I posted this as a comment not long ago. Those who read it encouraged me to post it as a diary. I wuz gonna link all kinds of things, and put pictures in it like my compadres do, but I changed my mind.
It's an editorial. My personal editorial about the disconnection between the establishment and the people. My own opinion about what ought to be done, come January, instead of minimum wage/congressional pay hike.
If you want info on my claims about alternative energy, google it, ok? The kind of infrastructure I'm talking about hasn't been put together in one package yet, but it's components are on the market. Ignore all rumors of undercapacity.
And now, the disconnect:
It's a demographic disconnect inside BOTH parties.
The establishment Democrats who are getting ready to warm seats of power shouldn't kid themselves. They will face primary challenges if they don't address the important issues forcefully and decisively.
In the Republican Party, they will face an utter meltdown if they don't turn away from the neocons. If they rally behind Boehner and Bush and become obstructionist and persist in the same delusional slogans, they will be marginalized as a party until someone comes forward with new ideas.
The Republican brand that has been the mainstay of their party for almost 35 years is in ruins. They have lost credibility on every issue across the board.
The Democratic Party is at the dawn of a historic change, but the old guard hacks don't realize it. They will lose their positions of influence if they don't get with the program, and I'm referring to DNC operatives, pundits and political advisors. If they cling to the discredited structures that defined relationships of power across party lines for the last 30 years, they will find the rug pulled out from under them as society goes through a major shift over the next couple of years.
Removal and arrest of Bush and Cheney is the first priority. You can't allow a president and vice president to remain in office who publicly regard the political opposition as terrorists, and are prepared to act on that belief.
The corruption is wide and deep, and it's the next priority. Corporate corruption has to be dealt with by both prosecutions and laws to redefine the role and influence of corporations in society.
The corruption isn't fully addressed by removal and arrest of Bush and Cheney. Bush officials both current and former deserve arrest and prosecution.
The corruption isn't fully addressed by arrest and prosecution of executive branch officials and corporate officials. There is an ongoing racketeering operation in CONGRESS that has yet to meet it's just fate.
And then there are officials in tax-exempt organizations like the AEI, the Federalist Society, PNAC and others who attempt to subvert the rule of law by exploiting corrupt policies and practices they have advocated and lobbied to implement.
There are those who heave a heavy sigh at all the work that must be done to restore the rule of law, but that's too bad. It's fundamental and must be done both to change the frame of debate, and to lay a sure foundation for the extraordinary and wonderful things that are to come.
Energy independence. This must be done immediately. While the impeachments and prosecutions are underway. FUCK the minimum wage discussion. People have done without this crumb for ten years and now it takes precedence over energy? Minimum wage is mostly symbolic, it won't do much to improve the economy overall and it gives the Repubs a soapbox to whine about "socialism."
Energy independence means SCRAPPING the plan to sink 250 billion into nuclear plants and putting that money into rebuilding our energy infrastructure. The new infrastructure will be a point-of-use hydrogen fuel producing network. It will produce hydrogen fuel where-ever it's needed.
No giant power plants. No giant hydrogen fuel tanks. No trucks transporting hydrogen. No pipelines. It will produce hydrogen from locally advantageous, and various, renewable resources.
The by-products of these new systems are purified water and electricity. It converges our production of fuel and electricity, and creates a web of smaller non-toxic energy plants close to market.
It decentralizes the energy industry and puts that power back in the hands of local governments. Not STATE governments, local governments. It creates networks of power and people that elect representatives to implement energy policy.
And the above structure is the pioneer industry to create a new conception of corporate bodies that ARE accountable to the people. This pioneer project goes hand in hand with new laws redefining the governance of corporations. No more multiple titles within a single corporation. No more multiple board seats in several corporations held by one person.
No more executive salaries that rival the budgets of entire cities. No more controlling interest by dynastic families, of industries crucial to our well-being and our economy. It's a revival of CAPITALISM.
Single payer health care. We have a federally chartered corporation to manage our banking system. Why can't we have a national, federally chartered non-profit corporation to manage our health insurance? For ALL of us? Why should medical care be considered a "market?" Businesses operating in a market can FAIL. Do we roll the dice with our national interest in public health by putting it's success up for grabs on the market?
Whose interest does that serve? It serves the interest of the market, where there are winners and losers, but does it serve the interests of the PUBLIC? The answer is emphatically "NO!" And that's what we need to say to people who think that health care is a market to be exploited for the profit motive. NO!!
Energy independence will create jobs and it will dramatically lower costs for EVERYTHING. It will redistribute wealth horizontally and inspire entrepreneurship locally and across the world.
That's far more important than a "too little, too late" hike in the minimum wage. Labor shortages and massive retirements will cause an increase in pay across the board anyway in a few years. That's about the time frame for the proposed legislation. It's a waste of frickin time and more important, more fundamental issues need to be addressed.
Oh, yeah, and the war: Simultaneously, with the prosecutions and the legislation above, we need to move our troops out of Iraq. We need to remove them as dramatically as we went in. Perhaps we should move a quarter of them to Kurdistan, a quarter of them to Kuwait, and half of them to Afghanistan.
We need to get rid of OBL, Zawahiri and Sheikh Omar. We need to stay on the job and keep decapitating the head of al-queda. It will provoke a power struggle inside al-queda. They will betray each other and expose plots, and they will splinter and fall apart.
And we need to send our troops into Pakistan if that's where al-queda is operating. And I don't give a fuck if Pakistan doesn't like it. Which country in the world is going to stand up and defend Pakistan for harboring, aiding and abetting terrorists? The resistance, by Bush, to taking action against al-queda is completely absurd.
All of these things REQUIRE removing Bush and Cheney. Sitting down to haggle over raising the minimum wage with war criminals as the first order of business is an unforgivable abdication of responsibility and an entirely myopic view of priorities. Whoever is proposing this kind of legislative agenda needs to be FIRED. Right now.
And I don't think it's Pelosi.