BY A. ALEXANDER | May 19th, 2007
How did so many American people allow themselves to be shamed by the label “bleeding heart Liberal?” That, of course, was the original Republican label for anybody who disagreed with their policies of war and greed. “Ignore the ‘bleeding heart Liberals’ protesting against our war,” Republicans liked to say, “and forget about those other ‘bleeding heart Liberals’ demanding food for the poor. They’re just a bunch of anti-American, Commie-loving ‘bleeding heart Liberals!’ ”
The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ - the person who hoped to stop nonsensical wars being perpetrated for no reason other than creating safe new markets for corporations to either sell their product in, or to enslave the population so that they could sew cheap clothing designed only to increase profits and CEO annual salaries. The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ was the person who hoped to end global poverty and feed hungry Americans. The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ who had warned of global warming long before it became fashionable and even before EXXON and other corporations began paying propagandists to refute its existence. The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ was the person who fought to protect drinking water, rivers, lakes, and wetlands from unnecessary corporate pollution. The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ was the person who fought for living wages, vacation time, and medical benefits for America’s workers. The ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ was the person who fought for programs to feed the elderly and ensure, after retirement, that they had affordable healthcare.
Indeed, the ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ was the extremist Republican movement’s original ‘evil-doer’.
And every American that actually tried to make the world and his or her country a better place for all “God’s children”, as Martin Luther King JR had so eloquently said; eventually those Americans bought into the extremist Republican’s perversions and came to view themselves as being somehow “un-American” and ashamed for daring to care about someone and something other than themselves. Nearly every American who believed in something greater than themselves came to surrender their very real and Christ-like morality and instead, latched onto the radicalized and extremist Republican Party’s perverted and greed-based “Christian” morality of hate and intolerance.
Perhaps, most worrisome in America today, isn’t that Mister Bush and the radicalized and extremist Republican Party have nearly completely undermined and destroyed the U.S. Constitution and democracy; what is most disconcerting is that Americans have lost their humanity. We don’t care that our government started a war based on lies…and we seem to care even less that those lies have resulted in the needless slaughter of 650,000 Iraqi people. We don’t seem to care that our children are being massacred by our children with guns that could easily be controlled and kept out of the hands of maniacs. We don’t seem to care that our children’s education is being neglected, so that we can build bigger and better bombs.
At this very moment more than 45 million Americans are without healthcare. Why? So that some corporation can have enough money to build the next generation killing machine…and Americans don’t care! Children, American children, are going to bed hungry and living in rundown and dangerous neighborhoods so that EXXON and other corporations can enjoy massive tax-breaks that they can use to pay their CEOs $400 million salaries, and we don’t care. America’s infrastructure was crumbling, while Republicans provided massive tax-cuts to Bill Gates and other billionaires…and Americans didn’t care. Genocide wracks Darfur and ethnic cleansing sweeps around the globe as a solution to peoples’ problems and we don’t care. Government officials use their power and position to enrich their friends, while other American citizens do without and we don’t care.
The so-called bleeding heart Liberal was shamed into near extinction by thugs and snake oil salesmen, so they could clear the way for an America without humanity. Feeling terrible for ever having dared to care, the ‘bleeding heart Liberal’ surrendered without so much as a fight. That’s too bad really, because there was a time ‘bleeding heart Liberals’ were willing to fight for what was right. What could be more right than America’s humanity?
Originally published in the Progressive Daily Beacon
Your article indicates why liberalism will not be a solution to our country’s problems. much stronger stuff will be needed - stuff that doesn’t whimper and that fights. liberalism works in normal times. these are not normal times.
The Bleeding heart Liberal’s I know didn’t surrender without a fight, it was our Bleeding heart Liberal “leaders” that did. Like Gore did in the 2000 election rip-off and Kerry in 2004. Nearly all of our leaders have kowtowed to Conservative Demagoguery. They are punching bags who won’t stand up in defense of themselves, or us.
The bleeding heart liberal, may be gone, but it is for the best. We have evolved into something smarter, stronger and better organized. The ‘Pissed Off Progressive’. For 30 years we took our influence for granted, and had it stolen by a small but vocal minority. The sleeping giant has been awaken. We have a lot of momentum. Let’s keep moving!