Long Time Coming

No, not the health care reform package, although that has taken 30-some years. It looks like it won't be much of a reform bill anyway, just sort of a new patient's rights act. The insurance companies and their shills in The Senate (I'm looking at YOU, Leiberman!) have made sure that nothing really changes when it comes to providers of health care insurance and their profits. What could have been a shining moment in history for the Democrats and President Obama will most likely go down as just another blast of hot air from a House of Congress that long ago became an extension of the military-industrial-financial complex and a prime example of capitalism run amok.

No, I'm writing about writing here in this blog. I've let it go to seed for quite some time now. It's not that I thought we progressives had won any big victory last November; it would have taken electing someone like Dennis Kucinich or Rachel Maddow for something like that to be true. It would also require a true super-majority of progressives in the Senate and not just Democrats who tend to come in all different shades of the political spectrum. Sometimes I wish the Democratic Party was split between the liberal and conservative brands. Then maybe people would understand for what and whom they are voting. We should have parties that identify by their priorities and concerns rather than some meaningless names that people seem to think are valid in some way. It would be so much more meaningful and convenient if we were allowed to vote for members of the Liberal or Conservative Parties, or the Labor Party or the Aristocratic Party. These are labels that give away intent and purpose, that tell people what they are getting or at least what to expect.

Instead we have euphemistic names for political parties that either blur the lines of distinction that could inform the public or obscure them completely. We end up adding italicized modifiers to distinguish party members' true goals and ideals, such as Blue Dog Democrats or Moderate Republicans.  Yet these terms do little or nothing to convey real meaning to the voter. "Blue Dog Democrat" sounds so cute and fuzzy until one realizes that the term means something more like "wolf in sheep's clothing" or "trust no farther than you can spit." "Moderate Republican," which used to convey a sense of honorable righteousness and common sense can now be lumped with other oxymorons such as "military intelligence" or "moral majority." They are nearly extinct anyway.

So it's time to start writing again, because the media at large do not ask the correct questions and present the wrong or incomplete answers; because progress for The People is so damn difficult to attain in this environment of rampant corporatism and virulent greed; and because I can't seem to sit quietly and watch all that is good about this country go to hell in a handbasket while shallow, evil people ransack and pillage it into obsolescence or worse.