Courage: It's Time to Stand Up - Democratic Underground

Lyric

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Mon Dec-07-09 10:08 AM
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Courage: It's Time to Stand Up

We cannot keep avoiding what's right in the name of what's politically expedient. If we continue making this enormous and dangerous mistake, the corporatists WILL win because the positive changes we're making are not big enough to stave off the danger we're in. We aren't passing policies that make the kind of big changes needed to fix the problems. We aren't helping ordinary people dramatically enough to rally the rock-solid public support that we so desperately need. We will either lose outright or "win" so weakly that it might as well be a loss if we continue in this wrong direction.

If our country were a disintegrating dam, then our party would be a man standing in front of it with his finger in the hole, listening to all the local residents anxiously gripe about costs and dangers, reluctant to take any action. We KNOW those gripes are short-sighted and illogical, but we need those people to vote for us. We're too scared of losing to do what needs to be done, regardless of how unpopular it might be, and tear down the dam in order to rebuild a newer, stronger one in its place. We'd rather wait until it violently bursts and destroys our citizens' lives AND our party all in one enormous wave. And who will be there to pick up the pieces? The corporate lackeys, of course. The ones who've been weakening the dam bit by bit for decades, the ones who LIVE to make Americans feel confused and unsure about what the "right thing" really is. In the end, we will have accomplished nothing and we'll be blamed for not taking action sooner. We cannot continue like this.

What our party and our nation needs right now is COURAGE. We need the courage to stand up and TELL our fellow citizens that a huge chunk of our system of law and government is broken. That it cannot be fixed with temporary patches, but must be stripped to the basics and rebuilt from the ground up. It will be unpopular. People will have to make short-term sacrifices. But if we can show them that progress--REAL progress, not wishy-washy vague progress--is being made, they WILL come around. They always have. Americans are good at sacrificing for their nation when they are called upon to do so. When was the last time that a President asked something significant of us? When was the last time that we banded together to share the burden of sacrifice, knowing that we were standing up for freedom and saving our nation? World War II? It's been a long time since we've asked nobility of our people. Some people believe that it doesn't exist anymore, that we're too comfortable and too complacent to be bothered. Those people are wrong. Our voters are better than that, and we need to start treating them like they are.

If we're wrong, if we fail, at least we'll have made the country a better place beforehand. At least we'll have made a difference in people's lives. We won't end up any worse off politically than we would have if we'd have kept on standing there with a finger in the cracking dam instead of taking action, but we WILL have made the nation healthier and more secure. It is far better to make a huge positive difference and LOSE than to make very little difference and "win."

But I don't think we're wrong. I think that if we dare to do what needs to be done, the people will rally behind us, just as they have before. FDR tore down a lot of government structure and rebuilt it, and many, many people who hated him at first wound up loving him--more so than any other President in history. He made drastic changes and his leadership was forceful and solid as a rock. He was willing to be hated if that's what it took to accomplish the greatest good. He had COURAGE.

We've lost that, but we can reclaim it if we are strong enough to insist upon courageous leadership, to tell our elected officials to forget the polls, forget the data, forget the focus groups and the analysis. Forget all that crap, and do what FDR did. Trust the people. As much as we might fear change, we need it, and deep down inside we KNOW that we need it. We WILL respond to it. We admire leaders who are willing to stick their necks out for what's right. And when WE respond...so does Congress. There's nothing like a groundswell of public approval and citizen fervor to change an oppositional Congress into an inspired one.

If I could say anything to President Obama and his administration, I'd say this: Take it straight to the people.

Go on national TV and tell it to them straight, no focus-group-tested prose, no well-polled talking points, no spin. Explain the mess that we're in. Don't mince words about it. Tell us we're going to turn this nation back into the rock-solid, working-man's country that it was before the corporatists took over, and tell us that the days of political games and lies are over. Tell us that our nation is going to collapse and fall apart if we don't make some pretty dramatic changes, and that you intend to do whatever it takes to save America.

Tell us that we can no longer rely on the media, that we have to get out there and see what's going on with our own eyes. Tell us that we've been lied to and manipulated and treated like idiots by the elite for far too long, that they've usurped our religious faith to con us into giving away our freedoms, that they're deliberately undermining and controlling our childrens' educations, that they'd rather see a handful of corporate robber barons profit from third-world labor than insist that they provide good jobs to the very consumers who support them.

Tell us we've been conned, tricked, and manipulated by people who feel nothing but contempt for us. Tell us that the rich and the powerful have deliberately made sure that average working people have little interest in government because involved and informed voters are an obstacle to government by the wealthy and for the wealthy. Tell Americans how the corporate lackeys from BOTH parties instructed the IRS to go after working people instead of wealthy people. Tell us that they use issues like abortion and gay marriage to distract us from all of these things, because they think we're too stupid to figure it out. Tell us that while we are distracted by the greedy and kept arguing about what kind of wallpaper our house should have, the foundation is being chipped out from under us by those who hate and fear democracy most--the robber barons and their bought-and-paid-for politicians.

Tell America the TRUTH, and to hell with the consequences. Tell us that you're willing to risk our anger and our fear if it means saving America from the malicious greed of the ruling elite. If you're brave enough to do THAT, then you will go down in history as the best damned President we've ever had. You will be remembered as the man who saved America.

THAT is what needs to be done to save this nation--by our President and by all of us. If you love America, truly LOVE America, then give America what she needs most from all of us right now--our strength, our dedication, our intellects, our patriotism, our trust in each other, and most of all, most IMPORTANTLY of all--our courage. We cannot continue like this. We cannot survive as a nation and as a people if we cannot overcome fear and do what's right. This moment is critical. It's time to stand up.