What We All Must Do, An Introduction
The biggest mistake I think we all made was to allow ourselves to feel that a Kerry victory was inevitable. When that didn't come to pass, so many of us got the life sucked right out of us. If that is how we felt, imagine how the rest of America will feel when another terrorist attack hits, or the economy collapses, or a medical insurance crisis emerges. That was the point in my introduction - not to make you feel more depressed but to make everyone understand the reality of the situation so that we will all be prepared for whatever crisis emerges. Now having said that, in regards to figuring out how to brand or label the Democratic Party, I thought about it for a while, and I may have finally found a unifying theme to differentiate between "us" and "them."
But before I get to that, after having visited a variety of blogs and seen where everyone's head is at, there are two things that I have learned and think we all should do the same:
- We all eventually reap what we sow.
- This is the 21st Century, not the 20th.
As for #1, if the Republicans, put in charge by a majority of Americans, want to do what they want, then they along with all of us will accept the consequences. We can try to fight them all the way - some battles we will win, others we won't - but in the end, we all need to accept the possibility of what could come down the pike for all of us. With new rumors of a dollar selloff and of foreign universities looking to building up their ranks more than sending them off to learn here, it looks like we will all be feeling the weight of everyone's backs turned against us. You and I don't want that, but the absent-minded majority still blindly chose the drink that is likely to poison them, and they are now the ones in charge of the ship. Some who want to jump off the ship may forget that despite our differences, America is tightly engrained in the world economy (a massive fleet), and if one falters, they all falter. So, we may have to be forced to stay on board and try to change course before it is too late.
As for #2, it's time for a wakeup call. This is a brand new century, which means the things that defined the previous one don't necessarily apply to this one. Quite frankly, if they did, Kerry would be preparing his cabinet postings for his eventual Presidency. The rules and labels of the past no longer apply to the present, and the sooner the Democrats figure that out, the better. When one group throws the rule book out, and you find yourself being bloodied with no ref (the media) to intervene, you either allow yourself to be beaten senseless or you fight back more aggressively than they do. When survival is on the line, no one gives a flying flip about the rules, and right now, the survival of the Democratic Party and pretty much all of America is on the line.
Forget the Majority Mandate from November 2nd. The conservative movement as it stands is in decline both in America and the world. If anything, it was a last, well-placed, gasp of the movement that gave us four more Bush years. But if history is any indication, the hardships will be so widespread by their policies in Iraq and at home that people will either do one of two things: either coil up in a ball and die hoping God will save them, or forget the petty issues that define modern-day conservatism for the need of money, food and shelter. The world is moving forward and not looking back. We are not only looking back, but sitting down facing it. America cannot survive doing this. The world isn't willing to wait for us on a variety of issues anymore, nor is it willing to continue carrying our carriage. Sooner or later, they will cut the line, and either we have to get out and start pushing it to catch up with the world, or we let it slide in the obscurity of history.
So, with the need to move forward likely to take center stage in the years to come, it is clear that conservatives will remain who they are for the foreseeable future - a party stuck in the 20th Century. We must redefine ourselves in this new Century, but in doing so, we need to play the Republicans' game. Since Republicans like to play labels, I think it's time that we turn the tables on them. How do we do that? By establishing - through records, policy choices, and what is included and excluded - the new 21st century labels for our party and the Republican Party (since they have been so good at labeling 20th Century Democrats, who's to say we can't do the same for 21st Century Republicans?). Quite simply, the 20th Century Democratic Party as the Party of Entitlement is dead. The 21st Century Democratic Party is the Party of Empowerment, not of government but of people.
I'll get to the Republican Party label soon enough, but to understand how our concepts of labels must differ from their's, we need to look at how Republicans have labeled the Democrats as the Party of Liberalism, calling us traitorous and evil. Those are figurative descriptions of us, and the way we turn it back on them is to not use figurative language, but language that more or less directly explains who or what the Democrats and Republicans are. Steve Gilliard is definitely on to something here, as he explains:
Gays will not only never have the right to marry but never be taken seriously until it is no longer an issue of rights. It has to be reframed as an issue of fairness. When most people see two men getting married, it's about as visually logical as seeing a dog fuck a cat. It does not compute.
It has to be reframed as an issue of fairness and families. Which is what it is. Stridently claiming that "I should be married" works as well as a black man squiring his pretty blonde girlfriend to a debutante ball in Montogomery, Alabama in 1962. And you got about the same result, without the lyinching from a lamppost. Instead the issue has to be about families, and caring for the sick and the cruel things families do. That's going to work a lot better than claiming rights.
