I've been here on DU since 2011 officially, but I lurked for a few years before that. I'm a radical.

70 next month and I am all out of fucks to give!

This OP will probably be torn to shreds.

I'm with you

Just like you, I see nothing worth shredding.

and for the most part refrain from posting on DU what I can and do routinely post on FB. The pearl clutchers and vapor havers are just not worth it. But that's just me.

I'm just a little younger than you guys.

My wife joined in the early 2000's. I read a lot of posts before I joined because I'm tired of the "go along get along" crowd.

my DU name, but I would venture to say that I've sacrificed more in the fight for what's right than most others, even here on DU, which is why I don't cater to thinking we have to make nice with some Rs. Welcome.

I've always voted for a Democrat, but I have a lot of people I know on the left don't. My view is that third parties are doomed under the rules we have as a country on voting and representation. I'm also old and have seen a little glimmer of hope latelyof the Democrats waking up.

You are not radical in my eyes. You are sitting in the right place of caring and taking action.

We need 'radical' from everyone. Is Greta Thurnberg radical? No, she is spot on.

But common sense in its purest form.

Call me a radical centrist! Stuff we label "radical" can be identified as sensible and wise in countries where entertainment hasn't't usurped the citizens' brains.

I tell my 19 yr old who has come of age surrounded by a number of Trump-loving teenagers: "It's not about Left vs Right, it's about rational vs irrational."

then he told me what he thinks are moderate positions.

Here on DU, he'd be labeled a radical or ultra-liberal far lefty...just like his mother.

be united in one singular purpose - to defeat the Republican Party in all sectors of government.

I'm 71 as well and have watched as this administration reversed the effects of some of my hard work in the environmental field for many, many years. But I'm still very proud of that work, as it saved many lives. So, I hang on to that legacy with joy but all the while being depressed over Rethug back-stepping with environmental policy.

We will again eventually right this drifting ship.........

Congratulations on your years of helping to right the wrongs of humans that pollute our fragile planet....

but like all of us, I have my druthers.

Diversity of life should be among the highest priorities and values of an enlightened civilization.

The fact it is considered "radical" at the highest reaches of our government shows how much we have to overcome in saving this planetary lifeboat for future generations.

Politics is the art of the possible. We have to hold onto our highest values and long term goals while understanding the line between progress and overreach.

The term "radical environmentalist" was created to marginalize anyone who is a threat to the wealth and power derived from ravaging and polluting this Earth. Pushing too far beyond what the public is willing to accept can damage the movement.

The malefactors of great wealth have a megaphone for shaping public opinion while we have often struggled to be more than a voice in the wilderness. Progress has been made in the last half century and our current Democratic leaders have a strong message with some real policies for battling climate change.

We have to win elections, then hold them to fulfilling their message by implementing policies which make a difference.

Ultimately, real progress has to be made in the hearts and minds of our fellow citizens in a culture dominated by commercialism and hedonistic consumption.

Dedicated people like yourself are essential for grass roots progress while enlightened leadership is needed on the national level.

Time is running out. We have to win in 2020, then move forward from there.

Democrats have sat back and let the Republicans do their politics with passion and LOST. Being tepid is a formula for FAILURE.

Being tepid will get us nowhere!

I believe the purer the democracy we practice, the faster we can impress the hearts and minds of those not yet informed of the personal and familial benefits of being able to eat, drink water, and grow food. 😉

I believe in having elected representatives, but our electoral system is corrupted by the legal bribery of campaign finance and the lack of rational civil discourse in our major media.

organized around a teach and preach, top down structure. This equal status is maintained at levels all the way to leaders selected in one person one vote government funded elections which allow 0 corporate or personal money to infect the process. That sort of thing. Anything that will make government fully participatory and more difficult to corrupt.

One of my major concerns is our government bouncing from one extreme to the other with little consistency of policy, and not just with environmental concerns - also with economic, justice, commerce and immigration rules and regulations.

Both our international partners and our corporations like consistency in policy so they can make long-term plans. Republican extremists keep everything in turmoil and sometimes I believe they plan it that way.

Far too many humans on our planet are very short-sighted and care only about what happens in their little cultural bubble during their lifetimes.

KY.............

We need change, but in a consistent direction. The wild swings between D and R administrations is not good for our economy or alliances.

"Conservatism" used to mean resistence to radical change but the GOP has become radical rightwing, seeking to tear down rather than conserve.

Environmentally, they conserve nothing but the wealth and power of corporations.

Conserve is tantamount to demolish right now.

shade they will never recline.

Funny how many of us are either approaching 70 or older

at 53!

Then I remember I have an 11 year old...poor planning! LOL.

Those who care.

Sometimes great caring is painful and difficult to unwind from, especially in situations where we’re truly powerless. It can be frustrating.

