What it means to be a Leftist...

I found this video of Dr. Cornel West addressing a panel at the 2007 Left Forum in New York in March, and I thought this might be a good introduction to a new blog...

"What does it really mean to be a leftist in the early part of the 21st century? What are we really talking about? And I can just be very candid with you. It means to have a certain kind of temperament, to
make certain kinds of political and ethical choices, and to exercise certain analytical focuses in targeting on the catastrophic and the monstrous, the scandalous, the traumatic, that are often hidden and concealed in the deodorized and manicured discourses of the mainstream. That's what it means to be a leftist. So let's just be clear about it.

So that if you are concerned about structural violence, if you’re concerned about exploitation at the workplace, if you're concerned about institutionalized contempt against gay brothers and lesbian
sisters, if you're concerned about organized hatred against peoples of color, if you're concerned about a subordination of women, that's not cheap PC chitchat; that is a calling that you're willing to fight against and try to understand the sources of that social misery at the structural and institutional level and at the existential and the personal level. That's what it means, in part, to be a leftist.

That's why we choose to be certain kinds of human beings. That's why it's a calling, not a career. It's a vocation, not a profession. That's why you see these veterans still here year after year after year, because they are convinced they don't want to live in a world and they don't want to be human in such a way that they don't exercise their intellectual
and political and social and cultural resources in some way to leave the world just a little better than it was when they entered. That's, in part, what it means to be a leftist."

I was so struck by these words, I copied them into my BoS. I've always subscribed to the more Starhawk-flavor of politically active Paganism/Goddess Spirituality, and Dr. West's words help explain why. I choose to be a certain kind of human being, a politically/socially conscious, vegan, Wiccan, Feminist Woman human being, and I certainly cannot be human in a way that ignores my resources.