Happy New Year! On 4 November we have a chance to put a jarring halt to the conservative insanity that has been killing our country since 2001. We have a chance to put a Democrat in the White House and greatly expand our majorities in Congress (and make the repulsive Joe Lieberman utterly irrelevant). But we will only do that if we deserve to--that is, if we take a stand against the people who are strangling this country to death, and if we aggressively push for a progressive agenda, an agenda the American people want. What, specifically, will this entail?
--It will mean challenging the power of the right-wing controlled corporate media and breaking the power of the smug little Villagers who control political discourse in this country. It will also take an all-out attack on a right wing smear machine of talk radio, Fox News, Matt Drudge, and the conservative "think tanks" (!) that feeds lies and slanders into our public debate 24/7.
--It will mean telling the Republican "base" to kiss our asses. They are NEVER going to vote for us. We have to stop trying to placate them and instead rally OUR base, remembering that two-thirds of the American people are against Bush. The more the despicable hard-right fanatics scream and complain about us, the more sure we may be that we are doing something right. FDR welcomed their hatred and laughed in their faces. So should we. And by the way, we need MORE Democratic partisanship, not less. We also need to rally the huge majority of Christians in this country who are NOT right wing lunatics. In other words, we need to say to all the Neo-Confederates, Swift Boaters, people who wore Purple Heart bandages to mock John Kerry, Pat Robertson worshipers, the old lady who called Hillary Clinton "bitch" in a question to John McCain, the readers of The Weekly Standard, Joseph Scheidler and his Anti-Sex brigade, The Club for Growth, the pathetic losers who drool over Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter's knuckle-dragging readers, and every single other right-wing asshole from sea to shining sea: "In the words of Dick Cheney: Go fuck yourself."
--It will mean a vigorous, populist set of programs, and a willingness to do battle with some of the most powerful reactionary forces in the world--insurance companies, Big Oil, Big Finance, and all the other groups that don't give a damn about the average American. It means National Health Care, rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the top 1%, taxing the hedge fund crooks, a genuine program to help people who are losing their homes to the mortgage meltdown, aggressive pursuit of alternative energy, all-out anti-warming environmental policies, calling for an end to the Iraq War, a renewed police and intelligence assault on terrorism, a commitment to reducing the national debt, genuine care for our veterans, genuine support for our military, unflinching support of the right to birth control, and every other policy the Idiot Right opposes. The polling data show it: THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE ON OUR SIDE ON EVERY ISSUE. Let's start acting like it.
--It will mean the most massive fund raising effort for progressive candidates in American history. The Right has money. Don't be fooled by the temporary drought in Republican fund raising. If the rightwingers see their interests genuinely being threatened, the money will be there. It means getting TEN MILLION DEMOCRATS TO CONTRIBUTE TEN DOLLARS A MONTH THROUGH 1 NOVEMBER. That means $1,100,000,000 for Democrats that are willing to fight for the American people. It CAN be done; it MUST be done. If we succeed in raising this much money, it means not only a Democratic president elected with 55-58% of the vote and 400 electoral votes, it means 30 new seats in the House and ten more in the Senate. It means a massive number of new Democratic seats in the state legislatures, just in time for the 2010 redistricting. It means a legitimate shot at getting rid of Inhofe, Coleman, McConnell, and every other loathsome Bush enabling bastard out there.
I'm fired up, I'm militant, I'm in no mood to compromise. I WILL SUPPORT ANY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OVER ANY REPUBLICAN. Do you understand me? I'm sick and tired of our internal battles. Our nation's life is at stake. The world your children and grandchildren will live in is at stake. This country is dying, and if the conservatives are able to maintain their deathgrip on America, there will be no hope of saving it. Any of our candidates would be light-years better than the liars, frauds, lunatics, authoritarians, theocrats, and idiots the Republicans are running. We need to EARN victory this year. We need to DESERVE it.
I'm ready. How about you?
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