Or, "I'm so tired being angry at the big stuff (war, torture, habeas), I've decided to start being angry about the little stuff.
So, what started as a casual email to my father (who's not a congressman) today devolved into a rant, but also got me thinking about low-hanging fruit.
I remember sitting up late with Keith on November of 06, waiting breathlessly for those last 200 votes from Montana, of all places. We were finally in charge! The things we would do. End the war! Utopia! Huzzah!
Now, I'm not a far-radical crazy person. I know that with everything else going on, no one's going to be put on trial for war crimes. I can even reluctantly admit that with everything else going on right now, that might not even be desirable. But what made me stop and think about the last two years is that there's so much progressive stuff that is NEITHER explosively controversial NOR fabulously expensive that we could just...do.
* A good hate crimes bill. Is someone really gonna read the phonebook to keep a tool out of the hands of cops? I say let 'em, if they're that soft on crime.
*Good architecture/remodeling credits. This can be insanely impactful in terms of energy--and who doesn't love tax cuts.
* Better programs to interface local farms and local schools. Budget-wise, this is a rounding error. Supporting farms while feeding kids actual food, made from
ingredients.
My point is that while wars and stimulus packages and all the big stuff is important, of course, it's also political, and fraught. But it's also easy just to sit down and name a dozen progressive ideas that are pretty thoroughly nontroversial--food labeling, consumer safety, worker safety. Why don't we do them???
Has there been a day since the election where W hasn't signed an order about timber or mining or health care that we're afraid will have longer impact than anything our big majority does? Why is that? The R's get Santa lists from lobbyists and just put their elbows to grindstone-- minority party, majority party, in the white house, out of the white house. They. Get. Stuff.
Why don't we get progressive stuff? Even easy, popular, cheap stuff that wouldn't be a big fight. Why?
The transition looks great, and hopefully our leadership takes advantage of the new year, new administration, and broader majority to start working our guiding principles.
Here's the first email-y rant I sent this morning, if anyone cares.
And it is looking today, hilariously enough, as though they might seat the IL senator after all. Seriously. On the places I get most of my news (kos, 528, tpm) they're talking about primary-ing reid in 2010. I usu hate that kind of thing, b/c i think we should save our energies for fighting the real bad guys, and i think that while it's very regrettable that Alf's dad got to keep his committee chair people need to let that go.
But this whole Burris thing-- with everything going on: three wars, the economy, the russia-gas thing, what our Democratic congress gets worked up about is getting into a pissing match with governor who's clinically insane, and then promptly losing it within a week. Be nice to see that same level of vigor and enthusiasm about illegal torture, illegal wire-tapping, or the subpoenas that get just blown off on a near-weekly basis.
I don't know. I guess two years into our bicameral majority I get these periodic fits of pique of WHY THE FRAK DON'T WE GET ANYTHING???? Bush has done exec orders since the election -- rapacious extraction stuff, that horrible thing where your doctor doesn't even have to tell you that he's opposed to standard and routine procedures -- that I fear are going to have more impact than anything our president will do in the next eight years.
The R's make no secret about about being all about comforting the comfortable, get in power and go balls to the wall to do just that. We've had a D congress for two years--WHY THE FRAK DON'T WE GET ANYTHING??? There's progressive stuff -- hate crimes, food labeling, mileage standards -- that's not exactly radical that we could just do, if we wanted to. At this point there's probably even a majority of opinion on dont ask dont tell. We got a long overdue mininum wage, but what else in the two years we've run the congress? Anything on torture/warcrimes? Rule of law? Clean power? Ending the war(s)?
Is it the magic number 60? Because it's mathematically possible that some one could, in theory, read from the phone book for a minute nothing can get done ever? But do we ever actually make someone read from the phone book for a minute? No, because the senate is collegial and chummy and we'd hate to put someone out.....
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