I'm not in a constant state of self-righteous indignation. Can I cut it as a Progessive?

[Frank Booth]

I always thought of myself as a "liberal," but this whole "progressive" thing seems so much cooler.

Problem is, I don't consider every decision made by Barack Obama a personal insult or a slap in the face. I'm starting to worry I just don't have the constitution to be a progressive. Is this something I can learn? Can anyone offer any advice?

[jobycom]

1. If you are offended by everything or by nothing Obama does

you may lack a bit in the area of objectivity, is my basic rule of thumb. However, I only feel comfortable applying that to myself.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

2. Let me guess, you're straight, aren't you?

And, it's pretty safe to assume that you're not a woman, since you're named Walter.

So basically, you have yours, so you don't see what the problem is.

[thoughtcrime1984]

4. Broad brush much?

Wow.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

5. Well, considering Warren is homophobic, sexist, and anti-semitic

I figure it's pretty safe to say that people falling under those groups, would be rightfully pissed off.

[Frank Booth]

13. Well, I don't like the Warren choice at all.

Unfortunately, I think Obama has done a pretty good job putting his cabinet together. Not perfect -- but I'm also not apoplectic about it.

I realize that if I'm aspiring to be a true progressive I should be feeling an uncontrollable rage toward Obama right about now. And I'm just not feeling it. It's quite discouraging. Looks like I can't hang with the cool kids yet again. :(

[tsuki]

33. You forgot Misogynistic. nt

[ROh70]

36. Warren is also anti-atheist, anti-buddhist, anti-muslim, anti-racial minorities

and so all those people are rightfully pissed off and outraged at Obama as well.

[LostinVA]

39. Why look, it's the just-banned Renegade08's sockpuppet!

A PM he just sent me:

Really mature of you.
From: ROh70
Date: Dec-18-08 09:04 AM
This is Renegade08. I'm sure you played a large role in my banning at this forum, so congrats. You got your way.

But, take a big look in the mirror, because you can be a real jerk, but apparently, because you have a lot of posts you can get away with it.

For example, starting a thread just to gloat about having me kicked off the board? Very adult of you. Actually, no, it's not, it's petty and self-righteous of you.

Just watch out, because I won't be responding to you with this username. But, I will be watching your posts carefully, and I will alert the moderators whenever I see clear evidence that you are violating forum rules. That is, of course, unless you try to get this username banned as well, which I won't put past someone like you.

I'll alert you as well when I see an abusive post of yours attacking someone because they disagree with your divisive, ideological, purist, and sanctimonious BS. Maybe you won't look at yourself in the mirror, well, then I hold a mirror to your virtual face until you can't deny the truth from yourself.

Happy holidays. Renegade08/Roh70

[Zuiderelle]

45. !!!!

:rofl:

[jberryhill]

16. Walter Sobchak is a character from The Big Lebowski /nt

[NatBurner]

42. she's obviously not a golfer.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

64. Shut the fuck up, Donny. nt

[Speck Tater]

3. It's simple, really.

Just remember that everyone is a sell-out, everyone stabs you in the back, everyone has an evil streak that takes control of them once they are elected to office, and everyone is working against the will of the people, who are, of course, better represented by "progressives" than by mere "liberals".

Oh, and disagree with everybody about everything. That one is key.

[babylonsister]

6. Not me. I'm going for what will work, and that remains to be seen.

I do have "HOPE". Yea, sucks to be me. :)

[elleng]

7. Dunno,

my daughter told me I've ALWAYS been progressive!

[scheming daemons]

8. Sorry, Walter. You don't cut it.

If you aren't constantly pissed at "the man", even when "the man" is one of us, you should just turn in your badge.


You're no progressive sheriff.

[EFerrari]

9. Well, have you had your pulse checked lately? Might be a place to start.

[Political Tiger]

10. Being a victim seems to be important

for some who call themselves "progressive." To me, progressive means moving forward, not wallowing in the past, and that's just what I am going to do!

[scheming daemons]

12. Exactly. n/t

[EFerrari]

14. Sucking up to right wing bigots is not forward motion.

And calling people on their bs is not victimhood.

[LostinVA]

30. I LOVE the "being a victim" meme when people want equal rights

:eyes:

That's soooooo 1954.

[bettyellen]

31. caring abou civil rights is wallowing in the past? what an asinine and not progressive)thing to say.

[GreenPartyVoter]

38. I'll try to clear that up for you. See, it's bad enough they have to bring religion into the whole

inauguration thing, but that they couldn't find an open-minded pastor _anywhere_ in the USA is mind-boggling to me. Maybe they just didn't look very hard? Or maybe they don't care how their choice comes across in the GLBT community? So yes, it was an insensitive choice.

