Sep 17 2008
Enough! Here’s Why The Polls Are So Damn Close
Amen! Please stand up and take a bow, Bob Cesca!
Of course the entire discourse just made me cry, and makes me feel terribly intimidated to even live in this country – I sometimes forget just how ubiquitous this stuff is and am therefore sometimes shocked by the feral viciousness I am sometimes confronted with.
God bless the USA indeed. I am hopeful that God does bless us to emerge victorious from this long night of cynicism, economic dispair, and racism.
QT
More on Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
7 Responses to “Enough! Here’s Why The Polls Are So Damn Close”
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Sometimes I find it refreshing when the far right extremists show their vicious dishonesty. It reminds me of why I have to fight them.
The right-wing talking heads on TV and the far-right politicians know how to sound calm and reasonable when the spread hate, and how to sound wise and well-informed when they spread spins and lies. But the grass-roots right-wing nutjobs… those guys are refreshingly honest about their viciousness and ignorance.
I have the mixed blessing of working in a politically interesting office. Besides me, only three others speak up about politics, and all of them are from the far right. One of them has actually said that he will not vote for McCain… because McCain is too liberal! Imagine that! Apparently 90% of a third Bush term is not enough.
If you have not already read it, I recommend that you read “Don’t think of an elephant!” by George Lakoff. He has good points to make about the worldviews that motivate right wing and left wing thought. He also talks about the importance of building intellectual infrastructure. Basically, there are a large number of well-financed conservative think tanks and media outlets, which constantly push the right-wing agenda. Progressives have not engaged in much of that kind of long-term planning and organizing. Lakoff used to run the Rockridge Institute (a part of the progressive infrastructure), but it is now defunct.
I do not want to see the far right beat us through longer-term planning and superior organizing. I want progressives to build and maintain an equally large and powerful intellectual infrastructure. That desire is what led me to joining Open Left.
P.S. – I am still learning how to use the Open Left website, and I just saw your post from 9/10:
Yeah. You are getting the point precisely so.
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*[new] I think I’m in love (0.00 / 0)
But maybe that’s because you’re from NY?
QT
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So it sounds like you are in my fan club, and I am flattered. I am impressed by your two websites (Obama Project and http://www.windonwater.net).
I am fairly new to political activism. I was in Texas in 2000, and all I did for Gore was cast my vote. I did not give him one hour of my time or one dollar of my money. I spent the next four years regretting that. Then in 2004 I went to Pennsylvania 4 times for Kerry, made countless phone calls, and gave him a few hundred dollars.
Anyway, I can see that I am babbling, and I need to go to sleep soon. So, to summarize: the far right is evil. Don’t despair about it; fight it.
Ok, I have a follow-up thought, on Rockridge and progressive infrastructure. Please see this awesome Huffington Post article:
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/lakoffs-rockridge-closing_b_98013.html
Or just Google: Rockridge Progressive Infrastructure Lakoff
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Apparently two other pieces of progressive infrastructure are:
1 – Speak Out California
2 – Commonweal Institute
Sometime over the next few days I plan to check these out and review them here.
Hi Christian_Dem_NY!
It’s very nice to have you here, and thanks for your compliments to my sites. I too have to hit the sack – it’s 1:30 in the morning where I am – your post says you’re 4 hours ahead of me – which makes me think you need to change your settings for EDT. 
It’s an interesting discussion. I enjoy Open Left because of how much intellectual effort they put into thinking about the deeper structure of the political landscape. One of the competing ideas they espouse over there is that the Left “can’t” organize in the same way as the Right because of the lack of an authoritarian mindset and overall inclusiveness that makes for a lot of disruption and lack of cohesion. I even remember the fuss over the platform issued with the name “netroots” attached, and the fuss about anyone deigning to speak for the netroots. In this regard, I’m interested in Lakoff’s work and wonder how he resolves that potential conflict – or if the fact that Rockridge Institute is now defunct proves the point?