...A lot of people deny this, but Americans hate to be seen as unfair. More than anything. Americans pride themselves on it. That's what you attack. Many of those same voters didn't see real people behind those iniatives, just something they don't quite understand. They didn't see any consequences behind it, any thing which would hurt them. Like a right to privacy in their lives. Too many gay politicians think it's a battle about being liked and understood. It isn't. People still dislike blacks, but they can't get away with discriminating against them. And the reason is that it became an issue of fairness, not of preference. If you say this is unfair, and doesn't affect your lives, you'll do better than talking about rights to people who don't think you deserve any.
This goes back to the labeling of the 20th Century Democratic Party as the Party of Entitlement. Having moved forward in various social aspects of our life, we also have, in parallel, moved in a direction where we no longer say that any person is entitled to anything. The woman's movement for further independence had a unique side effect to the American psyche, where we all became more independent and chose our own destiny. We were no longer entitled to this or that or anything. We are no longer entitled to a good education - if we did, schools would not be failing left and right. We are no longer entitled to have a good paying job - if we did, outsourcing would be as evil as terrorism. We are no longer entitled to have the things we want or think we deserve. Why? Because on November 2nd, the majority of Americans voted against that ideology. Republicans have consistently, over the last few years, voted against their own 20th Century ideology of conservationalism; this time, they simultaneously voted against ours.
So we need to no longer think anybody has a certain entitlement to anything - be it privacy, marriage, or what have you. We must therefore adopt a new broad policy to describe who we are and what we believe. That said, the New Deal/Great Society strides are a 20th Century Democratic Party ideology; it no longer applies to this century. For the 21st Century Democratic Party, we do not need to come up with some grand name to describe a policy initiative. We simply need to state that we are a party that empowers people. It doesn't matter who you are, every American Citizen, Republican and Democrat, has the right to feel empowered under the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.
By providing the means of giving health care to everyone who does not have it, we are thus empowering them with the right to life.
By declaring that government has no business being in the bedrooms of American citizens and that it cannot prevent a person from speaking his or her mind publicly nor prevent one from writing something that some find offensive, we are empowering Americans with that right to liberty.
By ensuring that benefits are provided for millions of employees and that jobs remain here in the US, we are empowering the American employer and employee with the abilities to help themselves, their company, and to further lay claim to that right to pursue happiness.
There are more empowerments we can bestow upon the American people:
By declaring that government should have no presense in the marriage business nor how churches conduct them, we empower the separation of church and state, and provide equal civil unity protections for all citizens, regardless of faith. Even better, we empower churches who may feel the push of government upon their faith.
By pursuing tougher measures against those who pollute our country, we empower our nation's natural resources and every citizen who wants to breath clean air and drink fresh water, without the fear of disease or poison.
By allow science to bring forth new methods and means of curing diseases and illnesses, we empower our own health and that of our children's to battle against diseases that have long had their way with us, allowing us to live longer, and in better health.
By seeking new means of independent energy, away from foreign oil reserves, and new means of conservation, we empower our pocketbooks from wasting our money on these old-fashioned energy sources, and empower our means of utilizing that energy without the fear of it being permanently lost.
There are lots more we can add here (and I hope you can too), but this is just to give you an idea on how we should be thinking. Empowerment. Such a good sounding word! Empower! I am empowered! Empower me!! What was it that Dean told his followers? "You have the power!" We do have the power, and our party is content on giving us that kind of power.
Now, since we have been labeled by the other side as a party of traitors, what do we label the 21st Century Republican Party? I'll let DKos Alumni Steve Gilliard tell it to you from the same article (emphasis mine):
People think civil rights happened because Martin Luther King made a few good speeches. Wrong. Most white people were more than glad to countenance
the repression of blacks, and not just in the South, as long as they didn't have to see it. When they confronted it, they were stunned at the caliber of man who would set a dog on a teenage girl or curse a five year old. Well, a lot of people are stunned that if asked, they would ban gay marriage. Well, no shit. Of course they would.
The thing to do is to make it about laws and judges and not opinions.
But what needs to happen is two things: one, the utter hypocrisy of the GOP needs to be hammered home. How is it OK for Dick Cheney's daughter to be gay and in a gay relationship, while the GOP runs on a platform of hate. Gays have to be willing to play some really nasty hardball with their enemies, for one.
Second, people need to stress the stories of how families were ruined because they couldn't legally protect their relationship. How unfair it was that other people could now make those decisions for you, when all you were doing was living your life.
I think this pretty much describes what is the 21st Century Republican Party. They are the complete opposite of the Party of Empowerment - they are the Party of Oppression.
