|
Edited on Mon Feb-09-09 12:51 PM by FredStembottom
STOP LOSING!
By Fred Stembottom
I supported Barack Obama in the last election. I contributed what I could from my ever-shrinking truck-driver's wages to try and help him become the 44th president . He did.
I also supported a complete slate of Minnesota Democrats in all the other races in the 2008 election. And they won, too. (I include Al Franken in that declaration). In fact, a huge majority of voters very nearly turned everything that was available over to the Democrats. November 2nd, 2008 was quite a night. And the start of the Obama administration is quite uplifting.
But with the single exception of Joe Biden saying the simple words "Welcome back to the White House" to a group of Labor leaders(!),I have yet to feel any real joy over the turn of events. Believe me, I wanted joy. And I stayed quite still and quiet when it didn't come. I didn't spoil anyone's fun. I scolded myself for not having it.
I know now that I had good reason for not feeling what I didn't feel. I understand now what hole my joy disappeared down. The same hole that has held the hopes of millions of Middle Class and Blue Collar people like me for decades now. The grave of Democratic expectations.
What I secretly feared might come to pass, seems to be coming to pass (of course!). What the past 28 years have taught me to expect...is rolling out right on schedule.
Once again, the Democrats are losing.
Not the early procedural votes or committee assignments in Congress but the Argument. The Vision thing. Once again, the policies that might help people like me, the bills that need to be bold to be effective, those wither. As ever, Democratic ideas are diluted unto uselessness. Proven ideas that gave America it's best years are shunned like bad Peanut Butter.
Great ideas! Stuff that worked! Already! Every time!
All shrivel in the trembling hands of the Democrats we elected on November 2nd.
I am old enough to remember a time when Millions of Americans achieved a middle-class lifestyle working in factories, in rail-yards, in small offices. Things were set up that way. Everybody's work paid off. You got ahead. Now I watch people doing these same jobs (if still found within our borders) but each doing it in amounts that used to be handled by 2 or even 3 people. Each family with 2 or more family-members doing these crushing amounts of work. And still, they fall behind on the payments for their crumbling houses. Some succumb to the desperate hope of borrowing a bridge to the future. The dead-end route that closed last September.
We are now fresh out of private, patchwork coping mechanisms. And the future is here.
Something like 8 out of 10 Americans think America is on the wrong path. A huge majority of these people managed the mind-trick of imagining the Democratic Party as something other than a more polite and dissembling pathway to every radical policy that Republicans ever dreamed up.... and voted for that party in the slim hope that we might recover before too many more people slip into permanent poverty. It worked.
Now there are no real impediments to Democratic policies winning in Congress. We provided that. Huge majorities of people who drive trucks for a living (like me), who used to work in factories, used to own stores and restaurants and drive busses and write software, who used to design and build things here in the U.S. We paved the way for Democratic policy success last November. And yet, our elected Dems act like we handed them their W-4's. They don't cheer. They make troubled squinty-faces and wish they were somewhere else. That's where my joy went. My disappointment simply mirrors theirs!
So there is only one thing I need before I can close that hole in my soul forever and possibly feel the joy.
I need the Democrats to STOP LOSING!
Simply that. Enough with the failing!
Just why do you D.C. Democrats - newly triumphant - still grovel before
the Incredible Shrinking Other Party anyway?!?! Where is the normal human reaction to winning it all especially after having been beaten about the head with Freedom Fries for 8 years? What requires you to even _listen_ to the party that brought us such freaky, radical policies, conveyor-belt corruption and daily, milk-spitting outrages? Why do you lose?!?!? We simply can't figure that out out here (but, boy, are we ever filled with deep suspicions!)
But nevermind. Whatever it is that causes the inexplicable behavior (again!) I am here to tell you that this time is different. This time, people like me quite literally can't afford to watch the Party we elected compromise with those that brought us disaster. We will not watch you tri-angulate with failure and corruption.
This time is different. This time:
You. Work. For. Us.
Not for each other. Not for traditional monied interests. This time, Democrats, you work for those who voted you in. We require changes to the rules of the game in order to survive. We now demand that you represent us in that fight.
And...first and foremost...again... we demand that you:
STOP LOSING.
And that begins with you, Mr. President. The Serial Failures in Congress can best be stopped by you at this point. You, who gave us hope must now devise and implement the bold actions, the big changes that are the only avenue left for people like me.
You are now finding out that the media deregulation begun by Ronald Reagan has resulted in a consolidation of the traditional media into a hard, flinty block that stands directly in the way of the likes of me, organizations that represent people like me and the one or two congresspeople still reckless enough to speak for Middle Class and Blue Collar workers.
And if you continue speaking for me and those like me, continue welcoming organizations that represent me to the White House, then that same Giant Cinderblock of congealed media will be placed in your way, too... You are already sensing that. I can tell. Even from here.
You see, people like me can easily be un-represented. Especially in the consolidated media where the default settings point to people and organizations that don't represent people like me (or don't represent people like me competently). But you. You are the one and only President of the United States! They have to cover any and every President of the United States or cease being any kind of News organization at all.
And, right now, that's you. They can't bring in some other President of the United States. What you say. What you do. It gets through. Every day. And it gets through on TV and radio. Still the only 2 media appliances that are ubiquitous.
So relax. Start using that happy fact. In new ways. The stodgy "press conference" with the Big Gold Seal and Olympic Sized podium? What could be more spoiled than that setting. After the past 8 years, It's quite clear that they'll let anybody stand there. Find a new setting and context to speak to us. Use the time the media must give you... your way. Doing what you want to do with it.
And what you should do with it is educate. Nealy 30 years of consolidated media has simply removed from the discussion everything having to do with people like me (those without private jets). Entire categories of possibilities were disposed of so completely and so long ago now that it has resulted in several generations who simply will not understand what you are trying to do. You must explain. Fully and at length.
Do so and we will respond. In the millions! No radio commentator can stop me and the millions like me if given a vision of a return to an America where working hard pays off. But millions of us need to be brought up to speed on your un-filtered vision.
Congressional Dems? You have 2 choices now. Represent those who put you there - and experience the force of millions surging to support and sustain you or be trampled by a different type of surge. No one out here sees Congressmen or Senators as precious commodities. Never have. But you have taken our past inattention as endorsement. We are quite threatened and wide awake now. This time it's different.
You now work for US. Out here.
And beginning today, you STOP LOSING.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
