So the beautiful purity of our love for the Constitution has not swayed the Bushista Junta to relinquish their pursuit of unlimited power.
Damn. I thought for sure that was gonna work this time!
The junta that is the Bush/Cheney administration are resolute that the executive must have unlimited power, unchecked by any Congress, immune from oversight, beyond the reach of courts, usurping the Constitution. They have now succeeded in getting legislation that provides such power.
Each and every one of us can now be thrown in a black hole, without notification to our families, denied sight of the evidence against us, denied charges or hearings, denied benefit of counsel or recourse to the courts, subject only to the will of a president who has demonstrated an infinite capacity to lie and conceal the facts. The nation that enacted such a law is unrecognisable to me as the nation of my birth.
And yet I still love my country. And yet I still hope.
And just as I recovered from the shock of a
stolen compromised election in 2000 and fought back, and the shock of a fraudulent and needless war of aggression in 2003 and fought back, and the shock of a
stolen compromised election in 2004 and fought back, and the appointment of right-wing ideologues to the Supreme Court in 2005 and fought back, so
I will recover from yesterday's legislative abomination and fight back. With each new disappointment it seems more and more futile to resist, but yet each setback seems to feed and strengthen my resolution to resist. There is no other course if we retain our principles.
Principles are not something we can relinquish lightly. We here at DailyKos know this and show our determination to reinforce each other's principles through our collective concern and efforts.
What we failed to appreciate fully until yesterday is that our representatives in Washington ceded their principles years ago, and having lost their principles there was no bulwark against ceding our rights and protections under the Constitution which once embodied our principles. The majority in Congress do not share our determination to preserve what is special about America and its Constitution, being only concerned with preserving their power and privilege at our expense.
That said, there is reason to hope. Principled candidates are leveraging the netroots to run campaigns against status quo pols all over the country, in local as well as national elections. The public is more aware of the deceptions and frauds and propaganda than ever before in recent history, and more willing to question authority than in a generation. The netroots has demonstrated its strength as a tool of accurate information, political organisation, party discipline and moral suasion to a growing public and a wary elite. We are fighting back and gaining ground in the territory of hearts and minds, even if we have lost the White House and the Capitol and the Supreme Court.
There will be a revolution against the evils imposed on our nation. It may not be today, tomorrow, November 7th, or even next year, but it will come. We need to position ourselves now to lead that revolution.
Only when Americans hurt do they respond. So long as they are fat and happy and sedated by the smiling faces on TV they will not rise to a challenge - even to the challenge of the rule of law in our land (apologies TeacherKen). But hit them where it hurts - in their finances and in their families - and they anger quickly. We need to anticipate the anger to come and harness it to our agenda for change, justice and social equity at home. We need to be ready to counter the inevitable GOP attempt to deflect the anger at foreigners with their tried and tested tools of fear.
In preparation for that inevitable uprising in America, we on the progressive front need to accomplish four things:
The first is to preserve the integrity of the ballot, sadly already largely compromised by the fraudulent too easily compromised electronic voting and tabulation forced down the electorate's throats under HAVA as an early measure to institutionalise GOP power. Although we are fighting back to restore ballot integrity, the penetration of electronic voting machines, ballot readers and tabulations makes it an uphill battle without concrete evidence of rigged votes.
One key way to preserve what is left of election integrity is to ensure that never again is there a single exit poll for any election, such as the one I actually saw rigged changed before my eyes in real-time in the early hours of the election night in 2004. Exit polls are the surest verification of a fair vote, and if the vote itself is rigged, the exit polls are the evidence of the fact to the public and the world. The Democratic Party or at least its activist edge must ensure that there are independent exit polls for every election, not relying on the media-sponsored single poll which so skewed results in 2004. By conducting independent exit polls, we reinforce to a now wary electorate that their vote is no longer secure, gaining important leverage for efforts to improve voting integrity. We must also be ready to confront, evidence, document and challenge every stolen compromised election. The vote on November 7th may already be rigged compromised. We must be ready to loudly denounce a rigged compromised vote on November 8th and every day thereafter until legitimate enquiries and investigations are undertaken on behalf of the electorate. Fighting for the integrity of votes will ultimately win votes.
The second is to get out in front of the inevitable economic crisis confronting America to pin it securely on GOP corruption, mismanagement, cronyism and fraud. Bonddad and I and others have warned about the economic catastrophe that is the American balance sheet. A tidal wave of debt threatens to wash away the asset class inflation of the past two decades in a correction likely to rival the Great Depression for its scope and severity as America adjusts to a lower competitive ranking in a rapidly globalising and commercialising world. There is no ducking that bullet. It is perhaps our last, best hope as liberal Americans to get out in front of the issue of the economy before the deluge so that we can convincingly point to it when it comes as something we predicted, prepared for and pinned on the policies and corrupt practices of the GOP.
More than anything else, the collapse of house prices in Britain in the early 1990s, with negative equity, high interest rates and massive foreclosures, cemented the opposition of the centrist British electorate against Thatcherite policies not dissimiliar to those of the Bushistas. We progressives can position ourselves now ahead of the wave as standing for corporate accountability, consumer protection and fiscal rigour so that when the inevitable downturn wakes Americans out of their stupor, they turn to us for solutions. It is the economy, stupid (apologies Kos). It always has been. The GOP holds and accretes power largely because Americans are passive creatures so long as they are well fed and temperature controlled. Faced with a collapse in the value of their jobs, their houses, their stock portfolios and their pensions, Americans will rise with righteous anger to vote the rascals out if we are there to credibly point to the GOP as the rascals responsible.
The third is to lead in the rationalisation of an out of control healthcare scam. The United States spends twice as much on healthcare as the rest of the world - fully 16 percent of GDP - but the American people get much less in terms of either health or care. A huge proportion of the population has no right to healthcare at all. It used to be said that a Republican was a Democrat who had been mugged and a Democrat was a Republican who had been arrested. That formulation can be updated. A Republican is a healthy Democrat with an HMO plan or comprehensive health insurance, and a Democrat is a Republican with inadequate or no insurance and a serious medical condition. Perhaps the best places we can recruit activists to our cause are the halls of our hospitals, clinics and doctors' offices where real people and their families are confronted with the duplicity and inadequacy of their medical coverage, insurance plans and social safety net. We can recruit a whole family of activists by tying a loved one's suffering to the failed policies of the GOP, channeling grief and anger into positive change. As Americans age and grow ill, more will come to regret devaluing the social safety net in their primes, as will their children and grandchildren who must bear the financial and emotional burdens. This healthcare underclass from across the geographic and economic spectrum of our countrymen are ours if we are there to listen to them and speak for them.
The fourth and perhaps most important thing we can do on the progressive activist edge is to groom and run candidates for office in every primary, challenging an entreched machine Democrat on every possible occasion. Sherrod Brown's vote for torture two days ago was a betrayal of Ohio Democrats who swallowed hard and backed him once Hackett withdrew from the primary. Sure Hackett was raw, inexperienced and flawed, but that was because no one bothered to groom him for his run because our party isn't oriented toward finding and cultivating talent. If Hackett runs again against Brown in 2012, I will not encourage him to withdraw and neither should you. We should ensure that principled newcomers run against establishment pols at every possible primary so that there is party discipline, accountability and moral suasion enforced against incumbents and talent rises through the ranks. We let Joe Leiberman become what he is by leaving him unchallenged for too long. We should challenge all incumbents, every primary. We build the quality of our representatives and demand more accountability by doing so.
Last night I was in tears for my nation. I was discouraged.
This morning I am resolute. Join me. Fight at my side. We will win.