Author: Madman in the Marketplace

Liberal Street Fighter – sick of the double standards

We’ve all read the stories, about how persecuted Christians built the church in pagan Rome (the website where I found the illustration to the right captioned it with The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Congregation.). The rightwing version of Christianity likes to talk about persecution all the time, and the Republican Party frequently uses tales of evil liberal elites, feminazis and gays to scare up votes.

This isn’t just true of the religious right, but of the free-market absolutists and conservative nominees for office and especially for the Federal Bench. There is no willingness to be clear about what they believe, no willingness to be clear and frank about their thinking, their motivations or their goals. Pretty cowardly, when you think about it.

Unlike real martyrs and people who’ve suffered REAL persecution for their beliefs, the Republican Right seeks special treatment, insists that their tender feelings and “rights” be protected, even when they are advocating beliefs or policies that will cause great harm to others.

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Rhapsody on appreciation from Liberal Street Fighter

Have you ever reflected on the fact that so much that is uniquely American is born from the creativity of those most mistreated in this country?

America’s new jazz museum! (No poor black people allowed)

Much as we Americans like to pay lip service to jazz as “our national music,” with the Crescent City its seminal home, we tend to favor jazz’s quality as aural decoration over its contents as oral history; we stock up on classic reissues of past masters but rarely consider the music’s meaning in our current lives.

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storm the field – Liberal Street Fighter So, what’s it going to be? You’re disgusted with the Democratic Party, but you know damned well you’re not a Republican. There is always the choice that the...

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“People are selfish, but they can also be compassionate and generous, and they care about the country. But not when they feel threatened. That’s why this is such a crucial time. We can go in either direction. But if we don’t make a choice soon, it will be too late to turn things around. I think people are willing to make the right choice. But they need leadership. They’re hungry for leadership.” – Robert F. Kennedy

By all reports, RFK made a broad and profound political journey after his brother’s death. Whatever his political journey, he might have profoundly changed the direction of this country, if he’d lived. How did that happen? How did it become possible for such a coalition: anti-racism, anti-war, anti-poverty, how did it become possible for that coalition to be formed?

The movement, the activism, came first, and the politician followed.

Why did it fail? It failed because after the figurehead was killed, we fractured again, forgetting that it was the people who were the power.

willing to hope: Liberal Street Fighter

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disgusted once again: Liberal Street Fighter

Once again, we’re faced with the prospect of the “opposition” party reaching its hands out in friendship toward a predatory regime beholden to big money and the religious right. Capitiulation masquerading as principle, betrayal masquerading as comity, a stance characterized by refusing to stand. Behavior that is celebrated by right-wing advocacy groups like Progress for America Voter Fund in a recent ad called Principle:

Announcer: “John Roberts. Overwhelmingly supported to be Chief Justice.

“Why did the process work?

“President Bush consulted with 70 Senators, from both parties, before choosing Roberts.

“After testifying for 22 hours, even Democratic Senators called Roberts “brilliant.”

“Many Democrats are putting principle above politics, voting for Roberts.

“Urge the Senate to continue putting partisan politics aside…

“…hold fair hearings and give the next nominee a fair up or down vote.”

Go HERE to see the ad. Watch the list of twenty-two Democrats scroll down the screen, celebrating their votes for Chief Justice Roberts.

Now another movement conservative, a deep-inside party functionary has been nominated for elevation to the Supreme Court, with laudatory words rising from the so-called leadership of the Democratic Party. This is bad, but only a symptom of a broader problem: the party of the “left” has left the principled left behind, bowing to the claim that this is a conservative country, that these outcomes are inevitable, that they are there for the rest of us to support as brakes on it getting completely out of control, rather than champions to fight against a corrosive poltical movement.

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