Want To Appeal To Millennials And Win Elections Going Forward? Here's How

As anyone with one eye and half-sense can observe, the Left got its ass handed to it in the 2014 elections. We deserved it, too. We completely capitulated our Progressive and Liberal ideals. We deserted the President and his policies, going so far as to distance ourselves from him before the election. We ignored the warnings that Millennials don't want to hear the din of petty political battles. We failed to see that the recent victories we had won happened because we moved Left, not Right. Despite that, the Democratic Old Guard felt that they just had to yank the reins at the last moment and they drove us right over the cliff. 

Thanks, assholes. Thanks for nothing. And one more thing:  You're fired!

What we should do next is radically different than what we've done heretofore: We should not jump into the fray until 3 months before the election. 

Pick your jaw up off the floor, stop laughing, then STFD and STFU; it's class time, and here's the main point you need to remember, and I'm going to help you 'get it':  Millennials have short attention spans. Don't worry that I just said that, they've already forgotten it.  (Kidding, Millennials! I actually love ya. Seriously, I do. Some of you more than others, and...OK, this isn't the forum for that. nm)

This is the part that so many people are going to have trouble with, thinking that "branding" requires constant, in-your-face advertising: We're going to let the GOP kill themselves with their own ads. There's going to be a giant sucking sound of silence from our side. Until we're ready. Then we're going to play our game, not their game.

We'll start the general election run up on 1 August for the November elections. Just 3 months and a smidge more. Prior to that, yes, we'll have to do a primary. But then we're going to sit on our hands except for some occasional ads, "occasional" being our mantra. 

This is how our ads will be formatted:

First, we'll hire some smart, but smartass, actress or actor - I'm thinking someone like Justin Long, here - who's cool and confident without being smarmy about it. She and/or he will need to be a Millennial, but a well-respected one. They'll be on a big stage (only one spokesperson per ad - we want these ads to be minimalist) with an enormous screen behind him playing the competition's campaign ad. He'll casually ask if you've heard the latest thing the Right's Brightest Light Du Jour has said, then turn to the screen where the sound from the video already playing will come up with the candidate in question saying whatever asshat batshitcrazy thing they're noted for saying. Then, he'll turn back to the camera and say something like, "And they want me to vote for her?", then shake his head and walk off while the camera zooms slowly in to the opponent's rabid expression frozen on the big screen. 

Besides a regular spokesman like the aforementioned, have a rotating series of TED-quality spokespeople - well-known, actual-experts in their fields - challenge opposition candidates' spoken or written words, as well as to elucidate our own points. They could challenge one sentence or at most one paragraph per ad, with more commentary available on YouTube and the campaign's website. Let actual climate scientists challenge the climate deniers positions. Let gay veterans and gay celebrities challenge anti-LGBT or anti-marriage equality candidates and positions. Let actual economists challenge economic bullshit. Professor Robert Reich could be a superstar in that area.

Experts could make short points, dozens or even hundreds of them. Impress young voters with the depth and breadth of Progressive knowledge rather than beat them over the head with the same blunt instrument over and over. Use a white board with certain points; again, Professor Reich is the master of this. Bill Nye is another one who is highly respected, easy to follow, and highly telegenic. 

Each 15- or 30-second expert ad can be followed up by a slightly longer version - but don't rehash the same material boringly - in an online video posted to YouTube and our own websites, with links to peer-reviewed scientific articles, and generally-agreed assessments of things like economics. 

The ads should be short when it can be done effectively. Run lots of them, each intelligently and rationally challenging the opposition's positions and candidates, or bringing new Left ideas to their minds. Use humor. Let me say that again: U-S-E  H-U-M-O-R-!  Climate denier bullshit? Let a bunch of young climate scientists make a rebuttal, then drop their pants and moon the competition (we'll blur their heinies :)  ).  Be brainy, the brainier the better. Use smiles, not frowns. Never yell. Be normal. 

Try to not repeat them often. This is another reason to make lots of them. When someone sees on TV one they really love, make them go look for it. When they do, they're no longer on TV - unless it's a Smart TV - they're on the internet where they're likely to share the information and video they found. 

"Luke, use the...viral videos!" I'm pretty sure Obi Wan would've said that...

They should NEVER be attack ads. They should NEVER sink to the level that the GOP will sink to, even if we think we're losing. They MUST appear sane, level-headed, fair, and they must be memorable in the slew of hot shit that flies during an election. 

