Progressive Flying Monkey versus Conservative Snail Values

Written by: Edwin Rutsch on Jul 31, 2008 3:32 PM EDT

Linked to groups: DFALA, Democracy for Ohio (DFO), DFA-Marin, Silicon Valley DFA, brought to you by Dean Democratic Club of Silicon Valley, Framing Committee

Linked to campaigns: Obama for America

I attended an anti McCain rally at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco. There I interviewed several people and asked them to create a metaphor for Progressive and Conservative Values and to create a dialogue between the two.  In this story, Melanie sees conservative values as slug-snails and progressive values as monkeys with wings. See how the snails and monkeys get along.

  Melanie on Progressive Flying Monkey versus Conservative Snail Values

I’m Melanie.  I would say conservative values are kind of like a slug, moving along very slowly,and that’s not going to lead to the progress that this country needs and continues to be the amazing presence that we are meant to be in this world.

Progressive Values are like a super monkey with wings, you know, fast through a rain forest, and it’s very smart and likes to eat bananas.  It embraces progressive values that are working for us; it embraces equality for all people, it embraces new ideas; it embraces sustainability -- you know, violence and war are not sustainable by any stretch of the imagination. 

The slug would be like “I don’t know what you’re talking about.  It all seems kind of crazy, and I’m scared of change.  Change isn’t good, because change takes away my security blanket.”

And the monkey would say “Hey, man, it’s totally okay.  You don’t need your security blanket, because with progressive values, people are being taken care of.  People are having their needs addressed appropriately.  Welcome to the new world.”

 The slug would say “I don’t know man, that sounds good, but I think you’re just a dreamer.  I think that’s not realistic, and what’s realistic is staying with the same old same old that we’ve been dealing with over the past hundreds of years.  You know, people of color having no rights, that sounds safe to me.

And the monkey would be like "You’re kidding.  The more monkeys of different colors.  The more snails of different colors we have, living up to the full potential and getting everything out of life that they possibly can, the better it is for all of us. 

 Here's a video clip of  the rally.

On one side of the street are the snail and on the other side are the winged monkey values.

 Anti McCain SF Rally - Alec Bash - 07-28-08 

 Questions: 
Can you create a metaphor for Progressive and Conservative Values and create a dialog between the two? What are the values that the metaphors represent?

Failed Conservative Values
Assist us  in systematically building the arguments and telling the stories that reveal how Conservative Values have Failed. Join in our effort to create a documentary and book on the subject by contributing  articles, posts, chapters for the book and video clips. Check our website for more information and a growing outline of tasks that need to be done on this project. 
 

See more Progressive Values Stories:
Edwin Rutsch
What Are Progressive Values? Documentary Project
ProgressiveSpirit.com 
and Study Group

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