I Make Fight Musings

It's true what Atrios says with such brilliant succinctness. And, I suppose, I've been guilty of a similar attitude myself at times. Although when the bleakness of despair washes over me I'm more inclined to pull the figurative covers over my head and let the world pass me by rather than try to drag everyone else down through the looking glass and into the mire beneath the thin veneer of civility and optimism that I and I alone have seen. But that's because my initial impulse when the going gets hard is always to opt out. Of the problemm, of the solution, of the whole thing. Which is exactly my problem with Atrios's post because he encourages exactly that kind of behavior. We don't need the pessimists to opt out and disenfranchise themselves. The progressive, the liberal message should be one of empowerment through inclusion. We need to find a way to encourage those who look around and see the ashes instead of the sprouts starting to rise through the blackened old growth. To get them involved, to get them motivated, and to get them doing the something that will make them feel like differences can be made and they are, in fact, helping to make one. To do otherwise is to buy into the 50%+1 strategy, the model of politics as endless warfare pushing ever downwards towards the margins.

After all, I'm as defeatest as they come. I'm so far mired in despair and depression that I'm defeated. That's exactly why I read political sites and follow the news and everything else besides just go out and have some hedonistic fun. Things are wrong and something needs to be done. And I pay attention because I'm hoping to find out what to do. And, I think, I'm not the only one who wants to engage but can't figure out how or where to go about it. Just that I and a lot of other people really need to.