Sunday, June 03, 2007
A Fighting Liberal ... and FTFY
UPDATES:
I never met Steve Gilliard in the flesh, though I participated in the comment threads on his blog. We exchanged the occasional email, though those were usually on the subject of favorite junk foods (one of his regular side-topics) rather than political issues.
Like so many of his faithful readers, I’d been following the news about his severe health problems, and his catastrophic stays in the CCU and ICU, with great concern and increasing trepidation. When his family asked for privacy rather than informing his far-flung readers, my worries continued.
Yesterday’s sad announcement, then, was a shock but not really a surprise: R.I.P. Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (http://www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early this morning. He was 41.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
We will post more information as it becomes available to us.
Please keep Steve’s friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.
- the news blog team
The left-blogosphere is in mourning for Steve this weekend. Just a few of the many tributes and eulogies:
- Markos and Meteor Blades at DailyKos
- digby
- Sara, posting on Orcinus
- FireDogLake’s Jane Hamsher
- Big Tent Democrat on TalkLeft
One of Steve’s best-known essays exemplifies his audacious power and strength, his fearlessly straightforward assertiveness. From the archives of his former blog, herewith are extended excerpts from I’m a fighting liberal, written on December 3, 2003:
You know, I’ve studied history, I’ve read about America and you know something, if it weren’t for liberals, we’d be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren’t fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.
What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn’t given us anything we didn’t have and it wants to take away our freedoms.
For the better part of a decade, the conservatives made liberal a dirty word. Well, it isn’t. It represents the best and most noble nature of what America stands for: equitable government services, old age pensions, health care, education, fair trials and humane imprisonment. It is the heart and soul of what made American different and better than other countries. Not only an escape from oppression, but the opportunity to thrive in land free of tradition and the repression that can bring. We offered a democracy which didn’t enshrine the rich and made them feel they had an obligation to their workers.
Liberal does not and has not meant weak until the conservatives said it did. Was Martin Luther King weak? Bobby Kennedy? Gene McCarthy? It was the liberals who remade this country and ended legal segregation and legal sexism. Not the conservatives, who wanted to hold on to the old ways.
It’s time to regain the sprit of FDR and Truman and the people around them. People who believed in the public good over private gain. It is time to stop apologizing for being a liberal and be proud to fight for your beliefs. No more shying away or being defined by other people. Liberals believe in a strong defense and punishment for crime. But not preemption and pointless jail sentences. We believe no American should be turned away from a hospital because they are too poor or lack a proper legal defense. We believe that people should make enough from one job to live on, to spend time on raising their family. We believe that individuals and not the state should dictate who gets married and why. The best way to defend marriage is to expand, not restrict it.
It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.
Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi sattlelite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America’s defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.
It is time to stop looking for an accomodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?
Them’s fightin’ words!
I’m not certain, but I believe Steve served in the US Army during the (first) Gulf War. Whatever its source, his knowledge of military strategy and tactics was deep and voluminous, a rarity among liberals (and among Pentagon strategists these days, but that’s not my point). His analysis of the disasters that would comprise Bush’s folly—whether the immediate aftermath of shock-and-awe, the abortive sieges of Fallujah, the importance of Muqtada al-Sadr—was always right on the button, and often written before the horrendous events transpired.
Steve wrote on topics big and small. Whether it was an ode to his favorite burger joint or his 37-part(!) series on the history of colonial warfare or his deconstruction of Maryland GOP gubernatorial candidate Michael Steele, he brought passion, insight, and a crystal-clear viewpoint to the matter. In a comment on the Meteor Blades dKos story, local King County activist Ivan really gets to the core of Steve Gilliard and what he meant to us all.
I couldn’t end a tribute to Steve Gilliard without referring to the last part of this essay’s title, something also mentioned in Ivan’s comment. One of Steve’s great passions (among many) was baseball. He was a Mets fan through and through, which I am not. But perhaps even stronger than his affection for the Mets was his absolute detestation of that other major league team in New York City. That is an emotion I definitely shared with Steve. In his inimitable way, Steve had a phrase to describe his thoughts on Steinbrenner’s circus. It’s not the sort of phrase I ordinarily post here on Peace Tree Farm, but it’s such a fitting and perfect epitaph for the late Steve Gilliard, that I’m making an exception.
Rest in peace, Steve, especially if those guys in pinstripes continue to founder:
FUCK THE FUCKING YANKEES
