A government of Courage, Intelligence, Goodwill and...oh yes...Integrity! -- cannot be found within the current partisan design of American politics, nor is such intended by its moneyed masters and our indentured "leaders." Nor, pitifully, will we be led to such by the perhaps innocent precinct-level bunnies of high partisan fervor, or by those who seek shelter and justification under the all too generously provided Lesser-Evil Option.
Time to wake up, folks!
Clinton set up the export of our jobs (NAFTA and to the Orient) and trashed our financial protection (e.g. Glass-Steagel) from 1992 to 2000. Bushco infected our government by lies, war and gifts of our treasure to its corporate masters from 2001 through 2008. Obamites, with a Democrat executive and a majority of BOTH houses of Congress throughout 2009 and 2010, re-fortified and expanded the treacherous war in the Middle East, renewed the trash contract on our Bill of Rights, refused to bring one criminal bankster to the bar of justice, while insisting on covering their backsides with lofty rhetoric.
Are you getting it, folks?
Try this: Some of us can recall a time in America when we decried the "Security State," a time when we could walk from the terminal onto our airplanes with no more than a cheery "Hello!" from a pretty stewardess, a time when grandmothers and nuns did not suffer X-rays or groping of their pubic details to board a plane from Peoria to Syracuse, a time when cameras were not recording pedestrians along our city streets, a time when our phones could not be tapped nor our homes invaded without a court order, a time when the NSA did not monitor messages such as this, a time when ONLY Congress could make war, a time WE DID NOT TORTURE !
That time is gone. And regardless that we may indeed be now threatened by the many enemies we have inspired across the past 10 years, WE ARE NOW THE SECURITY STATE, and one of such a nature that George Orwell could propose only in the form of a fable. However sadly, we must now comprehend that the biggest enemy of the security state is its own citizens, and the biggest enemy of the citizens is their own state.
We must now come to grips with this: All these abuses have happened, are now happening, and will persist in happening under EITHER the Republicans or Democrats. The "Lesser-Evil" choice no longer affords us any shelter. There is NO PLACE TO HIDE with either choice. A vote for either of these is a vote for the current treachery, or worse. A vote for either of these is an endorsement of the same moneyed masters who control BOTH major political parties. Worse yet, our Supreme Court now rules that we are to be denied knowing the identity of these masters.
I can appreciate that it is difficult for good people to come to grips with this reality for the first time -- people who have always voted for what they sincerely deemed to be truthfully in the best interest of their country and for their fellow citizens. My own admired good senior friend who has been a life-long political activist with the most virtuous of intentions, advises that the Republicans are "evil," and therefore we must support the Democrats, who -- although perhaps feckless -- are simply not all that "evil" as the Republicans. She further advises that "third-party endeavors always fail." (My kindly advice to her goes unregistered, that the Democrats were once a third party, and the Republicans merely a faint dream of revolutionaries.)
The sad reality remains: Both the Republican and the Democrat (I cannot in all conscience employ Democrat-ic) office holders and party leadership suck up to identical moneyed interests who direct the course of our government's administration and the design of our legislation.
Here are some partial quotes of a case in point from Howard Troxler of my neighboring St. Petersburg (FL) Times, April 24, 2011:
"With greed and lust and arrogance, on March 24, 2011, the Florida Legislature voted to legalize the direct bribery of the legislature itself."As of that date...it is legal for the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in our Legislature to run so-called leadership funds to accept direct, unlimited payoffs from those seeking favorable treatment.
"There is no justifying it. There is no denying it. There is no rationalizing it. There is no way to hide from the truth: The people with the sacred power of writing the laws of our democracy with the one hand now can legally hold out a money sack with the other.
"I despair for the young legislators, the new ones, so utterly hopeless already, so seduced, amoral, lost.
"As Upton Sinclair said: 'It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon him not understanding it.'"
So, my fellow citizens, that's where we are; not only in Florida but across the country at every level of the body politic, and most eminently and treacherously and larcenously in our federal government. It's enough to make one yearn for the good old days when political bribery came mostly in the form of expensive dinners, yacht cruises, golf outings, and illicit sex.
The design is in place: No politician, Republican or Democrat, can defy this influence and expect to keep his job while vigorously and honestly representing the best interests of the citizens, our nation, and humanity. And the Lesser-Evil option is not only futile in addressing this treachery, but supportive of it! Alas, my friend's vote for the "Lesser-Evil choice of a Democrat" -- or of whatever partisan persuasion -- serves only to reinforce the duplicity and treachery, which is in fact BIPARTISAN.
What are we to do, you ask? That's a difficult challenge to ask of a person who's held but one public office, that of a Township Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, elected with no opposition, to a job no one else wanted, at a salary of $10 a month. But I'll try.
We decent, intelligent, concerned citizens have little money but we do have some resources. We have the Internet that we can use to spread the idea of decent politics beyond the bipartisan stockade. We can use it to tell our friends of the ways other than those of the Republicans and the Democrats. We can write to our newspapers, and we can write to web organs, such as OpEd News for instance, which can spread the word to 30,000 or 40,000 people across the country and around the world in a flash with a single computer's cursor.
We can talk to our friends, tell them there is a chance beyond the corral of the Republicans and the Democrats. We can tell the people at church (other than the Quakers who already know) that yes, it's OK to talk politics, that the Prince of Peace would have His flock pursue His ideal, to respect the Sixth Commandment, and to evict the money changers from the temples of our government.
In every public forum we can find, we can directly advise our incumbent elected they'll be fired if they don't decently represent us -- and then do it. And we can also tell them that LESSER EVIL is TOO EVIL from here on in, and to play on that gets them fired!
Let's start the Big Noise. On the Internet. In our newspapers. In our churches. In our meetings. On the streets. Everywhere a word can be read or a voice can be heard.
This America survived English rule and occupation, then defeated that world's most powerful nation in a Revolution. This America somehow survived our most mortal war with ourselves, the Civil War. This America was the major force in defeating the combined Japanese Empire, Nazis and their Fascist allies in WWII. This America needs now to muster its intelligence to recognize we're being abused by the combined forces of the More Evil and the Lesser Evil choices, and discharge both from its political house.
Start now with the words. The actions will develop from our communications.
We can do this. We must.
