OK, I just made no sense. Sorry, got distracted while I was writing & should not have hit the POST button. The last sentence of my last post should be readily ignored :)
And.. we may not be able to change minds; I am not comfortable that this is a reasonable goal, as much as I would love to change the minds of people to a more liberal mindset. And I can't presume that my views are so worthy of Truth that I should or can convince others to see the world my way. I can work to get them to respect my views enough to keep them from legislating away my liberty. They may not like it, but that doesn't mean they have to agree with me nor that they have the right to push for legislation.. etc. Those I can convince to a position of mutual respect and work toward social reform, hoorah! Those I can't..I can't.
I can simply make my case, and work towards a common goal that may, or will, require compromise. Some values cannot be compromised, of course, and not everyone will agree with me on what those are. Finding people also willing to come to some agreement is the key here; it is basically how our sausage-factory of a political system works.
As a matter of fact, I am less concerned with changing minds than I am with insuring civil liberties through political means.
"Keeping the niggers, fags, and towel-heads down: not so much. "
Is this really among the values of people across the midwest and the south? A huge percentage of 'em just voted for a Black man in IL; I personally know of Arabs and Sikhs in the rural area of Michigan who have had no problems living amongst the farmers with Dutch and German last names; and so on.
But I hear your point: values of prejudice are not tolerable. I disagree that these values (of keeping them down) are held by the majority across the middle of America, and those people who hold on to these beliefs won't bring themselves to the discussion anyway.
yikes... what happened? Sorry for that multiposting..
No one in this thread has said that; thanks for advice & clarification.
I'm recalling conversations outside of the web I've had with folks, and some op/eds in the media where Bush voters are called stupid and uneducated (the current uproar in Slate comes to mind). Comments on various weblogs, etc.(not this one, which is why I feel I can post here & enjoy intelligent conversation!!) Michael Moore comes to mind, and he'd be not applicable to my point I think had he not been prominently displayed at the Dem Conv.
No one in this thread has said that; thanks for advice & clarification.
I'm recalling conversations outside of the web I've had with folks, and some op/eds in the media where Bush voters are called stupid and uneducated (the current uproar in Slate comes to mind). Comments on various weblogs, etc.(not this one, which is why I feel I can post here & enjoy intelligent conversation!!) Michael Moore comes to mind, and he'd be unimportant I think had he not been prominently displayed at the Dem Conv.
No one in this thread has said that; thanks for advice & clarification.
I'm recalling conversations outside of the web I've had with folks, and some op/eds in the media where Bush voters are called stupid and uneducated (the current uproar in Slate comes to mind). Comments on various weblogs, etc.(not this one, which is why I feel I can post here & enjoy intelligent conversation!!) Michael Moore comes to mind, and he'd be unimportant I think had he not been prominently displayed at the Dem Conv.
Patrick,
Agreed, his win doesn't speak to the values of people across Illinois. It does speak to success in presenting liberal platform to voters outside of traditional liberal districts.
He was able to appeal to, or to at least acknowledge, the 'values' of mid- and down-state midwestern liberals, most of whom go to church. He won counties that otherwise vote Repub or conservative-Dem. He is a very smart politician, and a part of those smarts is the ability and skill to further a liberal platform while engaging, not alienating, votes in the exurbs.
In other words, he was (and is) a good representive of the kind of 'marketing' that works without betraying his own ideals and values.
True: had the IL. RC not been joke, he'd not have won with.. what was it, 193% of the vote? He still would have won, since the Dem power of Cook County is incredible. But the fact that he was able to get the votes that a)Keyes alienated and b)Obama embraced, he still stands as a good example of how a liberal can appeal to the kinds of voters currently being blamed by some as 'stupid'.
Granny didn't care about what Bush thinks of homosexuals; Granny had visions of her church being "forced" to marry Bill & Tom from West Hollywood, or of going to services on Sunday morning to see Jane & Elaine get hitched.
Reality? Nope. But what was presented to them? And by whom? Overwhelmingly, commentary at a local level from well-meaning Dems was presented as an attack on 'stupid gay-hating evangelicals' and as attacks on religion. Not a way to convince people, is it? Can't blame this on Rove. It's easy to say "The Dems want to change the rules in your church" when they can point to articles that say exactly that. Again, for some people it was more important to feel good about bashing religion and evangelicals than it was about finding a way for genuine change. Not for all, but enough where, whether we like it or not, it was made very easy for Repos to make the argument.
We can't find common cause if all we do is bash the hell out of them & then expect them to follow us because "we know better".
A fundamental change in strategy is required. We liberals need to realize that effective social change is more important than feeling good about what we're doing or the ideals of our cause. And that it can't be enforced from above; it must be generated from the ground.
One strategy that comes to mind: Present to the red-counties that we respect your values (though we may not agree with all of them), and will find cause to help protect what's important to you (within the parameters of the constitution); in response, you must respect our values. To that end, for example, leave marriage to the religious institutions, and legal unions to the state. The state will define a legal union regardless of sex and not interfere with religious constructs. I.e., we'll keep the state out of your church if you keep the church out of the state.
Clearly, there are those on the far right and far left who won't subscribe to this; so what? If there is a vast center, which I believe there is (having lived in the midwest for 30 years), this approach has an excellent chance of working *and* of proving to be a method with which to elect Democrats to office.
This also goes toward marketing: the Repos learned that Pat Buchanen is the exactly wrong spokesman for their party in urban, liberal cities. Likewise: Hollywood elites, who whether they like it or not represent a set of values not appreciated in red-county America, are the wrong representatives for the Dems. The success of Barack Obama speaks to this; as does Mario Cuomo's speeches in conventions past.
There are plenty of people in 'flyover country' with whom there can be common-cause; if only we stop insulting them by calling them stupid, and if we believe that 'the perfect is the enemy of the good'. We can't get ALL of 'em to come to the table. We can't get all of our own folks to the table! But we don't need all.. we need enough to get our guys in office and enough to re-start social reform from the bottom-up.
Exit polls that were grossly inaccurate during the election now tell us that "moral values" drove the Bush win?? How is this exit poll any more or less accurate than the others?
I don't buy it for a moment. 'Moral Values' my ass.. I think the media has dropped the ball on this - again. Their answer is too simple an answer, occam's razor well considered.
Folks I know in 'Red' counties insist that the war & the economy drove their votes. I'd add that perception of the candidate drove some decisions, and frankly people in middle america don't really like stuffy Senators, any more than sophisticated urbanites like coarse frat-boys from Texas or over-muscled immigrants from Austria.
I do know that the Dem party needs to be fixed, and it will take some brainpower to do it. I wish I knew where to start (well, calling 51% of the voters stupid isn't a great strategy, but what do I know??).
based on the amount of spam I get that results in a 404, I'd bet on an inept spammer or an old spam server linking to a site that's since been shut-down or taken offline.
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|---|---|
| 2005 | 1 |
| 2004 | 12 |
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