Post of the Week

Sullivan excerpts a must-read from blogger P.M. Carpenter, in his last blog for Buzzflash. First, Sullivan's main point:

If you backed Obama and want to see real change continue, now is not the time to give up because it's not as easy as you thought it would be. Now is the time to oppose the passionate intensity of his opponents with the reasoned conviction that elected him.

Remember: we are the ones we've been waiting for. Are we really going to substitute pique for purpose and ennui for hope now? By all means criticize when necessary, as I have. But he's the best we've got, and we are lucky to have him.

And Carpenter's:

Each level of sociopolitical progress was grinding and grueling and packed with half-measures -- because remember, the other side gets its say, too; plus the other side, notwithstanding our oft-proper ridicule, is not always without its own version of idealism, possessed just as passionately.

...

That, quite simply, is the way it is. Indeed, that's the way it's supposed to be. If genuine conservative genius there ever was, it came in the Founders' Burkean inspiration that true and lasting progress must pass the tests of peaceful struggle and tireless debate.

"Peaceful struggle and tireless debate" is America. The pseudo America visible on our TV screens, heard through our radio speakers, and read/viewed on the internet and in the press, is the farce that many in America would rather see. It gives us permission to blame the other, to abdicate personal responsibility, to be intellectually lazy and morally superior. Progress, and true conservation, comes when both ends meet in the middle. The cynicism of those who work in and/or are elected to high offices in government, on the backs and wallets of cynical corporatists driven to maximize profit and ensure continued dominance in their industries, render well-intentioned but generally ignorant ordinary citizens impotent. This impotence leads to anger and, because they lack access to those in higher offices, turn to the media or other opportunists only too willing to separate them from their money and fuel their anger enough to ensure that more money continues to flow.

As Einstein said, "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." And, "The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow."