Last I looked there were 3 diaries about the Nuge at the top of the wrecklist. All day long we have countless diaries about the assholery of Mitt and other wingnuts. Some of these are worthwhile. It's important to know what we're up against.
But . . . we should all know this by now. It isn't 2003 anymore.
People with "our" general values are the majority in this country. It's past time we started acting like it instead of overreacting to what some washed up mediocrity who is desperate for any attention at all says to bunch of crazy people.
It seems like most of what we do is react to reactionaries. What does that make us?
And sure it feels good to reaffirm how much smarter we are, how much more compassionate we are, how much more inclusive we are, etc. But does it really get us anywhere?
IMHO, most of this stuff just plays into their narrative, sites itself in their frame, elevates and publicizes their idiocy. That we pay so much attention to things like this only validates it as "news".
Since Reagan came along we've allowed the rightwing to choose the turf for what passes for our national discourse. That hasn't worked out well for our team. We're always putting ourselves in the position of defending common sense and common decency as if they really needed to be defended.
When, for a change, some of us stood up and expressed common sense and common decency during Occupy Wall Street, we actually changed what "america" was talking about. A week before OWS took center stage, all the pundits were talking about the debt ceiling. Once OWS came along they were talking about wealth distribution. That's the kind of turf we need to get our discourse on.
The difference between the liberal personality and the conservative personality is spozed to be that we are more creative than they are. If that's true, why aren't we creating our discourse? Why are we reacting to idiots and liars instead of using forums like this to sharpen our own messages?
Need to blow off some steam? Fine, have a rant about the Nuge. Want to win some elections? Get to work finding ways to get some of the people who vote for "them" to vote for us instead. We should be leading the discourse of our party and our nation. We're smarter, better informed, all that stuff. But we aren't behaving like any of that's true. We're reacting to reactionaries.
I agree that it's entertaining. I have fun with it myself sometimes. (Ted Nugent craves pubescent girls because he has a microscopic male organ!!!!) I'm not saying it's a bad thing. But this is an election year and we need more voters.
Does anybody else think it might be wise to spend our time figuring out how to get more voters by presenting them with well expressed reasons for why they should vote with us?
Let's use our collective brain power (in which I have I have enormous faith) to improve our arguments and better express our our commonsense vision of our society. It's not as entertaining, but it could prove to be far more stimulating and effective. Let's create some catchphrases and buzzwords that our so-called leaders will repeat instead of putting washed up mediocrities at center stage time again. Let's start responding to the challenges confronting our society instead of merely reacting to them. When we're talking about them, we're basically validating them, we're ceding the turf of our discourse. I doubt we'll ever get even a fraction of the things we want (and need) if we are always allowing them to set the subjects.
We should take a lesson from OWS and start expressing what we believe in and why it's preferable to what they believe in (this is what Obama does and he managed to win an election by doing it). We aren't about fear, we aren't about exclusion, we can't live on a steady diet of outrage and blame. We need to offer something positive so that many of those who are currently living on outrage and blame will come over to our side. They won't be likely to come if all we have to offer is a weaker version of what they're already getting. Are we ready to advocate assassination? Nuking countries we don't like? Incarcerating everybody who differs from us? I don't think so. We'll never be able to be as outraged as they are. They will always beat us at that game.
Instead let's think about how we can make healthcare sound sexy, unions sound desirable, good education for everybody sound enriching to us all, generosity sound patriotic, compassion sound bold. All of things are true. We just haven't expressed them persuasively because we all take them for granted. Some other people don't. Let's think about how we can persuade them.
Kind of a ramble. Apologies. I'm not really the "diarist" type --I prefer conversation to monolithic ranting. Spoze that's the liberal in me.