Are you thinking about getting off?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc-eDaEZ4LU

Glad to hear you were out there exercising your civic duty! Unfortunately, I suspect the civic pride Wisconsin has over this issue isn't fully appreciated in the other 49. I believe things has to get far worst than the elimination of collective bargaining for unions before public reaction to overzealous GOPer politicians over-reaching their constitutional authority for Party politics over public needs is realized. And as we all know, once a little snowball starts to roll it quickly becomes an avalanche that can't be stopped until it reaches the valley floor. I don't think the issue will get resolved untl the entire nation stands up and says enough is enough. That's what it took to topple Tunisia and Egypt so I'm not holding my breath on this one.

BJ, it's entirely possible that you're right about all this.  But reading it I couldn't help but think back to the quoted Bush WH official in a Ron Suskind piece awhile back.  It was to the effect that the Bush WH, the Right and the GOP create reality, whereas the Democrats and the liberals analyze it to death (implied that they--we--do that to the relative exclusion of taking action, making it easier for them to make headway.  The contempt and disrespect for their political opposition in that comment was breathtaking.) 

And that triggered lots of attention in the blogosphere and elsewhere about people being proud members of the reality-based community.  And how unsurmountably arrogant this attitude expressed by that WH official was (quite true).

The arrogance, however, is not about the view that it is possible to change the world, to change the current reality.  Each of us has impact on the world whether we wish to or not--there isn't anything we can do to escape that reality even if we wanted to.  We are also interdependent creatures and could not escape that predicament, either, even if we wanted to, the bizarre views about the socially unembedded nature of the individual and the self of some of the wacko Randians apparently to the contrary. 

Liberals and the left have been so often unsuccessful, taken so many losses for so long now, that there has developed a strong sense of impotence among some of those who identify with those broad orientations, one that is plentifully on display in the left of center blogosphere.   

I certainly have observed a phenomenon in (as well as outside) the blogosphere whereby someone expresses optimism and typically gets beaten down for being naive, ridiculous, utopian, etc.  It's almost as though some people have an investment in being correct about the obvious fact that we are all hopelessly screwed.  And in persuading others that that is the inevitable reality and they should just accept that and, I don't know, relax or something.

Well, please pardon me, but fuck that.  There is an individual who writes at dag sometimes whose stuff I just stopped reading because, to my way of thinking, it reflected that stance.  I found it so utterly depressing and disempowering that I just said enough already, why would I do this to myself when I don't have to?  My wife and I have two kids and other people have kids and there is a world of suffering out there and what the hell, I'm here, why not try to do constructive things (not discounting constructive criticism)?  What is there to lose?   

It's empirically wrong that groups of people acting together cannot change the world.  As Margaret Mead said, that's the only thing that ever has changed it.  People in Egypt, facing far greater dangers, have created opportunity, possibilities, for themselves.  What, and we who disagree with the long-term direction of this country can't?  We are best advised to adopt a stance of hopeless passivity and acceptance of a predetermined demise? 

I do not accept that.  I know there are some who do.  Like DanK I find myself wearying at times of being in the presence of heavy doses of that mindset.  I have also considered finding other places to hang out online not frequented by people who come across as though their goal is to win some political writing contest wherein they write the most brilliant essay ever written settling once and for all the hopeless truth of humanity's predicament.  But rather are talking and thinking and acting with one another to try to change it.  And in so doing are also emotionally sustaining one another and maintaining or even creating some sense of hope, however fragile and inherently uncertain and frustrating it all gets at times when each of as single individuals contemplates the limits of what we can do and the obstacles and powerful forces and dynamics that confront us. 

I realize that a counter-consideration is the old saw "scratch the surface of a hardened cynic and you'll find an idealist waiting to come out."  I try hard not to write anyone off once and for all.  Many of us go through stretches, sometimes very, very long ones, where the sense of discouragement is so overwhelming that it can become difficult to put one foot in front of the other, metaphorically speaking, and act.  And some of us are simply deeply gloomy by temperament.  I have a fair amount of that myself and it's been a lifelong project to try to become, and stay, positive enough so as to be able to act constructively.  I'm grateful to those who didn't make up their minds about me, once and for all for the worse when I've gone through my own darker stretches.  

Thanks for the links, DanK.

"And yet others see things as they are, and respond with 'WTF'"

Sorry, but I couldn't resist.

Absolutely GREAT comments, AD. They can never beat us if we never surrender, regardless of how weary we get. Keep the faith!