There is an famous Chinese character (Jackie Chan I believe) that says that in every crisis is opportunity.
Well we had/have the crises…..a surplus in fact, and so we had/have a surplus of opportunity as well. The opportunity to rebuild the health care system, the financial system, the Justice system, and to a lesser extent the political system.
If the “Health Care Reforms” just signed in to law are any indication, we are achieving a ratio of waste to opportunity that roughly echos our energy system and our food system….iow massive waste.
Why are “we” wasting this massive opportunity brought about by the massive crises perpetrated by the Republicans under Bush? Because the Democrats are GIVING power to those same Republicans. (With help from the media of course, who are relishing the food fight.) Whether they are allowing the Republicans to have power out of mere political incompetence, or out of the very real fear of having…and thus being accountable for…power themselves, they have allowed the Republicans to act as if they have the power of actually representing someone.
Ok, the Republicans DO represent someone. Teabaggers and Corporations. Two entities whose power could be easily broken if the Democrats ALL just stood up and told the truth about them. Imagine a Congress of Graysons standing up and telling The People just how much The Corporations have bought our government.
Things would, to say the least….Change.
But the Democrats, under the guise of “not wanting to tear the country apart” (in other words caving to the Republicans teabaggers who have torn it apart) refuse to tell the truth, refuse to challenge the Republicans and worst of all….refuse to prosecute the Republicans.
They refuse to use the opportunity for radical change and reform that the incompetence, perfidy, and criminality of the Republicans have handed to them on a silver platter, to bring real reform to the systems that the Republicans have routinely destroyed, for profit, while they held power…as they always do when they are in power.
Instead they have opted to be, well….sneaky. To pretend bi-partisanship when they know it won’t work. To break the power of the Republicans by allowing the Republicans to slowly destroy themselves, to waste precious time and opportunity by allowing the Republicans to die a slow death, instead of performing the political euthanasia of direct challenge that was/is so needed, and so richly deserved.
Which leads us to the title…
The Dems have now broken the power of the Republicans.
IF
They press their advantage and make bold moves while the Republicans are on their heels after their loss on HCR. The time is ripe to introduce REAL HCR reform (PO)and fight it out, REAL financial reform and fight it out, REAL Justice by exposing the criminality of the Bush years and fight it out….
And REAL efforts to save the planet and fight it out.
The Republicans used all their chips, all their capital, put everything they had on the table to block the bill being signed today, and lost. They have nothing left…for now. Now is the time to finish them off, IF the Dems chose to. Finish them off by making them rise to a real challenge, by introducing what would be extremely popular “draconian” financial reforms. And pushing hard for them. Making the Republicans defend the extremely unpopular banking and financial industry. Killing two birds with one stone. Making the Republicans admit to the teabaggers by their actions that the Corporations are their real constituency, not them…and..well…achieving real financial reform.
Or…
They can continue to grant the Republicans and their corporate masters and teabag army power that they do not have.
And continue along the path of proposing incredibly mediocre half-assed ‘reform’ of virtually every system of government, justice, economic opportunity, and politics that make up our society. And thus usher in an Age of Mediocrity that accomplishes Small Things in a time when Big Things are needed.
Satisfying no one, and allowing the Republicans to get off the ropes and find a way to rebuild and take back power…..since things will not be seen to have gotten better, as a populace starving for dramatic change is feed……cake. And then revolts against and throws out of office not the people who created the crisis, but those who did not do enough to fix the crisis. Which will result in the tragedy of the two party system, putting those who created the crisis back into power as the only alternative.
All this, all this unsatisfying mediocrity that wastes a crucial tipping point that The People, the country and the planet desperately needs to have tip….all this as the planet (the only one we have) makes its not so slow downward spiral into the REAL crisis that “they” continue to assiduously ignore.
Now that achieving mere mediocrity is defined as success, as the opportunities presented by the crisis slip into the past.
The Democrats have the opportunity to be bold, successful, and to change the entire world in the next few years. They also have the opportunity to be timid, fearful of taking responsibility and settle for mediocrity at best, in this time of crises on every front.
Which will the Democrats choose?
Place your bets.
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Or have we missed our opportunity too?
they r a part of the system and will not undermine it….
they gained political office for the purpose of taking advantage not giveing liberty and equality and justice….
those that might risk change r still a minority and will be unable to move the system at all….
but the domocrats and republicans may be not only not necessary but also insuffcient for change as we r discussing…..
they may be mostly obstructive….
That’s what they’re doing right now, though, and that’s what politically is the best thing for them to keep the national conversation focused a certain way.
The Teabaggers are bought and paid for by the Republicans and the corporate media. This is the reason they exist, because people give them undeserved attention, and seed money from right wing interest groups, and this is why they make trouble.
I have actually been saying, “boo hoo” to my TV when we hear tales of Tea baggers intimidating people, elected officials in particular. It’s not that their behavior isn’t execrable, it’s that they wouldn’t even be there, except for this political empowerment they get, even from Democrats.