And this process - which will work - needs to be repeated throughout the Left's campaigns. We need to show solidarity, something the Right excels at. Also, each ad must end with an appeal to action. ("Will you stop pretending everything's fine and join us so that we can fix this?" or something better said)

We're going after young voters. Hell, we're going after 10-year-olds because one day soon, just 2 Presidential election cycles away, they will vote. We're not going after old voters. Those folks are already decided, for the most part, and probably tune out political ads...the moment they keep them from enjoying 'Matlock' and 'Golden Girls' reruns. ;)  (Fair disclosure: I'm 56, 3 days older than dirt!)

We've got to stop letting the same people throw the same wrenches into the processes. We've got to evolve, and that will never happen if we keep reverting to 'business as usual' by letting the Nelly Handwringers in the bunch run around screaming "The internet gave me herpes!", then go negative and fuck it all up. 

As for campaign money, think about it this way: Why spend your hard-begged lucre funds buying ad time when, if your ads are sufficiently brainy and viral, people will go find the ads, not the other way around. Use the hottest young Progressives and Liberals to make the points and make kids - young voters and young future voters - want to see them. Make them a game: "To see if your thoughts match ours, go to our website and follow the breadcrumbs!", then leave a trail of clues that will take them to other websites that illuminate our talking points. Educate them, it's what they want, anyway. Millennials grew up with technology like no one before them, and we need to use that to hold their attention. We also need to stop pretending that we have them figured out...and then use 1970s tactics to prove that we don't. Or even 1990s tactics, for that matter. 

It's a paradigm shift and disruptive technique. Disruption of the cycle of "Oh shit, we just handed another midterm election to the Grand Oligarch's Party" is what we need, going forward.

We need to start playing the long game and stop this series of losses to a party and political philosophy that I've heard declared dead at least a dozen times in my lifetime alone. They win because they found a method and they've stuck to it. 

But the difference between our method and theirs is that ours will play well to youth and intelligence, whereas theirs plays down to people they think are beneath them and whom they believe to be too stupid to see through the bullshit.  

In 'Two Gentlemen of Verona', William Shakespeare beautifully said, "Come. Go with us. We'll guide thee to our house and show thee the rich treasures we have got, which, with ourselves, are all at thy dispose". In our day, humanity is our "rich treasures", and our house is the Earth. Some of us believe that the best way to grow our treasures is to share them with others, but other people think that it's better to hoard them and set themselves apart.

Let's show Millennials that we believe democracy to be a mathematical process involving addition and multiplication. They'll figure out, with a little nudge from a new campaign philosophy, that the Republicans believe it to be a process of subtraction and division. 

The Dumbing Down of America - An Ongoing Theme

The dumbing down of America is part of the downward spiral we've been in for decades, beginning with the rise of the Religious Right. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, and the entire Southern Baptist pantheon of religiots always played down to their parishioners, and to everyone else, for that matter. No politicians had the courage to stand up and say, no, the god-fearing, dumb-as-a-sixpack hick schtick doesn't represent the average American. Or at least it didn't then. Now? Yep. 

Jimmy Carter was part of it, as was Bubba, W, and now President Obama says that he and Michelle like watching 'Duck Dynasty'. Really? Horseshit!

Joe Camo didn't just appear - he was created. He's a bespoke model special ordered from Winchester and delivered by Walmart, built so that his ass fits church pews across the republic. Religion can't have upward mobility unless it's wearing RealTree and holding a Budweiser, right up until JC steps out of his F-150 and into his megachurch. The "elite", as Sarah Putin-Palin refers to anyone with more than two firing synapses, can sort the wheat from the chaff, so the only way to deal with them is paint them as Satanists - or worse, Liberals - and then to marginalize them. Us. You, I, and those with whom we associate freely.

We're 'the enemy' because we won't buy what these idiots are selling - at Low Prices, Everyday! 

I realize that it's a chicken-and-egg situation, and hell, I don't know which precipitated what, frankly. But I damned sure don't think that we'd have gone down this road if Richard Nixon and Ronnie RayGun hadn't needed a voting monobloc which was delivered by religion. 

Raise the sights and shoot for Mars? If God had wanted us on Mars, he'd have put us there! Teach evolution in schools? If God had wanted us to evolve, he'd have made Charles Darwin Pope!

