How not to help the progressive cause

I'm sure everyone who hopes for a return to progressive reform and progress in our country has faced moments over the last five years when they grew despondent. There have been times, particularly following the last two election cycles where many of us have doubtless scratched our heads and wondered what happened to the lofty ideals and evolutionary goals our nation has embraced since the sixties since Bush and the neocons seized control of the government. One thing you do not want to do is hand ammunition to the right wing by acting as if you are just as bad (or worse) than the right wing chickenhawks who want to use war as a tool for peace. (We must burn the village to save the village.) Such a gaff was apparently found this week on the diary of a Raybin, a Daily KOS poster who is hanging up his blogging spurs.

It's become more and more apparent to me over the past five years that all the activism and non-violent protesting in the world will do precisely squat. When you're dealing with evil people who have no shame, the old rules of the game don't and, indeed, can't apply if you have any hope for success. Hundreds of thousands of people have marched, millions of letters have been written, tens of millions of votes cast, and hundreds of trillions of electrons expended pontificating on blogs...for nothing. Nothing has changed. Nothing will change. Not unless it comes in the form of something akin to the French Revolution.

We need terror. We need horror. We need the streets running awash in rivers of blood of these thugs and criminals and zealots. Activism didn't prevent 60,000 deaths in Vietnam. All the activism of the Civil Rights era has gotten African Americans precisely nowhere. Segregation may not be the law of the land anymore, but it's still the de facto state of America.

When y'all want to start throwing molotovs and sniping from windows come and talk to me. Until then, I will be content to retire, be a hermit, and laugh at everyone. Even then, I may still just feel like laughing as the world falls apart around me, but at least I'll be willing to listen.

It took no time at all for the wingnuts to jump all over it, claiming on the basis of this one post, that the left wing advocates violence. I hope Ron will excuse me for littering MEJ with links to blogs such as this, but (ugh) Blogs for Bush, Protein Wisdom and Little Green Goofballs were all quick to leap on this one diarist as an indictment of the entire progressive movement.

It is only the shortests (sic) of steps from such thinking to additionally thinking that rivers of blood should flow...and only one more step beyond that to acting upon such beliefs.

I'm sure that we've all had moments of fanciful daydreaming where we pictured Bush and Cheney being carried out of Washington on the shoulders of thousands of Americans, outraged with the incompetence and corruption of this administration, and unceremoniously dumped on a trash heap. Such dreams, however, are no reason to make a public stand in favor of actual violence in a revolutionary setting.

I find the timing of this diarist's retirement and incendiary message to be puzzling. I would think that today, of all days, every progressive writer would be finding cause for hope. Polls show that national support for the neocon agenda is sagging to all time lows, as more and more Americans wake up and see through the GOP smoke and mirrors, just as we approach the midterm election season. Republican leaders at the highest levels, such as DeLay and Frist, find themselves being tapped on the shoulder by the long arm of the law for their part in the culture of corruption. Grassroots movements are already in place and working to unify and solidify a consistent progressive agenda to offer America in place of the mess we have today.

This isn't the time to quit or go ballistic, Raybin. This is the time to get to work. The revolution won't be won in the streets with guns and bombs. It will be won at the ballot box.