Obama on political ideologues:

[cali]

From "The Audacity of Hope"

"In distilled form, though, the explanations of both the right and the left have become mirror images of each other. They are stories of conspiracy, of America being hijacked by an evil cabal. Like all good conspiracy theories, both tales contain just enough truth to satisfy those predisposed to believe in them, without admitting any contradictions that might shake up those assumptions. Their purpose is not to persuade the other side but to keep their bases agitated and assured of the rightness of their respective causes--and lure just enough new adherents to beat the other side into submission." (page 24)

[wyldwolf]

1. awesome quote

[cali]

2. I think it's pretty insightful.

and obviously he's speaking of those on either end of the spectrum.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

75. So, what makes the "center" so correct?

The way I see it is that the unprincipled swing voters of the "center" have an awful lot of goddamn nerve equating the non-principled right with those on the left whose principles are denied both by the unprincipled and the non-principled.

[Winterblues]

3. What is an ideologue?

Webster says: someone with; an aggregate of ideas, beliefs, doctrines, etc.; A system of government; the science of ideas.
Not sure what your meaning might be but, if it is singlemindedness, it would seem you are dwelling on this topic a lot lately.

[Lilith Velkor]

4. kicky wicky

[anonymous171]

5. K&R

:kick:

[Forkboy]

6. But America WAS hijacked by an evil cabal. We had Bushco for 8 years.

What's him and Cheney and the endless list of cronies going back decades if not a cabal of powerful individuals who most clearly don't have good in mind? Don't get me wrong, there's much truth in what Obama says, but it may not get much traction after the last 8 years.

He also leaves out the fact that the center is guilty of the very same thing that he accuses the Left and Right of being. EVERYONE plays to their base and keeps it agitated. You don't notice the extreme disdain the center shows the Left all too often? Someone has to propel that, just as some people on the Left and Right do the same.

[noiretextatique]

31. but remember that evil far-left cabal that hijacked america?

oh wait...that never happened. so much for obama's comparison.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

7. So we're no longer on the left here anymore? People are going too far

w/their support of Obama here. They think they're supposed to agree with him in all issues and all of his decisons. Now they're denying that they're not on the left because Obama doesn't approve.

[cali]

8. Not at all

I disagree strongly with Obama on Afghanistan, for instance, but I agree with his quote here.

[yodermon]

9. except, one side usually lies, and the other usually tells the truth.

That quote is great cover for the *actual* conspirators. When we explain the criminality of the bush administration, our purpose *is* to persuade the other side (or at least those who just aren't informed).

That said, I believe that if Obama really is as pragmatic as he claims, that the natural, ethical practice of good government will expose the conspirators, or at least neutralize them.

[EFerrari]

10. And he's wrong. It may be politically expedient to construct this narrative

of the mirroring "extremes" in order to create a position to stand in that can be called "post partisan", but the reality is nothing like it.

This is in fact an appropriation of a right wing meme that seeks to equate, to be "fair and balanced" when the elements are not balanced and the comparison isn't fair. Obama is no dummy. He knows what to appropriate and when -- but, his political acumen doesn't make his statement true.

But, you get points for your appeal to authority.

[eridani]

11. Right. Demanding universal health care is exactly the mirror image of blowing up an abortion clinic

And I'm Marie of Roumania.

[Forkboy]

13. + Pi

[endarkenment]

15. thank you

I mean really, this is ridiculous.

[anigbrowl]

25. False comparison

Bombing a research facility where animal vivisection is performed would be better comparison. Both are examples of ideology carried to excess, with no regard for law or social consensus.

[eridani]

32. So, which do we have more of?

Most of the violence, rhetorical and otherwise, is from the other side. Compare Dem and Repub presidential campaign rallies to start.

[anigbrowl]

35. That really depends where you sit

I prefer the left to the right, but if you want to talk about rhetoric there's plenty of people on DU who go around talking about reviving the guillotine. I don't agree with the religious convictions of most right-wingers but I also understand that a lot of them see widespread abortion as a horrific phenomenon which gives them nightmares, and are under the impression that communism (and thus socialism) is a fast route to mass executions. Drawing comparisons of the kind 'my extremists are better than your extremists' is a pointless exercise.

