My god, Hunter's slogan is awful.
It sounds Republican because it is. "Strong" is not what I stand for. "Right" is what I stand for. Good, just, fair, honest, helpful, progressive, true, happier, healthier, optimistic--it goes on a long way, but "strong" ain't there.
Families are good, but doesn't Hunter realize that in choosing "strong families" and a "strong nation," out of so many laudable things out there, that he is evoking--whether intentionally or not--a whole set of values that are, essentially, conservative?
Compared to helping out the unfairly poor, hungry, abused, and downtrodden, I don't give a shit about a "strong nation." Is Hunter actually suggesting that we should aid the poor to boost American economic competitiveness? It makes me puke in despair. We help the poor because they don't deserve what they've got, because it is intrinsically the right thing, dammit!
Corruption is bad because it is bad--it doesn't need juvenile "strong x" mottos. Everyone knows it's bad to lie and cheat and steal. That is a fundamental principle.
Poverty is bad because people are suffering unnecessarily and unfairly--alleviating it is a good in itself, and needs no deeper principle. Certainly not one as dippy as "stronger communities."
Uneducated children is a terrible thing, a crime against the human dignity and rights of everyone, and education is a good in and of itself, like health, food, water, and shelter. These are not good because they promote "strong families"--if anything, strong families are good because they promote these values.
Finally, I think "strong" itself is a terrible idea, replete with implications of force, militarism, conservative anxieties about the decay of society, and ideologies of how children should be raised and our lives should be lived. Jesus, Gandhi, MLK, etc, were strong, but they didn't trumpet that as a fundamental value.
I don't care enough about political victory, if this is the route. This sort of crypto-right "centrism" is disgusting for burying the simple and clear values of the left under a bunch of verbiage, and doomed because these terms have already been colonized by the right.
Look into you hearts, people. Is this what sets your soul ringing, is this what you want on your banner, is this what you will march for or (marching apparently being out of vogue with the left-blog elite) what you will repeat to yourself as you work late into the night in 2006? Is it what makes tears come to your eyes when someone finally says it?
This is not the stuff of great movements, not the stuff to invigorate anything. It is enervating political framing, a mass of words that someone hopes will budge the vast middle 1% our way. If MLK gave a speech with this garbage, we would turn away. We need to speak our values--health, education, honesty, fairness, generosity, cooperation, repairing injustices of the past, building a better society, protecting the world's ecology, etc. These are the bedrock principles, and a "strong nation," whatever that is, ain't on the list.