Will the progressive movement eventually implode and 'eat their young'?
I voted yes.
One of my main goals of OEN is to wake people up. That's why we also publish non-political articles-- so people who are not VERY interested in politics will come to the site, then discover "wake up" articles. We cannot expect the tens of millions of people who are just waking or who have just recently woken up to suddenly vote green, and I'm not sure that's even the best thing for them. Mark E. Smith and I don't agree on candidates, but we do agree on a lot of election issues. There's room here at OEN for progressive disagreement. We also need to provide room for progressive tolerance of newly awakened people moving to the left.
It ain't gonna be perfect. A lot of the pickups of Democratic seats in the house AND senate will be bluedog types. They will not meet the perfection tests of those progressives who demand pure ideology. Still, they will help the Dem leadership get a lot more done. IN 2010, progressives need to get a LOT more organized and go after the worst, most right-leaning, sell-out candidates, like was done with Joe Lieberman. That was a loss in the general election, but a lot was learned and it contributed to our wisdom base of what we can and must do.
Do we abusively call people who have woken up and decided to vote for Obama stupid, fools, part of mass murder because they have not woken up as radical left wingers for McKinney or Nader supporting Greens?
I don't think so.
How do we handle newcomers who have finally figured out the right wing politics is wrong?
I say we consider what indigenous tribes do-- rites of passage. You don't throw a newborn into the jungle. The whole community supports them and raises then until the time when they are ready, however many moons it takes.
There are a handful of members on OEN who are very passionatte about their beliefs. That's great. But they, in this indigenous scenario I described, would be stomping on babies and throwing them in the jungle well before thei time. I think they need to look at their unkind, intolerant behavior and start acting a bit more like responsible members of the community. I was thinking of saying "more civilized" but civilization killed the indigenous peoples.
How do we embrace our new "converts" without trashing them?
