“Political and social change...are created by the building of movements. This is a lesson American progressives have forgotten.”

It is not that we have forgotten, it is that we see ourselves as outsiders. The Neo-cons began their generational strategy in the 60’s by running for local office to groom their activists to move into the core of the repub party. Progressives sabotage their commitment by snobbishly refusing to mingle with the “sellouts” They are mostly not activists, but re-activists who only honor yelling in the streets at the “other side” in reaction to the latest outrage. The agenda is set by the news of the day.

The DLC is able to control the demo party only because we do not show up at all levels of the hierarchy to exert our principles.

“The left, at that point, should have gone back to organizing, street protests, building labor unions, and the mobilization of grassroots activists. Instead, it went for respectability.”

How distasteful, to be respectable…

“The mistake of the former left-wingers...is that they want to be players in the Democratic Party and academia,...This is not what the left is supposed to be. The left is supposed to be outside the system.”

Outside, just where they want us.

Chris Hedges embodies all that has caused progressives to fail.

If all the energy put into “protests” were to be put into precinct walking and talking face to face instead of allowing ourselves to be manipulated into news caricatures, thousands of neighborhoods would now be solidly organized.

How sad that this kind of thinking has wasted so much of our precious time…

You write:  “The left doesn’t have any political savvy.”

You are so right, bg1, the Dem Party has no political savvy. It is truly amazing to me that so many here at TD do not see this. As Joe Sixpack has said on occasion here, the new Dem Party slogan should be ‘Nominating the Unelectable Since 1840.”

And don’t try to reason with these folks. They don’t want to hear it. Don’t give them factual information. They already know it all. I am reminded, “...those who do not heed history are condemned to repeat it” --- Santayana ...

“They [human beings] grieve, and suffer and feel despair.” --Chris Hedges

“It is the struggle, if you come out of faith, which matters.” --Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite

I was almost homeless last year.  I didn’t have a job.  If it wasn’t for my parents, who allowed me to live with them, I would’ve been sleeping on the street.  My parents wanted to kick me out of their house eventually, though.  My mother even said to me one day, “Pack your bags, you’re going to the homeless shelter.” Luckily I found a job.  But was it luck?  I think of it as a gift from God that I’m now working.  When I wasn’t working, I had periods where I lost my faith.  I became sinful, giving into lust.  I would look at disgusting images of pornography on the internet.  Then I would hate myself so much afterwards that I’d feel like committing suicide.  I blamed my despair and my evil actions on the fact that I was living in a world of despair, a material world where I couldn’t find a place, couldn’t find a job.  I was alienated from society, alone. 

However, I didn’t completely lose my faith in God.  I still prayed.  I didn’t pray that God would help me find a job.  I simply prayed for help, for faith.  I knew that faith in God was the only thing keeping me from giving into despair completely.  My parents thought I was either insane or just plain lazy.  I was forced into talking to a therapist, i.e., psychiatrist.  That was the only way my mother would let me stay in her house.  My father at one point called me a “worthless piece of garbage.” My mother also called me worthless.  God was my only friend.  God still is my only friend.  How do I know God is my friend?  Because I feel the love of God in my soul.  Yes, my soul.  I have a body, which will die someday, and which is already decaying every day.  Nothing will be left of me except the love I have in my soul.  It’s not easy to find the love of God in my soul, but it is my only purpose in life.  I am the last person in the world who could be called a supremacist.  The truth is, I really am worthless, that is, my ego, my selfish desires, are worthless.  My body is also just grist for the spiritual mill.  I also am awed, but I’m not being sarcastic.  I’m awed by the suffering I feel, which can be turned into joy through the beauty and truth of divine love.

Cyrena,

I was just listening to the WHYY radio program where Chris Hedges was the guest.  He started off the interview stating that he didn’t have a problem with atheism per se, just a particular brand of atheism.  He later described himself as a Christian existentialist.  Before that, he said he wasn’t a pacifist, at least not to the extent that Jesus Christ was in the Gospels.  He said the problems we face as a society must be fought in a personal way, that we can’t depend on any outside systems to save us.  That’s his argument against the Christian Right and also against what he calls the New Atheists.

He speaks and writes about social ills, and he sees the need for a movement that’ll cure these ills.  Yet the movement is up against extremely powerful forces in society, such as, to use his term, the corporate state.  It’s true that capitalism does view human beings as commodities and is solely about gaining profits for the benefit of the ruling class.  However, Hedges doesn’t provide a definition of what his movement would be and what it would do to counter the injustice and evils of the world.  He writes about the Left and progressive candidates like Ralph Nader.

