Reality effin' bites, and the sooner you

[Skidmore]

realize that reality doesn't line up with aspirations 100% of the time, the better off we are going to be. I'm not drowning in despair right now, but in disgust. For pity sake, what about the nature of the real world are some of you refusing to understand and to see.

We elected a good man and set him off DC to his new job. A job that came complete with a cesspool and we handed him a toothpick with which to stir it. Sure we gained majorities in the legislature, but he and and we are also saddled with opponents hellbent on revenge and accomplishing it by being a deadweight in the effort to drown not just the government but the nation in the proverbial bathtub. We also handed him, tied up in a bow, a humongous conglomeration of agencies with an eight year history of being gutted and staffed with people beholden to the Bush/Cheney machine and a snakepit of executive orders put in place fast and furiously by the Bush administration as they were packing their suitcases and shredding the evidence of their crimes. Before he was even sworn in, he was handed a defacto depression along with several other steaming heaps of refuse to clean up. And he had to do it all by himself because we were unwilling to primary people in the last election who should have been primaried long ago. Yup, we handed him a corrupt and craven Congress and sent a few new folks there who will not be allowed to really do anything meaningful until they have been steeped and stewed enough to become corrupt too.

And we, well we went home from the ballot boxes and sat back and watched, waiting for one man to change it all so we wouldn't have to hurt anymore. We sat on our hands waiting for the first misstep. We looked aside at the right as they gathered their forces and joked about them, discounting their importance. We decided that having a majority vote for you means that everyone suddenly were right where we had been all along, even though four years before the same people had handed Favorite Son and his Handler a second term. Wow, all those people were just Dems and didn't know it. The Big Tent gets folded up after the election and all others are turned away. And then suddenly, we developed purity tests and started fingerpointing and name calling among ourselves. Some of us don't want to be called "liberal" anymore, some think they might not want to be called "Democrat" anymore, and now ole O'Reilly has already started working on turning "progressive" into a dirty word too. We never learn. BTW, I'm a liberal Democrat and liberal Democrats are progressive in their thinking. Enough with the BS labels.

Reality is that the other side exists and common cause is needed. We had arrived a point in the arc of historical narrative, this could realistically happen among the people. Reality is that you can't anchor a normal curve at the ends because they are oppositional to one another. Reality is you can only move the center one direction or another, and in reality, that is accomplished in increments. Imploding accomplishes nothing. Neither does believing one person can change it all without the efforts of all. That's magical thinking. Reality is that we all live in the same nation and we need to find a way to live together and work things out. Now the Teabaggers are in reality a very small group with a narrow and ugly narrative. Reality is that they are alienating some of the people they attracted. We will need those people too and they may not all agree with us any more than we agree with each other all the time. If we cannot treat each other with respect and find a way to work together without vitriol on these forums, how can we expect change, especially when we vest that expectation in only one person and don't require any effort for ourselves individually? Reality is that I see no will here anymore to do much more than the Teabaggers have done--stand in one place and scream while pointing fingers at the other. Reality does bite and so does kharma.

I needed to say this because I find it so frustrating that this idea that we can outBush Bush and the RS. It is ridiculous. Sure the Rs bullyboyed their way through and created a lot of backlash. Backlash got us a majority and it can take us out too. Backlash is no way to govern long term. It is reactionary and shortsighted. There is a place for common cause and we need to find it before we collaborate any futher with the reactionaries on the other side and destroy this nation for certain.

[msongs]

1. reality - more of the same ol thing lol nt

[Skidmore]

7. Hardly.

And you make my point. Reactive and dismissive.

[el_bryanto]

2. I think what you are arguing is that we should treat each other are our political leaders

with a certain amount of temperence; accept that they aren't perfect but grant them the benefit of doubt when it comes to their intentions?

Bryant

[Skidmore]

5. No, I'm arguing that

we need to do less reacting, and more active listening followed by constructive problem solving, even when it may not get us everything we desire. Sometimes we DO need to give a bit, sometimes we need to stand firm. However, we do need to have the whole nation PARTICIPATING and I'm not willing to cede that because someone disagrees with me in this moment that I can't find a way to get to some place that is acceptable to both of us.

[DonCoquixote]

3. THANK YOU

No, I do not forget some very obvious missteps Obama had done. He has tried to offer the right wing too many flowers, when sadly, the right wing knows that, to quote Clinton, they would rather have someone "wrong and strong" then weak but right. Of course, what that leads to is the elephant in the room; that America is a stupid nation.

That being said, I laugh when people thought Obama was going to blaze in, and get everything to the left of Karl marx passed. We have way too many Blue Dogs, many of them who got in there because, hateful as it is, they represent what their state actually wants. I say this as a person from Florida; aka home of the voters that make people from Texas and Mississippi look smart.

[derby378]

4. I can speak to that...

My wife passed away last month, and I'm still experiencing weeping episodes because of it. My true love, my best friend, my partner in crime - gone.

Yes, reality is harsh. But the way I see it, I can do one of three things: Withdraw from the rest of the world, commit suicide in a foolish "Romeo & Juliet" strategy to reunite with my beloved, or do something with the life and the opportunities that are left to me. I choose the last option for myself, even though it is hard at times.

But I think the Democratic Party at large is in the same mess. They can either cocoon themselves into their own little world, they can self-destruct and let the Republicans and teabaggers take it from here, or they can do something and dispense with all the excuses. We didn't want one man to change America - we wanted our government to change itself and help facilitate the change Americans wanted to see.

As for common cause with "the other side," need I remind you as a former Republican voter myself that this country has been pushed further and further to the right over the past 10 years? "The other side" supports torture, racial profiling, corporate greed, and all manner of things that hurt the people who make up this nation, and I say to Hell with "the other side." The Republican Party of today has precious few Lincolns, Eisenhowers, and Roosevelts - they've been replaced by the likes of Rove, Palin, Cheney, and the Bushes.

The balance that our country needs cannot be restored by compromising with those in the extreme right. This way lies self-destruction. And that is the harsh reality of it all.

Marginalize the motherfuckers. We won, they lost, now they need to get over it and watch us show them how it should be done.

[Skidmore]

6. Point well taken in regard to what passes for R leaders currently.

I would say that we should take the discourse to the rank and file. I've turned out more than one R by a simple discussion of facts and pointing out the similarities in what we want for ourselves and our families are the same and that a little knowledge about what the Ds are proposing goes a long way toward agreement once you get past Luntz's shopped jargon.

[Laelth]

8. "Common cause" was easy when the Republicans were in charge.

It's not easy at all when the Democratic Party controls the executive and legislative branches of government. I believe in and support a liberal Democratic Party. The Democratic Party I see now, while more liberal than the Republican Party, is disappointing (to put it mildly), and I am compelled on principle to resist its corporate and conservative impulses.

Thus, my sig line. As such, you will see no "common cause" here until Democrats consistently act like Democrats (or until the Democratic Party no longer has the power to do anything, in which case we will be united again).

:dem:

-Laelth

[yowzayowzayowza]

9. No "common cause" til we're yer kinda Democrat.

Got it.

:hi:

[Laelth]

10. There has been plenty of "common cause" with the R's of late.

Just no "common cause" with the liberal (democratic) wing of the party. That is the problem.

:dem:

-Laelth

[yowzayowzayowza]

11. No, thatz just silly. n/t