First of all, h/t to NamelessGenXer for giving me my new motto:
I have to go to work tonight. I'm the Sunday closer who, after decades of building companies up from nothing, can only find a part-time, minimum-wage job standing behind a cash register. Fine. To survive, I'll wield an idiot stick1 and shovel manure. I don't really care. I never have. However, by the time I post this, I may not be around for comments. My apologies. I promise to rejoin the conversation as early as I can.
I also promise to do my level best to attend the OneNation March on Washington, and I hope to see many, many of you there. It really is long past time to get our comfy middle class butts out the chair and took it to the streets.
There's a diary put up a little while ago titled The Collapse of American Liberalism. It consists of a video interview with Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent with The Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, and more. It's a good interview, depressing, but Hedges in it, says some things which need to be heard.
But "The Collapse of American Liberalism?" I say, "Bullshit." I refuse to go quietly.
But we're going to have to do all the heavy lifting ourselves, because our elected democratic representatives have proven themselves unwilling to. Fine. Because the democratic party is NOT their party. It's OURS. And it's long past time we took the damn thing back.
Obama did one marvelous thing. In his campaign, he created a movement. A movement of believers. A movement of passion and excitement. It was thrilling to behold.
But if you waited for that change he promised, you've been betrayed. Because he, along with those blue dog senators, have opted to restore the Reagan Revolution: unlimited freedom for capital, diminishing prospects for working people. I mean seriously. Does this administration really think the answer to everything, after eight years of unfunded war spending, is another round of tax cuts? It's like he sitting there with Larry Kudlow whispering, "Laffer curve" in his ear or something. I really wonder if the president drank that koolaid at UChicago, I really do. Did you ever wonder, while capital was being freed up to invest wherever it wished, anywhere in the world, just when the balancing freedom of labor to organize, negotiate and act on behalf of working people was going to make its debut? You ever wonder that? Never mind EFCA. EFCA is small potatos, only a small piece of what needs to be changed. Let's begin with the repeal of Taft-Hartley. Since when has a union needed to be certified by Washington in order to conduct collective bargaining? Didn't anyone ever wonder how that might infringe on the a worker's constitutional right of assembly? When did the commerce clause get to trump the first amendment?
You know, it wasn't business and capital who built the middle class after WWII, it was the unions. The few years after the war saw more labor activity than any other time in our history. Nobody handed them health benefits, sick time, the 40 hour week; they fought for it. They took it. Veterans of the second world war, nobody, but nobody was gonna mess with them.
Time to get real, folks. It's time to become that person whom nobody is gonna mess with.
Anyone who thought that elected democrats were not going to opt for the path of least resistance was fooling themselves. And it's time we created some resistance ourselves. It's time we put a big-assed wall right across the conciliatory road these democrats have determined for us that we're supposed to take, with a big neon sign on it which reads, DEAD END.
So it looks like Boehner could very well become the next speaker. The NYT reports that democrats are desperately triaging every race in an attempt to maintain a slim majority by reallocating resources where they might do the most good. That majority which only a few months ago seemed safe. We could work our butts off and spend ourselves dry and at this point, and I'm not certain what effect that might have, because the road Obama and our elected representatives chose to take us down was always going to bring us here. It's as if their "bipartisanship" agenda was intended to rehabilitate the GOP. I'm not buying that. Never in a million years, though I know many of us here are willing to hold your nose and swallow it.
Not me.
Before any of you start trying to blame me, read what I posted yesterday, then save your breath and bandwidth, because I'm not buying that either. Lots of us aren't buying it.
I don't know what in hell democrats in Washington thought I was, but whatever that might be, it is not some half-donkey, half-elephant monstrosity they evidently thought. I've always been a liberal. I've never voted for anyone who wasn't a democrat, ever. I've never even entertained the idea of voting any other way. I'm proud of being a liberal. So I don't know how in hell this administration ever dreamed it could hold onto my support while charting a bipartisan course. In 2008, we had two Obama's: one of whom made wonderful progressive sounds, and he promised change. The other was a unifying figure.
Guess which one we got?
What a misread of the situation. I'm not talking about me, but about the idea that America was in danger of falling apart, and that we needed a unifying figure to save the republic. I don't know where Obama was then, but I was around in the 60's and early 70's when it was really unclear what kind of shape the union was in. What birdbrain came up with notion that we were anywhere close to where we were in those days? Now I know many here, probably the majority of kossacks plan to donate, volunteer and fight like hell to re-elect Obama in 2012. Everyone must do as their conscience dictates, and I respect that people who disagree with me have good reason for doing so. I respect that people have made honest, well-thought-out decisions on this. I will be looking for a different candidate, myself.
But that's not enough. It's not enough to get us where we need to go, and it may not even be enough to get him re-elected. so we need to start thinking beyond the "post-partisan" era of American politics. Anyone not think that idea is anything but a sick joke by now? I'm not blaming Obama. I realize full well whose fault that is. However, if the republicans want to play that way, I'm ready, and I want our elected democrats to willing to stand up and get in the game themselves. In fact, that's one of my litmus tests for democratic candidates going forward.
A long time ago, I said that I was moving on. buhdydharma evidently agrees: Obama is passe.
He is no longer (4+ / 0-)
driving change.
I know that doesn't matter to you, but it matters to us that care about more than the politics of the moment and are looking for real solutions.
I mean no offense. It is just a question of perspective and I am NOT trying to denigrate yours.
It is just that my perspective appears to be different than yours.
Docudharma
by buhdydharma on Sun Sep 05, 2010 at 12:42:22 AM EDT
So it's time we all moved on. We won't get get everything. We'll suffer setbacks. Everyone who told me I was being childish about demanding my pony was wrong if they believed I really didn't get that. The democrats might very well lose control of Congress. Obama might very well be a one term president, and I don't care. It's not about Obama. It has never been about any elected democrat. It has always, and only, been about the people of the United States of America. Those who told me that progress is always incremental, that reform takes years, were right. What they didn't say was that if we have to wait decades for real reform, we were going to witness the situation we see today: republicans gaining control of Washington. Just might happen long before anyone thought it would is all.
So I'm not dismayed. I'm not depressed. I'm not lethargic. I'm not even unenthusiastic. I'm pissed. Totally, over the top, pissed-off.
Obama and his team managed to create a movement, an amazing accomplishment. But, as Dallasdoc points out:
What we forget in thinking about movement politics is that movements lead, not leaders. We let Barack Obama take our banner from us, and agreed to meekly follow behind.
Well, it's time we picked up the revolutionary banner. It's time we created that movement for ourselves. It's time we took charge. Nobody else is going to do it for us. I'm fed up with being left behind. Aren't you?
My new motto. Repeated it with me. Say it out loud. Take it to heart and let it grow inside of you:
Our fate lies in our own hands, and in none other's. Let's not drop it again. Let's not lend it out. Above all, let's not entrust it with anyone unless we're prepared to hold that person accountable.
See you in Washington, 10-2-10.
1From Robert Heinlein. An "idiot stick" is a stick "with a shovel on one end and an idiot on the other."