Preachers, pastors, and priests are all paid liars, so they're a natural fit for politics. What they needed was a quiet flock who wouldn't complain, would take their daily dose of dogshit and call it tasty, and who would pony up for both the collection plate and politicians. 

Then along comes Fox News; a group of Libertarians dolled up in their expensive finery, elitists of the highest caliber, telling Joe Camo that we're the elitists, that we're the enemy - not political rivals, mind you, but the enemy - and that we're trying to take away their right to have no more rights. So, accustomed to sitting in a building at least once a week and being told what to think, they BELIEVE! They believe with their entire selves. No fiber of doubt among them, they believe! 

"Look hyeah, Dollbaby Purty Mouf, they's a nuu show on Fawks 'bout some mountin' men what livin' like real men live. We gon' watch 'at!"

"But, DaddyHusbandBrother, yew sed I culd watch Hunny Buu Buu!"

"Shut yer mouf and git me a beer, bitch!"


Maybe I ought to use that hammer on myself afterall.  

;)

Don't F*ck With America's Crazy Crown; We pwn This Bitch!

There's an entire underground bunker complex of weapons-grade Crazy just waiting to be let loose upon unsuspecting Independents. 

I think most of the Left has had an anti-Crazy vaccination, and of course the Right had a Crazy vaccination...with daily boosters courtesy of Faux Noise... but it's the Indies I fear for. The Crazy propaganda machine is already gearing up for a Hillary run in 3 years, and the thought of Bill back in the White House in any capacity is enough to incite them to...well...Craziness. 

I hope that the Right implodes, and there's momentum for that to happen, but this is when Bill would be The Man With The Plan if he still had the White House media machine at his disposal. The President has good speechwriters, but as an ex tempore orator, he's no Bill Clinton. For that matter, few others are, either. Regardless, the Prez could shovel coal into that furnace and get it red hot before throwing a bucket of cold water on it and watching it cave, but I don't think he's up to it. I think he's fought the good fight, but he's exhausted and ready to go lame duck. 

Right now is the time, though. McConnell's losing his grip on the Senate, Conservative talking heads are inciting racism along with the ubiquitous class warfare, and McCain shows signs of going maverick again. They're approving a half dozen or so of his nominees and I'd strike while the iron is hot. I'd get in front of TV cameras and lambaste the SOB...I mean the GOP...for all I was worth. Blame them for everything; no jobs, slow recovery, Trayvon, racism, classism, wasting even more time trying to repeal the ACA, fighting him every step of the way. Fuck it, I'd throw the gloves AT the bastards and then knock 'em the fuck out. 

The public knows that he's right, or mostly so. He could have been more proactive in responding to Benghazi and the NSA and Justice Department Tea Party scandals, but he could still spin it without going off the rails - because ultimately it's all true - and paint the GOP going further right towards the Tea Party Taliban in the next election - which is probably the truth, anyway.

Our Republic Can't Stand Another Conservative President

The bulk of human progress has been made in times of liberal thought. Consider the past few centuries alone and you'll find the Age of Reason, the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and more.

The President has clearly been saying in his campaign speechs that WE are the government and that WE are responsible for building our republic, not corporations, not even the small business down the street. The President has been elucidating the reality that a power greater than any company can wield, a benevolent power used to help build up our industries, our infrastructure, our educational system, and everything that it takes to create a society can be used for good, for the common weal, and to insure that we recover from the disastrous conservative policies that go back as far as Richard Nixon and continued unabated through the Ford, Reagan, Bush 41 and Bush 43 presidencies. The only progress made in the past 20 years has been made in the Clinton and Obama administrations. 

The two unimpeachable sources you should consult are the Office of Management and Budget and the Congressional Budget Office. If you do so, you'll find that under Republican rule, our nation took a step backward educationally, financially, and scientifically while those same three metrics improved under Presidents Carter, Clinton, and Obama, even considering the conservative-created debacles that all three inherited. 

The fact is that Republicans have set our republic back decades and it has taken Democrats to fix it.

Heere Bee Dragons!

I have so much respect for my fellow veterans, but after a recent comment forum exchange, I realize that many of them are as duped by Christo-Fascism as non-veterans. 

When did this country become so partisan? Personally, I lay much of the blame on country music artists. People like Hank Williams, Jr. sought not to broaden horizons for those they entertained but to narrowly focus them - using the most insidious way they could: entertainment - on how different they were from "city folk". 

