Face it, "working the system" is only producing gradual, not revolutionary, change! I say it's time!

[Bucky]

It's like, electing a new alpha male didn't change everything overnight all at once. It's like there's these so-called other branches in our government doing all this checking and balancing shit for God-knows-what reason and even though we won that so-called election in 2008, the Republicans decided to be obstinate and immature and obstructionist any chance they got and, for the first time I can remember acted entirely in bad faith. I mean, what the fuck? Whoever could have seen that coming?

Why must change be so slow? This is America, dammit!

Slowness of change is entirely unprecedented in American History! Think about all the great victories for liberals in our past! They've always happened all at once, accomplished by idealists who didn't bother to mollycoddle the impotent political so-called center. The Abolitionist Movement (1791-1865) quickly achieved their goals by winning office and appealing to pure reason. The Suffragist Movement (1848-1920) rallied to their causes, organized, and didn't take a lot of muddleheaded crap from the appeasers in society--they got shit done. And the Progressive Movement (1890-1917) reformed government and business regulation in America practically overnight! Goddamn it, Obama's been president for, what, nearly 30 months now? Where the fuck is my pony?!?

Great progress happens all at once. Do you think that the push by organized labor to achieve the eight hour workday required a slow grind, year after year, only to be accomplished in increments?! Poppycock! They got their guy elected once or twice and then it just magically happened in 1898 (by the UMW negotiating with the anthracite, but not the bituminous, mining companies... and then by the construction unions in 1900 and then by printers unions in 1905 and then by Ford employees in 1914 and finally by federal legislation in 1915 although only for railroad workers and then by legislation for just about everyone in 1937) but they didn't settle for any of that gradualism bullshit! It's got to be victory all for our way--otherwise our elected so-called leaders are total sell outs to Wall Street! FTW!

Let's face it, the problem isn't the system! The System is the problem! We'll never achieve political change through politics! That statement doesn't even make sense, when you so-called think about it!

I give up on Obama. What has he ever done for us?

[Fumesucker]

1. America changed a great, great deal between 1999-2008

Almost all of that change was for the worst.

Strange how change for the worse is so damn fast and absolute and change for the better is hesitant at best and downright undetectable much of the time.

[raccoon]

28. Yeah, and it's that way on the personal level too. nt

[AndiMer]

2. Unrecommended

:thumbsdown:

[Drale]

3. Unless you are ready to use violence

Slow gradual change is the only way things are going to change.

[Bucky]

7. Hmmm, maybe you could re-read the post slowly,

Maybe take note of the number of years involved in those "sudden" changes

[MrScorpio]

10. Not just gradual change, but cooperative change as well...

A dedication of everyone to adhere to democratic principles, instead of what we have been doing for so long, which is just delegating to the rich and powerful few.

[Bucky]

16. Thank you.

Pop quiz: Who said "You'll have to hold my feet to the fire"?

Bonus points: What have we on the left failed to do?

[xchrom]

4. Unrec

[Schema Thing]

5. rec

[hfojvt]

6. so it was checks and balances that caused Obama to surrender in December?

and then lie to us about it?

[SDuderstadt]

11. What are you claiming that...

Obama "lied" about?

[hfojvt]

23. details here

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/138

insult to injury, not that most people will know, or perhaps care.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bucky]

14. My only objection is I don't know why they're unrec'ing me.

Is it cause they get my sarcasm and thing change can't be gradual, or that they don't get my sarcasm and think that change must be gradual (and thus actually agree with me!), or that they just don't like sarcasm.

At least with you, I know where I stand! :thumbsup:

As for your substantive point, I would argue that Civil Rights is an excellent and painful example of gradualism. I don't offer gradualism as a prescription of how things ought to go. I offer it as a description of how things inevitably work out. Just as the union organizers fought, literally fought with many dying by the bullet, Civil Rights victories didn't come from patient and moderate people. But the impatient immoderate people with the smart slogan "Freedom Now" moved the ball a lot further than anyone else in history because, at their heart, the SCLC understood that progress would come slower than they pushed for. Who else scored points for civil rights? A Philip Randolph got nearly the entire defense industry desegregated by calling off the March on Washington in 1943. The desegregation fights in the South in the 50s and 60s (the voter drives, the Democratic Party desegregation, the Freedom Riders, the lunchcounter sit-ins) were, by design, a war of attrition. So my response is that it was in those years, with that generation, when the greatest progress was made in Civil Rights.

