Sometimes we get our priorities wrong. I know I do.
I've been sick. That's a fucking priority! For the last three weeks, I've had some wierd flu that I can't seem to shake. This morning was the first one where I didn't feel like death warmed over, hacking, shaking, aching, and just generally miserable.
Sweet!
Now it's no secret that my family has it's share of ugly things that have happened. When things get really ugly, there is a very strong temptation to develop a bunker mentality, where it seems the world is just brutal, out to get you, and living seems futile.
Been there. Been there multiple times actually. Flirting with being there.
The mood of just being happy this morning triggered some thoughts. Mostly, I'm pleased I feel like writing, but what if I follow that? What's important, and why should I feel good about it?
I have something to write on! That's a good thing. Computers are a very important part of my life, in that I make my living with them, game on them, write on them, and program them. My computers are nothing special, mostly left overs that people gave up for whatever reason. Being a geek, I can work with that. That's important.
My wife has recently done what we believe to be the last major surgery. That's four, and they take a lot out of a person. She's still got that spark of vitality and will to thrive, and that's deffo important.
So the order of things:
A good day is one where we are around the ones we love, and who love us, we have food, shelter, health, and the basic resources needed to live a modest life. Really, anything beyond that is wants, and most of us have a lot of wants. I have a lot of wants.
I feel those things threatened constantly. Another element of the order of things is to simply value people and their labor properly. That is under constant attack from the wealthy and their corporations, and it's often aided by those with control issues, who would legislate other peoples lives, because it makes them feel better.
Really hate that. Can't even find the words to say how much. Trust me, hate it big.
I'm valued where I work. Used to be self-employed, where I could set my own value. Health care issues keep that from being a reality, and I've no issues with where I'm at, other than to say I am very glad I had that experience.
What I found was people would set the lowest value on you that they could, because they want stuff, and they want their value as high as they can get it. Nothing inherently evil in that, it just is.
Finding that balance where I could set my value appropriately was empowering, and I've since noted that there is a extreme amount of money and time spent convincing people that they are not worth shit.
That runs counter to the core order of things, yet we buy into this as people so often it's silly. Why?
Politics is another area where a lot of time and money is spent convincing people that they have more important matters, when the truth is, we all need to have some political involvement, or our value, our lives are defined by those that do have that involvement.
Politics then, is a part of the order of things.
Recently, I had a great conversation with a Kossack here that involved the order of things, and we saw it differently. My position for quite some time now is that we must invest in our civics, despite being tired, poor, struggling, whatever, because our value, the product of our struggles, and our options as simple people are impacted by the product of the civics.
In the end, we pay the price, whatever it is. Austerity measures do not impact the political class, nor the wealthy upper percent, or corporate classes anywhere near the level it does us ordinary people, yet we somehow believe that those classes will hear reason and do the right things for us?
Used to believe that --believe in the concept of Statesmen and Stateswomen, but I've lost that belief. The reason is failure to respect the order of things. Our national norms are such that making a lot of money is seen as good --so good, so necessary, that making it anyway one can is on par with the divine rights of old.
This is not true for a lot of people, but it is true for enough people to be a serious concern.
If we value ourselves and our labor, but fail to express that with vigor and force, that value will not be realized in the politics of our time, leaving us frustrated, struggling, hungry, etc...
Which brings me to my real point here, namely: More and Better Democrats.
The order of things.
Given how different this Congress is from the last one, I have no lingering doubt that the GOP, Republicans are at the lower order of things. They must not be allowed to fester and grow, because they profit, they gain power, by dividing us, exploiting those of us who harbor weak character, who didn't socialize, who are greedy, etc...
With them, it's always "teaching those other people a lesson", as if they somehow are above that, pure, real. Gay people, minority people, gender confused people, poor people, old people, sick people, weak people, those other people are the problem, and the solution is to get yours before they take it from you, because they are not good people.
Something like that anyway.
And because there are so damn many of those other people, it's necessary to lie, cheat, steal, be brutal, because the world is a ugly place, and if you want to secure your place in it, you need to get with the program, and do what the other substantial, good people do, and not take any shit doing it.
