“Where Have All the Liberals Gone?” asks this site and answers that they’ve renamed themselves “progressives” and are doomed.
I still call myself a “liberal,” and, if the televised Rally to Restore Sanity were any indication, there are a lot of concerned people like me out there (“CBS, which hired professional crowd-counters, put the number at 215,000“), despite the efforts of some to write the event off as mere “entertainment.” Every good teacher knows that education works best when it’s “entertaining” — as the MythBusters specifically demonstrated.
Liberals seem more likely to understand how real learning takes place, and even my 8 year old grandson got the message when he commented, as Ozzy and Yusef walked off the stage arm-in-arm: “Finally, they agree on something.”
I wonder how many of us liberals couldn’t make it to the rally but were watching on television. Lots of us, I’ll bet. Even though the event probably wound up teaching to the choir, it nevertheless, through technology, will stay out there in the internets for anyone curious enough and open enough to learn something new.
Meanwhile, we liberals will go out and vote tomorrow. We will teach our kids and grandkids by example and shared experience. Some, like my daughter, home school and share their successes with others. Some, like me, blog. Most of us just live our lives by the values we hold dear: tolerance, equality, free speech, peace, accountability, transparency AND most important, education: learning that takes place every day because we encourage curiosity, creativity, and active participation.
If it turns out that reactionaries win this election, we will still be out here, “teaching” our values in ways that are most effective and meaningful.
Thank you. I call myself a liberal. Sometimes it feels very lonely.
I was a liberal before it was made a dirty word by the GOP. And no, I’m not going to change at this late date.