It's time for this destructive meme about shutting up during elections to stop,

[tama]

97. If this forum serves any useful function

from the point of view of progressive values and policies, that main function is sharing information and ideas, members educating each other and as we leftists say, "raising political consciousness" of the working class, which is us. Some people also make new friends here, which builds what we call "social capital". Agitators and propagandists from every field having arguments and discussion, and some of that does rub on slow by slow, rational reasoning especially when spoken with heart in the right place does have an effect, slow by slow people start to understand different view points and underlying causes of our common problems better, without having to agree on all issues, but agreeing that variety of opinion is a strength, not a weakness.

There is also a small but vocal group of people who instead of discussing the issues from progressive point of view concentrate on personal attacks demanding absolute and uncritical loyalty for the Beloved Leader, and when they do offer their opinions about the issues, those tend to be from the right wing edge of this forum. Much closer to political positions of Rmoney and Republican party than the great variety of progressive voices and opinions they seek to silence.