WATB Alert

I was trolling around tonight checking out unfamiliar (to me) blogs, and would like to turn you on to one, in particular. Group News Blog has been around for a long time, actually, but had never really hooked me enough to mark it until now. They are primarily male (with one woman) techies with silicon background resumes and a lot of combined military experience, and the tone can be pretty profane. Though far be it from me to decry profanity!

In the process of rooting around there I ran across a February post from Jesse Wendel that pretty much sums up MY main concern for the fall campaign: The WATB Syndrome (Whiney-Ass-Titty-Baby to those not familiar with Lord Atrios.)

If you feel you and people you know or whose blogs you read, want to walk away
from the Democratic Party because it won't nominate your preferred candidate,
well, with no respect at all, you're an idiot. The Republicans will eat your lunch.

And mine in the process.

While they continue to take over the Supreme Court and shred the Constitution.

The post was written before Super Tuesday, when the WATBs were mostly Obama supporters. At this point, it’s Clinton’s most fervent believers that make up the core. I have just three things to say, then I will let Jesse take over.

1. The press has been astounding sexist, but that is not Obama’s fault.

2. His campaign has certainly manipulated the many opportunities Hillary and her ill-spoken supporters have given them but – hey – that’s politics. And in the words of a woman for whom I still have much respect “If you can’t take the heat….”

3. While it may be true that Clinton would make a stronger candidate in the fall (which I still believe), it is also true that she is unlikely to win the nomination under the existing system.

And any Clinton supporter who threatens to take their ball and go home is just an idiot.

I’ve snipped ruthlessly, because the post is long and much of it is irrelevant now. But he makes important points that are worth revisiting. This is not a “game” or a “contest”, this is a fight for the future of our country.

If you don't know all the different things the Office of the President controls, I'm not going to take the time to educate you in full. But we don't elect a President just because of Supreme Court nominations, to control the military, veto appropriations bills, or to represent us to other countries. That's the glitz, the Paris Hilton of being President. Small cheese compared to every-day impacts the Presidency has on YOUR life through the Executive Branch. And I do mean, on your life, personally, no matter your ethnic group, your sexual preference, your economic class.

Let me pick a few examples, not at random.

Ronald Reagan is responsible for the death of easily 1 million gay men in the United States, simply for his refusal to allow the CDC to act. The CDC knew what needed to be done. Reagan, the fuck, didn't mention AIDS, refused to allow warning or action. It would have hurt him politically.

[snip]

One could make what I think is a valid argument, that everything this administration has done at a political level -- including wars, ecological moves, economic strategy, and so on -- has been about increasing the stock prices and profitability of the major oil companies, as well as their long term competitiveness in world markets. All this has direct impact on food prices, plastic prices, the computer industry, airplane travel, interest rates and thus your retirement plans and home loan, and of course, gasoline and your utility bill. And it falls directly into the hands of the President and the people he appoints through a number of agencies.

Continuing. Literally there are hundreds of thousands of examples from hot buttons such as abortion to approval of drugs, to federal land policy for everything from grazing rights to timber use to national park funding and creation (or not), to designation of endangered species (or not), to declaration of emergencies, to spying on your telephone calls and internet sessions. Right now, the NSA almost certainly has copies of some of your phone calls and much of your internet traffic.

All this happened by order of the President and his agents.

[snip]

You can walk away, taking your ball and your bat if you want. I'm not walking
away so long as I have a breath left in my body.

That's the difference between someone who has balls, and a coward.

Cowards take their balls and bat and go home, if they don't get their way, if the game gets hard or if they get offended. Democrats put their union with the team before everyone, even if they don't like all the players. Even if they don't like the team captain. Even if they're sick of the game or think it's hopeless.

Because the game is going to be played, no matter what. Unlike baseball, winning matters.

A professional shows up to play, no matter who is on the team, fair weather or foul, because they're playing for the long-haul future of the franchise, for history, and how they feel about one player is so unimportant as to almost not matter.

Politics is a team sport. And the team which matters is the Democratic team, which currently is being taken over from the inside, by the netroots. With or without spoiled brat crybaby whining children who don't understand what it is to show up every day to play. Who threaten to take their friends, their ball and bat and go home if they don't get their way.

[snip]

No one is fooling around here. All of the pros working for Clinton and Obama,
the day after the nomination fight is over, 75%+ of them will be working for the
other person, full out. Just like being traded to another team.

And any Democrat who doesn't throw their full support behind the nominee, whoever he or she may be, is a fucking traitor to the Democratic Party, and can kiss my ass.

Ditto.

Here’s the link to the original post.