I have to admit…

…my outrage at the first word of the shameful arrest of Cindy Sheehan was tempered by a version of this notion...

...I’m afraid Sheehan has taken a wrong turn and is aligning herself with the old fringe that’s stuck in a 1970s time warp of identity politics and street theater projects and handing out fliers for the next cause du jour rally.

…which Barbara uses to launch a valuable discussion about what we mean when we say "the Left."

There is another Left, one that is more serious about good government than it is about making posters. And that Left is serious about winning elections. It’s also serious about building progressive coalitions that can have a real impact on making and enacting policy.

Of course, you could just as easily make that a '60s time warp, or an '80s. A '20s or 30s, for that matter. The basic division she describes has, it seems, always been with us. The labels have become a little more confusing. 'Socialist,' which had some popularity a century ago, gave way to the more generic but still distinctive 'radical.' They were labels which declared one's separation from the liberals who, under the mantle of the Democratic Party, made common cause with populist segregationists in the south and graft-ridden machines in the cities to enact the New Deal and the Great Society while ushering a new era of civil rights and creating the world's largest, richest middle class. Were they tainted by their associations? Perhaps. Were there constant, sometimes severe compromises? Certainly. It's simply the case, though, that the worst periods of Democratic governance in the last century or so compare favorably with the best results of Repubican governance. They can't govern and they don't care about you.

So, which side are you on?

Flirtation with radicalism should be a required part of every citizen's political upbringing, but in the end, I fall in with the liberals. Part of the problem is that as the right debased the term liberal, many adherents of unmistakable liberalism abandoned the label for 'progressive,' just as the radicals were adopting 'progressive,' especially in places where we once found the now-taboo 'socialist.' So, both sides of the radical/liberal divide are operating under the same heading with different agendas, and are viewed externally as some sort of coherent, if not completely cohesive, beast called 'the Left.'

The Democratic Party is the only vehicle for social progress, economic security and genuine national security available to us in our present circumstances. In a comment to another post, a question was raised about what the prize might be when I call for 'eyes on the prize.' In 2006, it's a Democratic Congress, either branch or both. That's it. That's the objective to which I'm willing to subordinate all kinds of concerns. Does it take electing an anti-choice Senator in Pennsylvania to put an anti-choice Democratic Senate Majority Leader in place? So be it, because with Democratic Committee Chairs and a Democratic legislative agenda, the Senate will be a safer place for reproductive choice.

That's it. We need a majority somewhere. We need some kind of fingertip grasp on some kind of political power in the federal government. This year, everything is subordinate to that. Not because Democratic power will produce some utopian transformation, but because only when Democrats are responsible for an agenda and outcomes, as a majority, can we really hold them accountable for the preservation of Democratic principles and Constitutional government.

It's simple stuff we want. Tristero, again, states it eloquently...

That's why I'm blogging. It's not to advance a "leftwing agenda." Unless preventing Social Security from being gutted by rightwing maniacs is considered a leftwing agenda. Unless demanding that the US president behave like the president of the United States is supposed to behave towards the victims of a devastating hurricane is a leftwing agenda. Unless insisting that the nation's schools teach science and not cynical lies is a leftwing agenda.

Like I said, simple stuff. But first we need a simple majority.

Eyes on the prize.