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(do I have to say it? Not proofread, not spellchecked, not considered or calm. rant impending.)
I did what they asked and I hope they're fucking happy with what they got. Months ago I swallowed my pride and quieted my conscience and set aside my "divisive" radical issues and threw my support behind yet another overprivileged white male to represent my liberal stance for our country.
And did you see how much good it did?
Enough, I say. I've had enough of letting the moderate liberal apologist determine the direction of liberalism in this country.
Liberals are supposed to be the voice of the oppressed -- the champions of the downtrodden, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. But the mainstream moderate liberal movement has failed to tap into this yearning to be free. They've lost our hearts -- in far too many cases to the conservatives. To the oppressors.
Those conservatives represent what the oppressed want to be -- rich, free, white, male, privileged. That's the face of success in this country. Liberals unquestioningly parrot this ideology, placing one overprivileged face after another up for election.
Why should we be surprised that it's not working? We're letting those conservative asshats define the terms of the debate -- as long as we continue to play into their definitions of what effectiveness and power and success look like ,we'll keep losing. Because right now, the American subconscious believes that the face of power is white, male, rich, uncompassionate, and unprincipled. And we keep giving more power to exactly those people, because as a country, we have set those people up as the ones who are associated with power. We want the face of our country to be that of someone powerful, successful, able to realize their own dreams so they can step up to the plate and realize *ours*. If we can't *be* the face of power at least we can pretend they're on our side.
The conservatives are much better at overprivleged, uncompassionate, and unprincipled. As long as we're still steeped in the culture that glorifies the ones who start out with all the advantages and buy into the illusion that their success is "self-made" the liberal face of power will always fall short of the conservative one -- because theirs is more believable. The only way we can succeed at that game -- their game -- is to become them. And they'll still be better at being them than we can ever be.
If we want to change this, we need to convince the midwestern waitresses, inner-city minorities, union members, youth, women, and not just the poor but the middle class that WE can be the face of power. WE can realize our dreams and we don't need to become or to parrot rich white men to do so. I've had enough of letting them define us straight out of the game. Let's stop this riduculous, ineffective game of pasting a bland, homogenous face onto a diverse movement. We'll never change the face of power by setting ourselves up so we can't empower anybody but those who've already got it.
I'm calling for revolution here, people. Not armed, not violent -- I'm calling for cultural revolution. I'm calling for consciousness-raising. I'm calling for personal empowerment on a grand scale. I've had ENOUGH of pandering to the conservative image of power.
We can't change this from the top-down and I've had enough of the left trying to hush up the 'down' every time we're trying for the 'top'. We ARE our grass-roots. We held back from "divisive" issues like queer rights and the environment and education funding in order to not scare the electorate and what did we get? Nearly a dozen "defense" of "marriage" statutes, insufficient funding for schools, *and* a republican president. We CANNOT stop our efforts at education and empowerment in order to scrape up some semblance of unquestioning support for these shaky parodies of conservative icons we keep pretending can represent us in politics.
(replies screened and as I'm very busy I will be capricious and arbitrary about unscreening and/or responding to them. Feel free to comment; I'll read 'em at the very least.)
I did what they asked and I hope they're fucking happy with what they got. Months ago I swallowed my pride and quieted my conscience and set aside my "divisive" radical issues and threw my support behind yet another overprivileged white male to represent my liberal stance for our country.
And did you see how much good it did?
Enough, I say. I've had enough of letting the moderate liberal apologist determine the direction of liberalism in this country.
Liberals are supposed to be the voice of the oppressed -- the champions of the downtrodden, the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. But the mainstream moderate liberal movement has failed to tap into this yearning to be free. They've lost our hearts -- in far too many cases to the conservatives. To the oppressors.
Those conservatives represent what the oppressed want to be -- rich, free, white, male, privileged. That's the face of success in this country. Liberals unquestioningly parrot this ideology, placing one overprivileged face after another up for election.
Why should we be surprised that it's not working? We're letting those conservative asshats define the terms of the debate -- as long as we continue to play into their definitions of what effectiveness and power and success look like ,we'll keep losing. Because right now, the American subconscious believes that the face of power is white, male, rich, uncompassionate, and unprincipled. And we keep giving more power to exactly those people, because as a country, we have set those people up as the ones who are associated with power. We want the face of our country to be that of someone powerful, successful, able to realize their own dreams so they can step up to the plate and realize *ours*. If we can't *be* the face of power at least we can pretend they're on our side.
The conservatives are much better at overprivleged, uncompassionate, and unprincipled. As long as we're still steeped in the culture that glorifies the ones who start out with all the advantages and buy into the illusion that their success is "self-made" the liberal face of power will always fall short of the conservative one -- because theirs is more believable. The only way we can succeed at that game -- their game -- is to become them. And they'll still be better at being them than we can ever be.
If we want to change this, we need to convince the midwestern waitresses, inner-city minorities, union members, youth, women, and not just the poor but the middle class that WE can be the face of power. WE can realize our dreams and we don't need to become or to parrot rich white men to do so. I've had enough of letting them define us straight out of the game. Let's stop this riduculous, ineffective game of pasting a bland, homogenous face onto a diverse movement. We'll never change the face of power by setting ourselves up so we can't empower anybody but those who've already got it.
I'm calling for revolution here, people. Not armed, not violent -- I'm calling for cultural revolution. I'm calling for consciousness-raising. I'm calling for personal empowerment on a grand scale. I've had ENOUGH of pandering to the conservative image of power.
We can't change this from the top-down and I've had enough of the left trying to hush up the 'down' every time we're trying for the 'top'. We ARE our grass-roots. We held back from "divisive" issues like queer rights and the environment and education funding in order to not scare the electorate and what did we get? Nearly a dozen "defense" of "marriage" statutes, insufficient funding for schools, *and* a republican president. We CANNOT stop our efforts at education and empowerment in order to scrape up some semblance of unquestioning support for these shaky parodies of conservative icons we keep pretending can represent us in politics.
(replies screened and as I'm very busy I will be capricious and arbitrary about unscreening and/or responding to them. Feel free to comment; I'll read 'em at the very least.)
