Opinion

That uncanny silence you hear all over Berkeley is the sound of more than a hundred thousand people simultaneously holding their breath until the election is over. This paper will be on the stand for three days, and it’s a pretty fair bet that most Berkeleyans won’t be able to exhale until the next issue comes out, if then. The good thing about this election is that it’s got people talking to one another who have managed to disagree about a lot of the important issues for the last 30 years, give or take a few. Whoever wins the presidency, there’s sure to be a post-election honeymoon during which born-again Democrats will continue to talk to one another about what’s best for the country—it’s just that different tactical responses will be required depending on who wins the presidency. Not even very different, really, because the Republicans are likely to retain control of Congress in any event. -more-

In the long ago distant days before the war on Vietnam, older people referred to what they called “the standard liberal position.” This included support for civil rights and a general belief that it was the responsibility of the government, especially the federal government, to make sure that all citizens had a job with a decent wage and a respectable retirement, and were protected by regulations from some of the standard abuses of corporate capitalists like drug companies. The “standard liberal position” concept was mightily fractured by support for the war, by Democrats, labor unions and others, which lasted much too long. “Liberal” became a pejorative term for some on the left, who favored, variously and from time to time, “radical” or “progressive” to describe their own politics. The Old Left used the term “politically correct” to describe positions they espoused, but this term was translated by their irreverent offspring into a form of mockery of their parents’ doctrinaire beliefs. Meanwhile, Rightists, sarcasm-challenged, started attacking the concept of political correctness without realizing that it had already turned into a put-down in Left circles. Are you still with me? -more-