"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
This is truly a historic moment. The Democratic Party is unifying on the Continental Divide.
Democrats are coming together, in a Mile High City to make up after a lovers spat, a Mile High Party of simultaneous Obamasm.
Deep in the Rocky Mountains, Democratic dinosaurs are extinct, buried and pressurized into the smooth, slick oil that greases the political machine.
The monumental weight of the past is shrugged off, banners are raised, the machine primed and the belief of the people tapped to release great gushers of political zeal.
The historic figureheads of the party are elevated to icons, reduced to brand names.
The spoken power of the Logos, the Word, is focus-grouped into the selling power of the logo, the symbol. The quality of vision, passion, commitment and authenticity that used to approximate leadership has been commodified into the ability to persuade.
The speeches that cause Democrats to leap around like mountain goats are essentially one simple concept repeated over and over, with an articulate assurance that eventually, inevitably, repetitively, rings as manipulative.
Was there a point? Was there an end to the sentence? Or a bunch of phrases strung together, a persuasive PowerPoint confection with nooks and crannies to fill in with one's own spin-addled imagination?
Change. We hope we can believe in.
Change as inevitable, hope as a vessel, a hollow in the rock, for all the survivors of the Reagan Error to pour in their precious acorns and pick up the stone pestle, together, to slowly grind, grind, wash and grind the rich kernels into something once again palatable, nutritious, sustaining... a few acorns fall to the ground and begin to grow anew, into the mighty oaks of the future.
Perhaps a future unbound from the stranglehold of the consultancy class.
*
From a crevice in the rocks, the battered blimp of the American Dream flaps in the winds of hope of change. Still flexible enough, the trickle-downed membrane is slowly filled with hot air and floated above the Mile High party, as incredible and inspiring as the golden parachutes of all the CEOs who have siphoned off the commonwealth for the past three decades.
OOOooooooohhh. AAAaaaaaaaahhh.
American Dreamtime. Awaken from ye nightmare, people, and dare to hope again.
It's enough that you are awake now, that the meme has been received, that you have been reminded of your birthright as Americans: We're. All. In. This. Together. The terminal toxicity of Reaganism, the radioactive fallout of "Greed Is Good" and the death grip of a twice unelected administration, have brought us to this Mile High union.
The process of Big Business married to government is near complete -- but the powers that be still need you to buy their stuff. So, don't worry yourselves about WHY or HOW or WHO has bankrupted your nation, your daily lives and your future. Just worry about NOW and HOPE and CHANGE we can BELIEVE IN and DREAM that American DREAM of a thriving Middle Class! Hardworking American Families! Yay!!
You are consumers now, no longer citizens. Awaken from ye downsized nightmare and enjoy the oblivion and comforts of patriotic purchasing power.
*
Thin shreds of paper poke out of another gap in the rocky face of American democracy. A broken cartoon eye peers skyward.
The Mile High Party has overlooked this wretched remnant of previous times. Maybe it was a Donkey, a Flag or an Uncle Sam; a political pinata, a battered, hollowed out shell, emptied of it treasures, that other American birthright: the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the writ of Habeas Corpus, the ancient fundament of the Magna Carta.
Even the mountain goats found the remains of the cardboard carcass indigestible. There's still time to take a few more swings at the suspended and flimsy structure of the United States' trifold system of government.
The foundation of American democracy is indestructible, rock solid and more flexible than the shiny balloon of the American Dream. The American Dream is nothing without it.
When Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed his Dream, he was not speaking merely of gas tanks and kitchen tables. His vision was that of the Founders: of the self-evident dignity of human life, the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. He was speaking of human rights and the potential for the fulfillment of the true American Dream -- one of citizenship, participation and awareness, not consumerism, distraction and convenience. Perhaps a future unbound from the stranglehold of illegal war and political assassination.
*
And at this historic moment, Madame Speaker, you are key.
You have come out boldly, making pronouncements about the awesome future the Mile High merger will lead to. Democratic power is yours. Congress is yours. The White House is yours. The gavel and the podium are yours. You can taste it.
You are the gatekeeper, the figurehead of this moment. You have your finger on the tap of political will or will not. For years, your front running candidates -- the dinosaur and the vessel of hope of change -- have been out of the Senate and on the campaign trail. For years, you have kept impeachment off the table, Bushco in office and troops in Iraq.
For years, your party has gambled that the acquisition of a trifecta of power in D.C. is worth enabling and pandering to the treacheries of unaccountable government. You have gambled that voters disaffected by your subterfuge will have nowhere else to go and will keep this (potentially too close again) election from being handed to Republicons. For years, you have used all the right words and done the opposite.
Democracy is off the table.
There are eighteen million cracks in the Constitution.
There are "Freedom Cages" at the Democratic Convention to contain and prevent free speech.
You can have your power trifecta and your hope and change, your shiny-faced middle class willing to believe that they haven't been completely sold out (yet) by corporate America and its friends in Congress.
Obama can pick up Bushco's bogus lingo of "War On Terror" and "Faith Based Initiatives" and who knows -- maybe even "Teach to the Test."
No need to bring back civics in the schools, now that we're all trained to be good consumers and keep the economy humming, believing that our "rights" as Americans mean living an unsustainable lifestyle on the backs of plantation nations where our jobs have been relocated.
Those who value citizenship over conspicuous consumption, planetary survival over planned obsolescence; those who know that without our rights intact, with pirates in charge, we are standing blindfolded on the gangplank... we may not be in the limelight, but we won't fade away. We are the bedrock, the spine of the nation. We are the mountain goats, sharp eyed and sure footed. We are the weathered balloon and the pounded pinata, ready to rise again.
We are the legacy that YOU were bequeathed by the Founders, the creators of the Constitution that YOU swore an oath to safeguard. We are Martin's living Dream, not Lockheed Martin's homicidal wet dream.
Reagan/Bush was not impeached for Iran/Contra. Clinton was impeached for Monica. History will show that Congress -- despite the efforts of some who tried to do the People's business and fulfill their sworn oath of office -- was not allowed to hold the current administration accountable. The inference (and Republicon spin) will be that Bushco did not deserve to be impeached.
You have endorsed for posterity the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration; you have written the bogus history that will follow. That history is written with the blood of the needless carnage of the war in Iraq. That history will be underscored with the blood of future generations who will be sent into another illegal meat grinder because of the precedent that you have (failed to) set.
That bogus history is written with the blood of all who fought and died defending the freedoms and civil liberties that you have sold out for your big power play.
This is the turning point, this is the moment and you will be remembered for it.
Madame, we don't believe a word you say. You do not speak for us.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2008/08/26/ED0612I0PU.DTLLetter to the Editor (not OM's) 8-26-08
Platform for Pelosi
Editor - It was a waste of ink to print House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pabulum (Insight, Aug. 24) to the effect of the old military joke: I'll be behind (Obama) all the way. Way behind. Pelosi had a new beginning handed to her four years ago, and she fought to prevent change every step of the way. Pelosi's tenure as speaker has left Obama with more ground to make up and a more discouraged constituency. It is an embarrassment to me as female that she will always be the first female speaker.
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