Oafs Of Office

Any Progressive may think it's cute to poke fun at people like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, Scott Walker, et. al., as one by one they enter the arena to do vainglorious combat to determine which of them will represent their party in the race toward the Presidency. Derogatory terms such as "clown car" and memes with Republican candidates in grease paint and big shoes might tickle the funny bone, but they detract from the real fear that should pervade the 2016 Presidential Campaign: that one of them might become President.

This idea should frighten you. It should leave you in cold sweats at night in bed. It should make you run out to find the nearest Progressive candidate of your choice and volunteer.

It doesn't.

Progressives, unlike their Conservative counterparts, don't seem to be in a lather over what is the sure threat to the country: another run of big spending, grandiose defense budgets, and cuts to entitlements, all put on the already overwhelmed American credit card. The meddling in the affairs of nations and the trashing of America's credibility as a world leader by bowing to pressure from "allies."

We should be afraid. These people have made it plain that, given the power of the Presidency, they will implement strategies and ideas that have led to economic, social, political, and global calamities in the past and will do so again in the future. They represent poor planning, bad management, ineptitude, and politicking on a grandiose scale. Every one of them has black marks on their record that would make them problematic candidates for a loan, let alone the Presidency.

But right now, social media is filled with tittering and ribbing and tomfoolery, as Progressives laugh at them and take the threat as little more than pompous chest-thumping. "They'll NEVER be President!" is the common refrain, from a pack of Progressives who sat by and watched as the 2014 mid-term elections went to some of these self-same "clowns." And why? Because Progressives COULD NOT BE BOTHERED TO VOTE. Not all mind you - I did. Many I know did. But the fact remains: too many DID NOT. End result: a Congress that is now even more dysfunctional that the previous one.

Are you willing to just sit there and think to yourself "it'll all be OK," when history has proven how fallacious that argument is? It is now a year before the first round of primaries. The Republican host will spend it scratching, clawing, and spouting in a vain effort to provide a coherent candidate. For now, everyone has anointed Hillary Clinton the Democratic front-runner, even though she is not necessarily the best person for the job. And the vast majority of Progressives have taken the "Bull Run" approach to politics, riding their carriages out to watch the spectacle, only to have the war come at them at a feverish clip and drive them home running.

We have time now, fellow Progressives, to organize, lay in ammunition, and prepare to lay siege to Conservatism's blight on our nation. We can, in fact, turn the Republican extravaganza into the sideshow it is shaping up to be, if we act now. We cannot sit idly by and simply hope the Republicans will self-destruct; we have to everything in our power to make it happen. We have to set the records straight. We have to show the American people just what these ne're-do-wells of the GOP represent to our nation: a return to policies we have barely lived through in the past. America's Progressive center must assert itself and soon, or in 2016, the "joke" will be on us.

What You Can Do For Your Country

When we think of service to the United States of America, we are perhaps lead to a vision of our citizen soldiers,defending our freedom here and overseas, or perhaps members of the Peace Corps, trying to spread knowledge and form relationships all over the world, or maybe even those who work for our government, monitoring land, sea, and sky, trying to predict the things that will affect and influence us for years to come. Invariably, though, we forget about the group that does this country its greatest service, or, in some cases, disservice.

I speak of We, the People.

One-Dimensional

‎"Thanks to TV and for the convenience of TV, you can only be one of two kinds of human beings, either a liberal or a conservative." - Kurt Vonnegut

If there can be said to be one overriding reason for the political chaos that seems to grip the United States, it is that political partisanship is the order of the day, and the American citizenry has all but ceded their skepticism to the major political parties. People are very happy to wear party affiliation as some badge of honor, and are more than willing to take up their party's talking points as sword and shield to defend the political turf they claim as theirs.

It was George Washington, in his farewell address to the country when he stepped down as President, who said of political parties:

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection.

He knew from experience, that factions in politics would prevent the fledgling nation from overcoming inertia and making the bold moves that would keep it alive. Any malaise on the part of government would be exploited by foreign nations, and could lead to invasion by a foreign power. The precarious position of America at the time called for unity of purpose.

America is in no less precarious a position now. True, the idea of foreign invasion is fairly laughable, but our vulnerability is not necessarily such an overt one. Our economic power is weakening in the face of foreign competition and cheap labor, our energy supply is at the mercy of foreign powers who can cripple us by cutting off our supplies of oil, our economy is a shambles due to our over-extension of debt and the loss of jobs, and the freedom and liberty of all Americans is under attack by those who would see their brand of "morality" and "values" foisted upon the rest of us.

This is all due to the partisan bickering and sniping that has replaced civil discourse and compromise. It appears to be far more important to both the Democratic and Republican parties to fight over the spoils of democracy, plunging our Republic into stagnation and spiraling debt. It is far too important to maintain leverage, to scrap over every seat in Congress, to be able to try and enforce their agendas, than to govern the country in a spirit of fellowship and good will. It is important for one party to sabotage the President when he/she is of the other party, in hopes of derailing progress and making the President look weak. Procedural tricks and traps are used to stall, delay, or push through legislation, in an attempt to gain the upper hand. It is no longer about legislating, it is no longer about the general welfare, it is about power and who will wield.

