This post is for everyone, because everyone needs to read it, and then call your congressional representatives and tell them to take their heads out of their asses and recognize reality.
I am having a difficult time with the "politics" going on this week - for the very reasons you describe in this column. It's all the ridiculous posturing and dickering, that apparently means something to the poseurs and dicks, but to someone like me watching from afar, looks like a complete waste of time and effort (not to mention money.) Nothing will come of it. Nothing.
I could never be a politician. I probably would be arrested for venting my frustration in a completely unsuitable manner.
That’s what we need right now. Bare knuckles. So just go ahead and vent the way you want to. I have been advised again and again in the other forum to “just ignore” trolls or intruding dissenters because it’s beneath decorum to comment or “not respect” another’s opinion.
Well, there’s a time and a place to take off the gloves. And I’d say that it’s now.
And I’ll be adding a few comments to my signs on Saturday for the Women’s March.
"...take Medicare for All, and everything else that gets cut from the Build Back Better Bill, and make that the campaign platform for 2022.
“Hey, you like all this stuff? Put more of us in office and you’ll get it!” That’s the campaign."
Absolutely! Roads, bridges, utilities and internet--immediately understood, immediately needed and crucial for our national security (has anyone mentioned that much lately? ... all our "soft terrorism" spots?).
I am all for the "human infrastructure" issues...a perfect platform for 2022 which will speak to the regular men and women of our country as they emerge from their Covid daze!
Thank you, also, for the growing sense of urgency. As you ratchet up the power I get more scared and more angry-- all at once!!!
Thanks once again, TC, but if you don’t mind splitting hairs: the game of chicken in “Rebel Without A Cause” involved two wreckers speeding side-by-side toward a cliff with the winner being the last driver to bail….shot in Pacific Palisades near the end of Sunset Blvd. Otherwise you are right on…we should not sacrifice the attainable for the theoretical ideal. Take what’s on the table for taking ….and bail. Sell the rest as the program for 2022!
Great column today TC. Although I don't remember Mr. Brown stipulating legality, his point about having the votes is critical to any progress we might make and your points about taking what you can get and keeping the rest in sight needs to be hammered home at all levels of the political infrastructure. One of the challenges of aging is that one's memory tends to remain fixed on the past and the older one is the more distant the fixated time frame. Once the BIF and voting rights acts are passed the party grandees need to be about developing the next generation and teaching them that the ropes are to be guided by, not hung from.
That quote was from a private conversation some of us had with him, where one of us (I forget who) took the statement "You can do anything you want - if you have the votes" and pointed to the then-nemesis-of-democracy Nixon, to which Mr. Brown amended the statement.
"If the Democrats lose to Trump, that will speed the revolution."
The only revolution happening is one by those who defend and laud the injustices of the past. We're diving towards a bottom that goes deep, being dragged along unwillingly by dark creatures leading screaming mobs of the ignorant, the racist, the religious, and the uber selfish.
We need to realize that we are in a fight for our lives, and not some "gentleman's political game." The Democratic Party needs to get off it's ass and use those "bare knuckles" to get the job done.
Jim Wright calls them Unicorn Democrats. We don't get unicorns. We get what we fight for, and if we don't fight, we don't win.
I am having a difficult time with the "politics" going on this week - for the very reasons you describe in this column. It's all the ridiculous posturing and dickering, that apparently means something to the poseurs and dicks, but to someone like me watching from afar, looks like a complete waste of time and effort (not to mention money.) Nothing will come of it. Nothing.
I could never be a politician. I probably would be arrested for venting my frustration in a completely unsuitable manner.
Welcome to the club. :-)
That’s what we need right now. Bare knuckles. So just go ahead and vent the way you want to. I have been advised again and again in the other forum to “just ignore” trolls or intruding dissenters because it’s beneath decorum to comment or “not respect” another’s opinion.
Well, there’s a time and a place to take off the gloves. And I’d say that it’s now.
And I’ll be adding a few comments to my signs on Saturday for the Women’s March.
"...take Medicare for All, and everything else that gets cut from the Build Back Better Bill, and make that the campaign platform for 2022.
“Hey, you like all this stuff? Put more of us in office and you’ll get it!” That’s the campaign."
Absolutely! Roads, bridges, utilities and internet--immediately understood, immediately needed and crucial for our national security (has anyone mentioned that much lately? ... all our "soft terrorism" spots?).
I am all for the "human infrastructure" issues...a perfect platform for 2022 which will speak to the regular men and women of our country as they emerge from their Covid daze!
Thank you, also, for the growing sense of urgency. As you ratchet up the power I get more scared and more angry-- all at once!!!
As Samuel Johnson wrote long ago, "Nothing so composes the mind as the knowledge one is to be hanged in a fortnight."
Hahahaha. TC, honestly, the way your mind conjures up things journalistically is often the best humor of the day.
Sizzlin’ TC, sizzlin’.
Thanks once again, TC, but if you don’t mind splitting hairs: the game of chicken in “Rebel Without A Cause” involved two wreckers speeding side-by-side toward a cliff with the winner being the last driver to bail….shot in Pacific Palisades near the end of Sunset Blvd. Otherwise you are right on…we should not sacrifice the attainable for the theoretical ideal. Take what’s on the table for taking ….and bail. Sell the rest as the program for 2022!
That's an even-better metaphor!
Great column today TC. Although I don't remember Mr. Brown stipulating legality, his point about having the votes is critical to any progress we might make and your points about taking what you can get and keeping the rest in sight needs to be hammered home at all levels of the political infrastructure. One of the challenges of aging is that one's memory tends to remain fixed on the past and the older one is the more distant the fixated time frame. Once the BIF and voting rights acts are passed the party grandees need to be about developing the next generation and teaching them that the ropes are to be guided by, not hung from.
That quote was from a private conversation some of us had with him, where one of us (I forget who) took the statement "You can do anything you want - if you have the votes" and pointed to the then-nemesis-of-democracy Nixon, to which Mr. Brown amended the statement.
"If the Democrats lose to Trump, that will speed the revolution."
The only revolution happening is one by those who defend and laud the injustices of the past. We're diving towards a bottom that goes deep, being dragged along unwillingly by dark creatures leading screaming mobs of the ignorant, the racist, the religious, and the uber selfish.
Too true.
We need to realize that we are in a fight for our lives, and not some "gentleman's political game." The Democratic Party needs to get off it's ass and use those "bare knuckles" to get the job done.
Jim Wright calls them Unicorn Democrats. We don't get unicorns. We get what we fight for, and if we don't fight, we don't win.
Exactly right.