Some people - and I won't name names, because that would just feed what is clearly attention-seeking behavior - have decided that shrieking "Are We There Yet" (AWTY) at the top of their lungs and declaring every bend in the road off a straight-line path to their objective a "betrayal" makes them "progressives." In fact, I may be understating the absurdity quite a bit - they seem to think they are taking some kind of heroic, if not downright beautiful stand by attacking the personal integrity and intelligence of their own twice-demonstrated strategic genius President because he uses both his right and his left foot in walking. So, I've decided to apply their own ludicrous standards to them, and see where that leads.
First of all, the term "progressive" is not intended to be ironic - one who self-applies the label is affirming a commitment to MAKE PROGRESS. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Perpetual Victim, where is the progress your infinite cynicism and drop-of-a-hat paranoia has produced? If you can't answer the question, I'll be happy to answer it for you: The amazing Achievement For The People that you've produced is to lower the president's poll numbers and lend credence to anti-healthcare reform FUD campaigns. And an impressive victory it is - you're so clever, you're eating and regurgitating shit to save yourselves the trouble of digestion. Very efficient.
But where are the results you promised us? You've been whining, calling people "sellouts," and crying "betrayal" for months, and yet somehow - for reasons surely beyond human comprehension - your profound, awesomely courageous, Thermopyle-like stand against the evil Dick Cheney clone President (he isn't physically strangling Max Baucus with piano wire = he is Teh Hitler) has remarkably failed to force the Blue Dogs to stop being corrupt, the Republicans to negotiate, or Barack Obama to alter time and space so that he can spend 26 hours a day engaged in personal gladiatorial combat on the Senate floor.
Due to this failure to achieve instant results, and applying your own logic to you, I must therefore interpret the inability of the left side of the FUD scourge to force through a public option as evidence that you have in fact betrayed The Cause. Clearly you are in bed with the insurance industry, or are secretly agents of Rahm Emanuel. If that were not the case, why is it that it takes you several seconds to respond when asked if you favor the public option? The speed of light is no barrier to true progressives. And if the rest of us are still not convinced that we've been "thrown under the bus" by the whiners, ask them this: Do you agree that the US public option will not solve global warming? Most likely they will agree with this statement, proving that they are waffling on the issue and inviting compromise!
But just to make things easier on the FUDsters, who are clearly struggling to churn out anti-Obama propaganda fast enough to stem the tide of hope and rationality, I went through the trouble of creating a FUD Diary Template so you can even more efficiently express whatever irrational fear or childish resentment is constipating your ability to recognize empirical reality or judge events through any lens but emotion.
Of course, this phenomenon is nothing new. Some of the Daft Left's greatest hits from history:
- Responding to right-wing propaganda against American democratic socialist movements by defending the Soviet Union as a positive influence. Brilliant.
- Calling the New Deal "half-measures" and FDR an "industry puppet."
- Insisting (in recent years) that FDR had advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor and deliberately did nothing to stop it.
- Calling Truman a fascist for breaking the railway strike that had crippled rail transportation throughout the US for over a month in the midst of an already teetering economy. (He later vetoed Taft-Hartley, though his veto was overridden)
- Calling Truman a war-monger for intervening in Korea.
- Accusing John F. Kennedy of being a conservative for lowering top marginal income tax rates from 91% to 77%.
- Calling Hubert Humphrey a war-monger for failing to attack Lyndon Johnson from within the White House, thus delivering Richard Nixon to the Oval Office (thanks guys!)
- Attacking Jimmy Carter as a foreign policy Nixonian for appointing Zbigniew Brzezinski.
- Insisting that Carter's economic policies had sold out to the right, probably contributing to Reagan's victory (Doin' a heckuva job, fellas!)
- Being incapable of distinguishing Al Gore from George W. Bush in 2000. (Thanks x 3, guys!)
- Screaming for four years about the crimes of the Bush regime, then not showing up on election day in 2004 because Kerry hadn't been a critic of them until recently. Better a dictator than a phony! (Thanks x 4!)
- Questioning Barack Obama's "blackness" as a primary candidate because he doesn't talk like Al Sharpton.
But hey, you folks (as opposed to real liberal leaders) have been "right" all along, haven't you? It's been just one progressive victory after another following the Summer of Love, hasn't it? I'm sorry you feel so upstaged, but Barack Obama accomplished more in 2008 than his left-wing attackers (I won't legitimize their whining by calling them "critics") accomplished between 1979 and 2007. And when public option passes, that divergence in competence will only be more extreme. But then we all know you're planning to take credit for that, aren't we? "We forced him to pass public option! Hooray for us!" LOL. I love dumb people. :-)
Disclaimer for the terminally un-subtle: This is not an attack on anyone focusing their efforts on Congress or constructively pushing the public option. It is, however, intended to stomp on people who think they're being heroic belittling the President and attacking his integrity. To those people: Fuck you. Right in the ear. You believe any bullshit that feeds your lazy cynicism and excuses your long record of Fail prior to this President, and you are less than useless. You are not Progressives; you are Progressive-flavored teabaggers.
Update: Hmmm. Well, folks, you've given this diary more Recs than one of the diaries on the Rec List. I don't know how the system works exactly, but we're still not on the Rec List. The FAQ says it's automatic, but I guess there's some subtlety to the process I'm not aware of. :-)
Update #2: After posting that first update, it appears a bunch of people rec'd the other diary that had been lagging on the Rec List, and it's now ahead of this one. I guess some lucky diarist owes me. Heh. Kidding. But seriously, this diary had more Recs for like half an hour and nothing happened. Oh well. :-)
Last update: This diary is once again substantially ahead in recs of another diary on the Rec List, and apparently has been for hours, and yet does not appear to have been on the Rec List. Point of, uh, something or other - what gives?