Screeching Liberal

Charles, Charles, Charles. What did I do to deserve such treatment?

The far left is foaming at the mouth.

The near-apoplectic level of agita within the liberal screeching class over President Obama’s tax-cut compromise has exposed a seismic crack in the Democratic monolith — outspoken liberal Democrats on one side and barely audible moderate Democrats on the other.

Screeching Liberal. Wow! Driftglass and Blue Gal had it easy. "Professional Left" could be co-opted proudly. Lucky them. But, Charles, you really did it. Screeching liberal is such a put down. No turnaround is possible. My tonsils hurt from just reading the label. Imagine what will happen when I watch YouTube clips of Bernie Sanders mini-filibuster while shouting, "Screeching liberal. SCREECHING LIBERAL. SCREECHING GODDAMN LIBERAL."

I don't know if I can keep going for all 8 1/2 hours. No matter. The first 13 minutes shown here should get me good and hoarse. Hell, Big Brother only required two minutes a day.


Then, maybe, I could have a meaningful, but whispered, conversation with one of Charles Blow's moderate Democrats. We could pop a couple of brewskies. Sure would be good for my sore throat. I would even be willing to reach across the class divide and drink a Bud Light instead of one of my usual bicoastal, effete snob beers like Ol' Liberal or Screeching Pale Ale or DFH Porter. It would be a two-guy beer summit. And, we could watch Bernie Sanders Senate speech together. It would be fun. We could laugh at his ethnic Brooklyn accent. We could speculate about his need to pee, or wonder what would happen if he let go of the lectern. And, we might just listen the words. And I would ask the barely audible moderate Democrat if he disagreed with the Senator on anything. If he thought it at all reasonable to maintain -- or increase -- the economic divide. Or, how much he would give up so that Sam Walton's family could inherit all of Mr. Sam's money. And, I would ask him to point out the un-American radicals: are they the people who think like Bernie Sanders, or people who support the Republican agenda.

As to Charles Blow, I remind him that screeching liberals have watched the right-wing lie machine grow for 30 years. We have watched real wages in America decline. The middle class hung on by its fingertips. For a while, the shift to two-wage-earner families kept the wolf at bay. Then, the middle class went into debt by extracting the ever-increasing value of their homes to pay monthly bills or send kids to college. All the while, conservatives promised that reducing taxes on the wealthy would benefit everyone. The economy would grow. More jobs would be available. Thirty years of lies. American productivity increased. Nearly all of the gain was extracted as business profits. Almost none was returned to employees. People worked longer hours for less money.

Every careful study showed that Reagan and his ilk were wrong. Cutting taxes for the wealthy benefits only the wealthy. The money is not re-invested. It is saved. The national debt increases; the middle class falls further behind.

Speaking this truth to power -- including to the President of the United States no matter his political circumstance -- is fully justified. I offer this example from Martin Luther King, jr's, letter from Birmingham jail in 1963.

One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor. will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.