Learning From The Loss -- by Tom Hayden

[IrateCitizen]

This is an excellent article by Tom Hayden which appeared on today's Alternet. It falls much in line with what many of us here have been saying for some time now.

However, it is a much longer and meatier article than the excerpts I've posted, so please take the time to read it in its entirety.

Learning from the Loss

By Tom Hayden, AlterNet. Posted November 8, 2004.

A transition to a new generation of leadership is needed if the massive outpouring of activism of the past year is to flourish and be funded for the future.

http://www.alternet.org/election04/20429/

51 percent is no mandate.

Maybe the Republicans were confusing the outcome with a mandate from heaven (more on that later), but as soon as the polls closed their propaganda machinery began repeating the mantra of mandate, using the mass media as an echo chamber. By the next day, Grover Norquist was announcing that America is a "Republican majority country," and you could hear him squelching the urge to say "love it or leave it."

This mandate talk is nothing less than orchestrated state propaganda. America is as fundamentally divided today as it was last week, as divided as the ‘60s, as divided as it has been since the last civil war.

SNIP...

So what lessons can be sifted from this bittersweet experience?

1. The anti-war movement now must assert its opposition everywhere...

2. Now, however, the movement must reassemble, attack and expand...

3. A revival of progressive populism is the key to winning back America...

4. Taking back Jesus from the new Roman Empire...

5. A Progressive Democratic movement must be strengthened inside and outside the Party...

6. Finally, you can count on the Republicans to go too far....