Kiss them good-bye... Elected Dems, the "liberal media,"... [View All]

[TygrBright]

...the "punditocracy," all of it.

They don't "get it," they'll never "get it," in fact, they don't HAVE to "get it." They were elected/hired, etc. NOT to "get it." They are part of The Establishment.

Oh, man... takes me back, it does. 'member...? "The Establishment." "The Military-Industrial Complex." "The Man."

There were some of "our" people in The Establishment. Every Establishment has its Kennedys, its Jerry Browns, etc., but in some ways they are the exceptions that validate the rule. We can love them for what they are and what they represent, but here's the central message:

THEY ARE NOT US

Get it? Quit wasting our energy screaming at "THEM" to make change. "THEY" won't make change, no matter how many ideals they share with us, no matter how many times they try to do the right thing when it won't rock the boat too much, no matter how many times they try, oh-so-carefully, to get The Establishment to make a minute course correction in a marginally better direction.

Their job is to "keep things on an even keel." To not let the boat rock too insistently, lest it capsize. To prevent armageddon as they see it (except for the ones who are trying to bring about armageddon, but that's another topic.) They are, above all, comfortable with things as they are, even while they realize that not everyone else is comfortable and, indeed, there may be bits and pieces of things as they are which could be improved. But trade comfort for change? RISK! And they are risk-averse.

The GOPpies know this, which is why they have made an art of spewing flamboyant rhetoric out of one mandible at the revolutionary ideologues on the right, while the other mandible murmurs soothing platitudes to Wall Street. Meanwhile, their claws on the levers of power move in small but telling increments. They won't overturn Roe v. Wade. Too much of a risk. Stay off the radar screen and let the helots in the trenches keep nudging things subtly in the right direction at the state level while they whine publicly about how the Demon Lieberals are blocking them from implementing God's Righteous Agenda. And the small things add up. But no one item is ever large enough, ever blatant enough, to push the Big Change Warning Button and make the klaxons go "ah-OOO-gah, ah-OOO-gah" and the red lights flash. Risk averse, grasshopper. The great mass of The Peepul, the ones who feel secure and comforted by the existence of an Establishment, are totally risk averse.

The Establishment's job is not only to avoid risk itself, but to protect The Peepul, even those who are desperately at risk already, from the appearance of risk.

So kiss them good-bye. They never did jackshit anyway, no matter how many Pulitzers were handed 'round for investigative journalism, or how many portraits of politicians were hung in Capitol corridors. All of 'em who got their props off "doing things" were just decoraters, coming in after the structure was built with others' blood and sweat, and slapping on a pretty coat of paint and a couple of throw cushions.

And who BUILT those structures? Whose shoulders to the myriad wheels of injustice and oppression actually made change happen?

WE DID.

We THE PEOPLE.

Not "The Peepul," the formless mass of risk-averse, not-yet-uncomfortable-enough warm bodies sitting in front of televisions with worried frowns. Don't write them off altogether, every day some of The Peepul cross the discomfort threshhold and look risk in the face and decide to join THE PEOPLE. Don't dis them, their inchoate discontent is the lever that moves mountains, and the change we seek will happen ONLY when we grasp that lever. But don't expect them to wake up one morning and say "whoa, looks like a good day to change the hell out of everything," either. Only THE PEOPLE can do that.

Only we, THE PEOPLE, can run for local offices, take over local party organizations, organize boycotts and strikes and walkouts and protests--NOT FOR THE MEDIA'S SAKE (cripes, those whores will sell their mothers for a story that will give The Peepul a thrill without actually *upsetting* them, doncha know, and our stories don't necessarily fall into that category.) Rather, we do it for the sake of the single moms trying to hold down two jobs with no benefits at either one, who are getting shafted by their big corporate employer. We do it for the sake of the farmers living downstream from the factory who have woken up to the reality that toxic chemicals endlessly pumped into the air, water, and earth might NOT be a good thing, but how can they make a living without them? We do it for the sake of the children who are NOT being educated, the young people who are NOT going to college, the young men and women who are NOT getting married, or having a baby, or buying a house, the gay couple who are NOT recognized in each others' Living Wills.... we do it for US.

And we stop wasting our time and our passion and our sweat and our pain on The Establishment, other than to tell them to GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY.

Crooked voting machines can slow that down but they can't stop it.

Indifferent Senators can ignore that, but they can't stop it.

Shameless media whores can distort that, but they can't stop it.

And if WE know we are doing it, every day, in a thousand cities and towns and communities across America, we also know we WILL win.

And probably become The Establishment ourselves, somewhere down the line, but that, too, is another topic.

provocatively,
Bright