I tell ya folks, I have had it up to here (pointing above my head to the drowning-in-dreck level) yes up to there with talk of bipartisanship. (bipartisanbridge.org) The day it ceases to be acceptable for one to adhere to a set of principals rather than compromising to the point of near stasis is the day that government becomes a futile effort in wasting time, energy, and money. OH, WAIT! We are already there and have been for almost thirty years on the Democratic side of the aisle where avoiding offense seems more important than protecting the poor and the workers from abuse handed down by corporate overlords and the privileged few.
In the meantime, the GOP has been giving the Dems and the working class a great big middle finger and most of the public just sat on it and spun in the hopes they could one day do the same to those less fortunate than them. It took a whole lot of plain, flat misery delivered by smiling, bald-faced, lying ministers of greed to make that same public decide that the big finger up inside them was doing some real damage.
Well, lah-dee-dah! In the words of Laurie Anderson, "Push my button, baby!"
Bipartisanship is not independence or non-partisanship; rather it is the partisanship of the middle of the road. The middle of the road is a good place to get run down.
When the pendulum has been allowed to swing so far that the great accomplishment among the Democratic Party since the days of Ronnie Raygun was Clinton's draconian Welfare Reform, which led to more poverty and suffering in collusion with Newt Gingrich, we of the Progressive Partisans are really having a problem. Now the bright, young man from Chicago has chosen to staff up with bankers and we are getting more of the same with better window dressing.
Now is the time to act. There has not been a better time in at least 75 years to seek pluralist movement in the USA. It is time for the Greens to act as though they mean to be a national force and widen the spectrum of discussion and it is time for the United States of America to have an actual, bona-fide Labor Party.
A Labor Party? Yes, a Labor Party. A political party whose every plank is based upon the manner in which an issue affects the lot of the working women and men of our young nation. Such a party, impeccably structured and diligently promoted with alacrity and a complete lack of horse hockey, drawing from the ranks of organised labor and disenfranchised wage slaves could burgeon in less than a decade to enrollment rivaling the GOP and the Democrats, thus breaking the national duopoly and producing genuine motion and substantive debate for the first time since national electrification and the RebubliCrat debate with Technocracy.
Since the past thirty years, including (Bill, I love you but I must say it) the Clinton years, have been a free ride for unregulated capital culture and a gift to the free-marketeers, it is time for we the progressives of America to take our shot.
Face it, the free market has busted us all very hard in the chops. Capital culture without restraint is just another case of "power corrupts," which is an adage that seems never to fail in its accuracy. We must hold our fine, young president's feet hard to the fire to assure that he will deliver on the promises he made to the progressive community.
We had better do a more effective job of so doing than we have so far because the cabinet President Obama has chosen on the economic side of things, with the wonderful exception of Ms. Solis at Labor, is just a bunch of hacks promoting exactly the kind of financial bias that got us into this mess. His statement dismissing the economic impact of the failed drug war and legalisation of marijuana at a recent town hall are also disturbing. Add to that his failure to put the military-industrial complex on notice that the free ride is over and this president just starts to smell much like those who came before him.
I still have great hope for this smart young pol we have put in power AND we must demand his attention if we are to steady the ship of state and swing the pendulum back to a place where all persons residing in our amazing young society get a fair shake at those three primary rights delineated in Jefferson's birth certificate for the USA...Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
How about it, people? Are you with me? Are you yet prepared to start voting with your interests instead of seeking to be the same selfish bums who have kept you chained to a desk or grill for the past generation or more? Let's get a move on.
In the words of Red Green, "Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together." Just be sure you also remember Phil Proctor's warning that, "I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus."
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