I Am A Liberal Too

Huffington Post, that haven for lefty slebs, has a new blogger, and I say “Right on, right on, see you at the barricades.”

The Blog | George Clooney: I Am a Liberal. There, I Said It! | The Huffington Post

The fear of (being) criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bullshit. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, “We were misled.” It makes me want to shout, “Fuck you, you weren’t misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.”

Bottom line: it’s not merely our right to question our government, it’s our duty. Whatever the consequences. We can’t demand freedom of speech then turn around and say, But please don’t say bad things about us. You gotta be a grown up and take your hits.

I am a liberal. Fire away.

I’m a liberal, too. I’m in favor of personal freedom, generousity of spirit, and the belief that people are ultimately good, though sometimes in need of a helping hand. I’m a believer in a just, equitable and fair society, and not just because I’ve been listening to Car Talk since the Year One. I’m a believer in the freedom to wander the wildnerness of our beautiful country, and the freedom to travel to other countries in safety. I’m a believer in protections for the environment, and I believe that global warming is just as big a threat to our civilization as terrorism is, and that root causes for both threats must be addressed. I don’t believe in simply slapping a band-aid on, or in self-censoring uncomfortable facts or risk getting fired, or in illegal and totally unjustifiable wars. Especially ones that were planned long before Black Tuesday.

Immediately after 9/11, this country squandered the tremendous good will and and sympathy of the world for our loss whenTowers fell, Pentagon was marred, and a green Pennsylvania field was scarred. In my grief at that time, I felt that at last we were one country, and at least one good, uniting thing came of the tragedies. We squandered it when all too soon, it became clear that any criticism of the new, post-9/11 political reality was suspect, possibly even traitorous. No one dared speak up or speak out, because of course it was a matter of security – personal, national, and global – that we continue to present a united face to the world and show our resolve. All too quickly, we turned on the rest of the world, refusing their help, refusing their counsel, refusing to ratify treaties like Kyoto or anti-poverty initiatives like MakePovertyHistory, and eventually, going our own way, stubbornly unilateral, over Iraq. The UN we allowed to come along, begrudgingly, on our gallivanting adventures (which I read of in the original Kevin Sites blog, and in ginmaries‘ journal at the time.)

I watched the Presidential speech in response to the attacks and wanted so much to believe. I spent days, weeks on my daily commute, bursting into tears when I saw a fire truck with an oversized US flag tacked on the back go past with red lights blazing. The heavy weight of grief on my chest slowly lessened. I hardly blinked when we invaded Afghanistan, because of course that was where the Taliban were, and they were openly harboring Bin Laden, who was almost certainly the leader of our sworn enemies. I never questioned the justification for that war. I still wanted to believe, even though I’d had grave doubts about this President from the very beginning, with the ridiculous vote-count debacle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. I had grave doubts about his cronies and his toadies – Katherine Harris, Doorbeller in Chief and his brother Jeb, conveniently governor of the state that handed him the election. The press didn’t seem to think there was too much wrong, or at least they were mostly silent and taking this Administration’s word for… everything. I guess we all just wanted to believe, and to be told that everything would be all right, and not think too hard or ask too many uncomfortable questions.

I gradually emerged from this unthinking, unquestioning fog — it was not an instantaneous “Bullshit, we’re being lied to, at, through, and asunder” moment — sometime after the invasion of Iraq. Stupidly, unlike George (Clooney), I didn’t know the Iraq war reasoning was total bullshit, I just suspected something didn’t smell quite right. I put my misplaced trust not in George (Bush) but in Tony (Blair), because just in time to prop up my waivering support, he came out strongly in favor of the invasion. He seemed to imply then that there was something he couldn’t talk about, but it was Big and Important. And so, since I actually liked and trusted Tony Blair at the time, more than I did Bush, I went along with the Iraq war, even happily watching “the fall of Saddam” via news webcams at work.

Of course, now we know this was the whole Downing Street Memo “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” thing. Rather than call bullshit, I smelled it, a little.

Gradually, I became more and more skeptical — especially when the whole “flag draped coffins” story broke in the Seattle Times, which I read online now and then. I was already pretty cynical when I wrote my first blog post.

I guess my positions were hardened when AAR came on the air, because the novelty of fulminating liberrrrals on the air, well, fulminating was different, and usually pretty funny and occasionally really thought-provoking.

I previously wanted to believe that everything that happened since November 2000 had not been some cynical lie designed to solidify the Right’s hold on this country and to shore up the illusion of the President being strong, able, and competent. I’ve been unable to ignore how the word “liberal” has become the most widely used pejorative in the Right’s vocabulary, and how their lock on the language of power seemed unshakeable. They’re always able to word things to make the Right look invincible and to make the Left look weak, feckless, and leaderless (okay, they don’t really need to word it that way, it’s just that it’s overkill). They’ve made the Liberal label a deathblow – the sort of move you pull in a video game where you simultaneously hold down “A” and “fire” and jiggle the joystick – so much so that getting that label hung around your neck is the political equivalent to getting a “Kick Me” sign slapped on your back by sniggering junior high bullies.

Back when I was wearing my “ABB – Anybody But Bush” lapel pin on my work ID lanyard” I really was prepared to work and vote for whoever the Democratic party nominated for the 2004 Presidential election (note to conservatives, it’s not the “Democrat Party,” assholes, it’s the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, the party of DEMOCRACY)((Assholes.))

After the bloodbath election, which of course was controlled by Republican governors in those states where a large black vote needed to be suppressed by limiting the amount of polling stations in urban areas, sending out Rethugnicans in gay drag to picket near black churches and polling places with pro-gay-adoption signs, and using possibly-hackable definitely unreliable electronic voting machine (some made by the guy who promised to deliver the election for Bush), I decided I couldn’t support the Democratic process for nominating a candidate as it currently stood. I called for a revamped Grange movement, or perhaps a revived “mildly Protestant” Chatauqua movement, to take the ideals that Liberalism stands for back out into the hinterlands – tolerance, equality, civil rights for all, and service of the less fortunate. And in order to blunt that most-often-used wedge issue so beloved of the Religious Right, send out Brothers and Sisters of the Missionaries of the Queer Eye, on this entry dating from the day after the “mandate” that we though we’d win in a landslide:

So maybe nice gay people in fleets of tastefully decorated Winnebagoes ought to ply the rural byways of this land, offering cultural exchange, makeover tips, and banana bread. And we ALL, gay and straight, need to travel the world and reassure them that we’re not all religious zealots. I wanted for us Blue staters to get together with Red staters and get to know each other again, in order to form a more Purple union.

And maybe we should all drink more rooibos tea. We latte-sipping liberrrls could sure stand to cut back on the caffeine a little to reduce the stress.

So thanks, George Clooney. I’m not going to spell my label ironically any more – no more extra rrr’s to make it “funny” and kind of like “riot grrrls” and make the bullies laugh and not pick on me.

I am a Liberal too. I’m going to capitalize it, even. I am proud to be a lover of freedom and democracy and the Earth, and to be generous and to serve others in need of help.

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