I think things have considerably slowed down since then. This is subjective, but I also think, or at least suspect, that our expectations are more immediate today.

The people in the previous generation were impatient, but their expectations were realistic, or I'd say more understanding of the fact that that seismic changes occur on geologic time scales. Their leaders were, after all, shaped by WW2 and the New Deal and the spirit of cooperation and pulling together that pervaded society in those years. I think the television raised and internet trained generation of today lacks a lot of their discipline.

I don't have a simple answer to your question, but then you don't ask simple questions. My OP was making fun of the simplistic thinking in someone else's OP.

[Curmudgeoness]

22. There you go, you forgot the sarcasm smilie.

Until I read the comments on your OP, all I could think was WTF---did you even look at the dates of those changes. Glad that is cleared up.

[Bucky]

24. Ha, yes I do that too often. I'm kinda pleased that with my pro-rec vs unrec balance

Considering that the recommendations include people who understand my joke and agree with me plus the people who don't understand my joke and actually disagree with me, while the unrecs count the people who in reality agree with me, but don't get the joke, plus the people who disagree with me, but are smart enough to see through the sarcasms, plus the people who just don't like self indulgent rants, plus who just always unrec my threads cause I'm such a sarcastic SOB.

My supporters seem to be a coalition of the very smartest plus the very dimmest of DUers and yet seem to have a slight working majority in this rec/unrec fight. I don't know how I feel about all this now.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mojeoux]

12. I just dissagree. I get the vibe that you are young, under 40.

Change does too happen gradually.

And, come on!!........ "The Abolitionist Movement (1791-1865) quickly achieved their goals by winning office and appealing to pure reason." 74 years! Yeah, Very "quickly" and don't forget the CIVIL WAR!!!!

On the Suffragist movement, it's very educational to simply rent the historically accurate and very well done film called "Iron Jawed Angels," with Angelica Huston and Hillary Swank.

[Bucky]

15. Close. I'm 47, but I was at least ridiculing the way young people talk.

I also think those punks oughta get haircuts, but that's for another thread. ;)

[Iggo]

17. And you call that music? I call it noise!!!

:mad:

[Bucky]

20. You! Yes, you with the fauxhawk! Git offa my lawn!

And take your cheekbone-pierced girlfriend with you!

[Motown_Johnny]

13. Big changes tend to be undone all at once. I believe in an incremental

approach and feel that taking smaller steps and making sure you don't slide backward is the best path for permanent change



Your method got Nader enough votes in 2000 to help W into office.


This isn't going to happen all at once, deal with it.

[Fumesucker]

18. Well, there were some *huge* changes between 1999-2008..

Are those changes going to be undone all at once?

[trof]

19. Um...1791-1865 (Abolitionist Movement) ain't exactly "all at once".

And that took a pitched armed battle that killed more citizens than any other war we've been involved in.

Neither is 1848-1920 (Suffragist Movement ).
And a lot of women had to suffer what we would now call torture (forced feeding to combat hunger srike protests).

Over 70 years for both.
More than an average lifetime back then.
Even now, I guess.

Our Revolutionary War took eight years (1775–83)
And that wasn't quite 'all at once'.
Sorry Charlie.

Change still takes time.
Especially in our current dilemma.
:-(

[Bucky]

21. Oh wow, you make it sound like every single fact I cited undermined my supposed argument.

How could I have been so blind to what was right in front of my eyes the whole time? Silly me... :eyes:

[quaker bill]

27. Actually understates a bit

The move towoard the abolition of slavery existed easily 100 years before the "Abolitionist Movement", it did not spring up fully formed.

Suffrage was a cause well before it became a movement. Women began a movement toward equal rights in the 17th century.

[MineralMan]

25. Very nice. It will of course, fly very high over many people's

heads here. Too many literalists around, it seems. Thanks for posting.

[Bake]

26. I for one am pretty sick of hearing liberal ideals referred to as "a pony."

It's damned demeaning, especially to people who have worked and shed blood sweat and tears to get those things done.

Equal rights for gays? You think that's a "pony"??? Tell it to the late Mr. Shepard. Labor's right to organize a "pony?" Tell that to the over 100,000 protesters in Madison, WI.

Pony, my ass!!!!!!

Bake