In November 2000 I was driving back to Maryland from Michigan where I had worked to GOTV for Al Gore and Debbie Stabenow. I helped elect a Senator, but as I listened to NPR on the way home I could not believe what was happening.
I was angry, frustrated and very, very concerned for the fate of the Country I loved. I knew things were going to get very, very bad if Bush stole the election. By that time I had already been researching Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and their web of corruption for a little over a year. It was clear to me what these guys would do if they had the run of our Government.
At a stop for gas I was so distracted by these thoughts that I drove away with the pump nozzle still in my tank—as I paid $125 in repairs, I knew that this was only the first of the many payments and indignities that Republican rule under George W. Bush would cost me and my Nation.
The reality quickly settled in: the core issue was (and still is) Taking this Country Back!.
Then came 9-11 and Bush used it to win the 2002 midterms. Next came Iraq and it seemed everybody had surrender to Republican rule.
Then a voice said NO...
Truth be told, there were a lot of voices speaking out against the war and this or that aspect of Republican rule, but almost all of them hedged their bets, narrowed their objections and fought the Conservative Agenda at the edges. A step forward and a step back was the best we could expect. It was annoying years ago and it is annoying tonight.
There were very few who seemed willing to cut through the web of lies and challenge the core principles, policies and decisions of the Bush/DeLay/Abramoff/McCain era. It seemed we could quibble here and there, and perhaps even occasionally score a point on an obscure issue, but that was about it.
Meanwhile the theft of America accelerated.
And then a voice said NO—not only to a specific policy, but to the entire rational for the Bush Administration, the Conservative Movement and ALL of their programs and policies.
It was refreshing
I first heard that voice speak at a progressive conference in the spring of 2002 (Reclaiming America was the precursor to the Take Back America conference that has become an annual gathering for progressives in Washington).
It was the voice of Howard Dean, the Governor of Vermont. After that I started following him, looking for his voice on C-span, the radio, teevee and the old inter-tubes of the World Wide Web.
I could point to many speeches, but perhaps his formal Presidential Campaign announcement speech in Burlington, VT on June 23, 2003 best makes the point that I want to make today. He ended with this often repeated—and still relevant—call to action (emphasis added):
The biggest lie spoken by people on platforms like this is the cry that "if you elect me, I'll solve all your problems."
The truth is that the future of our nation rests in your hands, not in mine.
Abraham Lincoln said that government of the people, by the people and for the people shall not perish from this earth.
You have the power to reclaim our nation's destiny.
You have the power to rid Washington of the politics of money.
You have the power to make right just as important as might.
You have the power to give America a reason to vote again.
You have the power to restore our nation to fiscal sanity and bring jobs back to our people.
You have the power to fulfill Harry Truman's pledge of health care for all Americans.
You have the power to give us foreign policy consistent with American values again.
You have the power to take back the Democratic Party.
You have the power to take our country back.
In case you missed that: You have the power to take our country back.
Yes We Can is only possible if each of us realizes that We Have The Power.
That has been the challenge and it always will be. Our power as engaged citizens is a responsibility that each of us can choose to embrace or ignore. Accepting your responsibility and using your power is not easy, but it is required for real and lasting change.
Think about it for a moment.
This is not an empty slogan: You have the power to take our country back.
It is a statement of fact and reality. Think about the impact that we, as the netroots, are having. Think about the many other ways we are using our power for change.
You do have power. And your Nation needs you to be engaged.
Are you disappointed tonight? Fine. Are you angry? Good.
The only question now, is will you choose to be in the game or sit it out.
This is serious business.
Our Country, the United States of America has been captured. It is being destroyed, dismantled and sold off by a gang of corporate raiders masquerading and a political party with a conservative philosophy.
With each passing day, with each passing hour, the deep thinkers of the Right and the Bush Administration do more damage. They do more harm. They have been at it for decades and it will take a generation to repair the damage even if we win overwhelmingly in November.
They have gutted every agency and department of the government. They have conducted a decades long purge of the competent and replaced them with well-trained sycophants, ideologues and yes-men. The only expectation they have for the government in agency after agency is now failure. And in the wake of these failures, bad things happen.
Katrina, Iraq, Enron, the housing crises, the Jack Abramoff scandal, etc, are not exceptions; they are logical outcomes of conservative rule. And these examples are only the tip of a massive glacier of graft.
The Bush/DeLay/Abramoff/McCain Republican Party has re-engineered Government to serve the needs of the few at the expense of the many. Failure has become the goal and in the wake of each planned failure more and more of our rights, liberties and wealth are stolen and diverted to puppet masters of the GOP.
Tonight, there are very few voices that critique the core values of the conservative movement and expose their deep hypocrisy as a failed system that must be stopped. One of them is in a surprising place: the Wall Street Journal.
Every Wednesday, Thomas Frank (the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas) is a columnist for the business journal of record. As you read his columns, one can almost hear conservative heads exploding. This was surly the case in the column he ran on June 18, 2008. This was a stinging indictment of the hypocrisy of the Right and it offered a clear roadmap for Progressives who want to strike at the heart of the beast.
