It's very late here - I'm hungry, I'm tired, and I'm tired of thinking about the enormous betrayal of my faith by a man I believed in.
It seems very familiar, somehow.
When you meet a boy that you like a lot
And you fall in love, but he loves you not,
If a flame should start while you hold him near
Better keep your heart out of danger, dear.
For the way of love is a way of woe . . .
Oh hell, I could say a lot about that scenario. And this one, which is just like it. But I want my supper, I want to watch a movie, my head's foggy and a little achy. So I'll just say this.
Seems as if in the past few days, we've all come to realize we were defrauded; not just by Obama, but by the Democrats in general.
And I've always, all my life, voted the Democratic ticket. But ya know, guys, when you keep tricking with the same kind of guy, and it keeps turning out the same damn way every time, that's kinda stupid to keep going on like that and expecting different results, don't you think?
What I'm seeing is not what I thought the Democratic party was all about: it's Republican Lite. Same old make-nice, and don't-rock-the-boat, and be-calm-and-just-wait.
To quote David Mixner, I say
Bullshit.
The two-party system has worked for a long time; we could argue over how well it's worked in various ways, but what I can say for a certainty is that it's not working for me, not like we've just seen in the past week.
So why don't we stop the madness and create a new party that will meet the needs of liberal, progressive, fair-minded people?
If all this had happened at a younger, more hotblooded time in my life, I'd be ready to raise the red flag now and go the Socialist route. Never thought I'd say that, it goes against every instinct of my Southern upbringing; but I've come to realize that my Southern upbringing was for shit, politically speaking.
But age does bring wisdom born of experience. I don't want to blow up the building, though, I want to shore it up and renovate it, make it livable. And like Orwell, I have an innate contempt and horror of "smelly little orthodoxies" that sound good but like cheap toilet paper, fall apart just when you rely on them most.
The Libertarians have never appealed to me in the least as something I could support; yeah I agree most of the time most people should just be left the hell alone, live and let live. But the Libertarians that I've read seem to go way to far with that thought; the stupid notion that if you just take away all the nasty laws, everybody will just naturally do the right thing.
FAIL. That's exactly what the Republicans let Big Business do these last 20-some years, and you see where that has gotten us.
What I do believe is what the ancient Greeks said: excellence is the middle way (the Golden Mean) between excess on either side.
I don't expect any man, woman, party, or government ever to produce Utopia here on earth. It's just not happening; humans are a flawed mixture of both good and evil - me, you, everybody. Anything, anything whatever that we create is also going to be a mixture of good and bad.
But within the confines of the rule of law and the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, I do have a glimmer of a vision of a much more just, more fair, more equal, more compassionate society. Perfection is not to be looked for, but a great improvement certainly can be made.
I'm looking for a party that will seek to make government work for more people's benefit; that is highly tolerant of individual freedoms, and uses the power of government not to run everything in sight, but to wisely regulate the agents of prosperity and well-being.
Well it's too late at night for me to wade further into these philosophical waters, and I know mine is just a lone voice crying into the wind here. But I hope maybe one or two of you who read this will think about a real alternative to the current parties, a workable, embraceable alternative. Read more about the possibilities. Talk about it with a friend or two.
They say a butterfly fluttering its wings in the jungles of Brazil can start a motion that produces a hurricane in the Atlantic, theoretically. At least that's an intriguing theory. So who knows where my little thought my lead, somewhere, sometime.
For a start, look at what the
New Democratic Party in Canada stands for, and see if that's more to your liking than what the major parties here are handing out. The NDP has never run the federal government up there, but they do control several provincial legislatures, and they are very gay-friendly, among other things. Think about it:
The NDP grew from populist, agrarian and democratic socialist roots. While the party is secular and pluralistic, it has a longstanding relationship with the Christian left and the Social Gospel movement, particularly the United Church of Canada. However, the federal party has broadened to include concerns of the New Left, which advocates issues such as gay rights, peace, and environmental protection.
New Democrats today advocate, among other things:
- Sweeping environmental protection
- National water safety standards
- Increasing corporate taxes
- Reducing poverty in Canada
- Human rights protection
- Expanded high-quality public transportation
- Public health care including expanded dental and prescription drug coverage,
- Social assistance policies that reflects citizens' needs and assists their re-entry to the work force
- Gender equality and equal rights for gays, lesbians, and minorities
- Abolish the un-elected Senate and ensure more proportional representation
- Workers' rights including raising the minimum wage to at least keep up with the cost of living
- Aboriginal treaty, land, and constitutional rights
- A foreign policy that emphasizes diplomacy, peacekeeping and humanitarian aid instead of offensive military action
- Renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
- One wing is focused on ending the Canadian War on Drugs and legalizing recreational drugs
We don't have to keep the same old two parties in power here. There is an alternative; it's the one we create.
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
