Monday, October 31, 2005

Some Straight Talk from Bill Clinton



Listen to Bill (via this Kos diary) on how the Democrats should do politics against the wingnuts:

"You can't say, 'Please don't be mean to me. Please let me win sometimes.' Give me a break here," Clinton said. "If you don't want to fight for the future and you can't figure out how to beat these people then find something else to do."
...
Clinton attributed Republicans' control of Congress to Democratic candidates' inability or unwillingness to "stand up and be heard" on issues that matter to people. For example, he said, Democrats too often are unwilling to talk about abortion because they're afraid of virulent reactions from anti-abortion groups.

"So how come we can't talk about it?" he asked. "Because we basically let political ads turn every player in this drama into a two-dimensional cartoon instead of a three-dimensional person."

Clinton also criticized political reporters and authors for failing to use reason and common sense in their writing and failing to dig deeply into stories. Instead, he said, reporters let officials get away with saying things that aren't true so stories include comment from both sides.

True, very true. The Democrats in Washington, D.C. lack the fire and will that is needed, with only a few exceptions. And so do too many of us grass roots. No rain without thunder, remember? And there will be no real political change without the fight for it.

Supposedly the Chinese use "May you live in interesting times" as a curse, because interesting times are always times of restlessness and discord. It is too late for us to avoid that specific threat. But what would be an even greater curse is to have lived in interesting times and done nothing to make things better. At least we still have an opportunity to avoid that one.