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September 8, 2004

Be Liberal, Be Happy

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this word these days. Back ten, twenty years ago, there was a reasonably successful campaign to turn “liberal” into some kind of slander word, something to be derided and shot down. “Tax-and-spend” liberals they were called, while the real culprits, those so-called conservatives, in power, were taxing the middle and lower class and spending on business initiatives that only benefited large corporations, research initiatives that benefited large corporations, and the military, whose contracts benefited large corporations.

Conservatives spend just as much of the government’s money—but only on the same corporate hacks that send their campaigns money. Liberals, on the other hand, believe in liberally spreading the expenses, on all fronts, aiding the underclass, small business initiatives, education, health care, etc.

I’m not entirely sure what there is to be ashamed of in declaring oneself Liberal. It would seem that to say that you are conservative is equivalent to saying that you are one who would take American money and give it to the rich, much like a feudal economy. Isn’t that a bit shameful?

I wish more people would be vocal about being liberals, but it seems that the difficulty arises in the fact that nearly all of the media is owned by large corporations who have something to gain by filtering out as much liberal propaganda as they can, as has been most especially the case with FOX News lately.

I love Bill Maher; and truly admire him, but unfortunately, I don’t believe he gets taken seriously enough. ABC let him go a few years ago for some rather innocuous comment he made that seemed to criticize the president and governmental policies. But for anyone that has HBO, there he is, freely available. Much of his commentary may be found on the HBO Website.

I’d much rather be thought of as a Liberal, then as a Democrat. I want to see George W. Bush out, as much as anyone. He is quite possibly the worst president ever, certainly of the 80 years. But when Party operatives play the dishonest games for which Republicans have become notorious, they only serve to alienate the rest of us, the growing number of independent voters and members of third parties.

I can’t campaign for anyone if I haven’t myself decided for whom I want to vote. Do I want to see George W. Bush get beaten out of the White House more than I want to see the Democrats get a wake-up call from the far left? If Kerry wants to win, his campaign has certainly got to appease the leftists, because he will lose a lot of votes, not only to Ralph Nader, but also to David Cobb, the Green Party Candidate1.

It’s pretty sad that Al Gore didn’t realize that in 2000. He kept trying to appeal to an imaginary middle while blowing off the left end. The Republicans would never have been able to steal an election if it hadn’t been as close as it was.

I’ve been tempted before to go Socialist, but I go so much better with Green than I do with Red.

1 Click here for the Vote Cobb campaign blog

Posted by Bastique at September 8, 2004 11:47 PM

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