No one should expect President Obama to fix the Democratic Party, much less America, all by himself

MrScorpio

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Sun Sep-04-11 07:40 AM
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No one should expect President Obama to fix the Democratic Party, much less America, all by himself

That, right there, is the key to our dilemma� Democrats, as a group, are the problem� Not just expectations of drastic change from the top down.

We have seen the enemy, but a lot of us are loath to realize that the enemy is us.

Instead of taking the battle to the people and fighting for something as simple as voting rights for all Americans, we pretty much have ceded that the job of championing Democratic values political battlefield littered with massive right wing propaganda.

We've let the Right dictate the rules of the game, in that we've allowed them to be the "Default Party", with the Democratic Party belongs to "UnAmericans". That's the present image and we're doing very little to reverse this trend.

We are not taking our message to Middle America's low information demographic. We are not invading the Right Wing's God's Country and taking the rabid right to task on their own ground. Instead of talking to people, we are talking OVER them. There is a palpable contempt for Fly Over America, you can see it right here on DU every single day.

The Pro/Anti-Obama rhetoric is symptomatic of our inability to further the cause of Democrats outside of ourselves. As long as we point fingers at each other, it too easy to allow the Right to have free reign in the realm of Fly Over America. We complain about them, but little more.

The mistake that most of us who complain about, what we know are, wrong policy decisions by the Obama White House fail to make the simplest of associations that easily explain the root cause:

That money, corporate power and influence has created its own self-perpetuating reality by which America in survival bound to adhere. We HAVE become a nation by, for and of corporate power. Individual citizenship has little value when weighed against the might and scope of Corporate Personhood. Unless we make our own clothes, build our own transportation, grow our own food, generate our own energy and barter without money, we are all beholden to the corporations that provide these functions. They hold us hostage� Not because we allow them in so much of our lives, but merely by the fact that we cannot control their excesses and tame them for the betterment of society at large.

Take the Tar Sands controversy for example� Of course, this is something that should be opposed. But lost in the struggle against it is the fact that it's part of much larger old, gas and non-reawable energy behemoth. Simply, how many people who were arrested in front of the White House arrived there WITHOUT the use of carbon emitting transportation? People who took a diesel powered bus, or train or gas driven vehicle, in an indirect way are ALSO part of the problem. We all are part of the problem, as long as we allow the Oil and Gas industry to operate untouched.

They are the primary reason why America does not have an extensive and viable renewable energy infrastructure and, as such, have made us all coconspirators with them by necessity. We should concentrate on changing the nature of energy production itself. Turn oil and gas to such an inconsequential aspect of out live the it becomes just as relevant as the ancient, prehistoric bio-matter from which it came.

Corporate viability is intrinsically linked to the way of life on this planet for all of us. We are held hostage by it.

The result is that ANY person who sits in the Oval Office is bound to serves the needs of the corporate infrastructure, lest all of our lives are in peril. The presidency, by definition. is NOT responsible for setting the nation's direction, but is bound to MANAGE, or preside over the direction set by the Congress itself, which makes the laws of the land.

Unless we change the fundamental make up of Congress and ground level political make up of all the congressional districts, these pissing contests over whomever we think should be the best president amounts to no more than useless bickering.

You want a better President� Well, we better get working on making a better AMERICA.

Our first function should be to create the grassroots foundation to build that better America. Local and state elections, voter registration and education, media response and public policy advocacy are the keys. It should be organized and coordinated. It's should be loud and persistent. Most of all it should be simple and easy to understand.

We can't be talking over the heads of the folks in Fly Over America� What have to communication with them in ways that they can understand.

Most of all, to remake the Democratic Party the REAL party of people, we need to make fundamental changes. We have to ENGAGE, instead of ceding. Define what it means to be an American and remold the idea of what id default. Create better national priorities.

We have to be more proactive in areas of America which see very little of us right now.

The work will be hard. But then, anything worthwhile usually is.