I know you didn’t ask, but … honestly!
In the last 24 hours I’ve thought a lot about what I owe you as a moderator — whether I should just suck it up or, because we’re “personal” with one another, let it out; so today I’m gonna tell you how I really feel — if you’re enthralled by Hillary or beguiled by Barack, you will probably want to skip this post. I haven’t done a rant for a long time … and this isn’t a rant in the usual sense; still, this is as honest as I can get and probably politically incorrect, to boot. The nominating process [could it BE any more dysfunctional??] will define the year ahead … if I’m gonna spend a year at this, I need to vent a bit.
I’ve spent some time gathering up the odds and ends on the Edwards withdrawal yesterday — the majority of articles are [unaccustomed, with political candidates] affectionate, respectful and mournful … and most of them point out that the Edwards campaign was doomed from the start because the media refused to grant him any status besides gadfly. I saw more John Edwards coverage yesterday than I’ve seen in the entire last year of looped speculation on the Hillary/Barack possibilities and recent face-off … even though he had the national polling numbers to whip ANY of the candidates running [seriously, he did!] and with even his critics acknowledging that he set the progressive discussion from the git-go.
We wouldn’t be focused on poverty or corporate corruption or universal health care to the degree we are today if there had been no Edwards — he put them on the table early, and loudly, and insisted that the other candidates meet the mark. [I’m not forgetting Kucinich; the Edwards persona allowed that message to go forward and pick up speed … Dennis just can’t get a break. Dodd and Biden and Richardson stood up too — we had a stable of real thoroughbreds only a few weeks ago, didn’t we?]
A lot of bloggers representing the base are disenchanted, now — many of them are saying, “That’s it for me, screw it; this whole process has become a farce.” I absolutely understand how they feel. They’ll likely change their mind, but its worrisome where the Independent vote might go now — names like McCain and Paul are showing up in their commentary with regularity. Others are shifting to Obama because his ability to voice the progressive dream makes him the default for the populist vote.
With McCain [a crusty old hawk whose cheese is slipping off his cracker — he said last night at the Pub “Reagonathon” debate, “There is no such thing as climate change” … said it several times] gaining ground and Romney [have you noticed this guy just ain’t right? He gives me the willy’s every time I see him!] coming on stronger because Mac can ONLY talk war, nothing else — the seriousness of the nomination has become more apparent [welcome to Pluto in Cappy.] The Pubs have only two topics of discussion … security and economy. The Dems are running in a parallel universe, where the agenda is much more complicated and socially driven. And I think it’s good advice to remember that GWB has long months to make both security and the economy a bigger, scarier disaster than it is now and give his party a leg up with public sentiment.
Numbers indicate that women and business interests are voting Hillary, young folk and progressives are voting Barack … the Latino vote is in flux; the Pubs have their machine fine-tuned to hit Hil on every personal level if she’s the pick — the Billy Bob’s of the world are ready to take on Barack with hateful racism. That’s the facts on the ground and we’d better be prepared for them. We haven’t even begun to see the nastiness level an actual candidate will face; we’re gonna find out.
I’ve stayed away from reporting much on this nomination process — I know some of you believe passionately in your candidate, I’m very respectful of that … and the in’s and out’s of this scrunched-up process has become so frenetic and speculative that it takes us on an emotional roller coaster we’re better off avoiding. But today, I’m going to call it the way I see it rather than detach myself to reflect the flawed truthiness of the moment back at you or connect dots so we can detangle the issues.
I’m indulging myself … it’s that or step away from my computer for a few weeks [or months.]
Not long ago I took a peek at the funding records of all the players, to see which corporations backed whom with how much — I’ve looked at the voting record of the remaining candidates, I’ve noted who advises them, who they’re close to. I’ve listened very carefully … VERY … to the words they use. I’ve been largly depressed ever since.
We want CHANGE? Ha! What we’re going to have is another slick horse race, the nags biting at each other as they run down the course, the corporate sponsors cheering and waving, each of us holding a ticket and keeping our gaze on the flashing eyes and hooves kicking up dirt. We like the colors they’re wearing, the look of them … we haven’t handicapped, but we’ve decided.
