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On Leadership by Kevin Tully
If those that have the Liberal/Progressive creds and chops choose to incite and entertain instead of lead, who will? I guess intellectuals and academics always have and always will stay back from the fray -- lobbing ideological missiles and dutifully indoctrinating the rank and file. Ideologues don't lead - they lead the leader. What a dilemma this creates because then a "face", a "voice" must be found to trot out and sell the Liberal message. He or she must be a lefty carnival barker, celebrity of sorts.
But, liberals are desperately opposed to "selling" the message; which we feel is an extension of our honor and our souls. We can't stoop to media hucksterism and cheap political marketing to nurture our ideological and philosophical babies. Compromise is run from and detested like a misshapen, rabid, syphilitic potential suitor. We're right and we damn well know it! The problem is that we are not right -- we are the holders of a particular version of "right". Likewise, the other team has their "right" behind an equally fortified and heavily defended philosophical and ideological stockade. Creating change is going to require dialogue and the recognition of common ground.
We are desperately in need of a crisis or an amazingly charismatic leader, or both...um, it certainly appears that we have both -- we're just too proud and doctrinaire to admit it. Our pride and our intransigence may be our undoing. Do we have time now to swoon over Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Chris Hedges...Rome is burning and we're intellectually fiddling? Most importantly the past is past and we can't change it or relive it. If we believe what we say we believe to be the current state of things; we no longer have the time nor the luxury of living vicariously through the minds of others. Liberals/Progressives need to become self-confident and self-empowered, armed with the wisdom of Zinn, Chomsky and Hedges, and lift up and empower our President to become what he can become. We can dangerously continue to wallow in negativity, defeatism and intellectual self-pity but we will never go where we want to go -- some other force will fill the void. We have labeled Bush, Cheney and on and on as forces of darkness yet most of what I read here is tumbling menacingly and proudly from the dark.