I know it's not all one-sided, either. Let me start by saying that in my 54 years, I've lived about equally between some of the world's largest cities, and some pretty rural areas. Still, I know people who think that if you live in a rural area, you deserve not to have high-speed internet, cable TV, or any of the other luxuries afforded to urban dwellers. However, if you point out that, using the same logic, they don't deserve food, fresh water, or building resources including wood and metals, they come back that living in rural areas is a choice. That's true, it is. But does that mean that we shouldn't expect to enjoy modernity? Really?

The difference that I've found is this:  The city dwellers tend to focus on a single individual. Yeah, they might make fun of yokels, but hey, even we ruralistas make fun of them. But the country folk tend to paint with a much broader brush. I don't know many city dwellers who haven't traveled and visited rural areas. OK, I don't know ANY who haven't. But I know TONS of rural folk who have never done anything more than pass quickly through a city, or have made a flying trip into one, such as Atlanta, and got out as quickly as possible. How does that qualify someone to make sweeping generalizations about city dwellers? Well, it doesn't.

Back in the Age of Disco, people like Hank Williams, Jr. made a living by rousing the rabble. He made it sound like any country dweller could be thrown into the wild and thrive, when the reality is that most of them wouldn't make it any longer than a city dweller would; Winn Dixie isn't legal game.

Add to that that the GOP had an epiphany concerning connecting itself to the rising, mainly rural, religious fundamentalism movement and which noticed entertainers like Williams in the mix, and it was the perfect storm. Fueling that was the end of the millennium approaching which signaled to some the return of Jesus Christ and it wound up being a maelstrom that swept the hickest, bubba-est, beer-drinking-est, church-going-est idiots into the limelight, and eventually even the White House.

The GOP knew that, despite what they preached on Sundays, love doesn't sell, but hate would fill their coffers, their churches, and their desired elected offices.

And here we are. Today, we all seem to fall in one of these three camps: Normal, Left-leaning, or Heere Bee Dragons!

Romney should do his own research

Response to Daily Beast article at the link here.


The fact is that Carter's necessary austerity measures brought the nation out of the deep recession brought about by 12 years of Republican rule - Nixon and Ford. Reagan capitalized on Carter's successes and unlike former presidents, refused to acknowledge that those successes belonged to his predecessor. While that happens to a varying degree in every presidency, it has never happened as much as it did with Reagan. Carter's programs were still in effect and working as far along as Reagan's second term. Carter also got more productive legislation passed in his 4 years than Reagan did in 8. That was not due to Reagan's reticence in growing the government, it was due to his personal inability to lead legislators despite the fact that so many defected from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. 

The Reagan myth lives on, just as do the lies that Reagan's PR team created about Carter. Also, Carter served as a line officer in the US Navy serving in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, whereas Reagan served in the US Army's First Motion Picture Unit and never left the States during his service. Carter lead the US nuclear disaster team after Canada's Chalk River Laboratory's accident. Carter, along with other members of his team, spent time inside the highly radioactive reactor disassembling it for shutdown. Reagan had no such leadership time nor service involving potential personal injury.

For Romney to attempt to disabuse President Carter is further proof of his 1%-er, bullying, elitist behavior.

Why we fail to understand conservatives

I think the reason that so many of us have trouble understanding the actions of Republicans, Tea Partiers, and other sundry conservative politicians is that they treat political office like a business, whereas we see it as a post from which one might contribute to the general weal. They see it as a profit center. We see it as a public service. They see it as a sinecure. We see it as a temporary position.

These are fundamental differences that can't be easily rectified. Republican politicians often come from the private sector with the intent of bending the power of their political office to their own will, and for personal profit. Few of us on the left have been able to sort through the warp and weft of their political fabric to unravel what was really right on the surface all along: The truth that they came to politics because they view government as inefficient and even immoral and then set about operating government as inefficiently and immorally as possible in order to bring those ends about, making them self-fulfilling prophecies.

It seems to me that when people put on blinders which limit their sight lines to only those ideas which they wish to see, it becomes not merely impossible, but sincerely impossible (pardon the WoO pun) to get them to see anything else, regardless how imposing, how credible, or how popular it might be.