A friend told me that he thought I was so disappointed not because Edwards folded but because his lack of support indicated that we “weren’t ready” to hear the message. In some ways that’s true … but it wasn’t his message we rejected, we think we’re going to hear that message continue in the Democratic narrative. I wonder. That whole populist sentiment could slow to a trot right quick.
What we weren’t ready to do was take the time to blow back the smoke of media blitz and examine resumes instead of sound bites. Maybe now we’ll do that, although there’s only a slim difference between what Hil’s selling and what Obama wants — now the resumes are cookie cutter affairs from within mainstream politics reflecting the wisdom of “the Hill.” Is that what we wanted? To take our pick of two establishment moderates? To embrace “same old” and try to fit it into our hopes for a new paradigm? To avoid a fight … Lord no, don’t fight! … even if that means we can’t punch our way out of the old political model until 2012 comes up to bite us on the ass and force us into decision making?
I know many of us think Obama is that fresh new face for progressive change … but take a look at his record, his hesitancy, his allegiances. His style is very different from Hil’s and we may resonate to that, love his “vision” for a unified party and nation, his ability to draw us toward a dream of calm exchange and bipartisan collaboration … which I believe means making compromises that none of us want, and which may or may not bring us any of the changes we anticipate. But Hillary surely won’t even take us that far, and for that reason alone, I’ll throw my cards Obama’s way.
I was too young to vote for Jack Kennedy [but not to work for his candidacy] so I missed the opportunity to be altruistically gleeful at the polls. I haven’t been gleeful since, and now that Edwards is out I will do what I’ve always done … bet on the horse race and hope for the best. But when I go, well after SuperTuesday, to pick my nominee I’m still going to vote John Edwards, even if I have to write it in. As long as he has delegates, he can influence the conversation toward the peoples issues. And I’ll take some small, sad, pleasure in my vote.
Another word about the Pluto shift — Capricorn is the “executive.” We are, more than ever in these first years as we get used to taking responsibility for ourselves and our choices, going to be wanting a hero and a “Daddy.” The Pubs got their Daddy, now we’re looking for ours. Dicey stuff, that … fraught with illusion. And with Neptune playing smoke and mirror games again during the election period, we need to be grounded and centered and AWARE of what we’re voting for. Learning to take responsibility for our choices by choosing ineptly is how that usually works; let’s at least do this with a pragmatic, realistic sense of the possibilities going forward.
So how do I feel, today? Honestly? Ready, like the many bloggers I’ve read, to pull out of politics. To let the mess crash down around our ears, then maybe it will get our attention. Tired out and wrung out and disheartened. Prepared to let people pursue their dream of letting someone else be responsible for them … again … until they’ve finally had enough of it and meet me in the streets to help pick up the pieces.
As far as I can tell, we had the hero — we just didn’t take good enough care of him, didn’t fight for his opportunity to be heard, didn’t like that he was “angry” … as if we AREN’T. We let them call him a Breck Girl, let them make him somehow effeminate, thanks to she-devil Ann Coulter [while creating flaky Rudy as a codpiece candidate] — which leaves us, now, to argue endlessly over the Pub agenda of Hil’s gender [what cute little Tina Fey calls lady bits] and Barack’s race [his … gasp! … middle name is Hussein] because, frankly, their positions aren’t divergent enough to engage us.
We’ll have to seriously weigh their sound bites now and study their polls and split their hairs and watch their delivery — oh, and they took Britney away to the nuthouse today; knew you’d want to know.
Edwards, Obama, Clinton — who knows how much one president can manage to change the system; I’m not naive. On the other hand, we know what George Bush has done to play the system, to break it, strangle it and corrupt it. The power of the presidency is, thanks to Dubby’s coup, stunning. And we don’t need the Lefty’s to balance us toward the middle again; we need a “new deal.”
