Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Friday, November 5, 2004
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■ In my opinion
A Progressive Movement wake-up call, part one
In Sen. John Kerry’s concession
speech on Wednesday, he mentioned
the contribution of children to his cam
paign: six-year-old William Field,
“who collected $680, a quarter and a
dollar at a time, selling bracelets dur
ing the summer,” and 11-year-old liana
Wexler, “who started Kids for Kerry all
across our country. ”
That kind of youthful, almost laugh
able, idealism was out in full force dur
ing this year’s election. And Kerry
seemed visibly upset that his defeat
might cause young supporters to grow
cynical of politics. He devoted much of
his speech to reassuring them that they
had, in fact, made an impact, and that
the seeds they planted this season
would one day flower.
“A time will come when your ballots
will change the world,” he said.
“America always moves forward.”
That is bullshit, of course. Progres
sives might be naive, but they aren’t
stupid. America hasn’t moved forward
for a long time now, and won’t for a
long time still. There is no mysterious
inner force pushing America forward.
And ballots alone never guarantee
progress. What brings about progress
is when citizens fight for it, every hour
of every day.
But it appears as if the fight is gone.
Usually progressive activists are able to
muster an instantaneous rage after a
loss like this one, but this time they are
numb. Today, those who abandoned
the progressive movement in order to
support the Democrats are wandering
around with a tragic glint in their eyes.
They’ve discovered there’s no Santa
Claus, no Easter Bunny, only men in
suits. They are now post-pubescent.
They are growing up.
In January of this year, I wrote that
progressives needed a second Bush
presidency because they hadn’t yet
learned their lesson. Unfortunately, I
was right. They sacrificed their prin
ciples, obliterated the movement and
got nothing in return. This loss was
particularly devastating because it
lacks the element of injustice. And
that is the most difficult part of the
DAVID JAGERNAUTH
CRITICAL MASS
defeat to swallow: The American
people really want George W. Bush. It
is no longer an illegitimate adminis
tration hurting the American people.
Now it is the American people hurt
ing themselves.
One of the enduring myths in the
progressive movement is that we rep
resent the values of the majority of
the country. I hope now this bubble
has burst for good. We do not repre
sent a majority. We are the minority.
It is well past time that we admit to
ourselves a few difficult truths about
this country that we love:
1. America is a highly religious
country. American religiosity is not
solely personal, but rather social. We
have an evangelical spirit. The major
ity feels their beliefs should be the
law for all. Thus, it isn’t enough for
them to be heterosexual; everyone
must be heterosexual. Most Ameri
cans have no qualms about making
their moral system the law for every
one. They don’t understand or appre
ciate the separation of church and
state, illustrated by the overwhelming
opposition to gay marriage.
2. Americans are less educated than
progressives often assume. Add reli
gion to the mix and you get a populous
that is easily manipulated and misin
formed. Democrats seem to think that
Americans base their values on facts
and proof and reason. What the Bush
Administration understands is that
Americans base their values on faith.
We already know that the majority of
Bush supporters don’t understand the
most basic truths about the war in
Iraq. They have faith in what they are
told by President Bush because they
have faith in the man. They innocently
take in the lies and rhetoric, while they
ignore the reality all around them.
3. America is a country racked
with fear. Most Americans would pre
fer a feeling of security over the main
tenance of our freedoms and liberties.
Americans tend to express our fears
in ways that are deeply racist and jin
goistic. When reports came out that
as many as 100,000 innocent Iraqis
may have been killed due to the war,
the majority of Americans were un
fazed. Even the Abu Gharib torture
photos failed to evoke enough horror
to cause the public to demand politi
cal accountability.
Add these together and you get the
re-election of President Bush. The De
mocrats’ strategy of pandering to the
“heartland” by offering them all kinds
of economic plans and promises
would have worked if our imagined
progressive majority really existed “out
there” in America. The problem was,
most people didn’t understand Kerry’s
plans and they didn’t have faith in his
promises. Every time Kerry was nu
anced about gun issues, gay marriage
and the war, he failed to capture their
faith or soothe their fears.
Kerry appealed to Americans’
needs; Bush appealed to their fears.
For the majority, fear will trump
need every time. Wish will trump
truth. Morality will trump humani
ty. It is why time and time again
Americans will vote against their
own self-interests.
