Eva KATAJA remembers the day more than two decades ago when she told a friend of her desire to become more active in liberal causes — to "take responsibility" and help make the world a better place.The friend, a longtime activist, leveled with her. Don't do it, he advised. You'll lose friends. You'll become isolated. People will see you as a downer. You'll regret it.
Kataja was taken aback but vowed that she would never become burned out and embittered.
Fast-forward two decades through countless meetings, protests, projects, petitions, phone banks, wars, elections and Sept. 11.
Now Kataja, a marriage and family therapist in West Los Angeles, says: "As the years have gone by and I've gotten in deeper, I'm beginning to experience what my friend talked about. I feel discounted and marginalized a lot of the time."Sigh. Now I'm feeling a little depressed.Championing a particular cause or course of action often can be a lonely crusade, but these are particularly tough times for liberal activists.
Red-state dominance in the last election, the war in Iraq, changes in environmental policy and the possibility of a more conservative Supreme Court have left many local activists feeling as blue as the state they live in.
What they need, one longtime activist recently decided, is some therapy — a good old-fashioned support group tailored for the liberal activist in need of emotional rejuvenation.
My grandfather was a bodyguard for Harry Bridges. I think he had other things to worry about than self-esteem.
Losers whine about doing their best. Winners go home and &%#$ the prom queen.
A.L.
Here's another article on a slightly different take. That being having to clean up the mess left behind after implementing unsound policies. The Frivolity of Evil by Theodore Dalrymple.
Could it be because even after they get what they want it is never enough? Could it be that even after they get what they want they have to maintain it and can't simply walk away?
Maybe the question to ask your psychotherapist is why is it others can deal with life and I can't?
Some folks may not know who union leader Harry Bridges was. I didn't, for example. So, here's an understandably sympathetic International Longshore and Warehouse Union biography of Harry Bridges that nonetheless captures Bridges' obstacles in his attempts to make a difference.
Somehow, depression (at least, the personal variety) didn't seem to be one of his main problems.
The Commie bastard tried to cut off supplies to me when I was on the line in Korea. He never quite got his nose out of Stalin's ass. Like every other Commie bastard, en the end he sold the workers down the tube. Sorry your grandpa was so good at his job.
A.L.:
I've experienced it from the other side, and I can't imagine you don't know what I mean. Marxisant enclaves have great expertise at ostracizing those who don't toe the politically correct line, and withdrawal of friendship is one of the few potent weapons still at their disposal.
And as you know, depression can be quite deadly, so I'm not really inclined to just dismiss it as whining... unless, of course, it is just whining.
But withdrawal of friendship was the least of Theo Van Gogh's worries.
Demo
And so many are happy to see them fail
Frankly the whole leftist sickness is a downer syndrome.
That you wont get anywhere, without the help of the state, that your fate isnt in your own hands, the sickness of those that feel powerless.
There are certainly the powerless in theis world, but they live under autocratic and marxist tyrannies.
Nobody is powerless in America, you are always the commander of your fate, you even have the freedom to sit in the corner and mope, let life pass you by while you carp about the success of others.