On my NC Progressive Site...someone said: "I AM a Radical Moderate!"

[KoKo]

I thought that was really an interesting post...a cool post...one that I had to take a couple of hours off to think about post. I tried to sort it out...but no matter which way I tried to counter it...I thought...

HEY! What a great new "Dem Political Group!"

"I AM a RADICAL MODERATE!"

What does this mean though...a "Radical Moderate." Could a new "Political Coalition" evolve around the designation "Radical Moderate?"

:shrug:

Are there any "Radical Moderates" here on Democratic Underground? If so WHAT do you Believe?

And can you give it to me in "Bullet Points?" Maybe 10 Bullet Points?

Thanks...and :-)'s to those who even take time to read my pitiful post.

[babylonsister]

1. Somewhat oxymoran(sic)ic, no? nt

[KoKo]

3. Well.. not really, maybe. It was an "evolution" of a discussion about Dem

who voted for Iraq Resolution and Bankruptcy Bill who were against those of us who are "Progressives" who said we need to run "Progressive Candidates" AGAINST ANYONE who voted FOR IWR and "Bankruptcy Bill."

In my mind ANY DEM who voted FOR IWR and FOR "Bankruptcy" should be "tarred and feathered."

But there was an interesting DLC TYPE Poster...who said: Do you want us to throw out everyone who voted FOR what YOU are AGAINST and get a RW Evangelical in their seat. Because if you throw a Progressive "you like " into the race you will now corrupt the Dem you don't like and lose votes so the Repug gets in..."Is this what you want?"

IOW's are WE better off with the Liebermans or will voting the Liberman's out mean that we get Repugs because we will dilute the vote trying to get our OWN PROGRESSIVE into office.

Because (as they tell us) the "lobbyists/K-Streeters/Clintonistas...will be on our butts day after day trashing us and the Repug Spin Machine will help them.

So do we "stand for our Principles and LOSE or do we keep in those we can HARASS with e-mails and Town Meetings? Like my own "turncoat" Etheridge? Many here in NC say...he's better than the Repug Alternative.

Maybe they are correct? :shrug:

[MisterP]

11. doubt they're right: they told us that we NEEDED to run their precious

DLCers in S.D. and S.C. and N.C. and Ga. so that we could win (they lost, of course)

[KoKo]

12. sigh...too true..... n/t

[KG]

2. the 'firebrand moderate'!

it's like finding out that to some, kinky sex means doing it with the lights on.

[PATRICK]

4. I am but

it really isn't honest. The words become meaningless in an extreme situation. I don't subscribe exactly to the righteousness of left /right ideology or persuasions but to the empirical humility of the human condition.

Progress is a fact of existence. Freedom, cooperation, democracy, compassion is necessary for survival in the modern world- not a glorious hard won luxury and fruit of our labors. It is resisting our stupidity, romanticism, selfishness and worst natures that is necessary, but no one rallies around trying not to be stupid.

Yet that will not cripple the Radical Moderate into apathy, cynicism or appeasement. There has to be a mighty struggle to match material progress with our own inner spirit. I don't need just a flip side of capitalism. I want people to deal with what we got which is nuts and survive until sanity flourishes and people change.

Which will happen. More of the same will get us dead. DNA manipulation will remake evolution itself. Utopian or fascist entropy will die. Moderation is not the lukewarm spew Jesus talked about. It is hot for nurturing what we have as we herd into the future. A future that we will need all of our luck, hard work and grace to simply reach.

But it is a nutty term. A school survey plainly put me in the ultra liberal category, mainly through learned distrust of human authority.
I guess a radical moderate is someone who might have liked being a conservative if the real universe was like that(maybe Paradise is, but I doubt it). Or someone who realizes the ideal cannot be yet and a radical left is a sad pretense as opposed to a hateful one on the Right. A true radical moderate would be in a crossfire in no man's land. So far most of the left is not shooting that viciously so by default moderates must move to the left or die. Hardly a radical outlook is it? And to tell the truth, the only radical people denying reality are the truly exposed crazies and gluttonous mammonites of the RW. Way past the bizarre, sustained by enslaving the most powerful and richest nation in world history. Big deal. They are still just doomed parasites by choice and always will be until they get human again.

I suppose I could make bullet points. But as I said, the crossfire would whittle us down to being moderate progressives waving a white flag.

[KoKo]

6. It seems though that a discussion of how we differ on this "edge of

difference" might be important though. I didn't really understand where I was coming from until I saw a post from a "hard Lefter" against a "hard Righter" on my on North Carolina "Progressive" Web site.

This all evolved from a group us trying to get "Verified Voter Paper Ballot Machines" before our NC Legislature. Voting Rights Issues..brought us together...but then we got into fights about where we all fall philosophically.