Reaching this point is the failure of the citizenry, either through indifference, which causes us not to vote, believing we have no control over the process, or hubris, believing that we have overcome many of the country's social difficulties, or even through ignorance, allowing the major parties to do our thinking for us, lapping up their waves of dissonance and dissent. Relinquishing control of our nation, by shirking our duty as Americans, has led us to a point where we no longer truly control our own nation. We have sold our vote to the highest bidder, to the largest corporation, to the biggest braggarts and liars. Our complicity in our own political slavery is enough to make even the strongest person weep.

We are so removed from the rough-and-tumble of this nation's founding, that perhaps complacence was inevitable. The threat of loss of our newly found and hard-won freedom energized our founders, making them work together toward stabilizing and strengthening our nation. They knew that a central and strong government was going to be essential to hold the fractious colonies together, now that the imminent threat of British domination was removed. The States were going to have to be shepherded, cajoled, and in some cases forced, to maintain their cohesion, which was still new and raw. The Federal government would need broad powers, to ensure each State would treat every American equally, and to hold the Republic together through further potential strife and crises. They could not anticipate every change that would occur, every event that would influence the country, but they knew they had to put systems and rules in place to allow America to weather any potential future storm. It was their hope that common sense and common decency would carry us forward.

We take all of this for granted, now. Rather than populate Congress with representatives who can both represent us and our views, and use their god-given intelligence to do what is best for all Americans, we repeatedly elect the same power-hungry self-aggrandizers to occupy the halls of power. We have turned the election of representatives into the anointing of royalty, the creation of American barons and lords, who are loathe to relinquish their lands and titles back to the commoners. We refuse to exercise the simple act of questioning their accomplishments, of measuring their progress, of holding them up to their claims and comparing them to reality. Rather than determining what is best for ourselves and our fellow citizens, and electing people to carry out what we feel is needed, we let them dictate to us what we believe and think, and applaud them rabidly for their staunchness in the face of those who are looking to "cram things down our throats."

When you go to complain about the state of the nation, it is best to look in the mirror, for you and I and our neighbors and everyone in this country with the appointed responsibility to form a good and working government has had a hand in in it. We must shake off our complacency, we must rise, and we must demand better of our public servants. We cannot be so eager to accept everything they say at face value, and we cannot allow them to become entrenched in their seats, lest we turn them into lords and ourselves into vassals. The blood of the American body politic must occasionally be refreshed from the pool of the citizenry, as decent people stand up to take their hand at guiding the nation, just as the Founding Fathers intended it.

The Longest Day

This is the day before the most historic election of our time. Tomorrow, those who have not already voted, will pour into polling places and cast ballots, in what will no doubt turn into a knock-down, drag-out race that we will not know the winner of until Wednesday morning. With that in mind, it reminds me of the night before Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Europe in June 1944. On the one hand, you had the German forces, vigilant, awaiting an invasion that was inevitable, but not knowing where it would be or when. And the Allies, men by the tens of thousands crammed onto ships of every type and in airplanes overhead, keyed up, nervous, trained to a fine edge, ready to hit the beach and begin the end of Hitler's reign of terror over Europe.

No one knew what the morrow would bring. Could thousands upon thousands of men and their tons of supplies be brought safely onto a French beachhead, and could that wave of men and material make it off the beach and in-land? Could the Germans hold the Allies on the beach long enough to bring up armor support and destroy the invaders piecemeal? What would the casualties be like? Who would live and who would die?

We face that uncertainty now. For all the preparation, all the phone calls, all the voters registered, all the signs, placards, and rallies, what will happen tomorrow? Will voting machines break? Be tampered with? Will people vote who should not? Will people not be allowed to vote who should? Will the floods of people seeking to vote lead to hours-long lines? How long will the counting take? Which states will be the true battlegrounds?

No amount of preparation and rehearsal could prepare the men who hit the beach of D-Day for what happened. Some things went right, some went horribly wrong. In places the Germans were well prepared; in others, they fired hardly a shot. Masses of men were felled, dying without so much as bring their rifle off their shoulder. Landing craft were blown apart. Tanks sank in the English Channel or were torn apart on the beach. Organization melted away, and men had to dig in and take control in ones and twos, often with no one to lead them. By the end of that day, the Allies had their foothold, one they would not relinquish.

And so it will go tomorrow. There will be skirmishes. There will be fights. There will be broken machines and choked polling places, and paper ballots. And then, slowly, the crowds will clear, the polls will close, and the votes will be tallied.

Tomorrow, our country will be different, no matter the outcome, for this campaign has cast that difference in stark relief. A great portion of our nation is prepared to move forward, step away from the nation we have been the last 225 years and take us forward into a new age. Many are unsure. Some are scornful. A few, closet anarchists, unhappy with any outcome which forces them to confront their true "beliefs." There will be joy. There will be sorrow. There will be anger. But there will be change.

And so, like those men 64 years ago, we wait. We wait, secure in the knowledge that we have done everything we could as individuals and as a nation to prepare. That when the ramp drops, we will surge into the teeth of the maelstrom, brandishing our votes as we cross the beach and struggle toward the high ground. And when the day is done, and the shock of the day has worn off, we will be able to lean back and know that we accomplished something, a great something, something that will forever change our destiny.