...in the surprisingly traditional way "radical" environmentalism is defined, which is essentially a Luddite approach.

I believe that it is at the edge of feasibility to make a sustainable world without effectively requiring expanded poverty and blind and ultimately environmentally destructive asceticism. This in my view can only be achieved by respect for science and engineering, a quality lacking on both the left and right.

This makes me a dissident and in the purest sense of the word's real meaning, a radical, I think.

... eating US lunch by getting a head start.

I'm not sure what makes the OP a radical. Seeking a sustainable economy seems common sense to me, not radical.

Of course to Republicons anything that interferes with the next quarterly profits is radical.

...as wrong headed as can be imagined.

It is this type of poor but popular thinking that has resulted in the dramatic acceleration of climate change.

Again, my views, while increasingly popular in the scientific community are not politically popular.

So called "renewable energy" did not work, is not working and will not work to displace dangerous fossil fuels.

The German nuclear phase out is sheer stupidity driven by fear and ignorance.

Especially around the climate catastrophe.

and change in ways we can only now begin to understand, oh, and quite quickly.

I've voted Dem all my life for your same reasons.

I'm in my mid 50's, former NYC punk activist.

I've always slid hard left.

you meet me on the street and I appear to be mr. average guy, but beneath that veneer beats the heart of the punk that never left.

make me radically libral , so be it.

these days is actually rational and human. It has been people on the right and republican operatives who have tagged liberal ideas as radical and leftist, in an effort to conjure up images of dangerous and extreme communists. They do that to any group or idea that interferes with their objectives.

To me radical is when people are willing to use violence and destruction to further their agenda. In the sixties, radicals bombed buildings, robbed banks, and justified violence because their cause and revolution were for the greater good.

Caring about the environment is sane and reasonable. It wasn't really all that long ago that most republicans thought it was an important issue and Nixon proposed the establishment of the EPA. What is radical today is how a large percentage of the population advocate things that contradict everything we associate with America.

I'm inclined to believe that perhaps you are a very normal person in a very abnormal time.

Putting a higher priority on standard liberal positions on the environment doesn't make somebody a radical. Just as putting a higher priority on standard liberal positions on social welfare doesn't make you a leftist. I'm not entirely sure why some people try to claim that they're radical or leftist when they're not. Maybe they like the superficial aesthetics of radicalism.

I've known radical environmentalists. Ecofacists, to be exact. One was an old roommate that came from a dedication to traditional fascism and tacked on environmentalist positions as an expression of ideal (european) civilization. The other was an environmentalist that was disillusioned with liberal democracy and slowly came to believe that only a fascist state could protect the environment. Needless to say, neither should be within 100 yards of a policymaking body.

So when people say their politics are abhorrent and then demand a seat at the table, I'm inclined to oppose that without getting into whether they're accurately characterizing their political beliefs or not.

on the spectrum while demonizing others with emotive language can be a confusing byproduct of human egoism. Guilty, I guess. I can’t imagine thinking my own politics are abhorrent; I like who I am politically and endeavor to represent myself accurately. I’m enjoying the responses here, glad I brought it up.

I think in our passion, we often resort to superlatives, when most of what we are advocating is very sane and reasonable. I've been known to refer to myself as a "bleeding heart liberal", but really I'm just human trying to treat others the way I want to be treated.

I want clean air and water, good schools, affordable and accessible healthcare, safe neighborhoods, healthy food, decent housing, and honest representatives in government. And I want that for everyone else as well.

I think we've allowed the right's extreme descriptions of us over the past three decades take hold. Ironically in that time, we didn't become more extreme, but they most certainly did. And it all came to a head with the most extreme president in U.S. history. We are witnessing a real life example of "words matter".

seen its fair share of true radicals, but it is really ridiculous when the right labels reasonable and liberal ideas as radical. It is a scare tactic and it inflames their ignorant base.

I know what you mean about some radicals. It is often like they are radical just for the sake of being radical. I think they choose positions just for an excuse to be outrageous and even violent.

Maybe becoming more so. I'm getting sick and tired of the support I'm seeing for platitudes, working with Republicans, doing what's presently possible, avoiding things because the votes aren't there. I think these attitudes are causing Democrats to lose votes. I've been trying to say so.

Now, after eleven years on here without a blocked thread I can recall, DU doesn't seem welcoming of my opinions anymore. I've had three posts removed and been banned from a group in the past week just for sharing some constructive criticism. DU doesn't seem to value my input.

Maybe I don't identify with Democrats anymore. But I'm certainly not a Republican. Is there a party where Radical fits in?

Party) needs you. Don’t bail on the party. And don’t mistake DU for the party. The party is it’s members/it’s membership, not those who sometimes seem to lay claim to it.