What I’m saying is that of course the Left has failed.  The Left doesn’t even exist.  There’s no such thing as the Left.  There are only human beings.  But within human beings, there’s something that Hedges calls God, which he expresses in terms such as compassion for the other, or simply love.

I would never claim to know the truth, as you can see from the fact that I wrote a comment titled “My Error.” But I don’t share your lack of faith in “a specific entity called God,” since I believe, as Gandhi did, that God is Truth.  Prayer, or meditation on God, the Being within us, is the way to find truth within oneself and apply it to the outside world.  I’ve read and studied a little about Buddhism, but since it isn’t a theistic religion, I don’t have much interest in it.  You’re right that there can be a difference between religion and spirituality, but I use the terms interchangebly, since relgion, for me, is not about dogmas or churches or even scriptures; instead, it’s about love.  In that sense, I would say relgion is the same for all people.  That’s what we live by.

• But if they want to shun the evils of capital, in other words, if they would revise the viewpoint of capital, they would strive to attain a juster distribution of the products of labour.

Here’s where the challenge is Colin…

In short, capitalism does NOT support the concept of a more just distribution of the products of labor. At least not as it has been practiced in the West for the past few centuries.

This is very, very true…

• “But justice isn’t about being progressive; it’s about being just.”

What I think Chris misses, (as do the rest of those determined to establish religion) is that the principles that underlie that which is JUST, or that which is MORAL, or simply that which is RIGHT…do not require a ‘religion’ unless one chooses to incorporate those principles as one’s ‘religion’. In other words, one needn’t believe in a god, or even in the traditional meaning of ‘prayer’ to except what is JUST, as being the principle to strive for at all times.

That’s my own problem with this concept of ‘religion.” Religion is not the same thing to all people, which means that by its definition, it MUST be individual. That’s the difference between religion and spirituality, and spirituality doesn’t depend on a god, as defined by He.

Your argument here, which I understand and respect, would be more at place and in balance with the philosophical components of Buddhism (meditation that creates balance) than with any organized religion that prays to a specific entity that is called God.

Meantime, you’re altogether right about the capitalism and materialism. It’s a real balance buster, and ‘out of balance’ leads to a crash every time. That just happens to be a far more prevalent problem in the West than it is in other areas of the globe, yet we’ve forced the entire globe to operate based on a capitalistic system, which is how the imbalance is created.

Anyway, Colin…thanks for your contribution. It’s a worthy one.

I made a mistake in my earlier comment.  I said politics didn’t matter, that only the soul mattered, not the body.  But the body is a part of life, as much as the soul is, and politics also is a part of life, which shouldn’t be ignored.  I was reading Gandhi, whom I’ll quote from, since it relates to the article by Chris Hedges.

“From what will the masses be delivered? It will not do to have vague generalization and to answer “from exploitation and degradation”. Is not the answer this that they want to occupy the status that capital does today? If so, it can be attained only by
violence. But if they want to shun the evils of capital, in other words, if they would revise the viewpoint of capital, they would strive to attain a
juster distribution of the products of labour. This immediately takes us to contentment and simplicity, voluntarily adopted. Under the new outlook multiplicity of material wants will not be the aim of life, the aim will be rather their restriction consistently with comfort. We shall cease to think of getting what we can, but we shall decline to receive what all cannot get. . . . I do not believe that the spiritual law works on a field of its own. On the contrary, it expresses itself only through the ordinary activities of life.  It thus affects the economic, the social, and the political fields.”

Hedges is right to say “human beings are not commodities,” but what he’s stressing is the idea that material conditions affect spiritual conditions, whereas I believe spiritual life affects material life.  Hope and dignity aren’t related to how much money a person makes, just as beauty isn’t related to what a person’s body or face looks like.

Susan B. Thistlethwaite says, and I think Chris agrees, that the Left (whatever that is) needs to adopt religion in order to make meaningful changes in society.  But justice isn’t about being progressive; it’s about being just.  The only “movement” that’s needed is a movement, by each individual, toward prayer, no matter how unjust the world seems to be.  We’re not in the corporations’ hands.  We’re in God’s hands.  This is His world, not theirs.  That’s all I meant in my earlier comment.

