Elsewhere on the Rec List, SouthernLeveller asks if too many at Kos are getting complacent, watching (in effect) the GOP clown car careening down the street. In the process of putting my two cents worth in, I came up with a Philippic capturing some things I've been thinking about. So, I thought I'd post it as a diary all by itself.
We know what we are against...
But what are we for?
I have yet to hear a convincing narrative from the so-called leadership of the Democratic party, the kind of soul-stirring, gut-connecting message that wakes people up and sends them into the voting booths, that gets them out into the streets, and brings them together in a common purpose.
While the draft Warren movement is understandable, she herself has said she wants to fight where she is - and boy do we need her there. We do not need her as badly as we need more like her - instead of trying to put it all on her shoulders. Where are the other members of the Democratic side in Congress lining up with her?
If the Democratic party goes into 2016 running away from everything that got accomplished in the face of 8 years of total opposition, outright lies, and actual sedition, it will be a disaster. If they allow the Republicans to keep dictating the talking points, grabbing the memes, and going unchallenged on their ideas, their principles, their record - do I need to say any more?
We are in a battle for the very soul of the country. Triangulation, centrism, bipartisanship, neoliberalism - these are empty concepts that have "lighted fools the way to dusty death" in the ash heap that is rapidly becoming all that remains of the American dream. We are becoming a meaner, smaller people, diminished by our fears and victimized by every smooth-talking bully who promises to let us cower in his shadow, every rich man who deigns to let fall a few crumbs from his table.
Once we were a country that built highways coast to coast, brought the light of electricity to the dark reaches of the countryside, built schools filled with excellent teachers for every child, dreamed high enough to reach the moon, and sought to rebuild and restore the land, air, and water we need to keep this a viable, beautiful world. We thought ourselves an example to the world. And a man or woman didn't need to become rich to live well or have dreams for their children to do better.
Now?
We face a nation where we are told we can no longer afford to care for the poor, the sick, the old. We can no longer expect that hard work and diligence will be rewarded, that family wealth and connections are the only real guarantee of success - and that success is to be measured only by how much money you can pile up, how many billionaires a country can support. It is a nation where to be poor is to be a criminal and a moral failure by default; where the middle class is fast becoming an economic no-man's land where no one can hope to persist for long. It's either up, or all the way to the bottom.
We have no room in our hearts for those from other lands, other faiths, other skin colors; we run from our own history. In the name of traditional values and 'freedom', we close minds, practice intolerance, even persecution. We divide ourselves up into groups that can be herded willy-nilly by any demagogue with a pitch and a platform.
We claim to 'defend' democracy by making it harder to vote - and failing to vote at all. We have entered into a world where freedom of speech is directly proportional to the amount of money you have, where freedom of the press has become the freedom to look the other way, to paper over, to refuse to make distinctions, offer judgement - or hold anyone accountable.
It is a world where corporate citizens have more rights than flesh and blood citizens, where the ideal of representative government has been reduced what you can afford to purchase. This is the world the Republicans offer, behind the snake oil, the platitudes, and the corrupted ideals. Their idea of 'freedom' is the choice between being either a master or a slave, an owner or property. Nothing else.
Who dares drive a stake through the heart of Reaganism, market fundamentalism, dominionism, racism, Randism, and all the other false idols that have led us astray? Who dares proclaim that the future need not be one of endless war, a world where there is no justice or mercy - only "a boot stamping on a human face - forever?"
We live in a world where increasing numbers threaten to overwhelm the planet, a planet which is fighting back with new and terrible diseases, a planet undergoing Climate Change at an accelerating rate, a planet where ancient hatreds feed on modern catastrophes in an unholy synergy and the gap between rich and poor is becoming a chasm.
We do not have the luxury of allowing con-men and false priests to lead us astray with comfortable lies and manufactured fears. We face genuine existential threats that will not be solved by free trade agreements, market forces or traditional values. We have the knowledge and the tools to begin to put things aright - all we lack is the will and the leadership to do so.
There will be great hardship, desperate striving whatever we do - but the end goal is attainable if we reach for it. We have faced great challenges in the past and won - or we would not have survived to arrive at this one. We dare not surrender nor give up. Else, we can expect meaningless suffering and a descent into the abyss of history, while a small handful of elites keep a death-grip on the reins of power as they struggle to stay on top of the wreckage they have made.
This is the great challenge facing the Democratic Party; where is the response that will lead America out of the slough of despond and back into the sunlit lands of the upward path? Where is the courage to discard the meaningless shibboleths of the national political discourse of the punditry? Where is the vision that can bring us together to unite against those who would keep us on the slippery slope to disaster? Where is the determination to unyieldingly oppose all those who would keep us in bondage to their privilege, greed and fear? Where is the inspiration that can get us across the gap from knowing to believing?
America (and the world) is waiting - but we do not have forever...