Why the American left is asleep at the wheel.

I have here three clips from a wonderful little film called My Dinner with Andre, wherein the main characters discuss the breakdown of human society.

Does the above seem familiar to you? If so, you may be just awake enough to notice how even benign or well-intentioned comments can be loaded with hostility, even if the person engaging in this hostility is unaware of it. Here's the second clip:

Consider how Wally's description of his colleagues in the theater trying, with their comments, to dismantle him so he cannot perform adequately relates to much of the rhetoric in today's politics regarding third parties and casting protest votes. Here's the third clip:

Let me ask you something: does any of this make sense to you? Do you see it applying to politics today amongst the American left? Think about all the ways in which even the most well-intentioned of liberals try to destroy any and all chances for true reform.

They tell us voting third party is pointless, a waste of votes.

They threaten us with continued Republican misrule if the Democrat loses on account of our failure to support said Democrat, even though nearly two years of Democratic power has proven that nothing has changed in any way that matters.

We are labeled "purists" and "extremists," even though our positions are little or no different from an increasing majority of Americans.

We can't get everything we want, or even some of it, due to rabid opposition—with the implication being that it's pointless to even try. We are told that we simply must accept that certain things are beyond our reach.

Oh, sure, many of these so-called liberals say they're only trying to do what's best—after all, we're all on the same side, aren't we? I don't think so. I think far too many of the American left have been so broken and defeated by movement conservatives, so disenfranchised and disillusioned, and so utterly bullied into submission, that they have in essence been lulled into a state of mental slumber from which they are incapable of waking. As a result, they are brainwashed into trying to pull those of us who are fully awake into the dream world with them, hence the excuse-making, threats, and attacks against any on the left who dare voice opposition to corporate-conservative candidates such as Barack Obama.

It is only natural to respond to such outright hostility and patronizing contempt with your own, fully-aware variety. Do this, however, and you're labeled extreme, even insane. (No one likes to be told he is a sellout or an unwitting slave to a corrupt system.)

The problem, as I see it, is this: the American left has been largely cowed by the far right, and indeed, lulled into doing its bidding. It is, therefore, imperative that we who are awake do something to shake our fellows out of their slumber. We must find a means to convince people of the truth, but before we can do this we must wake them up. Until and unless the American left rouses from its coma, it cannot understand that it has been programmed let alone break free from its conditioning. The question is how do we do this without alienating our fellows? We know voting third party does not steal votes that would otherwise go to Democrats, that our positions on the issues are far from extreme, and most importantly, that we are under no obligation whatsoever to accept "no" for an answer. Is it even possible for us on the true left to convince our fellows without turning them off? I'm not sure it is, but I'm open to ideas.