In reality Marshall, what you’re expecting, at least in respect to Iran, is that it’s ‘on them’ to prove a negative.

It is impossible to ‘prove a negative’ in any real life circumstance.

You ‘claim’ that our information comes from the ‘intelligence’ community, and yet you refuse to reference ALL of what comes from the intelligence community. The lastest NIE, provided over the wishes of the administration, asserting that Iran had long ago abandoned any consideration of a nuclear weapons program would appear to be one of the things that you’ve chosen to ignore.

You’ve also pointedly ignored all of the other organizations and their experts who ARE entrusted with accumluling the same ‘intelligence’ since it appears to contrary to what you prefer to believe, even though you cannot provide any proof.

So far, NO ONE, including our ‘intelligence community’ has been able to provide any indication that Iran is seeking any nuclear weapons. So, while it is true that no one has PROVEN that they are NOT, that only brings us back to what is impossible..PROVING a negative.

The reality here is that you and the rest of your ideological crowd is attempting to persecute (and further demonize) Iran (or anyone else on the target list) as being ‘guilty’ based on what YOU claim is their ‘intent’. So, the ‘thought crime’ mentality is at play here. YOU decide that you’re gonna read the minds of whomever..(in this case the Iranians) and YOU are going to decide that the civilian energy program that they are developing (based on their right to have such a program) is REALLY intended to develop nuclear weapons.

But, YOU don’t know that, and the people that CAN most determine that, (on site) haven’t found any evidence of it.

So...when you do, you should let us all know, and you should be prepared to cite whatever the intelligence community has to offer to prove this.

Until then..you’re just talking trash and rhetoric, no different than any other rhetoric. For instance, how many decades have we been hearing the American trademark slogan of ‘we have to fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here’, and when was the last time that was actually true?

I think the most obvious way to predict a group’s future threat is to review its past behavior - unless you believe that past attacks are no indication of future ones.

Another important predictor would be the rhetoric coming from these groups, along with our assessment of their ability to carry out attacks.

These are some of the many considerations taken on by our nation’s intelligence community.  So I assume that, since that’s where policy makers get their information, you believe that the intelligence community is inventing the threat.

Now, unless you have proof that they are, then you have only an opinion - which in my mind is outweighed by the actual data collected by ours, and our allies intelligence agencies that formulate U.S. threat assessment.

Upon reading your comment, I recalled a passing mention about the Constitution and restoring it in a recent speech.

Marshall, it’s the responsibility of those asserting that we are in constant danger of attack to prove it. They won’t be able to unless, of course, they can predict the future.  Nor can their assertions be proven to be lies - unless of course the challengers can predict the future. 

Obviously, using end-of-the-world-like predictions - and throughout history they have taken many different forms - to frighten people must be unmasked for what they are, proven strategies aimed at creating a submissive populace.

Interesting article, Chris.  I’m glad the soul was mentioned.  Left or Right, rich or poor, the soul is what matters in life, nothing else.  Despite what Augustine said, it’s not good to get angry.  One must accept God’s will, and that involves suffering.  You can still believe in God if you don’t have a job.  I know that from personal experience.  You can still live if you’re hungry and destitute.  Politics doesn’t matter.  It’s right to say that morality matters, as the end of the article states.  Faith is all that matters.  There’s no point in worrying about anything else.

Cannot provide a link, but I swear I heard Obama say something about returning the Constitution to us? Now that you mention it, cannot recall if he said anything about the Patriot act.

Plutocratic choices seem to be our three choices again.

Plutocracy thank you, it is nice to see myself not alone waving in the fog, now there are two of us.

What does not voting for someone have to do with being on the left? What we have here is a failure to communicate. (Always liked that line from Cool Hand Luke).  Seems to me we have people running for president and we are down to three choices, who are selected for us by the Plutocracy, the elite, the special interests, the wealthy.  Only seems Obama has more people power behind his show, then Hillary who has money behind hers.

Corn holing the meaning of left is going to be hard in my book, seems everyone has their own personal definition and as we know in religion and politics the person doing the speaking, writing such profound edifying knows best.

Please bear with me.

Somewhere in the big book of A.A..

There is the most important statement of the big book for all those who wish to understand addiction.

It goes something like, the core of our disease is our obsession with ourselves.

And that’s why the left has lost it’s way. Because no one is willing compromise their selfish addiction to their leftist ideology, so that they can be supportive of their party’s candidate whoever that may be. Instead they will hold a grudge against him or her, and either vote for McCain or not vote at all.

