Quindlen-A Leap Into the Possible (why liberal is a good word)

[realFedUp]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5569783/site/newsweek/

A Leap Into the Possible
We liberals have been shamed into thinking our vision failed, when in fact it has simply been absorbed into the national self-portrait

By Anna Quindlen
NewsweekAug. 9 issue -

snip-
We liberals have fallen on hard times in recent elections. At the very least, like feminists, we are not supposed to say our name. Certainly none of the sanctioned speakers were supposed to describe either John Kerry or John Edwards using the L word. That will be left to the Republicans, who will use the description as a pejorative to suggest that the Democratic candidates are out of touch with the moderate values of the American people.

But it's worth remembering that today's moderate values were the liberal notions of yesteryear. Social Security. Integrated schools. A war on poverty. In just one generation we have gone from the dark threat of something labeled socialized medicine to the promise of the same thing, called universal health care. We liberals have been shamed into thinking our vision failed, when in fact it has simply been absorbed into the national self-portrait. From the idea that a woman ought to have the same legal rights as her male counterparts to the belief that workers should count on being safe from hazardous conditions, formerly liberal principles have become bedrock democracy.

Barack Obama's riseno, his very existencemight have been impossible under the old ways that once held sway, and sometimes still do. His father was a Kenyan who grew up herding goats and came to the United States as a student. His mother was a white woman from Kansas. Their son was the first black editor of the Harvard Law Review and may well become only the third black senator since Reconstruction.

continued...

[Demeter]

1. News Flash! Back to the Future!

The neocons are trying to undo all that progress, and they make no demure about it.