What Are You Trying to Accomplish?

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Monday August 22, 2011 · 9:58 PM PDT

2011/08/22 · 21:58

This is the question that wracks my mind. As I listen to the way in which ardent Obama supporters talk about progressives, I find myself completely baffled as to what they're trying to accomplish. In the last three years, I've heard progressives characterized as the "progressive left" (i.e., as hacks who have nothing to say), as immature (all the lectures about incrementalism, pragmatic realism, wishing for ponies, magic wands, etc), as "white progressives (translation, "racists"), as not truly belonging to the base, and so on. Examples could be multiplied. Earlier today I read a diary discussing a memo from the DLC that argues that progressives are to be ignored because the electorate is "moderate" and that's where the votes are.

Philoguy

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Tuesday August 16, 2011 · 8:50 AM PDT

2011/08/16 · 08:50

Yesterday Cassiodorus wrote an excellent, albeit polemical, diary addressed to the neoliberals on this site. Within this diary and in other diaries where neoliberalism comes up, I noted that a number of respondents expressed perplexity at just what neoliberalism is. I sometimes get the sense that some, when hearing the term "neoliberalism", read this term literally, understanding it as being equivalent to "new liberalism". Readers that understand the term in this way might see neoliberalism as descriptive of Obama style political strategy as opposed to FDR style political strategy. But this is not what neoliberalism is. Rather, neoliberalism denotes a particular economic philosophy that currently dominates the world. It is important that all of us understand what neoliberalism is because this economic philosophy effects every aspect of our lives and is linked to nearly every social, economic, and environmental problem we face. Put simply, if you don't understand what neoliberalism is then you will be unable to understand what is happening in the world around you and consequently will be unable to make wise political decisions.

Philoguy

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Tuesday June 07, 2011 · 6:55 PM PDT

2011/06/07 · 18:55

The great philosopher describes the right, not the left, as the side of prohibition. As I write this, earlier today this post was on the rec list, comparing Wiener's sending of photos as an act of rape. Seriously, we describe this as an act of rape. What does it mean to describe the left as the party of prohibition and the right as the party of permissiveness?

Philoguy

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Saturday June 04, 2011 · 1:30 PM PDT

2011/06/04 · 13:30

After my last diary and the nearly six hundred comments that followed, I learned some very interesting things about the attitudes of progressive Christians here on Dailykos. Follow me below the fold to hear what I learned.

Philoguy

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Friday June 03, 2011 · 5:21 PM PDT

2011/06/03 · 17:21

I really don't. I'm GLAD that you're progressives. If these political commitments come from your religion that's great. I have no desire to get in arguments with you about whether or not God exists. I do not believe that you are like conservative Christians (who aren't, incidentally, restricted to the various Evangelical traditions). So what do I care about?

Philoguy

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Tuesday May 31, 2011 · 6:54 PM PDT

2011/05/31 · 18:54

I often hear progressive Christians here accuse atheists and oppressed GLBT folk of "painting with a broad brush" when making generalizations about Christians. As a consequence, I decided to look into the denominational Christianity in the United States. As it turns out, these numbers are hard to find. While there's good numbers on the religious/nonreligious breakdown in the United States, it's surprisingly hard to find a breakdown of Christian Americans by denomination. The best I was able to find were these 2001 numbers from Adherents.com. This website gave the estimated number of Christians in the United States, as well as the estimated number of adult members for the various major denominations. Here's what I found:

Philoguy

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Wednesday May 18, 2011 · 10:22 AM PDT

2011/05/18 · 10:22

Yesterday I said things of which I am ashamed and that I believe were borderline racist. I suggested that many black people only support him because of the color of his skin, that they are less than objective in evaluating his performance, and that there's a problem when 91% of any group supports a particular figure. I spent much of the night thinking about this and realized that were a pollster to contact me I too would say that I support him, that I want him to succeed, and that I will vote for him. I would be among the 85% of democrats that support the president. If I characterize myself as both supporting the president and disagreeing with him on a number of points, why would I see members of the AA community any differently?

Philoguy

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Tuesday May 17, 2011 · 3:05 PM PDT

2011/05/17 · 15:05

I really do. I just don't get the point of lawns. I'd much rather be doing research or watching a movie or arguing with my fellow idiots here at dailykos. It's probably in this context that an idea began to dawn on me last year. What if we Americans gave up on lawns? It seems to me that lawns are a significant contributor to global warming. So why not start a movement to put an end to them?

Philoguy

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Monday May 09, 2011 · 5:41 PM PDT

2011/05/09 · 17:41

In an excellent diary on embracing your class I was surprised to discover that many kossacks seem to have a very poor understanding of what class, and working class in particular, is. This concept is so fundamentally important to all of our politics that, I think, it's worthwhile to provide a thumbnail sketch of how I understand this distinction. A failure to understand this distinction and the dynamics of class will, I believe, entail a set of very bad policy positions on the part of liberals.

Philoguy

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Monday May 02, 2011 · 6:06 PM PDT

2011/05/02 · 18:06

Although I was disturbed about the cheering and chanting I witnessed last night in response to the death of Osama bin Laden, this weekend was nonetheless a great day for America and the world. Obama and all of us should be proud of this accomplishment and, with any luck, this will help to bring some closure to a country that's lived in the shadow of constant alert and the politicization of 9-11 for unsavory political ends. It's pretty clear that the last administration had little interest in actually fighting terrorism, but instead used the 9-11 tragedy to consolidate conservative power, engage in adventurous wars for the sake of economic gain, and to increase control of the American people through fear, ugly manipulations of patriotism, and the erosion of freedoms and civil liberties. The last administration read Orwell's 1984 and used it as a guide book for the production of a totalitarian state with a "human face". Perhaps this is a step in the direction of regaining our sanity and refounding democracy.

Philoguy

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Tuesday April 19, 2011 · 3:04 PM PDT

2011/04/19 · 15:04

Today I received an email from one of my rightwing, religious fundamentalist college students telling me that God loves me, that Scripture is the Truth and way, that God wants me to love him and that I need not be frightened by things like "rat-brained robots" because I have a soul and God has saved my soul. I believe this email represents all that is wrong with religious fundamentalism and is indicative of a fundamental failure to love the neighbor. Why?

Philoguy

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Tuesday April 12, 2011 · 4:49 PM PDT

2011/04/12 · 16:49

So today, as I listened to the new NPR radio station (great!) and the music playing on the station at the restaurant I was eating at I had an epiphany. At the outset, I wish to say that I do not wish to offend any leftist fans of country music here. However, listening to this music, I felt for a moment that an entirely different world opened up to me and that suddenly I understood the conservative mind of middle and working class America. If you're an enthusiast of this music I am not accusing you of sharing such an ideology

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