General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The Snowdon Controversy on DU [View all]patrice
(47,992 posts)remark about "the professional Left" early in PO's first term.
There is a great and very dangerous assumption in thinking that everyone who disagrees with the anti-Obama cohort is a blind robot in love with Barack Obama and heedless of the necessity of fundamental change in this country. To me that change so far exceeds party that it can only be approached culturally and reactionary divisiveness distracts and delays that process. We mustn't confuse the labels, any of the labels, with the thing that we need to engage, because if we do we are very likely just to repeat the same OLD mistakes.
Some of us are working on broader cultural changes, for which we have some rational justifications for expectations that this administration could still, directly or indirectly, advance. I guess you could say we are more about process and less about the person than many people give us credit for.
I'm very tired of being categorized as a hostile by people with whom I actually do agree to some extent and they don't even ask or engage in any kind of exploration of someone they don't apparently understand. I know that I ask for that to the extent to which I engage in any negative analysis, but if we're going to change anything we NEEEEEEEED to be honest. There are positives and negatives to everything, so it does no more good to idolize Manning or Snowden or ____________ than it does to idolize Obama.
I think we should be less about abstractions, especially those so divorced from concrete effects; it takes more than calling something a "principle" to make it worthwhile for as many people as possible. This is why we should be more about what is happening and how things are accomplished and what might be possible if we agreed to lay off of the divide and conquer behaviors.