Dear friends! Have you never heard the saying "Two steps forward, one step back"?

[struggle4progress]

We have just seen a beautiful mainstream political campaign done correctly, and it has carried us somewhat forward

But of course no one of sound mind expected the Kingdom of Heaven to follow -- for that Kingdom may only arrive in our dreams

Many of us, after being recently depressed for many years, finally learned something about fighting back with realistic analysis and concrete action

When we won, a euphoria naturally followed; but euphoria cannot replace realistic analysis and concrete action

Election Day may have changed our mood: it did not change "the facts on the ground"

The owners of the machinery for mass producing consciousness will continue to use that machinery to serve their own interests, either directly or by diverting attention from critical issues

The same economic forces, that produced masses of establishment propagandists and lobbyists last year and the year before, exist today: did anyone really expect them simply to evaporate after an election?

Unsurprisingly, what will follow a mainstream political campaign is -- mainstream politics

So having taken two steps forward, we predictably take a step back

Our opponents will try to force us to take two or three steps back, and then they will want us to take two or three more steps back, and after that they will again try to force us back a few more steps

Do not place blame here at the feet of Barack Obama, who (however brilliant he be) is only one man, seeking to contribute the government of a raw and roiling country of some three hundred million people: from him, we should expect that he make the effort to try to do what is right only so far as he can discern it and only so far as he can see a realistic path to it

Our present task is not really to convey our opinions about what should be done -- because, frankly, as we should all know by now, nobody gives a tinker's dam what your opinion is or what mine is

Our actual task at this moment is craft a real political movement, that reaches out to the broader public, agitating them, getting them involved, educating them and allowing them to educate us, and then organizing for particular definite political objectives

Only in this way can we push the President and the Congress in the right direction: if we fail to do this, the unsleeping armies of lobbyists will exert their influences without any counter influence ,and the country will again seem to drift towards the right

We cannot expect to win all of our fights, but we can hope to learn from our failures so that future successes become more likely, and (if we do our job honestly and well) we will certainly recruit and train new generations of activists, who will be better prepared and more effective than we ourselves were

Having won a victory at the beginning of November, let us not sit upon our hands groaning in dismay: let us try to win several more immediately

[The Traveler]

1. A very lucid and reasoned thesis

And I agree completely. K&R

Trav

[knowbody0]

2. excellent

thank you for these wise words