Welcome to Up LeftUp Left is both a stage direction and a political statement; I'm an actor, writer, and liberal activist, hoping to meet other like-minded people interested in reclaiming the world from the right-wingers and pulling it back to the left, though politics, the arts, and the blogs.
I'm currently a Democratic Party precinct chair; those who insist upon defining everything in terms of war describe precinct chairs as the "foot soldiers" of the party. I prefer to think of myself as a grassroots organizer, 'cause I'm certainly not a "soldier." We seriously need to stop thinking of political campaigns as "fights," strategy planning sessions as "the war room," and campaign workers as "soldiers." Wage peace, people!
In the late 1990s, the U.S. media was obsessed with Clinton's sex life, and the nightly news sounded like more like reports from a pre-pubescent boys' locker room than anything resembling "world news." At the time, I felt like the real news had been cancelled and replaced by tabloid journalism and celebrity gossip; that's how I eneded up here on the Internet, trying to find out what was really going on in the world. I discovered Channel 4 News, An Phoblacht , Sinn Féin , and a cyberspace full of people who shared my world view.
Back then, most of my non-internet friends thought life was pretty good, and they were more interested in reading the Starr Report than hearing about what I was finding out online, things like the Good Friday Agreement, the British paper curtain of disinformation obscuring our view of Irish politics, British army collusion with loyalist paramilitary groups, the assassination of Rosemary Nelson & Pat Finucane, innocent people charged with IRA membership and detained without trial.
Then, along came Bush.
In 2000, Bush was appointed President by the Supreme Court , and we're pretty sure the 2004 election was stolen . Since 2000, we've attacked a country that didn't do anything to us, people are being detained in Guantanamo without charge , our media's being controlled by Rupert Murdoch , and we're stuck with a President who thinks the Constitution is " just a piece of paper ."
Suddenly, my non-internet friends are interested in my opinion.
The moral? It's true what they say about clouds having silver linings. Bush may be horrible, but at least he woke some people up--70% of Americans, at this writing.
Another lesson is that the Left has to keep writing, keep blogging, keep speaking out even in the "good times." The second we relax, along will come another wannabe dictator like Bush, trying to usurp our rights.