I will support the President so long as he follows this simple concept: Do that which you set about to do, that which we elected you to do, not bending to the political will of your opponents, and never, EVER losing sight of the fact that we elected YOU to make CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

Tax equality for all, not just ‘tax the wealthy’

This morning, I had a great conversation with a friend in Portland via chat. We agree about quite a bit, but differ along some lines, just as friends should do. Where we differ is this:  When I think tax equality, I think that means that everyone should pay the same rate regardless of who you are, where you're from, your religion, color or creed, and regardless of your income. I believe in a national sales tax which would replace ALL other taxes. 
The way I have this envisioned is this:  First, we would have a star-chamber panel of non-politically-aligned experts...that is to say not politicians...who would pore over each and every part of the Federal budget, as well as similar individual panels for each state, in order to assure that any waste in government that could possibly be eliminated would be, and that duplication of services, offices, and programs would be erased.  Then, we would remove all other taxes, whether we call them taxes or not - if you pay it to the government...ANY government whether Federal, state or local...it's a tax - and replace them all with a national sales tax.  Built into this system would be the ability to adjust the rate up or down as needed, quarterly or yearly. We may find it necessary to have a sliding scale built in so that luxury items would be taxed at a higher rate than standard items; a Mercedes taxed at 50% vs a Chevy at 40%. If those rates sound high, then consider that in 2007, MSN Money stated that the average median tax rate was 40.3% across all income groups. They took into consideration the same principles I set forth here that all taxes were considered - Federal, state, and local, sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes, et cetera. The advantage of having a luxury rate, and the equality, is that if Joe SixPack happens to score a lottery win and buys himself a Jaguar, then he still pays the luxury rate for it, just like a regular buyer of that car would. Equality.  Also, this would encourage saving more money than we currently do, which would have the long-term benefit of people having enough money set aside to make large purchases rather than borrowing money on which they would have to pay interest as in the current system.  And that means a higher standard of living.
But the other side of the coin is what's really on my mind, this morning. I notice when I talk to people, especially those of lower income groups, that they want tax parity for the wealthy. But at the same time, they'll tell you that they think that working families with children shouldn't have to pay taxes, or should be taxed at a lower rate. If that were done, or if these people were allowed to have their taxes rebated, even the sales taxes, then this breaks tax equality out of the gate.  It's not tax EQUALITY if lower income groups pay LESS.  The only way that it's e-q-u-a-l-i-t-y is if every income group pays the same for the same items. Again, luxury items could be taxed at a higher rate, but all income groups, that means any buyer from any group, pay the same amount of tax on that item. 
I have the fortune ("fortune" being defined as hard work, ingenuity, and an entrepreneurial spirit) to have hoisted myself out of the lower and middle income groups. While I had help polishing the ideas I dreamed of, it was my own determination that put me into an upper income group. I state this for one reason:  I know what it's like to grow up poor.  My parents worked hard to pay for me and didn't take handouts.  But like every other average parent, they received help in the form of a free education for me.  My healthcare, dental, and vision needs were paid for by them, not by a government agency.  They clothed me.  They fed me.  We got no WIC or food stamps.  But we also didn't take lavish vacations or drive cars that were priced beyond our means; we ate well and dressed modestly, too.  In sum, we lived within our means.  
And there lies the rub.  Americans have come to expect to live beyond their means.  At first, that meant driving a nicer car and wearing designer clothes, but it's come to mean buying more house than we could afford and having others pay for our kids...or ourselves.  The wealthy are justified in their anger at having to pay for others when those others are the recipients of handouts, regardless of whether we call them handouts or not.  BUT...the wealthy are NOT  justified when they shirk their tax obligations.  And that happens far too often.  Some of my wealthy friends tell me that they feel justified paying no or little income tax because they pay so much in sales taxes for the many things they buy.  I understand that.  But I also know that many of them shop exclusively online or in states with no sales tax (yes, those exist, in fact Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon have no sales tax, but they compensate with higher income and/or property taxes).  So in a sense, even the wealthy are living beyond their means, or at least beyond their desire to pay their fair share of taxes.
What we have is a national tax-disassociative disorder.  We're fraught with debt and don't have the national will to pay it down because we're so used to living beyond our means.  We have politicians tell us every day that we need to lower taxes in order to stimulate growth, but what they don't tell us is the pain that will follow.  And it WILL follow.  Except for the super rich.  
Don't get me wrong, I believe in, and actually do, pay my full tax rate. Honestly.  I take no deductions.  At all.  Why?  Because I believe that the tax money I pay goes to fund programs that I have used to my advantage, and many that I continue to use.  In a sense, I'm just paying the system back for that I "borrowed".  And it's important to remember that we have the luxury of having a national freeway system, not a national toll-road system.  We have a national park system that is the match of any.  We have institutions of higher learning that are subsidized by our tax payments that provide education for those who wouldn't be able to pay the rate that for-profit, private institutions charge.  We have a Coast Guard that keeps our nation's shoreline safe from invasion, and rescues us when we tip over our boats or our cruise goes awry, not to mention the heroic work they do for the fishermen of our oceans.  We have a military that keeps us as safe as they possibly can from foreign invasion and whose clandestine work often goes unheralded, and unappreciated; but not for certain military units dismantling terrorist cells worldwide BEFORE they can reach our shores, bombings and other acts of terrorism would be as common place here in America as in parts of the Middle East, if not more so.  
But, we have rancor and dissent, too.  We have a new political faction that feels that taxes are evil and should be repealed, eliding the fact that many of the services they take for granted would simply vanish without them.  We also have a segment which believes that government should provide for them cradle-to-grave, despite the fact that we have a national debt that's staggering and not one, but two political party entities which purport to represent the will of an America that wishes them gone, dead, divorced from the marriage of our union.  
So, what path do we take out of our morass?  I know no one  with a crystal ball who can provide that answer.  But I do know this for certain:  If we do not address, civilly, all of the issues which plague our nation then we can expect that divorce to happen sooner rather than later.  It would not surprise me to see the new South attempt secession again.  I could foresee the Midwest going along with them.  But I also have faith in our ability to weather even this perfect storm.  Perfect shit storm, would be more like it.  And it's all of our own making.  
Failing to have a real leader with real, prudent ideas...not a Ronald Reagan whose trumped-up legacy is as much a fiction as any children's fairy tale...means that we'll continue to stagnate and will take our places as a has-been along with Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal.  What we need is an FDR, a George Washington, or an Abraham Lincoln.  We need someone with the clarity of mind, the willpower, and the charisma to lead us to a new place, a new road at the least, one that would take us to a common goal of respect for our fellows, civility in politics, and concern for our fellow planetary citizens.  What we don't need is one of the loony tunes nut-fudge-fringe candidates put forth by some, today.  We don't need leaders who seek to serve only their benefactors.  We don't need leaders who seek to lead by division like so many in our current situation.  We need someone who will lead us firmly together while respecting our differences, but like a good nanny or school teacher, one who will glance sternly at the offending parties to quieten them to maintain order while never stopping, slowing, or looking over her shoulder to see if the kids are following; she will know they are because they're holding hands, not pushing and shoving and trying each to run his own way. 
And perhaps that's the real problem:  We've forgotten as adults what we were taught in kindergarten - how to be nice to one another, share and share alike, and that everyone has to do her and his part to make the project work, whether it's the kid who came to school chauffeured in luxury or the poor kid with the hand-me-down wardrobe who rode the bus.  Everyone.  Together.  "...One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all". 

