As we start to ponder how the Dems will hold up next election season, shouldn't we really be asking ourselves if they deserve our anxiety over their seats?
Will the Democrats maintain their hold in the House over the Republicans, or will there be an upset? The speculation started this summer and builds to a dull roar, just a hint of what we will be subjected to in another six to nine months. Blah, blah. blah.
Maybe this next year something will happen to change my mind, but right now, I personally don't care. I think that there are a handful of Representatives and Senators (Grayson and Sanders come to mind as examples) that deserve to be in office, but for the most part we need to clean house.
I know, I can hear you now, "but if the Republicans win back control, things will be much, much worse." or "Think of what we just went through."
If you've seen, Touching The Void, however, you know that sometimes you have to go down a deep dark hole before you can save yourself.
I think we all thought that the Bush II Years were the void; and that we already crawled out of the cavern long enough to send our message to Capitol Hill, but we were mistaken.... obviously. We were ignored. The Beltway has been deaf and blind for so long now that it didn't even have to turn its head to miss it.
Most of our representatives chose to hear the wrong message last November. Most of the Democrats decided it meant that they get more campaign contributions for their reelection as long as they toe the line for their corporate and banking lobbyist buddies. The Republican thought that it meant that all they had to do was obstruct anything meaningful - no matter how pitiful (examples, our 1,024th "public" option compromise) - for two years so they can win back the House aka 1994 and really make things solid for their banking bosses.
As someone who thought she was finally going to see some domestic historical action unlike any other - save for FDR's New Deal and Teddy Roosevelt's monopoly break-ups - done by our elected leaders, I assure you, I did not used to think this way. I used to think like the majority of most of my fellow Democrats. You must vote Democratic or it will be worse.
Well, I'm here to call Bullsh*t on that. It is worse. Right now. A year after we voted for Obama and handed the Dems an even bigger majority in both houses. We've been sitting here watching our country slow-mo slide into chaos (while being told that jobs are "right around the corner") while they all dither away on health care that just gives their insurance and pharma buddies the store. Whatever ends up passing is going to be a pennies on the dollar public service to what a REAL health care reform bill would have looked like.
We're being fleeced by the bankers after just enduring the latest and largest fleecing since the Great Depression and our Reps "compromise" real reform right down into the coffers of their marketing and PR bank accounts. They fall all over themselves to marry these pseudo gulfs between sides in our Two Party System, just as long as it keeps the status quo of their soft, cozy lives.
Our planet is on fire or drowning, depending on where you live, and our Reps pussy foot around their sugar daddies at the people's and the planet's expense. Enough is enough.
Let's send them a real message. Let's pick another party.. you know, something that you vaguely remember from the ballot you read, and support them. (And if you've already been doing this - good for you! I'm a convert.) Let's vote for someone that has either proved that they are for their constituents and not their fellow plutocrats. Or pick a young and hungry idealist at the bottom of the ballot. And when the incumbent Dems (and maybe some Republicans - wouldn't that be grand?) lose and they see that people still came out in droves to vote. Just - not for them. Then, maybe the party will finally shake off their puppet masters and realize that the real power comes from the people. That the real power lies in leaving a legacy of bettering the world for as many of its citizens as possible, and not their own personal lives while holding public office (or their second career on K Street).
Maybe we'll even sweep a few of the Greens, Progressives and Libertarians (see, really, disaffected Republican voters can play this game too!) into office along the way. That's called multi-tasking. Send a message AND get some fierce ones in there that can start making a nuesance of themselves - a few smart cuckoos flying around the nest. Bernie and Al could use some help in the Senate.
If we do not do this (or something similar, say, like marching the streets in droves) we will continue to limp along in this country as half baked bills barely squeak through because some corporate executive somewhere who will get a little bit of regulation or taxation has been working really hard to squash it.
So, as someone that heatedly argued on the "side of reason" for so many years - don't vote for anyone else other than your main party or we'll lose - I say this: we did lose. We lost the battle this year for a chance at real reform by electing maybe a few souls that might mean well but that are in a rotting system with two Zombie parties. We need to start killing those walking-dead even if it means losing a few election cycles. Sprouts will grow. It may not be too late to save our republic.
History is waiting for us - go back and watch footage of the Berlin Wall coming down twenty years ago. Something this seemingly insurmountable can be summited and has been a time or two in America's history. The only way to do it is from the ground up. Smash the whole thing down by pouring water on Washington's ego, sending in some new borderline fanatics a year from now maybe in the process, and waking up the parties by showing them who's boss: us.