Why we can’t give up
Dragonfly, who’s been crankin’ out the hits this last week, said something I understand but disagree with:
I mean, at this point, what the hell is the point of even caring about Eric Massa if the leadership is just going to take his suggestions and bury their heads in the sand? Sorry, Massa, but that’s the team you’ve joined up with. Cowards.
I totally, totally understand where he’s coming from. But here’s how I see it.
This country has just woken up in a hospital bed. We used to be awesome, fit, well-liked. A cancer (corporate conservatism) grew and spread throughout the nation and body politic. It even infected a lot of the more senior Dems, who should know better. The country almost died– 2 years ago there was talk of a “permanent Republican majority”.
Infrastructure, from media to think tanks to government, was infected as well. If you were progressive you were probably wondering if you were taking crazy pills or if things were really that bad. Then someone applied a defilibrator to the country (2006 elections), and we came back to life. (I know I’m mixing medical metaphors here, but bear with me.) 
We’ve come back to life, but the cancer is still all over the place. We’re not gonna run a marathon, even if the hospital is clearly on fire. We’re gonna lurch out of bed, stumble and fall on our way to the fire escape.
But I’m NOT giving up on this patient! In fact, this is the most crititical time to keep watch, encourage steps in the right direction, warn it loudly if it tries to crawl back into bed, and feed it lots of cancer-cleaning antioxidants (e.g. truth served up through local blogs and progressive candiates).
So, by all means, everyone, do what you gotta do to cleanse your palate, and rest up for the next fight. Play video games. Interact with other life forms. Whatever. We’ll cover for ya in the meantime.
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I agree with you. I very much understand where he is coming from, but att he same time I don’t begrudge my fellow democrats to the same level that my progressive brethern do. Perhaps I am being naive, or living too far in the ideal, but continually pushing bills that were going to get vetoed kept pushing the war onto us by saying “look, damn liberals won’t do anything”. One of the things that everyone needs to keep in mind is that by getting people like Eric elected we will have people who have a serious voice in this matter, people who will ALWAYS fight for the right thing, and most importantly he helps drive us into a veto proof congress.
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