We progressives have much to do. It is not enough for us to stand aside and let the teabaggers destroy the radical right-wing Republican Party from within.
We have values and principles we need to push forward in a new vision for America.
Andy Card, Bush’s Chief of Staff, just last week tried to back his party away from the teabaggers — as will other traditional Republicans.
Ours is not a fight between parties. Ours is a fight for a more just America — a real struggle for social justice.
It is not just the Republican Party that is being discredited now, but also unfettered, deregulated capitalism, and the 35 year assault on workers.
We must take this moment and drive home a message of an economy that works for all Americans not just the top tier. We must fight for shared prosperity, equal rights for all, regulation of our financial sector, doubling the minimum wage, freeing American workers to form unions and bargain collectively like all other workers in the developed or western world, and a trade policy that stops the global economic race to the bottom.
The old saying is that when your opponent is destroying himself, don’t get in the way. But in this case it is up to us to define what the radical right has done to our country and our people.
I have tried with my poetry to document in written blues the hurt the rich have put on all of us, the misery inflicted on more and more people, the increasing number of hungry children. I have also talked about the intentional sabotage of Obamacare by state governments that refused to set up state exchanges and refused to accept increases in Medicaid for our neediest people!
We can’t wait until next fall. Let’s get busy now countering the radical right-wing lies and talking about what’s best for our folks.
Photo source: justinday on Flickr via Creative Commons License: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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