited energy, so I will try to help Progressives get elected, not Liberals or Democrats, and I will advocate Progressive ideas, not Liberal ones or Democratic Party positions (except where they often overlap).
In the end, BEWARE of the labels people attach to themselves. They may not be what they appear. Maybe I’m not really Progressive, after all. Just be clear about your identity.
Progressives and Liberals
Day Eight. Wow, it’s going to be a long 100 Days of posts! Some of you are asking, “Why are you going on and on making this distinction between Liberals and Progressives? What do you hope to accomplish? It’s a false dichotomy. They’re the same. I’m both.”
Don’t misperceive. I’m not trashing Liberals. Yeah I know it may sound like it, at moments, on fine points, but I’m not. Liberals are family. I’ve just NEVER thought of myself as a Liberal. I’ve always thought of myself as Progressive. Not that I have any animosity toward Liberalism, and at some moments and contexts I call myself a Liberal. I’m making the distinction for several reasons: 1) because it exists, at least among many people, although there is a lot of overlap between the two, even if it doesn’t exist for you personally; 2) I want all of us, including me as I think about all this fascinating stuff, to clarify our identities for the reasons I outlined in Identity Politics; and 3) there’s something that concerns me about Liberalism, as many Progressives define it, even though you personally may not. I’m not going to get into this in this post. My thoughts are still unclear. It’s a feeling, an intuition. There’s something about Liberalism, as some of us see it, that echoes some of the premises and paradigms of the right wingers, or amoral anchorless Centrism. I don’t know. It’ll emerge as a thread during these 100 Days.
To an extent I am making a forced dichotomy, I wouldn’t say a false one, it’s a matter of degree and nuance. Most of what I’ve been saying about Liberalism, many many people who call themselves Progressives would agree with. But you’re also getting a little of my personal take on the differences and yeah it may be a little theatrical and stretching, but I still think I’m touching, if in metaphors, the differences.
But I will say that there is merit in defining Progressivism broadly, as Kenneth and others are doing, and I am committed to a free ranging, honest, CIVIL discussion. But I get nervous about defining it so broadly that it loses a clear identity, that neither we nor the general public who we are trying to provide STRONG clear leadership for can unambiguously explain what we stand for. Maybe I’m emerging as “on the left” of this redefined Progressive movement, but I swear, I consider myself a Moderate. Then again, maybe none of this matters. Maybe I should forget labels and distinctions. We will see.
What do you think?
Don’t misperceive. I’m not trashing Liberals. Yeah I know it may sound like it, at moments, on fine points, but I’m not. Liberals are family. I’ve just NEVER thought of myself as a Liberal. I’ve always thought of myself as Progressive. Not that I have any animosity toward Liberalism, and at some moments and contexts I call myself a Liberal. I’m making the distinction for several reasons: 1) because it exists, at least among many people, although there is a lot of overlap between the two, even if it doesn’t exist for you personally; 2) I want all of us, including me as I think about all this fascinating stuff, to clarify our identities for the reasons I outlined in Identity Politics; and 3) there’s something that concerns me about Liberalism, as many Progressives define it, even though you personally may not. I’m not going to get into this in this post. My thoughts are still unclear. It’s a feeling, an intuition. There’s something about Liberalism, as some of us see it, that echoes some of the premises and paradigms of the right wingers, or amoral anchorless Centrism. I don’t know. It’ll emerge as a thread during these 100 Days.
To an extent I am making a forced dichotomy, I wouldn’t say a false one, it’s a matter of degree and nuance. Most of what I’ve been saying about Liberalism, many many people who call themselves Progressives would agree with. But you’re also getting a little of my personal take on the differences and yeah it may be a little theatrical and stretching, but I still think I’m touching, if in metaphors, the differences.
But I will say that there is merit in defining Progressivism broadly, as Kenneth and others are doing, and I am committed to a free ranging, honest, CIVIL discussion. But I get nervous about defining it so broadly that it loses a clear identity, that neither we nor the general public who we are trying to provide STRONG clear leadership for can unambiguously explain what we stand for. Maybe I’m emerging as “on the left” of this redefined Progressive movement, but I swear, I consider myself a Moderate. Then again, maybe none of this matters. Maybe I should forget labels and distinctions. We will see.
What do you think?
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