This is provoked by Ren's comment on the previous entry. But in no way is this to be construed as a snark or a slap against Ren and what he believes, stands for and struggles for.
The duty today, as I see it, for anyone who cares about this nation and democracy and the future of everything, including the planet, is to vote for Barack Obama in this election.
He is not a messiah. He is not the one answer to all questions. He is not perfect. He also is not a scatter-shot anger spreader, who can barely hold it in and can't wait to start throwing things at anyone and everyone.
What Barack Obama is, is a start. To rolling back this latest assault upon voter rights, upon many, many things that have disenfranchised pressure, persuasion and politics for a generataion the least left-leaning or progressive thought.
We all have a duty to be active, locally, if nowhere else, as well as to vote. And he is trying to lead the way. He's willing to take on that burden. But most of all it's about us, us doing the work, having a portal to having a stake in this nation again.
And he is kind and he has a soul. He not angry with that scatter-shot, never know when it will explode, and it always wants to explode, that is there in McCain and in the blood lust mobs that adore Palin. He doesn't blame others for mistakes. In that he's so different from almost all politicians whether Lenin or Clinton or Bush.
He has at helped us to clean a pane in the political-D.C. inside-the-beltway, so we can at least look in and a get a sense of where to apply pressure.
His nature got concerned citizens of all ilks off their asses and into the streets, the diners, the suburban cul-de-sacs, the back roads and DOING SOMETHING, other than blogging and sneering at How Stupid They Are.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
I have been saying for quite awhile, that the GOP is dying. The hatred for them in this country, and around the world, is a visceral hatred. Reaganism can't solve the problems we're facing,
The Colin Powell endorsement of Obama, signals the kind of policies he'll support. Obama's change will be returning to the policies of Bush41.
Nixon was adventurist and provincial, and wouldn't accept he lost in Vietnam. Bush 43 is the same as Nixon about Iraq. Obama represents the part of the ruling class, that knows Iraq is lost. The US doesn't have the troops or $$, to stay there.
Obama's Afghanistan policy is following the Russian example. In the end the US will negotiate with Taliban.
There is no central spot for the war on terror. It is proving to be a war on the working class. The drug money split between Islamists, the Pakistan army, the Afghan government is what the war on terror degenerated to. There are not that many Islamists at the Pakistani/Afghan border.
With Obama as president, demands will be worded different than with Bush. It will be like; if you are for such and such as you say, why do you....? If the war in Iraq is wrong, why are you ......?
I don't think Obama will be Obrador fighting voter fraud. The streets will explode, if something happens as in 2000.
I think with Democrats in power, the conditions for a labor party are better. No GOP to blame. More important than anything said, if Obama disappoints you, would you consider breaking with the Democrats? One hundred days after Obama is sworn in to office, it'll be Mayday.
I've been saying for a very long time -- well, we have been saying, since Vaquero and I agree on these things -- that we need at least one new party.
The gops are dead, fred, at least for a while. Though there shall always be a party of the wealthy and powerful and whether they are the most popular party doesn't matter since they've got the most money.
The dems have been morally bankrupt long before they assisted the neoCONs to go to war and bankrupt the nation -- hello, Lieberman and Biden among many others.
The left, the progressive elements of this nation really need to get off their duffs and start a new party. But they don't. They blog.
The thing is that the Obama nomination put actual left and progressive people out in the streets, doing voter registration, working to fight against voter suppression, raising money, all sort of actual, physical actions, which the dems AND the left haven't done in a long time. We see each other in a way that we haven't been able to from behind our screens and keyboards, in a long time.
For example a very dear and old friend, who has been a deeply leftist activist his entire life, who works closely with various progressive groups in Cuba, etc., who lives in New Mexico, even he and his people in NM are working their butts off for Obama.
Obama is providing us a window of opportunity and action, of the kind the left hasn't had in this nation for a very long time. In many ways this lack of opportunity is also the fault of the left.
Love, C.
yWhen I started blogging, I wasn't an activist. Through blogging I returned to my 1960s SDS old self. If you read my blog from the start, you'll see I was pro-Iraq War, when I started. It was through the discussion I evolved. It is for me an extension of activism.
Graeme joined the same Marxist group I belong to, the Workers Int'l League (www.Marxist.com).
We take part in electoral activity, particularly in labor and socialist parties. We were in parliment in Pakistan, where we have thousands of members, in the late Benazir Bhutto's party the PPP. In addition we hold office in Lula's party in Brazil. Other parties we are involved with are the Labor Party (UK), PSUV in Venezuela, Israeli Labor Party, Socialist Party of France, MAS in Bolivia. We bring our own program.
The purpose of joining these groups, is it's a cardinal rule, that when the working class moves politically, it first joins groups it's familiar with.
The Democratic and Republican Party are the left and right shoe of big business.
With Democrats in power, it will be easier, to bring up the issue of a labor party.
Contrary to what Michael Moore said today to Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now," Obama will keep his promise not to provide UHC, and to expand the Afghanistan War. Moore said he was hoping that was only campaign talk. Obama is one of the most honest politicians.
The voter drives are good. Involvement leads participation to committment. The streets will explode if there is voter suppression.
The formation of a labor party in the US, is our Russia 1917.
I don't tell people not to vote for Obama. I do tell them to evaluate him, just as you would Bush.
Ren -- That's really interesting, how blogging turned you into an active activist. I had no idea you were pro going to war with Iraq back then. I couldn't understand how anyone could have been in favor of that. I'd always hated dub and his criminal croney gang, but it was their drive to invade Iraq that proved that as well as being criminals they were insane.
Of course you are right, as I've said all along, that Obama is not a Leftist Savior.
OTOH, reading again through some materials on the history of Lenin's seizure of the organization for revolution in Russia, I will support an Obama, I think, to help us avoid the mass insanity of the massacre of millions as happened with the Revolutions in Russia and China.
Love, C.
Post a Comment