Now I have more blogging time, mostly because I really, really need to rest a bit before dinner and the evening program, which will include a speech by Sen. Harry Reid. So while I’ve got a few minutes I’d like to respond to some comments by Marc Schulman left on my post from this morning.

I, too, regret the right/left war. For what’s it’s worth, it may surprise you to learn that I blame the Republicans for starting it — the Clinton impeachment was partisanship carried to an extreme. Although it’s mostly left unsaid, it seems to me that the left wing of the Democrats and those even further to the left are partially motivated by payback.

I haven’t taken a survey, but I think the Clinton impeachment is water over the bridge for most of us now. First, we progressive netroots types are hugely ambivalent about the Clinton Administration. Righties seem to think we worship the ground the Big Dog walks on; this is far from the truth. Second, we have much bigger and more dangerous problems facing us now than to spin our wheels over the Clinton impeachment.

However, most of us are angry over the way the Right has smeared, slimed, demonized, marginalized, and misrepresented liberalism over the past 25 or so years. Well, I should clarify — this goes back more than 50 years, really, to the age of Joe McCarthy. And the Nixon/Agnew administration engaged in liberal baiting as well. But it was really in the 1980s, especially after Reagan abolished the Fairness Doctrine, that rightwing talk radio and media like Fox News began a coordinated campaign to brainwash America about the nature of liberalism, rendering the “L” word into a pejorative, as part of their campaign to take control of the federal government.

(That and the fact that many of us believe sincerely that the Republican Party — which in my childhood was associated with the centrist Dwight Eisenhower and “Republican” cloth coats — has been taken over by an extremist, hard right faction that Eisenhower would not have associated with. We progressives are closer to the center than the so-called “conservatives” who run the Republican Party, yet somehow we’ve become the extremist and the extremists are called the center.)

Righties just love to comb through leftie blogs and commentaries and pick out insults of conservatives, so that they can whine about how mean lefties are. But I sincerely believe that the Right has us beat in the hate department tenfold. And you can’t see it. You excuse the extremism and hatespeech on your side, but pounce on every squawk from our side as justification of your hatred of us.

That said, in any group of people there will be some with bad judgment and poor impulse control who will react to insult and abuse with retaliatory insult and abuse. I think such reaction is not just misguided, but plays into the Right’s hands; the Right baits and slimes lefties until somebody reacts in anger, and then the Right can point to the reaction as an example of how angry the Left is. We talked about this in a panel discussion today. To a person, the panel counseled not taking the bait.

I see the wisdom of turning the other cheek, as do most of us here. Several speakers today urged the attendees not to stoop to the level of the Right, now or ever. The Republicans have been practicing Scorched Earth politics for 25 years, and it hasn’t just hurt the Democrats, it has hurt America. We’re angry, yes, but I’ve heard no one here talk about retaliation. Instead, we want it to stop. We want a politics of unity, in which people across the political spectrum understand that just because we disagree on some points of political philosophy or policy doesn’t mean we all don’t want what’s best for America. And we want political leaders mature enough to understand that compromise isn’t surrender.

I was in my 20s when the Watergate scandal broke. I was never more proud of my country than I was when I watched the Senate and congressional hearings. People of both parties put aside partisan politics and just went after the truth. No excuses, so whiny “the Dems to it too” crap that is the Right’s usual response when they’re caught doing something unethical these days. The Republicans of that time put the United States and the Constitution ahead of their party. Few Republicans seem able to do that now.

On the other hand, many of us believe the Bush Administration, or some elements thereof, have engaged in criminal activity. We think it is vitally important to thoroughly investigate this. If we are wrong, then investigation should show us we are wrong. But if we are right, this must not be buried and forgiven the way, for example, Iran Contra was buried and forgiven. This is not about retaliation; it’s about the rule of law and the integrity of government. Future administrations of either party must be put on notice that they will be held accountable for crimes.

Whatever the reasons are for the verbal civil war, I can’t help but be concerned about the reality denial and vindictiveness expressed in many of the quotes in my most recent post and earlier ones on the same topic. Using Haditha as a rationale for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is an example.

Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like more than a meeting of the minds. If you, and others, would like to engage in a conversation to that end, count me in.

I will not engage in any such conversation until you are able to fully admit to the denial and vindictiveness of the Right. Even though I choose not to retaliate, I ain’t about to just lie down and let you kick me in the head and call it “discussion.” Especially not on my own blog.

