Out of Our Heads

Already, I hear progressives obsessing over whether or not those on the Right will "accept" the election of Barack Obama when -- we can still only hope and pray -- he becomes President.

People, here is the correct answer: WHO THE HELL CARES?!

Who cares what they think? Can we doubt they'll bitch and moan and whine that somehow the election was "stolen" from McLame and Caribou Barbie? Of course they will, and we never should have been so naive as to expect otherwise.

Look back at the times, in the past, when the Left was at its strongest, and you will see a common theme emerge. They kept their heads high, kept on looking ahead and didn't worry their pretty little heads about what their enemies said about them. As a matter of fact, they paid them little attention at all.

Get ready for four (or hopefully eight) more years of Republican and general Right-Wing ranting, raving, character assassination and attempted sabotage. If they did it to a White conservative-lite Democrat like Bill Clinton, they certainly aren't going to spare a Black man -- and an at least would-be progressive -- like Barack Obama.

If we leave it up to Right-Wingers to determine whether or not we're "allowed" to be really progressive, can you just guess what they're going to say? How about "not no, but hell no?" And then -- know what? No matter how Olympic-gymnastically we may bend over backwards and sideways and upside-down and inside-out trying to convince them that -- oh, no -- we're not liberals, THEY'LL SAY THAT WE ARE, ANYWAY. So if we're gonna get called liberals anyway, what are we so afraid of?

We cannot -- and MUST not -- even let these people into our heads. We must beat them, and beat 'em again, and keep right on beating 'em until we've totally destroyed what's left of the Republican Party. If it ever rises again, we must make sure it doesn't happen until a total power-shift has taken place within the GOP "big tent" and nobody but moderates or libertarians remain in charge there.

Destroy the whacko-Right brand. Drive Limbaugh and Hannity clean off of the air-waves. Take no prisoners. Leave behind only scorched earth.

And in the meantime, we must retain our serenity. We are in the right, and we deserve to lead this country that we so love into a brighter era. We must save it, and only we can.

If they start to get to you, sit in a Zen garden and contemplate your toenail-cuticles. Take up underwater basket-weaving. Swim with cuddly dolphins, bond with them and learn their special language. Take a pill, smoke a stogie, fix yourself a great, big, stinky-dirty Martini. But don't fret! Don't let 'em damage your confidence, and never, ever let 'em get you down!

Right-wingers tend to be very spoiled and infantile people, and they want it all -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- to be about them. Progressives tend to think about others, not merely about themselves. Of course that explains why this dynamic of obsession over Right-Wing opinion so often happens. But for our own sake, the country's and the whole world's, we have got to stop that. If they're able to make it all about them, then they have, indeed, truly won. No matter what any election tally might happen to say.

We can only keep our adversaries from driving us out of our heads if we keep THEM out of our heads.

Too many people in there make a crowd.