Remember, though, DU is a refuge for Democrats to get away from lies and hostile attacks on the party, and there are rules enforcing that. There are plenty of other places to indulge opinions that are not acceptable here.

Btw, the only group I was ever banned from was the Sanders group in 2015, and that was by accident. I'm happy with special groups as subrefuges where people can go to agree and don't care to disturb them. But I was commenting on posts I ran into in "Latest Threads" and missing that I was critiquing (thoughtfully!) in a place where only groupthink and warm fuzzies were welcome. Mea culpa. Being banned fixed the problem for all of us.

I suppose at 71 I’m learning to moderate some. Perhaps. I see a singleness of purpose is needed right now until we move beyond the Orange Menace.

the Republican leadership federally and in many red states has become a lot more dangerous.

right(wrong)wingers I'm an old Marxist. In high school a teacher had us read Ayn Rand and it made sense to me. Then when I started college I got a factory job, read Marx and found he made more sense.

Earth First!
Spike Jones was my forest name.
BTW I never spiked any trees. I looked like the entertainer Spike Jones, and the name served dual purposes.

I'm a radical idealist. All one, peace and love type. I've had times when
I didn't live up to my beliefs, but I keep at it.

Luckily, we aren’t saints. Like you I keep at it.

I believe in being honest.
I believe in being fair.
I believe in being kind.
I believe in taking care of our environment
I believe in conserving the earths resources for future generations.
I believe in nourishing the each other and the planet.
I believe hate is evil
I believe having compassion is being human, lack of compassion is inhuman.

I guess that makes me a radical.

I think radical may be our only option.

at least with the environmental clock nearly at midnight.

Thanks for asking.

And I think the environment is our most critical issue!

wildlife, I guess I am too a proud Democrat/Liberal.

I'm in your age group as well. I feel when we were younger our views were the views of Democrats, but our party has become much more moderate to conservative over the decades (of Rush, and Sikes, and FOX). But I will always vote Democratic FTW, like you.

and further to my right. I don’t believe it’s simply my lefty perception either.

I think the term liberal Democrat should be redundant. I constantly hear the term progressive. IMO, that's people that have been frightened by the right to say liberal. They have demonized liberal and too many of us have backed down.

Now the PTB are pulling out all the stops to keep us from nominating a real liberal. The I got mine types are afraid of how much support a liberal will get.

I wish the party PTB would realize that restrained, demure uncertainty will not rally votes. Powerful, intelligent, imaginative new solutions, expressed with confidence and enthusiasm, will win the day. I’d like to see every candidate full throatedly committed to the Friday strikes on the 20th and the 27th, walking up front, speaking out in support of Greta and her followers.

Let the purges begin.

I'm just kidding, OK. This is actually a great thread and I love the responses.

I'm a big tent Democrat who believes that every country is a mix of economic and social policies and that America needs more Harrington-style socialism and much, much less adoration of the dollar and the elites who endlessly crave them.

Radicals are such a small percentage of the overall population that they have no hope of achieving their goal by the democratic process so they must seek to impose their goals upon people and if successful that doesn't result in democracy.

Here in America, if we are living in reality we would know that there are tens of millions of Americans, maybe up to 40% of the population who are conservatives, Trump supporters, who hate anything that even hints of being Liberal. If Democrats, much less radicals, were to take over control of our government, what would we do with them?
Reeducation camps? It's more likely there would be a civil war which usually is not good for democracy either.
But hey, we've got to keep those who are not with the program in line some way, don't we?

I'm 67 and I'm a moderate Democrat, one of those who get disparaged and put-down by the more liberal as being a "DINO" or "Republican Lite".
I've voted for and supported Democrats for 47 years now and will vote for the Democratic Party nominee next year even if it's that guy who is not a Democrat.

So I'm not a radical, never will be. There has to be at least one to break up this mutual admiration thread.

And, destruction is what we are witnessing right now. New ideas across the board putting the 99% in absolute control of their own destiny with smaller, lateral, governing bodies, who see all problems through the lens of Climate Catastrophe, is the beginning of our next generations having a chance.

Who do you view to be radical and why?

looking back...the takeover at Columbia, the SDS at Harvard confronting McManara and Dow, the bombing at UWMadison, the American Indian Movement takeover at Wounded Knee and etc that's radical to me.

I spent a month picking up rubbish in the tidal swamps of New Zealand as an "eco-tourist" It was more fun than radical in my opinion.
radical environmentalists would be those that spike trees to stop logging or block whaling ships and such

While I won’t argue the merits of what is thought of as “traditional radicalism” I must say that I refuse, as best I can, to harm or endanger life or its environments. Of course, in our modern societies, our best can only be barely good enough.

