" And If someone comes at me, I will knock them out!"

[patrice]

9. See? That's what I have been trying to explain to people around here: An authentic CENTRIST

cannot write-off an authentic Left (which I differentiate from what calls itself "the Left" though I remain hopeful that it does become more authentically Left/Liberal/Progressive - whatever gets the right things done).

A centrist isn't a centrist unless s/he INTEGRATES as much authenticity as possible throughout the spectrum; if a "centrist" doesn't do that, they're not identifying the center. I think of it all in terms of processes that relate people and concrete things about how people live.

The first rule for "being at the table" is that you can't act as though you're the only one there, no matter where you come from in the political spectrum, we must remember that people have a right to be honestly whoever they are, just as much as one's own.

This is about the main reason I am a skeptic about what calls itself "the Left" here at DU; it doesn't act like the success of the Left is it's primary goal BECAUSE it IS acting like it (whatever it really is) has somekind of special right to "the table". I understand base-building, but if that's what they are authentically engaged in, rather than success on Left issues, they should say so up front, so their rhetoric does not delude people who have a right to make their own authentic decisions about their roles in what is happening.

Maybe one difference between what calls itself "the Left" and me is that I really do believe that ALL of us can do this thing. Zero-sum strategies (like the Tea Party uses for example) and false dichotomies for everything may be tactics, but they certainly are not the sum-total of functionalities in this situation. "Third Way", whatever the DLC & the Clintons made their version of it, is not necessarily neo-liberalism, nor is it necessarily what those who call themselves "the Left" say it is and, ironically, I really don't think that an authentic Left would be operating on the kinds of assumptions about a third way that we see around here.

Though BO is authentically a centrist, I think his processes are quite dialectical, thesis <--> anti-thesis = synthesis, which can produce a wide variety of things depending upon the actions, WITHIN the process, of the 2 elements (whatever they are) indicated in this shorthand by thesis:anti-thesis. And this is essentially why what calls itself "the Left" NEEDS to get into the game, because it's going to go on with or without them and they have a role to play, which, if they respect the process and the basic rule for "being at the table" (you don't own the table, you can't act like the only one there), I really do think that BO will include them in the process ALONG WITH THE OTHER AUTHENTIC FACTORS.

I'm very excited. We CAN do this! And it really does amount to a type of revolution if people engage the process with honesty and strength.

Happy New Year, sheshe2!