Tell Me How To Herd Cats

I've heard that trying to get liberals/progressives organized behind one large concept is like trying to herd cats. But we need some way of doing that, because we have no message discipline on the left side of the aisle, no way of making sure that the day's talking points are actually talked about.

The conservatives do that all the time, and naturally the way they do it is jack-booted and unpleasant to watch. But it works, just as repetition and focusing on only a few items at a time works at school. We, my dear friends, are all over the place and this makes us less efficient.

It's not at all necessary or desirable to go to the ugly other opposite end, but it would be nice if the liberal/progressive side had more think tanks and more jobs with money for people who are good at making liberal/progressive points. It would be nice if there were more pulpits for liberals and progressives, pulpits which actually can be seen above the roar of Republican soundbites. It would not only be nice; it would be very important. And Rachel Maddow is great, but she doesn't have to be the only liberal political pundit with her own television show, you know.

I was thinking these thoughts when reading the opinion columns in some newspapers today. When something truly silly or disgusting crops up we appear to have no mechanism for answering that. None.

All this goes tenfold for feminists. Whenever women are attacked with some spurious pseudoscience, for example, we should have an organization which can quickly get hold of people who can respond. We don't have those organizations.