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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 9/19/10

The Possibility for the Most Unlikely of Coalitions

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Message Dave Lefcourt
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What seems so loud in America is so much of the anger is misplaced and mostly scattershot rather than focused. And when it is focused, it plainly is off the mark.

That "loudness", of course is most pronounced by the "tea party" advocates. They rail against taxes, the deficit, and the health care legislation recently enacted while calling Obama a "Socialist", a Muslim and not born in America. They're apoplectic over illegal immigration, against all abortion and want to dismantle social security. They remain unfettered capitalists and against financial regulation. They are plainly anti government almost to the point of obsession. Yet when all of their issues are looked at calmly and realistically, they're wildly off the mark, irrational, often contrary to their own interests and don't make a lot of sense.

To this observer, most people want to see effective solutions to the problems we face in this country and do not identify with the vituperation of over the top "tea party" extremists that most people see as fanatics. So from here the "tea partiers" are a craze and by and of themselves offer no real solutions.

All that being said and not wanting to seem to be committing heresy here, but paradoxically, it is the energy and enthusiasm of the "tea partiers" that is most worthwhile and that is most needed in this country.

Imagine if their energy and enthusiasm were redirected, harnessed and aligned with those on the left who are anxious and disappointed with the current dysfunction that goes for political leadership in this country. You would have a broadly based movement for change that would be transformational politically.

The real challenge is how these seemingly disparate, diametrically opposed antagonists could be made to come together and forge the broad based coalition that could bring about a real (and necessary) political transformation?

From here, the ONE issue that could bring about this monumental pairing of left and right is peoples funding of elections. Well over 85% of the people of this country (from the left and the right) see big moneyed and special interests influence controlling the electoral and political process and the politicians they bankroll who act to consolidate and further those interests to the detriment of the people's interests.

If our elected politicians represented the people's interests rather than the big moneyed and special interests, neither the right nor the left would always prevail. But the inevitable compromises that would result would be people driven, not corporate driven.

The people, left and right must recognize that until the big moneyed and special interests influence is broken there can no real change in this country. What prevails is the present impasse that results in and is exhibited by the continued loud anger and resistance coming from the right juxtaposed with the anxiety, deep frustration and disappointment coming from the left.

Our politics are broken and dysfunctional as currently constituted. It is the one issue we all can agree on.

By instituting a people's financed electoral system favored and demanded by a broad based people's coalition of the left and the right is the chance to fix it; maybe our only chance.

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Retired. The author of "DECEIT AND EXCESS IN AMERICA, HOW THE MONEYED INTERESTS HAVE STOLEN AMERICA AND HOW WE CAN GET IT BACK", Authorhouse, 2009
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