Move ON

This post at The G Spot is spot on.  Here’s a bit:

This is where we, as liberals, progressives, lefties, activists, whatever-you-want-to-call-us, come in. I do not believe that our interests are best served by the kind of cheap electioneering we saw over the primary campaign. What would be far more effective would be an independent movement that makes strategic alliances with various political candidates but is also distinctly separate from them.

Instead of shilling for Barack, or Hillary, or whoever, we should have been pressuring the candidates to work for our votes. We should have been pressing them to take firm, non-negotiable positions in favor of things like no immunity for the telecoms, or immediate withdrawal from Iraq with no residual troops. Instead, we were really cheap dates. And when you act like suckers, don’t be surprised when something like Obama’s support for the FISA compromise comes back and bites you in the ass.

If we want real change in this country, the place to look for it is not in our so-called leaders, but in ourselves. What we need, in short, is a movement. Without such a movement, President Obama is not going to be able to achieve a whole lot more than President Clinton or President Carter did.

Read the whole post

From the beginning of the primaries I have believed that it made not very much difference which candidate won.  A bit more difference if the Dem won the White House over he Rep.  So pull the lever in the voting box, or hang the chad, whatever, but don’t spend too much time fretting over it.  There are more important things to do and Kathy G. is more articulate than I ever could be at explaining why and how that is so.

I will be getting very peeved, though, if the people who have swallowed Obama’s hope, change and yes we can rhetorical idealism keep defending his decisions (FISA, NAFTA, Albright, Barrow, Furman, Messina) on the basis that it’s what he has to do to get elected.  Yes.  And what he will have to keep doing to stay popular.  And to get re-elected.  Grow up.