[eridani]

36. The reviving the guillotine stuff is always with an implied sarcasm icon

Did you hear anybod on this board say "Kill him" about McSame?

[anigbrowl]

40. Sez you.

By that logic, so are the RW comments about stocking up on ammo. Pot, kettle and all that. I really don't find extremists of the left or right very different.

[Amonester]

73. Sez me too.

I type "guillotine" often without the :sarcasm: icon.

And I'm not a far-left extremist. :sarcasm:

Peace :hippie:

[eridani]

89. You actually know of any lefties brandishing real world guillotines?

Plenty of RW militia whackos that actually do have heavy armaments.

[EFerrari]

33. Neither act happens in a vacuum. Bombing abortion clinics

has much more implicit support than bombing animal research facilities.

The FBI used the head of one such animal facility to impugn Bruce Ivins. They'd never use the head of an abortion clinic in the same role.

Your comparison doesn't really work.

[Zhade]

54. SNAP.

NT!

[Two Americas]

12. "ideologues"

Those advocating for the have-nots, those saying that people should come before profits, those supporting Labor over Capital, those who think that our elected officials should represent the interests and well-being of the many rather than the few are not "ideologues," yet that is now how the word has been used by the right wingers for a long time now. Sadly, since the election, many Democrats have jumped on this bandwagon. Calling those who advocate for the interests of the people "ideologues" and those who advocate for the interests of the few "pragmatists" is a dishonest way to prejudice the discussion and prevent one side in the ongoing debates - any voices that are even slightly to the Left - from being heard or taken seriously.

To be on the political Left - in the view of all except the most conservative people - is to place the best interest of the common people, the working people, above the desires of the privileged few, not to be pushing some "ideology" that is to be seen as somehow harmful to the people.

This is a big lie - not what Obama said necessarily, but how people are using this to marginalize and silence the Left and move the party to the right - and a massive bait and switch that betrays the people, and cripples and weakens the party and the new administration.

One would think that the recent election were a rejection of the political Left, rather than the massive and resounding rejection of the right wing. The people were not asked if they would support the same basic economic policies, merely managed and executed more competently and elegantly, presented and sold with more finesse and persuasiveness, and made somewhat more palatable. They did not ask for one group of arrogant and powerful aristocrats to replace the last group of arrogant and powerful aristocrats. They would have rejected that. Why should we now pretend that they endorsed that?

This is suppressive of freedom of speech and dissent, despite the mocking and ridiculing of that idea that is coming into vogue now, as the latest tactic by the conservatives among us. No one can express any dissent from the left now, offer any reservations or criticism at all, without immediately being characterized as being a member of this imaginary suspect group, the fringe purist ideologues, who are not to be trusted or listened to, who have a destructive agenda, who "will never be happy," who "want us to fail," and on and on. That is precisely the way that the right wingers have been suppressing dissent for decades, and everyone seemed to be able to see it and identify it when it was being used against all of us. But now, people deny that some Democrats are doing the same thing to their own. What was seen as obvious a couple of months ago, is now seen as absurd, fanciful and having no possible credence.

[EFerrari]

16. In order to equate the left with the authoritarian right wing

you have to cast the left as hidebound ideologues. Because without that frame, it doesn't work.

The left opens conversations, the right seeks to homogenize a message.

The left wants issues on the table, the right wants to contain discourse.

The left seeks to include voices in the democratic process, the right seeks to identify authorities to echo.

Not to mention, the left was right to protest moving to the right, right about the "war", about civil liberties being eroded, about torture, about standing up and speaking out in the media, about so many things. Right about standing our ground.

We're not hushed because we're extreme. We're hushed because we're been correct on so many issues and that is inconvenient and embarrassing.

[Forkboy]

19. I hope some people read these last two posts.

:kick:

[Two Americas]

58. indeed

And are we not seeing since the election, right here, Democrats "casting the left as hidebound ideologues?"

We also see an effort here to homogenize a message, and to beat down anything that conflicts with or contradicts a homogenized message.

We see an effort here to contain discourse. Opinions from the Left are not refuted, they are called irrelevant, or we are told that they somehow will have a bad practical effect, or they will demoralize or discourage people, or that they are too "negative," or are "tin foil" or "doomsday." Those are attempts to eliminate unwelcome opinions from being fairly considered, that avoid the issue of the validity of the opinion by calling attention to the supposed practical usefulness of the opinion, or questionable motives and character of the speaker. People doing that then defend those tactics by calling them protected free speech, and any objections to those tactics are called a suppression of free speech themselves, so that the dissenters can then be further smeared as "hypocrites."

