For OpEdNews: Rob Kall - Writer
"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger...! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks."
Brooks, Phillips
There are so many things that people can do that they never try, never do. There are possibilities which are never made realities.
There are many things YOU can do that you have not yet done or tried.
These potentialities require self awareness, determination, motivation and courage.
"True contentment is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it."
G.K. Chesterson
There are times when you acquire or are given great power. That power is, like a burning fire, something which only becomes truly meaningful when it is used, not when it is merely observed or kept lit. All fires burn out unless fed. The power consumes its source of energy and dies out-- unless the power is used to do work, which includes keeping the source of energy for the power.
Leadership plays a major role in tapping and applying power so it is kept not only alive, but vibrant.
When the people bestow power upon a leader or a government or party, it is the highest honor they can bestow. It signifies trust, respect and faith that the empowered will wield the strength and power they have been given with wisdom, efficacy, timeliness and courage. It is the utmost responsibility of the empowered to honor that trust and to swiftly engage in employing the power to do the jobs made possible by the power.
When a person who has potential, inner strengths, powers and resources, fails to exercise those powers, it is a tragic story of a person.
When a leader or a group of leaders are given power and then fail to exercise that power, it is betrayal, bad faith, a failure to live up to the trust the people have given.
When power is given and the empowered fails to embrace and exercise that power, the empowered deserve to lose their power. They should lose their power. It is that simple. They are failures who deserve an ignoble place in history. When the empowered fail to embrace and exercise their power, but try to pretend that they are exercising it and paint false pictures, they are even worse. They are liars and frauds. The people have every reason to either throw them out of power or to just stay home and let their power expire. The latest polls show that 40% of Democrats intend to do just that-- stay home-- for the next election.
"Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People."
Benjamin Disraeli
The Democrats-- Obama and the Democratic congress-- were given incredible power. So far, they have thrown it away.
It started after the 2006 elections, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid refused to do the right thing by investigating corruption and crimes by the Bush and Cheney administration. They said they needed to wait, to hold back, so they could win more elections-- get more power. The Democracts controlled the House of Representatives and they failed to block more funds for the war in Iraq, which could have taken control of the war out of the hands of Cheney Bush and their sycophant generals.
Now, we see the Democrats failing the unions, failing the environment, failing the American people on health care. Don't listen to what they say, which is to claim they are doing historic things. Look at what their legislation is actually doing-- diluting real change, in reality serving the mega-corporations that funded their campaigns-- not helping the American people.
There are exceptions, a handful. Perhaps the big mistake was that the leaders in congress--Pelosi and Reid-- were chosen when Democrats were in the minority. Perhaps new, stronger, bolder, more courageous leaders should have been chosen when we the people handed real power to the Democrats.
"As important as having strength is being known to have it."
McGeorge Bundy; In Foreign Affairs
Unfortunately, some of the leaders in congress didn't trust we the people. Rahm Emanuel, Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid-- conservative, right wing Democrats sabotaged the campaigns of real, liberal Democrats and funded Blue Dog conservatives with figure grants in primaries. Now, the congressional democrats have been hobbled, their power drastically decreased, made impotent, by right wing faux Democrats who actually serve the other side.
"All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton
Or perhaps the failed leaders-- Reid and Pelosi-- just use those bluedogs as an excuse. The next election will decide. If Obama and the congressional Democrats don't fully embrace their power, and that includes using all the parlaimentary tactics they can, including tactics that enrage the right, that cause FOx News and Republican leaders to scream bloody murder, then they will have failed to do their job.
"As important as having strength is being known to have it."
McGeorge Bundy; In Foreign Affairs
Let me repeat that. If Obama and the congressional Democrats don't enrage the Republicans and their propaganda organ, Fox News, they will have failed to fully use the power the American people gave them. They will have betrayed the people who voted them into office and they will deserve to lose that power. "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't."
Margaret Thatcher It is not too late. It is clear that Reid and Pelosi have failed to understand their potential, failed to call forth the courage to exercise the power they were given. The Democratic congress could and should replace them with leaders who will act more boldly, with greater strength, determination and courage to get the things accomplished which we the people elected them to do.
"We have more power than will; and it is often to excuse ourselves to ourselves, that we fancy things impossible to be effected."
La Rochefoucauld
The same is true for Obama, so far. He has hired weak, compromising people who are too allied with the wrong forces and sides. His attempt to imitate Lincoln is failing him. His appointment of right wingers has led to backstabbing and wholesale betrayal of main street and our troops. It is time for Obama to fire his first team and replace them, courageously, with people who will send Glen Beck and his fans into paroxysms of paranoiac fantasy.
"When your shoe is on your foot, tread upon the thorns."
Hebrew Proverb
Americans gave Obama and Congress incredible power. So far they have miserably failed to exercise it. That is a treacherous, sad betrayal that will hand the Whitehouse and congress to the Republicans by 2012. They can turn it around, but it will require bold, courageous leadership we have not yet seen. That leadership must come from within the Democratic party-- from within the congress, from within the Obama White House. If members of congress and Obama's closest advisors fail to see the failure that's fulminating so far, Obama and the Democratic party are doomed to failure.
"It is generally the fate of a double dealer, to lose his power and keep his enemies."
Johnson, Life of Swift
It is not too late. But it is getting later and later.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Failure-to-Embrace-Power--by-Rob-Kall-091201-583.html
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