It’s very like this phenomenon of people bringing guns to Obama rallies. The far right gets treated with kid gloves AND attention and they wonder why these threats occur — it’s because they are empowered. The attention they get drives them forward.
Now that’s what the blogospheric conversation is about, other places — how nasty those Teabaggers are.
But if they did what you said, budhy, attention would shift. Not all by a long stretch of the imagination, but some of the Democrats in Congress are actually complicit in many things here — in the things you want them to talk about.
All are guilty of letting the corporations run roughshod over our democracy, and if they let attention shift to that, some Democrats would be implicated. But there are worse things than just getting campaign donations from the corporations and being weak to their demands….
the future of the human race is too important to have it be determined by what the structures of power r willing to do……
politics is a reflection of something deeper….
not a solution to something present or absent……
I think we need to do something….
we must make politics focus on us….
until we do we will have no power…..
period…..
political structure as theyyex sits will work to take and deny power to us…..
we need to DO……
we need to sit down and plug it up…..
no power no change…..
and they will not give it to us because we ask pretty please……..
Now big O gets to pump his ‘historic’ legislation out into the masses.
“We have saved you…All Hail”
As the Physicians for a National Care Program’ stated recently:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs…
That is the tip of this ugly fucking iceberg…
That would be funny if it were not for the fact that women literally had to bend over on this one…big time
but i digress…its hopey changey time!
Ok, the Democrats appear to have power but do they?
Ok go back to Bush v. Gore. What happened there. The Republicans sent some hoodlums to Florida while the recount was going on. How where they allowed to do that? How where they allowed to fucking steal the election? And nobody peeped except a few alt-jounalists. Why do you suppose they thought they could get away with stealing the fucking election? Why do you suppose I had ex-military types around me talking about going to the mattresses. The Supremes obviously thought violence was possible at that moment and it was. That’s why the Dems gave in — there would have been violence had Gore won, I believe.
The Republicans literally want to destroy the country, not just for the heck of it but because they represent the emergent international oligarchy whose interests are elsewhere as well as the fact they they hare our freedoms and their guys want to be top dogs — what better way than to have the people of this continent supine and conquered. It’s a real nasty world out there.
How are the Democrats going to arrest and convict the Republican criminals (never mind that there are some Democrats that should be locked away as well)? With what army?
They, in fact, have the opportunity to do diddleysquat. We have to grow up here. The Democrats are not in power. The oligarchs are in power! Which is why policies don’t change much other than the usual healthy turn-over that keeps things from getting too ingrown in government. If Obama really wanted to be bold, not to put too fine a point on it, he would get his ass shot off — though likely there would be a more nuanced approach with him — the thugs would make him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he wouldn’t refuse. He has a family.
No offense but what is the point of avoiding the obvious? Do you suppose all Democrats are wimps? I don’t believe they are. I lived and worked in the Washington DC area for most of my life and I know real power is honored — end of story. If you see Democrats bending that’s because there’s a fleet of sharks passing by. The MSM are forbidden to write about real politics (aka deep politics) because if any of the editors allow something like that into print they will be hurt and have been hurt numerous times as everyone in the business of power and media knows. No one has their bones broken, it is called shunning. No one will answer your calls no one will hire you — you have to move to NY and be a waiter.
This is real — this is not conspiracy theory — it is provable fact. Just use your eyes and ears and mind and do the research. Stop blaming Democrats in power because if they have a progressive bone in their bodies (and many of them do) they cannot express it in that town.
Other than that great diary and well-articulated as is usually the case.
the tipping point came and went because they had enough sense (all of them) to see that they had gone too far. We picked the only route we saw to counterbalance the damage and carnage done via our system to us and the world at large. They succeeded they used the time old tricks of divide and conquer and ‘better then’ to subdue, and the worse, get our support to continue unabated, not only unabated but with support, go team go!
The crises remain only now they have been reformed or are about to be. Two legs better is ruling the world disguised as reform or change and advocated as reality and the good. Democrats are not the solution. They are the problem as they now wear the mantle that has no intention of reform, democracy or representation. They own this now, their intentions and agenda is clear as a bell.
We cannot move these forces via our totally compromised electoral system or even by ‘better Democrats’, were screwed until the day that we all wake up and say this is enough. How? violence won’t work, voting won’t work, yelling won’t work, what’s left? Maybe unhooking. Something tells me this has to get worse before people all of us let go and realize that were never ever going to get what we need from these people. They are just people and they can and will fall because no body ever ever holds the world in misery and gets support from the oppressed because they are slightly better then the intolerable.
along on mediocrity or whatever you want to call this more of the same.
Not that long, methinks.
congress critters really are….it never ceases to amaze me—gullible I guess. It is incredible that anyone in any government could rise above the shit and cream, but it does happen…right now…the Republican party is all shit and no cream.
My favorite quote:
“I am the patron saint of mediocraties”, Salieri (Mozart)
…your aches-n-pains have subdued enough to feel like typing. May the improvement continue. We need your voice and thoughts.