The fight today with folks I've worked with suddenly made me realize I was in a very different category than what our Dem/Repug Polsters TELL us we fit in and that even here on DU ...I'm in a different category.

I don't like DLC I don't want to be associated with them. And in other ways I'm WAY LEFTY of some other DU'ers...but in the end...I kind of go to the "middle on a few issues."

My problem is that I'm very ADAMANT about each issue on each side of the spectrum. :shrug:

Which says to me..that there's a group of "Activist Dems" who aren't even being addressed by the "far left or the right and middle right."

We are really our own "Cool Selves?" But, I don't know WHAT WE ARE???? :crazy:

[David Zephyr]

5. Sounds like "compassionate conservative".

Radical Moderates.
Compassionate Conservatives.
Silent Majority.

KoKo01, you are no moderate, honey. It's too late. The Ascroftians have your name and number now.

:hi:

[KoKo]

7. No...there's definitely some merit in this.

I'm NC and we have an active group. My post came out of what I was seeing in "flame wars" over what we believe. I'm a red state who sent our Senator Edwards to DC to replace that RWinger Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth (Smithfield/Pig Farm King).

I'm involved here and on Discussion Boards and interacting with other NC Dems...this is what comes up. And, that's why I posted. Because to get a dialog going we need to know "who we are and where we are coming from."

Being on DU since about 8 months after Bush's first "Selection" I've spent alot of time here...and seen alot of stuff go down..and alot of different opinions from other Dem Du'ers.

I think the term "Radical Moderate" ain't DLC but it isn't so far left that it leaves others out.

That's why I posted. This may go nowhere...but I loved the title...and think that rather than the DLC or Repugs defining Dems...that one Dem defined himself as a "Radical Moderate" sort of struck me as maybe where I WAS...even though I'm way to the left of those TODAY who post on DU.

I'm more with the folks who've gone...but that I'm still here means that I must be "moderate something." But I'm VERY, VERY RADICAL.

:-)'s to you...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

8. Red Jello? Peppered Pablum? Pat Boone singing the Internationale?

Barbara Bush in HotPants?

James Dobson kissing Arnold Schwartziswhatsis? (no tongue)

Tricycle Nascar?

Vegetarian liver & onions?

Non-alcoholic Jack Daniels?

Britney Spears singing Pucchini?

Cuddly Piranhas?

Compassionate Hit Man?

[KoKo]

9. What's this shit you are posting to me...what the hell are you talking

about. :-( If you are serious I hope you clarify...if you are dissing/trashing...then state a case I can answer.

[KoKo]

10. You know...I see flame wars here on DU continuously..about who's too

far to the Left that called Daschle, Kerry, Edwards to task for their "mis-speaks" and others to the Right who thought we should "sit back and wait for Chimp to implode on his own with "enough rope."

I've seen flames over both sides and yet seen those of us who went "back and forth" on both positions be flames or cast aside and maybe even get "stones" for what they were trying to say.

I've trashed and gotten very angry with DLC'ers or Moderate to Consevative Dems here as they have with what they might view as My and others "Socialist Views" on many issues.

What I'm trying to say with this post is ....what can we agree on?

Because I'm a DU'er who though Janis's Boob was "Shock Value" to most Americans who had kids whether Dem or Repug...yet got trashed here when I posted that I thought it was a publicity stunt and disgusting ...folks though I wasn't pro-female rights to "bare boobs" enough. Yet, I get trashed when I post on DU Lefty "Q"'s posts because "Q" is seen as disparaging EVERYTHING DEM?

So...where do I fit between anger at Janis Jackson's Boob Stunt and DU'er "Q" who has been "tarred" as not liking anything any Dems have done?

DU'er "Q" isn't into Jackson's Boob in the way I am....and I don't know if he/she would agree that I'm glad that poor demented Michael Jackson got off a prison sentence because he believed in Neverland and some folks didn't get it..that he's not quite right in his mind..whatever ..or that he's a pedophile...whatever...but there's GOT TO BE SOMETHING INBETWEEN?

No? :shrug:

[meow2u3]

13. My DU handle says it all

We have to stop the wild swinging of the political pendulum--by force if necessary--and start rediscovering the lost art of genuine moderation. No, I'm not talking about the wishy-washy kind of centrism so prevalent in the DLC; I mean the neopopulism of Howard Dean or Bobby Casey.


Forget the far left and the far right; they're both too extreme for American reality. Deep center is where it's at!

[KoKo]

14. Ahhh, but we need to hash out where the "pedulum is in the center...Like

what you say though because I think Dean is a center that might fit if he's ever allowed to speak freely with out the Repugs and the DLC pulling and pushing and tugging at him.

thank...:-)'s