We see appeals to authority here now, and echoing of authority figures - "I give more credence to (some powerful politician) than I do your opinion. You are just someone ranting on the Internet." Again, the actual message is not considered, but the messenger is undermined, and it is strongly implied that the more powerful a person is, or wealthy, the more valuable their opinion therefore must be. I don't know how we could have a more clear and obvious attempt to silence the poor and powerless, and those who would speak for us, than that, and calling for the silencing or dismissal of the poor and powerless is blatantly contradictory to all principles and ideals of representative democracy and self-government, let alone any political philosophy that is even a millimeter to the Left from the Republicans.

[hfojvt]

52. dude or dudette, you should have a journal

and put that post in it. It's certainly a better read than the OP which only reminds me why I supported Edwards from the start and not Obama.

[Joe Fields]

67. lol

[Runcible Spoon]

80. once again, you are a calm voice of reason

:loveya:

[Odin2005]

14. OMG, that describes many DUers perfectly!!!

Right down to the conspiracy nuts! :rofl:

[Forkboy]

17. It describes almost all of them.

[Joe Fields]

70. not hardly. a lot of posers here.

[Forkboy]

74. tell me about it.

[EFerrari]

18. Do you know what "conspiracy" means?

Authorizing torture in this country was a conspiracy in the Bush administration. We were told 6 kids from West Virginia thought it all up and we came to know that Bush and his Cabinet put the program together.

So was firing left leaning attorneys in the Justice Department which crippled the whole department for Bush's term of office. Mission accomplished.

Manipulating the vote in Ohio 2004 was also a conspiracy and one that has been documented by everyone from the GAO to Mr. Conyers to independent experts at major universities.

The Iraq "War" was started as the result of a conspiracy to lie to the American people.

I don't see anything funny about conspiracy.

[Odin2005]

64. There are important differences between real conspiracies and the claims of conspiracy theories.

Real conspiracies are never part of some grand plot by an imagined cabal of of super-evil, all-powerful overrds. Also, the folks that are behind real conspiracies eventually have their plans F-ed up or discovered because of the law of unintended consequences (which is why Obama, not McCain, is President-Elect right now, that law of unintended consequences is a bitch.).

[slackmaster]

20. The ability to not get it runs strong in some of the responses to this thread

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

21. And I sincerely hope that the ability to counter right wing framing

continues to be vigorous among Democrats.

[slackmaster]

22. I think a person has to be pretty far to the left to call Obama's words "right wing framing"

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

24. Or, you have to be tone deaf or, not paying attention.

Obama has tried to capture a right wing meme. He may pull it off. That doesn't make it any truer although, it may serve politically.

Maybe you don't understand framing?

[slackmaster]

27. I understand framing quite well

I also understand narcissism and self-praise.

[EFerrari]

28. Name calling is still not an argument.

There is no narcissism in observing that Obama is setting up an Other to oppose in the OP's quote. He has to do that, he's a politician. There is no self praise in pointing out that it's a false comparison.

[slackmaster]

76. Observing and classifying behavior is not name-calling

:hi:

[EFerrari]

77. Personal attack, still not an argument. n/t

[Two Americas]

79. there is a lot of confusion about this

Saying that someone is "making a right wing argument" is not the same as saying "you are a right winger."

The right wing propagandists have succeeded in confusing people about this. They would have us believe that accusing someone of saying or doing something racist is the equivalent of racism itself - "reverse racism." Another example is how anyone defending the working people from the ravages of the wealthy and powerful few is accused of fomenting "class warfare."

Many here, stung by being called on making arguments that support the right wing ideas and concepts, think that it is then equivalent to call others "purist, fringe, lunatic" and on and on. The first is an attack on an argument or line of reasoning, the second is an attack on the messenger. The right wingers have raised these dishonest and destructive debate techniques to an art form, and sadly there are too many among us who use the same tactics of smearing and guilt by association, and presumed equivalence where it does not exist and "reverse" arguments.

