LET THE GAMES BEGIN

This is the first post of what will likely be a string of passionate, patriotic screeds...considered vitriolic by the Barking Moonbats (hereinafter labeled the BMs) of the Lunatic Left. They already consider people like me to be rabid animals, and considering what I'd do to them were I Czar for a year, that's not a bad approximation.

Still, reality exists independently, and as proof, I commend for your consideration a new blog-based Community of the Left, one that would offer hope for real dialogue and problem solving, were it possible to overcome the hatred and furious anger of the BMs. I disagree with a lot of what they say, but there's room for discussion, and from that, perhaps, resolution of the bitterness that comprises politics nowadays.

These folks call their new website The Euston Manifesto, and claim to be "of a new democratic progressive alliance." It appears that it is a group of English libertarian/democrat intellectuals, but with whom they are allied remains a mystery.

Some Excerpts:

We are democrats and progressives. We propose here a fresh political alignment. Many of us belong to the Left, but the principles that we set out are not exclusive. We reach out, rather, beyond the socialist Left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment. Indeed, the reconfiguration of progressive opinion that we aim for involves drawing a line between the forces of the Left that remain true to its authentic values, and currents that have lately shown themselves rather too flexible about these values. It involves making common cause with genuine democrats, whether socialist or not.

It is vitally important for the future of progressive politics that people of liberal, egalitarian and internationalist outlook should now speak clearly. We must define ourselves against those for whom the entire progressive-democratic agenda has been subordinated to a blanket and simplistic "anti-imperialism" and/or hostility to the current US administration. The values and goals which properly make up that agenda — the values of democracy, human rights, the continuing battle against unjustified privilege and power, solidarity with peoples fighting against tyranny and oppression — are what most enduringly define the shape of any Left worth belonging to.

They claim to stand for among others, democracy, no apology for tyranny, human rights for all, development for freedom, opposing anti-Americanism, freedom of ideas, and against racism, and terror.

Why it sounds positively peachy. I suspect that Chimpybushhitler would agree with much of it, and even Jerry Greenhoot might (after discussion and resolution of some issues). In fact, the single most important point they make is that they reject:

without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.

This alone sets them aside from the Democrat Party's Lunatics and BMs, and commands that I state publicly: I do not believe that ALL left leaning intellectuals are cowards and traitors who in a just world would be hanged by the neck until dead.

JUST SOME.

With that housekeeping detail taken care of, let the games begin.