AN ANGRY RANT

This will be a quintessentially typical blog posting. I am going to react to Paul Klugman's op ed column today without having read it! I figure this qualifies me as a true pundit. By the way, before I begin, I hope you caught my son, Tobias, on Lou Dobbs' show, defending gay marriage and talking about the repeal of DOMA. He has guts, going on Dobbs.

So here goes.

I saw but did not read Krugman's column. Look -- it was never in the cards that Obama was going to govern from the left, and the fight he has had getting any sort of reasonable health care reform makes it clear why. I think progressives are being self-indulgent and foolish. If they don't think Obama's policies and actions are liberal enough, they should get off their behinds and put political pressure on their Reps and Senators to move to the left. THEN Obama will, I am quite sure, happliy shift to the left.

Remember, every hour of every day, Emmanuel and the political honchos are counting votes, trying to figure out where they will get a majority that can push through what they want. I for one do not want to see Obama stake out dramatic left wing positions and then fail to get them through Congress. That might feel good for ten minutes, but it would accomplish nothing.

I am really very angry about the passive, pundit-like sit-on-the-sidelines commentariat that is constantly judging whether Obama is left enough, but never creating the on the ground conditions that will make possible meaningful reform.

Remember what I said on my blog. When it is all over, it will be a major victory, but it will not be enough, and we are just going to have to recognize that and move on to the next fight.

An historical reminder: In 1905, after working in the underground for years and years, Stalin and the other Communists finally had their revolution -- and it failed. They didn't give up. They went right back into the underground and worked for twelve more years, not knowing [as we do in hindsight] that they would eventually succeed.

We need something of that commitment and will, if we are to undo what Bush and the Republicans have foisted o this country, and are to make good on the promise of the Obama election. Once again, I remind you what candidate Obama said: We are the change we have been waiting for. That means that it is we who must make the change, and not sit like children waiting for a parent to hand it to us like candy.

So much for radical rage. Tomorrow, I shall go back to the story of USSAS.