grassroots progressivism

Same, I'm not afraid to call myself Elitist in the least bit.

Thorn@You are crossing a line where you are going to be so filled with hatred that it will turn ugly.

Speaking as a conservative Republican,I will sympathize with your fustration but you will become as worse as the thing you hate if you get out of control.

Most of all it will insult a lot of people including myself.

Aha! We've found a word leftists are happy to identify by!

Oh fuck, ninja'd by a confrontational post. Can we not accuse people of being hate-filled before they've said anything particularly hateful, please?

edited 1st Aug '11 12:40:20 PM by BobbyG

I think I have every right to be upset right now.

Cuts to education are my Berserk Button, and we are either going to default or get even more cuts.

I have zero reason to be positive.

Your not helping your case Jazz.

I got a good name.

We;ll call it the "Fundamentalists and reactionaries can kiss our asses" party.

I think it spells out our platform succinctly.

edited 1st Aug '11 12:54:35 PM by Midgetsnowman

I'm not here to start a fight but so people don't go off the deep end.

I mean I will admit there needs to be some sound changes in a lot how government is working.

The reason why is say is because I am a future voter and one of the many who will be the future for this country so I want to be even minded and smart about issues.

What's wrong with saying your point of view needs help adjusting?

You can be just as bad as something, or worse than something. You can't be just as worse.

Quit nitpicking, it's off-topic. You knew what jazzflower meant.

In any case. It seems that the more left side of politics is more cynical and not as willing to go nuts like the hobbits.

Thorn@Don't be so sure but I won't point any fingers and make us not be kind aquaintances to each other

But if you want to start a movement come out here to San Fransico and start something.Also if you are interested in church go to Glide which promotes a lot of more left wing policies.You might even get support from Cecil Williams who is friends with my grandmother,Joyce Hayes who is a the most greatest grandma you can ask for and she started the youth program there in the seventies.

Hey,just because I swing to the right doesn't mean I won't help a troper out.Plus even though San Fransico swings left I still love it because I have gone there lots of times to call it a surrogate home.

I

The left of the spectrum is just not as united as the right, and they have a lot more in-fighting and nitpicking and diversity of opinion. It means that we don't make much progress on the national debate, but it's also actually something I don't want to lose - it means we avoid dogma and are individualistic, and that we care about our positions instead of just about getting support for our positions. Democrats are all over the place, really, and I can't think of any simple and succint slogan you can blare that will get all of the left together to rally around it.

Maybe "Down with Big Business" or something? But they're just as much concerned about social things as economic ones.

I guess we have to first look to hotbeds of liberalism for inspiration - SF, Boston, etc.

edited 1st Aug '11 1:53:06 PM by OnTheOtherHandle

But the only way to electoral success is to find a meme that resonates with the average voter.

The Liberal side is pretty much defined by its disunity.

Our only defining commonality is a beliefe for better or worse, in progressive freedom in something or another. Well. that and our hatred of Conservative dogma.

edited 1st Aug '11 1:57:24 PM by Midgetsnowman

The right isn't more in agreement, it's just more willing to band together. There are utterly disparate right-wing views that still manage to band together when they have a common cause to rally around - Objectivists and the Religious Right, for instance.

true. But my point was more that the Liberals (myself included) care more about our singular views of how to make the world better than to agree to vote in lockstep.

But they still don't unite, even with a common enemy.

Its a known fact that our liberal lawmakers are massive pussies.

I think the problem is that the average liberal is definitively against the "Us vs. Them" mentality. We are so afraid of being narrow-minded hypocrites that we are much more willing to compromise. I'd think that any far-left ideologue movement would never get off the ground for that very reason. Everyone involved would be asking "What about them?" The Tea Party, on the other hand, runs on 100% pure, grade A, "Fuck them, what about us?"

That has pretty much been the situation in congress since Obama got elected. Dems don't want to be complicit in ruining the country just because they are too stubborn and ideological. GO Pers levarage that concern by holding the nation's welfare hostage to get their way.

edited 1st Aug '11 3:19:36 PM by sketch162000

But with the Republicans basically declaring open war on Democrats, there's no way to avoid the fight.

And the Democrats have zero interest in fighting back.

Also, part of the problem is the thinking that the Democrats are the preserve of secularists and urbanites. Most Americans don't live in the big cities, and most will at least have some semblance of religious belief or affiliation. Any left-wing populist movement will have to win working-class support, whose opinions on certain issues usually differ from the people generally leading these things. Now, given, the Tea Paty leadership tend to also be slightly more secular than the rank-and-file, but they have a money advantage to compensate.

Not to mention they make up for it by some of their most high profile members beuing such ridiculous caricatures of fundamentalist christianity the rest of the world wonders if theyre actually serious.

Well unfortunately the rest of the world doesn't matter.

Wait, what? The majority of Americans live in cities, that's like a world wide thing.