Frank begins with the standard reaction of the right to their many scandals and failures:
The movement's ideals of "reform" and "justice" did not fail, intoned this towering figure of virtue; conservatism just never got a proper shot in the first place. "To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton," Mr. DeLay wrote, "conservatism has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."
Did Mr. DeLay's head rotate on his shoulders, Linda Blair-like, when he wrote that line? I don't know. But it sure made this liberal chuckle. Nothing in this world Tom DeLay has ever wanted has been left untried.
Still, the sentiment is worth pondering. Present a conservative with a list of the recent scandals and episodes of misgovernment that have turned voters so overwhelmingly against the Republican Party -- a good number of which involve Tom DeLay, as it happens -- and you can be almost certain that they will respond as "The Hammer" does. They can't be held responsible for that stuff, they will say, since true conservatism is opposed to "big government." [snip]
We know the right will respond this way because this is how it always responds, disavowing its former champions as "K Street conservatives," as "impostors," or as liberals in disguise. Corruption and misgovernment are defined away as properties unique to the left; conservatism, meanwhile, is a doctrine of surpassing purity, accountable for no misdeeds of any kind, standing reliably on the side of principle and freedom and goodness every time. If it didn't deliver those fine things, that's because it never really got the chance.
The bald opportunism of this argument should be apparent to anyone.
Frank goes on to cite examples of why the latest effort to re-brand the GOP and the Conservative movement is a transparent exercise in hypocrisy.
And then he offers us some solid advice about the two course of action Democrats could pursue as they move towards a governing majority and the November election (emphasis added):
The comfortable course of action for Democrats will be merely to pocket the coming windfall, to burble about how they have lifted the curse of ideology from the land, to replace the current gang of free-marketeers with their own gang of free-marketeers, and to resume the merry triangulations of eight years ago. The ins will give way to the outs, and they will rule happily ever after . . . until the next culture war takes them by surprise and sweeps them again from their contented perch.
Another route is possible, though. If they are willing to go beyond the regal rhetoric of post-partisanship, Democrats might find that they are, for the first time in decades, running against a philosophy of government that has utterly discredited itself. Should they choose to make 2008 a referendum on conservatism itself, they might deliver the knockout blow. They should start with the bad ideas that have delivered such disastrous consequences.
When I read that I smiled, because that is what we have to do.
We need to make the 2008 Election a Referendum on the Right—a Referendum on the effectiveness of conservatives controlling the levers of power.
It is time to take the fight to these bastards and force them to explain their corruption, their failure and the wide gap between the rhetoric and reality of their policies.
Only by exposing the myths, lies and intentional graft of the conservative movement can we deliver a well-deserved knock-out blow. The modern conservative movement is a failure and deserves a spot on the ash heap of history next to the other failed forms of tyranny.
It is time to stop conceding to conservative that they have some sensible rhetorical and philosophical basis for the way they govern. They do not. It is all nonsense.
They have captured our Nation and we must take it back.
Each of us has a role we can play. Each of us has unique talents and passions that can be brought to the battle to Take our country back.
What the good Doctor said all those many years ago is still true:
You have the power to take our country back.
It will not be easy. There will be disappointment (like today) and there will be set-backs. Far too many in our media, our party and in the progressive movement have been raised on the validity of this or that harebrain conservative idea. Often, these ideas come straight out of the crazy store. They have become accepted "principles" of government and our politics because of repetition, spin, graft and hype. These ideas do not work for America and the World. They never have. It is way past time to force the Right to defend and explain these useless, destructive failed ideas of the conservative movement.
It is time to go on the offensive and challenge the core values of the conservative movement.
In August, Thomas Frank will have a new book out that will help you do just that.
It is called "The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule" and it helps to explain why there is so much failure and corruption when Republicans are in charge—it is part of their plan.
I have been reading an advance copy this week and it will amaze you. It will also cause many a conservative head to explode. As you might expect, the subject of jack Abramoff comes up in the book and I’ve learned many new details from Frank’s detailed research. I thought I knew a lot about Jack, but Tom Frank may know more. I can not recommend this book highly enough.
This is something to look forward to and a book to pre-order from your favorite bookseller.
His 2004 book, What’s the Matter with Kansas has been very influential and helped Democrats re-learn how to compete in those Red States. The Wrecking Crew will help us make the Conservative movement and the way they govern an issue. It should help us land that knock out blow.
Today was one of those days when our side lost on FISA and by our side, I mean America. Fear won today. It is the principle weapon of the conservative movement and they can still use it to inflict a lot of damage. And yet, we are fighting back. This front page story makes it clear that our power is having an impact. It is time to step it up.
It is time to take their power away and the only way to do that is for millions of us to actively use our collective power to defeat them.
Thomas Frank is correct about 2008. It is an opportunity to deliver a knockout blow to the modern conservative movement and the "bad ideas that have delivered such disastrous consequences".
It is time to go after their perceived "strength" it is time to force them to explain their long record of failure.
Each of us can play a part. We have the power.
Cheers