As far as “Using Haditha as a rationale for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq is an example” — I’m not passing judgment on something I haven’t read for myself. You might want to read my take on this — the enormous pressure placed on the troops in Iraq pretty much guarantees that some will snap, and some bad judgments will be made. This, I argue, is a big reason why a military invasion was the wrong tool to use to achieve the Administration’s goals in the Middle East. It shouldn’t have been done at all, in other words. (Please read my entire argument before you try to argue with me about this; if I see you making assumptions about what I think that is not what I wrote, you will be banned from this blog.)

What the hey, I am going to do an unusual post. The idea to do this has been tumbling around in my mind since I read justme’s response to ‘Questions’. What follows is a part of something I wrote probably a decade ago, and which was actually published [in a select-audience journal] under my pseudonym, Woman By The River. I cannot reproduce the whole of what was in print, simply because I can’t find it. But I did find an early draft of the first page of what was written.

This post is dedicated to justme.

Pondering the ABC’s of Reality
Please…..imagine yourself as a tightly knit cluster of ‘dots’ of energy which is a central focus for an ever expanding [through all of space and time] continuum of ‘dots’ in all directions. There is no difference in your essence along this continuum, there is only a difference in spacing with greater and greater ‘physical’ spaces separating your ‘dots’ the farther you move from the central cluster.
Your essence extends forever………your body is the concentrated focus of this larger self. So far, the body is the easiest part of you to recognize and palpate because of it’s density.
Utilizing the concept of space, WE are continually merging. Much more of us is merged than not merged. When we touch, we first touch in those least dense extensions of our selves. There is nothing mysterious about the interconnectedness of all things—–all is energy and our world is not limited to our dense centers.
Should you realize how your being never ends, you realize how every move you make impacts on all else at some level of interaction. AND you realize how all else is continually impacting on you. At some level, you are receiving continuous input about every love affair, every crime, every starving child, every event in the universe. There are no others, there is only the One of many faces, of infinite variety, of everchanging aspected centers of different style and density interplaying and interweaving.
What ‘you as focus’ choose to be consciously aware of is delineated by your intention, purpose, sense of protection, belief limitations and clarity/skill of fine tuning. Your body is the focus of the larger self, but the body is not of a different order or separate from the larger self; your larger self is your soul!
Life is about growth. Human conscious life is growth in scope of awareness aong these continuing extending pathways. You can palpate large views with your less dense self ‘out there’. Getting past personal ego is a matter of first understanding these density configurations.
The notion of foregoing the body senses for ’spiritual’ knowing is an error derived from a first error which is a belief that body and soul are somehow separate or of a different essence. Every cell in your body is sacred substance. Every cubic inch of your body contains worlds. You have not begun to recognize the truth of your body. The bodily SENSES are God-given fine tuning skills for gathering data and for providing your growing awareness with continuous input. Our human species body senses don’t usually operate beyond the density level because we’ve limited them by our thoughts and beliefs. With growth, these same sensory organs are quite capable of perceiving and gathering data in finer and finer subtlety, i.e., withing larger and larger areas. We utilize a fraction of our potential because we utilize a fraction of our sensorial capacity. We become stuck by limiting our data to that of dense center phemonena.

[uh, oh, if you are reading this, that means I have gotten past a sudden 'clunn to the heart' that arose as I hovered over the 'post it' space . A 'clunn to the heart' = a strong shot of fear.]

I had about an hour of blogging time before the morning keynote breakfast (with Howard Dean!). But then I got caught up in reading about the Kos conference in other blogs. So now I’ve got 45 minutes of blogging time.

I met Skippy the Bush Kangaroo yesterday, and I see he is diligently blogging the convention. He links to this Time mag article by Anne Marie Cox that captures the ambiance pretty well. I’d only add that people here are fired up, and in a positive way. There’s some obligatory Bush bashing, of course. But to recall U.S. Grant’s famous military advice, we’ve stopped worrying about what General Lee is going to do, and instead are focused on what we’re going to do.

In some ways this conference has the feel of a retreat. The political world has collapsed into gaudy Las Vegas; whatever’s going on beyond the sober bordering mountains has faded from attention. There’s been some mention of the death of al-Zarqawi (Lindsay Beyerstein, from time to time: “Hey, is Zarqawi still dead?”), but since it’s unlikely this will make any bleeping difference to the insurgency or the activities of the Iranian-sponsored Shiite militias — whoop-dee-doo.

OK, so I’m about out of time (wasted too many minutes trying to think of a more original adjective for Las Vegas than “gaudy”). On to breakfast.