This has escalated and gotten much worse since the election, which is the age-old tragedy of the persecuted aping and emulating the former oppressors once they get into power. "Our turn now to mistreat people" is the "logic." This has led to the bizarre phenomenon we are now seeing - the political Left is under worse assault from our own then we ever were from the right wingers.

[slackmaster]

83. Left-wing propagandists are just as culpable as right-wing propagandists

They all use the same techniques - Overgeneralization, guilt by association, usurping definitions of terms to fit their own purposes, etc.

They would have us believe that accusing someone of saying or doing something racist is the equivalent of racism itself - "reverse racism."

Which is no different than the blanket tarring of everyone who voted Yes on California's Proposition 8 as a homophobe.

[Two Americas]

84. sorry

I am on the side of the Left.

Even if we are "just as bad" as the right wingers, I stand with the Left.

[slackmaster]

90. I applaud you for insight and honesty

I think both the left and the right have good ideas from time to time.

[Two Americas]

59. don't hide behind Obama

We are talking about the way his words are spun by people here to use against the political Left. I don't expect any national politician to fight for the common people unless pressured to do so, and that is what we are doing. we have a moral duty to do so, and it is our civic responsibility. That has always been true. Dissidents are not attacking nor harming Obama, they are an essential part of a functioning representative democracy. Wealthy and powerful people have access, have influence, have a platform for expressing their views. Siding with them, while claiming to be defending Obama, is weak and cowardly, and we have had plenty of that from the supporters of Bush over the last few years. Being a Democrat is not merely a matter of submitting to, being a sycophant to, blindly following a different personality than the right wingers follow. Anyone can "wave the flag" for the winner, and then use that as an excuse to attack others. Anyone can side with the powerful, and then claim that one's opinions are right because they are "winning."

I think you do Obama an enormous disservice here, and I cannot imagine a more effective way to undermine and sabotage the success of the new administration.

[slackmaster]

78. I think your response is defensive, and you still don't get the point

Dissidents are not attacking nor harming Obama, they are an essential part of a functioning representative democracy.

Dissidents don't always come from the left.

[Two Americas]

81. whatever

Take people's arguments for what they are. Imagining motives and character flaws on th4e part of the speaker, or a large and vaguely defined group of speakers, is a subtle way to introduce ad hominem attacks and confusion into the debate.

I doubt that there are any closet right wingers, for example, arguing here for a strong pro-Labor stance, as I am. I will argue with those who argue pro-management, even when couched as "loyalty" to Democratic party politicians. By what stretch of the imagination does that make me guilty of disloyalty, of causing trouble, or of having a hidden agenda to harm Democrats, or of helping or working with the right wingers?

I think it is safe to assume that those arguing points of view demonstrably in perfect alignment with the traditional principles and ideals of the Democratic party, the Labor movement, and the political Left are not right wingers trying to tear us, or the party down.

[slackmaster]

82. The concepts of disloyalty and hidden agendas are your contribution to the discussion

They were not in Obama's statement cited in the OP.

[Two Americas]

85. it is not about Obama

I am not and have not attacked Obama.

[RainDog]

30. actually, the comment is open-ended - who determines where the "exteme" lies?

is it extremist to think Bush should be tried as a war criminal? if so, why?

some people think this is an extremist position, while others see this as fundamental to our system of governance. our allies in western Europe, who are signatories to int'l human rights agreements know that Bush meets the same standards for trial as a war criminal as Pinochet did. But you don't hear this on mainstream news... so does that mean it's an extremist left position - even tho Phillippe Sands, an international law scholar from GB did a whole book tour devoted to talking to Americans about this issue of war crimes?

Even tho Colin Powell's former chief of staff agrees with Sands?

The remark is a Rorschach outline into which people can and do put their explanations of terms.

I think it is extremist right wing ideology to NOT press charges against at least 8 members of the Bush administration. My pov is supported by reputable and powerful people around the world and in this country. But if someone does not want to do this, they can simply label this idea as extremist.

I don't find anything particularly enlightening about this statement beyond showing that Obama is very good at creating a space in which he can claim his policies are moderate or centrist (and many of them are) and thus avoid criticism.

[superduperfarleft]

23. Since Obama said it, it must be true.

:eyes:

[proud patriot]

26. I just got that book

his first book was great .

