At Long Last Have They No Decency?

At Long Last Have They No Decency?: "The left and center-left need to find rhetoric that allows them to strike at Republican abuses, without being shrill recitations of old conflicts. Dean tried rhetoric that is really out of the civil rights era, and Durbin older rhetoric from World War II. But the reactionaries are not hold over segregationists, nor are they totalitarians of the stripe we saw goose stepping around the world in the mid-20th century. They are a unique threat, and must be called by their proper name, one to which they, and no one else, answer to.



"The flip side of this is the need to find a positive rhetoric. The reactionaries have their vision of a take no shit, take no prisoners, god fearing disciplined society. The kind of America that has a super bowl winning military that everyone cheers, and plenty of free beer. It is a simple vision of America that appeals to experiences in popular culture and personal daily life. The left does not have a corresponding vision of America, and therefore it is difficult for it to promote its own ideas, and even more difficult for it to attack the crass 'shit kicker' America that cheers on torture in Guantanamo Bay from the cover of Time Magazine.



"The time to do this is running out. America is going to want answers soon, and if it cannot find them from the Democrats, it will find them in some right leaning supposed maverick, such as John McCain. Someone who will tell America that a few reforms around the edges will solve everything, and the only thing we really need to do is get those boots resoled."



One key problem with the "Coming Storm" is the meterological metaphor allows for passivity. But, in this storm, people and politicians "ARE" the wind, the rain and the thunder.