North Arlington All Stars

This is a great observation, from MYDD:

As many books as we write about them, our enemy is not Bill O'Reilly, or Rush Limbaugh, or even George Bush. Further, as much griping as we may do about them over the next few months, our problem is not Terry McAuliffe, or Bob Shrum, or any of our candidates. Individuals are neither our enemy, nor our problem. Instead, our enemy and our problem is conservatism itself. Yesterday, John Kerry won among self-described Independents and "moderates" by greater margins than George Bush won among the nation as a whole. Yesterday, we improved on our 2000 vote by 10%, more than twice the 4.7% increase in the national population since 2000. Our activism kicked ass. Our ability to appeal to the center kicked ass. Our problem is that we are in the minority. Our mistake would be to start blaming individuals and creating scapegoats.

Read the whole article: this is right on. Look, we have to stop thinking of ourselves as Democrats or independents or Greens or whatever. Our opponents are the group of people who call themselves the "conservative movement." Over the past 40 years they have grown to dominate American politics to such an extent that even Democrats are reduced to arguing "George Bush is not a fiscal conservative, real conservatives wouldn't act like that," or some kinda crap like that. Conservatism is the enemy. Conservatism. Its two, strangely incompatible components, are religious fundamentalism and the libertarian view of economic and social life: every atomized individual or family for itself, to "succeed" or "fail" on its own "merits" with "handouts" from society seen as inappropriate and an unfair drain on the resources of the "successful," subsidizing "laziness."

We need our own movement, our own think tanks, our own language. Here's a start:

1. Libertarianism is bunk. We exist as an economic and social network, not as "radical individuals." We are each responsible for the well being of the larger community, which encompasses or entire region and not just our own little suburb, neighborhood or ethnic or religious group. A well-run network can provide education, health care, food and housing to all of its members through some combination of public, private, and nonprofit providers. This is not charity, it is our responsibility to our community. You gotta pay dues to join the club.

2. In a diverse society, no group has the right to impose its religious beliefs on any other.

What else do we believe?