I guess being a big guy who likes his burgers and can't fit comfortably in a little car hates the fact that they are after his joys now
Posted on 08/17/2004 1:53:46 PM PDT by qam1
Crows' feet, graying temples, bifocals, a bad ticker and those blankety-blank AARP publications in the mailbox every other day are all reminders that I'm a Baby Boomer whose protest-crazy generation is now more concerned with the price of prescription drugs than the cost of war.
But, in this very political year, I'm also observing a political change. Either I'm not as liberal as I used to be or there is a new definition of liberalism. Winston Churchill used to say that any man who is under 30 and is not a liberal has no heart; and any man who is over 30 and is not a conservative has no brain. Well, Winnie, I'm way over 30 and don't have a clue.
I guess I'm just an old-fashioned lib who cannot keep up with what I suppose should be called the New Agenda of the New Left.
The Old Left generally used to embrace the following positions:
* Anti-Big Military
* Anti-Big Business
* Anti-Big Gallows, Big Gas Chambers, Big Electric Chairs and Big Needles
* Anti-Big Guns (and all other sizes)
* Anti-Big Bigots (and all other sizes)
* Pro-Big Women (and all other sizes)
* Pro-Big Government
The New Left has added the following positions to its agenda:
* Anti-Big Cars
* Anti-Big Bellies
* Anti-Big Churches (as long as they are conservative Christian)
* Anti-Big Discount Chain Stores (at least all those based in Arkansas)
* Pro-Big War Heroes (with initials JFK) but still Anti-War
* Pro-Big Mouths (as long as they are liberal)
In other words, to be a liberal in the old days meant you generally were against war, the military-industrial complex, capital punishment and racial and sexual discrimination and you were for gun control, civil rights, abortion rights and the overall help government could give minorities and the downtrodden of our society.
But now it appears that we liberals also must carry a lot more burdens on our bleeding hearts - hearts already heavy with worries over the more traditional concerns of war, peace and civil rights.
Today's liberals not only must loathe tanks but also detest big civilian vehicles whose battlefields are the nation's streets and highways. We must despise SUVs as gas-guzzling threats to the environment, insatiable gulpers of foreign oil and also as mastodons on wheels that have unfair advantages in collisions with normal vehicles. In an accident, an Expedition is Goliath and a Festiva is David; we liberals must find the rock for David's slingshot.
Big Automakers aren't the only villains in our sights. Big Fast Food, which produces Big Bellies, is equally evil. Greedy fast-food restaurant chains have perpetrated one of the greatest right-wing plots ever hatched by luring unsuspecting customers to their stores, tying them into booths and stuffing Big Macs and Biggie Fries down the throats of these unwitting souls. These chains have turned us into a land of lard buckets, and they, too, need to be punished.
Big Churches also are on the enemies list. Well, not all churches. So called conservative and/or fundamentalist and/or evangelical Christian churches are the demons. It was OK when mainline churches expressed their anti-war and anti-segregation views in the 1960's. After all, Christ was a revolutionary - and he had long hair, to boot.
But these right-wing churches pressing their agendas, from anti-abortion to anti-gay marriage to pro-family values - are not to be trusted and should not be heard. They are wanting to create theocracies. And their Christ had slicked-back black hair.
Big War Heroes are now in vogue with us liberals, now that John Kerry is our presidential candidate, but we liberals are still anti-war. I suppose Kerry gets a pass because he went on to protest the war in which he won all those medals.
Big Stores are a recent entry on the New Liberal list of institutions to trash. Well, not all stores. The main target of this hatred is Wal-Mart. The nation's biggest retailer allegedly also is one of the nation's biggest violators of women's rights, by allegedly giving women lower pay than men and fewer promotions than men. It also allegedly one of the biggest destroyers of downtown business districts, by ruthlessly exploiting the capitalist system by stealing business from the smaller stores by offering more merchandise at lower prices - prices that are appealing to the lower and middle class people that Democrats claim to care about.
