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It was an illusion. Obama would become president. The Democrats would take the Senate, and the house, and there would be a new day dawning for America.
It didn't happen. They blamed it on the 'F' word-- fillibuster. But that wasn't a problem once Al Franken took his seat. The real problem was the same old problem-- sold out politicians who took care of megacorporations before mainstreet, banks holding mortgages before home-owners.
Most people are still living with the illusion, the grand illusion that there is a huge difference between the two parties and all we need are two parties.
The truth is, while there are differences-- Republicans will gut you with a sword and Democrats will nick away at you with a safety razor, throw liberal policy crumbs our way and pass hollowed out "reform" legislation-- they both betray you, we, us, our interests and needs. The problem was, to get to holding the White House, the House and the Senate, people like Rahm Emanuel sold out women, soliciting and funding in primaries bluedog dems who were not just into PAYGO balanced budgets, but also anti-women's rights. That's one of the reasons women left the Dems in droves this year.
The bluedogs and New Democrats were neocon DINOs who more often sabotaged solid, real legislation, forcing real Democrats to dilute their bills to the point where there was a real qui bono question-- who benefitted more? Corporations or mains street. In the case of the health care bill and the Finance reform bill, the stock markets went up after they were finalized. That said enough.
Now, we face a new situation. It may be this this is closer to reality than what we had. Remember when Dorothy and her motley crew drifted into the field of flowers that put them into a soporific sleep. Well, we've been there and now we're coming out. The anaesthetic is wearing off. That can be painful, but it's part of the recovery process. That's right, recovery. We're waking up to a harsh reality that, if we'd faced in 2008, we could have done a lot more about.
In my interview with Thom Hartmann yesterday, he pointed out that Obama is off to India to try to get the Indians, on behalf of Walmart, to soften laws protecting the middlle class, so the middle-class-destroying monopolistic, top down economics of the US are allowed there, where no person or company can own more than two stores. He's headed off to South Korea to reassure them he's doing all he can to establish a Korean version of NAFTA. WE need to eliminate NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, GATT and start re-instituting tarriffs, protecting our national manufacturing industries, which are essential for maintaining and protecting our economy and our middle class. If we play things right with tarriffs we might be able to eliminate income taxes for all but the very rich and dynasties.
The right wing calls inherit tax the "death tax." I call it the "dynasty tax." Dynasties are a threat to democracy, a threat to fairness, justice and equality. Dynasties are not people and they have not constitutional rights. We need to tax them out of existence. This is an issue that most Americans will support if we allow families to retain ten or twenty million in inheritance.
We need to find ways that progressives and tea partiers can find common ground. There will be those common interests and we need to hold our noses and work together on them against the common enemy, sellout politicians who are more loyal to corporations and lobbyists. This is going to be very difficult. But it is necessary.
We need to institute instant run-off voting, or something like it, so we can vote for real choices, not lesser of two evil options. Save them for second or third. And we need to do it for federal elections. We MUST break the two party duopolistic monopoly.
There are even taxes that tea partiers might buy-- on resources, on transactions, on land use, maybe even to cover the costs of pollution clean-up-- not carbon stuff. IT's clear that's a dead end politically.
We've been given our wake-up call. We knew a lot before we smelled the coffee. Now, we face a new, more challenging situation, but perhaps it is what it took for us to, having fallen down, get up and start taking more serious more conscious, more aggressive and firm action.
While I'm very unhappy with Obama, I still hold a remote hope that somehow, someone will wake him up to find his heart, his guts, his courage, his passion, his sympathy for the middle class and poor-- the victims who have not been rescued by his big projects. It could happen. We could make it happen.
