Well, my boy Chyz wrote me all depressed about the election and the state of progressive activism in this country and I went through the motions trying to make him feel better. He sent me a little mini-manifesto of shit on his mind- thought you guys might want to check it out.
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Moral Justice Is The Only Thing Left
by Chyz
After George W. Bush’s stupefying re-election, his first legitimate one, the right-wing of the country is abuzz with talk of a conservative “revolution.” The Bushies are claiming divine mandate over two branches of government, with their claws all over the graying third. The left is rightly confused. How could Kerry, however poor of a strategic campaigner, lose to the most divisive, extremist, violent, administration ever? The answer lies past the usual rhetoric about education, security, health, and prosperity that Kerry mirrored. Bush urged his faithed base to vote because “the direction of our culture [is] at stake.” Kerry voted for the wrong war, but was also fighting the wrong battle. The country’s left has more in common with the good-hearted Christian American people than the anti-worker, profit-driven, corporate-backed, war-mongering, classist, rich elites running the GOP, or for that matter, the Democratic Party.
So when progressives argue that Gore, I mean, Kerry’s center-right campaign was the cause for them losing, what do they mean? Kerry was clearly the better compassionate conservative, but what could he have done to get 270 electoral votes? What could he have said to motivate the over 60 million eligible voters that didn’t? Nader didn’t lose it for the democrats, and we’re closer to the realization that he never did. If we were wrong about Ralph Nader, maybe he was right about us. He says, “The re-election of George Bush would not have occurred had the Democrats stood up for the needs of the American people. Tens of millions of Americans have been left out of the political process because their needs are being ignored.” Maybe Kerry, a white multi-millionaire liberal from Boston doesn’t have a friggin’ clue what the American people need.
Liberalism is dead. It is now most accurately associated with the prefix neo- and used to describe our leaders that have faith in economic forces taking care of all our social needs. One of Bush’s main objectives stated in his “five-point agenda” for his second term is “promoting an ownership society.” That’s neoliberal newspeak for privatizing everything under God. This is an excellent profit pumping plan for greedy corporate CEO’s, but it will devastate the working-class American majority. And while the political pendulum will swing back hard from its overextended rightward climax, liberalism with its political correctness and nuanced sexism, racism, homophobia, and classism won’t. You can hold on to your popularly soiled name like anarchists and communists in this country, or you can shed it with your dated politics and join the progressives, greens, and independents that together make up the largest percentage of Americans.
If the Democratic Party swallows this contemporary left and purges the amoral corporate neolibs from it’s leadership, then we can become the giant wedge between the moral Christians and the neoliberal corporations and rightfully claim our solidarity with America’s heartland. We can stop wasting time talking about adding hateful amendments to the U.S. Constitution, and start addressing the imminently devastating effects of global warming with the international community. We can eliminate terrorists and (terrorist recruit-yielding) wars by exposing imperial desires and seeking truthful justice by reforming our (terrorist recruit-yielding) foreign policies. Alternately translated, Genesis 1:28 tells us to shepherd the Earth, like an environmentalist. Mark 10:17 tells that heaven is no place for the rich elite, spoken like a true union organizer. The “Prince of Peace” would love Kucinich’s cabinet-level ‘Department of Peace’ idea. Democrats need to embrace the leadership of reverend Al Sharpton, and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It is with this struggle for moral justice that a new powerful left will emerge.
Words
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