Big Mouth is my reference to the bitter, angry and hateful language of the leaders of the New Left and their efforts to shut up and shut down those right wingers who disagree with them. My fellow liberals already dominate the mainstream media, from Big Newspapers to Big Networks, but they somehow feel that they must squash, through congressional action (see the so-called "Fairness Doctrine") and the courts (see efforts to bust the biggest Big Mouth of the right, Rush Limbaugh), the few prominent voices of the right. The liberalism I embraced was compassionate, tolerant and open-minded, not combative, intolerant and close-minded.
I do agree with some or parts of many of the Big Items on the New Left's Big New Agenda, including spotlighting Wal-Mart's apparent failure to acknowledge the last 30 years of progress for women in the job market and pointing out some of the narrow-minded, holier-than-thou aspects of the Big Religious Right.
I also believe the "Southern strategy" hatched by Richard Nixon in the late 1960's, with code words like the Republican Party is the "law and order party," attracted a lot of conservative Democrats who weren't exactly followers of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The code words for a similar strategy in recent years are "family values."
But I have a hard time dealing with several other of the items on the Big New Agenda, including the silliest item of them all - the obsession with the "obesity crisis" and the characterization of fast-food chains as the villains and people who cannot control their appetites as victims. Fatness is a health hazard but most of it is caused by voracious appetites, not forced upon helpless victims.
The most disturbing aspect of the Big New Left, though, is the voice of the Big Mouths who tout the Big New Agenda, lauding alleged victims and launching vitriolic attacks on the alleged right-wing perps. Many of these Big Mouths are members of that hypocritical group known as limousine liberals, an upper crust caste of do-what-I-say-not-what-I-do money bags who have been around since the days of Old Liberalism.
For example, these limousine liberals are the ones who are telling us to stop buying SUVs while their Lear jets, taking them from one anti-right wing rally to another, consume fuel by the barrel. This is one of numerous examples of how they demand we peons follow all items on the agenda while they pay lip service to them.
I guess it's too late for an Old Liberal to learn New Tricks, and there are plenty in the Big Bag of the New Left.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social aspects that directly effects Gen-Reagan/Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
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Put concisely - they are now anti Big Freedom.
(Oh, and "they" covers a lot of ground.)
There is no fool like an old fool. A lifetime of liberalism, where 'Big Government' is the answer to almost every question, didn't prepare him for the inevitable attempts to control every aspect of life?
Dumbass.
Poor guy, a liberal with a functioning brain. He must be pretty unhappy these days.
No such animal.
Obviously, he never got out much in the sixties. One problem with people like him, is their parochialism. They could not see that the Left was always "combative, intolerant, and close-minded."
I'm feeling sick... This article is a thinly veiled attempt to bring back the nostalgia of fighting the good fight among the former liberals in our society.
It is obvious when this liberal says he still doesn't have a clue, that he read Winston's words, but clearly didn't understand it.
It would be interesting to know if he just one morning woke up and realized all this, or if he had been just playing along with the Party until it all of a sudden clicked. I wonder what triggered it? Swiftvets? Kerry? It certainly wasn't Clinton since he has just woken up to reality.
Somebody mug this guy. I think he's on the edge and might get pushed over and become a conservative. (Wishful thinking.)
I guess being a big guy who likes his burgers and can't fit comfortably in a little car hates the fact that they are after his joys now
The basic message that liberals have for todays Americans is that they are too stupid to take care of themselves and need big government to hold their hands and make their decisions for them. Here we are living in the richest country in the world, and libs still try to tell "underprivileged" Americans that "don't even try, you won't make it". It takes a lot of gall to say that, but you have to give libs credit for never giving up. The allure of power and the opportunity to tell people how to run their lives is something they'll never easily surrender.
I know a lot of liberals who are still like that. They're called conservatives these days and that has the current Left sputtering with rage. I don't profess to understand all their anger. Those folks need therapy, fast.
Herb Brock? He's downright decent next to the slime Michael Moore. And he isn't all too comfortable with the agenda of today's Democrats.
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