Many decades ago this country had something called the middle class and it made up the majority of the country. On the edges you had the affluent and the poor but there was the real sense that if you worked hard enough, you could get out of poverty and enjoy a middle class life and leave a better opportunity for your children. The middle class has been systematically eradicated by the rich and powerful over those many decades so we get to what we now have. The rich and the poor and the illusion of middle class dreams. We have the democrats and the republicans and the illusion of a democratic process.
Out of the angst that the Bush Administration wrought, the Progressive Movement was born. Speaking out against the obvious abuses by a rogue administration was easy. Illegal wars, torture as policy, the impoverishing of the nation and two stolen elections were easy to want to progress out of. The true genesis of this movement however, was devoid of party. Something funny happened along the way though and soon by default the progressives aligned themselves with the lesser of two evils and thus became part of the very system we sought to progress away from.
There is nothing progressive about the Democratic Party. I know liberals have tried to hijack the progressive tag and incorporate that progressive base into theirs but the reality is that the Democratic Party at its core is just as much a part of the problem as the Republican Party. A lesson many are now learning as people stand dumbfounded by the actions of President Obama. Capitulating on healthcare, cutting deals with big pharma, refusing to prosecute war crimes and release abuse photos are just a microcosm of what I have said all along. Barack Obama is just as much a part of the machine as George Bush. That is because the cancer is parasitic. The primary thing the two-party system cares about is protecting the two-party system. Obama will protect Bush Jr. like Clinton protected his father. Destroy the constitution and commit illegal atrocities? No one is held to account and they proceed to build libraries in their own honor or a land a lucrative gig on Fox News.
The inherent problem with what the progressive movement has become is that it aligned itself within the broken system it originally wanted no part of. While Keith Olbermann and Sean Hannity duke it out over which side of the lie is more righteous there is still a large swath of disaffected Americans who realize now that they have been had. They see Obama no longer as the agent of change he promised to be and realize a return to the GOP would be simply stupid. If the dems want to hold onto the progressive tag let them. We can call this the Common Sense Movement.
It is common sense that says when crimes occur, people need to be held to account no matter how powerful. It is common sense that says moving your armies from Iraq to Afghanistan when we shouldn't be in either country does not equal change we can believe in. It is common sense that says people who shout down people at public hearings should be tossed out. It is common sense that says we can handle the dark truth about torture because we understand it was wrong. It is common sense that says in the richest country in the world people should not be dying for a lack of healthcare. It is common sense that says people first and profit second. Common sense says that capitalism does not have to be inherently evil. Who knows, maybe the movement can become a party. Maybe that party can then somehow break into the rigged system we now have. Maybe it can break the illegal stranglehold the two parties have on the debate system. Maybe it can remove the money from campaigns that prevent the true nature of our democracy from ever flourishing. Could you imagine such a world?
A world where in 2012 there is Barack Obama defending his not prosecuting war crimes and his secret deals with big pharma? A world where in 2012 across from Obama is Sarah Palin representing her position of giving tax breaks for millionaires while winking at you? And across from them both, someone who simply makes sense? I do not mean Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader. I mean someone viable who is allowed into the game. Someone who realizes the progressive movement progressed into the problem. Someone who sees that the GOP and the Dems only represent more of the same failed system. Someone who is not beholden to the machine. Someone who wants to represent the people of this nation, not the lobbyists of corporate America. Someone with common sense. I dare to dream but oh what a world that would be.
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