Looking into a crystal ball and seeing the past
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| Also listed in: Veterans for Progress |
Forty years ago, the Democratic Party was faced with the specter of losing the Presidency after eight years. The Democrats only hope was a handful of candidates that had spent the primaries talking about issues rather than personalities. Because of those candidates and the urgency of those issues, the entire election turned on issues and not personalities.
Unfortunately, during the primaries the leading Democratic candidate, a young man who captured everyone's imagination with his charisma, charm, and determination was shot in a kitchen in California after winning that state's primary. The other candidate, the Senator from Minnesota suddenly looked like he might end up being the standard bearer for ending the war and civil rights, particularly voting rights in the south. Unfortunately, the Senator's heart wasn't in the campaign and he never captured the imagination of the Democratic party the way his dead colleague had.
While the Democratic convention was in the process of naming Hubert Humphrey as it's candidate, there was rioting in the streets of Chicago quelled by a mayor, a Democrat who tried to control and orchestrate the convention without regard to the tempest of emotion in America in 1968. The situation was out of control. It truly was Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The party abandoned the issues for a status quo candidate.
Who picked up the standard… who became the candidate with progressive ideas, and led the Republican party to eight years in the White House? Richard Nixon picked up the causes that the progressive Democrats had dropped, ending the war and civil rights, and campaigned on those issues. Of course, everyone had forgotten this was the man that sat beside Joe McCarthy on his witch hunt for Communists, no one remembered that eight years earlier, Nixon was inarticulate and unable to gain enough support as Vice President to one of the most heroic figures to emerge from the second world war… even Eisenhower's magic couldn't save Nixon from himself in 1960.
Forty years later what have we learned? Many of our basic rights have been taken away or reduced in order to 'protect our rights.' Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech have become inconveniences that must be controlled or fenced in to prevent public affairs nightmares for piss poor politicians. Freedom of the press has been manipulated to the point that Hearst's yellow journalism of the 20's and 30's pales in comparison, opinion and hearsay now pass as fact as news organizations and talk show hosts manufacture revelations about politicians, trend setters and people outside the status quo. The 'Moral Majority' of the late Jerry Falwell has become a formidable political machine in search of a new standard bearer if they can get away from some of their leaders sexual orientation and conduct issues, which seem to only be problems for them.
All the elements are still here in 2008, an unpopular war, disenfranchised voters in the south, and with a progressive young black man as a candidate there is now a verbal battle being fought over whose best represents civil rights in the coming election as a personality issue… duh!
What else can the party do to self destruct between now and the November election? Apparently no one inside the beltway realizes we are at war, new jobs at Walmart and McDonald's cannot sustain economic growth, housing starts coupled with mortgage foreclosures do not represent an upward trend in personal wealth, and voting machines that record anything other than what the voter actually entered are so ridiculously stupid that it's expected of politicians to do dumb crap like that and think they can get away with it. Of course they don't want you to get a hard copy…you think they want you to have proof of election fraud?
Me… I haven't got a clue as to who will win in November. It's after November I'm worried about… I have no idea what any of these people want to do for and with our country or what the hell they stand for, tears don't cut it unless they are for men and women losing their lives, children without enough to eat or unable to get an education, citizens languishing in jail because habeus corpus no longer exists. I do know that several of these candidates, including Democrats voted for funding to continue the war in exchange for pork barreling concessions in their own districts… lives for highways, guns or butter.
Think what you will, attack me if you like, but it's in the paper, on television and the internet everyday. What does your crystal ball tell you? I hear people saying these candidates and politicians are not responsible for society's ills… well, damn it, they sure the hell pass the laws that are, and if they can't take responsibility for the quality of their work, then they are responsible by proxy.
Unfortunately, during the primaries the leading Democratic candidate, a young man who captured everyone's imagination with his charisma, charm, and determination was shot in a kitchen in California after winning that state's primary. The other candidate, the Senator from Minnesota suddenly looked like he might end up being the standard bearer for ending the war and civil rights, particularly voting rights in the south. Unfortunately, the Senator's heart wasn't in the campaign and he never captured the imagination of the Democratic party the way his dead colleague had.
While the Democratic convention was in the process of naming Hubert Humphrey as it's candidate, there was rioting in the streets of Chicago quelled by a mayor, a Democrat who tried to control and orchestrate the convention without regard to the tempest of emotion in America in 1968. The situation was out of control. It truly was Nero fiddling while Rome burned. The party abandoned the issues for a status quo candidate.
Who picked up the standard… who became the candidate with progressive ideas, and led the Republican party to eight years in the White House? Richard Nixon picked up the causes that the progressive Democrats had dropped, ending the war and civil rights, and campaigned on those issues. Of course, everyone had forgotten this was the man that sat beside Joe McCarthy on his witch hunt for Communists, no one remembered that eight years earlier, Nixon was inarticulate and unable to gain enough support as Vice President to one of the most heroic figures to emerge from the second world war… even Eisenhower's magic couldn't save Nixon from himself in 1960.
Forty years later what have we learned? Many of our basic rights have been taken away or reduced in order to 'protect our rights.' Freedom of assembly and freedom of speech have become inconveniences that must be controlled or fenced in to prevent public affairs nightmares for piss poor politicians. Freedom of the press has been manipulated to the point that Hearst's yellow journalism of the 20's and 30's pales in comparison, opinion and hearsay now pass as fact as news organizations and talk show hosts manufacture revelations about politicians, trend setters and people outside the status quo. The 'Moral Majority' of the late Jerry Falwell has become a formidable political machine in search of a new standard bearer if they can get away from some of their leaders sexual orientation and conduct issues, which seem to only be problems for them.
All the elements are still here in 2008, an unpopular war, disenfranchised voters in the south, and with a progressive young black man as a candidate there is now a verbal battle being fought over whose best represents civil rights in the coming election as a personality issue… duh!
What else can the party do to self destruct between now and the November election? Apparently no one inside the beltway realizes we are at war, new jobs at Walmart and McDonald's cannot sustain economic growth, housing starts coupled with mortgage foreclosures do not represent an upward trend in personal wealth, and voting machines that record anything other than what the voter actually entered are so ridiculously stupid that it's expected of politicians to do dumb crap like that and think they can get away with it. Of course they don't want you to get a hard copy…you think they want you to have proof of election fraud?
Me… I haven't got a clue as to who will win in November. It's after November I'm worried about… I have no idea what any of these people want to do for and with our country or what the hell they stand for, tears don't cut it unless they are for men and women losing their lives, children without enough to eat or unable to get an education, citizens languishing in jail because habeus corpus no longer exists. I do know that several of these candidates, including Democrats voted for funding to continue the war in exchange for pork barreling concessions in their own districts… lives for highways, guns or butter.
Think what you will, attack me if you like, but it's in the paper, on television and the internet everyday. What does your crystal ball tell you? I hear people saying these candidates and politicians are not responsible for society's ills… well, damn it, they sure the hell pass the laws that are, and if they can't take responsibility for the quality of their work, then they are responsible by proxy.
