After watching the response from the left to the Kerry loss, it’s clear that, rather than folding, most organizations are preparing for the bigger fights and mobilizations to come. This cheers me greatly.
Yes, we all put too much into a Kerry win. It’s clear now that he ran a dismal, timid campaign, afraid to act like a real Democrat, much less an antiwar progressive, and instead tried to out-macho Bush on handling of the war.
But that’s behind us now. Yes, it’ll be getting ugly. But it appears no one is giving up and instead is mobilizing for the battles to come. Good.
As long as one mobilizes and organizes, then one can be ready for political changes that can suddenly swing support to one’s way. In the build up to WWI, many countries had strong Socialist parties, all of whom opposed the coming war - until the war actually came. Then, with only a few exceptions, they caved to nationalism and supported the war. The Bolsheviks were among the very few who continued to oppose the war, and many were jailed. The Russian peasants at first were vehemently opposed to the Bolsheviks. Until, that is, a few years later, tired of being used as cannon fodder, they also came to oppose the war. The rest, as they say, is history.
The above is an instructive example of how, whether or not you agree with the Bolsheviks, a determined few through organization, mobilzation, and patience can achieve their goals when the political winds finally shift their way. The point is - be ready for the shift when it happens. The Iraq war, and crumbling US economy and dollar will sink Bush. The US Left should be ready and mobilized when this happens. And it will happen.
A few voices -
From Big Left Outside
Now what? First, we kill the media
The second Bush term is going to make the first four years look like the good old days.
During the first four years, he and his gang restrained themselves from fully unleashing the repressive measures of the Patriot Act, knowing that it could cost them the election. The restraints are now gone.
It’s mourning in America. My mailbox runneth over today with emails from friends and strangers who want to leave the United States and come down here to Latin America.
Nobody should do that to run from a fight: After all, if you are a citizen of the U.S.A., there is no place to hide from your own country’s foreign policy.
From Black Commentator
Concede nothing to Bush
“The turnout should wash away any doubt about the conclusions African Americans have come to about the legitimacy of this regime,” said Harvard’s Dr. Dawson, a noted social demographer who, along with colleague Dr. Lawrence Bobo, has been studying racial divisions under the reign of George W. Bush.
From LA Voice.org
To Boxer, Feinstein, Waxman, Harman and the Democrats left in Congress:
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Do not acquiesce to any GOP legislation that hurts people of any kind anywhere without a full wringing-out of the facts. Do not believe any hype, whether spewed by the Rove machine or “unnamed sources” in the New York Times or Washington Post. Do not take a single vote without knowing the facts. Do not *miss* a single vote, no matter how hopeless your chances of winning.
From a Greenpeace listserv
We all need to spend some time being pissed off. Feeling shock. Mourning. Then we have to act. Our cause is just. We can not afford to be defeated, or to be defeatist. Too much is at stake: our planet, our future and the legacy we leave to our children.
From UfJP
Don’t Mourn, Organize
In the wake of Bush’s election, time to regroup and take the long view: The bad news is obvious and awful, but the good news is that our movement continues to grow.
And finally,
Kerry concedes, West Coast secedes
Presidential candidate’s defeat paves way for a new country: Caliwashegon. Northeast and Upper Midwest weigh secession, too.
Hmm, thus New England might become New Vermaineachusettsicut Island? Yikes!
Seriously though, other countries, like El Salvador, have been through far far worse than what this country is going through now. The coming fights will be nasty and vicious. But the Left, it’s quite clear, is up to the challenge.
PS Miss Monica, reading over my shoulder, says she is opposes to any political system run by “authoritarian buttheads”, but how you have a political system without someone saying those in power are authoritarian buttheads is a whole different conversation, isn’t it?
