{"id":360,"date":"2004-07-30T11:23:44","date_gmt":"2004-07-30T18:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/proud-liberal\/"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-07-30T18:23:44","slug":"proud-liberal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/letters-to-the-editor\/proud-liberal\/","title":{"rendered":"Proud Liberal"},"content":{"rendered":"

During Howard Dean’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, he said <\/p>\n

something that puzzled the pundits: we no longer need to be ashamed to say we are Democrats. David Brooks, a conservative, mused, ‘when <\/p>\n

have Democrats ever been ashamed to be Democrats?’<\/p>\n

The problem is the word: it’s not ‘Democrat,’ it’s ‘Liberal.’ The Radical <\/p>\n

Right has heaped scorn on liberalism and liberals for nearly 40 years.<\/b> Even now, while Kerry undermines Bush’s security creditionals <\/p>\n

(war-hero vs party-boy), the Radical Right couldn’t care less: Kerry’s a liberal and they’re going to make sure everyone in America <\/p>\n

knows that, because everyone in America know being a Liberal is bad.<\/b><\/p>\n

Why is liberalism bad? Don’t just spew the Radical <\/p>\n

Rights’ refrain in response — think.<\/b> In the last 30 years, a Republican President lied, cheated and stole and resigned. Another <\/p>\n

cajoled us while making deals with dictators and death squads. The current one started with the big lie, ”I’m a uniter, not a <\/p>\n

divider,” and went downhill from there. What, exactly, do Conservatives have to be proud of, or, why aren’t they ashamed of this?<\/p>\n

<\/b><\/p>\n

What is the single greatest accomplishment of liberalism in the last 40 years? The Civil Rights Movement. Where were the <\/p>\n

Radical Right and the Christian Evangelicals then?<\/b> Well, many of them were Southern Democrats. Cleverly, the Republicans lured them <\/p>\n

with talk against the Federal Government. The Federal Government is the Beast. On the surface, they talk about taxes and regulations. At <\/p>\n

the heart is fear: fear of change, fear of loss of power, fear of others, of ‘them.’ We’ll call ‘them’ liberals, but, wink, you know <\/p>\n

what we mean: blacks, hispanics, asians, gays, women — whatever you fear, that’s them over there, waiting to take your way of life away <\/p>\n

from you. Lies that play on fear. Straight out of Nixon’s playbook.<\/b><\/p>\n

Fear is at the heart of the control the Radical Right <\/p>\n

and Christian Evangelicals hold over the Republican Party and, through it, all of America.<\/b> We may not be able to do anything about <\/p>\n

their fear and loathing, but we cannot let it stop us from progress and moving America forward again towards freedom and peace. America <\/p>\n

IS a liberal nation, equality and justice are LIBERAL notions<\/b>; the status quo, convention, keeping power and control are <\/p>\n

CONSERVATIVE, and shameful. mjh<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During Howard Dean’s speech to the Democratic National Convention, he said something that puzzled the pundits: we no longer need to be ashamed to say we are Democrats. David Brooks, a conservative, mused, ‘when have Democrats ever been ashamed to be Democrats?’ The problem is the word: it’s not ‘Democrat,’ it’s ‘Liberal.’ The Radical Right … Continue reading Proud Liberal<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}