Fax It

Enough of the D.C. Dems

I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the D.C. Democrats, had it with the DLC Democrats, had it with every calculating, equivocating, triangulating, straddling, hair-splitting son of a bitch up there, and that includes Hillary Rodham Clinton.

When I grow up, I want to be Molly Ivins.

Every Democrat I talk to is appalled at the sheer gutlessness and spinelessness of the Democratic performance. The party is still cringing at the thought of being called, ooh-ooh, “unpatriotic” by a bunch of rightwingers.

Take “unpatriotic” and shove it.

Start putting your pennies aside, folks. Swap that daily venti latte for a grande and put the difference in a jar. Give up one soft drink a week and put the cash in a bucket.

When the liberal/progressive coalition finds their '08 candidate, we'll be fighting not only the rightwing machines and the media's disinclination to cover political candidates honestly and thoroughly, but the "establishment" Democratic Party.

That's going to take letters to the editors protesting inaccurate stories and plenty of cash.

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Side thought:

But this is '06, not '08. And I think the wise thing those those campaigning for Congress this fall would be to run one one or two national issues and one or two local issues.

I'd pick Molly's 2) issue. Full public financing of campaigns so as to drive the moneylenders from the halls of Washington. This is an issue with both national and local resonance and candidates could campaign on it both ways.

Me being me, I'd like to get some voting reform in there. I really do think Left-leaning candidates should have clearly defined positions on the dangerous and unreliable electronic voting machines. I'm not willing to wait until '08 for this one. Once those machines have their tentacles firmly embedded in local voting booths around the country, no one will have the money to replace them.

Other than that, the economy. Any of half a dozen strong issues are there for the taking.

Corporate corruption. Corporate pollution. Corporate tax breaks.

Job availabilty. Job security.

Retirement security is a good one for the aging Boomer population. The older part is already disenchanted with the Bush Administration's stance on Social Security and Medicare. They're ripe. Younger voters, even those who think they'll be kids forever, can be made to understand that Mom and Dad's retirement issues might become theirs.

Education. When will someone have the courage to stand up to the USofA population and tell them flat out that if they want good schools, they're going to have to pay for good schools? And something needs to be done about the way schools are funded. I've never been quite comfortable with local funding of school initiatives coming largely from property taxes and in this day and age with more and more people living in apartments long after they have children, this places an unfair burden on property owners.

As far as that goes, with more and more people living in apartments for years and maybe never buying a home, funding your local government and services through property taxes is even more unfair. And think about the tax difference between a condo and a house.

(I don't know how all of this can be adjusted but my brain persists in fixating on the hundreds of billions of dollars we're spending in Iraq. We have a federal government right now that's willing to go into hock for twenty years to kill people overseas but not to serve the people of this country.)

I'm ranting again, aren't I? Sorry.