At the end of the day, we must re
member that politics is cyclical. Our
parents had the inexplicable re-election
of Reagan. Now we have the inexplica
ble re-election of Bush. The mistake
that the progressive movement made
was sacrificing our message for a brief
shot at power. Now our message is
completely mute. How do we bring the
progressive movement back and begin
to move forward once again? Next
week I will explain how.
davidjagema nth @ daily emerald, com
■ Guest commentary
'Courteous' fans anything but
A tew weeks ago, as I received my
glorious e-mail from current Univer
sity Athletic Director Bill Moos re
garding just how courteous, affable
and well-mannered Oregon Duck
football fans have become, I chuck
led. I thought to myself, “Bill, maybe
you need to take a stroll through our
now mystique-defunct stadium dur
ing each home game and in the park
ing lots after those games, so that you
can see some of these well-mannered
and courteous fans.”
In the six-plus years that my family
and I have been a part of section 36,
never have we been subjected to the
kind of violent attitudes and behaviors
as we have been forced to endure
through the first few home games of
the 2004 season.
As a young boy in the early ‘90s, it
was a great feeling to be able to sit in
those stands and watch future gridiron
r
greats, Ducks or otherwise, and know
that the people who adorned that then
half-empty stadium were there to do
the same thing as we were; join as one,
watch football and have a great time.
But within the opening quarter of
the Indiana game, the Eugene Police
Department had to make three sepa
rate appearances within the first five
minutes of the game due to violent,
belligerent and obnoxious individuals
starting altercations with their own fel
low Duck brethren. Where’s the love?
To the arrogant, uneducated group
of egotistical drunk University frat boys
that chose to brand my stepfather as a
nigger as he tried to walk back to his
vehicle, if you were to stay awake in
class more often you’d realize that be
cause a man’s skin color may be dark,
that doesn’t automatically make him
an African-American. He’s of Samoan
American heritage, and luckily he’s
also a man of class, or you’d probably
be finding yourself bedridden.
So Mr. Moos, look in that newly ex
panded section the next time the de
fense is calling for the crowd to stand
and become rowdy. I bet you can
count on two hands how many actual
ly stand and cheer loudly.
My family and I will always be a
few of the many loyal, well-man
nered and courteous fans that will
support the Ducks, win or lose, and I
hope than when my family and I sit
in our seats in the future, there will be
more of the same faithful, well-man
nered and courteous fans surround
ing us that I was used to being sur
rounded by when this whole joyride
began back in ‘94.
Justin Gast is a senior in the School
of Journalism and Communication
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■ Editorial
Four more
years means
yet another
five requests
At the end of the day, no amount of marching,
chanting, sign-holding or paper-mache puppet
making can change the fact that Bush was re
elected. After a reasonable mourning period, it’s
time to look to the future. To Hillary/Osama
2008? No, not that far. Let’s look ahead to the
next four years. Here is a list of some things the
Emerald wants from Bush this time around:
• Cabinet replacements. Senior aides are re
porting that Attorney General John Ashcroft will
“retire” before Bush’s inauguration. Thank God!
Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has al
ready said he is not interested in the job. Our
pick: Former Oregon Attorney General and cur
rent University President Dave Frohnmayer.
• More tax cuts. But not for the rich this time,
or even for the middle class. We want tax cuts for
those between the ages of 18-25 who make mini
mum wage and consume a disproportionate
amount of beer. Come on, Rove — it will appeal
to the youth vote.
• Huge federal budget cuts. The Republicans
are learning just how hard it is to control them
selves when they are the ones in control of the
federal money pit. Do they have the self-control
to restore the image they once had as the party of
fiscal sanity? We hope so.
• More Cabinet replacements. Bush fires De
fense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, showing he is serious
about cleansing his administration of the neocon
element. We would also like him to cleanse the
ex-con element from the White House and Con
gress, but we know he only has four years.
• Leave Oregon alone. With Ashcroft gone, we
hope that the Republicans go back to being the
state’s-rights party. We don’t want feds harassing
our medicial-marij uana patients and our right-to
die patients. Leave us alone, Big Brother bastards!
ONLINE POLL
THIS WEEK'S RESULTS
How should ASUO members who behaved inappropriately at
the October Sunriver retreat be punished for their misconduct?
1. They should relinquish their salaries to repay the misused
student fees - 28.3%
2. They should resign from their positions at the ASUO - 37.0%
3. Each individual should present a public apology and admit
to what illegal activities they each participated in -17.4%
4. They shouldn't be punished; they were just being normal
college students -10.9%
5. What is the ASUO?-6.5%
Total votes: 46
Look for next week's poll in Monday's issue.