We want change? We just gave it away. We want a hero? Here’s a hero for you, read this speech – the only article I’m posting — and you tell me … not a good enough “vision” for a restored America?
Oh, you know … I’ll get over it. I’ll bounce back. But I can feel this in my weary bones … it’s going to be a loooooooog year. If you got this far, thanks for listening — and read on. I shouldn’t be the only one crying.
Jude
“To Build One America, End the Game”
Speech by John Edwards at Hanover, New Hampshire
August 23, 2007
- This election is unlike any we have faced before. The stakes are higher. And the challenges we face as a nation are greater than at any time in memory.
We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always done in times like these — change direction and move boldly into the future for the sake of our children, if not for ourselves, or wander in the same stale direction we have traveled in our recent past.
The choice we must make is as important as it is clear.
It is a choice between looking back and looking forward.
A choice between the way we’ve always done it and the way we could do it if we dared.
A choice between corporate power and the power of democracy.
Between a corrupt and corroded system and a government that works for us again.
It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle.
It is the establishment elites versus the American people.
It is a choice between the failed compromises of the past and the bright possibilities of our future. Between resigning ourselves to Two Americas or fighting for the One America we all believe in.
As always, at these moments, the choice we make is not for us, but for our children and our great country. And this time, like no other time, the consequences for our children are truly profound.
Will we halt global warming, protect our environment and humanity from the cataclysmic consequences of inaction and leave our children a livable world rich in the resources that were left to us?
Will we prevail against terrorism by stopping those who would harm us and winning over the minds of those who have yet to take sides so that instead of an ever more dangerous and war-torn world, our children live in a nation that is safe, strong and once again viewed throughout the world as a truly moral leader?
Will corporate greed be all we value as we move further into the global economy, or will we put workers and families first, so that all jobs pay fair wages, every American has health care and corporate profits work for democracy and not the other way around?
Will we face our future as individuals, each of us asking, “What’s in it for me?” Or will we return to the central value that makes our nation great? That we are all in this together and each of has a responsibility to the common good.
The choices we make will determine not just the quality of life our children will inherit, but the fate of the world we leave behind.
To succeed for our children where we have too often failed for ourselves, we must choose a new course. Those wedded to the policies of the 70s, 80s, or 90s are wedded to the past — ideas and policies that are tired, shop worn and obsolete. We will find no answers there.
But small thinking and outdated answers aren’t the only problems with a vision for the future that is rooted in nostalgia. The trouble with nostalgia is that you tend to remember what you liked and forget what you didn’t. It’s not just that the answers of the past aren’t up to the job today, it’s that the system that produced them was corrupt — and still is. It’s controlled by big corporations, the lobbyists they hire to protect their bottom line and the politicians who curry their favor and carry their water. And it’s perpetuated by a media that too often fawns over the establishment, but fails to seriously cover the challenges we face or the solutions being proposed. This is the game of American politics and in this game, the interests of regular Americans don’t stand a chance.
Real change starts with being honest — the system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It’s rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It’s rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it’s rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things. For them, more of the same means more money and more power. They’ll do anything they can to keep things just the way they are — not for the country, but for themselves.
Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming.
Instead of serving the people and the nation, too many play the parlor game of Washington — trading favors and campaign money, influencing votes and compromising legislation. It’s a game that never ends, but every American knows — it’s time to end the game.
And it’s time for the Democratic Party — the party of the people — to end it.
The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.
The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.
It’s time to end the game. It’s time to tell the big corporations and the lobbyists who have been running things for too long that their time is over.
It’s time to challenge politicians to put the American people’s interests ahead of their own calculated political interests, to look the lobbyists in the eye and just say no.
And it’s time for the American people to take responsibility for our government — for in our democracy it is truly ours. If we have come to mistrust and question it, it is because we were not vigilant against the forces that have taken it from us. That their game has played on for so long is the fault of each of us — ending the game and returning government of the people to the people is the responsibility of all of us.