Yeah, that's the GOP, so fuck them. Not cool. There we have MORE Democrats right there. We do have a economic divide in our party, make no mistake. There are regressives and moderates all mostly falling under the "third way" characterization, who don't value us properly, because they don't play fair ball on the order of things. Corporations come first, the money comes first, and ordinary people and their needs, their value, their labor is just secondary, some given.
And we have Progressive Democrats, who do value people, and who do understand the order of things, where people, their value, their labor must be valued well enough to provide for their basic needs and wants, or they are being over-exploited.
And there is your BETTER Democrats right there.
The order of things.
I'm not gonna entertain protest votes, nor will I entertain third party, GOP, with the clear exception of the likes of Bernie Sanders, because I get the order of things. We the people need to be valued well enough to live our lives and have some measure of economic security, and political freedom, or our society isn't serving us. We are serving it, and when it's all boiled down, that's not the correct order of things.
We are free people. That is the social contract. We have all the freedom we can, so long as exercising it does not cause harm or loss of property or damage to person. The order of things here, by law, is:
We the people agree to be self-governed, because we are better able to exercise our freedom with government, than without. Secondly, business exists and profits by serving us in ways that again, let us better enjoy our freedom.
They work for us people. Business works for us, and Government works for us, and when we are taking this much shit, threats on the New Deal, attacks on Women's rights, devalued labor in the form of outsourcing, attacks on Unions, etc...
...we are not being well served by our society, and the burden to correct that lies with us, the people, because that is where the ultimate power is by design. And because of that reality, when we allow that shit to happen, when we condone the making of money at any cost to the planet, our lives, our future, we condone that exploitation, declaring it good and proper, and for 30 years that has occurred.
It is time to re-establish the order of things, and who works for who and why, and again, that's on us.
Who is us?
Progressives. We are the only body in politics advocating the right order of things, that people come first, and that we value them properly, both in their person, through civil rights, and their labor, through sane economic policy.
We need more progressives, but we also need a environment in which to grow, and that means respecting the order of things while we go, so that we do no harm in our shared effort to increase the value of people and restore a better economic and civic balance to the society we live and love in.
Now, when we voted for change and did not get it, people got pissed. We had a majority in number, but we did not have a majority in economic alignment to the needs of the people. Not many of us realized this, until Health Care showed it clearly. Right now, there still is a lot of us that fail to realize this, believing "the party" is for "the people", when the voting record shows clearly that not to be the case.
The order of things here is no GOP, MORE Democrats, and Better Democrats, so how is that to be done?
After observing this Congress, it is completely safe to say that it's never, ever a good idea to allow the economically unified GOP any measure of power growth at all. Look at what they have done! Is there anybody, who wouldn't trade the last Congress almost able to pass Progressive legislation, for this current one, attacking the middle class?
I'll take that deal, which means those of us, who believe, that a smaller party, or a more pure one, or who believe that booting Democrats out of office will "teach them a lesson", or "make them do the right thing", all fail to understand the impact of not paying attention to the order of things.
Remember, they work for us, unless we say it's ok for them to work for the corporations, which is exactly what happens when we vote out the better party.
Never again for me. Spending all this time and energy beating back economic regressives prevents us from doing the work to build the progressive economic norms that we need to own our party and take some back for the people, who have been ignored far too long. In other words, make the order of things damn clear.
It's not clear right now, because we do not have the level of solidarity necessary for the people to see there is a body of us, willing and able to put our foot down and make progress toward a better, more balanced, proper order of things, where all of us are valued as people and all of our labor is valued well enough to pay for modest lives.
There are things we can do to clean up our party, that do not involve growing the GOP, and having to fight battles that distract. We must work to identify and grow these things, apply them, and commit to our party, our value, and work toward a more balanced economic order. If we don't, we will continue to suffer at the hands of those that would devalue us in a second, for their own ends, because we let them do that.
We can come to have some control of the Democratic party. We never, ever will have that kind of control over Republicans. That defines the order of things fully and completely. Where there is some control possible, we the people have options, and they work for us, and we can exercise those, develop those, grow those to our mutual benefit. Seat a Republican, and that's all off the table.
Freedom cuts both ways people. Failure to respect that, understand what it means, is failure to value ourselves properly, and when we don't think we are worth a little of our time to get things sorted, who is to say the regressives are wrong in what they do?
Order of things indeed.