And yeah, some of us on the left are fuming about Obama's other choices because we're seeing a lot of "new boss old boss" schtick there. And as far as "Unity" goes the fact that he doesn't seem to have room in his cabinet or anywhere else for even a handful of liberals and progressives to me undermines the whole message of Unity in the first place.

HOPE: I had it, for a little while. :(

[LanternWaste]

41. not wallowing in the past, recognizing the present

Sometimes people are victims. And although I realize that saying "playing the victim" wears well for melodramatic and rhetorical purposes, there is I believe, a rather undeniable truth-- many segments of our population are still victimized in the here and now.

That's not wallowing in the past... rather, it's recognizing the present. Gays and Lesbians, Undocumented Workers, the Homeless, the Poor, the Transient, etc, are this very day being denied access to quality medical care, or fundamental civil rights, or protection, etc.

While I think it's quite laudable that you are "moving forward" (whatever the heck that's supposed to mean), I think that positive position of yours is dramatically offset by your implication that one is either a victim or a fighter (as one can quite easily be both).

Dismissive attitudes towards actual victims are not what I myself would consider part and parcel of calling oneself a Progressive.

[BlooInBloo]

11. Nope. sorry. Anyone with even a sliver of happiness in their lives is disqualified....

EDIT: As are all those for whom it's possible to contemplate something being shitty, without it being THESHITTIESTTHINGEVERIMAGINABLEEVENWORSETHANTHEHOLOCAUST.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. There's no hope for you. Self-immolation is the answer.

[boppers]

17. Do you have issues you care about?

Without mocking or insulting the issues of others?

edit: homonym typo

[rvablue]

18. Kucinich is the answer to every question.......

:sarcasm:

[The Doctor.]

19. If you are not properly outraged, then you are a bigot/racist/homophobe,

and cannot possibly be a Progressive.

It was clear that the decisions made by Barack Obama were a deliberate slap in the face and every cabinet selection or personal choice that ever expressed distaste for anyone else was clearly a message to everyone that he hated whoever his appointments did not support in one way or another.

That includes Jews, Gays, Palestinians, Women, Men, Hispanics, and all non-Christians... among others.

So there.

[mwei924]

24. And people wonder why Democrats throw away perfectly good election seasons..

..I guess it's cause we call everyone who don't agree evil racist bigots. It's no better than the conservatives when they call people who oppose the war the "Blame America First" crowd or anti-military.

I don't like Rick Warren either. And in a perfect world, not only would the guy not exist, but someone like him wouldn't have a giant following in this country. But it's not easy getting rid of 30% of the country.

[gaspee]

20. Let me see

So you're saying that we LGBT people are wrong to take Rick Warren, a man who worked actively to suppress our rights and equates us to pedophiles and incest and says we choose to be sinners, as a personal insult? The LGBT community, who, by the way, supported Obama somewhere in the 75% range.

You're saying that women, who Rick Warren thinks should be subservient to men (actually property, if you want to be biblical) and that women should sacrifice their very lives for a clump of cells growing inside of them... you're saying him being given a prominent place in the inauguration of a man whom we supported by a majority (whereas men did not) should not be taken as a slap in the face?

What the fuck are you smoking? Or are you just a straight guy who has no clue?

I'm voting for number 2

[mwei924]

21. I guess not. Being a progressive requires a constant state of outrage.

[judasdisney]

22. Bogus premise -- all indignation is "self-righteous" sayeth Sobchak, under a bridge

[LostinVA]

23. If you can't be outraged by the Warren pick, then I think you're not a liberal OR a Progressive

And also lack compassion and empathy, and probably shouldn't be on DU.

Your snark is insulting, know that?

[wyldwolf]

25. Walter... it's a cult

The Cult of Perpetual Outrage.

And even when something calls for a certain amount of outrage (like this Warren thing), it's hard to take the cult's outrage seriously because they show an equal amount of it about damn near everything.

[quaker bill]

26. I would advise not learning it

To avoid learning this one needs to abandon any sense of entitlement related to one's vote or political contributions, to understand that a great many of the 69 million people that were needed to pull this off do not share all your values and thoughts on issues, whatever they may be. Then one needs to accept this as normal and entirely ok.

Freud once was noted to have said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". All things chosen are not symbolic of an underlying ideology or a compromise of such. This is as true for me as it is for anyone.

Over my decades as a Quaker and related peace and social justice activism, I have been in a number of "who is the true progressive / liberal" contests. I have this to say, I protested Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, I worked for Gore, Kerry, and Obama. I am still here, others are not.