So the Republican’s win again, victory by division…

A victory in the fall may require a little self sacrifise. Is the Democratic party leadership capable of that?

By felicity, April 21 at 2:50 pm #
Re: Re: under siege

“if it’s a lie then of course the Dems have to challenge the data used to support the lie.”

Which they obviously haven’t.  But I’m assuming that you know (and have the supporting data to prove) that it is in fact a lie.

I’m not really sure what your unreferenced Nixon anecdote has to do with this though.  Nixon didn’t attack the Soviets and they did in fact collapse largely as the result of U.S. cold war policies including those under Nixon.

It is too simplified to say that the left has lost its way. Our government operates on the system of good faith. When one of the major parties in this operates will not negotiate or operate in good faith, our whole system is hamstrung. Neo-conservatives have engaged in a scorched earth policy since they gained majority status during the Clinton years. We all should understand that they own the Republican party. And they would rather destroy all vestiges of democracy than to compromise their plutocratic ideology. In such an environment and with inattentive voters, there is no way to do the will of the people.

So to say that the left has lost its way is a narrow explanation for the paralysis of our government. When else in our history have our whole federal government been so inept, so paralyzed, and so self-absorbed. All this because the union is less important than politics and the neocon ideology.

Louise you always fire me up with your posts...the good kind that is.

This specifically, is what I just tried to convey in another post, in response to Dr. Knowitalls question on the thread with Michael Moore’s letter,

• “Question:  What in our past history tells you that either candidate will be better for you and the country than the other two?  Take your time.

You mentioned this..

• “…If Obama is as honest as he appears to be, he will be approachable when we demand election reform!

And, I mentioned the same thing, though not as diplomatically, and not in reference to election reform, but just to everything in general. What I suggested, (along with a couple of other things) was that he wasn’t LYING all of the time. (I hate that from the others).

What I really meant to say was closer to what you said..”If Obama is as honest as he appears to be”..that alone tells me that he better than either of the others. That isn’t the only thing, but it’s certainly a biggie.

From everything that I’ve heard from him, (and I’m probably more fortunate than most, since I’ve had time to follow it pretty closely) he DOES very sincerely appear to be very honest, and I do trust my judgment on that.

Nope, not perfect, (which he’s said himself) and no…I don’t always agree with him, or his positions on some stuff, (mostly foreign policy issues) but I DO believe him to be honest.

Then again, on the stuff that I’m in most adamant disagreement with him on, I find myself hoping that he’s lying. So, I guess I have to admit to a contradiction there myself. An example here would be his recent criticism of Jimmy Carter’s efforts in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Now admittedly, I haven’t tracked down his exact comments, to find out exactly what he said, and I’m just going by another source here on TD, which is generally an excellent source. The Mosaic Link report. They only said that the move had been criticized by US leaders and candidates, including Barack Obama.

Now I don’t know if he’s just gotten himself tired out, or worked up, or if the pressure from the AIPACS and the neocons is just that overwhelming or what. But, I’m thinking that was a major faux pas, if he’s gonna be as honest as he generally appears to be about everything else. It seems like another one of those rare occasions when I really need to have a talk with him. I mean, he either shouldn’t have said anything at all, or he should have displayed his standard courage, which would have been to show the appropriate appreciation for Jimmy Carter’s own courage in doing that.

Anyway..thanks for reading my mind. The same goes for your point about people (anyone) expecting us to switch our attention and/or loyalty at this point, to some other candidates who’ve not bothered to campaign, and have waited until the last minute to decide that they want us to waste a vote, after all of this work? What kind of nonsense is that?

And WHAT pray tell, in our history, gives us any indication that either Nader or Cynthia McKinney has a snowballs’ chance in hell of being elected to anything?

And, I actually like both of them. But after the way the media and the neocon mafia worked her over a couple of years ago in the incident where she allegedly hit the capitol police officer with her cell phone, I don’t even know what craziness has prompted either of them to even put their names on a ballot.

And, I say that knowing exactly how she felt at the time, because there’s no doubt in my mind, that they were simply harassing her for who she is. STILL..SHE KNOWS IT TOO! So, that makes me start to wonder if the folks that are calling her crazy might have a point.

Maybe these past 8 years have just sent all of us over or close enough to the edge.

We need some serious healing.

