Loyalty

Forget about the elephant and the donkey.  Imagine instead a growling rottweiler and a houseful of scrappy cats.

Like most Democrats, I am proud of our willingness to think independently.  But this has also become our Achilles' heel.  We mostly go about our business and believe strongly in what we believe in, and acknowledge that others may have a different opinion, and we all have the right to live by our beliefs as long as they don't interfere with another's rights.  We also tend not to go out of our way to fight for interest groups other than our own.

So we have ended up each of us on an island, fighting our own battles, while being outfunded and inevitably outvoted by a group that knows how to unite.  No matter the anti-abortion faction, in the name of being "pro-life," stands by the gun lobby.  And those who are absolutely rabid about cutting the deficit will wholeheartedly support spending whatever it takes to "protect our borders."  Small business owners donate to politicians whose raison d'etre is channeling government money to big corporations.  Here you see united the anti-government forces with those who try to pass laws against blacks (voter ID), the poor (Food Stamps), women (contraception and abortion), LGBT (gay marriage).

And among all those contradictions, they all stand firmly behind their brand:  the GOP.

Meanwhile, corporations control our government while we scrabble to keep or win individual freedoms, each of us fighting our own battles.

Here in South Carolina, our Democratic politicians are afraid to speak of contraception, abortion, sex education.  They throw around phrases like workers rights and job creation without ever uttering that foul and frightening word "union."  Black voters are so aware of the deck being stacked against them that many don't vote; women pretend that their bodies are not being violated by laws that would force them to carry a pregnancy to term or deny access to contraception, as well as by the fact that the anti-abortion movement has pronounced their mission as sacred, declaring the rest of us to be sinners carrying the banner of satan.

We should be united.  The abortion fight is about whether the government should have the power to decide a woman's medical decisions.  The immigration battle is about whether the government has the right to stalk and detain those who "look different."  The battle for LGBT rights is about the government choosing which citizens get individual rights and which don't.  The voter ID fight is to keep those in power who will take away the freedoms of all of the above.  As is the demonization and outlawing of unions.

Because we are not united, we are constantly being attacked, from all sides, and end up lost and demoralized.

We need to be unafraid not just to stand up for our own rights, but for all individual rights.  The African American community needs to stand by women's right to reproductive privacy, and the the unions need to stand by the LGBT community, and their rights to the same liberties as us all.  We all need to fight for the right to vote, because we are really all in this together.

This upcoming election season, we need to demand courage from our politicians.  We need to demand that they support ALL of us, fearlessly.  And we need our politicians to unite when they run for office, rather than continue to behave like a clutter of cats.

And we need to see our politicians stop being willing to sell us out, one constituency against another, or as they like to call it, "reaching across the aisle."

Let's start forming some coalitions, and working for each other as well as ourselves.  If they don't vote for us here in SC, well, they probably weren't going to anyway.  And at least we will be able to be proud to be Democrats.

And when we stand together and fearless, well, you never know what will happen.


   

Why "The Right Is Winning"

I'm listening to commentators on the news shows talking about why we aren't winning the battle for gun control.  You probably wouldn't want to hear what I have to say back to each of them.  I have recently heard that Obama is not involved enough, Obama is too involved, the American people are not passionate enough, the American people are not involved enough, there is too much NRA money to fight them.  And on and on and on.

It's all bullshit.

The difference is that we're all wringing our hands and worrying why no one is listening.  Can you imagine Wayne LaPierre worrying about the fact that people think he is corrupt, or crazy, or the NRA being concerned that the public will reject its latest scheme?  Or any of the idiots in Congress, like our own Lindsey Graham, worrying about anything of moral value or the consequences of not controlling guns.

The radical, psychotic, greedy, narcissistic and single minded supporters of ABSOLUTELY NO GUN CONTROL aren't worried.  They are angry, they are wealthy, and they know how to manipulate.  And being rational is not on their agenda.

I keep hearing the whining and the droning of the rational who "support" gun control trying to find ways of working around and working with the gun lobby.  I hear people make excuses for red state Democrats in Congress.  Maybe if we had more people showing up at the Capitol.

Perhaps if we only required background checks on Tuesdays.  Hey, it would be better than not having them at all.

Meanwhile we are giving credence to the NRA proposing to arm teachers.  I don't know about you, but there are some teachers I recall from my children's school days that would have been right in the front of the line to get armed, and would be the last I would want carrying in the same building as my children.  And let's not forget that many teachers do not want to have to be responsible for fighting a crazed gunman to the death.  Oh, and how about the fact that none of those same people that are going to arm our schools have wanted to pay what it's worth to educate our kids.

And then there are guns in shopping malls, and on the street, and in a movie theater.  But hey, you can always arm the kid that takes your theater ticket.

Are we NUTS?  Isn't it time that we stopped trying to compromise with the lobby of gun manufacturers and paranoid white supremacists?  No, I don't think your quality of life would suffer if you had to go to a gun range to play with your semi-automatic.  And it would be a lot less risky than trying to figure out who is gun-violence crazy versus who is just mentally ill.

I don't want guns on the streets I walk, or the schools our children attend.  I don't want to for God's sake sit in a bar or go into a liquor store knowing our legislators have fought to give people the right to mix bullets and alcohol.

Enough.  No compromise.  And don't worry about Harry Reid flaking out, or what the southern Democrats need to support gun control.  Just keep yelling.