If the comments from Sean Hannity, Grover Norquist and others are any indication, then you can forget about civility and bipartisanship in government for at least the next two years. The hard right is expecting us to behave like spaded animals, who will quietly sedate and bow themselves to the Republican Agenda. These people are not of the Christian Right - they will stop at nothing to ensure that all who don't follow their ideology become servent to their power.
You know, I woke up Wednesday feeling very depressed, angry and fearful about what this nation would become. That afternoon, I talked to a few folks who shared their thoughts (some of which I will get to in this post that are very important for everyone to understand), and their distress at the future of this country. I talked with my mother and father, and saw their sad acceptance of the times. I woke up this morning, took a shower, and was almost overcome with emotion at what the next four years would bring. Today, I get bits and pieces of depressing moments, but I, you could say, had a couple of relevatory moments hit me.
First, let's stop kidding ourselves. We must accept the truth - we lost, they won, and here they come. We must accept the fact that the right-wing agenda is going to be enacted, legislated, and signed by this congress and executive branch. But that does not mean we must also accept that the fight is over. The first and foremost thing on our agenda must be to have the means of contacting our democratic Representatives and Senators. A system must now be put into place to reach them via phone or email, and make them put as much resistance as possible to hard-right positions, like complete Social Security privatization, Patriot Act II, and right-wing judicial appointments. Those of you that don't think we can do that seem to have short memories in regards to our endeavors against Sinclair Broadcasting.
Bush declared that he wanted to work bipartisanly in this next term, well then our Senators and Representatives must hold him accountable for that. We must command them to speak out repeatedly when their voices are shut out of committee meetings, when they are unable to talk to the President. They must yell louder than the right-wing media does. They need to understand that by doing so, they are energizing their base, getting the issues and debates out there, and showing everyone that their voice and that of 49% of the electorate are being silenced. They must show a willingness to work together and expose the hard-nosed, back-handed willingness of the Republicans when it happens, making it show that the leaders of our government do not care about half the American public.
We have to make our elected officials stand up and fight, not because we want them to but because we need them to. I urge everyone here and abroad to find the phone numbers and emails of all democratic Representatives and Senators, and be prepared for massive support campaigns to let them know we need them to fight and fight hard. We may still lose the fight, but at least we can say we fought, and when the emminent downfall comes, we'll at least feel better knowing that we did all we could to avoid it.
Secondly, we must also come to terms that this nation is going to suffer for its actions. We must-no, no, listen, listen!: we must come to terms with it now. By doing so, we soften the blow that we and the rest of America will surely get for our actions, and while everyone else is panicking and screaming, we'll be calm, cool, able to say I told you so, and then assume the mantle of cleanup crew and, you guessed it, leadership.
We must lower the expectations of our leaders and our country, and assume that we will have the following: another terrorist attack on our homeland (probably much worse than 9/11), another recession that's worse than the last one, more loss of jobs, the loss of church/state separation, rising crime and poverty rates, fascist tactics in malls, parks, and elsewhere, etc. The sooner we accept this, the better. If it doesn't come to pass, hooray!, but nonetheless, this must be done.
This election proved one thing above all else - the majority of Americans are strong in their efforts, but naively, intellectually and spiritually weak. Their shortsightedness and distorted view of "moral values" will bite them in the butt when the world comes tumbling down on them with rising health costs, high sales taxes, high gas prices, high interest rates, no more affordable housing, no good paying jobs, no happiness. It's going to come, and they won't be prepared for it, but we will!
To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you stretch a rubber band, it will do one of two things - either stretch back hard the other direction, or break. The world may now think of us as fascist Germany of the 30s, but countries were very much separated during that time. Today, we are all locked in together. This current path our country is taking cannot continue on as is without something major happening. Moral Americans and the rest of the world won't stand by and watch that happen. This rubber band we call a country will either break or flip back the other way. If it breaks (civil war, complete structural collapse), it breaks. But if our rubber band is resiliant enough, it will strongly bounce back given how much we are stretching it today.
A new American Progressive Movement (APM) is about to begin, just like the Conservative Movement began 40 years ago. The difference is that people, like myself, have the inside track on how to get to these people in the Red Counties to come over to our side. I'll be back later today or tomorrow with more on how we can begin the hard work we still have to do to take back this country and its future.