Another article by Evelyn Pringle

Clinton v Obama Hillary’s Most Qualified for the Job
(or so she claims...)
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/genera_none_080303_ clinton_v_obama____h.htm

Not that nothing in the article you mention has any truth to it, just the same “Evelyn” is a Clinton supporter.  So it’s par for the course.

Maybe someday there actually may be a viable third party candidate, but as always those who want it are unwilling to do anything about it. Except complain, and try to convince us at the very last minute to throw our vote away for a candidate who never bothered campaigning for a handful of grumblers who never bothered organizing for him.

Perhaps they see themselves as the real progressives, betrayed. But the only betrayal comes in saying lots and doing nothing.

The candidates aren’t perfect, but frankly they are both more impressive than was Kerry. [sorry Kerry, but you just never had the fire] So then we have to chose which brand of fire do we want. The kind that lights us up, gets us off our bottoms and inspires us to work together to bring about positive change for the common good, or the kind that just hurts when it burns.

I for one am full up to here with getting burned and being hurt, so my choice has to be obvious. If Obama is as honest as he appears to be, he will be approachable when we demand election reform! Nothing ... absolutely nothing will change until we have that. Is that possible? Only if we remove the power from special interests who now own the media, the military, a good percentage of congress, the entire administration and most of our working lives.

Then term limits might be a good idea.

But that other fire, the one that just burns and hurts. That fire is smoldering away inside the beltway. Slowly turning everything it engulfs into ashes. Just in time for another dedicated relic from the age that started that destructive fire to step up and put knew fuel on it. Maybe that’s what we smell. The smell of burning flesh ... smoldering away on the alter of greed and establishment.

Absent a Mr. Smith charging out of Hollywood and changing everything for the better, I’ll stick with the skinny black kid, who seems to be as fed up with that ageless, smelly, non-productive fire as I am.

President Barack Hussein Obama.
I like the sound of that.

Let the politicians compromise. This is their job. It is not ours. If the left wants to regain influence in the nation’s political life, it must be willing to walk away from the Democratic Party, even if Barack Obama is the nominee, and back progressive, third-party candidates until the Democrats feel enough heat to adopt our agenda. We must be willing to say no. If not, we become slaves.

Compromise is part of politics on all levels.  I question the logic that voting for third party candidates and walking away from the democrats is the way for progressives to gain influence.  It seems to me that this will only move progressives farther from the limelight of politics and make them less influential.  The time to build a powerful third party is not on the brink of this most important election, but during the off years.  Start local and work up from the bottom, winning local elections and then progressively larger until it becomes a major force.  It does progressives no good to throw votes away this year and let McCain have the election.  It doesn’t seem realistic to think that at this stage we can influence the candidates toward more progressive platforms, and I doubt candidates with much more progressive policy platforms could stand a chance of winning.  I think the best course at this time is to get someone like Obama (who is really the most progressive realistic possibility in many years)and then keep applying consistent pressure to adopt more progressive policies.  Compromising on electable candidates is not the same as compromising one’s ideals.  You can choose to vote for a candidate who gives progressives a friendly ear, or you can be overly idealistic and get nothing.

As for the religious aspects of this article, I am not sure we need more religion in politics.  I think the separation of church and state is fundamental to a healthy democracy.  That being said, I do think that a strong current of more outspoken liberal/progressive religious thought would be a good thing.  After all, most religions stem from teachings of very radical people, very different from the dominate image of a religious person. I think that the religious right have too long dominated politics with the idea that the devoutly religious cannot support progressive candidates, or hold progressive views on issues.  I think that the compassionate and thoughtful side of religions need to be promoted more by open-minded, and intelligent religious people.  Those sorts of people need to be more outspoken in countering the fundamental religious extremists position that they speak for all religious or spiritual people.  I consider myself to be a very spiritual person, and I don’t see the leaders of the religious right as anything more than authoritarian thugs.  I am very resentful that their brand of closed-minded, destructive, hateful, and hypocritical religious practice and belief has become the norm of what one thinks of as religious.

Looking at our dimo candidates who are both to the right of Eisenhower and Nixon I find it shameful that a progressive community is considering either of these candidates.  I understand that we have to choose between the lesser of the poisons as a rational look at the choices presented.

Which of these candidates have indicated that the Patriot Act should be revisited?  Did I miss something?  I have heard no discussion about the restoration of civil and constitutional rights.  Have you heard this mentioned in other forums, if so please provide a link so I may share in your enlightenment.

