Leftist Values [View all]

[H2O Man]

“ It is not enough to allow dissent. We must demand it. For there is much to dissent to.

“We dissent from the fact that millions are trapped in poverty, while the nation grows richer.

“We dissent from the conditions and hatreds which deny a full life to our fellow citizens because of the color of their skin.

“We dissent from the monstrous absurdity of a world where nations stand poised to destroy one another, and men must kill their fellow men.

“We dissent from the sight of mankind living in poverty, stricken by disease, threatened by hunger, and doomed to an early death after a life of unremitting labor.

“We dissent from the willful, heedless destruction of natural pleasure and beauty.

“We dissent from all these structure -- of technology and of society itself -- which strip from the individual the dignity and warmth of sharing in the common tasks of his community and his country.”
-- Senator Robert F. Kennedy; October 22, 1966; Berkeley.


Last week, I posted an OP on DU:GD, about “party loyalty.” The essay documented fifty years of “leftists” being loyal to the Democratic Party, and several examples of the party’s right-wing behaving otherwise in those same years. The response from others here made for -- at least in my opinion -- one of the more interesting discussions here recently. I thought that maybe we could keep it going.

I would like to take the opportunity to discuss some of the values that I associate with leftists. I started with the above quote from RFK, for a couple of reasons. First, they help to define some of the values of the left ; even though Robert Kennedy was still in the middle of the process of evolving, after the murder of his brother, he knew that “business as usual“ no longer worked. And second, that RFK was the type of candidate that the left embraces, along with most Americans.

We’re not looking for a super hero President to do it all for us. No, we’re looking for the type of leadership that works with us. We recognize that moderate-to-conservative Democrats are more likely to either hold office, or work for someone who does, than those of us on the left. But we are far more likely to be the ones who went door-to-door, who ran the phone banks, and did the grass roots campaigning that won the elections that made their jobs possible. Thus, if we are on the same team, working towards common goals, we can accomplish a lot.

We’re not living in the past. Those issues that Senator Kennedy was speaking of, almost 50 years ago, are still the areas of valid concerns. They apply to now. And we think it is unrealistic to believe that we can continue to ignore them, today and tomorrow, without tragic consequence. We dissent from the idea that we are obligated to support the very policies that are currently invested in war and violence; for surely, warfare and violence are not the proper form of conflict resolution in today’s world.

During his 1968 campaign for the presidency, RFK appeared on Face the Nation, and said, “I am dissatisfied with our society. I suppose I am dissatisfied with my country.” We feel that same dissatisfaction today. It is not that we believe the people in our society is incapable of doing great Good: when there are tragic events, for example, neighborhoods and communities come together, to provide care and support for those in need.

Yet, as RFK wrote, in an op-ed to the NY Times: “Once we thought, with Jefferson, that we were the ‘best hope’ of all mankind. But now we seem to rely on our wealth and power.” The flip-side to our compassionate society is a corporate state, a military-industrial-congress complex, that is addicted to warfare. It destroys the potential for Good to take deep root in our society. It crushes human beings.

At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the left questioned if the US had become a police state. Today, the domestic police forces have been militarized to an extent that, when coordinated with the national military-intelligence organizations, result in our being a military-police state. We are dissatisfied with politicians who allow this to happen. We dissent from the forces that seek to trample the Bill of Rights.

I remember that in the summer of 2004, in a post on this forum, that I said that I had serious doubts that our constitutional democracy could survive another four years of Bush-Cheney. One of the moderates here responded by suggesting that I was being a drama queen. Now, a decade later, I suspect that more than a few leftists would agree with what I wrote. The US is feared, but not respected. Democracy does not appear to be spreading throughout the Middle East, as the neoconservatives promised. Too many people remain poor; too many people are one pay check away from poverty. The environment is continuing to be destroyed. The levels of anxiety, fear, hatred, and violence saturate our cities and suburbs and towns.

In my opinion, the one area where the differences between the “wings” of the Democratic Party are most easily identified on DU:GD -- and currently, on a daily basis -- is in the discussions of which candidate, or type of candidate, folks want to represent the Democratic Party in 2016. And that’s not to suggest that only moderate-to-right-wing Democrats support Hillary Clinton. Or that virtually no one on the left does. But the differences certainly are evident in many of the discussions here.

Speaking only for myself -- obviously -- I believe that we need candidates (not only for the White House, but for Congress and state offices as well) who will speak as directly and honestly as RFK did in the last two years of his life. We face severe problems, and the times require the potential of real change. Senator Kennedy was honest about that. Both those who supported and opposed him trusted that he believed what he was saying. That quality seems rare these days.

Peace,
H2O Man