[Romulox]

29. When did this turn into Center/Right underground??? nt

[Joe Fields]

71. beats the hell out of me, but it has become just that.

The triangulation here is repulsive.

[ulysses]

34. how are the fireworks going?

Satisfied yet?

[ulysses]

38. so that no one misses the reference:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=7947732&mesg_id=7948312

[Forkboy]

56. Ironically, one of cali's only two response in this thread is to wyldwolf.

Amazing I tell ya.

[ulysses]

61. makes for fascinating reading, indeed.

:D

[ulysses]

63. what's a pity

is that cali came to set off fireworks but hasn't stuck around to enjoy them. :shrug:

[fla nocount]

37. I wish that I had read that before voting for and working to...

get the butt-wipe elected.

Merely circumnavigating the zoo as a casual observer, the humans are the most interesting, Schultz and Friedman were right...they're almost like us. They have this sense of community though, that's their problem and their weakness. People like us could exploit that...put them to work maybe. If I dress down, talk down and think down, I bet I could find a use for them, hell, I bet that I could make them love me without really giving them a god-damn thing.

[Bucky]

41. Too bad that secret window into his true thinking wasn't available for you to research

Where on earth was he hiding this "secret agenda" of his, anyway? Oh, yes, in that book he wrote!

Damn, why didn't somebody warn you?

[FrenchieCat]

44. Some people are too smart to read. They know everything just

cause. It's like a gift to only them. I've seen those types, and how everything that they have anything to do with turns to shit. In fact, they are the type of folks that I'd rather avoid, in case whatever ails them rubs off on me.

[fla nocount]

48. Nothing secret about that agenda.

The bitterness comes from finding it on both sides of the aisle. You do know who Henry Schultz and Milton Friedman are...right? Unlike adherents of the Chicago School of Economics I assume a person's knowledge extends beyond extracting termites from a rotten log with length of straw.

I apologize, I'm a hard read, 2 bits...4 bits...6 bits...a... just doesn't roll off my keyboard like it does for the humans in the zoo. Maybe that's why I'm perpetually disappointed. No one pays attention to the ones sitting in the trees until they climb down to vote.

[FrenchieCat]

43. The fact that you are calling Obama a butt-wipe

and that the rest of your paragraph makes no sense puts you not to the left or right, but out in another world altogether!

Geeze..... :crazy:

[Bucky]

39. Wow, imagine he has the courage to denounce "the left and the right"

Finally, a politician with the courage to stand up for decency, honesty, & plain 'ol common sense!

[EFerrari]

42. Courage is stepping out of a debate?

Okay.

It may be smart politically but that's not courage.

[FrenchieCat]

46. Courage is being adult enough to understand that with some....

one can go round and round and never get anywhere.
that's accepting reality instead of having fantasies
as to one's power to persuade.

Persuasion is the art of the possible.
Courage is understanding the impossible,
and finding a way to work around it.

[EFerrari]

72. That doesn't speak to the issue, Frenchie Cat.

The way Obama positioned himself has nothing to do with "the impossible" or with courage. He very practically set about taking a position that would allow him to avoid being put in an ideological box. That was very smart but it's not some kind of moral virtue.

[fascisthunter]

45. so people like me on the left have no common sense?

And some people think too much of themselves.

[FrenchieCat]

47. Most of us here are on the Left.

Where on the left might be a better discussion.

Those who are at the very end of the left often
meet with the extreme of the other side.....
like in an arc.

[fascisthunter]

49. What you said is true, but I didn't Read That from Above

that's why I had to ask...

[Two Americas]

86. not true

Almost all of us are "to the Left" if we accept the way the right wing propagandists define the Left - as mirror opposition to their positions on the cultural war nonsense they created out of thin air, and that has little if anything to do with politics.

Historically, politics has always been about power and economics, who does and who does not have access to power and resources. The traditional Left wing position is described effectively here by Lincoln, Using the standard outlined here by Lincoln, there is a small but very powerful, vocal and domineering minority within the party that is far, far from being on the political Left, and is actually quite a bit to the right from the general public.

The Left means the workers over management, labor over capital, people over profits, the have-nots over the haves, in terms of whom and what we should be fighting for.

