coalition politics

There is a subtext underlying the various discussions circulating in Cyberspace at the moment--running the gamut from the controversy surrounding the Edwards campaign, to the Megametameltdown focusing partly on what constitutes "free speech," to what will likely be the next charge brought against Barack Obama from the Left (i.e., it's not his Muslim past that's the problem, it's his Christian present) and, of course, it all comes back--at least in a roundabout way--to that elephant still lurking in the liberal-left living room: understanding, in terms of real world political strategy, just what it is that Lesbian Feminist author Bernice Johnson Reagon was saying in her now quarter-century old speech/essay on Coalition Politics:

You don't go into coalition because you just like it. The only reason you would consider trying to team up somebody who could possibly kill you, is because that's the only way you can figure you can stay alive.

And ...

I want to talk a little about turning the century and the principles. Some of us will be dead. We won't be here. And many of us take ourselves too seriously. We think that what we think is really the cutting line. Most people who are up on the stage take themselves too seriously-it's true. You think that what you've got to say is special and that somebody needs to hear it. That is arrogance. That is egotism, and the only checking line is when you have somebody to pull your coattails. Most of us think that the space we live in is the most important space there is, and that the condition that we find ourselves in is the condition that must be changed or else. That is only partially the case. If you analyze the situation properly, you will know that there might be a few things you can do in your personal, individual interest so that you can experience and enjoy the change. But most of the things that you do, if you do them right, are for people who live long after you are long forgotten. That will only happen if you give it away. Whatever it is that you know, give it away, and don't give it away only on the horizontal. Don't give it away like that, because they're gonna die when you die, give or take a few days. Give it away that way (up and down). And what I'm talking about is being very concerned with the world you live in, the condition you find yourself in, and be able to do the kind of analysis that says that what you believe in is worthwhile for human beings in general, and in the future, and do everything you can to throw yourself into the next century. And make people contend with your baggage, whatever it is. The only way you can take yourself seriously is if you can throw yourself into the next period beyond your little meager human-body-mouth-talking all the time.