I am doing very little in the way of volunteering. I became Baha’i in 2004, and cast my first vote as a Baha’i that year – I voted libertarian then. I didn’t much like Kerry and couldn’t bring myself to vote for Bush, so I decided to advance the cause of a more open electoral process by voting for Bednarik. This year I’m so very excited about the Obama campaign, but it’s brought up some challenges, because Baha’is are not to engage partisan politics. It’s been hard to know how I can help without crossing the line.
One thing I did, and am doing – is engaging a call to prayer. It occurs to me that we who have spiritual principles seem sometimes to neglect to exercise faith in believing that prayer is a genuine asset to any effort. I don’t know if your name means that you ARE a Christian, or if your first name is Christian… but if you are a praying person, I invite you to participate in ongoing prayer on behalf of the campaign – whatever other efforts you engage.
ETA: I originally said “we on the left” in talking about prayer. That’s inaccurate, since I’m only on the “left” for the sake of this campaign. But it is typically the religious RIGHT that has an admirable commitment to prayer as an active part of their life and an admirable faith that their prayers are in fact effective. I believe that if we all prayed with that kind of faith we’d see God work wonders – because I don’t believe God is “left” or “right” – God is God – but if the people of Faith upheld the nation in prayer – I think we’d see a much better result.
QT
Ha! LOL! My comments also say its 5:30 in the morning! So the settings are wrong on my end. I’ll have to figure it out in the morning.
QT
OK – fixed….
QT
I am very disappointed to hear this:
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“I originally said “we on the left” in talking about prayer. That’s inaccurate, since I’m only on the “left” for the sake of this campaign.”
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Not “disappointed” in that I think badly of you. But disappointed that two things I like:
1) a devotion to promoting Democrats and progressives
2) QueenTiye
are not as firmly linked together as I had thought.
But for the duration of this campaign, I am quite happy to have you as an ally.
P.S. –
My online name is “Christian_Dem_NY” because I am Christian. I suppose that I would not be called evangelical/fundamentalist/whatever. But I do go to church every Sunday and I do tithe. I am a Methodist.
One thing that some Republicans do is to pretend that every flag, every cross, and every military uniform has “property of the Republican Party” written on it. I think that progressives often let the right-wingers get away with this because progressives think “Gee, it sure is tacky how those other guys wave 10 flags and wear 20 crosses. Surely if I am Christian and patriotic in a low-key, honest, non-pandering way, people will not fall for the right’s pretense of being more patriotic and more Christian.” And boy, those honest, modest, low-key guys keep losing elections. I am not personally running for office, but if I was I would probably wear 5 crosses and 10 flag pins on a daily basis.
There is a disgusting political game called “trick the hick”. The right does it constantly. The left thinks that game is undignified and dishonest, and we refuse to play. And so… who wins the election?
For more thoughts on why and how progressives should wear more crosses and wave more flags, see my Open Left diary: “divide and conquer the Republicans”
Hi Christian_Dem! Good to see you again. Although, I think we should plan to meet at better hours. LOL!
I grew up in the United Methodist Church. I miss the United Methodist Church, and follow its progress with a pride of a native daughter. And, when I started my political career I started as a democrat. About 6 years ago, I took a long hard look at some of the democratic platforms and concluded that I only agreed with some of them. More than I agreed with the Republican platform, but maybe not as much as I agreed with the Libertarian one. More importantly, I concluded that the Democratic party was taking the black vote for granted, and I wanted to be part of the wave that would break away and make Democrats fight for the black vote. Ha! Republicans make such movement pretty hard! LOL! I registered independent.
Now that I’m Baha’i, partisanship is actually forbidden – Baha’is are charged with the task of promoting unity in the world – the very opposite of partisanship. My very vocal and public support of Barack Obama probably is on the wrong side of that equation – but I at least maintain that I belong to no party.
I’m off to bed now, but will look for your diary on Open Left tomorrow!
QT