Digby revealed herself last week. She came out of pseudonymity to receive an award on behalf of the progressive netroots at the Take Back America Conference. I think that people like Digby and Greenwald represent what’s best about Liberalism, and I admire their intelligence, eloquence, and moral passion. The speech Digby gave, which is worth reading here or viewing here, illustrated both the strengths and the weaknesses of the "Liberal" netroots.
It’s main strength lies in its revulsion at what movement conservatism is doing to this country and in its refusal to be conned by its self-justifying propaganda; its weakness lies in that’s all it’s got, and it’s not enough, and it doesn’t know it.
From where I stand, this kind of Liberalism is the true conservatism fighting against noxiously regressive reactionaries to preserve what’s left of our social democracy. The idea at this point that movement conservatism has anything of value to offer American society is simply not to be taken seriously. It needs to be taken seriously only insofar as it’s important to recognize the very serious threat that it poses to the commonweal. So the Liberal blogosphere does a pretty good job of confronting that threat, but in doing so it is fighting a rear-guard action, which is important to do, but I am more interested in looking for and thinking about a line of advance. My argument in the last week is that Liberalism on its own does not have the resources to effect that advance.
Now I may be wrong or right about that. We’ll see. But I’m going to proceed as if I’m right and see where it leads. So I am going to let Digby and Greenwald do their thing, and I will read them faithfully, and from time to time I might comment on their and other posts originating from the rear guard. But whether I’m successful in this role or not, I look at what I’m trying to do as in more the role of a scout, surveying the landscape that lies ahead, trying to discern what route might lead us safely forward.
I don’t expect many readers to be interested in this. Most find the fight in the political arena more stimulating and accessible. But my focus in the future will be more in developments in the cultural
sphere, and that means getting into philosophy and theology in a way
that I suspect many readers will find hard to follow because it’s likely to get a little technical. I was thinking of starting a second blog to run parallel to this, one, but that would take more time than I have to give. In any event, I’ll be writing more in a thinking-out-loud mode about difficult material that I don’t have much control over as I’ll trying to figure it out for myself. So I’m just giving y’all a heads up about what to expect starting this summer. I hope at least some of you hang in there with me.
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