There is a now faint Voice escaping from the narrowing crack between the blatherings of America's two major political representations, a whispering that America is headed for a nightmare of profound proportions.
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Of course we can depend upon the Republicans attacking any such Voice -- that is the Person -- as is their compulsion rather than to address the Issue.
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And of course, the Democrats -- less bipartisan than bipolar -- will either (a) scurry off in fear that they may offend anyone, however deserving and necessary of offense the monster may be, or increasingly now (b) rush to compromise so to salvage their share of the swag. (Their president, even while enjoying a majority of both houses of Congress, surrendered key provisions of his party's medical-care proposal PRIOR TO the congressional debate.)
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Several thousand years ago a Chinese philosopher offered that the only virtues worth considering are Courage, Intelligence and Goodwill. Today's Republicans (hardly the party of Lincoln) would instead offer simply one: thinly disguised Avarice, along with of course our government's active assistance thereof. Today's Democrats (hardly the party of Roosevelt) would instead offer perverted bipartisanship in pursuit of the same, coupled with the populist propaganda their devoted partisans insensately still insist upon sucking up.
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We can't get to the old Chinaman's standard because as a people we lack the prerequisite Awareness. The cure awaits the diagnosis. Our current endeavor at diagnosis is that the other guys are the problem, or at best we should proceed with the lesser-evil choice of political colitis rather than to risk rectal cancer.
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Mr. "Hope! and Change!" initially never did promise much specifically; what he did promise was generally everything. And WOW did the party faithful and even adoring innocents eat that up!
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The Voice has it aright also when it says that our time, America's time may be running out, that the peoples of the world's decent governments may little longer tolerate the perpetual war demanded by our greed meisters or the bombast of a government that has reduced 300 million of its citizens to economic and political peonage.
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(OK, Rafe, so much for the criticism: What positive and productive advice can you offer?)
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Well, we can't afford to turn our fate over to the Republicans in the elections of 2012, without expecting them to do a hard right rudder to more greed service, citizen indenture and even wider wars.
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And we can't afford to re-endorse President Bojangles and his merry crew who will chance offending no one by taking charge of the tiller to avoid the rocks and pursue a course actually beneficial to the people and to humanity.
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But the Dims -- Oops! -- Dems do have options, if only they had the intelligence and guts to employ them. The Dems need to swallow hard, disavow their greed-manager sponsors, and grasp the courage to select champions to actually do the right thing for the people, that is not to select the best compromise, the lesser-evil approach to "win" elections.
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And there are champions within the Dems' own camp. Examples that occur to this political naif are such as Kucincih, of course, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (Does anyone outside her own district know who she is?) Then again, Congressman Alan Grayson (FL) sadly, as the Voice advises, did offer genuine and courageous support of the people's best interests, and thereby lost his congressional seat -- and it seems even his party's enthusiasm -- after a brief two-year tenure in Congress.
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The current trend, uninterrupted, presages the American Dream descending into a Third World status, where in fact our medical system (the world's 37th "best") already is, very likely along with our education system.
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If this trending is to be interrupted, what form would such a correction involve? Well, there is indeed a precedent of such in our history, the one we were taught to worship in our childhood history lessons. But breathe of the Jeffersonian solution today and you'll be accused of promoting the dreaded "R" word, the very suggestion of which threatens a visit by thugs in suits but without warrants.
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Or could there be a serendipitous awakening of the American people, one that shines a clear light and keen focus on a corrupt and indentured government, one that insists upon correction, one that demands representation of courage, intelligence, goodwill and -- yes, by god! -- integrity.
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Oh, how fine that would be, but hoping will not make that happen.
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And rest assured, America, we cannot expect and should reject any support in this ambition from either the Republican or the Democrat machines. The most we can possibly hope for is that their currently however innocent insensate partisan membership will finally awaken to the fact they are being used to treacherous purpose and to their own grievous disadvantage.
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How to end on a more promising note? The best this former lifelong Democrat can currently manage is: Good luck, America.