Conservative vitriol, liberal retrenchment, and historical revisionism

I don’t know that I should be surprised, but as far out of bounds as the political discourse had already been prior to the 2010 mid-term election cycle, it has recently moved the needle completely off the gauge. There are 3 main problems that affect the ability of people who differ in their political views to communicate in a manner befitting people who share one nationality. The first is the elevated vitriol coming from the right. While it’s not that unusual to find more anger coming from people who “feel” their beliefs rather than from those who actively research the facts and think, the accelerated pitch of the right’s vitriol has shut down any sort of amicable, constructive conversation. That anger isn’t directed merely at politicians of the opposite stripe, it’s being directed at anyone who doesn’t jump up and down screaming and shouting and wildly waving the American flag to the tunes of Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh. I was recently shouted at by a woman who appeared to be in her 40s and called me a coward and traitor because I said that I was glad that combat operations in Iraq had ended. I pulled out my Veteran’s ID card and quietly pointed to the “Service Connected” identifier showing that my disabilities were incurred as a result of my service to my country. Her husband seemed pained and wouldn’t look at me as he pulled her away, but it was clear that he understood. When she rolled the window down in their pickup, I simply asked her “Ma’am, what branch did you serve in?”. I’m not sure what her response was after the initial glass-shatteringly-screeched “That ain’t got nothin’ to do with it”, but I do know that spittle was flying and her husband was holding onto her to keep her from getting out as he backed out of the parking spot and quickly left the parking lot.