Have you heard any discussion of prosecution of those who have broken federal law?  Statutes broken by acknowledgment or treaty by the Senate of these United States?  If so please provide a link so I may share in your enlightenment.

We have heard overmuch about the need for faith and guidance by god (Yahweh and Son).  I would suggest that you fully read the “Law of Moses” and the actual sayings of “Jesus the Christ”.  Their views on the worthiness of the halt lame and cripple are interesting as are the comments about women being raped.  (stone them with many stones).  Specific quotes can be provided for those who have not studied the myths that have crippled western thought and morality for too long.  Yes Maani I can quote your book at length.

Given that the majority of the american public want health care, education, & etc.  why do we have dimos without the balls to stand up for this view?  If I missed the two corporatist candidates taking these stances please provide the link.  The health care plans represented by H & O fall far short of the desires of the american public and those enjoyed by the rest of the industrialized and some third world countries, e.g., Cuba.  Remember those are godless communists and the people of the Christ, that is the Christians, are commanded to care for the poor and needy (Yahweh and Son).  Yet the godless corporatists, capitalists would deny health care and life care to the poor halt and infirm in the name of the almighty god aqnd the markey. 

Can you say bullshit, boys and girls?

Well, Marshall, if it’s a lie then of course the Dems have to challenge the data used to support the lie. (Actually, statistically the odds of me/mine getting killed in a terrorist attack on American soil are less than me/mine getting wiped out by a meteorite.)

During the Nixon presidency, the CIA reported to him that the USSR was near implosion and the possibility that she would be capable of launching or would launch a nuclear attack on us was so unlikely as to be an impossibility. Nixon told the CIA to keep its mouth shut.

So Felicity, if it’s a lie as you say, then what exactly do the Democrats need to convince us they are capable of defending us from?

More often than not people who believe they’re under siege go conservative.  From the onset of the Cold War right up to today the Repub Party has managed to convince the American people that from somewhere, someone is threatening to bomb us to smithereens.

Democrats either have to put the lie to that argument and/or convince people that they are as capable of defending them as the Repubs. Big job and the only one that’ll work.

We do not need anymore religious, superstitious, people ruining a once great nation. What is needed are people with courage and intellect to guide us through some of the worse debacles of our nations history. The Neo Con’s Compassionate Conservatism has proven to be murderous and neglectful to all but the wealthiest amongst our population.

I believe, defend and support your rights to Freedom of Religion! Just keep it out of our government!

Freedom of Religion = Freedom From Religion!

Excellent reply. I really don’t know what’s happened to Hedges. I used to admire him myself.

So, to give him an ‘out’ of sorts, maybe these past several years have gotten to him as well. He wouldn’t be the first.

Seriously...this many years of living under terror and occupation in our own country, (even if it’s not acknowledged as such) DOES take its toll. We’ve seen it in large portions of the rest of our communities, so intellectuals aren’t immune. If anything, they might be more subject to the effects than anyone else.

I’ve been watching the same thing happen to others, especially with this religion thing. It’s been said before, and of course Obama acknowledged it himself, and got blasted for it. Still, in times of stress and crises, it seems to be human nature for many people to move further into the realm of religiosity.

And, just observing that in people I know myself, has moved me even further AWAY from it, because I see it as nothing more than another escape from reality, and puts that many more people (the masses) under the control of those who have used the same techniques to control us for centuries.

And, it just pisses me off.

Al Smith & Robert Wagner are long gone. Many,way too many democrats, are in the pay of the corporate interests so well served by the republicans and their Hoover School Of Economics. Just read today where Costco is rationing rice right here in the USA. We’re heading for the world of “Soylent Green” thanks to the corporatocracy.

Thank you Jaded Prole!

You’ve said it all.

Yes Chris, you’ve made some good points. Problem is, rather than looking back at what didn’t work, why not take a moment to realize that we HAVE figured that out, and the ‘movement’ you talk about that is so needed, IS in the process!

For Christ’s sake! At least we’re TRYING! Why would you wait until there might FINALLY be some possibilities to break away from the plantation, and then start whining about...let’s do something else, before we’ve even had a chance to get this going?

The frustration is understandable, but this OCD isn’t helpful.

And NO...we DON’T need any more RELIGION! Spirituality and religion are NOT the same, and Chris of all people, should know that.

