If you build it….

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

The real field in Dyersville is actually borne of division, two feuding families each owning half the ballfield property… that is really not what I expected when searching for this image, but why I am I not surprised it fits this introduction anyway?

Heaven may have many mansions, but America has many bars… some of which I’d enter willingly, others I’d tolerate yet never be truly comfortable in, and some that feel like home. Its ok that like minded gravitate toward each other, and I for one, think that new ways of thinking are offered all the time between kindreds. I don’t buy into the preaching to the choir thing much. I think friends should inspire eachother, and that unseen ripples change the universe. The point is being flexible enough to roll with the waves and be able to be altered in a million tiny ways.

Right now many of us have political burn out. Some, quite rightly, are feeling the “I told you so’s” while witnessing so many others express disillusionment with this new administrations lack of progress. Many are feeling like change can never happen, even if a moral man went up against the corporate power. Some are feeling outright betrayed, while others still think we haven’t “given the man a chance.” I venture that almost all are kind of collectively holding our breath wondering how we will personally survive the coming economic collapses.

So what now? Apathy for any reason is never productive.

The couple I spoke to yesterday in my restaurant, despite being fans of a lot of right-wing talk pundits have extremely clear views of what went wrong in this country. They see how corporate greed destroyed the middle class. They want single-payer health care.

Michael Moore opined last night how we could turn our factories overnight into producing things this country REALLY needs, high speed trains, green buses, wind turbines.

What I see here is the opportunity that comes with every crisis.

It is not only the political that will make people listen, it is the personal, the survival of being thrown into a nation of migrants looking for work, ala the dust bowl; sick people dying needlessly because bean counters make medical decisions. There is a deep, but still relatively quiet unrest burning in the bellies of middle America.



(Did you know that Medicare runs at about 6-7% in overhead costs, while private insurance runs in the high teens? My friend Dr. Marty researched some of that for his dissertation, and was recounting an enormous amount of factlets this weekend in between conquering tree branches and playing guitar. All they would need to do is expand an already efficient system… but I digress….)

The rabid right wing is marginalizing themselves more every day, but never discount their intent to keep trying to lasso the building rage for their own use. An unfocused anger is easily directed.

The trick of course is to start directing it before it explodes, unfocused, or focused counter-productively. It is not enough just to report (rightly) and be (righteously) indignant that our politicians still betray us.

We need to start propagandizing the dissolving middle class.

Moreso? We need to start propagandizing the politicians themselves about our demands, and our voting power.

To start, we need a bullet point outline of about 10 demands that are COMPLETELY non-negotiable. As in, “We will only vote for…” and send it to every politician, every newspaper left in the land in every city.

We need to do a 50-state strategy, starting with local op-eds and resulting in National Attention. When National attention happens, we must NOT allow this movement to be co-opted by the money forces, no matter how alluring that money may be.

Your homework, in essay or comment will be to create a message that is both sellable and sound.

Off the cuff ideas, seriously in need of editing:

1- Government is FOR THE PEOPLE AND BY THE PEOPLE, and the PEOPLE decide what their best interests are; any employee of the PEOPLE who works not in our interests will be quickly dismissed by impeachment.

2- Single payer health care is a must, and shall be renamed Right to Healthcare on Demand. No accountant shall ever make a decision about our healthcare in the interest of profiut again, this is between our doctors and ourselves.

3- Privacy is not sedition, it is our right.

4- The oil and coal industries shall be dismantled in favor of green technologies, there is no country with no Earth, and these energy companies shall be non-profit for the good of us all. These healthy jobs will renew our economy.

5- No foreign lead Political Action Committees can operate within US soil. We will not tolerate interests clearly outside the CITIZENS of the United States influencing either our domestic or foreign policy.

( authors note: bite us AIPAC)

6- No law shall be established or upheld that denies any segment of US society full and unabridged rights. Period.

I could go on, but I must ready myself for more Political propagandizing between serving baskets of french fries to the unappreciative masses…. heh.

The “centrists” are still holding fairly popular numbers, but we must create a coalition of the left NOW, a people’s party before they start to dissolve in bitterness.

Now is the time for a new kind of activism.

What say ye?