A History Lesson for Democrats

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

I am reading Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond and have to keep putting the book down every 10 minutes to collect myself and remain calm as I see recurring threads in the book that might as well be labelled - "Democrats - read this. . . now! Or cease to exist."

Very early in the book he discusses the collision of the Maoris vs the Moriori in the Chatham Islands off of New Zealand. In summary, in November and December of 1835, approx 1,000 Maoris landed in the Chatham Islands, home of the Moriori. They walked through the existing Moriori settlements and announced that the Moriori were now slaves and killed anyone who objected.

Diamond - "An organized resistance by the Moriori could still then have defeated the Maori, who were outnumbered two to one. However, the Moriori had a tradition of resolving disputes peacefully. They decided in a council meeting to offer peace, friendship and a division of resources." Long story short - the Maoris slaughtered all of the Moriori , eating some and enslaving the others - "it was in accordance with our custom."

According to Diamond, the Moriori had only the simplest technology and weapons, were unused to warfare, and lacked strong leadership and organization. The Maoris were used to war, had more advanced weapons and operated under strong leadership; when they came into contact with the Moriori, it was they who were victorious although outnumbered.

I think the parallels are exceedingly obvious. Those of us who continually comfort ourselves with the refrain - "There's more of us than them" need to
WAKE UP!!! It doesn't matter if there are more of us, if they are fiercer, bolder, and are not constrained by the niceties of what the rest of us consider civilized society.

Are we not constantly offering "peace, friendship and a division of resources?" Those tactics will take us no further than the Moriori - to extinction and a footnote in a history book.

[unblock]

1. the first step is to recognize that we even ARE at war

and i'm not talking about the boogeyman bin laden terra-ist crap.

we need to call the banana republicans "enemies of democracy" at every turn.

we need to support our allies and not nit-pick ourselves to death

we need to fight, fight, fight!

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. When I wrote this post I was thinking Dems vs Repubs

but of course it does have broader applications. It would have been nice if the Moriori had been civilized and been able to kick butt simultaneaously.

[jwirr]

3. If you are worried that Dems do not know how

to fight then you failed to see the VERY long list of liberal veterans who signed in over Memorial Day. As to guns? I was anti-gun until bushie and his bunch of social darwinist eugenics creeps poked their heads up. As my daughter says "we may need those guns someday" to either hunt for our food or protect ourselves.

[unblock]

4. it's not about guns and the formal institutions of war

it's about dems vs. reps, it's about freedom and democracy, and democrats are barely showing up for battle.

[jwirr]

5. Democrats and other progressives made a

valiant fight for the last election even though we understood that the deck was stacked against us. We came out in droves to volunteer, gave contributions until it hurt, wrote letters to editors, displayed signs, talked to people, created web sites like this one, and are acting as the watch men on the towers here to reveal the truth. I personally think we did all we could short of taking up guns. I do not see any of us quiting either. Is that barely showing up for the battle? Aren't you confusing the difficulty of the battle with the willingness to fight? One of our greatest problems is to get the message out when they own the media - this problem is why it looks like we are not showing up. We are here and we are fighting but the media is ignoring us. But we have something they fail to understand. We will prevail because we are learning to work outside the circle. We use the internet and word of mouth and when the story get around enough then they have to tell it.

[unblock]

7. i agree, we're showing up, and in greater numbers

but that's it. banana republicans have the latest and greatest weapons and aren't afraid to use them -- media control, vote rigging, voter intimidation, ballot stuffing, swift boat liars, etc., etc., etc.

democrats show up and stand in line and vote and look bewildered as our votes are ignored and our voter registration is challenged and and we look around and know that more people voted for kerry and yet somehow shrub is declared the winner with 53% of the vote.

we are starting to clue in, we are setting up our own media (air america), websites (du!) and our voice is not dead yet. but we still don't know, or know we have to, use the weapons of political WAR. we can't afford to have these quibbling trifles within the party. we must have the attitude that each and every progressive, warts and all, is better than any banana republican. we must have the attitude that their lies must be countered HARD. we must have the attitude that THEY must be attacked, too, and that even lies are ok (not that we neeed to lie, but if we do, let's not be afraid to). and so on.

this is political WAR, and we need to act like it.

[Pithy Cherub]

6. Lay in plenty of Scotch before you get to "Collapse" by Diamond, then...

You are reading a Pulitzer prize winning book! :hi: