I Don't Want to Hear It!

Ah, my liberal friends. They get themselves up in a lather over how these crazy tea party lunatics are putting through all sorts of nutty bills in state legislatures and even the United States Congress.

I don't want to hear it.

They get all hot and bothered about how desperately needed social services are being cut, how schools are being dumbed down and turned into training schools for dead-end jobs, and how the military-industrial complex gets all the public money.

I don't want to hear it.

They grind their teeth audibly about how the ultra-rich and the big corporations are getting out of paying any taxes, while more and more of a tax burden is being dumped on the backs of lower- and middle-class citizens.

I don't want to hear it.

They get steamed how the religious right (neither religious nor right) wants to get rid of everybody but the white, heterosexual, evangelical Christian, politically conservative.

I don't want to hear it.

My liberal friends don't want to hear it, but they have no one to blame but themselves for the state things are in. Their complacency is to blame. We're in this situation because my liberal friends got lazy and comfortable, and, while they were sleeping at the switch, the crackpots were everything that the liberals should have been - organized, with a clear uniting plan - and they, not we, got their people into Congress, they got their people onto every court from the local level to the Supreme Court, they took over the news media.

Some of my liberal friends still want to complain and belly-ache. They'll be whining about George W. Bush a hundred years from now.

I don't want to hear it!

Others of my liberal friends set all sorts of silly goals, like impeaching the boneheads on the Supreme Court, or getting rid of the Electoral College.

Nope, I don't want to hear that, either!

But this doesn't mean that I think we should just give up. That has never been my philosophy. But we have to decide our best course of action.

We're tilting at windmills if we think we can get anybody impeached when their friends control most of the state legislatures and the Congress.

And we're out of our minds if we think we can get rid of the Electoral College such that there is direct voting for the office of president; this requires a Constitutional Convention, and my liberal friends forget that the wackos are aching to call a such a convention to order - and once it's been convened, anything can happen, literally; any demagogue can stand up and say let's change the Constitution so only aardvarks can vote for presidential candidates, and if that demagogue persuades a majority to vote for it, it's the Constitution! And, since their friends in the various state legislatures will be choosing the convention delegates, their agenda will win out, not ours.

Instead, we need to think in terms of BUILDING BLOCKS. We need to start by continuing to point out the insanity that's going on (tax breaks for the rich and their companies, removing needed social services, attempts to privatize or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, fighting oil wars, trashing the Bill of Rights, and so on). We need to build a groundswell to elect to state legislatures and the Congress individuals who are more honorable, and more accountable to their constituents ​and not their big contribu​tors or their party bosses.

Then, a decent Congress can impeach these nincompoops, and presidents like Obama can lead more effectively and appoint better people to the Supreme Court.

My talk about building blocks like this frustrates a lot of my liberal friends because it's slow, and it's frustrating because it doesn't yield the big results they want immediately.

Well, maybe so. But it has one advantage over silly talk about impeaching judges and canning the Electoral College.

It's a goal that we acually have a chance to reach.

We have to remain strong, consistent, and united. Remember, these blankety-blanks don't just control the Supreme Court and the Congress. They control a critical mass of (what used to pass for) print and broadcast news media. This is why it's going to be a serious uphill battle. But we have no choice if we want to save this world.

After all, what I'm recommending is exactly what the Tea Party wack jobs did. They were smart. They were patient. They set themselves a step-by-step plan. They first repeated, over and over, the same consistent message - that "we" need to elect people who think like "we" do. Then they put up candidates who provided that opportunity; and these candidates won.

This is a proven method - our opponents have proven it works.

Now we too must do the same.

So stop whining, my liberal friends. I don't want to hear it!

Instead, start repeating as often as possible to your friends who've been reprogrammed by the Tea Party nutbags our consistent point - that the creeps they've put into public office are endangering not just the financial and moral integrity and safety of the United States, but of the world.

We must put up candidates who repeat these same points.

We must not give up; we must continue to strive to win hearts and minds.

And this, after all, is why I wrote this column, and continue to speak in this blog. I believe in what I am saying!

If you believe it too, start saying it!