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Friday, November 05, 2004

Who's Evil?

According to Frank Pastore's opinion piece in the LA Times today ("Christian Conservatives Must Not Compromise") liberalism is an "evil ideology."

And then he actually goes on to criticize liberals for generalizing about and maligning conservatives.

I've been waiting for conservatives to use the word "evil" to describe liberals for some time, and now here it is in black and white.

One of my biggest fears as the election results rolled in was that Bush and the rest of conservative America would wield his slimmest of victories as an unassailable mandate to plow full steam ahead with whatever strikes their fancy, the rest of the world be damned.

And from the conservative gloating I'm seeing now, it's all coming true. Pastore's piece is just one of the more extreme examples of what seems to be a dramatic increase in conservatives' boldness in revealing their true feelings about viewpoints different from their own. And the hatred they reveal for those differences is not attractive.

But conservative gloaters would be wise to remember that instead of a big hammer that can crush anything in its wake, their current popularity is much more likely a pendulum that can and inevitably will swing back in the other direction at some point.

Someone on a discussion list I subscribe to said today that liberals should take a look at the red vs. blue areas on the US election maps, noting how much red there is and how little blue (which is limited to the "high population" zones on the coasts and in the upper midwest). But geography doesn't vote. People do. Empty farmland in Nebraska isn't conservative or liberal. But people are. And those small, blue, "high population" zones are full of people. In fact, very nearly as many people live in those small blue areas as in that vast red area.

So don't think that vast red blanket smothers or even signifies much of anything.

We liberals are still here. There are a lot of us. And we're not at all evil. But we are pissed off...and getting more and more so.

posted by Elizabeth 3:47 PM

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Today's Recommendation:

Interesting article on how conservatives have achieved dominance over the American media: "Too Little, Too Late," from Consortiumnews.com

"George W. Bush’s electoral victory is chilling proof that the conservatives have achieved dominance over the flow of information to the American people and that even a well-run Democratic campaign stands virtually no chance for national success without major changes in how the news media operates."

posted by Elizabeth 1:22 PM

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Thursday, November 04, 2004

Some Thoughts on the Morning After the Election...and a Prediction

I saw an intriguing post this morning on a discussion list I subscribe to. The person said that getting the anti-gay-marriage issue on the ballot in 11 states may have been the smartest thing the Bush folks did...because it brought out masses of people to vote for it, and all of those folks also went for Bush. (This may be the first time in history that a huge voter turnout proved to be a boost for the Republicans instead of the Democrats.)

I also saw a poll on CNN this morning that said the deciding factor in most voters' choice for president was "moral issues" (not terrorism, the economy or Iraq, which were all mentioned, but which all ranked much lower). And that 90% of those who said "moral issues" were their deciding factor voted for Bush.

I'm old enough to remember when our "moral" and "spiritual" leaders were most prominently on the side of the liberals...fighting for things like integration, equal rights, voting rights, head start programs and funding for urban schools. But in the past 25 years, the right has wrested control of the terms "morality" and "values"...and I'm predicting right now that unless and until the left can convincingly re-stake claim to those things, they will not be able to recapture the electorate. (And yes, I do think the Democrats have paid lip service to this, particularly at the Democratic convention this year...but I don't think they've made a real effort at it, or even recognized how truly important a point it is.)

In fact, I'd go so far to say that reclaiming the "moral" ground needs to be the single most important goal for the left in the next four years. Of course this will be hard to do when we're dealing with distractions such as an administration that believes in preventive war, actively works to curtail civil rights at every opportunity...and which now believes it has a huge mandate for both those things. But if the left fails to recapture "morality," the conservative juggernaut will continue to roll.

You read it here first.

posted by Elizabeth 10:12 AM

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