But cleaning up Washington isn’t enough. If we are going to meet the challenges we face and prevail over them, two principles must guide us — yes, we must end the Washington game, but we must also think as big as the challenges we face. Our ideas must be bold enough to succeed and our government must be free to enact them without compromising principle or sacrificing results.
One without the other isn’t good enough. All the big ideas in the world won’t make a difference if they have to go through this broken system that remains controlled by big business and their lobbyists. And if we fix the system, but aren’t honest with the American people about the scope of our challenges and what’s required of each of us to meet them, then we’ll be left with the baby steps and incremental measures that are Washington’s poor excuse for progress.
As Bobby Kennedy said, “If we fail to dare, if we do not try, the next generation will harvest the fruit of our indifference; a world we did not want, a world we did not choose, but a world we could have made better by caring more for the results of our labors.”
But if we do both — if we have the courage to offer real change and the determination to change Washington — then we will be build the One America we dream of, where every man, woman and child is blessed with the same, great opportunity and held to the same, just rules.
For more than 20 years, Democrats have talked about universal health care. And for more than 20 years, we’ve gotten nowhere, because lobbyists for the big insurance companies, drug companies and HMOs spent millions to block real reform. Instead, they’ve grudgingly allowed incremental measures that do nothing but tinker around the edges — or worse, they’ve hijacked reform to improve their own bottom line. So today, more Americans go without health care than ever before. Instead of prescription drug reform that brought down the cost of drugs, the lobbyists for the big drug companies got us a prescription drug bill that boosts drug company profits but doesn’t cut patient costs.
I have a bold plan to finally guarantee true universal health care for every single American and cut health care costs for everyone. My plan will require everyone — business, government and individuals — to contribute something to reach universal coverage. And I am honest about the cost: $90 to $120 billion a year, and I’ll pay for it by repealing the Bush tax cuts for families above $200,000. If we end the game in Washington, we can finally have a health care system that treats the health of all our people with equal worth.
Dependence on foreign oil is smothering our economy and choking our environment. Everybody knows it — politicians from both parties have been calling for energy independence for 30 years. So what did the oilmen in the White House do? They handed the keys to the corridors of government over to the lobbyists for the big oil companies and let them literally write the energy bill. Now, gas prices are through the roof, carbon emissions are unchecked, and global warming is likely getting worse.
When I am president, we will cap greenhouse gas pollution and ratchet it down every year. We will avoid mistakes like nuclear power and liquid coal. We will invest in clean renewable energies generated in America and create a new era in efficient cars, made by union members here at home.
And look at our economic policies — from top to bottom, they’re a twisted reflection of American values. Instead of expanding opportunity for all and preventing special privileges for any, they hoard opportunity and protect special privileges for the very few at the very top.
Trade policy is all about corporate profits for big multinationals and not at all about lifting workers’ wages or creating American jobs. The tax code provides breaks for hedge fund managers — amazingly, even Democrats backed down from asking them to pay their fair share when Wall Street lobbyists put the pressure on. By the time a decade of corporate opposition to a minimal increase in the minimum wage is overcome, even its own supporters admit that the increase isn’t enough — so another decade of corporate opposition begins anew, and workers lose again.
It’s time we put our economy back in line with our values. Let’s restore fairness to our tax code by insisting on a simple principle — nobody in the middle class should pay higher taxes on the money they make from hard work than the wealthiest pay on the money they make from their investments. Let’s restore opportunity and responsibility to our trade policy by requiring that every new trade deal puts workers and wages first.
Let’s reward work by strengthening unions, raising the minimum wage, cutting taxes on working families and with a national commitment to end poverty within a generation.
And let’s support our troops and end this war in Iraq. We should immediately withdraw 40-50,000 combat troops immediately and have the rest out in about a year. And when President Bush refuses to act, Congress should use its funding power to force him to act.
None of this will be easy, but all of it is possible.
I know. I’ve been doing it my entire life.
I am the son of Wallace and Bobbie Edwards. My father had to borrow $50 to bring me and my mother home from the hospital. I am here today because, like all the people my father worked with in the mill, my parents got up every day believing in the promise of America, and they worked hard — no matter what obstacles were thrown against them — to give me the chance for a better life.
