Spirit of ’68
Over at the Swing State Project, they were liveblogging the protests against the Governator in California yesterday:
This is one thing I love about California, and San Francisco in particular, they don’t play around. Bob Brigham is on-the-ground right now, phoning in updates from a large scale protest against California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The event: Arnold’s $1,000 to $100,000 a plate fundraiser. Bob referenced it in a post earlier today, here are the updates. It looks like Govenator’s re-election will not be as smooth as many anticipate:
Silly people, don’t they know protests are futile? Kevin Mattson said so and he’s a card-carrying progressive, published in the prospect and all…
But seriously. It’s interesting to see the contrast between the Swing State Project’s reporting of this protest: exuberant, upbeat and optimistic and Mattson’s sourpuss warnings. Mattson is the perfect example of the type of “liberal” there are too many off; liberal as a lifestyle. He doesn’t want to fight or to change things, because he is doing quite well for himself, because in his heart he has bought into rightwing propaganda and he is secretly convinced they’re right. He knows that if Democrats, progressive actually started fighting, he would be one of the first against the wall, it would upset his cozy little world.
Which is why any succesful progressive movement either has to be ridiculed or co-opted by him and his ilk. Has anybody ever heard this guy argue as passionately against any of the Republican nonsense that has come down the pike the last few years, nay decades? Course not. That wouldn’t get him media attention or further his career.