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All throughout the speeches last night I was struck by how much overtly heroic sacrifice is being put up for us to see and emulate. The father who gets up one hour earlier to go to work because MS forces him to dress up slowly; someone else talks about a brother who works the day shift and then, again, the night shift (wages from the latter to put a sibbling through college). And the moral of the story is always the same: If you sacrifice and are willing to work hard, you'll reap your just rewards. Why do we need more myths, quasi-religion? In the first place, these glamour stories bear no resemblance to the sacrifices of real people. You know what sacrifice is? It is working at a mind-dumbing job eight hours a day, after which all energy is sapped, except the energy to worry about unpaid bills. Many people would like to work two shifts: their physical strength is not what it used to be, though. Finally, it most certainly is not true that, if you work hard, you will be rewarded: tell that to the people who worked for years at a mine, only to see it cave in and, in the end, shut down. I do not know what "religion" they are trying to pull over my eyes with all these stories of sacrifice, but I think the emphasis is misplaced. Should truly progressive Democrats rejoice that, after working so hard, Michelle's father was able to send her to Princeton U? I think that truly progressive Democrats should bemoan the fact that Michelle's father, suffering from MS, still had to work after 30 years because he was his family's main provider. That's just the pity of it. That's what must be changed. No, do not tell me the man's life as an example to emulate! This is the cult of sacrifice that has no place in a truly progressive vision, a vision of joy, not a vision of Paradise tomorrow --- and by the way, suffer for now because we have no intention to change the circumstances that make your life so painful: "My father sacrificed, so can you."
