Critical Left

Sure, I believe that Bill O'Reilly and other pop culture pundits like him are insensitive, antagonistic, and a general representation of where our nation has gone wrong. It is obvious that the culture wars of the Bush years have extended into the Obama years with a vengeance, and the rise of the TEA party is a shining example of the libertarian right's willingness to impose its will upon our nation. On the other hand, we have the lefties who, essentially, are unwilling or unable to fight back.

It seems that there are many reasons for this deficiency in the liberal camp, if it can be called a camp at all because there seems to be little cohesion on part of American liberals. Not only is this sad, it is also indicative of our nature. I don't mean this as a back-handed compliment, but when you look at a group of liberals and compare them to a group of conservatives, the visual differences are obvious, but it is the underlying differences that hurt us the most. Take, for example, work. The various earthen hues found across the liberal spectrum is generally busy at some sort of job for a large part of the day and/or they are attending school to improve their education. Of course, that's great but a bunch of liberal social workers and teachers talking to each other about the ills of the world does not directly engage the right in an all out match of wits, facts, and reason. In the public eye then, the left loses.

The right detests our ability to think and talk critically about what our problems are and how to solve them. They especially hate it when we try to get at the root of a problem becasue that requires too much analysis, which we are good at and they seldom care about. Plus, the right laughs at us because we are so busy trying to understand their position that we never go to battle about the issues. At some point we need to limit how much we take them into consideration and just accept the reality that the left and right are in an ideological war. The problem is that while the right is standing on the battle field, the left has its nose stuck in books. Hence, if we are not even in the same place, there can be no battle. The right has also become so adept at distorting language and ideas, and then presenting them publicly that the left doesn't even know where to begin when it is ready for a fight. Sometimes, we're just too damn nice, but the right regularly gets down and dirty and doesn't care whose toes it steps on, and they are quite good at using language to sway their masses whichever way they want. It openly promotes xenophobia and homophobia to the point that it has become a natural piece of American culture. It has turned uneducated people such as Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell into political heroes. It listens to and believes in Glenn Beck, Anne Coulter, and Bill O'Reilly as though they carry some divine providence in their words. It probably is even safe to say that they believe they are somehow the "Chosen Ones", and regardless of what they are chosen to do, they are absolutely on the right ideological side.

When it comes down to it, the right is a camp based in faith. They follow their leader regardless of how ridiculous their requests or their ideas might be. They believe in religion. They believe in a nostalgic perspective of an America that was true only for a select group, and they want a return to their version of the American Dream. Most importantly, they are so entitled that they are willing to blame everyone who does not fall into their strict definition of who is worthy of success. They even trivialize the struggles of their own forefathers so the Other America takes the fall for any missteps. Tea Partiers come from folks who easily acculturated to America by willingly learning English and teaching their children the greatness of the American Way above all other culture. Although the left knows that this is nothing more than a myth, it openly does little to nothing to present another perspective.

We love to teach, and think, and read, and work with those who need the most help. We are teachers and social workers, but we are also business people working to help the little guy become established, we are the bankers who did not get greedy and give out loans to people who could not afford them. We work and we toil, and at the end of the day we are tired, obviously too tired to pick up the tools of our wisdom and beat the right at its own game. When we are energized we work for charities and attend fundraisers for breast cancer. When we are energized we engage each other in meaningful debates that show our intellectual prowess. When we are energized we create a more meaningful world through art, meditation, reading, and thinking. All the while we are preaching to our own choir and the rest of America does not see that as strength. Instead, we are attacked for it. We don't become the school administrators that can affect change because we love to be in the classrooms. We don't run the Department of Social Services because we are too busy helping foster kids. We don't own the construction companies that can build environmentally responsible communities because we are busy being good carpenters so people have a reliable house to live in. But some of this needs to change.

I do not have the answers, but there is a need for those of us on the left to engage the right at their own game, and then turn the game into our own. Maybe it begins with responding to the ignorant people who reply to articles in the newspaper. Maybe it means creating more progressive blogs and websites. Maybe it means bringing intelligent speakers to high school and college campuses. Maybe the problem is so big that we, as a whole, just need to begin somewhere. Even this blog has only a few followers, so how are the ideas supposed to be passed along when you read this and say to yourself, "Huh, he's got a point," and then close the tab until next time?

We can be both an intellectual and a critical force. Zack de la Rocha said, "Its got to start some place. Its got to start somehow. What better place than here? What better time than now?" I think he's got a good point.