PIL - Rise
My friend Jill asked rhetorically recently 'why do tea baggers get so many people to come to their rallies and progressives can't even get the date straight on emails they send out to get people to come to a celebratory rally in Ohio?' My immediate gut feeling was "Anger Is An Energy" - nothing galvanizes a movement stronger than resistance / opposition / a feeling of being a persecuted minority. Since progressives are in the majority now - at least until the pendulum of US politics swings back - they can't organize a free t-shirt giveaway (every college student knows that free t-shirts are one of the most powerful forces in the world! Credit Card companies have figured this out on college campuses).
So in honor of the sputtering progressive rally in Westchester OH, I present Johnny Lydon and Public Image Limited, PIL:
...or, in a different perspective as my friend JoeM is often found of saying: "The Democrats, where causes come to die"... but he lives in San Francisco and thinks the Democrats there are actually Republicans and the Green Party is too far to the right. =)
9 years ago
LOL! Great social movements are powered by love, not anger. Anger tends to fizzle. That's why the Teabaggers show up with guns, get pissed, misspell words on signs, and are then impotent at the polls.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the Teabaggers also have a multi-billion-dollar "news" complex organizing things and driving attendance on their behalf. Do progressives have an equivalent? Of course, I take issue with the idea that progressives are in the majority. Not in government, my friend. If we were in the majority there, we'd have already passed single payer.
BTW - If you ever had to deal with the Democratic party establishment in San Francisco, you wouldn't be able to tell them from the Republicans either.