No More Treading Water, It’s Time To Swim
I’ve got a lot on my plate today and may not get a chance to blog until later (if at all), but I wanted to direct you to a great essay from one of my new favorite blogs, The English Teacher. In his post The Mothers of Democracy: Progressives, Activists, and the Future of the Party, he takes on the “liberal” versus “progressive” debate and encourages us to look back at our history in order to strengthen the movement as we prepare to take action in creating a better future for our country.
During the Bush years, we have expended so much energy in just trying to hold on that we haven’t had the luxury of looking ahead, let alone planning action that could make a positive difference in the continuing development of our country. Liberalism is not about maintaining the status quo and now that we finally have some breathing room with Congress no longer completely in the hands of the GOP, it’s time to start moving forward. We must begin the necessary process of realigning our thinking in a way that both honors the tradition of liberalism and that will make us more effective in instituting real and lasting change. I found The English Teacher’s essay to be the perfect starting point. I hope you do too.
posted by The (liberal)Girl Next Door @ 9:30 AM
4 Comments:
I always find it disheartening when one discovers that people belong to a political party for the same reason they support certain sports teams.
It would be nice if we belonged to groups of like-minded individuals, but, alas, we tend to find those surrounding us more concerned with winning and learning to "play the game".
And as long as cash is the big deciding factor in elections, the true concern of every politician will be how to make Wall Street happy.
It is only when the locals are truly hurting or disenchanted that public opinion cancels out cash. If Pastor Ted hadn't resigned in disgrace or if the War in Lebanon hadn't made the War in Iraq look more farcical, I doubt the Dems would have taken both Houses.
Absurdly, Americans seem further away intellectually from the ideas expressed in the Declaration of Independence than ever before. I half suspect today's American would have sided with King George and called Washington a terrorist.
In Canada, the big scam is call 3P: Public-Private Partnerships.
These are supposed to provide the profligate public sector with the streetsmarts of the private sector.
But the law of Never Give a Sucker an Even Break rules. So the private investor always Wins and the public sector always Loses. I have yet to read of one 3P program where the Public wasn't given the short end.
Let's face it. The only time the public sector wastes money is when the public officials have been unduly influenced by lobbyists from the private sector.
I don't know a single public service that was privatized that didn't immediately raise prices, cut services, and reward the CEO with a 300% pay increase. Say, our politicians could have done that, but we didn't want them to.
Thanks for the plug! Now that I know my blog has been linked to, I'll pay closer attention to my spelling. ;)
The cited essay was dumb but creepy.
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