Many people have the idea that the right and left wing serve indespensible purposes, each. There is talk of pendulum swings which, to those not on one end or the other, are not events that are particularly dreaded either way. I'm not making any statement in favor of that interpretation of the political struggle.
Nevertheless we do have a set period of time in which the Bush Administration will frollick in the spotlight before exiting. Hopefully they will take with them much of their way of doing things. But, in the time that remains, what might we quietly wish the Bush Administration would do?
You know what I mean. Stuff you wish would get done, that you know you'd probably never be able to do yourself the way it probably needs to be done, in the political sense.
This is my list, which I'd like to pass under the table in a smoky bar to a couple of crag-faced G-Men. Stuff that, in a better world where everyone really does have a beneficial role to play, would get done. One way or the other.
1. Kill or capture the real, entire hierarchy of Al Qaeda; and any other genuine terrorists (people who blow civilians up). Acknowledge that the cheapening of the term "terrorist," and the comically broad cloud of supposed suspicion (does anyone take it seriously?) is counterproductive.
2. Put a friendly smile back on the face of the police state. The country needs the example; enough of torture and constitutional contortion. Enough of this anti-hero BS; we need straightshooters for icons. Remember the image Hoover successfully cultivated, and how he had to make everyone work, to achieve that.
3. Clean up the web. I don't want to know the details. Enough yapping, enough milking the issue. Just clean it up, I'm sick of hearing about it. If we're going to have fascism, the trains have to run on time, that's the deal. Go ahead and turn the Web into TV 2.0, cut off the other protocols, whatever. Democrats can reinvent the open, libertarian internet; and we can reinvent it with a safety net that keeps the crap out, and one's personal info out of the stream and away from all manner of predators. Don't make the process simply about fattening a few friendly corporations.
4. You are radically expanding government, BushCo. Own up to it. Do it right. It isn't a fog of hatred and distrust in this country that will make that 1940s/50s air you once seemed to want to recapture, a reality. It will take aggressive but precise moves to do it, targeting less individuals, than the exploitative, corrupting forces of criminal cartels and rapacious corporations alike. Consider the hapless individual to be your ally, not your enemy. Take down the bigger and more slippery foes that are weaving the webs.
5. Find favors to do for business that actually benefit real people rather than harming them. Take junkmail... Real world spam. It burns a heck of a lot of gasoline, and those trucks wear out the roads, costing tax dollars. A ban on credit card offers and a mandated ability to opt out of non-profit solicitations, would hurt none of these major businesses in this day and age. It would facilitate their more complete move to your newly more commercialized web. They only still compete for mailbox turf because they have to compete with one another there.
6. Declare victory in the muslim world. Use that cash flow to fund the programs that seem like little more than cover now: No Child Left Behind, the Mars shot, the border wall just so people will shut the Hell up about that.
Basically, let us Democrats be the bad guys here, the grouchy grown-ups. We're going to slog through the financial and geopolitical disasters in the aftermath. We might as well be blamed too, for ending an era that included the best of the Wild, Wild, West, and not just the tobacco-spitting, horse-rustling, injun-killin' worst of it. It's time for the white hats and for those expensive silver bullets. Just aim right.
Okay, who wants to add to this list? What chips do you wish these loose cannons would knock off which shoulders?
POLL ....Even if you decline to list them...
