We're Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore

[yesthattom]

August 27, 2004
We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore
By Garrison Keillor

This is an excellent rant about what’s wrong with the GOP.

Comments

[mcl.livejournal.com]

Now if only someone would publish a compelling, unifying diatribe explaining why a fractured, fractous left with no clear message and no clear "enemy" is never going to defeat a unified GOP with a clear message and a clear "enemy".

I can't stand what the right has done to this country in recent years (I mean, hell, look at the podium at the GOP love-in in NYC...it's got a freakin' crucifix on it!), but I lament the state of the left. It's like walking into a WTO protest or an Earth Day celebration -- several hundred groups, from moderates to radicals, all doing their own things, all voicing their own message, the end result being a jumbled, piteous mess that is, at best, a sideshow.

We've got a right that's approaching fascism, and the left can't manage to rally itself behind a single cause long enough to stand up and actually do something about it. Instead, we have a DOJ that redacts quotes from Supreme Court decisions (ironically, about the abuse of vague "national security" threats) in the name of national security. We've got "Free Speech Zones". We've got corporate, religious-leaning government. We've got a "screw the world" approach to foreign policy.

...and we've got a left that can't get its collective shit together long enough to say something compelling to those who need to hear it; something that drives home the point that, yes, indeed, this is no longer the America our predecessors fought and died for. We no longer uphold the values for which we claim to stand. We are fast becoming reviled in the court of world opinion, and it may not be long before someone decides that WE are a threat to world peace, and that they will exercise a policy of pre-emption.

I fear the right. But I fear for the left.

[mangosteen]

[...]several hundred groups, from moderates to radicals, all doing their own things, all voicing their own message, the end result being a jumbled, piteous mess that is, at best, a sideshow.

Regrettably, this is a problem endemic to the party. Money always knows exactly what side its on. Everyone else is a bit ambiguous about it.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes that one of the big problems with the grassroots left is that we've forgotten how -- or when -- to compromise in order to reach a larger goal. Too many left-wing groups seem to insist that they will accept either total victory or nothing, and as a result end up with nothing. Grassroots organizers are either unwilling or unable to choose issues that need to be emphasized, and nobody gets direction.

Meanwhile the Democratic party leadership continues trying to make themselves look as much like Republicans as they can, not having figured out any other way to get elected.

Frustrating.