This time simply is not like last time.
One cannot look back in history and say "This economic recovery is going to follow the recovery of blah, blah, blah."
One cannot argue that "This partisan bickering is just politics as usual" or that "This disruption of our social order is just a reflection of the political climate, and it will change."
One cannot look at today's crop of 'politicians' and say that they are representative as a whole of any aspect of the desires, wants or aspirations of the American people as a whole. Our "public servants", many of them are becoming more crazed, filled with a type of mental illness that is reflective of self-destructive nature of human beings under threat of absolute extinction. The 'right' acts like vicious rats in a cage, and the response from the rest of the politicians, reminiscent of timid mice fleeing certain doom.
These changes, unlike the lyrics in the song 'Tom Sawyer',
These Changes Are Permanent.
We are looking at 'The End of History', but not as Fukuyama envisioned it.
Quite the opposite.
Unemployment is just one example: While some areas of the country may fare slightly better than others, huge swaths of America are never recovering. There are whole States, like Michigan, and cities like Camden, NJ which will never come back. Most manufacturing jobs are never coming back. There's no 'economic recovery' for 10s of millions of Americans. The jobs that you trained for, that you may have paid tens or hundreds of thousands to get that degree, many of them are never opening up, or coming back.
This shift in concentration of wealth, by way of capitalism without conscience is at the root of all of the destruction we see about us. It cannot be reversed. It will never be reversed. The powers of wealth are self serving, self perpetuating. The system of government we adopted roughly 250 years ago was supposed to be a bulwark against the power of wealth. Our government is dead. It's not coming back. It's been replaced by corporate power, the power of wealth. Our government is not controlled in government offices: it's controlled in 'Task Forces', in boardrooms, at share holder meetings. It's an illusion to believe that Congress and the Office of the President hold any real power. The Courts hold what little remaining power of law that remains; as Republicans take control of more Government offices, the Courts will become absolute tools of the wealthy. The Circuit Courts and Supreme Court will be loaded [and mostly already are] with representatives of wealth and privilege, doing the bidding of property and corporation, over individuals.
Our rights and freedoms, the culmination of some 5000 years of logic and intellectual thought, from the earliest concepts of Greek and Roman ideals of City-State to the Magna Carta, the protections afforded citizens. 'rights guaranteed' by way of the Constitution have been eaten away, corroded as real terrorists have finally won. We're not getting these rights back. Ever.
The changes humans have forced upon this planet's environment are permanent as well. The poisoning of the oceans and our lands, the scarring of mountaintops, the wretched toxic dumps that ooze chemicals where some of our homes sit, where some of our children's schools have been placed. The positive feedback cycle of Global Warming is permanent, (or at least until the numbers of humans using technology is radically reduced, by whatever means this happens). Earth will be happy to shake us off like fleas, and the seasons will resume, as soon as we stop meddling.
The political changes are permanent as well. It's clear to anyone who has been paying attention that rank criminality, moral turpitude, brutish abuse of power is the hallmark of American political system. There is evil in the world, and much of it is truly concentrated in Washington DC. There are purveyors of evil, and and then there are those who by their incompetence or weakness enable it.
Screaming and yelling about Obama, Reid, Pelosi and their inability [or some might say unwillingness] to do anything to stop this evil is not understanding that this process has been going on for decades. Corruption inside Washington and in the various State Houses throughout this country are loaded with brazenly corrupt politicians. Today's politicians are not much more than legal predators, who prey upon citizens, robbing us in broad daylight, ripping away the fabric and protections that this nation held out in promise to ..
"Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me .."
Maybe it was the loss of so many in the past few years that has turned me to be so cynical. Dynamic and forceful individuals who stood. Paul Wellstone. Teddy. Robert Byrd.
I can't shake this feeling, that The Dream is Lost.
Perhaps it's just symbolism. Part of me knows this process of loss has been going on for many decades. Railing against Obama, Reid and Pelosi seems to be beside the point, when our democracy was given away over 4 decades. Barack Obama is comfortable in the position he is in, he's simply fulfilling the role destined for him. He's not going to fight against 4 decades of capitulation, and step forward to do what is right. Perhaps no one is going to, ever. Expecting Reid and Pelosi to perform magic acts is likewise a waste of time.
Our political system was broken, long ago.
So "Democrats" aren't going to save us. Even democrats may not be able to save us, in a country that has lost it's democracy, forever.
So what am I saying? I don't know. I'm sort of at a loss, other than this thought: that the official mission statement of this community is out of touch. We've reached a point now where our mission statement clearly transcends politics, and certainly transcends the label 'Democrat' or the idea that "better Democrats" is really going to change much of anything.
It might be time to rethink what that mission statement should be saying to the world.
I think it's a worthy discussion to have.
What say you?