This party consists of individuals who think they know what's best for you and IMPOSE their will upon you, and force you to follow their way of thinking. Empowerment = freedom. Oppression = slavery. Empowerment = courage. Oppression = fear. They feel that corporations should have complete control over your lives. They feel that health care is only for those who can afford it and they withhold it from others who cannot. Republicans want to weaken Americans to the point where they can no longer feel free, whereas the Democratic Party wants to empower every citizen with inalienable rights to where they feel free. Republicans only want a few to be strong - the Democratic Party wants all Americans to be strong.
They oppress people by establishing free speech zones, making people feel less empowered. They oppress races different from theirs because they do not match their likeness. They oppress the small business man for the need for higher profit, and oppress their employees by taking away their jobs and sending them overseas where they pay a fraction of what you got before. They oppress people to work long hours for so little, so that these poor souls will be obedient to what the party wants them to do or be. They want to oppress thought, rather than liberate and empower debate and discussion. The Republican Party of Oppression would rather have you chained down to do their bidding, whereas the Democratic Party of Empowerment wants to break those chains and have you stand on your own two feet. Just look at the Southern Baptists, the largest christian denomination in America and the most revering members of the Republican Party. Men would have their wives be submissive to them, keeping them in line, and prevent them from being pastors. If that isn't oppression, I don't know what is.
By stating that Republicans are those who, by their actions more than their words, oppress rather than liberate, we will be able to turn this whole moral values issue on its head and in our favor. The Republican Party, of which is in power thanks to the Religious Right, has taken a faith like Christianity, a good, wholesome, empowering faith, and twisted it into their own style of religiousity. You want a way to talk to the Republican Christians? Here's how. Pastors have long stated that God dislikes religion, because there is only one God and all idols are false before God. God took great scorn to those that practiced other faiths that did not correlate with God's.
Republican Christians practice a religion of where they are the only chosen people, that they are an exclusive club that no one can join unless they follow a few certain steps. In effect, Republican Christianity, which today passes off as Mainstream Christianity, is a brand, a religion. It is amazing to forget what it was that killed Jesus - you guessed it, religiousity. It was religiousity that forced one man to betray Jesus. It was religiousity that whipped Jesus to a bloody pulp. It was religiousity that nailed Jesus to that cross on Calvary. The Republicans of today have become the very people that Jesus and the Bible warned us about, and by their own actions, we can prove it!
Frank Pastore represents that new 21st Century Republican face in his highly critical LA Times editorial:
The left bewitches with its potions and elixirs, served daily in its strongholds of academe, Hollywood and old media. It vomits upon the morals, values and traditions we hold sacred: God, family and country. As we learned Tuesday, it is clear the left holds the majority of Americans, the majority of us, in contempt.
Simply, a majority of Americans have rejected John Kerry and John Edwards and the left because they are wrong. They are wrong because there are not two Americas. We are one nation under a God they reject. We remain indivisible despite their attempts to divide Americans through their relentless warfare against class, ethnic and religious unity.
...The nation has now resoundingly rejected the left and its agenda. We do not want to become European. We do not want to become socialist. We do not want to become secular. We are exceptional. We are unique. And we are the greatest force for good in the world, despite what the left, the terrorists or the United Nations may claim. It is for these reasons that we remain the last great hope in the world for freedom.
We continue to be that shining city set on a hill. And we fully accept the responsibility; we are proud to be the envy of the world.
Here's how you combat these nutcases - with actual scripture. To contest Pastore's last statement: Proverbs 11:2 - "When pride cometh, then cometh shame: but with the lowly is wisdom." Proverbs 13:10 - "Pride only breeds quarrels, but with ones who take advice is wisdom." Proverbs 16:18 - "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." James 4:6 - "But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble." This editorial is the complete antithesis of humility, of which the Bible promotes greatly as a quality ALL Christians should embody. This man clearly does not resemble that quality - he is either outright sinning against God's own word, as he and others like to call it, or he is a false prophet, that which Jesus himself warns us against.
We can take this moral value issue back by throwing it in their face with their own faith. And we will do one of two things: we'll either win converts who recognize the error of their ways and that of the Church and are willing to really become true Christians that empower others, or we'll drive them so crazy that they'll begin mad oppression techniques that even conservative Americans will have to stand up and say "No!" Either way, we will win the battle of ideas, and then they will be forced to rely on lawyers - the exact opposite of what Frank Pastore declares.
I'll be talking more about this in upcoming parts, but this concludes part I of a new era for the Democratic Party. Again, I urge anyone to write their own Addendums to this, as this should be a group work that we all contribute and make for the sake of our party and for this country's future.