...instead of anyone -- anyone at all -- who could be counted on for some reality contact, some rationality, some REAL support for the men and women serving in Iraq, and just a bit of concern for the blood and treasure being squandered on what he himself once called the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Maybe the Republicans were right all along. Maybe Kerry really IS a spineless flip-flopper.

Can someone please explain to me why we must suffer this paucity of Democratic leaders with just one ounce of integrity?

A small reminder, T.C. -- Al Gore did not lose the election.

...empowers them beyond whatever power they arrogate to themselves.

Twelve-steppers recognize this in the concept called "renting space in your head."

By making an issue out of -- and more, refusing to see -- something that might have value of its own, you are allowing your political and cultural adversaries to control your choices and your behavior -- and to diminish your enjoyment and experience. You won't let them make you kill people in Iraq, keep lgbt people from marrying, or put a creche in the village square. Why will you let them keep you from seeing a movie? Do you really wish to give them that much authority over your life and actions?

You don't think the movie will be any good? You suspect it will mess up your recollections of a book you might have loved as a child? Well and fine. But if you expect that you might enjoy it, for crying out loud, go see it, and don't worry about who else out there is claiming it for their own. You'll know better.

And btw, what is up with 6+ pages of dupe posts? Second time I've seen that happen here; someone's software needs a tweak.

We're at 10 pages of comments already; aren't we overdue for BitchPhD's essay on why "it's NOT a 'choice'?"

So far, anyway. I do believe this is a first for the letters. I wonder if that will make the decision easier?

FWIW, I'd like to add my $.02, and in the same direction as everyone else. It doesn't really matter what proportion, if any, of someone's developing alcoholism or other substance-abuse problems is genetic, and what proportion is environmental. A child of a person with any history of substance abuse is likely to have both exposures.

I don't know if knowing, instead of just suspecting, that my mother was probably an acoloholic would have helped me keep my taste for certain psychoactives from becoming, as it eventually did, a full-blown addiction -- but I don't imagine it could have hurt any. Knowledge is power.

Kudos to the writer's husband on seven years of sobriety.

I see one glimmer of hope in this travesty.

For the past several years, the right has been able to make inroads among the young by painting the left as repressive pc-crazed Bad Guys, and themselves as the avatars of freedom -- and fun. They have cleverly co-opted the natural tendency of the young to mistrust any authority figures.

Obscenities like this can at least help make it clear where the realities lie. I have to have faith that any random 13-year old of either gender can see this idiocy for what it is.

As entertaining as the last few righty posters have been, let's bring this back to the LW's original question. Tennis is absolutely right, and then some.

Some smart guy once said, "Give me a place to stand and a lever long enough, and I will move the world."

A teaching position at the post-secondary level is a hell of a good fulcrum. Why do the wingnuts go so batshit about left-wing influence in the academy? Because they know the power & influence that a teaching position provides -- especially with eager college students who have not yet had the idealism burned out of them.

Yes, LW could accomplish a certain amount as a front-line, grass-roots activist. But whatever he could achieve by direct action, he chould have two or three orders of magnitude more impact -- effecting change wholesale, rather than retail -- by ensuring that his students are provided the appropriate propaganda... BWAAHAHAHA!

Besides, in the fullness of time -- and in particular, once tenured -- teaching/research and activism are not mutually exclusive anyway; cf: Chomsky, Noam; Zinn, Howard; et al.

btw -- I think the name is spelled "Gandhi"?