[rucky]

27. It has more to do with individual personalities than ideology.

and from the responses on this thread, there's plenty of centrists with chips on their shoulders, as well.

[wyldwolf]

35. exactly right! It's a personality type, not an ideological one

[mmonk]

28. So progressives are self righteous unless they agree with everything?

[stray cat]

29. Thank you for voting Dem eventhough you are clealy not progressive

:sarcasm: I vote dem as well but am clearly not a "real progressive"

[bettyellen]

32. this thread is disgusting in it's condesending.. offensive, divisve and NOT PROGRESSIVE.

walter you sound like a selfish prick.

[bunkerbuster1]

34. No. Turn in your decoder ring to the hall monitor.

And burn your Birkenstocks.

[crispini]

37. The dude runs a church where women aren't allowed to be bosses.

THIS is who Obama chooses to deliver his invocation? Fuck that noise.

Seriously, consider doing some consciousness-raising exercises on the struggles of women and the LGBT community in this country. Maybe then you'll have some understanding for why people are feeling offended.

[Odin2005]

40. I find people that are constantly looking for BS to be outraged about annoying.

That's why I started supporting Obama in the first place, he criticized this BS political culture of outrage created by Baby Boomer culture warriors over the 70s, 80s, and 90s that have poisoned out politics.

[cwydro]

43. You also seem to be in possession of a sense of humor.

This is forbidden.

[DevonRex]

44. If you've never screamed "homophobe!!" at anyone you're not a progressive.

Apparently.

[Zuiderelle]

46. This choice IS a slap in the face.

Just because it's not YOUR face, doesn't make it right.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DevonRex]

62. WHY THE FUCK IS THIS POST STILL HERE?????????????

Am I the only person who alerted on it? And if so, something is awfully, terribly, horrifically wrong here.

[JamesA1102]

48. The difference between a liberal and a progressive.

A liberal by definition keeps an open mind while a progressive has a closed mind and can't see beyond their ideology.

[LostinVA]

49. I would LOVE a link to that definition --I doubt it exists

[JamesA1102]

51. The entire DU these days is a link. nt

[LostinVA]

55. Nope, not an answer: link please?

[JamesA1102]

68. OK

Link

[wyldwolf]

53. here ya go

link

[Jennicut]

50. Yesterday I felt like a right winger

Today I just feel like nothing.

[DevonRex]

60. And I guess it's okay now to tell people to die here.

Look up a few posts. I alerted but who knows?

[Jennicut]

61. I don't know what to think.

You can't really ask questions or make observations here anymore without being told off.

[Binka]

67. For Fuck Sake The OP Was Asking How To Get Into A Different Place

Maybe if you stick around DU for a bit you'll get the hang of it. We don't all have to use the "sarcasm" thingy to make our points known. Sheesh

[ljm2002]

52. You know, ...

...just because people post here that they are outraged about this that or the other thing, does not mean they are in a "constant state" of outrage.

This is a political discussion board. People who post here, tend to post their political views. People who post on political discussion boards tend to have strong political views. And they tend to express them, often, in strong terms. Imagine that.

Then when they leave the keyboard they are just regular people, not people who are in a constant of outrage. They still hold their political views, but have their day-to-day lives as well.

On the other hand, people who do not have strong political views seem to think they are somehow morally superior. And in fact, they have strong views about that -- to the point of smugness, even.

Which is odd.

[LostinVA]

56. Such a good, thoughtful post

[Bluebear]

57. This is an EXCELLENT post.

[rockymountaindem]

59. Right on n.t

[Frank Booth]

65. Or maybe some people are just capable of realizing that Barack Obama, just like any other

human being -- even Dennis Kucinich -- will make some good decisions and some bad decisions?

Personally, I think the Rick Warren choice was horrible. But I think that some of Obama's other decisions have been pretty good. Maybe I'm just too dumb to realize that Obama is an awful, evil person.

[ljm2002]

66. So, because we recognize that he is a human being...

...who will make some good decisions and some bad decisions, we should STFU when we think he's made a bad decision?

Not gonna happen.

If you would like to adopt that method, feel free.

[bvar22]

54. If your personal philosophy is not founded on IDEALS,

If there are no ISSUES for which you will STAND UP,

If there are no lines you will not cross,

If "Whatever is In the Middle" is good enough for you,

If you are proud to claim that you are Half-Republican (Centrist),

If you condemn others as "Purists" while demanding Purity to your Political Ideology (Centrism),

Then NO, you are probably not a Progressive/Liberal.


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[polichick]

58. This thread is self-righteous - get over yourself.

[LostinVA]

63. I like it when we're on the same side