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Left
Hopeful Liberals See Signs Of a Political Comeback
WSJ's John Harwood writes, "Democrats were crowing yesterday about snatching a U.S. House seat in SD from Republicans. But to 2,000 liberal warriors gathering for a conference here called 'Take Back America,' the result is just a tiny rumbling of something much bigger. On the defensive for more than a generation, the American left is seeing signs of political revival. Recent polls show more Americans are calling themselves 'liberal' and fewer are identifying themselves as 'conservative.' Liberal groups, from NOW to Moveon.org, are enjoying a big fund-raising surge. The flagship publication of the left, the Nation, claims to have captured the highest circulation of any weekly political magazine. 'The plates have all moved,' argues Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg. The combination of hostility toward Bush, anxiety about the war in Iraq and concerns about tax cuts and other economic issues 'make it possible for something fundamental to happen in this election,' he says."
PoliticalStrikes.com proclaims: "Roget's Thesaurus lists the qualities of a liberal as: ... generous, abundant, lavish, broadminded, tolerant, enlightened, charitable among others. Not bad, eh? Wouldn't you rather have those qualities than a Conservative, described as stingy, miserly, reactionary, regressive, bigoted, prejudiced, biased, narrow-minded and more! Considering that, and the track record of conservatives (anti-women voting, anti-blacks voting, pro-segregation, pro-Vietnam War, anti-Head Start, etc.) you can see why I'd be embarrassed to call myself a conservative."
The American left hasn’t always been as marginal as it is now. Thirty-four years ago today Bobby Kennedy died. The moment a few hours earlier when he claimed his victory in the California Democratic primary was the American left’s high water mark in the twentieth century. For that brief instant a multi-dimensional coalition was united behind a populist anti-war agenda with the leadership it needed to take power. In the third of a century since then the language of politics has changed profoundly, leaving the American left literally no where to stand. The current era isn’t the triumph of conservatism, it is really the triumph of euphemism. The sooner we start clearing the accumulated detritus of all that right wing renaming, the closer we’ll be to the next magic moment when our next leader can ride popular support for our agenda into power, and we can once again have control over our government.
"We are convinced that the election was stolen as a result of large scale disenfranchisement of minorities and others, defective ballots, and possible fraud, as well as an outrageous and illogical Supreme Court decision that stopped the counting. However, now that Bush has become President we feel that Bush's dangerous, extremist, unmandated agenda should be fought against not only because it is wrong, but because his agenda, like Bush himself, is illegitimate." So say the organizers of the "Not My President's Day" protests on February 18 from 2-4 pm in New York City and elsewhere. Organize a local rally and keep up the momentum from January 20!
"This mix of mobilizations against both global trade and domestic politics is part of the puzzle for those who wonder what connects the passionate talk about sweat shops, campaign finance reform, rain forests, racism and prisons. 'We are all unified behind a fear and loathing of corporate control in our country," says David Levy, 43, a think tank policy researcher and an organizer of the Justice Action Movement, a D.C.-based coalition. "We're environmentalists, human rights campaigners, poverty advocates, feminists, but we all agree that the electoral system is fundamentally undemocratic because of the influence of big money.'"
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