To Hope or Not to Hope

The Progressive villagers are getting restless.

I get it. It is incredibly frustrating. I want Progressive Change and I want it now. (Stamps feet, grabs the gum and turns into a purple human blueberry…) Seriously. I am with all of you.

I, however, am not willing to throw in the towel [yet] and say that they are all the same. (All of these politicians. spppltt!)

The thing is, what makes these assholes “all the same,” is also what makes them different.

These bastards, Left, Right and Center, all have one thing in common; they want to keep their jobs. They have also woken up to the fact that we the people are paying attention. And, we the people, can get mobilized and kick the bums out.

The last two elections are still fresh in their minds. The Right has watched their buddies be replaced by Democrats and the Democrats have watched – in awe – as the people got together and went to the polls. The Democrats also know (as do the Republicans) that the more people who vote, the more that Democrats get elected. This is just a simple, unarguable, fact, and it is also why the Pukes do everything that they can to suppress the vote.

Knowing this little tidbit, that the bastards all want to keep their jobs, is what makes them different. It is also what makes this particular period of time so amazing. What is so amazing right now, so fascinating, is that the GOP still thinks that their only problem was that they did not move far enough to the Right! This is excellent. Let them move farther…they are going to move so far to the Right that they will join the death-knell of the Wigs. Dumb asses.

While the Republican dumb asses move farther to the Right and continue to play their games, the Dems are being “cooperative” and “accommodating” and “bi-Partisan” and the public is eating that shit up. Seriously. The majority of the Country are not Partisans like we are…but they are starting to pay attention in ways that they never have before.

What Obama has done, not because he is so great or so cool or whatever, is that he has communicated in such a way that the people want to pay attention. This is not all Obama’s doing, we also have GW Bush to thank for this.

Bush fucked this country so hard and for so long that the people are all watching with keen interest; we have become a Nation of observers just like a rape victim watching the trial of her attacker – every word said, every piece of evidence presented, every witness who speaks – the people are watching and this bodes well for Democrats. The Democratic Ideas work; the Republican ideas are like being raped all over again. The people know this intuitively, even if they do not understand all of the intricacies of the plans.

Obama needs us in a way that no other President since FDR has needed the people. He needs a movement. No matter how many times that I say it, I do not feel that I can say it enough. He needs us to educate our neighbors. He needs us to call our Representatives and Senators. He needs us to write LTEs. Without us he will not be able to do this. He just won’t.

Here is a start:

Hold an economic recovery house party. Educate your friends and neighbors. Obama needs a movement and we need to give it to him. Real change will happen if the people demand it. These Representatives and Senators want to keep their jobs.

Tell your Senators to support the National Parks in the stimulus.

Call your Senators and support the stimulus package.

Demand accountability for the Bush Administration.

Stand with Al Gore and Repower America. Demand that your legislators support climate change legislation. I watched Vice President Gore’s testimony this weekend and it is terrifying. Why every single student in this Country - college and HS and Jr. High and elementary – are not required to watch this is beyond me.

Demand that family planning money be put back in the stimulus. It is so common friggin sense – offer people assistance with their health care costs and they will spend that money elsewhere in the economy. In addition, if you want to help people to be lifted out of poverty, help them to prevent pregnancies. Could people be any more stoopid?!

Remove Republican tax cuts from the stimulus; they do not do shit to help the economy. We need targeted cuts to the lower and middle income people. This petition and letter writing campaign calls for eliminating all of them, and I would honestly rather see all of them gone, than any corporate ones.

Hillary’s online community, No Limits. From what I can tell it is a forum dedicated to fixing this fucking Country.

Find your local District Attorney and ask them to file charges against Bush.

Vote on FDLs priorities.

Demand that Holder appoint a Special Prosecutor.

Hold a repower America house party this weekend.


Dictionary defines the antonym of “hope” as “despair.” I agree, and I agree that one of the greatest contributors to despair is powerlessness. The more involved that I am, the less powerless that I feel. Call it delusional or airy fairy or naïve or whatever. Personally I don’t care, I only know that the alternative leads to days on the couch and inability to function and I can’t do that today. It is difficult enough to move as it is; I will not add the kind of pessimism that I am used to experiencing to it. I may get screwed in the end and highly disappointed, but at least I can say I tried to change it.

PS: I started this post a few days ago so I hope that all of the links still work. Here a couple of add-ons that I also felt were worth the time to share.

Obama’s op-ed selling the plan; well worth the read.

Olbermann’s special comment last night was excellent. He made a couple of verbal flubs so read the thing too. How I wish that I could say the same to Dick – to his face.

Cross-posted at L&L Pt 2.