Thursday, November 04, 2004
Moving Forward.
The media have swallowed whole and are hard at work promoting the GOP notion that Tuesday's election was a referendum on "values". We even heard someone on NPR suggest that the Democratic party needed to "rethink its commitment" to social causes like gay rights and a woman's right to choose.
201k recommends exactly the opposite.
Look, if affluent and middle class Americans give up on issues of social justice then liberalism is dead in America. But millions of working Americans have indicated with their votes that they will vote against their own economic interests to stop social progress. That is the reality we are faced with.
The only sensible option is to defend to the death issues of social justice and let the Republican economic future run its inevitable course right over working Americans. We're essentially powerless to stop it anyway, especially if those being run over won't help. When it gets bad enough--and it will--perhaps those issues will emerge as viable again.
In the meantime 201k will concentrate its efforts on issues of social justice. We will oppose the so-called "tort reform" movement, we will oppose attempts to deny rights to gay Americans, and we will defend a woman's right to control her own body.
These are the battlegrounds for liberalism in America now.
201k recommends exactly the opposite.
Look, if affluent and middle class Americans give up on issues of social justice then liberalism is dead in America. But millions of working Americans have indicated with their votes that they will vote against their own economic interests to stop social progress. That is the reality we are faced with.
The only sensible option is to defend to the death issues of social justice and let the Republican economic future run its inevitable course right over working Americans. We're essentially powerless to stop it anyway, especially if those being run over won't help. When it gets bad enough--and it will--perhaps those issues will emerge as viable again.
In the meantime 201k will concentrate its efforts on issues of social justice. We will oppose the so-called "tort reform" movement, we will oppose attempts to deny rights to gay Americans, and we will defend a woman's right to control her own body.
These are the battlegrounds for liberalism in America now.