She called me a coward and a traitor.  And that’s the thing; she had no idea who I am, not that I’m anyone special. She just knew that I had a different opinion and that sent her into a towering tirade. Why? Because the sheep have been flocked by the conservative-controlled media shepherds. The right seems lost in a maze of national scale, unable to do the simple math of subtraction that points an accusing, sharpened pencil at conservative policies that created the conditions for the Perfect Storm that lead directly to the Great Recession. When asked by others when the Great Recession began, I tell them that it began the day Ronald Reagan took office, and there’s truth in that that conservatives don’t want to see because they’ve elevated him to godlike status and any admission that the Great Communicator’s fiscal policies were anything but flawless causes the firmament to shake and the sky to darken in their eyes. But it’s true. They’re loathe to admit, if you can find one educated well enough to be able to do the research, that the greatest tax increase in American history – still to this day – was enacted by Ronald Reagan the year following his massive tax cuts. Why? Because even the Gipper could see that it was impossible to balance the budget when there was no revenue stream. But, when many of those tax cuts were repealed, a good deal of others were not. And it was those that were not that is the rub because 1981′s massive tax cuts remained in effect for the wealthy when in 1982 the middle class had their taxes raised not just back to the pre-1981 level, but even higher.   And that’s a fact.


These annoying facts are the inconvenient truth that gives the political right nightmares. But rather than deal with them, or even admit them, they have bent space and time to reinvent the truth and hammer it night and day with the bludgeon of conservative commentators to subtly, slowly, but certainly reshape it to their desires. The conservative political laity drink the wine and eat the flesh and the truth has been transmuted. The now-warped history as told by Beck, Palin, Rove, Gingrich, Limbaugh, et alia, has been swept clean of any right-wing wrongdoing, and in fact now points the fickle finger of fate at liberals, divesting the GOP of blame and casting it onto their enemies.


All of that would be bad enough of itself, but liberals have let them do it. Liberals have allowed conservatives to rewrite history and to relegate the very word liberal to the opprobrium normally reserved for felons. Liberal lawmakers – barring a few like Representative Barney Frank who himself has faced down the name-callers and political backstabbers – shrink from the appellation ‘liberal’. Some, like the cowardly Jim Marshall, D-GA, try to distance themselves from Speaker Pelosi and President Obama in their mid-term TV ads going so far as to boast that they’ve voted with the Republicans more than with their own party. It’s disgraceful, the craven behavior of these political quislings who just 2 years ago were riding so high on a wave of political capital generated by the goodwill forged by Madame Speaker and Mister President themselves. Capital that they then squandered with infighting and intra-party bickering.


Liberals have turned out to be less fitting of the title of citizen than in a long while. It used to be a liberal notion that once the ball was rolling they would keep it rolling and roll right over opposition to programs which benefit those of lesser means and let the success of those programs show over time that they were indeed the right things to do, e.g. PWA, CCC, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. FDR’s massive public works programs are a great example of what liberalism has done for our society. The biggest expenditure by our government at any time for any project not related to war resulted in a stronger economy, vastly improved and extended infrastructure, and jobs for people when they needed them. It was a double bonus that the jobs many of the jobless got through those programs resulted in the magnificent, enduring structures in our national parks, built for pennies on the dollar and returning  an abiding profit from their initial investment in the forms of recreation, leisure, and appreciation of the grandeur of our parklands.


The times have changed, and now even a liberal president with the backing of both chambers of our national assembly helmed by those of his own party can’t get his own party’s programs enacted. FDR, JFK and LBJ would all be embarrassed to learn that he belongs to the same party that they lead to lift the country out of the Great Depression, to build a space program and journey us to the moon, and to establish the Great Society in order to help those who were mired in poverty.


So here we are. The Republicans will surely sweep to victory next month, and I can’t say that the Democrats deserve anything less than losing. A political xenophobia has set in, preventing people of either major party from even attempting to understand the points the other side tries to make or from having civil discourse about them. Both sides have painted themselves into opposing corners and like a couple of dogs who can’t quite reach each other, they bark endlessly, tiringly, annoyingly, and have forgotten why the first bark was barked anyway. While we’re on dogs, I just have to think that the poor scraggly starved and scarred puppy who came to our door a month ago begging for food after having either escaped a cruel master or possibly being thrown out has more sense than these politicians do; even a dog won’t shit in his own house.