PRIDE Cometh before a Fall
Pride MONTH (it does drag on, doesn't it?)... Juneteenth.... these celebrations once had a radical agenda (human freedom). But now they're hopelessly corporatized, commercialized, fetishized -- to the point where they have next to no meaning....DISCUSS among yourselves. OK, I'll start, since this is such a loaded subject.
The U.S. left -- the engine of political and social change -- has allowed itself to be divided and conquered, put in happy identity silos where we celebrate ourselves and take snarky potshots at whatever leader or artist dare takes a prominent role. These identity silos threaten nobody in power -- just ourselves. So of course Pride Month and Juneteenth and all the rest get corporate sponsorships and lavish media attention.
While we're busy celebrating ourselves, we're alienating our natural political allies (working-class families) and allowing the far right to set the national agenda -- whether it's packing the courts, terminating Roe v. Wade, or overturning decades of hard-won voter rights.
We need to stop partying and pay serious attention to what the left has just accomplished in France. A variety of left-wing parties, which had heretofore hung separately in the political wilderness, formed a coalition that denied corporatist President Macron a majority in Sunday's National Assembly elections, giving the organized left clout for the first time in years.
We on the left ARE the American majority. On one issue after the next -- from a decent minimum wage to reproductive rights to climate action --- a solid majority of our fellow citizens are behind us. But still we flail in the political wilderness.
We must crawl out of our safe silos and talk to each other, to come together. If we can form a national coalition like the French left did, then we'll have something REAL to celebrate.