Who fights for their right to bitch?

I think of radical as you have defined it, taking unconventional or illegal steps to get a result.

In the context of politics, the only radicals I see today are radical Republicans who tamper with voting machines (illegal), draw illegal gerrymanders, hold votes in the middle of the night unannounced, and reinstate ugly Jim Crow laws to suppress minority votes. That's RADICAL!

It's NOT radical to want to ban your neighbor from owning a machine gun designed to kill humans, or wanting everyone to be treated medically without debt using our tax dollars. Or to extend public school on the front end for two or four years like we've done with 3K and 4K. None of this is radical. It's progress.

I have been shoved in radical left to center boxes for being a feminist, for being a Democrat, for being anti-racist. For environmentalism. For being a Social Justice Warriors-(like that’s a BAD thing) Admittedly, I didn’t become a Democrat until George W. Before that I voted socialist or some other far left “radical” third party.

For strongly supporting Hillary Clinton.

I’m not defining myself or my politics by rapidly shifting goalposts or the idea that basic human rights and the care of our planet is “radical”. Or the idea that love is love, and gender is fluid. Or that racism is a driving force behind modern politics and economics.

I’ll tell you attempting to discuss Whiteness as a concept will reveal how “radical” people really want to be.

I’m going to stay a Democrat and a Feminist, an anti-racist, an environmentalist and one who was on the right side of history given this current political fiasco.

Probably further left and bit more radical, BUT it's for the grand-kids and ALL youngsters today! Democrats are the ONLY ones that give a shit! TY for this thread!

identifying proudly, btw.

Sounds to me like you're a positive builder-type radical as in always wanting "more" and willing to look "outside the box" for solutions. Not dysfunctional radical as in must revolt to destroy the establishment, give me a bad leader and I will chew off my leg to spite my tail type.

I've never called myself radical even, or especially, when I was surrounded by radicals in radical times. I am a strong progressive liberal committed to properly using the power of establishment created by the people to serve them, but there should be some overlap. I've always been open to supposedly "radical" when that just means positive, innovative solutions and striving for the more and better we always know is possible.

In this era, though, older myself, I believe our nation's biggest problem that must be fixed is our divided electorate. We have fallen. That's entirely different from other times when I would never have guessed that someday I would believe so strongly in the need to rebuild the broken center I never considered myself part of that I would measure everything else by its contribution to that.

After all, even turning the government to the enormously existential climate crisis requires first getting the power to do it. And that requires engaging the will of the people.

I proudly adopted the mantle. I’ve been much happier ever since. I’m a radical compassionist and environmentalist. I believe in civil disobedience and direct action. I’m also in total agreement with your last paragraph. Thanks for sharing. I am also enjoying the posts here bigly.

Our candidate Must be radical to make change happen....We cannot allow another hope candidate...We have to have a Change candidate...

it wasn't much of a thing anyway. The mods here have always been strict and organized. You can't really say anything more controversial than the juries allow. But it's all quite fair and democratic as far as I can tell. I just do everything I can to not get alerted on. And I kind of hate myself for that. I've been here since 2001, and some fights you just know in advance will go nowhere.

I am upset about the number and type of subjects we are not allowed to discuss at all here.Since the beginning, in 2001. The sad fact is we are living in a world (not necessarily DU) where perception is managed by huge faceless interests superior to the populace, and if you don't see the funny monkey dance they're broadcasting, then you are an outsider and there's nothing you can do about it. 9/11 changed everything, as they say, but for gods sake never mention the mechanics of the event. Unless you go to the Dungeon. Nice image for a democracy but ha ha it's all in good fun. The official story will not be challenged in that case.

Self censorship is just an act of maturity and prudence in a public forum which is no doubt under FBI surveillance (Hi, Agent Mike! We call them Agent Mike) at the least.

While I don't welcome our alien overlords, I sure don't ignore them, even if they were born in Queens and look like a helium inflated roast pig suit. We need to be friends with everybody for our own survival. The environment is beyond our control, and the next very few years will be harsher than we can prepare ourselves for

However, I would still say that there are a lot of radicals participating in civil discourse here, and they get away with a lot. There is no other place so friendly and conversational and informative, all in one place. The navigation and web design are superb. So enjoy. At least it's not Daily Kos.

And, yes it is quite difficult to moderate what I really want to say sometimes. But, I’m learning to follow our guidelines. “Maturity and prudence”. I meet with a group of folks most mornings who claim they’ve passed from infancy to senility without ever passing through maturity.😉

Always to the left of almost everyone.
Hello fellow radical. Pleased to meet you.

Mental illness and equally for all. I'm as radical as you can get.

I can’t send you private messages yet so right now I’m an activist in Schroedinger’s box.