That’s the promise at the heart of the American Dream. What matters to our generation is of little consequence — in America what has always mattered most is the consequences for our children and their children after them. And no amount of power or money gives anyone the right to break that promise with our future.
I have stood with ordinary Americans at the most difficult times in their lives, when all the power of corporate America was arrayed against them. I have walked into courtrooms alone to face an army of corporate lawyers with all the money in the world. I have walked off the Senate elevator and been besieged by an army of corporate lobbyists. And I have beaten them over and over again.
But let me tell you one thing I have learned from my experience — you cannot deal with them on their terms. You cannot play by their rules, sit at their table, or give them a seat at yours. They will not give up their power — you have to take it from them.
We cannot triangulate our way to real change. We cannot compromise our way to real change. But we can lead to real change. And we can start today.
Nearly ten years ago, I made the decision that I would never take a dime from a Washington lobbyist — I wasn’t going to work for them, and I didn’t want their money.
Because in the courtroom, when you present your case to the jury, you can offer facts and evidence, you can argue your heart out — and I have — but the one thing you can’t do, is pay the jury. We call that a bribe. But in Washington when an oil lobbyist gives money to office holders to influence our energy policy, they call it politics. That’s exactly what’s wrong with this system.
Money flies like lightning between corporations, lobbyists, and politicians. We need full public financing to reform the system once and for all. But we don’t need to wait to reform our party. Two weeks ago, I called on all Democrats to reject contributions from federal lobbyists. To tell them — we know that you give money to influence politicians on behalf of your corporate clients. Well, we’re not going to take it anymore. Your money’s no good here.
I repeat that challenge today. Let’s show America exactly whose side we’re on. We can reform our party and truly be the party of the people. And we can expose for all time who the Republicans in Washington are really working for.
There are 60 lobbyists in Washington for every member of Congress. The big corporations don’t need another president that looks out for them — they’ve got all the power they need. I want to be the people’s president.
A few weeks, ago I met a man named James Lowe in Wise, Virginia. James spent the first fifty years of his life without a voice — literally without a voice — because he didn’t have health care. All he needed was a simple operation to fix a cleft palate. That a man in the richest country in the world could go unable to speak for 50 years because he couldn’t pay for a $3,000 operation is something that should outrage every American. We are better than that. America is better that that.
It’s a stark reminder of our broken political system that leaves millions of Americans without a voice in their government — a government that is supposed to work for them.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. And we can change it together.
We must think big and end the game.
It’s not about being ready to grab the reigns of establishment Washington and stand on the side of corporate elites. If it is, there are plenty who will do a better job than me at protecting the status quo, and preserving the policies and politics of the past.
It’s about being ready to lift our country up, reform our party, and remake our government in line with the values of our people. It’s about real change and a new vision that meets the challenges of the future and inspires the American people to work together for the common good.
We’re all angry at what George Bush has done to our country. But with courage and conviction, with an unblinking eye on the future we believe in and an unbending knee on the road to get there, not only can we undo the damage, we can transform the world. No matter what life has thrown at us, Elizabeth and I have always chosen to be optimistic about the future — and determined to make a difference as we strive toward it everyday.
I carry the promise of America in my heart, where my parents placed it. Because of them, I believe in people, hard work and the American Dream. I believe the future belongs to us if we only dare to seize it. And I believe to seize it, we must blaze a new path, firmly grounded in the values that first made America great. We must cast aside the established ways of Washington and replace them with the timeless values of the American people. We must end the game controlled by a privileged few and restore the promise that America owes to us all.
On that new path lies One America, where possibility is unbound and opportunity is the birthright of every American. Where the voices of the people are heard again in the halls of government, and government heeds their call. One America, where every individual takes responsibility for our common good, and the chance to reach one’s God-given potential is every individual’s common right.
I am the son of Wallace and Bobbie Edwards.
And I believe in the promise of America.
“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007
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3 comments January 31st, 2008