Get Democrats elected to Congress in 2006, restore balance of power

What a night.

I am a liberal. There I’ve said it. Some people would bristle at hearing or reading those words because to them liberal means spineless taxers. That, of course, could not be further from the truth, but many from the ultra conservative religious right have managed to propogate that image and made people afraid to admit they are liberal. Not me. I am a liberal and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

That said, what I am not is progressive. In fact, calling me progressive will enrage me beyond most things with the possible exception of the Yankees winning another World Series. A number of people, millions most likely, would be quick to ask me why I would be okay saying I’m a liberal and not being called a progressive because they’re the same thing. That, my friends, is where you are wrong.

Progressives of late have tried to push the liberal label aside in hopes of gaining greater input in the political arena by saying conservatives have ruined the once proud liberal label. The fact is progressives have played as much, if not more, of a roll in that twisting of the liberal ideology. Progressive are the liberal equivalent of the religious right - a group of extremists so ridiculously far away from the mainstream they make Pat Robertson look like JFK. If the religious right is the ultra conservative wing of the Republican Party, Progressives are the ultra liberals and both sides have done a pretty damn good job of labeling the other as the median of political thinking for their party. I have news for both of you: everyone thinks you’re nuts. Liberals, conservatives, moderates, we think you’re all the same - whack jobs whoring for attention.

A perfect example of this is the conspiracy theorist’s wet dream known as Air America. Air America was originally founded as a way for the liberal ideology to get out on airwaves increasingly dominated by the right wing point men posing as investigative journalists. Once in financial trouble due to lack of advertising, the powers that be at Air America decided to just let loose and stop trying to be something they’re not: intelligently liberal. Instead they became the extremist voice for a small segment of the liberal population (i.e. progressives) who think all conservatives are religious zealots out to turn America into a theocracy. Their shows’ hosts spend all day spouting the viewpoint that the “neo-cons” are really Nazis in three piece suits. They paint conservatives like cartoonish villains out to control the world and make it bend to their will. Let me say this: I have a number of conservative friends. We go to movies, dinner, watch sports, TV and generally just enjoy each other’s company. They are NOT Nazis and the first person to suggest they are will find my fist in their mouth. Conservatives and liberals are not the bane of today’s political climate. Liberals roll our eyes just as much at Al Franken and Randi Rhodes as we do Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and conservatives vice versa because their views are just as extreme. They just happen to be polar opposites of each other. Theirs is a war of words of which true liberals and conservatives want no part.

From the progressive viewpoint, George W. Bush is an evil man out to destroy everything good about America. To claim George W. Bush is the mastermind of some massive right wing conspiracy to overthrow the governments of the middle east for his oil buddies is to give him too much credit. Let me make this perfectly clear: GEORGE W. BUSH IS A MORON. He has the IQ of a dead turtle and thinks on his feet just as quickly as one. Kindergärtners speak more intelligently and have a better grasp of foreign policy to boot. Have we all forgotten this is the same man who during the 2000 presidential campaign complained that Democrats wanted to turn Social Security into a government program? No, Bush is no mastermind. He’s also not the anti-Christ nor is he evil. He’s just a hypocritical, idiotic dimwit who got lucky by 700 votes in 2000.

So, call me what you will - liberal, tax and spender, bleeding heart - but don’t ever, EVER call me a progressive because those are fightin’ words.

Does George Bush even know what he stands for anymore? After using his first presidential veto to shoot down the stem cell research bill which passed both houses of Congress, and decrying the research as “murder,” he refers to a war with 40,000 dead Iraqis as “a step forward for democracy.” Even his best bud Russian President Vladimir Putin had to slap him back down to Earth for that one. Then he calls the current middle east conflict between Israel and Hezbollah with hundreds dead a chance for “positive change.”

Apparently murder and death is okay if it jibes with his beliefs.

Today is Independence Day. It’s a day we honor the creation of our country by getting drunk, stuffing our mouths full of hot dogs and stare at bright, shiny explosions in the sky. Sometimes we forget there’s more to freedom than fireworks and gallon of Maalox after overindulging at the family BBQ.

I’ve had a number of people over the last couple of years ask how I can consider myself a supporter of our troops in Iraq when I don’t agree with the war they’re fighting. People can feel free to try and define my opinions any way they choose to. The fact is my lack of support for the war IS my way of supporting the troops. I don’t know anyone over in Iraq or the forgotten ones serving in Afghanistan, but I want them to come home. I don’t care anymore about accomplished or unaccomplished missions or whether there are or ever were WMD. I care that people are separated from their families on the other side of the world, risking life and limb every day because someone making ten times they do in a year decided to send them there. I care that they’re getting shot at. I care that they’re being hit by these bullets, mortar shells and bombs. And I care about the fact they are dying. I cannot in good conscience ignore the fact my country has sent them somewhere to fight and die in some Iraqi desert for a war I don’t believe in and a cause I consider to be non-existent and based on lies. To those who would argue with that I will not begrudge you that right, but understand this: my fight is not a partisan one. It is based on a fundamental core of my beliefs that there better be a damned good reason to send my fellow countrymen and women halfway around the world to kill other people and risk being killed themselves.

You support the troops your way with words and rhetoric. I’ll support them mine by trying to bring them home. Alive.

The week started badly enough. The Democratic side of the Senate’s attempt to raise the minimum wage was shot down by procedure in spite of having 51 votes (including eight Republicans) since 60 votes is required to stop debate and vote. When confronted about this refusal to allow the issue to come to a floor vote, Senator Mike Enzi, the Republican sponsor of a competing bill, said people who only earn minimum wage need to “find better jobs or move.” These, my friends, are the words of a man making $154,700 a year to sit in a chair and push a button to say “Yea” or “Nay” about 300 times.

