Welcome to My Blog - What I Mean, What I Intend

Courage is Liberal, Progress is not Passive

Welcome. I hope you are stimulated by my ideas and arrested by my stories. I am a passionate political partisan, and a word loving author. Someday I hope to be a research professor at a prominent public university, probably in fields relating to History, Anthropology, Literature or Linguistics. I value intellect and sophistication above all other things, characteristics which are unfortunate rarities in contemporary America. But more about that some other time.

HybridCourage.blogspot.com is my address. Hybrid is me; it refers to my multiple ethnicities, my 'mongrel' blood, of which I could not be prouder. There is nothing more American than miscegenation, and there is no one with a better claim to the identity 'American' than those of my peers whose heritage cannot be described by filling in a bubble on a questionnaire. Courage is why we're here, both you the reader and me the blogger. We are looking for courage and finding it in each other.

I am a liberal, and I say that not only as a distinction from conservatives, but from 'progressives'. Progressives are cultural relativists, they tend to be pacifists, they avoid direct confrontations in favor of insulation and isolation. They generally endeavor to inspire change by encouraging party cohesion. I am not a progressive, though I like a great music festival as much as the next leftist. I consider progressive philosophy passive aggressive. As I understand it, the healthiest behavior is simple assertiveness, which is difficult and often turbulent, but far more effective than aggressive or passive-aggressive behavior. I categorically prefer peace to violence, tolerance to the alternative, but unfortunately, while these principles might serve in our own factional infighting, the truly rival party has no such scruples. Until we can exterminate their ideology (and I propose doing so by educating all children, worldwide, not by Napoleonic slaughter of conservatives, by the way), we haven't got the luxury of playing Mr. Nice Guy.

This is especially true in the context of the climate crisis. It is said by the timid that revolution doesn't happen until there are maggots at the ends of the forks, but in case of climate change, by the time there are maggots at the ends of the forks, it will already be too late. WE CANNOT WAIT. We must change the attitude of this world RIGHT NOW.

So, here I am, saying the things progressives won't say, and conservatives don't want you to hear. I'm not middle of the road, I'm not a centrist. I'm just pragmatic and more sophisticated than Karl Rove imagines. I protested the war in Iraq, I even organized marches and demonstrations. But now that we have invaded, we must do what we said we would. There are certain inescapable consequences to invading a country, the only way to end with a result that is not completely unacceptable and worse than before, and I'm talking about worse for the Iraqis themselves, is to follow through with making the lie we were told at the outset a reality in the end.

So that's me, that's why I'm here. There is a lot of absurd political extremism out there right now, and I'm not sure which side makes me fear the future more, conservative imbeciles or liberal nutballs. Future posts will address not only geo-political issues from a realist perspective, but social issues, sexuality, my own personal stories and perhaps, from time to time, some of my fiction, which draws inspiration from the genre of magical realism and I strive for linguistic and anthropological flavor to increase the realism.

Hope you enjoy, or are stimulated by my content. Feel free to drop me a line, I'll try to respond.