Ah, Super Tuesday. I just love it, don’t you? I especially love how all the pundits and other naysayers are telling us to back down because we’re going to get slaughtered today. I especially love how Clinton’s supporters have been telling us to shut the hell up and get back in line since Iowa, or better yet, since she was challenged by Bernie Sanders to start with.
Does this remind you of anything? Occupy Wall Street perhaps? Remember how they were curb stomped by virtually everyone because they needed to shut the hell up and get back in line because this is the best we can do?
Better yet, remember how the media used every trick in the book to paint Occupy and its members as criminals, rapists and everything else in-between in order to disparage the movement? And remember how the Democratic Party wasted an opportunity by not only ignoring the movement, but even breaking it in some areas? Because it seems to me that Occupy has been all but forgotten by everyone. An anti-disestablishment candidate like Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be the ‘front-runner’ of a ‘progressive’ political party otherwise.
With that in mind, I’d like to honestly ask something: When are we going to stop this nonsense of voting against something or someone and start supporting ideas and people we can actually vote for ? Ms. Clinton spent about a week, maybe two channeling some of Bernie’s ideas, but by yesterday it seems her tack rightward had already begun.
Is this what we really want for ourselves as a party, to keep up this Pyrrhic defense while this same defense continues to allow Republicans to keep chipping away at everything that generations of Americans fought so hard for? Because unless we push her to where she should be and keep her there, Clinton will do exactly that while working against us behind closed doors.
There are many precedents for such things. Ending slavery, establishing Social Security and Medicare, enacting the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, the Women’s Suffrage Movement that pushed for the right to vote for women, Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, The Americans With Disabilities Act, Marriage Equality and even Obama’s opposition to Keystone XL never would have come about if people of all stripes hadn’t pushed for these things like there was no tomorrow.
Did they get everything they wanted right off the bat? No. This isn’t about getting everything we want. This is about working to bring back what we should have had to begin with and expanding upon it for our kids and grand kids. In case it isn’t obvious, we can’t afford not to.
This is exactly why Bernie Sanders, and his supporters, need to take this as far as they can, locally and nationally. I understand why Clinton’s backers are so quick to tell us to quit now, or quit after March 15th, but if we do that, we’ll be back at square one by the general. If we don’t learn to push until it gives, there won’t be anything left to defend no matter who’s in charge.
See you around,
Homer
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