Then they looked pathetic when they tried to say finding twenty year old chemical weapons in Iraq somehow vindicated the White House’s claim there were WMDs in the country. When your political party makes a claim that forces someone in the CIA to say “that’s not what we meant” you know you’re in trouble.

Then came the unthinkable: an ultra small group of ultraconservative Republicans hijacked the every 25-year renewal of the Voting Rights Act. You know, that cumbersome little law that guarantees every American the right to vote regardless of their race, sex, color or creed. Why did this hijacking take place? Because this handful of selfish politicians decided they don’t like their states being forced to have ballots in languages other than English. Regardless of ones opinion on the “English Only” issue, you do NOT deliberately cause the stoppage of a renewal vote on one of the most hallowed pieces of legislation ever to pass the United States Congress. Before you think this is much ado about nothing here’s a little civics lesson: if the act is not renewed in the next 12 months it is DEAD! As in over. The civil rights laws put in place to protect everyone’s right to vote will be history, cut out, removed from the federal books.

So, let’s recap: this week, the Republican Party has looked insensitive (minimum wage), petty (“WMD” in Iraq), selfish (killing the Voting Acts Right renewal for this year), and cowardly (bowing to pressure from a few senators to keep them quiet). The trick for Democrats now is to take advantage without looking petty themselves. That’s been the party’s biggest problem for about two decades. They really don’t know how to handle something like this without fucking it up. They need to find a way to get their point across while keeping the high ground. My suggestion (which no one will listen to, but I’m going to give it anyway) is to not attack. Attacking comes across as childish and petty. Definitely the wrong image for a party trying to regain control of Congress. No, the message they need to hammer home is these types of things will NOT HAPPEN if the Democrats win control of Congress in November. A reminder of what it is the party stands for without that bitter, crass aftertaste of negative and attack politics. After that, continue pressing on the core issues Democrats stand for and believe in. As the Republican Congressional regime continues to swat these aside they’ll be digging their own graves.

That’s what I see, 83 people promising to come together to move forward, do what they can to tear both houses of Congress from Republican grasps. Yet very few post. I’ve seen very little activity about what plans are in the works for the future, but rather a disconcerting focus on the past. That is a trait that is all too Democrat to the point of being a fault.

Why do Republicans have control of the House, the Senate and the White House? For nearly twenty years Republicans have taken a business man’s approach to campaigning. The day after each election day, win or lose, they come together and meet to ask themselves one question: what do we need to do better next time? Whereas the Democratic party, win or lose, sits at home and asks another question: what’s for dinner?

Democracy is not an Olympic event. It is not something you pay attention to once every four years and expect not only to win, but for everything to work. It is a thankless, never-ending job of fighting political battles in the trenches and what this party lacks is full time people to accomplish that. Standing up for that one thing you believe in every four years is a great thing, but it’s not enough. Not nearly enough. If you want to have any kind of real impact you have to give more than that and I don’t mean just money (as important as that is). The truest statement I’ve ever heard is “All politics is local.” Politics doesn’t begin and end in Washington. It begins and ends in our own back yards—school boards, county commissions, city councils. You cannot expect to win the big battles if you don’t even show up for the small ones.

Complacency is the enemy of democracy and simply sitting at a computer screen wailing about how bad things are isn’t going to cut it anymore. There is much more work to be done then just winning presidential elections and until more of us face that fact and get the lead out of our collective asses we will lose. Period.

So ask yourself this one question: what are you prepared to do?

In an interview today, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Spector, after admitting his belief Congress never gave the Bush administration the power to circumvent the legal protocol required for ordering surveillance, publicly acknowledged “impeachment is a remedy” to the actions of the President. Even though Spector quickly downplayed this option, the very fact one of the highest ranking Republicans in Congress used the “I” word is telling. Spector was not being entirely truthful when he said “I don’t see any talk about impeachment here.” The fact is, the possibility of impeachment is the talk of Washington. Republicans, and not just Democrats, are floating the “I” word in private and are not doing so lightly. Combined with the growing Abramoff scandal, Congressional Republicans are distancing themselves from the White House more uniformly then anyone has seen in the last 30 years. As the wiretapping scandal grows, and the similarities to Nixon and Watergate become more public, the temperature of the water the President is sitting in spikes higher and higher, and the President isn’t the only Republican feeling that heat. Granted, while these Republicans are clearly rats deserting a sinking ship, it means they are still smart enough to know the ship is sinking and run for dear life.

The “I” word is so strong right now because of one man—William Jefferson Clinton. Whispers are flooding Republican ears reminding them how easy they found it to vote to impeach a Democratic president for getting a blowjob and then lying about it in court. This is different. This time there is a real question of abuse of power and there’s a Republican president in the cross-hairs. A Republican friend of mine acknowledged “this is the fall out for Clinton because this is much worse than that was.” Republicans desperately wanted to take Clinton down believing him to be an immoral man holding a moral position. Now they are faced with the same issue only this time to impeach one of their own. They have no choice but to talk about it seriously. This is not an affair with an intern. This is one man, the most politically powerful man in the world, believing he holds the power to bypass the constitutionally-structured judicial system and invade another’s privacy at will. That is not democracy. It is the very definition of dictatorship and this scandal is the very definition of why an impeachment clause exists in the constitution.

Be it politically (as Spector believes) or officially, George W. Bush is going down in a great big ball of flames fueled by his own arrogance and mirage of indestructability.

I’ve invited a number of like-minded people to add this goal, but we have to remember it goes beyond clicking a little button. There’s work to be done and it’s a long way to November 7.