Calm yourself Chris. Give it a chance, based on what CAN be accomplished, not miracles.

for your valiant steps toward further inserting ideas of a moral and therefore, spiritual, sense into the debates of our times.....literally, ‘food.....for thought’..
To deny the spiritual and it’s importance in the world is to, sadly, place both feet upon the path of malpractice in thought…

We strive on......

What we DON’T need is religion. I agree that we do need a more active and unified movement without a faith-based loyalty to the Dems and with our own, supported progressive agenda and candidates. We are not there yet however and it is highly unlikely we could rally massive support behind Nader or McKinney. We, like others, are driven by fear. In this case, fear of the continuing rule of the extreme right.

In this case, short of a the miracle of a strong progressive alternative candidate entering the race, supporting Obama and keeping the pressure on while we consolidate a movement is probably the best course.

Yeh, I noticed the quote above but ignored it to be polite.  Hedges get you head out of your arse, please.

The reason the Left has lost it’s way, is because when it came to the fork in the road, it turned Right.

Which was Wrong.

“The other side has religion, and we need some,” said the Rev. Susan B. Thistlethwaite, president of Chicago Theological Seminary. “We need a more robust understanding of the role of religious values, values that prevent us from compromising the sanctity and dignity of human life. The left, because it is largely secular, did not do enough as the working class was finished off. And now the same thing is happening with the middle class. It is the loss of the left’s spiritual resources that has crippled the movement. The left forgot that nations, like individuals, have souls. Once you sell your soul, it is hard to get it back. History is not linear. History is about constant struggle. It is the struggle, if you come out of faith, which matters.”

You know, I used to really admire you.  I teach a high school peace studies elective and use your War is a Force as a text. 

Then I read that you are supporting Nader and McKinney.

Then I watch you, in a self-serving video, put Sam Harris, Richard Harris, and Christopher Hitchens “on notice,” so to speak.

And then I read that you subscribe to the utter bullshit highlighted at the top of my comment here.

You have become so out of touch, Mr. Hedges, with the “left” that your sermons have acquired the nutty flavor of the pathologically sanctimonious.  No, we don’t need more religion on the left, or in the Democratic party, or in this nation in general; we need less.  And although I reject this notion, you can spare me the sugestion that I lack a “soul.”

You appear to be blinded by your own peculiar brand of enlightenment, Mr. Hedges.  What you suggest will not move this nation or humanity forward; it will render us as idiotic and superstitious in our thinking as the fools running this nation now.

You have developed a bad habit of redefining the terms to suit your personal, if not peculiar, brand of Christianity and religiosity.  Sorry, not buying.

Well Expat you beat me to it, but the sameness of the two parties has been for quite sometime now.  Lincoln mentioned it when he was president. You, know story of two drunks like Republican and Democrats, who were fighting and when the fight is over they have each others coat on!

^ the left!  Get that notion gone right away.  What/who are the dems?  Centrist?  No!  Liberal right?  Hmm, maybe.  There is no left anymore forever.  I think the dems are so abused by the neo-cons they are behaving like someone with abused spouse’s syndrome.  This of course is the result of being confronted by someone “perceived” to have superior physical power over you.  But most importantly the victims don’t really fight because they are afraid.  They feel scared and that breeds powerlessness/impotency.  From the outside any sane observer sees many things that can be done but the victim; because of overriding fear does not.  One finds other ways to fight physical superiority by using intelligence.  The dems are victims and suffer from that syndrome.  The only way out should be obvious but it isn’t:  The dems have to be willing to give it all up (die?) for the thing they want; they need to find the balls they “may” have had at one time in the distant past.  Anyone game for a fight?

When the Phoenix Program started, it made one huge, strategic mistake: it sold the program to the Democratic Party.  The Dems saw the possibility of money and nothing else.

Now the descendants of that project are in a battle for control of the Democratic Party, but to win they will have to compromise greatly.  Compromise is not a dirty word...unless only one side is doing it.  That is precisely what’s happening.

A true progressive/liberal movement forming a new party post 2004 would probably not be ready to win a GE today.  However, if it was independent of the Democratic Party it would hold the power to kill the Dems electoral hopes outright.  In other words, it would be in a position to actually compromise.  That is, it could lend its support to the Dems, but only after they seriously adopted some of its platform positions.  And it would be in the position to win Congressional seats.

Now the progressive movement is caught between a rock and a corporate place.