Welcome to 2010 At The Café Demello: A Year Of Fear And Loathing
Here at the café we are putting storm shutters on the windows and stocking up on strong cigars, hardtack, salt pork, boiled beef, bitter herbs, sour grapes, emetics, laxatives, hangover remedies, and 100 proof or better rum, gin, vodka and bourbon. It’s gonna take fortifications and a strong stomach to make it through this year.
This year liberals and progressives have not choice but to fight from trenches that Democrat pols have used as latrines, and somehow we have to persuade Independents to suspend their gag reflex and join us.
We have no choice but fight. Last year we got a good look at the forces aligned against us. They range from soulless, sold-out Republican pols—like Jim Demint(ted), John Boehner (whose last name should be pronounced “Boner” no matter what he says), and Chuck, “pull the plug on grandma” Grassley—to the dangerously stupid, right-wing zombies with teabags supper-glued their foreheads. They are legion, voracious, vile, and exceptionally motivated. And because they are motivated to vote, the tea-addled followers of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michelle Bachmann, and Sarah Palin will be picking our new senators and representatives this November. The mere thought of this Republican resurgence is enough to give a buzzard the dry heaves.
We progressives and liberals cannot let this come to pass! And even though the smart money is taking short odds on a conservative victory this fall, we dare not go quietly into that bad night. Rage we must, and rant and rally the voters who put Obama into office.
Perhaps the overblown hope Obama engendered is gone, and the liberal-progressive forces scattered and dispirited by a year of disappointments. Perhaps reason seems to work no longer when facing the fact-free cacophony on the right. But perhaps we can use fear! Help anyone with the slightest consciousness hear the beating of the cannibal drums in the darkness on the right. Help them imagine the congressional carnage that is certain to follow Republican gains in the house and the bloodbath of stalemate in the Senate if the Democrats lose control. Steven King has written nothing darker.
So here at the Café de Mello we are battening down the hatches and laying by the stores to help us grit our teeth and convince every liberal, progressive, and sensible independent to help get out the vote. We can marshal superior numbers, if enough of our supporters see what a right-wing victory would look like and feel the fear in the pits of their stomach.
(Old introduction) A little more than a year ago, when I began blogging about politics I chose to call my blog the Café de Mello in the hopes of capturing the meetinghouse spirit of transient community I had found as a young soldier at small cafés in Fitchburg, Massachusetts and Bell County, Texas. You could get coffee refills for a nickel and talk to friends across and between tables and with acquaintances across the room. The beer was cold, the food plain and good, and the disagreements were kept civil.
Unfortunately, no such sense of community has developed, and I often felt I was alone, standing on a soapbox and shouting, hoping to reach a few receptive ears. Finally, I grew weary, and my posts became sporadic.
Then in April, I saw a Gallup Poll that found 55% of Americans felt the use of harsh interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists was justified, and for the first time in my life, I developed writer's block. I was stunned. What do you say to such people? Can you do anything other than weep for the loss of American ideals?
It wasn't that I was uncomfortable being in the minority. I am a firm believer in the Marcus Aurelius maxim, "The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane." And I have often enough taken a minority opinion (such as my opposition to the Iraq War from the beginning), which I have in time seen turn in time to the common wisdom.
No, for me, the experience was like waking to find oneself in a madhouse where everyone else is speaking a language you do not understand. The mad are speaking nonsense that is doubly incomprehensible. Rather than add to the bedlam, I fell silent.
Now, with critical decisions being made about healthcare reform, energy policy, and Afghanistan, among other issues, and right-wing opposition to president Obama gaining unwarranted attention, I can no longer stand remaining silent. I have reinforced my soapbox, and I am climbing back on.
But who am I talking to? I know from personal contacts that most of my readers already hold views similar to mine, and because of this, I will not change their views. Hopefully for those readers I can provide some added information or cogent arguments.
It is doubtful I will ever have many readers from the far right—those willfully ignorant ostriches who raise their heads from the Fox News sand only long enough to scream* about "death panels," or euthanasia, or Obama being a socialist (or a Nazi or from Kenya). Such persons have vaccinated themselves against information and no one with an opposing view—no matter how strongly based in facts and evidence—can reach them.
My hope is that my words will reach a few moderates, independents, and the reachable right and convince them to support more progressive positions or at least engage in an evidence-based discussion.
One right-wing reader of an earlier post began his insightful critique by calling me "a nut job." His evidence for this was solely that I did not agree with his positions (nor did I buy enough ammunition). Obviously, this was less than a fruitful exchange.
Despite the evidence available from observing Republican Politicians and political operatives, I cling to the belief that there still exist some conservatives with functioning cerebral cortexes, and I will gladly listen to their views and allow for the possibility of being persuaded to change my views.
To any of these moderates, independents, and rational conservatives, I apologize in advance if I sometimes seem overly hostile to Republican Politicians and the right-wing fringe. I am sorry. One of my great failings in live is that I do not suffer fools gladly, and I have no patience for those (on either the left or the right) who put politics above the good of the people.
So, for better or worse, the café doors are open again. Pour yourself a strong cup of coffee or other libation, take a slice of pie, pull up a chair or take a stool at the counter and click on "Cafe Blog" above. Welcome to the café de Mello.
Thanks,
Giles
*(This is not a mixed metaphor. Ostriches either "boom" or "scream," and if you've never heard one, you should get out more. http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Ostrich_sounds_audio_clip.aspx)