From Lincoln's First Annual Message to Congress:

It is not needed nor fitting here that a general argument should be made in favor of popular institutions, but there is one point, with its connections, not so hackneyed as most others, to which I ask a brief attention. It is the effort to place capital on an equal footing with, if not above, labor in the structure of government. It is assumed that labor is available only in connection with capital; that nobody labors unless somebody else, owning capital, somehow by the use of it induces him to labor. This assumed, it is next considered whether it is best that capital shall hire laborers, and thus induce them to work by their own consent, or buy them and drive them to it without their consent. Having proceeded so far, it is naturally concluded that all laborers are either hired laborers or what we call slaves. And further, it is assumed that whoever is once a hired laborer is fixed in that condition for life.

Now there is no such relation between capital and labor as assumed, nor is there any such thing as a free man being fixed for life in the condition of a hired laborer. Both these assumptions are false, and all inferences from them are groundless.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Many working people who have been voting Republican agree with that statement, and a controlling and dominant minority within the Democratic party at all levels is opposed to that statement.

[Bucky]

51. If you need the sarcasm smily to know if something is sarcastic...

you don't want to read my posts. Standing up for common sense & decency is no one's definition of courage.

[fascisthunter]

55. honestly, without the sarcasm emoticon

I thought you were serious.

[tnlefty]

60. Just curious, but you could you tell me when the left ceased

to stand for decency, honesty and plain 'ol common sense?

[many a good man]

50. There is no Left in American politics

Other than that inconvenient fact, I agree with him completely.

[fla nocount]

57. You're wrong...there's Howard Dean and

those of us who voted for him and were later subjugated to vote for P.E. Stop-Gap Measure. We haven't gone away and neither has Howard Dean. Why do you think he's being so coy about his future?

Snubbed by the DLC in 2004, snubbed again in 2008 for his efforts in this election. Do you really think that someone with the fortitude to tell Rahm-a Rahm-a Ding-Dong to "bite me" is done. He and the left are waiting for four years of failure and excuses to make a third party viable.

Besides without the left we would have P.E. Sarah Palin, McCain would have died of shock on Nov. 4th because he knew that he was supposed to lose.

[Zhade]

53. Uh, except that things like Iran-Contra, nonexistent WMDs, the stolen 2000 election...

...Watergate, the Office of Special Plans, and countless others are NOT conspiracy theories, but documented instances of abuse and actual criminal conspiracy.

[BeFree]

62. Exactly

The 'right' HAS set off on a course of really screwing the American people. While the left has fought the wars, discrimination, and corruption. To even equate the two is preposterous and Obama has a loose screw if he continues to think that way. But then, he was allowed to win, eh?

[ulysses]

65. nice drive-by.

[Joe Fields]

66. well, at least I believe in something.

[ulysses]

68. nice post, Stalin.

;-)

[Two Americas]

87. oh you far left radicals

Plotting and scheming, advancing your secret agenda to tear down America.

40 years ago you could hear these arguments from the aristocracy in Latin America - "the left is as bad as the right, don't get me wrong I agree with you, and it is terrible how people are suffering, but we need to be practical and what can we do?" and "these things take time" and "this is reality" and "the leftists are a bunch of dangerous losers, and we need to keep to the moderate center." Those arguments are strongly associated with a privileged class of reactionary people defending aristocracy and the gentry for anyone who has listened to the propaganda from the ruling class in Latin America over the last decades.

I didn't think I would ever see that line of reasoning become popular here in the States, especially coming from Democrats. It is a fore-runner to, a harbinger of a coming neo-feudalism, banana republic style. People are arguing as though they were positioning themselves into the new aristocracy, the liberal wing of a small class of privileged "winners" and leaders - "better than the Republicans! (tm)" and battling against any inclusion of the masses of working people in the political process.

[Joe Fields]

69. cali, that book isn't the bible.

He's just a man with an opinion. A wrong opinion on the subject of ideologues, in my opinion.

[girl gone mad]

88. It's a good thing PE Obama gets to stand on the shoulders of America's liberal giants...

who fought and worked and even died for their radical leftist ideas, like equal representation, abolition and civil rights.

I shudder to imagine an America lead only ever by middling anti-ideological dopes, too timid to upset the apple cart du jour; too scared of being labeled "left-wing" to do the right thing; too lacking in personal convictions to take a clear stand.

Let's all meet in the middle, hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Good fucking luck with that.. lol..