So I'm flipping through the cable channels, watching my twitter feed, and clicking from one favorite blog to another.
At every turn I find progressives celebrating their victories. And I'm wondering what the hell they are thinking. Celebrating?
Ok, yeah. We came out on top. But c'mon... what did we win?
Across the nation, people are literally risking their lives by protesting an economy that systematically concentrates wealth... An economy that serves only the richest of the rich, while punishing the middle class decimating the poor...
And tonight we're celebrating that we were able to preserve the status quo in Ohio? That we were able to stop Republicans from further bleeding wage earners?
Seriously?
Get a grip, folks. What happened tonight was the equivalent of a tourniquet. We've got a severed limb, and this one time, we've managed to stop the bleeding.
Tomorrow in Ohio, we're going to wake up and find that:
And here we are celebrating the fact that 60% of Buckeyes voted to preserve an infinitesimal slice of the middle class.
Heh. 60%. Four out of ten people thought otherwise.
While some celebrate the Ohio results, others exult in the Mississippi outcome. Sure, it's nice to know that women won't be subjected to having their reproductive cycles monitored by a fundie District Attorney, but seriously... Is that an outcome we should be celebrating? Shouldn't we be much more worried that the political climate has shifted so far to the right that the the amendment was put to a ballot in the first place? That over 45% of the voters in MS believed a 12 year old incest victim should be forced to carry her father's baby to term?
Truth is, maybe I'm a little bitter. I'm from VA, and the outcome around these parts is pretty grim. But...
I still think we're missing the point if we're spending a lot of time celebrating the preservation of the status quo. We should be much more concerned - even scared - over the idea that so much of the country has moved so far to the right that these extreme right measures advanced to the point where they were put to a vote.
Progressives have a lot of work to do. We really don't have time to celebrate.