Friday, December 5, 2008

Honeymoans From the Left

Honeymoans From the Left by Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch.org

One striking feature of these complaints is that if thethe many of complainers had their suspicions about Obama during the campaign, they kept their mouths firmly shut. Across eight presidential campaigns, since Jimmy Carter’s successful run in 1976, I’ve never seen such collective determination by the liberal left to think only positive thoughts about a Democratic candidate. Indeed, some of the present fury may stem from a certain embarrassment at their own political naivety.


and then ...

The obvious question is whether this chorus of political disillusion on the liberal left is of any political consequence.


Yes it is.

And the one way to show that is in the next elections. And there are two good reasons to start right now. One is that the sort of people-powered, underfunded sort of campaigns we'd have to run take more time to build. The other is that any building that is going on in this area shows the Democrats political power right now.

If key Congresspeople start seeing organizing in their districts this winter and spring, then that tells them the consequence of ignoring the left. We don't have to wait until the election day 2010 to have an impact. Congresspeople are already watching and planning for the next election, thus any building and organizing we start now will be noticed ... and that's a way to influence events now instead of two years from now.

No comments: